How I spent my winter vacation…

Another one bites the dust…

Munich, Germany It could have been a great story to tell the grandkids – a truly romantic and serendipitous tale about the time Opa first met Oma while Oma was blackout drunk at a Christkindlmarkt. But, (un)fortunately, no hypothetical children (or grandchildren) were destined to materialize between myself and the random guy I allegedly made out with while blackout drunk at a Bavarian Christmas market this past holiday season. Glory to the baby Jesus!

I’ve told you already that Christmas market season is dating season in Munich. Perhaps it’s the magical ambience of snow gently falling into a steaming cup of hot wine, or perhaps it’s just that German efficiency sending the local men into a frenzy to lockdown a Valentine’s Day date with sufficient planning time to spare.  But for me, at least, this Christmas market season was not dating season, as I had grown far too busy with work obligations to have time to be jerked around and/or grossly disappointed by all the “great catches” and no-effort fuckboys swimming around on The Apps. However, as Cupid is to Valentine’s Day, surely there is some little winged devil-krampus buzzing around the markets and causing all kinds of sexy mischief. Because this year, despite my full-on avoidance of mulled wine dates, I seemed to be in the firing line of Cupid’s Christmas cousin.

Out of the kindness of my cold, little heart, I agreed to show an American girl I had just met earlier in the day some of the best Christmas markets Munich had to offer – and since drinking alcohol is essentially the main focus of the markets, well, this unofficial tour quickly went off the rails. And it certainly didn’t help things that we started the evening with three feuerzangenbowle before heading off to sample an unending cornucopia of Christmas spirits. So after taking her around to all of the best Christmas markets in Munich’s inner city (and downing all the must-drink bevvies in each locale) we proceeded to take things to the next level and tackle the infamous Tollwood Festival.

Here’s what I remember.

First of all, the winter Tollwood Festival is essentially an XXL Christmas market with a better variety of food, drinks, shopping and entertainment. It’s also set on the Oktoberfest grounds so you know there’s got to be a lot of bad, drunken energy in that place (if you’re into that sort of thing, that is). Anyway, we continued on in our drinking tour, but Tollwood isn’t a place for gentle, low-alcoholic mulled wine, but rather for harder and more adventurous cocktails like hot Mojitos and flaming Mai Tais. The last thing I remember, after devouring Bavarianized pierogis in a vain attempt to sober up, was drinking the above mentioned hot Mojito while passionately discussing the importance of Pitbull.

That’s right Pitbull, as in, Mr. 305, Mr. Worldwide. See, Pitbull is like my safe word. If for some reason I start talking about Pitbull totally unprovoked (meaning, a Pitbull song isn’t actually playing at that moment), it probably means I’ve reached a dangerous level of intoxication. I don’t know why Pitbull, but it’s always Pitbull. Anyway, this American girl didn’t know me that well, so she didn’t realize that Pitbull was her cue to mix-in a water – hence this being the absolute last thing I remember of our fun and festive night out.   

I think it was around 10PM when Mr. Worldwide showed up to crash the party. After that, the next thing I knew I was walking in the front door of my apartment with a takeout McDonald’s bag in one hand and my phone in the other. It must have been the ding of a text message coming through that snapped me out of my apparent blackout. As I looked down at my phone to check this mysterious text, I could see it was just after 11:30PM. The nearly two-hour amnesia quickly became the least of my concerns when I realized the message was coming in from an unknown number with some shocking revelations.

“Hi. I’m not sure if you remember me, but we met in the Silent Knight tent at Tollwood tonight. I really liked kissing you 😉 and I hope I can see you again.”

Ruh roh.

The good news was his Whatsapp profile picture revealed that he was really good looking. The bad news was I didn’t remember meeting any guys, kissing any guys or giving out my number (to any guys). I couldn’t be bothered to dwell on the embarrassment of what I may or may not have done to this poor man at that moment, though, as my thoughts quickly turned to concern for the American girl I had been with and what had become of her. Had I abandoned her? Did I make sure she found her way back to her hotel safely? Does she hate me now? I could see that at some point in the night we had become Facebook friends, so at least that was a good sign, right?

