The Bartender's Brother Part Deux

*Readers forgive me. As it is now Christmas Eve, this post is late.*

It’s Thanksgiving week and I have a date with John’s brother. John, if you’ll remember, is the bartender whose dick I sucked on Halloween Night in the bathroom of the dive bar where he works. John who still lives with his girlfriend. Whose brother is an incredibly hot trainer I fucked over Labor Day weekend. The brother who lives in the Bay Area, where my parents also live.

I actually set up this date before I sucked John’s dick. I wanted a booty call prepped and ready to go for when I went home for the holiday, so I texted John’s brother in mid-October that I would be up that way the following month and we should “grab a drink.” He responded enthusiastically that he would “love that.” After my encounter with John, I wasn’t really sure what would happen. I was half expecting the whole thing to blow up in my face. My roommate reassured me that, “John is not going to tell anybody about that.” I figured she was probably right, John is probably trying to convince himself the incident never occurred, not telling his brother (whom he knows I fucked) about it.

The brother suggests we meet at this upscale new restaurant where one of his clients works. I check it out on Yelp and notice the three dollar signs indicating this place is pretty damn expensive. This makes me slightly uncomfortable, as I picture sitting across from a one night stand at a fine dining restaurant, when I would have been happy with a couple beers at a dive bar followed by some heavy PDA culminating in a lot of hot sex. But the other part of me—the less cynical, more romantic part—is excited to be going on a real date.

“We’re having dinner!” I exclaim to my mom, who rolls her eyes when I tell her this guy is a trainer at a gym. No wonder I’m such a snob.

I wear less clothes than I should because I want to look sexy, and it’s fucking freezing. I drive over the Golden Gate Bridge with my parents’ Fast Trak in my car, and arrive at the restaurant fifteen minutes early. I park like a block away and realize I’m shaking—I can’t tell if it’s from anxiety or the cold, but I do feel suddenly quite nervous. I’ve only interacted with this guy once, and we were both very hammered, and then we had sex. Will I be able to spend a whole dinner talking to this person?

I’m there before him and snag a seat at the bar so it feels a little less formal, and I can rub up next to him after we’ve had a drink or five. I stare at the cocktail menu and think it’s probably a good idea to get some alcohol in my system before he arrives. I’m still shaking. He arrives right on time and at first I don’t recognize him. He looks different from the Facebook photos I’ve been stalking since we had sex—really my only frame of reference since I haven’t seen him in two months. He doesn’t seem very happy to see me, but I now know this is guy code for nerves on a “first date.” I get up to hug him and it’s a little stiff. He sits down on the stool to my right rather than the one I’d been saving for him on my left. The bartender puts down my drink and I offer him a taste.

“You like grapefruit cocktails,” he teases, I guess remembering from last time. I’m pleased he remembers this detail about me. He orders the same and I say I thought he was making fun of my cocktail choice.

“Simmer down,” he jokes. At least I get a little smile out of him.

We look at the menu and he says, “I eat everything. I’m not picky.” Good, because I hate picky eaters. We order three small plates to share. He tells me he just came back from diving in Mexico, where he swam with whale sharks—“the biggest fish in the sea.” He shows me a photo of how big they can get; they look terrifying. He tells me about his work schedule—he works from 5am to 6pm most days. He says he has to get up the next morning at 5am, he doesn’t have a client until 6am.

“After we made this plan, I thought maybe Tuesday is not the best day after all,” he laughs. I tell him we could have changed it. He shrugs.

We talk about the bar where we met, where he used to work and John still does. I casually ask if John hates his job.

“Yeah, they all do. They’re all musicians and artists and they’re not doing their art—they’re just working at the bar.” I tell him that’s just LA.

He loosens up as he drinks and eventually asks me about what I’m working on. I tell him I’m in transition, looking to do more of one of my jobs and less of the other, that I’m doing a lot of different things right now, and I feel a change coming. He says he’s jealous of that, that he gets bored in his job because it’s the same all the time.

“Oh, I’m bored all the time!” I declare.

