Swimming

I spent two days on Match.cm before deleting my profile. The main problem is that I recognized about three people I knew, and that was just weird — one of the guys I’d actually been on a date with before (we’d met in a bar, natch), and it was the most excruciating four hours of my life. We went for sushi and wound up watching “Wolf” at my house, because it was one of those free crappy movies on OnDemand. Anyway, when he messaged me on Match, I knew I was probably in the wrong place. Actually, I think I’m just in the wrong place when it comes to geography — if I were back in Chicago, living in a bigger city with more prospects, I think it would be a different story.

And, weirdly enough, I might have met someone. Well, not met, but reconsidered someone I’ve known for about a month. Remember the bigoted jerk I made out with in Indianapolis last month? Well, Z is his friend, someone I actually ended up enjoying more by the end of the trip than anyone else I’d spent it with. We ran into each other last weekend and I, shot through with courage by a couple vodka tonics, confessed I had thought about him since then, and maybe we could hang out sometime?

He smiled, told me the move was “ballsy,” and we did end up hanging out with a few of my friends the next night. We haven’t kissed yet. We’ve just hugged hello and goodbye, admitted a mutual crush on the other and talked on the phone. Actual talking! Not texting (although there’s a little of that) or e-mailing! How revolutionary.

I suppose it’s more friendship than anything, which feels awesome to me. Taking it slow feels absolutely how things SHOULD feel when you are learning about someone you could like.
And I could get this all wrong. He could turn out to be incredibly immature, or nothing special or a slew of other horrible adjectives I tend to convince myself are good for me.

But I’ve given nothing up yet. So far, I’ve got that going for me.

Burning it down.

I made it three days without a cigarette, and gave in today.

I’m sorry. I can go without drinking, without sex, without everything else … just give me one vice, so I can flick away ashes in 90-degree heat. Give me something to burn while I wonder how I got here.

Match.com

Today, at work, I found my fingers plucking out “match.com” into Firefox’s browser while I was supposed to be writing a story.

Okay, time to be honest: I registered once before, but only on a lark. I don’t know my user name or password, and I didn’t complete the profile with a picture. This time, I don’t know why, but it felt a little different.

People use the Internet every day to find love. Could I be one of them? Once, I responded to a stranger’s message on MySpace, and we ended up hanging out a few times. It wasn’t love, but Chicago is a big place, and it was nice to meet someone in a different way than the usual booze-filled rampage.

But Match.com? Actually paying for people looking for the same thing I am? That’s all a bit different. I only just completed my profile (and I submitted a picture this time), so it isn’t quite ready for broadcast yet.

So now, I’m wondering if I said the right things to get me noticed, like clicking the right Interest boxes.

I didn’t want to lie and say my body wasn’t curvy, so I didn’t, even though I’m sure it would’ve gotten me more responses to select “athletic” or “average.” I guess I could squeeze into either of those categories, but I’m a big fan of my boobs and hips [my favorite part about me] and ass. That’s who I am, and in no way do I think that’s less appealing than someone who clicks “slender.” If someone doesn’t want curves, well, that seems sort of boring.

Under Smoking, I selected “Trying to Quit.” I’m on day three of no nicotine, and so far I’m doing fine. I stick a piece of gum in my mouth when I start to crave a smoke, and it’s going alright. Who knows what will happen when I drink or am around smokers, but so far, I’ve lived another day.

When it came time to write about who I wanted, I just tried to be honest. I want someone who doesn’t make me feel like my heart is gonna break and I’m gonna die alone. Most of the people I meet are fucking painful. Most of the guys I meet are jokes. I hope, I hope, I HOPE that someone is out there who doesn’t make me want to rip my hair out at the dinner table. Here’s hoping. I want someone like Ant, my first love who I still need to tell you about, before he broke the snowglobe and changed who I was for good.

But anyway … Match.com? What the FUCK am I thinking?

Aww, fuck it.

In the absence of any real crushes or love interests, I’ve decided to do a little work on myself in order to waste time until the next waste of time comes along. I fluctuate between wanting to find love and being totally okay with being single about 100 times a day, and right now I just happen to be comfortable with being alone. I don’t know if it’s the same thing as being lonely, but I have a feeling it’s not.

Anyway, I suppose there’s just not much to say if it’s not about guys or sex or drinking or dating. I’m not doing much of any of those lately. I think that’s a really good thing. Have I said that already? I don’t know.

