Date Night

I should have known the night wouldn't end well. There were so many signs from the universe telling me to quit while I was ahead and bail, but, like an asshole, I ignored them. I knew things were going pretty terribly, but I didn't expect that I was going to finish up my night being chased by a mob of dudes threatening me with bodily harm.
I was twenty, I was living at home, and I had been single, in my opinion, way too long. Basically no one my own age lived in town, so I was in a bit of a dating desert, which, of course, also meant my vagina had a climate not unlike the Sahara. I had gone on a couple dates with guys who lived in towns near me, but the limited selection pool was causing some problems. The first guy was late meeting me, and when I went outside to smoke a cigarette, I saw him chugging a Foster's in the front seat of his car. Whether his need to pregame a date was due to alcoholism or because the prospect of hanging out with me was so terrible that he needed to have a buzz, I will never know. The second guy sat down at the table, immediately asked me my SAT scores and later told me that he blowdried his hair because “wet hair in public is uncouth”. When he mentioned that he liked double breasted blazers because “they remind me of Robert Goulet”, I faked explosive diarrhea and got the fuck out of there. On the car ride home, I decided I needed to broaden my horizons.
Luckily, my friend Jenny was living in Boston. Jenny and I have always gotten along for a number of reasons: we smoke the same brand of cigarettes, wear the same size shirt, and are generally up front and non-sentimental about things. She's the perfect friend to bring to a party, because she ends up talking to whoever and doesn't stick to you like a barnacle when you're trying to flirt with someone. In the past, I've tried to explain to certain friends that I don't want to advertise a two-for-one deal, and that they need to fuck off when I'm attempting to hit on someone, but that usually ended up in hurt feelings and passive aggressive text messages. So I stopped inviting any of my friends who weren't socially retarded which, basically, just left Jenny.
So out we went. We couldn't go to bars because we were underage, so we went to lame party after lame party in Allston. After I got drunk and made out with a guy with a lip ring who was also wearing suspenders, I got a little disillusioned. But then I ran into a guy who I went to high school with. He was a couple years older, and he lived in Boston, and he was very, very, very cute. I dragged Jenny to one of his band's shows. After the set, I went over to say hello to him...and met his very, very, very pretty girlfriend. But the drummer of the band was decent looking, and eventually asked me for my phone number. He seemed normal and, after I checked under his jacket for rainbow suspenders, I agreed to go out with him later that week.
He texted me a day or two after, and I was pleased with his reliability. He invited me to a show, and I said yes before asking what band it was. Rookie mistake. It ended up being a band that I hated. Not only that, but I had recently been invited to one of their concerts by a friend and responded “I will never go to a Tiger City concert, they blow”. But my desire to get some action was overpowering my desire to be a woman of my word. He mentioned he was meeting some friends there, so I should bring some friends as well. That was irritating, but I didn't exactly have a full social calender at the time, so I called Jenny and she agreed to be my wingman.
The day of the concert, I was getting ready and accidentally stepped on my purse, and snapped my license clean in half. I got out the glue gun and my Bedazzler, but it was hopeless. Then I had a thought. And then I slapped myself on the forehead. I was going to have to borrow my little sister's ID. She had turned eighteen exactly a week earlier, just old enough to get me into the show. I realized I was probably going to be the first person to ever use a fake ID to make themselves younger, and I also realized that that made a huge asshole. I pushed my shame aside, and packed my overnight bag, which contained a handle of Tanqueray, an extra pack of cigarettes and my contact case. Just the essentials.
The drummer had told me the show was at 8:30, so Jenny and I started pregaming around seven thirty. We arrived at the Paradise around 8:45 with a mild buzz, and set up post in a darkened doorway near the club, so we could continue to nurse our gin and Spite's. Nine o'clock came and went, and then so did nine thirty. It was cold out, so we briefly took refuge in a Chipotle bathroom, but I was worried that my date would show up and I'd never be able to find him inside the club. So we loitered in that doorway, getting drunk. People would walk by and stare at us, and I can only assume they thought we were homeless or prostitutes.