He tells me that he didn’t work out for a whole week in Mexico, so the other day he took two spinning classes. I tell him about my spinning-related vagina injury, prefacing the story with, “It’s a little early in the night for this story,” and then diving right in. I leave out the fact that this spinning class was on Halloween morning and that same night I ripped the bandages from my crotch as I was crouched on the floor of the dive bar sucking off his brother. I tell him instead about how I feel that spinning decreases the sensitivity in my crotch area, and that I don’t want that—I want “maximum sensitivity.” He smiles.

We order more cocktails and he starts smiling more and laughing and enjoying himself. The food is pretty good. A couple times I reach under his arm and run my fingers along his bicep, which is big and buff and satisfying to touch. I rub his back a couple times. He grabs my knee and tickles me. I touch his ribs and it makes him squirm. I remember that first night, when I boldly ran my hands over his chest and sucked on his finger, making him hard and begging me to stop. I wonder if he would respond to that behavior now, in this very well-lit and classy restaurant. I wonder if he’s disappointed that I’m not being quite so frisky tonight, but his body language doesn’t invite my touch and when I do touch him, he seems slightly uncomfortable.

He asks if I want another drink and I tell him if I order another one I’m not going to be able to drive home. As it is, I’m going to need to sober up a bit if I plan to make it back to my parents’ place alive. He says tentatively, “Well, my house is nearby. You could come hang out there for a bit or whatever.” I can’t tell if he wants me to do this or he’s just being polite. I wonder if he’s worried about pressuring me, as the first night we were together when he suggested we go back to my place I held him off, not sure at first. He had said at the time that he felt “creepy” to be pushing it. I wonder if this guy is just really sensitive and is taking everything I say really to heart—I wonder if he’s worried about pressuring me to come over and have sex, when all I want to do is come over and have sex. At the same time, I can’t really tell if he likes me that much. I remember him mentioning that he moved to San Francisco for his girlfriend at the time, and I wonder now if he got his heart broken and that’s why he seems so guarded.

We agree that we’ll go back to his place. We walk outside and it’s fucking freezing. I shiver. He says, “I’d give you my jacket but it’s not that warm.” I drive us the two blocks to his house and I really shouldn’t be driving but it’s not far and he tells me he’ll “point out the stop signs.” His place is nice—it’s a house he shares with two siblings, a boy and a girl, and another girl who is Airbnb’ing it. We go into his room that has his bike from when he did the AIDS Life Cycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. He turns on the overhead light and it’s really bright—I wish he had better lighting. He takes off his shoes and I take off my shoes. I don’t know if he’s expecting that we’re just going to sleep next to each other and I’m not sure he would have made a move if I hadn’t swooped in on him. I put my arms around his neck and kiss him. He reciprocates, grabbing my body. I love kissing him. He pulls my pants halfway down and takes off his shirt.

“We need to do something about this lighting,” I declare. He hits the light and it’s suddenly pitch black. I think this is fortunate because I just got my period today and had been debating whether or not to tell him—now with the lights off, I don’t have to! I have light periods anyway, and if he’s the kind of guy who won’t screw a girl on her period, I don’t want to find out right now. I take off my shirt. I can feel he’s already hard and I move down, pulling his briefs down as I go. I take him between my lips and he grabs the back of my head, thrusting into my mouth. The aggressiveness of this act turns me on, as it belies a need he has been so careful not to show me all evening. He fucks my mouth and I take him all the way in. It’s a much more satisfying blow job than I gave to John’s at half-mast.

I come up to kiss him again and he moves me back onto the bed, pulling off my panties. He starts going down on me and it’s hard for me to fully enjoy myself because I’m thinking about getting blood in his mouth. At the same time, I don’t want to discourage him from doing this because not enough guys do and even he didn’t the first night we were together. He moans as he eats me out, which I find incredibly hot because it means he’s enjoying himself, and guys who love eating pussy are the hottest. I let him do it for awhile and then I tell him to “fuck me.” I pull him up and wet my hand. I reach down and am thrilled to discover he’s still hard. I put him inside me and he feels so good that after just a couple minutes of thrusting, I feel like I’m going to come. I wrap my legs around him and moan louder, but I guess this is too much for him and he has to back off, bringing my feet to his chest so he can thrust from more of a distance. The impending orgasm dissipates, never to return, and I think how unfortunate it is that, as a woman, if you want to keep the sex going, you have to sometimes forfeit your own orgasm in favor of making it last longer because, if you come, it might make him come and then it’s all over.

