Goooooood morning everypony!!! ^_^

Does three little walks in a circle before sitting in ur lap

I have a tale to share with you all. It is long, but I assure you it is anything but tedious. I humbly welcome you to:

From Ribs to Ruin: My Date with Boots

a TRUE story told by ipodpuppy

You ever go on a date so bad it feels like performance art? Ever meet someone so uniquely terrible that it circles back to being fascinating? Like at some point, you stop being a person on a date and start being an audience to a disaster. I went on that date— a full psychological case study.

It started on HER, the lesbian dating app (or, you know, a black hole). He was a minimalist texter—basically sending messages like he was charged per word. I’d ask, “What are you up to?” and get a single “Walking.” No follow-up. No “You?” Just radio silence wrapped in a punctuation mark. It fizzled, which is standard, so I moved on.

Fast forward a year. He posts a note on Instagram, like, “Who wants to party?” And, frankly, I am nothing if not a sucker for a spontaneous night out. I was already headed to the club with some friends, and I figured, hey, why not? So I responded. My fatal mistake. My personal Pandora’s box…… How I wish I could reach through time and shake myself……. He doesn’t answer until the next day and goes, “Sorry I didn’t respond, but I’d love to hang out sometime.” Cool! I like making new friends. So we made plans.

The Meetup That Should Have Stayed in the DMs

Yes, this requires sections. It makes it easier to digest, I promise. We meet at this coffee shop near my place. He’s already there when I arrive. Seems fine enough. I get a drink just to have something to hold, and we sit outside, chain-smoking and chatting.

He pivots to grilling me about my best friend, since he saw that we follow each other on Instagram.

“What does she do for fun?” “Does she know how to code?” “I like talking to her.” “I feel like she doesn’t like me.” “What does she like to wear?” “What do you guys do when you hang out?” “Do you smoke weed together?”

To be fair, I was given a heads-up that Boots was a little… out there. And at the time the questions were fine enough, maybe a little socially awkward, but not off-putting. I kept my responses short, steered the conversation elsewhere, and we kept it moving.

The Big Booty Filipina Incident

Same night, we head over to his car—a Jeep, of course—because he takes one look at my perfectly normal sedan and outwardly declares it “too small.” Rude. Once inside, he immediately asks me how much money my dad makes. I tell him I don’t know, and instead of dropping it like a normal person, he launches into a full-blown monologue about how his dad makes $120 an hour, got a full ride to college, was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and oh, let’s not forget… his house has an elevator. We make our way to a bar, where, for some reason, I buy him a drink and a chicken salad (don’t ask, it just happened). I grab a drink for myself. Midway through, he asks me what my type is. I start listing actual qualities… hobbies, interests, personality traits. Then I throw the question back at him. And with absolutely no hesitation. No shame. No self-awareness! He looks me, a Filipina, dead in the eyes and says:

“BIG BOOTY LATINAS AND FILIPINAS.”

YAWA NA NI OY!!!!!! HELP ME!!!!!!!!!

I blink, waiting for the punchline. It does not come. I ask him if he is completely serious. He is completely serious. He insists it’s just how he is. He cannot help it. In his words, it’s “just nature”, the same way birds migrate south for the winter. Boots here is biologically programmed to gravitate toward Big Booty Latinas and Filipinas. werd up

How to Catch a Girlfriend (Without Her Consent)

Despite this, I somehow thought, “Eh, we can be friends.” So, of course, we kept hanging out. And before I knew it, I was inducted into his friend group chat, which for the sake of anonymity I will be calling “The Rainbow Syndicate” (Almost thought I accidentally joined a Glee club). As a group we started watching Twin Peaks in his home theater (not a lie, unlike the elevator he said he had in his big fancy house). Two weeks go by. We just finished eating Panda Express, and he drops:

“I want to wait to tell the group we’re dating.”

I’m sorry, what?

Apparently, he had simply decided that we were together. And, not only that, but he was already plotting the announcement. I told him, we are not dating. If he actually wanted to go on a date, we could do that, but like… THAT HADN’T HAPPENED!!!

Boots, completely ignoring the point I was trying to make: “We’ll go on a date and we’ll kiss.”

