After a long summer double shift at work, Cheer is sweaty, disheveled, and exhausted. She gets on the express train toward home. Too tired to read, she puts her headphones in and mutes the din of the subway car with music.
While on the train, Cheer eyes an attractive man sitting across from her. Cheer and the man exchange glances for a few stops. (This is routine in the world of the subway. Two people admire each other, exchange looks, and within a few stops, one person exits the train, and they never see each other again.)
As the train approaches Cheer’s stop, she acknowledges this typical train situation and gives a mental goodbye. She throws a final glance at the man as she stands and prepares to exit the train. Just before the doors open, the man speaks to Cheer, but she doesn’t hear what he says due to her music.
Cheer removes her headphones: “What?”
The man repeats himself: “What’s your name?”
At this point, the doors have opened and Cheer is stepping out of the car. After a slight hesitation, the man jumps out of his seat and exits the train with Cheer.
Cheer: “So, this is your stop now, huh?”
Man: “Yes.”
Cheer laughs: “OK.”
Man: “What’s your name?”
Cheer: “Cheer. What’s yours?”
Man: “For the purpose of this story, you can call me Train Guy, because that’s how you’re going to reference me to your friends later anyway.”
Cheer: “True. OK. Train Guy. So, tell me, Train Guy, why’d you get off the train with me just now?”
Train Guy: “Well, I, I, I, just had to talk to you. You’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen.”
Cheer: “Wow. Thank you. I think you’re just a regular amount of good looking.”
Train Guy: “That’s OK. As long as you’re paying attention to me. When I saw you, my heart started racing. The pounding in my chest was so intense, I just had to talk to you.”
Cheer: “That’s very sweet. So, how many times a week do you jump off a train for a girl?”
Train Guy: “None! Never! Just for you! You’re the first one!”
Cheer: “I don’t believe you, but, it’s still flattering.”
Train Guy: “This isn’t my stop. What am I doing jumping off the train so soon? It’s crazy! It’s because of you. You’re just so beautiful. So sexy. I just had to talk to you.”
Cheer: “Seeing as I’m a horrendous mess after a long day of food service, I’m taking all this to be extra complimentary.”
Train Guy: “Good.”
Cheer: “So, where are you from?”
Train Guy: “Africa.”
Cheer: “Africa’s a pretty big place. Care to be more specific?”
Train Guy: “Mali.”
Cheer and Train Guy continue to have small talk interspersed with exclamations from Train Guy like, “I can’t believe I got off the train!” and “You’re the hottest person I’ve ever seen!” The latter of which Cheer really never tires of hearing.
After walking and receiving compliments from Train Guy for about three blocks, Cheer stops and turns to face Train Guy on a corner.
Cheer: “OK. I’m going to walk by myself from here.”
Train Guy: “What? Really? Why?”
Cheer: “Because though you’re very flattering, you’re a complete stranger who just followed me off of the train, and you’re not going to accompany me all the way to my apartment and gain the knowledge of the location of my residence.”
Train Guy: “Oh. OK. Well, can I have your phone number?”
Cheer hesitates but ends up giving Train Guy her number. She then sends him on his way, and she goes home, ego boosted.
The following day at work, Cheer becomes increasingly curious about just how prematurely Train Guy exited the train. As if, the further the distance, the more attractive she must be. Eventually, she sends Train Guy a text message to find out.
CHEER: What’s your actual subway stop?
TRAIN GUY: One bajillionth street (30 blocks north of Cheer’s stop)
TRAIN GUY: What are you doing [sic]
CHEER: I’m at work.
TRAIN GUY: Me to. a call. You to night [sic]
CHEER: OK
TRAIN GUY: So. What time are you get off [sic]
Cheer doesn’t respond due to being at work. When she is done working, she sees a missed call from Train Guy. After getting home, she responds via text.
CHEER: Sorry I missed your call. I’m home now, but I’m going to bed. Talk tomorrow?
TRAIN GUY: ok
CHEER: Cool.
Minutes after this text exchange, Train Guy calls Cheer.
Cheer: “This isn’t tomorrow.”
Train Guy: “I know. But I wanted to talk to you.”
Cheer: “Un-huh.”
Cheer humors Train Guy by participating in a 10 minute conversation of get-to-know-you type exchanges. She then re-announces her intent to go to sleep and hangs up with Train Guy, agreeing to speak again soon and arrange a time to get together for a drink.
After nearly two weeks of only minimal text exchanges, Train Guy sends Cheer a text.
TRAIN GUY: can you send me your picture [sic]
Cheer decides this is slightly creepy and she will absolutely not send him a photo. Instead, she will craftily avoid the situation with humor.
CHEER: Have you forgotten what I look like?
