Back in 2015, when I was still dating, I used a few different dating apps and went on quite a few, less than quality, dates. This is just one of these dating mishap stories.
I hear my phone buzz and I can’t help but smile when I see the notification from James*, the latest guy I’ve been messaging on the dating app Spark.** We’ve been talking for a few days, mostly about life, games, work and other nonsense, but he’s super sweet and laughs at my nerdy game-related jokes. I open Spark and see he’s asked me on a date, wondering if I’d be down for an evening of dinner and video games. My fingers have already replied “yes” by the time my mind wanders to a fun, neon light filled day at Dave and Busters or a cool retro arcade. I agree to meet up at his apartment that Saturday, as I wasn’t comfortable giving a near stranger my home address. Fortunately, his place wasn’t too far of a drive. Our conversation returns to light flirting and chatting about the games we’re playing, as I let myself get excited about my upcoming weekend outing.
After what felt like forever, it was Saturday. Not wanting to eat too much while on my date, I grab a tortilla and some cheese and heat up a quick lunch before scrolling through my phone and binging some Once Upon a Time on Netflix until early afternoon. When it’s time to get ready, my outfit was already picked out and resting on my computer chair, a cute red blouse with a tan, above the knee, floral skirt, a tan cardigan, and my favorite black pumps. Not typically one to wear makeup, I spend more time than I’m proud of applying my favorite red lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara before grabbing my tan and black purse and heading out the door to my complete beater of a car.
I give him a call when I’m around the corner, as he told me his apartment could be a bit difficult to find, and he’d show me to guest parking, so I wouldn’t have to park on the street. It doesn’t take long before I see him waving and turn into a small parking lot in front of an apartment complex. The breath I didn’t realize I was holding escapes my lips as I realize he looks roughly the same as in his profile picture, tall, with medium light hair and an average build.
He leads me up the stairs outside the apartment and opens the door. Sitting on a pillow in the living room, I see his roommate playing some game, a slice of pizza sitting on a plate next to him. He turns and says hello, before returning to his game and a fleeting thought crosses my mind. Maybe this isn’t a date? Was I just invited over to play games with James and his Roommate? I stand in the doorway dumbfounded until I reminded myself about the Spark messages. He must just be getting his wallet, or keys, or something. Surely we’ll be on our way soon. I watch as James walks toward a closed door off to the left of the living room and try to hide my surprise when he turns and gestures for me to follow. It finally settles on me that James’ idea of a date really was to invite me over, eat pizza, and play video games, which admittedly made for a fun afternoon, but I wouldn’t consider it a date.
Reluctantly, I follow James to his room. By the time I get there, I see him unplug his guitar from his Xbox One and place it on a stand. I see the game Rocksmith on his bed and ask how he likes it, as I’d been considering picking it up, but wanted to know if it actually helped learn guitar before investing in it. He spoke highly of it, before putting the case on his TV stand and sitting on the foot of his bed, inviting me to sit next to him by patting the covers next to him. Leaving the door open, I crossed the three short paces to the foot of his bed as the silence settled in around us.
“Is there something you want to play?” asks James, breaking the silence.
“I’m not sure what you have, why don’t you pick something.” I say as I set my bag down, determined to have a fun evening, despite my unease.
“We should play this,” he responds, reaching down and grabbing an old Xbox Original game called Fuzion Frenzy.
Did he plan on me not knowing what to play?
“It’s like Mario Party, but a lot better,” he continues, while booting the game up.
My jaw tightens as I will my right eyebrow not to raise. Many Nintendo games, Mario Party included, hold a fond place in my heart and memories. Not wanting to be confrontational, however, I tell myself not to let his offhand comment color my judgment of the game.
James hands me a controller, “I think you’ll like it, it’s like Mario Party, but it’s overall a better game.”
“Oh, okay,” I say weakly, realizing I hadn’t spoken since the first time he compared the games.
When the game loads, the first thing I notice are the graphics. I remind myself that graphics don’t make a game, as I squint and blink at the screen. While he scrolls through the menu, I can’t help but wonder, as I often do when playing older games, how I used to think games like these actually looked good.