Huh, right… I don’t think that is step one, brother Boots.. And yet, this quickly became his favorite mantra: “I always get who I want.” “When I want a girl, I get her.” (this will age like milk)

Boots for the Lady, Blisters for Me

We never set an exact time for this “date,” but we were solid on hitting up a record store. The day comes, and I’m fresh off donating a pint of blood. I get to his place, and he invites me inside. He’s still hung up on these LEGO roses he tried to gift me despite me rejecting them. Twice. I felt like it was too expensive of a gift to accept, especially since I had established I wasn’t looking for anything serious. His room is usually a war zone, but looking in, I saw he cleared a little path for me and put on My Little Pony. Points for effort! /) He’s like, “I wanna show you my drug chest, ipodpuppy,” and I’m like, “Alright, sure.” He’s got this serious look, so I’m expecting something mildly intriguing at best. He opens this huge chest under his bed, and I laugh, “Ohhh, your drug chest,” all ironic, because it sounds silly, right? Except—oh. No. It was a literal drug chest. Two circus popcorn bags filled to the brim with weed and mushrooms, like a festival prize. I blink. “How tf do you have this? You don’t even smoke weed?”

“Got it for fifty bucks off some dude in Cali,” he shrugs, like he just picked up a used blender on Craigslist. As if the drug chest reveal wasn’t enough, he closes the lid, and I notice…. stickers. Not just any stickers. Stickers of him with a lineup of different women, like a toxic yearbook. He starts going down the roster like, “This is so-and-so, she was a bitch because ABCD,” just absolute Hall of Fame-level trash talk. One by one. A complete exhibition of ex-lover slander. Then he caps it off with, “There’s no way I could be friends with someone I used to be with.” And I’m sitting there thinking, Damn. He’s made it clear LOL.. no going back if this date doesn’t work out. Catch ipodpuppy on the drug chest if I so happen to even breathe on Boots the wrong way ..

We go back to cuddling and watching little ponies, when Boots suggests, “Let’s go to the smoke shop by my house.” Turns out, there are no record shops by his house. There’s nothing by his house. He lives in the absolute middle of nowhere, buttfuck Vegas, aka the outskirts of town. He told me we’d have to go to a record shop on our SECOND date… you sly fox..

I’m like, “Okay, lol,” since I was looking to get a Geek Bar with the intention of “getting geeked up”, as it were. As we leave his house, I ask, “Are you driving, or am I?”

And he looks at me like I just asked him to file his taxes in crayon.“Drive? It’s just around the corner.”

Remember when I donated a pint of blood? Yeah, so he did too… I guess it just wasn’t of significance to him since it didn’t directly impact him lolol. He responds, “Well… can you do it?”

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll collapse into the street mid-walk and traumatize some suburban dad into explaining to his kid why there’s a girl-shaped pancake on the pavement. But let’s find out!

We start walking. Immediately, I feel like I’m about to astral project. TBH…. this one is completely on me, guys. I said no and I didn’t stand my ground. Going with the flow is too easy for me sometimes. This is what happens x^P. Boots, meanwhile, thinks this is the perfect time to clown on me for being faint. Soooooo okay u guys I am barely alive. The desert sun is slow-roasting me to a medium-well. I am operating on historically low blood levels. Meanwhile, Boots, fully hydrated, fully oxygenated, is jogging ahead like he just unlocked peak human performance. We get to the shop. He buys two vapes and a pack of cigs. I get my geek bar. We turn around. Same routine.

“Lol, you’re weak.”

“Lol, I am the human equivalent to a plastic bag.”

Back at his place, we’re cuddled up, watching My Little Pony again. My brain is doing that thing where it starts imagining sparkles and floaty stars, and then, finally, finally, he goes:

“Man, I’m starving. I could eat. Could you eat?” YES. YES, BOOTS. YES, I COULD EAT.

This is the sexiest thing he has ever said to me. I almost forgave him for the desert death march. Boots nods like he’s processing this revelation:

“Yeah, I don’t really feel like buying food.”