He moves my leg down across my body so he’s now thrusting into me from behind but with my body twisted so my chest is still facing him. Then he turns me over completely and fucks me with my stomach flattened against the mattress. He then lifts me up and fucks me doggy style and whips out this very cool move whereby he intermittently, between thrusts, darts his tongue into my pussy. I cringe a little bit as I imagine his tongue dipping into my bloody vagina like a pen into a red inkwell. Regardless, I love this move and don’t want to discourage it. After awhile, he says if he keeps going he’s going to come. I know by now I will not come, so I tell him I want him to.

“Fuck me,” I whisper, guiding him to orgasm. He pulls out and comes on my back. I collapse on my stomach and he gets a towel to gently mop up his splooge, like a true gentleman.

As we lie down, I laugh in a way that’s meant to sound apologetic and say, “I think I might have gotten my period while we were having sex.”

“Oh, I didn’t taste anything,” he says.

“You like ordered a steak medium and it came bloody as hell and you just decided to eat it anyway,” I weirdly say.

He laughs.

“So did you just forget or…?”

“Well, I knew it was coming but was hoping it wouldn’t come right now.” I guess he believes this lie, and doesn’t seem to care that much anyway.

“I guess we’ll find out in the morning.”

I go to the bathroom and indeed he has fucked some blood out of me. I hope I didn’t get it all over his white duvet cover. When he returns from the bathroom, I ask if he had blood on his dick.

“A little,” he says and lies down.

I don’t sleep well and neither does he. We both toss and turn. I wake up after a couple hours of fitful sleep to find he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over, trying to rally himself.

“Is it five?” I ask.

“It’s 5:15.” He grabs my foot affectionately as he walks naked out of his bedroom and heads for the bathroom. I watch his beautiful, spinning-class toned ass as he goes, then I lie back down to get a couple more minutes of shut-eye. He turns the light on in the living room outside his bedroom so as not to bother me, and gets dressed out there.

I drag myself up and collapse facedown on the foot of his bed, moaning. He laughs at me.

“How do you feel?”

“Like garbage,” I say.

I look down at his bedspread in the light shining from the living room, and am pleased to see there’s no blood.

“There’s no blood!” I report.

“That’s a good thing,” he says.

I drive him to work at the gym, and ask if I kept him up last night.

“I don’t know if it was you or me. I like to spread out in my bed. At one point, you moved over and I was like, yes!”

“Oh, you could’ve told me to move.”

“I didn’t want to like kick you out. Maybe next time,” he laughs.

“I was trying to get closer to you because you were warm,” I say.

As I write this exchange, I realize it sounds a little sad.

I stop outside the Coffee Bean where he’ll fuel up on caffeine for the long day ahead, and he hugs me goodbye. I go in to kiss him and he makes it short. I drive an hour and a half home, crawl into bed and go back to sleep. A couple hours later, my phone rings and it’s a San Francisco number I don’t recognize. I don’t answer it, but have a feeling I know who it is. There’s a message and it’s from him. He left his phone in my car.

I put on a sweater and some shoes and head into the kitchen, where my dad is emptying the dishwasher.

“Hi honey,” he kisses me.

“The guy left his phone in my car,” I explain as I put on some shoes and head outside into the freezing morning.

Sure enough, his phone is between my seats and I fish it out. There are five missed calls from the gym where he works and three from another number. The Find My Iphone app has been activated.

I get back in bed and call the number back and the receptionist at his gym says he’s with a client and is there a message. I say no message and give them my name. The receptionist says, “hold on” and I can hear him telling John’s brother that it’s “your friend with the phone.” He gets on the line and feels terrible and stupid for doing this. I ask how he found my number; he says the iCloud. He doesn’t have a car and isn’t sure how to get his phone back.

“You weren’t planning on coming back to San Francisco were you?”
“Uh, not today.”

I suggest he meet me halfway. He’s not sure how to do that. I know I’m being overly accommodating when I say, “Well, if you can that would be great, and if not I’ll do what I have to.” I guess I like this guy. There is a part of my female brain that is excited to have an excuse to see him again. After all, I’m on vacation and running out of things to do at my parents’ house. He says he’ll try to borrow a car and will call me back in a couple hours.

