Last Friday Night

I recently had a Friday night like that song. You know the one. No, not Rebecca Black. Katy Perry. "There's a stranger in my bed. There's a pounding in my head. I smell like a mini-bar. Think the city towed my car." And so on and so forth...

It started out innocently enough. This guy, let's call him A, asked me to meet him for a drink. Well, one drink turned into 17. We were downing shit I hadn't ever expected to drink again after high school: whiskey and cokes, Long Island iced teas, Irish car bombs. It was out of control. I think our bar tab was like $90. At some point I realize neither of us is in any condition to drive. But I still want to get him to come home with me. So I start texting my friend and harassing her to come hang out with us. I figure she can give us a ride, or at least help me brainstorm a way to get him back to my lair.

So she arrives and is pretty instantly fed up with our drunken shenanigans. Turns out we weren't nearly as funny as we thought we were to sober people. So while A is in the bathroom, my friend whispers to me that when he gets back, she's going to announce she's bringing me home and that if he would also like a ride to my house, then jump on in. Brilliant. And he totally fell for it.

So she drops us off at my house and I realize I've forgotten my keys. No big deal, there is a spare one hidden in the garden. Except that while I'm stumbling through the backyard, knocking over garden gnomes and stepping on tomato plants, my dog is inside barking his head off. (I had always wondered if my dog would react to an intruder in our yard, so this came as something of a relief and a welcome surprise. For a second.) Then I realized he was going to wake up my roommate and I would be caught bringing a boy home. In the year I had lived there, no one had ever brought a random home. I was about to be busted as the house slut.

As I'm turning over stones in the garden trying to remember where the key is hidden while simultaneously trying to get the dog to shut up by yelling "It's me, you fucking idiot!" A decides this would be an opportune time to pee in our raspberry bushes. "What are you doing?! We have toilets inside!" I yelled just as my roommate opened the back door to see what the shit was going on. She said later that she was confused to see a burglar in the backyard start waving and walking toward her. We stood there awkwardly in the kitchen, with me not introducing anyone. I apologized profusely, grabbed A and ran to my room.

Skip over the good parts...

The next day, feeling like a total asshole, I apologized some more to my roommate for waking her up. Then I started to tell her the story of how I met this guy and the crazy night I had. "Wait," she said. "You mean that guy last night? That wasn't S?"

S was the last guy I dated. We had stopped dating, oh, about 24 hours before I had started dating A. Not overlap exactly, but... pretty close. In her sleepy confusion in the dark, my roommate had mistaken the new guy for the old guy. In a momentary panic, I racked my brain, trying to remember if she had addressed A as S the night before. I couldn't be sure, but I didn't think so. Whew. That was close.

The Manimal

Somehow I always knew this one would end up as a blog post... So I started dating this guy, the manimal. The manimal was a term he came up with to poke fun at himself for being so hairy. He was hairy from head to toe, but he had the worst back hair I have ever seen on a human being. It was like head hair, but on his back. Remember Austin Powers? Now double it. He called it a full-body sweater. I know that sounds exaggerated, but just suspend your disbelief and go with it. It was true. Sadly, ironically, the poor guy was going bald. That has got to be frustrating when you have full, luscious locks everywhere but where you want them. I empathized with him and imagined it must be like when you gain weight and none of it goes to your boobs...

So anyway, the back hair was not really a problem for me because I like my men manly. We even went swimming in a city pool and I allowed myself to be seen in public with him without his shirt on. And although I'm not sure any of it actually penetrated through that forest and made contact with his skin, I put sunblock on his back. Plus, he had an awesome beard and I figured it was a trade-off for the back.

The problem was that the manimal was a child. A 33-year-old child. And I think he might have been dumb. Either that or all the years of drug/alcohol use had whittled his functioning brain cells down to four.

