In which I am shallow: part two.

(For background information, please read In which I am shallow: part one.)


It's a Friday in October in Northern California. So, naturally, it's one of the hottest days of the year. In Silicon Valley, it's nearly 100 degrees; in San Francisco, it's in the 90s. San Francisco is not a warm city, so when the heat is on, it's stifling. This is, of course, the day in which I meet Brad for a second date. I leave work and drive in hellacious Friday traffic up into San Francisco to meet him at his apartment. As it is with San Francisco (henceforth just known as the city), everything is uphill and winding, including the road to his place. I park; he comes out and greets me. We immediately get into his car and try to decide where to go. As it is unseasonably warm outside, and a Friday night to boot, we are expecting it to be nearly impossible to get a table at most places.

He is driving and trying to decide where we should go. He keeps putting his hand on my thigh, and I keep brushing him off. At a red light, he looks over at me, grabs my face, and starts to devour me. Again, I push him away. "Ooooh, are you one of those people that gets nervous in a car?" he asks. "Yes, absolutely," I respond. And it is true; I am very anxious in cars unless I am driving or I trust the driver completely. Otherwise, I will be panicking for most of the trip. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 21 because I was so afraid of cars and driving. Funny that five years after that I drove myself across the country and now make a major daily commute. Anyway.

Brad takes me to the Haight, a neighborhood I had ventured around with my family at the age of 12, but which I now fully appreciate and love. I wanted to go into every thrift store, talk to every person, just take the whole experience in. Brad, however, was totally unimpressed and couldn't have cared less; but whatever, he lives in the city, why should he care?

We end up in a tiny Asian restaurant that is, yes, packed, and stifling. So much sweat started pouring out of me as we waited in the narrow entry to write down our names for a table. At this place, you have to write your name down on a chalkboard, and they will erase you when your table is available. I don't remember specifics, but I know someone came in and Brad was a dick about them writing their name down for some reason.

We start chitchatting. We order. Again, he is unnecessarily rude to the waitress. I'm getting pissed, and my gut is telling me to abort the situation. But I am now literally stuck in San Francisco, on a date with a man I'm starting to realize is a gigantic bag of dicks. And not in a fun way. Being that I am an English nerd, I try to bring up books as a topic of conversation. "Oh, I don't read that much," he said. I said something along the lines of, "Yeah, I get it, it's hard to find the time; you told me that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is your favorite book though, right?" And I swear, he said, "Yeah. Well, actually, I've only read parts of it. But I liked the parts I read." YOUR FAVORITE BOOK IS A BOOK YOU HAVEN'T EVEN READ?! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?! A lot. A lot was wrong with him.

(This is something I need to remind myself of, as it has been proven to me since Brad that you do not. date. people. who. don't. read. At least, I CANNOT date people who don't read. Also I met John Waters and he was amazing and I love him forever.)

Our food arrives. Brad is snarky to the waitress about something; I shoot her an apologetic smile. It's tasty, but it's spicy, and I am so sweaty I swear I'm sliding off the chair. I put my hair up in a ponytail; Brad asks how I manage to make that look adorable. Oh, a compliment! I'll take it. But I am so worked up and pissed that I immediately respond with something rude. So he takes the opportunity to say, "How does someone with your personality work in a wine tasting room?" Me, genuinely confused: "What?" And his response was one of the following; I can't remember clearly because I went into a rage blackout in my mind: "Well, you're just so sarcastic and bitchy," or, "Well, you're just such a sarcastic bitch."

Listen. I know I can be a sarcastic bitch; I'm well aware. But that part of my personality is brought forth when I am uncomfortable and/or angry and/or hangry. In the rage blackout of my mind, I realized that I am acting this way because I am uncomfortable around him. I am not having a good time, regardless of how pretty he is, because he's fucking creepy and I need him to get away from me right meow. RIGHT MEOW.

He quickly followed up that comment with, "But I like that about you. I like that you're a bitch; it's hot." Okay, no, no, no, we are not doing this, no. Thankfully, dinner is almost over. Unfortunately, my bladder is full and I need to pee something fierce. The restaurant is packed, and there's one bathroom, and there's a giant line, and I have no opportunity to use it while Brad walks out of the restaurant. I'm screwed. I just need to pee! And to get the fuck away from this guy.