I spend the day not doing much but anticipating this call. I’m very tired and hung over so I sleep for awhile. I feel petulant and teenage-like with my parents and I think there’s something about the contrast of having sex with a guy and then having to come back to your parents’ house that feels rebellious and like high school. My parents keep asking what my plan is and my mom gets mad at me that I can’t make plans with her because I’m “waiting on a galloot.” I say I don’t mind so why should she. He calls me in the afternoon and we make a plan to meet at a Starbucks halfway between us at 6pm. I have to find the address for him because if he gets lost there will be no way to track him. What the fuck did we do before cell phones? I get on the road and he texts me from a random number, saying he borrowed his friend’s phone and car and he’s running fifteen minutes late. Still, he beats me there. I arrive and he’s sitting at a table with just one chair at it, the one he’s sitting in. I approach and stand over him, handing him his phone. He doesn’t stand to hug me or get me a chair. He just looks at his phone as I awkwardly wait there, and then awkwardly pull over a chair and sit down. He says he feels terrible and wants to treat me to dinner. I say, “yeah, I’d like to see you again.” I can’t tell if he wants to see me again or just feels obligated because of the phone thing. We hug goodbye, I kiss his cheek and he half-heartedly kisses mine back. I think to myself, we’ve had sex dude, a little affection wouldn’t kill you!

I drive home and kick myself for not saying, “don’t worry about it, there’s no obligation” when he offered to buy me dinner. But then I realize I only would have said that trying to get a response out of him, and “I’d like to see you again” was actually more honest. Which is good, I think. I vow to not be the one to text him first, to let him come to me.

The next day at 11am, I text him. “Hey! You busy tonight?” I’m in the car on the way to hike with my parents. I’m expecting he’ll text me right back. He doesn’t. We go on the hike and have a yelling argument overlooking a beautiful vista when I tell them about the time that I met this cool male celebrity whom I really felt I connected with and muse on why I don’t meet more guys like that, and they explode back at me with, “but he’s a Scientologist!” I then try to explain that just because Scientology is a creepy cult doesn’t mean everyone in it is an evil asshole. To which they think I’m defending Scientology, and it devolves from there. We return to the car, and I can’t wait to get away from them and into the bed of John’s brother. But there is no text from him. I then start to have a panic attack that he spoke to John on Thanksgiving and that John has told him about the blow job and warned his brother that I am this crazy slut who is trying to fuck both of them. I think about how I would react if they accused me in this way, and am disappointed to find that I think it would actually hurt. I thought I didn’t care what they, or anyone, thought, but I suddenly find myself feeling vulnerable when faced with the very real possibility that someone I had sex with and have a crush on would think I was being vindictive by trying to fuck both him and his brother. I think about how I would explain this to him. That I am a single woman and free to have sex with whomever I please. And that I am attracted to both brothers and don’t think it’s my problem that they’re related. I feel better once I reason this out with myself, knowing that I am still within the parameters of my own moral code.

At 5pm, he texts back, “Hey! So sorry to leave you hanging! I was sailing all day and just got back to shore. How was your day?” I tell him that sounds lovely, that my day was chill, we hiked, and that I’m planning to leave the following day.

“Well shit, I’m in Santa Cruz and we’re hanging out here for a little while. What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

I tell him I will probably leave early. Then I say, “I wanted to get you in bed once more before I left.” Hoping to entice him back to the Bay.

He responds, “Haha. Well if not I should be coming down to LA soon enough.”

I leave this alone and go to bed early, thoroughly disappointed to not be getting a follow up booty call, especially because my period is now gone.

The next morning, I decide to try one final time.

“Hitting Tartine on my way out of town if you’re interested.” He doesn’t write back. I do drive past Tartine but the line is long and out the door and I can’t face it. It’s cozier standing in a line like that when you have a warm body to rub up against.

Feeling like I want one final adventure before leaving the city, on a weird whim I text Childhood Crush. He texts back right away that he is out of the city for the day, but how long am I in town. I explain I am driving back to LA now and just killing time before getting on the road. He says he’ll be in LA soon and that “it would be fun to say hi.” “Word,” I respond noncommittally. The last time he was in LA and texted me, I basically ignored him and was proud of myself for not allowing more of the mediocre sex to occur. Now I’ll have to cross that bridge all over again. I hope I will lose interest in the whole John situation soon, as I have with Childhood Crush. It feels good to be over it.

