Before this multi-day canoeing excursion, I honestly never knew that Possum Kingdom was an actual, real, place. I did wonder why the Toadies song was called that though -- "Possum Kingdom" -- since to my knowledge, there are no possums in the song. Unless he's saying, "Do you wanna die?" to a possum, which I guess makes sense, possums are creepy.

Trust me, you know this song, you just probably never knew "Possum Kingdom" was its proper title. It was played ad nauseum in the early 90s, and the consensus at my high school was that the song was actually about rape. This was common knowledge somehow, similar to how everyone would later insist that the Red Hot Chili Pepper song "Otherside" was really about butt sex. Who knew? I think the cool kids at my high school must have received special newsletters or something explaining the secret meaning of songs.

Anyway, in the photo above, I really am launching my canoe out into the very real, not so secret, Possum Kingdom Lake, located somewhere in central Texas. It connects with the Brazos River, and my friend Joe and I had been planning a multi-day canoeing excursion for quite some time, where we would paddle down the river all day long, then set up camp somewhere along the riverbank each night. Well, just a few weeks before our scheduled trip, Joe informs me that he has started dating someone, and he'd like to bring her. Great, I thought, the more the merrier! But that's until he explained to me that with all the necessary camping and cooking gear, each canoe could realistically hold two people. And unless I wanted to try to paddle and portage my own heavy canoe, laden down with camping supplies and food, then I would need to find me a canoeing partner. I had less than three weeks.

I can't remember if Joe jokingly suggested it, or if this was my brainchild, but in all my infinite wisdom, I decided I would try putting Grindr to good use. Since it was the one and only social media platform I was on, I set out to see if maybe I could solicit for a canoeing partner instead of sex, and successfully rustle up a qualified candidate in time for the trip. I now realize that regardless of what my intentions were, the very fact that I was looking for this person on Grindr implied that (if I was even serious about the canoeing part at all) I was certainly looking for canoeing and sex. I know this now, I didn't at the time. I think a lot of guys thought that "canoeing partner" was just some sex position they'd never heard of, and many responded back that they were willing to give it a try.

I hated almost every second that I was on that "dating" app. My worst fear was that I would misjudge someone, and accidentally get stuck on some woefully ill-matched coffee date and be unable to extricate myself quickly and painlessly, should the need arise. That's why it was extremely out of character for me to think that instead of being stuck at a coffee shop with someone I wasn't interested in, I'd like to be stuck in a small boat with them. You know what's much longer than a bad coffee date? A multi-day canoeing excursion.

Possum Kingdom is nowhere close to Dallas, it takes several hours to get there by car, and by the time I arrived to the boat launch to meet Joe and his lady friend, I already knew that not only was I not sexually attracted to the canoeing buddy I'd found, I didn't even like him. This shows you how badly I wanted to prove to myself that I could canoe sober, with a partner, and without OVERTURNING THE BOAT.

Also, what was I going to do? Hop out of the car and announce to everyone that I needed to drive this clingy dude back to Dallas real quick (and maybe even quickly find a different one), could they please just wait on the dock for about four hours for me to return? No, at this point I was in it to win it, and this goes down in history as one of my worst and most poorly thought-out ideas.

My plan became just to try and make the best of it. I declined his sexual advances and innuendos with such vigor that I'm sure he thought I was a total dick, but he eventually got the hint. I positioned him behind me so I wouldn't have to look him, and just came to think of the guy as like a boat motor, that occasionally talked.

My friend Joe knows me very well, so I didn't even have to express to him how the "date" was going, he picked up very quickly on the fact that I wasn't into this guy. I think Joe and his lady friend even started framing him out of the photos they took, so I could still salvage the pictures and use them later on Grindr, maybe to find someone I did like. Everyone is into an athletic guy in a canoe, right? I picked up on what Joe was doing, and even in our group photos, I found ways to strategically block him out with a tent or a bush or a paddle or my face.

At one point, everyone (including my boat motor) decided to get high. Except for newly sober me, of course, I just got to paddle down the river with increasing anxiety about the fact that eventually me and this irritating boat motor would have to build a tent together, and then sleep in it. "I hope he doesn't try to touch me," was all I could think, and I started obsessing over how to be just curt enough with him to dispel all notions of sex, but not so mean that he wouldn't help me build the tent. This was going to be tricky, a fine line to walk, especially since the refrain "Do you wanna die?" just kept playing on a loop inside my head.

The moral of the story is don't use Grindr to try and find a multi-day canoeing and camping partner. Also, while writing this, I ended up having to play "Otherside" again and now, as an adult, I think that it might truly be about butt sex. Listen to it again, the innuendos and comparisons are definitely there.