by b.s.
February 14, 2022, 6:30pm
Today I had my first dance with ethical polygamy. It’s hard to know exactly when I swiped right on him (plural), but after a long day of finding out that my exes are in new relationships, I opened tinder dot com to find a new message from EzraBenRobbie. He (plural) had texted me a short, sweet, sexy: “date with us 3”. At first I thought perhaps in referring to “us 3” he meant himself and the plural of myself implied by my they/them pronouns. But no, I revisited his profile and saw the bio read “It’s a package deal. We all show up. Best of three worlds”. With literally nothing to lose I agreed to the date, setting a meeting time for the lobby of Redstone Unlimited Dining. All three showed, clad with ties. One of him had forgotten his CatCard, and after fighting the Simpson bouncer, was admitted to the dining hall on the condition that he stayed after to hand squeeze single-use hot sauce packets into the bottles (a new initiative by UVM to maximize dining hall waste). He, despite being three people, ate out of a single bowl of white rice. We made the usual first date small talk (whether our moms are single, degrees of lactose intolerance, and crimes committed in the Wellness Environment). I learned that his names were Ezra, Ben, and Robbie and he was from Oregon, Colorado, and Massachusetts, respectively. He excused himself to use the bathroom in the designated area rather than his seat. He tipped the waitress. He threw ice cream at a dining hall worker. He offered me Dove chocolates (which I later unwrapped to find “Be(you)tiful” written inside the foil). He played footsie with me under the table, but while I used my feet he used his hands. He did a line of coke off his phone. He made a work call that was 16 minutes long. He made a mess on the table with the white rice, but picked it up grain by grain and ate it. EzraBenRobbie and I discussed our hobbies, dreams and fears. We sang a duet of Love by Nat King Cole. We held hands while throwing away our leftover food (I scraped my plate while he put his on the conveyor belt, never letting go of our four hands). The date was over an hour long, and during that hour I had deleted and redownloaded tinder twice. First I thought, this is love! He loves me and I love him! I deleted tinder, ready to spend the rest of my life with him, ready to conceive his children in the Redstone Unlimited Dining hall. No sooner had I vowed my love and devotion than he had received a text and call from his friend asking how the date went. Apparently the date was “a joke” all part of “a bit”. This wasn’t love, this was a cruel manipulation of my desperation. All along he had been on our date looking only for a laugh, at my expense. The chocolate was just a method of ironic flattery. The ties were a sham. Here I was, hoping to caress his butt, while the only butt all along was me. The butt of the joke. How could I have been so naive? I redownloaded tinder dot com. A tear started to slip down my cheek, but before I could wipe it away, his fifteen fingers brushed my cheek and caught it. He licked the tear off his hand and told me, “she doesn’t know what we have”. We left Redstone Unlimited Dining hall, hand in hands, and said our goodbye just outside the doors. I don’t know if there will be a second date, or even a third. What I do know is that what I have with EzraBenRobbie is special. He is both the man of my dreams and the men of my nightmares. He is vegan and he is not. His hair is so long yet so short. He will always be my Valentine.
Categories: b.s., mar 1, news, Uncategorized