My Shit Kicking Redneck Friend

Continuing with the theme of Shit I Should Have Mentioned Sooner, there are a couple more characters I need to catch you up on before we can move forward in our chronology. The first of said characters is my Shit Kicking Redneck Friend, Frank.  Frank is from my hometown.  We’d known each other since we were tots, but he became significant in my life when we were in 6th grade.  Frank was always a redneck.  He legit wore cowboy hats to school without a hint of irony.  Unlike most of the rednecks (or frankly, anyone else in my town) Frank was not an idiot. I’m not sure he was my intellectual equal, but he could keep up, and that was refreshing.  We both hated people, hated school, hated ourselves, hated basically everything, and ended up bitter rivals rather than of friends.  One time, I tripped him and knocked him into a pound.  After that, he put his padlock on my locker and locked me out for a week, forcing me to sneak onto campus after hours with a pair of bolt cutters.  We called each other names and delighted in each other’s torment.  Hating Frank was consistently the best part of my day.

Frank was easy enough to make fun of.  Socially, we were on a similar level.  We were both too angry and mean to be well liked, but we had a few close friends and weren’t completely pathetic.  He was chubby, and I had bad acne.  My favorite retort was that I’d probably grow out of my acne, but he’d always be a fat fucker.  I was dimly aware though, even as I was saying it, that I didn’t think Frank was ugly.  He was fat, no question, but he had dark brown, nearly black hair and very deep, cerulean blue eyes.  He had a pleasant, very white smile with prominent incisors (something I find strangely appealing. Considering I was more or less raised by a wolf-dog, Freud would likely have a field day with this, but I’ll try not to over analyze).  Frank also had very friendly looking dimples, that belied the cruelty of his smile.  Even at the time, I was dimly aware that I was somewhat attracted to Frank, a fact that didn’t take away from my hatred of him.  

He moved away in the 8th grade, the result of his parent’s messy divorce.  I didn’t miss him.  I barely noticed his absence.  By then, I’d already fallen in love with the boy I went on to date for 7 years.  My 7 year ex was better looking than Frank, more popular, considerable more talented, smarter, and considerably more cruel.  Also, in spite of having all the trappings of classic, “sensitive artist” type, he was a raging misogynist.  Frank may have hated me, but I knew he respected me as an equal in a way my ex never could.  I didn’t realize any of this at the time, of course.  I was blindly in love and more than a little stupid.  Frank disappeared from my mind the way Rosaline does for Romeo when he first lays eyes on Juliet.  

About a year after he moved, Frank came back for a visit.  I saw him and started grinning like an idiot.  I rushed over and hugged him.  This was very weird behavior.  Hugging wasn’t super common in my hometown, and even for my people, I was never a hugger. Frank grinned back, more than a little surprised.  His dimples shown, and his blue eyes beamed softly.  I saw no cruelty on his face. I ditched school and we walked around town together.  We walked by the pound and laughed about the time I’d shoved him in.  We threw rocks at the blue jays on the rodeo grounds.  We skipped stones across the creek. We didn’t talk much, but I was glad of his company.  I caught him staring at my tits a lot, and realized it wasn’t anything new.  He’d always been aware of them, but his gaze was a bit more obvious when he wasn’t calling me Pizza Face or trying to pull my hair.  I was satisfied to know that he probably had the same conflicted feelings about me as I’d had about him.  

After that day, I never saw him again.  

So why the fuck is he in my dating blog? .  

Right around the time I broke up with Michael, Frank found me on Facebook and we started chatting on a fairly regular basis.  Like his parent’s before him, he was going through a brutal divorce.  He’d cheated on his wife, felt guilty and told her.  He suspected she was cheating him, but she never admitted it.  She did, however, slap him across the face, pack up all of her shit, and marched straight over to his best man’s house.  Long story short, she is now married to his best man. After that, Frank had moved back to our shitty hometown to help take care of his family.  Figured he’d do the decent thing for once, instead of drinking himself to death and beating the crap out of the guy who had been his best friend.   

We were both going through some shit.  What started off as a “hey, what have you been up to for the past 15 years” quickly developed into an important but odd friendship.  You know all that horrible shit you year in your head that you’d never tell anyone?  Let’s say, you take a dude home.  He’s fairly average looking and yet you’re suddenly so repulsed by his body that you feel slightly physically nauseous, but you don’t really want to deal with rejecting him, so you just fuck him anyway.  That was the kind of thing I talked about with Frank, and only Frank.  Similarly, he’d tell me about the 19 year old’s he’d bang and how, it probably wasn’t a coincidence they usually had a boyfriend. He was actively looking to pick a fight.  Frank was the kind of guy who’d never through the first punch, but once someone attacked him, he’d beat the other dude bloody and wouldn’t stop until someone pulled him off.

Frank still hated people.  He was still angry at the world.  A big part of him just wanted to go out into the woods with his dogs, and disappear from society altogether.  He was also something of a contradiction, as he was torn by his desire to travel the world.  He was particularly fascinated with Japan and loved to hear about my travels there.  He was still cruel, but he was also extremely loyal.  He was still friends with some of the kids we’d gone to middle school with, even though they were dumb as door-nails and left him someone what intellectually malnourished.  He’d built very high walls around himself and hated letting new people in.  He was self-deprecating, but took no shit from anyone else. He didn’t give a shit what people thought of him and pretty much went around doing whatever self destructive idea came into his head.

The more I talked to Frank, the more I realized I was Frank.  Or, more accurately, there was a tiny suppressed part of me that was that always will be Frank.  Living among the liberals who’ve become my tribe, I had to set some parts of myself aside.  I was never conservative, but I am naturally annoyed and impatient with people who are especially sensitive. There is part of me that thinks people who cry at movies are weak, that caring what other’s think of you is cowardice, and that striving for human connection is desperate.  There is part of me that just wants to drink and fuck and fight.  This part lives for terrible AT&T customer service so I can righteously cuss them out. It yearns for confrontation, so I can prove to myself that I’m still a badass and that city living hasn’t made me soft.  Somewhere, deep in the belly of my brain, I have an inner Shit Kicking Redneck, and he sounds exactly like Frank.

Not everyone from my hometown is a shit kicking redneck.  Frank stands in stark contrast to another dude from my hometown, named Tim. Tim, ironically enough (or at least what would pass for irony in an Alanis Morrisette song), was the guy I had a crush on before Frank.  He was also a redneck, though not of the shit kicking variety.  He wore the hat, he drove the truck, he had the bootstrapping, beer-drinking red-blooded American values.  He liked dogs and guns and men who are men.  Unlike Frank though, Tim is a fucking idiot. He always had been on the slower side, and when Tim got back in touch with me (also via Facebook) in the summer of 2013, I found out he still was.

Tim was a passionate dude.  He had a temper that was more like mine than Frank’s, as in that it was there, but he was never actually violent.  I remember in 10th grade, Tim was telling a group of us about a fight he’d had with his girlfriend, so he went for a long drive. He was so angry, he was physically overheating, and started stripping off his clothes. Eventually, he was hauling ass down the highway naked and, embarrassingly enough, got pulled over by a highway patrol.  As he spoke, I’d been sitting there nodding along with the story.  After a few minutes, I realized I was the only one nodding.  Apparently, everyone else thought it was weird to get hot from anger. My hometown being the casually racist cesspool it is, one person even suggested that it was because of Tim’s Native American ancestry (and yes, some people in my hometown are both cowboys and Indians).  I believe the quote was specifically, “maybe it’s because of your redskin.  Maybe that’s what hot when you’re mad.”  Poor Tim was dumb enough to believe that his skin might actually be different than theirs, until my lily-white ass jumped in and told them if they’d never gotten so angry they were physically hot, they were the weirdos.  “That shit happens to me all the time,” I said.  

After that, whenever Tim and I were having a bad day, we’d wordlessly hop in his car, and take the backroads to the coast.  He’d blast terrible music and drive way too fast. We never spoke.  We were just angry together.  My ability to relate to Tim was basically limited to the way he felt rage.  I was never as successful as Frank at building a wall between myself and my feelings and sometimes it felt like it would all just boil over, but I was a lot better than Tim at not letting same said feeling lead to horrifically poor life choices.

You see, his girlfriend at the time was my friend Katherine.  You may remember her from a previous post as my first sapphic experience.  In spite of what that story implies, Katherine was not a particularly sexually adventurous person.  She was like many teenaged girls, in that sex fascinated her, but also made her very nervous.  The only person she’d done it with before our little tryst had been Tim.  The reason they had been fighting that day was he was anxious to lose his virginity, and she was not. That’s right folks.  This charmer was so violently pissed because his 15 year old girlfriend didn’t want to put out.  She eventually caved, and it was unsurprisingly terrible. He lasted all of 30 seconds and was so embarrassed by his performance, he refused to speak to her again.  

