TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I’ve always dated older guys — not only because it makes my mom mad (haha kidding) — but because older guys are usually smart and funny and mature and generally much nicer.

They don’t lie about being in high school, for example.

Yet, one older guy I dated, Ryan, didn’t start off as Prince Charming. But then again, we met under false pretenses.
He thought I was older than I was, and I thought he was younger than he was.

That was the problem with my 19-year-old self having a fake ID. False advertising.

I had an AWESOME fake ID when I was in college. It worked everywhere and when I’d come home to New Orleans for fall breaks and summer vacations, I hardly ever had to use it.

One break, I was at a bar uptown with my twin sister, Joy, and we were chatting at a table when two guys came up to flirt with us. Fortunately for me, the guy who talked to me was actually quite cute.

Ryan and I went on a few dates, just the two of us, and he was funny and nice and I liked him and he paid for my drinks. On our fourth date, we made a plan for our friends to meet.

“You’ll love Jason!” he said to me. “He likes his pancakes with honey like you do!” (Or, whatever.)

“Yea, well, you’ll like my friend Sarah, she's HILARIOUS!”

This was all very exciting.

Getting ready to go to the gathering, I called my friend, Natalie, also 19 years old.

“Hey, when you meet Ryan tonight, can you ask him casually how old he is?” I asked her. “Like randomly ask him.”

See, NOT THAT IT WAS A BIG DEAL, but I noticed that Ryan had a bit of a bald spot on his head when he was bent over playing pool.

And when we’d talk about music that we liked, he had a more…dated love for the Doobie Brothers and The Grateful Dead.

“Oh Lord,” Natalie said, unsurprised by my predicament.

We agreed to meet at a dive bar that was accepting of older and younger patrons and I knew right when I met his friends that he was much older than I was. Not that his friends weren’t fun, chatting with my young, hot friends.

But Ryan was clearly the youngest-looking and youngest-acting person of his group.
Natalie noticed, too.

I remember sitting at the bar next to Ryan, when she came over and draped her arms over each of us, putting her face in between us.

“HOW OLD ARE YOU?” Natalie asked Ryan in front of my face. NOT CASUAL, NATALIE!!!!! NOT CASUAL!!!!

“27,” he said.
“BAH!” Natalie laughed. LAUGHED. And then walked away. (How very 19 of her.)

I sat there and squinted my eyes shut for a few seconds and then opened one eye to see if he was looking at me. He was.

“Um, how old are…you?” he asked me.

“Um, guess.” I said, trying to be flirty.

“Twenty-two, twenty-three?” he said.

I shook my head.

“TWENTY, TWENTY-ONE?” he asked, with a little more desperation.

I shook my head.
He suddenly looked sick to his stomach.

“Please tell me that you’re over 18,” he said.

“I’m…nineteen,” I said, sheepishly.

Silence.

“Oh, well, that’s cool,” he said uncomfortably, ordering another beer. “You’ve got a fake ID, then?”

I nodded, squinting again.

We ended up having a nice time for the rest of the night and he took me home and acted like he still liked me but at brunch the next day, he was singing a different tune.

“I can’t date someone who’s 19,” he said, after ordering a Bloody Mary.
“Um...OK,” I said.

“I mean, you’re younger than my younger sister.”

“Well, I can’t very well change my birth certificate,” I said, playing with my breakfast.

“I know. I'm sorry.”

Suddenly, he stopped talking and called the server over to get the bill, even though I wasn’t done eating.

“Wanna split it?” he said. “I don’t have enough for the whole thing.”

(FYI, He would have had enough if he hadn’t gotten a Bloody Mary.)

I paid my half of the bill (UGH!) and left and decried all men to Joy when I got home.
“I can’t believe he made you split the bill,” she said. “That’s just adding insult to injury.”

Two weeks later, however, Ryan came crawling back. He met me at the first bar we ever met, and he profusely apologized and said he was sorry, he knows you can’t change how old you are, and said something about FATE and that he'd get over the age thing because we really clicked and he missed me.

(I was also a hot 19-year-old).

So, I agreed to be taken out and wined and dined and we actually dated for a surprisingly long time after that considering the shitty start.

I never saw him drink a Bloody Mary again.

-Jenny

P.S. Happy New Year y’all !!!! I’ve got a New Year’s post coming up but I’ve been terribly sick and took the day off work yesterday and could barely lift my head to watch Judge Judy, let alone type anything.
I’ll try to post it tonight unless my extreme UN-interest in the Sugar Bowl puts me to sleep at 9 p.m. zzzzzzz