Crystal Powers: My Date with a Googler

It wasn’t what I thought

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Pexels

I am without a doubt the least colorful girl at every San Francisco party. Originally from New York City, I can always be found safely wrapped in black. Every so often, I’ll waltz into an H&M feeling inspired by the season’s new pattern or Pantone that other girls sport proudly. I’ll grab a cantaloupe sweater, a rainbow-striped T-shirt or a button-down shirt playfully patterned with birds. And I’ll stare back at myself in the dressing room mortified. I’ll rush back to the basics section, grab a black T-shirt to steady myself and hang it in the pile of shadows that is my closet.

The first time I saw the man we will call Crystal, he was wearing a hot-pink hoodie. I knew he would be tall—six foot six to be exact—and that his hair was longish and silky. I sensed a certain kind of California beauty from his profile pictures, the kind whereby everything on his person looked angular and sun-kissed. I’d seen people like this when I was young, mostly while flipping through Lands’ End magazines on the toilet. I was always intrigued—a little by their beauty, but mostly by their hair. For a curly-haired girl whose texture could best be described as “cotton ball,” Lands’ End locks were a source of constant fascination.

As with any online date, every detail was a chance to judge our compatibility to shreds. And between his silky locks and bright attire, in my mind it was all but decided: we would never work. My attraction was irrelevant; we were a different species. He, the beautiful quintessential Californian, and me, the bleak, frizzy-haired New Yorker.

Not to mention, he worked for Google. It was 2014. I was a tech holdout working for a small global health nonprofit as rents rose and affordable bars closed, and like others not working in tech, my default feeling was to resent those who did.

I stared at this tall, colorful man coming toward me and braced myself for his cold response to my frizzy hair and plain clothes—that barely noticeable but distinct moment of disappointment when someone underwhelms. But when we reached one another at the corner of Church and Market, his smile was wide and warm, his eyes bright. He embraced my entire person with a long, powerful hug.

“Nice to meet you,” I said upon release, ashamed that I’d been the asshole, the one to judge.

As Crystal handed me a fancy Orbit Room cocktail, I prepared for the Silicon Valley chatter that was quickly becoming the city’s norm. But there was no mention of apps or algorithms. Instead Crystal turned the conversation to our energies, which, he concluded, were highly compatible. He asked about my sign (Aries) and explained how the moon was affecting what was clearly an intense feeling between us. Maybe because the only cycles that have ever meant anything to me are either menstrual or the rotating sandwich special at the deli, I generally laugh at this kind of New Age “woo.” But I couldn’t help but think his beliefs were a sign of sensitivity, an openness to the world and an ability to be affected by the unknown, which I’d always closed myself off to. His voice was soft around the edges, his eyes kind. I listened in earnest, determined to be accepting and sensitive too.

“I love the smile lines all over your face,” he said, lightly grazing my cheek with his finger.

It is clear to me now that if any other man had said this to me, I would have stared at him wide-eyed — a little confused, a little amused, but mostly horrified — and offered graciously that he should never say that to a woman ever again, and then relax for the rest of the date knowing that there would never be another one. But instead I melted into his broad shoulder and said yes to another vodka martini.

“Want to go back to my place?” he asked after everyone else had left the bar.

I had sworn off sex. After nearly a decade of heartbreak fueled by naivety and rom-coms, I was committed to taking dating seriously. To me this meant “no sex without monogamy” because I was shamelessly addicted to the trashy but infinitely wise E! TV show Millionaire Matchmaker, and this was host Patti Stanger’s mantra (I was on a path to maturity, clearly).

But Crystal didn’t seem like the overconfident men I’d always associated with tech, the kind who were used to being taken care of with free meals and hand-delivered laundry and were congratulated for their logic-above-all reasoning on the regular. He assured me he had no expectations. That he just enjoyed spending time together. Four martinis in, I believed him.

