One time, I met a guy in the alley by Jimmy Johns. It was not as creepy as it sounds.
Allie and I were coming back from the Chug, which (side note) is the best place to ever end your night in Muncie. It's an oddly magical place, but like, if magical meant that Cinderella's ball was held in her basement and college kids had written on all the walls of the bathroom in Sharpie and there's an 88% chance someone in the room has a face tattoo. That kind of magical.
Anyway, Allie went in Jimmy Johns. I stayed outside on the red picnic table because the people that work there refer to me as "The Girl Who Dropped Her Sandwich Behind the Stove," referencing an incident after Muncie Gras where I somehow dropped my sandwich behind the stove. I think I am the only person who has ever done that, which makes me feel proud in a very, very shameful way.
So, the point is that I didn't go inside because of embarrassment, but due to that embarrassment, I ended up meeting this guy, who had some pretentious spelling of his name, but was pretty cute and seemed nice. He had gauges, which kind of used to be my favorite thing about the guy I used to date (excluding the looking good in hats part), so I was interested. We talked a little bit, found out we knew some of the same people and, before Allie and I left to go back to our house and debate the similarities between the water crisis and the Lion King while laying in bed, we exchanged numbers.
At different points throughout the next few weeks, this guy would text me. He seemed nice enough and didn't even think I was weird when we ran into each other in the liquor store while I was dressed in an eighties hot-pink track jacket and Bud Light wrist sweat bands.
So, this weekend, after talking basically all day, he asked me what I was doing this summer. The following is (I SWEAR) word-for-word what our interaction was like:
Him: where are you working this summer?
Me: I'm the design intern at a PR firm in Boston.
Him: What?! That's awesome! I'm majoring in graphic design!
Me: Really? That's cool, I'm a graphic journalism major.
Him: *AN ALMOST NAKED PHOTO OF HIMSELF*
Ummmmmmmmm, what?
In the three years that I have been a graphic journalism major, I've received many different reactions. Most of the time, I have to explain that no, I don't take photos and yes, it is much more complex than just making things look pretty. However, this is the first time that I have ever received a naked photo for simply stating my major. Actually, I'm like 100% sure it's the first time I've ever received a naked photo, period, and I definitely did not know how to react.
When I told my co-workers about it, they had a ton of different reactions, although everyone agreed that it was probably the weirdest/funniest thing that's happened to one of us in awhile. Some people said I should be flattered because this bro's abs look like Ryan Lochte and Ryan Gosling created a Ryan Squared love child and it is this human (which I obviously know is impossible because, duh, but just saying, this guy was ripped). Most people were speechless, which is basically how I was when I got the text (sext?) on Saturday night and a lot of people said I probably killed his self-esteem because I never text him back.
This situation made me the most confused human. Here I was, just sitting around thinking about how I finally might have met a guy who likes fonts and ampersands as much as I do when, BAM, he sends what my friends and I now refer to as "The Almost D*** Pic." Not cool, bro. Not cool at all.
Anyways, I guess the moral of this story is don't drop your sandwich behind the stove at Jimmy Johns because otherwise, you will probably meet people in the alley and maybe that isn't very smart.
And, also, never tell anyone what your major is. You never know how they will respond.