James loads up a minigame, skipping the instructional prompt and landing us into a level with what looks like a pedestal in the center and some escalators on either side.
“So, what am I supposed to be doing?”
“Just hold onto the glowing orb.”
I wiggle the left thumb stick erratically, trying to figure out which avatar is mine before pressing all the other buttons on the controller to see what does what. I notice my avatar has a glowing orb, and I run it to the pedestal in the center of the stage. Nothing happens, and I realize the pedestal is actually a fountain. Suddenly, I notice my character has fallen down and the orb is being carried off.
“Oh and you can punch each other. See, it’s like Mario Party, but better.”
So it’s better because you can hit each other and there’s no board game aspect? I squint at the screen trying to remember which character is mine before I wiggle the left stick again in frustration. I hear a loud chime over the cacophony of other sound effects, and try to ignore it, as there’s still about a minute left on the game’s clock. The chime ends, and my avatar is removed from the game. I stare at the timer, there’s still a minute left as James battles against AI. Yep, this game is so much better than Mario Party. I set the controller down and wait for the game to end so I can play again.
We play the same minigame a few times before he switches to another. Still unsure what the goal is, I try to enjoy the game.
“When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?” he asks.
“Well, I certainly didn’t think I’d be working in games,” I start, relieved to have something to think about other than how terrible I was doing.
“Man, I want to work in games,” he interjects, before I can finish answering his question. “I’m thinking of going to The Art Institute to learn how to make games. You know they actually teach people how to make games there? I’ve been looking into places that teach game development and they’re one of the best places.”
While he’s talking, I think about my friends who attended The Art Institute and their complaints about it being a for profit college. I make a mental note to let him know, whenever I get the chance to say something again.
“…And if you date me, I can ask daddy to pay for us to go to Paris. I mean I’ll be the one who takes you…”
Wait, did I miss something? When did I mention wanting to go to Paris? I felt my head spin while he told me how much I wanted to spend a summer in Paris, a place I’d never really thought about visiting.*** Japan, yes. England, yes. But Paris? It didn’t even hit my top 10. Especially considering the Eifel Tower was about the only thing I recognized about Paris, not to mention my French vocabulary was limited to Chef Louis lines in Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
Still trying to wrap my brain around James’ Paris monologue, he decides to switch the minigame again. This game has a tower in the center of the screen with a spiral ramp around it. High and low obstacles block the path, and after a few runs I figure out that you have to duck under and jump over the obstacles respectively to avoid being pushed back into the swirling vortex of death. Finally, I win a game!
“Nice, now you’re getting it,” James says, not hiding his surprise. “Let’s see if you can do it again.”
He hits replay and I win again, this time High Score flashes on the screen and I’m prompted to enter my initials. I do, and James quickly hits replay.
Excited there’s finally a minigame I’m not awful at, I quickly find my rhythm. James stops talking too, so it seems he’s having fun and concentrating as well. He misses a jump, then mistimes a duck. Before long the game ends and High Score flashes on the screen once again.
“I’m done with this game, we should play something else,” says James as I’m once again inputting my initials.
I shrug, a little disappointed that he’s done playing as soon as I start to get the hang of things, but the sound effects were getting rather irritating and I was ready to play something else.
“What other multiplayer games do you have?”
James slid a wooden crate out from under his bed, “I have a lot of games, just let me know what you want to play.”
“Well, I like arcade racers, like Need for Speed, and I’m pretty good at Mario Kart.” I glance at where his consoles are and notice he doesn’t have a Nintendo system out.
“I have Forza.” he says, grabbing a copy of Forza 5 Motorsport.
“Isn’t that more of a Racing Sim than an Arcade Racer? ‘Cause I’m not really a fan of the more realistic racing games.”
“No, it’s like a street racing game.”
“Sure then, I guess we could check it out.”
He loads up a single player course and hands me the controller. I crash, reset, then crash again.
“Try staying on the track.”
