Show Tunes Boy

I once went out with a guy who spent the entire evening talking about how much he loved show tunes.

Wait. Time out. The way this is starting, this blog post could be about either of two guys I’ve been out with. Hmm… There is a slight chance I need a better screening system for dates.

Well, on this particular date there were drinks, there was dinner, there were more drinks but most of all, there were show tunes. Lots of show tunes.

We talked about songs he particularly likes, songs he particularly doesn’t like, songs he has performed, songs he’s dreamed about performing, songs that made a real impression when he saw them performed… And, when I say “we” talked, I mean he talked.

I’d throw things into the conversation just to see if he was paying attention: “Did you know I have a make-believe dog? No? Her name is Lolly.” All that got was, “Huh? No. I also like Show Boat. It’s an old show, revived a lot, but it’s got pretty good songs…”

We talked about college. I said, “I went to Americ—” before he launched in with, “My friends and I weren’t in a fraternity, but we’d go to fraternity parties because their kitchens had great acoustics. We’d gather in the kitchen and sing while the parties were going on! It was great.”

Right. I don’t know. He was cute?

I’m not really sure how this date lasted so long, but after dinner we were going to get more drinks. I suggested a bar at which we could watch the NCAA basketball championship game. I had a bracket going (which was obviously a ploy to drop into conversations with guys, you know, along the lines of the Sports Illustrated subscription) and I needed to see where I was going to come out in the bracket pool. I am not really 100% sure he knew what that meant.

Somehow we ended up at a piano bar with one tiny, tiny TV. I sat so I could see the TV. He sat so he could not. You know what he could see? The piano man. The rest of the evening went a little something like this:

“I can’t believe he picked this song to sing!”

“Oh. He is awful at that song!”

“I can definitely sing this a LOT better than he is!”

“If I were the piano man, I’d definitely sing much different songs.”

And then I tuned him out. Again.

So, the lesson here is maybe one should not pick up guys at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Or at least, don’t do it again.