“Hang Out”

I moved to a new city where I knew no one in the fall of 2016. I was twenty-three at the time and had graduated college the year before. Now I was settling in this new place with a new, real adult job. Like many people in many places, I turned to dating apps for entertainment. To make friends, to find dates, to explore the new city. Sometimes it was for a physical connection, but sometimes that was just a bonus if it happened at all. It was more about creating moments of connection, even if they were brief.

One Saturday morning, I was feeling particularly lonely. I spent the previous Friday night in my room watching Netflix and knew I couldn’t handle another day of being by myself, let alone the whole weekend. There’s the kind of alone you look forward to and then there’s the kind of alone you dread. I had passed into the dreading phase. I swiped around and matched with a guy that seemed like we might get along. He was twenty-one, had a quirky sense of humor, and seemed a little edgy. We immediately started chatting and he invited me over to his place for the afternoon to “hang out.” It went against my protective rules about online dating—chat for a while before you agree to meet, and meet in a public location—but I was feeling particularly desperate and reckless.

I hopped on a bus, where I stared out the window and wondered what I was getting myself into. The bus took me to a part of town I hadn’t visited yet and dropped me off in a quiet neighborhood filled with single-family homes lined up on a hill overlooking the city. The address he gave me was a square two-story house with a long, broken sidewalk reaching for the front door. It had vinyl siding that maybe at one point was bright yellow but was now dull. I texted him that I was outside, and he poked his head out the front door. I started panicking around now, a tight knot forming in my chest, but here I was standing in front of him, so I felt committed. I smiled and said hi.

He invited me inside. We walked through the door, and he immediately introduced me to his stepdad, who was sitting on the couch watching a Packers game. He gave me the briefest of hellos, not wanting to be distracted from the game. I quickly said hi back, not sure what else was appropriate to say or do in this situation. All the voices that were screaming at me that this was a terrible idea started screaming even louder. This was a level of awkward interaction I was not prepared for. Thankfully, we didn’t spend much time by the door before my Tinder date quickly escorted me through to their kitchen.

We leaned against the old kitchen counters and started making small talk. He looked like his picture. Tall, lanky, long dark brown hair. But something didn’t seem quite right. The fact that he lived with his parents, introduced me nonchalantly to his stepdad, and didn’t warn me about any of this before inviting me over was skeptical to me. This was not at all what I had pictured.

“Oh, I should tell you,” he finally said. “I know my Tinder profile says I’m twenty-one, but I’m actually eighteen.”

There it was. He lied about this age. My maybe-kind-of-sort-of-date was actually just hanging out with a teenager.

“Dude,” was all I could say right away, the displeasure and disappointment evident in my voice. I started devising an exit strategy.

He went on to explain that his Tinder profile was linked to his Facebook profile and since he lied about being thirteen years old to create a Facebook account years ago, the age that showed up was perpetually wrong. He seemed genuine, like it was a sincere mistake. I remember kids lying about their age—myself included—to get on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga. I decided to believe him. Still, teenagers were not a dating option for me.

“We can still hang out, but probably nothing . . .” He paused. “. . . romantic.”

I started laughing. “Yeah, probably not.” I had to give the kid credit where credit was due. Despite the initial miscommunication, he was being straightforward now and truthfully it took some weight off knowing that this hang out wasn’t a “hang out.” I stuck around.

He told me he had a new virtual reality headset and asked if I wanted to try it. It was the Oculus Rift that had just come out earlier that year. He showed me how to put it on and talked me through how to use it. It was loaded with famous cities and landmarks all across the world. I chose Rome. I wandered around the crowded Trevi Fountain to see people sitting around the edge of the fountain, throwing coins, or posing for vacation pictures. All the while, the sounds of the football game floated in from the living room.

When we got bored with the headset, we decided to go out for a walk in the sunny fall weather. He told me he and his friends like to do urban exploring and there was a railyard nearby we could visit. We quickly shuffled past his stepdad, said goodbye, and ventured out.

“So does this mean you like, just graduated high school?” I asked on our walk.

“Yeah, in May this year. I started college a few weeks ago.”

I kept laughing. It was becoming more and more funny to me.

We walked down the hill from his house, hopped the fence to the railyard, and moseyed along the tracks. As we walked, we told each other more about ourselves. He told me he wanted to be a nature photographer or videographer, like the person that takes the shots you would see in National Geographic or on Animal Planet. I told him where I moved from and some of the traveling I had done in the last year. Camping in California, hiking in Oregon. We discovered we had similar taste in music. He was easy to talk to, even if it was like talking to the little brother of one of my friends.

The tracks eventually led us to a tunnel where the road passed overhead. It was a long tunnel made of irregular stones seemingly hodge-podged together. The walls closely tucked against the rail as it passed through.

“It’s fun to walk through. It creates a small wind tunnel and it’s fun to shout things or sing,” he told me as we neared the entrance. “It echoes.”

“What do we do if a train comes through?” I’m always the worrywart, the person who thinks of the worst-case scenario.

“They usually go slow through here, so if you see one coming, just run for the end. Otherwise crouch down against the wall as close as you can.” He demonstrated crouching on the ground against the wall, hands reaching for any purchase they could get on the bridge stones.

That made me no less anxious, but we walked through the tunnel anyway. We got to the middle and let our hair whip about our faces. I shouted, “Hello,” while he sang a song or two. We stood to listen to our voices bounce off the walls around us and mingle. We laughed, and all the while I kept an eye out for a train to pass through. I was being reminded of myself at eighteen, which at the time felt like a lifetime ago. Now it feels like multiple lifetimes ago. We eventually managed to exit the tunnel without any near-death disasters.

When we were finished exploring, he walked with me to the nearest bus station so I could get home. It was late afternoon by this time, nearly evening. We hugged, thanked each other for a fun day, and said goodbye. I hopped on a bus back home.

We never spoke again. Every now and then this “date” bubbles up to the surface of my brain still. Sometimes in shame or embarrassment. As in, that one time I was so lonely I hung out with a strange teenage boy for a day. Or, the time I ignored all the online dating guidelines and was lucky nothing terrible happened to me. Other times, I can find the humor in it. If I’m feeling brave, I’ll tell a friend the story while laughing. My most unpredictable Tinder date.

Overall, though, I remember it fondly, even gratefully. I was in a rough place at the time, still adjusting to a new place and trying to build friendships. I was feeling alone and lost. This boy was kind and honest. He showed me compassion and connection when I needed it, even if he didn’t know it. The day meant a lot to me, and I sincerely hope he has found similar kindness in his life since.

-Julia Miller

Julia Miller grew up in central Pennsylvania, before traveling the country and landing in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is an emerging writer that enjoys a mix of telling tales from her real life and conjuring fantastical, magical stories. She keeps her mind occupied by reading whatever she can get her hands on, playing games around a crowded dining room table, and using her creative talents to create delicious food.