The first indication that he may not have exactly been on my (or anyone over the age of 10) intellectual playing field was when he started complaining that a salty salad at lunch had hurt the roof of his mouth. As a person who puts salt on everything, including salads, and probably eats three days worth of their recommended daily allowance of sodium in one sitting, and NEVER had it cut up the roof of their mouth, this statement was beyond ridiculous. I told him to think real hard and try to remember if perhaps he had had a toasty baguette or Cap'n Crunch cereal in the past few days...

Then he made some comment about how colds are not airborne. You don't say! So you mean we don't need to cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze after all? Hooray! And all that fear of getting sick on airplanes? No need to worry about your Typhoid Mary neighbor breathing on you anymore. You won't get sick, unless you make out with them, of course. Um... I'm pretty sure there is actually a cold remedy called "Airborne."

Anyway, the manimal was starting to annoy me. He didn't get my jokes, pop-culture or current event references or movie quotes. He wasn't real quick on the uptake. If things I said were over his head, what else wasn't he getting?

I began to worry about how I was going to end things. (I'm a bad breaker-upper, I won't deny it). So when things began to fizzle, I didn't try too hard to rekindle them. Then, apropos of nothing, he said he wasn't ready to be my boyfriend. I smiled on the inside and thought to myself, maybe this problem will just take care of itself. I told him (and meant it) that I didn't want him to be my boyfriend either, but if he wanted to continue our twice-weekly sex sessions, that was cool with me and in the mean time I was going to look for a boyfriend. He asked me if I was using him for sex. I said no. Oddly, I never heard from him again...

Top 5 Don'ts of online dating

I'm no expert on online dating. That's for sure. But I have noticed that A LOT of guys do the same exact off-putting, annoying things. So here they are, a little advice for the men out there: My top five don'ts of online dating.

1. Don't acknowledge the awkwardness of the online thing. Don't start your "About me" section with some disclaimer about how you're "not really sure how this online thing works" or "a friend talked me into signing up" or "I've never done the online thing." Yes, it's weird and awkward. We don't need to TALK about how it's weird and awkward. This is how people meet these days. Yes, even good-looking people who aren't completely socially inept. You date people you meet on the interwebs. Just own it. (This, however, does not mean that when you meet my family I won't tell them that we met in a coffee shop.)

2. Don't post pics of yourself with little children. I see the logic here. Men think all women want and love children. Our uteruses will just ache when we see how adorable you are and how good you are with kids. And we will want to date you. But for those of us who don't want/love children, those pics are kind of weird and creepy. If you must post pics of yourself with kids, please specify your relationship to them. Chances are they are your nieces and nephews, but if you don't state that, I might assume they are yours/your kidnapping victims.

3. Don't use exclamation points! Especially multiple exclamation points!!! Exclamation points are overused and under-felt and it just seems like you are screaming!! Either that or you are insane! Seriously, when I see someone use too many exclamation points, I think to myself: That person is crazy.

4. Don't try to be all things to all people. For example: I am very passionate at times, but I can also be laid back. I love to relax at home but I love going out on the town too. I'm a dog person, but I also love their evil arch nemesis: the cat. Something for everyone! Fun for the whole family! You're multi-faceted. No one can pin you down. I get it. But this also makes you sound crazy. Pick just one personality and go with it.

5. Don't beat around the bush. If you aren't suggesting a real-life, face-to-face meeting after oh about the second or third email, I'm going to get bored and ignore you. The point of this thing is to facilitate meetings in real life so I can see if you are indeed as hot as your pics suggest and if I would have sex with you. I do not need to waste any more time than I already do dicking around online so cut to the fucking chase already. Also, I am even less interested in an awkward half-hour phone conversation with a stranger than I am in continuing to send lengthy getting-to-know-you emails. This is not middle school. I don't spend week nights on the phone chit-chatting with pretend boyfriends. The phone is for making plans to meet up. So don't ask for my number unless you are going to use it to that end!!!!!!!!

Boys are gross

Ok so I know that the kiss of death for blogs is infrequent postings... so, sorry loyal followers. Maybe Jacqui has stories of her exciting dating life in NYC she can regale us with? Also, it's hard to post consistent stories of your dating life that are funny, yet tinged with bitterness when you are getting laid... Also, it's summer. You know how it is.