I start to drive out of town and immediately feel better. Amy Winehouse blasting, I feel lonely and liberated. I get a text from John’s brother: “Oh man, I really slept in today. Feel kinda shitty. How are you?”

I tell him I got loads of sleep and feel great and am en route to LA. To which he responds, “Awesome! It was good to see you and have a smooth drive down.” Do I detect an air of glad to be rid of me?

Back in LA, I get drunk with my roommates and we head out to the local dive bar where John works. But he’s not there. I play dumb and tell the DJ it seems like the usual staff has changed. He says, “oh there’s just one guy that’s usually here and isn’t tonight. John.”

“Oh yeah, I know John. Where is he?”

“He just drove down from spending Thanksgiving in San Francisco and wanted the night off.”

What?! John was in San Francisco when I was?? Is it possible that John’s brother spent Thanksgiving with John and when I asked what his plans were, he said he was having a Friendsgiving and essentially lied by omission by not telling me John was with him? I can’t believe it. Why would he not tell me, unless he knows about me and John? In which case, why would he still want to see me? I haven’t seen John since Halloween night and am also very curious to know what information he does and doesn’t have. Does he know I went on a second date with his brother, that I fucked him again?

The DJ invites us to sit in his “VIP area” and we proceed to get wasted. I am wearing a skimpy tank top with no bra because I was hoping John would be here. Instead, I’m approached by a boring RN who keeps stopping me from dancing to ask, “what do you do?” over the incredibly loud music, and a grumpy looking guy who tells me I’m “rude” when I don’t take the hand he extends to me.

When I can’t stand it anymore, I text John, “Where you at fool?” Which I think is neutral enough that it wouldn’t be terrible if his girlfriend saw it. He texts back right away.

“Home.”

To which I send the emoticon with two lines for eyes and a line for a mouth. Unimpressed, nonplussed, bored. This emoticon perfectly suits my mood.

Rejection

I’ve got rejection on the brain. Last weekend, I really wanted to have sex. I had recently reconnected with this hot bartender/circus performer whom I used to have casual sex with. Well, we did it twice. Back then, I dubbed him my “Sunday fuck,” but on the second Sunday we were already doing a “quickie” and the following week, when I tried to booty call him, he texted back, “Well, I don’t know. I started seeing someone so we’re going to have to chill on that for a bit.” This guy is like catnip for me. Not only does he have a beautiful face and incredibly tight ripped body, I love kissing him, I love his smell, I love his cock. Needless to say, when he shut it down, I was disappointed. Also, a little embarrassed. I sustained a bit of an ego bruise on that one, believing that his “seeing someone” was just a way of getting rid of me, that I was getting too clingy coming to the bar every week to stare at him. I never returned to his bar after that—it had been my local favorite. I also moved out of the area (unrelated), so that helped me forget about him.

Then, a couple weeks ago, I asked my Best Guy Friend if he wanted to go to dinner at this particular bar, for old times sake. He actually had been the one to originally point out Bartender to me, and at the time I declared him “not my type.” Now, basically every man I’m attracted to looks like him: short-ish, lean muscular body, dark hair, beautiful eyes. Best Guy Friend knows what I want before I do.

We arrive at the bar and, sure enough, he’s working. I catch his eye and smile. I thought it would be awkward for us to see one another again, and I had mentally prepared myself. But he looks genuinely pleased. He gives me a cute, playful little wave and asks how I’m doing. He catches my eye several times throughout the night as my friend and I eat dinner. I wonder if he thinks we’re dating. I can’t decide if this is the message I want to send or not. We leave at a reasonable time and Bartender looks, dare I say, a little disappointed to see me go.

The moment we leave, I want to text him. He looked so hot and I want to see if I can weasel my way back into his good graces. I’m starting to think maybe he was actually seeing someone back then, that he wasn’t lying to me after all. He looked thrilled to see me—a quality I don’t usually associate with this person who keeps his emotions pretty bottled. I text him, “It was good to see your face,” which I think is flirty and neutral all at the same time. He doesn’t write back that night, and I don’t care as much as I might have last time around.

