The Man Who Met DFW

I am a gigantic David Foster Wallace nerd. Ridiculous. I took a class in grad school called Maximalist Postmodernism, purely because we were going to read Infinite Jest. It was one of those books perpetually on my to-read list, but it’s such a daunting task that I had always chickened out, so I forced myself to do so. And I loved the professor teaching it, and postmodernism is one of my English nerd ‘things,’ so that didn’t hurt. I carried that book around for a month, and did a good job reading a significant portion of it. After that semester ended, I did finish it, and subsequently read it another time, going through and making my own extensive annotated notes. I have since read a LOT of DFW. I call him my literary lover. I have a not-so-mild obsession. I have to pace myself through his works, because they are finite now, although there’s a recently released giant tome called The David Foster Wallace Reader that I want so desperately it’s disgusting. So if you are looking for a present for me, please feel free to buy it. Sooner rather than later because I will probably break down and buy it for myself within the next few weeks.

Anyway, when I first moved to California, I decided to get an OKCupid account. Well, that’s not exactly true. I had an OKCupid account, but I had never actually used it. I decided to properly activate it and see what it was all about. Unpopular opinion time: I feel OKCupid is actually worse than Tinder. Seriously. At least with Tinder, or Coffee Meets Bagel, you have to match with people in order for them to message you. On OKCupid, anyone can message you (at least that’s how I understand it/what happened to me). I was bombarded with messages from random people. Within a month, not even, I ended up deactivating the thing because it was so awful. And there are plenty of people on there looking to just hook up, trust me. I hate that assumption. “Well you’re on Tinder, of course people are assuming you just want to have a one night stand.” No, actually, on most dating sites there are people just looking for that. Check yourself. But that’s an entirely separate, ranty post of its own.

On my OKCupid profile, I had listed some of my favorite movies, including, “Pretty in Pink (minus that bullshit ending);” and TV shows like The O.C. Seth Cohen is one of my dream men, along with Jason Schwartzman, Wes Anderson, and Colin Meloy, and David Foster Wallace. Of course, my DFW obsession was also listed. His first message to me started with, “Yeah, the ending of Pretty in Pink is pretty bullshit, isn’t it? And The O.C. was great until the final season when you could tell Rachel Bilson was phoning it in.” And then he told me that he had once met David Foster Wallace. I looked at his profile, where he listed some of his favorite things as avocados, used bookstores, and David Bowie. Ding ding ding LET’S GET MARRIED PERFECT SIR. He lived in Oakland, but said he would meet me down where I live, and we could get drinks at an Irish bar called The Poet & The Patriot. I was so down with the whole situation. This was my first date in California, and I was so, so excited.

He was already at the bar when I arrived. The conversation flowed easily, and we sat and talked for about two hours. It was actually a very nice time. He walked me to my car, and shocked the hell out of me by kissing me. Not that I minded. We made plans for a second date. I decided that, being new in town and it being the beginning of July, that we should go and stroll the boardwalk, ride the rides, and be terrible Americans together. He agreed. We met up at the boardwalk; he was extremely late, but I was trying to be understanding considering he had a super long drive down to me. Okay, not that big of a deal. We rode some rides; it was going well. We played air hockey in the arcade and it was an intense rivalry. (He beat me by one friggin goal. I’m still bitter about it.) And all of a sudden, things started to go south.

Part of the boardwalk’s outdated attractions/décor are statues of cave people placed on random benches and sections of the park. We had just gotten off my favorite ride, the flying swings, and were walking by a bench that had a large, grotesque African-American female cave woman sitting on it. I was disgusted, and all of a sudden, he pointed at it and said, “Hey! Look! It’s RuPaul!” And I almost punched him in the mouth. That is just wrong on a hundred levels, a very shallow one being that I, personally, am a gay male drag queen in the body of a twenty-six year old woman, and I loooooove RuPaul. Love. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, stupidly, for making that joke, instead of decking him and walking out.

