Doesn’t Date Gentlemen

You told me you don’t want to see me again.

You called me a chauvinist,
and mistook my chivalry for attempted subjugation,
not realising:

I held the door open for you not so I could better stare at your ass, but because it was windy out and you’d forgotten your coat;

I pulled your chair out for you not because I thought you incapable (as you claimed in tantrum), but to save you the embarrassment of dragging yourself across the floor.

And when I offered to pay for the meal, you called me a chauvinist, yelled something about being perfectly able to buy yourself dinner despite making seventy-five cents to my every dollar, threw a wad of bills at me, and stormed out.

I still paid. I keep your change in an envelope pinned to my fridge.

On the way back to my apartment, the woman I wanted you to be shivered in the cold, so I offered her my coat and she took it.

© 2005

Originally published in Aphros, Vol. 46 (2006).