Dating Myself

I've decided to start dating myself. I came to this conclusion on Saturday mid-morning after dragging my tired ass out of bed to take a walk in my neighborhood. I ended up outside a house that used to belong to Anais Nin, the renowned French writer of erotica. I couldn't see much of the house, but it was comforting to know she had once lived in my hood. I kept walking, working up a sweat on the steep hills. I started to feel better.

The night before, I'd felt like I was coming down with this mysterious multi-week cold/flu that all my friends seem to be getting. I huddled in bed with my iPad binge-watching Jessica Jones on Netflix when the front doorbell rang. I wasn't expecting anyone, and I couldn’t hear either of my roommates making noises about answering it. In my PJs and not in the mood for company at 9pm on a Friday night, I texted them. "Expecting someone?" One responded back right away that she wasn't home, the other didn't answer. The doorbell rang again and now someone was fumbling with the handle. My heart started beating fast. I put my iPad aside and crept out of bed with my cell phone gripped in my hand. I padded into the living room and could hear what sounded like a group of guys talking outside. I thought I saw one of them trying to peak into the window on the side of the house and then a dark shadow ran past the other window towards the backyard. I was shaking now, suddenly and viscerally scared out of my rational mind. I crept upstairs and shone my iPhone’s light towards my roommate's bedroom—the one I thought was home. The light was off, her door open. Not home. Now I was terrified. I crept towards the front door and instead of opening it, slid into the dark garage where I stood on a chair peering out the garage windows into the street. My roommate’s car was in the driveway and there was no sign of anyone outside. I couldn't hear voices anymore. I stood on that chair and shook for a good five minutes, my phone clutched to my chest. I imagined this group of guys casing the house, surrounding it, deciding the best way to break in.

I gingerly stepped off the chair and pressed my ear to the door in the pitch-black garage, listening hard for the sound of breaking glass or jimmying locks. My phone was now sweaty in my palm. Should I call someone? The police? And say what, “someone rang my doorbell”?? Why the fuck was I so scared? It suddenly occurred to me that I didn't know any of my neighbors and that I didn't have anyone to call at a time like this. No nearby friend who would drop everything to come be with me until I calmed down. This made me feel sorry for myself and I almost texted the guy I’d gone on three dates with to see if he was back in town, to let him know I was a damsel in distress and needed his manliness to protect me from whatever perceived danger I was apparently in. Men love that shit! I imagined winning him back with the scenario of the helpless female. Then I imagined the opposite, him feeling put-upon and thinking doesn’t she have anyone else to call? I decided instead to wait it out. I stood in the dark as my breathing gradually returned to normal and I felt the fear slowly dissipate. I decided I was safe and had invented the sense of danger. I returned to my room and finished the episode of Jessica Jones I had been watching (probably the reason I was scared in the first place—the show is terrifying).

The next morning, I had trouble getting out of bed. I watched more Jessica Jones and finished a bag of potato chips before 11am. I started having a general sense of FOMO, so I decided I should probably leave the house. At least take a walk. Exercise usually helps the feeling of ennui that often settles over me these (unemployed) days. Maybe it was Anais Nin's house or maybe it was the fresh air and endorphins, but I began to feel better and I made a sudden, inspired decision to start dating myself. That's right, ladies and gentleman, I decided to stop waiting for that mysterious man to come along and take me on cool dates, and instead to take my own damn self out on some cool dates. If I were dating me, where would I take me? I decided first I would take myself to see City of Gold, the new documentary about LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold. I know my fondness for food and how much I love Jonathan Gold, so I knew this date was sure to please me. Who knew, afterwards if things were going well and I still seemed interested, perhaps I could take myself to one of the restaurants featured in the film? That would be the perfect date for me! I felt better already. Why hadn't I thought of this before? Fuck these men. Who needs em? I'm an only child, I know how to play by myself.

City of Gold was wonderful, a love letter to Los Angeles with its vast mosaic of various cultures and cuisines. I decided Jonathan Gold is my personal hero, for he found the one activity he enjoys above all else—eating all the foods—and made a career out of it. Jonathan Gold eats everything. He picks restaurants the way I like to pick restaurants—democratically. He loves equally the highest-end fine dining meal at Providence (LA Times #1 Best Restaurant in Los Angeles three years in a row) as he does the street tacos from the Guerilla Tacos truck. Jonathan Gold is living the dream. He gets paid to eat and write about it! Sitting in the back of the movie theatre on a Saturday afternoon, watching this film—that was a really lovely date with myself. Afterwards, I thought about going to Jonathan’s favorite Thai place, Jitlada, which was not too far from the theatre, but I was due to meet Best Guy Friend and his girlfriend for dinner and another movie, Zootopia. I’m not in the habit of crashing Best Guy Friend’s dates with his girlfriend, but seeing as I’m now dating myself, this was actually more like a double date. And Zootopia, while not a movie I would have gone to see without them, I found absolutely delightful. I was so enthralled that I leaned over to Best Guy Friend in the middle of it and exclaimed in his ear: “This is a feminist parable!” To which he laughed at me.

