Choose Your Own Adventure: Going Out To Eat With Your Long-Term Monogamous Girlfriend

Jan. 24, 2011

By Brandon Gorrell info

Email me: brandon@thoughtcatalog.com.

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“You can decide,” you say. She doesn’t say anything back. You’re busy Gmail chatting with someone, trying to hide your out-loud laughter. You’re also looking at Reddit and Gawker. You find something on YouTube about the censorship in North Korea, then click through a couple related videos. You start watching the Vice Guide to Liberia and it’s intense. The host of the Guide is interviewing this former warlord who used to go by the name “General Butt Naked,” who fought naked (along with his child soldiers) and cannibalized his fallen enemies. “Are you ready?” your girlfriend says. You look up from your laptop. She looks ready. She has her coat on. Her face is expectant and innocent and hopeful for a smooth night that captures the “authentic European dining experience” in Barcelona, one of the premier European tourist destinations as told by many web blogs and online web forum members, served by such discount airlines as Ryanair and Easyjet for as little as 22€ from Paris and other European destinations. You are in your sweatpants. “Okay,” you say. “I’m not sure where exactly to go,” she says, “but I’ve picked a couple places out. There’s this place called Mason Jesus here [she has the map in front of you, pointing at little intersection she's circled] that sounds like good traditional Catalan food. We’ll go there and if we don’t like it, we’ll go here [she's pointing at another circled intersection on the map], this Asian restaurant that seems pricey but has a cheap set menu. Sound good?”

It does sound good.

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  • Jamie

    absolute goldmine

  • Kal

    i tried to do the right thing… this is accurate. i feel like i try to be nice a lot but it just backfires…

  • accordionkeyz

    This was brilliant. Although she was totally being a bitch and I was in no way retarded.

  • http://heystellaaaaahhh.blogspot.com/ matthew

    I actually had a hard time choosing between the flamenco or not.

  • http://twitter.com/t_baugh Travis Baugh

    damn…

  • http://twitter.com/JosephErnest Joseph Ernest Harper

    Nailed it again. Definitely would have gotten laid.

  • http://lazyroar.blogspot.com/ Lazy Roar

    Please do more, this was excellent.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363230138 Michael Koh

    EVERYTHING IS JUST A GAME

  • http://heheheheheheheeheheheehehe.com/ tao

    highly enjoyed this

    felt amused, 'delighted,' emotional

    really sweet…

    felt myself wanting to read a novel like this at times

  • mario

    used 'open link in new tab' to simulate holding the page with my finger like the way i did with choose your own adventure goosebumps.

  • Chelsea

    i won!

  • kids with guns

    “and both of you sit on this bench for over ten minutes of excruciating silence, watching younger, happier couples pass arm-in-arm, until you stand, turn and say that you’re going home and that she can come with you if she wants. “

    every rshippy ive ever been in ugh

  • http://twitter.com/dahveed_miller david miller

    'incalculably authentic' – sweet.

    enjoyed this very much brandon.

    seemed like a kind of travel writing i've never read before.

    also felt like i was in the flow with my choice to 'go flamenco'.

    yes.

  • http://kilakilakila.blogspot.com brittany wallace

    i enjoyed this a lot… good job

    i think i say the sentences “i don't know” and “you decide” 14x the amount of the average human

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=505759069 Julian Tully Alexander

    My friend and I read this out loud as we chose our own adventure. We had a “traditional and authentic European experience”. Really liked this article.

  • http://twitter.com/georgedarroch George Darroch

    I think I enjoyed this. Perhaps this is why I am single and travel alone.

    I never have to choose. Anything.

  • Martha

    This was excellent!

  • Laura S

    wow…i swear this could have easily been about me and my bf of two years….we're always getting into the “you pick” “no you pick” fight over where to go for dinner…advice?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=612928768 Samie Rose

    This was brilliant. I love you (seriously, wanna go get some palak paneer sometime? Or something?)

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