April32012
When I moved away from Riverside, I had to find a new mall. When I know I’ll be spending some time in a new place, I like to walk around to get the feel of it, so I know where everything is, where the car parks are in relation to the stores, and so on. If that sounds strange, it’s nowhere near the weirdest thing about me.
So I was looking around my second choice mall, walking the perimeter, checking out all the stores, when I heard a girl calling me over. She was cute, with long brown hair, and dressed all in black: a short skirt and a shirt open perhaps one button more than her parents would be happy with, and a little gold badge that just said: Brittany. My hormones calmed down after I glanced behind her and saw one of those little cart islands whence Verizon inflict their terrible goods and services on passers-by.
“I’m fine for phones, Brittany. Which is a shame, because I’d really like to talk to you some more.”
She looked confused, but rallied almost instantly.
“I get off in about an hour! If you like. We can.”
I wasn’t expecting that, but my hormones did the talking for me. I told her I had a few things to do and I’d come back for her. When I came back, I almost didn’t recognize her; she was dressed much more conservatively in a polo neck and sensible jeans. As we walked to an Applebee’s across the lot from the main mall, she explained that she only dressed “slutty” to attract business from low-functioning males. She didn’t use the phrase “low-functioning males”, but that’s what she meant. Moreover, she clearly didn’t think I was one of those, for reasons unclear to me even now.
As soon as we ordered, I tried to talk to her about anything at all because she was really quiet. I found this odd given how forward she was before. It turns out that the forward attitude and the hot outfit are a two-for-one deal. She didn’t really say much. She had no hobbies to speak of, and the only friends she had were the people she met every Sunday at her church. I asked if she wanted something to drink in the hopes of loosening her up a bit, but she said she didn’t drink. In fact, her entire life revolved around this church of hers and her jobs. She had another job as a hostess at a bar downtown, which I’ve never been to because I don’t want to buy drugs or arrange a murder, and for which I can only assume she has an even more misleading personality.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how exactly do you reconcile your conservative Christian beliefs with your chosen jobs?”
“Jesus often hung around with prostitutes and sinners.”
“Well, yes, but I think he was a bit more mission-oriented.”
“So am I!”
“What?”
“Well, if I can save even one of those poor people, I think it would fantastic!”
“What about me?”
She pulled some magazines out of her little bag. I cast my mind back to earlier. Only now could I recall that there was some sort of Latter Day Saints office behind the Verizon next to Hollister.
“You said you wanted to know more…”
I may be the first person in history to solicit a Jehovah’s Witness.
February182012
Sometimes I meet women on the internet. The real world lets me down sometimes, so how bad can it be, right? I like to think the stigma attached to internet dating has finally been washed away by how successful it is. In any case, I prefer not to go on specific dating sites. I just run into people via my tumblr page or my Facebook and get talking to them.
On one occasion, earlier this year, I was getting along really well with a girl who initially contacted me on tumblr due to a cynical comment I made on someone else’s post, which made an obscure reference to Russian literature. We shared many interests, and I spoke to her for hours every night on AIM. She liked all the same books, the same movies, and seemed to have some intellectual depth, something sadly lacking from my usual romantic interests. Although there were two states between us, after two years of casual internet contact she decided she wanted to come see me. This was the best news I had all year! Finally I get to meet a girl that I know for a fact likes me and with whom I get along really well. We don’t have to worry about any of that getting-to-know-you garbage, a waste of everyone’s time. I can’t remember the last time I felt this close to someone. The fact that she looked gorgeous in her photos was really just a bonus. She was like a pixie, with hair dyed dark red and a pretty smile. She was good-natured, full of life and creative energy. It made me feel good to be alive just to know her.
I sent her a ticket, and she came out on an early morning flight, with a plan to stay at my apartment for a week. I had made up a little bed for myself on the couch, but there was no way I was going to be sleeping on the couch. Nothing was said, but we had an intuitive understanding that people in romantic situations sometimes share.
Now, I had assumed that she did the usual thing of providing photos which presented her in the best possible way, perhaps taken a few years ago, and in a flattering light from the side without the giant wart. In person, however, she was amazing. When she walked out of Baggage Claim, it was like she had a halo around her. I could barely talk straight, but I managed to take her bags and carry them to my car.
On the way home, we stopped off at a store to get some stuff for the week, groceries, that sort of thing. I asked her to get whatever wine she wanted while I was finding what I needed to be impressive in the kitchen. When I came to the checkout, there was some trouble. Only then did I discover she was sixteen years old. Sixteen! I have no idea how I missed it, but everything made sense in retrospect: the odd disregard for everything her parents asked of her; the fact that she was still living at home, but didn’t really think it was a problem; her talk of doing “papers” on subjects that always seemed slightly retarded (I just thought she was doing night classes at a community college); her tendency to get over-emotional about everything… this was bad. Thirty-two does not go into sixteen.
