The first time I noticed the lump protruding between two of my left ribs happened to be the same day I decided I needed to break up with my boyfriend of four years. He was lovely and wonderful and, truly, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to show their affection for me in as kind and thoughtful of ways (on our one year anniversary, we went to the beach where we’d had our first date and, while sitting on the sand, he began to dig for what turned out to be the violin case he buried earlier that day. Inside the case was, of course, his instrument, but also candles he’d carved with our initials that he lit in a circle around us and, after accidentally dripping hot wax onto my leg, he strummed his violin nervously to sing the song he’d written about how much he loved our relationship. It is, to date, the sweetest thing to ever happen to me.) I loved him very, very much, but earlier that summer, my family had moved across the country and, with him just starting college, the thought of facing a long-distance relationship for at least the next four years seemed too unbearable for 19-year-old me. The night I called him to break it off, I laid on my back porch, looking up at the sky and feeling my ribs, moving the lump around slowly while accepting that all these things were my new normal. Later, after I’d gone to many doctors to confirm the lump wasn’t dangerous and after I’d gone on many dates to confirm dangerous is exactly what some men are, I fell back into this routine as a habit, fingering my side as a reminder of what my life had been like when I'd wanted to be in love.
Close to a decade later, I was lying topless in what looked like a cross between a high-end plastic surgery practice and a place where a wealthy serial killer would keep his victims heads. The lump, it turned out, had grown quite a bit and, in combination with me losing twenty pounds since college, was now very visible. Also, it had started to hurt when I worked out and constantly having to stop to hold my side in between drop push-ups was really killing my game at the gym.
So, I was getting it removed.
I was awake during the surgery, a fact that horrified my roommate, Serria. When the doctor told me he could give me a Valium to calm my nerves before making the first cut, I’d refused, but considered asking him to give one to her, as she was far more upset about the entire situation, sitting in the waiting room to take me home. So, while she was having a minor panic attack, I was fine as the doctor sliced me open and tugged away at my insides and left handprint shaped bruises across my chest, all the while saying things like “Wow, this is the size of a plum!” and “Really, though, it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen!." And, during this, oddly enough, I thought about how, maybe, this could change my dating life.
It’s not that anyone I’d dated had ever mentioned or even noticed the lump. No, it’s more that I love to tie things into circles, to make myself turn coincidences into connections that are illogically meaningful instead of random. I know this about myself (and I realize it's ridiculous) but, to me, having the very piece of myself removed that I’d discovered the same day I decided I wanted to be single all those years before felt symbolic, as if maybe now, I would finally be open to being in a real relationship.
Then again, it could also be because the male nurse who was helping cut me open looked almost identical to the last person I’d dated, so much so that Serria did a double, then triple take, when he walked me out of the operating room.
I’d been seeing a Very Nice Guy for, like, more than four months which, for me, is both Very Off Brand and a Very Long Time. We’d decided to just be friends in April and I hadn’t really put any serious effort into dating since then, but as the doctor and the Very Nice Guy’s lookalike stitched me up, telling me I couldn’t work out for at least two weeks, I thought I’d use the time I’d normally be at the gym to go out on a few dates. After all, the part of me that had always wanted to be single had just been removed and, as the doctor showed me eagerly, shoved hazardously inside three prescription-sized glass vials.
Anyway, it turns out recovering from surgery is much harder than I expected. While I’d understood I couldn’t get right back into drop push-ups immediately, I didn’t think I wouldn't be able to walk or that my stitches would burn every time I took a breath. So, after a week spent mostly horizontal on the couch, the first time I truly felt up for any activity was six days post-op. When I got a text from a guy who’d been trying to take me out for months, it felt like the perfect opportunity.
We’d met in mid-March, on a night I was realizing things were slowly ending with the Very Nice Guy. I’d been out with a friend and this man had been a few seats down from us at the bar, wearing a white t-shirt and looking incredibly attractive and, also, I guess, listening in to our conversation about how I didn’t think the Very Nice Guy was that into me anymore because, within seconds of me finishing the sentence, he was sitting next to me, asking my name.
