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.

It's a Match!

I went on two dates last week. With the same guy. They were real dates, not just sex dates. And he planned them, which was awesome. On Monday night we met for drinks at a classy whiskey bar and ended up sharing a pizza. The conversation was varied and flowed easily. He listened intently as I talked, seemingly very interested which inspired me to be even more interesting. At some point, we moved from the bar to the lounging couches in the corner of the restaurant. I started touching the veins on his arms (I love the veins on men’s arms). He smiled and lost his train of thought. We kissed a little bit. He smiled more. It was nice.

We shut down the bar and he walked me to my car. I then drove him the two blocks to his car. I parked and left the engine running, music blaring as we made out furiously. I felt his crotch and he pulled my tit out of my shirt. I could feel he was hard in his pants and I started to unbutton his fly. I pulled out his dick and decided to put my mouth on it right there in the car. What can I say, Florence and the Machine’s Only If For a Night was blasting and I felt inspired.

“Can I invite myself over?” He asked.

He followed me home in his car and we huffed and puffed as we struggled to walk up the incredibly steep hill I live on. When I got him in my bed, we proceeded to continue where we had left off. Only problem was, he was no longer hard.

“Ahh, my dick!” He lamented.

I reassured him it was fine. It happens. He was clearly nervous around me. We had talked earlier in the evening about the phenomenon of emasculation.

“Do you feel emasculated by me?” I asked now.

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“You’re just such a sexy woman,” he declared, grabbing my ass.

Obviously, this was the right thing to say. I was flattered. But I also wondered why this keeps happening to me—the fact that my being a sexy/strong/ambitious woman actually makes guys lose their erections. This has happened before. With men that were apparently really into me, and then when push came to shove, they had trouble performing and claimed to be “intimidated.” 

I pulled out some tried and true sex-ninja moves and managed to successfully get him hard. We had sex and we both came, and I felt more satisfied than 90% of the time when I first sleep with someone new. But he obviously felt embarrassed and frustrated and in his head about the penis thing, and I couldn’t get him out of it. We fell asleep and in the morning we talked in bed for awhile. He shared that he had recently stopped watching porn because it was fucking with his self-esteem (you know, the big dick factor).
"Porn is ruining men for real sex!" I declared, vindicated.
It was nice to lounge in bed with someone—it had been awhile for me. I made us eggs and coffee and we had more good conversation over breakfast. All in all, it was a lovely 14 hour date.

On Thursday, he asked me out again. He picked me up, which impressed the hell out of me (it doesn’t take much) and we went for a couple drinks and then to see a late night showing of It Follows. After the movie, he drove me home. And then it suddenly felt awkward, as if the ghost of last night’s sex loomed over us. As if there were some weird expectation on us now—we’d already had sex, so we should probably do that again. But he was still in his head about how from his perspective it had not gone very well. I leaned over to kiss him goodnight. He kept his lips pursed tightly shut.

The next day, via text, I brought up the awkwardness I had felt at the end of our date and he was very forthcoming about the fact that he’s been "going through some stuff" and that he just came out of this relationship that left him feeling less than confident about his manhood. He expressed his hope that this wasn't "TMI." I reassured him that, in my book, there is no such thing as TMI. I appreciated his vulnerability in telling me the truth. It was a welcome reprieve from the posturing I usually encounter from insecure men who, instead of admitting their insecurities, overcompensate with this big macho act that is really off-putting and I can completely see through anyway.

I talked to my Best Guy Friend about this. About the fact that I actually really like this guy. I like spending time with him, I love our conversations, I like myself when I'm around him, and I appreciate his candor and transparency. But if I'm being honest, this is not the person I see myself dating. I have had this fantasy of dating someone as ambitious and driven as me, possibly more successful/farther along in their life and career. Best Guy Friend has had a similar vision for himself. We’re both looking for the opposite-gender equivalent of ourselves. But I don’t know if that’s possible—I don’t know if that would truly be a match. Maybe every relationship needs that yin and yang, perhaps both partners can’t be equally ambitious because that would never work, maybe we both need to accept the fact that we are destined to be the more powerful partner in the relationship, that we will perpetually be in the driver’s seat calling all the shots.

If I’m honest with myself, I say I want a partner who makes decisions so I don’t have to, but the truth is I actually enjoy calling the shots. In every aspect of my life, I am in control, and I like it that way. This comes naturally to me. I’ve been looking for a dominant, but maybe I am the dominant. I don’t know if I could actually let someone else be dominant over me.

