With A Cherry On Top
it's been a minute, let's spill the tea: a drunken night at the Lafayette, a first date, and unresolved feelings
“Wandering through the cheap escapes / Just avoiding all the things that I’ll say”
- Beabadoobee “One Time”
“It was so great meeting you, Summer!” said a man who’s name I don’t remember.
He hugged me, lightly pressing me into him. I thought him kind and polite, though I talked to him for no more than 10-minutes. When I turned back to my friend her eyes were still set on him, a drunken haze clouding her vision and said, “What an asshole.”
10-minutes prior, or however long it’d been, my friend and I pressed ourselves against the bar, trying to get a bartender’s attention.
We were out at this hotel/bar/club called the Lafayette for another friend’s birthday. To me, the Lafayette feels like walking into a decked out version of the Overlook from Stephen King’s novel, The Shining. It’s one of those places that feels like it’s in a constant battle with itself, unsure of what it wants to be. Between its long, red hallways that my friends and I can’t help but chant REDRUM REDRUM REDRUM as we walk down them, the diner shoved off into a corner, the entrancing circular bar at the center, and the little details like the animal print and hand sconces that line the walls, it’s one of those places that makes you lose track of time. Not unlike a casino, but more so because the Lafayette itself feels lost in time. I don’t feel all that different from Jack Torrance, dancing and drinking in the ballroom of the Overlook, unsure if he’s dancing with the ghosts of party-goers past or if they’re really there, as I myself drink and shove my way through the crowds of the Lafayette.
Now I don’t remember how it started, but at some point my friend and I found ourselves locked in conversation with the man next to us at the bar. He was short, wore glasses and confessed he worked in finance (though I immediately wondered if he was actually telling the truth, or just saying that to try and impress us). His words slurred as we jumped between topics: where we’re from, what we do, what we like. He seemed nice enough, and I thought if I flirted, just a little, he might buy both our drinks. He didn’t, though it’s worth noting, I don’t know how to flirt. My friend didn’t think he was an “asshole”, however, because of this. In the 10-or-so-minutes we talked to him, she found him dismissive and condescending. What I thought was a nice, polite conversation was, for her, a rude interaction.
The rest of the night blurred into girls trips to the bathroom, me yelling at the birthday boy for beating me at Skee-Ball, heart-felt trips down memory lane, and a bit of tough love because, earlier in the week, I had gone on a date. It was one of the first (there has only been one other) in the 4 years since I ended things with my ex. They immediately handed me a shot, and then asked to hear every detail. When I was done, my guy friends didn’t even hesitate, they told it to me straight: he’s cooked.
If you’re unfamiliar with this phrase, it basically means “done”. It’s usually most popular amongst semi-chronically online men in their 20s-30s, but can be used by anyone. But for a person to be “cooked” is to be “done for”, and if one of them goes so far as to say a person/situation is “burnt”, you better throw it/them out and never look back.
One thing I love about my friends is that they won’t sugar-coat the truth, but they also won’t say something unless they mean it. Every stern conversation and hard pill to swallow comes from the part of them that truly cares. They weren’t trying to hurt me by telling me he was “cooked”, they just wanted the best for me… and I wholeheartedly agreed. It was a bit shocking to find that, when it came down to it, I didn’t really care that things weren’t going to work out. I’m always the girl who bends over backwards to get someone to like me, even when I don’t necessarily like them. But he was the “grand gesture guy”—I mean he drove 2 hours, here and back, for someone he barely even knew—the guy who will say and do all the right things and then as soon as he thinks he has you, he disappears. Or as Webster’s Dictionary might define him: an attention whore.
In today’s digital dating scene, this is really quite normal. We’re all addicted to our next high. We get so wrapped up in the fantasy of a person, the mystery and intrigue of their Instagram profile, the dopamine hit of getting a message from them, that when we finally meet them in person, we feel disappointed that they’re just as real as we are. They’re not the cool, mystical being we built up in our heads, they’re a person with problems and feelings just like us. Meeting them shatters the illusion, and I think that’s what happened for him. I can’t know for sure, but something in his words made it feel as though he’d reduced me to fantasy, and the real thing was maybe a bit too real for him.
But I wasn’t some innocent bystander. I may have gotten lost in his grand gestures and charismatic declarations, but I was as much of a participant in this as he was.
—
A few months ago, I went on my very first date in years and, unfortunately, I really liked him. But, as these things tend to go, it didn’t work out for a lot of reasons I won’t be divulging today, but the important bit is that it crushed me. I had been so scared to date. Not exactly because I’m afraid of being hurt again, although I’m sure that has something to do with it, but more so because I was afraid I’d forgotten how. I worried I might mess it up, not for lack of trying, but by simply being too out of touch with what it meant to date.
So when the grand gesture guy came into my life, I let myself get swept up in his sweet nothings, savoring it like honey or bit of chocolate melting on your tongue. In the end, it was what it was and nothing more. Eventually, when the cold, hard reality hit that I was only looking for an escape, a quick way to forget about the guy before him—the one I was actually hung up on—it hurt, and for entirely different reasons now.
—
Somewhere toward the end of our night at the Lafayette, that same friend that called the man at the bar an “asshole” told me something I had only just started to realize myself. Even though she rambles about the silliest things and can sometimes turn into a bit of a menace when she’s drunk (we love her though), every once in a while, the clarity with which she speaks will send a shock through your system, like the icy bite of the wind when you first step outside into the cold. She doesn’t walk around with rose-tinted glasses all the time, and I admire her for that.
That night, she was going on about how beautiful I am—it was that time of the night when you start rambling to your friends about how much you love them (I’m definitely that friend too, in case you were wondering). I was nodding along, thanking her and brushing it off with a joke or two when she started shaking her head and said, “No, no, no. Summer, I know you don’t believe me, but you’re too kind. They don’t deserve it”. Her eyes were soft, but the wrinkles between her brows told me she was serious. She needed me to listen, so I did.
“I know,” I said, dropping my grin. Her lips tightened into a thin line, and then she nodded, as if finally deciding she believed me. Within a matter of seconds, someone else from our group came over, unknowingly breaking up our serious conversation, and we were back to celebrating.
It’s one of those things that’s easier said than done though. I can understand what she’s saying and finally know there’s truth to it, but accepting it is a lot harder. It hurts to admit because it feels like I’ve finally been broken, as if I’ve lost that part of me that was still soft. But she’s still here, just tucked in a bit farther now.
As hard as it might be, accepting it is the only way forward. I mean, I was immediately willing to believe that a man I talked to for 10 minutes was kind, ignoring how he brushed past my interests to talk about himself. And if this post is any evidence, I’m even willing to partially take the blame for a guy who treated me badly… I don’t know anymore.
Maybe I’ll journal about it tonight. We love to see a girly developing healthy ways of working through her trauma instead of slandering the guy on the internet. <3
In case you’re new to my page, a lot of what I write is often inspired by songs, and of course, things going on in my life and I’m currently OBSESSED with Beabadoobee. Maybe I’m late to the game, but I love her, and both these songs inspired this post. If you haven’t listened to her yet and liked this post, I really recommend her music! Definitely take a listen asap!
okay one, the Lafayette sounds so fun, I am so down for the unsettling overlook hotel vibes. Two, I have the exact same problem with dating and men. I think learning to see people/things for what they are just comes with time and experience. But I’m afraid I get so caught up in my feelings that it will never matter, I’ll always need someone to give me a reality check. That’s what brutally honest friends are for I guess 😂💓