I think that's the end of that in 2019 Amazing Stories!

This weekend I went to the summer solstice parade/festival in Seattle which I’ve been meaning to attend since I moved here in 2012, but have never actually made it. This was the event I agreed to go to with the dude who I’m probably not seeing any more. But before I get into that part of the story, let me just say that I really enjoy the event portion of the date!

This event is put on by a local arts council and involves a parade and fair/festival atmosphere. It starts with a parade (which was 2 hours long!) and then ends at a park where there is the typical food/booze/live music/vendor fair setup for the after party. The parade starts with (mostly) naked bicyclists who are either covered in body paint or very scantily clothed. I’d say about 90% of the dudes were cycling with an erection, so I’m pretty sure Viagra did well that day. It was very chilly and none of those dudes had smeared body paint on their hands or erections, so you get my point. After the bicyclists came the floats. The rules for the floats in this parade is that they can not be powered by engines (meaning they must be pulled or pushed by humans - no animals is another rule since naked humans around everywhere), and no printed lettering. It is an arts festival.

Here’s some pics from the parade:

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The after party was pretty cool too. I probably would have hung around longer if it was just me, but I was pretty tapped out from attempted socialization with dude who I’m probably not seeing anymore.

I’m pretty sure we’re just not compatible, and I have significant room for improvement in the socialization department, and he’s a low-key alcoholic. We started the morning taking the ferry across the water to Seattle. I didn’t realize just how much sitting across from someone and trying to hold a conversation for 1 hour (in a non-therapy or tap room setting) would exhaust me. But part of that might be due to the cold I was trying to recover from and part of that might be the fact that I can just not find a lot of common interests between us.

So I was mildly on the struggle bus by the time we arrived in Seattle. Then we took a lyft to the actual festival/parade route area. We walked around for a little bit and then I set out to find us a good curbside seating area. We arrived early enough that curbside seating could have happened, BUT he spotted a bar with deck seating where he (we) could conveniently watch the parade with access to a bar. My pictures are super zoomed in, we were actually pretty far back. My thought was “oh he probably needs a drink to unwind and then we can move back down to the parade”. But after the first beer, he went back for a second. After the second he went back for a third. We were trapped in the bar for the entire parade because he was drinking the whole time. By the end of the parade I was ready for a cocktail myself, but I was also low-key freezing (we had a weird cold spell this weekend), and just wanted to be in heated indoors. Plus, recovery from my cold had me feeling weak. He had two cocktails.

After that we walked to the park for the after party. We hung around for an hour or so and then decided to lyft back to the ferry terminal. On the ferry ride home he asked me if I ever want kids (after an adorable little girl who was learning to walk wobbled by). I said “mayyyyybe, but I have to make sure I’m with the right person first because a kid ties you to the other person for the rest of your life, and I’m not sure if I’d make the best mother material either because I require a lot of alone time to reboot.” I am, unfortunately, very direct with my answers when I’m exhausted, He said he wanted at least one kid, but if the first one is a girl he needs to have another one because he really wants a boy. Political views also came up in the ferry ride home. I said I leaned pretty liberally, pretty leftwards. Honesty is the best policy. I am open to being in a relationship with someone who is not though if each person can respect the other person’s views and agree that we don’t have to agree on everything. He told me that the next date is my turn to plan (this event was his) and I said “there’s a short family friendly hike to this waterfall…” which was interrupted with “Have you ever tried Al’s? Its this great pub on the water.”

When he drove me home he said he was willing to “warm me up anytime” and I realized that a normal person would invite the other person up for sex after a day out in the city and he seemed pretty “eager”, and I realized at that point that I was not physically attracted to him and it was definitely an “oh fuck” realization moment. And I did not invite him up. And he did not send me any texts yesterday. And he really is a nice person.