Super Sad True Love Stories: Booty Camp
If we have learned anything about you, the Gawker Readers, it is that most of you are constantly finding yourselves in romantic situations that you consider "creepy." Thank god we came along as an outlet for your not-so-sexxxy stories.
In today's final edition of Super Sad True Love Stories: inappropriate come-ons! Romance that was never meant to be! And a stunning pick-up line that really worked! (That last one is a lie.)
You can never go wrong with a romantic gift:
I still shudder when I think of this.
I was 27, working as a bartender in an upscale wine bar, along with my then-boyfriend who worked the serving shift. It was a mid-day Sunday shift, and the patrons were mostly mellow women, couples, families...nothing scandalous. So I never had a problem chatting with the regulars who sidled up to the bar.
This guy, we'll call him Mike (I think that actually might have been his name- I blocked so much I can't remember) came in once or twice before and made polite conversation. Didn't think much of it- it was pretty run of the mill stuff.
My next Sunday shift he comes in again, this time carrying a gift bag. He hands it to me, and asks me if my boyfriend is working. That probably should have been my clue to bop him on the head with a wine bottle and move along.
I open the bag, and pull out a pair of camouflage underwear that say "Booty Camp" on the ass. Now I'm extremely confused, considering I had never mentioned anything remotely related to camouflage, military, booty or boot camp and he knew my boyfriend worked with me. I had never flirted, smiled, winked, nothing, let more than maybe I looked him in the eye, either time he had been in before.
I wasn't totally sure how to handle it, other than put the (ew) camo underwear back in the bag, hand it back to him, and tell him his 'gift' was inappropriate.
Not the worst thing that's ever happened, but something about the fact that he was so misguided about how to approach a woman really freaked me out.
So yeah. People are creepy.
The end.
Or how about the gift of art?
I spent the entirety of high school working at a public library and I used to go to work right from school - Catholic school. Although we recently have learned libraries are full of creeps, it never dawned on me (or my parents, apparently) that a jailbait librarian Catholic school girl in uniform was basically a fetishist's wet dream.
I had a lot of weird encounters, but one event vividly sticks out to me - one of our jobs was to clean off the empty tables prior to close and shelve any abandoned books. One evening, there was a guy sitting at one such table who was a complete stereotype - long greasy black hair (parted down the middle!), mid-thirties maybe and a trench coat. For the forty-five or so minutes I was doing my job, he alternating between aggressively staring at me and scribbling on a piece of paper.
When he finally left, of course I was curious about what he had been so frantically writing. Well, he had left his piece of paper behind and it was a portrait - my face with a naked body. Below was his phone number...and a smiley face.
Needless to say, he was asked not to return to the public library.
Don't date no broke-ass man, girl:
Not so much a love letter, but love story with a great business card. I was at the Frying Pan during an especially broke summer of 2010. Started talking to an older guy who was an accountant, bragging that he worked at "Goldman". Shamelessly, that was all I needed to hear, as I wanted him to pay for my drinks and figured at the very least, he could help out with that. He was bragging endlessly about his job, and at some point I had to leave so he gave me his business card (I completely deserve what happened next). The company name at the top of the card? "Goldman Tax". .....Oh. I see what you did there.
Age is nothing but a number in your imagination:
Like many of the other sharers I also look really young for my age. A few years ago, when I was 26 and single I was coming home after a really really late celebration night out. I had just landed A Real Grown Up Job. And by late I mean the birds are tweeting and it's starting to get light out. Bleary eyed and half dead, I realize at the door to my building that I have no idea where my keys are. I lived with a very promiscuous room mate at the time and crossed my fingers, hoping she was a good girl that evening so she could let me in. Buzzing my apartment to no avail. Buzzed random neighbors buzzers, no luck. It was the kind of crappy building with no lobby and you need to key in from street level, so lurking in the entry hall was not an option.
