It’s a hot summer day in Cambridge, MA and I’m on my way to meet Gordon, an OkCupid candidate with a scrawny build and a mutual love of the guitar. This is one of those dates I agreed to go on because I thought I could be friends with the guy— we could play music! Start a band! — but had no actual attraction to him. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I know. Alas, I was young and hopeful, and maybe he just takes bad pictures and isn’t as weird and punk as he appears in his profile and also his blue eyes don’t look hideous?
I approach our meeting spot, an Irish pub in my ‘hood. I spot a figure that I quickly realize is Gordon and nearly run away. He’s wearing jorts, which are 4-5X tighter than my tightest pants, a janitor’s amount of keys hanging from of his belt loop, and a bandana that’s decorated with a cobweb design, rolled into a headband. I don’t even know if my 8th-grade punk-boy infatuated self would’ve been into it. Because, instead of acting too-cool-for-school or like he gives zero fucks and all that other alternative punk crap, he’s awkward as shit.
I approach our meeting spot, an Irish pub in my ‘hood. I spot a figure that I quickly realize is Gordon and nearly run away. He’s wearing jorts, which are 4-5X tighter than my tightest pants, a janitor’s amount of keys hanging from of his belt loop, and a bandana that’s decorated with a cobweb design, rolled into a headband. I don’t even know if my 8th-grade punk-boy infatuated self would’ve been into it. Because, instead of acting too-cool-for-school or like he gives zero fucks and all that other alternative punk crap, he’s awkward as shit.