about five years ago i matched with a man on tinder and we quickly made plans to meet up at a local pub for some beers and bratwursts, and to see if we felt any connection in person that would lead to fucking. he was the kind of guy whose life seemed enmeshed in the arts, which is almost always a surefire way to get under my skirt.

in person it quickly became apparent to me that this man had some serious emotional problems, probably some heavy drug problems, and he was actively leaking trauma everywhere. i found him somewhat repulsive in person, actually, the way he completely dominated our entire interaction by way oversharing his sob stories, inappropriately trashing his exes, and almost begging for attention by bragging about his “art,” which apparently consisted mostly of graffiti bombing trains and playing shitty music in a shitty band.

but i also had really poor boundaries back then and didn’t have any understanding of my own self-worth, so when he invited me to his home down the street i went anyway to at least give him a pity fuck. he had bought me a few beers, afterall.

we drunkenly stumbled down the avenue before reaching his front door, just blocks away from the silver lake reservoir. i wish i had never stepped into that apartment, though, and the sex was absolutely terrible... it’s not even worth describing how shitty that fuck was. but the worst thing is that after he got off, without even bringing me close to orgasm, he pulled out some old photos of his time in art school... MY ART SCHOOL. yes, that’s right, this man chose his moment of post-nut clarity to reveal through these pictures that he had gone to the exact same college i had for his undergraduate degree in music — and at the exact same time as me. as the comprehension started to dawn on my face, he let out a laugh and asked “you don’t remember me, do you?”

jesus fucking christ, my blood ran cold in that moment. who the hell does that to someone? he knew exactly who i was because we had gone to college together well over a decade earlier, and he hid that knowledge from me until after we fucked. then to reveal it the way he did, with a note of pride almost that back in our time together at art school i barely knew him and never looked at him twice. apparently he had a massive crush on me in the past and basically bragged to my face once we were naked together about “finally getting the girl of his art school dreams.”

i literally wanted to throw up when i heard those words come from his mouth.

i honestly don’t know what the hell is wrong with me but i still gave him a second chance after this highly traumatic experience — i told you i had no understanding of my self-worth back then, didn’t i? well, that second date was even worse than the first and we didn’t even fuck, that’s how bad the whole situation truly was.

he picked me up later that week on a saturday afternoon, we had made plans to see the guillermo del toro exhibition across town and i was looking forward to at least getting my art on (but not the potential of another round of shitty sex). as i buckled myself into his car, he gestured at the backseat laden with various pieces of music equipment and a few instruments.

“do you mind if we stop by the guitar center first so that i can sell some of my old gear?” okay, strange choice but whatever, i acquiesced and hoped it wouldn’t delay our museum excursion by too long... i was so fucking naïve.

to start it off, he wanted to go to the guitar center about twenty minutes east of where we both lived, instead of the guitar center that was literally on hollywood blvd on the way to the museum on the west side of town. i didn’t feel like arguing the logic behind his choice so i gave in and we headed off to sell his music gear. he proceeded to spend the entire twenty minute car ride talking about his latest graffiti adventure bombing a few trains in an empty train yard near ventura —he was really setting the stage for another nightmare date and i was already beginning to regret my choices in life by the time we parked.

he asked me to help him haul some of his heavy as fuck equipment and instruments into the store, where the counter guy informed us that there were two other customers waiting for their gear to be inspected/bought before they would be able to get to us. just my goddamn luck... fine, we resigned to wait the thirty to forty minutes for that to happen and so we stepped out to his van to get super faded before coming back into the shop to roam around high and play whatever instruments we could get our hands on.

i have a little bit of musical ability, mostly on stringed instruments, and we spent about thirty minutes riffing on guitars, basses, and ukeleles before the counter guy called my date up to inspect and walk through his gear together. i wandered around the store as that process began, eventually finding my way to the small display of theremins - an instrument that i have always had a fascination with. as i started tinkering around and coaxing some wild wailing sounds from those moog machines, i heard a few voices growing louder in the background. christ, my date was arguing with the counter guy already about the quality and condition of his used gear.

at this point i started seriously considering just walking out of the store and leaving this whole scene behind me. my desire to spend any more time with this man had, with the accumulation of his actions, suddenly plummeted to zero and i wasn’t even excited about visiting the art exhibit anymore. instead, i just refocused on the theremin that i was playing around with, waving my hands and pretending i was the rockstar laurie anderson while hoping that this nightmare would end soon.

half an hour later, we hauled a few pieces of his unsold gear back to his van and jumped back onto the freeway. it was well over two hours since he initially picked me up for our date and i told him i had a headache coming on and that i’d like to go back home now, that maybe we could check out the museum another day.

he flipped the fuck out.

he pretty much pulled a toddler-level tantrum and it scared the hell out of me to see this man lose his shit while driving... this is the exact moment when i actually began to fear for my safety. he proceeded to alternate between being furious at my request and begging me to reconsider, saying that he’d stop at a seven-eleven to pick up some tylenol and that everything would be fine. he refused to display any empathy for me and i felt bullied and scared as he escalated the situation while flying down the freeway.

eventually i broke down and agreed to stop and get some aspirin and coffee to help with my headache so that he could get what he wanted — another opportunity to fuck me, i’m sure. but no means no and he didn’t understand yet that the moment he pushed back against my desire to end the date, he killed the possibility for any future chance at seeing me naked ever again.

i felt immense relief wash over me as we rolled onto the city streets from the concrete highway and i seized my chance to escape when just a few blocks from the liquor store we stopped at a red light. without a moment’s hesitation i unbuckled my seat belt, grabbed my purse and sweater, opened the car door, and took off running. i didn’t even bother slamming it shut behind me so i heard his angry yelling fade away as i put as much distance between him and i as quickly as possible. i eventually ducked into a shop to catch my breath and let the adrenaline work it’s way through my body. i was starting to shake from the entire experience and immediately began doing some deep breathing to help keep the panic attack i felt rising inside me at bay.

the store clerk must have thought i was a crazy woman in that moment, but after i had a chance to calm down and explain what was happening, he brought me to the backroom to relax in safety before i eventually felt well enough to handle hailing an uber home. to this day, i am still immensely grateful that clerk understood my fear and gave me the space i needed to recover from that traumatic experience before helping me secure a ride home. he gave me back a sliver of faith in humanity with his actions and at least helped me arrive home with a tiny slice of comfort in my heart.