Our readers on bad pickup lines, drunkenness, laundromats — and the surprising relationships they led to.
Looking for a good time?
Leslie Kwon
It was Wednesday, and Dollar Drink night was well underway. With a bladder full of cheap beer and legs I couldn't keep crossed anymore, I bee-lined for the bathroom. There I came across the classic "Call This Number for a Good Time" scribble. This poor guy, I thought. I would die if my number was on a bathroom stall. In a fit of good will, I decided to tell him. Luckily, in our day and age, it's unnecessary to actually call; all I had to do was send a text.
Me: "Dude, did you know your number is on a bathroom stall?"
Bathroom Stall Stranger: "Where at?"
M: "Girls' bathroom, upstairs middle stall, at Chuck's. I consider this my community service for the year. If I had a pen I would black it out."
BSS: "Really? I'm across the street from Chuck's right now. Meet me out front."
M: "I'm just curious — are you a boy or a girl?"
BSS: "Do you think a lesbian put a girl's number up there?"
M: "Could happen."
BSS: "I'm def a dude, LOL."
M: "Okay cool. I'm deleting all this now because I can't be the girl who has a friend she met on a bathroom stall. Bye!"
BSS: "Ouch! This would be a sweet story to tell years from now when we're best friends."
M: "No, it wouldn't. It would make me look like a total creeper and not the good Samaritan I truly am."
BSS: "Whatever. You're not the creeper; it's my number that's on a bathroom stall!"
M: "Uh, it's super creepy to text the number that says 'for a good time.' It's like a step away from prostitution."
BSS: "Just come downstairs. I'll buy you beer and we can find a sharpie. I have a black hat on."
Luckily, when I got downstairs, he was adorable and about as hungry as I was. After sneaking him into the girl's room to scratch out his number and replace it with "Ryan and Mila Were Here," we made a scandalous-looking exit out of the bathroom, out of the bar, and on to Taco Bell. We've been together ever since. — Jamila Brown
Submit to our next "Five Stories" contest! Disturbingly Bad First Dates — ever go out with a guy, only to realize, midway through, that he didn't know your fiirst name? Did a girl ever take you to meet her parents? If so, we want to hear about it! , or send your story to .
The world's worst pick-up line
Zack Huggins
I was fifteen in Boulder, Colorado, and had just come out to my closest friends. Boulder is a curious town — artsy and cultured enough to feel decent-sized, but still actually very small. This left me in an odd position; I had the parental support, sympathetic environment, and (shaky) self-confidence to be this sexually adventurous young twink, but no one with whom to actualize my dreams. So I contented myself to wear tight T-shirts, furiously masturbate, and dream of college.
Until one summer afternoon, when I was sitting with my friends on the outdoor patio of a hippie coffee-shop downtown. We were often there, smoking lots of cigarettes, abusing the endless-refill policy, and fucking around. That day, out of the blue, a man walked across the patio, approached our table, and said, "My friend over there wants to sleep with you." He looked at me, and then gestured back over at his table, where his buddy waved. They were twenty or twenty-one, an age difference that seemed huge then (and kind of still does).
"He's having surgery on his hip tomorrow and the doctor says he won't be able to have sex for six weeks," the guy said. When I didn't immediately agree, he added, "Plus, he thinks you're beautiful."
I requested a minute to think about it. He walked back to his friends; mine, giggled madly, suggested yes, suggested no, told me it was clearly just a line, said I'd get my heart broken, and offered all sorts of wisdom about "one-night stands" that they had no experience to justify.
Pretty soon, the older guys dragged their entire table over. We all ended up sitting there until after dark, at one point slipping off to a nearby alley to smoke some pot. They never brought up sex again. At 10 p.m. or so, the guy, Chris, got up to head home, and in burst of courage I'll never forget, I ran after him. I'd been shy, and we'd barely exchanged a word all afternoon.
He opened the passenger-side door of his car, drove us to his house, and fucked me — more or less without exchanging a word. When we were done, he told me had to be up early "for the surgery," told me he'd call, and asked if I could walk home. I'm not a crier, but I cried that night, walking home from his house in the dark.
But here's the weird part. He did call. The surgery wasn't a line, it was real, and he'd actually been nervous about it. For six weeks I came over every day, and we developed a strange economy where chicken soup and back-rubs were traded for blowjobs and and advice about how to be a gay man. Our relationship — half boyfriend/boyfriend, big brother/little brother — lasted for about six months after he recovered, but it's still one of the best I've ever had. — Josh Wilson
Submit to our next "Five Stories" contest! Disturbingly Bad First Dates — ever go out with a guy, only to realize, midway through, that he didn't know your fiirst name? Did a girl ever take you to meet her parents? If so, we want to hear about it! , or send your story to .
