This Mid-life Crisis Matt guy was texting me non-stop. I kept running into him at Sally Loo's (which I had no business being at since I had a mere $20 that I found in one of my old bank accounts).
There were times where he'd be so nice, buying me a coffee, or letting me have the other half of his sandwich (adventure sometimes doesn't allow you to eat much. Especially when that adventure starts out with no money), or offering to drive to the beach. I started getting hints from friends at the hostel that he was being potentially creepy.
Nawww. He's just having a mid-life crisis.
Actually, they weren't hints. They were blatant jokes of Matt being my sugar-less daddy. Well, perhaps, I thought.
After another day of running into Matt at Sally Loo's he mentioned to me that he used to travel around in his burnt orange 1986 Volkswagon Westfalia. Droool. He must have saw my mouth watering because he told me every detail about that thing. Everywhere he went, and what he did. He over-romanticized all of his adventures about how great it was to cook dinner on the mini-stove while driving across country, and then asked to borrow my computer so he could look on craigslist.
"What are you looking for?" I asked him.
"Westfalias. I want to buy one. I love those."
This was just after he got done telling me he was ignoring the calls from his doctors because he owes them more money than he has.
Sugar-less daddy.
Matt must have looked for a good half hour in-between looking up photos of Tilda Swinton convinced that I looked just like her; "so natural."
That didn't last long.
"I want a convertible. You know, one of those little two-seater Mazda's or something. Yeah! Let's look for one of those. We could get one pretty cheap."
Yeah, let's look for one of those. As if we were making a joint decision about what car Matt was going purchase to cure his mid-life crisis.
He continued to tell me about how his sex drive sky rocketed when he hit forty, and it seems that older women's sex drive drops dramatically. His girlfriend never wants to have sex with him, even when he begs. But now that he's experienced he's an excellent lover. Matt is handsome for a forty-two year-old but, come on. I did my best not to say anything while trying desperately not to make this feel any more awkward than it was.
Casey soon got off work at Sally Loo's (thank God) and we all went on a walk together. We're in California near the coast, needless to say there are plenty of Westfalias. On a daily basis I would probably pass up to ten of them walking around town while I stared googley-eyed with spit dripping down my chin. Soon Matt changed his mind again when we passed a seriously pimped out Westy parked on the street.
"Hey, do you have a piece of paper? I think if I offered them enough I could buy their Westy off of them."
Yeah, totally, it doesn't look like they use it or take care of it or anything. I ended up writing on about six Volkwagons that day, "I want to buy your Westy -Matt..." ending with his phone number. He never got any calls, but he never stopped dreaming either. I'd get texts from him asking me if I wanted to drive to Mexico with him in his Westy (that he didn't have), "friend not fling".
Friend, not fling. The sugar-less daddy comments proceeded, and then I fell out of touch with Matt for awhile. If I'd respond to his text messages I'd end up in a life-long conversation, so I just stopped and kept a safe distance from Sally Loo's.
I would run into Casey now and then and we'd chat, somehow ending the conversation with something about Matt and his mysterious non-existent girlfriend named Sarah.
"He's always in Sally Loo's, and I never, ever see her." Weird.
Something around two weeks of no contact with Mid-life Crisis Matt and I got another text message from him. He got his convertible, and he wants to come take me for a ride. I told him he could stop over at the hostel and show me. My fellow hostel friends kind of wanted to see what he was like after all of this. He did stop by. He came in and chatted for a bit, telling me about how fun it is riding along the shoreline in his little coupe, painting yet another over-romanticized picture of his life for me. But I never went on a ride. Just like I never went to Mexico.
He sold his Mazda just after I ended up leaving San Luis Obispo.
To this day I get text messages from him about how he broke up with Sarah because she's not adventurous enough for him, and how he wants to move to the Caribbean and go sailing. Just last month he told me he was buying a Westfalia and asked if I wanted to drive to Florida with him. His Westy deal fell through a couple of days after I declined the offer. I've got better things to do. He's got older women to chase.
I don't think I'll stop hearing from Mid-life Crisis Matt for awhile.
