Dave, Modern-Day Casanova

Earlier today, I received something in the way of a mailed postcard. The postcard came from a name I didn’t immediately recognize. Not because of my bad memory but because the certain young woman, who, to be sure, is already quickly approaching middle age, had apparently gotten married and changed her last name to match her husband’s. In fact, the letter was mailed only Mr and Mrs followed by the husband’s full name. I thought to myself, How sad, given that Dave loved that woman and would write letters and songs about her all the time. Unfortunately for him, as with many other women he pursued, this woman didn’t share his amorous affections.




She expressed her grief in the letter and mentioned the fact that Dave pretended to be tough but deep inside was a sensitive man. I don’t deny this (in fact, I can personally attest to it), but the woman, who we will call Nancy, knew his sensitive side all too well—-she’d been serenaded by him before and almost only exclusively knew this side of him. But theirs was a difficult "relationship," too, because besides the fact that Nancy didn’t share his affections, they both were products of Holy Baptist Church. She attended the college and he attended the high school. This was one of many more stigmas that ensured that the relationship was doomed from the beginning.



Dave was a modern-day Casanova, or Don Juan: he knew a beautiful woman when he saw one, and he’d go after her with all he had. He, along with the nextdoor neighbor’s ex-boyfriend and baby daddy who attended grammar and high school with me, taught me all I know about chasing tail, though I have always tried to be more moderate in my pursuit than him.



I don’t think Dave ever got the woman that he truly wanted, but he felt himself lucky nevertheless to have had the privilege of dating more than a handful of beautiful women. Besides, he always felt that he would always find the woman his heart desired. He was learning Cyrillic, or the Russian alphabet, in order to communicate (and ultimately conquer) women of Europe’s Eastern bloc countries. His laptop had—-and still has-—the Cyrillic letters written in marker over the corresponding qwerty key arrangement, and he had actually managed to learn to speak a little bit. The following is from a note he’d written to a young European woman he’d met online:



Привет. Вы очень красивы. К сожалению, я пока не говорю по-русски. Однако, Я Обучения. Говорите ли вы по-английски? Мне бы хотелось узнать о тебе побольше. Для меня это весьма необычный способ знакомства. Однако, Я хотел бы переписываться с вами. Я надеюсь услышать от вас обратно.



Just in case the above message was terrible, and in the hopes that you understand a little English, I am also writing this in English. I think you are very beautiful. I would like to know more about you and get to know you better. Even though I usually don’t meet people in this way, I want to try and get to know new friends. I hope to hear back from you.



I always envied him for his Casanova ways, especially as the years passed and I felt I’d eclipsed him in looks. But whether or not I thought it unfair that he pulled more women, I still respected and deeply admired him for it. I modeled my game after him; for example, I would approach a woman pretending to know or have known her only in order to be able to spark a conversation from a common ground perspective—-one of his favorite techniques. In my mind, I had created a glorious dynasty of female conquest that had started with him and continued with me. (For some reason, Alex, who from early youth up until marriage had been the biggest playa of us all, was excluded from this great dynasty. I guess distance really does do wonders.) And I always relentlessly sought his approval. Every girl that came in through the door with me was a girl I ultimately wanted Dave to see and approve with a favorable comment.



The good thing in all of this was that you could rely on Dave’s honesty: he would tell you what he really thought about whoever you were dating. He didn’t, for example, like Brenda, my ex-girlfriend of two years. His favorite two words when describing a woman not easy on the eyes were ‘man’ and ‘beast.’ Since he was honest, I decided to be honest with him. I let it be known that I wasn’t all too cool with one of his girlfriends' unpleasant voice.



As with everybody else, Dave had his ups and downs, his triumphs and downfalls. He saw the best of them and the worst. Some of the girls he brought home, especially during the summertime when they were so easy to get, were drop-dead hideous. But it was okay, this was forgivable; he, after all, was steadily improving his game. He always took one step back and two steps forward. He learned from great men: Mystery and Paul Janka. Though he personally didn’t consider himself a pickup artist, he enjoyed watching them at work when there was nothing to do at his job. This went in rhythm with his perfectionism. It’s like he reminded a female admirer in one of his online correspondences, in regards to his music: “I don’t think that you can ever stop getting better.”



Dave and I always had a weakness for the ladies. And when you’re a red-blooded, young Latin male who is teeming with testosterone, having a weakness for the ladies can prove to be more than a simple pastime. Many years earlier, I had what I called the Tour of Chicago, a series of self-scheduled visits to many Chicago public high schools for the sole purpose of bringing up my phone-number-getting statistics. During this notorious tour, which lasted all of two months, I’d managed to rack up a lot of numbers, but no action. A lot of juice, but no punch. He never knew I was up to this, even though he was still living with me at the time. Even though The Tour was an homage to his pimp juice, he would’ve surely seen it as a waste of time (which is why I remained mum about it). It definitely didn’t come from his playbook.



Dave believed there was power in numbers, and online he found the numbers he wanted. By means of a slew of social networking and dating sites, he (and later I) discovered a throng of women and opportunity inexistent in everyday life. With a one-sentence message, forwarded multiple times over, he was able to solicit the affections of many worthwhile women. It was really during this time that his numbers blew up; that he came into his element as a playa. For the next year or so, after which time his numbers would begin to taper off, he flirted with a success that he thought himself incapable of attaining only a few short months back. In fact, he would never reach his one-girl-every-two-weeks levels again. But boy did he have fun while it lasted.



Shortly thereafter, I myself also experienced a dating “hey day” akin to Dave’s. Like his, mine was violently short, thriving and dying in about a year’s time. You see, the inherent problem with any social dating site is that after so long you’re gonna run out of your selection pool-—you’ve already written everyone! At this point, you either have to wait on new members to join or simply revert to the old-fashion way of doing things: meeting women in person. With few choices left, this is what we both did, though by now we found ourselves tired and unable to give the same energy to the effort as before (he because of his career acquisition and me because of school). So now we were essentially worse than when we’d started. Among the lessons that this taught us, is that women can be oh so tiring.



However, Dave did accomplish a feat that I wasn't able to: he was able to maintain a relationship for over a year with somebody he met online. He and Gina were together for over three years; they'd broken up only a few months before he passed. My longest "online relationship" lasted only 3 months—-3 months of which not much happened.



Dave, like I am now, had become a one-woman man after he met Gina. Even though their relationship didn't work, it gave him the drive to only want to be with one woman. He described her to me precisely as he envisioned her: beautiful, feminine, graceful, a woman who would worship him and to whom he would write a song and serenade every night.



I believe that this life is simply one episode in a long series of episodes. Dave is still around—-somewhere. I'm betting that he'll find that woman soon, if he hasn't already.