Man: What, you like wit?  It gets an eyebrow, or a corner smile, but never anywhere with the ladies.
Woman: Maybe it’s your delivery.
Man: Don’t tell me you just said that.
Woman: I shouldn’t have to.
Man: Oh, I see, well, I hope I wouldn’t… embarrass you too much… to say you look… lovely tonight?
Woman: It’s the delivery, too much hesitation.
Man: You see something beautiful in the moonlight…
Woman: Thing?
Man: Yes like a doe, in a forest glade, in early spring for a cool drink.
Woman: Good diction.
Man: Thank you, I always try to make it good, even if I’m the only one who hears it.
Woman: So, I’m a doe.
Man: Now you know.
Woman: Okay, and you’re…
Man: an average joe?
Woman: Is joe your name?
Man: might as well be.
Woman: oh—
Man: --you see something beautiful in the moonlight, you move in quietly.  That’s what I meant to say.  But yes, I mumble.  I try to say interesting things, I just don’t always believe em to interest everybody.  And they don’t.
Woman: I’m sure they interest more than you think.
Man: More in people or more in interest?
Woman: Who care how many people, it’s all about what you say.
Man: Is it?
Woman: oh yes, very much so.  For example.
Man: Okay.
Woman: The words we emit.
Man: Omit?
Woman: E-mit.
Man: Ah emote.
Woman: No, e-mit.
Man: Oh, electronic mitting.
Woman: Yes.  The words we emit right now, are lost, they come out as waves and degenerate into nothing as energy dissipates and thermodynamic…
Man: regulates.
Woman: Thank you.
Man: Don’t talk science, that’s like Ingrid Bergman writing in her diary “men write about wanting a woman to love and have a simple life.  That’s me, if only he could see.”
Woman: I have a diary.
Man: Don’t.
Woman: Come on, a diary isn’t that phenomenal.
Man: Mmm, I guess not, but don’t tell me you constructed Bronte-scale stories as a young girl, any more literary illusions.
Woman: Allusions?
Man: Ill-lusions.
Woman: Elusion?
Man: Ill-lusions.
Woman: Sick lusionations.
Man: Yes, exactly.  How many times have I told you your beautiful tonight?
Woman: Um…  Two?
Man: Would you rather I tell you your also intelligent and illuminating.
Woman: allumin—
Man: --ating.
Woman: siding
Man: With?
Woman: Chromium?
Man: The element?
Woman: The word.
Man: As a side?
Woman: As an aside.
Man: Come now.
Woman: Where to.
Man: Oh, okay.
W: Where?
M: Follow.
M takes her by the hand, walks her in circles around the stage.
W: That was fun.
M: Mmm, yes.
W: Now what?
M: Sex?
W: Sure.
M takes her by the hand, walks her in circles around the stage.
W: Now what?
M: Meta 4^th wall cheap redundancy humor?
W: Okay.
M takes her by the hand, walks her in circles around the stage.
M: Now what?
W: Well we can’t rightly just have sex.
M: Yes, I suppose not.
W: We have just met.
M: I watch… too many bad role models.
W: Yeah, they call themselves models.
M: Ah, sex talk though?
W: Is leading us to a frustrated night.
M: Fair, okay, so tell me about yourself.  Charm me.
W: Oh, okay, screek screek.  That’s my emotional spigot, by the way, your cinema verite has veritably rendered me weak.
M: Oh.  Not that well.
W: So, you feel less sexually frustrated to talk of sex then it is to talk of talk.
M: Good talk.
W: Requires good diction.
M: Which you have.
W: Please.
M: Especially by moonlight.
W: I live for the night.
M: I live in the night.
W: I would, I have, but it scares people.
M: Ah, see men who chose solace in night become either geniuses or madmen.  Women, you don’t get the choice.
W: Have you seen…
M: Yes, and yes, Angelina Jolie is a great actress, and what you like Bob Dylan too? No, I don’t know who tom waits or Ben Sherman, are I mean I haven’t heard their stuff so I don’t really know.  But yeah stones and beatles.  Right, yeah they had good fashion back then.
W: Did they, I didn’t know you knew that about fashion.
M: That much rather.
W: Rather.
M: My head hurts.
W: Don’t tell me you have a headache again!
M: Cute, but no, yes.
W: Oh.
M: Yes.
W: How can I help.
M: Do you know any negro spirituals.
W: Hmm, let’s see.
M: Nevermind.
W: Would you like some lemonade.
M: Have you got any?
W: No, but I figured that would be a more appropriate female thing to say.
