How to Know if Your Blind Date is in the Mafia

Since I've been single, I haven't been on a date. Mainly because dating requires you to be nice and charming for at least 1.5 hours. That sounds like work.

The BFF also hasn’t gone on a date since I've been single because now she doesn't have to be nice and charming anymore either. Ch'ching. (We’ll be signing up for best friend co-dependency therapy any day now.)

Anyway, while I was away, The BFF went out with some friends in town wherein a nice (much older) man offered her a glass of wine from his table of beautiful eurotrash diners. He got her number (she couldn’t afford another $16 cocktail on her own) but figured she would never hear from this person again.

Nope. Monday she received a text from him to go to dinner with a group of his friends and for her to bring a friend as well. "A group dinner date at a nice Soho restaurant. How could this be anything but awesome?” she thought.

In an attempt to not turn into crazy cat ladies, she prodded me into agreeing to this blind date on Tuesday with the trump card promise that I at least "I might have something to blog about."

Damn, she had me.

We arrived at the Eurotrashy hotspot restaurant to find the guy she had met waiting at a table for us.

From the first sight of his tanned, stocky, Eastern European appearance, you could tell there was something different about him. After awhile his cousin finally showed up. Since no such thing as a free meal and all, I was willing to smile and nod for some expensive dinner gratis, but had very low expectations.

However, he ended up being not what I was expecting at all. He was young (well, comparatively), with a chiseled face, nice smile and the floppy 90s heart throb, center-parted hair. He was a caliente charicature of a person. But not a real person, mind you. From the minute he arrived, he was different too.

And then, the final straw was when another random guy joined us halfway through the meal, but was never really formally introduced. He was just there.

So, yeah, it soon became very apparent we were involved in a situation. A bloggable situation.

With help from The BFF, I bring you:

The Guide to Mobhattan - Your date is probably involved in organized crime, IF:
- He treats everyone working at the restaurant as henchmen
- When his friend arrives out of nowhere, he discreetly hands him off a bag that totally could be carrying some sort of contraband
- When he jokes "if I told you, I'd have to kill you," you're worried he might have followed through with that promise at one point in time
- He looks down on FJO's faux-elitism, believing he is above them with "his small businesses" (I guess organized crime is recession proof?)
- He is "allergic" to working in an office, instead preferring to do business out of shady third world South American countries
- He can get reservations at notorious mafia-owned restaurant Rao "within a month" as opposed to the standard 9 month span
- He can quote the sales price of a kilo of cocaine in every continent (apparently Australia is the most 'spensy?)
- He isn't phased by sharing his $100 cigar with idiot girls
- He makes statements like "it's proven that governments need untaxed money in the system"
- He gives away his expensive watch to another friend as if it were a napkin
- He counts his country's primeminster as a friend. A friend who looks out for his business dealings
- He mocks the US Congress for being the most powerful mob of all

So, it seems that The BFF and I might have spent a lovely evening with the mafia. First date back in the game. Nice work.