I dare you to find any singular thing more evil than a blind date. Unless, that is, you dip into the seventh circle of hell and discover, the double….blind….date. I mean, Satan really put his hoof print all over this one. Blind dates are already awkward, and now you’re forced to have an audience of additional people. Now imagine that the other couple…is actually a couple! So while you’re busy feeling awkward and uncomfortable, they’re cuddling and holding hands while making inside jokes, thus creating unnecessary and frankly, quite cruel pressure for the other half of this unfortunate quartet. But I digress.
Let’s start this one by explaining to you how I was hoodwinked…bamboozled…led astray into this damn double blind date. My cousin found out I was in town. She got my number from my mom (who shall dearly pay when Saint Peter tabulates her Heaven points at the gate) and called and asked that I go downtown with her for a festival. My first gut reaction is of course to say no. Simply because I’m borderline agoraphobic and I’m imaging the type of crowd that will be at this festival. So after some pressure from mom, I finally say yes, and start getting dressed. Shortly thereafter, she calls back to say…welllllll, I have this friend, he wants to come. I’m thinking, well no one wants to be the third wheel but I say sure that’s cool, the more the merrier, right? Then she drops the bomb….HE…HAS…A…FRIEND. So of course I say, hell no man, are you kidding? But she convinces me. So now it’s a blind date. Blah. So I get dressed, change clothes…get dressed again. They arrive and I take a deep breath and walk outside. Unbeknownst (and yet it comes as no surprise) to me my parents are peeking through the window and see him before I do.
So, I get into the truck, and I turn to my right….and I think to myself…damn, tonight is going to SUCK. Because here’s what I see. A large, brightly clad man, wearing shorts that are sagged down so low they look like pants. Shoes that have been tied in that really strange way that means they never actually have to tie their shoes, you know? A bright, March Madness, green shirt, TWO chains with huge pendants dangling (one is a large nugget which I later discover is none other than Jesus Christ himself) and….the coup de grace, a matching….green and white bandana. Winning.
He’s playing with a small black flip phone that is so old the screen is orange and the words are brown. Remember when those phones existed? I later learn this is a TracFone with three minutes on it.
So I’m thinking, okay this will be fine, I’ll just make the best of it. I introduce myself and I literally…LITERALLY cannot understand what this man is saying. He is one of those mumblers, where you’re not sure if his tongue is really fat, or if he just has too many teeth like Michelle Obama. Whatever unfortunate affliction he has causes him to be unintelligible ninety-seven percent of the time. We drive off, and I’m asking if there is alcohol at this event, because clearly I won’t make it through the night without imbibing. I try and make conversation with him, and I feel the way I feel when I’m at an authentic Mexican restaurant asking for no guacamole. I ask if he drinks and he replies “No, I mostly just smoke weed.” FABULOUS. I’m literally staring at my worst nightmare, come to life.
So I check my phone, and my stepdad has sent me a text asking if it could possibly be true that he glimpsed a bandanna around his head and I imagine him falling out laughing as I text him back in the affirmative.
We get downtown, and park and I wonder aloud of there is an app that will remember my location so we will know where the car is and the men are like, we’ll remember…we know where we parked, blah blah, so we walk downtown.
We get to where the festival is…and it’s over.
AWESOME.
So we decide to walk around and try and make the best of it, since downtown is packed with people. Mmkay, so I’m thinking…I need to drink…and SOON.
My cousin’s date keeps searching for a pool hall because “can’t none of us touch him” in pool. Great. He says this repeatedly throughout the night until I finally ask him why he wants to do something on a date that he does every single day with his boys…I mean seriously, this is like when a guy invites you over to “chill” and then you spend the next three hours watching him play Call of Duty.
So we arrive at a bar, and it actually has a nice vibe. There’s with a guy w/ a guitar taking requests from the crowd. We manage to get a table and we sit around, deciding what to order. One of the guys says “I hate beer, I’ll have a Blue Moon.” I tell him…that’s beer. He says, “oh you’re right,” and says maybe he'll have a Red Stripe. I tell him that is also beer, and that if he doesn’t like beer he should probably stop looking at the beer menu. I decide to order a Blue Motorcycle, because I know with its combination of pretty much every clear liquor, it’s bound to make this date improve exponentially. They ask what’s in it and order the same after another reference to smoking more weed than drinking. My cousin mentions that she can’t drink all of hers because she has to drive, and at this point we discover that neither of the guys have a driver’s license. My cousin’s date states proudly that he has a learner’s permit. Me, being the smartass I am, ask him if he can drive after dark, to which he responds…no, only during the day with a licensed driver.” How old are you honey? He says…”twenty seven”. Awesome.
