Yes, you read that right: “Doobie Date.”
Story time…
Several weeks ago, after things started opening up a little and people began stretching their legs outside of quarantined life, my friend and I (we’ll call her “Susan”) were walking downtown (my favorite place to be – it never disappoints in giving me a good story to tell). We were wearing our masks of course, as there are typically a lot of people who hang out downtown (getting drunk and puking out the worst pickup lines).
As we were walking (and I was laughing at a rando dude who was high as a kite staring at a brick wall), a stylin’, flamboyant fella wearing tight leather pants, his hair twisted into half a dozen buns on his head, came walking towards us with a sideways grin.
“Well, hello ladies,” he winked. He gave me the up-down and said, “OMG, I am LOVING everything about your look!” (I was wearing black leather boots paired with my black leather fingerless gloves… And clothes, of course.)
“Why, thank you sir!” I said.
He wasn’t wearing a mask and kept trying to stand closer, so I had to keep taking a couple steps back.
“I just moved here from Arizona, so I don’t know many people in the area,” he said. “Can we be friends?” He smiled slyly.
I said something down the lines of, “Sure! I always likey me some new friends!” (No, I was not drunk… I just talk weird. Hell, you’ve read my blog…)
We then proceeded to exchange numbers. “I look forward to hanging out sometime,” he said enthusiastically.
(He then said something unsettling about me busting his balls with black stilettos, but that’s neither here nor there. I just keep telling myself he was joking…)
He then tried to give me a hug, but I quickly turned it into a simple fistbump, still trying to play it safe. He seemed cool with it.
Now, I just assumed he meant we could hang out sometime down the line as things with the whole COVID-19 stuff became less of a risk. Or at the very least just meet up to walk around downtown again.
Two days later, I received a text from him asking if I wanted to “come over to my place, pet my kitty, and smoke a doobie.”
(Yes, I did consider that “kitty” might be a euphemism for something else, but again, I like to try to preserve whatever innocence I have left by telling myself he meant an ACTUAL feline…)
I love talking to people and hanging out with new friends. But I also know I need to be smart, and that hanging out with this person (who I barely knew) could not only put my own health at risk, but also put my family’s health at risk should I be exposed.
I felt so guilty turning down the invite. He seemed so excited about meeting someone new. If he had been cool with it, I would have been more than happy to text and hang out in a less-compromising setting. But he didn’t seem interested in that.
It took a few attempts, but some positive self-talks later, I finally convinced myself that I had done the right thing.
(Besides: on top of avoiding potential COVID exposure, after thinking about it, I’m pretty sure if I had accepted the invite, there would have been a story in the news about a girl being found with a stiletto stabbed through her eyeball and a doobie in her throat…)
Life in the time of COVID is challenging, as we have to continue reminding ourselves to make the safe choice when it comes to socializing. Don’t let making the responsible decision make you feel guilty about not being able to hangout with someone in person. (And by no means should you ever let someone pressure you into busting their balls with a pair of stilettos… Unless you’re into that sort of thing. Hey, I don’t judge…)
Just Bacon. 