Three cups at Starbucks

I guess this is the week to write about romance. Maybe it's because it's summer and as the cliché says: "Love is in the air." (Well, I guess it should be in the spring, but that season is a little cold in NY to wear enough skimpy clothes.)
I was having a coffee with Bart (yes, he is alive!) in a Starbucks near Union Square (the one closest to the Virgin Store) and there they were: the blind daters. You can spot them right away. They are a little too nicely dressed, a little too quirky, a little too smiley (actually, their smiles usually look frozen with nitrogen.) She’s wearing a touch of make-up to look healthy and her nicest clothes (H&M budget) and he’s trying to appear intriguing with a black, long sleeved, fitted shirt (when it’s almost 90 degrees outside.)
They found each other surprisingly fast (I guess their pictures were real ones,) bought coffee (she paid hers, he paid his,) sat just next to us (yes! Free entertainment!) and started the awkward dance of making conversation.
The guy, still pretending to be interesting, just smiled, relaxed in his chair and waited to be entertained. She, a little nervous, started to blab about her girlfriends’ terrible experiences with blind dates (at least from what we could make from the few words that were not like, really, you know, I mean, oh, yes, yes, aha.)
The guy’s smile turned strained and he kept sipping his coffee compulsively. Then Bart saw it: the book! The guy had placed a book strategically on the table to see the girl’s reaction to it (none.)
Bart—who has perfect eyesight unlike yours truly—told me the title. “Three Cups of Tea…Is that a chick lit or what?” It was my turn to smile. So he really was playing the “I’m an interesting, deep guy” role. He was screaming: Not only I'm intelligent and I read, I'm socially conscious AND open-minded. I care about poor kids without schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
I guess he was hoping to date a beautiful, socially conscious, world peace warrior girl (Angelina Jolie?) or at least a pretty girl who had enough wit to admire all his amazing and—very important—noble qualities.
But our poor girl—who was actually a stunner, a little like a sweet, real version of a Paris Hilton—had no clue. She kept talking louder and louder about her girlfriends and what they did she thought was wrong and would never do herself, like, lots of things, horrible, like really, really horrible.
He pushed the book a little closer to the center, but nothing.
He did it again. Nothing.
Twenty minutes later, he looked at his watch and said the stereotypical: “Oh, my God, I had so much fun I didn’t realize how late it is. Lovely meeting you… Have to go… Now!”
A cold handshake. Slight eye rolling on his side, total devastation on hers. She had no idea why the date went wrong.
Sometimes you can speak the same language and still not get it.