I was on a second date, she said “I love you,” and I just looked at her.

Typically my response is to laugh, and I say ‘typically’ because this exact sort of thing has happened at a shockingly high frequency for me.

I’ve never considered myself particularly attractive; quite the opposite, actually, I don’t think very highly of myself at all.

I can’t hold down a job for more than a year or so, I am fairly aimless in life, I’ve been chubby since I’ve been able to walk, I’m not very socially active, I don’t like to clean, I watch bad tv, and my hygiene isn’t always the best. Not to mention with all of that in the mix; I generally don’t find myself to be very good company. I don’t smile that much, I’m not very considerate, I probably could use a reality check in many instances of life because despite having a low opinion of myself I don’t like to hear it from other people that they see how my existence of utter mediocrity is in fact mediocre or sub-par. I look at myself, and I see the most nothing person that has ever existed- so nothing that to take the average of my nothingness down to a negative would be to put me into very dangerous territory.

And that is why I am constantly pulling women that are way too pretty, smart, funny, wealthy, young, and generally delightful, to ever stoop low enough to consider a woman like me in the first place.

I wish I could say I was joking, I wish I could say I was being facetious, I wish I could say I was some guy on a podcast who needed to shut the hell up for lying to a crowd of red-pilled idiots all starved for touch and attention, but I’m not.

Women meet me, and somehow they end up giving me a chance, and somehow they end up falling in love with me by the end of our first or second date.

I ruin them.

Not because I want to, mind you, when I enter a relationship I usually have very good intentions. (Except for that one time, but that was a freak incident of trying to piss off my sister, I swear that was just a one time thing.)

But I ruin these women by gifting them a sense of entitlement. I ruin them by telling them that their dreams are not only achievable— but worthwhile. I make them feel way more interesting than they are, I make them feel things they’ve never felt before.

I make them feel like they can shut the fuck up and just be. Just be, right next to me.

And they love that shit.

They can’t get enough of that, it’s like catnip to them.

They don’t care that I don’t text back, they don’t care that I don’t pay for things, they don’t even care that I don’t plan dates or ask them to do anything besides the occasional ‘let’s watch a movie and I can eat your pussy.’

They don’t fucking care that I say to them before we even hang out “I’m not looking for a relationship. I just want someone to hang out with from time to time.”

They fall for me anyway. And each and every time I can’t fucking believe it.

However, this time when I sat down with Cameron, I was honestly hopeful. I saw that fluffy brown hair and that crooked smile, I thought maybe she played a lot of games and had her own method for getting what she wanted out of dates- whatever that may be. I knew she usually went for better looking girls than me, whatever possessed her to agree to seeing me had to be some sort of unusual circumstance. She’s trying to be less picky, maybe she’s tired of the usual faire she aquires, the best I could’ve realistically hoped for was that maybe she was just into chubby girls; whatever it was, it was clear when we sat down that she was convinced it was my lucky day to be going out with a girl like her.

“So what do you do?” She asked, then took a sip of that pretentious iced americano. (Seriously, just get a cold brew, it’s better.)

“I’m a writer.” I said with a nod, she looked impressed.

“What do you write?”

“Porn, mostly.” I joked, she smiled.

“Seriously?

“Sometimes.” I corrected, she laughed.

“Oh shit! Where can I find it?” She tried her best to lean in and look very cool when she asked that. Almost like she was joking about it entirely, not expecting me to answer.

“Amazon.” I shrugged, and I smiled at her too. She nodded and pursed her lips. She thought for a moment, looking like she wanted to ask more, but wasn’t sure how. I gave her a challenging smirk. Come on, ask me about it.

“You have more questions?” I asked, she shook her head and smiled.

“Nope… maybe later.” She winked, I winked back, she didn’t seem to expect that. I think she expected me to be flustered, like I couldn’t believe a hot piece of ass like her was interested in my work, that she would wink at me, that she would give me the time of day. Or maybe she just thought I was a weirdo, that’s also a possibility.

“What do you do?” I asked in a sigh, then sipped on my own lavender and vanilla latte with oat milk. (A sensible drink. Not too sweet.) she smiled, looking relieved to be able to talk about herself.

“I’m a tattoo artist.” She said proudly, I nodded and smiled at her; not my biggest smile, mind you. More of a smirk, honestly.

“Very cool, how long you been doing that?”

“Little over two years now.”

“Nice, you draw on girls’ arms a lot in class as a kid?” I chuckled, she looked surprised.

“Yeah, actually, I did.” This is how it starts, typically, now that I’m looking at this objectively. I start guessing some obvious yet arbitrary detail of her childhood, makes her almost feel like I was there. Which maybe seems like a stretch, before you realize kids all pretty well do the same shit over, and over, and over, and over again.

“I used to have a friend that did that a lot. I think she’s an artist too now, haven’t caught up with her in a long time.” I explain.

“Yeah, it’s hard to keep up with old school friends.” She admitted, and then I had to go in and ask my own stupid question.

“Why do you find it hard?”

She looked a bit taken aback again.

“I don’t know… I guess people just sort of drift apart?” She shrugged, I shrugged back.

“Yeah, I guess I just meant to ask if there was a specific reason for you. Some people drift, some people have a big blowout, some people never liked each other that much in the first place, ya know?”

She paused, and she looked me in the eyes. I try not to look people in their eyes, I find it confusing. It’s far too intimate, case in point. I look at the eyebrows, they’re far more indicative of what people are feeling anyway- and no one can really tell the difference. She stared at me for what felt like a long time, I almost asked what was wrong, but I knew that look of curiosity and confusion. Honestly I was impressed, myself, it had never happened this quickly as far as I had remembered.

“I’ve never met anyone like you before, have I?” She asked, I couldn’t help but smile at that, then sip my latte.

“Probably not, but you should be grateful for that.” Otherwise; the next six months would be entirely too predictable.