I can be an awkward person. This shouldn’t be news to anyone, but I think the depths of said awkwardness might be something of a surprise to some. On the surface — most of the time, anyway — I have my shit pretty together. Every now and then, however, I devolve right back to high school Steph and shit gets real. This, my friends, is a story about one of those times.
I met Nutmeg the old fashioned way (that is without the help of Tinder, OK Cupid, or any other interwebz wizardry). ‘Oh hey, I find this person intriguing,’ I thought. ‘Let me make this as difficult as possible,’ my brain replied. I could have done something normal, like start a conversation, or say hello, or do anything but flat-out ignore and avoid him, but no … that would’ve been too easy. Instead, anytime an opportunity presented itself, I suddenly found my phone in urgent need of my attention, or someone (anyone) to talk to, or generally behaved like an idiot. Now this was at the same time I was confidently going on dates with couples and behaving normally (for me) around other guys. No, I don’t know what my fucking problem was either. A mutual friend mentioned I was inquiring after him, and despite my spazzy behaviour, he added me on the Book of Faces. Two minutes after I pulled my patented ‘whatever is on my phone is the most compelling thing I’ve ever seen’ trick (I actually laughed out loud at the timing).
I had a choice: I could continue on as I was, or I could just man the fuck up and say something. Now, I may be many things (especially according to my exes), but shy isn’t one of them. Fortune favours the bold, right? I decided to just say, ‘Fuck it,’ and sent a message not only outing my awkwardness but suggesting we get drinks. Because honestly, what’s the worst that could happen? The proverbial cat was already out of the bag, and while I would have to see him somewhat frequently if he said no thanks, I was already Awkward McGee™. The world would not swallow me up and send me to the dark pit. I have heard no before and lived to tell the tale.
Spoiler alert: we wouldn’t be having this little chat if that’s what went down. He suggested he cook for me instead, and while that has yet to happen (Editor’s note: it really should happen. I like food, and I really like food when culinarily-skilled people make it for me cough I’m talking directly to you, Nutmeg cough), we have spent some time together. Now, because of the roundabout way we started talking, we were still communicating through good ol’ FB messenger. He suggested that we graduate to iMessage (text, for those of you without iPhones — don’t worry, I still love you in spite of that failing), and here’s where it gets weird: he was already in my contacts. I’m one of those people who never deletes messages. I don’t know why, I just don’t. I will ditch music I don’t listen to in order to free up space for no apparent reason.
I was initially confused (and he more so, not being a digital hoarder and therefore not seeing the message history), but pieced it together: we met on Tinder almost a year ago and graduated to texting without ever actually meeting. It does not get any more fucking reflective of dating in 2015 than that. We were talking around the same time I was all ‘Weeee, date multiple people!‘ before I changed to ‘Nope! Just date this one person.’ Didn’t that work out so well for me. Nutmeg asked which of us ghosted, and good news: neither! I politely said I was going to be exclusive with someone I had been seeing, and he politely wished me well (see, it is possible not to be an asshole). In even more comedic timing from the universe, he showed up in my Tinder queue last night while I was drunk Tindering with a friend (just before I had to do a complete restore on my phone which caused Tinder bankruptcy — the struggle is real). I had thought it odd we hadn’t run into each other on there. I found it hard to believe I would run into every damn person I’ve dated (sometimes more than once) and not come across someone in my geographical and age requirements with a plethora of mutual friends. Apparently that was not the case, I just have a shit memory. Maybe there is something to this whole alcohol-kills-brain-cells thing after all.
Steph Not Stephanie 