Date at the Drive-In

21 Jan 2014 2 Comments

by CoJo in dating, fun, life Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I woke up this morning at 5am, on the couch with an empty bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos on the floor next to me, the TV still blaring, and all of the lights on.  It’s Tuesday.  It took me a couple of minutes to figure out where I was and what I did last night.

What did I do last night?  Ironically enough, I went on the most tame and sober first date I’ve ever been on.  Then I watched the Bachelor and fell asleep in the middle.

I just started talking to this guy yesterday morning.  All I knew was that his name was Toby, he surfed on really big waves, and he’ll be going to Darfur in August with an NGO to work with people with war trauma.

After a short conversation via text, he asked me to go for a “stroll on the boardwalk.”  I declined, due to the fact that Sunday night was NOT the most tame and sober night of my life, and I was looking forward to sweatpants and a nap after work.  Not “strolling” around the boardwalk.  He then came back at me with an invite to the drive-in movie theater instead, claiming he’d have blankets and pillows, and would be going with his friend and a date.  I’m not sure why, but I felt I couldn’t pass up an invite to a drive-in, because that seems like a pretty rad thing to do with someone you’ve never met before, and I’d never been to a drive-in.  I mean, how 60’s of us.  And I figured the friend would be a good buffer.  So I agreed.

I come home from work, and start getting ready.  My roommate T asks me what I’m doing.

“Going to a drive-in with some guy, his friend and another girl.”

“What drive-in are you going to?”

“I don’t know.”

“What movie are you seeing?”

“I don’t know.”

“What does the guy do?”

“No idea.”

“Did his friend meet his date on Tinder?”

“I don’t know.”

“Court, do you know anything??”

“No.  Well… his name is Toby…  I’m going to get murdered, aren’t I?”

“Drive-in” is definitely code for murder.  Crap.  I should have thought this over a little more.  Toby is prompt and rings the doorbell at 7pm to pick me up.  I told him beforehand I had a watch dog… Just in case he was thinking of doing anything creepy.  I made sure T and V got a good look at him before we headed out the door.

He was a gentleman and walked around the car to open the door for me.  Wowwwwyyyy.  I probably made an awkward comment.  Yeah, I definitely did.  Guys don’t usually do that.  The drive-in was really far away.  Like really far.  Like I’m pretty sure if we had driven another half a mile, we would have been in Mexico.  This gave us a lot of time to talk.  Although in the first few minutes of conversation I found out he had never drunk an alcoholic beverage before in his life.  Wait, what?  Most of my weekends (and, ok… some week days) are spent at the bars with friends, or at events that revolve around drinking alcoholic beverages.  Is it wrong that I was ready for him to turn the car around at that point and bring me home?

That wasn’t an option.  As I learned more about Toby, I came to realize he is pretty much the most interesting human being I’ve ever met.  First of all, his job is literally chasing swells around the world.  Literally.  If there’s a big swell somewhere, he has a guy who calls him, tells him what plane to get on, meets him in whatever country it is, and then drives him to the wave.  When I say “drives him to the wave,” I mean he drives him to the wave even if there are no roads that lead there.   He holds a world record in surfing the biggest recorded wave paddled out t0, and his time out of the water requires a novel all in its own.  He told stories about hunting down rapists in Africa, and his journalism in foreign war zones… stories that I may had questioned if I didn’t see photos and videos on his iPhone.  Like, basically… I want his life.

He was pretty good-looking but also totally dorky and awkward.  I enjoyed his company and conversation, but I most definitely didn’t want his hand on my back while we were lying in his Prius with the back seats folded down and the hatch up, watching the first movie.  But that’s where he put his hand.  I also didn’t want him to pull my head in to try to kiss me, out of no where.  Which he also did.

I’m not sure why you think that you can hang out with me for an hour, not give me any alcohol, and then I’ll want to kiss you?  No.  No no no no no no no no.  I pulled my head away so hard I think I got whiplash.  When he asked what was wrong, I exclaimed, “I’m not making out with you!”

