Originally Featured on www.expirationdating.net

By James

A few days ago, I had a dentist appointment on 50th and Madison to refill a cavity. While waiting for the dentist, I did what all single gay men do when they have time to kill, I opened Grindr. It’s always exciting going on Grindr in a new area to see different guys, so while I was browsing, there was this one profile that struck me out of all the others. His picture was of him sitting on a boat wearing a life preserver and I thought that was cute.

So I sent the first message: “You sure know how to make life vests look sexy.” Ok, I know. Not my best work, but it ended up gaining a response. He said, “Let me know if you ever need rescuing.”

A quick and clever reply? Don’t mind if I do. So I took the bait and ran with it.

We ended up chatting for the rest of the day, which eventually turned into exchanging phone numbers, which ultimately turned into setting up a date. Our original plan was to meet up on a Saturday night for a few drinks, but while sitting at my desk I had the sudden urge to be a little crazy and go out on a school night.

“Hey, would you be free to meet up for a bit tonight?” I asked, hoping he didn’t already have preset plans.

“I’m free after 8 – let’s do it!”

Perfect, I thought. I could go home, cook dinner, shower, and trim my pubic hair. He also told me that if things “went well” I could just crash at his place that night. So, just to be prepared, I brought my office key, phone charger, and toothbrush with me, all hidden in various jacket pockets. “Of course things are going to go well”, I thought. “I’m gonna get my groove on tonight!”

We decided to meet up at a loungy gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen at 8:45. I, the one who lives in New Jersey, arrived on time while he, the one who actually lives 4 blocks away from said bar was 15 minutes late. Uncomfortable with going in the bar alone, I stood outside and chain smoked until he arrived.

On first impression, I was satisfied. He was handsome, had a nice smile and a beautiful head of hair. (I have noticed since losing my own hair how much I value a good head of hair on someone else.) He stood with me outside while I finished my cigarette and we started some small talk. I still had my headphones in and he said that he loves having his headphones in so homeless people don’t bother him. I told him I like leaving mine in so I can walk down the street talking to myself and people think I’m on the phone, having a fight with the cable company. (Don’t ask what I talk to myself about).

We went in and sat at the bar and ordered our drinks. Him a Stella and me a Coors Light,  because I am the epitome of class. Plus, it was a Thursday night, I didn’t want to get white-girl wasted.

The conversation never really had a great flow; lots of awkward silences and “Oh, I like this song” comments. After we both had two beers, we decided to switch it up and have something a little stronger. “Maybe if we get a tipsy the conversation will be better” I thought to myself.

Nope. Unless “better” is passive-aggressively making snide comments to each other.

He asked about my writing and I told him about the book I wrote. “It’s a book about the way technology has influenced the way people meet and fall in love, with some personal stories thrown in.”

“That sounds boring.”

“Oh.” I said. I was waiting for a ‘just kidding handsome’ with a light leg tap, but it never came. So I continued, “Well, I don’t think it’s boring at all! I mean, I am biased, but it’s really funny and smart and I think people would get a kick out of hearing some of my horrible dating stories.”

“Define horrible.”

I hate when people ask me what my worst dating story is because I’ve had some bad ones, but honestly nothing so bad or so disturbing. “Well,” I answered, “I once went on a date with a guy who was doing cocaine the entire time in the bathroom. That was pretty bad.”

“Did you do cocaine with him?” he asked.

“No! That’s insane” I replied, shocked.

“To you it’s insane. To people who live in North Dakota it’s insane. But imagine people living in NYC or San Francisco reading your book. You think they are going to read that and find it interesting or extreme? Absolutely not. You should have done coke with him. You should go to circuit parties and pop Molly. You should seek out threesomes and orgies and leather parties. You should immerse yourself in the gay culture. Then, you will have one hell of a book.”

Uhm…

At this point I was losing the remaining interest I had in him and excused myself to go to the bathroom to text my friend the thumbs-down emoji.

When I returned, he was chatting with the guy on the other side of him and eating the mixed nuts from the bowl in front of him. Finally, after two minutes of me sitting there, he returned his attention to me.

I quickly tried to change the subject to something – anything – else. I did see his point, and I do agree that sometimes I am a little vanilla and prudish, but at the end of the day, I am not trying to write a book about how outrageous and slutty one can be. My ultimate goal is to write a book about how pathetic and desperate one can be – and I think I have achieved that!