First, an update: So I Facebook friended that guy I was in love with last year who fled my apartment. He accepted my request and now I can cyber stalk him whenever I want. However, reminding him of my existence did not cause him to fall madly in love with me and come crawling back. Weird. Not at all what I expected...

On to the real post: This is actually more of a rant and I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this phenomenon and offer theories on why it happens. It can be both a red flag and a deal breaker. I call it "Boys are disgusting and they have the squalorific living conditions to prove it."

So, I dated this guy once who was really gross.* The first clue was the first time I went over to his apartment and it was in a state of disarray. But I figured since he was in the process of moving, I would cut him some slack. The second clue was when I told a work friend who I was dating, and before she could censor herself, she involuntarily gasped and blurted out, "He's a slob!" The third clue was when I went to his house and the bathroom smelled like a port-a-potty. The fourth (and what should have been final) clue was the first night I stayed over at his house, his bed was dirty. Like sandy. Like there was beach sand in his bed. Like someone dumped a shoe full of beach sand in his bed. Truth. (I mean, if you know that a girl you are dating is likely to stay the night for the first time, and you are presumably going to be having sex in your bed, which you must be aware is full of sand since you sleep in it, and I think this would be a situation you could spot coming from at least a couple of hours away since you were probably the one who did the inviting her over, CHANGE YOUR FUCKING SHEETS in preparation for your night together.) Also, there was mold in his shower. Oh, and he had mice.**

So he moved into his boss's house because his boss was taking his whole family to Alaska for the winter and wanted someone to house sit. After a few months, this place was so trashed, it would have been unrecognizable to the boss. It's like a college frat house. The floors are sticky and there are flies and an unpleasant smell emanating from the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. There are glasses scattered about, half-full of an unidentifiable liquid. This is how you treat a place that's not even yours? And this wasn't a house full of boys living there. There was just one.

I figure if we are going to be hanging out at his house, (he did have a TV, after all) I'm going to need to give it a good once-over so I don't have to feel the need to shower immediately after I leave the place. So I go home and gather up all my cleaning supplies. Then I go to the drug store and buy one of those masks that people use for painting or working with toxic chemicals. Not kidding.

So I get to his house all ready to get down to business and clean the shit out of that place. I ask him where the vacuum is. He says he doesn't know. I'm sorry, what? He had been living there for three months at this point. And he had never seen the need to vacuum? And showing him where it was kept was apparently deemed unimportant in the instructions/grand tour from the homeowners.

Whatever. I move on to the bathroom. After scrubbing for 30 minutes, that bathroom is fucking spotless. I come out, and the boyfriend says, "Hey, did you notice the bathroom kinda smelled like urine?" I'm sorry, what? All this time I had assumed that he had some kind of nasal medical condition that prevented him from noticing that his bathroom smelled like urine, because why would a grown-up knowingly let his bathroom go on smelling like urine if they were aware of it, especially if their own inaccurate aim was probably the cause of said urine smell?

This was simply too much for me. It hurt my brain. I left. But I also left behind the cleaning supplies, as a gesture of goodwill.

So, with the guy I am dating now, I am having flashbacks to that first dirty boyfriend. He's 33 years old and doesn't own a vacuum. And half of his apartment is carpet so it's not like he can sweep. And he's lived there for a year and a half. He says he borrows one when he needs to vacuum, but I can pretty much guarantee that floor has not seen a vacuum in 18 months. Also, (boys take note! write this down!) when your toilet and sink start getting that bright pinkish, orangish mold around the edges, (you know what I'm talking about) it's time to bust out the fucking Soft Scrub.

*Let me just say that I have pretty low standards when it comes to housekeeping. There are often dog fur tumble weeds rolling around the hallways before I will pick up a vacuum. Former roommates can attest to my disregard for neatness. Sometimes my bedroom floor is not visible because of all the clothes in various stages of dirty on the floor. About a week after I moved in with the only boyfriend I have ever lived with, we had dinner with my parents. My dad turned to my boyfriend and said, "So, how do you like living with a slob?" The point is: My standards are so low that to not be able to meet them puts you on a whole 'nother level of disgusting.