The next day, I’m still hanging with Best Guy Friend (we have sexless adult sleepovers; our friends always want to know if we bang—we don't, he’s like my brother), when I hear back from Bartender. He says, “Good to see you too. You look like you’re doing well.” Polite and decidedly non-flirty. But he did add a second sentence when one would suffice. My friend tells me, if I want to fuck him, I should put sex on the table. He tells me to write the following, and so of course I do: “Yep. Not getting laid enough but besides that doing good.” I squeal as I press Send. I don’t expect to hear anything back. Within minutes, I do. “Lol. Maybe we can figure something out on that end.” I’m so excited I could do cartwheels. I scream and throw my arms around Best Guy Friend. He smiles at me, “You’re welcome.”

I don’t hear from Bartender the whole week. Which is fine. I’m busy too, and I have my period, and I figure I’m the one that needs to have sex so I’m going to have to be the one to orchestrate it—it’s always been this way with us anyway, I’ve always wanted it more. Friday night, it’s Halloween and I decide instead of getting dressed up as a slutty version of something, going out and getting trashed, that I’ll stay in with Best Guy Friend and watch scary movies, drink beer, and eat pizza & candy. We watch the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (terrible), the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake (better), and The Conjuring (fucking terrifying). We order two large pizzas from Papa John’s, eat peanut M&Ms, Fun Size Mounds and Snickers, and drink Hefeweizen. It’s a great night. The Conjuring gives me nightmares, but it’s worth it. We sleep in the same bed (we always do), and no we don’t have sex, or even spoon (as my roommate specifically wants to know when I return home).

The next day, I’m horny as fuck (unrelated to my adult sleepover), and decide I need to have sex tonight. I don’t think Bartender is working, so I figure tonight is the night to attempt this fuck buddy orchestration. Best Guy Friend encourages me to wait until three to set it up. We take the dog on a long walk around the neighborhood in the deliciously crisp Fall-ish weather. We have a long debate/argument involving Feminism and Law of Attraction and the viral video of the woman walking for ten hours through New York City and getting catcalled 100 times. We get in the hot tub and talk about 2014 and how it has planted a lot of seeds we’re looking forward to harvesting in 2015. By two, I can’t wait any longer. Based on my mood, which is more desperate/needy than flirty/fuck me, Best Guy Friend helps me formulate the following text: “You still down to help me out with that little problem I’m having?” I press Send and wait. Best Guy Friend and I end our extended date and I head home. I feel very unmotivated and decide to take the day off, not do any work and just chillax with myself. It’s easier said than done in the state I’m in. I keep checking my phone every five minutes, wanting desperately to hear back from him. I stalk him on Facebook and see that he’s “Active." Meaning he got my text and ignored it. I knew that anyway, but now it’s been confirmed. At five, as the sun is already beginning to set, I decide to take a walk around the reservoir by my house. I need some fresh air. I text Best Guy Friend, “Still haven’t heard from the little fucker,” with an angry emoticon.

The walk cheers me up and I stop at my favorite coffee shop for a cappuccino. I’m enjoying the Fall-ish weather and my new sweater from Grandma. Almost finished with my walk, I decide to go see Birdman tonight and, on a whim, I text the Hot Guy I fucked at my party, inviting him along. Regardless of the fact that I haven’t seen him since, he’s made zero effort to reach out, and even ignored my last text, I still think there’s a chance he’ll respond. He’s a movie buff after all and this might be exactly what he wants to do on a Saturday evening. Even if he’s not interested in me romantically, I feel we could be friends. I don't hear from him either. I decide to text someone I know will respond, because my ego needs a little stroking. I text the Music Manager from my party—the one I made out with and then ditched for Hot Guy. I ask if he wants to go see the movie with me. Nothing. I take a bath and listen to Dido and feel sorry for myself. I’m fully prepared to go see Birdman by myself. Fuck it. I’m a grown ass woman. But my roommate says she’ll come with me, so we have a lady date instead. Which is lovely and overdue, and fuck these men anyway.

