I Dated Monica Lewinsky - Jake Tapper
Interesting read from 1998
Behind the tawdriest of headlines, there's a woman I wouldn't mind bringing home to mom.
Jake Tapper
Jan 30, 1998 12 AM
"It's still etched on my December calendar: the Saturday night of Joe and Danielle's going-away party at Stetson's on U Street NW. I walked in, checked out the crowd, and immediately headed for Doug, the owner. I chatted and drank with him, and, in an effort to make myself as unapproachable as possible, I started shooting pool with him. Soon enough, Doug was called back to his duties, and I had to start feeding the table quarters. Between my former colleague Maloni and me, we could only scrape together three of the requisite four quarters. I took that particular need and blended it with another one, stepping up to a group of three women who had been hovering near the table.
"Do any of you have a quarter?" I asked, and one of them, the one with the smile that seemed to be about nothing in particular, dug into her purse and handed me one. I thanked her, introduced myself, and resumed hunting my target stripes.
"Am I drunk, or is she cute?" I asked Maloni.
"Which one?" he said.
"Monica," I said. "The one in the black."
"You're drunk," said Maloni, a rugby pretty boy. I overruled him. She was cute, if a little zaftig. And friendly. And nice.
I hovered around the coral reef of the pool table for hours that night, never coming up for air. It was fine, paddling in my little eddy of indifference, waiting for others to approach me. Which Monica did. I was lining up a side shot when she stepped up and dropped three quarters onto the table, the smile now seemingly offered more specifically for my benefit.
"For the game?" I asked. "You got next?"
"No, for you," she said. "Just some extra I had."
So, ignoring the usual coy mating rituals, Monica felt free to actually be nice. Just to be nice. Maybe she wanted to meet me or someone like me. Regardless, it was refreshing. A warm patch of water in an otherwise chilly ocean. The simple act of gifting me with a few quarters after knowing me but a few minutes disarmed me.
I was intrigued enough to approach Joe, who was the raison d'être for the going-away party. Upon gentle inquiry, Joe told me that Monica was bad news, that she had left the White House because she had kept wandering into the Oval Office and inappropriately striking up conversations with the commander in chief.
much more: https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/13014731/i-dated-monica-lewinsky
= new reply since forum marked as read
That's my guess. 
