Finding Love on AOL

Ivan and I first met while we were in high school. It was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years. I spent a lot of time that summer partying. Well, that was the year all of my friends turned 15, and since we’re all Mexican, we were all having quineañeras (they’re like Sweet Sixteen parties, only more religious, and they have lots of booze). When I wasn’t partying, I was spending time at home being really lame.

Tits: I didn't have a quineañeras or a sweet sixteen. I feel like I missed out a ball gown and a chance to get cash.

Nugs: You had booze at 15? Then again, Jews drink wine at Passover when we're like, eight, which is probably why we're such good friends. 

Ginny: I've been to a few quineañeras. I was the albino white girl living in a Spanish neighborhood. They are FUN!

I started chatting it up on AOL Teens chat. And that is where I met my future husband. We never exchanged pictures, and only talked on the phone for hours before we actually met in person. We dated on and off throughout high school and when I left for college, we didn’t talk at all.

Hope no one needs the phone line!

Nugs: You know you were a 90's kid when...

Ginny: You know I always wanted to meet my boyfriend in a chat room. I'm not even kidding, this was back when people my age actually used chat rooms and not just spam bots for porn.

I stopped going in chatrooms after this (except for the 20sb one).

It wasn’t until 3 years ago that he called me because he wanted to get back together. I didn’t really want to because I knew we would just break up and get back together. I said no, but I agreed to be friends and I was surprised that he went for that. 

Nugs: I'm not. Guys always agree to be "friends" because there's always the possibility of something else.

Ginny: Wait he just contacted you out of the blue??

Yeah! He said he found my phone number while he was cleaning out his old room at his parent's house. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I'm pretty sure he just memorized it.

After a while, I started having feelings for him again and I was really angry at myself (and so were a lot of my friends). I don’t know why I allowed myself to have feelings for someone who had repeatedly broken up with me for stupid reasons. But, I did, and with a stern warning from my friends, I proceeded into this relationship.

I don’t remember ever going out on a date with Ivan in high school. Maybe we did and I’m intentionally blocking it out because it was that horrible. Our first “date” was about a year after we got back together. This sounds really bad, but, the first year we were together I was working a horrible job with horrible hours, and I was in school, and he was working nights. We had little to no mutual days off. It was a really bad 1^st year.

I had finally graduated and got a new job. We went out to celebrate that I was no longer working in retail hell. We went to dinner and had a really great time. Yet, we still wanted to be out and not go back to his house. So we decided to go watch a movie. X-Men First Class was recently released in theaters, so I told him I wanted to watch it. He was really confused why a girl really wanted to watch a comic book movie.

Tits: He obviously hasn't met us. Nugs would rather give up sex than miss the newest release of a comic book movie. She probably saw Batman & Robin in theaters.

Nugs: You don't know my life.

We searched for a movie theater that didn't have a lot of obnoxious patrons. Which in Chicago it's really hard to find. I took the executive decision to just go to a movie theater downtown. So, going to a movie theater downtown isn't so much of an issue. There's really no obnoxious ghetto kids talking throughout the movie, or anything really, prices are the same and the actual auditorium is smaller, and they have comfier (I did not know that was how you spelled that word- weird) seats.

We drove around for about 30 minutes trying to find a a place to park on the street. Everything single street had tow zone signs all over. Finally we found a spot, but it was a 15 minute limit. The movie was about to start, so I just told him to find the next parking garage that seemed reasonable. 

Ginny: I feel your pain living in Boston. Parking spot? What is this thing you call a parking spot?

We ended up parking across the street. The garage said it was $7 per hour. At most we'd be paying $21. I volunteered to pay for parking. We watch the movie, had popcorn and I finally felt like I was in a relationship that was leading somewhere.

We hung around downtown after the movie before going back to the garage. I put the little ticket into the machine to pay for parking. I saw the total and it was $50! There must have been some mistake. We weren't there for that long, at most the total should have been $28. Apparently, we don't know how to read. The $7 an hour rate only applied to parking Monday through Friday between the hours of 6am and 10 am .... this is mentioned in like 4 point font. (Nugs: Of course it is.) I paid the stupid $50. Needless to say, we don't go to the movies downtown anymore.