The next day, Sunday, I went on a three-hour hike with my friend Paula in Topanga Canyon. As we often do on our hikes, we got to talking about the feminist injustices in the film industry and how we sought to remedy them, and soon we were huffing and puffing up the steep hills, red in the face with both exertion and conviction. After we had worked up an appetite with the exercising of both our calves and jaw muscles, we went to Milo and Olive for brunch.

“I’ve decided to date myself,” I declared happily, sweaty and red-faced.

“I think that’s great,” beamed Paula. Paula would also like to meet a man. She is a hot and sexy woman in her 40s who is incredibly talented, fun, smart, and amusing; she has a gorgeous house and an amazing ass. The fact that Paula can’t seem to find someone to date I find equally hard to believe as the fact that I can’t find someone to date. By all accounts, and I say this with the utmost humbleness and objectivity, we are both catches.

I think about the guy I went on three dates with several weeks ago. The last time I saw him he said, “I really like you and want to get to know you.” Then he cancelled our next two dates (because he was understandably very busy) and left town for two weeks without trying to see me before he went. I asked if he was doing the fade away to which he LOL-ed and replied, “No! But to be clear as day, I’m seeking a slow burn. I’m not rushing into anything. But I’m enjoying our time together.” To me it didn’t feel like what we had going was a slow burn. It felt like what so many of these flings feel like: hot and heavy in the beginning and then the flame gradually goes out. I had texted with him on and off since he’d been gone, but now I hadn’t heard from him for a whole week, and I feel like if you really like someone and want to keep the burn going, you don’t just forget about them for a week. Especially since in the beginning his attention had felt constant and intense, texting me the day after our first date that he was “still smiling” and when we had a date coming up on Saturday, rhetorically exclaiming, “Is it Saturday yet?!” I missed those days, I missed the attention and the sense of consistency, the lack of games. Now I was feeling the age-old pressure to not seem too eager, to not text first for fear of seeming more interested than him. How did this happen, I wondered. I wasn’t even sure I was attracted to him in the beginning. I felt like he had worked really hard to fish me out of the ocean and then, once I was caught and in his hands, decided to throw me back. Had I no say in the matter?

It didn’t help that I hadn’t been able to talk to him in person since that third and final date. My ex-boyfriend encouraged me to be honest with him and express what I want, what I need—but how was I supposed to do that on text when I didn’t even know if he was back in town or not? I had preemptively invited Best Guy Friend to come to Dan Savage’s amateur porn festival Hump! with me in case this guy bailed, but it was depressing to think I had to prepare for that. Preparing for disappointment. Why can’t I date someone who is true to his word, who doesn’t feel like a slippery fish who could slink away at any moment? And furthermore, what had I said to turn him off? Sure, I had tested out some feminist rants about abortion rights on him, but he seemed to be able to handle this aspect of my personality—he even seemed charmed by it. Was I really so deluded and unable to read the situation that when I thought he was watching me fondly, he was actually thinking, get me the fuck away from this woman?

I didn’t think so. But I honestly didn’t know what had happened. And the not knowing was making me nuts. I didn’t understand a guy’s impulse to work so hard to woo a girl only to lose interest in her after three dates. Why would he have treated me like this could develop into something if he knew he didn’t really want it go anywhere, or he wasn’t sure? Why not play it a little cooler and not say things like, “I really like you” and “let’s sail to Hawaii”? Or was this all in my head? Would I receive a text from him any day now stating, “I’m back in town and I want to see you!” Somehow I doubted it. It felt like it was over. And I felt once again disappointed, and tired of feeling disappointed by men. Was this what he meant when he said sex was a contract and women got hurt—was he warning me that I might get hurt? Is that what had happened?

“I just don’t want to start over with someone new,” I told Paula. “This guy already knows everything about me.” She laughed, but it was true. I was tired of small talk, of the whole getting to know you rigmarole. We had cut through so much of that, and that’s what I ultimately liked most about him. We got to the real shit. By the third date, I felt he knew all my secrets—such as they are. Was that too soon? Did I say too much? Did I show too much of myself? Was I just really bad at dating? I guess this was possible; I didn’t have a lot of experience. Or rather, I had a lot of experience with first dates and sex, but not so much with second and third dates. Was it possible I had actually become something I had been called once by a man: undateable? And what did that even mean?

I brought in girlfriend reinforcement to analyze our text chain. I showed my friend Cheryl how we’d had a flurry of flirtatious banter back and forth on Monday, and then I hadn’t heard from him for a week. On Sunday night, I was watching a great documentary called The Mask You Live In about the culture of masculinity boys are raised with in this country, and I thought it might interest him based on some of the conversations we’d had. I texted him the recommendation and didn’t hear back. Now it was Monday night and we still had plans to see the amateur porn fest on Saturday.