The Whiner
Nastya Tailakova
It was summer, and I was on tour as a children's theater performer. I was the manager of and an actor in the four-person troupe. The show was the kind where one of you has to dress up as the Pink Panther before each show, make the kiddies laugh, and try not to die in the sweltering heat and heavy costume. None of my castmates were remotely attractive to me (and I had a boyfriend back home). One was a vegetarian who talked about his "choice" incessantly, one was a girl who looked like a frog, and the last guy was a whiner who mooched everything he possibly could. The summer possibilities seemed dismal.
After a few weeks, it became apparent that Whiney the Moocher was into me. If we went out, he was always in my face denouncing any guy I thought was somewhat good-looking. He laughed really hard at all the stupid jokes I made. Out of character, he made me a sandwich from his own supply of food. He piggy-backed me home one night when I cut my foot on some glass in the classy establishment where we'd been drinking, only to do the awkward fall-on-some-grass-try-to-make-out maneuver. Despite all the attention, I wasn't having any of it.
About a week before our contract was up and we were due to drive back home, I got really sick. I asked Whiney to get me some strong cold and flu pills so that I could knock myself out. He did, and about four hours later I woke up to him cuddling me. My first reaction was "This is insane, I think, but it feels soooo nice." We started kissing, and then all of a sudden we were having sex. In retrospect, this may have been a little shady on his part. Luckily (for both of us), the sex was awesome.
For the whole trip back (about a week of driving and random hotel rooms across America), we had crazy sex that we tried in vain to hide from the others. It wasn't long before we went our separate ways. But that was still long enough for him to write me a love poem and profess his undying love. — Fae Labelle, of Flight Attendant Love
Submit to our next "Five Stories" contest! Disturbingly Bad First Dates — ever go out with a guy, only to realize, midway through, that he didn't know your fiirst name? Did a girl ever take you to meet her parents? If so, we want to hear about it! , or send your story to .
At the laundromat
Sweet Escape Design
Late one night, as I sat finishing up some work, I realized that I had no clean clothing and that I was booked solid for the next four days. I grudgingly gathered up all my clothes and rushed out to do my laundry before the 1:00 a.m. cut-off. As I walked across an intersection, a guy walked up next to me and said, "Hey."
I live in New York, so I gave him my nod and apathetic hello and then looked straight ahead. "I'm going to the laundromat, too. Can I carry your bag?" I laughed and said no thanks. Again, I live in New York; this could have been some crazy person trying to run off with my dirty underwear.
We chatted a bit as we walked down the block and I gave him a brush-off goodbye when we arrived. He went next door to pick up his laundry and I went to throw my clothes in the wash. As it happens, there was some problem with his stuff and he walked into the laundromat at the same moment I was walking out. We laughed and said something awkward like "Hello again!" Then he asked me if I wanted to grab dessert. I looked at him. I had gotten so used to blowing off advances from guys on the subway and in the street that it had become almost rote. But, for whatever reason, I laughed and said sure — I figured I had to wait on my things to wash anyway. We've been together ever since. — Elizabeth Mason
Submit to our next "Five Stories" contest! Disturbingly Bad First Dates — ever go out with a guy, only to realize, midway through, that he didn't know your fiirst name? Did a girl ever take you to meet her parents? If so, we want to hear about it! , or send your story to .
Know your limit
zsumoz
A couple of years ago, I met a girl in a bar in the East Village. Our eyes locked and, rather than smiling and looking away like the shy wimp I usually am, I walked up to this beautiful chick and introduced myself. It was late at night, and after about five minutes we were holding hands. Five more and we were making out.
Cut to her apartment, an hour or two later. We're on the couch of her living room, I'm wearing nothing but a T-shirt, her black dress is now a six-inch tube top scrunched between her breasts and belly button. In other words, sex was on the table, but before we could seal the deal, the awful feeling that I had been trying to ignore since we starting rolling around overcame me. I excused myself and ran to the the bathroom with just enough time to hurl in her toilet.
It was a one-and-done kind of puking session, but when I returned to the living room, I found her fully clothed again. Moments later, her roommate and her roommate's twin sister came home from their night on the town, and an awkward introduction flowed right into, "I think it's time you were going."
Here's the happy ending: she walks me into the hallway of her apartment building and we start making out again (why she agreed to this, I have no idea) and the next thing I know I'm on my knees, face in her crotch, going to town on this woman I had met two hours earlier and whose bathroom I'd just vomited in. I have a permanent black stain on one knee of the trousers I wore that night.
And here's the weird epilogue: we set a second date, hit it off, and spent months happily hooking up. Eventually, her "ex-boyfriend" moved back to New York and she suggested we "cool things off." A few weeks later some innocent Facebook stalking, corroborated by friends, told me she'd married him. But it was fun while it lasted. — Keith
Submit to our next "Five Stories" contest! Disturbingly Bad First Dates — ever go out with a guy, only to realize, midway through, that he didn't know your fiirst name? Did a girl ever take you to meet her parents? If so, we want to hear about it! , or send your story to .
