As usual my well thought out plan had gone awry and I had to
think of a back-up. The plan was to get her to come with me to what was sure to
be a super fun birthday party with drink specials and mutual friends. There we
would drink, laugh, socialize, but then always return to each other as if we were
bound by an inescapable magnetic charge. Unfortunately that charge was weak as
she declined the invite to do something else. Something without me. So when a
wrinkle appears, naturally the solution is to pull out the apps and start
swiping. I noticed a recent conversation that lay dormant, but not out of
malice or by the grace of a moronic message. It was just over. So I figured to
start it up again and see what would happened. Worst comes to worst I could
just see some pals and see where that takes me.
Before the party, I decided to meet up with a friend for
happy hour drinks. It was raining and he was bored at work, so it came as no
surprised that he was a few in when I arrived. We took advantage of the two for
one drinks and I was settling into a soliloquy about why Bob Dylan is a god (a
subject only popular with a very select few individuals), when I felt my phone
vibrate. To my surprise the flame notification appeared and I was presented
with a resurrection. Looks like the conversation wasn’t dead.
As expected, I ignored my friend and started typing away
seeing what was up. She was vague, sarcastic, and quick – just what I wanted in
my messaging. Feeling the confidence that a few whiskey cokes brings to my
already overinflated ego, I invited her to hook up with me at the party. It’ll
be fun, I suggested, why not. She was down to crash this party, but gave me a
warning that she was tall and that she could slouch if I felt that was
necessary. Of all the threats to my masculinity height is at the bottom of my
list. Who cares if she’s taller than me, as long as she looks like her pictures
and sounds like her messages I’m fine. My friend agreed with the sentiment and
we took to the train to get to the party.
Nothing says fancy like a velvet rope and that’s what greeted
us at the southern restaurant/bar in Union Square. We said the magic name and
the rope lifted and in no time were enjoying the remnants of a birthday happy
hour. I found the birthday girl and said my thanks and congrats on making it
through another year and I did mean it; she is a lovely person. One of the gems
in my book and I explained that I would be sharing her special day with a
random girl from Tinder. In fact I made it a point to warn or tell everyone that
they would be privy to one of my infamous tinder dates. The scene was set.
An hour passes and my friend is deciding whether he wants to
mingle or stumble on to the bathroom. He picks the second option which we both
agree is wise. I look up to outside the velvet rope and see someone who matches
pictures two, three, and five on a specific tinder profile and I slip into “charming
Tinder mode”. By this I mean I go through the publicly weird process of asking
someone if they are indeed the person from the picture square on my phone. She
says yes and I’m relieved because pictures two, three, and five were the best
ones on her profile (she later would mention that I resembled pictures one and
three on mine).
So we get to talking and I assume I’m being witty because I
see her mouth turn upright into a form that most would describe as a smile. But
at this point happy hour has been going on far too long for me and it’s
beginning to show. I usually make it a point not to drink before meeting a new
person, but then again I don’t always follow my own rules because I’m an idiot.
Some things are unavoidable. But apparently I’m charming because she keeps
biting at what I’m saying while throwing it back at me in double time. I can
respond to most of her remarks and she seems impressed that I’m holding my own
despite being in the middle of drunk squints. By this time my friend has left
to do his own thing but before he leaves I introduce him to my date and he
mutters out “the things I would do to her”. If there’s a better compliment in
the world I haven’t heard it.
As with most birthdays it becomes that time in the evening
where the venue must change for fear of stagnation and we decide it’s time to
depart and go our own way. She asks if I’d like to go to Beauty Bar and “do
some drugs”, to which I reply with the very debonair “okay”. Smooth indeed. So
we’re walking to Beauty Bar where I decide to employ my classic pick up line of
“hey on the way to Beauty Bar let’s make out, it’ll be fun we’ll walk, we’ll
talk, it’ll make the time pass”. She agrees and we go for it in front of an
apartment complex with raised grass and very pointy barriers. This is when the
height starts to play a role, as I have to lean up to get any traction with my
drunken, slobbering make out. What a delightful reversal of roles I think and
before I can come to any sort of conclusion we’re off and walking.
