This is an essay from the vault that’s never been published. I started writing it in 2019, and like most things of that era, it went a little wayward.
I recently read it and wanted to revive it, if only because it has mention of Marcus talcum powdering his balls in it.
“I’m going to kill table five,” I shoot Marcus a death glare, and he gives me a look. “No, like, for reals, I’m actually going to kill them.”
Marcus is used to my dramatics, but this time I knew he’d agree with me.
“Why would you come to a seafood restaurant if you have an allergy to seafood?” I rant.
Marcus doesn’t get a chance to answer the question. It was not an actual question, and he’s well-versed enough to know this.
“Not just one allergy, Marcus,” I continue. “There’s seven. Seven out of the ten people in this family have some sort of seafood allergy.”
I load my tray up with the crab cakes and abalone that sit in the kitchen window, and use my hip to push open the swinging doors that lead to the dining room.
“I want to know the thought process behind the decision to eat here,” I continue. Not missing a beat once I’m back in the kitchen and piling the rest of the order onto my tray.
Marcus and I are both restaurant veterans, so we’ve honed the ability to carry on conversations without interruption, despite all the actual interruptions that are taking place.
Except that right now, it’s less conversation, and more just me ranting.
I tell my manager about table five’s seafood allergies, because I’m certain that somehow over the course of the shift, their seven allergies will all eventually become my fault.
My manager's only response is that “You can’t fix stupid.” I have a rare moment of appreciation for him.
It’s 2019 and I’m twenty-seven years old, following my life’s calling waiting tables at a crab shack in the central coast of California.
That’s a joke. Not the part that I wish was a joke- the waiting tables at a crab shack part. No, that part was very real.
It wasn’t all bad though.
While I wasn’t in love with smelling like mussels for disproportionate amounts of my day, the tips were good enough to offset our uniforms, which read “I got crabs in Pismo Beach” scrawled across the back.
Half of the restaurant was dating and the other half was fucking, so at least the crabs were locally sourced.
Thanks to the painfully slow lunch shifts and a staff of natural oversharers, we all knew an unconventional amount of personal information about one another.
There was once a group discussion about Marcus’ habit of talcum powdering his balls because, “It gets real sweaty down there.”
Or the shift when we were discussing faking orgasms (a conversation which I definitely. did. not. start.), and one of the waiters insisted that no girl had ever faked with him.
He was met with blank stares from every female waitress, and he spent the rest of the lunch hour in crisis.
The servers are great, but the chefs are better, because they give us food.
Don't ask me to pick my favorite, because I couldn't possibly.
Ok, it's Marcus.
But mostly because he lets me rant without interruption.
I’m Marcus’ favorite too. I know because he told me, and he hooks it up on the free food front.
Marcus is a few years younger than me, but he’s about three times my size, and has a lumberjack beard, which manages to make him feel like my senior.
Blatantly ignoring the tattered notice taped up to the paper towel dispenser that reads, “Do not talk to the chefs besides asking for sauces (tartar, cocktail, etc.),” I lean in to start a new conversation.
Seeing as the novelty of the seven seafood allergies had died down, we could now move on to more enjoyable topics, namely: boys.
Ever since puberty, my own life has consistently failed to pass the Bechdel test.
I picked a moment when our manager was out of view and tried to look busy while unpacking the latest drama. I’d been dating a guy who worked on a boat, and was constantly out at sea.
Marcus would ask me for updates, and I would report back that I had none, because he was still in the middle of the ocean and still didn’t know his return date. He also still didn’t know if he wanted commitment, but he wasn’t entirely sure either that he didn’t.
This was old news for Marcus, who was finely dicing vegetables so fast it made me nervous. Same season, different episode.
He rolled his eyes, put down his knife, and gestured for me to give him my phone. I knew exactly where this was going. He'd threatened it a thousand times before but I’d never acquiesced, until now.
“This isn’t the eighteen hundreds,” Marcus lectured. “You don’t have to wait for some dude to return home from sea.”
Marcus’s insistence was twofold:
He’d recently met his girlfriend online, and seeing as bliss begets bliss, he was trying to help me out with my own Happily Ever After
He was mostly just sick of listening to the same monologue about the same guy every single lunch shift
I feigned reluctance and slid my phone across the counter. And for the first time in my life, I was officially on a dating app.
I was recently out of a long relationship, and being single now wasn’t the same as the last time I’d been single, seven years ago. I didn’t quite know how to date, but I did know that I was actively anti-online dating.
The romantic in me was a snob for an old fashioned meet cute.
I claimed moral superiority. My soapboxes on the superficial objectification of apps, and how they encouraged dating dispensability, were well-practiced.
Besides, my grandpa had met his new wife on a dating app. So clearly, online dating was for old people.
But if someone wanted to sign me up, like, as a joke, then that might be ok.
