The Mandy Incident
Written on April 1, 2024 about the events of Tuesday, September 20, 2022.
The following Tuesday, the group had plans to attend our first karaoke together, at the Painted Burro in Davis Square. At the time I was really trying to “put myself out there” in more ways than online dating. So I had also signed up for my first-ever speed dating event. Coincidentally, it happened to be on the same Tuesday evening as Karaoke. Karaoke started late, at 9pm, so thought that I could make it to karaoke after speed dating. I was definitely much more excited about karaoke and the prospect of spending more time with Holly than I was about speed dating.
When Tuesday arrived I had a moderate head cold, but I was determined not to cancel either of my evening activities. After work, I took the red line across the river to the Newbury Street bookstore/cafe that was hosting the speed-dating event. I found that I enjoyed speed dating; adjusting myself to relate to ten very different people for seven minutes at a time was an interesting challenge, and the women were very interesting in themselves. Boston has always been full of fascinating people doing wonderful things.
One of the women I talked to for seven minutes at speed dating took a particular interest in me. Her name was Mandy. I can’t recall the details of our conversation, I think we discussed Walk the Moon. Speed dating had a formalized system for expressing interest so that you didn’t have to confront your rejections. I had enjoyed my conversation with Mandy, and I marked myself in the system as interested in seeing her again. Mandy was very forward and disregarded the system; she found me outside as I was calling an Uber.
She asked me if I had any plans for the rest of the night. I did have plans, so I told her so; I was heading to karaoke. But I had trapped myself in a bit of a corner — karaoke was a very public event. There was no reason she couldn’t come along. With no way out of it that I could see, I invited Mandy to join me at Karaoke.
In the Uber on the way back to Davis Square, Mandy and I got to talk for a lot longer than our original seven-minute date. All I can remember from this conversation is Mandy happily sharing with me that she’d recently run from the police in a car. My perception of her was beginning to solidify and not for the better. I regretted my invitation.
I distinctly remember a certain moment, walking into the karaoke bar. I entered first, and I saw Holly there, in a circle of friends. She turned, recognized me, and opened her mouth wide with an delightful expression of joy and recognition that made me feel special and seen, from my eyes all the way down into my soul. Then, behind me came Mandy - my official date for the evening.
Mandy turned out to be quite good at Karaoke and the whole group had a good time. I barely got to talk to Holly. By around 10pm, Mandy was fairly drunk and had started to get touchy beneath the table. I was exhausted and sick, so I told Mandy that I was going to do one more song and then head home. She was a bit put out but seemed to understand; we made vague plans to get in touch later. I didn’t make my exit plan known to the larger group, so most of the party was quite surprised when I suddenly departed. Several people thought that I’d just ditched Mandy at the bar. I heard later that Mandy ultimately stayed at the bar for several more hours, partying into the night with a smaller group of my friends and acquaintances, who she had just met.
So I barely got to talk to Holly at all, and a rumor went around for awhile that I’d ditched some girl the karaoke bar. At the time I considered the whole evening to have been an embarrassing setback. Much later on, I learned that it had been a net positive for Holly and I’s relationship.