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Eh, I've got a personal story to share.
A few months ago, I ran into someone at the pub I'm a regular at and worked for during the span of a festival. She was tall with grey eyes and a strong jaw, a spacey stare-right-at/past-you expression and a throaty dreamy voice with a tiny hiss in it; a few sideways teeth. Kinda Debra Morgan-looking. She was also a regular and barbacked occasionally, otherwise she did merch distribution at festivals and venues. We both sperg'd out on eachother about this-or-that subject. Her stuff was Electric Cello, Cannibalism, Fullmetal Alchemist deep lore (what the fuck is Father? Our conclusion: the closest analogy would be a luciferian fallen angel). We were talking about Tieflings throughout the editions and character trope stuff, I said I like the Half-monster-guy-who-hunts-monsters-and-is-conflicted-about-it schtick, like Hellboy. Turns out Hellboy is her favorite/comfort movie that she throws on when she's down. I immediately know why. She shares some music she's working on with me, says she hasn't shown it to anyone else, even her best friend. Says I'm easy to talk to. Says she'd wondered if she'd run into me that night. I'm more a Show, Don't Tell sort of person, but I'm obviously internally smitten. In case you can't catch the hint, she's not 100% neurotypical. Neither am I. I mean, I post here.
I got her phone number so she could tell me when she'd be doing a cello set somewhere, but her set didn't pan out and she didn't reply past that, so I didn't keep at it, but she kept Liking my instagram posts (nature/wildlife/bugs and RPG sessions).
She posts about going to a House of the Dragon S2 watch party at another bar for her birthday, and I formulate a plan: Turn up at that party and give her a laser-guided gift. I have an extra copy of the Hellboy paperback that's the main source for the film (she hasn't read the comics). Inside the front cover, I write "all us freaks have is each other" (Like I said, I know why we both love the film, and DelToro in general). I also fire up my filament printer and print out three full-size tooth faeries from Hellboy 2 in blueish-green plastic, assemble them, and color in the eyes and teeth. (This isn't that big of a project for me; I've played Warhammer in the past)
I turn up to the watch party, which is full of goddamn Kneelers who shout "woo, matriarchy!" which causes me pain. But it's still a decent time, a kid gets his head hacked off. Afterwards I run into her; she'd arrived after me and I intentionally wasn't looking for her during the episode. But we both make a big deal of running into eachother. I run back to my car and come back with a cardboard box full of faeries. She loves them, she's cooing over how cute they are, how they all have different heads, she's giving them names, she's showing them off to everyone around her. She spontaneously hugs me when she sees the dedication inside the book.
As an amusing aside, after the watch party this bar had an open-mic stand-up event. And everyone was terrible. Like, reddit-tier generic terrible. There were boos and groans. Some boilerplate edgy jokes (I think one guy joked about Gays for Palestine getting thrown off of buidings. It was just fucking inept). At first I think this is a huge windfall; I'm actually funny. But it'd be hours before I could get on and school these fools. My crush and her crowd get up to head to a different bar, because they're so affronted. I'm invited along, even though I'm slightly worried about the prissy reaction, I steadfastly hold to their work being bad because it's bad, not because its offensive.
The company my crush keeps is slightly worrisome to me. Many are fat feminists of the "Men, amirite?" sort, but I don't have the impression they're close friends, just acquaintances. I later find out that she's a preacher's daughter and was an activist from an early age, part of OG Occupy (she's in her early 30s, I'm in my mid-30s). I carefully talk around the subject and express my own frustration that activism these days is more about being seen having the right opinions and hating the right people than furthering a worthy cause, which seems to resonate with her a bit. There's a careful future conversation to be had, but at least she remembers a time before IdPol infected every cause.
She goes outside to smoke and asks if I'd like to join her. She smokes American Spirit; the same cigs I smoke, which I only do socially (too much time at bars in the smoker's pen; that's where all the cool people and cool conversations are) They last forever. She talks about how she loves pretending she's in a noir story when she smokes. I ask "Yes, but in this context, who's the jaded alcoholic detective and who's the dangerous dame?" She smiles as I take a cig, I reach for a lighter, but she beats me to it. "Pretty people don't light their own cigarettes" she says, with that same smile.
A few minutes later, I kiss her. We spend a little time just holding eachother, enjoying the closeness, and head back inside.