It was the week after the Fourth of July, and he had been down in Southern California visiting his family. He was regaling me with stories of his trip as we walked around the boardwalk. At one point, he started talking about having to pick up a pizza at Domino’s for his family, and how all the employees are behind a bullet-proof glass shield that they have to pass your pizza through. I was going to make a comment about crime, poverty, Los Angeles, etc., when he kept going and said, “But these were the kind of people who looked comfortable behind bullet-proof glass. And this was confirmed when I opened the pizza and the toppings were in the shape of a license plate.” WHAT. I didn’t know young Johnny Depp circa Cry-Baby was secretly working at a Domino’s in Los Angeles. LET’S ALL GO THERE NOW! Allison Vernon-Williams, get in this car!

In actuality, though, I was seriously grossed out at this point, and once again trying to figure out how the hell to get out of this date. We got onto another ride, that was a bit faster than I had anticipated, and when we got off it, we walked and sat on a park bench because I was mildly nauseous and not okay to drive home or do anything at that moment. The conversation turned to movies, music, TV, books, etc. He mentioned DFW again and how cool it was to meet him and get a book signed by him. And then I noticed that he had a habit of referring to celebrities as if he knew them. For example, he kept calling DFW “Dave,” as if they were bros. “Oh yeah, Dave was such a great author.” Yes, yes he was, but just because you met him once doesn’t mean you get to call him Dave. We talked about the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, which had saddened both of us. I have a relative who is an addict, and it’s heartbreaking to witness. It is a serious issue, addiction; and PSH’s death was upsetting to me on a few levels; but much like Robin Williams’ death, I understood that it was not a failure on the part of the deceased. Depression and addiction are serious issues that lots of people struggle with. He felt differently, however. “Yeah man, Phil’s death. That’s so upsetting. But I’m so mad at him! Like, you had so much talent, Phil, how dare you waste your life and do that to yourself! I’m so mad at him.” Okay, yeah, you can get away from me right now, sir.
At that point, I'd had more than enough. My nausea from the ride had faded, but my nausea from this classist, possibly racist, jerkhead had increased. Done and done, sir. I told him I was still nauseous from the ride and needed to go home. He walked me to my car again; this time I just gave him a quick hug because no way in hell was he getting to kiss me after all that shit came out of his mouth. I never heard from him again after that; presumably he understood that I was not feeling it. I'm glad we never had to have the awkward confrontation in which I would call him out for being an asshole. I probably should have said more in the moment, but I was so astounded by a lot of what he said that I couldn't form a response fast enough that would be more articulate and nuanced than, "Fuck off!" Oh well.

The Worst Pablo Neruda Ever.

I possess a Master's Degree in English. It hasn't done a lot for me at this point, except to solidify my nerdiness and sound impressive at parties and on job interviews. People will ask me questions about grammar, spelling, syntax, etc. And no, I'm not an actual expert in any of those areas, but thanks for thinking of me! Yet if someone does not know which "your" to use in a sentence, for example, or cannot spell worth a damn, I admit to being prejudiced against them. It bothers the hell out of me, particularly when it's coming from a person who says they are a college graduate, or working on an advanced degree, or work in a specialized field. I do not hesitate to call people out on their shitty spelling and/or grammar. For example:

Yeah okay I'm kind of a sarcastic bitch, but I admit that in my profile, and in my daily life, of course. But I mean, c'mon dude, what am I supposed to do with that?

Somebody needed to tell him.

I am quite lucky, however, that most dudes have not gotten violent or rude with me; I've seen enough examples on the internet of men getting disgusting towards women when women put them in their place or reject them. I've only had one guy message me to say "Lol your huge." I said, "Excuse me?" He said, "Your fat haha." And I said something along the lines of "At least I can spell and know proper grammar, fuckface." And then unmatched him. This was back in July or August and sadly I didn't take a screenshot. Lesson learned: always screenshot when something ridiculous happens to you with social media. Always.