See, if he just didn’t want to spend money on me, he could’ve just… not. No need for the verbalization. But by saying it out loud, he gets to dress it up as a personal preference instead of what it really is… a choice. The goal? For me to chalk it up to him just saving money instead of clocking that he’s choosing not to feed me. Are you not EMBARRASSED. I bought you food both times we went out. A salad, Panda Express, a drink… Guhhgghh… Here’s the deal..I don’t like to keep score. I believe if you give someone something, it should be out of the kindness of your heart, without measure. But Boots never shuts up about his rich daddy, just bought $50ish worth of nicotine, and is allegedly womanizer of the year so… how does this make sense?????? Your grand strategy for avoiding spending money on me is just… saying you “don’t feel like it”?

And then. AND THEN YOU GUYS.

He piles up a plate of ribs, nukes it up, and goes to town. No “Hey, you want some?” No hesitation. Just a full creature feature. Meat, fingers, primal instincts… while I sit there, running exclusively on nicotine and the misguided belief that this date has an expiration time. When he’s done, he wipes his mouth, glances over, and hits me with:

“Oh, did you want something?”

I… Did I want something? Did I want something. You mean besides dignity and a ride home? Yes I did want something. At this point, my body is in full survival mode. I don’t even have the energy to be mad. My brain is shutting down all non-essential functions. I just say,

“Uh… yeah. Can I have a banana? I don’t want you to have to cook.”

Boots, not a single selfless thought in his head: “Works for me, lol.”

Are you not ashamed, brother Boots? What happened to “When I’m into a girl, I get her”? Did that mean whether she liked it or not? Now that I’m writing this out, fully sober, my blood at 100%, I genuinely don’t know why I didn’t just leave. If he pulled that on me the way I am now, I’d have immediately left to go get MYSELF food. Leaving would’ve been the obvious choice. I wish I had. I wish I had. I wish I had. But between being raised to be “polite no matter what” and the general brain fog from losing a concerning amount of blood that morning, my ability to make good decisions was at an all-time low. So instead, I sat there, smiling like a malfunctioning NPC, nodding at whatever fresh nonsense Boots threw my way.

Now I’m lethargic, starving, and watching ponies while cat hair infiltrates my immune system. Boots’ bed is covered in the stuff, and his cat (very cute, highlight of my visit) keeps coming in and out. Unfortunately, I am allergic. My allergy response has stages. We are already at the stage where my brain is falling out my nose. Meanwhile, Boots keeps getting way too close to my face. Clearly wants to kiss me but is too shy to make a move. And I’ll be real: I don’t want to kiss someone whose breath smells like they woke up and just rawdogged life without toothpaste. Mix that with half a pack of cigs and post-rib residue? Yuck. And. Gross.

Finally, like my prayers had been answered (being Jewish is clutch), Boots goes,

“Do you have anywhere to be after this?”

HALLELUJAH. FREEDOM. DELIVERANCE. My time has come!!!!! I spot my exit, and there is a jar of hummus at home calling my name.

“Uhhh, yeah, actually. My friends are having dinner later.” (me, lying on the spot)

Immediately, he locks onto this. “Oh. With [best friend]?”

Nice! You’re still on about my poor fucking friend. Cool! Super cool! I let 15 minutes pass, then get a friend to call me, pretending they’re already at the restaurant and I got the time wrong (thank u buddy). Boots, meanwhile, is whispering the entire phone call like an obsessive detective:

“Is that [best friend]? Is that them? Who’s calling? Is it [best friend]?”

I hang up.

“Was that [best friend]?” “NOOO. But I guess they’re already at the restaurant, so I gotta go, so sorry D:”

Boots has chosen to go on a silent protest. Just sitting there, blank face, arms crossed, silently pouting. Meanwhile, I’m all smiles, yapping to fill the uncomfortably silent bedroom promising to text him later (which, WAS said in earnest… but only to tell him I wasn’t feeling it. At the time, I figured the date was fine enough, but let’s be real, I was running on fumes and wishful thinking. Now? I see it all brodie….)

I finally make it to the door, shoes on, keys in hand, ready to finally, finally LEAVE.

I go, “Wanna walk me to my car?” He sighs, nods, and does it. At my car, I go, “See you around, Boots.” He sighs. “Wait.” And before I can even process what’s happening: He grabs me by the HAIR. Kisses the top of my head. Then. Ruffles my hair. Then PUSHES MY HEAD AWAY. Like he just finished signing a Make-A-Wish contract for me. Like he’s my proud dad congratulating me on making a home run. Like I’m nothing but another big booty filipina, and he had to squeeze in what he wanted at the last second.

