I met a guy for coffee tonight.

He seemed good. Conservative, had his life mostly together. A few red flags. “Other religion,” and a surprising ignorance of the local political scene at my college.

You see, he turns out to be a “conservative activist.” He gets paid to go to different college campuses to recruit college students to start conservative groups, supporting things like gun rights and traditional marriage.

That sounds okay on the surface, so I asked him what he thought of our local jimmy-rustling candidate who makes front page news and was prominently involved with the local branch of Campus Republicans.

He had no idea. “Who??”

That should have tipped me off right at first. Eventually he showed me a note on his phone that said “contact this guy” but at that point…too late. Especially after he’s already making front-page news in his new city, working on his new project.

I told him that I kind of want to burn it all down (metaphorically speaking, of course).

His response is that’s what he’s also trying to do, to bait the left into starting something huge.

But here’s the kicker.

Immediately after, he says he doesn’t want to get into anything with Antifa. He doesn’t want to go head to head with any real danger. And yet, he wants to recruit college kids into doing activist work, WHERE THEY WOULD BE RISKING THEIR REPUTATIONS AND THEIR BODILY SAFETY.

When I talked about the guy who got shot at the Milo event in Seattle, he thought the dude was carrying a nazi flag, like somehow that would justify it. (Spoiler: the dude was Antifa.)

The more I think about this, the more it doesn’t sit right with me.

Part of me wonders if this guy is a fed, if they’ve graduated from baiting the neonazis to baiting poor unsuspecting college students.

Perhaps that is too paranoid.

He spun this story about how he came out of Secular Jewish liberalism to basic-bitch conservatism. He’s trying to set up 2A activist groups without knowing anything about guns or the second amendment.

It all feels a little “hello, fellow kids.”

And yet, doesn’t all conservative activism feel like that? “Conservative activist” is pretty much a contradiction in terms.

I also wonder if he’s just using me for information and contacts, rather than genuine interest in me as a partner. The question of longevity entered my mind the minute I knew he was only in town for a few weeks, but there’s a difference between a fun fling and market research.

I think too much. I know I do. My rational self says that we connect well and had an interesting conversation. But my intuition is screaming at me.

Maybe it’s just that he’s a coward, but with this guy, something seems off.

Normally I wouldn’t even post something like this on the blog, because it’s a bunch of internal rambling trying to sort out my weird experience. I might delete this post later, once I figure out what I really think of him. Nobody needs to read an overthinking piece on some guy I met for coffee.

He’s not a real long-term consideration anyway because he’s not a Christian. In fact, he just got out of a cult-type guru situation.

Red flags galore.