No matter how small the font.

A tale of romance and shingles. How Ginny met Derek.

Derek and I starting dating in May of 2012. We met the new old fashioned way, Okcupid. I had just ended a relationship of about 8 months in March. I decided to get back up on the dating horse but I wasn't expecting much.

Nugs: Is it wrong that when I saw "dating horse" I immediately thought of something really dirty? I also thought of this right afterward:

Tits: You would.

Nugs: It would have been a Fail if I didn't.

Okcupid can be really depressing. You start to think that there are no normal guys on here. Heck I'd even take a guy who can spell!

Tits: Understatement of the year.

During this time I reached out to a guy that I had blew off after a few dates during my last round of internet dating. He was a nice guy and I felt horrible for doing that to him. When I saw he was still on there I messaged him to apologize and he asked me out again. Then Derek messaged me.

At first I wasn't going to respond to his message because he only had one picture. For some reason I don't trust a guy with one picture but it was a clear picture of his face, not some sketch pic where you can't see what they look like. Plus he had a cute face and I loved his eyes.

Nugs: I've met Derek. He does have really nice eyes.

What really blew me away though was his message. Once I read it I realized this guy could actually form sentences and he read my profile. After checking out his profile I knew we would get along. We had a lot of similar interests and something about the way he wrote I liked.

Tits: And he didn't include the words "meat hole" or try to get you to sleep with him while his creepy girlfriend watched I'm sure.

Around the time I started talking to Derek I developed shingles on my butt and lower back. It was not fun, let me tell you. It was due to the stress of my bathroom being remodeled and it going horribly. I had been on medication and although I was still itchy and couldn't wear pants I said yes when he asked to meet up.

Nugs: "I don't think we should meet because you're not wearing pants," said NO GUY EVER.

Also, thanks to this and the movie Ted, I now know WAY more than I ever wanted to about Ginny's butt.


Lily: LMAO! I had that same thought when watching Ted all 5 million times.

Tits: I guess I ought to see this movie, but then I know nothing about Ginny's butt either.




Ginny: HEY! There are the annoying trashy Boston girls and then there's the sweet nice Boston girls. I only drop my Rs when I'm drunk or say blender or when I'm yelling.

We hit it off right away. I felt pretty comfortable so a few drinks in I dropped the s bomb "I'm getting over shingles on my butt and I can't wait to be able to wear pants again". Derek's reaction was amusement rather than horror which is good. I told him that I often just say things without really thinking them through.

At the end of our date while he walked me to the T he took off his sunglasses and handed them to me. He said "now you have to see me again so you can give me back my sunglasses." There may have been some kissing involved. It was really quite sweet. I gave him my sunglasses to return to me and well here we are nine months later.

Lily: Okay, so I'm really a sucker for all of this, because it brought a little tear to my eye. AND I played it in my head ... and it looked like a Nicholas Sparks movie.

*And if you're wondering about the other guy that I had been on a few dates with that I had blown off before, well I told him I met someone and he probably hates me. Poor guy, he was actually nice there just wasn't any spark.*

Poor guy. He probably feels like he got played.

Nugs: OK, so I met Derek a couple of weeks ago when I made one of my semi-yearly trips into Boston for Gin's birthday. We debuted the respective boyfriends to each other and they both passed our tests, according to the mass emails Gin and I sent out to the other Snark Girls. Once one of us hates you, well, that's pretty much it. Because you know, Chicks Before Dicks. So it's nice to know that both Mr. Ginny and Mr. Nugs have ben accepted by all. 

I actually have to give Derek a Golf Clap; meeting me for the first time together with Ginny in any vicinity that involves alcohol will usually cause any guy to look over his shoulder in fear for the rest of his life. I can't remember the last time Ginny and I hung out where we weren't off-the-scale drunk; most likely with some homoerotic activity, usually started by me. Well played, Mr. Ginny. Well played.