I puff my cheeks, embarrassed at how poorly I’m playing and ready to cut my losses and play something else, after all, we weren’t even doing split-screen, and I’d rather play a multiplayer game when gaming together than a random single-player game that I was clearly terrible at.
He convinced me to play another course, laughing at me while giving me pointers that felt more condescending than helpful, before I put down the controller and asked him to let me look through his games.
He pulls out the crate of games and I walk around to the side of the bed to take a look. Near the top I see a game I’d been meaning to play for a while, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.
“Do you want to play this one?” I ask, holding up the game.
“Sure. That’s a pretty fun one,” he says while he grabs it to load it up.
I scroll through the roster, trying to figure out which character will best suit my playstyle. Typically, I prefer playing fast and light characters as I find them easier to button mash with when learning and more forgiving when performing combos. I select Wonder Woman. Wrong choice. Apparently, in this game, Wonder Woman has slower, heavier attacks and James quickly wins the matchup. I lose a few more times, cycling through characters, looking for the one that I’ll click with. Meanwhile, I notice James is quietly upping my handicap on each game. Finally I start playing as Catwoman and I win a match. I smile to myself, excited that I’ve found a character I can hone my skills with. I say nothing when I see him lower my handicap as I continue winning matches, until we’re back to the same level. We both win a few and lose a few, with him still winning the majority of the matchups.
“Hey, do you mind if I check out my character’s move list?” I ask.
“Of course not, go ahead.” he replies.
I pause the game and do a quick scroll through of the moves, pantomiming the combos on my controller as I scroll through the list. After about 30 seconds I feel I have a general idea of the combos and am ready to play.
“Ok, ready?” I ask, hovering over the continue button.
“Yeah.”
The match starts and I win, the first perfect victory of the night. He raises his handicap.
Another perfect win. His posture get less relaxed as he leans in toward the TV. As we’re playing, I notice his moves getting more advanced. He throws me through a wall, starting a Rock, Paper, Scissors style minigame. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shield his A/B/X/Y keys with his left hand. My eyes remain on the screen as I try to figure out how the game works, if it’s just Rock, Paper, Scissors or if there’s some quick time action required too.
However it’s played, James gets a perfect against me. When the dust settles, his health is still nearly full and mine is at about 15%. I remain focused and somehow pull out a win.
“That was wild, how do you do that wall-breaking stage change attack?” I ask
“It’s a secret,” he says in a way that was either trying to seem sly, or trying to make sure I didn’t improve at the game.
“When you’re in it, how does that event work?”
“You have to defend, then I beat your defenses.”
Trying to hide how flustered his dodgy responses are making me, I ask if he wants to play again, and we start another match. He starts the match by kicking me through a wall, and initializing the Rock, Paper, Scissors stage transition. This time, I see him glancing at my controller and I let out a small sigh. Despite winning the stage transition, I’m able to pull off another unexpected victory. I ready up for a rematch when James turns to me.
“It’s not fair,” he whines.
Puzzled, I turn to look at him, “what’s not fair?”
“You memorized that character’s move list!” If he was trying to hide his frustration, his voice betrayed him.
“Um, I looked at the moves for like 30 seconds. I wish I could memorize all the combos that fast!” I’m sure at least some of my irritation came through in my tone, after all, I just saw him looking at my controller during a part of the game I was pretty sure required players to counter their opponent’s input, and he has the audacity to accuse me of cheating?
“We can play something else,” I offer.
“No, we can play this, but you have to play as someone else.”
I think back to our conversations on Spark, trying to remember how old he said he was. I’m pretty sure his profile said he was about 28 years old. His amusing charm had warn off, or perhaps it was just a ruse the whole time, but he certainly proved he was not boyfriend material. If I were smart, I’d have decided to excuse myself here and gone home, but for whatever reason, the part of me that wanted to see how much he would devolve when losing a video game took over and decided to stay. I pick another character that looks like they’ll be fast and light. I get lucky, when they are, and I win again.
