My Grandfather Ruined My First Date

I was 11 when I went on my first date. It was the summer of, I believe, 2003. Me and my now estranged cousin spent our months off from school at our grandparents’ summer house in Kuşadası, a Turkish beach resort town on the Aegean coast. Every night, the cool kids went down to the shore with their bikes, congregated around the benches overlooking the impulsive sea that stood between Turkey and Greece, and talked about the old man who allegedly swam to a Greek island every day and came back without getting caught. He was a legend. We had all seen him dip into the water early in the morning and fight the choppy sea. <a href="https://deno.medium.com/my-grandfather-ruined-my-first-date-e2124bf5de75">Learn More</a>