Chapter Afterstand up, dust off, and get moving

I’ve gone out with J__ four or five times now. It’s been fun, but unremarkable somehow. I hope I’m not one of those terrible people who needs the drama of someone’s intense, crazy bullshit to be/get/stay interested, and that is, perhaps, a whole other article. For now, I’m content to believe that I merely crave complexity in the personalities I surround myself with — I want to be surprised and challenged. Some people are fond of the notion that “life is short”, but more often time drags us along a brutal, never-ending, same-as-it-ever-was. It wouldn’t be fair to draw a straight line from simple people to boring people, but it’s awfully tempting.

The dreadful no-man’s-land between the end of one relationship and hitting it off with someone new has always been unbearably long for me. A few weeks I can handle, but months — it’s too much. This is but one of many items in the “pros” column unmatched by “cons” leading my dating towards the more casual. Most people enter adulthood with their relationships decidedly low-key and slowly become more serious and discriminating over the years. At least that’s the narrative we’re supposed to believe is the normal one. I, for one, appear to be living this part of my life in reverse.

Dad duty this week left free nights on Wednesday and Thursday. T__ and I had rescheduled a sleepover at my place for Thursday — although I must say, I didn’t even count on it strongly enough to bother cleaning my apartment properly. J__ and I made plans for Wednesday, and my dishonesty-by-omission led her to believe I was watching I__ Thursday. I didn’t correct her.

T__ cancelled, as half-expected, but I took that as a positive since I’d found out Thursday was J__’s birthday. I asked if she had big birthday plans, but in the end decided to keep my change in availability to myself: 1) Don’t smother. 2) I had a few friends I’d like to hang out with. 3) Worst case — some “me time”.

On Wednesday, we had a nice dinner and I ended up spending the night. Thursday, I made last-minute plans to get an early dinner with A__. I’m totally in the friend-zone, but I don’t mind. We were sitting at a sidewalk sandwich spot as dusk fell and J__ drove by looking surprised. I smiled and waved.

Soon, an exchange of text messages began which, at the time, I mistook for a birthday-night booty-call. Instead, J__ wanted to let me know (in no uncertain terms) that she wasn’t comfortable having sex if I was going to be dating other people. “I just don’t want to get fucked over.”

“I’m not a fucker-over-er,” I replied to no effect. I explained that A__ and I didn’t have anything going on, but J__ didn’t seem to be buying a word of it. It was true, but I didn’t have any room for self-righteousness in the big picture. However innocent I might have been in the specific case, I was completely guilty in the abstract. If a man lusts after a woman in his heart…

Some questions are eternal and will never be answered to our satisfaction: Who am I? Why are we here? Is it too soon to have sex? Can we “see each other” but not fuck until we’re both prepared to be exclusive? If the answer were “yes,” would we even want to?

I’ve been reading some fantastic blog-flotsam the last day or two and a fair count happen to confess openly to using (and often abusing) alcohol. The adventures are varied and make for entertaining stories. These meager (for a second there, I almost used “humble” — ha ha) pages are not unfamiliar with the subject. It got me thinking about my Monday night, and more specifically, my Tuesday morning.

It was an I-didn’t-think-I’d-had-enough-to-cause-a-bad-hangover-let-alone-morning-puke kind of self-reflection. I never got hangovers in my twenties because I didn’t like to drink. I never had to think seriously about Alcoholism and whether any of Urban-America’s Normal, Self-Destructive Behavior had, in fact, become self-destructive. But now I find myself thinking about it sometimes. When the bartender gives you that stupidly over-long pour, is it love or hate? It’d be rude not to finish, but it’s still my fault, right? How many hangovers is it acceptable to have in a one-year period? Does the act of asking define approximately where one’s threshold is?

Music festival season will be upon us soon, filling weekends with endless bands and beer. I need to not hurt myself — too much shit to do.

via clusterflock.org:

Sex And Salter at The Paris Review

It was a bit past I__’s bedtime and I was expecting his night-night call. Originally, an as-low-key-as-they-come early-evening coffee date, I stood in J__’s kitchen “helping” prepare dinner. My phone was still in mail when I opened it, and it insisted on checking for new messages. There in the headers was “T__”.

One quick peek, I thought clicking it, somewhat guiltily. Inside was what appeared, at first glance an apology. I couldn’t help but feel better (plus a bit of the kind of bad which is really a different kind of better).

