I was in Manasquan, NJ visiting my cousin Kate who rents a summer house there. For the past 4-5 years my friends from college have been telling me how much fun summers in “The Squan” are. I had always wanted to go, but could never make the time. Kate turned 25 this past week and I had the weekend off, so I figured there was no better time to make the trek down to the shore. She lives in a house with about 10-12 other people. I went to college with one them, but had not met any of the others. When I did meet them all it was very quick. There were no individual, “This is my cousin Dan. Dan this is ______,” situations. It was basically, “Hey everyone, this is my cousin Dan. Dan this is everyone.” I spent the next two hours trying to figure out everyone’s name without having to directly ask anyone. It wasn’t until 5:30 when we were piling in a giant van that fit all 15 of us that I finally learned everyone’s name. Within the group of 15 were two guys who live at the house, 6-7 girls that live at the house, and an array of friends, cousins, and co-workers.
About an hour or two after we got the bar I ended up next to one of the friends of a girl that lives in the house. She initiated the conversation by saying, “Dan? Right?” to which I said, “Yup, and you’re Taylor” before I explained my personal mission to learn everyone’s name. We then spent the next 45 minutes to an hour having a totally engrossing conversation. She lives in Fairfield, where I went to college, works in sports media, just like me, and is very much into politics. She looks like a more attractive version of a girl I went to college with (younger than me) and is proud alum of the University of Miami. In fact, she made the below gesture 3-4 times as she was telling me about how much she loves college football.
As if her love of sports and broadcast journalism wasn’t enough the conversation soon turned to politics. Talking about politics is a little dicey because people take issues, candidates, and their affiliation very personally.
This was not a, “Who are you voting for in November?” conversation, though. I was more intrigued by how this girl became interested in politics in the first place. We discussed how we keep up on what’s going on. What we read (she pays to read the New York Times online and gets a weekly newsletter delivered to her house), what we watch, etc. Eventually we got into our political leanings (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) and began discussing things like social welfare programs. Then she brought up Todd Akin’s recent comments on abortion. Because I assume that none of you know what he said or who he is, I’ll explain. Akin is a congressman from Missouri who’s running for the Senate and he essentially said that women who get raped rarely get pregnant from those encounters because a woman’s body “has ways to shut that whole thing down.” Taylor and I agreed that he should drop out of the race and then discussed abortion.
I explained that I’m pro-choice because if abortion was outlawed women would still find ways to get them and these “black market” abortions, for lack of a better term, would lead to all kinds of health complications. For me abortion may not be morally right, but women wouldn’t stop getting them if they were outlawed, so let’s keep it legal and have them performed by professionals in the safest, most sanitary way possible. I’ve firmly believed this since 2007 and have never heard anyone refute it. After I presented my case, Taylor politely said, “That’s a weak argument. That’s like saying that we shouldn’t outlaw murder or drugs just because people are going to keep killing each other and doing drugs.” Boom. I had never thought of it like that and was very impressed that she was able to spin my argument around like that. Neither one of us was passionate about the issue. It wasn’t a “You’re wrong, I’m right” kind of thing. It was just a natural conversation about a divisive issue. By the way, that lack of passion is the main reason why I never seriously pursued a career in politics. There’s just no topic/issue that I feel strongly enough about to get seriously involved. I think I’m still pro-choice because who am I to tell a woman what to do with her body, but my stance has been significantly altered to say the least.
I, like a true gentleman, bought Taylor a few drinks (a delicious local drink called a Spring Laker that’s essentially a Red Bull vodka with pineapple juice) throughout our conversation which lasted long after the abortion discussion. Sooner or later it was 9pm (it felt like 1am) and my cousin Kate and all of her housemates who were with us were on the dance floor. Taylor and I danced together briefly, but it was more of a group thing, or so I thought. 15-20 minutes later Taylor was dancing exclusively with a kid in the bar who was not with our group. 20-30 minutes later there were a few quick kisses exchanged. I’m not sure what came of it, but we all left the bar shortly thereafter and the first cab, which contained Taylor and my cousin Kate, ended up going to a different bar while the cab I was in went elsewhere. I didn’t see Taylor for the rest of the night.
And that, my friends, is why you should never fall in love at the Jersey Shore. I, obviously, say that mostly in jest, but that was probably the best conversation that I’ve ever had with a girl that I didn’t hook up with. Not for nothing, I did get a Facebook friend request from her the following day.
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