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.