Tim’s ability to handle his dating life didn’t seem to improve with age.  In the first 2 months we’d been back in touch, he’d gone through 4 traumatic breakups.  There was a definite pattern.  Each new girl would help him work through the previous bad breakup.  He would fall hard for her, and they’d start dating.  He would declare her the love of his life, say she was the best woman in the world and he would die for her.  A week or two later, she would inevitably “betray” him in some way he’d be “too much of a gentleman” to reveal. The next week, the whole damn cycle would repeat.  He’d message me about some of this, and part of me would pity him.  My inner Shit Kicking Redneck found it hilarious.    

Then Tim asked me to visit for his birthday.  At first, I said I could probably make it.  I hadn’t been to my shitty hometown in years.  It was too small to host high school reunions, and 11 years after graduation, I was sorta curious how folks were doing.  However, as soon as I’d said yes (not even yes, I said probably), Tim started going on about how I was so supportive and how I was a really good woman and how any man who didn’t want me was a fool.  It became clear that he was trying hard to cast me in the role of his Next Big Love and I wasn’t having it. I never want to be anyone’s soulmate du jour.  No one does, but unlike the teenaged redneck girls he and Frank were both so fond of, I’m not a fucking moron.  I made an excuse and told him I wasn’t going to be able to make it after all.  He seemed bummed, but had a new love by the end of the week anyway.  He stopped messaging me after that and I merely followed his dramatic escapades via social media.  

It turns out Frank had gone out of his way to make it to Tim’s party that year, even though he fucking hates people and prefers to drink alone.  I hadn’t mentioned to him that I might be there but Tim had., and of course Tim neglected to mention that I’d cancelled.  Whe he talked to me afterwards, Frank didn’t seem bummed.  “Bummed” would imply that he actually gave a shit.  He seemed pissed.  At first I thought he was just giving me shit the way he always did, calling me a flaky liberal, stuff like that.  But he was way more of an asshole than usually for a solid week afterward.  Eventually I realized, Tim wasn’t the only one hoping to parlay my visit into a bit more than a chance to catch up. Finally, I realized it was time for me to stop playing at Shit Kicking Redneck and be the bigger person.

ME: Seen Tim since the party?  
FRANK: Nah.  He’s got some new lady friend and is sure she’s the one!
ME: I know!  So dumb!  I’m really glad I didn’t go up for his birthday.  Not sure if I told you, but I’m pretty sure he was coming on to me.  That’s why I bailed.
FRANK: Really?  Wow!  Tim was really punching above his weight there, on that one!
ME: Yeah… dodged that shit.  It… would have been good to see you, though.  Catch up, shoot the shit, drink too much.  Would have been fun.  
FRANK: Yeah.  Could’ve been.  Don’t suppose you’ve got any other plans to come up here?  
ME: Not so much.  I don’t have a car. I might have been able to con a friend into giving me a lift to a party where there’d be girls and weed, but not so much for just a random Tuesday.  
FRANK:  I have a car.
ME: Yes, I know that Frank.
FRANK:  You know I hate the city, but I suppose I could come down sometime.  Might be worth it.  Besides, sometimes I wonder what your liberal city friend’s would make of me. Maybe the next time you have one of your fancy dinner parties, all crash it.  Pull up blasting country music in my gas-guzzler and drink some pussies under the table.  Could be fun.  You think?  
ME: I… think I’d get a kick out of that.  

I still had trouble separating out what parts of Frank were actually a voice inside my head, and what parts were the blue-eyed boy with charming dimples and serious anger issues. Which one scared me more?  Which one was I developing a weird pseudo attraction to? Which one would be weirder to bang?  I wasn’t sure I really wanted to see him in person, but I wanted things to go back to normal between us.  I could always be a flaky liberal and change my mind later.  Frank wasn’t someone whose feelings I was afraid of hurting. Maybe that’s what appealed to me.    

 

                                             

Bob, The Forgotten

I mentioned in my previous post that, rereading this blog, I realize there are several stories I’d forgotten to share, and some characters were temporarily overlooked.  Bob is someone I should have mentioned earlier.  I first met him around the same time I met Angel, but like a lot of mediocre Okcupid dates, he didn’t initially make the cut to appear in this blog. However, because I’d decided to treat dating as a science project, systematically eliminating potential mates rather than letting my instincts dictate, I agreed to go out with him a second time.  A second date passed without incident, and then a third.  I should have probably found a way to work him into my blog at that point, but I had no idea what the fuck to say about Bob.  His normality perplexed me.

Bob was a human resources manager for company that makes dialysis machines. Bob wore a suit and tie every time I saw him.  Bob was 36 years old, took a 2 week vacation every year, and saved money towards his retirement.   Bob’s dad had been a county sheriff who was killed in the line of duty when Bob was only 16. Bob was completely unlike anyone I’d ever been friends with, which made it difficult for me to form an opinion of him.

I couldn’t exactly say he was boring (although asking him what exactly his work entailed had definitely been a mistake).  While he wasn’t the most exciting person I’d ever gone out with, he was fairly interesting, could hold up his end of a conversation, and had excellent tastes.  He always took me to really cool restaurants – and I don’t mean the kind of places boring people think are cool (well regarded, safe, overpriced) – but genuinely awesome hole-in-the-walls, interesting ethnic food, with amazing beer lists – places I later showed off to my chef friends and got major cool points.  Bob and I had similar tastes in music and talked about going to a show together.  He wasn’t at all pushy.  He didn’t seem to mind if I took a couple of days to text him back.  In fact, we’d usually go several weeks without either of us texting the other. He was also aware I was seeing other people and didn’t seem to care, though it wasn’t something we had really discussed.  It wasn’t like Angel, who knew all my other partners by name, or Mike, who would listen to me vent about them. It was just came up as part of small talk that we were both going out on other dates.

He was extremely upfront about what he was looking for.  While it wasn’t what I wanted long term, it sounded almost too good to be true something short term. Bob wanted someone to take to cool restaurants, events, art galleries, even vacations. He made a more-than-decent living, could afford to cover someone else, and really wanted some occasional companionship.  He didn’t want to get married, he didn’t want kids, and he didn’t want someone who was going to pester him everyday.  He wanted someone to have fun with who wasn’t going to be too demanding.  While I’m a bit uncomfortable letting a date pay for things, there is a certain income bracket where I simply cannot justify arguing about it; Bob was in that bracket.  While I knew I wanted kids on the sooner side of sooner-or-later, an undemanding dude who liked good food, good beer and good music sounded pretty awesome in the meantime.  Also, dating a responsible, sane adult who never wanted kids seemed a lot more practical than dating an anxious, unemployed artist who lived in his mother’s basement who also never wanted kids (which, might I add, was my most healthy relationship at that point).  On paper, Bob looked great.

There was only one probably; my instincts.  I could be sitting at a table with him, laughing, sipping a really nice smoked porter, eating the best sliders in town, hearing about his upcoming travel plans, and still be kinda bored.  I was checked out with him, and I couldn’t figure out why.  My leading theories were that 1) I didn’t find him especially physically attractive 2) he wasn’t particularly funny 3) while he was smart enough, he wasn’t as deep or analytical as most of my other friends and lovers. However, when I eventually met Mike, all of these theories were blown out of the water.  Bob was definitely better looking than Mike.  He was a few pounds over weight, but so was Mike – even after losing 150 lb. Bob had very nice dark brown hair, hazel eyes and a friendly, if slightly pumpkin-shaped face.  Basically, his looks weren’t exactly something you’d brag about to your girlfriends, but they weren’t embarrassing either.  He was very normal looking.  As far as personality goes, I wouldn’t say that Mike was any funnier, and Bob was arguably smarter.  Also, Bob and I had more common interests.  I couldn’t think of any logical reasons why I’d be more interested in Mike than Bob, but the truth was, if it weren’t for my little experiment, I’d never have even replied to his message, let alone gone on several dates with him.

The 4th of said dates was the night before my last trip to see Piz.  I’d managed to get through 3 dates without any physical contact.  No awkward bro hugs, no unwanted arm-over-the-shoulder moves, and he hadn’t yet tried to kiss me.  However, when he drove me home after date number 4, I knew I had to make a decision.  He wasn’t expecting sex – I’d already laid in some major groundwork about having to get up early to go to LA – but if I just bolted the second he stopped the car the way I had previously, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to see me again.  If I lingered, I knew he’d try to kiss me.

ME: That was fun.  Thanks!
BOB: Yeah, I had a really good time.  When do you get back from LA again?
ME: Not for at least a week.  I’ll text ya.
BOB: No problem.  I’ll be here!

He unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned across and kissed me.  It was actually surprisingly nice. Turns out, he was a good kisser.  I was unexpectedly turned on, and when he asked, “are you sure you have to call it an early night?”  I briefly considered inviting him in.  I didn’t, but I thought about it.