Cheryl expressed feeling lucky that she never had to date in the age of texting. She’s been with her boyfriend since back when people used cell phones to call each other, when people used to communicate, and if you stopped liking someone you couldn't just ignore their texts. I could tell by her text suggestions that she had never done this before, never played these games, and that she’d been in a LTR for a very long time. She encouraged me to ask him if he was still coming with me on Saturday night, seeing as we were now within a week of the date. I texted him and he responded: “Fuck I’ll be in New York! For work.” Although I knew in my gut that this was coming, it still blew my mind. I invited him to this event, he said unequivocally yes, I asked him when he wanted to go, he picked the date, then he not only made other plans, but also neglected to tell me about them? Would he have ever told me? I flashed back on something I had said on our second date.

“We shouldn’t make too many plans.” I said this out loud, as though channeling, as though warning myself from the future. I didn’t know at the time where this piece of advice was coming from, but clearly I’m more intuitive than I’ve been paying attention to.

Inexplicably, I found myself relieved by the confirmation that he wasn’t coming. At least I wasn’t waiting anymore. I had my answer. That was it. The end of the road. I thought about what to write back, I consulted my girlfriends. A sampling of my favorite suggestions:

“Third time. Not so charming.”

“Put a fork in you. You’re done.”

“You owe me $25.”

I decided to give it a beat. I didn’t want to respond in the moment from a reactive place. I wanted to be honest. But I also didn’t feel like writing him a novel via text with all my thoughts and feelings, about how I felt disrespected by his lack of consideration for my time, for my schedule. I also didn’t feel like calling. Somehow his lack of remorse made me feel like he really didn’t care to hear from me, and this made the thought of calling him absolutely sickening. Part of me wanted to never write back and to never talk to him again, but as we all know, I’m bad at letting things lie. I got into bed and tossed around. I couldn’t get comfortable. I wanted to express myself, but I didn’t know how. I opened my phone and deleted our text chain. Then I considered blocking his number, so I wouldn’t know if he ever wrote me again and therefore wouldn’t feel compelled to respond. Instead, I deleted his number. I lay back down. Still couldn’t sleep. I sat up in bed. Searched his name, he came right up—of course, the iCloud makes deleting numbers absolutely impossible. I wanted to keep it simple and sweet. Express myself eloquently and succinctly. Really get the point across but in a relaxed way that read: I will be over you in five minutes. “Wow. That’s disappointing,” was what I came up with. I felt okay about it. I haven’t heard from him since.

Sexpectations

I’ve been seeing someone. Just three dates, but it’s felt more real than any “relationship” I’ve had in quite awhile. On the first date, we met at a nice wine bar and had charcuterie, and he didn’t even try to kiss me. On the second date, dinner of oysters and a whole fish followed by dancing, all of it planned and paid for by him. We went back to his place and it was late so we both decided I would sleep over. I think neither of us wanted to necessarily have sex yet—we wanted to take our time—but seeing as I was in his bed, how was that not going to happen? We had sex and it was nice, and then the next morning (Valentine's Day!), we had sex again, and we both came. (You guys, I had an orgasm on fucking Valentine's Day!!) On the third date, he took me to a self-realization center and then we went to my favorite restaurant for dinner. Again, he paid. This time, he picked me up and brought me a tiny vase of handpicked flowers. All of this I found incredibly romantic and unexpected.

Something happened after we had sex. Something that frequently happens. I found myself thinking about him more than I had before. Missing him, wanting to see him again. My female brain had turned on. Whereas before I had felt casual about our dates, now I felt anxious about the next one and like I was counting down the days. What was happening to me? It was all the scarier because I felt I really connected with this guy and didn’t want to fuck it up by getting obsessed.

Let me back it up. A month ago, I went on an ayahuasca journey. I drank the tea and lay down for a six hour, closed-eye meditation, and let's just say I saw some stuff. I saw John the bartender and all the various guys I'd had sex with over the past three years and, in a sudden moment of clarity, realized that what I had been searching for outside of myself had actually been within me all along. I was filled with an intense feeling of being in love that had nothing whatsoever to do with any of these men—in fact, it was a feeling I had never quite achieved with any of them. I felt in love with myself. I know this sounds very new age-y and some of you might be getting ready to barf, but it was a big revelation for me and afterwards I felt truly invigorated. I realized I was happy being on my own, knowing that I didn’t need anyone else to make me feel good or fulfilled.

Then this guy came along. And he really took me by surprise. We had met at a place where he works and I was freelancing, and then ran into one another around the reservoir by my house—him jogging, me walking. He said we should get a drink sometime. I said yes, enjoying the possibility but also thinking it might never actually happen, and continued on my walk. Within the hour I had a text from him saying he had gotten my number from a coworker, he hoped that was okay, and how about tonight?