And then I caught a familiar glint at the corner of a mouth attached to a guy walking by me.
“HEY! LIP RING!” I yelled. My former makeout partner turned and stared at me.
“YOU NEVER CALLED ME, AND YOU ASKED FOR MY NUMBER.” I hadn't wanted to see him again, but he went out of his way to find a pen that night and take my number down. I had no problems with one night makeout mistakes at that point in my life, and I felt very offended that this loser tried to pull a fast one on me. I considered pulling that stupid hoop right out of his face. It was then I realized he was wearing a jacket reading “BU SAFEWALK” and that he was escorting some girl home to her apartment as part of his job. We stared at each other and he mumbled something about calling me.
Then I got a text from my date, informing me that he would be arriving in less than five minutes. We emerged from the shadows, blinking while our pupils adjusted. We stood to the left of the door, and Iglanced around at the rest of the people outside. I didn't like the looks of them.
My date arrived via bus, departed, looked around and spotted me. He smiled and walked toward me and...high fived me. I left my hand raised in shock. He immediately turned and walked to a group to the right of the door without even glancing back at me. Jenny looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust.
“Did he just high five you?” She said as she watched him walk inside the club with his group of friends. I ignored the question and turned to her.
“Are we supposed to follow him in?”
Jenny paid the five dollar cover. The doormen looked at my ID, congratulated me on being old enough to go to my first 18+ show, and let me in for free. I read the set list on the doors, and noticed it was college night. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I can assure you when I walked in and saw a burrito eating contest between a BU student and one from Northeastern, I was shocked. I found my date right as the main band was going to go on. He had removed his leather jacket and rolled up his t-shirt sleeves into a makeshift tank top, and his armpits were emitting a pungent smell similar to cabbage. I avoided eye contact with Jenny, because I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. The band started.
I tried to enjoy myself, I really did. I even tried to dance, but I was distracted by my “date”. He was trying to prove to his friends that you could do the Macarena to any song. I wanted to tell him that of course you can, but you sure as hell shouldn't. When he started shimmying, trying to dance back to back with me, I knew it was a lost cause. I turned to Jenny and told her we were leaving.
“Thank god.” she yelled over some horrible synthesizer.
I tapped him on his shoulder and told him I was getting out of that hellhole.As he wiped an excessive amount of sweat from his brow, he looked puzzled as to why I would want to go. I knew I had an opportunity to educate him on normal dating etiquette, but I was exhausted from all the effort of the evening. Instead, I just raised my arm and high-fived him good-bye.
After thanking the doormen for the birthday wishes on our way out, I lit a cigarette and tried to tell myself that it couldn't get worse. Then, I heard a voice. A male one. A voice belonging to some douchey college guy.
“Hey girl, you're too pretty to be smoking. Smoking kills.”
“I'm passive aggressivly suicidal.” I snapped back.
“Come over, here, I'll give you a reason to live.” He smirked at me as his friends laughed.
“Listen, I've had a really bad night, so I am not in the mood. Fuck off.” I knew it wasn't his fault, but I had to draw a line somewhere. Then I heard this:
“Whatever cunt, you're not that hot.” I dropped my purse and my cigarette and walked up to him, pointing my finger in his face.
“What did you call me? What the fuck did you say?” I was yelling because of all my pent up anger from the evening, and also so he could hear me, because he was easily a foot taller than I was.
“I called you a cunt, cunt.” That was it. I hauled off and punched him in the face. He stopped, put his hand to his cheekbone.
“Ow,” he sounded shocked, “Ow, MY EYE!” His friends got belligerent very quickly. Jenny shoved my purse in my hand, and pulled me away. And the guy and all his friends started to follow.
We started sprinting at a pace that was miraculous for two out of shape smokers. I could hear them behind us, yelling at me to stop. Around the time I started to get a stomach cramp, I realized that this whole situation was pretty ridiculous. Jenny kept running but I turned around.
“What are you going to do?” I wheezed. “Gang rape us?”