Walking out, I'm about two steps off from running smack into a naked man walking down the street. Seriously. Naked dude. Just wandering around. I'm flabbergasted, and ask Brad if he saw him. "Oh, that? Yeah that's normal. You're in San Francisco." Definitely not in Kansas anymore. As we are walking to the car I hear a noise: the click-clacking of heels on the sidewalk. I look around, and it takes me a second to realize that, in fact, Brad is wearing men's dress shoes that have heels. Stacked heels. Stacked heels that fucking CLACK ON THE SIDEWALK. I nearly peed right there. I mean, this is San Francisco; nobody would mind, right?

It's happening....It happened. It happened.

We get in his car to drive back to his place. At this point, I'm concentrating on not peeing and not having a total freakout on this creep. I don't know if you're aware, but San Francisco is a very hilly city. Getting anywhere requires you to go up and down a lot of hills. There's also a lot of stoplights. At nearly every stoplight, Brad tries, again, to put his hand on my thigh and/or make out with me. I again remind him that I am nervous in cars, and to please don't fucking touch me. He acquiesces, somehow. The road up to his apartment is a super steep, winding hill, because of fucking course it is. There's a minivan in front of us going under the speed limit, which pisses Brad off. "What the hell are they doing? This isn't okay." So he decides to pass them, which would be fine if we were on, you know, a highway, instead of a two lane residential street with a double fucking yellow line going upward towards a blind curve in the street YES THIS IS A GREAT IDEA BRAD YOU ARE SO SMART YOU MUST READ A LOT!

Of course, there's another car coming down the road, directly towards us, and Brad veers us back to safety just in time. I seriously was about .004 seconds from peeing everywhere, but he probably would've liked that. I must have screamed or made some kind of noise, because Brad looked at me, incredulous, and said, "What? We had plenty of time. We were fine!" BITCH I ALMOST DIED WITH YOUR STUPID HIGH-HEELED WEARING ASS ON A RANDOM STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO. NO. Thankfully, his house was less than a block away. Unfortunately, I still need to pee, and I have no idea where I can do that except in Brad's house. So I got out of the car, and I followed him inside.

In which I am shallow: part one.

I recently returned from a nice long visit back to Western New York. I had a lovely time, and got to see tons of people, many of whom mentioned they love my blog. It was surprising, but so wonderful to hear that people enjoy what I have to say about dating and all its related drama/craptasticness. Honestly, I took a break from dating from about January-June, and now I am casually seeing someone that, yes, I met on Tinder. He's gorgeous, sweet, funny, treats me like a queen, and I would say more but you don't care about the good things, you just want to know about the fail whales. It's okay. I'm with you.

Back in September, I met a man on Tinder. Not just any man. Legitimately one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen (until recently). I was shocked when we matched, even more so when he actually started talking to me. We seemed to click, although I admit to having a slightly weird vibe, which I was willfully ignoring because HELLO HANDSOME. We didn't end up meeting in person for a few weeks, as we both had traveling scheduled in our near futures, and he lived in San Francisco. We ended up texting a LOT, perhaps too much. His grammar wasn't the greatest, but again, willing to make sacrifices. I know, you can say it: I was thirsty. I am not ashamed. Okay I am slightly ashamed, but shit happens, and I can't take back what ended up transpiring.

Now that that's out of the way... We ended up meeting for dinner at a Thai restaurant in Palo Alto. If you are unaware of Northern California's various divisions, Palo Alto is where Stanford University is located. It's full of rich people and smart, preppy college students. He got there before me, and was seated in a corner booth, arms splayed over the top of the booth, taking up lots of space. He stood up to greet me...and we were the same height. Now, I'm not a short woman, and both of my big-time exes were about the same height as me. I'm just mentioning this now as it's important later on. Ooooh, suspense. I'm going to call this guy Brad. So, Brad sits back down, and resumes sitting in the same position, arms akimbo over the top of the booth. Strange, but whatever. Again: GORGEOUS. Like slap-your-mother gorgeous.

