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?

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.

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.

The case of the crotch grabber

I’m still casually responding to messages from Sean. This is someone tried to get me to extend our date a little longer by grabbing my hand and bumping it against his erection.

“See what you did to me?” He asked, “Why are you leaving now, just when we were getting friendly?”

The pleasantness of the past three hours, which included a cutesy date of “Gossip Girl” and Chinese takeout, flew out the window. Bile rose to my throat. It was my second time ever spending time with this guy, and apparently a kiss goodnight was not enough. So I say goodnight as quickly as possible, snatch my hand away from his crotch area and nearly hit a wall with my shoulder in the rush to get the fuck out of there.

Why am I still talking to him? I don’t know. I suppose it was inappropriate and gross and could very well be a deal-breaking kind of thing to do. I haven’t seen him since then, and I know before I decide to hang out with him again we’ll have to have the “Do Not Ever Put Your Hands On Me (Or My Hands On You) Without Being Absolutely Respectful First”-talk. If I don’t have the balls to bring his offense up, I certainly won’t have the balls to ever see him again. At least that’s what I’ve promised myself.

Or at least we’ll have to hang out in a group. Hopefully there will be minimal crotch grabbing when my friends are around.

A open letter to an asshole.

Dear X,

Since I drunkenly decided to sleep with you, I’ve noticed our texts and our conversations are a lot more one-sided. I wish I could say I’m digging the one-word answers and the unavailable behavior that came out of nowhere as soon as we woke up. 

I can only figure that I’ve been pitched into a pile of those girls, disposable sluts that obviously give it up too soon and aren’t worth getting to know beyond a quick hit. And it’s not like I can blame you. A lot of girls think we’re empowered and owning our sexuality by putting a lower value on the act of sex, but it seems that even if we loosen our morals up a little, the judgement is still there. You can’t have progress if the act of easy sex is still seen by one side as whorish and uninteresting. 

I guess, in my defense, I have to say that I’m still worth knowing. I’m not one of those girls. In fact, I’m not really part of any club but my own. Just because I decided to sleep with you doesn’t mean I lose my good qualities in the process. I happen to be really smart, really cute, really funny and really sexy. I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same, but you deciding to treat me as someone less than I am is your choice, not mine. It’s clear I’m writing this to feel better, yeah, but only because it’s natural to want to be accepted if you do the most intimate thing you can do with another person. It’s astonishing to me that you could care less about how I see you — it’ll never cease to amaze me that guys like you don’t care about what I’ll think about you after the act. You take what you get and really don’t care if I think you’re cool or funny or handsome. I guess it’s good that you don’t care, because your behavior proves that you’ve got a lot of growing up to do.

The fact that you are rejecting me stings and is a bruise to my ego, but you don’t get to take anything of significance away from me. If anything, you’re a lesson in judgement, a notch in the bedpost, a night that slips from my memory.

 

Fuck you.

/k

 

What happened to romance?

I thought it was kind of silly when Carrie Bradshaw fainted when her Russian boyfriend asked her to dance with him in the park on their way to the opera. She said something along the lines of, “take it easy. I’m American!”

What I’m dealing with now is not a cultural barrier of any sort — at least not the sort of barrier Carrie was dealing with — but with the complete and utter lack of pacing when it comes to dating. Why is it that we have to move full-speed ahead to the finish line (sex) when we meet someone new? Is it just the people I’ve met or the person I’ve turned into? I have no idea. I feel like texting has replaced talking and making out on the couch has replaced dinner dates.

Last night I hung out with Sean, I guy I met last weekend who had treated me really pretty nicely when I got too wasted to make it home and passed out on his bed. Nothing happened and he didn’t try anything … a first. We woke up and I was a little put off by the cuddling, but by the time he took me to lunch I was feeling comfortable with him. Usually when I’m in this sort of situation I like to get the hell out of there, but with him it was a okay because he wasn’t ultra-aggressive … just a little too affectionate for having just met me.

Anyway, fast forward to last night. We watched Gossip Girl at his place and got takeout Chinese. He tried to get me to cuddle but seeing as I’m not drunk I don’t really remember how … pathetic, I suppose, but I know a few girls who have this same problem. I get up to go but when I won’t stay and fool around he gets a little cranky.

Like I owe him some sort of physical affection at the end of the night, almost. Like he’s put the time in and this is what is naturally supposed to happen, almost.

