I'm restless and lacking in any focus so here is a scary story. It is one told to me on a date that didn't lead to anything but this one story stuck with me. So we were talking about hiking in greater LA and I mentioned that I'd never done anything in Los Padres Nat'l Forest...

And this guy mentioned that he doesn't go there anymore because he nearly died there. And so naturally I'm like "Tell me everything." So he went hiking there on a weekday in winter, which in California is the best time to hike because winter has great weather. But it was deserted

And he was on some trail and at some point this women bumped into him from behind. And he was like "oh my god, sorry" but then immediately started wondering how you bump into someone when you're out in the open and there's no one else around

Also, why didn't he hear her coming? He'd been looking around and should have seen her but she was just all of a sudden right there, and he actually just turned around the moment before she bumped into him. Anyway, both were super apologetic about it

And he told me she looked perfectly ordinary, though it didn't really seem like she was dressed for a hike. But otherwise petite and non-threatening. And she remained in that spot, and he continued on. But as he did he started to get a really weird vibe...

And he'd look back and see she was still standing there, not following him, but something just felt weird. (And I get goosebumps remembering him telling this. I don't like it.) And because he felt uneasy, he decided to call his mom, which even he recalled as being weird for him.

So he does and remembers her picking up but that is the last thing he remembers. The next thing he knows, some random people are like "are you okay? do you need water?" he is on the ground and he's not clear where he is.

It turns out these two hikers found him lying in the middle of the trail unconscious and they called for help and the rangers are coming to pick him up. And he actually feels mostly okay, just a little groggy. But they arrive and take him back to some station

So they check him out and his a little banged up but basically fine, but they say they have to have a medical person give the OK to let him go, for legal reasons, so he's just chilling with the rangers for a few. And he asks where it was on the park map that they found him

And they show him and it's not really super close to where he remembers being. Like... maybe he passed out or fell or whatever and rolled down the trail, but it would be kind of far to roll? The ranger says maybe you turned around and don't remember, since he kinda blacked out

And the ranger asked what he remembers and he suddenly remembers calling his mom. His phone is off. He turns it on and he's missed, like, a dozen calls form his mom. So he calls her back and she says he was mid-sentence and the phone just cut out completely.

So he's thinking maybe he fell and bonked the phone or something? Because that's weird. But he doesn't seem like he's banged up enough to account for falling and the phone seems perfectly find. So eventually he gets the OK that he can go home and they drive him back to his car.

And he feels fine. He drives home. He's super dirty because he was lying in the trail and he goes to take a shower. So first he goes to take his boots off. He is not wearing socks.

He thinks it is super weird that he would go hiking in hiking boots and not wear socks, because it would tear up his shoes. There is no way he would have forgotten to wear socks on a hike. And I agree. No one would do that. You'd tear your feet up without socks

So maybe the two hikers who found him unconscious took his socks? But that seems super weird, because why would anyone want his otherwise normal, boring socks? But he is 100 percent certain he had socks on when he started the hike, so where are his fucking socks? What happened?

That is where the story ends, basically. I asked about the woman and he said he has dreams where she shows up. She's small and blond and kind of looks like Drew Barrymore in Scream (but not dead). And she seems nice. But she shows up a lot. But where are his fucking socks?

So this was a lot but otherwise the date was not especially good, and it ended with us tacitly, mutually not hitting each other up again. But then, years later, I did read an article about Missing 411, people going missing in national parks in certain states...

And I was so bothered that I scrolled through years of Tinder and found him finally (it took several scrolls) and told him to google Missing 411. And he eventually did and was like "holy fuck." And that's it. He's not on Tinder anymore, and I don't know if he ever found his socks