So here’s my plan:
1. Quit smoking. I’m two days in and I’m doing okay. The only time I’m tempted is when I’m driving. I love to smoke and drive. But I’m learning to cram gum in my mouth if I start salivating over the thought of nicotine.
Seeing myself in pictures with a cigarette between my index and middle fingers is just starting to gross me out. So unclassy.

2. Eat better. Eh. Everyone needs to.

3. Stop paying attention to boys I don’t like just because I’m bored. It’s not nice.

4. Sleep naked. I wake up feeling better about myself. And when I catch myself looking in the mirror at a body part I don’t like, I’ve taken to telling myself it’s okay. Then I hate it a little less. Only a little, but less. It’s a start.

Sex dreams. Enough said.

I obviously have not had good sex in a long time, because almost every time I fall asleep I have a vivid sex dream. I sleep at least 9 to 10 hours a night, so usually this is enough time to have at least two ridiculous dreams about two different partners.

Last night, for instance, my first go-around was with Will Ferrell. And not just normal Will Ferrell, but Will Ferrell in “Semi Pro” syle — complete with afro. I remember little except having some weird sort of R&B music on to set the groove. Strange.

The next one was a little bit closer to home. It featured Ben*, this guy I had a fling with last winter. He’s older than I am, he’s 30 and a seriously unstable bartender. I used to call him “The Walking Red Flag.” But when I finally gave into sex with him, it was probably the most intense session of my life. I had the presence of mind to cut off contact with him after that, because I didn’t need to be chasing around someone who was so dark and troubled and sexy, because he really was all three. Now, we’re friends, and he just had a daughter with someone. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s his first.

Anyway, back to the sex dream. It was in a Key West beach house that belonged to my grandparents, and I remember searching for a place to have privacy. We’d start, then stop, then start again somewhere else. It wasn’t particularly great, but when I woke up I felt like such a fool. I haven’t felt that sort of lust — while awake and functioning — in such a long time. I think my lack of carnal experience since moving here has gotten the best of me.

In other news, I can’t wait to go to sleep again.

Sad.

Even when I want what should be easy to get, I can’t get it.
I’m not sure what that even says about me.
But I’m sad.
I just want to be liked by the people I could like, and it hasn’t happened that way in so long.
I’m sad.

I wrote this when I was 19.

Just went digging through some of my old journals and I’m sort of amazed at the girl I was. She’s so much neater than the girl I am now. I wish I had understood that then.

Anyway, I thought this was telling:

I never thought I would know the feeling of waking up after heavy drinking. Roll over and catch the faintest whiff of the beer spilled on the carpet and suddenly you just might vomit. Greasy skin on skin, dirty hair, smokey clothes. Upset stomach, fuzzy teeth, grey skin. Unexplainable bruises, angry neighbors, flaky mascara. Sleeping in jeans, bathing in sweat, sickened by yesterday’s perfume. Raspberry vodka on the computer, beer on the hand towels, smoke detector covered by a plastic bag.
2/28/04

Good sex, gone.

One of my good friends, Mel, was just over at my house. We smoked cigarettes and talked about how to meet men in our area of the state, which is pretty limited to rednecks and hillrats. She and I are two college-educated, cute and fun girls who have had the worst luck since moving here for work.

Now, I’m not saying the problem is me. Maybe it is. I can be sort of demanding, emotionally distant, overly aggressive and just plan insane. But I know at my core I’m a cool girl. And, let it be said, I am awesome in the sack — and I HATE it when people say that, but I think it’s true for me.

This is just a half-drunken rant (I happened to be drinking some sort of vanilla-bean flavored ale while chain smoking Ultra Lights), but I have not had good sex with someone I felt a connection with in over a year, and it’s driving me nuts. It’s a dry spell like I’ve never known. It’s sort of like starvation from the type of intimacy I used to find almost too easily.

It’s not like I’ve been celibate, though. In fact, far from it. I’ve racked up a fair number of unworthy lovers in the 13 months I’ve been home, at a higher rate than I’m comfortable with. Men like me, I’m not going to lie. Or at least they do when I’m shiny and clean and slightly tipsy, smiling in their faces like the most classy bar slut they’ve ever seen. When we wake up there is that mutual disgust I don’t even need to go into right now. That’s when I lose interest, or he loses interest, but usually we go on few dates just to save face. It’s a horrible waste of time and money in the face of $4 gas.

