A Kiss on The Cheek

I ignorantly skipped over a dozen of steps in thai dating tradition.

Illustration by Andra Emilia Fenton

I was a little bleary-eyed and wasn’t paying too much attention to my conversation with Ron, a coworker, on a January morning years ago. Then he asked a question that made me focus.

“Dan, are you single?”

I waited a beat.

“Um … excuse me? Are you propositioning me?”

“OH! Oh, god, no!” Ron laughed. “I’m seeing a woman named Nan, from Thailand. She has a friend named Ae. She’s really nice, is in New York working as an au pair and is pretty lonely. Also, she’s a knockout. Would you have any interest in maybe taking her out?”

“Yes!” I said, pretty eagerly. The past year, after my last and then-longest relationship had ended, had been a bit lonely. What followed was the most awkward, and best, date of my life.

First, Ae and I exchanged photos. Ae was crouched next to an amiable yellow lab in hers, which I immediately took as a good sign. She had long, surprisingly curly brown-black hair, a one-thousand-megaton smile and eyes the color of dark-roast coffee beans…