I felt like I was in 8th grade.  Like what 36-year-old thinks this is a normal situation?  Being in the back of a car at a DRIVE-IN MOVIE with someone you’ve NEVER MET BEFORE… I sure as hell don’t want to make out with you right now!  I’m still trying to justify agreeing to this idea in the first place.

His friend finally showed up… with a date who I learned, he had only met once… but they parked a few cars down from us so basically it was only introductions.  I legitimately felt like I was in high school and the two guys were having a contest to see who could make-out first…  Although when I suggested that’s what was happening,  Toby acted like that was a preposterous idea.  If there was any sort of bet, he most certainly lost.

At one point he was trying to read my palm.  I figured he was going to say something really cheesy.  He kept looking at it.

I said, “I know you’re going to say something really dorky.”

“No.”

He looked at it, while tracing the lines with his finger… for so long that I legitimately started getting scared.  My brain went into overtime, and I convinced myself that he was going to tell me he sees a murder in my very near future, and then he was going to stab me with something he had hidden under the blankets and dump me in the back of this big field behind the dumpsters… or even better yet, just throw me over the border into Mexico and be done with me.

At that point, I pulled my hand away and he finally said, “It says you’re beautiful!”

OMGGGGGGGGG get me outta here.

I was sooo tired, which I was sure to mention multiple times.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like talking to him;  it was just a weird situation.  I wasn’t sure if I should be watching the movie or continuing conversation.  We were in the back of a Prius in a random field far from home, and there was no wine… or beer.  Just so many things wrong with this picture.  I didn’t even know his last name.   I wanted to go home.

On our loonnnggg ride home we talked a lot more.  Apparently his aggressive make-out advances work “90% of the time”  (I asked).  But the whole drive-in was a first for him as well.  He got to my house and turned the car off.  I wasn’t understanding why he was turning the car off, so I obviously was super awkward and said, “Oh, why are you getting out of the car?”

In reality, he was just getting out of the car to be a gentleman.  After I questioned his turning off the car, he offered a hug while he was still inside the car if I would prefer that, but I let him get out.   I still didn’t understand why he had to turn the car OFF to give me a hug.   Then he asked if I’d like to go out again… Like, what am I supposed to say?

“No?”  Or…. “You tried to stick your tongue down my throat at the drive-in?”  So I said yes.  Obviously.

Here’s the thing.  I want to hang out with him more because he’s super cool.  And I want him to invite me to Darfur.  But I don’t want him to stick his tongue in my mouth.  So I guess next time I talk to him, I’ll just tell him that.  That’s fine, right?

I think it’s Wednesday now… So Happy Hump Day.  With lots of love from me and my empty bag of Flamin’ Hots.  Which I have officially quit.  Cheetos, we are so done.

xoxo

Gossip Girl.

Jake from State Farm

16 Aug 2013 3 Comments

by CoJo in dating, fun, life, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

I’m sitting in my car in Mexico waiting for Olive Garden to bring food out for a doctor’s office, so I figured I’d start a post.  I might not actually be in Mexico, I don’t know… but there’s border control everywhere and my car thermometer says 119 degrees.  I think they might be looking for my sister’s new Mexican lover, Tonto.

So I’ve only been out in SoCal for two weeks, but I’ve already made some general notes about the men here:

1.  They’re lazy

2.  They don’t care that they’re lazy

3.  The lazier they are, the cooler they think they are

4.  “The waves are totally tubular dudeeeee”

5.  They expect you to go hiking with them

6.  They’re pretty sexual… surfer-sexual

So I’ll start you out here with my first dude story…. There was Jake [from State Farm].  Jake from State Farm somehow matched with me on Tinder at some point when Carissa and I were in the dead middle of the country on our drive out here.  Don’t ask me how, because that game is based upon your proximity to each other.  All I can think of is that he originally swiped right on me (swipe right = “I’m interested”) when I was out visiting San Diego in early July, so I guess he automatically popped up once I started playing the game again during the drive.  He was “surfer sexual.”  Long(ish) wavy hair, an awesome tan, baby blue eyes and some scruff on his chiseled face.  When he messaged me and asked why I was 2000 miles away, I explained, and he told me there would be beers waiting for us at the finish line once we arrived in Pacific Beach.  He conveniently lives in Mission Beach, about a mile away.  Okay… I’ll take it.

