This essay is part eight of my year-long project where, each month, I’ll look through old journal entries by using a random date generator to decide which day of my past to explore. This month’s was June 20th.
JUNE 20, 2012—2023
2012: We explored Worcester by getting tours of the cathedral, an old house and City Hall. The mayor gave us beer. We also had a fancy lunch and Drew got really smelly cheese. We walked up the narrowest stairs to the top of the city.
2013: I finished my Sila infographic and a poster for Backyard Farms that everyone really liked. I was really tired all day though and I fell asleep on the couch while our whole family watched “The Daily Show.”
2014: I got really tired during my workout which was weird and I spent most of the day just catching up on work except for when we all went to Lowe’s. We had a great homemade pizza dinner, then we did a coffee tasting cupping at night.
2015: After Monster Cycle, I picked up my new glasses and then went to Chelsea’s to do crafts. I was still pretty hungover from last night [the night before, ZG, Chels and I had gone to the death metal show a guy I liked invited me to and our lack of understanding directions left us stranded in Bushwick at 2 AM. Proving I also possessed a lack of judgement, a few days later, this man would drive me home from our first date with a lit candle in the cupholder of his car] and also feel really horrible that I didn’t go home for Father’s Day.
The early, early, early morning hours of June 20, 2015.
2016: I went to the fancy dermatologist this morning and it sort of made me feel like I am just going through motions after [REDACTED]. I don’t know how to feel, so I’m feeling too many things.
2017: This whole day just seemed to have a lot of miscommunication between every person I was working with. I was in a bad mood, so I walked home instead of going to yoga.
2018: Chelsea, Victor, Carrie and I had an El Vez Bureau meeting [we would leave work early and drink margaritas across the street from the office] and we met Roger.
2019: [My ex] and I woke up together for the last time [it was not], then I got delayed at the airport to the point I didn’t think I would make it to Nashville, but I did and we got [REDACTED].
2020: We had a very low-key day at home — Mom and I spent most of it reading in the sun and Dad worked around the house. I’m still not letting them touch me or be close to me, but it’s so nice being around them.
2021: My phone accidentally called [the dirty hot man I was dating] at 7 AM which was truly humiliating, but I went to Paintbox and then had a very low-key day just cleaning and reading on the roof.
2022: We had a nice beach day and, after dinner, I started working on my project for TODAY — I am really into it. I didn’t even realize it was 3 AM which I think is a good sign about taking this job and trying it out.
2023: After work, [the guy I was seeing] came over and we sat on my steps while my cleaning person finished, then we had dinner and [REDACTED]. I like him so much that I cried when he left — which was kind of funny because why?! But also it made me feel weird.
I am currently in the stage of a break-up where I’ve started to Google all my past relationships, checking to see how their lives turned out — or, really, how my life could have turned out had we stayed together. (The guy who left me for the Amazon rainforest? In the Amazon rainforest! The guy who used to take me on dates, but not eat due to his two-week long intermittent fasts? No longer fasting, but does do workouts primarily featuring what appears to be a wooden club from caveman times! The guy who used a lit candle as an air freshener in the cupholder of his car when he drove me home, leading me to believe we would burst into flames at every stop sign? Did a cross-country roadtrip with a lit candle as an air freshener in the cupholder of his car THE ENTIRE WAY and did not have to use the emergency fire extinguisher even once!).
I am also in the stage of a break-up where I am going on first dates again and they have been… fine. As I was telling my therapist this week, I am not used to first dates being… fine. I am used to them either being so good, they last for 10 straight hours (see: the first poem in last month’s entry 🥵) or being so bad, I fear for my life (see: above, almost being set on fire 🥵). This is my third therapist and we have a fairly new relationship — my first broke up with me to graduate (and still frequently twerks at 305 next to me which is not! weird! at! all!) and I broke up with my second after she kept encouraging me to make mentally unhealthy decisions “for the drama” (not! weird! at! all!) — but because of this turnover, my current therapist was not yet familiar with my dating lore…which is, essentially, the reason I even started this blog over a decade ago.
