Our first date was very L.A. We went on a ten a.m. hike in Griffith Park. It was December 2020, so issues had been shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic and choices had been restricted. Pandemic instances or not, a hike is a chief selection for a primary date. You every arrive because the uncooked, sober and daylight variations of yourselves. Plus, you’re shifting, so there’s someplace for all of that excited power to go.
After mountaineering for a number of hours, sure, hours, he provided me a trip house. I used to be a latest New York transplant, so I didn’t have a automotive. On the time, I didn’t even know find out how to drive. I do now. (In 2021, I employed a person named Steve to principally be my dad-for-hire and train me. Because of Steve, I’m now a proud California driver’s license holder and I’m at present leasing a two-door Mini Cooper as a result of I heard that they’re straightforward to park. They’re.)
So Josh, my date, drove me house after our hike. We had deliberate to hang around within the yard, however upon arrival at my place, we rapidly found that my neighbor was receiving an expert therapeutic massage within the communal yard. We determined to let her get pleasure from her “me time” in peace, so we stayed inside.
That’s the place it acquired nearly cringe-level corny. (Sorry prematurely for that, however that is my fact.) We continued to hold and chat in my little bungalow condominium in Los Feliz after I acquired a notification that the COVID take a look at I had taken the day earlier than was detrimental. After I introduced the information, Josh requested, “Does that imply I can kiss you?” (Corny, sure, however consent within the COVID period? We like to see it.)
I couldn’t say “sure” quick sufficient. We kissed and did different stuff too. Immediately it was 3 p.m., and we realized that if he didn’t depart then, we had been in peril of him staying ceaselessly. That was largely his name. As smitten as I used to be, I used to be 100% Workforce “Keep Without end!”
I placed on a shirt blessed with the likeness of a drag queen by the title of Alaska Thunderf—. I picked up that shirt on the Glendale Galleria Sizzling Matter, which nonetheless carries garments that remember my favourite popular culture icons.
Josh acknowledged Alaska’s flawless face on my shirt and requested, “Do you watch ‘Drag Race’?”
“Sure!”
“Oh, I used to be on the present.”
“On the present? Like, what do you imply?”
“I used to be on the present. In drag.”
He defined that he was a manufacturing assistant throughout Season 9 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Throughout that season, there was a makeover episode by which that week’s problem was for every queen to place a crew member in drag. He signed as much as be a type of crew members.
Being such an enormous fan of the present, I felt as if he had made up that element to impress me.
However it was true. He, a straight man, was comfy and open sufficient to conform to be in full, professional-level drag on nationwide tv. He did the rattling factor. He nonetheless has the scale 13 kitten heels to show it.
In that episode, he was paired with Shea Couleé. In the event you’re a “Drag Race” fan, you already know that Shea is among the finest to ever do it. In the event you’re a brilliant “Drag Race” fan and keep in mind the episode I’m speaking about, I had simply spent the day with Bae Couleé.
A lot about that day was particular. The heat that he emitted when he first sat subsequent to me. Feeling listened to and revered. A joke he made that genuinely made me giggle. The horny means he walked and took up area. How we each felt comfy sufficient to precise our best hopes and largest fears. One other corny content material warning right here, however I felt as if I already knew him.
This primary date was in contrast to each different date I had ever had. The “Drag Race” element tipped it into “Is that this man actual?” territory. Josh formally grew to become the good man I had ever met.
As a bonus, assembly him helped me heal my damaged religion in straight males. I’ve dad stuff galore, and I’ve been damage and manipulated by insecure and anger-driven males in my previous. I used to be kind of satisfied that the majority males I’d meet can be like this — that I’d be on the lookout for a person who “wasn’t that unhealthy” versus a person who was good.
Issues are positively getting higher with conversations and consciousness about poisonous masculinity on the rise. Nevertheless, there are nonetheless males on the market who aren’t in a position to get past their very own wants and needs, which they count on ladies to satisfy. They see ladies as extra “different” than human.
They don’t have the emotional maturity — and even the need — to actually contemplate what it’s prefer to stroll a day in a lady’s footwear. And but this man actually did that on the principle stage of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Spoiler: It did work out. For Josh and me, it has been greater than two years since that fateful, fabulous first date that began in Griffith Park. We now dwell collectively in East Hollywood, the place Josh runs his private coaching enterprise from our yard gymnasium.
Oh, and we’re engaged!
The creator is a comedy author who has written for a number of Nickelodeon exhibits. Observe her on Instagram for her scorching takes and footage of her cat, Motley: @jokesmagee
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