We messaged intermittently over the week.  We progressed to texting.  Then when we finally arrived, we were obviously BUSY, but he was persistent in wanting us to cash in on those beers.  Persistent to the point of CALLING me after I told him I was busy car shopping with my sister.  Okok.

So we arrived on a Friday afternoon.  That Sunday was obviously reserved as Funday.  Carissa and I hit up a spot on the beach for beers, and Jake from State Farm said he was going to come meet us.  As we’re sitting there at a table on the deck sharing a pitcher, Carissa burps loudly, as she does, and then looks up and says “Jake?”

I guess she recognized him from the Tinder pictures she saw.  I didn’t know he was going to be there so soon, so I wasn’t even on the lookout.  It was him.  I think the first thing I said to him was “Oh, hi.  I have that same shirt.”

I don’t know why I said that.  It was just a white cotton button down.  I guess I’d categorize it as “classy surfer-casual.”  He looked good.  As good as his photos.  But when he finally took his aviator sunglasses off when sunset hit, he looked even better.  His eyes were super blue and went nicely with his tanned surfer skin and natural dirty blonde highlights.  This, my friends, is usually not my type…. buttttttttt “when in SoCal….”

We started talking.  Soon, my friend Tier, and roommate V came to join us.  Jake from State Farm and I talked a lot about random things, and he admitted he was tracking our journey by clicking on my Tinder page over the past week to see how many miles away we were.  We discussed a book that has a lot of meaning to me, even though I’ve never read it.  I decided he was the sign I needed to allow myself to read it.  Weird?  Yeah… we were sort of on the same weird wavelength.

The sun was down and our group decided to move on to another bar along the boardwalk.  Jake from State Farm very well could have taken this as his cue to say “nice to meet you,” and go on his merry way.  But instead, he suggested another bar that was hopping, and offered me a ride on his beach cruiser.  The group got a head start on foot, and I hopped on the back of his bike, standing on the pegs.  He rode me down the boardwalk, with the night crew partying at the bars to our right, and the calm ocean on our left.

We got to the next place which was a little more rowdy than the daytime beach scene.  When dance music comes on, I like to act like an idiot.  Half to mock the people actually dancing, and half because I start laughing so hard, I can’t stop.  To my surprise, Jake from State Farm shared similar dance moves.  From the moment we started, we were in sync.  Our “moves” just jived perfectly, and we couldn’t have looked like bigger morons.  That was it.  I was in love.

Love… true, true love.  It was the Sunday before my first day of work, so I left to go home before the rest of the crew.  Jake from State Farm left too, but had his bike, so we said goodbye and parted ways as he headed back to Mission Beach and I grabbed a cab back home.  When I got home I sat around for a bit, and V came in soon after.  I told her,

“We’re in love!”

She knew.

I was obviously not being serious…. at all…. but this combination of a common novel, and our off-the-wall dance moves kept me intrigued.  We texted that night, and both admitted we had Facebook stalked each other.  We said we’d love to see each other again soon.

Then…. nothing.

Nothing I tell ya.  Nothing.  One, maybe two random boring texts, with long breaks in between responses over the next two days.  That was it.  Kaput.

Jake from State Farm, W……T…….F?

My sister says, “Get over it, he’s not your type anyway.”

“Maybe not, but I just don’t get it.”

“He’s short.”

“But he’s a good dancer.”

“Neither of you is a good dancer.”

“That’s the point.”

It’s true… he’s not my typical “type…”  But that was kind of also the point.    Two Sundays ago, “surfer-sexual” was my type.  Jake from State Farm… he was my type.  And now…. poof.  Into the wind…. like the cloud of smoke from all the drugs he probably does.  He’s gone.  See you never, my sexual friend.  See you never….

xoxo Gossip Girl

%d bloggers like this: