i once accidentally dated someone for a few months. its very difficult to explain how this happened, but the gist is that i thought we were hanging out, and she thought we were on dates, and it was just a very painfully highschool thing.
she was a little bit confused that i hadnt tried to pull any moves, at all, even a little. like, didnt even try holding hands because, and i cannot emphasize this enough, i did not know we were dating.
so, halloween rolled around, and she thought, you know, why wait for destiny, when you can grab it? so she hit me with a clue by four.
babylon, she said. babylon. my mom's gonna be out of town on halloween, and im gonna have the house to myself, and it's going to be kind of lonely. would you like to come to my house and watch scary movies with me?
you know, kind of a netflix and chill thing. except, and i cannot emphasize this enough, i did not know we were dating. also autism. so i took it at face value and said: oh! yeah! thatd be fun! and she thought she got her point across, but she didnt and it was a mess.
skip forward to halloween: my family has a block party every year, right? and at that point i was too old to really trick or treat, but we still wore costumes for our role in the block party, which in my case, was handing out cotton candy. so i took the first shift, and my costume was this homemade abomination minion thing. i had full yellow body paint, and goggles, and a bald cap, and overalls. the kids who saw it were like, uh, hm. overly realistic minion. and adults were like, oh, some kind of hills have eyes hillbilly with jaundice. very scary.
(it was not my best costume.)
my little brother swapped me out for second shift, and i was getting ready to change out to head to her house when i was like: no, she'll get a real kick out of this. this is one of the worst things i have ever worn. so i kept it on and just brought a change of clothes thinking i could shower real quick and change at her place after she saw my nightmare getup.
so i left after that, got there, knocked on her door, and she said come on in. so i went in, and there was this very long hall with an abrupt right turn into her living room where the tv was, and i went down the hall, and i made the turn, and my field of view went from beige drywal to her, on the couch, naked. naked in the paint me like one of your french girls pose. super naked.
i panicked. this was my first time seeing a real person like, full on sex naked,which is a totally different beast from other kinds of naked. you see one kind of naked and you think yeah, im ready for all the kinds of naked, but you arent. i wasnt at least. i really wasn't.
so my brain crashed to BIOS. she also crashed to BIOS, but for different reasons. of all the ways this could have turned me, having me show up in yellow body paint and overalls was pretty pretty low down the list.
so we sat there a while, and you know, she wasn't getting any less naked, which really wasn't helping me get my brain sorted out. it really wasnt much of a surprise when she got her bearings first and started asking questions.
"babylon," she said. "babylon. what are you wearing?"
and i was like, kind of rebooted, but i was nowhere near full functionality, so symbolic language wasnt loaded in yet. i had nothing running but my trusty autism.exe, so i said
"overalls"
and she looked at me like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked at her like she was the first naked person i had seen in real life who got naked specifically for me, and my upper level cognitive process went: "listen man, we are not going to get our shit together as long as 80% of your brain power is devoted to not blinking. you gotta get out of here."
and if id communicated that, maybe things would have been less of a mess, but instead i just kind of turned around and walked back to my car. i figured i could drive a few loops around the block, get my brain in order, and figure out what the hell we were gonna do.
the only thing i had said to her since arriving was, again, overalls.
first loop around, i was like: oh god fucking damnit. oh shit. oh shit. shes gonna get like, an eating disorder from this. oh no.
second loop around i was like: oh NOOOOO oh WHAT THE FUCK oh SWEET JESUS PLEASE. i dont wanna go back man. i just wanna bury this and forget about it. please. please. let this bitter cup pass from my lips.
and after my third loop, i went and i knocked on her door again.
she answered it this time, and i counted my lucky stars that she'd changed into some pajamas. she was all teary eyed which was the saddest thing ever, and we sat down in her kitchen and talked. it was pretty bad - i figured out we'd been dating, and she figured out that trying to jump from home plate to 3rd base is considered ballsy in baseball, least of all dating. no real winners there. and i can remember after all that, we sat there a bit a bit longer, just steadying ourselves, and i was like "well, im actually really glad we figured that out. guess i'll see you at school tomorow' and she said "WAIT. wait."
"lets watch shrek 2."
so we did and it was horrible. we did not look at each other. we did not say a word. we just sat in stony silence, while shrek 2 played in the background, and when it was done we shook hands. i think we might have been able to salvage that as a friendship if it hadnt been for shrek. as it was she turned white as a sheet and ran away every time she even got a glimpse of me at school, and that summer she moved to a new state to live with her dad. all her friends said she moved just so she wouldn't have to go to school with me anymore, and i dont actually think they were lying.
every time i hear relationship counselors talk about how important communication is, and i'm tempted to roll my eyes, i look back and go, alright. alright. theres probably some poor bastard, somewhere in the world, who doesnt even know that hes married.
and god help him when he figures it out.
other bad dating story here.
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in an alternate universe, you meet older bf!simon through a friend- well, a friend’s brother.
your friend’s brother, johnny. he overhears you whinging to his sister about how fucking hard it is to find a place to live. so he tells you about this guy he serves with.
‘L.t’ he calls him.
since he and L.t are on deployment so often, there’s a tidy re-purposed council flat that’s often empty. johnny says he’ll chat L.t about your predicament and see what he thinks.
L.t allows you to live in his home- problem is he’s leaving on deployment literally tomorrow so you have to exchange agreements by text.
you’ve got money going into his account, some basic agreements about no parties, no partners, no smoking, and no mucking about.
L.t gives the key to johnny, who gives it to his sister, who gives it to you- opening the door to an almost pristine little home. not a thing out of place.
military precision.
so you move in and you’re shocked to find more than a flat pillow and plaid duvet cover. there’s 3-in-1 in the shower but easily replaced with your own products.
the pantry and fridge are bare but soon filled with your favourites. your undies are drying over the dining chairs and your blanket is draped across the couch.
you’ve got your own profile on the netflix and your toothbrush is in the holder. you’ve done what you were told.
“make yourself at home”
so much so that you almost forget deployment will end at some point, hard to remember when you don’t even have the faintest idea when that’ll be.
johnny said it could be weeks, maybe months. he didn’t tell you that it could be at any moment.
you think you hear the door in the deep of your sleep but your brain reassures you it’s in the back of your dream- you don’t even wake.
it’s actually the weight dropping beside you on the mattress and shuffling up to your back that gets you. it’s a miracle you don’t scream.
L.t lands a rough hand on your back, something about “calm down, s’only me”
only him? he who’s name you don’t even know?
as if he can read your mind, he’s following up with a grumbled “simon”
simon ‘sans-last name.’
before his breathing begins to even out.
your heart is beating out your chest- perfect stranger climbing into bed with you?
the voice in your head that always wants you to be polite reminds you that this is actually his house, after all.
he was also kind enough to let you stay, charging a rent way below going rate.
he had just been away serving this country, duty to protect and all.
and johnny knows him, vouched for him- sure johnny can be a bit of a perv but he’s harmless.
simon must be too, right?
you decide to settle back under the duvet, telling yourself it’s you that’s being weird. you need to be more grateful!
mans tired, if he wasn’t absolutely shattered he would’ve taken the couch.
right?
you’re almost entirely convinced until you feel a strong arm loop around your waist, pulling you back into something unbelievably hard.
harmless.
right.
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