The year was 2007. I was living with Tom, Sue, and Tara, and having what was quite possibly my most wild summer of drugs, sex, and alcohol as of yet. Alright, perhaps the drugs are an over-exaggeration, though it is quite possible that I was still taking medication while drinking copious amounts of whiskey. Who really knows? My rent was $300 a month, I was bartending for the anti-christ in a fucking martini bar that doubled as a nice Italian restaurant (hooray for me) and I was shaking those mixers like I was giving hand jobs (now that I think about it, that is probably why I actually made decent money there). I was also searching for love, something that I was desperate for, and began searching online through match, pof, jdate (hey, I have a thing for Jews), fark, reader, and craigslist.
I posted an ad looking for someone who was fun, witty, could provide intellectual discourse and quite possibly fodder for future stories to tell friends. Little did I know what I was in for with this guy, whom for the sake of this story I shall call Jeb. Jeb was a weirdo. I like to pretend that he conned me into that date by emailing me a hilarious story about how he was hit by a car while riding his bike. He told it in such a hilarious way that I didn't realize that he was being quite serious and wasn't trying to be humorous about it at all. Lets flash forward to the date.
Jeb and I met for dinner and drinks at a cute bar in Lincoln Park. He was tall, dark hair, decent looking, and had a big smile on his face. I remember thinking to myself, score! He looks normal! Alas, it wasn't for long. As I walked toward him he blew me away with the following words: "YOU MUST BE FAITH!" I looked at him quizzically, wondering if he was being loud as a sort of icebreaker. Guys will never cease to amaze me with what they deem to be hilarious. "Uh... yes. That makes you Jeb, right?" I replied. "HA, YOU ARE SO FUNNY!" he cried out.
Yes, my friends, Jeb was what I like to refer to as a fucking loudmouth.
We shook hands and I noticed that there were two large, black objects with wheels tied to his backpack. I asked him if he skates and he used that as the invite he was looking for to lecture me about the benefits of blading. I won't go into what he said, but lets just say that he was very passionate about that activity. He roller blades (bladed?) every day. Woo, roller blading? I can't help it, I had to laugh. Roller blades are really weird to me. I always see people with really awesome bodies roller blading on the lake path but they look absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, I digress. He talked so loudly that people keep looking over at us. I was absolutely mortified and before I knew it I had three jack and cokes before he even finished his first beer. Meanwhile, he was still talking about roller blading.
I'm going to take a minute to talk about roller blades. Have you guys ever really looked at roller blades? Do you know anyone remotely cool that roller blades? I know cool chicks who roller skate. Hell, I remember going to my first roller derby a few years ago when a friend was a ref. Those fucking games are so bad ass. Have you seen those chicks? I would guess that the majority of them can crush cans with their thighs. I loved watching these babes fight on the floor. Then again, I like fighting so I am biased. I am sure that there is a correlation between being badass and roller skating. However, I doubt that the same could be said with roller blading. I have never met any cool roller bladers. When a friend mentioned roller blading I made fun of her. They are odd looking shoes that cover your ankle, they are long, they are tall, and they have four wheels in a row. They are for pussies who can't ice skate. I can't ice skate, but I'll roller skate before I roller fucking blade. Also, I cannot help this next part. You know who makes roller skating look hot? These chicks:
I should preface this next bit by sharing that I am lactose intolerant. This place, which he swore to me had a lot of vegetarian options, in fact only had one for me: grilled cheese. I love cheese, so of course I ate one. I continued drinking and snatched the check as soon as the waitress set it on the table (if I don't like a guy I'm on a date with then I want to pay for everything so that I don't feel guilty about never seeing him again. More about that in a later post.) As soon as we left my stomach started doing jumping jacks. By jumping jacks, I mean there was a storm brewing in there and it was brewing pretty damn fast. We were walking by bars that had all sorts of specials that I didn't notice because I was trying too hard not to fart too loudly when he noticed a bar with $10 vodka lemonade pitchers. He asked me if I would be interested in that bar and my stomach, requesting a restroom stop, settled the deal for me. We walked into the bar.