At the wine bar, I found myself telling him everything, even about my blog—a subject I’ve made it a rule never to discuss on a first date. I can’t explain it except to say that from the questions he asked, I couldn’t not talk about the real stuff that was going on with me. I told him about my ayahuasca journey, about my revelation that I am enough. There was no small talk. I told him about my three years of sluttery and how I felt them coming to an end, that I’d recently had an epiphany that I wanted more than just random sex with strangers. He enjoyed my candor and shared that he too had been slutting around since his fiancé basically left him at the altar, and that he was also coming to the end of this period in his life. I was surprised at how easy it was to talk to him. I had been nervous about the date, in part because I wasn’t sure if we’d have sexual chemistry, and also because I was pretty out of practice at the whole dating game. On our third date, I explained to him, “I don’t date much. I have sex and long relationships.” He told me I should go on more dates. 

What I liked most about this guy was the lack of games. After our first date, he texted that he was “still smiling” and wanted to see me again. Even when I went on my angry feminist rants, he seemed to gaze at me fondly. As we lay on the grass at the self-realization center, he watched me watching a couple young kids playing and said, “children laughing is the best sound in the world.” He seemed to be waiting for a response. What was I supposed to say to that? When a man says something like this, the woman swoons; but if a woman pays too much attention to babies on an early date, the man is likely to run for the hills. It reminded me of that Sex and the City episode when Carrie, trying to get back together with Aidan, goes to his apartment in the middle of the night and throws rocks at his bedroom window. In voice over she says, “When men attempt bold moves, generally it’s considered romantic. When women do it, it’s often considered desperate or psychotic.”

This guy told me that he had talked about me with his best girl friends, and that he'd just bought a sail boat and that “we should sail to Hawaii!” Maybe it’s just me, but when someone says something like this out loud, I take them seriously. I don’t assume this is just something they might say to anyone who happened to be sitting nearby. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe this guy does act like this with every girl he meets—stares fondly into her eyes, makes her feel like he’s falling for her—when really he’s just equally interested in all humans. He told me on our second date that he felt that sex was a contract and that he was more careful with it now because he knew that women could get hurt. He said he had tried to have casual sexual relationships with women and it never worked out for this reason.

When he dropped me off that third night, a Saturday, we made out furiously outside my front door. He was ending the night prematurely because he had to get up very early the next morning to help his friend build a deck before a baby shower and, as he explained, he liked me and wanted to get to know me better. Meaning, I guess, he didn’t just want this to be a sex thing. That honestly didn’t occur to me, as I found myself much more drawn to his personality and our emotional chemistry than the physical aspect of our connection. To me, the physical was just an extension of how we were connecting on so many other levels. He told me, "what I'm looking for is a best friend who also makes me really horny." Aren't we all, I thought.

He asked if I wanted to see a movie the following Wednesday and I said yes. I had already invited him to a concert on Friday, so now we had two dates for the coming week. My roommates were out of town and I had said he should come over and I’d make him dinner—he suggested we do this on Friday before the concert. I warned him that we shouldn’t make too many plans, but I found myself wanting to make more plans with him, even thinking about distant future plans that I really shouldn’t have been thinking about. Excited, I started to design the menu for Friday night.

On Tuesday night, he called to say he probably couldn’t do a movie on Wednesday after all because his work week had gotten insane. I put a smile in my voice and said, “Sure! No problem! What about Friday?”

He hesitated, “Well, the thing is we’ll probably be shooting all day Friday into the evening… but I might be able to make it.”

“I don’t want to stress you out!” I yelled happily into the phone.

“You’re not! It’s stressing me out that I can’t see you.”

“No problem!”

“Why are you so cool?” He asked, a delighted tone in his voice. My face reddened, thinking of the Amy Schumer sketch about the “Cool Girl.” I’m not, I thought. I just didn’t know I was allowed to not be cool in this instance. After all, we’re just casually dating.

“Well, if you can’t make it Friday, please just give me some notice so I can find someone else to go with me,” I said. He promised he’d let me know tomorrow. We hung up, and I was irrationally flooded with disappointment. I almost burst into tears. What was wrong with me? What did I expect? Why had I built this into some big thing? Here we had made two dates this week, and he had essentially cancelled both of them. But why did I care so much? How could he have known that I already had a full menu planned for Friday night? I felt emotionally raw and out of control. I didn’t like this feeling. I was having PTSD from the time when Mr. Intimidated told me at the last minute that he couldn’t come to the Sleater Kinney concert with me, and I couldn’t find anyone else to use the ticket, so I ended up going alone. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I decided to preempt the situation. I invited another friend whom I hadn’t seen in awhile to come with me to the concert. He said yes. I felt better, gaining back some sense of control.

When I told the guy that he was off the hook for Friday, I expected him to say something like, “Bummer! I wanted to see you.” Instead, he said, “Haha! Okay!” I suddenly realized that, despite the intimate behavior and loving way he looked into my eyes, he actually did feel pretty casual about this. Maybe all men felt casual about everything all the time. I was apparently incapable of feeling casual about any guy I fucked. And here he was, apparently not really caring that he would now not see me for over a week. I suddenly realized I wanted even more than this. Even more than a man who would bring me flowers and plan interesting dates, I wanted someone who showed up when he said he'd show up and who understood that I’m a planner and when I plan something and someone throws a wrench in my plan, it stresses me out. Maybe he doesn’t know this about me yet, maybe he won’t like me anymore when he realizes I’m not as cool as he thought, but that’s a risk I’ll have to take. I can be the Cool Girl a lot of the time, but not all the time. And I need to be with someone who doesn’t require that of me.