(In which I am Louise Belcher for a change, rather than Linda or Tina. I am also constantly living with this feeling at the moment.)

We're looking at the menu, and our waitress comes over, and Brad is immediately very rude to her. She walked away and I called him out on it, saying, "Uh, you were actually totally rude to that woman just now." He said something along the lines of, "No, I'm here a lot, and if I don't order this way, they mess up my food." For the rest of the night, I am overly polite to all the waitstaff at the restaurant. Our conversation flows relatively easily, with several strained/awkward spots. But hey, first date, right? His favorite author is Hunter S. Thompson, and his favorite book is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Slightly cliche, but at least he likes to read. He mentions that he's leaving his job and moving to Chicago with his sister at the end of October. Okay, this wouldn't be a long-term thing anyway, but I can have some fun with this guy, potentially.

The food is fantastic, and I am, again, overly polite and sweet and smiling to the waiter who brings it out. He smiles at me and glowers at Brad. We are talking about something and all of a sudden, Brad grabs my knee under the table. I smack his hand away. "Ooooh, feisty," he said. "No, it means don't touch me, thanks. Also why do you sit with your arms on top of the booth like that?" "It's more comfortable for me." Mmmmmkay, sure. He suggests we go get dessert. I will never say no to dessert. So we walk across the street to a French cafe that's also a buffet-style dessert place. I mean we went to heaven. Come on that's MAJESTIC. BUFFET OF FRENCH DESSERTS?! But we ended up leaving because he had a hissy fit that they were out of eclairs or some shit.

He held my hand as we walked down to the Cheesecake Factory. He didn't order anything, he just said he wanted to watch me eat cheesecake. Ooooookay but shit I will NOT turn down cheesecake. I'm roughly certain about 30% of my body is made of cheesecake. Just call me Dorothy Zbornak. #spiritanimal

When I was finished and the waiters were ignoring us because, again, he was rude to them, Brad asked if he could sit in the booth next to me, and cuddled me uncomfortably in the restaurant. I am shooting glares at any waiter that's passing and in my mind saying, "bring the fucking check NOW OKAY THANKS." At the same time, it was weirdly flattering. I am not a tiny person, by any means, and at the time, I had gained some weight and felt totally unsexy. But here was this man, who wanted to watch me eat and wanted to grab me in public because he liked me that much. That's flattering, right? No?

We finally leave; he says he'll drive me to my car. I say that I prefer to walk. He asks if, when we get to my car, I'll drive him to his. I say no. He doesn't understand why I, you know, don't want to get in a car with him. I explain briefly that, you know, I barely know you and that's just not happening tonight. All of a sudden, middle of walking, he stops, turns, and kisses me. Hard. Full-on makeout session happening in the middle of the sidewalk for about 10 seconds before I stop him and keep walking. Uh. Okay then. I get to my car, he asks yet again for a ride to his car. I refuse. I drive home. I'm trying to decide how to feel about all of this. Of course I now know he's a total asshole, but at the time, he was a gorgeous dude who was into me at a time of even-lower-than-usual-self-esteem. He sensed the vulnerability I was trying to hide from him, and from the world at large. It was a strangely magnetic quality.

We kept texting after the date. He was so sweet in text, even with not-fantastic-grammar. I consulted with Ashera, explaining my mixed emotions. She said to just go out with him again and have some fun; he's moving soon, and why do I need a serious boyfriend? If I go again and it's awful/I get bad feelings, drop him. If we go out and have fun, drop my pants. So, I agreed to meet him in San Francisco that Friday night for a second date. To be continued...

Tinder Moments, Part Two.

Hello fellow Earthlings,

How are all of you gorgeous creatures today? I need to be better about posting not just sporadically. I admit to not being super active on Tinder the past few months. I commute to my big-girl job (which I recently got promoted to at the end of March: salary, benefits, errythang. Woo!), work, go to the gym, drive home, eat dinner, and then usually watch TV or read with a glass of wine and a cat in my lap. I know. I'm really exciting, you don't have to tell me twice. I'm currently at my favorite hipster cafe, drinking an Americano, eating a chocolate-chip-salted-caramel-pretzel-oatmeal cookie, and relishing my one day off a week. I got to see a good friend last night (and make some new ones); I was mentioning my blog to them and realized, shit, I need to update! Working on a three-part post that I've been saving because trust me, it's a doozy. For now, though, let's enjoy some Tinder Moments, shall we?

