Not long ago. I had a first date with someone I met on a dating app. Texting was fine before the meet. Not great but normal enough that I thought it would be okay in person. We met at a coffee shop and the first few minutes were fine. Basic introductions, small talk, nothing unusual. But then something weird started happening. Every time one of us said something, it just died there. Like I would ask a question, she would answer. Then silence. She would ask something, I would answer. Then silence again. No natural flow, no follow up, no “building” on anything. Just question, answer, pause. We both just kinda laughed awkwardly at one point cause we obviously noticed it. We tried to get it going but it felt like we were forcing every sentence Total 30-40 minutes but felt much longer. Nothing bad happened, no argument, no weird moment. Just two people who couldn’t find anything to connect on. We both said it was nice meeting each other and left. And that was all. It was not the worst date...
I work in commercial fishing. I’m going to lie to the police tomorrow about why I blew up my own boat.
Commercial longline fishing is a miserable way to make a living. You live in a state of constant, grinding exhaustion. The boat smells permanently of rotting bait, and frozen brine. You work twenty-hour shifts, pulling miles of heavy monofilament line out of the freezing water, unhooking the catch, rebaiting the hooks, and stacking them back in the holds. It breaks your back and ruins your hands. I was the new guy. The crew consisted of just three of us: the captain, an older, heavily scarred deckhand who had been fishing for thirty years, and me. We were working a very deep, isolated stretch of the ocean. We had been out for ten days, and our luck was terrible. The holds were mostly empty, and we had caught a few small swordfish and some low-grade tuna, but nowhere near enough to cover the cost of the fuel and the bait, let alone make a profit. The tension on the boat was thick. The captain was pacing the deck, chain-smoking, glaring at the dark water. The older deckhand worked in gr...