Due to the well of my friends’ “def not an axe murderer” date recommendations drying up, I have turned to that most sacred of modern relationship institutions: online dating. As a very busy person trying to get it in with other very busy people, I prize honestly and directness above all else when it comes to profile creation. I include full body shots in my photos, try to minimize the use of MySpace angles in selfies, and write at the very top of the summary/caption/profile that I am fat. Not “curvy,” not “thick,” not “lots to love”–I’m f*cking fat. I’m not ashamed of it, but I also known that weight is a dealbreaker for lots of people. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.
About a year ago I met “Evan” via Tinder. We exchanged friendly messages for a few hours one night and agreed to meet up for drinks the following evening. I waited for a full hour past the designated time, and just as I was getting up to leave, the texts started rolling in.
“I can see you sweating from here.” “How long does it take you to roll out of bed every morning?” “Is there an earthquake or are you just getting up for more pretzels?”
Really idiotic, juvenile shit. Four separate numbers, commenting on things like my clothes, which clued me in that the senders were nearby. This went on for 15 minutes before I finally saw Evan, trying to hide in at a corner table and giggling with a group of buddies. I made eye contact, saw that he saw me, and then walked out. The texts kept up until I blocked the numbers a few hours later.
I ran into Evan about 3 weeks later. We got on the same elevator, and he tried really hard at being super interested in the emergency phone instructions. I just confronted him, and he admitted it was just some “game” that him and his friends play. He knew I was fat before agreeing to meet up; they all did, because that’s what they do. Match up with fat women, then either ghost them or “troll” them at the meet-up. It was also kinda obvious he’d never seen any consequences from this bullshit, as he was sweating pretty hard and looked more humiliated than I felt. I just said whatever and walked out, expecting to never see him again.
About a month ago, some local foodie wrote a great review of the restaurant I own, and we’ve been slammed ever since. In the past, I stayed mostly in the kitchen, but I’ve been doing more and more front-of-house stuff lately, and Valentine’s Day I was working a bit of a split between the two.
I saw Evan just as he was pushing in his date’s chair. My name isn’t on the restaurant, and he didn’t see me. I checked the section up at the hostess stand and saw that one of my favorite old-timers, Nan, was going to be his waitress. I went to the bar till, took out $400, put it in her hands, and said, “This is going to be your only table for the rest of the night. You are going to make this the worst date he has ever been on.”
She spilled every single thing she brought out to the table, all over him. I was waiting for him to blow up on Nan, but he bottled it up, obviously trying to make a good impression on his date. She seemed like a perfectly lovely lady; I told Nan to make sure everything was good for her and terrible for Evan.
She poured ice water on his d*ck. She smacked the back of his head with the edge of a tray. Spilled soup on his shirt. Dropped every fork he asked for. I personally oversalted his food, used the shit liquor for his drinks, used flour instead of sugar on his dessert. To be honest, I don’t know why he didn’t just walk out. He must have really wanted to f*ck this woman.
Finally, he cracked. Demanded Nan find the manager and bring her out. I was only too happy to emerge from the kitchen with my chef’s coat and say what, I’m not ashamed to admit, I’d been planning out all night.
“I would have said hi earlier, but I didn’t want the earthquake to disturb your dinner.”
I will savor the look on Evan’s face for the rest of my life.
He was a little too flummoxed to explain, so I pulled a chair up to the table and introduced myself to his date, Amanda. Told her how I met Evan. Showed her some fun old messages. Then I told gave her a voucher for a free meal on her next visit and told Evan to get the f*ck out and never come back.
seven years and three days ago, i spent christmas in an emergency room in florida. food poisoning. we went to make sure i’d be okay to fly and ended up there most of the day waiting out the real tragedies and injuries. my wife, her great aunt, and an endless loop on CNN about the death of James Brown kept me company. ho ho ho.
i saw something, heard something, a conversation, between a disconnected and numb orderly or intake nurse or nurse-nurse, I don’t know which exactly, and a man that survived a car crash. She told him his wife didn’t survive the crash. She said something to me about it and I wrote it down on an admission form so I wouldn’t forget it, because it was the most horrible thing i had ever heard, and i wrote it down to make it smaller, to make it a thing i could fold up and put in my pocket. later i put it in a comic. i still have nightmares about it though.
One at a time as other family arrived, they learned their awful news right in front of us.