This has happened before. I’ve dealt with guys who act this way and I usually give in to them acting childish. Then I end up hating myself. I didn’t let it happen this time. For the first time in my life I’m figuring out that I deserve to be respected by a guy, regardless of how I meet him. Just because I happened to meet this dude in a bar doesn’t mean I have to be on the typical ‘bar dating’ schedule of hanging out and then sex.

I finally think I’m worth someone waiting for me. This is a first. I’m a little nervous because I realize it’s been over a year since I’ve dated someone seriously — and in that time I’ve just been going nuts with partying and seeing guys who are horrible for me. What I once thought was getting it out of my system has ended up being almost paralyzing when I try to actually do what I think is the right thing. I don’t trust men at all. I don’t know how to cuddle and I definitely don’t feel comfortable with someone reaching for my hands or my waist when we’re out on public together.

I feel part like a monster. But the other part of me feels like I’m waking up. I’ll take it.

And as far as things go with Sean, I think it is at the very least a good strategy. If he never calls me again because he doesn’t think he’s going to get some play, then it’s probably a good thing.

A stroke of luck?

I’m receiving sporadic texts from Brad, my Wednesday one-nighter, but very distant and uninteresting stuff. Went out last night and didn’t hear from him, which didn’t surprise me.

What surprised me is that ended up meeting up with Sean*, someone I’ve talked to but never really hung out with. I had been out with friends was supremely drunk by the time he came to see me after his poker game, around 2 a.m. Over vodka tonics we got to know each other a little better, even though I was progressively getting more and more shitfaced.

And being the hussy I am, I headed home with him. He made me a Hot Pocket, got me a glass of water and fell asleep next to me without trying to get any. Shocking, right? In the morning he’s attached to me like a koala, patting my butt and rubbing my back.

“I just like to touch,” he said. “Just because I like touching doesn’t mean I’m trying to get anything from you.”

It’s rare that a guy says something like that and doesn’t follow it up with trying to pull my underwear down, but this was one of those times. And I didn’t know what to do. I remained wide-eyed and confused as he stroked my hair and pulled me toward him.

“What’s wrong with this guy?” I thought to myself.

It takes a lot for me to let my guard down these days, and cuddling like that was a more than a little startling. I’m always looking for the hidden motive, and with Sean it didn’t seem like there was one. It threw me. After a couple hours of this, I sort of gave in, just a little.

He took me out to lunch and in the light of day he was still nice, normal and sweet. He didn’t grow distant and kept me laughing with easygoing humor. I kissed him goodbye at my car and that was that. Now I’m sitting at home, reeling from the whole unexpected, respectful way with which he treated me.

So there you have it, my pathetic version of romance. I’m so fucked up.

Giving it up.

Let me tell you about my most recent foray into the world of meaningless sex:

If you told me men don’t know exactly what they’re doing when they’re trying to get you to have sex with them, I’d tell you you’ve obviously never been laid. I am 23 and I’m so jaded already. I have absolutely no trust or respect for the motives of men when it comes to dating and sex.

And if I can’t seem to find respect or trust for men, somehow, it fucks with my ability to respect and trust myself. Isn’t this wonderful?

His name is Brad*. When I met him, he seemed like a very cute, nice enough guy who will probably end up with a good job and a nice family. (P.S., he might really be all those things, but now I’m not sure I’ll know him long enough to find out) He’s one of those “cell phone guys,” one of those dudes who spends his days in the Verizon store sweet talking whoever comes through the doors. He’s very good at what he does, and you can immediately tell he knows how to captivate people whatever the audience.

He’s one of those dudes with three cell phones and gets call from random girls he can’t quite remember when you’re out with him. And, luckily enough, I’m one of those girls who laughs at him when this happens and pretends it doesn’t bother me. Why should it bother me? I have no claim to him.

So we’re out one night during the week and I assume we start drinking to make things as comfortable as possible. Pretty soon, after about seven Miller Lites, I’m ready to go to his place to play Guitar Hero with one of my friends. Said friend ducks out and we are alone in his car, singing along to Dave Matthews (cliche, I know … I’ve done this with probably three other guys I know, romantically or not) on the way to his place.

Guitar Hero in his room leads to Royal Tenenbaums which leads to kissing and touching. I call time outs. I’m not ready to sleep with someone so soon … we’ve known each other for a matter of days, after all. But kissing keeps happening because he keeps rolling me over to nuzzle my neck and say sweet things. At this point I’m able to forget his constantly buzzing cell phone on the night stand. I’m okay, at this point, with feeling like a girl might’ve been lying here just before me.