TRAIN GUY: no
TRAIN GUY: You at work
CHEER: Yes
TRAIN GUY: What time are you get off [sic]
Cheer decides to ignore the last text. After she clocks out at work, she thinks she’s sending a text to her friend, whom she has arranged to meet that night. In true Hollywood writing style, Cheer accidentally sends the text to Train Guy.
CHEER: I just clocked out. Where are you?
Cheer has no idea she has sent this message to Train Guy instead of her friend until Train Guy responds, overjoyed by Cheer finally giving some initiative to see him. Cheer slaps her forehead and feels awful, since the situation cannot be explained to Train Guy truthfully, and now she has gotten herself into quite a pickle. She wriggles out of her accidental text saying she’s tired and going home.
After two plus weeks, Cheer has a Monday night off work and decides it’s high time she gave Train Guy a chance. She texts him to arrange a date.
After a handful of texts, it has been decided they will meet on Monday, at 9pm. They agree to speak on Monday to arrange a place. To Cheer, this means the conversation is over, and the next appropriate time for contacting one another is on Monday. Minutes after Cheer’s assumed completion of the conversation, Train Guy sends an additional text.
TRAIN GUY: I miss you.
Cheer goes into a panic. Her inner monologue consists of repeating the statement “Oh, fuck. I just made a date with a crazy person.”
After a few minutes she settles from her panic and turns to her brain for logic. Trying desperately to give Train Guy the benefit of the doubt, Cheer credits this statement to his poor English, and Cheer assures herself, he can’t really think he misses her; he just doesn’t understand the weight of these words in English. Finally she responds in the most light-hearted way she can muster.
CHEER: Nah… You can’t miss someone you don’t know. You just want to see me.
Though she scrambled for some type of explanation for his ‘I miss you’ text, Cheer knows deep down, that she has actually made a date with a crazy person. She decides to follow through with the date anyway, mostly just to see what happens.
Monday comes, and, via text, Cheer suggests to Train Guy that they meet at a wine bar a few subway stops from her apartment. Train Guy responds.
TRAIN GUY: I sorry idont dorink [sic]
After Cheer recovers from the humor of his typos, the meaning of the words hit her. Cheer had been apprehensive about the date since the “I miss you” text, and the thought of having a dry date with a crazy person only fuels her anxiety. Never has she felt like such an alcoholic.
Cheer’s train of thought: “Oh, shit. Doesn’t drink? Who doesn’t drink? I can’t go on a date with someone who’s crazy and doesn’t drink! AA member. He must be an alcoholic. I’m nervous. Why am I nervous? I’ve already written this guy off, why am I freaking out? I need a drink…”
After Cheer overcomes her reaction, she tries to think of what people in NYC do on a first date without drinking. She realizes, maybe she doesn’t just feel like an alcoholic, maybe she is an alcoholic. She thinks of canceling. She texts Train Guy, and does her best to sound like a rational human being—one who doesn’t panic when threatened with the absence of alcohol.
CHEER: OK. Well, what would you like to do instead?
TRAIN GUY: We go to the restaurant? [sic]
TRAIN GUY: Do you tike African food? [sic]
Cheer panics all over again at the thought of committing to an entire dry dinner with “I miss you” man. It’s too early to claim she’d already eaten. She gives in. She realizes she behaving like an alcoholic child, and no one likes alcoholic children.
CHEER: Well, I’m a vegetarian, so what limited African food I’ve had, I liked. Do you have a place in mind?
TRAIN GUY: Yes
Cheer feels that a “yes” answer in this situation warrants a follow up text giving more information. Such a text does not come.
CHEER: Care to tell me which one? What’s the name of the restaurant? Where is it?
TRAIN GUY: Meet me in 116. St. Ok [sic]
CHEER: Where on 116th? Where’s the restaurant?
TRAIN GUY: Cool
CHEER: Ummmm…. 116th and what avenue? What time?
A half hour passes without a response from Train Guy.
CHEER: ?
TRAIN GUY: 8 av [sic]
CHEER: What corner? What time?
Cheer is beginning to feel like she’s holding a text conversation with someone who is highly intoxicated, despite Train Guy’s claim of sobriety. Still, she refuses to call, due to her aversion to speaking with people she doesn’t know well on the phone.
TRAIN GUY: What time are you tike? [sic]
CHEER: How about 8:30?
TRAIN GUY: Ok
Cheer decides not to attempt to get any more info from Train Guy, but to tell him which corner.
CHEER: OK. 8:30. Northwest corner.
Cheer has some time to kill before 8:30, and decides to pre-game for her date. If she can’t drink on the date, she figures she might as well take the edge off beforehand. Two beers later, Cheer leaves her apartment to meet Train Guy.
Come 8:30, Cheer and Train Guy meet, not on the northwest corner, but after a phone call and passing each other mid-crosswalk.
The restaurant is a no frills, homey joint, with paper napkins, plastic water cups, and no AC. Cheer is fine with this, actually enjoying the atmosphere, but hoping it means the food is grand, the way only hole-in-the-wall type places can be.
