Hey, do I know you from somewhere? You look really familiar. Did we go to college together? No, I went to Penn State. High school? No, I’m from New York. Middle School? No, I never graduated. Don’t walk away, we can definitely figure this out!
What do you do for work? Advertising, huh… Have you ever advertised for torso underwear? Underwear but for the middle part of a person? That’s crazy, it’s a really emerging market, I can send over some numbers to get you in on the ground floor… Right, sorry…
How do I know you?
Do you live around here? Down on Fourth St., you say? No, I actually live in the old bell tower at city center. Mostly freelance bell ringing. Doesn’t pay a lot but it’s some nice walking around money. It’s your face though, maybe I’ve seen you from the top? No, that would be way too far away, and I rarely ever use the binoculars anymore.
Do you know Emily? Jen? Owen? Tess? Braxton? Matt? Matt 2? Matt 3? Who the hell do you know? I don’t know a Kyle. Do you know Maddie? Shannon? Kaley? Kaley! From Michigan? Nope, different Kaley.
If I said “Two birds by the dam, a ship in the night” would you have any response? Any preselected phrase that might trigger some sort of secret society or something? No? Okay, yeah that was just a hypothetical thing.
Were you a club kid? Have you clubbed a kid? A guy I know got arrested for that, was it you?
I don’t really know how trauma responses work, but try saying something like “I hate you, you're not my kid.” Nope, still nothing. Are you in a book club?
Did you go to Ava’s Hanukkah party in 2021 and we ended up playing a really elaborate and confusing card game and some guy there broke up with his girlfriend in a really public way and then she cried the whole time but her Uber took like 25 minutes to get there so we all just kind of watched? Or the 2022 one?
Did you run track in high school? Did you walk track in high school? Do you see a high school near us? If so, can we move this discussion to farther away? I’m afraid of teenagers.
Are you in a band? You are! Is that band One Direction? No, that would be crazy, Zayn lives all the way out in Bucks County, he’d never come into the city. XIXIX? I’m not even sure what you’re saying to me right now.
Okay, let me rapid fire some things at you and see if any of these land:
Did you go viral for an autotuned news clip in 2012?
Do you have a snapchat channel where you cut up soap?
Do you have a hot partner with a public profile?
Did you do something evil recently?
Did I match with you on Hinge four years ago and uncover all your information before we even met? Yeah, that would be crazy if someone did that…
Are you a hot barista?
Are you a regular barista?
Are you a hot bartender?
Are you a regular bartender?
Did you once wrong me before I went to therapy for a year and I’ve moved so far past our hatred that I have fully repressed your appearance?
Do you do TikTok ASMR videos?
Were you in those Free Credit Report dot com commercials?
Nothing?
Oh I know, were you on a CW show for one episode in 2007, and now act in background work so extensive that your iMDB looks like a BuzzFeed list of productions affected by the writer’s strike?
That’s it! I loved you in Gossip Girl. Can I get a photo?