Rejection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.