RTF

I’ve typically stuck to only dating friends, or friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends. Guys from high school. Guys from college. Old coworkers. Old bosses. My brother’s coworkers. My brother’s bosses. My bestfriend’s boyfriend’s brother. My bestfriend’s boyfriend’s boss- you get it.
Pasts and personalities that I was already familiar with: no room for surprises.

And when things slowed down, there was Tinder. Swiping, and swiping, and swiping, and holy shit how do I know if he’s even funny? What if he has 6 kids? Or a wife? What if he’s allergic to cats?
And you just don’t know, ever.

So, here’s a scary story with a slightly funny ending about the first guy I met off Tinder.

He was my age, or maybe a year or two older. His office was across the street from my office, and he had the same Monday-Friday work schedule as me. (When you’re 22, this is quite hard to find because all the hot guys are bouncers or barkeeps.)

I knew I wasn’t attracted to him as soon as I heard his voice. Soft. Uncertain. Meek.

We had drinks and talked about ourselves. Our parents lived in the same small town, and we both took extreme pride in our careers. I was drunk and agreed to see him again.

I can’t remember where our second date was, but I know that it ended up naked in my apartment, and that the next morning began with a trip to the pharmacy, and me trying to not commit homicide in my apartment.  I chalked the whole experience up to “the one time that blonde kid tried to get me pregnant”, and deleted Tinder.

That summer, I was downtown with some girls, and ran into this same fucking douche at Dive Bar (the one with the mermaids).  I was drunk again and elected a ride back to his apartment with a promise to myself that “I’ll just make him use a condom this time”/”he lives downtown anyway.”  He made me coffee and eggs in the morning and before I left, he pulled down a bright pink and white MK handbag from his closet.
He said he felt bad for almost getting me pregnant that one time.

(Can we just take a second to WTF at my life.)

So, then he was back on the roster. There was a thing or two after this, but our very last date was at Bandera.
I skipped soccer practice this night and was so mad at myself for it.

There was a 90-minute wait at the restaurant, so we spent it at the Tap Room next door.  I had two local brews before they called us to our table.  After dinner, we went to a dark dirty dive that I’d never been to before. When I returned from washing my hands in the bathroom, he handed me a shot of whiskey.
Society tells you not to drink these ones.

The potential threat of danger crossed my mind, but I thought to myself, no- not on the fourth date, it’s fine.  He’s fine.

The events following are strictly details pulled only from my cell phone the next day:

I had called everyone. Text messages flooded my inbox with the same question, “but where are you?” I had no idea. I had taken screenshots of my Google Map location, but never actually sent it to anyone.
He was naked when I woke up at home the next day, and I had thrown up on my bathroom floor.

When I made allegations to his face later in the week about my suspicions, he neither admitted, nor denied… and generally seemed the furthest from surprised by my accusations.

We quit communicating until a week later when he blew up my phone in disbelief that I had tweeted a photo of him naked and passed out on my bed that night.

I guess I should have just slipped it in his drink.