So because it’s standing room only, the waitress asks if we want to start a tab, and I say no. My cousin’s date says, why don’t we open a tab? I explain to him what a tab is, and he is appalled at the thought of giving the bartender a credit card and asks why anyone would ever do that. She comes back with the drinks and the appetizer I ordered and says, that’ll be $31.25. At this point, my “date” leans over and says “thanks for the drink ma, I gotchu next time.” This…is the classy way he informs me that he came out with absolutely no money. So my cousin and I end up paying for their drinks. My potato skins arrive, and they grab them so fast my cousin decides to order some fries.
While eating/drinking, the guys start talking about jacking the singer for his mic so they can freestyle. At this point, I burst out laughing, because OF COURSE they’re rappers. Of course. The stereotypes have taken over at this point and I need to inform you as to the status of his bandanna. It has gone from its place on his forehead, and he is now wearing it bandit style as a necklace. At any point, I expect him to pull out his AK and rob us all.
So after awhile, my date is getting more and more agitated because the singer is singing things like Jason Mraz and the Eagles and makes a dozen or so more references to free-styling to show them what real music is. Then he says we should walk around with our drinks. I tell him we can’t, there’s an open container law, but they decide to try anyway. I leave a tip, and he is flabbergasted at the whole five bucks I leave. I walk behind him so he doesn't take her tip because he says "why are you leaving all that...she just brought us some drinks." We go outside and are stopped by the bouncer. Duh. He says we can sit on the patio, which we do. At this point, my date stops a random person on the street to bum a cigarette. Now I realize why he wanted to come outside. He was jonesing. I tell him smoking is disgusting and that he needs to go somewhere else, so he steps next to the bouncer and talks to him about whatever it is that smoker’s talk about while rotting their lungs (my guess is health care). While we wait for him to finish poisoning himself and all of us around him, I pull out the camera and take some pictures of my cousin and her guy. Then I decide this date will make a hilarious blog so I decide to get some footage for you guys. Here is the first snippet. Please notice how, when he starts freestyling, I made sure to move back so you could see his spastic hand. Note the infamous bandanna and the extensive use of words like “M.O.B. and THUG LIFE.”
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While writing this, my mom hears part of the video and bursts out with:
She went on her date, he thought he was clean
That fat sucker turned up wearing all green.
I chimed in with:
He thought he was fly, he thought he had clout
But I couldn’t understand what he was talking about.
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Point being, let’s leave the rapping to Lil Wayne, shall we? So, we decide to leave the bar, and I’m feeling tipsy at this point…to the point where I’m smacking this delicious mandarin strawberry gum in a way that now disgusts me to watch. The only excuse that I have for the following video, is that I was slightly delirious with irritation and Blue Motorcycles are a helluva drug, mmkay?
Shortly thereafter, we get into a conversation about “fake bitches.” Here…is their response to my question as to what exactly constitutes a fake bitch.
Now do you understand what I was talking about not being sure if he has a lisp, or some other condition that make him say loyalty instead of loyal? No idea what disease that could be, but my guess is that it’d end in –ty.
While traveling down the street, we pass a car that has been pimped out as the Wheel of Fortune car. My “date” stops to take a picture of it so he can have it as the screen saver on his phone. I try not to appear shocked that his dinosaur of a phone can actually take pictures, even if they're not in color. While waiting for him to take the picture, a car full of people pulls up playing Tupac and he tells him to turn that shit up. I sigh, and keep walking. I captured this on video, but I’m sure whatever you’re imagining is cooler than the actual event.
It is around this time that he tries to hold my hand. I have no idea why, other than the fact that the couple in front of us are holding hands. He touches me and I jump, because…well because he’s touching me! His hands are clammy and freezing and, hello I don’t know you and have given you zero encouragement. It felt rude, so I just told him I wasn’t affectionate. So, for some reason, he decides this means he should put his arms around my shoulders. But he’s shorter than me since I’m in heels (although he kept announcing that he was 5’6). Anyway, so every other step, he is PULLING…ME…DOWN because his arm is around me. So I say…can you not feel that you’re jerking me down? And other comments until finally he says…if you don’t want my arm around you, just say so. So I say so, and he’s shocked for some reason.
A little later, we’re sitting down and he says he’d like my phone number and says something about spending his life with me, which I think I hear wrong, but he repeats it to clear it up. I give him my google voice number (not my real number) because I’m thinking the date would actually get WORSE if I turn him down halfway through. The last thing I need is a petulant thug.
While walking, he actually asks me what my sign is. I’ve never been asked that question on a date but I tell him. He asks what I’m doing for my birthday, I tell him I’ll be going to the Bahamas. He tells me on his birthday, his plans are to get FUCKED UP and I should join him. He repeats this over and over. As a matter of fact, he makes references to our “future” over and over throughout the night. I have noticed that when he makes these comments and I politely ignore him, he repeats them and says “ya heard me ma?” He also says THUG LIFE every six minutes or so. It is getting more and more annoying but I’m trying not to say anything.
