Those Who Get STDs Together Stay Together?

I’ve been doing stand up and, naturally, my set leans heavily on sex and feminism. The first couple times I got onstage at open mics, I was compared to Eve Ensler—something I would usually take as a compliment, but somehow felt like an insult when the audience consisted of a bunch of dudes. The MC at one mic commented after my set, “What a nice, romantic story. Very Nicholas Sparks.” He was joking of course. I had just finished telling the crowd about my date with the self-proclaimed “female orgasm expert” with whom I had some of the most mediocre sex of my life in the back of his roommate’s van behind the Urth Cafe. I ended the story with, “Spoiler alert: I didn’t climax. But he sure did. Because, you know, he’s a man.” I guess the MC was implying that, because I think some guys are both bad and arrogant lovers, I’m not a romantic. I guess I come off as cynical. Have I become irreversibly jaded about men?

I had just started seeing someone whom I had known, as casual friends, for a long time. We had sex without a condom, so in my usual post-coital panic attack, I immediately went to get tested. The problem with me is that I’m a hypochondriac but I’m also bad at using condoms, so I get tested a lot. On Saturday afternoon, after returning home from hiking and brunching with a friend, I received in my email inbox the results of some of the previous week’s tests. It said I had tested positive for syphilis. I had been tested since my last unprotected sexual encounter and hadn’t had sex with anyone since this new guy, so I was pretty convinced he was the one who’d given it to me. 

Syphilis sounded to me like some pretty medieval shit, so I started looking up the symptoms online (mistake). What would initially start as sores and a rash on your genitals and the inside of your palms could, down the road, turn into blindness, insanity and death. I discovered that syphilis is rampant and has become a national health crisis due to budget cuts to STD prevention clinics. 

I considered not telling the guy right away, as I knew he was on his way to spend the weekend at a music festival. Part of me didn’t want to ruin his weekend, but the bigger part of me thought that if I had to suffer with this news, then so should he. He was appropriately embarrassed and apologetic when I called to tell him. He contacted the last girl he’d had unprotected sex with only to find out she had also tested positive for syphilis after they’d been together and hadn’t told him. He offered to leave the festival to come be with me, but the clinic was closed for the weekend and there was nothing for us to do but wait, so I told him it was fine, to try to forget about it and enjoy the festival. Meanwhile, I agonized, my imagination spinning so far out of control that I got online and searched, “if I have syphilis, do I have HIV,” which autofilled immediately in the Google search bar, telling me I was not alone in my irrational fear.

Finally, on Monday, we both made appointments to get treated on Wednesday. As I was leaving for my appointment, I received on my doorstep a lovely bouquet of wild flowers from the guy.

At the clinic, they took my blood again and I was called in to see the counselor. She informed me that I was the first ever cisgendered, heterosexual woman to ever test positive at their clinic. "Can I get a medal for that?" I joked. Then I got called in to see the doctor who said that syphilis infections were up 400% in Los Angeles that month. Then he told me that I didn’t have syphilis, it was a false positive. The guy also tested negative, he too didn’t have syphilis. Turned out the girl he'd fucked before me had gotten it from the next dude she'd been with after him. He was enormously relieved and immediately his whole demeanor changed. He felt understandably let off the hook, and wanted to celebrate. I was also relieved, but still felt emotionally hung over from four days of escalating fear and paranoia, and was slightly annoyed at how quickly he was able to bounce back. I was headed to The Comedy Store to see a friend perform, so we went to Saddle Ranch for (gross) burgers, and when he didn’t offer to pay the bill I became irrationally angry and disappointed. I felt emotionally raw and in that moment like I wanted to feel taken care of. It's the oldest story in the book, but I just wanted him to read my mind and know intuitively what I needed. We usually split the bill—which was fine, I’m a modern woman, whatever—but I felt like after this scare he should've at least offered to pay for dinner.

