This story was written by me with full permission from my friend J.

J. met Battery Pack at the Bungalow a few weeks ago around closing time. He approached her with the line, “I bet you get so tired of guys coming up to you at the end of the night and hitting on you” and then he walked off. A few minutes later, he re-approached her and proceeded to actually hit on her. Her friend slash wingwoman for the night E. was not impressed with him.

J. agreed to a date with him where he wouldn’t agree to meet in a “in the middle” neighborhood and insisted that she go to HIS favorite Thai restaurant in his part of town. Red flag #1. He also offered for her to park at his friend’s place because it had “free valet” which she wisely declined. While at dinner he began discussing chiropractic techniques to which J. asked “Oh, are you a chiropractor?” to which he replied “No….well yes…I just don’t have a license.” Red flag #2.  Surprisingly, the rest of the date went well, except for the point where he said “Oh honey! Your rib is completely out!” and proceeded to adjust it before getting her consent and the “adjustment” resulted in 2 days of soreness. Red flag #3.

Fast forward to Labor Day weekend, where we attended a barbecue hosted by J. and friends in Marina del Rey. She invited Battery Pack as their 2nd date and he agreed to come and then showed up two hours late. He finally called J. and complained that he could not find the place and was very irritated. While J. tried to give him directions, he snapped, “this is NOT helping me!!” and hung up. When he did finally arrive, J. went down to show him where to park and the second that she got in his car, he did not say hello and started ranting about how he “hates bbqs in these types of buildings”.

Upon his un-punctual arrival, Battery Pack called out J’s friend E. for dismissing him at Bungalow, which immediately made everyone in the apartment uncomfortable. He didn’t make an effort to talk to us (the friends) and swept J. to the couch where he tried to canoodle with her and give her a poor man’s massage and unwanted chiropractic adjustments. Between his groping attempts, Battery Pack would pick up his phone which was attached a battery pack that was twice the size of his iPhone and play his beloved video game.

Later in the night, some of our guy friends showed up. When they entered the apartment, Battery Pack waved hello to them and said, “Hey guys, nice to see you. There’s a bunch of you and I’m the couch so I’m not going to get up and shake your hands. Cool to see you!” We stared in astonishment and the boys were rightfully offended. Battery Pack then went on to have a single-sided conversation with the room about how he finances movies and he’s really, really good at it.

The majority of us decided we couldn’t hang around Battery Pack any longer and ran across the street to the local bar to escape. Our host, Ellen*, decided at that point the barbecue was over and told Battery Pack to leave immediately. J. was relieved that he was kicked out and joined us out at the bar, where we congratulated her on making the right call to ditch the dude.

Battery Pack continues to text J. even though she has explicitly told him she no longer wants to see him.

And so ends another tale of another douchebag run-in in Los Angeles.