Oh My Tinder Heart - You're a Match!!

Oh My Tinder Heart 3

(The Russian)

YOU’RE A MATCH!!

I swiped right and there he was. Not bad to look at and his profile seemed interesting enough. But if I’m being honest I think I may have accidentally swiped right. He has a weak chin and that isn’t usually my thing. Not to mention he is a 40 something year old wearing a tangerine baseball cap. But what the heck. We’re going hard. Right!!

The next day he sends me a message. The whole thing was pretty easy. No sexual innuendo. Just cheeky banter and a couple of jokes about the state of dating today.  We chat off an on for a couple days and all is well… Until, he sends the “Let’s meet” message.

I am not ready for this level of interaction. This is real life stuff people! Abort, abort, abort!! I was comfortable with the exchange of simple anecdotes and witty observations but real life meeting is something else. Ahhh!!

Okay, here we go. I gotta pull it together. Vag up! You can do this. I just have to formulate a plan that allows me a built in out just in case it goes all wrong.

We decide to meet for coffee. I tell him I have some errands to run on the Westside and a meeting later that afternoon so I only have about an hour. I figured I can handle an hour. I’ve sat through some of the dullest political science classes in ever that last much longer than an hour. I can do this besides even if its bad I will probably get a funny story from it so, I confirm the meet.

I arrive early just to make sure I can set the tone as well as pick where we sit. I park my three blocks from the coffee shop so that I can use that as an additional excuse to leave if necessary. 1pm and out by 2. The plan is set!

1pm rolls around and this dude is no where to be found. I check my tinder (cause I didn't give him my number, just in case I didn’t like him. Why would I want some dude I don't know, don’t like having my number) there is a message telling me he got caught in traffic and he is 5 minutes away. Ummm Hmmm.

1:15p still no sign of dude. At this point I am getting messages from the girls telling me to bounce. This is a fail and it’s time to move on. But I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, he did contact me and this is LA what if there was traffic (then again this is LA there is ALWAYS traffic so anyone that has been here any significant amount of time knows to account for traffic but I’m giving the benefit of the doubt)

1:36p He finally shows up. And yes I did check my phone to see the time when he finally walked up. I’d already set my alarm on my phone for 2pm but I just wanted to make sure everything was set.

He quickly apologized for being late and offered to buy me a coffee. But before I could answer he starts telling me about how he likes to work on cars and that he is thinking about opening a shop.

In my head: Okay, I guess we’re just jumping right in.

So, you’re a mechanic?

No, I just like working on cars. It's easy for me. I like to understand things and figure them out. I do special effects.

Oh, ok.

This car right here (points to a Mercedes in front of the coffee shop) see that car is easy to fix all you have to do… Blah, blah, blah…

Oh, well you are lucky you can fix your own car and not have to go to a mechanic.

Mechanics are all crooks. They just take your money. People are always trying to take your money. Like the meters. Its all bullsh*t. They just steal your money and they don’t take care of the streets. They’re municipal terrorist.

Terrorist, huh?

Yeah, that’s why I don’t waste my money. F*ck them. I’m not paying.

So if you get a ticket you don’t pay?

No. I crashed my car a few months ago, I just left it.

Wait, what?! You had an accident and you just left the car there.

I had been out with some friends, I was jet lagged, had a few drinks and on the way home I feel asleep behind the wheel and hit a tree. When I woke up I was just sitting there like whoa. But I was only a few blocks from my house so I just left.

You just left it there?

You already said that.

Oh, um. Did the police come?

No. I had just finished restoring it so it wasn’t registered.

It is important to note that at this point her reached into his pocket and removed a sheet of paper that looked like a credit card receipt, balled it up and tossed it on the ground. Now maybe it’s just me but it bothers me when people litter. Especially when there is garbage can less than ten feet away. Also want to note that he showed up in a lime green T-Shirt and a matching baseball hat. He wore sunglasses the bulk of the conversation and used a lot of profanity. Okay…

NOW… He asked me what I do for a living. I tell him I work for a production company. He tells me if we need any special effects we should use him because he can do everything. I tell him the bulk of the work we are doing right now is corporate and I don’t think they need a bunch of explosions.

I can do lots of stuff. If you have an airline company and they need video of the plane flying I can do that.

But if they are an airline company why would they want to simulate that?

Well how much would you charge to do that? Renting a plane would be expensive. I can save you the trouble of renting a plane.

If the client owns planes why would they pay me to rent a plane for them when they already have that resource?

They may want to show the plan doing something else.

Something the plane doesn’t actually do? (Beat) Okay well if they wanted that and needed to simulate it then I guess we would oblige the client.

How much would you charge?

I don't know. Nobody has asked us to do that yet.

Well just give me a number.

It doesn’t work like that.

I could charge like $5,000.

I will keep that in mind. But it looks like I need to get going.

He to walk me to my car but walks on the wrong side of the street. Upon arriving at my car he proceeds to tell me how my car is a piece of sh*t and that I need to just get rid of it. I thank him for meeting me. There is an awkward beat like he is waiting for something. I realize that we weren’t on the same date and chuckle a bit. I ask him if he wants to hug it out. But I don’t think he fully understood. So there was this very strange hug and then I got in the car and drove away.

1 down 2 to go!!