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I’m Engaging In The Chase: Redemption Is Spelled J-O-H-N

by Jul 06, 2016
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This is a recurring PGP series. Catch up with all installments of I’m Engaging In The Chase by visiting the archive.

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I'm Engaging In The Chase

Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched. That’s all I’m going to say to the countless anonymous trolls on the World Wide Web who doubted that I could get it done in Texas. Hell, it was just last night that I received this e-mail, basically telling me to sack up and get back on the horse.

Austin has changed you Duda.

Living in a bougie-ass place in Austin, and taking stress relief bubble baths? Chicago Johnny would spit on you in disgust. Whats next, a gluten free diet? Crossfit? The awful yuppie undercut? You are better than this my man.

Your past few Engaging in the Chase articles have been sad. Im talking like Tiger Woods sad; you’re a shadow of your former self just going through the motions. Where’s the passion? Where’s the emotion? Where’s the fire? People say you’ll never win another major again, I disagree. You’re Johnny Fucking Duda, the originator of the chase. The man who carved up the Chicago dating game one Bumble match at a time. You’re on a cold streak, suck it up. If getting laid were easy deFries wouldn’t have had to con a chick into dating him so he could get pussy on the reg.

We men are hunters by nature, its programmed in our DNA. You may be in Texas now but as Billy Madison so eloquently put it, ‘you got a responsibility.’ If your dog gets lost you don’t look for an hour then call it quits, you get your ass out there and you find that fucking dog.

Find your fucking dog Duda.

Sincerely,

A fellow engager of the chase and a concerned reader

Expectations felt like they were at a fever pitch when I moved to Austin. And that’s probably for good reason. I talked a big game while writing remotely from Chicago so I can’t fault the people for that. But there will always be naysayers, haters, and negative people in general who will take any win and belittle it. A silent majority from the cheap seats secretly praying on my downfall. Countless others giving me words of encouragement.

I am Lebron James following his NBA Finals loss in 2015. I am Tom Brady in ’07, going 15-0 to start and losing the Super Bowl. I lost my touch, my finesse, and my confidence for a very brief and excruciating period of time. I needed to respond. So on a holiday weekend that rivals any that America has to offer I threw every last chip I had onto the table and came out on top.

We begin on Friday night with a precarious phone number I had gotten from a new friend in town. She happened to have company in from Dallas this Independence Day weekend and that friend was interested in meeting me. Following an Instagram and Twitter session which revealed some truly wonderful photos. In that moment, as I saved the number in my phone, all I could think about was Calvin Candy in Django: Unchained. “You had my curiosity. But now you have my attention.”

I had snuck into an infinity pool that neighbors my building because my pool is currently under construction. I can’t even begin to explain the stress that this issue has caused me since my move-in, but I won’t bore you with those details because complaining about not having a pool is equal to writing a letter of concern to your district’s Congressman. It falls on deaf ears. I had every intention of hitting the bars following my time poolside, but what started out as four beers in and around the pool snowballed into six or seven, and by 7:30 p.m. I was beat. I took a Facetime call from my ex-girlfriend in Chicago and we caught up for the first time since I moved down here. It was good to hear from her, but as the conversation winded down my mind began to wander. We ended the phone call unceremoniously as she had people coming over to drink. At some point during the phone call I had received two text messages from our Dallas heroine.

Dallas: Hey do you have a plan for tonight?

Dallas: We’re going to [redacted] on Sixth if you want to come

Read 8:15 PM

Me: probably laying low tonight watching Netflix, let’s grab drinks tomorrow though

That is where I figured the conversation would end for the night. I would drink anywhere from two to five more Miller Lites laying in bed and I would fall asleep watching an episode of Seinfeld I had seen seven times. And that was totally fine with me. Something happens to the mind after a few weeks or months of not having sex. Your attitude goes from anger to apathy. So three weeks ago on a Friday night I would have been gearing up to go out and hit on girls, but last Friday? Last Friday I was more interested in getting some sleep. It was around 10:30 when I heard my phone’s familiar text message alert from my bathroom. Internally, I thought it was probably one of my buddies in Chicago or Michigan drunkenly texting me. But a small, barely decipherable part of brain told me that it could be Dallas, and as luck would have it, it was.

Dallas: I’m sick of people, I’m down to get some Netflix in with you if you want

Read 10:32 PM

I couldn’t fire off my address any quicker than I did in that moment. I quickly threw dirty laundry into my closet, tidying up as best I could. By the end of Roman Holiday, we had gone from sitting on top of my comforter to underneath it, and the rest, as they say, is history. We slept until noon the next day and did it all over again Saturday night. I didn’t see the inside of a bar until Sunday and it was the best weekend I’ve had in Austin thus far. I just got called up from Triple A to the majors and I have no intention of getting sent back down. I’m back, baby.

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