The Ramen Effect

Question of the day: How many past/present/potential awkward relationships can you fit into a bowl of ramen noodles?

An unexpected text from a ghost of dates past prompted me to ponder this last night as I enjoyed a steaming hot bowl of Japanese brothy goodness at my new favorite ramen joint (Ippudo on 4th Ave. at 10th St. I highly recommend checking it out; worth the wait I assure you!). After only a brief musing I was able to calculate that, with a couple of minor stretches, I could probably tie a good handful of men to this particular eatery (none of whom I have actually eaten there with). How, you might ask? Let me count the ways:

1. My first Ippudo experience was only a few weeks ago. I had planned to meet my brother, but when I arrived, who but the infamous (at least to me and pretty much anyone that knows me on even the most basic of levels) magically disappearing and reappearing man is standing in the window, waiting on a table of his own! Let me explain. In brief, after several months of great dinners, almost religiously routine lunch hour phone chats, adoring text messages, introductions to our respective friends, and surprisingly great sex (read: boyfriend status for all intents and purposes), Mr. Reliable literally disappears off the face of the earth. Dinner on a Tuesday followed by a very satisfying sleepover at my apartment, text message on Thursday thanking me for the best dinner he's had since moving to New York (was it really just the food?), plans to get together on Friday, plans canceled, man vanishes. Forever. Until of course that night 3 months after breaking radio contact when we both showed up at the same hole-in-the-wall Chinatown eatery and were forced to share a large round table, complete with communal Lazy Susan ("Hey, can you pass the crispy duck? Oh, and a little bit of the moo shoo awkward?"), between our respective parties of six, most of whom knew us when we were together. Oh how I yearn to flesh out this story, but for the purposes of keeping posts to a manageable length, I will have to do that another time. Luckily, for round 2 of our Asian restaurant run-in I was able to avoid any conversation, and, because lightning only strikes once, we were not seated at the same table. Ok, so that's one.

2. Ever since getting involved in my most current unrealistic, wildly complex and definitively undefined relationship with a cute, Jewish (this one's for you, Mom and Dad), Atlanta based law student with an extreme affinity for soup, he has been telling me about this "amazing" ramen place called Ippipso. No, Ippuppy. No, wait, Ipp__ something? Whatever. I didn't know his taste in food well enough to know if "amazing" to him was actually up to par with my obnoxiously elitist taste and as such I discarded his recommendation, assuming that he was most definitely not an educated foodie with an appropriately refined palate. However, after my brother suggested that we have dinner at Ippudo, this "sick new ramen joint" (not actually new), I realized that my long distance non-boyfriend had not led me astray. Naturally, I Sapporo-dialed him on my walk home from dinner to share my excitement over the discovery that he might actually have food legitimacy. Although this particular connection is probably irrelevant and rather contrived, it is nonetheless a connection and a good excuse to introduce a character that will be appearing in many posts to come.

3. Now, finally, the man who triggered this rambling and borderline nonsensical posting. We can just call him "The Lawyer". This is a particularly comfortable pseudonym given that this is actually how I refer to him 90% of the time, prompting many to ask if I even know his real name (yes). The Lawyer was gifted this moniker when he very generously offered his legal expertise after my roommate and I found ourselves in the middle of the most dreaded New York City nightmare: BEDBUGS. For anyone who doesn't know about the bedbug epidemic (yes, epidemic), I will not waste time here filling you in. Just know that they actually exist outside of the ever popular goodnight rhyme and will feast not only on your flesh, but your wallet and sanity as well. Desperate for help from our less-than-helpful landlord, I turned to the 30-something lawyer friend of my coworker whom I had met on a Jack Daniels soaked night out for my other coworkers birthday just about a year ago. We emailed back and forth about legal matters until he suggested that it would be much easier to talk in person. Over dinner. At an insanely delicious (and well out of my price range) Sushi restaurant. Turns out The Lawyer has certifiably excellent taste in the finer things and apparently enjoys sharing them with younger women such as myself whose budgets fall far short of their desired lifestyle. It was a perfectly pleasant (and delicious) evening. Some further emails were exchanged but we didn't go out again until approximately 3-4 months after said Sushi dinner during which time we had a couple more dinners, but then lost contact for another several months. Until last night. I had somewhat lost interest after learning of an older, bi-sexual pseudo-girlfriend who lives in Albany but comes down to NYC here and there for some friendly fun and threesomes (no, seriously), so I almost dismissed the invitation. However, after some further consideration, I decided to give it a go. I've never even so much as kissed The Lawyer and at present he remains no more than a dining companion, so I figured why not? It's a guaranteed great dinner that I could otherwise never afford and some pleasant conversation with a man who is tall enough to allow me an outfit with heels (thank God). So apparently we're on for Tuesday. Let's just hope his wining and dining isn't an effort to butter me up for a more "group oriented" kind of date experience; after last year's Valentines disaster, I have definitively decided that three is NOT my kind of crowd.

Well, that's about as far as I could stretch the whole ramen thing. Now that I'm at the end of this post I've realized it doesn't quite tie things together as seamlessly as I had imagined, but alas, I'm new at this!