Stuff Hipsters Hate (4 page)
Read Stuff Hipsters Hate Online
Authors: Brenna Ehrlich,Andrea Bartz
From: Neck Tat
I’m at home. Come by and hang with me.
Received: Fri, Nov 13, 1:15 a.m.
Marni, being smashed out of her mind at this point, texts him back immediately, asking what his address is.
Back at Hipster Douchebag headquarters, Neck Tat peeps the text, flips his phone closed, drains a Tecate and settles in for about 30 minutes before the next text. Marni continues to drink.
That’s right, children: Although technology has made it possible for us to contact each other in mere seconds, hipsters have devolved the concept of communication, taking us back to the dark ages. You might as well send a fucking telegram, because the average hipster texts at the speed of a carrier pigeon.
When dating a hipster, keep the following in mind:
Hipsters do not want to know anything about you.
Hipsters love mystery and hate anything that detracts from it. Thus, the less you reveal, the better. The following steps have been proven to aid in maintaining total, blissful obfuscation.
1. Upon meeting them, talk only long enough to spark their interest. Abruptly bounce after ten minutes. Don’t tell them your last name (so they can’t Google you).2. Turn them down when they first attempt to ask you out. It makes you look like you have a life. Don’t tell them why you can’t hang—they will wonder: “Does he/she date a lot of people? Is he/she skydiving? Is he/she in prison?” They don’t need to know you opted to stay home watching
Weeds
in your underwear whilst shoveling Life cereal into your mouth.3. Do NOT be their Facebook friend. No one you just met needs to see where you went to school, how many “friends” you have and what you looked like pre-Williamsburg (i.e., wearing collegiate gear while beer-bonging).4. When you sleep over for the first time (and make sure you go to their place—never let them come over to yours lest they see your embarrassing DVD collection), make your escape before they wake up. Leave a note. Not one that explains where you went, just one that says something to the effect of: “Had to bounce. Text me.”5. Be unavailable for the next two weeks.
Technically, nary a hipster would actually call a date a date, but for the sake of simplicity we shall henceforth refer to these drunken forays into the tortured realm of romance thusly.
When two hipsters begin the courtship rituals, very rarely will the couple “hang” during daylight hours. Instead, the person charged with “planning” the date will select an establishment that serves alcoholic beverages from a slim repertoire of acceptable watering holes (i.e., ones that are “real” and/or “cheap” and/or “close to my apartment”) and casually ask the romantic interest to meet him/her “sometime around 11 p.m. … midnight … thereabouts.”
The lateness of the hour will ensure a multitude of things:
•
The hipster male will have awoken from his daily disco nap, which is usually taken around 9 p.m.
•
The hipster female will be in the mood for drinkin’.
•
The lateness of the hour will prevent the female from getting home in a timely fashion, making it much more likely that she will sleep over.
•
Consequently, the sexin’ will occur.
Now, let us suppose that this same hipster couple planned a daytime outing to, say, the museum of holography, a local coffee shop or the park. This state of affairs presents a myriad of troubling issues:
•
Neither hipster will likely be awake in time for the scheduled meeting.
•
The pair will be able to see—in vivid daylight—each and every blemish and imperfection marring the appearance of the other, cracks in the vessel that would otherwise be softened by whiskey and the low light of a bar, loft party or sketchy waterfront park.
•
Unless day-drinking is to occur, the two will be painfully, unavoidably sober.
•
Consequently, sex will likely not occur, rendering the entire affair completely and totally pointless.
In all honesty, hipster dating has little to do with “hearing about your childhood” or “making a connection”—a hipster is often much more absorbed with the “idea” of the other person than the person him- or herself. When one only sees said person under the cloak of night, beneath a fattened harvest moon or dancing in his or her underwear to the Monkees pre-coitus, one can preserve this untarnished idea. When morning comes, each will be merely a dream to the other: pleasant at the time of consummation, but basically forgotten by noon.
“Thanks for the offer, Mr. Chivalry, but I’ll pass. Aside from the fact that I don’t adhere to the three-square-meals-a-day mores, dinner dates are for Trixies and the 40-year-old I-bankers they met on Match.com (more accurately called ‘The Manhattan Meal Plan’). There’s the awkward choosing of wine, the sparkling-or-still discussion, the forced conversation between bites of bread, the smiley but uncomfortable, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, of course I ask you right as you take a bite,’ the holding up of one finger as you furiously chew and swallow so you can respond, the stupid faces that come with biting and masticating, and of course, at some point you fucking flip your knife off the table and onto the floor and make a joke about it but actually want to die.
Better idea: Can we just get sorta wasted, sing ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ in that empty karaoke bar and then hold hands (premature intimacy! score!) as we wander along Greenpoint Ave.?”
—Lilly R., 26, caterer and photographer
True, hipster dudes love their long, timid mating dance—lingering inches from the chick’s face without kissing her, taking her to their bedroom as part of the “tour” without actually stepping near the bed and showing her the collages they made for their now-ex-girlfriend. But all mixed signals and ambiguity fly out the dirty, single-paned window the second she makes the first move and, like, takes off his shirt or bothers running her fingertips anywhere near his crotch.
While bros take great joy in leading a girl’s hand to their belt buckle and leaving the whole de-pantsing process to her (
Fucking buttons! Why does your fly have all these fucking buttons!
), hipsters will suddenly stop kissing, sit up and whip off their skinny jeans without a bit of assistance. Maybe they’re being helpful. Maybe they’re just excited. Maybe they want to make sure it’s abundantly clear what will happen next. Or perhaps they’re just aware there’s no way an outsider could slide off that skintight denim without Vaseline, scissors or about three times the strength of a hipster girl’s pencil arms.
Fucking buttons! Why does your fly have all these fucking buttons!
), hipsters will suddenly stop kissing, sit up and whip off their skinny jeans without a bit of assistance. Maybe they’re being helpful. Maybe they’re just excited. Maybe they want to make sure it’s abundantly clear what will happen next. Or perhaps they’re just aware there’s no way an outsider could slide off that skintight denim without Vaseline, scissors or about three times the strength of a hipster girl’s pencil arms.
First rule of hipster mating: Always keep some balls in the air. May we recommend the following romantic interests:
EXHIBIT A:
That dude/chick whom you’re really into who ghosts for weeks at a time, says he/she doesn’t want a relationship and only texts you back at 3 a.m. But he/she will totally come around someday. Right?
Right?
That dude/chick whom you’re really into who ghosts for weeks at a time, says he/she doesn’t want a relationship and only texts you back at 3 a.m. But he/she will totally come around someday. Right?
Right?
EXHIBIT B:
The dude/chick who texts you every day, whom you’re not really that into (at least not physically), but who makes you feel better about yourself because someone wants you.
The dude/chick who texts you every day, whom you’re not really that into (at least not physically), but who makes you feel better about yourself because someone wants you.
EXHIBIT C
:
That dude/chick. The one you met in a bar. For some reason he/she is entered as “Vest” in your phone. Maybe he/she was wearing a vest…
:
That dude/chick. The one you met in a bar. For some reason he/she is entered as “Vest” in your phone. Maybe he/she was wearing a vest…
EXHIBIT D
:
Your best friend.
:
Your best friend.
Other books
Little Face by Sophie Hannah
The Breeding Lands (An Epic Erotic Fantasy Novel) by Eva Fellheart
I'm with Cupid by Jordan Cooke
Herself by Hortense Calisher
Try Darkness by James Scott Bell
Nicole Jordan by The Prince of Pleasure
The Treatment by Suzanne Young
Memory Seed by Stephen Palmer
The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce by Whyte, Jack
Daddy's Little Angel by Shani Petroff