No Sex Please, Just a Sandwich

Hungry and Humiliated

I was working as a reporter for a West Coast newspaper when a woman who worked in ad sales asked me out to lunch.

She was unusually attractive, curvy, and often wore tight clothes. She was probably older than my 25 years. I was tall, slim, and a little unaware. Her invitation was one of those inexplicable things that you don’t know what to make of so you just wait.

At the appointed hour she said she would drive, so I climbed into her convertible, and off we went. She drove awhile then pulled into a residential area and then into a condominium complex and parked in front of her unit.

Some people, more streetwise than I, would be imagining scenarios, but all I can say is she said we were going for lunch, and I was only thinking “I hope it’s tuna sandwiches.”

I continued to think about lunch possibilities while she showed me the living room and bedroom of her condo.

It’s embarrassing to admit I was flummoxed and disappointed when she announced she had no food in the house.

It gets worse. I started asking if she had crackers or anything to eat until she finally and reluctantly produced frozen pasta and agreed to cook it.

Soon I got some bad pasta. And she, I guess humiliated by my hunger for food and my obtuseness, said it was time to go, so we got in her car and didn’t speak on the way back to the office.

I’m still a little embarrassed about my lack of action, my naivete. But I also feel a bit protective of the young man. I don’t think life is a direct march toward our best selves. Sometimes what we gain from experience isn’t worth what it costs. Not every man is wised up and on the make. Maybe they just want a sandwich.