Thanks for sharing, and happy holidays
One time like 10 years ago I was at a party and my crush was there. It was a bunch of musicians and basically everyone was smoking weed, but she was one of maybe 3 drunk people there. She was slurring her words, falling down drunk and no one was helping her.
She slurred out “I need to go to the b***room…” So I thought she either needs to go to the “bathroom” because she’s gonna be sick, or the “bedroom” because she’s gonna pass out and it’s her friend’s house. I help her back to the hallway - bedroom’s one side, bathroom is the other - and she pulls me toward the bedroom.
Now this girl was blasted… There’s no way I’m gonna try anything. I just wanna get her to a place where she won’t fall and break her face or drown in her own vomit.
I helped her to the bed and turn to leave and she grabs my leg…
Her: “Come on…” Me: “come on, what?” Her: “do your thing… Do your stuff” Me: “What stuff?”
(She sits up)
Her: “you… And me…” (Wildly smashes hands together) Me: “yeah… That doesn’t seem like a good idea” Her (still slurring her words): “come ooonnnn, I’m not that drunk” Me: “Tell you what. If you give me three coherent sentences so I know the lights are on, and I will fuck you into next weekend.” Her (eyes rolling in opposite directions): “buh… Gahnt… Ack…lep” Me: “ok. Good night. I’ll let Friend know you’re back here”
I go to walk away and she grabs me again.
Her (suddenly lucid and making eye contact with perfect speech): It’s now or never dude. Me: “Well in that case it’s never.”
So I walked away, because I don’t need that kinda mindfuck.
I’m happily married to someone with the same first name.
Drunk girl died of cancer.
When I was in my 20s a guy wanted me to maintain his website that sold do l delivery service of food to college kids and it would have been my first paying gig doing it but he wanted to pay me in “equity” which at the time translated into he wanted free labor and I ghosted him.
About 10 years ago he sold his company to Grub Hub for a few hundred million. Fucked that one up.
He would’ve screwed you anyway. “Equity” is so laughably easy to dilute to nada in startups through various means that there are numerous articles and parodies of it out there.
I worked for a startup that didn’t meet its VC’s “valuation” goal even though we were stupidly profitable nearly from day one. Market-forces driven downround. When I left, the options I had were previously promised to be worth hundreds of thousands but because of dilution, weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. I didn’t let them give me options “in lieu of base comp” though, so I ended up ok but not everyone did.
I’d met a guy in a hostel in America. I was about to finish second year of uni and we heard about this work abroad program, so we did it for the summer and I met him when I checked into a dorm room at the end of the trip. We had a little fun, and then I flew home.
Six months later and we had the odd conversation on Skype, it seemed like there was still some chemistry there. During half term break, we talked again and he suggested meeting up again to figure out if this was more than a fling. So we looked at dates and I realized my final year’s exhibitions and exams blocked pretty much everything for the foreseeable future. We hung up the call and I carried on browsing flights and then I saw it. $250 for a return flight to California, leaving in 48 hours.
He’d already gone to bed, so I couldn’t call him back to discuss plans. So fuck it, I put in my card details and my finger hovered over the buy button. It’s now or never, so I clicked the button. BOOKED. I sent him a message and started packing for my trip. Yikes.
I’d got a message back that he’d pick me up from the airport, and as the plane touched down in San Diego I was freaking out that the spark might not be there or he might decide he doesn’t like me anymore, it’s been six months and our initial fling was a drunken party at a hostel.
But he was there waiting at the bottom of the elevator, and my heart absolutely flipped its shit when I saw him. We spent the next seven days inseparable, it was one long date, and it was incredible.
Fast forward six years and we’re saying our vows in the park where we took our first romantic walk. We posed for wedding photos in the hostel room where we met. Fast forward another seven years and I’m laying in bed typing this, while he does a conference call in the office next door. Our spark is still there, and I love him so much.
My USMC recruiting officer didn’t want me to go home and confer with family, but sign the papers right away before I walked out of the office. That’s when I decided he seemed a bit too desperate.
Dozens of stories from vets later (many with TBIs who couldn’t get proper treatment) I engage in counter-recruitment now.
It’s going better than it was before. I haven’t been laid in six years, but it was worth it to leave her.