Then LA happened.  Piz dumped me for a porn star, I started banging Mike, was seeing more of Angel, and I just didn’t have the spoons left to deal with Bob.  I’d been back from LA for almost a month before I saw him again.  I’d put him off a few times, because I was pretty sure after the make-out session in his car, that I was going to have to decide whether to sleep with him, or cut him loose.  The few times I felt ready to deal with that decision, he’d been busy. Then, after a week or two without texting, right around the time I’d pretty much forgotten his existence, he asked if I wanted to try out this new Korean restaurant that was known for its extensive whiskey selection.  I was very excited about the restaurant, and not averse to seeing Bob.

Our 5th date went very well.  The restaurant was amazing. We had 5 courses, each with a different whiskey pairing, and the conversation flowed freely.  We left the restaurant laughing, and he asked if I wanted to take a walk by the river.  I loved walking by the river. It was lined with old fashioned lanterns that twinkled, plus people would always walk their dogs down there.  It was beautiful.  We saw the sun set, and the twinkle lights came on.  Maybe it was all the whiskey pairings but Bob actually opened up a little bit about his supposed “hero-cop” dad.  Apparently, he had reasons to doubt the official story, and actually wondered if his dad had been mixed up in something shady.  Either way, the man he’d read about in the papers wasn’t the cold, distant alcoholic he’d known and loved.  He seemed a little embarrassed having told me all this, but I was actually glad to see a more human side of him. After about an hour, he asked if I’d like a ride home, and I said yes without any trepidation.

We pulled up to my house and he kissed me again.  It was nice.  I hadn’t been hallucinating before – Bob actually was a very good kisser.  After a few minutes of making out in his car, he very tactfully asked, “Do you have to be at work early tomorrow?”  I smiled and shook my head, “No.  Not too early.  Would you like to come in?”  He grinned, kissed me again, and nodded his approval.

We stepped inside.  He was obviously a little bit afraid of my dog.  Lots of people were. He was half rottweiler, half shepherd, and 100% awesome.  He’d single pawedly thwarted half a dozen break in attempts and saved my father’s life on at least 3 separate occasions.  It was reasonable to fear him.  He took his job as guard dog very seriously, even in his old age.  Also, I still wasn’t completely sure how I felt about Bob, and refused to say, “It’s ok buddy!  Bob’s a friend” which would have transformed my guard dog into a dopey, waggling duffus – until and unless Bob stopped behaving like a friend. As it was, I simply told him to back off while I ushered Bob into my room.  He did so, reluctantly, and Bob tried not to show his fear.  Once I’d escorted Bob to safety, we kissed a bit more, then Bob loosened his tie… and removed his shirt.

I have no explanation for my reaction, but I have never been so repulsed by the sight of a man’s bare torso in my life.  There was nothing especially wrong with him.  He wasn’t hideous or anything.  Pretty normal looking, really. It did occur to me that he was the oldest person I’d been with.  He was only 7 years older than me, and I’d slept with a couple of dudes who were 9 years older, but that was many years before.  I’d only been with a couple of men over 30.  In fact, all but one of them men I’d slept with since Martin had been younger than me.  On the other hand it’s not like I’d never seen a 36 year old with his shirt off.  He was a little flabby, and certainly had the appearance of someone who worked at an office job, but I always thought that my ex boyfriend Michael was dead sexy and he was a seriously overweight, unemployed office worker.  Piz was seriously underweight, which women are generally less forgiving of and surely Mike’s loose skin (from loosing 150lbs) was more objectively off-putting than a few extra pounds.  Also, who the fuck did I think I was?  I was at least as overweight as Bob.  My god!  Is this what men think when I take my clothes off?  

Whatever the reason, I was completely physically repulsed by him.  It was worse when he took his pants off and I saw his flaccid, little penis just hanging there.  I don’t mean little, as in smaller than average for a flaccid penis and I don’t mean flaccid as in couldn’t get it up, merely that in the time it took him to untie his shoes, undo his belt, unbutton, unzip and drop trow, the erection I’d felt while we were making out had momentarily dissipated. There was nothing wrong with his penis, I just found it disgusting. I kept thinking this must be what lesbians feel like, if they tried to have straight sex. I started looking around the room for an out, as if there would be some kind of cartoon red button with big flashing letters that said, “Abort! Abort!” that would reveal a jet pack, open up my ceiling and launch him into outerspace.  I scanned my brain for any vaguely socially acceptable reason to ask him to leave, but he just kept undressing us both – all except for his socks.  Of course this repulsive man would be the kind of guy who’d leave his fucking socks on.  I had no idea what to do.  I really did not want to sleep with him, but “hey, I find your body repulsive and would like you to leave now” was very likely too much honesty.  He pulled a condom out of his jacket and opened it.  I realized I had about 30 seconds to object or Bob was going to become the 18th man I slept with.

My 30 seconds expired and he was on top of me.  I realized, likely for the first time, that I hated his smell.  It wasn’t a strong smell, but on a chemical level, this man grossed me out.  He wasn’t nearly as cumbersome as Mike, but he was a fairly tall guy, aside from the few extra lb, and I had to turn my head awkwardly to the side to avoid being crushed by his chest.  I felt repulsed, claustrophobic and borderline nauseous. Every part of my body wanted to yell at him to stop, but I felt guilty.  He hadn’t done anything wrong, and I felt obligated to go through with this.  I’d rather just fuck him and be done with it than try to explain to him why I’d suddenly changed my mind.  After what felt like an eternity, but was likely about a minute and half, I decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to speed this up by pretending to be into it. I quickened my breath, moaned convincingly, and gripped his love handles.  Mercifully, this worked and it was over quickly.

By the time he pulled the condom off, I’d thrown my shirt and underwear back on. He followed suit and got dressed as well.

BOB: Well, that was nice!
ME: Yup.
BOB: Hey, I’ve actually got an early meeting.  Do you mind if I take off?
ME: Nope!  In fact, I should probably walk my dog.
BOB: Of course! Anyway, that was fun.  I’ll see you next time!

He leaned down and kissed my cheek.  I escorted him past the dog and locked the door behind him.  Then I took a very hot shower and called my sister.  I didn’t tell her about Bob.  We talked about the weather, and work, her travel plans.  I told her how things were going with Mike and Angel, and we talked some more shit about Piz – anything but Bob. He was a forgettable man, and I hoped the terrible sex would somehow be forgettable too.

My Dating Experiment

 

So, here’s a fun fact: In the course of writing this blog, a lot of important information seems to have slipped through the cracks.  Some things didn’t get posted right away because I had no idea they’d wind up being important until later, others I just wasn’t quite ready to talk about yet.  However there is one fairly key piece of information that I wrote down in early spring of 2013 that I just somehow forgot to develop into an actual post.  I suppose, it’s better to do so now than never.  

I had a theory – online dating obviously works for some people.  My sister, former roommate, and multiple members of my improv troupe all met their spouses online. While I’m pleased that it seems to have worked out for them, I don’t see how it could possibly work for me.  I hate dating, probably a side effect of hating people, and am immediately suspicious of anyone who wants something from me.  This is not an acceptable personality type for online dating.  However, being somewhat scientifically minded, I was dissatisfied merely accepting this theory without testing.  So I decided that I’d try online dating for a year to see if it would work.  I knew that a half-hearted attempt would never actually serve to test my theory, so I read everything I could get my hands on about online dating including multiple studies, various articles, expert advice, and OkTrends. I implemented as much of what I read into my profile as I could without being dishonest.  

The most important online dating strategy that all the experts seemed to agree on was to keep an open mind.  Clearly, what I had been doing in my romantic life up to that point had not been working.  My instincts were broken.  I typically dated smart, funny, talented, underachieving, mentally unstable men.  These were not the kind of men I was likely to be able to build a life with. So, I found myself saying “maybe” to anyone who didn’t raise serious red flags.  When my instincts screamed “no” about someone, I needed to ask myself “why?”  Sometimes, I had a very good reason to listen to my instincts.  Some people are basically human dumpster fires and listening to your guy can help you avoid dealing with them.  However, sometimes, I knew my instincts said no simply because someone was notably different than anyone I’d ever been close to. In order for my dating experiment to be successful, I was going to have to learn to analyze the difference between these two gut reactions.  

I chose to apply this strategy, not just to my online dating adventures, but to every potential sexual or romantic encounter I had in 2013.  In fact, I briefly considered titling this blog “My Year of Saying Maybe” but thought it was too ambiguous.  How I could have made it this far into this blog without mentioning my little experiment is beyond me, since it informed nearly every decision I made that year.  There is no way I would have reconsidered Piz after rejecting him for years, or gone on a date with a polyamorous married lady, or had threesome with a dude who looks like Mr. Clean unless I was being uncharacteristically open minded.  While my little dating experiment might have influenced these decisions, we are now moving into territory where my behavior makes no sense without my experiment in mind.  

