The Interest Rate of a First Date

It’s not that I have a thing for Italians. It’s that Italians keep finding me. Finance Guy was from Southern Italy. 6’5. Brown eyes. If you had the week I had, you’d have understood why I wanted to cancel. He was so understanding as I explained why I wanted to reschedule for next month, that I thought…fuck it. There are worse things than a date with an attractive Italian man.

When I was younger, every date was rich with possibility. I’d let a romcom feeling overtake me with no regard to the emotional debt I’d be in later. The older you get, the more dating starts to feel like monetary policy. You want enough optimism to encourage investment without letting things get completely out of control. I moisturized, picked out a dress and heels, and hoped he really was 6’5. He was.

Finance Guy was an Italian gentleman. Well-dressed, charismatic, engaging. A few years older than me, he had left some consulting firm and started his own. I don’t even know what consulting firms do, but this let him travel more. He joked about the perks of having an Italian boyfriend: homemade pasta, excellent wine pairings, and the genetics of great eyebrows. He was witty and ambitious, or at least seemed like he was. At any other moment, I would have been swept away.

I’m far past emotional investment on first dates. Sometimes I wish I could still delude myself into thinking I’d met my person. The older you get, the more it feels like you’re trying to keep inflation under control when you’re sitting across a man who’s trying to impress you. Dating, at its most unromantic, is risk assessment. That’s sort of what the Federal Reserve does. It’s not really a reserve. It’s more like your committee of best friends trying to keep you in check.

Finance Guy moved closer to me as I spoke, craving deep conversation. He didn’t make me feel like I was overwhelming him with my geopolitical baggage or the current post-earthquake crisis in Colombia. Before our third drink, he smiled at me like a teenager planning on skipping school, “I want to talk to you longer. Are you hungry?”

We ended up at a different West Side establishment, the kind most guys take you on a second date. He ordered appetizers and a bottle of wine I couldn’t pronounce. Finance Guy was winning me over with no regard to his own risk-management. I had raised the interest rate of dating, afraid that down the line, all the energy and chemistry would fade, leaving both people to realize they’re not right for each other. I was scared to let myself enjoy it. “What does your ideal relationship look like?”, I asked.

How much should uncertainty about the future cost? I don’t consider myself an incredibly financially literate person, though I try. More than personal finances, I, like most Americans, get overwhelmed whenever I see a headline about inflation or interest rates. The Federal Reserve has to essentially make decisions about the future using incomplete information about the present. If inflation is running hot, higher interest rates make borrowing less attractive, discouraging spending and cooling the economy. They consistently weigh the risk of cooling things that might not need cooling. That somehow feels easier to predict than if I’d be happy long-term with my dreamy Italian date.

Finance Guy thought about my question.

“It’s doing things together.”

“What things?”

“Good things, but also problems.”

I nodded. My parents were moving and doing everything together, from plastic-wrapping furniture to making sure they have a stable home to arrive at after a 7.4 earthquake. None of those things are sexy or flirty. They are real, external life problems that no one could have predicted.

The check came. He immediately pulled it toward himself and said, “Except this. You never touch this.” We both laughed. He grabbed my hand as we walked out of the restaurant. I thanked him for distracting me. He spun me around, as if we were dancing, and pulled me in for a kiss. Nothing about the evening felt off. Quite the opposite. I did something I never do on a first date if I’m considering something long-term. I went home with him.

I was going against my own rules, perhaps because I needed to or perhaps because I believed in the predictability of his future behavior. I let myself browse the books on his shelf, my fingers landing on one of my favorites, Man’s Search for Meaning. Was I in my own version of a romcom? He wasn’t surprised I liked the book. Not done impressing me, he brought out a bottle of wine he brought back from his last trip home and poured me a glass. Then, the first indicator of risk appeared.

Finance Guy brought out a half-empty bottle of whiskey and poured himself a glass, cheering with me and my dainty wine glass. I could feel myself in familiar territory with the smell of whiskey on his breath, and tried to assess if this was important information. We kissed and talked about God, what we wanted our lives to look like, and how he had started tennis classes this year. He told me I should join him. As he poured himself another glass of whiskey, I realized the amount of drinks he felt comfortable having on a first date were ruining the future I was trying to imagine.

He didn’t pressure me to stay and called me an Uber. What a shame, I thought, as he walked me to my Uber with his drink in his hand. Clearly drunk, he opened the door for me and said he was excited to plan our second date. I smiled at him, not knowing how to let him down with the driver waiting. “Text me when you get home”, he said. I didn’t.

As I got ready for bed and brushed the taste of whiskey out of my mouth, I wondered if I was pricing the future correctly, or if I was letting past experiences cloud my judgement. Had I made the cost so high that even someone worth investing in couldn’t cut it?

The next morning, I woke up to a text from him apologizing for drinking. He had gotten excited and would love to see me again. It wasn’t his fault that I’d already lived through this. I hated to admit it, but my interest had, in fact, gone up and I had no way of knowing if my current rate was correct.

I didn’t know if it was my place to admit the drinking bothered me, but I did anyway. He told me that if I ever changed my mind, he’d love to make a fool of himself again.