I was so over the whole thing I just laughed and said, “You’re funny, you’re so funny.” Got in my car. Left. Considered applying for a name change.

When I went to fix my hair? The spot where he kissed me? WET. WET. WETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

I sat in my car, re-evaluating every choice that led me here. The coffee shop. The ribs. The audacity. I had been too weak to react appropriately. Too malnourished to be angry in real-time. But now? Oh, now the rage was hitting me like a freight train.

I should’ve left earlier. I should’ve ordered a damn meal.

I should’ve never entertained a bitch named Boots.

Is It Really Over?

Alright. So, turns out I liked his friends way more than I liked him. Figured if we couldn’t be star-crossed lovers, we could at least be pals. Some people take that well and some people don’t. We already know Boots doesn’t roll that way from the drug chest situation. I figured I’d shoot my shot anyways. An hour after I left his place, I get a text detailing how he didn’t like that I left so suddenly. It made him depressed. Next time, I should know he likes to hang out for long periods of time. Okay. Noted. But also… where was this energy during the date? (If you can even call it that.) I told him—honestly!—that if he had just said something, I would’ve stayed longer. But also, I have a life, and I can’t always hang around just because he wants me to. Relationships—romantic or platonic—aren’t about ONE person’s ideal schedule. I’d try to give a heads-up next time, but in return, I’d like the radical privilege of being able to leave when I want. Seems fair.

He never responded.

Look, I know how this sounds. “Oh no, my date wasn’t perfect, time to be cruel about it online.” But spare me. I have all the patience in the world for someone being awkward, nervous, or weird. This was not that. I wasn’t expecting fireworks, just… a date. You know, basic social contract back-and-forth. I don’t mind a little social clumsiness. A socially awkward person stumbles through a conversation. There was no stumbling. He bulldozed whatever potential respect he could have given me, dragging me behind like a tin can tied to a bumper. And yeah, maybe I’m a little bitter about that.

A friend told me I was overreacting, like all of this didn’t sound that bad. Oh, absolutely I’m overreacting. I’ll be pitching a Netflix limited series about this harrowing experience any day now. Working title: These Boots Were Made for Walking… and Yet, I Stayed. But seriously—maybe someone out there would’ve loved this. Someone, somewhere, would have been delighted by this, and say, “Wow, my dream date.” I truly hope those people find each other so that the rest of us are safe. And could it have been worse? Sure. But “worse” isn’t the bar I use when evaluating my free time. If it were, I’d be out here giving five-star Yelp reviews to any restaurant that didn’t set me on fire.

Again, I know he said he’d never be friends with a past lover. But I liked his friends, and it’d have felt silly and immature to want to burn those bridges over one awkward situationship. At the same time… I’d been disrespected enough to know I wasn’t going to just roll over to keep the peace.

So, I hit him with the cursed words: We need to talk.

I know. Treacherous. Forbidden. But necessary, considering our last interaction was weird. His response? “Yeah, I need to talk too.” LOL. Yeah, do you? Or are you trying to intimidate me because you’re aware of what’s to come? So, I laid it out. All of it. The weirdness, the general lack of basic respect. But most importantly: the Big Booty Filipina thing. Because I had told him, multiple times, to cut it out, and he never took me seriously.

I present to you a snippet of our conversation. Copy-pasted for your enjoyment (and my suffering).

   >ipodpuppy: “You don’t treat me with the same respect I treat you, and I don’t want to keep taking it just to protect your feelings. I wouldn’t be this honest if I didn’t still want to be friends.”
   >Him: “I don’t want to associate myself with someone who is so mean to me. If you just wanted to be friends, you should have just told me you weren’t interested.”
   >ipodpuppy: “You told me you like Big Booty Filipinas. You’re white.”
   >Him: “It’s a joke?”