This night at the Christmas markets was one of those textbook life-lessons about the consequences of switching your liquors that we all learn as teenagers, yet somehow still occasionally and stupidly forget in adulthood – and then we hate ourselves for it. It was one of those nights that make you swear off drinking for the rest of your life because, unlike when you were 18 years-old, McDonald’s is no longer a hangover miracle cure. Yeah, I was sick allllllllll night and felt like I had been hit by a truck for the next 24 hours – at least.

In the harsh light of day, I also started to worry about what I had potentially done the night before. I cautiously messaged the American girl on Facebook and then waited just like a spider for her reaction, “Had so much fun last night. Hope you made it to the train station in time for your bus tour today.” I had said. She eventually wrote back saying that she had a great time, too, so I felt a little more confident that I didn’t abandon her and that she didn’t hate me… or so I thought.

As for my mystery make-out, I played along at first. Acted like I totally remembered him because now curiosity had the better of me. I had to go on one date with this guy. I had to know if blackout me makes better decisions with men than sober me. As it turned out, he didn’t actually live in Munich, but about an hour and a half away in another Bavarian city. On the positive side, though, he claimed he spent about four or five days a week in Munich and so the distance shouldn’t have been too much of a hindrance. He asked me to meet him for drinks about four days later (so much for never drinking again!) the next time he was staying in Munich. I agreed, but decided to keep it a secret that I didn’t actually know who he was. I had at least seen a photo of him, so basically it was no different than me meeting a stranger off The Apps.

Unfortunately, on the morning of what was supposed to be our date, he texted me that he felt like he “might” be getting a cold and he “has to be careful” because he will go on vacation to Egypt at the end of the week. This is what happens when you date 40 year-olds, I remember thinking to myself. They no longer have the same amorous motivations of a man in his 20’s. Can’t think of a time a 25 year-old ever cancelled a date on me because he was worried he could maybe, possibly catch an itty, bitty cold. Another strike for Grandpa.

The shittiest thing about this was that I needed to go on this date.  I needed to know not only the details of the night at Tollwood but also how this particular story was going to end. However, due to this pathetic excuse for a cancellation, I would now have to wait 6 weeks before I would even get a chance to meet the guy I kissed in a drunken stupor – because as soon as he got back from his sunny vacation, I was on a plane headed for a balmy Canadian Christmas. Sadly, it would have been a lot better to rip off this Band-Aid much, much sooner.

It didn’t take long to realize that there was something off about Grandpa. The first thing I noticed was his eyes. Every photo of himself he sent me during this 6-week texting courtship – selfies in Egypt, selfies by the Tannenbaum – they all had these same dead, vacant eyes. My girlfriends didn’t notice this, though. All they focused on were his looks and his muscles and whenever I would show them some of these pictures, they would simply reply, “Oh! You can have fun with that!”

Further to having an almost robotic appearance he was a pretty awkward conversationalist too. He would text me every day and all day, mostly just asking me what I was doing and then why I was doing it. It was really starting to irritate me like I was trapped in a never-ending cycle of whys with an inquisitive toddler. And to be honest, it was weirding me out that he was talking to me 24/7 like he was really desperate for the attention of a total stranger. But I told myself I only felt this way because in my mind he’s like a Tinder guy I haven’t met yet, but in his mind I’m a girl he has met, talked to and made out with.  Perhaps he wasn’t desperate, perhaps I had just done a number on him. I mean, when people blackout the first thing that happens is they lose their inhibitions, and since I am fairly uninhibited in my natural state, I can only imagine what happened when the veil was lifted and the dragon was unleashed. Maybe I was just the best thing that had ever happened to him, and it was kind of nice that he was doing everything in his power to try to secure his position in the race for my heart.  

During my holiday in Canada, I eventually confessed to Grandpa that I didn’t actually remember kissing him (although I maintained that I did remember meeting him – a lie). I did this because my patience was waning with these dead-end conversations and I was very quickly losing interest in actually meeting him. “You missed the best part!” he LOL’d before he proceeded to tell me what had actually happened between us. As it turned out, I was actually the one to make out with him and he noted that I was “slightly aggressive” but he “liked it 😉 .”

