it’s friday night, and it feels like it. perched at a table at therapy, cocktail in hand, friends by my side, i stand relaxed, yet confident, already pretending that i’m the king of new york. i clock him walk up the stairs immediately, but play it cool. as one does.

the past few weeks have been exciting, exhausting, exhilarating, of course. uprooting my life to new york has been a long time coming, and tonight is the first night i feel settled enough to get myself gussied up and have a big night out. i’d met the boys for a quick cruise of the moma, followed by a boozy snack at vlada, and we’re now at therapy before sneaking over to a fashion week party at the prada store.

as the bar fills up, the crowd rotates around, and next to me, conveniently, is the one cute lad i’ve seen today. i have high standards, you see.

he looks about 25, a bit shorter than me, very dashing in a mormon-cum-model sort of way. i eavesdrop without eavesdropping, and pick up a cute nawlins drawl, and notice he’s with two older folks… probably a bit odd to be out with your parents at a gay cocktail bar on a friday night, but who am i to judge? mama’s boys are hot, right?

after an eternity, he grabs my shoulder and asks me if i know of a fun piano bar he can take his folks to. i just moved to new york this week, i tell him, but the duplex is always a good time. me and my two long-time new yorkers spend the next 10 minutes trying to explain how to get to this place, which gives me an opportunity to share with this lad how charming i am.

as they leave the bar, he runs back up the stairs and asks, do you have a boyfriend? i smile and respond, of course not, i just moved here! and he smiles excitedly, tells me his name is jason and takes my number.

five minutes later, he calls me back, i ditched my parents. are you free for a drink?

my friends were heading home anyway, so i meet jason’s taxi outside the bar. our date begins.

turns out he’s 29, actually, and is a motivational speaker. lives in florida, but comes up to new york all the time for business. his parents are in town to help him celebrate his pending 30th birthday. they’re cool with the gay thing and liked me so much that they insisted he ditch the piano bar and come back and snag me.

winning over parents is hot, right?

i play tour guide, and drag him across town to chelsea for a cocktail and a chat. he’s very gentlemanly, holding my hand, and buying me drinks, and just being as polite as punch. until his third cocktail sets in, and his eyes start darting all over the bar. he disappears to the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time, and i’m starting to read the signs.

meanwhile, tye is at the prada party, texting me to get my ass over there.

i’m faced with a tough choice… spend the night with cute drunken polite cruisy nawlins motivational speaker boy, or with my fun friends at an exclusive hip party.

after making the wrong choice, and convincing jason it’s time for him and i to go back to his hotel, we’re standing on the corner at the early hour of 11:30pm hailing a cab. as the cab pulls up, and he jumps in, he turns to me unexpectedly and tells me, you know what, i’m not feeling so well, i’m gonna go on back to the hotel by myself. good night!

the taxi door slams and speeds off, and i feel like karma is teaching me a lesson for violating the cardinal bros-before-hos rule. but, c’mon, karma, he was pretty darn cute!

my ego doesn’t like what happened, and against my better judgement, i spend the rest of the evening dancing backstage at the prada party with dumb models, passive-aggressively texting jason back-and-forth to determine why he ditched me. all i can get out of him was some bullshit about you’re too cute for me to bring home to my hotel and you’re too perfect for me to be with.

for a motivational speaker, the only thing he motivated me to do was bitch about him here.