this earned me a "Jen - bite me"

Brian Van is either offended or mock-offended by my review of his date on his blog.

If those possessive pronouns were confusing, let's review: The New York Post runs a dating column called "Meet Market." I was once in Meet Market. Brian Van writes a blog in which he reviews each entry in Meet Market. Once the Post was well-aware of Brian's blog, Brian himself applied to be a dater in Meet Market. Last week, his profile was published, and since he could not review it himself, I stepped in to write a guest review. This week, Brian went on his date, and I have written my second guest review. Whew!

So, here's an excerpt from the guest review about which Brian frets and fusses:

This week's Post dating roundup reads like the "What I Did Last Summer" essay I wrote in Mrs. Everhart's third-grade class, which I have taken the liberty to include for you here:

I like my grandma. She is nice. I visited her. That is in Ohio. It was hot. But fun. We ate pie.
- Jenny Dziura

One might attribute the milquetoast blandness of this column to the fact of this being the most over-documented date in the history of dating. For the date, Brian chose 28 year old editor Shevi, also my suggestion from my review last week here on the Lectern. So far, so good -- until Shevi realized, as she undoubtedly did at some point in the evening, that this was a "date" on which the Post was trying to impress Brian, all while Brian was trying to impress his readers, and that she had essentially walked into someone else's sick media clusterfuck.

Shevi's review follows. "I got to Paris Match first. It is a small, candlelit, wood-paneled bistro with an atmosphere as flowing as the Seine."

"An atmosphere as flowing as the Seine." Can you imagine dating this girl? Dear Brian, I cannot see you anymore. Though our love has been bountiful like the Mekong in monsoon season, our future is waning like a Gibbous moon.

She continues, guardedly: "Within seconds, we started talking about Brian's blog. As dinner progressed, we talked about our jobs and aspirations, and places we'd traveled." She ends "I really enjoyed meeting Brian and sharing a summer evening of excellent conversation and food with him."

Uh-huh. This is why reality television shows contractually obligate people to get into hot tubs together.

The only sensible conclusion to draw from these mutually bland reviews is that our daters, in the face of media scrutiny, spent their date developing a strategy of calculated misinformation, hastily scribbled these reviews (each approved by the other) on wine lists stolen from Paris Match, and went home together, happy to live in a world in which "shared a cab to the West Side and then exchanged contact information" can also mean "hit it from the back all night long."

Or else these are two really, really boring people.

Your call.

Incidentally, this picture of Brian Van lookin' sexy in a Peeps t-shirt proves he doesn't really hate me:


p.s. This just occurred to me -- I wonder if anyone has ever said "I've got a New York Post for ya right here, baby"?