Meeting someone off the Internet seems to be all the rage these days, so I decided to take a plunge into cyberspace to see if I could excavate a gem. To me, this was a risky endeavor, so I decided to dull my adrenaline (and maybe his) with a bar crawl down Divisadero. Before I embarked on my “date” with a Brazilian, I sat in the kitchen as my neighbors made me dinner peppered with potential worst-case scenarios. “He could kidnap you. He might need you for a green card.” (I was once offered ten thousand dollars to marry someone, so this was a possibility.)
We planned to meet at Fly bar, a place where late twenty-somethings drink purple sangria and catch up with friends in between bites of grilled cheese and overflowing salads. Wearing a Fedora hat tipped to the side, dress socks peeking out from his white loafers, I spotted the watering hole’s best dressed regular at the end of the bar. Sitting quietly next to him was the Brazilian. He was wearing green muted khakis and a denim jacket. A good start.
We exchanged awkward hellos intermingled with hugs and handshakes. Conversation flowed easily over a soundtrack that was spiked with mid-nineties grunge. One hundred and twenty minutes later and two pints cleaned, we left Fly and strolled over to the Independent. The faux movie theatre was packed. Throaty laughter echoed across the venue as friends graciously imbibed their two minimum (or more) drinks in return for a free movie. I got the drink, he watched a little of the movie. We sent each other a vibe. Keep crawling.
Madrone was our next and last stop for the night. “ I can’t get arrested,” remarked the soft-featured Brazilian as he hesitantly sipped on ginger infused vodka that tasted like sushi. Lounging in the back corner shadows of the bar with the best logo in the city, the newly acquainted stranger and I visually interviewed each other for compatibility. After our crawl down Divisadero, the South American native said that he did not want to jeopardize his green card potential. I flashed back to my dinner conversation. He wasn’t the only one taking a risk. “I can’t drink and drive,” he explained. “ Oh,” I said.
