BAD FIRST DATES
STIMULANT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 019 // OCTOBER 26, 2024
My lease ends on June 30th and I’ve been looking for new apartments since August. Cruising around, scanning every window for a hand-scribbled “À Louer” sign, scouring Marketplace from my empty middle school Facebook page, and photographing front doors that won’t be mine. It’s not that I’m desperate to flee before summer, I just need to find the perfect place. Always hunting, never satisfied.
I find a lot of value in going on as many first dates as possible. Day or night, park or movie, there’s so much to learn from these novel meetings with strangers. I’d know so much less about the world without these bachelors.
What it’s like to be a dental hygienist
How to play pool
What $800 really gets you
That most bars don’t serve milk
Which recently gentrified neighbourhoods have terrible night bus service
How to tie a cherry stem with your tongue
Where in Ontario to hate
Without the enrichment of these transient encounters, I might not know my favourite band or my least favourite overpass or the taste of someone else’s cigarette or the surprising heat of dirty bathroom tiles. I’d never know how to kiss in a way that’ll keep him here for now. I enter every first date hoping for something beautiful, waiting for my wandering attention to be captured and held. I’ve caught glimpses of satisfaction, but I can’t call them anything more. It’s all so unromantic.
In my experience, when you’ve given up on a prospective partner, the consolation prize for lack of love is an opportunity for narcissism.
A bad first date is the best opportunity you’ll ever get to pay singular, undivided attention to yourself. Watching him watching you, learning which jokes amuse which bracket of man, practicing your coy smile in the bathroom mirror and getting it perfect. Learning from every grimace, which parts of yourself to hide.
This isn’t a habit I necessarily suggest, but it's a golden opportunity for those motivated to be and to find the very best of everything. Why bother having a life if it isn’t the best one? Why would you choose stability when you could have anything, you could be anything, you could have everything? Attain omnipotence now or you’ll never stop searching.
I’ve heard many friends’ roommates say “I have no clue where I would’ve gone if I didn’t find this place!” and have done my best to not act horrified.
Doesn’t everyone need to know all the options?
I worry that you’re all getting a bad deal.
Usually, a first date is the last. You’ll leave at a courteous and convenient time and text goodnight and politely decline any future offers of dinner or wine or concert tickets or money. I’ve been thinking lately, however, of the passionate second date requests I’ve received from bad first dates. Exclamation point-capped paragraphs from people I didn’t connect to. It’s disturbing to be handed the keys after failing the credit check, being invited deeper into a heart that is not home for you.
I assume most houses are haunted. I feel sorry and confused and neurotically liable for those willing to accept a love that’s good enough, who invite newcomers into their lives without knowing their hearts. I’m tired of watching their warping reflection in the wine bottle, their bleary smile, the visible expectation that I’ll be theirs forever. He took me out for company, not companionship. Does everyone do this? Does everyone habituate themselves to unfulfilling experiences?
I’m best at being a subletter, free to hop from room to room, never buying the sheets. At least being temporary feels more honest than signing a lease, only to break it. We both know I don’t belong here, but I’ll keep the bed warm for you. I run hot.
Most people stay put each year, the smart choice is to renew the lease, fight rent raises, paint the walls, adopt pets, and make a home.
It would be so easy to marry your first ever fling, to be loyal and happy enough, while you can afford it. Unfortunately though, I’m still searching for the one and being so thorough about it.
BAD FIRST DATES was edited by Aaron Bauman.
maxwell norman’s album of the week
Grouper - The Man Who Died in His Boat (2013)
In the forest, as autumn chokes the trees and turns their faces brilliant warm colors, ghosts appear like plumes of breath. Grouper plays music for these phantoms. Plainspoken whispers emerge as if from an old photograph, over the kind of guitar lines that can only be played in a small room to oneself. The sepia ambience might take some getting used to, especially for listeners more enamored with immediate pleasures or pains, but if you close your eyes out in the woods or cocooned in your bed and let the translucence take you, you might find yourself weeping. It’s that particular quality—that gentle creep of emotion—which brings me back to Grouper around this time every year. October has come. Sink into it.
get hip
The Vauxhalls are playing on November 7th at Barfly.
Mark your calendars for November 23rd. Something quite big.
Ahoy winter submissions close on November 1st.
Headlight Anthology submissions close November 1st.
More to come soon. Love ya.