Hey Autostraddle, I thought we should talk about true and everlasting love. Oops, I mean random hook ups. As an overly emotional queer, I sometimes get those two things mixed up.
So, do you guys do the random hook up thing? Do you pick chicks up and go home with them? I don’t. I’m not good at it. Despite what you may think about my awesomeness, I don’t have enough confidence to just stroll up to chicks and make it happen. (Maybe part of my problem is that I think of it as “strolling up to chicks and making it happen.”) Usually, if I see someone I like, what I’ll do is, I’ll use my awkward charm to slowly make her love me over the course of many weeks. Then, only after I’m certain she really likes me, will I make my move. Later, after I’m sure she really really likes me, I’ll freak out and become emotionally unavailable. Hello, ladies!
A few weeks ago, though, I found myself feeling unusually confident and in the mood to hook up. It probably helped that I was actively looking for distractions and wearing a very dapper vest. I was ready to try something new, not to be such a lesbian with a million feelings about everything. I just wanted to have some meaningless sex with a pretty stranger.
I’ll cut to the chase here. I ended up back at a girl’s place at 4:00 a.m. Despite the fact that random hook ups are not my forte¹, I was pretty sure it was on. People only go back to each others’ houses at 4:00 in the morning if there’s going to be sex, right? Of course, it was also possible it could just end in frustrating lesbian foreplay. You know what I mean, just hours of drinking tea, reading tarot cards, and learning each other’s moon signs. I was hoping for sex.
Via emmy-caroline.tumblr.com
She started clearing stuff out of her bed, which I took as a good sign. At the time, I conveniently overlooked the fact that she had to clear stuff out of her bed at all. Who keeps stuff in their bed? I mean, I do². But I wouldn’t want to hook up with me.
She came out of the bedroom holding a hammer. Because I’m a comic, I said, “Are you threatening me with a hammer? I hardly even know you and it looks like you’re threatening me with a hammer.” She laughed, and I mentally gave myself a point for being funny and charming. “That worked,” I thought. “I’m gonna take this joke to the next level.” I went into the kitchen to get a knife.
The thing is, guys, because it was a joke, I couldn’t just get a regular knife. I had to pick out the biggest, scariest-looking knife in the kitchen, because that knife is the funniest knife. The regular knife or the steak knife, those knives aren’t punchlines. Those knives are non-committal knives. I don’t know a lot about prop comedy, but I know this. So, I came back into the hallway, gripping a gigantic knife. Then, I stared menacingly at the girl.
Now, in my mind (and maybe I should mention that I was high), I thought it would be hilarious. I think my best case scenario was that she’d see the knife and be like, “Are you threatening me with a knife?” and then we’d laugh and make out and get married. I’m not really sure how these things work, but I thought it was going somewhere good. The problem is, she didn’t see the knife at first. Ten seconds went by, then twenty, then thirty, then forty, and I very quickly switched from being a cute and funny potential one night stand to a genuine creep, standing in a pretty girl’s hallway, staring at her and holding a knife.
“Um so…I was trying to make a joke,” I confessed in a small voice, indicating the knife. “Because of the hammer, so I got a knife, and…” It was a humiliating to have to explain the so-called joke. In an instant, I lost any of the cool I thought I had. I was a weirdo, and we were totally not on the same wavelength at all. She was probably going to kick me out. No, she was probably going to call the police. I was going to jail. I was definitely going to jail. I was going to rot away in a cold and lonely cell for the rest of my life, forced to eat all sorts of extremely non-vegan food and play cards with women called “Barb” and “Rats.”
But then she said, “Oh, that’s funny! You know what would be funnier, though? You should throw the knife.”
via plastikitty.com
Guys, I’m going to share something with you. Now, I don’t think this is necessarily a good thing, and I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. If a pretty girl tells me to do something, I do it. If the pretty girl seems slightly crazy, or impulsive, I’m that much more into it. (It’s all I can do right now not to make a Lindsay Lohan reference.) The second she told me to throw the knife, it’s as though there was a little chihuahua in my brain, desperate to prove itself a big dog, jumping up and down, going, “Yeah, I’ll throw the knife. You want me to throw the knife? I can throw a knife. I love throwing knives. All I do is throw knives. I don’t give a shit. I’ve already proven myself to be the type of person who brings a knife to a hammer fight. You want me to throw the knife? I will throw the knife.”
And I did. I squeezed the handle, raised my arm, and plunged that fucker directly into the wooden floor. It was beautiful. It was like I’d been throwing knives my whole life. When it stuck, the handle moved back and forth, mesmerizing us both. If it could have made a noise it would have sounded like “boing-oing-oing” or maybe a softly whispered “Someone’s getting laid tonight.” Time stopped. Worlds collided. She looked at the handle, I looked at the handle, and we fell in love.
