Connections: Part III: Zihuatanejo

Since there has been some feedback on my “Connections” posts, I have one more for you, unless I think of another doozie down the road. But since all good things come in threes, and this is my third Connections post, this is probably the finale. Ironically, it is also the story of the last “date” I ever went on.

Andy Dufresne, who crawled through
a river of shit and came out clean
on the other side. Andy Dufresne,
headed for the Pacific.

Zihuatanejo

Weeks before this incident occurred, I begrudgingly entered back into the online dating world after a several month hiatus, before which I had declared that I was done dating entirely. My friend John rightly pointed out, “Yeah, you’ve had a pretty bad run.” This time, however, I promised myself, it would be different. I would not be the desperate hunter that I had been. I would not contact every woman whom the website gurus said was "checking me out!" I would not contact every woman they told me was a match. My initial plan, in fact, was not to contact anyone at all and just see if I received any actual messages. I ended up breaking that vow pretty quickly, as I was very weak. But also much more discerning.

One message I did receive was so short and weird that I originally thought it was spam. Something like, "I enjoyed your profile. We should get a drink," and that was it. I looked her up and she indeed seemed to be a real person, and she even said that her occupation was “writer,” which I found encouraging, but also strange because you would think a writer would be able to come up with a better email. Still, she was brewing beer in one of her photos, so I responded, but weeks went by and we kept missing each other.

Finally, after several emails back-and-forth, I gave her my number and said to call or text when she would be around and I would try to be there. Naturally, the next day, she texted me and said she was at a bar downtown with her friends and I should go meet them. This, too, I thought was weird, but she assured me I shouldn't worry because her friends were cool. I mean, I hope everyone thinks most of their friends are cool, but I reassured myself that this was last minute and maybe she was just nervous about meeting a new person and wanted her friends there in case I walked in carrying a meathook.

I finally arrived (for the record, it took about 45 minutes by train to get to the bar where she was, so I was making the effort) and was introduced to her and her friends. Mere seconds after meeting her, this girl says to me, "I hope you don't mind, but I just smoked some paahhht." She was obviously also very drunk, and it was only 5:00 on a Saturday. I have no issue with someone indulging in a little marijuana to relax, but since this was technically a first date, I was hoping for a little more decorum. I was sure I was in a horrible situation, but tried to make the most of it. I ordered a beer and chatted, figuring I could handle this. I had been on drunk dates before.

We talked a little, and she told me several times that she worked at "Hahhvid," editing grant proposals or something like that, so maybe “writer” was over-selling herself a bit, but at least she had some brains, somewhere. She also said that I was getting major points for coming out and hanging with her and her friends, although, frankly, I wasn't the one who needed points here. My optimism started to wane quickly after she went to the restroom for several minutes and when she came back she told me that she had just smoked some more, and now was basically incoherent. I was at the end of my rope, so I went to the men's room and texted some friends for advice. My roommate Christine asked if I wanted her to come get me. She even offered to pretend to be my jealous wife. My friend Heidi was also quite direct: "Get out of there!" So much for sisterhood.

I texted back, “Really? You can do that? What about all her friends? There are some big dudes here.”

She assured me that it could be done, and that her sister and her husband (also friends of mine) were having people over and that there would be safety in numbers.

I returned to the table and contemplated what I would be attempting. One of the girl’s friends asked why I was in the men's room so long ("Did you poop?" was her exact phrasing. Charming.) When my "date" again went to the ladies’ room, probably to blaze up, I guzzled my drink and pretended like I was getting another. It was crowded, which would be to my advantage. So, I snaked towards the bar, which happened to be close to the door.

"Can I do this?" I wondered.

I reached the door, felt the air on my face, and bolted like I was breaking out of Shawshank. I ran I was blocks away, and kept running. And I mean sprinting. As I told Heidi, a few of her friends were male, and large, and I had a vision of them chasing me down and dragging me back, possibly while giving me an atomic wedgie. I ran all the way to the train station. And it wasn’t even the closest train station. Just in case I was being followed, I went to a farther one, on a different line. I just ran and ran and ran.

Maybe I was being overly cautious, but I was leaving nothing to chance. I made my way to Heidi’s sister’s apartment, where there was indeed strength in numbers. And beer.

The weirdest thing to me was, while on the train, I received a text from the girl that I had just ran away from while she was in the bathroom, asking “Where are you?”

Ooof. 

I texted her back a story that had only a smidgeon of truth to it; that meeting her and all of her friends at the same time was a bit much, and that I was sorry but I just had to get out of there. The smidgeon of truth was the part about me having to get out of there. She responded saying that she understood and we would have to try again just the two of us, to which I wanted to text back, “Have some dignity,” But instead I just said, “Ok.”  

As I had assured myself earlier, I probably could have handled the situation better and written it off as yet another bad date. The friends, the pot, the drunkenness was all par for the course as far as my dating misadventures went. Remember this one?

And when I considered what she had said about getting “major points,” and the fact that she was texting me after I blew her off in the most spectacular fashion possible, I realized that this probably would have been what most guys would call “a sure thing” on that particular evening. And a previous version of me would have probably gone for the easy touchdown on that one. This girl may have been a little sloppy on that night, but she wasn’t unattractive, plus she had a job and friends and all the things normal people have, and she obviously liked to have a good time. Most guys probably would have jumped at the chance.

But there was another element to this story:

Just a couple days before this date, I went out with another girl, one whom I had met in real life. In fact, I met her at the wedding of Heidi’s sister just a couple weeks prior (the residents of the very apartment I had fled to). Things had gone smashingly on that date, but I had been raked over the coals so many times that I wasn’t ready to trust anyone in the dating pool so quickly. When I relayed this latest story to all my friends who were present in that apartment, everyone was a little perplexed at this woman’s behavior, and completely supported my decision to flee. And when I rhetorically wondered aloud why I always find myself in these ridiculous situations, my friend Leah responded with a life-changing reply:

“Because you keep going out with crazy girls from the internet.”

It was true. And I had just been out with someone who I had not met on the internet, and who, more importantly, wasn’t crazy. That one observation from an independent observer that gave me that “A-Ha” moment I needed. And so, I went out on a second date with the girl from the wedding. And then several more. And I never went on a date with another girl again.

Looking back, I think I already knew. Yes, I did go out with this drunk pot-smoker after my first date with my future wife, but running out on her was probably not something I would have done before meeting her. Like I said, the date was a little weird, but it wouldn't have been much worse than most of my previous dating stories. But I didn’t really want to make any new dating stories. You could say that I had to walk before I could run. Strangely enough, it took one last crazy girl from the internet to open my eyes. It was like Andy Dufresne’s last month in The Hole, and learning that Tommy had been killed by the warden, that convinced him it was time to escape. That last internet girl and her “paahhht,” was the final push I needed. I actually feel strangely indebted to her. I could send her a dime bag, but what the Hell? It’s legal now. She, and all her friends, can get her own.

Reliving these weird dates has made me think back on these times and wonder where some of these people are now. I could look them up, but I actually don’t remember any of their real names. It’s funny to think that, at the time, I thought these people might be important to me one day, if I could just convince them that we had a connection (which we didn’t.) Even though these posts have been about bizarre situations that I found myself in, I certainly don’t harbor any ill will towards these people. They were probably doing the same thing I was doing; just putting themselves out there and hoping something good was going to happen. And like my pal Andy Dufresne said, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.”

But sometimes you just have to run for it.

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