Bachelor #55

I never believed it could really happen. It sounds too good to be true. It’s the single girl’s impossible dream: the Starbucks encounter. Yes, a couple of days ago, I was walking by Starbucks – I wasn’t even going IN – and out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a handsome stranger sitting alone on the patio, looking straight at me. Our eyes met. Amazingly, I fought my natural counter-productive instinct to quickly look away, and instead, I did the unthinkable. I smiled. He smiled back.

Still, I am the world’s biggest wimp, so I kept walking. I was on my way to run a quick errand. I knew I’d be walking back in this direction in a few minutes, so I had time to come up with a plan. I decided if he was still there, I was going to boldly go where pretty much everyone but me probably goes all the time (which might offer a bit of an explanation about my dating history): I was going to say hello.

And I did. And just like that, I met a handsome stranger at Starbucks. We chatted for a couple of minutes about, well, Starbucks, and then he gave me his card. So there you have it folks, it actually CAN happen.

Of course, at this point, I knew essentially nothing about Bachelor #55 except that he’s a consultant, he has great dimples and he drinks Americano. For example, I had no idea that he was also a raging anti-Semite.

Here’s how I found out. I sent a cheeky email. Flirty banter ensued. We agreed to meet for a drink. We got to chatting, and he mentioned that he spends a fair amount of time at a very hoity-toity private club. The kind of place where the men wear blue blazers and the women are all named Muffy. As is my way, I made a joke about how if I ever went there with him I’d have to lie about my very Jewish-sounding last name. From the look on his face and the change in his demeanor, you would have thought I had pushed back my hair to reveal a pair of shiny silver horns.

Naturally, I called him on it. And just as you’d suspect, he told me I was crazy. What was I talking about? He loves Jewish people! He’d never go to a doctor or an accountant that wasn’t Jewish! He was just surprised because “usually, you can tell."

Next.