I don’t know what the future of it is. We’ll probably see each other again—after all, we do have tickets to attend Dan Savage’s amateur porn festival Hump! when it comes to LA in March so, unless something comes up and he has to bail, we’ll probably still go to that.

I find myself very vulnerable lately, and also full of expectation. There is so much I want and I really can’t let the whims of a man control my emotional state—it happens too easily of late. I know I’ve said before that I should stop having casual sex but I think I need to take it a step further and instigate a three dates before sex rule of thumb. The culture tells us that sex is casual and no big deal, and even I have spouted this same logic on this very blog. But I think I was underestimating the power of sex, the power it has over me. I have taken it too lightly, and it's not fun anymore. It's been a learning curve for me to even realize that by saying this, I'm not slut shaming myself, but actually protecting my heart. No matter how casual and cool I try to act, I can’t deny the effect that sex has on my emotions and my general sense of well-being, not to mention my ability to focus. I think men don’t really understand just how hurt we can get. Because we’re literally letting them inside our bodies. They don’t know what it’s like to be that vulnerable.

My Favorite Things: 2015

It's time to look back on some of my favorite things of the past year. Not all brand new, these are the things that enhanced my year and brought me joy. It was a good year for sex and feminism.

Fave Films:

Magic Mike XXL

I thought that Trainwreck was going to be my feminist anthem of the summer. I liked a lot about Trainwreck—obviously I love Amy and found many of the jokes hilarious, but I ultimately left the theatre underwhelmed by the clean-up-your-act moralism of the story. I left the theatre after Magic Mike XXL (both times) feeling exhilarated. Sitting in that audience, I felt something I’ve never really experienced before in a movie theatre: enthusiastic camaraderie amongst women (and gay men) and a shared sense of sexual excitement. The sex-positivity and feminism of this film are astounding. The fact that it was written, directed, and produced by all men and yet embodies the female gaze is a revelation and should not be underestimated. Furthermore, the fact that there is a market for women wanting to see sexy comedies with sexy men doing sexy things seems obvious but has been so far untapped and can no longer go ignored. Hallelujah!

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

This film reminded me so much of being a horny, obsessive young teenager who wants nothing more than to bang any number of hot older men-children. I loved the unapologetic, exposed way the story unfolds, with little judgment or moralism. Minnie is not a victim or an innocent, she is a self-possessed and wily young girl who knows what she wants (or thinks she does) and goes for it. Needless to say, I can relate.

Sisters

I almost didn’t go to see Sisters because of the bad reviews. And then I read this great article about the male gaze and male film critics, and I thought: Fuck You, I’m going! So glad I did. What a joyful two hours spent with two of my favorite women of comedy. Sisters takes the usual trope of male bodily function humor and boys behaving badly and recasts it with all women. The results are revelatory. Watching it, I thought of course these male critics don’t like it—we're talking about vaginas and periods and a guy gets a ballerina music box stuck up his ass. I loved every minute. 

Anomalisa
I won't give anything away about the latest masterpiece from the imagination of Charlie Kaufman, except to say that it has one of the best, most realistic sex scenes I've seen in cinema.

Fave TV Shows:

Getting On

How sad am I that this show got cancelled? I ask friends of mine if they watch it, and pretty unanimously, people find it depressing. Not me! I could watch Laurie Metcalf strut around talking about atrophied vaginas and stool samples for a hundred hours. I love this show. I love the bold, unapologetic way it approaches aging and dying, and goddamn the characters are good. Real, flawed, self-absorbed, hilarious. This show might have the best roles for women of any show currently running. And now they’re gone. I will miss them all.

Transparent

Season Two is even better than Season One. The original cast members are in full flower, and there are some new additions that are amazing, namely Cherry Jones and Anjelica Huston. This show has more sexless nudity in it than any other show on television, and I love it for that. During a scene between the two sisters set in the Korean spa, I yelled at the screen: “Jill Soloway, get out of my head!” The Yom Kippur episode and the one set at the Idyllwild Wimmin’s music festival are standouts. I love all the stuff between Ali (Gaby Hoffmann) and her girlfriend played by Carrie Brownstein, especially Ali questioning the obligatory monogamous rules of straight relationships, and the scene in which they're having a conversation and Ali's nipple is casually exposed the whole time. Also, Amy Landecker is sexy as fuck.

The Affair

I love the questions posed by this show about being identified as the other woman and getting slut-shamed for it. Not to mention the structure of the story unfolding from different characters’ perspectives. I especially love seeing the world through Helen (Maura Tierney)’s eyes. And there’s a lot of hot sex. And Josh Stamberg's penis. Or it's his double's penis. Either way, it's nice.