We drove home in silence. I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t figure out which was the worst part of this: that I more or less solicited a minor for sexual activity, in breach of federal state-line law; that if I never asked her to choose the wine, I would have perpetrated statutory rape with a giant smile on my face; that the person I felt closest to in the whole world was in high school; that I never picked up on her tender years, even though she made a terrible job of hiding it; that I now had to entertain a teenager for a week before sending her home; that she was fourteen years old when we first started talking. She knew something was wrong, possibly from the way I was grinding my teeth and gripping the steering wheel.
“Does this mean we won’t be sleeping together?”
“YES! Jesus Christ. Yes, Ashley, that’s exactly what it means.”
“Oh. You still like me, right?”
There was no way out of this. I couldn’t leave her on her own in a hotel. Christ knows what she told her parents to come out here for a week. I’d have to just stay on that little bed I made on my couch.
Somehow we made it through the week. I took her to some amusement parks, and bowling, and mini-golfing. It was actually a lot of fun when I forgot how disturbing it was. At the airport, she kissed me on the cheek and thanked me before walking to her boarding gate. She didn’t turn back. There was more feeling in that single peck than in all the open-mouthed suck-fests I’ve ever had.
February72012
As a favor to my pathetic ass, a few months ago a Vietnamese friend of mine called Van Nguyen decided to set me up with a friend of hers. She’s another Vietnamese girl, 34 years old, called Chi Thuy, (pronounced Chee-Twee), whom Van sees as something of an older sister. Naturally, I decided to call her Twitchy. She did not like that. But you know, you purposefully give people nicknames they won’t like - otherwise what’s the point?
Before we get into the actual date, I should mention that Van is completely unaware of that weird thing that happens to women when they hit a certain age, defined as 28, where they strongly disapprove of men their age associating with girls who are much younger than they are. Van is 19. I’ve never hit on her or anything, but the fact is that we’re good friends and I’m 32 and she’s 19, so Twitchy had already decided that I was a Bad Man before the night started. Also, Van said she wanted to come along in case there were any cultural problems - a good idea in my opinion.
We got to the restaurant at about nine o’clock, and Twitchy was hot. Not just regular hot, but Asian-pornstar hot. ‘OK,’ I thought to myself, ‘all I have to do is not screw this up.’ She looked from my obviously 32-year-old self to her 19-year-old friend and made all her conclusions. Never mind! I would ensnare her with my sharp wit and charming personality. No problem.
Ten minutes into the date, Van and Twitchy were chattering to each other excitedly in Vietnamese, one of those impenetrable Asian languages. I should explain that I was raised in a multilingual environment, and in that situation you’re very conscious of making sure that if you’re with a group, they all understand. Otherwise it’s as if you’re trying to isolate some people, which is a rude thing to do. As far as I was concerned she was being very rude indeed. Now maybe I had some alcohol taken, or whatever, but I just got sick of it after a while and said: ‘Could you please stop talking in your stupid fucking Ching Chong language?’ Van is accustomed to my casual racism, and so burst out laughing. Twitchy was not happy. Again. Not at all. And Van laughing at her just made things worse. The night went downhill from there. Twitchy was uncommunicative and generally bitchy all night. Bitchy Twitchy.
When we left the restaurant, I decided to give Van a ride home, but Twitchy wasn’t sure which way the freeway was, so Van told her to just follow my car. Against Van’s very clear instructions, I decided to have a little fun and drove around the huge parking lot in circles, slowly. We were on the third circuit when Twitchy broke off and apparently decided to get lost on her own.
I found out she called Van some days afterwards and told her never to talk to me again.
December312011
I met Tori through a friend who thought we’d get along. She’s a bit younger than me, but whatever.
We went to a coffee shop with the aforementioned friend and his girlfriend. She was thin and blonde and pretty, and had her long hair pulled back in a rather severe ponytail. Her opening shot was that she was the head cheerleader in her high school, but she assured me she didn’t “buy into any of that crap”, without explained what “that crap” meant. I asked her half-jokingly if she still had the cheerleader outfit at home. She frowned, and very deliberately said, “No.”
Maybe, by “any of that crap”, she meant that she wasn’t one to bitch; I wouldn’t know. She certainly spoke a lot of trash about her friends. Girl A was dating Guy A, but Girl B wanted to date him, and so on. I managed to tune it out, just nodding and smiling at appropriate intervals. After we went our separate ways, she told my friend she’d like to see me again, for reasons entirely unclear to me. She knew nothing at all about me, nor showed any interest. Later, my friend told me that Tori thought I was a “good listener”, which is a searing indictment of how much attention she was paying. But, I thought, head cheerleader - what the hell.
The following Wednesday, the two of us went to a terrible, terrible movie that she loved. All through the movie, she would turn to me to ask questions: “Which one is he again?”; “I thought he was dead.”; “Where are they now?”; and so on. I wasn’t so much concerned that she seemed incredibly slow; it was just that in order to answer her questions I had to pay attention to the movie myself, something my brain was very insistent I should avoid.
She spent our whole date talking. Tori talked a lot about herself, but also about how her friends were awful, their boyfriends were worse, about her hair, how difficult her university projects were, where the good places to buy clothes were, and so on.
