Fat head.

I had a fat head. For awhile. The one up there. Did I notice that I had a fat head? Not really. People every once in awhile would make some comment about me. Somebody would mention something. I didn't really notice it. But then, last year on my birthday, in an act of kindness, Liz bought me a slice of cake for my birthday. In the cake, she put a picture of my face on a stick as a joke. The picture up there. I truly hated this picture. It was a picture of me, at some damn point in time over the last few years, with a god damn salt filled head. Just a giant head. In a cake! This was horrifying to me. 

'Happy birthday!'

'Ah my GOD. THAT'S what I look like? And THAT'S what I'll continue to look like if I eat this cake?'

'Ha...ppy Birt....hda...y to....'

'No! I look like a slug in pants!' *Throws cake against wall*

'Why do you always ruin things?! Why?!"

"It's my birthday! I'll ruin it if I want to! Don't make me yell, it makes my stupid fat head jiggle!"

That picture is and has been beside me at this desk for one year. I look at it every once in awhile and think, 'Jesus. No chocolate today.'

Chocolate actually was never the issue. You know what I was addicted to? The piece of food that I probably had two pounds of a week for about four straight years? Wings. Ol' dirty wings. I LOVED wings. The sauce, the chicken, the damn blue cheese. Loved it all. I would eat these for dinner. Dinner! On just about every menu they are an appetizer. People decided years ago that these were BEFORE a meal. Maybe to split with a couple of people. But for me? No way.

'Excuse me. Would I be able to just get some bread. Like two orders of bread.'

'Of course. And for dinner?'

'Wow. Did you not hear me you? Maybe you'll hear this, garCON. BREAD. THAT is the dinner. The dinner... is.... BREAD. LOTTA balls on the french.' 

Wings were my deal. When I was about ten, my mom would take me and my brother to this bar. This bar was in a mall, and directly outside the bar was an arcade. When arcades were a thing, sick, and every game was fifty cents max. My brother and I would play games in here forever. It was great. In the bar though, we would eat chicken wings. Why? They were ten cents. Ten cents a wing! At a time when wings were a thing, but people looked way down on them. 

'We're gonna toss these in the trash. Cool?'

'I'll give you ten cents for one of them.'

'You think other people would?'

'I don't know. Can I have the one that I'm willing to pay for?'

Would eat like twenty wings here. This went on here for years. Then in high school, I used to go to this bar that had karaoke, and a wing night. Wings by this time had gone up a bit in price. This wing night was thirty cents a wing. I remembered being angry about that. 

'Thirty cents? Back in my day, you could get THREE wings for that?!'

'Nathan, you're 18.'

'Yeah, and BACK IN THE DAY, when I wasn't PAYING for them, they were cheaper.'

There was also a time years ago when I was addicted to Lime Coke and Dill Pickle chips. Loved these. One Friday after work, I bought three big bags of Dill Pickle chips and a two litre bottle of the Lime. Went home, and played Midnight Club Three: Dub Edition. Crushed two bags of those chips that night, and like half the bottle. Just stupid. The last couple years, I didn't notice too much. My last day job five years ago, I bought a can of pringles on pretty much every lunch break, and eat the whole thing! 

'Huh. Once you pop you can't stop, right Nathan?'

'What?'

'You're eating a can of pringles.'

'And? So what?'

'The chips are gone. You're just eating the can.'

'... Jesus, CHRIST. Gotta get my stuff together.'

Seeing this picture of myself in a cake is what made me get serious. That gross head, to me, made me say no cake is worth this. My birthday is next month, and I'm going near cake. Unless it's carrot. And all the cake stuff has been taken out and it's just a carrot on a plate. 

'Happy birthday, Nathan! Here is a piece of ca.....'

'Carrot? You're about to say carrot, right!? I swear to GOD if I see cake I'm flipping this place!'

'Why do you always have to ruin things?'

'It's my birthday! I'll ruin this damn thing if I wa... Oh, it's not cake. It is a carrot.'

'Ha...ppy Birth....day.... to.... oh god.'

'Don't cry. It'll make me want to eat cake and get a fat head again.'

*Note* I'm not an animal. The above will not happen. And I'll probably have cake on my birthday. But, that fat head? I CANnot again. This is my own thing. You do whatever you want. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

Tindr. Talent. Texting.

