Sometimes I look back to what I used to think was scary as a young child – creepy clowns and sharp teeth and dark eyed ghosts with wispy white hair flowing in the wind. These were the images that used to haunt my Octobers, contrasted by the innocent fun of pumpkin carving, counting candy, and layering my winter jacket over cheap fairy wings for some trick or treating in the biting mountain air.
This October, however, I have come across something even scarier than ghosts, even more horrifying than bloodied zombies, even more bone-chilling than evil nuns and flesh-eating demons.
Non-commital men in their late twenties.
I mean, what is dating in the modern day if not an ominous walk through a crumbling, creaky haunted house? Men whose love language is physical touch (kill me), whose idea of a date is coming over to their house to play Mario Kart (no actually, kill me) and whose words of “You’re so beautiful, I can’t wait to hang out with you, I want to get to know you more” actually translates to being unmatched on the app and blocked on instagram with no warning (a chainsaw across my neck would be kinder honestly).
Let’s take a walk through the first door of this house, starting off strong with a coffee date. A clinical, meandering conversation as we sit side by side on the couch, eyes wandering from one spot to another, lapses in conversations and craned necks to hold eye contact.
Out in the lot, there’s an awkward side hug. I can pick up on social cues and a lack of vibes, but I am nothing if not open.
“Let me know if you want to hang out again,” I say.
He nods and doesn’t walk me to my car, doesn’t ask for my number, doesn’t follow up with anything at all. It’s no surprise when I open my phone thirty minutes later and see that he’s decided we’re not a match. It’s my first date in months. A part of my ego is hurt, but a bigger part of me is relieved.
Onto the next.
For this next door, imagine a dartboard and creaky hinges – the type you’d see in the frat house of a twenty-one year old college student. Except he’s twenty-nine and in grad school, talking about how he hangs out with undergraduates because they’re more fun to party with and highlights all of the raves he is planning to go to. We’re in a sports bar on campus, and we can barely hear each other speak. I plan my exit strategy, and I can tell he senses the goodbye in my words when I wish him luck as we part ways. Neither of us follow up.
For our next door, I implore you to envision an elegantly arched entrance spilling out with golden light. It’s nice at a first glance, but take a closer look – the glass is all cracked.
We go to a beautiful French restaurant, and everything is perfectly fine. There’s nothing on the entree for a vegetarian, so I order a side. We’re talking, and the venue is nice, and the waitress is friendly, and my date is so boisterous and loud I can barely keep up. He talks and talks and talks, and the moment I find time to break into the conversation, his eyes glaze over and he starts looking around. But he’s a complete gentleman. He pays for the meal, and when we walk to get ice cream across the street he holds out his hand. The next day he texts me, and I try to be open to another date. He is already planning ahead, and I appreciate the forethought, but ultimately I cannot do it, and I communicate that to him (I know it’s spooky season, but I have finally overcome my habit of ghosting).
So here we are, three failed first dates in three weeks, a graveyard of headstones I hope not to have to visit again.
But buckle up, my friends. It is this fourth and final door that is the most soul crushing of them all. Appearing stable at a glance, but crumbling and rotten to the touch. Now this is a date that goes out with a bang (not literally, but… well).
He’s a pilot I match with on bumble. I see his profile, and I decide not to message, because I think he’s probably too cute for me, and his profile says nothing about wanting a relationship. However, he messages me first. One thing about me is I never turn down an opportunity. I ask forgiveness, not permission, so when he decides he wants to meet up, I say okay.
It’s noon on a Monday and I meet him at a brewery. Only right before I leave do I find out it’s close to his apartment, and I have to sigh – a classic male tactic to make a girl come over to his place afterward. But it’s a Monday afternoon, so I should be safe. I tell myself I won’t go over to his place if the opportunity arises, and I avoid his offer of parking my car in his parking garage to instead drive around and search for metered parking in the crowded downtown streets of Houston.
When I see him I immediately think he is attractive, which is a problem. When he stands up to hug me I see he is tall and his cologne smells nice, and he ducks under the table/counter so I don’t have to walk around to sit across from him. He is immediately talkative, asking me questions, occasionally interrupting, but there are no lulls in the conversation. I order a wine and he gets a beer, and halfway through my glass I am already feeling the wooziness from my chardonnay.
We get a second round, but it is almost 2pm, and I am already tipsy. I tell him I’m feeling it, and he drinks the rest.
“Do you want to keep hanging out?” He asks me, and so I agree, because I think maybe there are places we can go downtown. We start walking to my car. I’m not sure where we’ll go, but I tell him I can’t really drive right now, and I give him my keys.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he gets behind the wheel.
