I have been on many dates in my life. Most of them have been pretty normal, fairly pleasant, and don’t go anywhere. They end with a “Nice to meet you,” and although there is no animosity, we both know we won’t see each other again.
But there have been a few that were slightly…absurd.
A while back (2018? 2019?), I went out with a guy who was a rad tech at one of the hospitals here. We went to a place called Canopy, which is a collective of artist studios and galleries. It was an event where you could walk through all of the spaces, which was pretty cool. He definitely deserved props for a good date idea.
But from the start of the date, I just wasn’t feeling it. There was nothing wrong with him, but I did find him a little obnoxious and over the top. Regardless, I saw it through and still had fun exploring the studios and looking at all the art.
We had both parked in the neighborhood close to the venue. We were walking back to our cars, and as we got closer and closer to his, we saw that there was…something on the hood.
It was, quite literally, shit. Not a handful, but like, a heap of it. Someone had really made an effort. It wasn’t human, thank god, but we were parked next to a house that had a donkey in the yard. Two plus two makes four.
Canopy is in East Austin, an area that has rapidly gentrified over the past decade or so. Mom-and-pop businesses got, and continue to get, pushed out for bougie condos and swanky restaurants. Real estate investors buy up anything with a personality and flip it into something wildly ugly and unaffordable. So, I understood what these residents must have thought when they saw a shiny new Mercedes parked outside of their house.
But I knew this guy didn’t come from money. He had come from a working-class family in Queens if I remember correctly. I’m sure he had worked very hard to get to where he was, and I’m sure he had worked very hard to buy that car.
What happened next is kind of a blur at this point. I think some people were sitting in the yard, and he tried to confront them. They denied it, of course. I stood there quietly, afraid a fight was going to break out. I felt really bad for the guy, and I didn’t want to leave him with a pile of shit on his car.
I drove my car and followed him to a grocery store nearby, where we bought some supplies to attempt to clean it off. There was A LOT, and it was IN THERE. People walked by with puzzled looks on their faces. We got it cleaned up to a point where he was able to go through a car wash, but he texted me the next day and told me that he had to change the filters in his car because of it.
I had forgotten (somehow) about this little incident until recently- when I received a knock on my door around 10 a.m. I was working from home, as our managers had told us to do, because of the weather. I was in a bathrobe, and the coffee hadn’t hit yet. I opened the door and immediately remembered an email that had been sent out a few days ago: something about inspecting our apartments for an energy efficiency audit.
These two very nice men came into my apartment, counted the lightbulbs, and left. As I went to lock the door behind them, I heard one of them say, “Some people have never worked a day in their life, and she’s one of them.”
…
I wanted to tell him how I used to juggle three jobs and never had a day off. I wanted to tell him how I spent two grueling years delivering cars in the blazing Texas sun and the freezing rain. I wanted to tell him how I put in twelve, fourteen, and sixteen-hour days for really shitty paychecks. I wanted to tell him how I busted my ass to work my way up and sign for this apartment without my mom as a guarantor.
I had this vision in my head where I would storm out of my apartment, find him, and put him in his place.
Except I’m really afraid of confrontation, and when I DID see the two guys in the elevator an hour or two later…I very haphazardly tried to stand up for myself. It wasn’t as epic as I’d envisioned it, but I hope it was enough for him to maybe wait a few seconds before bad-mouthing another resident. Like, until you’re out of earshot, buddy.
I’m never going to see this person again. It shouldn’t matter what he thinks of me. He’s just some random dude doing energy audits. I can’t fully explain why it bothered me so much. Maybe because I was already in a bad mood, and it was just the icing on the cake. Maybe because my biggest fear (other than tornadoes) is being, by my standards, unsuccessful. And anyone who knows me knows that a work ethic is the last thing I lack.
This bathrobe is fluffy and warm. That Mercedes was very shiny. But neither one of those things truly says anything about the person who owns them. I’m not lazy, and my Hinge date that night was not some yuppie real estate investor born with a silver spoon.
Sure, sometimes people will show you exactly who they are. But not always. I don’t want to end this with a trite, stereotypical “dOnt jUdGe A bOoK bY iTs CoVeR” thing, but I do think it’s worth a reminder at times. Have I been disappointed by people? Of course. But have I also been pleasantly surprised by people? Yes. And that is what I try to focus on.
(Originally published on Medium)
I used to be aware of what people thought of me, but gradually, I came to realise that the only people whose opinions of me mattered, were those that I loved x
I never heard that crazy date story before. Good read