We went to Pinkberry, where she finally asked me something about me. I was momentarily disoriented, unsure of what to say, and sorely tempted to tell her to just keep talking. I had drifted into a strange trance where I had managed to tune out the frequency of her nasal voice explaining the mind-numbing details of her entirely superficial life. I said the first thing that popped into my head after I snapped out of the trance: “I’ve never done a cheerleader before!”
Suffice it to say that I have still never done a cheerleader.
December282011
After my last shameful attempt at speed-dating, I was effectively informed that I probably shouldn’t return. However, there seems to be no communication between speed-dating events, because an almost identical event in Claremont just let me walk right in without any sort of background check.
I saw a total of eleven girls, and this time I decided to use some of the advice I was given in the wake of the last speedboat of awful. I am using those notes now to reconstruct my night as a series of snippets of conversations - speed posting, if you will.
Girl #1: Danielle
“I like your hair.”
“Thanks!”
“It looks like you spent hours on it.”
“What?”
“It looks great. You must have been at that all day.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying nice things about your hair.”
“But you’re … what’s that other stuff…”
“Oh, I was told that girls spend a lot of time fixing themselves up and they like guys to notice.”
“No, no. I think you’ve managed to get that all wrong…”
Girl #2: LaShonda
“I like your skin colour.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s very dark. It’s nice.”
“Oh dear. You’re one of those.”
“One of what!”
“One of those white guys who just wants some jungle action.”
“I never said that!”
“It’s called exotiphilia. You know, you guys are just… You’re worse than those guys with yellow fever. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be judged for your skin colour rather than (she points to her head) what’s in HERE?
“I might…”
Girl #3: Janet
“What sort of things do you like?”
“Guess.”
“Ice cream? Cake?”
“…”
“No! Oh god, no. I didn’t mean because, you know! I just meant everyone likes ice cream, right? And what sort of degenerate caveman doesn’t like cake? I wasn’t saying anything about your weight; I promise.”
“I know I’m not model skinny. I just don’t need it thrown in my face.”
“I wasn’t throwing cake in your face!”
Girl #4: Olivia
“So, what do you do?”
“I work in a department store.”
“Well that tells me nothing. Come on, we only have five minutes; what do you do in the department store?”
“I’m at the perfume counter.”
“You like working at the perfume counter?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“You’ll know more about this than me, but that whole perfume thing is bullshit, isn’t it? I mean the whole thing is total bullshit, isn’t it?”
“No…”
Girl #5: Mia
“What’s that short for?”
“Nothing; just Mia.”
“Well, what do your family call you?”
“Mia.”
“OK. But your friends probably have some sort of nickname for you, right?”
“No. They all call me Mia.”
“Well, Mia, I think you’ve successfully surrounded yourself with the least imaginative people in America.”
Girl #6: Brittany
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
“I don’t know. Shooting lasers at space aliens in some last-ditch defence of our home planet. You?”
“I’d like to be managing the accounts department.”
“…”
“What?”
“I’m trying to work out some way to get both of our projections into the one thing.”
“I wouldn’t bother.”
“Fair enough.”
Girl #7: Marie
“If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be and why?”
“What?”
“If you were a fruit-“
“No, I heard. What sort of question is that?”
“It’s just an icebreaker. I ask all the guys something to get us talking.”
“You want to talk about fruit? I don’t care about fruit. Tell me something about you! Tell me something real.”
“Um… I guess I’d be a plum, because they’re mysterious and interesting.”
Girl #8: Lisa
“I like your skin tone. It’s very light.”
“Safe, you mean.”
“What?”
“Some white people find it easier to deal with African-Americans when they are lighter skinned.”
“No! I mean, it’s not that, it’s just that girl [pointing at LaShonda (above)] over there said-“
“She’s very dark. Are you sure you could hear her over the sound of your racism?”
“I’m not racist! I’m just - I like your skin colour.”
“My father’s much darker-skinned than me, so-“
“I’m not having a go at your Dad! I just-“
“You just like pale-skinned black people because they’re non-threatening.”
“No!”
Girl #9: Tahel
“I like guys with a sense of humour.”
“At last! Something I’m good at. Well, are you sensitive about anything?”
“No, no. I laugh at anything, really.”
“Paedophiles?”
“Well, no. There’s nothing funny about that is there?”
“Rape?”
“No…”
“All you’re leaving me with is the stuff about Jews.”
“I’m Jewish…”
Girl #10: Yesenia
[I’ll spare you the details of the actual conversation]
“You know, you’re a real asshole.”
“I thought girls liked assholes!”
“Yeah, but you’re the wrong kind of asshole.”
Girl #11: Camille
“So what would you like to talk about?”
“I don’t know. Hit me with your best pick-up line.”
“I don’t really…”
“Oh go on! Just make one up.”
“Em .. hey baby…”
“Yeah?”
“Is your dad a fireman? Because my ass is on fire!”
“What the hell was that?”
“I honestly have no idea where that came from.”