Clothes come off. I call time outs and cool downs until it becomes useless. He keeps kissing and saying the nicest things.

I give in. The sex is hazy and sensual and good, the kind of sex I know I’ll feel horrible about later. Afterwards he turns away and I turn away and we fall asleep, because we both know it’s silly to cuddle with people we don’t know or care about.

Morning comes and I wake up hungover and thirsty. I miss work. We watch a movie and cuddle and throughout the movie I feel him growing further and further away. By the time he gets in the shower to get ready for work we are barely speaking and I’m resisting the urge to pull back the curtain and get in with him just to feel a little bit of what I felt last night.

He’s not getting my jokes and not laughing and I know, deep down, me giving him sex gave him the power to not want me if he doesn’t have to. In fucking him I fucked myself, because no matter how many times a girl tells herself she just wants sex, the way the guy looks at her afterward has never changed. I’m a girl who gives it up after only an hour or so of persuasion. It’s my fault for not holding out, right?

But what if I felt stuck? What if I just gave in, in part, to get him off my back? And even though the sex was good, during it I knew that I was once again throwing something away.

I get home and I cry, because no matter how much I think I”ve changed, I’m just the same. I’m still one of those girls, notching the shit out of my bedpost and telling myself I’m deserving of so much more than I get.

A very bad one-night stand

Let me tell you one little thing I’ve learned about one-night stands: If you want one bad enough — and you don’t have three eyes or a cleft lip — you can make it happen. I consider them some form of recreational drug I can’t say I take often, or even seldom, but when I do, it just feels groping around in a college dorm room all over again.

Guys in bars pretty much go to said bars to graze, horny beasts in white striped shirts that smell of Burberry or Sean John. And, oops, girls in bars are probably there to play the boyfriend game. It’s almost a cruel trick of nature: Thanks to loose morals, text messaging and a total lack of social navigation skills in this new world, we’re all in the same place wanting different things out of the night. I’m not saying all girls want to find a boyfriend when they go out, but I really rarely hear one of my friends say, ‘I just want to find a piece of ass.’ And they’re pretty slutty.

As a girl who is somewhere in between a boyfriend hunter and an ethical slut, I like to be in my ’sweet spot’ when out drinking. I like to be witty, charming and cute … hopefully just a mildly more confident version of the person I am while sober. I do not like to be bombed, drunk dialing my parents and dropping my cell phone in the toilet … it just doesn’t send out a ‘take me home to Mom!!!!’ vibe.

But that’s what usually happens. And that’s when the trouble begins.

I end up in strip clubs or in the lairs of 30-year-old men with aquariums in their living rooms. I end up spilling into cabs with my friends, accompanied by strangers whose names we repeat over and over in order not to call them something ridiculously off the mark. I end up around drugs and bad people, strippers and cheating husbands. The world of drunks is marked by one sick culture, but it’s a very happening social calendar.

The last one night stand I hopefully ever have saw me being horribly, horribly cruel. If the worse thing you can do to a man is damage his pride while he’s trying to seduce you, well, I gutted him from nose to navel:

Me: Okay! I’m bored
Strange Ass: What?!
Me: I’m bored. I don’t want to do this. You’re jackhammering.
Strange Ass: WHAT?! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT!
Me: I’m sorry. What was I supposed to do? Just lie there?
Strange Ass: Oh … well, I guess you have a point. At least you spoke up …
Me: Yup. Sorry. Night!

The gods are merciful. When I woke up, my conquest was long gone.

What I’m trying to say is that over the years, the drinking culture has somewhat impossibly shot my standards up. It’s just that feeling of having done this all before, and when you can take sex with people you don’t like or respect at face value, it’s pretty much worth nothing at all.

But don’t get me wrong. I don’t feel one way or the other when I hear about my friends notching up their bedposts, because I know once upon a time that was me. And who says, one night, it won’t still be me? Eh, passing judgment in these situations is silly. What bothers me, I guess, is the seemingly universal feeling that girls shouldn’t do what a lot of us do all the time, i.e. get it on with no strings attached.

And if I do end up, again, in a situation where I hook up with someone I don’t know that well or respect (and I probably will), whatever. They only have to last one night.