I didn’t like this version of myself. I had been single for five years, I was used to taking care of myself, codependence made me sick, and I didn’t like feeling like I was relying on someone else. My sudden unexplained grumpiness caused him to leave rather than come to the show with me. I texted him afterwards that I was upset that he hadn’t offered to pay after this whole ordeal. He said he thought I should have bought him dinner as he felt I had been really harsh with him over this syphilis scare and then I hadn’t apologized enough when it turned out he hadn’t given it to me after all. Maybe he was right, I didn't know. All I knew was that I hated this kind of lovers’ quarrel; I had successfully avoided it for so long. Was I really going to morph into this needy person when I liked myself so much more as a single woman not reliant on anybody else? On the phone the next morning, in a moment of impulsive frustration, I said that I thought this wasn’t going to work between us. I felt that my heart had hardened—did I even believe in relationships anymore?

Getting an STD with someone is traumatizing, and it can bring out the worst in people. Sometimes this makes a relationship stronger, and sometimes it tears you apart. Although it turned out we didn't have syphilis after all, I think the whole ordeal made us realize we didn't like each other that much in a crisis. Perhaps he saw it coming. When we first found out we didn’t actually have syphilis, he jokingly asked if I was disappointed that now I didn’t have a legitimate reason to break up with him. I laughed and rolled my eyes, saying that no, I was happy to not have it. But I did wonder what made him ask that—was he reading something into my behavior that even I wasn’t aware of? Was I really trying to sabotage this? Why? Was I protecting myself? From what? What I liked most about this guy was the lack of games, his openness about the fact that he liked me, that I never felt like I had to play it cool. He always texted back, he appreciated my jokes, and—perhaps most importantly—he wasn’t afraid of my angry feminism or my history of sluttery—both things I talked about with abandon on our very first date. Perhaps more than any guy I’ve dated since my ex, he seemed completely undeterred by my brashness. I didn’t have to pretend to be demure around him, I could say things like, “are you having a stroke?” when he couldn’t remember something I said, and he didn’t get offended. Throughout the syphilis scare, I realized I wasn’t just worried about my own health, I was also worried about his—and that felt like something new.

Just before I reconnected with this guy, I'd said to a couple friends in all seriousness that maybe I was just going to be single forever, and that was okay. I liked myself single, I had forged a whole identity around being an unattached woman. I didn’t know what me in a relationship looked like anymore. And I was scared of how being “coupled” might change me for the worse. I didn’t ever want to be in a codependent situation again, it was important to me that I maintained my autonomy. Was that even possible in a relationship? I didn’t know. A lot of the women I admired were single. Was that a coincidence or was there a reason? Was there something in me that wasn’t meant to be inextricably linked to another person? And was this view somehow limiting me from experiencing something potentially great? Could a relationship ever be something that actually fed me emotionally and creatively rather than distracting me from my life and my purpose? I decided that, for a relationship to be worth it, I'd have to like being with this person better than being by myself. Because being by myself was actually pretty good. 

Dating Myself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Third time. Not so charming.”

“Put a fork in you. You’re done.”

“You owe me $25.”

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

Single For Life

I know I’m supposed to be writing about sex this week. And BDSM. I was supposed to have gotten myself into some epic kinky fantasy adventure so I could come back and report on it. That didn’t happen. Unfortunately, I find myself presently more celibate than I have been in quite some time. I’m not sure why. Probably because my focus of late is on other things besides cock, which I know is shocking and appalling to all of you. I even recently tried to get back into Tinder and the one guy I started chatting with turns out is good friends with the roommate of High School Lover, so I kind of had to put the kibosh on that one.

I’ve also been in a bit of a strange state because my dear friend Heidi is moving away to North Carolina with her husband and the baby boy I watched come out of her body nine months ago. On Sunday we had a little impromptu going away party for them at their house in the valley, and looking around the backyard, a melancholy rendition of Baby It’s Cold Outside playing out of my ex-boyfriend’s iPhone, I realized I was the only single person at this party. I found myself surrounded by five couples, one of which was my ex and his girlfriend. And I didn’t feel bad for myself or that I particularly wished to be part of a couple, but I did suddenly feel like an outsider. Like I didn’t belong. This was no longer my tribe. And that was an odd feeling.

