Bridge City Dating Service

I was browsing profiles on a website similar to OKCupid (but for Portland only) when I was instant-messaged by an Asian girl in her early twenties. Most of her pictures revealed really beautiful features, but with the rest of the face either severely contorted by silly expressions, or otherwise blocked from view. Intrigued, I agreed to eventually meet her for coffee, but at an unspecified time of her choosing in the near future.

On the way home from work a few nights later, I received a message on my iPhone to get to a certain place nearish to my work. The message was cryptic, and contained no further instructions. As I was trudging uphill along the southwest border of the Portland skyline route, the streets were packed with people walking around. I had foolishly forgotten that it was David P Thompson/Cascadian independence day.

Fireworks had started before I left work, but as I reached the summit, the cityscape was ablaze and the smell of sulphur was hanging heavily in the air. I began to walk across the nearest junction to a bridge intersection. Finally, I received my next instruction. The voice in my earbuds broke in, and told me to catch the southbound tram at a very specific time. I made my way across the SW 60th avenue bridge junction to the Columbia/Jefferson bridge intersection, and got eastbound down Columbia.

The voice in my earbuds was breaking in occasionally to give me further cryptic instructions, or to make strange comments (often very nearly making reference to the podcast I was currently listening to), but the voice was unmistakably that of an Asian young man.

Finally getting to about 20th avenue, the bridge was being whipped by a sturdy gale, and the pathway ahead was, if not dangerous, then stressful to tread. Thompson day decorations led several of us pedestrians to bump into one another, but I made it to the Willamette avenue/Columbia overstreet tram station with a few minutes to spare. Looking down, I could just barely make out the festivities at Waterfront park, and waved back to some people celebrating from the helipad atop the newly rebuilt KOIN tower.

The tram arrived exactly on time, and I made my way on board from the tail end. Instructions came in to make my way up the cars. The tram was a local from Sauvie to Sellwood, so I had only a hundred or so cars to pass between before reaching the front car. Dodging commuters and families returning home from downtown, the way was slow going until we reached the old South Watefront district. At last, as I was walking through the dozen or so sleeping cars, a young Asian woman appeared by my side and began whispering instructions to me, and always jogging just slightly ahead of me. She disappeared entirely as we raced up through the mercantile cars, most of which had shut their shops for the evening.

I entered one of the quadruple long club cars, and discovered it blackly-lit with fairly loud music playing. I walked up to where the girl I saw earlier had sat down, discovering a small group of Asian people hanging out. Immediately the man whose voice I recognized spoke up, and introduced me to his companions as and old friend, making really oddly inside jokes that only I would understand as he did so. Immediately I felt a camaraderie with this guy, though it was obvious that it was him I had been communicating with from the beginning. He introduced me with especial warmth to the girl whose features I recognized from the dating profile, his sister named [redacted], who I began chatting up at once.

Despite the fantastic oddness of the situation, it ended up a surprisingly good first date.