Later that night, I hear back from Music Manager who says he’s been away from his phone, but with more notice he totally would have come with me. He says we should hang soon. Still haven’t heard from Bartender or Hot Guy. Typical. The two guys I want most are MIA. I had told Best Guy Friend that if I didn’t hear from Bartender, I would hit up the little Jewish Man I met on OKCupid. At this point, I’m too disheartened to pursue even the easy lay.

On Sunday, I wake up still feeling shitty about the whole situation. I take my phone off Airplane mode and really hope I’ve heard from either one of these boys. Nope. I understand with Hot Guy, he’s doing the Fade Away. He never gave me any indication he was interested at all, and the Fade Away is a move I’m familiar with. But that’s no excuse for Bartender. He was the one who fucking planted the hope of a booty call in my head in the first place. I don’t understand. Even if he's just busy, at least fucking text me back goddammit. I decide to leave my phone on Airplane mode for the whole day so I won’t be tempted to check it every five seconds, and whereas leaving it off should be a relief, it proves tortuous. I go to a yoga class, make myself a healthy lunch, eat some Fun Size candy leftover from Halloween, watch the first episode of the depressing new British TV show Happy Valley, and fall asleep for a couple hours in the middle of the day. At four PM, I can’t take it any longer, and the clock has fallen back so the sun will set in an hour. I decide to walk around the reservoir, again, and I call Best Guy Friend on my way.

I complain about the rejection, about my bruised ego. He tells me it’s probably not as simple as Bartender not liking me anymore. “Life is never simple,” he says. He tells me I have no idea what he’s going through, so I need to stop speculating about it. “He probably got your text and he was in the middle of something, and he didn’t know how to respond, and then he put it down and forgot about it.” This I don’t understand—guys’ ability to just forget about girls like this. As my roommate says, “They’re goldfish. They swim around their little bowl and they’re like ‘ooh a castle,’ and they just keep swimming and when they come around again: ‘ooh a castle.’” I wish I could be a fucking goldfish. It’s a lot of work to be a woman.

All of the young single women I know do this. And it’s not that we have nothing else going on in our lives—we have jobs and career ambitions, and hobbies, and friends, and a lot of shit to do. But we still find the time and energy to obsess over some fucking guy who probably isn’t even worth our time. In fact, I find that my smartest, most ambitious girlfriends are even more likely to do this. Maybe it’s that we know what we want and we go for it, whether it be sex or career. And we don’t give up until we get it. And it’s just frustrating when what you want is another person because you can’t control how they respond to your wanting, and the resistance they put up makes you work even harder to get it. And the energy of that probably pushes them away even more. 

Despite this incredible amount of distraction and energy spent, we still manage to get our shit done, and we’re a pretty accomplished bunch. It makes me crazy to think how successful we could be if we didn’t get so distracted by dudes. For sure we’d be running the world. Women are masters of multi-tasking after all. Imagine if men focused this much on women, they’d never get anything done.

Best Guy Friend encourages me to lift some weights or something, to get some testosterone in my system. I joke that I should just start taking hormone injections. But I actually think this would be a great product for women—a hormone to shut down this part of our brains that emotionally attaches to the penis we fuck. Something that would allow us to treat sex more like men. We have it, it’s fun, but it’s not so serious and if we don’t get it, there are a hundred other things we could do that would interest us as much if not more. “Sex is great and all, but if we don’t get it, we’ll just go and play video games and that’s just as fun,” says Best Guy Friend. Really? Fucking video games?

My best friend Sadie was going through a similar torment a couple weeks ago where she was obsessing over this guy and this sequence of Lost in Translation texts sent between them. I encouraged her to "just say what you want" and "stop playing games." Not sure why I'm unequivocally incapable of taking my own medicine on this point. I guess I'll just blame biology.

On Monday, I decide I can't not say anything. So I text Bartender, "You failed at being my booty call this weekend." With a winky face emoticon so he knows this is to be read with a light tone and not interpreted as "I spent all weekend obsessing about you." Because that would be disturbing. He writes back right away: "Haha. I was just thinking about that while I was walking up my stairs. This weekend was crazy. What's your schedule like this week?" If only he had just said that on Saturday, I wouldn't have spent Sunday being a crazy person. If only he knew how crazy of a person I actually am. If only I would learn a lesson from this. If only.