<editorsnote> Nerds, meet by buddy Julie! She's my roomie, we met on Craiglist, and she is 1,000 flavors of everything awesome sauce. The reason why she had a room in her apartment however is a mighty long story. See, Julie was dating a duderino for 8 years. Yep, they were engaged to be wed and all that snazzy jazzy stuff. Now the engagement is off and Julie is attempting to heal from her loss; these series of posts are her best attempt. HIT IT JULIE! </editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @ItsMeJoolie
It finally happened y'all. A bad date. I've had such good luck with all of the dates I have been on. The guys have either been super attractive or successful or both. In an effort to get everything out of my system so that when I do get into a relationship, I'm ready, I thought I would do something funny/bad/irresponsible: go out on a date with a 24 year old.
First up, lemme talk about the site where I met this little darling, Jazzed. Back in October, Jen and I went to a promo party for this site which is cross promoted with the CBS Tv show Excused. Now, I admit, this is kinda genius marketing. A dating show attached to a dating site. Except for the fact that Jazzed, welllll, kinda sucks. I was suckered into downloading the iPhone app in order to receive a free pair of day-glow colored sun glasses. So as they plotted, since I already had the app on my phone, I went ahead and filled out my profile.
You are allowed to add numerous pictures of yourself, then there is a free form "About me and what I'm looking for" section, a "Tell Julie about you" section" where you select questions you would like people to answer, "In My own words" with the sub headers "What are your favorite TV shows?", "What are your favorite movies?", "what 3 words describe your perfect mate?", "Where did you grow up?", and "What drives you crazy?". Then there's a general details section just like on OK Cupid. The Jazzed approach makes it easier to fill out your profile, which makes it easily more generic.
Aside from the lack of quality guys that I've seen on here and the fact that you have to pay for it (I guess I got grandfathered in because I've never paid a cent), my least favorite thing about Jazzed is the cop outs it lets people take when contacting someone they are interested in. Instead of having to write to the other person, you can opt to send them a pre-written one sentence Ice breaker such as "Your profile got my attention...let's chat!" or "Your profile brought a smile to my face!" or even worse "Wink!". Lamesauce. It's like poking someone on facebook or even choosing someone on OKC. Another way to avoid actually writing to someone is to "like" a particular part of their profile or "nudge" them. The only things in my Jazzed inbox I ever looked at were messages.
So, a lot of what I have received has been ummm, let's just say not good. But this message caught my eye:
"Wow, Julie, you are the coolest. SUCH great taste, crazy gorgeous, and I could tell at a glance that you're a fun, positive person. I only wish I were a few years older."
I realized I had my age range set to 25-35 and that this dude was 24. Cute with bright blue eyes. But 24! So I didn't write him back. Two weeks later I got another message from him:
"You're still my favorite"
And then a third one!
"I've all but given up...but would still love to talk."
Okay, okay. His persistence actually had me intrigued. We sent some emails back and forth in December and then I forgot all about it and him. Then the other week, he wrote to me. I decided why the hell not? and gave him my number. I've done some pretty irresponsible things in the last couple of months, so I'll just pile this on top. I had no intention of ever seriously dating a 24 year old. We start texting and just like through the Jazzed emails he comes across as confidant and fun. It turned out he was well versed in the nerd universe, a big plus! He then invited me to go see a comedy/music performance for Don't Stop Or We'll Die with appearances by Paul Scheer, Jenny Slate and Sarah Silverman. Score! I love live shows.
So, here we go.
The very first inkling of the issues to come was from one of the text messages I received before the start of the date.
"The show is at 8:30, btw. Meet there around 8? I'm two months from having a car down here, or I'd pick you up."
I'm okay with this because I don't want a first date to see where I live anyways. Now, not having a car is not necessarily a deal breaker, but I just dated a guy for two months that didn't have a car and it was kinda annoying.
So I get there (The Largo at the Coronet) and due to my unfounded paranoia that I will not recognize the person I am supposed to be meeting I go back into the Jazzed app and look at his profile again. Wait a minute...wait just a minute...does he have a lazy eye? (Lordy lord, I'm sooo sorry that this will most certainly offend someone out there reading this) In his profile picture he's looking straight at you! Great, now I'm going to be attempting to not stare at this person's lazy eye.
I get into the place and text him. He walks out (and I recognize him right away of course!) and we both go in for The Confident Hug. We sit down at a table since the performance hall isn't open yet. He sits at an angle in an attempt to hide the eye. He's cute. Black rimmed glasses, cool blazer, good facial hair.
Conversation time. Here's where the awkward begins. In person, this guy is nothing like he is through emails/text. I'm guessing the lazy eye thing has a severe affect on his confidence. I ask him what he does for a living. I find out that he's unemployed. But! He does make money as a magician. As visions of JOB prancing onstage run through my head I somehow maintain a poker face of fake, pleasant interest and ask about The Magic castle. I ask him what part of town he lives in. He tells me and I then realize that it is different from what it says on his Jazzed profile. I ask him about this and learn that he has been staying at friend/family's houses. Meaning: he's homeless.