“We can go to my apartment,” he says. “So you can sober up.”
I hesitate. But I think he’s hot, and I’m a stupid drunk fool, so I agree anyway.
We’re spinning up through the parking garage, up and up to the fifth floor, and then we’re taking the elevator. “We can sit on the balcony,” he says as we’re making our way up. “You like sitting outside?”
“I love sitting outside,” I say, like an absolute idiot. “I sit outside all the time.”
(Super scintillating conversation, I know).
The first thing I notice is the Taylor Swift painting on his wall, and then my eyes scan over the shoes by the doorway and the book on his coffee table. He’s reading ACOTAR, and I’m wondering which girl on his roster he could possibly be reading that for.
We never get to his balcony.
(This is the point in which, if you are my family member, I suggest you stop reading).
He turns on TLC and we sit on his sofa. I can feel our arms touching, and he is inching closer. His arm moves over the couch, and then around my shoulder, and then his fingers are through mine.
I’m still in the middle of talking when he begins to kiss me. I knew it was coming, but I’m still not sure how exactly to respond. My hand is frozen at first, but when he adjusts I get used to it and I stop being so stiff. Then to my surprise he’s turning me around and onto his lap, completely straddling him, and it becomes more than a kiss. His hands are roaming and he’s kissing my neck and my chest, and then he’s pulling my shirt off over my head.
I’m wondering what the hell I’m doing here, because I just met his guy a few hours ago and this is entirely unlike me, but I’m trying to justify it. Isn’t it normal to hook up at twenty-six? Can I really avoid it forever? Is it so bad to let this guy just do whatever he wants with me and just be grown, like everybody else my age?
But I can’t do it. Luckily he can feel my hesitation, and he has the sense to pull away and ask what’s up.
“I don’t hook up,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he tells me. “We don’t have to have sex.”
Sex? I wonder. Sex??
Of course we don’t have to, because that was never even remotely on the table, and it’s not even 3pm on a Monday.
But he asks if we can still have fun so I let him continue because it’s probably fine, but I don’t let him undress me further, and I can feel that he’s getting restless. His hand is starting to wander, slipping under my jeans and between my legs, and I tell him that’s enough. Eventually he has to go to the bathroom. As soon as he’s gone I put my shirt back on and start calculating my getaway.
“You put that back on fast,” he says, nodding to my shirt as he comes back out of the bathroom.
He sits next to me again, but now there’s space between us, and I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to make things awkward. I wonder if it’s worth it to ask him if he still wants to sit out on the balcony, but we’re both watching the TV, and I can see his leg shaking restlessly. He knows this isn’t going to go anywhere, and I’m pretty sure he wants me to leave.
I pretend to look up cafes, saying I need to do some work, and he walks me to the car. We hug goodbye, and he tells me to text him when I get home. I don’t have his number. He becomes aware of this, so he gives me his phone to put my number in.
“Should I put my name in?” I ask.
And I hear him say, automatically, “What is it?”
For a second I wonder if I heard that right, and he immediately seems to regret it and is following up by saying something else, and I pretend I didn’t hear him at all.
In the car, I want to laugh at my own stupidity, circling back down the parking garage feeling like a defective sex doll.
Now bear with me, because the stupidity doesn’t end there. I, the court jester, decide to text him. Not only do I text him, but I text him a long paragraph about how I am aware we have different expectations, but if he wants to hang out again, we can.
Why? I truly don’t know. Maybe my judgment got clouded by a pretty face on a tall body and the scent of nice cologne. Maybe I hate myself.
He doesn’t respond for so long I think I’m getting ghosted, and I’m so embarrassed that I delete the message. But then he texts back the next day saying he is open to it too. I respond later that evening. He doesn’t reply til the next day again, saying we can make a plan when he’s back in town.
Next time I go to check his profile, he’s unmatched me, and I experience a monumental crash-out full of disappointment in myself, my own inability to stay true to my convictions, and my misguided notion that hands in hair and lips on skin meant I was entitled to a text back.
All this, combined with my already pre-existing loathing for men. Why not communicate? Why not be honest? Had I not given him an easy out if he wasn’t interested? It was not as if I held a gun to his head. Why not rip off the bandaid? Why string me along for another two days?
A pilot pushing thirty, mind you. These are the men flying our planes, operating our vehicles, speaking to us over the intercoms.
And thus, here we are, October thirty-first, the spookiest day of the year. I think I’ve experienced my share of man made horrors this Halloween season, and perhaps it is time to throw in my hat til next year.
After all, what are skeletons and spiders and levitating corpses compared to the horrors of modern day dating?
