I forgot I was posting stories here. Here’s another one about a dude with a watch.
I went to see The Walkmen at Stubb’s with a friend of mine. I saw a guy with a watch that reminded me of a friend of mine from Mississippi. It was black and plastic and looked like it had been through some stuff. He was wearing a plaid shirt and shorts, and some tennis shoe of some kind. It was all pretty nerdy, but rugged, and it all reminded of someone. I liked knowing that person, so maybe I’d like knowing this person, too.
I smiled at him. I smile at people. All the time. Everyone. I can’t help it. We did lots of side-glances at each other. I did lots of smiling in general, sometimes at him. After about an hour, I decided he wasn’t going to talk to me and I much didn’t feel like talking to him first and I really didn’t care either way. He just reminded me of someone.
A very tall guy came and stood directly in front of my 5’2” person. I don’t know if he was a part of this plan or not. After my view was blocked by this giant, I was promptly pulled by someone adjacently, directly in between the guy with the watch and the person who had pulled me, who I assume was a wing man.
The wing man talked to me and we joked. I tried to include the watch man in the conversation, I was sort of confused about who I should be talking to. The wing man was talking to me, but he seemed to be with the girl in front of me. I couldn’t imagine why he’d be talking to me if he was with her. What was this? The watch man was very quiet. He must not be into me.
Then, I witnessed a weird silent switch. The wing man and the watch man, without saying anything, switched places. The wing man was with the woman I thought he was with, and now the watch man was with me.
The show ended, and I was introduced officially by the watch man to the wing man, his wife, and another guy. I introduced my friend. She had to leave, and I was about to leave too. I needed to go to meet up with some friends for a friends’ birthday celebration. I had an awkward 20 or so minutes. I wasn’t sure how long. My friends were still waiting on someone at an apartment, and The Walkmen show was over.
“Would you like to go get a drink with us?” the watch man asked. I said I would, but I wasn’t sure how long I had. We set off, their idea for a place was: “Just something on 6th street.”
I immediately wanted out. “Dirty 6th” as it’s begrudgingly called by most Austinites, wasn’t really a nice place to go for a drink. It’s a good place to go for ridiculousness and to get a drink that can be lit on fire for you, but not really a cool, calm place to grab a drink. Somehow that idea got thrown aside and I was pretty happy about that. We walked. And walked. And walked. We made it around 15 or so blocks to Fado’s on 4th and I got a text from my roommate, who’s birthday it was, that said, “We’re at the bar.”
Shit. I was so far away from my car.
We walked into Fado’s.
“I’m sorry, I have to leave.”
“Noo!” He said, “What can I do to get you to stay? Please stay for one drink.”
“I’m sorry, I really have to go. It’s a good friend’s birthday and it’s nearing 1 am. I’ll give you my number and we can go get a drink another time.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
We stared at each other.
“Um. Do you have your phone?” I asked.
“Oh. Right. Um. Actually. You’re not going to believe me, I dropped it in a bunch of water today.”
“Haha, no worries. Been there. I’ll just get your number.”
“No, I’m worried you’ll never call. I’ll just write it down.”
We stared at each other.
“Do you have a pen or paper?”
“Shit.” He said.
“It’s okay, I have a pen.”
We found the bar’s matches, and I wrote my name and number down.
“Can I walk you to your car?”
“No, it’s fine. It’s really far away.”
“Exactly, you shouldn’t walk all that way alone, and it’s my fault you’re all the way over here to begin with.”
“No really, it’s fine.”
I left and walked for what seemed like forever to my car. I got to Shangri La and ran into a friend that had gotten the same “We’re at the bar” text. No one was there yet.
I went in and stood in line for the bathroom. A couple was making out in line in front of me and it was really gross. I was too sober and it was so gross I considered throwing my water cup at their heads.
I went out with the watch man twice, up until I found out he was 42 and then he left the country for 4 months. He knew how to take a girl out. He asked me out, very clearly on an official date. He picked the place, AND sent a google map of it. He found out what I wanted and ordered it for me. We both like trains, a lot. We went to a train bar and were both genuinely excited about that. I tried to split the check once, and he said, “Of course not, I asked you out, so don’t worry about paying for anything.” He pulled chairs out.
Once, I said I was hungry at 3am and he tried to make me spaghetti, but I refused to go inside his house.
