When I appeared on her doorstep with a bottle of wine and a smile, she opened the door conspicuously made up, perfumed, and in a fetching dress. The next invitation was dinner at her house. On my finest social behavior, I passed muster with her friend. I had brunch with her and her female confidante. But then a week later she changed her mind. Weirded out by my bonding with her ex, she decided to end the budding romance. Given there was only one large boatyard for serious refitting in the East Bay, meeting her recent beau wasn’t a completely improbable coincidence. Of course, it was British Trader, stopping by the yard to check randomly on my progress. Given my as-yet noncomprehensive knowledge of her anatomy, I didn’t recognize her. As I was painting the bottom, I looked over and saw some hot chick talking to my new South African friend. He and I ended our boozing and bullshitting and got back to work on our respective boats. Their inability to conceive had convinced British Trader she was barren. As I’d eventually learn from British Trader, they had tried having a child despite never marrying. He was, as fate would have it, British Trader’s ex-boyfriend, who had recently and unceremoniously dumped her. We got along famously, and continued our unending string of boat talk with beer and pizza at the local red-and-white-tablecloth Italian place. A strapping and strutting South African, he walked over and we started talking boats. The following weekend, a tall, rangy guy put his boat next to mine in the yard. She climbed up the precarious twelve-foot ladder to Moksha’s deck, which towered over the ground due to the boat’s deep keel.
Covered in dust and grease, I welcomed her to my boat. My twenty-six-foot sloop Moksha was hauled out on land, and I was busily refitting it for serious offshore sailing. One early Friday evening, dressed in her corporate finest, she appeared unannounced at the boatyard.
Her Match profile photo featured her at the tiller of a boat, which instantly quintupled her attractiveness. She had vaguely Slavic-looking cheekbones and feline eyes. Zero mention of diaper changes and daycare drop-offs. Mine was heavy on the sailing and outdoor adventuring. Choose your audience, and write your ad copy.
#Casey newton verge professional#
was for professional women busy with the time-honored tradition of husband shopping. OkCupid was for penniless hipster chicks who lived in shared flats in the Mission.
#Casey newton verge serial#
Craigslist was for escorts, fat chicks in Fremont, and serial killers. At the time, online dating sites distinguished themselves mostly by the demographics of their members. I had found British Trader’s profile while searching for the keyword “sailing.” Thematic searches (e.g., “physics,” “PhD,” “beer”) were my way of finding some iota of common ground with which to structure an introductory message. “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.” If you ever run across an online dating profile with the above as a tagline, be aware you’re in for one fucking life-changing date. Let’s rewind before we fast-forward again. We had known each other for thirty-nine weeks. The woman was a former City of London derivatives trader. The man was simultaneously trying to check for traffic, keep his female companion from collapsing, tow a large suitcase, and navigate the whole lurching ensemble toward the emergency room door. Every ten paces or so, the woman would double over and gasp in pain, bringing everything to a halt. The woman could barely stand, and needed to pause and cling to either the man, or any fixed object, as they struggled across the last couple hundred feet.
A heavily pregnant woman, bent over in pain and scarcely able to walk, was being half carried, half dragged across the street by a tall, goateed man. If you had been standing on the corner of Broadway and MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland the night of March 7, 2010, you would have seen a curious sight.
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