Earlier in the day, we had all gone out to Barney’s Beanery for some goodbye nachos and beer. As we headed for the car, I was planning on riding with Heidi, her husband, and the baby. As I got to the car, I realized our friend Adrienne and her boyfriend had the same idea. Without missing a beat, I headed for Heidi’s brother’s car instead, asking if I could ride with him and his wife. I thought no one had noticed this small moment of single person awkwardness, but Heidi, being an ultra-sensitive observer, spoke up when we got to the restaurant.

“You just had one of those single moments. When we were back at the car. One of those moments of, I have nowhere to go,” she laughed compassionately, clearly feeling for me.

“It’s okay. I’m the leftovers,” I joked back.

Something strange is happening now that I’m in my late 20s. People are pairing off in a more serious way and it suddenly feels like the party is ending and everyone is trying to find someone to go home with so they don’t end up alone or paired off with the only other person that remains: everyone’s last choice. I found out today even Gaffer Guy is engaged. Fucking Gaffer Guy?! Truly the last man standing. Even Mr. Sociopathic alcoholic womanizing misogynist doesn’t want to go home alone.

Heidi and her husband moving away to build a cob house from scratch and start their real life as two adults with a child, that feels like a new chapter for all of us—a chapter that for me feels a million miles away. And I wonder what that means for these friendships. All of these people are going to start getting married and having children probably years before me—it’s already starting to happen. Where does that leave me in this group? Am I forever to be that single friend that is perpetually called out when a group of hot firemen walk by? Am I really going to be that cliché?

Sometimes I feel like the gals in Sex and the City when they go to their friend’s baby shower and they remember her as this wild single lady and find she’s now a stay-at-home mom living in a no-shoes-allowed house in the Hamptons with her husband and two kids. When Carrie arrives at the shower, the woman asks her to take off her Manolo Blahniks and Carrie’s like, “but this is an outfit.”  Sometimes being the kind of woman with screaming babies and toys lying around the house feels so foreign and far away, I wonder if that’ll ever be me.

Last year, one of my girlfriends had a birthday party for which her boyfriend organized a scavenger hunt and assigned each of her friends an hour to take her on a surprise adventure. I didn’t know about this. I was invited to the “after party” later that evening. I arrived at the apartment where a group of their friends sat around reminiscing about the fun they had had that day taking my friend through her various birthday activities. As I tried to laugh along with the general merriment of the group, I found myself instead feeling like a tourist and asking myself, why as one of her best friends, was I left out of the scavenger hunt component of the day? And then I realized that every single other guest at the party was part of a couple. I probably hadn't been left out on purpose as a punishment for being single, but it didn't matter--at that moment, I felt like the last girl in middle school to be picked for kickball teams. I sat there watching the couples ooh and aah as my friend unwrapped the giant set of luxury pots and pans her boyfriend had bought her for her birthday, and thought: this isn’t my world.

Less than a year ago, the six core members of our particular group were having a dinner party in the very dining room now filled with packing boxes. My ex and I were still in a rather undefined post-relationship stage in our friendship. His girlfriend was still a pretty new presence in his life, and he was resistant to even calling her that. Now they live together and I swear I can see marriage and kids on the not-so-distant horizon. Seeing how much has changed just this past year, I can’t imagine what this group will look like a year from now.

It’s interesting how defined we are by singlehood or coupledom. Lately I feel my identity is so entrenched in being single that I literally can’t picture myself in a relationship. And when I’m with other single people, I feel more connected, less alone. I can’t help it, surrounded by couples, I usually feel like the odd one out, no matter how close we all are. One of my girlfriends recently told me that if she’s invited to something, she just assumes her boyfriend is invited too. This drives me insane. The couple of times it's happened that I’ve had plans with a girlfriend and she’s showed up with her boyfriend, I become so irrationally angry. To me the time between friends, particularly girlfriends, is sacred and to assume you can invite your boyfriend is like admitting that you’re so codependent he’s essentially just another appendage and therefore barely counts as a separate person. It’s like when people become part of a couple, they have amnesia about what it was like when they were single. I guess I do too. I can remember back to a time when most of my decisions were made as part of a unit, but that time feels ever so long ago. I can’t imagine that for myself now.

