I never saw her before. But she was no stranger.
Thanks to the Information Superhighway, I now had the ability to meet random people from anywhere in the world. For all they cared, I could be President Clinton. I could be some creepy stalker looking for his next kill. Or I could actually be a 17 year old virgin who was looking for an escape from the doldrums of suburbia.
AOL Chat was the place to be when you weren't doing real life socializing. Before there was Friendster, Myspace, or Facebook, there was AOL. And this before Skype, Google+, Twitter, and whatever else kids use these days.
She might as well have been a creeper as well. I don't know why we started talking. Her BFF at the time was one of the people I regularly chatted with. The two of them had been friends since childhood. Little did either of them realize what can of worms she was about to open for me.
I don't know why I gave her my phone number. Or did she give me hers. Either way, she wouldn't be the first person I tried befriending from the Internet. She wouldn't be the first girl I had a thing for. And she most certainly would not be the first girl I messed things up with.
She was the first one who said the words "you have a sexy voice". We had barely even said anything to each other. She told me I have a sexy voice. I always hated the sound of my voice. Hell, out of the few things about me people have complimented, it was never my voice.
And thus began my first phone-sex relationship with a girl. Although we never actually saw each other, it was as if this relationship was past PG-13. We planned a-plenty of sexual trysts for if and when we ever met in person.
Unlike me, she had been around the bend by then. She was only a year older than me and already had a pregnancy scare or two. She definitely knew how to talk dirty a lot better than I did. I could reach around in the dark and imagine what sort of deeds would turn her on. Perhaps she was moaning in response to my scenarios to please me. Or perhaps I imagined I knew my way around a woman's body. Having only seen a couple of dirty magazines, I knew very little about what women like.
But she, oh yeah, she was quite good at enticing me. Perhaps men are easier to please. Perhaps I in my inexperience would have taken anything.
The biggest problem with this relationship: it was forbidden. You see, she was not Jewish. She was Catholic, half-Italian, half-Irish. At the time, this was extremely important to me. I was not very religious at the time. But dating Jewish was still something important to me...
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Fast-forward 5 or 6 years later.
High school was long gone. A year and a half abroad in Israel. Dropped out of college my second time. I was now in perhaps the lowest point of my career. No school, no job. A high regimen of weed, alcohol, music, TV, and junk food.
In a haze of chemicals and emptiness, she reappeared in my life. Somehow, she hadn't forgotten me. Said I was the only guy who was ever nice to her. She had a thing for going for the wrong guy. They used her. By now, she was much more jaded.
We sparked up a relationship on AIM Chat, which I still used. She wanted to meet me in person for the first time. I agreed. She and her mother always came to NYC for St. Paddy's Day. She wanted to meet me. She told me what time she and her mother expected to arrive in Port Authority. So I arrived in Port Authority. The only problem is that this was during a period where my cellphone was lost. So I had no way of tracking her down. She later said she tried having me paged. But I missed it. We missed each other that day.
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4 months later. I had come as close as I had to hitting rock bottom. I was now living with the folks in NJ again. They agreed to take me in so long as I agreed to quit smoking, drinking, and other destructive behavior. I also had to find a job.
And so, I was forced to abandon that old lifestyle cold turkey. I'm not going to lie, it was a bitch. I had support. But it was a rocky start. Who wants to hire a recovering stoner college dropout with no marketable skills and very little actual experience?
At this point, I was working a few shit jobs. One of them was hawking at the Meadowlands. It was through an agency. After two days of that, they cut me. I just wasn't what they were looking for. On the train ride back, I met Edna. Edna would later become one of my closest friends. But that's another story for another time. Edna and I just happened to be taking the A train together uptown. I told her I got cut. She told me to go back to the agency and apply as a cashier. So I did.
As I was applying for the cashier position, the boss asked to see my resume. He noticed there was an item about me working at some local bakery for 2 weeks. He asked if I had any barista experience. I said that when I worked the bakery, I had to make coffee. He said "close enough. Would you like a full time job with benefits that pays $10 an hour?" How could I say no?
Little did I realize that would shape the next 9 years of my life.
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I was scheduled to interview for a random coffee shop at NYU. The night before that, she wanted to meet me for the first time.
She had tickets to the Carson Daly show. Alyson Hannigan was going to be the guest that night. She wanted to take me to see the show.
At this time, she had given up on men. She was in a lesbian relationship. That was cool with me.
I stood in that Port Authority. This time, cellphone in hand. I was on the second floor, close to the bowling alley. My phone rang. It was her. I asked her where she is. She said "I'm near the bowling alley." I shouted "where are you?" And she shouted back "over here!" And so, we met for the first time.
She was by no means attractive. Not by conventional standards. She had a bit of an overbite and her teeth were a bit crooked. Her dark brown hair was kind of thin and clipped back. Her heart shaped face was a bit heavy, but her cheekbones definitely added character to her face. And her eyes, kind of large and brown, I would call them puppy dog eyes. And her figure, she was slightly plus-sized. But not by much.
And of course, as she later made a point of, I could not take my eyes off her tits. She found that rather endearing. She even pointed out at some point that night that one boob was slightly larger than the other. As I later found out, oh yeah, they were a nice pair.
We held hands as we walked down the streets of Midtown Manhattan together. Nothing awkward about it. I've been on holding hands relationships with girls before. I should have known that she was daring me to make a move on her.
We ended up missing Carson Daly. We arrived too late to be admitted. Oh well, it wasn't like she paid for those tickets.
The highlight of that night, believe it or not, was when she forced me to accompany her into a Starbucks. Now back then, I couldn't see the draw of Starbucks. To me, Starbucks was some jappy corporate franchise that was slowly brainwashing us into uniformity. Or something like that. Either way, Starbucks id not attract me in the slightest bit.
I don't remember much else from that night. I remember we walked to Madison Square Park. We were lying down and staring at the clouds for a long time. We were making small talk. I was still too dense to make a move.
I made her walk back to Port Authority because I was too cheap to pay the Metrocard fare. This pissed her off. As a Jersey girl, she never walked where she could drive. And I was forcing her to get some exercise.
I don't remember much else. Except she later admonished me for not kissing her good night when she knew I wanted to.
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The next day, I had that interview. Little did I realize this would be the place I'd be employed for the next 9 years of my life.
And the bigger irony. It was a Starbucks. The night before, I had half refused to walk into a Starbucks with a girl. Now, here I was, about to be employed by one. And thus ended my belated adolescence and began my young adulthood.
To be continued.....
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