The Mask
by JeremySpoke
under Single Life
I am writing on the following topic because I have exhausted all interesting topics, and if I continue with exponentially more boring posts about myself, I will divulge into a five paragraph post about the most effective way to eliminate back hair (laser removal).
Before I found out about 100hookup®, meeting women online was a lot more difficult, and dangerous. I was in the tepid water that was America Online®. Please keep in mind that AOL® has claimed to be a lot of things, but ‘dating site’ has never been one of them. It was a mecca when I was first introduced to the internet. It had magical ‘Channels’ that allowed you to, for example, order a pizza online while simultaneously listening to music! I know! This was unbelievable. This was 1997.
By 2003, I still had an AOL account because I think my mom forgot to cancel our subscription. After a break-up, I turned to AOL on late nights when I couldn’t sleep. I went to what sounded like trustworthy chat rooms like ‘BBW in Texas’ and ‘One Night Stands’. My innocent mind had, for some reason, thought that BBW stood for Boisterous Black Women, and I was totally into that. For some reason, chat rooms always seemed infinitely more entertaining at 3 am. This time also coincides with the time that the shadiest people on earth were also in these rooms.
I found one of these women, and we chatted for several months. She lived in the same city as I did, and we agreed to meet. However, she decided to come visit my dorm days before our meeting date. This particular afternoon also happened to coincide with a time that I was experiencing an allergic reaction to my Clearasil® pads. Remember Clearasil? Gosh this post is so nostalgic.
So my face had broken out in red spots, which was, ironically, what Clearasil claimed to cure. These red spots, though, were more like itchy hives. I had forgotten that I had them on my face when I answered my door. When I opened it, what I saw in front of me was a horrified young woman pretending to not notice the welts on my face. “Hi there!”, I said. This began one of my top ten most awkward three hours of my life.
We walked around campus, and she kept a good distance from me. After lunch, we went up to my room to watch a movie. My roommate was still asleep and we sat on the bed because I didn’t have a couch. After the movie ended, she darted for the door and did not say a word. That was one of the worst dates of my life.
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