Too late now; I’m having dinner with J__ whose company is so undramatically pleasant, I’ve probably had no occasion to mention it yet. (Nah-nuh Nah-nuh Nah Nah)

Later, when I had a chance to actually read her message, I saw it was equal parts embarrassed, honest apology and irrelevant accounting of the bad day that preceded her “rude behavior” (her words).

I was tempted to reply simply with “apology accepted” which would have been honest, and c’mon — funny. K__ and I would often have arguments that only seemed to find resolution when I bent and apologized. On rare occasion when the tables were turned, I found it was better to simply accept the apology than discuss it further and risk reopening whatever foul business was currently on its way closed.

T__ displays signs of some similar tendencies, though I don’t know her well enough to be fatalistic. I did notice feeling a bit of relief when she showed me her ass, and I thought, “Well, that certainly makes things easier.”

…

Dinner was fun. We drank wine and made easy conversation. Afterwards we shared a cigarette on her back porch. “You don’t have herpes or anything…”

(Ok, I really do have to get an STD test, pronto. If only for my own fragile sanity.)

I talked too much as is my habit, but it seemed to have been alright. I got my goodnight kiss on and drove home happy.

…

I saw E__ today at the coffeeshop. She was on the phone, and I had in my headphones. We smiled but didn’t speak. I still miss her, and I’m not sorry.

Through a scheduling conflict that might have been avoided if I were your regular plan-making sort, I appear to have screwed up a likely rendezvous with T__ later this week. The story itself is basic: I should have had Thursday free, but I always take I__ during K__’s bookclub (a monthly Thursday). I wasn’t thinking, and I told T__ I was free. I owe a night from last week, so there’s no appeal to fairness. Grandma is the go-to savior, and grandma needs a break.

So, in reply to a text message, I casually dropped that I needed to look for a sitter if we were hanging out Thursday night, and on the spot did our plans die a quick death. T__ insisted that I not “worry or bother” with it and “made other plans” before I could even hit send on my protests. I hit send anyway, and was not graced with a reply. (Ouch!)

I try not to let my expectations for how a relationship will go outpace the relationship itself. T__ herself set further, intersecting bounds, and I was thrilled with them. Plus, I’d already begun wondering how long it would take her idiosyncrasies to outweigh her charms, and I wasn’t really all that disappointed about having had the thought occur to me. I’d seen me-size holes in the notion that I’d ever fall helplessly in love — for instance. In short, my investment was small. In the abstract.

Concretely, I know she’s a little off kilter; I know to expect some chaos. This knowledge coupled with my emotional distance is supposed to protect me Goddammit! Why then, did this absolutely ruin my mood today? I can barely believe it, let alone explain it.

Well, ok, I can explain it.

It’s possible I’m misreading something — the tricky genre that is text messaging, T__s wild sense of humor, etc. But intent is far from my point.

If, I assume for a moment that T__ is messing with me on purpose, the whole thing is deftly explained away as an exercise in power and control. Easy. I don’t like the implication that I’m automatically the bottom, but the scenario makes fine sense.

If she’s not being manipulative on purpose, it means that I’ve abdicated this power to her voluntarily. Even worse, I somehow blindsided myself.

“There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

T__ and I had scheduled our slumber party for Saturday/Sunday. I was hoping we’d meet around lunchtime to spend the better part of the day together, but her invite was for 5:30. She was hosting, and one does not argue with one’s host.

I’d acquired weed and an artisan-baked cake as gifts / weapons of mass seduction. We spent most of the night talking, listening to music, drinking, eating too-rich food, and smoking. In the midst of our party there was a knock at the door and T__ didn’t want to answer it. Maybe she was feeling a little paranoid. Her visitor turned out to be one of her sons, who had forgotten something he needed. I heard him ask whose car was out front. From the first time we met, T__ had emphasized the separation she keeps between her kids and her romances. “My friend J__,” I heard her reply matter-of-fact-like.

There was talk of going out, but G__ town isn’t known for nightlife, and neither of us seemed very compelled to leave. “Or we could stay in.” I nodded and grinned with as much mischief as I could possibly muster.

I wanted to get to it. I knew we wouldn’t rip one another’s clothes off the minute I arrived — that there’s a great deal of pleasure to be had in the courtship itself. The meaningful glances, the innuendo, the stray hand on the knee — all great foreplay when you both know it’s appropriate to think of them that way.

