breathe in, laugh out

I wish every day could be the weekend.  Specifically last weekend.  I attended the Cubs/Padres game with my sister and roommates on Friday night, followed by a trip to our favorite local dive bar in PB, The Silver Fox, where I dropped my phone in the toilet.  I quickly plucked it out, and it actually survived, which was surprising.  I met ANOTHER Jew at the bar who wanted to take me out, but lives in northern California or something?  And was just here staying for work?  And he wanted me to come up to wine country to meet him?  Or some other ridiculous request?  Okay, I’m done with the question marks.  That’s just to signify “this is kinda weird because I just met you 10 minutes ago at a dive bar.”

Saturday can be summarized in a short, all-inclusive video that one of the guys made:

Yachting!!

That was an amazing day with some awesome people.  Annndddd… my phone fell in the toilet AGAIN.  This time, I stuck a fork in it; it was done.  What did people do without technology?  Less than 24 hours later I was back up and running with a new (old) iPhone, and had 21 messages from people wondering where I was.  Granted, 17 of them were from the same person… but still.  Now this old phone won’t let me download Tinder, which poses a problem for so many reasons.

1.  I get bored at work

2.  I feel stranded… what if hot men are messaging me and I can’t see them

3.  I get bored at work

4.  I can’t refresh my facts.

Refreshing facts are important.  All of the information for the guys is in that little app…. their age…. their initial messages introducing themselves (location, jobs, etc).  So although I already had a phone number and a date set up with one of them, I couldn’t go back to the app to refresh my facts beforehand.  #firstworldproblems.

So this guy I was going to go out with was apparently a Tinder newbie.  We exchanged numbers and texted a bit… then on Sunday as I was organizing my room, and we were having a normal text conversation, my phone rings.  Errrr… it’s him.  Calling me.  I answer.

“Hey… it’s D.”

“Uhhh…. hi?”

Why is he calling me?  This is weird.  He said wanted to CALL so it would be more normal (less awkward) when we met.  I told him the phone call was way more awkward.  But he kept talking anyway.  And when I told him I was organizing my dresser drawers, he made the mistake of asking me how I was organizing them, so I continued on, detailing which articles of clothing were in which drawers for the next 5 minutes.  By the time we got off the phone 15 minutes later, he admitted that he regretted asking that question.  I was hoping he regretted CALLING me too.  I hate talking on the phone.  Especially to people I don’t know.

So I’m sitting on my sister’s balcony drinking a glass of wine on Monday, and texted him asking what time we were going to meet the next night.  Instead of just answering my simple question, he immediately CALLS me.  I answer:

“Oh, so you’re going for a second phone call??”

“I just thought it was the nicer thing to do.”

Ugh.  I tell him my sister comes on all of my dates, so that she’d be picking me up.  He says, “Oh, okay.  Is she coming out with us for the whole time?”

“No, just at the end.  To look at you.”  (But he’d be ok with her coming out with us for the whole time?  Hahahahaha…)

“Oh, I get it… so she can judge.”

“Exactly.”

“Ok, that’s cool.”

So we made a plan.  The following night I took public transportation from Pacific Beach to downtown San Diego where he lives.  It’s not far.  It’s like a 15 minute drive.  But I just didn’t want to have to deal with having a car in a city.

Bus:  $2.25

Trolley from bus:  $2.50

Look on my date’s face when I told him I took public transportation:  Priceless.

I don’t get it.  I really don’t understand why no one takes advantage of the public transportation here.  It’s so easy!  And so fast.  And so fun.  But anyway… I met him outside of his fancy condo complex.  There were waterfalls and everything.  Fancy.  We walked to a place called Vin de Syrah.  Fancy.  It was kinda underground with an Alice in Wonderland theme going on.  The door to get in was hidden & covered in grass, and there was a decoy door to trick people.  There was also a hidden camera which was linked to a TV inside so everyone could laugh at people trying to get in.  Thankfully, my roommate, T had been to this place before, so she warned me beforehand about the secret door.  I think my date was really disappointed that I didn’t look like a fool… because he had no intentions of directing me to the real door.

The inside was cool.  There was grass and plants on the walls, and playing cards on the ceiling.  So we sat down at the bar, except they weren’t bar stools.  It was like a two person cushioned bench.  So because I’m such a prude, I put my purse in between us so we wouldn’t awkwardly brush up against each other.   I’m so freakin’ awkward.

So conversation was going well… we were laughing and chatting, and it was natural.  Until it somehow came up in conversation that he has asthma.  I really, truly don’t know why, but I made some kind of awful looking face and was like, “you have asthma??”

He was confused by my reaction… and explained it was very mild asthma.  I asked if he had an inhaler and he said no.  Then he asked if that really bothered me and I just burst out laughing, because I realized how ridiculous I was acting.  He goes,

“You should have seen your face.  It was a look of disgust I’ve never seen before.  I was half expecting you to get up and run out of here.”

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I did that.  I have nothing against asthma, I swear.”

“I was preparing for my buddies to ask how it went and I’d have to tell them, ‘I thought it was going well until I told her I had asthma and she just ran out.'”

Whoops.

After a drink, we went to another place for one more, which was more my scene… a bit more casual and pubby.  That’s where Carissa met us to come pick me up.  To be honest, I definitely could have stayed out with him for longer.  We were just getting into the meat of some good conversation.  But it was probably a perfect length of time… enough to get a feel for each other’s personalities, but leaving enough yet to be known to want to see each other again.

As soon as we dropped him off, Carissa gave her nod of approval with a simple:  “He’s the winner so-far.”

So… we’ll see.

JR is still up the wazoo texting from Amsterdam and comes home on Friday.  I didn’t really follow orders to not see any other guys… so I’m a little bit like “oopsy poopsy, I went on like 8 dates while you were gone.”  But at least he’ll be happy to know the majority of them were horrible.

Over and out for now, my little popsicles.

xoxo

Gossip Girl