☾ What did it feel like? ☾
⚘ Date with a Hippy Girl April 2, 2025
☮ * PEACE & LOVE * ☮
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/ - - \ \✌
| o o | She said she loved nature...
| ∆ | but left trash in the woods.
\ --- _/
.-'`-----' `-.
.' `. ☣
/ * free spirit \
| vibes & crystals |
\ $9.99 each /
`. .'
`-._______,-'
⚠ GREED IN HER SOUL ⚠
The laid-back college town of REDACTED was cold and uninviting on the drive out. Spring was here, but still struggling to get the upper hand on winter. I had been looking forward to playing a little hooky and getting out of THE CITY-this small nearby berg always felt like a perfect escape. But REDACTED has a habit of teaching me lessons I didn't ask for. This day would be no different.
Hubris. That's the only word for it. Pure, dumb hubris to think I could will a good day into existence. I'd cleared the schedule, picked the spot, set the time. But now, parked outside a country car wash under gray skies, I stared at the latest text messages in stunned silence.
I met Hippy the usual way people meet these days-online. Texts, calls, vibes. She came on strong: confident, relaxed, smart, politically sound. No Trump. Adventurous. Sexual. She checked every box and then some.
For days we texted. The connection felt real. We even tried to meet early, but settled on a day later in the week. I thought I was being careful. I thought I was meeting someone like me.
But I always forget-being "alternative" doesn't protect you from tourists. I assume people like us speak the same dialect of trauma, that we can laugh together at the mess we've survived. But Hippy had a different language entirely.
I made a joke about date safety. In return, I got hit with revelations: a kid, an ex, restraining orders. Heavy stuff, dropped thirty minutes before we were supposed to meet. Jokes I had made earlier no longer played right. Suddenly I was being scolded. It felt old. Familiar. Bad.
"No one likes you, give her a chance," said the sad, lonely voice in my head. I apologized. The date was back on. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I wished it wasn't.
I dragged myself to the coffee shop-an aggressively "college town" kind of place. Nothing unique, just set dressing from some movie. And then she arrived.
Draped in loose fabrics, a floppy hat, oversized sunglasses, and an enormous handbag, Hippy glided up to the bar. No hello. No real start. Just... presence.
What followed wasn't a date. It was a monologue. I was there, but I didn't matter. Hippy was the show.
First came the correction. I observed she seemed like a regular at the café-knew the staff, the menu, had a "usual." "I don't think so!" she snapped. She had a gluten allergy, she explained. It was the only place she could eat. Not a regular.
Foolishly, I tried to relate. Mentioned someone I know who fakes it, and someone who doesn't. But no-no one fakes it, apparently. There was no curiosity. No space for nuance. I was already drowning, and it wasn't even ten minutes in.
I changed the subject. Truck guys, guns, conservatives-the kind of stuff crunchy lefties usually love to dunk on. The drive out had been full of that energy: Punisher stickers, NRA hats, lifted pickups. Goldmine for hippy outrage, right?
Wrong.
She'd decided to "broaden her dating pool." Specifically: RICH-TOWN truck bros. Trump voters who feel bad but still think they'd win a civil war. She found them thrilling. Sure, they weren't into her poly lifestyle or gangbang kink, but she could get them there-if they wanted her badly enough.
She'd run businesses. She dropped details about therapy clients-names, incomes, locations. She bragged about manipulating clients into bringing their family in too. She was REDACTED's biggest drug dealer, at one point. Anything I mentioned, she had already done. And done better.
Finally, a reprieve-she had scheduled a session with a client during one of her rare pauses. I was free.
Walking to my car felt like stumbling off an untested carnival ride. I'd just stared into the bleached skeleton of the peace movement, gnawed to dust by a millennial crunchy capitalist. Hippy wasn't a healer-she was a user. Calling it therapy didn't make it better.
My chest ached. My brain swirled. My legs were shaking. Has this always been there? Is that all we are now-Boomers in shawls, cosplaying radicalism while swiping right on fascists with good credit?
Just because he drives a truck and votes Trump doesn't mean she can't have a houseplant and a tie-dye wrap.
Was this our version of *The Big Chill*? Did people like her ever *mean* it? Or have I just been fooling myself this whole time?
By the time I hit the highway back to THE CITY, I was already crying. Already insane. I sent a quick "thanks but no thanks" text, tossed my phone in the back seat, and drove the rest of the way in silence.
