The Oh My God, It's My Dad Guy
He has the same name as my dad, and he loooooooooves physics, loves it (as in he just reads about it for FUN. Because he thinks it’s INTERESTING). Fortunately, the similarities end there, otherwise I don’t think I could handle such a Freudian situation.
I should not have complained about the email dance with Tallstack. I did not know the email back and forth thing could turn into a SAGA, a novel of epic proportions, a winding marathon that made me suddenly go wait, who are you? What are we doing? Not that it wasn’t fun - we were dorking out about science (my subject clearly being the superior one), and somehow hurling elves came up and how it would hurt to get hit by one because their shoes are pointy (how meandering does a conversation have to be before THAT comes up?) - but I finally decided to unknot my underwear and bite the bullet and ask him out myself. And then we of course had to go back and forth about that for awhile, and when he had finally settled on a weekend day where I was going to be out of town and the week leading up to that was the week from HELL and grant explosions at work so I had to be all, nevermind. Don’t I come up with timely ideas? We rescheduled for the next week, and he suggested SUSHI. Me: nffecnsodhfng…sushi, great!
Public transportation was a wonder, and I arrived in downtown Boston 25 minutes early. Christ. I was wandering around some shops in the area when I realized that it was time to find the restaurant and I was already running late like a giant ass that would be late after being 25 minutes early. And when I pulled out my phone to look up the location, I found that he’d sent a text 10 minutes ago saying he was already at the restaurant. Unnnnnnnngh. I fired off a quick text “On my way!” and then hauled ass. As I was hurrying down the street, I realized my text was somewhat vague. He couldn’t assume I meant leaving the general subway stop area where I’d been wandering about for the past 20 minutes. What if he thought I meant I was leaving Cambridge?? “Leaving Cambridge, see you in 30, haha sucker!” was what I was imagining his interpretation would be. But I couldn’t text him again to clarify - that would reveal me as the spazz that I am, and make me even later anyway.
I straggled up, after he had been waiting for 15 minutes (but he was 10 minutes early, so nyah!) and I had kind of not been looking forward to this date because he seemed…kind of funny looking and had some unfortunate facial hair. But behold! He was actually pretty cute, and shaved his damn self, and things were going to pick up. So, like all weirdos interested in physics for fun, he does computer stuff. He’s also left-handed. He’s from Florida, and is the only Democrat in his family, poor guy. But really, the best part of him being from Florida was that he could tell me stories about the Okefenokee swamp. THE O-KE-FE-NO-KEE SWAMP. I laughed for a solid 15 minutes after just hearing the NAME of the swamp, nevermind the story. I kept repeating it just to make sure it wasn’t a dream come true. That a swamp exists called Okefenokee. The story involved him in a boat, with his brother-in-law running along the bank and whacking ALLIGATORS on the HEAD with a STICK. I stopped laughing long enough to be horrified for an instant, but then I remembered the word Okefenokee and started laughing again. He claimed it wasn’t that big of a deal because it was the middle of the afternoon and that the alligators need to come out and sun themselves to get up their body temperature to the point where they can, you know, eat humans. Commence eyeball hernia: “BUT WHAT IF THE ALLIGATOR HAD GOTTEN AN EARLY START ON THE SUNNING? WHAT ABOUT STATISTICAL ANOMALIES?” He just laughed and seemed…unconcerned. Freakin’ Florida.
He plays the guitar (OF COURSE HE DOES) and had sent me a clip of him messing around before our date. Okay, talent is sexy, I get it. But it’s bad when you begin to think a guy might be defective if he doesn’t dabble in some casual guitar strumming/piano playing/saxophone tooting. However, TOMGIMDG found a way to stand apart because he writes songs about vampire chickens. That’s right, he goes to the Okefenokee (teehee!) swamp to terrorize alligators AND composes songs about chickens coming in the night to rip you limb from limb. Winner? I think so.
We closed down the restaurant and at the end of dinner, he leaned back and said that he had tickets to the Science Museum and that he thought I would be the perfect person to take with him. I bounced with glee and restrained myself from kissing both his cheeks. He then challenged me to a Scrabble game on our phones as we parted ways for the night. Poor choice, my friend. Prepare to lose.