Getting to recount my dating experiences for her this week, especially the bad ones (the time I scheduled a date with two best friends for the same evening! the time my date vomited on my shoes! the time ZG drunkenly came on a date with me and ate all my food with my date’s utensils! the time my first date got in a fist fight with the bouncer! I can literally keep going all day!) reminded me of how much I love storytelling like this. It’s been awhile since I’ve dedicated a post to a bad dating story, perhaps because it’s been awhile since I’ve been on a bad date. But, June 20th being the origin story of the infamous candle-in-the-car adventure inspired me to use this month’s entry to tell two more of my favorite really, really, really bad date stories.
For over a year in our mid-twenties, Serria, ZG and I would go to the same bar for dinner every Sunday, Thursday and sometimes Tuesday night. This was consistent until one of us did the math and realized how financially reckless it was to spend that much money on well tequila shots and mediocre chicken wings at a restaurant nowhere near any of our apartments. (Also, our favorite bartender and favorite server quit.) It’s hard for me now to equate the people we are today with the people we were back then, but for that year, we were fully immersed and allowed ourselves to become engrained into the bar’s culture.
There was nothing particularly special about Barfly. We’d only started going there because it was a block from Zach’s first NYC apartment and, despite him moving and the bar being average at best, we loved it. It was always either too bright or too dark. It’s claim to fame was that in peak “Game of Thrones” days, Kit Harrington got too drunk there and was forcibly removed (the fact this did not happen on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday was talked about amongst our group for weeks). Aesthetically, the vibes were all over the place. Presumably decorating for Christmas, someone once covered the window sills with what had to have been, conservatively, 1,000 porcelain dolls in velvet attire and then, decided to never take them down. This meant our favorite booth (because of course we had a favorite booth) was framed between Bud Light signage and miniature, well-dressed Victorian girls in fancy hats. It wasn’t a very large place — once, someone was playing pool with a fresh, three-day-old baby strapped to their back and it’s a small enough space that everyone in the bar was intimately aware. But, because of its size, it was easy to clock the other regulars and while the three of us rarely left “our” booth, we frequently interacted with the other people who had decided to make Barfly their second home, too.
One of these people was Gene. (Gene is not his real name — while I did used to write dating stories on this site using men’s real, identifying information (again, so sorry, Jake), I now make my best attempts to describe the people in my pieces as generically as possible. The one recent exception to this is when I wrote about being “broken up with” for the Amazon. Before publishing, I let that guy know it was going up since we are still very close buds and, also, all our friends were going to obviously know it was about him. Even in the most environmentally conscious of friend groups, it’s rare for there to be more than one member who has dedicated their life to combatting climate change in the rainforests of Brazil).
Anyway — Gene asked me out almost every time we saw each other which, again, was like two or three times a week. Every time he asked, I said no, partly because he was not my type, but mostly because I was deep in the throes of what Serria and I liked to call “The Twilight Situation.” (I was infatuated with two bartenders who worked three blocks from each other and happened to be named Ed and Jake).
But, eventually, because, unlike Bella, it appeared neither of the bartenders were actually interested in being with me in a for-eternity/imprinting-type way, I finally said yes to Gene. I had my reservations (he was afraid of animals! all of them! he carried a beeper! for no discernible reason!), but I figured if it wasn’t working out with guys who were my type, I might as well try something new. So, Gene and I made plans to meet up at the bar on Sunday — he had a pool tournament — but we’d go on our dinner date after it was over.
Unfortunately for me, Gene was really good at pool. Like, really good. By the time the last round of the tournament ended, it was past 11 PM and Serria and ZG, who’d come for our normal Barfly Sunday routine, had left hours before. Desperately hungry at 9 PM, I’d already eaten, but Gene hadn’t, so we walked to the spot he’d said he was dying to take me…
…which was the TGI Friday’s in Union Square.