Around this time, they tell us they both just got out of jail. Who’s shocked? Not me. I don’t even flinch at this point. At least now I know the reason I paid for your drink was the fact that you have no job because you just got out (later, I find out they just got out…LITERALLY the day before). OMG. This has turned into a train wreck.
At this point, I’d like to add that we’re searching for the car. We keep going three blocks up, turning left, then left, then left and then they’ll say…hey that looks familiar. And I tell them, yeah, we were just here twenty minutes ago, three left turns, that’s a circle. Over and over and over…until one of them stops to pee….at a cemetery no less, and the other one runs into the street to announce that his friend is peeing and that you should come and watch. (I had some video footage of this but all you really see is me pointing into the dark, trying to get him to understand we're in public...AND in a cemetery and then him running out and saying he feels goooooooooooood. I’ll spare you.
My “date” is constantly yelling out “thug life.” Just, randomly…in about six minute intervals. Finally I ask him what it means, and he breaks it down for me, and is telling me it’s basically about a man being a man, handling his business, etc. So I ask him…please tell me what attribute in a woman you’d want to hear OVER AND OVER and over. Hey I have a job! Hey I’ve got a car! Hey I make bomb ass sweet potatoes! Like literally, why would anyone EVER want ANYONE to continuously announce anything about themselves?
So we’re lost…for, oh I don’t know, an hour or an hour and a half. It might have been shorter, but it certainly felt that long. It was the worst thing that’s happened to me thus far in 2011. It was so infuriating and frustrating to be traipsing around Greenville, in heels, with these people, lost. I threatened to leave their asses and take a cab. My “date” didn’t believe I’d do it, but he clearly has no idea who I am. There’s a short video of me basically calling them idiots, but it gets cut off because the camera is out of memory because I have so many videos on there that haven’t yet been made.
So finally, we find the car. They cannot believe I want to go home, they’re ready to keep this party rolling elsewhere. They’re talking about going to some club and I’m looking skyward hoping the rapture comes early. They literally can’t process it and they’re trying to convince me I should come with them. I assure them that the night has just been way too much fun for me and I am dropped off at home. He asks for a hug, I tell him “you can have a firm handshake.” He shakes my hand super hard, like he took FIRM HANDSHAKE to mean please show me what a strong man you are.
Shortly thereafter, he calls and I look at the phone like, you MUST be kidding me. And of course don’t answer.
And I keep…not answering. After approximately twelve calls he leaves a ridiculous voicemail asking me to call him back. I don’t.
After half a dozen or so more calls, he leaves a message, which among other foolishness says “don’t forget about me, don’t forget about a real man. It takes a real man to know a real woman *here he pauses for breath* and a real woman to know a real man.”
He keeps calling, and each message mentions the fact that I am not returning his calls. I don’t listen to them, but my poor voicemail to text option tries really hard to figure out what he’s saying, but his mumbling makes it unable to properly transcribe the messages. I get the gist.
Next, he sends a series of text messages. I can only surmise that his space bar is broken. Here are a few:
Sweetbabygirlgivemeacallsowecantalkaboutyouandme
And
Iwillbewithoyuifyoubewithmeandiwillloveyou4life
And
Whatsgoodbabygirliwantyoutobemyrealwoman4life
And
Babygirlcallmeifyourealikeme4life
And
Whatsgoodbabygirlcallmewhenyougetthistxtsowecantalkaboutus
All of his texts end with the signature “Blood thug life,” which I’m guessing is the only time his spacebar worked.
It’s been a week. I’ve lost count of the calls and texts. I gave this man NO ENCOURAGEMENT on this farce of a date. Not one iota of a possibility of a future meeting, although he repeatedly made reference to the dates we’d be having, all of which were met with blank stares from me. He’s still calling and still texting. I’ve heard that he’s asking my cousin about me, and he’ll call three times, and then she’ll call and I’ll answer, and then he’ll call and I won’t. GET.A.CLUE.
It is ridiculous. It’s been an entire week and I have not corresponded with you once, yet you’re asking my cousin if I’m coming back down this weekend so we can “get up”? I seriously want to answer his next stalker-call and ask him what makes him think I want to talk to him, since I haven’t done so PERIOD since I wasn’t forced into his presence?
Scary.
This morning, I get what I can only hope is his farewell text:
Godblessyoubabygirlimtorealforyou. Blood Thug Life.
One can only dare to dream.
This date…was horrible. The only thing that kept me going, was knowing that my trials would someday turn into this very blog.
I hope you enjoyed my pain, it was all worth it just to have this story to share with you guys. Okay no not really, but it made for a helluva blog!
Special thanks to my old friend Blue Motorcycle, I Nevah Woulda Made It without you.
