By Megan Byrd

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

I had never been to Queens. My Uber driver and I nodded our heads in recognition and didn’t say a single word on the 20-minute drive to the subway station where I was supposed to meet Hamza. Hamza is 6’7” with full sleeve tattoos, curly brown hair and 1288 Instagram followers. He sings in a hardcore band, which for whatever reason in-timidated me intensely. He has his husky neck tattooed but I didn’t plan on asking about it until later. I always save three things to say in case we can’t think of anything to talk about.

I opened my eyes. We were driving in between a highway and a graveyard. It always amazes me how packed the graveyards are in New York, headstone to head-stone, barely any walking room. I always wonder where they start being buried when they run out of room. I think I read about that – some European country where they’re digging bodies out of old graves to bury them deeper, so that fresher dead people can be buried. People argued that it’s unethical to disturb the dead. Others argued that it’s simply economical.

I didn’t want to let Hamza know that I took three depression naps that day after an argument with a friend. I didn’t want to tell him how difficult traveling from the middle of Long Island to Queens is, because I want this – I want a life in which I can drift be-tween my college and the city with ease and pleasure. I want to be adaptable.

Hamza and I met in front of a CVS. It was warm and we were both sweating. I always have to take a moment to look at their face. If I don’t and we just start walking it feels like I’m talking to a ghost. He has a stubbly beard; I hoped he would. We hugged and my head reached his chest. I’m sure he’s used to it. His belly is soft but doesn’t look like it would be. His legs are long and skinny. He was wearing vans and tie-dye socks with marijuana leaves printed on the side. His work “uniform” was a black T-shirt with a pocket on the chest that had a little white cat sitting in pot leaves giving you the finger.

We started walking. I had to speak louder so he can hear me. The distance be-tween our heights was only awkward for a moment. I think we talked about nothing. I asked how long he’s lived here. He says his whole life except for a moment in Egypt. I can’t imagine what that is like and I didn’t pretend like I did. He mentioned the heat and I told him I’m from Texas. Whatever this means to him, he doesn’t express it pro-fusely. I think we’re both on the same page – comfortable with whomever the other may be.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in online dating is creating an expec-tation in your head of who your date is. When you’re meeting someone for the first time and only have a general idea of the important characteristics – location, age, career, interests, hobbies – you have everything interesting to dig into when you meet. If Ham-za had told me he was laid back before the date, I wouldn’t have understood what that meant. My realizing Hamza was laid back was learned through us drifting to a Chinese restaurant he eats at every week, buying a Thai tea for us to share with one straw and being fine with smiling and ogling at the little lap dog at the table over.

Through the stoned rhetoric he uses to describe everything, “Just get drunk.”

He rattled the words through his mouth in a way that sounded like it was launch-ing from some newly discovered place in his brain without the intention of being re-membered.

Hamza is a little immature for his age, because he can be. He grew up in Ridgewood, a geographic area that is evolving culturally almost in perfect tandem with his age. At 23-years-old, working at a pop-up shop in SoHo that sells skater clothes, he’s reaching a point where it’s just more logical to keep living with his mom. I hadn’t realized this was his home, that the streets we were walking down were the same streets that had consumed nearly his whole life. I didn’t have expectations, but I’d speculated a cool studio apartment he’d moved into himself. Some hobbies and weekend activities to keep his life occupied. But this was it. He hangs out at his friend’s tattoo shop when he’s free and most of the friends he has he grew up with here. He’s cool, because he’s a local. He has that privilege. If I had met Hamza anywhere else I probably wouldn’t have been as into him.

Our conversations were easy. We didn’t reveal too much, but didn’t have to cre-ate ourselves to be something we’re not. Hamza didn’t go to college and is figuring things out. I am in college and am doing the same. When he sent me on the train at the end of the night, I didn’t have any strong feelings for what had happened or what could be. I enjoyed his company and would be willing to meet again.

I liked that we could talk about movies and TV shows and not be intimidated that we need to be more into them. I liked that he had Ron Swanson’s face tattooed on his leg, but couldn’t remember the name of the other male character in the show. I liked that his dog was friendly. I liked that he was honest about his financial and living situa-tion. I liked that we were similar enough that we could share these things understand-ably. I like that it was casual, that I’d be fine with it just being like this.

I’ve only ever dated men online. I’ve never made a romantic connection that wasn’t completely foreign to my social circle, and sometimes that’s what I like about it. I like taking myself and seeing what I look like when placed in the background of anoth-er life. And maybe that’s why it always works out so badly. Dating for me is a constant series of experiments. I’m never quite ready to stop.

Standing with a guy in Queens in front of the apartment that he’s lived in for 18 years with his mother, saying nothing as his dog takes a shit. Smoking weed on the grass next to a gas station with a dude in Austin, listening to him talk about walking from Las Vegas to California in flip-flops. Sitting in a hookah bar with a UT film student who grew up in Silicon Valley and explains everything like you should have experi-enced it the way he did too. Buying pizza at the Student Center for a short stumpy guy wearing a beanie who manages to insult both women and people with disabilities in less than half an hour. Riding in a Buick with a guy who bought doughnuts for Adele 12 hours earlier and is stretching his 24 hours of no sleep to 27 just to make-out with you.

Realizing you can’t assume anything about anyone else’s life and simply have to be open minded and curious as to what it’s like being them. Online dating is being a journalist of humanity. It’s one of the most powerful sources of spontaneity our genera-tion has.