Steph Not Stephanie

Last Thursday saw a flurry of activity in the name of the blog. I haven’t decided if I do stupid shit ‘for the blog,’ or if I use this as an excuse to do stupid shit. Regardless, it happens and you get to read it. You are welcome.

I didn’t think I had many of these left, but I had a first during the day (in fact, I had a few surprising firsts this past week. Who knew?): a lunch date. It was his first Tinder date, so I tried to be gentle. He was nice and normal and didn’t cry, although there wasn’t a huge spark. In his follow-up text, he showed a surprising (and welcome) awareness of that, as well as saying some lovely things. Nice people are nice and they don’t get nearly enough credit here.

The real party started after work: I signed up for yoga speed dating. Yes, that is a thing. Now, I’m not exactly a yoga person, but the idea intrigued me. I convinced my partner in crime/official Girlfriend-Not-Girlfriend to come along for booze and partnered poses with strangers. It was held by a cozy little yoga studio in the West End called Studio Blue. When we arrived, we noticed one thing was missing: men. We quickly bonded with the other ladies over the Toronto dating scene, and slowly but surely a few guys trickled in (much to the dismay of the first to arrive who was the only dude for a solid 10 minutes). We drank our champagne and got down to yoga business. Because the numbers were still a bit off, I only ended up partnered with a guy once (for which I made my yoga dating debut on CityNews), but the class was a blast. There’s a shared camaraderie when you do something that unique, and the poses were actually really great. Shockingly, yoga speed dating was less awkward and more fun than ‘normal’ speed dating. The guys were cute, we met some really fun women, and my boobs weren’t even mashed into any mats. Would recommend.

As we were chatting and drinking more champagne after the class (because of course), one of the ladies mentioned she was heading a launch party for a new dating app. As Toronto’s most important drunk dating blogger, I couldn’t resist the lure of an open bar. My trusty GNG and I headed down there and downloaded Hinge — our ticket in. The party was less the loungey social gathering I expected and more the King West Friday club nightmare of my 20’s. As we waited in line for drinks, getting pushed around (and ending up in the armpit of one particularly spatially-challenged dudebro with terrible fades and a shiny suit), she turned to me asked if we were having fun. It was in that moment I wondered if perhaps I was indeed too old for this shit. I asked myself the same question again five minutes later on the freezing dance floor while we discussed the temperature and if we were supposed to dance to generate heat. The thought of leaving did cross our minds, but my co-worker (and co-wino) E was already on her way, so we took our fistfuls of beer and retreated to the edges to make snarky comments like the old biddies we are. Some gems include ‘I have beer in my asscrack,’ and ‘Is it Thursday night or New Year’s Eve?’ Many of our exchanges revolved around my amazing musical talents. GNG: Do you know this song? Me: No, can you tell? GNG: Yes. Multiple times throughout the night, she would stop me to ask what lyrics I was singing. Honestly, even I couldn’t tell you. I thought Nelly rapped about rainbows instead of range rovers until quite recently.

The third amiga arrived and more drinks were consumed. Early 2000’s jams came on, and we were having a good time, mangled lyrics and all. Unfortunately, I also learned the hard way I can no long longer drop it like it’s hot. While backing dat ass up on my friend to Usher’s Yeah, my knee decided we are 100% too old for this shit and something snapped. Sober enough to know it hurt but drunk enough not to care, I had a brief ‘hold my drink, I’m hurt’ moment before deciding it was not a bench-worthy injury. I am nothing if not a trooper.

I even met a guy, but the subsequent exchange was such a shit show that it deserves its own post. Suffice it to say meeting someone in a bar has done the impossible: renewed my faith in online dating. The girls and I decided a location change was in order, and E just happened to know someone with bottle service at a bar around the corner. I’ve never been part of the bottles and booths crowd (probably because my personal style is more Hipster-Bait than Bay-Street-Swag), but who am I to say no to more drinks on a weeknight? Eventually, however, the lack of dinner and metric shit-ton of booze caught up with me and I decided I needed to pour myself into a cab. (Sidenote: only the most ridiculous texts are sent during a drunken cab ride. Don’t believe me? Re-read your iMessage history the next day.) By the time I got home, pizza in hand, my knee was so fucked I actually had to crawl up my stairs (I’ve been hobbling around all weekend).

How was your Thursday?