**In his defense, everyone had mice. It was a really bad (or good?) year for mice in the ADKs.

Does it make me a bad person if...

During and after a break up, I think most adults try to move on with some (at least outward appearance of) maturity, grace and integrity. They try not to let things get too ugly, try to take the high road, be the bigger person, remain civil. Some even try to be friends. Not me.

When I feel like I've been wronged in a relationship and its aftermath, I get petty. And childish. I resort to name-calling. I actually say out loud everything mean and hurtful thing that I've been thinking. Every midnight confession, dirty little secret, insecurity, secret fear and weird quirk that the ex has allowed me to be privy to over the course of the relationship, I throw in their face. I twist the knife. I say I told you so. I go for the jugular. I burn bridges. I figure, what have I got to lose? I mean, besides my dignity, which by this point is probably long gone anyway...

There is a word, a most beautiful German word that has no English equivalent and that perfectly describes my feelings toward a few exes of mine. Schadenfreude.

So imagine my inner delight when my (very materialistic) ex recently posted on Facebook pictures of a tree that fell on his brand-spanking-new Subaru during a wind storm. Basically destroyed the roof. I smiled a little on the inside. Ok, I smiled a lot. The thought of missing out on the chance to revel in rare instances like this has basically kept me from unfriending him.

I do not think it makes me a bad person to secretly delight in the misfortune of someone who ripped my heart out and then stomped on it. Repeatedly. (This break-up was so bad, I moved across the country rather than deal with it and him in our tiny town.) However, kinda, (sorta) thinking (for a split second) that it was (maybe just) a little bit of a shame that he wasn't actually INSIDE the car when the tree fell? Jury is still out on that one...

Here's how I know God hates me

So I used to have this... let's call him a boyfriend for the sake of argument, who I dated at the end of college. We will call him college boyfriend. I was a senior, weeks away from graduating and he still had a few years left. We had already been friends for years. He was younger than me, shorter than me, smarter than me and I love, love, loved him. I could have been happy with him forever.

But alas, it wasn't meant to be. I moved home and so we lived 2,000 miles away. We still talked and emailed and visited each other here and there for about a year after I graduated, but we never really discussed any specifics, like whether we were actually together or not.* In the end, the distance got the best of us and whatever we had died. Fast forward five years and I have moved to the city where he lives. Unfortunately, he now has a girlfriend.**

So one day a few weeks ago, I notice on Facebook (Facebook: ever the crusher of dreams, the informer of exes loves lives.) that he and the gf are engaged. Engaged! The horror! I send off a few texts lamenting this fact to friends who knew us as a couple, looking for some consolation, or at least assurance and validation that despite not being engaged myself, I'm still a good person, (or at least cooler/better looking than the fiancee.) I was bummed, but it was nothing a little whiskey and a good cry couldn't fix. I go into work the next day feeling much better about the situation. I'm practically over it.

So I'm on my lunch break, reading a magazine on the outdoor 10th-floor balcony of my building when I hear a voice. HIS voice. And I don't mean Jesus. I turned and there he was. What was he doing in my building?! I started sweating. At first I didn't think it was a big deal because people tour my building all the time. I figured he was on one and would soon be leaving. But then I noticed he was sitting down to eat his lunch with a bunch of similarly aged and attired people. I think maybe I can wait him out. But I've got work to do and I'm beginning to get sunburned. I start to search for escape routes, but he's sitting right in front of the only door back inside. Convenient. There's no way I can slip past him without being spotted. There's no avoiding it. I'm going to have to say hi and make awkward small talk.

