He is an artist. But not any old artist. He is the type of artist where you over pronounce the 'I' in his title. Let me show you the difference:
Artist:"A person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria" - Webster Dictionary
Art[I]st:"A pretentious individual whose art (usually terrible, overly-wordy poetry, but can apply to paintings, prose, etc.) no one 'gets' - Urban Dictionary
Now that we cleared that up, I'll give you a little run down of the date. Being the punctual person that I am (and just being paranoid about getting lost and being late) I arrived to wonderful Oakland about 15 minutes early. I texted my hopeless romantic to inform him of my earliness and that I would be wandering around. No response. Our meeting time of 1PM hit and there was no sign of my tall, dark and handsome Grecian God! I was being stood up. In Oakland! WTF?!
Have no fear, he pulled through. Turns out his bike broke so he had to walk... And in true European fashion, he greeted me with a *Kiss Kiss* We took a lovely stroll around the beautiful man-made Oakland lake where he referred to himself as an art[I]st, filmmaker, poet, and a romantic multiple times. Each.
We then took a seat by the lake on a blanket he brought (all romantics have one on them) and got to know each other more.
Here is what you need to know about hopeless romantic Greek men who give you their business card-
They wear scarfs no matter the weather.
They talk about themselves and what makes them unique.
And they have no shame in their preferred sexual activities.
Yes, sexual activities.
How do I know this?
Oh, because he brought up that part of his life as well.
Not only do I know all about how his parents met in the states
but soon moved back to Greece after having him 32 years ago,
I now know that he is into some interesting stuff.
"I think it is so crazy how Americans are anti PDA. In Europe people are making out everywhere."
Que me freaking out to thinking he was suggesting we make out...
"I mean, I know they are all polygamists and into S&M, but they will never talk about it. Like me. I enjoy orgies and bondage but I can't advertise that because
Americans are so reserved!"
With a nod of my head, I knew this was never going to work out.
Not because he is open about what he is into,
but because he lives 45 minutes away from me
and you know, long distance is just so hard these days...
But if anyone is into hopeless romantic Greek men
who are into kinky stuff and can read you some poetry/paint you a picture/
Something I am sure most of you have said at one point in your life.
But what about people who text you that have the wrong number?
First you think, what DID I do last night at the bars?!
Or, who the hell gave out my number?
This recently happened to a cousin of mine and of course the first person she blames is the girl with a relation-shit blog...
Sarah: "Did you give my number to some guy named Mark?"
Me: "I don't think so...did he say he knows me?"
"No. I am in the weirdest situation."
She forwarded me their conversation and all I can say is pass along my number to him!
Wrong Number: "Hi Again."
Sarah: "Who is this?"
"This is Mark. Still up for helping me with some advice? And how's the puppy? Better today?"
Sarah: "I'm sorry, I'm drawing a blank. Mark who?"
"Um, is this Audrey?"
"No, this is Sarah."
At that point, I would think most people would end the conversation with the stranger, but no. I think they became best friends...
Wrong Number: "Ok, I'm feeling really stupid now. Have you had any calls for her before?"
Sarah: "No, I haven't had any calls for Audrey but I do have a puppy and he was really sick last week...this is very odd."
"That is weird. Well, are you good at relationship advice? ha ha"
"I guess I could try and give some advice."
Yup, best friend status.
Wrong Number: "This is funny but OK...do you think there are times when it's better not to tell the whole truth?"
Sarah: "It depends on the situation. What didn't you tell the truth about?"
"I'm not sure how much to say about this since I don't know you. Are you easily offended?"
"No."
I would be very scared at this point in the conversation...
Wrong Number: "We were talking about fantasies and she asked what my biggest one is. But honestly, it's about a threesome. I know that's really bad."
Sadly, this is where the conversation ended, besides some last minute information he provided.
Like the fact that he is 47... Oh, and married.
But of course since this happened to her and the area code was from around me, I get the blame!
Sarah: "I totally thought you met some weirdo guy and as a joke gave him my number!"
No people, I do not give out someone elses number when a random ass guy approaches me and asks for one. I either provide my actual number, say no thank you, or go with 867-5309.
