Dugma Dogma: Patterned Prisons |
“Any stigma… will serve to beat a dogma.”
Masters and Men, Philip Guedella (1923)
A medical student, in my early 20s, in the early 1970s, I crave female companionship. Unfortunately, very shy, very poor, I lack the confidence and cash for a “Real” date.
Fortunately, Stern (Yeshiva University’s college for women) is on Lexington Avenue, a few blocks away from my NYU Medical School. (“Sex at Lex”, YU-alumni med-school classmates affectionately call it.)
Propitiously, living in New York City my entire life, I have many friends there. Providentially, NYU has a new program offering free tickets (to fill empty seats) at Broadway shows.
My occasional free evenings take on a predictable pattern: pick up tix at NYU, girl at Stern, attend a show. It isn’t a “Real” date; there’s no sex at Lex, or anywhere else, but it is female companionship. That’s enough.
One evening, that pattern shatters.
I obtain tickets to an opening-night! Celebrities! Photographers! Hoopla! I’m excited.
Man plans; God laughs. Stern’s in finals; no one’s available. I leave, tickets in hand, no one on my arm.
I walk up Lex, angry with myself, also concerned. Had I called ahead, I could have invited a classmate instead. What if another NYU guest, noticing my empty adjoining-seat, reports I took a ticket I didn’t use? Will I be expelled from this ticket-program?
Lex is deserted. I pass but one girl. Quite beautiful, she self-confidently smiles at me. I blush.
A few yards past, I have a brainstorm. I stop, muster my courage, turn around and approach her. I’m heartened she seems pleased.
I never before asked out a stranger. My heart’s pounding, my mouth dry. I don’t know what to say. Holding up the tickets as my shield, I stammer:
“By any chance, would you like to go to a Broadway opening-night?”
She looks at the tickets, my Kipa, finally me, tosses back her head and laughs.
I’m humiliated, angrier at myself than at her. This mistake was stupider than my first. This is why I don’t ask strangers out. I furiously stalk off.
She apparently feels badly because she chases after me, grabs my arm:
“Actually, I’d be delighted.”
We start walking uptown. She hooks her arm into mine as if I’m escorting her. No Stern girl has ever done that. Feels nice. Is this my first “Real” date, albeit with a nameless stranger?
Reading my mind, mocking our situation’s inherent awkwardness, she grabs my hand she’s holding and formally shakes it: “I’m Laura.”
“I’m Ike.”
I desperately want to add something witty or gracious, but can’t think of anything.
She, obviously more comfortable........