I should not have complained about the email dance with Tallstack. I did not know the email back and forth thing could turn into a SAGA, a novel of epic proportions, a winding marathon that made me suddenly go wait, who are you? What are we doing? Not that it wasn’t fun - we were dorking out about science (my subject clearly being the superior one), and somehow hurling elves came up and how it would hurt to get hit by one because their shoes are pointy (how meandering does a conversation have to be before THAT comes up?) - but I finally decided to unknot my underwear and bite the bullet and ask him out myself. And then we of course had to go back and forth about that for awhile, and when he had finally settled on a weekend day where I was going to be out of town and the week leading up to that was the week from HELL and grant explosions at work so I had to be all, nevermind. Don’t I come up with timely ideas? We rescheduled for the next week, and he suggested SUSHI. Me: nffecnsodhfng…sushi, great!
Public transportation was a wonder, and I arrived in downtown Boston 25 minutes early. Christ. I was wandering around some shops in the area when I realized that it was time to find the restaurant and I was already running late like a giant ass that would be late after being 25 minutes early. And when I pulled out my phone to look up the location, I found that he’d sent a text 10 minutes ago saying he was already at the restaurant. Unnnnnnnngh. I fired off a quick text “On my way!” and then hauled ass. As I was hurrying down the street, I realized my text was somewhat vague. He couldn’t assume I meant leaving the general subway stop area where I’d been wandering about for the past 20 minutes. What if he thought I meant I was leaving Cambridge?? “Leaving Cambridge, see you in 30, haha sucker!” was what I was imagining his interpretation would be. But I couldn’t text him again to clarify - that would reveal me as the spazz that I am, and make me even later anyway.
I straggled up, after he had been waiting for 15 minutes (but he was 10 minutes early, so nyah!) and I had kind of not been looking forward to this date because he seemed…kind of funny looking and had some unfortunate facial hair. But behold! He was actually pretty cute, and shaved his damn self, and things were going to pick up. So, like all weirdos interested in physics for fun, he does computer stuff. He’s also left-handed. He’s from Florida, and is the only Democrat in his family, poor guy. But really, the best part of him being from Florida was that he could tell me stories about the Okefenokee swamp. THE O-KE-FE-NO-KEE SWAMP. I laughed for a solid 15 minutes after just hearing the NAME of the swamp, nevermind the story. I kept repeating it just to make sure it wasn’t a dream come true. That a swamp exists called Okefenokee. The story involved him in a boat, with his brother-in-law running along the bank and whacking ALLIGATORS on the HEAD with a STICK. I stopped laughing long enough to be horrified for an instant, but then I remembered the word Okefenokee and started laughing again. He claimed it wasn’t that big of a deal because it was the middle of the afternoon and that the alligators need to come out and sun themselves to get up their body temperature to the point where they can, you know, eat humans. Commence eyeball hernia: “BUT WHAT IF THE ALLIGATOR HAD GOTTEN AN EARLY START ON THE SUNNING? WHAT ABOUT STATISTICAL ANOMALIES?” He just laughed and seemed…unconcerned. Freakin’ Florida.
He plays the guitar (OF COURSE HE DOES) and had sent me a clip of him messing around before our date. Okay, talent is sexy, I get it. But it’s bad when you begin to think a guy might be defective if he doesn’t dabble in some casual guitar strumming/piano playing/saxophone tooting. However, TOMGIMDG found a way to stand apart because he writes songs about vampire chickens. That’s right, he goes to the Okefenokee (teehee!) swamp to terrorize alligators AND composes songs about chickens coming in the night to rip you limb from limb. Winner? I think so.
We closed down the restaurant and at the end of dinner, he leaned back and said that he had tickets to the Science Museum and that he thought I would be the perfect person to take with him. I bounced with glee and restrained myself from kissing both his cheeks. He then challenged me to a Scrabble game on our phones as we parted ways for the night. Poor choice, my friend. Prepare to lose.