Grindr 'Til You Findr

I tried my damnedest to put this elegantly, but I can't. So here it is:

When I was out of town a few weeks ago, I downloaded Grindr. And then hilarity ensued. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with Grindr, Google it. Because I don't have the language to explain it. I would would inevitably make it seem like something it's not. Plus, I'd just end up sounding like A.) a desperate pincushion of a man-tramp or B.) a hypocritical closet ho. There's no option C. because horny and fake are pretty much the only pigeonholes for me to fall into here and I'm already dealing with both labels (I'm horny and fake if you didn't catch that). 

The mark of the beast.

For those of you on my level, please congratulate yourselves. You're just as gross as me. High-five. 

Like most users, I have weird love-hate relationship with Grindr. In fact, I was Grindr-free from last November until my recent foreign excursion. It’s not that I’m too good to use it while I’m at home in Lafayette. It’s that I’m WAYYY [with three Ys] too FUCKING [and then the F word] good to use it while I’m at home in Lafayette. 

I’m not a very ostentatious person, but when it comes to certain things (like getting a haircut at the mall or eating at The Golden Corral Buffet), I have a limit of what I’m willing to put myself through – Grinding in my city of residence being one of them. There’s too much potential for something dicey to happen. But as you’ve probably figured out by now, my abstinence from The Daily Grind is suspended when I cross state or country lines. Which serves as the backdrop to my last trip to San Antonio. 

The trip itself was pretty phenomenal and yielded the following stand-out Grindr moments:

1. My friends and I got lost on our way to a Mexican restaurant, so I asked a dude on Grindr for help with directions. You know. Because he’s a local. Turns out, the little bastard led us further from our destination and then asked me if I was free to hang out later. Some people’s children, right?
2. It’s night No. 2 and my brain is practically floating in High Life. I’d been talking to a certain guy throughout the day, and I have zero intention of anything actually happening. But I’ve just given away my location, and luckily for me, he’s right across the street at another bar. So on my way to the car, I message him back and say, “Hey, run outside and I’ll catch you on our way to the hotel.” I intentionally used the phrase “catch you” because I wanted to leave things open-ended depending on what he looked like in person. “Catch you” could either mean wave to you from a moving vehicle or physically drag you back home with me because you were so incredibly good-looking that I could not live without you. And as we slowly careered to a stop in front of his bar, I saw him walk out onto the sidewalk. And that’s when I screeched, “Gun it!” and frantically waved out the window. The last message I received from him read: “I told you the wrong bar. Have you left yet?”
3. I’d started talking to a guy within the first few hours of my arrival, and continued the conversation for the following three days. On the fourth morning, I was sitting at a table with three of my friends, enjoying the delicious waffle sandwiches with which the Hampton Inn had provided the instruments to create, and this guy walks up to the table. I look up. He looks at me. And he says, "Ryan? My name's C.J. It's nice to finally meet you in person." And then, I felt like I was going to have diarrhea. The two girls at the table looked absolutely bewildered, and the other gay guys were visibly fighting the urge to explode. I, on the other had, was mortified. So I stood up, shook his hand, and walked him away from the table and down the hall. We made plans to hang out in the evening, which I regrettably had to break a few hours later, and I hugged him goodbye. Then we meandered in separate directions and I never saw C.J. again. Upon my return to the table, I was met with looks of confusion and hysteria. So I did the sensible thing and shoved half of my waffle sandwich into my mouth to buy a few more seconds before anyone could ask questions.

I hadn’t been to San Antonio since 2008 when The Dean took me to the wedding of some graduate school colleagues. I was ready to make this city my bitch again, one trick at a time. And with Grindr in hand, I made my way through the most audacious and annoying state in the union. This was a great plan and it probably would've worked if I hadn't been shithoused the entire time. To clarify: even though my Grindr self-restrictions had been disbanded, I never did a single sexual anything the entire trip.

Let's see M. Night Shimmynomanom write a twist ending like that.