We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off, to Have a Good Time: Lever House (1/20/09)

Food is a social event for my friend Victoria. So when I accepted her dinner invitation to Lever House I wasn’t surprised to see we were joined by a cast of characters she had gathered from failed match.com dates. Victoria’s success in turning past dates into current friends fueled her belief that everyone should be meeting people online.

There’s something to be said about my MTV generation’s desire to find mate with no more than a few mouse clicks. Luckily, a few more mouse clicks is all it takes to find out if your soon-to-be date is overly familiar with Megan’s law or, possibly worse, a twitter addict. When I finally gave into Victoria’s pressure and signed up for a dating site, I was pleased to find that my date was neither.

Oliver was my martini drinking Mad Man with tattoo twist. Our causal cocktail sipping first date went well enough for us to schedule a follow-up midweek dinner. The night of our dinner date I rushed home after work to squeeze in as many minutes of fluffing and buffing as possible while still appearing effortlessly adorable. As I pawed my way through the few clean outfits I had, I settled on simple black shirt dress. While buttoning the dress I quickly realized its last trip through the dryer had rendered it both shorter and tighter. With only minutes to spare and no desire to rethink my wardrobe, I decided to shimmy my way into a pair of spanx to camouflage the belly bulge.

Spanx are the sister garment of the support hose. They are bought folded up in package the size of a small bag of chips. Once unfolded, stretched, pulled, kneaded, yanked and pleaded with; they managed to fit an area from mid-thigh to lower breast. They are perhaps the most unflattering looking undergarment an individual can wear. However, they possess the benefit of hiding what my mother refers to as “a multitude of sin.”

Once I had wiggled myself into my spanx, I met Oliver for dinner in the East Village. My newly slimmed figure must have impressed my Internet date because he invited me to join him for post dinner drinks at B.O.B. I was starting to feel comfortable and ordered myself a vodka tonic. Several hours and vodka tonics later I was incredibly relaxed as drunkenly hopped out of the cab at my stop.

Oliver insisted on walking me to my door and I soon found myself pressed against the hallway of my apartment building returning his goodnight kiss. His hands skimmed the bottom of my too-short dress attempting to find their way under the thin cotton. I began drunkenly batting his hands away from my thighs for fear that he would discover my giant spanx. We kept kissing while I used both hands to hold down the sides of my dress, briefly leaving my breast unguarded. I decided that allowing him a quick stopover with the girls was a fair price to pay keep him away from the nude shape wear under my dress. But still, each time I thought I’d managed to deter him; I’d find myself engaged in another round of whack-a-mole.

Oliver had the advantage of being slightly more sober than I was; so after fifteen minutes of defending third base my response time lapsed enough for him to find his way under my dress and grab my spanx with both hands. With a handful of my chastity belt style undergarment in each hand Oliver began trying to yank them off, to no avail. The spanx were suctioning in five extra pounds of pudge that was anchoring them securely to my thighs. Embarrassed by my Bridget Jones moment, I officially decided it was time for Oliver to go home

I don’t know if it was my unwillingness to be felt up or my giant underwear, but I never heard from Oliver again. I did however continue my longstanding relationship with spanx, no Internet dating site required.

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