I'm not on Tindr, but I, like all of us, know a bunch of people that are. Why am I not on Tindr? Because I don't have an umbrella for all the pussy that would rain on me if I was! No. I have a girlfriend. Would I go on it? Sure. Maybe. Probably. I mean, even if I met someone out in the world, they are probably going to be on Tindr. Why not just meet them there instead of trying to run into them?

"Woa, I can't believe I met you in a grocery store. That's weird, right? Wait. My phone is going off. It's a notification, telling me that I just matched with you! Well, god. I wish that would have happened earlier. I didn't have to leave the house? Just stupid of me."

I've used some friends of mines Tindr just for fun. A guys Tindr and a girls Tindr. Some things that I've noticed. 

Using a girls Tindr was interesting. First of all, every time I swiped right, which is how you decide whether you like someone, it was a match. What does that say? That there are a lot of guys that just go through and swipe right on every single girl to get more matches. So, it seems that being a girl on Tindr you really have no idea if a guy is into you or is just fishing. Bunch of dumb idiots just throwing nets out there seeing what comes back.

"What are you fishing for?"

"Fish."

"I meant what kind of fish."

"The kind of fish that's fish! Get off my back. I'm hard."

Worst is, when she did have a match was that 90% of the messages guys would send would be nothing.

"Sup."

"Wanna meet?"

"Hey, sexy."

"Yo."

Yo. Just a goddamn yo! Then shortly after that, they'd talk about going to a bar to meet. I started yelling at some of them. 

"You serious? You've said nothing funny, or engaging, or interesting at all, and you want me to meet up with you? Are you insane? You've given nothing!"

If they did write back, they'd write back with some kind of useless, dumb response. Something most times along the lines of 'I like feisty women', or 'you've got some fight in you.' Good for you, man. A person you think is a girl says that what you're saying is garbage and you come back with something that makes it sound like you enjoy dragging women through parking lots by their hair.

Using a guy friend of mines Tindr was also interesting. 99% of the time when a guy matches with a girl, he is the one to send the first message. 99.9% of the time probably. Let's just say all the time. He's messaging first. Cool. That's usually how it works in the streets, so fine. He writes a message, or I would for him, and it would be something about this girls profile or something in her pictures. A sentence that usually involved some sort of question about something fun. What would these girls write back with? Nothing. Nothing that can be considered a human being involved in a conversation, anyway. 

"Oh, you're a model? Me too. Well, hand model. Gotta make this money holding these burgers."

"Lol. Yes."

Yes. Yes! What the hell is that? Is that how you keep a conversation going? One word answers?

"Hmmm. You're resume is amazing. Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Horses."

"... Horses. As you in want to own a horse? Or race horses?"

"Lol. Betch."

"Uh huh. Well... okay."

Live. Laugh. Love. This is what tons of girls put in their profile. Live. Laugh. Love. Are you getting tired of seeing it yet? Or is it making you want to go out there and Live. Laugh. Love. Most times when a girl has Live. Laugh. Love. in her profile, it's all she has. That's it. Not 'I like this or that', just Live. Laugh. Love. Women, for christ sake, put something besides this. We just going with all words that start with L? Cool. They don't always have to be this, though. How about Ladle. Ladder. Lunch.? Or Letter. Lust. Louisiana.? Nothing wrong with those two. 

Walking the earth and listening to people talk about Tindr, it doesn't even seem like they want to date. People seem to just want to tell people about the messages they've sent to each.

"Yo, they said this to me, and then I said this."

"Oh, yeah. That's pretty funny. Are you going on a date with them?"

"Oh, man. They just said 'do you want to meet?', and I was like 'meet who? An owl?' Man, I'm clever."

That's what dating has turned into? People love posting these conversations they've had through on-line dating as well. This has just got to stop. Yes, they can go wrong. No, you are not funny or a hero for posting ones that are weird. 

"Here's what I have to deal with. Some dumb girl said this. Or some disgusting man told me about his dick. Ugh. Why does my life have to be this hard? Or is it? Is this what I REALLY wanted? Something to post on-line so that I look hilarious and cool? Yes, that's it. Dating is not what I'm here for. It's the posts! Look how funny I am!"

After being on both, I think Tindr might have been made to tell people in relationships to stay where they're at. Tindr seems like a cool thing when you're on the inside, but when you're out? It looks like it gets pretty sad, pretty quick. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh