100 Bad Dates: #68

Date #68 was NOT gay, ok? Not even bisexual, so don’t mention it. He was a military man that I met on a street designed for getting drunk. You know the kind, most big cities have them: all old-timey looking, possibly with cobblestones and gaslights, and lined with bars and restaurants.

January 4, 2010; 6:00 AM • by The Checkout Girl

Date #68 was NOT gay, ok? Not even bisexual, so don’t mention it. He was a military man that I met on a street designed for getting drunk. You know the kind, most big cities have them: all old-timey looking, possibly with cobblestones and gaslights, and lined with bars and restaurants. Pay one outrageous parking fee and drink at twenty-seven places (but not without a cover charge, thank you very much) before the night is through!

I was carousing with some friends, and somewhere around bar four we ran into Date #68 and his friends. Drunken, sloppy sparks flew. He had that delicious military crew cut that was SO Josh Harnett in Black Hawk Down and a thick-as-molasses southern drawl (courtesy of Valdosta, GA, he repeated several times). He proceeded to buy me a few more drinks and I proceeded to drink them, glad I hadn’t driven. For his twenty dollar investment, I’m sure he thought he was going to get lucky, but I sent him on his way with a kiss and my phone number. I was pretty convinced he wouldn’t call, considering I didn’t put out. Truth is, I wasn’t super concerned, either way. He was nice enough, and had that honey-sweet voice, but whatevs.

But Date #68 did call — before I even got home — and left a drunken message on my answering machine (Remember those?), saying he wanted to see me again. It was 3am-ish at this point, and my tipsy brain told me it was the perfect time to return his call. We had a barely-intelligible conversation in which he kept repeating that he needed to see me right then, but somehow I put him off and agreed to go out with him the next night for more drinks.

We met at a local cafe that served both coffee and wine. He was smaller than I had remembered (Was I lying on the floor at the bar? Entirely possible.) and kind of soft-spoken, pre-alcohol. Very nice, not terribly worldly. In fact, before joining the military he had never been outside of the Georgia-Alabama-Florida-area. A sort of redneck devil’s triangle. He spoke wistfully of his hometown and about the girls he had dated in high school, just before enlisting. Two glasses of wine in he giggled at his own naivete.

“I’d never even had a blow job before meeting my roommate,” he said.

“Well,” I teased, “how many have you had since then?”

“Oh, I dunno, a hundred, maybe? You’ll have to ask him,” he answered.

Now there’s wingman and there’s WINGMAN. While I’m not terribly opposed to kinky, his roommate had observed every blow job he had ever had? What the heck?

“Wow, you guys must be very close,” I said, dim as the grease-smeared light fixture in Kirstie Alley’s kitchen.

“We’re not gay,” he quickly interjected.

Odd.

“Oh, no, I didn’t say that,” I said, wondering what in the world had I said that made him think that.

“It’s not gay because we’re not in a romantic relationship.”

Spit-take!

NOW it made sense. I asked Date #68 if what he was saying is that his roommate was the one who was providing him with fellations (look it up) and he looked confused.

“Well, yeah,” he answered. His look said he had come just short of saying “Duh.”

Another glass of wine down and I had the nerve to ask him how, exactly, their not-gay relationship had come about. He told me that they were drinking together one night and telling stories, and he had told the roommate the no blow job tale.

“I can show you what it’s like,” the roommate had offered, and he accepted.

“Now, when we go out and don’t get laid, we just hook up.”

I thought about how I had sent him away the night before, but didn’t ask if, well, you know.

I did ask if he considered himself bisexual and he winced.

“Eww, no. It’s totally practical, not enjoyable.”

I couldn’t picture it not being enjoyable.

We had one more drink and I felt done. Date #68 was nice, and I didn’t judge him for the hummer action (in fact, it was hot-ish), but I have a different type when sober and he wasn’t it (in case you are wondering, my type when drinking is, well, kind of whoever).

Since moving to Richmond, I have heard that southern drawl many times and sometimes wonder what happened to the perfectly straight boy from Valdosta, Georgia and his roommate. My hope is that they finished their military careers and are sharing a nice flat in some open-minded city with a few dogs that wear fancy sweaters. After all, you can’t beat a good beej.

The Checkout Girl is a recent transplant to Richmond, from San Diego. She is obsessed with celebrity gossip, good yarn, garish lipstick, and memoirs. She’d like to learn to play the ukulele, cook more than microwave meals, and master the French language. She writes her work and life adventures at thecheckoutgirl.net, as well as the advice column Ask The Checkout Girl for Belle Magazine. After more than 100 bad dates, she’s found a pretty good guy.

January 4, 2010 6:00 AM 3