The irony of where we met — the exact same bar, almost the exact same spot of where Jake had first stopped me cold back in 2015 — was not lost on me, but, again, I love when life connects in circles and I was intrigued. Still, although I wanted to, I felt a little weird when he asked for my number, convinced giving it to him wasn't entirely fair to the guy I'd been seeing, even if I did think it was going to end soon.
Exasperated that I couldn't commit, the guy in the white shirt finally picked up my phone, grabbed my finger to access through the thumbprint passcode and sent himself a flirty text from my number.
"Trust me," he told me as I was leaving, his name now displayed at the top of my messages. "I'm going to need you to have this."
And, eventually, I did. A month later, when we randomly (or coincidentally?! meaningfully!?) ran into each other at a bar again, the Very Nice Guy and I had amicably parted as friends just hours before and, so, I was now available to be Very Much Interested.
Chatting that night, we found out we were neighbors — which, in this city, means we live a full ten blocks and an avenue apart, but as someone who almost exclusively dates men who live in Brooklyn, not having to ever take the subway to see him was already a huge plus. Still, despite our proximity and steady text communication over the next couple months, we were never able to get our schedules in sync. Between him usually working out of Atlanta half the week (honestly, a boyfriend being out of town for 4/7 days is my ideal level of commitment) and me having a steady stream of visitors, the first time we were both free was the Saturday night after my surgery. So, stitches in, lump out, and armed with 1600 mg of Ibuprofen plus a full bottle of rosé, I made plans to meet up with him after leaving an Hawaiian-themed housewarming in Long Island City.
While I’d been at the party — drinking on the rooftop, wearing a lei and crumpling to the ground only once when Serria accidentally hit me in my stitches — he’d been with his friends getting a drink in a hotel bar that was close to both our apartments and, also, nice enough that my parents have stayed there. I reasoned that when I was ready to leave, I’d go home to change out of my Hawaiian shirt and cut-offs to a more appropriate date outfit, then meet up with him there to have a nice cocktail. Our future date took a drastic turn, however, when he told me he’d moved locations and that move had embarrassingly taken him to The 13th Step.
For my Ball State friends, The 13th Step is the equivalent of the old Dill Street, if the old Dill Street had beer pong tables instead of crab races and Quarter Beers. For all my other friends, it’s a bar with fairly cheap drinks and fairly terrible people, considering a significant portion of the patrons are likely underage, you know, seeing as they are still interested AND talented at games like beer pong. (To truly understand how intolerable this bar is, it helps to know that every single person who lives in New York that I recounted this story for AUDIBLY GASPED IN HORROR when I said that's where he had been).
I hadn’t been to The 13th Step or any of it’s other of-equal-value sister bars since the spring of 2016, when Jake and I had lost my apartment keys at a brunch and forced ZG, the only person who had my spares, to spend a full day drinking with us there to forget. (I’d had THE best day hanging out with my two favorite guys. Zach, who had not fallen even the slightest under Jake's charm, still refers to it as THE worst day of his whole entire life.)
Real-life footage of the actual worst day of his life
Even back then, I’d felt too old to be there, so now, as a 26-year-old, my desire to go to a college-themed bar was low. But, I had already committed to going on the date and, besides, I really wanted to see this guy. (Again, he’s, like, incredibly attractive). Luckily, he was just as embarrassed as I was that he was there, so we decided to meet at the bar next door, a place infinitely nicer even if only because it’s direct competitor caters to people who still order cranberry vodkas.
When he’d told me he’d been at The 13th Step, I’d assumed he was going to be at least a little bit drunk because no one leaves that place with their dignity or sobriety in tact. And, as my Lyft pulled up to the bar, he’d given me a definite confirmation in the form of a text that just said: “Also, I need you to know I’m really drunk.”
So, things were going great already.