I see him up his handicap to max and put mine down to minimum. I begin hiding my buttons by putting my thumb over all the action buttons during the Rock, Paper, Scissors mode and rolling it for my inputs to prevent him from seeing what I’m pressing. I start winning the stage changes and he, of course, accuses me of cheating. I decide not to mention how he’s hiding his buttons behind his hand, making it impossible for me to cheat, even if I wanted to, or that I’d been watching him look at my button presses during the previous matches, he knew what he was doing. I win a few more matches before I decide to try to beat him with a slow, heavy character. I lose a few games before renewing my winning streak.
“So, do you have any brothers?” he asks, putting the controller down.
“Um, yeah, an older brother. Why?”
“I knew it! There’s no way you’d be that good at a game without a male influence in your life.”
I shifted uncomfortably. Sure I played games with my brother as a kid, but he’s 7 years older than me and usually thought it was uncool to game with his little sister. It was mostly because my parents told him to let me play games with me that he did. I remember having fun, but typically he’d kick my butt at them until I decided to go off and do my own thing. It wasn’t until I played games with my friends, other girls my age, that I really got into gaming. I thought about Guild Wars, the game that influenced me most, and how it was a female friend of mine who introduced me to it.
“Everyone has a male influence in their life,” I replied.
“What?” he said, almost shouting, as he stood up.
“I mean, a dad, an uncle, a brother, cousins even?” I replied, almost a whisper as I eyed the door.
“Yeah, I suppose your right,” I saw his shoulders relax a little as my brain finally alerted me to the red flags, that, in retrospect, were beyond obvious.
I smile as politely as I can and grab my bag.
“I had fun, James, thanks,” I say as I stand and take a step toward his door.
He clambers over his bed to get between me and his door and says, “wait, before you go, I have a question for you.”
My grip tightens on my bag, not wanting to spend any more time with him while mentally refreshing myself on ways to get out of grapples, and wondering how viable they are in real-world situations. “Hmm?” I respond.
“What do you think about religious people?” he asks.
I stare blankly as a slideshow of every religious person I know flashes through my head.
I must have taken too long to answer because he follows up with, “I read on your Spark profile that you’re Agnostic/Atheist, so I want to know if you don’t like religious people.”
“Um, I don’t have a problem with religious people,” I finally say. “One of my best friends is Catholic.”
His jaw tightens, “But I’m Christian.”
I feel dozens of synapses fire in my brain as I try to understand what he’s saying. I replay the conversation in my head, he asked if I had a problem with religion, in general, right? Not specifically Christianity.
I clearly remembered him saying religion so I reiterate. “I don’t have a problem with religion, quite a few of my friends are religious and it’s never been an issue in our friendships, like I said, one of my best friends is Cath–“
“But I’m Christian,” he interrupts. I feel his eyes boring into me as he steps uncomfortably close.
“Um, cool? I’m going to, uh, go now. It’s getting late and I should get home.” I maneuver around him and open his bedroom door, not remembering when it was closed. My mind reels as I make sure to keep my arms tucked in front of my chest to prevent him from grabbing my wrists. Briskly, I walk toward his front door, placing my feet deliberately so I don’t end up tripping. His roommate, whose name I no longer remember, says goodbye, and my mouth moves without direction from my brain. I hear myself tell him to have a good night.
I get to the front door and turn the handle as James catches up to me.
“I’ll call you,” he says while I let myself out and hurry down the stairs to my car.
As I drive away, I see him waving in my rearview mirror. The whole way home I can’t stop my body from shaking as I replay the scenario in my head. What if he got violent, what could I have done? I should have excused myself earlier in the night. What did I learn from this? Never meet up with a guy at their place, no matter how charming he is online.
A few weeks later, and if memory serves, a rather blunt text from a friend of mine who got ahold of my phone, my phone stops buzzing with texts from James.
—————————————-
* James is not his real name, but for the purpose of this story, he will be referred to as James
** Spark is a dating app from the video game Simulacra, I know the app I used, but I don’t feel like naming it, because I feel this could have happened with any of them 😛
*** In Early 2020 I began planning a trip to France with my boyfriend to go to Euro Disney, a trip we had to postpone due to Covid-19.
The Everyday Me 