Him: Your friend was angry, though.

Me: What? Why?

Him: She was mad because we kissed.

Me: How do you know?

Him: She told me she was mad because we kissed and she wanted to kiss me.

Me: She told you she wanted to kiss you?!

Him: Yes.

Dramz. I was horrified to learn the truth about that night and shocked to learn that I had been in competition with that nice American girl and made her jealous. But on the bright side, I thought maybe my fears and reservations about Grandpa were way off base. If the other girl, who seemed totally normal and sane, was into him perhaps he was normal and not some weird humanoid as I was beginning to suspect he was.

Six weeks is a long time to go without a date, though. And Grandpa’s texts were getting weirder and he was becoming a lot less attractive in my books. For starters he said weird and creepy things – like asking me if anyone in my family had given me sex toys as a Christmas gift. Uhh no. And when he asked me what I had been up to during the day, and I reported to him that I had a massage,  he told me if I had a happy ending it will make him jealous. Alriiiight. Grandpa was starting to seem like he was hoping for fuckboy status with me, but the fact that he was spending so much effort just to get in my pants made me concerned for his potential short-comings that have caused him to be so desperate for a lay.  My friends remained positive, though, and said, “Oh, he’s probably just bad at flirting,” which, I guess, once more put him back in the heart of humanoid territory.

Would-be fuckboy or hopeless humanoid, for the sake of curiosity I tried with all my might to believe the best of Grandpa. And I adopted the catchphrase of, “WOW! That must have been some kiss!” whenever he did or said something that came across as too desperate. I tried to believe that it’s not that he’s flawed (and therefore desperate for a date) but rather he’s smart enough to know that I’m fucking awesome. But just like that time the guy bought me two flights to the Bahamas and I thought that meant I was awesome, only to find out I’m not awesome and he also sucks, yeah, basically this story is going in that direction too.

A few days before my return to Munich and the end of my winter vacation, I did a little road trip into Western New York. I had always been curious about Lily Dale, NY – a gated community of alleged psychics and spiritualists (if you’re into that sort of thing). I always wondered what the people living there would be like, what this place would be like, and if these alleged psychics would have to pass a series of trials in order to earn the right to buy a house there. I mean, did you have to be the real deal or did you just have to have the cash to move in?

Of course, I couldn’t leave Lily Dale without meeting a couple of the alleged psychics and judging them for myself. I was deeply disappointed. Mostly they just started describing various “spirits” that wanted to give me a message. When their descriptions failed to match any person living or dead that I knew of, they told me it “didn’t matter.” When I asked them what the message was from these spirits, I was told the spirits just wanted to say “Hi.” Wow… what a life-changing revelation.

One of the psychics did tell me, though, that there was a chance for me to have a romantic relationship with a man right at this very moment. “Oh god!” I thought. Grandpa was the only guy who had made a move on me in so long, was he my only hope for Netflix to not be my valentine (again) this year?

“You’re too picky,” the psychic had said. “You meet men who meet some of your expectations but never all of them.” Maybe this was just another unimportant (and inaccurate) message from “the other side” because honestly I sometimes worry that my standards are actually really, really low now. I mean, in the wake of The Apps there is sure to be a renaissance for the Nice Guy. After years of swiping, I think all women are ready for a man to treat us like we are even just a little bit special and not just one of three thousand other matches in his Tinder stack. Hell, I’ll probably marry the first man who buys me a half-wilted rose from one of those guys working the tables at literally every Italian restaurant anywhere in the world. How pathetic is that? I’d like to think I don’t nitpick or tear men apart over little things. The big things, on the other hand, I can’t abide.

