Entry #0308
When I turned 21, I went to the bar and met a cute 24 year old German guy. We flirted and agreed to meet for dinner after he was done with work a few days later. He showed up at the restaurant for our date looking dashing and brandishing a Kroger bag. He said he had a surprise for me, but I had to wait for dinner.
Inside, he started the conversation: “For work, I do internet research, so I look you up…” he had written down the times for races I had run, when and where; poetry that others with my name had written; high school info, sports articles, and “your records.” I thought he’d hacked into the school system to find my grades, but really he had found my online journal from my studies in France, where I mostly wrote stories of crashing my bike into different bushes and trees. He felt it was important enough to take notes and read them back to me.
I then pretended for another half hour that he wasn’t totally creepy and made some small talk over mediocre pizza. He felt we should go dutch, so I split the bill, and then he revealed his grand Kroger-bag surprise: eight packets of photos.
“I went to Thailand last year; I’ve also been to South Dakota. What do you want to see first?” We had discussed neither, nor travel. I chose Thailand.
Somehow he managed to grope my breast and thigh before the night was over. I’m still not sure how that happened.
That was the last I ever saw of him, although I did get a hopeful email invite the next day.