I saw that my drink was pretty much full and it was getting past my bedtime and the idea of going back to his place was slimmer than my waistline in 2011. (I used to be really skinny). So I started taking huge long gulps of my drink, hoping to end this date as soon as possible. And this is about the time when we got on the topic of judging a book by its cover, metaphorically speaking.

He went on to tell me how he can pretty much know everything about a person within the first three minutes of meeting them. I, too, somewhat agree with this ability. Maybe not as short as three minutes, but I can usually tell very soon if I will like the person or not – but I wont know everything about them.

Curious, I asked him what his take on me was and he shied away and asked, “Do you really want to know?”

I took one long drink of my vodka and said that I would love to know his first impression on me. I mean, one of the best things about going on dates with people is you get to learn things about yourself that maybe no one else could have showed you. So, yes. I wanted to hear what this stranger thought about me.

“Well,” he began, “you seem very reserved and a little uptight.”

Ok sure, I can definitely see that. He is not the first person to call me uptight. I know I am. Fine. Whatever. Next.

“Ok, I agree. And?”

“And you seem very set in your ways, not wanting to change or shake things up. I feel that your favorite time of the day is when you can lay in bed and play candy crush and fall asleep by 10pm.”

Wow, he really was hitting the nail on the head. That IS my favorite time of day. But so what? Who cares?

“I agree with that assumption as well. Anything else?”

“I feel that NYC has made you tired and cynical. And you don’t trust people easily.”

I nodded my head and said, “Well, I do believe NYC has made me somewhat cynical, but I have been here for a few years and you only just moved here 2 months ago. So it is a bit different. You are still excited about the city and want to go out every night and explore. That’s how I was when I first moved here. But things changed.”

I then thought about how he said I don’t trust people easily. I feel that I am pretty open with people and I think my big issue is that I trust and let people in way too much and too easily. So I asked him about what I have done this evening to make him think I am a closed-off person and he replied, “Because you are wearing an undershirt.”

Wait, what?

“Wait, what?” I was so confused! “What does an undershirt have to do with anything?”

“Well, I took a Psych class back in San Diego and my professor said that the number of layers people wear indirectly affects the number of layers they have for letting people in. It’s like a wall. I’m just saying the minute I saw you were wearing an undershirt, I kind of knew you were going to be uptight and reserved.”

At this point, I had no idea what to say, and these drinks were hitting me all at once. I told him that I was wearing an undershirt because it was 18 degrees outside and I had to walk 10 blocks to get to the bar. I then made a snarky remark about how he shouldn’t let some teacher at a California Community College influence the way he reads people.

Needless to say, we both paid our check and headed out into the blistering cold weather – although I wasn’t too cold because I had my good ole undershirt on me. We said good-bye with the promise of hanging out again soon, I hugged him and went on my way back to New Jersey.

While going through the tunnel on the bus, I suddenly got very lightheaded and felt like I was going to faint. I looked out my window and felt like I was in a rocket going into space and started tweaking out. I needed to get off this bus immediately, I thought. I tried focusing on anything but my mind was going a mile a minute and I couldn’t concentrate.

Once off the bus, I ran home (fell twice) and jumped right into my bed with the lights off. Hoping I could just pass out, I realized this wasn’t going to be that easy. I was having a case of the ‘spins’ and no matter which side I laid on, I felt like I was going to throw up. Which I eventually did. I ran to the bathroom and spent the better part of my evening throwing up beer, vodka, and Hot Pockets.

A few hours later, when I was finally done being sick, I sat there on my bathroom floor and pondered about how I got this drunk from three drinks – two of them being a Coors Light.

The only thing that was going on in my head was “I got roofied.”

I had heard of people using a date-rape drug and always wondered what it actually did to the person. I was wondering to myself that if he did, indeed, slip me a date-rape drug, why didn’t he date-rape me? Did he have a change of heart? Did he no longer want to rape me? I was all of a sudden so upset and ashamed. I sat on the cold bathroom tiles and thought “am I not date-rape-able?”

I then quickly changed my thinking. “There is no way he drugged me! No one does that anymore. I’m sure I just drank more than I thought.”

The next morning I woke up, took a nice long shower and went to work. Upon re-telling this story to my co-workers, friends, and the guy at the bagel shop downstairs, I came to the conclusion that I very well may have been drugged. “I did leave my drink to go to the bathroom!” I said, feeling enlightened.

I decided to send him a text message to find out the truth before I just start making false assumptions. So I wrote:

“Hey! Hope your morning is going well. I just had a quick question… Did you put something in my drink last night?”

To which he responded, “NOW you have your story!”