M: There is nothing appropriate about it, it’s all about how you look saying it.
W: Ah.  Delivery.
M: Beauty.
W: Who’s, mine?
M: Yes, yours.
W: What about yours.
M: (affronted) What mine?!
W: Yes, you’re quite--
M: --pretty.
W: Okay, not the word I’d have used.
M: What word would you have used.
W: What word would you like to hear?
M: Oh!  Only one word?  This isn’t fair.
W: Alright, we’ll take turns.
M: Passion.
W: (nods) Feminism.
M: (dubious) Love.
W: (snarl) Feel.
M: (agree) Touch.
W: Hold.
M: Breathe.
W: Feel.
M: Love.
W: Sexy.
M: (eyebrow) versimillitude.
W: modernity.
M: pubeccocious.
W: Is that right?
M: Oh totally.
W: Sexy.
M: (shivers) Nice.  Very sexy.
W: I want passion too.
M: I want to feel.
W: I want to love.
M: I want to hold.
W: Is it just me or is it getting to pubeccocious in here?
M: Sigh, it isn’t just you.
W: Why is it the propriety of life, the stupid little things, so intrusive?
M: Like what?
W: Like, we can’t make out right now.
M: We can’t.
W: Serious.
M: You know, you can’t even say that.
W: I know.
M: Because then you’re initiating sex talk.
W: Which may give off the wrong impression.
M: Or give away too many intentions.
W: Or just frustrate us, since tension aside, we’ve only just met.
M: Yes, tis true, sad in that this moment, this bliss of first meeting is gone, for what follows can be richer and fuller but can never replicate the first night.
W: The first conversation.
M: After this…
W: I get scared and don’t return your calls.
M: Or I get scared and call too many times.
W: And I get scared because there are so many calls, and you don’t even know what I’m going through right now in my life.
M: And I get scared because I’ve called too much, and I know it, and I leave you every contact I can in my last message and say, with all finality.
W: This is my last message, I won’t call again.
M: I just want to say, fuck it, why are we so afraid?
W: Why can’t we just enjoy life?
M: Get caught up in the moment?
W: We’re afraid things will get too messy…
M: Feelings will get hurt.
W: Akward moments will occur.
M: Messy feelings, akward moments.  Not good.
W: But what do you do when you leave work, school, whatever?  You go home, turn on the tv, microwave some popcorn.
M: Watch some NBC prime time sitcom shtick.
W: Till your shtick to your stomach.
M: And perhaps contemplate your loneliness and why oh why won’t Guy A.
W: Or Girl B.
M: Which is neither you.
W: Nor me.
M: Won’t see that your just Ingrid bergman writing in your diary.
W: Problem is.
M: Ingrid Bergman would never really have that problem.
W: Yeah, like Mel Gibson’s a freak.
M: Uh, what’s her face with the teeth is a boy.
W: From Boys Don’t Cry, you mean.
M: Yeah.
W: I don’t remember.
M: Weird, every time I ask somebody if they know a person’s name, it seems they don’t, but they’ll know what I’m talking about.  Scary to think no one knows more useless knowledge then me.
W: Mmm, and so we’re going to wait, be lonely?
M: Right, because, what, people get too attached, and you want to have fun, but you can’t have fun and be passionate because this is an age of fear.
W: AIDs, pregnancy.
M: Dr. Drew says no orgies.
W: You could be a Melrose Place rate stalker.
M: And you could be one of those “messed up chicks of the changing times,” watching one too many life-time movies.  Have you ever met anyone who’s been abducted?  Do you think vans just roam residential streets nightly looking for sweet little kids and defenseless women?
W: And you could be another overly eager, hormonal trickster, out to steal my flowers, and other disempowered euphemisms for getting violated.  Or at least pressed with alcohol and constantly trying to initiate physical contact in appropriate ways.
M: That’s happened to you.
W: Well, not to that extent…
M: What show was it.
W: Blind Date.
M: See, media thrives on fear.  Rather propaganda does.  Not that Blind Date is propaganda.  I was thinking about church stained-windows in medieval times.
W: I was thinking Stalin.
M: I was thinking maybe that’s not a fun way to live.
W: Hmm, I can see that.
M: Maybe we should try something different?
W: like?
M: Throwing caution to the wind, break some rules.
W: What are we waiting for.
M: I think for me to initiate this impetuous new age.
W: But you think I’ll run.
M: And will you?
W: It’s all about the delivery.
M goes in for a kiss.
Curtain falls.