Beauty Bar is a fun place, and I go there often. It’s got a
dance floor and for a small price they do your nails. I’ve never gotten but it
seems fun so why not. Anyway, she doesn’t feel like dancing so we’re sitting
adjacent to the dance floor and the conversation moves to sex. In a boastful
way she claims that she never orgasms during sex. Great, I think, the pressure’s
off for the night! Don’t worry I assure her, that ain’t gonna change tonight. My
assurance plays well and she motions that it’s time to do drugs. After a
bouncer denies our attempt to go into the bathroom together we figure that
maybe the old fashioned way of one by one is better. She goes first and then
attempts to hand me a bag but I drop it akin to Alvy Singer in Annie Hall. Thank god it’s in a bag and
I go into the bathroom do a bit and then it’s off to be jittery on the L train.
I’m shaking on the L train when she pulls out a notebook and asks me to review her
art. The sketches are fine, but it’s not like I was going to say anything else.
Plus I find the L train to be a notoriously bad place for art criticism. We get
off and get to her place and start doing things, until well things end and I
decide it’s time to go to the bathroom because why not seems like the right
thing to do. So I tip toe through the darkness and turn on the lights only to
see the effects of what I previously thought was gentle neck gnawing. Turns out
what most people would consider gentle neck gnawing my body took as the tiger
that attacked Siegfried and Roy. My neck is all shades of black, red, and purple.
Simply put I look gross.
It’s around 7 in the morning when I arrive back in the room
(I left for the bathroom at 6:55). I tell her about my mauling and she feels embarrassed
but more so about the disparity in souvenirs. I figure it’s time to leave
because she has to wake up in a couple of hours and I’d rather leave when I’m
wide awake and horrified sooner than later. She’s cool about it and I get
dressed and take a very long walk through the foggiest parts of Brooklyn to the
train. The people on the train stare and I don’t blame them, it’s not every day
you see an active warzone on a guy’s neck. Lucky them.
I make it home and attempt to use every hickey trick in the
book, but at best I can only manipulate my neck into varying shades of maroon.
Since I’m mortally opposed to turtle necks, it looks like I’ll be wearing my
night out for a bit. So in the days that follow life returns to normal, minus
the first round of questions and horrified stares from friends. Such is life I
suppose.
A week or so passes and I hit her up again and we go through
the same routine but far more sober and in Brooklyn. It’s fun but nothing
special until the end of the night when she tells me she keeps a list of all
the guys she’s slept with and a little bio about them. I ask to see mine and
she looks, laughs, and says “Leo Tinder fuckboi. Christened my mattress”.
Fuckboi? Really, I ask her. The Leo and tinder part are
accurate, but fuckboi, yikes – was I one of those? She says not really – she
claims it was there because she thought I would never call again and my doing
so mitigated the term to something a bit tamer. I can’t remember what she
turned it to because like a previous other demoralizing ranking, it began to
cloud my mind. I couldn’t focus like before and went into a low power sarcastic
mode. The night went fine and we bantered, but who knows what about because man
does that term just sting. We went back to her place and I told her to lay off
the neck because my family already had enough things to talk about at Passover and
things happened and then like before I left but this time not as a fuckboi.
Well at least a fuckboi that wasn’t going to call her back. So I guess I was a
fuckboi again, but why would I want to call somebody back who called me a Leo
Tinder Fuckboi. I was surprised she remembered my sign. These thoughts kept me
occupied as I strolled through the foggy Brooklyn neighborhoods. I felt a bit like Walt
Whitman walking through old timey Brooklyn, but then I figured Walt Whitman had
never been referred to as a fuckboi. Or at least not in the versions of “Leaves
of Grass” I’ve read. I made it to the train and prepared for the long trip back
to Queens knowing two things. One, I was not going to see this person again in
a romantic way again. And two, I was going to spend a good amount of time
taking “am I a fuckboi quizzes”.