They all stopped running and looked at each other. I had taken a gamble. Either I was going to scare them off with the mention of rape, or I had just given them a really good idea. Before they came to consensus, Jenny hailed a cab and threw me into the back seat.
Jenny told the driver her address, and then we were silent. Jenny turned to me.
“I can't believe he high-fived you hello.”
We started laughing, and soon we were in hysterics. I've known for years that I have a propensity for getting myself into absurd situations, but this was in a whole other league. I made a promise to myself right there in the back of that cab that I would stop going on dates just because I was asked on one. Maybe being single wasn't so bad, if it meant not settling for a boyfriend like that guy. I shuddered at the thought. Maybe I would actually wait to hook up with someone until I found a guy I actually cared about. I considered that idea, and then began to wonder where I could hide a vibrator so my mom wouldn't find it.

And if you have any doubts about the authenticity of this story, you can ask Jenny because, sadly, it is 100% true.

Celibate and Ready To Mingle

Facebook ads are an unruly beast. I typically get advertisements for electrician supplies, like “wire nut gloves”. I also get random ads for engagement rings,which causes me to me on my own spit, even though I love my boyfriend. But lately I've been getting ones advising me to go school to become a priest or nun or go into some sort of Jesus Peace Corps. I'm not exactly sure why Facebook decided those were appropriate for me, because my interests on my profile are “Hustlin'” and “Ketel One”.The most disturbing development is a series of ads for “Christan Mingle.com”. It's tagline is as follows: “Find God's Match For You.” That sentiment is one of the biggest problems I have with Christianity, right up there with the other irritating things like no masturbation and an irrational hate of shellfish. But, ultimately, it's the idea these Christians try to hammer into my head that God has a predetermined plan for me that really gets my chastity belt in a twist.
First of all, how do I get a copy of this so-called plan? I don't like surprises. Plus, all the surprises in the bible are terrible and employed in the plot as ways to prove your faith to god. He never gives good surprises, just shit like locusts and a disembodied voice telling you to murder your children. So, obviously, I'd like to know if God is going to give me colon cancer, or gangrene, or scurvy, so I can prepare accordingly. If I'm going to have a near death experience in the future, I just think it'd be nice if he gave me a little notice. That way I can shave my legs the day that I'm going to get in an almost fatal car accident so the EMTs won't be grossed out by my pale legs, which will have become ape-like in hair coverage after what could be weeks of me forgetting to buy razors at CVS. And maybe, if they're lucky, I'll have the foresight to wear underwear under my jeans so when they cut the fabric off my mangled body to view the damage, the nurses won't think I'm a hussy.
I did some research on how to find God's Plan for me (a.k.a I Googled “How to find god's plan for me”), and a lot of it was about how you need to pray and then “God's plan will reveal itself”. Sorry, God, but I spent a lot of money on therapy sessions and SSRIs, so if you think I'm going to do something to actively promote the hearing of voices, you're fucked. I'd prefer a hard copy, notarized by an angel, sent to my mailing address. I'm assuming he has that on file somewhere.
One website I looked at said that I “was blessed to have free will” and now what I needed to do was use that “free will” to decide to follow “God's will” and “his word” (or, more accurately, the word of some guys who recorded glorified legends way after the fact, with sweet action scenes about rapes, murders and raging infernos)(Basically a Law and Order S.V.U episode) and that will be my plan. This seems odd to me. If God had a specific course selected for me, why would he let me fuck it up with free will in the first place? In the purpose of discourse, I will now assume that God is essentially playing an elaborate game of The Sims with the population at large. This actually makes a lot of sense to me. Every time I've played The Sims, I've ended up watching my mini-people piss themselves, leave partially consumed food all over the floor and, on one occasion, light their significant other on fire in an oven accident. I would bet my last tallboy that those would be among the tamer scenes God watches on a daily basis. I used the cheat codes to buy all the nicest shit available for my Sims, decorated a whole house for them, and then they would literally piss on it. God created a nice little world for us, and we fucked it all up within 6000 years (Obviously, I do not believe that is the correct number, and neither should you, dumbass). No wonder God flooded the earth to punish us. He was just trying to get the pee stains out of the carpet.
