date night
Painting With A Twist: How I got stood up when my scam on life backfired, but Istill had fun
Mar 7, 2012 | 9:00 am
I'm not an "adult." I don't make a lot of what you'd call "plans." I'm not a schemer, I don't find ways to twist the world to my desires. I've always basically just drifted around and taken chances that very obviously present themselves, especially where my love life is concerned.
But last week I met a girl and hatched a scheme, and I was so proud of myself. Here's the thing, guys, I am a freelance writer and a stand up comedian. I didn't start doing either of these things to meet ladies, they are neither impressive nor profitable. But after a show I met a girl anyway, and she turned out to be the sort of artistic person that would deem most other artistic people interesting, at least enough to have coffee with.
So we had coffee, and we had dinner, and then I thought, "How can I 'wow' this girl?" What would a person that has their proverbial shit together do to impress someone? I don't have money or an excess of charm, but I do write about Austin sometimes for a website, so I decided to scam everybody.
I saw an activity listing for Painting With A Twist. In short it's a one-time class wherein you follow step by step instructions and paint a picture along with the instructor. You can bring your own wine, you wear a paint-stained apron and talk to the other amateur painters: It seemed like the perfect, casual but artistic thing that people with careers would do to unwind. Couples encouraged.
I could simply suggest it as an activity, which would already be a pretty well-chosen date for me, historically. But I decided to make the date pay for itself by asking the CultureMap editorial staff if they'd like me to review the services of Painting With A Twist. Then I'd get paid to go on a date, essentially! As it sounds like a unique experience, they were happy to oblige. So, rather proud of myself, I texted the girl that I'd met (playing it real casual-like) and said "Hey, so I have to do this thing for work..."
And it WORKED. "That sounds fun," she responded. Oh, does it sound fun? What luck that I have been coincidentally assigned to cover it! I told some of my friends about my master plan, to get freelance work and a night on the town all at once. Maybe, I thought, this is all these supposed "adults" do — they see loopholes in disconnected parts of their lives and conspire to make it all work in their favor. I certainly felt the sort of glee that I assume the kids who make prank phone calls get; I was getting away with something. I had finally figured it out.
I forgot that this entire diabolical scheme, my master plan to orchestrate the personal, aspirational and professional into one perfect evening, it all hinged on her showing up.
Minor sidenote: I have a troubled relationship with technology and social media, like everyone. This girl I met, we exchanged numbers, but I have the type of neuroses that count the individual minutes in between texts wondering what's taking so long. I consciously didn't friend her on Facebook or any other such thing because that would just be another awesome rabbit hole of social-interaction related anxiety to go down.
So a few hours before the thing I text this girl the address, and there's no response. I text her again when I head there: still no response. Called her, straight to voicemail (no message, playing it cool, remember?). Obviously she's not coming. And all of my smugness, my supercilious pride over my scam on life, it caught up with me all at once because not only did I get stood up, I had to sit there and then write about this thing.
The funny part? I had fun anyway. Painting is awesome, do you remember this? We grow up and stop making messes of ourselves and if anyone paints regularly we figure they must be some sort of painter. Nobody just paints, right? Well they do at Painting With a Twist- our instructor walked us through some simple steps in creating "Sea Oats Sunset," my version of which you can see above (not bad, right? I'm not even a painter!).
The atmosphere is instantly collective — not gonna lie, it was mostly female (apparently this Hunger Games movie is gonna be a huge deal). Though there was one red-faced boyfriend obviously dragged along and not wholly on board with wearing an apron, but everyone eventually forgot themselves in the activity at hand, grimacing when brushstrokes went awry and comparing their burgeoning creations to the example on the wall in good fun. Bringing your own drinks always helps, too (I had a six-pack of hard pear cider, all to myself it turned out).
I started working out my bad mood trying to crack up the rest of my table ("If I made my storm clouds too dark what does that say about me psychologically?"), then started to commiserate with everyone when the texture of the water was so tricky, rallied when it was distant-mountain-range time (I can fill in parts with all black no problem), and eventually I had a painting and the time had flown by. I learned how to hold a brush to make a thinner straight lines (my sea oats still came out a little wobbly), the importance of dry brushing, and was warned not to pump my own acrylic paint out of the big jars or I'll get it all over my clothes.
Later I had smudges of paint on my palms and a sunset in the backseat of my car, and I felt accomplished in a creative way that everyone should enjoy once in a while. And I'd forgotten about the empty easel and unused stool next to me (or at least nearly forgotten).
Painting With A Twist offers two or three hour classes every night and weekend afternoons, and it's great for dates (I imagine), adults who want to feel like kids again, and families with kids (who get to feel like kids all the time).
That girl? Her phone was broken, that was all: she Facebook-friended me (fun!) to tell me as much, as I discovered when I got home. If I see her again, no big deal or anything, but I painted her an awesome present.