For some reason, taking a nap in the nearby playground until a more human hour seemed like a great idea! This is early 2000s east harlem. So I find myself the most comfortable looking park bench, put my backpack on my lap (I had this over stuffed school bag from last day at work from non-grownup job) and fall into sweet slumber. Some time later I'm shaken awake by a middle aged dude, asking me why I ran away from home. Were my parents mean to me? Did I have step brothers who touched me in bad places? Was I a student at the nearby high school, because I looked familiar and sometimes he likes to watch the kids go by. Did I want a nice pink bed? He offered to let me stay in his spare room, and allow me to use his computer for my book reports. I'm listening to all this but concentrating more on getting my alcohol soaked muscles to flee! Right now. Thankfully the bright lights of a nearby Dunkin Donuts provided refuge
Stripper dudes get all the chixxx:
I was running early for an appointment so I stopped at a 7-11 for coffee. Beverage purchased, I come back to my car to find a DIY business card for a male stripper with a picture of himself, I assume, in an all white, baggy pants, bolero combo outfit as the background. Some semi-regular contact info on the front but the best was on the back. A hand scribbled note full of horribly misspelled words and grammar so bad I assumed he just learned how to read. I wish I had still had the card to share its full glory but it basically said how he thought I was beautiful but was too shy to approach me in person so he left a card asking to take me out some time. I laughed so hard I just hope he didn't stay around to watch me read the card. I'd feel bad I made an already shy stripper (that's a thing?) cry.
Some girls just don't know how to take a compliment:
I worked as a busser in a local dinner theater in my suburban Ohio town the summer before I left for college. I worked with two younger high schoolers from the neighboring town, a girl and guy who were friends. As is customary for suburbs in Ohio, residents of our fairly wealthy town looked down on this neighboring, working-class town. Being really young and dumb myself, I'd kind of assumed that both these kids were hicks as a result, but they ended up being really nice to me and quickly made me realize stereotyping is not nice (I'm a white girl, these things do not occur to us as early on in life for obvious reasons). Anyway, I spent the summer going out of my way to be really friendly with both of them because I felt like an ass for thinking badly of them initially. The girl and I worked in sections next to one other, and the guy washed dishes so I'd see him before shows and while I was bringing the gross, horrible plates into the back to be washed (dinner theater goers are complete animals, but that is an entirely different story). The show going on at the time was The Wizard of Oz, and because I had brown hair and sometimes wore it in braids, kids and parents would come up to me and ask if I was playing Dorothy before the show. The girl who played Dorothy didn't look anything like me, so they'd usually stop bothering me about it after the show began. The real Dorothy liked to flirt with all of the staff (all of the actors did, which struck me as weird because they were all from big cities and good looking while we were all...from Ohio). Well, throughout the summer, I would regularly hear the two kids from the neighboring town talking about Dorothy; the guy was always saying how pretty she looked and how nice she was. Eventually, I left for college 3.5 hours across the state, in a very small, rural town along with my boyfriend of 3 years. The day after I moved into my dorm, my phone rang. It was the girl I'd worked with from the neighboring town. She said she and her guy friend were downstairs, that he came to declare his love for me, and that when they were talking about Dorothy; they were really talking about me. Another notable detail: she mentioned he had a picture of me hanging from his rearview for the entire summer. I parked next to him everyday, never saw it, and cannot remember when the hell he had a chance to take a picture of me. Anyway, she wanted to know what dorm I lived in so they could come up and see me. I mumbled something about having a boyfriend and being busy, locked the door and took the phone off of the hook. I felt like a jerk afterward, but I just couldn't handle actually rejecting him. That must've
been one shitty 3.5-hour drive back for both of them.
Nowhere is safe—from love:
When I was 16 I lost my wallet at the mall. Two months later I get a handwritten letter mailed to my house with a photocopy of my drivers' license that informs me that I'm very, very pretty and Mr. Creepo would like to maybe have a relationship, and here's his contact information. I hand it to my dad, and he gets all stony faced and goes into his office with it, where he's going to "take care of it." Poor dads, seriously.
Thank you all for your Super Sad True Love Stories. On behalf of the men of the world: we're trying our best. God.
[Photo via Shutterstock]