Pass the Roth, Please

Who'd have thought I had so much in common with a lawyer?

When I think lawyers, I think Warren Zevon. You know, "Lawyers, Guns and Money."

My date turned out to be more like, "Lawyers, Reading and Art."

I'm not sure whether to be thrilled or suspicious.

During an outing with friends a few nights ago. I'd met a charming man who'd been e-mailing me religiously for the past 48 hours.

And I'm talking e-mails with punctuation, capitalization and well-thought out sentence structure ("I may be over-matched," he writes at one point).

It's enough to make a language geek sit up and take notice.

I did.

So when he invited me to meet him at Lemaire tonight, I did that, too.

Before he arrived, I ran into a favorite gallerist and discussed the upcoming video installation at her gallery.

Art talk over, I order a quartino of Domaine Sorin 2012 Terra Amata, a refreshing pink tasting of melon and minerals, to await the unknown.

After all, our conversation so far has been online and over the heads of two friends who sat between us at the bar at which we met.

The evening worked out so much better than I could have hoped.

From the moment he sits down, we have conversation to spare.

He's a runner, so I hear about his marathons - Boston, New York and Chicago.

I learn he has looked up my writing online at the Style Weekly website and has insightful comments to make about much of it.

Whoa. I wasn't expecting him to do homework before our date.

He wants to know what's currently on my nightstand and I tell him about the Noel Coward biography I'm reading and how it's particularly compelling to me because it was written in 1976.

I find non-fiction especially fascinating when told through the lens of a past decade since it inevitably provides a reference point for the information.

I love the way your mind works, he tells me.

I love having somebody get my mind, I tell him.

When it comes time to eat, I order tuna crudo with seaweed salad, avocado coulis and flying fish roe of three colors served in a champagne coupe.

It's a fine pairing with my Rose.

I move on to a honey-glazed pork loin chop with spoon bread, roasted apricots, all-day turnip greens and bourbon jus while we discuss childhoods, happy parents and how soft the millennial generation is.

Unexpectedly, I find myself having a far better time than I could have hoped for.

He's not quite as outgoing as me despite his profession, but he's passionate about literature and art.

I can't remember the last time I spent an evening discussing Tolstoy and Nabokov, yet here we are.

At one point, he stops the literary conversation to rave about the appeal of my smile and dimples.

"Keep smiling at me," he says.

Wow, I'd forgotten how good dating could be.

When he brings up "Blue Jasmine," I tell him I just saw it and we launch into a discussion of Woody Allen's filmography.

Like me, he became a fan in college and has been a follower ever since.

Once the wine is finished, we decide to change locations, moving to Secco to finish out our book talk over different wine.

Seated at the end of the bar with Muse and Interpol playing, I select Cuilleron Syrah Rose "Sybel," an old favorite, while he tells me about his deep affection for Haruki Murakami's writing.

Before long we are knee-deep in our appreciation for Updike ("It's like being a voyeur") when I ask him about Cheever ("God, yes!") and then he guiltily admits he's never read Roth.

How could a man this age not have read "Goodbye, Columbus"?

Without hesitating, I picture my bookshelves and offer to lend him "The Ghost Writer" and "The Human Stain."

Despite his Roth shortcomings, I have never been on a date with someone so well read.

When Secco closes down, we walk outside still talking, with him soon promising to send me a list of authors I must read.

I have died and gone to date heaven.

If he keeps this up, he's going to see a lot of the smile and the dimples.