Fave Docs:

Amy

I didn’t realize that Amy Winehouse was a genius. I didn’t realize the scope of her talent and vision. I also didn't realize how incredibly young she was. This doc is amazing because of the footage they were able to find. This I suppose is a benefit of the record-everything generation. Amy’s fall from a spirited, cheeky teenager to an emaciated shadow is fast and brutal. Even harder to watch is the lack of support around her, particularly from her awful, fame whore of a father. Hearing the music stripped down and not so over-produced, her voice shines and you see the incredible talent that we lost.

The Hunting Ground

This is a tough one. The film follows two college graduates who were both raped while in school and have become activists to expose the astounding frequency of rape on college campuses and to create a community of survivors. It’s unbelievable to see these formidable institutions denying and actively covering up the ubiquity of rape on their campuses, particularly when the scandal threatens to expose top athletes and frat houses. It’s hard to watch, but essential, and should be required viewing for everyone, particularly men and women entering college.

Fave Books (Non-Fiction):

The Wild Oats Project: One Woman’s Midlife Quest for Passion at Any Cost by Robin Rinaldi

This is a memoir about a woman who opened her marriage for a year and went on an adventure of sexual exploration and awakening. I love this book. In it, Robin Rinaldi shamelessly and honestly explores the topics of monogamy, sexuality, female pleasure, and the link between sexual desire and maternal longing. It is a woman’s journey of self-discovery through sex—a story I not only relate to, but find profoundly important.

The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine by Nancy Qualls-Corbett

This book explores an ancient time when women’s sexual power was revered and honored, rather than squelched and controlled. It’s both empowering and heartbreaking to read of where we’ve come from and how far we’ve gotten away from our essential connection to the divine feminine. This book is not always easy to find—probably because the patriarchy doesn’t want us to read it!

Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships by Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jetha

Similar to The Sacred Prostitute, Sex at Dawn looks at the ancient civilizations and contemporary tribes that live and have lived in nonmonogamous cultures, and debunks the notion that humans are fundamentally, biologically monogamous. This book delves into the societal reasons why and how monogamy became important to us and begs the question, in our world today, are these reasons still good enough?

Fave Podcast:

Savage Lovecast

Not a new podcast, but still great after all these years! Dan Savage introduced me to the term monogamish as well as the true definition of Santorum. I don't always agree with his advice, but I always love listening to him talk. He remains the sex-positive uncle I wish I had.

Fave Male Feminist:

Matt McGorry
The star of Orange is the New Black is hot and talented and, since learning the definition of feminism this year, has been on a social media campaign for gender equality. Nothing hotter than a male feminist!

Movies in My Head

On Sunday, I’m enjoying a solo walk around the reservoir near my new house, followed by some casual yoga in one of the only shaded areas of the park.  I’m listening to Dan Savage’s Lovecast and enjoying just hanging with myself.  Sweaty, no makeup, I’m not trying to pick anyone up.  Naturally, a dude approaches.  Sits down right next to me, with a book.  But he’s not reading.  He’s watching me do yoga.  I glance over and smile.  He’s smiling a lot.  I’m kind of like ‘who is this creep and why is he watching me do yoga?’  But at the same time I find myself moving into more challenging poses, twisting myself into a pretzel as if to say ‘yeah that’s right, I’m flexible – you know what that means.’  I decide to move into plow, and not just because it gets my butt in the air – it also stretches the neck, and my neck is fucked from camping the week before.  For this pose, I take my earbuds out. He swoops in.

“What are you listening to?”

“The Savage Lovecast.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that guy on This American Life a couple times.”

I’m impressed he’s heard of Dan Savage.  I’m also impressed that he’s currently reading Wolf Hall.  And that he went to Sqirl for breakfast, a trendy Silverlake restaurant I’ve been dying to try.  He’s training for a marathon, which to me means he’s good in bed.  He also just got back from Burning Man, which explains all the intense eye contact.

“Ever since I got back, I’ve been totally into talking to strangers.”

He casually mentions going to movie premieres in the part of town where I work, so I ask what he does.

“Studio Exec.”

This impresses me more.  I associate Studio Execs with attachment to cell phones and not reading books.  He also looks young to have such a big job.

“I’m probably older than you think I am.”

“Probably. Everyone’s older than I think they are,” I laugh, remembering Comedian Guy.

“I’m 37.”

We talk for a while more and it’s nice and natural and we have lots to talk about.  He’s very smart and, although I find his job a little intimidating, I’m happy to be interacting with a man who’s not an actor.  At some point, I say, “I should probably go do something.”

He wants my number but he doesn’t have his phone on him, which I find amazing, considering his job. 

“If I give you my number, will you call?” he looks expectant, and perhaps a touch worried.

I smile and promise to text him.

I do, and many hours later, at around 5pm, I receive a text back.

“Perhaps a drink this week?”

A couple days later he texts me a time and location.  This is definitely a step up from Comedian Guy’s “let’s just meet at the mall.”  He chooses a cool little wine bar I haven’t been to.  I start to fantasize that maybe this is it, maybe this is the man I’ve been looking for — a grown up with a good job and a nice income, someone smart who challenges me and reads books.  Someone who likes me sweaty with no makeup, and has the balls to approach a stranger in the park, and leaves his phone off on the weekends.  It feels too good to be true – a Studio Exec who goes to Burning Man?!