Ah. So it has evolved. First, it was just nature. Now, conveniently, it’s just a joke. Fascinating. The end result? I was swiftly ejected from the sacred Rainbow Syndicate group chat. One of his “good friends”, who, upon meeting me for the FIRST time told me they are only friends with Boots because they were “craving a pool last summer” and he had one, unfollowed me but left me following them (petty but real because I do that too) and personally removed me from the chat. The only silver lining was that I managed to keep some solid friends from the fallout, which I’ll happily take as a win. It’s always a pleasure to make new friends :)

Things I’m Actively Choosing to Ignore

Alright, here’s a speedrun of things I do not have the bandwidth to emotionally process right now. No deeper analysis, no discourse—just the fax.

1. While watching My Little Pony, he casually asked if he could “touch my pussy”. Yurppp… Mid-cartoon horses. I feel like there’s a lot to unpack there, but I’m choosing to leave the suitcase at baggage claim.
2. Suggested I take a MENSA IQ test, then hit me with a somber “aww, you’re smarter than me” when my score came back higher. Like, what was the best-case scenario here? That I’d score lower and be eternally impressed by his superior intellect? That my score would be perfectly a little under his and we’d then ascend to some kind of galaxy-brain power couple status? Anyway, I regret everything.
3. Made fun of me for not being a gold-star lesbian because I had boyfriends in elementary school (as if my biggest crime wasn’t playing house too seriously in third grade). Then immediately followed up with “Oh btw, I’m not actually a lesbian, I’m bi, I just like how ‘lesbian’ sounds because I’ve only dated girls.” Holy acrobatics, batman! And all of this was said while fully aware that I only date other lesbians, only after he secured a date with me.
4. He went on a public Discord server after I texted him what I showed u guys and announced that his “girlfriend” broke up with him. A girlfriend who, I must reiterate, did not exist. Just delusion.
5. Told me not to throw a Hearts and Hooves Day party (MLP Valentine’s Day, keep up people!!!!!) because HE was planning on throwing a Valentine’s Day party. So I, being a supportive and non-party-stealing individual, stepped aside. And then he just… didn’t. I think he just said that because I gave him the idea right then and there. So now I’m throwing some vague Spring Fling situation instead. But deep down? I’m still mourning the Hearts and Hooves event that never was. A tragedy in five acts. Neiighhhh

This Was Not a Learning Experience

Final thoughts? Boots sucked. The ribs looked dry. My Little Pony deserved better. I should’ve listened to my best friend. I’m sure she’s sick of hearing that from me by now (sorry buddayyy@ it will likely happen again (~_~メ)). And Boots? If you’re reading this: if you thought THAT was mean, you like Filipinas in theory, not in practice. This is for your protection.

Sometimes, we ignore red flags because we convince ourselves they’re just quirky details. But if you look closely, they’re actually pillars in the house of that person’s mind…… Does that make sense dawg idek lol. Like look, it’s easy to say, “You should’ve dipped after the first red flag,” but let’s be real, it’s NEVER that simple. When you’re emotionally invested (or thrust into a queer friend group), those red flags can blur into signals you’re not sure how to read. Maybe it’s the hope that things will get better, or maybe it’s the unspoken fear of being wrong about someone’s character. So, yeah, we stay. We try to make things work. We convince ourselves, “Maybe this time it’ll be different.” It’s not about being naive, it’s about being human (even though I am a dog). And hey, we’ve all been there. The truth is, it’s only with time and hindsight that the red flags start to look like neon signs. I’m not stuck on my past choices. It’s about growth. And that’s something we can all relate to.

For the sake of clarity, I should say I’m not mad about how things went down. I willingly sat my ass in the front row of a trainwreck, I wasn’t blindsided. But trust, I didn’t lace up Boots just for a good story. There were things I genuinely liked about him! He was funny, had cool hobbies, and his quirks were interesting. But in the end, some things just don’t add up. And that’s where we part ways.

And so, dear reader, I bid you farewell, my dignity clutched in one paw, my Geek Bar in the other, haunted by the ghost of Boots and his inexplicable Jeep-based hubris…! Thank you for tuning into my story. May your head stay dry and your texts stay drenched in personality… just not the other way around. Let this tale serve as a warning: if a lesbian casually drops a Nobel Peace Prize into conversation or maintains a sticker-based Burn Book of his exes, run.

If nothing else, I hope you were entertained. Because it sure as hell wasn’t fun in real-time L0L. 4 u see, even the worst dates should, at minimum, come with food.

Demand better,

Ipodpuppy 🍽️ (╥﹏╥)