We go into the theater and continue to talk. I do the bulk of the work here, continuously finding new topics to discuss. He looks (pretty much) straight forward the whole time he talks to me while we're in the theater. Again, something that I am sure is a by-product of the lazy eye, but still hard to deal with on my end. The show is great! So, at least that part of the date is solid.
Afterwards, as we're walking out I suggest we go next door to the Roger Room and grab a drink. He gets an embarrassed look on his face and confesses that he doesn't have his ID. At this point I'm wondering if he's actually 24. Dear God, what if he's 20?! He says he lost it and that since he hasn't been driving in the short amount of time that he's been in LA it hasn't been an issue. He says I should know of some places we can go where he won't get carded because this is my hood. No dude, I don't commonly categorize bars in my head by cards/doesn't card since I am a 29 year old woman and the majority of my friends are in their mid to upper twenties.
Not drinking isn't the biggest deal to me, I suggest walking over to Coffee Bean and he makes a comment about the date getting downgraded. Sheesh buddy, YOU forgot YOUR ID, be a good sport, make the best of things, like I am trying to do. We walk up the street looking for options, places we could potentially get a drink without being IDed (this is freaking impossible, BTW, he's actually 24 and looks 20 and I'm 29 and look 24 - we're getting IDed). After not finding anything, we start walking towards Coffee Bean. I still feel like I am carrying the conversation the whole way.
We get to Coffee Bean and I order a drink, he finally decides he doesn't want anything. He then attempts to pay the whole $3.25 for my coffee. HIS.CARD.GETS.DECLINED. He was beyond embarrassed. At this point, the date was all a big joke to me so I didn't even bat an eye. I try not to react, I'm not about to do anything to make this dude feel worse. He gets a water and we go and sit outside. Again, the whole time we are sitting out here and talking he is not looking at me, but looking straight ahead. That makes me more uncomfortable than anything else.
After laughing at this lady that is actually wiping both of her sweatered Pomeranian’s asses outside of Coffee Bean (have some damn children already lady!!) we walk back to my car.
I give him a hug goodbye and then ask how he is getting home. He tells me his is going to walk to the Metro station to get to the other side of the hill. That's almost 4 miles away from where we are. In my head I let out a huge sigh and outloud I tell him to get in my car, I'm not going to let him walk that far. I drop him off at The Metro and I drive off, literally laughing my ass off at what just happened. "That's what you get Julie, that's what you get. A 24 year old... What was I thinking?"
He texted me a few days later and I did my normal bitch move of simply not responding. Then he texted me on Saturday "Hey Julie, I get if you weren't feeling it (I was for the record, and think you're incredibly cool, funny, sexy)..." I felt bad and answered, I figured I am supposed to be the more mature one, I should act it. I wanted to tell him "Really, you were feeling it? Because I couldn't tell, you seemed completely uninterested the whole time". I'm going to chalk this up to youth, inexperience and thus, nerves. I responded and told him "I had a fun time last week, I just recognize that you and I are in different places in life" I then let him know he was now friend-zoned. He was bummed but seemed to handle it okay. At least his text responses were mature.
You earned a point there, kid.
Then he was really bummed that I wouldn't be going to this event with him this week and that he had to pull strings to get a plus one. I told him I would go with him but he would have to be okay with us just going as friends. I think he was bummed, but he agreed. We went and saw a screening of Signs "interrupted" by Doug Benson! Ed Helms was one of his guests. I just so happen to have a death wish for M. Night Shamalongadingdong (especially after he shat on my favorite show ever Avatar: The Last Airbender) so it was hilarious to watch them rip apart the movie! Then then was an intermission before the viewing of Ed Helms' new movie Jeff, Who Lives At Home (which was freakin great!). While me and 24 were hanging outside drinking beer we smoked a joint with Doug Benson! YES! Then he showed me a magic trick. He was really good (plus, I was really stoned). We had some awkward social moments that were exacerbated by the pot and ended with us both laughing. Like when he left his bag under his seat after the first movie and we realized that people weren't keeping their old seats for the second feature. He didn't want to walk past everyone in the aisle and get it. I shrugged and got it for him. I playfully gave him a hard time to get him to laugh at himself. I grew up being incredibly awkward, so I get it. It's kinda endearing, but definitely not something I want to date. I again drove him to the Metro and honestly thanked him for a great night. As I drove away, I wished I knew some cute 20 year old to hook him up with. I would love to be his wing girl.
So I turned an awkward first date into an awkward friendship. I'm okay with how it all went down. It all adds up to living life and gives me a funny story to tell.
And I will be deleting the Jazzed app off of my phone. Because I'm just not.
Click here to follow Julie on Twitter
Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 4:12PM