Cheer and Train Guy are seated. They order only water to drink. Skimming the menu, Cheer doesn’t find a single vegetarian dish. When the server arrives, Cheer asks for a vegetarian suggestion. The server suggests ordering sides. This is something to which Cheer, a lifelong vegetarian, has become accustomed, but in this instance, she’s a little peeved that, after she specifically mentioned her diet, Train Guy took her here. A plate piled high with carbohydrates arrives as Cheer’s meal. Whereas most restaurants offer some kind of vegetable as a side, there was no such glory here. Cheer is a big fan of carbohydrates, make no mistake, but typically, a girl on a first date has no desire to consume a plate of rice and plantains the size of her head.
Cheer quickly gets over the lack of exciting food and gets to conversing with Train Guy. She gets right to the things she wants to know.
Cheer: “So, why don’t you drink?”
Train Guy: “I’m Muslim.”
Cheer feels an extreme urge to flag down the server and order a strong drink. She resists.
Cheer the atheist: “Oh, shit.”
Cheer: “So, like, a for reals Muslim? Like, pray 5 times a day, don’t drink, believe in one true monkey in the sky, Muslim?”
Train Guy: “Yes.”
At this point, 5 sentences into their date, Cheer is done. She knows she could never date a seriously religious person, and from here on out, the dinner is about platonic interest for Cheer, no longer a date. This takes a lot of pressure off of her and allows Cheer to ask questions about whatever she wants to know, without attachment to the answers.
Cheer and Train Guy proceed to talk all about Train Guy’s religion, his mosque, his job, his praying, how he takes breaks at work to pray, his views about marriage, his goals (or lack thereof), his homophobia, his aversion to crying due to it being an unacceptable activity for men, his family, his life in Africa, his life in NY, his ex, and pretty much every topic you were ever told to avoid upon first meeting someone. Some of Cheer’s favorite excerpts from her conversation with Train Guy are as follows:
THE EX
Train Guy is speaking of his ex-girlfriend, explaining why they broke up: “She drank.”
Cheer: “I drink. That’s not a problem for you?”
Train Guy: “You’re different. I mean, we would go out for dinner, and she would have to have wine, every time. But you, you’re here, and you’re just having water, and it’s fine.”
Cheer: “Pre-game? What pre-game? Two beers? Who? Me? I didn’t have two beers. What are you looking at? I’m a perfect angel who would never prepare for a dry date by drinking. Pshhh! I am so above your ex. I mean, who would feel the need to drink around you? Speaking of your ex, I think I might like her. Maybe we could be friends.”
HOMOSEXUALITY
Train Guy says something in passing during the conversation which alerts Cheer to the fact that he has different views on homosexuality.
Cheer: “Wait, what? You think homosexuality is a choice?”
Train Guy: “Well, kind of.”
Cheer: “What do you mean kind of?”
Train Guy: “Well, most lesbians are lesbians because a man treated them poorly at some point.”
Cheer: “Most? What about the rest?”
Train Guy: “Well, the rest just want to be men.”
Cheer: “Oh. Of course. That makes perfect sense. What could be more true? So, let’s follow your pattern for men… Are most gay men gay because they were mistreated by a woman at some point?”
Train Guy very matter of factly: “No. Men just choose it, because they want it.”
Cheer: “Uhhhhhhh…”
Train Guy: “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know why, but they choose it.”
Cheer doesn’t have words and her face shows it.
Train Guy: “What?”
Cheer: “I’m just baffled. But, I’m not going to make any attempt to change your mind here, because I don’t think it’s possible. I think if you had some homosexual friends, your view would change.”
Train Guy: “No, I had a gay friend once.”
Cheer: “Really?”
Train Guy: “But, I can’t be friends with gay men anymore, because I don’t want them to try to have sex with me.”
Cheer: “Why do you think they would try to have sex with you?”
Train Guy: “Well, my gay friend touched my hand once. Then I knew he just wanted to put in my butt, and now I think that all gay men are trying to fuck me.”
Cheer: “My head hurts.”
MONEY
Train Guy: “I can’t date women with money.”
Cheer: “Why not?”
Train Guy: “Because rich women just want to control you.”
Cheer: “How have you arrived at this generalization?”
Train Guy: “Well, once I dated the daughter of a politician, and she had money, and she wanted to control me.”
Cheer: “Well, that definitely proves that all women with money want nothing more than to control you.”
Train Guy: “I know, right?”
During their conversation, Cheer asks lots of questions. The answer to one question leading to the asking of a new one, and on and on the way a conversation flows. But this is a different kind of conversation. Cheer realizes, not too far into it, that this is a one-sided conversation. One-sided, meaning all the talking is about only one of the two people involved. One asking all the questions, the other doing all the talking… about himself. Cheer is very familiar with this conversation format, because she has a striking ability to be attracted to extreme narcissists.
