beer boy

I can’t hold it any longer. I’ve never been good at secrets—but it’s certainly not a secret—yet I think the whole story is here, so I’m ready to tell.

It all started at a Super Bowl party.

"Oh, speaking of the Canadian flag; tell Natalie, Martin.”

“We have an errand for you."

“Okay…”

My dear friends then made a wonderfully joint effort to tell me about this catch of a twenty-one-year-old available boy they met at the brewery a few blocks down.

“You have to go see him during half-time. We told him to look for the girl with ear plugs,” (she was referencing my gauges, in case you were wondering).

Half-time came, and Martin accompanied me to the brewery. On the walk down, we both felt quite silly about the whole thing. What was I even supposed to say? “Hey, my friends said you’re great; let’s go on a date?” Minus the rhymes. Totally clueless, we passed the small crowd of tables and up to the bar, only to find that the boy had gone.

“To missed connections,” Martin raised his glass of Amber Ale that had some clever name that I entirely forget. I kept thinking what a bummer this was—it seems impossible to find a nice, Christian man outside of my church (not that there aren’t nice ones at my church; there just haven’t been any advances), and now this one chance was gone!

So I left him a note. I have no idea what I was thinking; do people even call people anymore? The last boy I connected with, we exchanged email addresses. So I left a note with both my phone number and email address and waited.

“How long is the appropriate waiting period before a random stranger responds to a note left by another random stranger? Do they respond? I would. I'm curious,” I asked Martin two days later over Facebook. His response? “5 days from the time the random stranger views said note, give or take 39 hours.” This provided a very accurate yet inaccurate calculation, as the next day, he called. CALLED.

I was in the hardware store when an unknown number called. “Hi, it’s ____ from the brewery. I think you left me a note on Super Bowl Sunday?” It took a minute to register that it was actually him on the other line. His voice sounded either extremely sweet and gentle or gay, which was slightly confusing. He asked a few questions about myself over the course of several dropped calls as I had to leave the store for service and said to text him about making plans.

I immediately called the list of people I had told about him, which was basically Martin and my mom. My mom’s advice? “Just take it slow.” My response? “Mom, we haven’t even met”.

Later that night, we were arranging to meet when my lack of transportation + the chaos of that day’s parade downtown prevented me from leaving the apartment. We became “friends” on Facebook—something I was extremely hesitant of before meeting because it allows him a warped insight into my life. You really cannot get to know someone on Facebook, but for whatever reason, many millenials think you can. Further, any correspondence from then out would be biased against what he saw on Facebook. What if he saw my picture and thought I was ugly or fat or not “whatever” enough for him? That’s a shit way to “meet” someone. Regardless, he had already given me his contact info, so of course I had browsed his profile; it would have been creepy for me not to add him.

Maybe this isn’t needless to say, but I haven’t heard from him since. A week later, I sent him a text asking if he still wanted to meet sometime. No response. Seriously? At least be polite enough to say no, damnit.

On Valentine’s Day, he made a Facebook post along the lines of, “Its better to be single with high standards, then in a relationship settling for less!” followed by hashtags about his dream woman. After a brief texting exchange with both Kim & Martin from their separate phones (they are definitely the cutest couple I know), we all agreed that my standards start with someone who can at least write an accurate sentence, concluding that, IT’S better to be single THAN to settle for someone with shitty grammar. #Ihavestandardstoo (Thanks for the encouragement, friends).

Here I am on this lamest of lovey-dovey holidays, date-less and cuddling with my dog. I called my mom to thank her for the valentine & cookies (yes, I got a valentine from my parents! No shame! There are lemon cookies involved!) and told her that I was out for a walk with my valentine. While she assumed without saying that I was referring to my dog, I had to awkwardly avoid referring to my valentine as “she”.

All that to say, we are no longer Facebook friends, this “beer boy” (as Martin so cleverly referred to him) and me, though the slightly hopeful part of me can’t bring myself to delete his number even though he’s clearly never calling back. It’s because I don’t ski. Seriously.

Anyways, after more encouragement, I wrote a song about beer boy. I figured it was only appropriate that it take place as a pseudo-voicemail. You can listen to it here.