This was very funny to me. Even funnier was the fact that it was closed because, again, it was now 11:45 PM on a Sunday night. Trying to pivot, Gene asked if I liked margaritas because he knew a “cute, little spot.” Because this was 2016 and I was still drinking and I loved both margaritas and cute, little spots, I started to get excited as we got in the cab to the next location. I was envisioning us going to an underground speakeasy, a tiny hole in the wall, a late night pop-up. I was rooting for him to turn this date around.
Instead, we unironically arrived at the Dallas BBQ in Times Square.
If it wasn’t clear, this is not a cute, little spot. Nothing in Times Square is cute and I would know because Zach Groth has made me go dine there (ironically!) twice in the last six months. I genuinely wish I could provide more details about the atmosphere of what the Times Square Dallas BBQ was like, but I blacked out from overstimulation when we started riding the multiple-floor escalator up to our table. (I do feel it’s important to mention that, in my experience, most cute, little spots do not have escalators in their establishments). Riding up to our table, my hopes for the date were going down the higher we got and now, my sole goal was to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Committed to this goal, I ordered a single margarita. On a different timeline, Gene ordered a full steak dinner. When the check finally came, well after 1 AM, I did that thing you do on a first date… you know, the thing where you reach for your wallet slowly to show that you don’t have expectations for them to pay, all the while waiting for them to say, “Oh, no, don’t worry, I got this one.”
Gene, once again working off a different script, said, “Oh, I don’t think they’ll let us split the check here.” He was then silent, sitting in complete stillness instead of grabbing for his wallet…
…which is how I ended up paying for both his large steak dinner and my one (1!) margarita.
Exhausted, broke and certain I was never again going to date anyone, let alone anyone who was not my type, we got in a cab to end the night. I made it abundantly clear multiple times to both him and the driver there would be two stops. Still, this did not deter Gene from trying to get out of the car when we reached my apartment. Apparently, there was a small-to-mid-sized animal who walked the sidewalks outside his place at night that “terrified” him, which is, hands down, the craziest “can I spend the night?” excuse I have ever been dealt. I firmly said no and when I’d gotten to the top of my sixth floor walk-up (alone), I had a text from him saying what a lovely night he’d had and how he couldn’t wait to go out with me again.
I waited until the next day to respond, telling him I had a nice time, but thought it was best for us to keep our interactions strictly friendly and within the confines of our shared bar. Later that day, he text me back, a “thanks, but no thanks” message at the offer of just platonic friendship. “I keep my circle small,” he’d said, clearly forgetting we saw each other in a room the size of an average two-bedroom apartment three times a week, making us, by sheer proximity, in the same circle.
And, yet — we never spoke again. We still saw each other frequently, but the atmosphere within the bar had shifted in a way that felt actively uncomfortable. Barfly no longer felt fully like home and when someone in our trio eventually suggested trying a different restaurant on a Sunday, Thursday or sometimes Tuesday night, there were no objections from me.
I recounted this story on a first date in May 2023. It was my first, first date in a long, long time and I was telling it because I was on the date with someone who worked at my gym. A month earlier, I’d joined Equinox and then, almost immediately, gotten pneumonia. When I was no longer bed-ridden, I spent every waking moment at the gym, trying to financially make up for the time I’d lost. Because I was not fully cleared to exercise at the level I was used to (when the doctor took my blood pressure after twelve days of no movement and existing solely off Goldfish and ice pops, he told me I was lucky to be standing), I maximized my time there not by working out, but by working from the attached conference center…
…which is how I met Dave. (Again, not his real name and again, Jake, I am sorry I didn’t have the foresight to do this in 2016).
Dave was friendly, but in the way that I initially couldn’t tell if he wanted to ask me out or was trying to sell me on adding additional features to my already outrageously expensive membership. In general, I have a pretty bad radar for this (it was once brought to my attention that I was on a date mid-way through the date), but in this particular situation, I was especially confused because I did not look good. In fact, I looked like a duck. I am not saying this to be modest — I literally was dressed like a duck and I could not compute Dave’s general hotness (if you have been envisioning him as what you’d assume an Equinox trainer would look like, you are exactly correct) with my all-yellow, no-make up attire. Still, something must have done it for him because by the end of our conversation, we’d made a date for the following week.