Here's this gentleman, thinking he's clever as shit:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU ARE SO CLEVER, SIR. TOTES GONNA SHOW YOU ALL THE NIPPLE NOW OBVIOUSLY WAY TO GO. Also if you were somehow unaware, I maintain that dick pics are the most disgusting things on the planet, and most women do not like to receive them. In fact, if we DO get one, we will send it to our friends or show it to our friends in person and analyze your, uh, shortcomings. And laugh. Heartily. It does make for an entertaining pastime, however. Just please be aware gentle sirs that if you do in fact send an (unsolicited) dick pic to someone, you're also sending it to all of their friends. If they request one, odds are slightly less that they'll be showing all their friends. But only slightly less. Now you know.

(Also if you've never watched any Ja'mie: Private School Girl, stop reading this and go watch it.)

 

oMg DoN't YoU lOvE tHaT i TyPe LiKe A tWeLvE-yEaR oLd GiRl'S aIm PrOfIlE fRoM 2002 aNd I'm A gRoWn-AsS mAn?!

So which one are you? The bold man facing forward because you look like a naked, tiny, besunglassed Fabio? Or one of the random asses around you? Also do men really do this as some sort of weird bonding activity? Because there are a LOT of these kinds of shots on Tinder. Seriously? Is this a thing? Men go hiking and then just get nekkid and take pictures of it? 

I have a feeling you wouldn't like my self, Mr. Tenter. Not at all. Sweet Cosby sweater, though.

(Also if you've never seen High Fidelity WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.)

Oh wow, can I meet your dad? He clearly instilled great values and lessons on how to respect women and probably how to treat humanity in general. I bet you think strippers like you, too.

If you use "gay" in this fashion, you are the worst kind of human being, I don't care who you are, and you most certainly are NOT a gentleman. Gay is not an insult. But this is: go fuck yourself. And finally, to round out our newest batch of Tinder Moments:

And I just barfed from your Tinder profile.

Tinder Moments

Now, I've talked a lot about guys that I have actually gone on dates with on this blog (notable exceptions most recently found here and here); but what about those that don't make the cut? There's an assumption out there, that, since I have this blog, I must be talking to every person and auto-matching with every person, completely undiscerning. And that's where you're wrong, good friend. I am actually, genuinely interested in trying to meet cool people, and I have! Not everyone on there is a complete toolbag. But who wants to hear about the cool people when you know you're only here to read about the scum-sucking road whores. Today's post is dedicated to the men with pictures/profiles so atrocious, I laughed with horror or sheer disgust, took screenshots, and said goodbye.

Oh, and if you hadn't guessed, this post will be NSFW. Because, you know, butts and such. To kick us off right, here's some tasteful, suggested nudity:

Ohhh baby, your peen looks like an iPhone, that's hot. Wait, is it an iPhone 4? 4s? 5? 6? 6 PLUS? Now we're talking.

Yeah, thanks for telling me what I'm here for, false Cupid. You're not even wearing a diaper; what kind of cupid are you? 

I'll take Option B, thanks.

"You want chivalry? I've got chivalry coming out of MY ASS!"

No comment because ALL THE COMMENTS, the predominate one being: NO.

In case you can't read his description, it says, "Super not impressed. Where's the quality? More turned off than anything & still yet to be turned on by anyone. 3 months & not even a single date. I won't write you, because I prefer to know you actually read this. Please do not match me only to ignore me. Apparently my honesty, standards, morals, character and values make me difficult. Chances are you're just lazy, don't know what you want & end up playing it safe w/the easy guy. I live 15% of my life as a rockstar the other 85% I spend alone."