I used the restroom a lot in the hour or two we were there. I also drank three pitchers worth of vodka lemonades. What can I say? I was fucking miserable and drinking myself into a stupor. I kept going into the bathroom and texting Tom and Tara to tell them how miserable I was and how I was getting drunk so I could make my night better. I think I ended up flushing my cell phone at some point. I have no idea what we could possibly have talked about at the bar other than the fact that I was pooping a lot. I was also in love with the idea of falling in love so I was willing to let dates drag on in the hope that the guy (so many guys!) would turn out to be the guy who could tame my wild ways. Would he be the one to stop my slutty behavior? Would he be the one to convince me to only date him? Would he take me for who I am, crazy, bitchy, full of mistakes, and not even care that I still had some major growing up to do? These were the things that ran through my lost, lonely, and sadly pathetic twenty-two year old head.
I woke up the next day to one of the most powerful hangovers I have ever had. I remember stretching and thinking to myself how great it was that the date was over. It was then that I looked over to my left. There was Jeb, wearing only boxers, grinning from ear to ear. "LAST NIGHT WAS GREAT!" Oh, no. Oh, shit. "I GOTTA GO BUT I'LL CALL YOU LATER!!" Oh, god, what did I do? "Sure," I said meekly, thanking god that my phone was lost, flushed, run over, stolen, whatever. I also took note that he had an amazing body and it was a shame I didn't remember the sex. I can only hope that it was good. Somehow I doubt it.
I ended up catching the rest of the story from my roommates. It turned out that I brought him home and we fucked (duh, because what else do drunk people do?), I passed out, and he went outside to have a cigarette in his boxers. He was locked out so everyone in my apartment soon got to meet Jeb since he was banging on the windows to get back in and I was in dream land, oblivious to the situation. Tom was the one that found him. When Tom and I share the story with friends he always talks about how he sees this strange man outside wearing only boxers with a lit cigarette. If any of you know Tom then you should ask him for his side of the story. Anyway, Tom came into my room immediately upon finding this dude and managed to get me to open my eyes. "Um, Faith, do you know this man?" "Yeah... we did it." I proceded to roll over and go back to sleep.
My (new) phone rang for the next week or two, and I ignored it when I realized it was his number. Finally one weekend my friend Morgan came to visit and we were chilling on my bed when he calls me for the last time. I turned to look at Morgan and said, "Oh, god, it's him."
"Who?"
"That awful guy who I had the world's worst date with."
"Faith, you have to be mature about this shit and just tell him straight up that you aren't interested in him, otherwise he is going to keep calling you and bugging the shit out of you."
I took a deep breath and answered the phone.
"Hello," I answered.
"HEY!! HOW ARE YOU?? I CAN TELL THAT YOU'VE BEEN REALLY BUSY!!"
"Oh, actually, I haven't been," I replied.
"WHAT?! BUT YOU HAVEN'T BEEN PICKING UP... WANNA GO OUT THIS WEEK?"
"No, sorry, I can't."
"WHY NOT?"
Now this part I always hate. I dislike hurting anyones feelings unless they are genuinely an asshole deserving of it. I sighed, then replied "I'm not interested in you in that way."
"WHAT?"
"Yeah, sorry, you just aren't my type."
"BUT YOU TOLD ME I LOOK LIKE A SUPERMODEL AND YOU SAID I WAS SO AWESOME."
"Yeah... I was drunk."
"BUT WE HAD SEX!! I THOUGHT THAT MEANT SOMETHING!"
At this point I realized that I was definitely dodging a bullet by telling him the truth. "Uh... well, it's not like it was the first time I've had sex on a first date or anything."
Jeb got really quiet and said something along the lines of how it wasn't cool that I led him on by telling him he looked like a supermodel and having sex with him. To this day, I completely agree. I should never tell people that they look like a supermodel when they obviously don't, and I should also probably stop having sex with people I don't care about. What fun would that be though? As for my lovely roommates, for the rest of the summer whenever Tom and Tara would see people out rollerblading they would say "The nineties called. They want their blades back."
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