Or at least I thought we did. I mean, I don’t know if you guys are into, like, “boundaries” in your relationships or whatever, but the fact that we had gone to her house for some kind of a one night stand and we were now throwing knives in the house was amazing to me. Here was someone equally impulsive, willing to take ridiculous risks and with a similarly warped sense of humor. In my hazy 4 a.m. mind, I thought for a minute she might be my actual soulmate. It was love at first knife.
Now, I don’t have enough time to let you in on my entire thought process in the course of this evening, but trust that I want to, Autostraddle. I’m a lesbian, and a particularly wordy one at that. I feel like I’m letting you down somehow if I don’t at least attempt to articulate every nuance of every thought of every feeling I’ve ever had about everything. But let’s just say, after this knife-throwing incident, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. There was a moment when my coolness was in jeopardy, but not now. Here I was, a super cool and dangerous somewhat mysterious stranger planning my next incredibly smooth move. What could possibly go wrong?
Um. A lot, it turns out.
See, she forgot that we had left the knife there (despite the fact that we kept walking by it, like, “Oh, that was so funny!”) and later went running down the hallway (I’d like to think because she was so eager to get to the sex part of the night with me). She kicked the knife, almost lost a huge chunk of her big toe, fractured the bone and ended up needing five stitches. The night went from sexy to CSI scene in an instant.
Despite my best intentions, I aimed for a one night stand and ended up with another meaningful lesbian connection. I thought I was in the mood to have some insignificant sex, but what I got instead was trauma-bonding and a trip to the ER that lasted until 9 a.m.
Actually, I recommend it. Next time you want to hook up with a girl, if you think you might really like her, try stabbing her in the foot. If you can still get her number after that, you’re on to something. And the next thing you know, you’ll be learning each other’s moon signs.
I’ll invite you guys to the wedding.
¹ I attempted one in 1999. Instead of a one night stand, we had an on-going, long-distance affair-type thing for nearly two years.
² Mostly balled-up little sock bombs, pajama pants, and books. Oh, and if I have my period, a box of tissues and cookie crumbs.
So disastrous! I love it. (I can also relate. I broke my girlfriend’s finger on our second date trying to look good throwing a football…)
“I’ve already proven myself to be the type of person who brings a knife to a hammer fight. You want me to throw the knife? I will throw the knife.”
thank you for this quote, which i will enjoy forever.
I flinched too hard with secondary shame and/or empathy for DeAnne to read it all in one go.
But I loved it when I did. <3
this is legit THE MOST enjoyable article I’ve read here…thanks forever DeAnne
I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING IN CLASS
Of course, it was also possible it could just end in frustrating lesbian foreplay. You know what I mean, just hours of drinking tea, reading tarot cards, and learning each other’s moon signs.
Glad I’m not the only one who has run into this problem!
EVERY lesbian has run into this problem.
Yeah but at least every lesbian hasn’t run into a knife.
Sometimes I feel like a knife would actually be preferable
WIN!
could help to cut the tension.
this was so relevant despite me having never been in a knife fight, sexy or not
one time i tried to tackle my girlfriend who was lying on a couch and i dislocated her kneecap
one time I hooked up with a girl in a hostel shower and we turned off the lights and slipped and fell and that was the only time I got topped that night and I did not. like it.
sounds like it was more of a hostile shower! heyooooo
One time, I dropped a pot of freshly made coffee on a potential hook-up’s foot, and she didn’t want me to accompany her to the hospital.
That may or may not be because I had mistaken a framed picture of her grandma for Nelson Mendela 20 mins prior to the accident.
maybe i shouldn’t have read this while i was talking to my grandma
It didn’t occur to me until this very article that the reason why I’m still single is probably because of the giant pile of clothing I share my king sized bed with (I hop over it to sleep on the top left corner).
Oh hey me too except mine’s a giant pile of clothing covered in cats, so I feel like maybe the ladies should like that?
I love this comment so much, I could favorite it. As a newer member, I don’t know how just yet, but I totally will.
Click the little plus below the comment, or is that just a like?
I usually share my bed with a whole lot of books and pieces of paper with notes on them (it kind of doubles as my study space). The one time I’ve brought someone home with me I’d just cleared all that stuff off a couple of days before so I thought I was sweet, but it turned out my niece and nephew had been in my room while I was out and taken all the teddy bears which I’d inherited from my grandmother off their shelf and strewn them all over the bed. So I had to spend a minute clearing all these bears off my bed… was kind of embarrassing but mostly pretty funny :)
that’s super cute tbqh!
Heh. Well, hopefully she thought so too, I’m not totally sure.
And here I am thinking I was the only one who did this!!! …soulmates??
That was for Hoda *wink*
Whenever I feel bad about myself for being so socially awkward that I’m scaring all the girls away, I will think of this and know that I am not alone. Loved it.
Stranger danger!
