Well fuck it - I guess this is how we’re starting.

So this guy Ernie…

This is a new story, less than an hour old when I started to write this. It’s messy, not really thought out, and an example of fucking Facebook dating.

I met this guy Ernie on Facebook dating. He told me that what I wrote about wanting to hear other people’s stories was beautiful but not honest. So let me be honest. I regret giving him my phone number. It was just a lot of good morning, how are you, hello beautiful, all the shit guys say when they don’t have something to say. Flattery with no substance. When he asked me what I thought of him, I said after asking me out and never following through, the most we could be is friends that hung out. I probably should have cut things off there. I suspected that he didn’t want to tell me he didn’t drive. I had already put that together with the skateboarding and trolley. So I offered to go over to his area to not make it a thing - still a no-go. 

Tonight, he sent a text message about how he’s going to stop texting because I didn’t care anyway. I told we don’t talk about anything other than hollow hello’s. Well fucking Ernie calls me and it starts off with him answering like I called a shop where I get to choose from all sorts of sexual pairings. I got the joke, but then it kept going, I was entertained and then confused, then what the fuck is this?. I told him there were too many options, I couldn’t choose, but also I didn’t even know I wanted any of it. I think this is where he asked me if I was a lesbian - I said no. It then launched into a rampage of family history about his Mormon mother - he’s not Mormon, he’s Christian and she’s disappointed about that. Then into what he called his “slut” of a father who was Catholic and converted to Mormonism because his parents got married. Ernie has 9 siblings and his dad abandoned a bunch of them, who later had to track him down. A lot of them died from addiction. He’s going on and on, but I’ve been through this before, it usually ends, but this went on and on and on. 

He talked about being bullied, about a lot of Tongans living in Utah because apparently the Mormons went hard with the missionary work in the Kingdom of Tonga, watching his dad do “sex acts” on the couch after his girlfriend (or was it a wife?) left. She was cool, may she rest in peace. He had to leave after that because it became unbearable.

He talked about how all San Diegans are horrible and just want to take from him, lie and cheat. He glorified Utah, basically saying everything was better out there - the people, the scenery, the cheese on pizza, and unlike California, they do farm to table, because he said California doesn’t grow any of its own food like other states. When I said maybe it was just the people he hung out with, because I haven’t experienced that he was making big generalizations. He’s saying this shit to a fucking San Diegan!! He then told me I only think that because I haven’t gone outside of California. When I said I lived in Shanghai for 3 months - just to give an extreme example, he said that didn’t count. This is what happened for most of the conversation. He kept telling me I wasn’t being honest and saying what I really thought. Asking me to say something, but when I didn’t agree with him, I wasn’t giving any facts. He disagreed when I said he was discounting everything I said. Then he said he didn’t discount 25, 50, or 75%. I thought that was pretty good. Maybe the best joke that wasn’t a joke of the night. Or maybe it was and I’m too slow, but I was entertained all the same.  

Then it went sideways when he said drag queens shouldn’t be teaching children because it would influence them. When I disagreed with that or even asked what his definition of a drag queen was - he said since I don’t have kids my opinion doesn’t matter. And how “real gays” didn’t want drag queens teaching thier kids either. That every real gay or lesbian couple is always a masculine and feminine. He’s an authority because his sister is a big ol lesbian. The gay community feels outcast from society so they are all trying to convert everyone so they don’t have to feel ostracized alone. Then something about a sin of his sister influencing his other sister to sexually explore being with women. At this point I’m trying to end the call because there is no way this can ever be a match of any kind. I didn’t want to get into it and when I tried to counter any of his points, I was being a victim because I was turning things around on him.

After multiple times of trying to end the call, he asked if it meant that we weren’t going to meet. Yes, we are not meeting. I had to hang up because he wouldn’t stop. I didn’t answer when he called back and then I got a fuck off text. Then I blocked his number. This is just my rough account of what happened, he would probably tell a completely different story. I would be a victim that lied, never gave any facts, and wouldn’t engage because I was scared to say what I really thought.

The whole thing was exhausting and now I have a headache. In hindsight, he was probably on something. Fuck me for going against me instincts. 

Love fucking Riva - I’m happy to be one of those weirdos that you said you kept coming across.

Ernie - I hope you fucking read this and send me a long diatribe of a email so I can post it here as a follow up. You get to share your take on it and my liberal self who is too scared to say anything honest. What the fuck?!

Epilogue: Well fuck, Ernie was right. Some of these stories will be indulgent, pretentious, unnecessary, or complete trash. 

Creation for creation’s sake.

That’s it.

RR - 1/6/2026