His apartment was beyond my comprehension of what was possible for someone my age to own, but sadly it was about right for a somewhat-senior Google employee. I’m always loosely aware of how well I’m doing compared to my peers and somewhat unhealthily concerned with where I lie on the spectrum. But that pursuit was out the window when I stepped into his two-story Victorian in the center of the Mission, elaborately decorated and entirely his own.

As soon as we got past the foyer — of course there was a foyer — I saw them. They were everywhere. In all different shapes and sizes. One in every color. Deeply buzzed, I couldn’t help but let some judgment escape and asked, “What’s with all the crystals?” Each crystal, apparently, had a certain meaning, a certain energy. They were all placed very particularly to optimize their own unique power. That came close to the silliest thing I had have ever heard, but his arm pulled me closer to him, and I hid my smile in his chest, doubling down on my commitment to be open-minded.

I generally don’t care about touch. I’m more of a talker. If the “language of love” of the person I’m dating is physical touch, there will be challenges. Sadly, this limitation weeds out almost every kind man I’ve ever come across, leaving me to my own damaged and neurotic tribe. I’m not against physical affection altogether, but for me, it has its time and place—like, in bed, and more specifically, before bed. When physical affection is shown in public or in excess, my intimacy issues reveal themselves in a turtle-like posture.

Crystal was a toucher. I realized this early on when, after our first round of drinks, he squeezed into my side of the booth while I froze in horror. I group same-side table sitting in the same category as engagement photos— insufferable and unnecessary. But he just wanted us to be close to one another, he explained, as I, once again, wondered why I was such a terrible human.

We got into bed. His tall body cradled mine, creating more skin contact than I ever thought possible, and shockingly, I didn’t mind. He said that our bodies fit together like magic. He said he hadn’t felt this way in years. He said all he wanted was to hold each other all night and nothing more. I was becoming a toucher.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom mostly to pee and also to repeat Patti’s mantra in vain. I was generally impressed with the tidiness of his situation. Until I noticed the garbage—a recently emptied bin with absolutely nothing in it except for an even more recently discarded condom.

My first reaction was disgust. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours old—right before our date, most likely. But that quickly turned into relief. I wasn’t upset — I’d just met him, and he had no obligation to me. But as if I had woken up from a dream, it was clear. No sex tonight. There was no rush.

“You’re tired already?” he asked, as I got into bed, assuming a safe, snuggling position.

I explained what I saw and that it wasn’t a big deal, but I just wanted to cuddle, like he’d said. And in an instant he turned. The soft demeanor slipped off him like a layer of skin. After too many times batting him away, he turned over in anger. There was no more touching.

I lay awake for a while that night. My sense of perception felt shattered. If he was really such a jerk, how could I have been so oblivious? And if he wasn’t, he’d seemed so kind and open, after all, what had I done wrong? But as I replayed the night’s events, I realized that other than my sign, he hadn’t asked me much. While I’d wrapped my head earnestly around his theories on energy and his relationship to crystals, he was happy not knowing a thing about me. I remembered the one time I ventured to disagree, unable to believe in the moon entirely, and doing so in what I considered a friendly joke — but he didn’t crack a smile or engage at all, he’d simply moved on.

I woke up in the morning to Crystal standing tall in front of 10 small glasses lined up on his large bay windowsill. He was pouring water from one glass into the next with the seriousness of a surgeon. I sat there staring in utter confusion and, frankly, a bit of fear. I decided to move around a little, make some noise so he would stop or at the very least explain what he was doing. But Crystal remained unaffected, not to be deterred from the task at hand. The water had almost made its way to the tenth glass.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked.

He was transferring the energies from one glass of water to the next, he explained as detached and matter-of-factly as if a stranger had asked what time it was. “You need to leave,” he continued when he was done, rushed and annoyed. “My bus will be here any minute.”

All the laughter I’d suppressed in the past 24 hours burst out in that moment. Amid the ever-changing San Francisco, Crystal, with his hippie demeanor and a bro-like core, felt emblematic. Lots of things in San Francisco were beautiful, but they weren’t always what they seemed. And the brightest colors aren’t always the most interesting.