I’ve always had this fantasy that with the perfect match, we’d have like this mutual admiration society. But maybe admiration flows more naturally one way or another. I have to say, I love to be admired and appreciated. My favorite interactions with men are the ones where they want to hear a lot about what I’m doing and think it’s really cool and interesting. My least favorite interactions are the ones where they show off and talk about themselves the whole time and learn nothing about me. Maybe it’s not meant to be equal. Does my preference for being admired point to the fact that I’m naturally dominant?

I think of my mom. My mom is very ambitious and strong and opinionated, she is a leader and a control-freak. Like me. And she married my dad, who is much softer—he acquiesces, he takes her side, he is her support system. And although when she’s frustrated with him, she likes to complain that she wishes she were with someone more ambitious, driven, “successful,” I don’t think she would actually be a match with that person. And I don’t think that guy would put up with her shit. I mean that endearingly—I don’t know if that ideal mate I envision for myself would put up with my shit either. My parents probably have the best example of a marriage I have witnessed, and they’ve been together over thirty years.

Best Guy Friend and I came to the conclusion that maybe the reason we’re looking for that support system in a partner is because we don’t feel 100% confident in our own ability to support ourselves. And once we truly find a sense of security within ourselves, we’ll let go of needing it from another person.

In my new favorite (and now cancelled) show, Looking, there is this great storyline in which the main character Patrick, an upper-middle class, college educated white boy, starts to fall in love with a lower class, Hispanic hair dresser, Ricky. And he feels really conflicted about it—he did not imagine himself with this person. And he can’t deal with it. He ends up cutting it off before it can go too far. And then throughout the rest of the season, the what-if of what that could’ve been hangs over his head. Every time he sees Ricky with his new boyfriend, there’s this sense of that could’ve been me.

I relate so profoundly to Patrick’s conflicted emotions about Ricky. Because this might have been a true love-match for him, and indeed it sure felt that way. But Patrick’s idea about the kind of guy he should be with came along and sabotaged any potential future he might have had with this person he could’ve loved. I feel this level of conflicted about most of the men I have chemistry with—they’re actors and bartenders and waiters, and they’re hot and they like me and there’s an obvious attraction. And whereas when I was younger I would have pursued it at least just for the sex, now I find myself looking into the future. Do I really want to be in a relationship with another struggling actor? Not really, no. But why do I keep attracting them? Why do I never seem to attract that incredibly successful, powerful “man of my dreams”? Am I destined to be that person in my relationship? Should I just relax into that role and embrace it rather than constantly holding out for this imaginary powerhouse I have yet to meet? This person that supposedly “matches me.”

I guess this is my fundamental issue with online dating. Because online dating is all about being good on paper. And it doesn’t account for chemistry. When I think about my ex-boyfriend, whom I was with for four years, if I had seen him on an online dating site, I probably would have dismissed him. Because on paper, we are not a match. But in life, we were. It ran its course, we’re not life partners, but my relationship with him was wonderful and I don’t regret a moment of it. As much as I like to think I want to be with the male equivalent of myself, I probably would find that person completely impossible to be around. My first boyfriend was very similar to me—intellectual, ambitious, Type A—and we fought all the fucking time. I ended up hating him in the end. So I guess in conclusion I’m going to try to keep an open mind—to not be so quick to write people off because I don’t think we’re a “match”. Because you never know. My true love match might turn out to be the opposite of what I expect.

Women Are Crazy Because Men Are Dicks

So, I haven’t written in quite awhile because I’ve been living like a monk in my studio apartment for several months now – going from writing at home to rehearsal to work and back again – and it’s been great.  I’ve been very happy not dealing with the daily hopes and heartbreaks of meeting someone new, getting excited, and then gradually disappointed as I realize they’re not what I thought they were.

The good news is that Gaffer Guy is firmly out of the picture.  Last I heard he was on a drug and alcohol bender, and I was frankly glad to hear he was alive, because I have not seen or heard from him in quite some time.  So, that’s totally over, which is awesome.  And I feel like I’m ready to attract a different kind of guy into my life, perhaps one who wants to actually take me out on a date before we have sex.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask.  

And then this happened…

It’s Opening Night of this show I’m doing, and it goes great.  There’s a lot of nervous excited energy in the air, and the audience really seems to love the show.  Especially this one particular guy who is friends with one of my male cast members. 

I instantly feel the connection.  At the after party, he keeps glancing my way with these lovely smiling blue eyes.  He introduces himself and just gushes about the show – he LOVES it.  I point him out to Paula, my friend and fellow cast member, and she directs me to “Go flirt with him.”  She helps out by dragging me by the arm and depositing me in his general vicinity.

