I was 22 or something, just out of college. I had a crappy job and was living in a pit hole on the Lower East Side with a Wall Street roommate who was never there. My life was pretty much getting high a lot and eating mostly Ramen noodles. The one bright spot for me was girls because my laid-back lifestyle did let me focus a lot of effort on picking them up. I was having enough success that I didn’t have to think about getting serious with any of them. Living the dream. So one night I had a hook-up with this girl from China named Tanya. She was a little shallow, and we weren’t all that into each other. It was just kind of a casual relationship, an excuse to have good sex on a regular basis, with a couple of dull dates here and there to make it all feel legit. A relationship of convenience. RELATED: An Actual Ghost Crashed My Date Anyway, I’m sitting in my NYC apartment one day in the middle of the afternoon, smoking a bong by myself because I was that kind of driven and motivated when Tanya called me up. I could tell she was pretty into it, but I wasn’t feeling it. I had a big “me” day planned: I had just opened a bag of Fritos, pulled up Archer on Netflix, and my couch was calling. So I start making excuses, and I’m a little high so I’m probably talking too much instead of just hanging up, but she gets the picture. She doesn’t want to take no for an answer, though, so she says: “OK, but if you change your mind, I’m already in my costume.” And I said, “Your costume?” But she had hung up. And I’m sitting there thinking, “Costume?” … but I wasn’t about to call her back. I plopped down on the couch and pulled my snacks in tight, and started binge-watching. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. Costume? What costume? I paused the show and blew another bowl to think this through. There were ramifications if I decided to leave; it would mean finding pants, and sunglasses, and braving the outside world for a subway trip uptown. But what the hell was her costume? Catholic schoolgirl? Dominatrix? ’80s yoga instructor? My mind was reeling with the possibilities. A nurse, maybe? I was experiencing localized swelling just thinking about it. It was probably only five minutes of deliberation, in stoner time. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. One more completely unnecessary bowl for the road and I’m on my way. RELATED: A Man Refused To Date Me Because I Looked Like His Aunt And so, after a long and harrowing journey, I pull up to her apartment and passed the oblivious doorman. And I enter the elevator, just about tripping from smoking too much, with the reveal right around the corner, I suddenly start to panic. Was it just cosplay sex? What if this costume was something … darker? What if it’s a dominatrix costume, and she wanted to tie me to a chair? Or an alien, with tools for an autopsy? I was working without a net, here. By the time I get to her door, I had just about talked myself out of it. But she already knew I was here and had buzzed me in. And just as I was waffling at her door, it opened, to reveal… A ladybug. A full, head-to-toe, detailed, costume-contest contender of a ladybug outfit. RELATED: 4 Dating Horror Stories Everyone Who’s Tried Tinder Can Totally Relate To I’m talking black leggings and fluttery big giant red-with-black-polka-dots body wings. Her trademark cleavage spilled out the front and two springy ping-pong-ball antennae sprouted out the top of her head. She was giving me this impossibly sultry look, and I’m just as high as a kite, and thinking, like OK, wow, this is not what I was expecting, but yeah, I think I could be into this. Tanya didn’t talk. Not one word, the whole time. She was in character. She just kind of fluttered around the room and over into the bedroom, out of sight. I don’t know if I could have done it stone-cold sober. But high, this was a pretty interesting proposition. Once you realize this is gonna make for an incredible sex story, you’ve gotta go through with it, right? So, how was it? For me, the sex wasn’t crazy good, to be honest. I tried to talk a little afterward, break the ice, but she shook her head — still no, still in character, curled up on the bed — and after a little while I got the hint and left. So isn’t that the weirdest thing ever? We never talked about it later and never repeated the episode. We had a couple more dates but the summer was almost over and soon we were both off to other people. I probably should have seen this as an invitation to explore my own freaky side, and I do regret missing that opportunity. When you meet someone who’s truly up for anything, you get to take advantage; sometimes I think of looking her up for just that reason. But it’ll probably never happen. It felt exactly like bug sex, in retrospect: Tanya had chosen to mate with me, and once she’d taken what she needed, I was dead to her. We had mated and flown on. RELATED: 10 Of The Most Horrible, Cringeworthy Date Stories Of All Time Skip Johnson writes about his experiences with love and dating.