I feel like it’s important to mention I did not once take my hood down during our conversation.
I’m not going to lie, I was nervous about going out with someone who worked at a place where I was contractually obligated to spend thousands of dollars over the next year. So, at the beginning of the date, we set some ground rules. We were adults, we would behave like adults. If the date didn’t go well, that would be fine and we could be friends — I was not about to be down bad, crying at the gym over this man while he watched from the other side of the weight room. Dave so readily agreed with me that I felt at ease, telling him all about Gene and together, we made fun of how he kept his circle small.
The date was… fine. We’d met up at a non-alcoholic bar by my apartment and, over the course of the evening, there were definitely some flags that were appearing to be more red in color than green. For example, he was 45 minutes late. He told me he lived with a roommate, who turned out to be a girl he used to sleep with. Also, he was wearing sweatpants. In general, I’d had to do more work conversationally than I prefer to do on dates, but all that being said, I was not looking for a boyfriend. I was coming out of a two-week long pneumonia isolation and, before that, a months-long situationship that rocked my very soul. This man had not tried to inadvertently set me on fire or fought a bouncer and he was very, very hot — I was going to let him walk me home and it was a 50/50 toss up as to whether I would let him come in the apartment with me at the end of the night.
I decided I was going to make the decision based on how the good night kiss went. We got to my street corner, he leaned down to kiss me and — it was good! Like, really good! We pulled back, each smiling at each other and right before I opened my mouth to invite him inside, he spoke first.
“Damn,” he said, completely serious, “I can’t wait to tear that ass apart.”
Thinking I had maybe, hopefully, God-PLEASE, misheard what he’d said, I stared at him with a confused look on my face — which should have been enough to get him to retract the statement. But, instead of picking up on social queues, he fumbled even harder.
“You know, if this was a movie,” he said, “the next scene would cut to us fucking and you would just hear…” and then, I swear to you, I am not making this up — this man then proceeded to CLAP HIS HANDS TOGETHER IN QUICK SUCCESSION at such a speed and strength that I can assure you, neither I, or my ass, would ever be interested in recreating.
Rendered near speechless, I firmly said good night and by the time I’d gotten into my apartment (alone), I had a text from him eerily similar to the one Gene sent all those years before, saying what a lovely night he’d had and how he couldn’t wait to go out with me again, though the content of Dave’s was a little less PG. Looking at it and feeling the revulsion from the last 30 seconds of the evening settle on my skin, I knew I was going to need to invoke the friend pact we’d made at the beginning of our date much, much earlier than we’d initially anticipated.
A few days later, we were both at the gym and he walked me out. Like Gene, I told Dave I had a nice time, but thought it was best for us to just be buds. I told him I didn’t think it was a great idea to get into a casual, physical relationship with someone I was going to see so often, leaving out the part where I was literally going to invite him upstairs had he, you know, JUST NOT SAID ANYTHING AT ALL.
The conversation was not going well. Dave got defensive, making excuses and not sticking to the adult-like rules we’d agreed upon before our date had even started. Clearly irritated I was ending things and in a last-ditch effort that, honestly, was kind of impressive to attempt to pull off given what he’d said and sent to me, this man stared me dead in the eyes and said, “I don’t know why you would assume I wanted a physical relationship with you.”
“Well,” I said, loudly and exasperated enough that people stared. “You said you couldn’t wait to ‘tear my ass apart!’”
I could quite literally see the gears of this man’s brain working to try to come up with another excuse and when he finally landed on one — “Oh, that! I was kidding, I said that because I was drunk off those three beers!” — I had to remind him the location of our date had been at a non-alcoholic bar.
The next day, not even a full calendar week after we’d gone out, I woke up to the longest text message I’d ever received in my life. It was from Dave, explaining that it was “nothing personal,” but he’d blocked me on all forms of social media, was not planning on speaking to me at the gym unless it was due to a professional obligation and, most importantly, was not interested in being my friend if I was not interested in him in a romantic or physical sense.
“I get it,” I responded, both annoyed and incredulous I was in this situation once again. “You, too, keep your circle small.”