Time Warp- 2014 edition in A New Chapter

The early 2010s was an odd time period for me.
I had finished college, started a new job, and like many..I was struggling to find my identity in the adult world. I still more or less felt like a kid. The hardest part was that many of my college friends had to move for work or more education. I had set my eyes on going to grad school and getting a doctorate. However, the economy was uncertain. I remember sitting down with my professor from Greece and she was very honest about it all. She told me that it took her about 10 years to get a teaching position. Meanwhile, she was working crap jobs and traveling all over the country to promote her name (out of pocket.) The economy being what it was, I couldn’t do it.

I was hanging out at a lot of message boards online and moderated some forums. From Reddit, my local community had a really strong following and one time they organized a party around Valentines Day. I had hung out with another guy (Morgan) from the site that had common interests before. We ate some food, had some drinks, and listened to the Dead Kennedys. We agreed to go.

I got there and it was a surprisingly chill group of people. We got trashed pretty quickly and the bar died down at around 10:00 PM. I kept flirting with a woman who was maybe 15 years older than me. Apparently she dressed as a scout trooper for fun. Most of the group migrated downtown for a bar with live music. I was too drunk and didn’t feel comfortable driving. She offered to give me a ride and we had some weird conversation on the way there. She was pretty trashed so I don’t know why I accepted it. We made it alive tho. In retrospective, I think maybe she was hoping I would make a move. But I didn’t because I was too drunk and didn’t pick up on stuff like that.

When I got there I went to the bathroom. Some drunk guy just showed up and dropped his pants instead of just lowering them to pee. He started crying and complaining about how women suck because you buy them stuff, take them to dinner, etc and then they just leave. Not the type of conversation I want while I’m trying to pee but whatever.

The music sucked and there was another guy who I met. We ended up being very good friends and still are to this day. He was leaving and I asked if he could take me back to the bar to be near my car. On the way back, we talked about the university (where he worked,) gaming, and some other stuff. We ended up chilling at that bar and eating some food.

That was a pretty good group of friends for a while. It had some odd controversies.
Morgan was a high roller and was constantly kept coming up with crazy ideas. He would buy the entire group shots of tequila. During multiple occasions I had to ask him to chill out since a lot of people didn’t have a lot of self-control for alcohol.

Probably one of the most bizarre parts of that friend group was when two of them decided to become poly. Surprise, it didn’t work. One time I was over to help them with some stuff and I knew they were following that lifestyle, I wasn’t going to bring it up. The girl confessed to having a mental breakdown when the guy started having dates (which seems to be common for this type of thing.) In the long-run, they split. The girl chose a guy who was “more fun” and he dumped her ass 2 months down the road. The guy settled down with one of his many girlfriends. They have a happy life now with multiple kids. Girl had to leave the state in shame and who knows what happened.

At work I had been hanging out a lot with Dan, a guy I still talk to daily.
He invited me to his birthday party once and it was probably one of the better adult parties I went to. The squad was mostly Dan and two of his other friends, Andy and Todd. He had more people over but they were couples, they were doing their own thing. We got trashed and went bowling. Again, I don’t remember who was driving..but bad idea. We listened to a lot of techno that night and kept having a blast driving around the city.

We got back and started up a bonfire.
We smoked some weed (which I rarely did) and sat around talking about random stuff. I believe we also played Call of Duty at some point. At around 4:00 AM we went to one of those late night diners and ate a ton. This one is famous in the area, its operated by an Albanian family. I was around that diner a few weeks ago and I was sad to find out that it was no longer 24/7. It made me a bit sad, it wasn’t just that evening but I have many fun memories of eating there late. While there, a girl and her friends kept talking to us. She was going through something. She said she wanted to go home with at least one of us but couldn’t. When she left she kissed all of us on the cheek and looked like she was about to start crying.

When I talk to Dan, it is interesting.
I wish we could have kept working together. He is a good guy to this day. I think he is not as motivated to do more tho. He is happy just taking trips here and there and smoking a lot. I have helped with recommendation letters a few times over the years. Talking to him feels a bit like a time capsule, still the same dude from way back then. Not everyone wants to push forward or achieve more..and that is okay.

Music: Wessebronner Gebet by In Extremo

See You Later Space Cowboy.