Thursday rolls around and I find myself nervous.  I leave work early because we’re meeting at 7:30 and I want time to get ready and look amazing.  I ask my ex-boyfriend if he thinks I should wear something “boob-y” or if I should not be so obvious.  He encourages me to rock the cleavage.  I choose a little black dress that I think is sexy but not trying too hard.  I spend more time on my hair and makeup than usual.  I find myself very flushed and unable to get the red out of my face.  Why am I so damn nervous?  This is not normal.  I’m about to leave the house when I decide to change into another little black dress — one that’s slightly less boob-y.  I’m not trying to look like a hooker — somehow I think this guy wouldn’t be down with that look.

I arrive at the bar and find a parking spot on the street.  I could have valeted but I find the goodnight kiss to be awkward when waiting for the valet.  I’m planning ahead.

He is already there, and looks nice — more professional without the bandana and basketball shorts he was wearing in the park.  I drink Sauvignon Blanc and he drinks a beer.  He mentions going to a tailor and I say, “That’s very adult.”  He looks at me funny, as if to say ‘I am an adult.’  In these moments, our age difference is apparent.  I tell him one of my best friends just had a baby, my first close friend to do this.  He says a lot of his friends have kids.  He also tells me his mom recently suggested he freeze his sperm, and that she’s encouraging him to find an egg donor and have a child on his own.  He looks at me funny and, for a moment, my imagination spins out of control and I think wouldn’t it make a great story if this guy offered me $100,000 to be his surrogate?

I ask him if he’s ever been married.  For some reason, he thinks this is a great question, says no one’s ever asked him that before.  I tell him when people ask if I have kids, it blows my mind that that’s even a possibility in their minds, that they think I would even be able to have kids.

“You mean physically,” he says with a wink and a smile.

At some point in the evening, I can see him starting to stifle his yawns.  I appreciate that he’s stifling them, but it’s still blatantly obvious he’s getting tired/bored.  He woke up at 5am to run 10 miles and he’s usually in bed at 9.  He’s also started looking around the bar as if to see who else is here.  And there’s a woman sitting behind me whom he glances at several times.  I’m tempted to offer to go to the bathroom so he can chat with her.  I can feel the relaxed energy of Burning Man wearing off even as we sit there. 

“I feel like you’re ramping up for something,” I say.

“This is the most relaxed I’ve ever been,” he responds.

This worries me slightly.  He says he rarely reads novels anymore, mostly longform pieces.  He says it’s because of his “bandwidth,” he literally doesn’t have the time/energy — I’m starting to think it’s actually because he can’t focus on one thing for long enough to get through a whole novel.  I mention one of my favorite books of recent years — Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story.  He says he “read a couple chapters” and got bored.  He’s also a self-proclaimed “know it all” who has two friends who have actually won Jeopardy.  

When his yawning becomes un-ignorable, I tell him we can leave.  He walks me to my car and we proceed to have an incredibly steamy public makeout session.  He grabs my ass and even goes for some vagina squeezes.  He feels on my breasts and sticks his thumb inside my bra to rub on my nipple.  I lean my knee into his groin, and I can feel he’s very hard in his pants. 

“It’s too bad you’re so tired,” I groan.

“Next time,” he says.

I think I have an instant thought that I don’t know if there will be a next time.

He bites my neck and I tell him he’s a tease.

“I’m a tease? How about you with that knee?”

“It was nice to meet you,” I laugh with his tongue still in my mouth.

We finally part, a bit unceremoniously, with him sort of pushing off of me and saying, “Okay, you’re leaving.”

“Yeah, I’m leaving,” I add lamely and redundantly.  I’m not tired and I want to have sex, so I feel a little abandoned.

I drive home. 

I text him “That was fun.”

“It was.”

I don’t hear from him the next day.  At 9am on Saturday, I text him some follow up to a trivia question we were debating.  He texts me back at 8pm that night.  I am preparing for a house warming party I’m throwing with my new roommates.  Who texts back 11 hours later?  I decide not to respond.

That's the last I hear from him.  And it’s not like I’m particularly disappointed – I also didn’t feel some big amazing connection.  But I’m noticing a theme with myself, which is difficulty securing the second date.  Getting a man initially interested is easy, nailing down that first date/sex is rarely a challenge.  But that elusive second date?  I can count on one hand the number of those I’ve had.

I feel like I’m a really cool chick.  I’m smart and funny, I’ve got shit going on, I’m good in bed.  So, why?

Is it because I have sex on the first date — is that still a thing where guys don’t really respect you or take you seriously if you’re just as easy and horny as they are?  Is that seriously still a thing?  God I hope not, because if it is, I’m fucked.