Because it wasn’t like my idea or anything, obviously. I’d never download Tinder of my own accord. But now Marcus was forcing me! Really, what choice did I have?
I’d once heard a comedian make fun of people who say they’re “spiritual, not religious,” comparing it to a man who says he’s not gay, he just likes to fuck guys.
“Dude, you’re a little bit gay,” was the punchline.
I’d laughed extra hard because I personally was a card-carrying member of the “spiritual not religious” club.
In the restaurant kitchen that afternoon, amidst the overpriced seafood and underpaid wages, I couldn’t help hearing the comedian pop into my head, snickering, and telling me that despite my overt resistance to online dating, “You’re kind of on Tinder.”
I rolled my eyes at Marcus and dropped my phone back into my apron before carrying a bucket of steamed crab legs out to a table.
I was playing it cool, but little did he know, Marcus had just ruined me.
It started with wide-eyed insatiability. “This is bad,” I thought as I sat in my car for a good half hour parked outside my house after work.
Swipe swipe. I should definitely stop. Swipe swipe. I really should have stopped a while ago. Swipe swipe.
Then, the overwhelm.
I should absolutely get out of the car now. Swipe swipe. And so it went.
And another half hour once I managed to get inside of my house. Swipe swipe. I’ll just check and see if anyone’s messaged. Swipe swipe.
This is ridiculous. Swipe swipe. I really should be making dinner. Swipe swipe. Looks like cold cereal at midnight it is. Swipe swipe. Thanks, Marcus. Swipe swipe.
And finally the stage of “productivity swiping” where you’re automatically going through profiles so fast that by the time you clock potential, they’re already three people back.
But it’s still all a joke, obviously. I wouldn’t ever actually be interested in going out with a guy who god forbid posts shirtless photos on a dating app. Even though, did you see him shirtless ?!
I screenshotted the profile and sent it to a friend. “ABS !!,” I wrote in all caps.
I was officially objectifying every single person who I hadn’t wanted to objectify me.
And it was fantastic.
I woke up the next day with a Tinder hangover. I’m not proud of how late I swiped until. Mostly left, I’m very particular.
I hadn’t even been on the app a full 24-hours before I ran across the profile of my very first kiss. We’d briefly pecked during a game of truth and dare on the back of the band bus sophomore year, and I’d spent the next twelve months writing about it in my diary.
Judging by all his mirror selfies, he’d turned into a total douche. But a hot douche. I may have swiped right.
Seeing as my current relationship status was permanently TBD with a man at sea who called me his “lady friend,” it felt decadent to be spammed with matches.
Granted, all those matches might have had something to do with my bio, which read “I love a good tip” underneath my job description of waitress.
But still, it felt nice to be a valued member of society.
I began to learn about the side effects of dating apps, namely the constant paranoia of running into someone I saw on Tinder in, like, real life.
I was very hesitant about swiping right on the Trader Joe’s checkout guy, no matter how witty his six pack. I really didn’t want to have to find a new grocery store.
I could hardly go out without getting the Tinder sweats, glancing over my shoulder every few minutes, convinced that I’d seen that guy before, and that it was definitely on the app.
At the gym, on the beach, sitting in my section of the restaurant- they were everywhere.
If I did get recognized, I had my response prepared. A friend made it for me! He tied me down and held me at gunpoint and forced me to get Tinder. It was pretty much the truth, give or take a few minor details.
It felt like online gambling, but the currency was men. And as anyone who knows Vegas knows, you lose a lot more than you win.
I got a glimpse of myself post-retirement sitting at the slots until 4am with a visor, bloodshot eyes, and an XL refillable drinks cup of quarters. Swiping. Mostly left.
Convinced that this next swipe, surely, would be the one.
I see that lunch shift as a sliding doors moment, a seemingly inconsequential event that would have a ripple effect for years down the road. I didn’t know it then, but I was entering what would become my very committed, long-term, on-again off-again affair with online dating.
Over time, I couldn’t help but notice that contrary to my restaurant kitchen soapboxing, there was actually something very real about putting yourself out there and telling people what you want.
Because while I wasn’t going to openly admit that I was “looking for someone to delete this app for,” I could appreciate someone who was willing to own it.
At the end of the day, everyone’s kind of just puttering about trying to find some sort of connection. Be it in the form of a soulmate, or a threesome. There’s something to be said for the shamelessness.
And while the only reason the apps ever gave me to delete them was a loss of faith in humanity, I think of all the rich cultural experiences I never would have had, if it wasn’t for online dating.
Like the guy who asked me way too early on in the relationship if I’d thought about freezing my eggs, or the one who forever ruined the word “awesome,” by using it repeatedly during sex like he was leveling up in a video game.
Some of the dates were good, most of them were bad, and without a doubt all of them made my lunch shift stories in the restaurant kitchen only about a thousand times better. Which I think may have been Marcus’ master plan all along.
This was great, especially in the restaurant with Marcus.