One big thing, to me anyway, is having nothing in common on a fundamental level. For me, this means I want/need a person whose essence is spontaneous, adventurous, worldly and flexible – like I believe myself to be. And guess what, the stereotypes in Germany are kinda true, and I tend to meet guys who are rigid, structured and unadventurous more than anything else. The more Grandpa texted me, the more I realized he was a total bore. Although he had lived in the US for a few months for work, he had no interest in ever living anywhere else ever again because nothing is better than Bavaria. Also, evidently, one does not take holidays in January and February as these are not the correct months for holidays. We were obviously not at all alike on a basic level, so his motivation for even wanting to see me again made him seem even more desperate.

Once we left Lily Dale and continued on to a ski town about an hour away, Grandpa finally did something that (finally) got an eyebrow raise from my friends and family. Grandpa had jumped off Whatsapp and sent me a good old-fashioned SMS. He was informing me that he was spending the weekend in an Alpine cabin and that the signal wasn’t very good and he didn’t want me to think he was ignoring me for the next two days. I guess he must have crossed some universal invisible line with this text, as I was no longer the only person who thought he was a little too eager to appease a woman he had never even gone on one, single date with.

A week later and back in Munich, it was finally date night. My motivation for the date was really, really low by this point, but for the sake of the story (this story, I guess), I followed through with it. I wanted the story to be different. I wanted him to be normal. I wanted to be the kind of girl that a normal guy gives this much attention to. I wanted to tell my grandkids about Oma’s wild nights at the Christmas markets, but no. This is just another terrible story of yet another bizarre encounter.

For about three seconds I was impressed with him. When he walked in, albeit awkwardly, he looked pretty hot and he really knew how to fill out his shirt. But then he opened his mouth and all remaining hope died a horrible death. He didn’t just have vacant, robotic eyes, he had a voice to match. And whenever he said anything it grated on my ears like rigid, awkward nails on a chalkboard.  As for the conversation, well, it was boring and truly the worst. I think the group of people at the table next to us actually felt embarrassed for me as they continuously looked over at us in smug amusement.

You have to understand that it is actually my job to talk to people. I can make conversation with pretty much anyone, so it says a lot about someone when I can’t get one off the ground. He stuck to his favourite topic of conversation – mostly the correct way to do various things and complaining that things in Munich are not as good as things in his small city (his city is the correct one, I think). But my favourite thing of all was when he informed me that he had spent the weekend cleaning his apartment and I replied that I was supposed to do that too but wasn’t successful. “You should go to university because studying will teach you the discipline you need to clean your house.” Yes, he really said it. (And FYI I did graduate from university).

When the waiter came to see if we wanted to order a second drink, I quickly declined, “I think I might be getting a cold so I probably shouldn’t drink anymore.” I lied, of course, in hopes that Grandpa’s fear of the common cold would make him go away. However, being the oblivious humanoid that he is, Grandpa interpreted this as he could order a second drink while I sit there without a drink and watch him drink it. And I swear to god with every sip a creepy, robotic smile curled across his face –so fucking oblivious.

I basically checked out of the conversation and the date at that point, I couldn’t handle any more of his voice or his completely uninteresting anecdotes. I sat there waiting for him to finish his drink – thirsty and hating myself. I wondered if the terrible psychic was right and I was too picky. I wondered what my girlfriends would do in this situation, as certainly I had seen them from time to time in our younger days drunk, horny and desperate enough to go home with a guy they had previously claimed they never liked or found attractive. I, however, have never really crossed that line because I know I will feel terrible about it the next morning. Did that make me weird? Uptight? Unadventurous? Did that make me more superficial or less? As I sat there listening to Grandpa prattle on, I couldn’t help but take stock of his good looks and nice body, and wonder why this wouldn’t be enough for me not even for just one night. I guess there is a part of me that wishes I could be like that, but alas, for me, the guy’s personality is the difference between feeling excited or feeling disgusted the morning after.

Like I said, it could have been a great story, but I guess (unsurprisingly) nothing good can come from getting blackout drunk. Luckily, this is only the second time in my entire life that something like this has happened, so I should be able to remember all of my dates from here on out. Unfortunately, though, if that terrible psychic was right and Grandpa was my only chance at romance, well, with less than three weeks to go, it looks like there’s a strong possibility that it’ll just be Netflix and I this February 14th. But I suppose there are worse things.

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