Tinder Saves Liam From Being Homeless the First Time:

My dad raised 4 kids on his own on a salary of $25,000. And to say I was an easy kid to raise would be like saying Jared Fogle of the Subway fame would make a great boy scout leader, so pops struggled with that on its own without throwing in the rest of the laborious single-parent struggles. We were consistently broke, living in low-income housing, and on what floors that would have us in the later years. My dad didn’t have any assistance in any sense of the word and was practical and selective with how he spent what little money he had, ensuring we never went hungry and always managing to find a way to make it work. He had odd jobs and was a master at the art of frugality, or simply, a cheap motherfucker, but necessarily so. He was incessantly in sink or swim mode and swimming desperately against the burgeoning current.

A couple of examples of how he whimsically saved a dime or two:

To expand the life of the ketchup, we were told to water it down. This is partially why I cherish ketchup to this day, even obsessing over its immeasurable value like it’s worth that of a king's ransom. Motherfucker, you try drinking liquid ketchup off of a hot dog, and then come talk to me!

We never had the heat on and when we bitched, he told us to put a sweater on. The days we were fortunate enough to have the heat on, it would be limited to one tiny vent in one section of the house, so my siblings and I would drown ourselves in sheets and take turns covering our feet over the heater. We may have had chronic hyperthermia, but hey, at least our extremities were nice and toasty!

When the toaster handle stopped working, he didn’t buy a new one, we just had to find a heavy object to hold the handle down with. I fucking love toast, but the strenuous battle acquiring said toast was never worth the distress. Fuck toast, man.

Our washing machine broke, so to start the machine, we were forced to place a sewing button in between the crease of the lid and the on button. We had to sift through the tackle box full of buttons for the perfect-sized one because if it were too thick, it would fling off of the machine, too thin and it wouldn’t start. Clean clothing was far too much of a burden to fucking bear. And this is where flipping my underwear inside out to salvage a few days of NOT using the washing machine was birthed! He only recently got rid of that archaic piece of shit.

“We’re not out of toothpaste, cut the middle and scrape the sides” he would say. I spent many o’ nights going to sleep without brushing my teeth, which is like the dream for a kid. As an adult, if I miss a night of brushing my teeth, I need to take 4 showers just to feel fucking clean again.

He would eat our leftovers and wear me and my brother’s hand-me-downs as we got older. Picture a grown man wearing COMEDICALLY oversized Ecko and Sean John t-shirts and jeans. Although we were all around the same stature, my brother and I wore clothing tailored for guys twice our height and weight. I was a gangster and a fashion icon, fight me.

As I said, he always found a way to keep the lights on, the rent paid, our bellies full and backs (relatively) warm. I wouldn’t change my childhood for the world, how else would I have gotten pubic hair on my testicles? By growing up in a healthy and functional household?! So here we are years later, his eldest son, in his mid 20’s, struggling to afford $27 a night at the hostel. I could hardly afford $3 for the subway, man. You know the expression: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Well, when the apple fell from the tree, it landed in another fucking hemisphere.

I have an entire chapter on dating apps later on in the book, so I’ll be brief here. To put it honestly, I use dating apps to obtain horizontal sustenance especially during periods of carnal drought. Ok ok, I use them to get fucking laid when it's been a minute. Not solely though. I’m addicted to the dopamine spike they produce and have always used seeking validation through women as an operative crutch, debasingly so, yeah. “TELL ME HOW CUTE I AM AND YOU WANNA KISS ME AND LOVE ME!” I’m fiercely aware of the toxicity of this, believe me. There are a plethora of reasons why people succumb to using dating apps besides the obvious two: 1) Finding a relationship. 2) Hooking up. Perhaps you’re looking for a connection with the opposite sex to fulfill the animalistic and/or emotional being inside of you, if only for a fleeting night or two. Maybe you’re looking for a fucking hiking buddy. I don’t know. But I added another one to my list of reasons when I was down on my luck in Toronto: Shelter… Twice actually. Here’s the first time.

I have this habit of trying to withdraw cash from an ATM knowing damn well I’m broke. I live with this delusion that I’ll just magically have money in my bank account from doing absolutely nothing. It’s like constantly refreshing your email while waiting for a job you applied for knowing not only it’s a holiday and they’re closed, but you’re sidesplittingly unqualified, you neurotic bastard, so you’re just waiting for the rejection email if nothing else. I had been living in Toronto for a few weeks and after attempting to withdraw money out of an ATM, getting declined, and seeing a balance of $12 as the receipt printed out, I didn’t have enough for a night at the hostel. It was time to get creative and I turn to Tinder. Why not find a warm place to sleep for the night, while finding a warm place to sleep for the night? Before you applaud me for doing so, I ain’t breaking any ground here. I was recently telling a girl about this and she told me that there is an actual term for it, but I’m not denying myself credibility and deflating my ego, so you’ll have to look it up on your own.

Later that day, while bumming around the hostel and stealing WiFi, I was chatting with this girl, “Lucia” on Tinder. Since time was a luxury I couldn’t afford to waste, I ask her out for drinks posthaste, meeting her at a pub called Snack Bar not far from the hostel that night. We get drunk and spend the night chatting away like we’re old homies; she was from St. Lucia originally, energetically beautiful in that Serena Williams kinda way and super cool. Look, I just wanted a warm place to sleep, but if I could connect with my shelter provider AND get laid in the process, that’s a double bonus. I was comfortable and not worrying about how I was NOT going to be able to pay the bill, just living in the moment. That is until she asks the bartender for the bill and I go from Captain Confident to an emotional cripple, unable to so much as move a muscle, and if it weren't for the occasional anxiety-riddled eye twitch, I would have been rendered lifeless. In the blink of my twitching eye, you could see all the blood rushing away from my face, desperately looking for an exit out of my body. Even my blood was embarrassed to be a part of me. I was sweating so much it was as if I was in a hole-ridden boat. Grab that empty bucket quick, this vessel is going the fuck under!