Try it sometime...
As long as you don't sing it to them, it should work.
With all of the ridiculous situations I have been in/put myself in,
I started to think the possibility of a romantic man was out the window.
Turns out he was just out on the streets of San Francisco!
Let's take this back to Valentine's Day.
I won radio tickets to a "Bitter Ball" in SF for V-Day
and since myself and the majority of my friends are single,
we made the journey out to the city that night.
With our club outfits on, we were ready to hit the town and enjoy a live performance by Icona Pop.
We were waiting to cross the street to the club and there was a guy on a bike behind us.
We made eye contact for a second and I turned back around not thinking anything of it.
Next thing I know, there was a tap on my shoulder. It was the bike guy!
"I'm sorry, I just wanted to tell you that you are beautiful."
With my standard, awkward "Thank you" I turned back around.
My friend laughed and screamed, "It's her skirt!"
And he responded back, "No, it's her eyes!"
The light finally turned and my friends and I crossed the street to get in line for the club.
As we waited to get in, the guy on the bike rolled up and said
"I just had to come back and give this to you."
He handed me his business card and biked away.
Is this real life?!
I was shocked by his boldness
and due to the fact that he didn't creep me out or make me feel uncomfortable,
I thought, why not give him a chance?
After a great night in SF filled with dancing, singing and drinking, and good vibes, the next day I decided to text him-
"Hey this is the girl you gave your card to the other night. I applaud your boldness."
So there was my short, sweet and to the point text, and then there is his...
"Thanks. It was the day, it was your eyes. I'm a hopeless romantic. There is no real connection in the digital era we live in. It used to be that just a warm captivating glance was all someone needed. I applaud your smile."
Can you say swoon?!
I asked him what he was doing in SF that night and he said-
"A retrospective of avant garde radical Japanese films at the SF Yerba Buena Center."
Ok, how do I compete with that?!?
While he was being all hipster/artistic as shit,
I was drinking cheap rum and watching my friend drop it low with five guys at once.
I have a feeling our worlds are very, very different...
Either way, we have made plans to meet up and I can only imagine the sweet, artistic, heart melting words he will say in person!
The only guy who has ever been that honest about his non-feelings,
which I appreciated but it didn't really stick...
This honest guy and I became each others Thursday nights.
Let me explain-
After he was honest with me, life went on.
Thus on Thursday night it was time to hit the bars again with the roommates.
Considering that is the only thing to do on a Thursday night when you are 21 and in college,
he was there as well.
A few drinks and hours later we were hanging out again.
Pretending like the text never happened, we became cuddle buddies for the evening.
That's right, I had a slumber party... Seriously.
With an awkward goodbye in the morning consisting of "Oh yeah we should totally hang out!"
I didn't hear from the boy until the next Thursday where, you guessed it, we ran into each other at the bars!
This routine went on for about a month and I thought maybe we will get a second chance at a second date.
Wrong again!
I have such back intuition when it comes to guys and dating...
Following my usual Thursday routine, I showed up at the bars and so did the guy but this time he had another girl on his arm.
That's right, he had a girlfriend.
Two AMF's later and my roommates decided it was a good time to take me home.
Sadly no cabs were around but thankfully we made friends with bar people and they drove me and my four roommates back home during which I sat on my roommates lap, crying, trying not to throw up.
I later found out that one of my roommates offered to make out with the driver just to get him to drive us...oh college.
Either way, him and his lady have since broken up but that was the last time we interacted, until New Years when we had a random run in consisting of him asking me why I was there and not in SoCal...twice.
Drunk talk.
Maybe it's time for me to walk away from the bars for a bit.
Gearing up for the two year anniversary of Relation-Shits,
I figured why not do a "Where Are They Now?" feature
explaining what happened with these relation-shits
after they were blogged about
and if they still even talk to me.
Because I have so many amazing Relation-Shits to look back on, you're in for a two part series folks!
Enjoy the first 5 flashbacks (click on each title to be taken to the flashback blog post) and watch out for the actual two year celebration on February 6th for the rest of my trip down memory lane...
