seeking indie concert buddy - w4mw - 30

So several people have asked me to describe the strictly-platonic blind date I had on Wednesday night.

I call it a blind-date, but it wasn’t really. It seemed like what I’d expect a blind-date to be like. There were bouts of alcohol-induced conversation mixed with a few moments of me thinking, “What the hell do I say now? SHIT. Did we just pause too long?!” Etc.

Anyway, I met Myrna* through a Craigslist post where she said she was looking for people to accompany her to various indie shows in Chicago. She said in the post that she was thirty, so I was like, “Well, she’s too old for me / I’m too young for her,” but her ad asked for all response emails** to include the following:

1. Last three concerts you attended.
2. Last three albums you purchased.
3. Your three favorite beverages.
4. Three films you’ve been meaning to watch.
5. Three films you wish you could have enjoyed more.
6. Three books that have astounded you.

Of course, the idea of responding to an ad and having someone judge me on personal tastes and decide if was worthy enough for friendship based on my opinions made me really excited. (If only this was how people interviewed possible employees, I would have had a job in five days rather than five months.) Also, I was really bored at work that day, which is why I was reading all of the Craigslist ads in the first place, so I responded.

Myrna and I talked on Google Chat for a while. She’s from Chicago but went to George Washington University, so she understood why I moved away from Virginia. Since she’s been around for a while in Chicago Hipsterdom, she’s had encounters with people like Elliott Smith (“He bummed cigarettes off me.”), OK Go (“Those dudes kept hitting on me.”), and Liz Phair (“I saw her at a party once and she was a conceited bitch.”) Long story short, she invited me to go to this show at the Double Door, so I said yes, knowing that she was meeting other people from CL and Project Runway was really the only thing happening on Wednesday nights.

Before we made plans for her to pick me up, she said, “Hey, will you make me a mix CD so I can just your character?” Oh, WILL I? That’s pretty much the only reason to make mix CDs.

We got to Wicker Park (which I will from now on refer to as “The Crotch”) early, so we went to Filter for some coffee. Only I didn’t have coffee because I had already drank two glasses of red wine. (And don’t judge me. I wasn’t going into this situation without some Yellow Tail first.) We chatted for a while about random stuff like shows we had seen at the 930 Club and how I am only twenty-two. I think my age amused her, which is fine, because it’s kind of funny.

We headed to the show. She was expecting at least one other CL person to show up. He was a professor at DePaul, and he told her that he’d probably be by the bar “doing a crossword,” which I think made her nervous. She used me as a shield as we walked by the bar looking for “a short, brown-haired guy with a beard.” I asked, “Should I be looking for a corduroy jacket?” She replied, “If he’s wearing one, I’m OUT.” The Professor spotted Myrna and came up and talked to us, and he was fine and nice, but Myrna told me that he lied about his height (in other words, he was much shorter than expected).

There wasn’t really anything overly odd or crazy about the night. I drank a lot, but I don’t remember being drunk. I do remember a lot about the second opening band, just because I was surprised by how boring and bland they were. We made fun of them a lot. My memory of the headliner (Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s) is spotty. I wasn’t that impressed by them, but they were tolerable. Much better, at least, than their horrible, horrible band name. It also makes me angry that it’s grammatically incorrect. (THERE SHOULD NOT BE AN APOSTROPHE THERE.) Oh well.

The night turned out well, I’d say. I think my whole “finding friends on Craigslist” experiment is over, though. I like the old-fashioned way of stalking classmates on MySpace and then sparking conversations about their favorite musicians as if it’s just completely coincidental that we’re both fans of the same people.

But that’s just me.




*Not her real name.
**Myrna told me she received a lot of replies. “If you’re a woman posting an ad on Craigslist,” she said, “you’re going to get a lot of emails. And a lot of cock pics.”