HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA

STIMULANT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 023 // DECember 14, 2024

So basically I had to go to a dating event in this rented-out bar in Poughkeepsie, NY since my shitass liberal arts school doesn’t like me or think I’m hot anymore. My roommates hate me and it’s because I can’t take liquor without a pickle juice chaser but I say it’s because I’m kinda gay. One time I told my mom (her name’s Polly) that they called me a f____t (they didn’t actually) and she said “you earned it!!” And I was like I’m bisexual not full gay so NOBODY else thinks that. Anyway every time I pull up to liberal arts parties everybody talks about Michel Foucault and concepts, which pisses me off, plus I’m shorter than the average guy and it fucks with my swag. When I try to wear my cool clothes I look like if Boss Baby lived in a discotheque. So it’s time for Poughkeepsie Singles Night where hopefully my natural charm will play better to a less discerning audience.

I show up to this wine bar called The 515 which means nothing I’m pretty sure, it seems like it would be the area code but nah. As soon as I enter it’s clear that I’m the youngest person at this event by at least five years. MILFs intrigue me but I’ve never hit to that base before so honestly I’m excited but definitely nervous too. My hands start shaking so bad. Nearly drop my ID on the way in and I’m like fuck this, but thank the Lord I can get a drink. Wine gets me sleepy and romantic. Feels weird to scope people out too hard so I try to look into the middle distance at the bar to seem brooding or mysterious. The bartender walks like constipation incarnate and talks with the yawp of a Bostonian. I order an Argentine Malbec because Argentina is edgier than Italy or France and repeat the Gettysburg Address in my head to stop myself from making meaningful eye contact with anyone. By the time I get my glass I’m thinking it was stupid that I didn’t look around to get some bedroom eyes going so I start darting my eyes super fast and trying to turn into a camera. A lady claps her hands. There’s maybe thirteen of us in The 515.

“Okay! Hello everybody and welcome to Poughkeepsie Singles Night! I’m Dolores, if you have any questions or anything just come to me. I hope you all make some beautiful connections tonight and have a good time!! Alright, everybody pair off!”

I REALLY should’ve made eye contact with someone. If there’s actually an odd number of us it could be curtains for my love life. I sidle up to a woman in a nice dress.

“Hey, I’m Maxwell.”

She turns. “Oh hello! I’m Veronica. Do you want to have a seat?”

I do. Veronica appears old enough to run for President but young enough that I’m not sure. She’s got really pretty eyes, brown and warm with these crinkles in the corners from time spent smiling. As we sit, she hits me with a grin and the full brunt of those gorgeous eyes and immediately my heart jumps. I’m overreacting probably and already feeling some liquifying lovesickiness. We talk for a minute and then she says,

“I’ve got a masters degree from SUNY Purchase…”

I can’t form words right.“Oh, wowie. Wow. That’s amazing, oh yes. What subject?”

“Public Health. It’s hard work, but it’s rewarding.”

With that it’s DEFCON BILLION for my cortisol and my bladder as I realize that this woman is a Person in a way that I am not. She has a future that she can expect, that she can plan for. I’ve got a single room shaped like Saddam Hussein in a rented house with roommates that hate me over pickle juice. Maybe I can use the anxious energy to remind her of the youth slipping through her fingers, but like in a positive way. In a way where I can bring that back to her. Maybe I should do my Pennywise the Clown dance to the Clairo song playing over the bar’s sputtering speakers.

“What public health stuff is there to do in Poughkeepsie?”

Smiles like she gets this question a lot. “I work for the Mid-Hudson Regional Health Center.”

“Oh, so you’re out there saving lives–”

Gesticulating like a motherfucker, I knock over my emptied glass of Malbec and have to catch it before it rolls off the table. Hope my reflexes really impressed Veronica. She looks at me with a delightful glitter in her eye, with the corner of her lips twitching up into this patronizing smirk. I wanna see her wearing that smirk and nothing else in whatever home she can afford. Fuck. The wine turns me into a horndog and a half. I order another glass of the same Malbec. She asks,

“Have you ever been to Argentina?”

