This is my Halloween first date story. What could go wrong going as a “Moving Target”? She’s an heiress whose lineage goes back to Plymouth Rock, and her family raised thoroughbred horses; I’m a boy from Brooklyn whose parents came through Ellis Island. Oil and water, plus a big dose of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Here goes:
Almost 21 years ago to this very day. I fell in love because of Malcolm Gladwell. It’s 2005.I read a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Blink.
You know about Blink? No? Let me tell you about it. Its thesis is that your first and most immediate reaction is the true one; your blink-of-an-eye perceptions are even more accurate than careful evaluation of all empirical data. Essentially, trust your gut.
I finished reading Blink, and the very next day, I was at a San Francisco gallery opening. One sip into my glass of wine, I turned to my left and boom! Every nerve ending in my body told me I was in love with this woman in the proverbial blink of an eye.
I knew almost nothing about her. But after reading Blink, knowing nothing seemed like an advantage. Why contaminate a perfectly good first impression with information?
First, that avalanching hair. The elegance of her Audrey Hepburn-like neck. Forty-one years young; tall and Athletic. Clean body with a dirty mind. Educated at Hotchkiss, B.A. Harvard…a whip-smart woman.
And then I discovered she had a Ph.D. In rhetoric. I had fallen in love with someone professionally trained to disagree with me - I had fallen in love with a professionally trained arguer.
And the name of this woman, (I slightly changed her name to protect the guilty), I instantly decided was the “woman of my dreams”? You’ll love it: Hayden Elizabeth Lancaster Parker. Her initials spell HELP. I’m not kidding. A name that comes with its own trust fund. Her name was Hayden. Elizabeth. Lancaster. Parker. Just the name was intimidating.
A White Anglo-Saxon Protestant of Mayflower descent who arrived via Plymouth Rock. And like the schmuck I am, I ignore every warning bell in my head and think I’ve found her. Because obviously, a Jewish man raised in Brooklyn public schools, whose family arrived via Ellis Island, is destined to end up with a Mayflower heiress who breeds thoroughbred horses. And temperamentally, we were even more different.
Different cultures. HELP had inherited that same sense of composure. She was careful. Measured. Reserved. She didn't blurt.
She approached disagreements the way her family probably approached thoroughbreds: quietly, patiently, with excellent breeding. I approached them like somebody was trying to steal my parking space. She was everything I wasn't. Hayden was restraint. I was impulse. And yet I found all of this incredibly attractive.
Back to the chase. We hung out together at the gallery. Next, we headed to Plouf for a drink afterward. We made out on the BART like teenagers with Ph.D.s. We go back to my place, and before you know it, we’re making love. I feel a connection of biblical proportions.
I bow to the existential truths in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Malcolm Gladwell was telling me this wasn’t impulsiveness. It was neuroscience.
Now here’s where it gets relevant to our theme. Soon after we met, we decided our first real date would be next week’s Halloween party. What could go wrong?
I desperately wanted to impress her. And, as an ex-New Yorker, Halloween wasn’t “What costume should I wear?” It was: “What statement should I make?” You couldn’t just show up as Dracula.
Most of my friends were artists, so naturally I assembled a creative team. For a first date.
I wanted something clever. Conceptual. Something that said: I understand art. I suggested Jasper Johns. Jasper Johns famously painted targets. And suddenly we had it. My artist friends painted a giant Jasper Johns-style bull’s-eye directly on my face and another on the back of my jumpsuit.
I would go as: A Moving Target. This wasn’t a costume. It was a thesis. And I would circulate through the party as... A Moving Target.
And more importantly, I imagined my date seeing me and thinking: He's witty. He's conceptual. He's spontaneous. I was going to show her that beneath this neurotic Jewish exterior was a sophisticated downtown NY conceptual artist.
I looked spectacular. I looked in the mirror and thought: She’s going to fall in love with me. That’s how confident I was.
We get to the party. She looks beautiful. Understated. Elegant. Of course. No costume. People love my costume. “What are you?” “Moving Target.” “Ohhhh!”
I’m feeling good. My date seems amused. Malcolm Gladwell is right. Jasper Johns is right. I am right. There’s nothing more satisfying than somebody getting your conceptual Halloween costume. I’m circulating. I’m charming. My date appears amused. I'm thinking: Blink was right. This is going beautifully. HELP appears amused.
And then... he notices me. I see him notice me. You know that moment when two strangers make eye contact across a crowded room? I see him. Robin Hood. There's a man at the party dressed as Robin Hood. Full costume. Green tights. Hat. Bow. Arrows.
Now, immediately, I'm uncomfortable. Why does Robin Hood need what look like functional arrows?
And, Robin Hood is drunk. Not charming drunk. Medieval drunk. And he sees me.
More specifically...he sees the target.
There are maybe seventy-five people at this party. Every one of them understands my costume is a visual joke. Except Robin Hood.
I move. He follows me. Which unfortunately makes the costume even more accurate. Moving Target. Now I’m really a moving target. I go left. Robin Hood goes left. I go right. Robin Hood goes right.
He pulls out an arrow. I assume the arrows have a rubber tip but I can’t be sure. I’m thinking: No. He puts it in the bow. No, no. He draws the string. NO NO NO.
I have come as a TARGET. To a party containing an ARCHER. And the archer has been drinking. This is not Halloween anymore. This is now Darwin.
Now I move. And this son of a bitch follows me. I go left. He tracks left. I go right. He tracks right. And suddenly I realize:
My costume is working too well. I am now literally... a moving target. This is conceptual art at a level I never intended.
HELP is watching. This woman I’m desperately trying to impress.
Mayflower. Ph.D. Rhetoric. And I can see the difference between us in her face. Her expression says: How did this situation develop?
Mine says: WHY IS NOBODY TAKING THE BOW AWAY FROM HIM?
My beautiful, reserved, Mayflower-descended Ph.D. first date is watching me zigzag through a Berkeley loft while a drunken Robin Hood attempts to zing me with his arrows.
Finally, somebody intervenes. Robin Hood is disarmed. Somebody takes the bow away from him. Civilization returns. I’m alive.
And my date is completely calm. Of course she is. Mayflower. She looks at me and says something like: “Perhaps the costume invited the response.” Excuse me? Invited it?
I am rattled and she is displaying her generations of New England reserve. Me, I’m from Brooklyn. Within fifteen minutes I’d tell a stranger about my childhood, my divorce, my colonoscopy, and why I’m disappointed with the hummus.
And still, I was convinced. Because I had blinked. And I trusted the blink.
And I still think about that first date.
The universe could not have made the metaphor any clearer. Unless Robin Hood had been carrying a copy of Blink. Because that night, both of us trusted our first impressions.
I looked at her and thought: True love. Robin Hood looked at me and thought: Target. Only one of us needed six years to reconsider.
And this Jewish boy from Brooklyn via Ellis Island and this woman of Mayflower lineage and from a family that bred thoroughbred horses we were together, off and on, for more than 6 years. All the time trying to make oil and water coalesce. I told friends that loving Hayden Elizabeth Lancaster Parker was like taking a shower in a crowded house, you have soap on your balls and ass, and all of a sudden the water turns ice cold. She was Mayflower. I was Ellis Island. And yet, somehow, we were attracted to each other.
Sometimes the eye persists in seeing something that maybe wasn’t really there to begin with. And despite all this, after all this time, we remain friends. And I’ve stopped blaming Malcolm Gladwell. He said trust your first impression. He didn’t say renew it for six years.
—Scott Sanders, Storyteller