We crawled into bed and cuddled and watched a silly DVD she thought I’d like (It was good-not-great). Earlier in the night, the awkward, adult negotiations had already begun: a rough accounting of past sexual partners, how careful we’d been, how long it had been since STD testing.

I’ve danced around the neighborhood of this topic with women before, though perhaps without as much clinical precision. T__ strikes me as an experienced, carefree, fun-loving girl. When she told me her partner count was mine +2, my instincts shouted bullshit, and as I’ve noted here before, my instincts have been on a pretty strong track-record recently.

It is said that cheaters will often accuse their partners of cheating. Their own indiscretions have made them guilty and wary to the point of paranoia. T__ kept emphasizing both how careful she was and how much she feared STDs etc. I couldn’t help but think this was the sort of fixation I’d expect from someone who’d once caught something. Still, I’m no (complete) fool, and it has become more than a passing thought that I should get tested. I found myself a bit ashamed when forced to admit that I hadn’t yet been.

These negotiations continued even after she turned out the lights out and we quickly encroached on the heart of the matter. I never push intercourse — I have too much fun with everything else to be unnecessarily fixated. So I agreed (with only the slightest disappointment) that we wouldn’t be having sex.

Despite much solemn agreement that oral sex was just as dangerous, soon I was going down on her. Was the downward pressure on my shoulder only in my imagination? It seemed so very clear at the time. I can safely say that the last of her resolve melted there (I could hear it leaving), though I didn’t assume so at the time.

After another embarrassing (if fair) round of questions, she was returning the favor. There is no reliable comparison, but I don’t often find myself able to get off on a blowjob, so I can only say that this must surely have ranked among my best. I wasn’t ready to stop, so I pulled her to me. “Get on top of me; just for a minute. Please.” I genuinely did not mean, “have sex with me now.” It was the body-to-body intimacy I was after, but then soon we were.

She insisted on two condoms, which A) I’ve always heard was both silly and less effective and therefore decreased my opinion of her somewhat substantially B) was a pretty big pain in the ass since the second one refused to roll more than three quarters of the way down my shaft. It wasn’t really working, and the surplus condom was quickly discarded. Afterwards, all was groovy.

We both slept a bit fitfully for the first half of the night, but more soundly in the second and snoozed late into the morning listening to the birds. She made us a delicious breakfast in bed. I wanted to get it on again, but T__ always squirmed away. Neither of us were at our freshest; I don’t feel very attractive in the morning either, but I’m almost always horny.

We showered, dressed, went for coffee, talked, flirted. We went to see the permanent collection at a local art museum. It was a mixed bag ranging from awful to awesome which lent plenty to talk about. We got lunch in a beautiful courtyard. We talked about our plans for the evening and getting ready for the week ahead. She’d made plans earlier in the week to meet a friend around five. I was hoping she’d cancel it, but she postponed to six-thirty. I looked at my phone. It was nearly four and we hadn’t paid the check. The chances for more sex were falling to zero fast.

We went back to her place and had more cake, weed, and alcohol. I was almost instantly more fucked-up than I wanted to be and I think she was too. I let her continue telling her stories just trying to stay attentive. I didn’t really care about what she was saying — another tale about an old friend I’d probably never meet, a narrative apropos of nothing. My lack of attention started with simple carnal desire, but as I tried to keep focus, I kept returning to that old Eleanor Roosevelt quote: “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

I try to withhold judgement knowing that I’m intoxicated and my conversation partner is intoxicated. Even these articles, which I try to put some thought into, and are usually composed while sober, are heavy on people and events, while light on raw ideas. Still, as my mind wandered, and my inebriated mind took in the wash of her facial expressions and tone of voice, there was the hint of something I didn’t like. The first crack in an otherwise wonderful personality, perhaps the thing I’d look back on with disgust given time, once I’d given it a name.

K__ and I had a parent teacher conference this afternoon. (I__ is doing great, which was a relief since there were some minor worries early in the year he might be exhibiting signs of emotional distress.) The original plan had been for me to pick up I__ beforehand (it being my scheduled day). K__ has begun a part-time waitressing job at a new restaurant downtown during lunch. It’s too early to say if the money will be much to speak of, but it’s got to be better than nothing. I’m eager to discuss further adjusting our financial arrangement, but I get the feeling the whole business will stay highly erratic.

