I met this guy at a bar called Joyface in the East Village last year. I was 25.
He approached me in person. I feel like people my age don’t really do that anymore. Dating apps have literally been around since I was in high school, so actually walking up to somebody at a bar and chatting them up feels like kind of a lost art.
When somebody approaches me in person, I’m much more inclined to say yes, even if I’m not 100 percent into it. It’s like positive reinforcement. I have this theory that if I say yes, I’m putting good energy out into the world. Like, yes, men, keep doing this. Give everyone more chances to get asked out in person.
On this occasion, my theory did not work out great for me.
I was with my roommate and her friend who was staying with us. This guy and a couple of his friends came over while we were dancing. He was tall, maybe six feet, mixed, Black and Asian, I think, and cute. We started talking and dancing and made out a little bit.
He asked me to come home with him.
I said no.
It was girls’ night, my roommate’s friend was staying at our apartment, and we have a hard boundary about bringing guys home when one of the girls is staying over.
Then he was like, “Well, I can come with you.”
Also no.
You do not get to come back to my apartment just because I won’t go back to yours.
But he asked for my number and said he wanted to take me out sometime. And I was like: Yes. Exactly. This is the positive reinforcement part. So I gave him my number.
He texted me a couple of days later and asked me out. We ended up going to some random bar in Gramercy. He lived around there, I lived in Brooklyn, and I could just take the L, so whatever. Easy.
The date was okay. The chemistry wasn’t anything crazy. He was funny, but I was already thinking, Yeah, this is probably one and done. Maybe a second date depending on how I’m feeling.
We hung out for maybe an hour and a half, and eventually he asked if I wanted to go somewhere else.
I was like, let’s just get out of here. At least I’ll get some sex out of this and potentially be home at a reasonable hour with a story and without a hangover.
We walked back to his apartment, also in Gramercy. I started having regrets when I saw that his mattress was on the floor. Oh, for the love of God.
He said he’d just moved in and had ordered a bed frame. Bro. You’re almost 30. Let’s get it together, please. I think he worked in tech. Software development or something. Honestly, it wasn’t super memorable.
Neither was the sex. Emphatically meh. Basically missionary and jackhammering. The most exciting thing that happened was me flipping it around and getting on top. I was like, Okay. Well, this tells me everything I need to know. Not doing this again.
Afterward, we were lying there talking, and somehow feet came up. Maybe he said something about the polish on my toes. I don’t remember exactly, but at some point he kissed my foot.
So I asked him, “Do you have a foot fetish?”
He was sorta sheepish. “Um, well, do you?”
I told him I’d had my toes sucked before. I mean, of course. At some point somebody has done that. Whether it was my idea or theirs, it’s happened.
We moved on. I wasn’t interested in a second round, so eventually he called me a car and I went home.
A few days later he texted asking if I wanted to go out again. I gave him some vague thing about having a busy weekend and told him he could text me the next week. Basically, I was trying to let it die naturally.
That Sunday, he texted me with a different approach. He said he was feeling sick and wanted to give me a heads-up in case he’d given me something. Like a cold. I felt completely fine.
I told him, “No, I’m good. Sorry to hear that. Hope you feel better.”
Whatever. A couple of days later, I woke up, and my mouth felt crazy itchy. Then I started getting blisters on my hands. Then I got blisters on my feet.
I was like, What the fuck? So I went to urgent care.
The doctor told me the telltale signs were exactly what I had. In adults, it can start out presenting like a cold, but then it can progress to blisters on your hands and feet.
“You have hand, foot and mouth disease.”
I was like: This motherfucker gave me hand, foot and mouth?
Hand, foot and mouth is basically a little-kid disease. It’s the kind of thing you get at daycare. What do you mean a grown man gave me hand, foot, and mouth? And then I remembered him kissing my foot. I was like, of fucking course the foot guy gave me hand, foot, and mouth.
Now I’m walking around Brooklyn with blisters on my hands and my feet just because I said yes to a guy who asked me out in person. Like, fuck this. It’s also incredibly contagious. I’d accidentally given it to my roommates, which was particularly ironic because I had specifically refused to bring this guy home out of consideration for them. I brought him home anyway. Just in virus form.
The blisters lasted about ten days. I didn’t tell him. He already knew he was sick. At that point I was like, You’re a grown man. You can figure this out on your own.
Eventually I stopped responding to him. Maybe a week or two later, he texted me again.
“My bed frame’s on the way. You should come over.”
Absolutely not. I left him on read. Then, a few months later, I was back at Joyface with my roommate. And there he was. He approached us again. I was like, Get away from me. I don’t need whatever disease you’re carrying around this time.
I still think men should approach women in person. I just think they should wash their hands first.