 

Fucking Mr. Clean

After a very short jaunt to LA, Jason came home and hosted his second BBQ of the week.  This one was a thin pretext to get me and his friend, Mike in the same room.  Jason, Mike and I’d a threesome a while back, and both Mike and I had expressed some interested in hooking up again, “if things came together that way.”  Whatever the reason for the BBQ, it was one of the most heavily attended of the summer (probably because most of Jason’s get togethers were on weekdays).  Jessy and Matt were there as usual (and Matt was being a dick, as usual) but there were people in the room that I hadn’t seen since grad school.  It was so packed, I barely got to spend any time with either Jason or Mike.  

Mike had come up to me a few times and tried to work his way into the conversation.  I enjoyed his contributions, and appreciated his ability to be attentive without being clingy, but I was surrounded by so many awesome people I rarely get to see. I wanted to talk to everybody, but I’m also an introvert and wasn’t prepared for the crowd.  I’d been looking forward seeing the same 4-6 familiar faces and I was hitting social burnout pretty fast.  As much as I enjoyed Jason’s friends, part of me resented them for stealing my focus away from the purpose of the BBQ – getting laid.  

A couple of us were regaling Jessy with some tale of daring do from yesteryear, when Mike approached sheepishly.     

MIKE: Hey, it’s getting kinda late.  I need to take off, but I’ll see you later, ok?  
ME: What?!?

I didn’t have it in me to play it cool.  I was disappointed.  I was reminded of my birthday, when I’d invited a dude named Sy back to my place out of desperation – he’d agreed and then bounced out suddenly – but Sy was kind of an asshole and Mike didn’t seem to be.  I wondered if something had come up, or he felt like I was ignoring him or what.  My mind was racing.  Jason had over heard, and dropped his conversation to come over as well.  

JASON: You can’t be taking off so early!
MIKE: Yeah.  Sorry man.  I have a long night ahead.  
JASON: Can’t you just put it off til morning? 
MIKE: Honestly, I’ve got so much shit I want to get done, I will still probably have to do some of it in the morning, as is.  
JASON: Anything I can help with?  So you can stay later?
MIKE: Not this time, buddy.
ME: Uh… well… ok.  Well, I’m sorry.  I didn’t realize you had to go so early.  I meant to… I don’t know… I feel like I didn’t really get a chance to…
MIKE: Hey, listen.  No worries.  I’ll see you soon.  

He winked, and picked me up off the ground to hug me.  I giggled like a little girl.  I had no idea what his deal was but it didn’t seem like he was mad at me, so there was no point in taking it personally.  Still, I was bummed and asked Jason for a ride to the train station a few minutes after he left.   

JASON: Really?  I assumed you were staying.  
ME: I… I could stay, I guess.  I’m just kinda burned out.  It’s a little hectic in here.  
JASON: We’d have to leave like right now.  The last train is in 15 minutes.
ME: Oh shit!  I didn’t know it was that late. 
JASON: That’s why I assumed you were staying.  
ME: Yeah, I didn’t know what I was doing exactly… but I thought I had it covered.  I guess I can just stay here, though.  
JASON: No, if you want to go, I’ll have Jessy drop you.  She won’t mind.  

I hugged Jason goodbye, said my farewells to my favorite people, and ran out the door.  Jessy got me to the station 6 minutes before the last train.  The temperature had dropped a bit, and I was dressed for showing off my assets, not for waiting for a late night train.  I was resentful of all this shit.  I just wanted to get laid.  

Ok… I’m not being 100% honest here.  There were probably 4 people at that party I could have gone home with (though Jason was clearly with Jessy for the evening, so he wasn’t even included in the count).  I didn’t just want to get laid; I wanted Mike. He’d been surprisingly good in bed and our last couple of encounters left me wanting more.  I felt like I’d had enough sexual disappointment for one year, and we just clicked (physically, anyway).  I felt like an asshole.  He didn’t owe me anything.  I didn’t know what the hell was going on in his life.  I had no reason to be so put out, but I was.  Then I got his text.  

MIKE: Hey this is Mike. I hope it wasn’t out of line but I got your number for Jason  
ME: No, not at all. Glad you did!
MIKE: You still at the party?
ME: No I’m heading home now.  
MIKE: Oh. Do you want me to pick you up at the train station?  I can give you a ride home if you want.  I only brought my bike but I snagged my extra helmet from Jason’s. ME: Oh, that sounds really fun actually!  But I’m already on the train.  Didn’t you have things you needed to do?
MIKE: Honestly I just wanted to leave alone.  I’m sure you’ve noticed but my roommate is kind of a dick.  I just wasn’t up for his shit, you know?  That’s why I brought the bike. So he wouldn’t expect to carpool.
ME: So… you’re not busy.  
MIKE: No.  Honestly I was just hoping to get some 1 on 1 time with you tonight.  Any chance we can make that happen?  
ME: Sounds good to me!  Want to come up to my place?    
MIKE: Need me to pick up anything from the store?  
ME: A beer might be nice.
MIKE: My kind of lady!  

I didn’t like having strange men in my house and usually only invited them over after I get to know them.  Basically, if I introduce you to my dog, it’s kind of a big deal.  I was in no position to be looking for a real relationship, but so far, Mike had awesome fuckbuddy potential.  

Mike picked me up from the train station near my house.  It was only a 10 minute walk, but it wasn’t the best of neighborhoods.  Plus, I’ll take pretty much any excuse to hop on the back of a bike.  Matt had tried to teach Jason to ride a few years before, and I was little disappointed Jason didn’t stick with it.  Oh well!  I didn’t really need another thing to find sexy about Jason anyway.  Mike, on the other hand, seemed to be full of pleasant surprises. After a short, exhilarating ride home – bracing against Mike’s warm body from the cold night – we arrived at my house.  I was so relieved that I’d cleaned the shit out of the place before I’d left for Jason’s, just in case.  He held my hand as we approached the house, and kissed me on my front stoop.  He was adorable with my dog, which is basically a requirement if you want to be invited back.  We stepped into my room, and he looked around – eyes darting between the bed, computer chair, and the couch – trying to decide where to sit.  I kissed him, and pushed him towards the bed.  He sat there grinning up at me.  Well… I say up, but him sitting and me standing put his eye level pretty close to mine.  I could feel myself grinning too.  

We cracked open the beers and lounged on the bed.  It was clear that this wasn’t 100% just about sex.  We weren’t ripping each other’s clothes off.  We were laughing and talking and kissing and touching.  There was a greater level of intimacy here that I’m used to with people I’d only fucked once before.  It was nice.  I liked it.  It made me a little nervous, but I was enjoying it.  We were even able to talk about other people we were involved with.  I didn’t realize how polyamory had sort of snuck up on me.  It had gone from being a dirty word to the standard operating procedure over the course of a year and I didn’t realize how much anxiety I had over explaining my situation to new partners.  I’d been with too many jealous men in my time.  I wasn’t surprised, given that I’d met Mike the same night Piz had dumped me for a porn star, and we’d ended up having a threesome with Jason.  It might be a little hypocritical to suddenly be jealous after knowingly walking into that mess.  However, even with that as a starting place, he was more chill than I expected.  He didn’t flinch when it became clear that I wasn’t exactly over Piz (no one repeats the line HE DUMPED ME FOR A PORN STAR as often as I have, unless you’re still a bit bitter about the situation).  I tried not to run on and on about Jason, especially since Mike was his friend and this had major potential to get weird, but when we did talk about Jason, it was pretty entertaining.  Most of my friends only knew Jason from my perspective.  Hearing someone else share stories about him was a nice change of pace.

I wasn’t the only one who had other lovers to talk about.  Turns out, Mike was in love with a 19 year old German exchange student.  I flinched when I heard her age, but I definitely dated 25-year-olds when I was 19.  It was just weird that the other girl he was involved with was a full decade younger than me.  Her behavior, in addition to numerical age, sounded kind of dumb and immature.  She’d thrown some kind of hysterical fit, sobbing and saying she couldn’t see him anymore, because she was going back to Germany soon and it would hurt too much if they continued hooking up. I wanted to tell her to take it from someone older and wiser, it was going to hurt no matter what so might as well enjoy it while you could, but I was in no position to offer anyone advice.  

It was clear that Mike really needed someone to talk to about all this stuff.  His dude friends (including Jason) were kind of macho dicks about the whole situation.  I realized, not for the first time, that I felt a bit like a sex therapist.  The kind I’d once seen on some tawdry exposé about on late night television.  The kind that acts as a sexual surrogate and actually bangs her clients, after talking them through their various intimacy problems.  The difference (aside from not being paid, obviously) was that this wasn’t one sided.  Mike was a good listener and, while I had other outlets for discussing Piz & Jason, it was nice to be honest with a partner.  I’d never been one to shy away from emotional labor and it was really refreshing to have this kind of intimacy with someone new.    