Plus, it seems like to me, that God isn't always attentive to the follow through. It's a trite argument to be like “Oh, why do babies die? Did God plan that? Why does he let people get murdered?”. I think it's probably like this: Those dicks had a plan originally, but God just kind of forgot about them for a second, and next thing you know, they're chopping up body parts in a basement dungeon and eating them. If all babies are a gift from God, I think we should return some for store credit. God made too many children, so he can't possibly keep track of all of them, like the Duggar family and their army of babies. I'm sure Michelle Duggar forgets one or more children at the grocery store on a fairly regular basis. Although, to be fair, it's easy to pick them out because they dress like Laura Ingles Wilder.
But still, all of this still doesn't explain why ChristianMingle.com thinks using an online dating source means following God's plan for you. Unless of course, Jesus is the CEO and the Holy Ghost does the official match making selections.

Great Minds Think Alike (Alternately, Why I Hate Tumblr)

I'm not going to rant against the concept of “social media”, so don't worry. I have a Facebook, and moreover, I have a phone that has a specific button that allows me to instantly post anything to my Facebook. At first my only activity was to butt-post “Qqqql7shrfh” a bunch of times, but then I noticed myself snapping a picture and posting it to my wall more and more often. And that is because nothing happens anymore unless you can prove it with a Facebook status.
Carl Jung articulated the idea of a “collective unconscious”. (If you don't get what I'm talking about, Google it. Not only will you learn something, but you will unwittingly tie into my point from here on out.) In the past ten years, however, social media has surpassed that Psychology 101 shit and accelerated into a giant, ever expanding “collective conscious”. Instead of archetypes based on centuries of history and mythology, we have these fleeting cultural vortexes that exist only because a group of people randomly pay attention to them. Ancient cultures all had a god of war, of love, and of the sea. We have Facebook notifications and Antoine Dodsen.
I went to high school before Facebook was popular (possibly before it was invented, although, that seems like an odd choice of words). Pre-FB the only good part of Monday morning was the rumor mill that spread like the clap through a frat house. By third period, I knew exactly what had happened at that party I wasn't invited to. Who threw up after too much Smirnoff, who's, like, a huge stoner now, and who gave a blowjob to a random guy. All the dirt was whispered at lockers between classes. When you were actually at one of those parties, you were constantly surrounded by people interrogating you in the lunch line. This makes you feel important and relevant, which is the fucking best thing a high school student could hope for. That doesn't happen anymore. I know what happened at that party I didn't go to, because I got constant, practically instantaneous updates via my phone and my Facebook throughout the night, usually interrupting my very important plans (Like drinking wine and watching the Millionaire Matchmaker by myself). If there aren't forty pictures of you and your friends holding Busch Light cans viewable to your colleagues, acquaintances and distant relatives mere hours after occurrence, that party may as well have been a figment of your imagination. Before you roll your eyes at me for being overly reactionary, consider this: how many times have you clicked through an album of a party that you were at and have gotten increasingly worried as each picture loaded because you weren't in any of them? If there's no picture, were you even really there? You might as well not have even gone, because the three hundred and fifty assholes who follow you on Twitter don't know you went. Without injecting yourself into the internet dialogue they constantly follow, you're likely to be entirely forgotten in a matter of hours. You should have joined me on the couch for a dinner of salt and vinegar chips and sugar-free pudding (actual dinner I ate last week).