Recently, I matched with a guy who almost immediately began sending me dirty "poetry." At first, I thought they were Drake or Chris Brown lyrics, and I was disappointed in the lack of originality. And then I realized no, these are in fact original "erotic" "poems." Then I was just grossed out. Behold:

His profile mentioned recently starting to drink coffee, hence, the line about coffee. And, you know, HOW THE HELL WAS I SUPPOSED TO RESPOND TO THAT? "Oooh baby yeah/You're one of the bad boys /Whatchu gon' do /When they come for you /Bad boys, bad boys." Yet it didn't stop there. I'll just let our conversation speak for itself.

All things considered, I feel like I was quite nice and helpful. He actually went on to thank me again for being so helpful. I also missed a screenshot of that because I was doing other things and when I went back to Tinder to get that final caption, he had unmatched us, and my Tinder lothario had vanished. Always get a screenshot, Nicole! Terrible.

Sometimes, men just need to be called out on their gross bullshit. And I'm not afraid to do that if the need arises. *Insert dick joke here.*

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Me.

Sorry for the absence, darlings. Holidays and travel and all that jazz; speaking of, I hope you all had a lovely holiday season surrounded by the people you love, and also, your family. 

It occurred to me over the past few weeks that I have yet to discuss any of my dates from Tinder proper. Thus far, it has just been about dating in Buffalo. Well it’s a new year; time to rehash more recent dating fails! I’m going to talk about my latest Tinder date, which, while it is by no means the worst one I’ve been on, is exemplary of the kind of date/man I seem to attract.

His name was Buck.* I actually broke one of my Tinder Rules (full set to come) (not like that, perv) by swiping right to him: there was no clear picture of his face, but I liked his other pictures a lot, and his description seemed funny and sardonic, so I figured, what the hell? We started talking, and things seemed to go pretty smoothly at first. It turned fairly quickly into a playful butting of heads, but I enjoy a challenge. He told me he didn’t understand my love of Talking Heads, and judged my musical taste harshly because of it. And then he admitted that he had only heard one or two of their songs. I’m not quite sure why I agreed to meet someone who was already admittedly judging my taste level, considering that he himself admitted that he listens to almost exclusively 60s music. Which is great; I love me some Beatles and Monkees. But I’ve learned to be very skeptical of people who only listen to one genre of music, and Buck is confirmation that I should be wary of those people. Homogeny is boring. 

We agreed to meet for a drink near the hotel where he was staying. He was in town for a few weeks for work from Southern California; I wasn’t expecting much except to maybe have a few drinks and meet a new friend. No such luck. Traffic was horrendous that night. What should have been a 10-15 minute drive took an hour, and then I couldn’t find parking. I texted multiple apologies full of cuss words at the traffic, lack of parking, my anger at the Gods of Travel, etc. When I finally walked into the tiny dive bar, he was not there, even though I was extremely late. For a minute I thought I’d been stood up. I stuck out like a sore thumb in my cute dress and expectant face in this dirty, skeevy bar. Perfect. I went to the bathroom, and finally got an answer to my distress signals. He himself was running behind but showed up quickly enough. I was still hiding in the bathroom. When I walked out, I saw him at the bar, and I instantly knew… that I did not like him. I should’ve just kept walking. At this point, however, I was pissed off and in dire need of something alcoholic, even if it meant keeping him company for a half hour.

We were almost the same height (he was slightly shorter) with longer blonde hair and a mustache. The only way I can describe him is a young David Crosby, complete with acne and a jacket with elbow patches. No offense to Mr. Crosby, but that’s not my style. And I don’t mean an actual, young Crosby. I mean take your mental picture of Crosby in his mid60s, and just take off about 40 years. That's exactly right. Buck bought my drink, and we sat down at a table to have incredibly awkward and stilted conversation. He explained that he had been late because his shoes were in the bathroom, and his roommate (or whatever) had been in the shower. I tried to get him to answer why his shoes were in the bathroom in the first place, but his explanation made almost no sense. “You know when you’re running late so you take your shoes off in the bathroom instead?” No, no I don’t. He also said he had to “wax Mario.” Thankfully, that was not his nickname for his penis (that I know of). He had put in his Tinder profile that he had a mustache named Mario, which I thought was a joke. It wasn’t. He seriously calls his mustache Mario, and referred to it as a person. Oookay.

