A Recovering Mormon, a Beautiful Gay, & My Great Rally

Back in April I went on my second Tinder date. I wasn’t particularly attracted to his photo but maybe it was one of those times I was feeling charitable – or just no guys were pinging me. And then he asked me out and I fell back on my incredible inability to say no (without good reason). So there I was on a Friday night meeting up with this guy who I thought maybe just didn’t know how to pick out a good photo.

I saw him, gave him a hug after sneaking in a clandestine once-over and immediately decided 1. Not interested and 2. He’d be perfect for GFN. But I stayed on the elevator*…even though he was a 'recovering Mormon' from Utah. (See, I don’t discriminate.)

*Tinder is just one really big elevator, I figure. I can walk into an elevator and carry on a conversation with anyone. If they ask me out on an elevator I’d probably say yes then too. (Okay, twice I was asked out on an elevator and both times I declined, but that’s not the point.) So here I was on a Friday night, sitting across from this guy I’d met on a virtual elevator. We had drinks and conversation then moved to dinner at a hole in the wall. At which point he was impressed that I was totally okay with a hole in the wall.

Free food is free food, dude.

Since this was right around the Cherry Blossom Festival, they were serving a drink called a Cherry Blossom which consisted of some IPA and cherry vodka. It was disturbingly good; I think we drank about a million of them. (Mormons can drink.) Then, after dinner, I proceeded to kick his ass at darts. (If I'm winning a bar game, I'm drunk.) Once he gave up on darts, we sat back down at the bar and a older black gentleman kept coming up and talking to us. His name was Sammy. 

Sammy told us he was drunk. Sammy told us he had “seen some shit”. And then Sammy told us he was going to go snort coke in the bathroom. We decided it was time to leave.

It was nearly 2am, so we headed to another bar near the Metro. There, we ran into beautiful 22 year old gay. At last call, he asked if we wanted a shot of whiskey. (Pro Tip: If someone asks if you want a shot at last call, you say 'NO'.) After downing what I’m fairly certain was half the bottle in a rocks glass, it was time to go and I was a full sheet to the wind. The beautiful gay and I discovered we lived off the same stop, so after I hugged my date goodbye, I rode off with my new gay friend. (Precisely how he wanted the date to end, I'm sure.) Whiskey can’t quite remember how but we ended up sipping vodka and talking on my porch until (when housemate P told us to shut up at) 5 in the morning.

The next day was The Sounds concert and I was going with my female housemate, E. Doors opened at 5pm. At 4:24p, I woke up. And if half dead feels like something, I think it felt like that. She was on her way home from work, so I texted her my current state and said I was going to try to shower it away. When I got out of the shower, I shuffled into my room and laid back in bed. She came home a few moments later, took one look at me and said “We’re not going to this concert, are we?”

“OH YES WE ARE!” I declared, somehow willfully defiant through my tequila, vodka, IPA, whiskey, vodka haze. After a short discussion, we realized I had to do it; I had to ‘pull the trigger’, as it were. So there I was, 30 years old, sitting on the floor of the bathroom while my 24 year old housemate literally cheered me on from the other side of the wall. After about 20 minutes of hesitation (I hate booting), I emerged.

“Did you do it,” she asked.

“Yes. But I feel worse,” I responded slightly despondent, but still determined to make this happen. We decided to walk to the local grocer, get our drinks (per our previous plan), grab a sandwich and head back before going to the concert. We got our sandwiches first and I sipped on an iced tea the entire walk. After a little over a mile, we were back to the house to eat our sandwiches on the front lawn. I put a bag in front of me – half joking, half precautionary – “in case things didn’t go down well”.

“If you’re gonna puke, you go behind the porch. YOU GO BEHIND THE PORCH OR I’LL PUKE!” I gathered she wanted me to go next to the porch if I was going to hurl. With that in mind, I took the world’s teeniest nibble of a fry and immediately ran to the side of the porch and lost all of the iced tea I’d worked so hard to put in there. I immediately felt better.

Just then P came outside. E announced I’d just booted by the porch. “I heard,” he laughed, “that makes me kinda happy after last night”.

“Oh yea” I said now returned to my chair, eating entire French fries with pride, “sorry about that”. (Apparently we weren't that loud, just unfortunately placed below his bed.)

From there, E and I got ready, popped in a cab that took way too long to get there and arrived at the concert. We were late and missed the opener I wanted to see, but The Sounds were awesome. After the show, we met up with my favorite gay couple (who I just happened to see crossing the street while we were standing in line for will call) and danced the night away.

And that, kids, is how I pulled off my greatest rally of all time.