The evening continues. I try not to monopolize my crush and let her hang with the rest of the people there. We go back outside for another cigarette, I kiss her again, she pulls away a bit when I get over-enthusiastic, we talk more, I decide to dial it back. Typically my conversations with women are like pulling teeth; I ask open-ended questions and get yes-or-no answers. They never volunteer information or start a topic or ask me about myself or even talk about themselves; I get the impression that they're playing dead to make me go away. Maybe that's just what normal people are like. This evening isn't normal, we're chatting. She says things that surprise me, which is disappointingly rare in my interactions with people. We can talk about stories and ideas and random science facts. She gets my jokes. She makes her OWN jokes. We're both creative in our own ways. She talks about her job, how it forced her to learn social skills, which is something she struggled with for a long time; she's had to put the effort into learning stuff that other people seem to just do without thinking. The feels feel so feel I have to fight to stop my eyes from getting wet. I'm very much being hit where I live.
My crush starts mentioning how tired she is, people have been buying her drinks all day. I note she's acting even spacey-er than she typically is, and resolve to not push for anything. I also find out she's just landed an awesome tour contract where she'll be handling merch at a succession of festivals all summer and autumn; she'll be gone for six months, and she's got to pack tomorrow. But there's a few shows that are happening in the city, so she'll be back in town a few times.
People start clearing out, she's very tired, she talks about calling an Uber. I offer to drive her and save her $10, since my car is nearby and I haven't had any drinks for a few hours. We walk back to my car arm-in-arm, all cutesy and formal. There's hand-holding. There's continued verbal telegraphing of tiredness, and she's not escalating anything. I get her back to her place, unload the box of faeries, kiss her one last time and say "I wish we had more time together," then leave. Send a text the next day expressing how great it was getting to know her, how nice a time I had, how I'll miss her and hope to get together again when she's back in town.
A day later, I receive a reply:
I reply saying I'm sorry, I might have rushed things when I realized you'd be leaving town for a while, how would you like me to comport myself towards you in the future? I'm trying to say "If you never want to hear from me again, please just say that." I never receive any further reply. She hasn't unfollowed me on instagram; I've hidden her posts so I don't see them unless I go looking, so as to avoid further pain. I'm confused in addition to shattered; is there a rule that you're not allowed to flirt with women when it's their birthday? She wasn't so drunk that she couldn't have cogent conversations about wide-ranging topics, I sure as hell felt encouraged. I thought I was being gallant by not asking if she'd like to show me her place or otherwise head inside for "coffee" or to see etchings. Fuck, how much worse would this have been if I had?
I wonder where those tooth faeries are now. Thrown out? In a box in a closet? I can't imagine her scattering them on shelves like she planned if they're just going to remind her of that time she got molested.
This is what my life is like. Nothing ever, ever works out, and whenever I think I'm making an emotional connection with someone, reality itself seems to realize a mistake has been made and steps in to correct things. I have a day or two of emotional torment as I accept that I am going to continue to be alone and to feel arbitrarily alienated. I am not allowed to do the things regular people are allowed to do. I don't get to be human. If I try, even other weirdos reject me once they sober up and invent new rules regarding birthdays.
Someone else in this thread complained that a girl didn't text him back, and I thought to myself "Hold my beer."
Edit: I appreciate the condolences, but I kinda despair at the caliber of some of the replies, and its damaged my view of the remaining userbase of this place. I don't need regurgitated /r/Redpill advice about shit tests. I'm lucky enough to have spent most of my (albeit limited) intimate time with women in actual relationships with another human being that I like and respect and who likes and respects me, instead of some retarded power game with a bratty child. You can miss me with that gay shit.
Brutal. Unfortunately, such coffee moments are not at all uncommon. Never good when her friends sound like female Redditors.
On the bright side, you didn't bang her so she (hopefully) can't accuse you of Rape by Deception ex post, for that you didn't disclose that you were a participant in a hive of scummy and villainous wrong-thinking witches that is The Motte.
It's darkly hilarious how she is certainly no stranger to drinks, as a barback, smoker, and general scene-girl. Ugh, how dare you take advantage of her? She was only in her early 30s and was clearly DRUNK.
Blown Saves and fumbled opportunities plague me far more than successful Saves and deal-sealing. It's like an extreme version of loss aversion and inverse endowment effect.
When I'm lying awake unable to sleep, I almost never get random horny memories about having banged or facialed some chick. However, I often do get invasive and intrusive memories about missed chances—even about chicks for whom I haven't thought about for years—situations where I should have been more aggressive from the beginning to get the bang ASAP to situations where the opportunity somehow slipped away (usually not due to my own actions, even upon distant reflection, but male hyper-agency and hyper-accountability and all).
I generally try not to kiss girls I haven't banged in a bar/club/party unless they kiss me first. If I've already made the move to kiss her in a venue, it gives her less plausible deniability as to "omg, one thing just led to another teehee" when it comes to pulling her back to my or her place for the bang.
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