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.