Some time ago, I went to a singer friend’s show that ended in an impromptu date with another audience member. I’m not even sure how these things happen to me but they do, often; somewhere between spotting a couple of long-haired specimens across the dance floor and closing time, I decided I might be up for a nocturnal escapade. I gave one of the guys my card, he emailed me as soon as he left the venue, and I decided to meet up with him right then, because:
1. I didn’t feel like going home yet
2. He was in town from another state, leaving the next morning.
3. It seemed like an adventurous thing to do.
4. He really did have nice hair.
5. I was already wearing a dress.
Impulsive, but calculated. I met him down Pacific Coast Highway outside an extremely over-hyped Malibu restaurant that was already closed, and the negotiations began.
Now that I am not into casual sex (this week) I have a pretty careful vetting process about whom I accommodate in my Special Garden Palace. While I am categorically against the idea of women as the “gatekeepers” of the vagina and the attendant games that some men require, I am also at an age and a stage in my life where I do not waste my time on meaningless encounters that don’t further my growth. So usually, I start the conversation by bringing up the Polyamory thing.
“I don’t think we are going to be right for each other,” I said, my intuitive powers on high alert, “I don’t believe in monogamy. I’m into conscious non-monogamy, meaning different partners are discussed and everything is out in the open, with as much detail as people need or would rather not have, to feel safe.”
As with many men I have met in Los Angeles in their late 40’s, he recoiled.
“Oh, no, I could never deal with that. I can’t have my woman boning other dudes. Let’s just be friends.”
“Great!” I said. There was a mutual interest and attraction, but nothing that was shaking me to soul level. “Friends.”
During our conversation it emerged that:
1. This guy had cheated on every woman he had ever been with.
2. He was a regular customer on a Sugar Daddy website and primarily dated nineteen or twenty-year-old girls.
3. He was not over his ex-girlfriend.
4. He was militantly vegan.
5. He also felt he had extremely nice hair.
See? In the old days I would have been making out with him (and his hair) in the time it took to find out a few simple things about the man I would be swapping mouth DNA with. Phew.
At this time, I felt like he was squirming a little, his ego perhaps feeling the brunt of being “friend-zoned” although technically, like all the circa fifty-year-old men who have demanded monogamy of me in the last year, he had done it to himself. I was flirting with him, but not in a misleading way, just the way I do with anyone whose company I enjoy. He invited me to his house for raw vegan food (I know, but I was starving and everything was closed) so I acquiesced.
It was soon after I had arrived at the beachfront house he was renting, and he had fed me (for which I expressed extreme gratitude) that the first insult came. There was a total friend vibe, as he told me about his ex, and then came out as a fairly right wing libertarian who wanted to see all of America carry concealed weapons.
Mmmkay.
I curled up on his bed mustering the energy to drive home, and asked him to switch the channel from Fox News. I was just going to rest for a moment and then be on my way, once again mentally congratulating myself on not getting involved with someone whose political beliefs are just fine (free country, free speech, First Amendment etc.) but do not suit me in someone I am going to be sexually involved with.
“You’re quite a big girl.”
Wha?? I stood up and admired myself in the mirror. My black dress was fairly cleavage-baring, as I had put it on to force myself off the couch and out to support my friend’s band.
“Um, no. I’m not. Look at my waist…” I circled my hands around my waist. I am 5’101/2” and weigh in the early 140s. If I had an eating disorder, this remark would have sent me straight to the bathroom to purge. ALSO – I’VE HAD CHILDREN. Just, no. He was otherwise quite charming, so I simply shrugged it off, and politely said I should leave now, before I fell asleep on his couch.
As I stood outside his beachfront rental by moonlight (Had I not exhibited sufficient awe at the fact that he had, gasp, money?) he dropped his second little comment:
“You should get your teeth fixed.”
“Yeah!” I agreed enthusiastically, “Most people tell me they’re nice, but I would really like to get Invisalign. I want them to be perfect. You wanna pay for it?” I joked.
“Sure,” he joked back. He gave me a hug then, and we stood there for a minute, until I somewhat awkwardly said, “Thanks, I needed that.”
Which is when he shared, “Yeah I kind of wish you were doing stuff with your hands though like not just folding your arms in. I’m just being honest.”
About my hugging technique. Mmmkay.
“I’m just making sure we don’t start something,” I said lightly and got into my car, “Have a nice trip and keep in touch.”
I drove home exhausted without much going through my head other than “Well that little escapade provided a brief diversion from loneliness.” I got home and masturbated (not thinking about him) and slept in. I was having my coffee the next morning when I had a sudden, lightning revelation.
“Oh My God. I think that guy was NEGGING me.” I chuckled to myself into my coffee, knowing that despite my not inconsiderable self-doubt, I am NEG-proof.
“Negging” in case you missed this hideous dating trend followed by some idiot in a large fluffy hat and nail polish in the late nineties to early ‘aughts, is the practice of putting down a woman so that she will feel more insecure and off balance, and then sleep with you. It is literally, the dumbest thing ever, for three reasons:
1. Most women need to feel safe to want to have sex, telling someone what is wrong with them doesn’t exactly make them feel cherished.
2. Only an idiot with major self-esteem issues sees an insult as a panty-dropper. The kind of women/girls/sad faces you will attract with this technique will be exactly the ones you will be trying to get rid of later, as they are burning your belongings in the street.
3. Duh – WE ARE ALL PEOPLE DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE.
In summary- you want people to be nice to you, all the way from common courtesy to legs akimbo, don’t say mean things in an effort to get their attention, unless you’re in fourth grade, in which case that shit totes works. There are so much better ways to get into someone’s pants, and if you hang with me, I will share every single one I know, cause I’m a giver like that. I swear it won’t even matter how silky your follicles, or if you have any at all…
Sigh.
This is why some people can’t have nice things…
