573 - Acorn Street
People always ask what my dating life is like on the road. And normally I don't divulge such intimate details, but this one felt weird enough to share.
Fair warning, if you don't like reading about steamy situations, I'd skip this one.
It all started on the good ole’ fashioned dating app known as Hinge. The pinnacle of dating in 2023. My general dating strategy is to refresh the app a few weeks before I arrive in a new city, get a bunch of matches, then line up a night or two up when I arrive.
To me, it's the ultimate thrill, because everything is random. You’re meeting a new person, in a completely foreign city, experiencing a culture you know nothing about. It’s a ridiculous situation, and it almost always ends in a good story.
This time I was in Boston, and I matched with a girl that happened to be an art curator. That caught my interest.
What’s an art curator, you might ask? In easy terms, it’s basically a person that helps rich people buy art. They usually deal with high-profile clients, make massive amounts of money, and have a good footing in the art world.
Not a bad contact to have.
The catch was that I was messaging this chick on a Friday night, while she was out at the bars. Which, if you have any experience with dating apps, is generally a fluke. You’re cute and already out at the bars. Why are you online right now?
So I asked her.
Well, it turns out, in her words, that “Boston’s completely full of finance and tech bros.” And since she’s got a background in the creative world, she wasn’t interested in that sort of guy. She liked “the artsy kinda dudes.”
Which is where I come in. And, for the record, I’ve never thought of myself as an “artsy kinda dude.” I’m just a guy that likes to travel, and got good at taking photos along the way. But she was an absolute smokeshow, so I was listening.
We ended up scheduling a date for Sunday night.
Fast forward two days later, and we’re getting drinks at an old neighborhood pub in downtown Boston. It’s a vibe.
Three drinks later, and we’re glitzing around the town like long-lost lovebirds. She’s showing me all the popular buildings, streets, and alleyways. I’m telling her how I create art, and she’s telling me how she sells art.
We connected on a level I hadn’t felt in a long time, and ended up kissing on a cobblestone road known as Acorn Street:
“Acorns”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 12-24mm f/4 G
[ISO 500 ~ 12mm ~ f/9 ~ 4s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Probably one of the most beautiful streets I’ve ever seen. But that could be biased.
Ten minutes later, we were making out in the back of the Prius I’d parked down the road.
The next thing that made me realize that this girl was different was the way she kissed. It was like this flirty, peckish kind of style. It’s hard to describe, but it was somehow completely different from anyone I’d ever kissed before.
Then she read my mind and told me that I was the fun one to kiss. What.
Two hours later I dropped her off, and I was left with my head spinning. An absolute whirlwind of emotions hit me, and we didn’t even have sex- just a (fairly) intimate discussion. Who was this chick?
For the next day she was all I could think about. Honest to God. It was like someone cast a spell on me and I was left dumbfounded. The only time I'd ever felt this way was with my first girlfriend of four years, back in college. Since then I’ve had countless relationships, hook-ups, dates, you name it- and never felt anything remotely similar.
(If you’re reading this and you’re on that list, sorry…)
So I let it stew in my head for a while. I wasn’t trying to get into a relationship right now, but she’d definitely left a mark on me.
Two days later I gave in and hit her up again. I suggested Ethiopian food, but she told me she had another idea. Come to her apartment tomorrow night, and bring nothing but a bag of oranges. Uh… OK?
My first instinct is that she was gonna make some kind of drink. Or dessert. But that seemed a little too normal for this chick. Like I said, she had some edge to her… She was different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I suspect that’s why she was making big bucks in fine art.
Her apartment was on the 14th floor of a skyrise in downtown Boston. I knocked on the door confidently, but truthfully, I had no idea what to expect. However, she greeted me warmly, and showed me around the flat. It was a studio, and a massive window overlooked a city that was very much alive.
The place was well-put together, nicely lit, and very clean. It was also full of strange remnants from the art world. Inside a frame above the couch was a ripped poster that said “Are you here?”
On a bookshelf across the room, several candles dripped inside old stiletto heels, and stacks of old Vogue magazines were neatly aligned below.
I plopped down on a worn leather couch. As she made me a gin and tonic, I asked about the oranges. She just said… “all in good time…”
Well alrighty then.
We talked for about an hour or so, and again, I was completely enraptured by this girl. She was so legitimately interested in my life, that it almost caught me off guard. Most people ask a few questions about living on the road, but this chick was absolutely obsessed with the dirty details.
As I went on she leaned in closer and closer, until the tension was finally broken by a kiss. But she paused before anything went too far. “Today is all about self-care,” she whispered. “Nothing else.”
She then got up and told me to peel the oranges on the counter, while she went to heat up the shower. “The oranges are a weekly ritual I follow,” she proceeded to tell me. “You take an orange into the shower, and eat it like a savage. Passionately, with anger even. Then you wash your negative thoughts down the drain. Would you like to join?”
At this point I was two drinks deep, contemplating how I’d ended up in this situation. I legitimately didn’t know a single soul for hundreds of miles in any direction. But here I was, in a Boston skyrise, about to eat oranges with a stranger in the shower.
“Alright. I’m in.”
She happily threw the orange peels on the shower floor, got naked, and told me to get in.
Warm water ran down my body, and when she stepped in, she looked deeply into my eyes. Then she took a massive bite of the orange.
The way she did it was ridiculously hot. Primal, even. She was so confident about this strange ritual that my initial perception of it completely changed.
I bit off a giant chunk of mine, and felt the citrus rush all over my face. Wow.
She went in for a kiss and my mind basically fell apart. Pure dopamine, bliss and you name it- all with a tangy backdrop.
Then she snuck a bite of my orange while my finger slowly slid up her thigh. She moaned and clutched her half-eaten orange.
Things got pretty fruity from here. All you need to know is that any stresses of ours disappeared right down that drain.
Proceeding the shower she made me a spicy pasta dish, and topped the night off with a horror flick.
It was like this chick knew me from another life. She asked all the right questions, hit all the right buttons, and again, left me spinning.
Our bodies came together again at the end of the night, and this time it felt spiritual. She was obsessive over me, and I was with her.
Afterward we laid in each other's arms, laughing about god knows what. But right before she fell asleep, she whispered something in my ear that made my heart sink. “This is all just self-care, you know. Nothing more...”
Sure, it was self-care. But I’d just fucking fallen in love with this chick.
Moments later she was asleep, and I was left with my thoughts as the sounds from the city echoed below.
The next morning I woke up and she was gone.
And such is the road. This beautiful and brilliant road. Full of absurd highs, and despairing lows. I'm currently writing this at 8:45PM, in an empty parking lot. It’s a stark contrast to that intimate, orangey night, high above the city.
It’s been a week, and two missed calls from me sit in her inbox. But she’s not gonna return them. The only thing calling me is the road.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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