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.

Valentine's Day

“You look like a present,” says my roommate. I’m wearing a cherry red, skin-tight dress with a big bow in the back and lots of tits in the front. It’s Valentine’s Day and we’re throwing a big ol’ house party. Per usual, I’m dressed to attract a mate for the evening. It’s V-Day after all and the evite instructed each guest to “bring a single friend, or 7 single friends.”

As I wander through the party, searching for someone to bone, I’m surprised by my own lack of interest in the various prospects. There are indeed several attractive, single men in my midst, and yet I continue to wander rather than setting my sights on the most promising option and digging in for the night, as is my custom. I find myself dodging a handsome, somewhat boring insurance guy who is probably my best bet. I realize I’m less interested in sealing the deal with him than chatting with friends I see all the time and generally flirting with no one in particular.

Where is my usual ambition to get laid no matter what? To find the hottest guy in the room and focus on him all night until he’s completely incapable of walking away? To tenaciously manufacture chemistry even when there is absolutely none? I suddenly realize that, oh my god, has the moment finally come when I am actually bored of the random hookup?

Feeling very drunk, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, thinking I might throw up. Instead, I stare at myself in the mirror over the sink: long, kinky blond hair; cleavage to the chin; red bow framing my ass. I come to the sudden realization that I may have outgrown this party costume. I do feel sexy but also with perhaps a sprinkling of trying too hard. I stare at myself in the mirror and wonder, who is this peacock?

Then I have the double realization that this costume positively screams one night stand. Why did that never occur to me before? I’m fond of asking myself and my friends, why am I attracting this certain kind of guy over and over again? Two kinds actually: the skeezy loser who likes me more than I like him, or the upstanding guy I go to bed with and then try to parlay the one night stand into a real date and never hear from him again. Why has it honestly never occurred to me that this dress and the attitude that goes with it might have everything to do with who and what I’m attracting?

Yes, dudes pay more attention to us when we dress sexy. But I think T&A is honestly so distracting for them that they are fundamentally incapable of seeing past the basic instinct to fuck. Obviously. When I’m shoving my tits in a guy’s face, what do I honestly expect? And I’m not slut-shaming myself. I think maybe I just didn’t realize until this moment that what I’ve been working to attract is actually not at all what I want.

I’ve had this fantasy that when I finally meet the right guy, he will see past my cleavage-baring dresses and loud mouth outspokenness to the thoughtful and smart individual underneath. I guess it didn’t occur to me to lead with these qualities. Probably because in these instances, I’m usually looking for sex, not great conversation. But the fact that I often feel dissatisfied by these encounters has never before made me think I need to change anything about my behavior. I think my belief that attracting men is all about dressing as sexy as humanly possible has actually been attracting the wrong kind of man. Shocking, I know.

I think back to New Year’s Eve night when I zeroed in on the hot bartender who was giving me lots of exciting mixed messages. I pleaded for a midnight kiss and, when he wouldn’t give it to me, asked if he had a girlfriend. “Yeah,” he scoffed, “If I was single, your face would be wet right now.” Obviously, I didn’t leave him alone for the rest of the night. Later, as we shared a joint outside with a group of my friends, I stuck my hands in his jacket, feeling on his chest. I pushed my body into his and reached for his crotch. You might say I was being a little forceful, but the smile on his face made me believe he was very close to giving in. Naturally, I was rocking my gold sparkly ensemble and, per usual, lots of cleavage. My animal instincts told me he was barely able to resist.

About a week later, I returned to said bar and parked myself right in front of this same bartender’s station. He barely looked at me all night. I don’t know what I was expecting—for him to leave his girlfriend for me? No, but I thought we could at least have one night of fun, no strings attached. I realize now what this must have looked like: a very sexually uninhibited girl who keeps trying to have sex with a guy even after he’s made it abundantly clear he lives with his girlfriend. What kind of future could there possibly be and why on earth would he jeopardize his relationship to be with me for one night? He wouldn’t. Especially when he’s probably reading the vibes that this girl has no intention of making him her boyfriend, she’s truly just in it for the sex. Even man’s deep and primal instinct to fuck is not strong enough to overcome the doubt and uncertainty inspired by this situation.

All this to say that, when I dress up as the Barbie, I think I might be sending a confusing message, because although I know how to peacock around, I’m ultimately playing a role that is not who I am. I am not going to be some perfect piece of arm candy. That’s just not me. I'm too loud and opinionated for that shit. And it is not by pretending to be that person that I will find the right guy for me. Because there are plenty of women who actually fit that description and the guy that wants that woman will get a real one, not the one who’s just flirting with the role for tonight and in the morning goes back to being very serious and career driven.

And please understand, I am by no means saying that being sexy and strong are mutually exclusive. Because obviously those are both qualities I admire and hopefully embody, but I’m coming to realize there are different kinds of sexy. And some kinds are more understated, not quite so in your face, leave a little something to the imagination. Like Gillian Anderson in The Fall. So strong, so sexy, so doesn't give a fuck. But I digress...

My mom’s favorite expression “mutton dressed as lamb” is suddenly hitting home in a very real way. While she has always used this expression to refer to women who dress too young for their age, it suddenly seems to me that it is actually more about maturity. Maybe that’s what being a grown up woman is all about—being so confident in yourself and your sexuality that you don’t have to flaunt it like you’re 21, you can simply know what you want and say it out loud.

As I stand in front of that bathroom mirror, staring at the "present" reflected back at me, I think I'm only 28 and I already feel too old for this frock.