I didn’t immediately see him when I got into the bar, so I decided to go to the restroom to check my lipstick, spit out my gum and, also, make sure my stitches weren’t bleeding through my shirt. Waiting outside the three doors — one clearly marked “Out of Order”— I wondered where he could be, considering the bar wasn’t that large. Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I could hear the sound of a toilet trying to be flushed multiple times coming from behind the “Out of Order” door.
“Oh, no,” I literally said out loud, the “I’m-Really-Drunk” text making far much more sense as my date walked out that door, picked me up in a bear hug to spin me around, then exclaimed “I don’t know why, but that bathroom doesn’t work!”
Against all common sense, I followed him back to the bar where we both grabbed a drink and I introduced myself to the equally intoxicated friend he’d been with all day. And, while some people have seemed put off by the fact his friend was also there as I’ve been verbally retelling this story, I feel it’s important to remind everyone that I, too, have brought a friend on a date and it was a blacked-out Zach Groth, who drank an uncomfortable amount of tequila, then ate all my food with my date’s utensils before vividly depicting what a bad kisser does with their tongue using both a beer bottle and tortilla chip.
So, I was willing to give a little leeway for that.
All things considered, the date was going pretty well. Despite his severe drunkenness, he was engaging, charming and remembered a lot of things about my life that I’d told him the first time we’d met, though he couldn’t seem to remember to try to avoid my stitches, running his hands down my side every chance he could get. A few more drinks and one kiss later, the worst part of the date (save for the out-of-order incident) was that he had, unprompted, said “Nas raised me” multiple times, so when it came time to leave, I wasn’t opposed to splitting a cab back to our neighborhood.
And, then, 30 seconds later, it got so much worse.
We’d signed the bill and were saying goodbye to his friend when the bartender, who’d been making drinks in front of our seats, turned his back to face the cash register. For whatever reason and to my sheer horror, my date reached over to grab one of the glasses — and started drinking out of it.
“Absolutely not,” the bartender exclaimed once he turned around, very much (and rightfully so) over my date’s behavior. “You have to get your boyfriend out of here,” he told me, clearly (and, again, rightfully so) under the impression no one would be stupid enough to do that on a first date.
Apologizing profusely, I assured him we were leaving. A bouncer came to gently escort my date out of the bar and, as I grabbed my things, they headed toward the exit.
And, then, out of nowhere, his friend — who’d not only been quietly complacent the entire evening, but also clocked in at barely my 5’2” — ran and spider-monkey jumped onto the bouncer’s back, putting him in a chokehold.
Immediately, the two of them are on the floor.
Punches are being thrown.
Glasses are breaking.
Drinks are flying.
Bar stools have fallen.
A crowd of people has formed around them.
I am mortified.
Slowly, I backed my way to the outer edges of the circle as the fight progressed, waiting for the bouncer to finally gain his footing and physically throw the friend out of the bar. Once they were gone, the entire room was buzzing about the fist fight as I stood still in shock.
“Did you see what happened?!,” a couple toward the back of the circle said to me, clearly thinking I, too, was also like them, innocent bystanders of a random brawl.
To their surprise and (I saw it) slight smug delight in their coupledom, I cried, “That was my first date!"
That was 11 days ago. Yesterday, I was once again lying topless in what I have now determined beyond a reasonable doubt to be a plastic surgery place, ready to get my stitches out. Trying to tie everything up into those random, meaningful circles, I’d been thinking a lot about what this would mean for me going forward. The lump, that part of me that had wanted to be single, was gone and, honestly, considering how terribly my first date without it had been, I was — irrationally, I know — wondering if getting it removed had been a huge mistake. After the fist fight, I hadn't seen my date again and, though he'd contacted me multiple times to apologize, I thought I'd maybe need a little more time to get myself back to where I'd been pre-lump, when I'd wanted to be in love.
As I was internally conversing with myself, the doctor walked in to let me know that, while the stitches were ready to come out, parts of the surgery hadn’t fully healed, so I’d have to stay bandaged for a few more weeks before I could truly go back to who I used to be.
I know he was just talking about the physical procedure, but in all of the ways, this finally felt about right.