And then we flirt.  A lot.  I don’t think we’ve met before, but he thinks we have.  We banter and laugh and he asks me questions and seems to really listen to my answers.  The more we talk the more I find him attractive, and our eyes keep catching for these prolonged, meaningful glances.  And I’m thinking, Wow I really like this guy!  Not just, I want to fuck this guy.  I actually like him.  I’d like him to take me out on a date.

At some point we drift apart and I say goodbye to some of my cast members.  I can feel his eyes on me, and I like it.  I’m charged with that exciting fresh feeling of having just met someone you’re interested in, a feeling I haven’t had in quite some time.  I head back to use the bathroom, and weirdly, I half expect him to follow me and grab me in the backstage corridor and start kissing me.  Not sure why, but I suddenly feel that this is a real possibility.

I pee and walk out of the bathroom and in fact my ex-boyfriend is waiting out there.  He asks if it’s awkward for me that he brought his new girlfriend, who I just met for the first time tonight.  I don’t even realize what he’s talking about, I’m so enthralled with this new guy.  I share what’s on my mind.  He tells me to go for it.  We laugh and hug and kiss goodbye, and I head back out to the party.  Only to find my new crush is GONE.

That night, I can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about this guy.  Something about him crawled under my skin and made a home.  I give up on sleep and grab my phone.  I Facebook stalk him and then I Internet stalk him.  Using today’s advanced technology, I find out way more about him than I should know at this point in our non-relationship.  I decide to wait to Friend him.

I wake up at 9am and I can’t wait any longer.  I press Add Friend and then nervously stare at the screen.  Several hours later, GREAT SHOW LAST NIGHT appears on my Wall.  I write back “Thanks so much!  It was great to meet you!”  Should I wait for him to reach out to me via Direct Message?  What are the unspoken rules about this?  I ask my ex. 

He says, “I know you’re not going to stop obsessing about this until you do it.  So just wait a day and then give him your number.”

I wait like a half hour, then direct message him: “You’re fun.  I like you.  Here’s my number if you ever want to get together.”

Within an hour, he’s texting me.  BINGO.

Him: “Where are you from again?”

Me: “NorCal.  You?”

Him: “Nice.  People from NorCal are so down to earth.  Boston.”

Me: “People from Boston are direct and intense.”

Him: “Yes.  We should def have sex.  I agree.”

Huh?  I figure he’s playing the role of “direct and intense” for my benefit – he did used to be an actor after all.  Also, not gonna lie, I’m a little turned on.

I play along. “Wow, I’m impressed.”

But then he says, “Prob best after Sunday because your throat is gonna hurt after what I do to it.”  And then there’s a smiley face.

I still think this is a joke – I mean, this guy was SO COOL when I met him last night, it just doesn’t make sense that he would seriously be talking to me like this.

Then he starts calling me “woman” and sort of bossing me around, which I guess might be a Boston thing and is probably still a joke.  I continue giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Then he says, “You should know I pee in a cup at night because I’m too lazy to get up to pee.” 

I ask if that’s really something I should know.  I wonder if he’d be saying all this shit if we were speaking in person.  Somehow I doubt it, or maybe he would say it with an ironic smile on his face so I’d know we were bantering.  Maybe this is all just lost in translation.

I try to get us back on track.

“So, you sell cars for a living?”

I tell him I’m interested in that, I know nothing about that world and I’d love to know more. 

He says, “We can def chat all about it after we have both cum and are relaxing in my bed.” 

You may be wondering, and rightly so, why I haven’t just shut him down at this point.  The truth is, I feel very conflicted about this conversation.  On one hand, I’m kind of turned on because I am very attracted to this guy and the notion of sleeping with him is still exciting to me.  On the other hand, I feel a little weirded out, like this is not the same person that I met the other night.  What happened to that fun, witty guy?  Who is this new text personality?  I half expect him to tell me his friend stole his phone and is fucking around at his expense.

It’s also confusing because mixed in with the crudeness are statements like “You were so great in the show last night.  What a wonderful showcase for you…” blah blah blah.  So that sounds like the same guy I met, but who is this other person who’s implying he’s going to choke me with his dick after meeting me for the first time last night??

I arrive at the theatre and consult Paula.  I give her my phone to look through the text chain.  She points out that I was kind of egging him on.  Definitely didn’t shut him down.  I try to explain that I thought he was joking and now I feel it’s gone too far to get serious.  I show her my half-hearted attempts to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Her conclusion: “Forget this guy, he’s a dick.”