Looking for answers, I decide to listen to a podcast my best friend Sadie has been telling me about for weeks.  Why oh Why? with Andrea Silenzi – Movies in Your Head with Audio Smut.  A radio play, it’s all about the stories we make up in our heads whenever we meet a new person.  One guy expressed that whenever a new prospective partner would mention where her parents lived, he would picture Christmas there.  It’s all about the fantasies we play out, trying to fit this new person into the future we see for ourselves.

Obviously, there’s a movie I constantly play out in my head with whatever man of the moment I’m currently fixated on, but I’m suddenly curious about the movies these guys might have in their heads about me.  Studio Exec Guy, for example.  He’s 37, Jewish, from New York, his mom is encouraging him to freeze his sperm, he’s going home for Yom Kippur, he speaks with his parents on the phone often — they’re still together.  Clearly very family-oriented, wants children and maybe not too far in the future, has money, a good career.  So, what’s next?  A wholesome family like the one he grew up in.  And maybe when he saw me in the park — no makeup, exercising, perhaps a fellow runner, listening to a podcast, enjoying being alone — maybe he saw this person fitting into that story of his life.  Maybe he could picture getting this woman pregnant and introducing her to mom.  Maybe he pictured running together in the park, or me staying home and raising his child while he works his insanely demanding job.  So when I said having kids felt very distant, that I’m focused on my career, when he realized my age, maybe he realized I didn’t fit so well as he’d originally thought.  Maybe when I wore a dress with too much cleavage, or said “fuck” too many times, or let him grab my vagina on the street, he could no longer picture introducing me to his mother.

I understand all of this, and I also understand not wanting to waste time with someone you know is not “the one.”  But I feel like maybe one of the things we’ve lost in this world of reductive dating where you can sum up a stranger in two sentences from an online profile and write them off before you even meet, is that old thing of taking time to get to know a person.  I think we’re all expecting that we’ll be able to find that Perfect Match who fulfills all the boxes we have checked off on our list of requirements for a partner.  So maybe Studio Exec Guy’s need to look around the bar after an hour spent with me was because he’s a busy entertainment professional, or maybe the problem runs deeper than that.  Maybe we’re so ADD in this culture where everything we want is constantly available to us that we simply can’t sit with one single person for over an hour without checking our phone or checking to see who’s next.  I know, for example, that Studio Exec Guy does not fit into the story I see for my life and future relationship.  I know we’re not going to get married and have babies.  But I know that about most people I meet, and that doesn’t mean I don’t want to experience being with that person for a little while, even if it is just for one night.  When I’m on a date with a new person, it would be nice to just be in the present for once rather than constantly jumping ahead into the future. 

When I met Studio Exec Guy on Sunday, he was fresh from Burning Man.  I could see it in his eyes – he was open and interested, he wanted to connect.  A week away from LA, from cell phones and meetings and the bar scene, he was truly present.  And it was unnerving almost, when he sat down right next to me and smiled into my eyes, because usually when strange men do this, it’s because they’re crazy and I tend to walk away.
When he told me that, since Burning Man, he had been enjoying talking to strangers, I responded,

“Don’t lose that. We need more of that in this town.”

He nodded, agreeing.  But by the time Thursday rolled around, I could see it was already gone.  All of his intense interest in me, the reason I had come on this date in the first place, had all but dissipated.  He hardly asked about me, he didn’t seem that interested.  And maybe it’s because he had already decided I wasn’t the one for him and he didn’t want to waste his time and energy getting invested in my life.  But whatever happened to talking to strangers?

A week after our date, I’m bored at work and decide to do a little experiment.  I decide to be very blunt and see what happens.

“Sex?” I text.

I stare at the phone, stare at this single little word that carries so much weight.  I fool myself that there is deniability in sending a one word text.  I could always say, “Whoopsies autocorrect,” and even though we would both know it was a lie, he would probably accept it and we could move on with our lives.  While I’m waiting for a response, I consult with several friends, admitting what I’ve done.  The responses range from “Oh boy” to “That’s funny” to “Awesome!”  I’m not sure what I want from them, probably validation that what I’ve done doesn’t read desperation.

Two hours later, Studio Exec writes back: “I’d like to. I really would. But I can’t.”

Ominous.

Me: “I’m intrigued. Why?”

Him: “It fits a pattern of behavior I’d like to stop.”

Of course I have to be the one to pick them right when they’re getting ready to reform.

Me: “That’s a damn shame.”

I go to visit my Best Guy Friend.  I show him the texts.

“Can you believe this?!” I pout.

“Yeah. I get it. He just doesn’t want to keep having sex with women even though he knows it’s not going anywhere.”

I guess this makes sense but I still don’t like it.

Then he says, “You should text back ‘if you’re ever having a weak moment, call me.’”

I do, and I can feel Studio Exec Guy struggling with himself as he responds, “That’s a tough one.”

I ask my Best Guy Friend if it’s okay to write back “Sorry to make it hard for you.”

He says that’s too much, I should leave it at that.  I know it’s too much, it’s always too much, I’m too much.  I guess what I’m looking for is a guy who can handle it.