Temporary

The Russian & Turkish Bathhouse on 10th Street in the Village looks like its been frozen in time in the 1980s. You walk into a dining-room with linoleum floors, fluorescent lighting, faux wood paneling, and a surely Russian chef behind the counter who seems personally offended any time anyone orders anything. Fat, hairy men sit at the tables in their towels. The hallway is sopping with wet footprints. A Turkish boy with a peach-fuzz mustache hands out threadbare brown towels and strange black hospital-like robes that don't really work. Portly naked women in the locker room warn me about bathing without the robe that is handed out. "Watch out," one says in a thick Russian accent. "These men like to stare at pretty young skin like yours."

He said to meet him in the "big Russian room." So, when I descend into the subterranean warren of steam rooms and saunas, I peek my head into every room, each time eliciting awkward moments in which numerous people lift their heads up to stare at me through the steam. The "big Russian room" ends up being the last one, the one with stone walls, the one where men lay on wooden planks being kneaded by other men, where some women unsnap their bikini tops, where people stand in line to throw buckets of ice-cold water on each other. He smiles at me when I enter, his big charming shiny smile.

After the first date, I was certain I would never contact him again. But he offered to cook for me, so I decided to go on one more date. He's a "filmmaker" and an "art-handler." In New York City language, that means he has a rent-control apartment and he moves things as a day job. I've been dating all these rich jerks for a while, so why not try someone poor? For variety. He's interesting at least: His mom was a Jewish bohemian who settled in the East Village and had three children by three different men in three different countries. They grew up in a ground-floor apartment on St. Marks, which he now lives in with a cat named Max (yes, rent-control). It's between the Yaffa Cafe and Cafe Mogador next door to a second-hand bookstore, and it hasn't been renovated since his mother lived there. The bathroom is in the kitchen, the wooden floors are painted red, the kitchen cabinets are just shelves. The thing is: He's an amazing chef. He has one of those CSA shares so the wooden table in the kitchen is always piled with vegetables. We spend Friday nights peeling potatoes and carrots, drinking red wine and laughing, and later eating. I've never dated anyone so poor, so healthy. I've eaten at a lot of fancy restaurants, and I would say his cooking is way up there, sometimes even better.

He's been going to the Russian & Turkish baths since he was young ("only the co-ed nights," he assures me). He introduces me to the other regulars, gnarled old people with crazy city tales. He remembers a time when Madonna made it fashionable for women to walk outside wearing only their bras. He remembers his mother's gay friends dying of AIDS at St. Vincent's. He listens to music the same way he has all his life: By turning the knob on the radio until there is a signal. He is passionate about rent-control and water-quality and organic food. But he is also a conspiracy theorist, which means this will not last forever. But that is sort of the beauty of it: knowing there is an end, only enjoying the moment.