Interview Date With a Vampire

by Mik Awake

Ja Rule mantras aside, pain is love, and in New York—especially around the holidays—this couldn’t be more true. Contrary to popular belief, the holidays actually make single people incredibly thankful that we’re not in relationships. Presents, dates, parties perpetually ending in drunk arguments or a staggering number of ATM visits. In many ways, it pays to be alone.

When the editors at The Inquirer heard that I didn’t have a date for Halloween, they pitied me before breaking into evil grins. Deciding to launch me on an adventure at once macabre and potentially titillating, “Mik,” they said. “What if you tried to get a date for Halloween–with a vampire?”

Hey, why not? Convincing a good-humored friend to dress up as a vampire (fangs, cape, and maybe a teddy?) would be easy enough.

No, they said. A real date with a real vampire.

Unable to shake the image of a girl in fangs and ghoulish lingerie, I reluctantly agreed. Then I began thinking, “Where would a dude go to find a nice (and real!) vampiress in New York?” The answer came to me at once: I would cast my line into the grim ocean that is Craigslist.

I posted the following message in the “strictly platonic: men for women” section:

Are you a vampire? If so, I would like to meet you and maybe grab a cup of coffee, or blood or whatever. I'm open for anything. It's almost Halloween and it would be nice to meet a real vampire to chat with. I'd like to know what it's like to be a vampire in New York in this day and age. This is a serious inquiry.

Fake vampires need not apply.

No one responded at first. I asked The Inquirer editors what they thought about my post. If they were vampires, would they respond? Said resident doodler Dustin, “I’m picturing you at Starbucks with some incredibly pale goth chick.”

After a couple days, a few women responded. One wrote to say that she was “tickled” by my post; I thanked her, but still. It had been a couple days already, and I was despairing. Then finally, a promising tip came. A woman responded, suggesting that I search in Philadelphia, where she heard vampires tended to congregate. She seemed like she knew what she was talking about. Could she be a member of the real vampire community? I thanked her and said, “Let me know if you know of any other vampires that are closer to home.”

In a brief reply, she said, “Uh, yeah, that was a joke. Vampires don't exist.”

This was getting me nowhere. I sexed up my craigslist ad and put it in the more serious “men seeking women” section. That did nothing but scare people away. Perhaps the problem was not with me, but with the real vampire girls out there in the world. Perhaps they were hesitant to meet new vampire players. Recently, much attention has been paid to the site vampirefreaks.com, (which bills itself as a site for “Gothic Industrial Culture”) after one of its members, a young Montreal man named Kimveer Gill, took an automatic weapon to the students of Dawson College in September. Gill blogged and had a profile on the site.

After searching the profiles on vampirefreaks.com for a while, and realizing that all the girls there were neither real vampires, nor over the age of 15, I moved on to the vampire forums. In order to join the Vampire Forum of Darkness, which is kind of like myspace for the undead, one is put through a series of prompts as with other sites. Email address, password, and such. But then:

Are you a vampire: Yes / No

I clicked “No.”

As I continued down the online form, the questions got more and more probing. What was my opinion of vampires? What did I believe I could contribute to the Realm community? And on another page for posting comments: “What is your blood type?”

I decided to give up. These were serious vampires. These weren’t the pallid, mascara-ed teenagers on vampirefreaks.com or the lonely, sarcastic women on craigslist.org. They called each other Young Ones and labeled their posts as “Blood Thirsty.” They were intense, and probably real vampires.

And that kind of turned me on.

(Sexy vampire by Inquirer illustrator Dustin Glick.)

Comments

[William Jefferson]

It all began with a husky singsong european accent that ran up and down the scale. "I want to suck your blood", she said as she looked deeply into my eyes.

Hours later over a mug of hot cider she remarked "that's an odd place for a man to keep his blood"

Lost in the Paul Harvey "story behind the story" is why Hillary now wears a cross.

And now you know.........the rest of the story.