Also, I was aware that by many standards, I was moderately promiscuous.  I had been involved with Piz until quite recently, was still involved with both Jason and Angel, and was actively going on dates with people I met online.  Social norms regarding female sexuality told me this was bad and I should feel bad – fortunately, I don’t really give a shit about social norms.  However, there are plenty of them governing male sexuality as well, and sometimes less experienced men (and Mike was definitely less experienced. If memory serves, I believe I was his 7th partner) can feel inadequate when we compare notes.  Hearing that he was involved with other people made me feel more at ease.  It wasn’t just the German girl, either; he’d also been hooking up with his roommate’s sister for a while, but, sadly, they hadn’t been sexually compatible.

MIKE: As soon as she said she was uncomfortable being on top, I was like “That’s it, I’m out.”

The statement was a little off putting.  Being on top isn’t always comfortable for me, either.  Men can be such visual creatures.  I find that when I’m on top, I feel like I’m giving a performance, which can be a bit distracting from my own pleasure – not always, and not with all men – but sometimes, it makes me self conscious.  I also hated the idea that she was being penalized for being honest about what she wanted. However, after a few seconds of consideration, I realized that, given Mike’s experience level and more traditional personality, he might only be considering positions in which either she was on top, or he was.  

I tried to picture Mike on top of me, and shuddered.  

I really enjoyed sex with Mike.  I had invited him into my home, and was very happily curled up in his arms, touching him, kissing him.  The more he talked, the more I realized regarded him as a friend, and not just a fuckbuddy.  I was starting to actually give a shit. So please know I don’t mean this unkindly, but Mike looks rather terrifying.  Basically picture 25-year-old Mr. Clean.  He was enormous, extremely muscular, with a shaved head.  He even had the damned earring.  If you were only judging based on appearances, he had a vaguely neo-nazi vibe.  In fact, he’d once hooked up with a black girl who’d been so put off by the shaved head, she made him buy a trucker’s hat from the gas station and wear it while they had sex.  There was also the fact that he’d weighed 150 lb more the year before.  Some of his skin was… well… kinda lose.  This probably sounds worse than it was, but I could see how he had more reason to be self conscious while hanging over someone than I did.  It was barely noticeable from most angles and certainly didn’t detract from my enjoyment of him, but it was something I was aware of.  For me, the skin thing wasn’t a big deal but the fact that he was a giant, sweaty guy was enough for me to think I’d be claustrophobic underneath him and was glad that wasn’t something he was into.  I was perfectly happy to climb on top of him and let him bounce me up and down like I was on a dirty seesaw.

Speaking of which, we did eventually get down to the dirty stuff that night… and as he’d suggested to Jason, the next morning, too.  It was a lot of fun.  We were able to laugh at ourselves and had an easier time communicating our desires than I ever had with Jason.  It was just simple, uncomplicated, enjoyable sex.  As much as I hate to admit it, the fact that he was a big dude probably added to the experience.  I mean both that he was strong and athletic, and generously endowed.

As surprised as I was by the quality of the sex, I was even my surprised by how much I liked talking to him.  While we’re being honest, he wasn’t as smart or witty as most of my friends.  He hadn’t gone to college.  There were times I had to dumb down my vocabulary for him.  But he was warm, kind and very easy going.  I could get used to someone like this, I thought.  

I had no idea how right I was, though that is definitely another story.  

A New New Year

It’s New Years Eve again.  Traditionally, what this means on this blog is that it’s time for to reflect on the now.  Most of the events of this blog are slipping further and further into my past.  When I started, I was writing about things anywhere from 2 minutes to 6 months after they occurred and posting them soon after.  Now, most of this is 3 ½ years in my rearview.  Some things were written immediately after they happened and I’ve just recently edited them, others I’m having to pull from my unreliable, human, memory.  I used to change details to protect people’s anonymity, now I make them up to fill in narrative gaps.  While New Years certainly can be a time to reflect upon the past, it only makes sense if it establishes a clear pattern that will effect the year to come.   Boy, have we spotted some patterns on this blog. 

The last post was never intended to be presented the way it was.  It was comprised almost entirely of material I’d trimmed out of other posts – the bulk coming from tangents in the posts before and after it, which felt connected to their original stories chronologically, but thematically required their own space.  It took more than the usual finagling to make it coalesces into a single cohesive narrative (ok, cohesive might be a bit generous, but it’s too late for self deprecation to be useful). While my current thoughts and feelings heavily influenced the way I presented the material, my decision to include these stories occurred over 3 years ago, when the memories were still fresh. I have more or less been slave to the timeline in my google docs.  When I finish a post, I look to see what happened next, what notes or posts I’ve already written, and start filling in the gaps. So when there is a sudden, glaring connection between a post about events from 3 ½ years ago, and my current life, it feels significant.  

I finished writing the previous post on December 23rd.  About 10 seconds after I wrote the final paragraph, I got a message from Jason.  He’d had a rough day.  It will likely not surprise you that polyamory is still very central to his identity.  He also still tends to date women who are less comfortable with this arrangement than he is. Issues of jealousy (amongst other things) had been tearing apart his primary relationship for some time. He’d messaged me to say that he had finally, officially ended things with her, and that it had gone very badly.  Also, he’d be driving home from LA for Christmas, and he didn’t want to be alone.  

JASON: Can I call you?  

Calling me wouldn’t be as simple as it was in the old days.  You see, Jason and I no longer live on the same continent (spoilers).  A Facebook call or Skype requires a better signal than a simple phone call, and the audio quality is generally shit, but that’s what we have to work with.  The signal broke apart in a few places, and it was hard to prep Christmas dinner (on a my unfamiliar wood stove, no less) while holding Jason with one hand, but the call was needed (for both of us).  

In times of uncharacteristic vulnerability, Jason and I have learned to be more honest and gentle with each other. It was nice to hear a loving voice from home on Christmas, even if he was struggling emotionally.  He talked about his breakup, of course.  We talked about family, holidays, and I filled him in on what I’d been doing for the past couple weeks.  It was snowing in both of our corners of the globe.  Yes, snowing – just outside of LA.  He pulled over to wonder at the beauty. I stepped outside, too.

JASON: It’s so fucking pretty.  I wish you were here, Jo.
ME: I am, Jason.  I’m standing outside in the snow.  It’s cold. And beautiful.  And we’re both here, as much as we can be.

We made some small talk – Star Wars, Doctor Who – but even the small talk was designed to reaffirm our connection to each other.  

JASON: So you’re all caught up with Doctor Who?
ME: Yup!  
JASON: Tell me the truth, when you got to that one line, did you think of me?  
ME: Of course!  Of course, Jason.  I didn’t want to inflate your ego by sending you a message, but how could I not?  

The line in question was, “Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”  Jason and I have been through so much together.  We have inspired each others’ best and worst selves.  I threw scissors at him, for fucks sake.  He’d scared me more than anyone ever had, before or since, but that’s another story.  So many betrayals, none of which ultimately matter.  That line would have likely reminded me of Jason no matter what, but recent events made it scream in my head.  

As per usual, I’d become more involved in Jason’s relationship than I should have been and his now ex-girlfriend had correctly assessed that my opinion matters more to him than hers ever could.  She is desperate and hurt and lashing out at him, and using me to do it. She’d twisted things that I said beyond recognition.  I’d teased him for having a White Knight complex, and she’d used it as evidence that I thought he was abusive, saying, “even your best friend hates you, deep down.”

She also told him that I’d complained about his penis size.  It’s true that Jason isn’t quite as well endowed as one might expect, given the size of his ego.  It’s also true that I’d used this to tear him down in the past – most notably, informing Martin that he was significantly bigger than Jason, which surprisingly helped him let go of his jealousy (Men can be so silly.  Martin is larger than Jason, but I hardly see why that matters since Martin had no idea how to use the damn thing.  I don’t mean this as an insult to Martin; it’s a simple statement of fact.  Martin was a virgin before me).  However, I made these disparaging comments many years before, when I was still angry and bitter. They were before Jason was diagnosed with Lymes disease, before we’d had a huge blowout fight at my dad’s restaurant, before we’d reconnected on a deep, emotional level, and long before we started fucking again. I know I’d made some crack about his dick to my friend Charlie, many years ago and she’d used it against him, publicly. Since then, I’d been far more cautious about what I said to whom. 

I know Jason’s a little sensitive about his member.  He’s a man.  They pretty much all are, in my experience.  The truth is, I don’t give a shit about his penis.  For one thing, it’s not that small – not outside of the realm of normal or anything.  Also, I enjoy sex with women.  What the fuck do I care about penis size?  It’s was just a cheap shot I made years ago, so I was 100% confident when he confronted me with this nonsense that his girlfriend was lying through her teeth.  I told him the conversation had never happened and he, of course, believed me. She seemed stunned that he’d taken my word over hers, but didn’t try to defend herself or prove me wrong.  She just cried. Jason looked relieved, but something stuck in my craw.  I know people and the look on her face told me she hadn’t been lying.  I went back through every single text message and facebook chat we’d ever exchanged and there it was. She was right.  I’d straight up made fun of his penis and I have no idea why.