There are so many seemingly inescapable qualities of coupled people that make me want to never be part of one again. Certain subtle freedoms that simply don’t exist, and as a single person I completely take for granted. Like the fact that if I want to leave a social gathering, I don’t have to quietly negotiate with my partner and decide in hushed tones when we want to leave and if we want to have another drink and who’s driving. I can just say goodbye and walk myself out of the house and drive my ass home. There are none of those awkward public disputes where you have to go off to the side to quietly fix whatever the issue is, or passive-aggressively pretend that everything’s fine when everyone in the room can tell by the shift in energy that something is up between you two. The fact that if there’s a hot single guy at the party, I can flirt with him openly and unabashedly without keeping an eye on where my partner is or feel his eyes watching me across the room, monitoring my behavior. The list goes on.

Things like this I remember about being in a relationship, and I see with my coupled friends, make me want to stay single forever. But the truth is that, obviously, I don’t want to be single forever. Who does? But I know myself, and my track record. I don’t date people casually. I fuck people casually, and then I meet someone I actually really like and I end up seriously dating them for four years. Although I would like to meet someone I like, I’m not in a big hurry to give up my hard-earned identity as an independent single woman. Being on my own has become so a part of who I am, and I’m proud of it. I think it’s made me a stronger, better person. I like that I can show up at a party by myself and find someone to talk to and I don’t need a familiar crutch to lean on. I like who I am when I’m single. I like not having to compromise or check in with anybody. I like that I can do what I want 100% of the time.

That said, I do get tired of making all of my decisions alone, and generating all of my own energy, and never having anyone to lean on. It does get tiresome, and lonely. I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I watch Heidi and her husband take this next step in their life and relationship.

When Heidi met Alex a couple years ago, she was already entrenched in a relationship with her first boyfriend and they lived together and seemed to be in it for the long haul. Then she met Alex and her world got turned upside down. Within a short time, she broke up with her longtime boyfriend, he moved out, and Alex moved in. Not long after that, they got pregnant and decided to have the baby. And then within a year they were making plans to leave LA and start a new sustainable lifestyle in North Carolina where they found they could fully commit to the living off the land model they had been trying to create in the backyard of their home in the valley. I think about if Heidi hadn’t met Alex, how her life would be different now. Meeting him changed her world and her priorities, allowed her to fully commit right now to a dream that felt very far in the future.

I feel like it is often the woman in a relationship who will adjust what she wants to compromise with what her partner wants in their life together. I guess one thing I love about Heidi’s relationship is that the opposite happened. She had this dream of building a cob house out of the ground and living a sustainable lifestyle, and Alex totally got on board with that dream, and it became their shared purpose. Now Alex is going to be the one doing the internship and learning how to build their house from scratch, as Heidi takes care of their baby.

“I had this idea, and I thought I would be the one doing it, and now he’s doing it instead,” she marveled. I could tell she had mixed feelings about this, part of her wanting to be the one to execute their dream. But I suppose that is constantly the balance and dilemma of motherhood: wanting to be with your baby all the time while they’re in those first precious couple years you’ll never get back, but also wanting to live your full life and continue feeding the passions you had before the baby came along. Mostly, Heidi seems in awe that she has found a man who shares her vision and wants to put his whole self into living it with her. She knows how rare that is.

I realize, watching them head off on this journey, that this is the kind of relationship I want. The kind of relationship that will inspire me into the next chapter of my life. Someone I can truly co-create with. Someone who supports my dreams and whose dreams I want to support. Or better yet, someone who has the same dream as me. I know now that at this moment in my life, I won’t settle for anything less. Until I find that, I’d rather be alone. 

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.