But I’m not ready to give up on him just yet.  I still can’t believe that the guy I met is maybe not as cool as I thought.  I really liked him, and that is not something I feel often.  There must be some mistake.  He’s not Gaffer Guy.  I knew Gaffer Guy was trouble from the moment I met him.  Paula herself referred to this new guy as “a good boy” just last night!

“Just be honest with him then.”

She feeds me the line “All joking aside, I would love to get coffee sometime and chat.”

I’m hoping he’ll suddenly change back into the man from last night.  That he’ll say “I’d love to take you out for dinner.”

Wishful thinking aside, I’m not at all surprised when he responds: “Joking?”

Oh no, I can feel the heat rising in my chest.  “Yeah,” I say.

He writes: “So confused right now!”  Except he spells right, “rt”.

I decide to let this lie for a moment.  I feel upset and emotional, and I don’t want to carry this energy onstage with me tonight.

After the show, at 9:42pm, I decide to lay it on the table.  I write: “Not trying to booty call.  Actually would like to get to know you.” 

I don’t hear anything back until 11:05am the next morning.

Him: “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

Me: “That’s a sad story.  I enjoyed talking to you the other night.”

Him: “Likewise.”

Me: “You come off very different on text.”

Him: “More of a gentleman on text?”

Me: “Uhhh not so much.”

Him: “I don’t intend to come across as an asshole.”

Me: “I like you better in person.”

Him: “If I wasn’t trying to have sex with you there would be a problem.  Don’t you agree.”

Me: “True story, but whatever happened to the nice build up?”

Him: “I’m not so much into buildup.  But I get that’s how a large % of woman [sic] work.”

(He can’t spell women… bad sign?)

Me: “It’s a compliment. I actually like you as a person.  I don’t want to JUST fuck you… But if that’s all you want, I get it.  I felt we had more connection than that, but I may be wrong.”

Him: “If we had sex we would also be friends just so u know.”

Me: “All I’m saying is, let’s have dinner first.”

Him: “I’ll settle on coffee.”

(Later, in the dressing room, Paula dropped my phone at this point in reading the text conversation and said she couldn’t read anymore.  Her advice: “He should hire a prostitute.”)

I think about this and realize what he’s proposing is exactly what I was looking for just a month or so ago.  I was looking for a booty call, a fuck buddy, who was hot and fun and who didn’t expect anything more than sex.  I suddenly realize I don’t want this anymore.  I decide to share this with him, to get real, maybe have a human interaction, a moment of understanding.  Let him see how I’m changing and growing as a person. 

Me: “It’s funny, you’re exactly what I was looking for like a month ago.”

Him: “That’s a pretty quick change.”

Me: “Changing daily.”

Him: “That’s called PMS.”

Now, this hits me hard.  Not because I relate to it.  But because this is exactly the kind of shit Gaffer Guy used to say to me.  And I can’t believe guys think it’s okay to talk to women this way.  What I should have said was “Actually, it’s called evolution.”  But I don’t have my smart hat on.  I suddenly feel very angry and disappointed.  My worst fears confirmed.

Me: “Wow you really are a dick!”

Him: “Woman [sic] are impossible.  Can’t reason with crazy.”

If the PMS line stung, this line knocks me in the solar plexus.  I feel nauseous, a familiar feeling from the days of Gaffer Guy.  I can’t believe that at my most reasonable moment, at the precise moment when I’m trying to level with him as a human being and connect in a real way, he’s able to undermine everything I say with one absurd statement.  Not just “you are crazy,” but that all women are crazy. 

And suddenly I start to think about evolution.  About the ways in which the world is changing.  More women in government, more women’s voices in art and film, more women deciding what they want and going for it.  Maybe these changes unnerve him.  Maybe he feels the need to assert his sexual dominance because I reached out to him, I made the first move.  I took the traditionally male role of expressing interest first.  I put my sexuality on the table. 

I have not written him back and I don’t intend to.  I don’t want to go down this path again.  My reaction time of turning away from this kind of behavior has gotten better, but the next step is to stop attracting it.  If I’m honest, there’s something in me that is still attracted to this guy, even after all this.  I’m not sure why and I don’t necessarily want to examine it.  I’d rather just move on.  I know what I want now – I want a nice, smart, funny, sexy man to ask me out on a date.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I had a dream last night that Gaffer Guy was stalking me in an expansive field, armed with a shotgun.  Like in a horror movie, he walked slowly and deliberately, as though he knew he would catch me even as I ran away.  I was trying to find my way back to the safe house where my friends and family were, but he knew I was going in a circle and would end up where I started.  He waited for me there and I ran right back into him.