After realizing this is the type of conversation she’s in, Cheer decides to take note of how long it takes Train Guy to ask her anything in return. For two hours, Train Guy never produces a single question for Cheer. Cheer proffers a few facts about herself in response to some of the things Train Guy says, but he never once attempts to turn the conversation to learn about Cheer.
After two hours, there is a natural break in the conversation. At this pause, Train Guy says to Cheer: “I like you.”
Cheer’s response to this is slightly harsh, because at this point, she feels it is a silly statement for him to make, when he hasn’t made any effort to find out who Cheer is and find out if he likes her brain. To Cheer, he’s just saying he likes her looks, which after two hours of picking his brain, is insulting.
Cheer: “How do you know that? You don’t know a thing about me.”
Train Guy suddenly realizes he fucked up and responds by saying: “Well, tell me about yourself.”
Feeling a bit odd about the preface to this command, Cheer takes a breath and speaks about the classic things that people mention in such a scenario. She includes oddities about herself which typically garner an influx of questions and commentary, such as her upbringing in a hippie community in the Midwest, and the names of her siblings, but all of these facts go uninterrupted. Cheer speaks for a good minute and a half without stopping, strangely summing up her life by noting major events. All the while, Train Guy sits and nods, and occasionally produces noises like “mmm-hmm.” Cheer wraps up her mini bio and sits waiting for some kind of verbal response from Train Guy. Anything that might prompt her to speak more, or continue into any kind of conversation. Such a verbal response never comes.
Soon after Cheer’s forced, awkward life history, Cheer and Train Guy leave the restaurant, due to Cheer pretending she needs her beauty sleep for work in the morning. As they walk, Train Guy continues to mention how much he likes Cheer and how he still can’t believe he jumped off the train to meet her. Cheer thought it was cute the first 5 times he mentioned his train-exiting gall, but now, the charm has long gone. As he yammers on about how great she is, pushing her pedestal higher and higher, she thinks to herself: “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?”
She feels the need to start shouting things at him in order to stomp down her pedestal.
“I’m an atheist!”
“I had two beers before coming to meet you!”
“I want to have shit loads of money! Rich. Rich. Rich.”
She resists the urge to shout such things, mostly because it would probably evoke further conversation, (about Train Guy), instead of allowing her to escape and drink more beer in her apartment.
Train Guy leaves the date with a hug from Cheer, feeling as though he is one step closer to sleeping with her. Cheer leaves the date 100% sure she will never sleep with Train Guy.
After four days and three unanswered text messages, Cheer decides she really has to break things off with Train Guy. She decides she needs to man-up with her rejection, as opposed to her usual brush-him-off-nicely-until-he-finally-gets-the-hint-and-gives-up technique, due to her extreme aversion to confrontation. This time, she decides, she will be honest and straightforward, and she will get it over with sooner.
Before Cheer actually gets around to replying to Train Guy with her rejection speech, she receives another text late at night.
TRAIN GUY: Tomorrow is my birthday.
Cheer decides she cannot reject the guy on his birthday, and continues to be MIA. The day after Train Guy’s birthday, he texts Cheer again.
TRAIN GUY: I hope you are doing. Well ? But now if you don’t want to talk is ok? [sic]
Cheer finally responds with a lengthy text.
CHEER: Hi. Sorry I haven’t been responding. I need to be honest with you. I’m sorry if this is too blunt or harsh, but I don’t want to lead you on. I’m not interesting in dating you and I don’t think we should see each other anymore. You’re very sweet, and I’m sorry.
After sending the message, Cheer feels relieved. She is proud that she finally confronted a rejection instead following her usual routine. Soon after she sends it, she receives a response.
TRAIN GUY: Ok but I tike you? [sic]
Cheer finally went for the direct approach to a rejection, and he doesn’t get it. She laughs, and responds.
CHEER: Yes, I know. That’s the problem. I’m not into you the same way. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to work out.
TRAIN GUY: So way me? [sic]
Cheer tries to decipher this message. She concludes that he must have intended to ask “So why me?” but Cheer still can’t make sense of why he would say that, and throws her hands up. She decides to take a shower and deal with the text later.
Cheer gets out of the shower and looks at her phone. Train Guy has texted her again without her ever responding the his last text.
TRAIN GUY: So send me your picture ple [sic]
This text is followed by a photo of Train Guy.
At this point, Cheer freaks out a bit. She’s truly convinced she’s acquired a stalker and starts to worry. Her thoughts run away with her and she’s sure she’ll have to change her number and get a restraining order. She decides she can no longer be nice to someone who just doesn’t get it. Fearing for her well being, she texts him back.
CHEER: Please don’t text or call me ever again.
Train Guy honors Cheer’s request and she doesn’t hear from him again.