Growing up, I always entertained fantasies of what my high school reunion would be like. Of course, I would have turned out fucking awesome, and I'd be sitting at the table with all the former freaks and nerds who have now turned into swans with six figure incomes, laughing about how the prom queen had really let herself go. The fact that my school didn't have a prom queen is irrelevant. I was going to breeze into the room, worldly and sophisticated, shocking everyone after five years. I had five fucking years between graduation and the reunion to mold myself into the kind of person no one would have guessed I'd turn out to be. Well, fuck you Facebook, for dashing my dreams. We don't need a reunion any more. Logging onto Facebook allows me to instantly see who got married, who's gay now and who is carrying the freshman fifteen well into their twenties. I know where you went to college, and, moreover, I know what your friends at college look like. I am plagued by the fear that I will one day see a supporting actress from someone I know's pictures in real life and say hi to them, mistakenly assuming that I actually know them. Everyone on my friend's list already knows everything about me, from movies to hair cuts to daily activities to preferences of cute animal videos (baby monkeys and kittens). I was totally planning on pulling a Romy and Michelle, and now that is impossible. Even if I lose five pounds before the reunion, it won't matter. Everyone will be like, oh, huh, she lost some weight since last Tuesday when I saw that picture of her posing with that Busch Light can.
It gets worse when you consider all the random “friends” you accrue that you don't actually want to know. Example: I recently saw a post about a “friend” from L.A who I never liked to begin with. She's pregnant (and a hipster), and I looked through all her baby shower pictures, hating myself the whole time (not as much as I hate her for naming her kid Harlon Wilder). I haven't seen her in five years. Before Facebook, I would have never been forced to care about the life of a girl I never really liked to begin with. But there I sat, in a trance, staring at pictures of her with a giant bump, tattoos and a suitably hip boyfriend named Courtney.
Ridiculously enough, I've lost friends because of Facebook. I offended someone for writing too many status updates. Apparently, another one of our mutual friends offended the same person because she posts too many photos (she's a professional photographer....). I told them to just unsubscribe to me and they said they did but “it was really hard”. Like right-clicking is really that difficult, asshole. There was no fight in real life, no perceived slight, no stolen boyfriend, just a collection of intangible thoughts I posted about my life typed on a website. My fucking life offended her. I know a bunch of people who constantly write threatening statuses about “cleaning out my friends list and deleting a bunch of people”. I don't delete anyone based on principle (unless they are a creep, play Farmville or send me invites to their DJ night every hour) . How do you categorically decide someone is no longer worth knowing? Chances are, you met them at least once, when you were drunk at a party. You deemed them worthy of an add at that moment, but two weeks later you're like, fuck it, they're outta here. This philosophy is undoubtedly why my homepage is clogged with tons of shit, but everyone deserves the chance to participate in my internet world. Who am I to play god with your existence?
But at least Facebook is comprised of mostly original things (except for you assholes who post cheesy quotes you found on “Vaguequotedouche.com”). Tumblr is a whole other beast. I've tried to read a Tumblr a couple of times, but then I start trying to figure out where the fuck all this “reblogged” stuff comes from. Is there a ground zero for this shit? People subscribe to you so they can see things that you repost from other people who you follow who repost from other people they follow who,repost things from some Tumblr wizard who, as far as I can tell, churns out pictures of seventies porn, Japanese fashion models and other things I don't want to look at. I miss Live Journal and Myspace, where are you had to do to be popular was write shitty poetry and have good side bangs. I am much more comfortable being judged for how good my angled pictures look in sepia than having to pick out things that actually interest and “represent” me. I think it's a little sad that the things you choose to put on a sort of personality scrapbook are all copied from other people. My status updates may be annoying, but at least they're my own thoughts. I've even heard the phrase “famous on tumblr” thrown around. You should know better. Tila Tequila was a Myspace celebrity, and look how she turned out. At least she was famous for being kind of naked. “Tumblr famous” just means you spend too much time Photoshopping Marilyn Monroe quotes onto pictures of her face.
And I know I'm being slightly hypocritical, because this is going on a blog. Blogging is sometimes like listening to someone sing a capella directly to you in an inappropriate setting. Even though you clicked on the link in the first place, you still want to avert your eyes and pretend you don't know the writer. But even if you are silently judging me while Facebook chatting with five different people, telling them how lame I am, at least you saw this link. The more you talk, the more certain I am that I exist today. #plsretweet2allyrfriends.