The Wisdom of Chocolate

It was another frigid Friday on the Upper East Side and I had just had a week from the depths of hell at work. The last thing I wanted to do was serve over-consuming, under-tipping twenty-something’s who didn’t know the difference between Popov and Belvedere for the next three hours until my weekend could officially begin.

Not to mention that I had only seen Billy Blue once in the past two weeks, partly due to the fact he had been on a cruise for one week, but also because my busy schedule paired with his overtime-filled work schedule made it very difficult to find a common time for us to share even one drink together. I was frustrated, tired and confused in all sectors of my life.

And ever since Billy had left for his cruise, something in me had changed. A week without calls, texts or emails from him led me from smitten to skeptic. I had been so blissful in those early stages that I failed to see the blaring red flags—his constant mind games, his wingman diversions, the fact that he was constantly a good hour late when coming to meet me and my friends, the fact that he technically had a girlfriend the first night we met at the Mad River/NY Easy Dates singles event, the fact that he had so easily lied when his ex-girlfriend called as he looked straight at me and told me it was his friend Sam.

Why was he attending a singles event when he wasn’t single? Why was he picking up women, including myself, when he was a taken man? Why did he find it funny to tell me about the set of twins he and Sam had met on the cruise and had I seen the pictures online yet? These questions and the fact that he had gone from one serious relationship to the next since the age of twenty-one weighed on my mind. He clearly had independence issues, as well as punctuality issues, and perhaps fidelity issues to boot.

And then Hershey walked in, beautiful and fashionable, as always, in a cream cashmere sweater, sexy denim and au courant alpine boots. I hadn’t seen him since late October and he was a breath of fresh air in my dismal night. As we caught up on each other’s lives, we of course stumbled upon the topic of our current relationships, where I filled him in on Billy Blue, and he then filled me in on his current fling.

And then Billy Blue walked in. I hadn’t been expecting him and rather than being overcome with happiness and glee that he had gotten out of work early to see me, I only became more confused as my emotions sputtered into a muddied, murky mess.

I pointed him out to Hershey, who immediately assigned him the moniker of Barney Rubble. Hershey then asked me, his chocolate eyes filled with sincerity, “Bacchus, are you happy with your Barney Rubble?”

I hadn’t even bothered to ask myself that question over the course of my past few week’s uncertainty. I couldn’t say I was completely unhappy, but the initial novelty of Billy Blue had worn off, only to uncover the true Mr. Blue—a man with an overflowing, overlapping closet of ex-girlfriend skeletons, a man who found it amusing to toy with my mind and my heart. I wanted the original Mr. Blue back, before I knew of his past, before he made me cry, when his mind games entertained me, when he was still trying to charm me.

“You’re always looking for the next story, aren’t you Bacchus?” Hershey commented when I couldn’t answer his initial question.

Hershey was right—I was always looking for the next story, but only because I still haven’t found the story that has a happy ending...