This was a betrayal.  He knows I have a big fucking mouth – hell, he knows I kept a dating blog – but he trusts me not to bring up this kind of shit with his girlfriend.  Part of me wanted to let my denial stand.  He looked so hurt when he confronted me.  I knew how much this would bother him.  How could I have even said it?  I was ashamed, but if I deliberately hid this from him, everything I said from that point on would feel like a lie. I couldn’t live like that.  

I thought about the consequences and what Jason’s anger would look like.  I knew he’d never stop being my friend.  The longest I could picture him refusing to speak to me would be about a week – maybe 2.  I was going through my own shit at the time – I was a hormonal mess (but that’s another story); my thought process was self-destructive and I decided that I was going to lay awake in bed until I thought about the kind of shit I’d have to pull to make Jason really hate me.  I couldn’t think of a single thing I was actually capable of; pretty sure I’d have to murder someone he loved, for no reason, in cold blood.  Jason makes me feel so fucking insecure, and to this day I’m paralyzed by the fear that he’ll reject me.  However, deep down I know.  I can say anything to him, be completely honest, and the worst thing it will cause is increased awkwardness. Knowing this left me grateful and guilt ridden, and cried myself to sleep. 

The next morning I said the 4 words I suspect Jason dreads the most, “We need to talk.”  He looked so scared.  He started sputtering and preemptively apologizing.  I stopped him.  

ME: Last night, when I told you I’d never say that shit, I wasn’t lying.
JASON: I know.  I trust you!
ME: Stop.  I wasn’t lying, but I was wrong.  I went back and I found the conversation she was talking about.  I definitely initiated, and I definitely said some seriously inappropriate shit.  
JASON: Oh.  Ok…
ME: I’m really, really sorry.
JASON: Thank you.  Is… that it?  
ME: Yes.  
JASON: Oh thank fuck!  When you said, “we need to talk” I thought you were mad at me!  

Of course Jason would rather I betray him than be mad at him.  I’d lost a night’s sleep over this shit, and he shrugged if off like it didn’t mean a thing.  And ultimately, I suppose it didn’t.  I don’t think he even remembered this exchange when he brought up the Doctor Who quote.  He wasn’t The Doctor, I wasn’t Clara.  We were just 2 people who valued our own loyalty above other people’s behavior.  We loved each other enough that a simple, momentary betrayal can hurt, but wouldn’t matter in the long run.  What mattered was supporting each other, no matter what.    

ME: It’s like she doesn’t understand that I’m on your side.  Always.  Even if you’re wrong.  Because you’ve earned that.  You’ve earned that by being one of the best people I know.  
JASON: Thank you.  I… don’t even know what to say.  I love you, Jo.   
ME: Hey… this is probably not the best thing to bring up to you, given our recent issue of me… over disclosing stuff… but… remember that time I kept a dating blog?  

Yes, Jason knows about this blog.  I even let him pick his own pseudonym based on a television character he thinks is kinda doable (k’now, for a dude).  I needed to know before I started writing if he’d ever get curious and want to see it.  The answer was a resounding “No!”  He said, “There’s such a thing as too much honesty.  I’ve learned from my mistakes.” I don’t actually agree with him.  I think being fully open with someone is one of the things that differentiates my relationships from his, but I’ve made too many mistakes of my own to be self righteous.  Jason is very much on his own path. Right or wrong, I was relieved he didn’t want to read this.  I had too much Jason related shit to sort out to consider him amongst my audience.

JASON: Yeah… I remember!
ME: Well… I decided I wanted to finish it.  I have some old notes to get through, some posts already written and, well, since there is a very obvious stopping point… [I know… Spoilers].
JASON: Makes sense.  
ME: So I’ve been going through and rewriting old stories, and posting them.  
JASON: That sounds fun.  I bet it would make a decent movie script some day, if you ever wanted to turn it into that.  
ME: Maybe… anyway, the post I just wrote… right before you sent me a message…
JASON: Yeah?
ME: In the post, you were about to breakup with Ally.  The first time.  You didn’t know for sure yet, but things had gotten bad.  Jealousy… all that stuff.  You were driving to and from LA alone.  You called me and I kept you company.  

He laughed without bitterness.  

JASON: Really?  Wow, Jo!  I mean… I’m not sure how happy I am about the cyclical nature of my relationships, but I’m glad I still have you.  
ME: You’ll always have me.  
JASON: I know.  That makes everything else ok.  

I met Jason 10 years ago next week.  I had to work not to hate him.  He was the most annoying person I knew (ok, he still is, but who care?).  He wasn’t crazy about me either, thought I was a stuck up bitch (somethings never change).  10 years and countless adventures, both together and apart, have taken me more than 6000 miles away.  We both have other commitments and priorities.  We both have other capital B Best Friends and other lovers.  We will never have the kind of relationship people write rom coms about. But he is the only person in my life I have 100% confidence that will be here for me until one or (more likely) both of us are dead.  For better or worse, there is no betrayal so great that I could shake this guy off if I tried.  Moving into to 2017, I’m sure our relationship will change with the distance – as will virtually all of my relationships – but Jason and I are stuck with each other, no matter what.  For the 9th New Years in a row, he is my one constant.   

 

          

Broken Pieces, Hidden Needs

 

It had only been a couple of days since Jason’s last BBQ when he called me out of the blue.  This was unusual.  He’d gotten better about texting but usually only called when he was alone on a long drive, but I knew he wasn’t supposed to be headed to LA yet. Jason hated needing anything from anybody, but he’d come to rely on me to help him keep track of his schedule.  I knew damn well that he had an SAT class in the morning and was shooting a T Mobile ad in the evening. It wasn’t til after his shoot that he could drive to LA, shoot another ad (this one a PSA for safer sex), turn around, drive back home, and prep for a BBQ. Basically Jason was nuts.  To make matters worse, the BBQ wasn’t even for him.  It was basically a flimsy pretext to get me and Mike in a room together. Maybe he was calling to cancel it?

ME: Hey you.  Between gigs?
JASON: Yep.  Driving to the T Mobile shoot now.   
ME: You’re a crazy man, Jason.  Speaking of which, you sure about this BBQ on Saturday?
JASON: Oh yeah!  I’m not backing out!  We’re doing this!  Not looking forward to driving back and forth to LA by myself though.  
ME: So if the BBQ is still on and you haven’t forgotten where you need to be…   
JASON: Just having kind of a shit day and wanted to talk.
ME: Schedule gettin’ to ya?
JASON: Yeah.  That and… well, Ally.  

Ally was Jason’s girlfriend – his primary partner.  She was sweet, but demanding and super jealous.  In other words – exactly his type.  How did someone as innately polyamorous as Jason go for these very traditional women? At least with Ally, I didn’t have to worry about her breaking his heart.

While on the surface Jason and I are very different, we have some surprisingly similar coping mechanisms.  We both need to feel in control, but utterly lose ourselves in relationships. We were both trying to avoid our more destructive habits.  I was determined to stay single until I felt healthy enough to have the kind of relationship I’d always wanted.  Jason had gone a different route.  He loved Ally, but not nearly as much as she loved him.  He needed it to be that way. He’d finally built some walls around himself and wasn’t the raw nerve he’d been when we met.  Seeing him – this strong, handsome, socially confident guy – just completely throw himself of of a cliff, heart first, every time, was worrying as a friend… but if I’m being completely honest, it was watching this uncharacteristic vulnerability that made me fall fall for him in the first place, all those years ago.  I was both relieved that he wasn’t doing that with Ally, and a little bit sad to see his passions so tempered. 

ME: Ally?
JASON: She’s… dating other people.
ME: Jason Fucking Weizman, are you jealous?
JASON: Maybe a little.  It’s just… creates issues we haven’t dealt with before.
ME: How many chicks are you banging?
JASON: Only 2, regularly.  I mean other than Ally.
ME: You can’t be a hypocrite about this!
JASON: Look, I’m allowed to be jealous, ok!  I’m just not allowed to make that jealousy her problem.  But it’s not just jealousy.  It’s not!
ME: I didn’t say anything!  
JASON: You didn’t have to.  You think very loudly.
ME: It saves time.
JASON: Ally is not a good judge of character. I know, obviously not because she’s dating me, hahahahaha – stop thinking at me, damn you!  But I’m seriously the only half decent guy she’s ever been with.  And… I worry about her.  

There was a long pause.  

