I initially joined the online dating community in hopes of meeting new people around the city — people other than my peers at SF State. As the majority of you know, it can be tedious to actually make new friends, get into the dating scene or just casually get laid by randoms in the midst of our busy student lives. Ain’t nobody got time for the initiation period, so the thought of being matched up with someone and skipping all the man-shopping seemed way less stressful.

Throughout my serial online dating career, I’ve deactivated and reactivated my account probably a dozen times out of frustration, being utterly creeped out by the pictureless 50 year-old profile offering trips to Cannes in exchange for sex or just boredom. But I’m back now to once again give it another shot.

After receiving a witty, not-so-douchey message from an innocent looking guy I jumped at the opportunity. He was also a ginger: a soulless 24 year-old human walking the earth. I will refer to him directly as Ginger.

I let Ginger pick the place since I still have no idea where anything is even after five years of “living in San Francisco.” When he said “Let’s go to The Armory,” the first things that popped into my mind were BDSM tours, porn filming and possibly rape. Apparently across the street from the porn castle on 14th and Mission is a related bar, so I was a bit relieved. I obviously still tucked my pink taser and brass knuckle keychain into my Chanel bag, just to be safe.

I walk in at about 7:30 PM and see Ginger sitting at the uncrowded bar. He didn’t like about his looks; his height on the other hand though… He gets up (he’s a tad shorter than 5’10”, that’s for sure), we hug, I gave him a backhanded compliment on his flamboyant purple plaid button-up, and I take a seat next to him. A ginger version of Clark Kent is what he reminded me of. I was okay with this. After composing essays to one another the previous week, I felt comfortable in his presence during.

He already had a tab open and was sipping some kind of fancy whiskey.  I just ordered my go-to, a Moscow Mule, on his tab and I keep it a light night. I looked around the place whilst waiting for my drink. The ambiance was cool. There were weird sexual art pieces on the wall, dimmed orange lights, and comfy couches around a fireplace. I immediately (and accidentally) displayed my extremely annoying character, and demanded/requested the fireplace be lit by the bartender.

We made our way to the couch next to the fireplace and begin chatting about all that tired first-date crap and some Game of Thrones porn event to happen across the way at The Armory. Good times.

After about two hours of lingering the fireplace and laughing about stupid crap (because everything is funny when you’re drunk), it was 10:00PM, aka an hour past my bedtime because I’m a grandma. First dates are always iffy, especially when stranger danger is relevant. But I’d say this went well. Looks: check. Friendliness: check. Paid for my Lyft: check. Cat friendly: C H E C K!