And I want to lie and say yes so she thinks I’m a worldly cosmopolitan and that’s why I’m going to Poughkeepsie Singles Night, because I simply don’t have the time for relationships otherwise with all the worldliness and cosmopolitanism I’m doing. But I tell her the truth, that the only time I’ve ever left the country was when my friend studied abroad in Ireland and I went to visit her. “So maybe I should’ve ordered a Guinness,” I joke and she laughs and I feel like shit for being twelve-ish years younger than her and stupid. I mean genuinely stupid, like I told my ex once I thought I was stupid and he just looked at me and replied, “yeah.” I want Veronica to think I’m cool enough to be in her league but the brackish murk of my idiot youth must be dripping off my skin in globs. Is there any hope left in the world? Fuck I’m spiraling. But my hands keep fluttering and my mouth still forms words. Somehow the alcohol has locked my flickers of self-hatred into the part of my brain that can’t do shit. Veronica laughs at something I can’t hear myself say.

The conversation runs smoother as I settle back down into the second glass of wine. Turns out she loves Perfume Genius too and we get into a play-fight about which of his albums is best, with her taking up No Shape and me defending Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, though I think she can tell I start agreeing with her points after two minutes. Blessedly, I can restrain myself from doing my Thom Yorke impression when a Radiohead song comes on. It’s deadass a great impression but seems like a second or third date kinda thing. Veronica is half Peruvian and speaks fluent Español. I tell her Spanish sounds sexy no matter what they’re saying. Shit. Might’ve bungled the whole night. She smirks at me again–oh my Jesus Christ that smirk–and replies in a low tone:

“Tienes el cerebro de un pez de colores.”

“Uh. What does that mean?”

“It means ‘you have the brain of a goldfish.’”

“Oh. Damn. My memory’s alright I thi–”

Laughing, she cuts me off again. “Creo que es lindo.”

“Do I even wanna know?”

“I think it’s cute.”

This Malbec feels like a hearth fire in my liver. Can’t believe I ever did a pickle-back shot of whiskey or five just to puke on the trampoline at a party. Something stupefying–terrifying almost–in Veronica actually enjoying my company when I’m held together by pins and prayers. But I get why Dolores talked earlier about “connecting,” because I rarely feel connected with anyone, and probably it’s the wine or me forcing it but there is a reciprocation here. She and I are laying bricks down, not building anything yet really but behind our words lives this plausibly-denied promise of maybe, maybe, maybe. Hardly ever feel like there’s a promise kept in anything I say. The words tend to act as scalpels or hammers, tools to get the job done but entirely instrumental. As Veronica and I speak with each other our jokes and remarks become shadows, cast by a vague mass of potential energy. I can’t tell if I’m overthinking this shit and torturing myself or if this is an Actual Thing occurring.

Somewhere amid this dance of silhouettes and symbols, Veronica looks at me with some sadness in those cola-color eyes.

“Forgive me, I have work early tomorrow so I have to head home. But I’d love to see you again sometime!”

Holy shit. “Yes, me too, yeah, absolutely. Do you–do you want my number?”

“Yeah, that’s perfect!”

We stand, I put my contact in her phone, and as she walks out she kisses me on the cheek. Inside I’m like, wowza. Buzzing. Veronica exits with purpose, but when she looks back and I’m still staring her way, dazed from her lips and the whole experience, she smiles real big. There’s a flood of pride in making her smile that way. She keeps moving, and I sit at our table and finish the rest of my Malbec in a couple minutes before I head out too.

The late November cold hits me like a truck made of knives. Knife truck. Despite the glowing warmth in my stomach from the wine and on my cheek from Veronica’s kiss I shiver with some violence. The moon’s stolen light casts everything into monochrome relief. Or maybe it’s the streetlamps. Life can be good. For a few moments I wrestle with the moral dilemma of driving home with my judgment impaired by alcohol and nerves, but I figure operating a car is fine since it’s only nine minutes to home and no one’s gonna be out on such a chilly night. Plus you pay for parking by the hour so it adds up. And the bus smells weird, anyhow.

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HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA was edited by Charlie Zacks.