Twist and Shout

Story Sent in by Delois:

Joe, who I met online, invited me to a street performance show for our first date. He told me that a friend of his was in it and that it would be a great time.

On the date, Joe led me to a city plaza where his friend was in an acrobatic group of six guys who performed with a boom box in front of a crowd. They flipped and danced and leaped and spun and it was all very impressive. I cheered and laughed with the crowd. After they were done and passed the hat around, I told Joe that I liked the performance a lot.

Joe had some sort of chip on his shoulder and as the crowd dispersed, he told me to follow him away.

I asked him, "Aren't you going to see your friend?"

Joe said, "You're my date."

I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I followed him to an area with some restaurants, which is what I assumed we'd be doing next. But he was clearly in a bad mood. I asked him what was wrong.

He said, "I could do anything they could do. They weren't that great."

He then ran to a nearby wall and attempted to run up it and (I'm guessing) backflip off of it. A similar move was done dazzlingly well in the street performance. Surprisingly, Joe was actually able to flip most of the way around, although it was more of a side-flip than a backflip.

He landed on his feet but he screamed long and loud. Something was clearly wrong with his right ankle. I ran to his side to ask him, "Are you okay?"

He stumbled at me and I backed away. He said, "Go! Go out with one of those asshoIes from the performance! I saw how you looked at them!"

I was not looking at those performers with anything other than amazement. Did he really think I had any kind of desire for them?

Then, Joe actually attempted to do a flip again, but without nearly as much success. He kept yelling at me to go, go, go, so I went, went, went. I hope he made it home okay, but I never found out.