Anyway, back to my original, beer-driven complaint: Is it my stage of life, is it me or is it my location that’s to blame for this total lack of finding anything like a connection? I have about had it with this shit. I’m sick of this, honestly. It’s all so predictable.

… Where’s my beer?

Shock of love, part one.

I’m a pretty firm believer that you only fall in love head-first once. Unless you’ve got some weird personality disorder, perpetual immaturity or obvious issues with the opposite sex, people just aren’t capable of opening up that completely, that unabashedly, after being stripped clean by their first love.

Anthony is his name. I won’t use a pseudonym, since I’m not really capable of making up a name for someone so important to me. We were both 18 when it happened. How we met is sort of strange, complicated and fitting when you explain our relationship over the long-term:

Ant and I are from the same town, but went to different high schools and didn’t know of each other. While he holed up in dorm rooms and cafeteria corners at Indiana University, I was clinking glasses and grasping the arms of strangers in easy-carding Loyola Chicago bars. One of my friends, Nate, ended up moving into the same dorm as Ant. Nate ended up becoming fast friends with him and his circle of high-school-turned-college friends, including a guy named Matt.

Nate ended up giving my Instant Messenger screen name to Matt because Nate thought Matt and I would be a good match. So, Matt and I casually chatted between classes while I was five hours away in Chicago. Ant got my screen name from Matt, because he, too, was curious about this girl Nate kept talking about. Ant and I ended up talking online more often as Matt and I did. I started to come home early from parties or leave late for class to catch him at his computer.

Fast forward, Ant asks Matt if he doesn’t mind if he, instead, goes after me. Matt gives his blessing, we all meet face-to-face over the Thanksgiving of 2003.

After this, I am a goner.

Ant and I immediately begin to fall in love.

That first weekend, I saw him twice. The first meeting was a whirlwind of hello’s, fast talking and nervous laughter. I remember exactly what I was wearing but can’t for the life of me remember much about Ant. Over the next few months I’d note his curly hair, his round, open face and these brown eyes that left me weak-kneed, bathing in the most tender, earnest gaze I’ll ever know. But that first night, my eyes were wild and unfocused, belonging to a ravenously open-hearted girl who needed a love like him.

We didn’t see each other until the next month, Christmas break. That’s when we exchanged homemade Christmas presents, mix CD’s and “I love yous.” Yeah, we were moving fast, but I don’t think either of us had ever met someone who we were able to talk for hours with, or laugh as loud with.

You never realize until after it’s over that you were just indulging each other, but at the time we didn’t know any better. As I said before, I was a goner, well on my way to the sort of heartbreak, accompanied by the sort of shock I’m not sure many people quite understand. If you don’t believe me, you’ll figure out why later. I just don’t have the energy to tell you now.

A decade-long crush I didn’t deserve.

A guy, I’ll call him Blue, confessed last weekend that he’s been in love with me for nine years.

Nine years?

That means I was 14. I was in ninth-grade and I actually remember Blue calling me at home after several weeks of flirting and after-school Internet chats. But I got so nervous that I just watched his parents’ listed number pop up again and again on my Caller ID, a flicker of green and black on the phone’s face.

Nine years later, I’m 23, and I still do the same thing when his name pops up on my BlackBerry. I blame poor reception every time, and he never seems to fully believe me.

Blue’s a nice guy, but not one I’d want to end up with. He’s smart, but he’s blue collar. He’s funny, but sometimes a racial slur slips out. He’s cute, but years of beer and pot have rounded his features into handsome doughish-ness.

But he’s always been so sweet to me and has never tried anything inappropriate, even when he could’ve. He’s the one who pushes me away when I’m drunk and sloppy. But still, when I get drunk I act cutesy and wonder to him why he never calls to ask me out, when I know damn well he’s tried really hard to do this before. He’ll remind me of specific dates we were supposed to hang out that I flaked out. And I’ll say, ‘Ok, for real, let’s go out next weekend.’

Then he calls, and I ignore. Nine years of this. I’m the girl he’ll never be good enough to get, but that doesn’t feel good in the least. What feels even worse is that he says he loved me before I had contacts, before I had boobs and before I had blond hair. He loved me when I was hugely awkward and ugly, and I’m not just saying that — I really was all sorts of not cute.

It feels bad, because no one ever looks at me now and sees what he says he was able to see when no one else was looking.