This is a recording from my voicemail box from a recovering heroin user I randomly hung out with twice. Just to have some background information:
Our first hang was a random Craigslist meet-up I thought was a joke. The advertisement asked if someone would buy him some whiskey because he was broke and used to do heroin but not anymore. I thought he was being ironic.
Before arriving to the bar, he calls to tell me they took his beer away. It wasn't that he was so drunk he was denied service, it was that he brought his own beer to the bar. Apparently, he only has $7 to his name, yet has enough to purchase beer to bring to the bar. Within the first hour of me meeting up with him, he starts making the moves on me. Later that evening, he tries to get me to take him home with me, which I decline.
When we first met up, he tells me there's a party he heard about from some guy he met on the el on the way to the bar. He asks me if i want to go, and then proceeds to spend the rest of the evening asking me if he'd ever see me again and making accusatory statements about how I probably won't see him Friday.
The next morning, he leaves me a voicemail message apologizing for being drunk the night before and trying to redeem himself for saying some inappropriate things. He says he doesn't know where the party is, but has found that he has $14 now and can do something else. We agree to play scrabble at a dive bar with a couple of my friends (which, he is unaware I had convinced to join me in case the second hang out session went sour).
The night we are to hang out, he tells me he is coming from Evanston and now has a credit card with $50 to add to his $14 expendable funds. He shows up with a Ron Paul support sign and says that he had to bum change from strangers to get to the bar. He then says that he got into a few scuffles after we left the bar and was kicked out of 4 bars for trying to get people to buy him drinks. Either he did not want to use his credit card or was denied purchasing a beer with his card, he asks me to purchase him another beer (which, at this point, I am not interested in supporting his scrubby ass, but buy him one because I felt pressured).
After realizing that I am not interested, I go to end our evening. He asks me to tell him honestly if I will ever see him again, to which I reply, "Not romantically." I give him an honest, but compassionate rejection letting him know that I wouldn't mind being friends (okay, that was a lie, but I was trying to be nice) and that although he is attractive, I am not attracted to him. He asks me what repulses me about him (awkward) and that I should "give people more of a chance," (as if buying him drinks and meeting up with him a second time wasn't enough of a chance) and then repeatedly says that I'm never going to see him again until I finally become fed up and tell him to have a nice evening.
As I get my coat on to go, he asks if he can have $2 for the el. I tell him that it is not my responsibility and that perhaps he should have used the $3.75 for the el instead of the beer I bought him. He says, "Maybe you should be a decent fucking human being and give me the $2 for the el. I don't want to walk 5 fucking miles to Logan Square!" At this point, he becomes violently angry (a vein bulging in his neck as the physical signs of a fucking psychopath). "I bummed change to get here!" I tell him I'm unemployed and that I've already been pretty generous with the number of drinks I've bought him. "I'm unemployed too!" he said. "What about the $14 you said you had?" "I'm trying to save money!"
Realizing that he didn't seem to understand that he's a fucking bum and opportunistic asshole, I threw the money at him and told him it was for him never talking to me again.
The next morning, he calls me three times at 9AM, leaving me the following two messages for your listening pleasure.
Enjoy.
magnacarla