Wow, okay, let's translate that. "Hi, I'm a hypocritical, condescending douchebag. I won't message you, but I'll be upset if we match and you don't talk to me, because that's logical. I haven't met with anyone in-person yet because I'm incredibly full of shit, yet I think of myself as a 'nice guy,' and as such, I always finish last. The world owes me more than it is giving me, and I'm pissed about it. My ego is large, and I'm incredibly entitled because I'm a relatively attractive white man. Change my mind because my default setting is: every woman is a bitch unless she conforms with exactly what I want, when I want it. 100% of the time, I'm a terrible human being."

"Beer...And guns, and shit.. Stanford... Blah blah blah. Swipe left if you think your vagina is the center of the universe. Or if it's some sort of black hole sucking up everything within sigh [sic]. people [sic] expect way too much out of this app. Swipe left if you're looking for a husband. I will not follow you on IG, ever. Yes I have a Lamborghini and no you cannot ride in it. 'Sometimes all you need is to not read a corny quote on someone's profile.'"

WOW ARE YOU SURE YOU AREN'T LOOKING FOR A WIFE BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST PERFECT IN EVERY FACET, SIR. I GUESS I'LL SWIPE LEFT SINCE YOU DON'T WANNA PUT A RING ON IT, YOU CLASSY BASTARD. And speaking of husbands...

"I am married. You will probably say good men are all taken or married. Do not hesitate to contact me if your instinct tells you to do so. I do not message first given my situation. Pierced nipples are sexy. I believe in fair trade if you know what I mean."

By Jove, I DO know what you mean. Fair trade is super important to agriculture! You're so wise, and clearly impressive and comfortable with yourself and your life. And, we have to end with my current favorite, whose name I didn't erase because this is clearly NOT his real name (and if it is... well who cares?):

I would say I hope these gentlemen have success on Tinder, but not so much...

My Anaconda Don't

First off, happy one year Singleversary to me! I am celebrating how I’ve celebrated this whole year: not dating someone who treats me like shit. Yay go me! And now, on to regularly scheduled programming.

We judge people based on how they look. That’s a lot of what Tinder and really all online dating is predicated upon. You find this person physically desirable, so you want to get to know them in some way. This also happens in everyday life, at bars, restaurants, coffee shops, clubs, walking down the street. Based upon your own personal standards of what you find beautiful and attractive, you are drawn to people and repelled by others. Women are often unfairly forced into very narrow definitions of what society views as attractive. I could go on some very long, ranty, feminist tangents, but I’ll spare those for now. You may get a very long-winded post about feminism and online dating soon, though. (You will, don’t worry.)

For now, let’s just say I don’t particularly conform to the current societal standards of beauty. I am not blonde, nor thin, and I don’t have a big ass, which is particularly ‘in’ at the moment. I am okay with all of this. I’m a curvy, busty, unnaturally redheaded ball of sass and wit. I’ve been told I’m the come-to-life Jessica Rabbit, and I’m more than okay with that comparison. Again, however, even though I have the boobs (and then some) and hips and thighs, I also have a bit of a tummy, and my ass is flat. Always has been.  I’ve started doing squats to help, and they have, slightly. But by and large, I have a pancake butt. I attract people who are attracted to boobs because I have those in spades. Now everyone who knows me in real life knows this because it’s obvious. On the interwebs and on Tinder, however, not so much, because I don’t exactly take photos of my butt and put them on the internet. I’m not a Kardashian. To paraphrase Judge Judy, don’t pee on my leg and tell me I’m famous.

All of this does have a point, I promise. This man messaged me on Tinder. This is what happened.

Originally, I was going to tell him I lost my butt in an ‘assident,’ but I wasn’t sure he would understand. I’m sure there will be someone else to try it out on. At least we both found out quickly that we would not be a good match. Because… ick. If you lose all interest in me because I lack a big butt, well, you’re missing a hell of a lot more than just a booty, sir. Also I'm guessing he doesn't really have an anaconda. And even if he does, my own anaconda don't want none. I have a lot of latent feels about how we treat women in society, how we are more than just our bodies, the Venus Hottentot and rise of the booty as a sign of sexual fertility and femininity, etc, but this is a lighthearted blog about dating, so I shall spare you all. For now.

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.*