So I go over and try to act all surprised to see him and pretend like I haven't been fidgeting and panicking for the last 10 minutes. I'm literally shaking. The engagement is the elephant in the room and cannot be ignored. "Congratulations," I say, hoping he will want out of this awkward exchange as quickly as I do. No such luck. He starts gushing all about how he proposed on vacation and how he ordered the nice bottle of wine and then he compared the feeling to skydiving. I had had enough. If he didn't shut up soon, I was going to sky dive myself right off that 10th-floor balcony. I mumbled something about how we should catch up sometime and ran away.

Turns out he's an intern in my building all summer. It's a good thing I like eating lunch at my desk. All I'm saying is when the whole (main) reason it didn't work out for us was because of the distance, and now we spend eight hours a day separated by just two floors, that is not irony or a coincidence. That is the universe shitting on me.

*So the year after college graduation was a pretty bad one for me. I was underemployed, bored, depressed, lonely and living with my parents. I needed something and someone to do. So I kind of started dating this other guy, let's call him K, while the college bf and I were still-together-but-not-really-together. I didn't even like K. No one liked K. He was a douche. Like I said, I was bored. So when the college bf was coming to town, I stopped returning K's phone calls and started blowing him off. This, apparently, was suspect to him.

So one night while the college bf and I are canoodling on the couch at like midnight, the phone rings and it's K. He had apparently driven to my house, peeked in the windows, seen the canoodling, flipped his shit and was now screaming at me on the phone, calling me every name in the book and vowing revenge. (Now, keep in mind, we lived in a very rural area. Cars do not sketchily park on the sides of the roads and their occupants do not prowl around houses at midnight and play peeping tom without someone alerting the residents of the house, most of all the family dog. This was how I figured out our old dog was going deaf. That fucker. Thanks for nothing, fleabag. You've got like one job and you can't even do it right.) I ran to the door and locked it. The only thing that prevented K from busting down the door and getting his revenge was the fact that my 60-year-old parents were asleep upstairs. I had never been so happy to be living with my parents in my entire life.

This little incident more than likely contributed to the demise of both relationships. I was a jerk. Lesson learned: Get a new dog when yours starts going deaf.

**I met his gf a few times at parties and such. I wasn't impressed. At this one party last year, the college bf and his girlfriend were talking about how they had done this 10k race that morning. It's a very well-known and popular race and apparently you have to submit a previous 10k time for them to seed you correctly. You have to prove you have done a 10k in less than an hour and a half.

Well, as usual, I had had a few drinks and since I was pretty sure I, or any person in reasonable health could WALK a 10k in less than an hour and a half without breaking a sweat, (I have gone a 52-minute 10k in a triathlon for chrissakes and I'm no runner) I (loudly) proclaimed that it was insulting to have to prove it to the race directors and if they wanted proof, well here was my proof: I am not 300 pounds nor am I 80 years old. I sat back and waited for the laughs. Turns out the gf clocked in at 1:21 for a 10k.

Ok, I'm an asshole. And she probably wasn't impressed with me either. But, seriously, how do you marry someone who takes 1:21 to do a 10k? That's just embarrassing.

Jennifer Aniston vs. The Oprah

This week the long-running Oprah Winfrey show came to an end. She's on to bigger and better. Many news stories and celebrity "news" stories this week chronicled her success, her rise to fame and riches by overcoming the poverty and abuse of her early years. She's a philanthropist who has done charity work with girls and schools in Africa. Her book club endorsement can make or break an author. She created trends. She gave audience members cars. She has her own magazine and soon-to-be cable network channel. She spawned Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. She ushered in an era of copy cat talk shows and hosts that wanted to follow in her footsteps. She's a media mogul. Earlier this year, Forbes put her net worth at $2.7 billion. Yes, folks, that's a b. She's bigger than Jesus. I like to refer to her as "The Oprah."

And THIS is exactly just how wildly (unattainably) rich, famous, successful and influential women have to be before people, the media and the tabloids will shut the fuck up and stop obsessing about when is she gonna get on the marriage and kiddies train already. Sorry, Jennifer Aniston, you're just not there yet. There is absolutely no hope for the rest of us...