ME: You’re more than half decent, you know.  
JASON: Jesus fuck, Jo!  I had a rough day, but I’m not like… dying. 
ME: I like being nice every once in awhile.  Keeps ya on your toes!
JASON: Are you free tonight?
ME: Yes… but you’re not.  
JASON: Fuck it.  I can drive to LA at the buttcrack of dawn.  Until then I need some human fucking contact.  And a lot of fucking sleep.  Didn’t get any last night. 
ME: Ha!  So what was her name?
JASON: Emergency Room.
ME: WHAT?!?
JASON: I had another migraine.    

I once watched Jason drive a nail through his thumb by mistake.  His only response was, “Oops!”  In other words, Jason has an insane pain tolerance.  I cringe to think of the headache that would send him to ER.  The last time he’d gone in for one, he’d walked out with a diagnosis of Lymes Disease and Viral Meningitis, both of which had serious long term consequences for  his health, and his personality.  He joked that it had taken the H out of his ADHD.  

After that earlier trip to the ER, he’d basically hibernated for 3 months.  The first time we hung out afterward was rough.  The drive to my house exhausted him so much that we ditcher our plans, stayed in and watched a movie.  He plopped his head on my shoulder and stayed there, frighteningly still, aside from some pretty intense tourettes-related twitching.  I was really conflicted about the physical contact.  On the one hand, I’d always fantasized about just curling up with Jason and watching TV together.  We’d done it a couple of times, but at the time, I’d really wanted more than cuddling. Unfortunately, he’d been in a monogamous relationship and the guilt was oppressive. When Jason was recovering from Lymes, things felt 100% platonic between us, but Martin was still insanely jealous of him. He’d once gotten bent out of shape over a particularly long hug, even though Jason’s friend had just killed himself.  I didn’t want to upset Martin, but comforting my friend was non-negotiable.

3 years had passed and Jason had never really gone back to “his old self,” whatever that meant. I’d seen so many iterations of this boy.  I’d met him as the awkward, chubby, theatre geek with major body image issues. Then I saw the hopeless romantic that fought for love, even when it was hopeless. Then I met the emo, alcoholic sex fiend who hopped in bed with someone else before my sheets were even dry  (side note: it was 2 days later that I chucked a pair of scissors in his generally direction after he walked in late to improv rehearsal). Through all these different eras, Jason was also played the effervescent, charismatic, blue eyed, blonde haired, smiling piece of man meat.  And the nerdy kid who loved Shakespeare and crossword puzzles.  And the hard-partying 20-something that liked cheap beer, expensive whiskey, threesomes, and bragging about how many times he could make a girl cum.  He was also the social manipulator that saw two people he thought would like each other and was willing to spend 12 hours driving – right after getting out of the ER – in order to provide a pretext for them to hang out.  

Of all the faces Jason wore, the one he hid best was that of perpetual exhaustion. He was over-worked, underpaid and more than a little bit lonely.  Jason’s extreme compartmentalization made it intentionally hard to see him as a whole person.  He was adept at hiding his needs, like a sick dog.  One of the few needs he admitted I filled for him was that I saw (and loved) all of him, broken parts and all. I’d seen just about every weakness he had, and still saw him as the strongest people I knew.  But that didn’t prevent me from worrying about him.    

One of the things that really surprises me when I read back through this blog, is how much of the word count was spent worrying about Jason’s health.  I thought it would be strange to read through old insecurities, failed love affairs, and having to confront exactly how much brain space Jason took (spoiler alert, still takes).  But the truth is I’ve come to terms with all of that.  I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me.  Jason’s health problems are legitimate, while my insecurities mostly were not  Any time anything important happened to either of us, Jason was right there by my side.  He’d just gotten me through some heavy shit, and I didn’t know it yet, but his rough day was the start of a rough month.  What I did know is that he’d called me – not Ally, not his old friend Matt – me.  The person in his life most likely to see the whole, complex, messy contradictory Jason.      

We had another shared coping mechanism that drew us together when shit hit the fan. We both spend most of our lives taking care of other people, and really chaff when someone tries to help us.  We’re both proud of this, and it’s taken years to see just how broken this piece is for both of us.  I asked more of Jason than anyone else in my life, which is a big part of why I’m so insecure with him.  That said, I ask less of him than just about anyone else in his life, which is a source of insecurity for him.  He needs to be needed. Looking back, I’m pretty sure the reason Jason and I never had a capital R Relationship is because we both needed the other person to be more needy than we felt.  We liked that we could turn to each other for intimacy without the weight of someone else’s demands, but ultimately that made us both feel deeply insecure.  I never wanted Jason to feel so down, but some broken part of me relished the rare chance to play White Knight for a while.    

I dropped what I was doing and headed to his house.  He talked more about his relationship with Ally.  I just listened and nodded, trying not to add commentary.  We cuddled and watched TV.  We cooked together.  He asked me to go to LA with him the next morning.  I wanted to so badly.  I wanted the time and the intimacy and to continue feeling needed.  However, I’d committed to helping a colleague cater a wedding.  She needed me more than Jason, and I needed the cash.  Jason didn’t want to seem too needy, so he let it go.  We cuddled more.  He passed out early with his arms wrapped around me. He was so still.  Worryingly still.  I couldn’t sleep.  

He started stirring about an hour before his alarm went off.  He kissed the back of my neck, which is about the single fastest way to turn me on.  I wasn’t sure how awake he was, or what exactly he wanted, but I couldn’t suppress a little moan.  His body reacted and he pulled me close – almost painfully close.  He moved on top of me.  It was still pitch black and I couldn’t tell if his eyes were open.  Jason has a fairly nasty case of parasomnia (he also sleep walks), and I was still trying to determine if he was awake when he reached for a condom.  That was his tell.  Sleeping Jason couldn’t think to do that.  It didn’t take long for him to gently slip his hand over my throat.  I was uncomfortable, but allowed it.  He needed me to prove my trust in him. He needed to feel special – that he was the only one I’d let get away with this.  He needed to feel in control.  He needed me.  And I needed to be needed.  He came quickly, and I was relieved.  

Afterwards, he seemed cold – possibly embarrassed.  He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and jumped in the shower.  When he came back, he was all small talk and getting ready.  There were times I wondered if he regretted having sex with me. There were times when I felt so insecure with him, that his sudden shift in behavior after sex would eat away at me.  This wasn’t one of those times.  He’d been too vulnerable for his own comfort and this was just backlash.  I recognized it, because I pulled the same shit.

Sorry Jason, I’m not having it.  Not this time.  

I grabbed his hand and stopped him from packing.  He was shocked.  I was rarely so assertive with him (throwing scissors, sure, but insisting on emotional honesty… that was different).  He needed control more than I did, and I needed to give him something he needed, so I almost always let him dictate the tone of our interactions.  It was tempting to let him protect his ego, but I felt like we both had deeper needs that day. He stopped talking and I wrapped my arms around him.  He buried his face in my neck and breathed deep.  

JASON: I love you, Jo.  

I paused, trying to remember if he’d ever been the one to say that first.  

ME: I love you too.

I could see him squirming inside.  He looked so uncomfortable.  Part of me didn’t want to let him off the hook, but he was so damned tired.  

ME: You’re about to ask me for something.  
JASON: Hahaha!  Yeah, I guess you know me well enough to see the wind up.  
ME: You give a hell of a wind up.  
JASON: Are you sure you can’t come to LA with me?  

I crinkled my brow with an involuntary look of concern.   

JASON: No, it’s fine.  Forget I asked.  
ME: Jason…

I took his face in my hands and kissed his forehead.  

ME: I want to so bad.  I love you.  I just can’t.
JASON: It’s no big deal.  I’m just kinda sleep deprived and it’s a long drive. I need some background noise, but I can find an audiobook or something.
ME: You can give me a call for the first part of the drive, if you want.  I’ll need a nap before my gig, but other than that, I’m free.  
JASON: Did you not sleep?  
ME: Not really.  
JASON: Of course not.  Can’t sleep with me around.  And can’t… never mind.  But you really can’t go?
ME: Sorry.  

He paused.  He was trying so hard to make this look like it wasn’t a wind up.

JASON: Is this because I didn’t make you cum?

He wanted it sound like a joke, but it failed.  It sounded like the single most insecure, foolish question he’d ever asked me.  I was shocked enough that my response was pithy, and unkind.

ME: Jesus, Jason.  If that were the case, I’d never go anywhere with you.
JASON: Rub it in, why don’t you!
ME: Look… you know I can’t cum without a vibrator.
JASON: Except with Michael.
ME: Michael’s a freak of nature.
JASON: It’s just… I know it’s a mostly mental thing and… I wish you were comfortable enough with me to…
ME: It’s not you.  If you ever want to try with a vibrator, I’m sure I could…
JASON: That’s cheating!
ME: Have it your way.
JASON: So you’ll come to LA?
ME: I just… I can’t.  I’m sorry.  

