How Not to Meet People

It was nearly midnight on a Saturday night, and I had effectively spent my entire evening playing video games. Well that’s not true. I also mindlessly browsed YouTube videos, devoured an entire bag of barbeque-flavored potato chips, and took a quick three-hour nap. But other than that, I was mostly getting my thrill by listening to twelve-year-old boys hurl racial slurs every time I made them eat metal from my tricked-out AK-74.

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My phone vibrated. “Come dance with us,” the text read. My friend Matt was at a club a few blocks from my house.

The choice was not easy. My couch was very comfortable, I had just leveled up, and I don’t think I’d worn anything but underwear so far that entire day. But I decided a strapping young bachelor such as myself should be out meeting people and whatnot. I accepted and told him I’d be there in ten minutes. I lied. It probably took me ten minutes to conjure the energy to stand up. A good hour later, though, I made it there. Matt and I walked to the bar area, and I ordered myself a drink.

It didn’t quite work. Everybody on the dance floor still looked like pixelated Soviet soldiers. So I had a second drink. And a few shots. The night so far was going roughly as expected. I was dressed, out of the house, and experiencing Baltimore nightlife. I weigh approximately two pounds, and compounded by my drinking pace, I was already rather far gone.

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It was at this point that I had the single most awkward encounter of my entire life. I have said wrong things and humiliated myself more times than a wild bonobo on Viagra masturbates. I’m pretty sure at least six small-scale civil wars can be traced back to some moronic thing I did. But I picked this past Saturday night to transform into Michael-Cera-meets-one-of-those-assholes-from-Blind-Date awkward.

Her name was Teresa. She did nothing wrong whatsoever. In fact, she was attractive, cheerful, and easily approached me. “Hi, I know you!” she shouted over the loudspeaker’s roar.

Now, unfortunately, I did not recognize her. At all. Maybe I just met her a long time ago and it slipped my mind. Maybe—and this is more likely—sitting down all day on a sustenance of potato chips and Pepsi followed by running down to a club and downing three alcoholic beverages obliterated my long-term memory. We all run into situations like that sometimes though! All I had to do was play it off. “Yes, of course! How are you?” I could have shouted back. In fact, I could have even been honest. “Ah, it must have been a while. Teresa, you said? You do look really familiar!”

But no. Anywhere I go in public becomes the Chernobyl of social situations.

“Whaa… are you sure?” I decried, as though I were some jackass celebrity talking down to the naïve fan who dared approach me in public.

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She was taken aback. As she should have been. Her eyebrows squished together and a look of absolute hate glazed over her eyes. That should have been my cue to apologize immediately. But no, I pressed on as though I were three awkward sentences away from dropping a roofie in her drink.

“Where did we meet?” I asked the humble bar-crawler who was audacious enough to try and make a new friend.

She stumbled trying to recall. “Uh… it was a bar that had that monkey picture on the wall….” She huffed each word, upset that every second talking to me could be a moment spent with absolutely anyone else in the building. I was convinced she had me confused for someone else, though, and I had to prove it. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a bar with a monkey on the wall,” I scowled. “Maybe you’re thinking of someone else?”

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By now she was downright annoyed. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, eager to get away. But I would have none of it!

“No, no, really, who are you?”
“You’re friends with Danielle… and Jenn… right?” she asked.
“Yeah…”
“Yeah, that was you.”

I should have apologized now. For making her feel uncomfortable. For embarrassing her. For belittling a friendly gesture. But nope. I was steadfastly convinced that she was talking to the wrong person, and the three ounces of whiskey making its way through my bloodstream was having it no other way.

“What’s my name, then?”

I actually quizzed a near-stranger on my name after I spent five minutes reminding her how little I remembered her. At this point, my irreverent, inebriated self finally started becoming aware of the torture I was inflicting on poor, innocent Teresa. I could see her trying to leave. She was itching to make eye contact with anyone else she recognized, and she was backing away from me as though I smelled like a bedsheet from a Ron Jeremy film.

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Trying desperately to redeem myself, I strained to come up with small talk. “So how did you meet Danielle?” “What brings you here tonight” But it was futile. She ran away the moment she was free from my shackles of awkward.

Well, Teresa, I hope the gods of WordPress somehow direct you here. I spent the rest of the night upset that I would treat anyone, let alone one of Danielle’s friends, like that. In fact, here was how the rest of my night played out.

Anyone: Richard, let’s dance! I love this song!
Me: Wait, wait, I’m freaking out. Where’s Teresa? Oh God, I was so rude.

Or, when they didn’t want to dance,

Anyone: Let’s sit and have a drink.
Me: Okay. But wait, I’m freaking out. Where’s Teresa? Oh God, I was so rude.

Somewhere in the world, some gauche teenage kid got laid like 50 times to balance out global karma.