At some point, as a daughter learned her mother died on christmas two feet from my left foot I had the thought, clear as day: if that was me, I’d go find a bar right fucking now and not come out until after New Year’s.
So I realized I had a problem.
•
I realized I had a problem a long time before that and my solution was to drink more and take more. I realized I had a problem and my solution was to just quit getting high and to just quit drinking. Only, for me, there’s no just about it. I’d swap one addiction for the other or make up new ones all-together. Girls, work, porn, fighting, sleep deprivation, anxiety, whatever – anything I could pour into that hole in the middle of me I used to dump booze and drugs into to stop feeling, i’d pour.
in certain rooms they call that white-knuckling. I had white-knuckled it for about five years before I found myself in that ER. Five years of still feeling all the pain and psychosis and depression a junkie and alcoholic feels with none of the anesthesia. Five years of trying to hold my shit together and doing, honestly, a lousy fucking job of it.
We were trying to have a baby. We had one and lost it. We were trying again. I was six months out of my career in advertising. I was in a blind fearful panic every hour of every day. I had a wife and a mortgage and wanted a child but i felt like i was on fire all of the time. how could i hope to ever hold a baby in my arms when i was always burning up?
Something about watching that family, something about the… obscenity of being witness to their most awful, most private, moments. And I all I could think was if my wife was dead I could go get fucked up again.
It’s what they call a high bottom but that was my rock-bottom.
•
I’d been going to meetings, maybe four or five a year – at best – since I starting my white-knuckle joyride into the bright side of life. I was a tourist. I went at first out of curiosity. Or rather – I went because I knew I had a drinking and a drug problem and I knew I hadn’t solved it, I just slowed it way the fuck down. And the first meeting I went to, I identified myself as an alcoholic and addict and started to cry.
I stayed the fuck out of meetings as much as I could after that.
Like I said. A tourist.
•
December 29th, 2006, then. I went to a meeting as I had from time to time at noon, with a friend. My friend had been working on… not quite a year of sober time in program and had gone out and wanted to get back into a regular practice of meetings. So I went to make sure he didn’t run out the back. I went to sit there and fold my arms and half listen and make sure my friend didn’t bail on their promise.
And I heard something so true that once again a meeting made me cry and I stood up and said my name and took my first chip and began the process of adding real and actual sobriety to my life. Before that I was clean and I was on fire. I was clean and I was killing myself. I was clean and I was going to kill myself. I was clean and waiting to kill myself. Now I finally found myself out of moves, out places to run, out of excuses, out of energy.
If I was going to save my own life, it was time.
And I did. AA did. NA did.
•
AA and NA helped me. I am an atheist introvert with anger issues and deep suspicions towards groups, groupthink, and a bad fucking history with organized religion and I am telling you AA and NA helped me. Who I was was embraced and welcomed and accepted. For the first time in my life i realized i wasn’t so goddamn alone after all.
And little by little the pain went away. I learned how to live.
It worked for me. And it continues to work for me even though I don’t go to meetings nearly as much as I’d like or need. If you want what I have found
This time of year is brutal – fucking brutal – if you share my disposition. Add in a birthday and, ho ho, a sobriety day i and the crush of months and years cannot be avoided. At the same time though… maybe, in some ways, it’s appropriate. It’s the longest, darkest, time of the year. Maybe it’s silly to expect some of that darkness not to spill over onto everything.
It got easier when I reached out into the darkness and found other hands there reaching back for me. I found them in the basement of churches and in rehab centers, I found them in unsuspecting houses and shining medical facilities. I found them. It’s just that, first, first I had to reach –
** edit: for some reason i typed ‘agnostic’ instead of ‘atheist’ the first time. what i get for not rereading before posting. i’m tired and fighting off a cold. sorry. pls don’t make me turn in my secular humanist card at the next pagan fuckfestival.
I mean, where to start with that one? I could go on forever but I’ll keep it short. 10/10 artist who can adapt to new styles faster than anyone I’ve ever seen (but she’s never happy with it; creative types, what are ya gonna do?). Borderline-unhealthy appreciation for Pokémon, Fallout, monsters of all varieties, and Finn Bálor. Epitome of the ‘smol but angry’ archetype. Hates 99% of people but really likes the people that she likes. Has a great butt. Loves RP and is a really good person to do that with. Really really fun to work with on projects. My best friend.
Also the fictional character she most resembles is a Swadloon.
FUCKIN
She also kept me sane in a job I hated so much I moved 3000 miles away from it. She is the best person when you need a person.
