I’ve made a big deal in the past about me being totally done with women forever. And I want to reiterate right now that I am still 100% committed to the single man’s lifestyle. All the love and attention I would get from a theoretical girlfriend, I get from my subscriber base instead. And my kitty Japurri Purrker. He loves giving me attention and he does it without always having to stop at the shoe store when we drive by the mall.
That said, I still have occasional moments of weakness. One of those moments happened just yesterday. I’m going to tell you the story, but I’m warning you, you’ll want to have a box of tissues nearby because it’s sad as eff.
Okay. Let’s set the scene. I was browsing through CD’s at my local record store. I prefer CD’s over vinyl because nobody wants them, so they’re cheaper. They also take up less space. So I was there browsing the store’s modest but intriguing metal collection when in walked this woman who went straight to the industrial/electronic section. I hate to admit that I’m one of those record store nerds who starts staring whenever a female enters the vicinity, but I totally am. I stare because it’s rare to see women at this place. That’s just the truth. Me being a weirdo about it doesn’t make it any more welcoming for women, either.
I have some introductory knowledge of industrial music, especially as it intersects with metal, so I took my chances to start talking to her about music.
Oh yeah, I skipped the part where I describe how she looked. She was of average build and dressed in sort of alternative, dark clothing. Longish brown hair, not in a punk haircut or anything. For most people she would be 6/10 but I like the alternative look so that bumped her up to a solid seven.
Back to the story. She happened to be holding a CD from an artist that I knew something about, which was a minor miracle. Soon we were chatting about all the stuff we like to listen to. It turns out that she was into baroque music too, so I could namedrop baroque composers without sounding like a pompous douche. Usually when I namedrop baroque composers in conversation, people tell me to stop being a douche. That’s one reason why I don’t like hanging out with people.
You guys know how it is. Our conversation was getting a bit flirty. She was smiling a lot. There was part of me that was like “dude don’t do this you know that you’re done with women” and another part of me was like “this girl is totally your type, she probably likes skinny guys who wear band t-shirts and have long hair”. I was just getting ready to maybe ask her out to go see a show or something when you’ll never guess who walked in to the store right at that moment. You’ll never guess. Except you will probably guess because this is just the way my life has always been cursed.
It was Kyle Korver.
I totally thought this girl was into metal-looking dudes and not the stereotypical jock/celebrity heart-throb dudes. Apparently I thought wrong. As soon as Kyle walked in our conversation trailed off and she actually walked away from me while I was in the middle of futilely trying to regain her attention by mentioning that I can play the drums and guitar. It’s like I just stopped existing to her. While I meekly went back to browsing the CD’s, I could hear her talking to Kyle while he looked at the country music section.
I knew for a fact that this girl, whose name I never even got to find out, was not into country at all. She told me exactly that. But she was fawning over all of the crappy mainstream normie CD’s that Kyle was picking out. And when he dismissively said “I can only listen to real music played with instruments, not that electronic bleep-bleep stuff,” she laughed and nodded and agreed with him. Even though she had just been telling me about how she started listening to Venetian Snares when she was nine years old. Then he said out loud to her face that lyrics were the most important part of music to him. I almost puked when he said that but she was hanging on every word like it was the goddamn gospel. When I made my purchases the guy at the register gave me the most devastating look of pity ever.
Bros, I almost had an alternative semi-goth techno-afficionado GF. Instead I’m alone tonight and I can’t even listen to the new CD’s I picked out because they just remind me of how Kyle Korver is constantly ruining my life in the most unexpected ways.
God damn it. I hate Kyle Korver.