How am I going to play this? I could just be honest and tell her I’m broke? No no, that'll see me thrown on the streets, yo. Should I pull the old disappear to the washroom just before the bill arrives? I’ll have to time it so that the barten--The presumptuous bastard then places the bill in front of me. Fuck you, barkeep! I needed more time! Tell me you made a mistake and need to reprint it and I’ll make a hot dash for the washroom! I avoid looking at the bill and I swear I was nervously humming as my lips were pursing together so hard I was almost juicing myself. With my face as pale as a fresh snowfall—the blue of my eyes, the only colour still biologically connected to me—start darting around the room before meeting Lucia’s. Then both pairs lock on to the receipt. And back on each other. It's a bill standoff, who will draw first?! Well, it sure as fuck ain’t gonna be my broke ass. Breaking eye contact again, she looks at the bill, then back up at me and delightfully says, “I got it! Also, wanna come back to my place?” Shrugging her shoulders as if she could not care less about paying. And here I was wiping my sweat-besmeared forehead with the collar of my shirt, trying to slow my heart rate down and catch my abandoning breath. This saint just saved me the humiliation of saying, “I left my wallet at the home I don’t currently have, and hey, also, can I please stay with you tonight?!”

Bless those Torontonian women. Truly.

We get back to her place and for the sake of the children reading, get acquainted in the biblical sense. We finish up and I fall asleep instantly. I couldn’t tell you how nice it was to be in a bed with sheets that don’t make you feel like you’re sleeping on sandpaper, as well as in a room that didn’t smell like the backing of your earring. We get woken up early the next morning to the apartment’s fire alarm and evacuate her building. It was both literally, and metaphorically a wake-up call that I chose to ignore because who the fuck truly listens to wake-up calls? Maybe you do, but I’ve disregarded so many it’s like my phone line has been permanently cut off because I consistently neglect to pay the bill month after month. I equate this to reading a self-help book: I get inspired for a few hours, maybe even a day, excitedly telling everyone I know how changing your life begins with changing your mindset!! BLECH. I just made a bile mess in my mouth. Not because I don’t believe that changing your mindset is important, but because after preaching it out my ass, I wake up the next day, realize I’ve bedded a puddle of my own vomit, then continue living my life carelessly, completely forgetting or even giving a shit about what I was inspired about the day before. Inspiration is fleeting, much like “wake-up calls.” But then again, I have both shat myself and been shat on, on more occasions than what would be deemed as rational, so take what I say lightly.

I leave her place not long after and for some unexplainable reason, I thought since she lived next door to a Dollarama, it was a nice part of town. It looked completely different the night before, It’s funny how sex on the mind completely alters your perception, flushing all situational awareness down the shitter. With drug addicts infesting the park to my right and panhandlers and raving derelicts accounting for every few steps on either side of me, it was as if I was on the set of The Walking Dead. I could almost see the green fumes encompassing the area that smelled like every outhouse I’ve ever stepped foot in. Truth be told, in my dishevelled state, I didn’t look or smell any better and buddy with the bag of empty cans was more financially sound than I was at that moment. Since I couldn’t Google Map my way back to the hostel, I was like Hansel and Gretel, following my breadcrumbs back, except they were used syringes and empty bottles of cheap booze.

Later that day, and down to an unaccompanied toonie in my pocket, I get contacted on a site called “Indeed.com,” which is like a less creepy version of Craigslist. It’s primarily job postings and great for the lazy like myself because employers typically contact you. “Viktor” reaches out, needing help moving several desks up a few storeys of the building where he works. I was stuck using the hostel phone to reach people, calling Vik to set up a meeting spot for the next day. The following morning, I go down to the main area for the hostel complimentary cardboard-pancake breakfast and borrow $1.25 from one of the hostellers just to have enough change for the subway, before heading to Vaughan, 40 minutes north of Toronto.

During my three-month hostel stint, this was the kinda shit that continually happened. Most of which was of my own unbridled fucking idiotic volition. I was constantly down on my luck because I chose to spend my surviving finances on alcohol and the lion's share of my time and energy tending to the needy demands of my penis. The weight-loss program at the hostel is nothing to scoff at either, as I lost 20 pounds during my stretch there. Part of the excitement and adventure was never knowing how I would afford each night, or when my next meal would be (although, sex became a great meal replacement.) That hunger fueled my adrenaline and like an outlaw on the run, kept me constantly moving, through the blisters and all. Blisters bigger than grapes on either ankle from walking around the city looking for work, moronically, wearing dress shoes. I never forgot what my dad had said about how life isn't an adventure until you get lost. I was always inadvertently getting lost, so it was a constant adventure.

Those few months were such a vitally important part of my life. Through the bouts of glorified homelessness that had me sleeping on bathroom floors, a crackhead's bed and a desperate floor in the slums. The broken windows, doors, beds and hearts. To the close brushes with death when I nearly severed my radial artery and then having that same hand crushed by a moving van not long after. The free New York trip debauchery. The airport TV show. And all the odd-jobs side by side criminals. It was the first time I was a student in years, learning way more than I ever did in high school. Then again, I got kicked out of high school.

Forgive me for the on-nose idiom here, but having to always be on my toes had me a couple of inches taller those few months. Like with my old man all those years, sink or swim was constant and I fucking sunk A LOOOT. But, I kept my head above water, staying curious, open-minded and perhaps most importantly, a sense of humour regarding my round-the-clock fuck ups.

Stay curious,

-L