I had a huge crush on a girl at work, in an attempt to make her laugh i walked up to her and grandly sweep her up in my arms, she giggled, i winked and just in that perfect (i wanna take you home tonight) moment she gave me i tripped and slammed her tiny frame into the counter…fractured her hip. fml.
Oh my god. Saddest. Ever.
I was on the airport shuttle the other day and this story was on the radio! My gf and I kept sneaking looks at each other, like “this can’t be real”. Nobody else seemed to notice.
After, I turned to her and I said, “I think that was Deanne Smith…”
She didn’t believe me. Now I have proof!
“”I’m gonna take this joke to the next level.” I went into the kitchen to get a knife.”
great stories usually start like this.
This thought process is also the key difference between regular people and the DeAnne Smith’s of the world. Bless ’em.
Can’t stop laughing, I love you ahahaha. You made me feel all kinds of emotions, starting by empathy, then shame, then awkwardness, then surprise, to gracefully end it with a bit more of shame. And maybe hope for a brighter future.
Good/terrible thing is now you have an excuse to keep in contact! :D
this was so funny. There should be regular postings of hook ups that make a turn for the worst in a funny/embarrassing way like in those horrible cosmo magazines that I should not read.
Heard this on DNTO on the CBC!
Hilarious, as usual (:
Do you know which day/episode of DNTO it was on? I’d like to hunt it down.
Found it – podcast for Feb 11th
aww so cute thanks to you Autostraddle i’m going to start bringing a knife to my dates and see how she reacts, i wanna find my soulmate mmm or possibly end up in jail
This is amazing. Please tell me you’re still with this girl because if you are you should probably marry her. :P
Aw, I loved this story! I too cannot stop the romance…
My now girlfriend dropped me on my face outside a dirty punk bar after attempting to display a ‘mosh move’ we were both clearly too drunk to attempt. I was bleeding everywhere, she practically broke her finger, and at this point… we decided to switch from alcohol to straight up ice. But the moral of the story is that this was four years ago and we’re still together…
The only thing missing from this story is finding out that the random hook-up girl was actually a time traveling circa 1998 Angelina Jolie.
Also this: “I mean, I don’t know if you guys are into, like, “boundaries” in your relationships or whatever, but the fact that we had gone to her house for some kind of a one night stand and we were now throwing knives in the house was amazing to me” is amazing.
I tried to woo a girl I thought was my soulmate once by bringing her a sprig. From a pine tree. I wanted to give her flowers but it was the middle of winter and we were trapped in the New England woods
It didn’t work out all that well. Next time I’m bringing a knife
Just thought I’d let you in on the play-by-play of my emotions while reading this article. eh-hem let’s see. Amused, amused, extremely amused, nervous, terrified, nervous-amused, terrified, cautiously optimistic, horrified, stunned. Yeah I think that’s about right.
all the lesbians are going to be in jail for assault with a deadly weapon. guess it’s one way to meet others with our sense of humor
I have missed you DeAnne Smith. If things doesn’t work out with this girl, my foot’s always here for you to throw a knife at.
Ok, so this is exactly the kind of thing I would do. It comforts me to know I’m not alone.
Also, if someone told me to throw a knife after I just met them, I would probably go ahead and fall in love right then. I love me some escalation.
I went into this article, thinking it was going to be a hilariously articulated, lesbian version of a Jersey Shore-esque hook up session (don’t ask where this assumption came from). Then BAM! You hit us with the hammer and knife. I haven’t laughed – or cringed – so hard in weeks.
I don’t know whether to feel bad for you or applaud you for a spectacular hook up with a crazy hot chick. Beats sitting on a couch and discussing Star Trek and British tv series with this hot girl all night but never sealing the deal. Not that I would know…..
I still want to know why she had the hammer out in the first place
Don’t we all
can you find out and report back? maybe she was going to throw it
this is making me laugh more than the whole article combined
and the article was very very funny and made me laugh a lot, so.
she was probably practicing for a Highland hammer throw
Forgetting there’s a knife in the floor and walking into it almost cutting off a toe sounds like something I would do.
I met a girl once because she elbowed me in my eye on accident then went immediately to kiss it. Because she felt bad? I wasn’t about to ask questions though, I just told her she can elbow my eye any time. And we hooked up. It was the most amazing thing that happened to me that year.
Ahahaha… That sounds adorable :)
wow, you’re brilliant ahaha
You think you can do these things, but you just can’t Nemo!
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
In the spirit of your honesty, I will admit that from the moment you mentioned you brought out a knife, I immediately thought:
“There’s about to be a, WHAT? A KNIFE/HAMMER/GIRL FIGHT!”
What you’re after is a groupie. There’s already tons waiting for you after every show. Hell, I’ll volunteer, though since you’ve already done a post-show song with a line about how you love me it might end up not being a one-night-stand (which I wouldn’t mind either). ;)
I found you, I don’t remember where I found you.
So I’m here reading all your post in autostraddle, you’re hilarious
And “It was love at first knife.” best line ever!