Holy crap, I totally forgot to tell you this story! So I'm sitting at the park in Union Square one gorgeous morning very recently. I had a latte and some pound cake and nothing to do.
Well about 10 seconds after I sat down, this kid walks up to me and smiles and sits down next to me. He's short, oddly-dressed, younger but attractive. He had this weird glove thing on that might have once been a striped sock. His whole outfit was a bizarre Hot Topic mess, but somehow it endeared me to him. Not in a sexy way.
He said hi and asked me if I was gay, which was awkward, and then he told me I was attractive, which ok, made me feel a little weird, but he was nice enough and how often do you just get approached in the park by potentially interesting strangers? So I kept chatting with him without flirting back.
It was entertaining enough, but about 10 minutes into the conversation, I realized something. Based on his body language and a few subtle things he had said, it dawned on me that the kid was totally 100% full of shit! Nothing he had said to me was true.
It wasn't like he told some out rageous lie that clued me in. It was little things. He was "a little off" in general, but on top of that, there were tiny inconsistencies in his stories, and he was a little too quick to agree with me and change his opinion to suit mine. At one point, he was talking about filming a movie with a friend in high school, but then he said something about the "audience." Very weird. I concluded that he didn't work at the restaurant he said he worked at. I also concluded he didn't live with a friend in Brooklyn. Then he mentioned that he had been in Hairspray on Broadway for about a month, and that sealed the deal. B to the ullshit, if this kid was in Hairspray, then I'm Brooke Shields.
I don't know why she just popped into my mind.
Anyway, I decided to have fun with it and see if I could really catch him in something. We had talked about ancestry for a minute, so I went with that. He said both of his parents were Romanian and that he was born there, moved to America as a baby, but sometimes goes back to visit. First he said he wants to live there. Then he said it's depressing and everyone wears grey. I said "A minute ago, you said it was beautiful and you loved it." That's when he started going off on how goth he was.
Goth people are bad enough, but someone claiming to be goth when he clearly is not is really a sight to behold. We talked about Hellraiser and gross horror things. He made up some cock-n-bull story about a Tim Burtonesque play he did in high school that was WAY to edgy and horrid to be believable, especially if he really grew up in Idaho or whatever state he claimed to be from. I forget. Sadly, he did not seem interested in my recommendation that he read The Sandman. I started inserting lines from Mean Girls and Clueless into the conversation, and when he got them, I told him that no self-respecting goth would ever watch those movies, especially not enough to appreciate my citations. I told him I hated gory depressing things and only liked happy things like Pokemon and Harry Potter, and he was pretty on board with that, so I dismissed the goth thing right away as a total effort to be different. Lame.
Anyway, I wasn't done with the ancestry thing, so I said "Wow, so Romania, huh? Do you speak any Romanian since you've been there so much?" And this is the VERY best part of my story. He told me he only knew one phrase, so I told him to say it, and do you know what he said to me? He went: "Ssssssaaya-haasssssassshhhhheee."
I snorted. Obviously this little con-artist didn't know he was dealing with the biggest Harry Potter fan in the tri-state area. I looked right at him and said "That's Romanian? Y'know, that sounds a lot like Parseltongue." He went "Oh... uh.... yeah, I guess it sounds a little like it, but it's Romanian." My ample buttocks it's Romanian! That was the exact effing phrase Harry used to open the Chamber in the second movie! A little like Parseltongue!!? Bitch, please!
He said it meant "Have a nice day." I said it sounded like a death threat.
Then he changed the subject, and we ended up talking about my plan for the rest of the day. I said "cleaning my apartment", which was true (you should see it, it looks so good right now.) He wanted to help. When I said having people help made me uncomfortable, he said he wanted to watch. When I said "I don't want anyone watching me clean, that's so weird" he fessed up and said he wanted to fuck. Hm. Yeah, whatever. I'd bet money that homeboy didn't have a place to stay and wanted a roof over his head, at least until I fell asleep and he could make off with my valuables. HA! Wouldn't he be disappointed! The most valuable things I own are my Buffy DVDs, a plastic model golden snitch, and a little stuffed Jigglypuff, and I don't think "sentimental value" has a very good exchange rate on the streets.
So I said no to his offer of unprotected sex and a free STI with purchase, gave him a fake phone number, and left for the subway.... but not before he asked me to spot him two dollars so he could "get a snack."
I have a feeling I may have stumbled on an established New York phenomenon: the lying gay homeless weirdo who uses flattery and pretty eyes to exploit the needy hearts of successful young men. Anyone else had an experience like this?
