Rubik’s Cube Guy – Survived by Sarah

WHO: Rubik’s Cube Guy

WHAT: Craigslist date

WHEN: Way back in the day, aka 2007

WHERE: San Francisco

WHY: As I’ve mentioned before, Craigslist dating was my first real foray into dating. I’d just broken up with someone I’d been with for about 5 years and I was ready to get myself out there. But it’s hard as shit to meet people and I worked at an elementary school that employed all women except for one male who was no thank you gross. He was also married. So my roommates made me put myself up on CL back before it was filled exclusively with serial killers.

THE DATE
I honestly don’t remember much about this one. I know I’d seen his picture and I knew he was really tall, but I can’t remember any details of the emails we exchanged. I do know we wrote to each other a lot and he was pretty quick to respond. I remember thinking he was witty, which seems to be the one major requirement I always look for after height.

So I was excited about this one. We had exchanged phone numbers and made tentative plans to meet at my place, but I hadn’t yet given him my address. Work got crazy and I wasn’t able to get back to my phone until I got off. I was stuck in rush hour traffic on my way home and I remember texting him to say I was sorry for running late and asked if he still wanted to meet.

So here’s where things take a creepy turn.

He texted back something to the effect of, “It’s cool, I’m on my way to your house.”

Remember, I hadn’t yet told him where I lived, so this was startling news.

I said, “Wait how do you know where I live?”
Him: “I found your address on the Internet.”
Me: “……….”
Me: “Um what?”
Him: “Yeah it was on your Facebook profile so I just decided to head over.”

I hadn’t friended him on Facebook either, so it was creepy that he was stalking me. I should also mention that at this point I had no idea what this guy did for a living. He had mentioned that he worked in Emeryville and I think he sprinkled some details about computer animation or video something or other. I straight out asked him if he worked for Pixar, because I knew that’s where it was located. He said no and that he wanted where he worked to be a surprise.

Um why?

I remember mentioning to him how much I loved Pixar movies, so maybe he was hoping by lying and keeping said information secret he would impress me?

Spoiler alert: he didn’t impress me.

But don’t worry, it gets worse from here.

So I called one of my roommates and warned her that some weird guy might be showing up at our house. I also told her he had stalked our address and mentioned if she didn’t hear from me in a few hours she should notify authorities because this guy was a wack job.

And yet I didn’t call things off for some reason. Oh, Sarah.

I get home finally and he’s sitting in his truck parked just down the street from my house. He gets out and is not nearly as attractive as I assumed he would be from his photos. He definitely looked like someone who sits in front of a computer all day and he was just not my jam. But I cheerfully said hi and was ready to power through.

We walked to Haight Street and had dinner somewhere or other. I’m fairly certain I rushed through it. I was tired and this wasn’t going anywhere and since I worked at a school it was literally a school night for me.

Somehow as we are walking back to his truck, Rubik’s Cubes come up. I have no idea how, but they did. And he ran with it much farther than I was prepared for. He told me he can solve a Rubik’s Cube in some absurd number of seconds. He told me he goes to Rubik’s Cube competitions. He told me he was friends with a Rubik’s Cube champion. He told me said champion was the guy who trained Will Smith to solve a Rubik’s Cube for that movie where Will Smith solves a Rubik’s Cube. And lucky me, he told me he had A COUPLE Rubik’s Cubes in his car.

To be fair, I love Will Smith. His music is the shit. So anyone who knows someone who has met him is impressive to me. It’s also impressive that anyone can ever solve a Rubik’s Cube in any amount of time. They’re hard and they make no sense. I could write you an essay about them using my English brain, but I will never be able to use my brain to solve one. I’m not wired that way.

But this guy was wired that way. We stood in the street next to his truck and I watched him solve one in under a minute. He was good, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to overcome his personality and impress me.  Also I still didn’t know what his job was. So I tried to make an exit, but the clinger clung on.

Somehow, despite all my protests and excuses, he managed to convince me to invite him to come hang out with my roommates. They were all three home and I was not keen on them having to meet this boring guy, but remained hopeful they could help me shake him.

We went inside and sat in the living room with my roommates. I got up several times and left the room hoping he would take a hint, and each time one of my roomies would corner me and be like what is up with this weirdo and why is here? He also never seemed to take the hint.

Eventually we managed to get him to leave. I think we all yawned and feigned exhaustion or an emergency or something. But the point is he finally took the hint and left. I rehashed my boring creepy weird evening with my roommates and mentioned how weird it was that he never told me what he did. My roommate Lily said, “Oh, well while you were out of the room, he told us he works at Pixar. He said not to tell you because he wanted to surprise you.”

Poor guy. He never got to surprise me because I never saw him again. I also made very sure my address was wiped off all social media, which at the time was only Facebook.