Have We Met?

Tom and I met at Libation, a bar on the lower east side. It was 3am. It was dark. I was drunk.

The next day he texted me asking how the rest of my night was. We continued to have short, meaningless text conversations for weeks. Yes,  weeks… that turned into months. When I received a text asking how my day at work was or if I was doing anything fun this week (without offering any ideas), I would respond and laugh off the fact that I was having such casual conversation with someone I had never even spoken to sober. But I certainly wasn’t going to make the first move and ask him out. If he wanted to take me on a date, he would have to step up to the plate. But he didn’t. Eventually his texts became less frequent, then fizzled out.

Just when I’d almost forgotten about Tom, my phone vibrated as I was getting into bed one night. It was Tom: “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Hey… pretty good. How are you?” Here we go again…

“Good. We never got a chance to meet up.” Here’s when I got a little angry. He acts as though we’d attempted and failed, when all we’d done was meaninglessly chatter for months.

“Well, you never asked me out,” I responded.

“That’s why I’m texting you now. How’s Thursday?

After three months, I was finally going out with the cutie from Libation. I was pumped. Then I realized, I had no memory of what this guy actually looked like. I tried to jog my memory with the help of my roommate, who had been there the night we’d met. All we could gather was that he was tall, had brown hair and was wearing a fleece. “You’ll recognize him when you see him!” she exclaimed as she pushed me out the door on Thursday. I was a nervous wreck.

As I approached our meeting spot—a bar/restaurant on 28th street—I spotted someone standing outside the door. He didn’t look familiar at all, but he was tall, dark-haired and was wearing a fleece. Jackpot? I smiled sweetly as I walked towards the door. If it was him, he would surely recognize me as I came closer, looking directly at him. Right? He did not. Ok, it’s not him.

I walked inside to see that at three separate tables there were tall, brunette men sitting by themselves. None of them looked familiar or looked in my direction. I started to panic.

Mr. Fleece from outside came in, brushing my shoulder as he passed. “Oh sorry,” I said as I stepped out of the way.  “No problem,” he smiled at me. He sat at the bar to my left. Then I got a text from Tom: “Hey, just got here. I’m at the bar to the left of the door.” I peered over Mr. Fleece’s shoulder to see who he was texting. Sure enough, it was me. Oh fuck.

Despite my better judgment, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi, Tom?”

“Hi,” he said. And before I could crack a joke, he continued. “Nice to see you again. Would you like a drink?” Clearly, he wasn’t about to have a sense of humor about the whole thing.

We continued to have awkward, casual conversation over beer for the next hour. Turns out, our real conversation wasn’t much different than our texts. I admit, I should’ve seen this one coming…

—Raz, 25, NYC