It was a slow day today, so they sent her home early. Rather than drive home to C__ town only to turn around and come back out to the school in R__ town, she called and invited me to lunch. I’ve been pretty busy at the office this week — trying to get a big project out, and the rest of the team keeps piling on “last minute” changes. If I didn’t go eat soon, I’d probably end up skipping it altogether. I was out pretty late the last two nights, and the whole day was in danger of taking a dive to match my blood sugar.

Lunch with K__ wasn’t very high on my List Of Things I Really Feel Like Doing Today, but what the hell, it wouldn’t kill me. Truth is, my social energy is running a bit close to empty — it very nearly wouldn’t matter who the company was. Between the alcohol, staying out late, and … well, one story at a time. Occasionally it’d be fair to call me a misanthrope — this wasn’t one of those times, but let’s not push our luck, ok?

Lunch was lunch. No drama, neither enjoyable nor difficult, neither noteworthy nor boring. We ate, we talked kid business, job business, small-talk, we left. The only thing that struck me was that it was the first time the two of us have shared a meal (without I__) in well over a year. Two wouldn’t surprise me. It was surreal and yet the only thing surreal about it was that it was occurring in the first place.

…

In the past few weeks, the number of opportunities to pass my card to seemingly interested women has undergone a significant upturn, and yet they neither call nor write.

I’ve done a couple meet-for-beers dates via internet. Absolute non-events. They’re more fun than going out alone, so I’ll probably keep doing it. That in itself is the disappointing part.

S__ and I burned through several drinks and hours together earlier this week. Our bar hopping landed us adjacent a table of women celebrating a birthday. They were mostly a little older, but several had not lost that screechy I-Just-Turned-Twenty-One-EEEEEEK! I had no chance to take any kind of evasive action. I looked up just as they descended on our table. The stand-out attractive one pulled up next to S__. A friendly, if larger, one dropped in next to me. Conversation went around the table, but favorites had likely been decided before “hello.”

After a polite half-hour, getting up the nerve to talk to the hot brunette / blonde pair at the bar started looking completely sensible. “Save me from the birthday girls,” I said. “Five minutes.”

She did, and it was fun, and I was glad I went for it, but … If it was bull, it’s the best bull I’ve ever heard: after the initial smalltalk I asked what she did for fun. At the time, it sounded like she was describing herself as a soft-core porn star, but later, I realized she probably meant that she was part of some kind of swinger group that trades videos. I know what you’re thinking: “This is a problem, why?!” But she says she’s happily married.

By the time I returned to S__, the dynamic had changed and I chatted up another woman in the group. This one didn’t seem so bad — was that the alcohol talking? I’d certainly been drinking a lot faster than usual. She seemed bored. I was introduced to another (where were they coming from anyway?) and we struck up an effortless, interesting conversation. She was tall and opposite-of-beer-goggles attractive — seeing her was a wave of sobriety. The moment comes for my clever, PG-rated innuendo, and forty-five seconds later she’s apologizing and revealing that she’s gay and with the bored girl.

The bar closed soon after, and I left S__ as he was crawling into one of those taxi vans with the pick of the pack and two or three of the remaining revelers. I didn’t get three blocks away and the phone rings, “The one in the pink skirt asks, ‘what happened to your friend?’”

I hadn’t even talked to the one in the pink skirt. Knowing it was pointless, I changed course and drove to the apartment and drank another beer and tried to be charming with the annoying, unpretty ones while S__ snuck off to the bedroom with W__. Only on my way home did it dawn on me — I’d heard of “grenades” before, and I’d just dived on two of them without even thinking about it. Come to think of it, that’s just how those foxhole stories go.

Last night we went out again. It was more of the same — a couple of opportunities that turn into one half-way decent conversation that’s a complete dead end. He wanted to meet up with this younger woman he’s had the hots for. She was out with friends at a college bar close by that I’d never been to or heard of. Now I know why. It sucked. I tried to muscle through, but my only out was going to be hitting on trashy, barely-twenty-one year-olds and I just didn’t have the ‘nads for it. So, I split.

I should be grateful there’s any night-life at all on a Wednesday night, or for that one briefly entertaining conversation, or that K__ and I can share lunch without it being a big deal. But I’m not. It isn’t enough and I’m not going to pretend.