Q

In Hindi Q--the way we pronounce it in English--means Why?

So I find it appropriate that Q who manages a bar in Gramercy and plays pool with the dexterity of a con artist should only begin what is becoming an ongoing questioning of my senses about WHY I waste my time on boys who appear to be men.

Q looks remarkably like Z but a bit older and none the wiser. He has a hooked nose and hollow cheeks with hair that's seen more pomade than a runway show in Milan. He grew up in Singapore, Britian, and the islands so his accent is a true melange of those things. It gives one the impression that he is a lot smarter or at least a great deal more educated than he actually is. I don't doubt his intelligence or worldliness but the accent is deceptive in what it suggests.

I should have known not to waste my time on him after our first meeting on Sunday at the bar where he works where he was playing pool in his spare time. We split a bottle of cheap white wine on his insistence. His Jack Black-looking, married friend came onto me strongly to the point that he followed me out of the bar. The rest of the regulars were perfectly quaint in a modern Cheers-in-NYC-centered-around-pool way.

He went the way of Forbes in the immediacy and redundancy of lewd commentary. Things (as should now be predictable) went from polite to phallic in a matter of hours and while I'm not a prude per se, I still lean to the conservative in my pre-biblical interactions with men.

As he got drunker and more vocal about my attributes and his appreciation of them, I took my leave. He began texting me almost immediately afterwards including epithets like "fucking Indian wine" and "cheap Indian ass". Apparently he was under the impression that a $13 bottle of wine he split with me entitled him to actual ass. I mean, I realize there is a recession going on, but SERIOUSLY?!

So I kept it classy but stopped the textervation as soon as he got nasty.

Surprise of all surprises, once he sobered up the next day he made his apologies and led me to re-evaluate my decision with a simply worded, "Please forgive this drunken idiot! I promise I'll be better behaved if you give me another chance."

Against common sense, I agreed. We met up in Union Square at 10pm on Tuesday. NO drinks. No plans. We sat a few feet away from a few bums who appeared to be either drugged up or desperately in need of psychotropic drugs they weren't getting--at least not in the appropriate doses.

An hour of boredom later, during which time he felt the need to drop a few dozen "we" statements as well as attempt to plan our future couple-dom together, he walked me to the subway and pecked me twice on the mouth. It was very similar to what I imagine a flamingo kissing a turkey would be like. Yes, I've acknowledged that I am a TURKEY.

We had laid plans to meet the next day for an outdoor movie on the Pier. He texted me a few lewd, sexually explicit things over the course of the night which I handled gracefully and rather stereotypically by making mention of not indulging in loveless sex as well as feigning knowledge of tantra as a means of managing desire in the absence of a monogamous partnership.

So no real surprise that he texted me the next evening about an hour before our scheduled meet up claiming illness. My relieved response was perhaps no salve to his long lost prospect of getting in my pants. I haven't heard from him since and it is my sincere wish that it stays that way.

Yes, I know, I can just not respond should he resurface. And I assure you, this is one of the few times I won't have trouble doing just that. Sigh. More frogs kissed, no princes on the horizon.