unable to even

Tinder and the No Good Very Bad Date

July 27, 2016

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And this little masochist is lifting up her dress.

I put up a status about feeling like shit upon the Facebook. I didn’t go into detail.

I have a bad feeling that as this was happening to me it was going way worse for thousands of girls around the world and maybe I can get some good from this. Or at lease draw the poison out.

I said I joined Tinder. I did.

After a year or two of inside jokes and me not doing it.
*Say Tinder 3X and a cute boy appears.
*Sarah, you can’t go on Tinder, you will break the internet.
* Q: Is there a Tinder for cougars?
A: No that’s just regular Tinder

All of these were funny to me because they’re true.

That whole retrospective thing? Half-funny.

I have a date tonight with the very first man I right swiped on.

This will be date number 3. He is a literal giant and an arborist. He is funny, sweet, gorgeous and kind.

I call him the Lumberjack. He calls me Sweetcheeks.

I had other Tinder dates. 2 before and one in the middle. This is where it stops being funny ha-ha and starts being funny as in ‘okay universe I got it thanks’.

What happened is this. I temporarily forgot how my life works. And that OF COURSE the first one would be the best one.

I kept going.

And now for our regularly scheduled metaphor…
I felt like I’d been living in Africa, in one of the famine-stricken countries, mostly eating bowls of rice but on occasion getting fed really good snacks by UNICEF. Then suddenly someone put me on a plane and flew me to the nearest Mandarin Buffet.

So I loaded my table to the breaking point with everything I could carry and I just looked at it, overwhelmed. Tasting this or that. Spitting some out immediately (yet discreetly) into a napkin. But nothing topped that first bite I had. It was/is delicious.

I mentioned in my last post that I felt like I was doing something wrong, and I was.
I forgot about eating the elephant. One bite at a time.

I did that thing I promised I wouldn’t do.
I won the lottery and kept buying more lottery tickets.

Universe said “NO dummy, STAAAAAAP”.

I don’t need to hedge my bets. I like this guy. I want to see what happens.
I know where the Mandarin is, and if this one leaves and I get hungry again I can always go back.

I digress.

I’m stalling.

It’s time to talk about the bad date.

I haven’t told my therapist yet. I almost told the Friendly Giant.

I told my roommate last night by saying “I’m not sure if you still read what I write but I think I should tell you about my bad date before you read about it.”

There is yet another Tinder guy who I have struck up a conversational friendship with, I told him. We were discussing Catholicism and I realized I really needed a priest in a box.

And this little masochist is ready to confess.

I was late for the bad date. I got lost as I tend to do going up the mountain. I picked a pub close to where bad date was doing a radio interview to save him navigating downtown.

This was my first mistake. The pub was almost empty. I was on my own and out of my element.

I walked in flustered and stayed that way throughout dinner. He had the power position and kept it.

I felt like I was sitting across from Sigmund Freud when he was in a particularly vicious, misogynistic mood. Or like I was with a hyper-intelligent toddler asking why why why over and over. I felt ripped apart, like a vivisection with salad.

He sent a dick pic AT the dinner table. I already knew I wanted out, but this cinched it. Things went from being mildly entertaining to yuck with a hot fudge brownie on top.

I was scared of him. I see that clearly now. I didn’t then.

So unlike me, I’ve put a man up against a wall by his throat, while I was naked, in stilettos for behaving this way. I got grabbed on a patio once and stopped 2 inches short of breaking his nose. I don’t know where that girl went. I lost her in the move maybe.

The closest I can figure is I was sitting across from some kind of super predator, real life Christian Grey/American Pyscho, and I froze.

I agreed to continue the date as we walked outside to our cars. I would have said the sky was green with conviction just to open my car door and climb inside. All the while I was turning excuses over in my mind trying to find one that would be bulletproof.

We started driving, I was following him. I called to say my kid was locked out of the house and I had to go.

Here is where it gets weird. He said “pull over here so I can say goodbye”. Empty parking lot.

AND I FUCKING DID. I could’ve kept driving. I felt the stranger-danger, I was still in freeze mode when I should have been in full flight.

The point I am at in my novel, our heroine gets drugged and almost raped in a parking lot. Life is imitating art. And I am the idiot holding the pen. But in real life, no one came to save me.

Here is where I start blaming myself, my dress was short enough that he easily reached in a groped my vagina with me in the driver’s seat of my car. And I didn’t hit the gas and rip his arm off. I just sat still until I could get away.

I’m more disgusted with my behavior than his. I never said no. My mind was screaming it and my mouth stayed silent. I put myself into a bad situation. I felt like I regressed to high school and had that ‘just tune out until it’s over and then get far way and stay there.’

Roommate says I did the best I could given the circumstances. Tinder buddy said it wasn’t my fault.

But I still somehow feel like it’s my fault.

I’d already found a really nice guy and I went on another date because…I could? Lame.

Karma came down and bitch-slapped me for my stupidity.
I sat in my car crying because I was scared he had followed me so I drove way past my house.

Lessons learned. Learn with me girls.

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* Tori Amos, Hey Jupiter

 

 

 

 

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  • Mo July 27, 2016 at 11:15 am

    I have met that man…. Seemingly…. He seems to appear like an archetype….

    It is not your fault….

    That is how demons work….

    • sexloveandgrace July 27, 2016 at 11:53 am

      thank you for that. it really did feel like some kind of jedi mind trick. i lost myself temporarily.

  • HKR July 27, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    Been there.. Done that.. It sucks. Your mind is saying no but your body doesn’t respond. For me, it’s been that way my whole life. Stay silent and let them finish using me so they will go away. Think, no, I know, it stems from childhood abuse. Defense mechanism that needs to be overhauled.

    • sexloveandgrace July 27, 2016 at 1:48 pm

      definitely needing an overhaul

  • Anonymous July 27, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    You were molested. You could have been raped. This is not your fault for not driving away, saying no, mot taking action. I’ve been in that moment, and you feel like a deer in the headlights, frozen as the car crushes your ribs and arms and legs. Repeat after me: This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.

    • sexloveandgrace July 27, 2016 at 1:48 pm

      i was scared of him and staying quiet seemed safer. i can see that now. but the fact that i walked into that and not out of it immediately worries me.

  • Hannah July 29, 2016 at 3:26 am

    you have no idea how close to home this hit. mine wasn’t an almost.

    • sexloveandgrace July 31, 2016 at 11:49 am

      i am so sorry honey. i have had ‘not almost’ too.

  • Hannah July 29, 2016 at 3:28 am

    it’s like a soul freeze. instead of a brain freeze. the emptiest feeling I’ve ever felt.

    • sexloveandgrace July 31, 2016 at 11:48 am

      the more i ponder it the more i realize i mostly did the right thing. he could have chased me down the mountain had i tried to leave any sooner. i made peace with it, and showered, a LOT

  • Hannah August 2, 2016 at 3:32 am

    There’s no wrong thing to do in that situation. It’s cool to me you found peace with it. Much love 🙂

    • sexloveandgrace August 2, 2016 at 8:38 am

      thank you. and i have made peace. it’s over and i lived.

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