I quickly changed course, and brought up his dislike of Talking Heads. Buck responded that he had listened to a few more songs, and didn’t hate them completely, but still didn’t understand how they are one of my favorite bands of all time. Just then, “Burning Down the House” started playing in the bar. I thought it was fortuitous, and said I would go to the jukebox to put on more Talking Heads. He explained that no, actually, he had an app on his phone that synched to that jukebox, so he could play whatever he wanted. I said I would still go put money in. He said that whatever I tried to play would pop up on his phone, and he would continually block it. I asked if I could play songs through his phone, then. He asked if I would look through his phone and I told him genuinely I would not. I didn’t get his phone. I started pounding my vodka so I could get the hell out of there. 

More random subjects were discussed. He asked about growing up in Buffalo and what there is to do. I said a lot of eating and a lot of drinking. He said, “that sounds boring.” Clearly you don’t know how to do either of these things properly, sir. He told me how pretty I am. And then this exchange happened (not quite verbatim but pretty damn close):

Buck: You have a ten-dollar smile.

Me: What? Ten dollars? People usually say a million dollar smile.

Buck: When I was growing up, we were poor, so ten dollars was a lot of money to me. So I say a ten-dollar smile.

Me: Is ten dollars still a lot of money to you?

Buck: No, of course not.

Me: Well, the expression is a million dollar smile.

Buck: No, that’s way too much.

Okay, asshole, point taken. By this point I believe I have finished my drink, and I’m trying to think of a way to leave. The bar has slowly filled with regulars. I feel trapped. I’m not sure how to proceed. And then he starts asking me if I will put his hair in a manbun. Really. He became insistent quite quickly.

Buck: Please? Pleeease? I don’t know how.

Me: Uh, you gather your hair and put it in a bun on top of your head.

Buck: But I can’t!

Me: Yes you can.

Buck: How about if you put my hair in a bun, I’ll put yours up in a ponytail?

Me: *gathers all my hair, puts in ponytail in under 5 seconds.* I’m quite capable, thank you.

Buck: But you’ll get to play with my hair!

Me: My hair is exquisite; I don’t need to touch yours.

I needed out. He noticed my drink was gone and his beer was only halfway finished. He offered to get me another; I declined, reminding him that I have a long drive back home. I started to panic. I could just leave, right? Or is that rude? Just be honest? I was feeling like a coward, my ten-dollar smile long gone from my face. Suddenly, a decision occurred to me. I would employ the mythical “friend is in trouble” phone call that women have used for years to get out of bad dates. Am I proud of this decision? No. Should I have been an adult about this whole situation? Yes. Yet I was overwhelmed and aggravated and needed a quick out.  I texted my friend Sara, under the guise of texting my mother (whom I had been texting earlier in the date, actually, about a recipe for Thanksgiving), and told her I needed out of a bad date ASAP. She did not disappoint.

About two minutes later, my phone rang. Sara’s name popped up, but when I answered, it was her boyfriend. “Hey, it’s Anthony.” “Oh, Anthony, why are you calling from Sara’s phone?” “Don’t freak out, but Sara and I were just in a bad car accident.” “Oh no! Let me leave this loud bar!” I mumbled some apologies to Buck, slamming together phrases:  “Oh shit, car accident, friend, have to go, might be back, let me go talk outside” grabbed my purse, and nearly ran out the front door. As soon as I was a few feet away, I told Anthony I had gotten outside. He was worried that I would take the whole thing seriously, but I assured him I knew better. Then Sara got on the phone, and I thanked her (and Anthony) profusely as I walked to my car and figured out how to get home. But first I noticed that Buck had apparently added me on Snapchat at some point leading up to the night, and had sent me six snaps that I hadn’t seen. I never added him back; I have no idea what those snaps were. Probably manbuns. 

*Not actually his name, but it was nearly this bad. Should’ve been the first clue.