I’m currently on the road for a work project. But no complaints from my end. I get to gallavant around the Middle East.
First up was Tel Aviv, where I managed to acquire a gentleman admirer.
During my free time there was one place I wanted to frequent as much as possible: the beach. Probably the best traits about the Israeli city are that it’s highly walkable, and it sits right next to the water. Both aspects make me want to walk around, switching off between wearing and not wearing shoes. So I did.
On my initial stroll on the sand, a voice yelled out to me, “Hey, come over here.”
I was walking solo in the middle of the day and thought, “Why not?”
Getting closer I saw the face behind the loud voice with an Israeli accent. It was filled with rotting teeth. That’s all I could focus on. The man was pushing 40, bald, with flecks of black hair all over his exposed chest and drinking a beer mid-morning, mid-week with a boombox.
Crap. Why did I walk over? Stranger danger. So I said the first thing that came to mind. “I’m jealous of your tan.” I was. Mine, earned over the course of the spring and summer, was indisputably gone.
Rotting Teeth wanted to know my story and why I was in Israel. Well, sort of. I told him a bit and then he took to interrupting me and then making me an offer (one that was necessary to refuse, by the way).
“You smoke?” he asked.
The guy did not mean Marlboros and began openly rolling a joint from his beach chair.
I didn’t want to be anywhere near this. When my new Israeli friend’s phone rang I took it as a cue to scamper off. “Where you going?”
“Oh, I have a meeting to run to,” I called back. Definitely not true but being offered pot by a strange man within hours of landing in a new country didn’t seem like the best pickup scenario, and bailing was a way better option than the truth.
The remaining daylight hours were spent walking through markets, eating a snack of pomegranates from a large paper cup and exploring gentrifying neighborhoods.
By sunset, the beach called me back and I returned to see the sun sink down over the water and fade into oblivion. As I did, I became transfixed by some type of robotic, drone-like remote-controlled machine flying overhead.
Maybe a half-hour later, that became a way for a different man, this one at least 50, to use as an approach tactic.
The exact line is out of my head, but a gray-haired Israeli in tennis shoes and a backpack, said he’d noticed me watching the flying machine. Or more precisely, he noticed my brightly colored dress. And now he felt like we should get to know each other. He was a very successful architect of some sort who lived outside of Tel Aviv but was visiting to scope out a future building project. At least that’s what he told me.
Then, like an Israeli does with hummus on a pita, he piled on the compliments. You look young yet also wise. I like you. I can tell there’s something there. Sometimes you just know someone, and I feel like I know you already.
If these things were said by someone who had let me utter more than five words, maybe I would have swooned, blushed or been flattered. At first I was. Then I was creeped out. He needed my number. He needed to see me again. Needed?! What?
I really didn’t have much time in Tel Aviv. But to keep this increasingly aggressive man at bay, I had to play his up, Meryl Streep-style with talk about meetings, events, oh-so-much work. Internationally, I don’t use my phone for calling. Skype, yes. My iPhone, no. This much is quite true, I told the man. But this logical response did not appease him. So I handed him my card, thinking I could drag an email from him into the trash as needed. The move allowed me to make a graceful goodbye and head to my hotel.
But it was not the last I heard of the architect. Over the next three days, despite the fact that I don’t accept calls, he called. And called. I ignored, trying to remain flattered by my Israeli attention.
My uncle, who’s spent a considerable time in Israel, had warned me about the men ahead of time. “I’ve been to Italy; I’ll be OK,” I reassured him, jokingly. Granted, there are some incredible men in the Middle East and, particularly, around the tiny nation of Israel; I just didn’t happen to meet them this trip.
-Dena