Earlier, when I said that the perpetually exhausted Jason was the version of himself he kept best hidden?  I was wrong.  This – the Jason who was so ashamed of his own insecurities, was threatened by a sex toy, and thinks that my ability to have an orgasm affects my willingness to make time for him – this is the most well hidden iteration of this man that I loved.  I doubt even he knows what the embodiment of toxic masculinity looks like on his face.  It was a well worn mask for him, but hardly the most flattering.  Of all his broken pieces, Intimacy Burn Out Jason is the only one I have an instinct to “fix” out of existence.  

For better or worse, Jason’s headspace was too shitty to let his discomfort dictate his behavior for very long.  He took me up on my offer to provide background noise on his roadtrip  He called me about 10 minutes after he dropped me off and I stayed on the line the whole drive.  I never did get my nap.       

 

Pack Dynamics

By midsummer Jason was having BBQ at least once a week.  He was gearing up to move to LA, a plan that had been postponed by about a year so he could take care of his dad.  I was glad his dad’s health had improved, but Jason and I were closer than we’d ever been and I hated the idea of him being gone for months at a time.  I didn’t want to think about it, but I was soaking in as much Jason time as I could.  Also, it had been a few weeks since I’d seen or spoken to Jason’s friend, Mike.  I’d never have looked twice at the hulking middle school gym teacher if Jason hadn’t literally thrown me at him, but he was kind of sweet… and shockingly good in bed.  I was interested in parlaying our unlikely one night stand into a fuck buddy situation and the last time I’d seen him, it felt mutual.  He’d missed the past couple of BBQs, so I was extra stoked when I saw Jason’s text.   

JASON: BBQ tonight.  My place.  Mike will be there
ME: I’ve got work til 8pm, but I’ll be there after.  I have catering leftovers!
JASON: Kk

I usually came in early to help Jason set up.  This positioned me in the role of co-host, which is a great way of covering my awkward.  I felt very at home in my role at these shindigs.  I hadn’t known Jason the longest – that distinction went to his high school friend, Matt – but Jason spent more time with my than anyone else.  By the time I started dating Piz, Jason had been introducing me as “one of my best friends.”  By mid summer, he’d dropped the “one of”.  This killed Matt.  Jason and Matt didn’t hang out one on one very often, in part because Matt is whiney and his life is depressing, but Matt desperately wanted to outrank me just for spite.  I thought he was a pathetic, sad-sack of a macho jackass with neolithic views of gender roles and worst of all, he was kinda dumb.  He thought I was a fat, obnoxious bitch who talked too much and had stolen his best friend. So far as I can tell, we were both right.

Jason had a lot friend.  He was a very affable fellow.  However, only a handful mattered and those ones he talked about non-stop.  Being at least one of his best friends, I knew them all by reputation, even if I hadn’t met them.  They existed as characters in my head long before they were real, breathing, laughing, fucking human beings.  I had to admit that one of the reasons I was very comfortable around Mike was that, while I’d only met him recently, I’d heard stories about him for years.  This was something Jason and I had in common; Jason had known my sister years before they met.  Jason and I are both pack animals.  We care immensely about the those closest to us, and while we might be entertained or attracted to someone outside the pack, we never really give a fuck about them.  

So I was somewhat surprised when I walked through the door and saw an unfamiliar girl in Jason’s lap.  They were laughing together, and she seemed to be the only person in the room for him.  She was rail thin, had blue hair and glasses.  She wasn’t beautiful. Hell, I think I might be more traditionally attractive than she was.  She didn’t seem to be Jason’s usual type.  But she was distinctive.  I’d definitely know if I’d seen her before, even in passing.  So who the hell was she?      

JASON: Jo!  Jo!  I’m so glad you’re here.  I want you to meet Katherine!  

Katherine… Katherine… Katherine… not ringing any bells.  

JO: Hey, good to meet you.
KATHERINE:  You too!  Jo, was it?  
MATT: What, you mean he hasn’t droned on and on about the famous Jo?
KATHERINE: Maybe?  I’m terrible with names! Besides, we haven’t had a chance to catch up for a while…
JASON: Looking forward to it!  

They giggled.  This was weird.

While Matt was the jealous type, I wasn’t.  I was more comfortable helping out in the kitchen and playing host than having Jason lavish attention on me publicly.  He was almost always focused on some girl at these parties.  I didn’t mind.  It was usually someone I knew, like Jessy, or some cute, new piece of ass he’d just met. But this girl wasn’t a new.  Half of their jokes were, “Hey remember that time…” before bursting into laughter.  They were old friends and he loved her, this was obvious.  He loved a lot of women, myself included.  This was the nature of our weird friendship.  So… I was really, really surprised by my sudden jealousy.  Had things changed that much between us?  Hadn’t I just seen him doing the same thing with Jessy the week before?  Why was this different?  

Fortunately, Jason was too focused on her to see my jealousy.  Mike, on the other hand, definitely saw me crinkle my nose when she turned away.  Unless he was completely clueless about human interactions, he would have recognized this as jealousy.  Given that I’d had a threesome with Mike and Jason the night we’d met, I was relieved that I didn’t have to guess if Mike knew I was fucking Jason.  I would never have to pretend I wasn’t attracted to Jason… but still… I wasn’t comfortable being jealous, much less letting Mike see it.  I tried really hard to busy myself and focus on tasks rather than than people.  I’m not a people person anyway.  

ME: I brought food.  Have y’all eaten already?  
MATT: Yes!  Believe it or not, we don’t all wait around for you to show up.
MIKE: I could eat again.  That shit you made last time you were here was bomb.  

It felt weirdly satisfying to have Mike jump to my defense with Matt.  Jason always had my back when it mattered, but in a room full of people, we pretty much ignored each other.  Having Jason jump to my defense would have ruined the facade I try to keep up around him.  I pretend to be more socially competent than I am and fight my instincts to be shy and stick by the side of whoever I know best.  

I’m suddenly reminded of the first time Jason and I had sex.  I couldn’t remember when I tried to blog about it years ago, but it just came back to me.  It was after a burlesque performance.  He took me to an after party. I was tired of working so hard for his attention, so I basically ignored him.  I was having fun with strangers [gasp] and didn’t really notice his gaze until I was licking whipped cream off of a performer’s cleavage.  He came up to me, grabbed me by the hand and said, “let’s get out of here.”  The sex itself still blurs together with every other time from that era (please read disappointing) but him picking me out of a crowd fulfilled several long-standing fantasies.  I think that party became a template for me.  I did my own thing and let him seek me out later if he wanted.  

Mike was very much not Jason.  His attention never left me.  Even when he was talking to someone else, if I moved to a different part of the room, his eyes would track me. He kept finding ways to insert himself into my conversations, even when the only thing he could say was, “that’s interesting.  Tell me more about that?”.  When I moved to a different part of the room, he’d follow.  And, once again, he jumped to my defense when his roommate made some jab about my cooking.  

JASON: This is good, but it’s a bit spicy for me.  If I eat any more of it, I’m going to regret it later.
MATT: Stop coddling her!  You can just say it’s too damn spicy.  
MIKE: Whatever.  You people are weak.  I’m going in for seconds.  
MATT: You think everything she shits out is golden.
MIKE: Well… so far, I haven’t found anything she isn’t kind of amazing at.  
MATT: Gag me with a fucking spoon!  

I was blushing.  This was not how people behaved in my world.  When Jason wanted to compliment me, he’d call me a cunt afterward and I’d call him a loser.  In fact, usually there was no compliment, we’d just slug each other in the shoulder.  This was how our pack showed affection.  How, exactly, had Mike survived this long with this crowd?  I couldn’t picture him calling me a cunt unless I’d lit his granny on fire.     

MIKE: Hey, I gotta take off.  I’ve got work at 6am.
JASON: Really!  But Jo just got here.  
MIKE: I know.  And I’m sorry to be leaving you so soon [looks directly at me.  Who the fuck is this guy?] but I’ve got kind of a hectic week.  Are you going to be around this weekend?

JASON:  I might have a gig in LA on Friday.  
MIKE: Lame!
JASON: It’s not a for sure thing.  And I could probably jam back here on Saturday.  
MIKE: That sounds awesome. Jo… do you want to… walk me out to my car?  

I felt Matt’s glare burning the back of my skull and tried not to be embarrassed.  I nodded and followed Mike out the door.  As soon as we were out of sight, he took my hand.  I don’t really hold hands with people outside of the bedroom.  There are exceptions, but only with people I care about.  I didn’t want him to know that this was weird for me. I needed some intimacy in my life at that time, preferably from a source other than Jason, but I didn’t want him to feel too special.  Though, it occurred to me, I had no way of knowing which stories Jason had told him about me or what character wore my name in his brain.  How well does he know me?      

About the time I started freaking out, he spun to face me.  “Well, this is my car.”  He wrapped the hand that wasn’t holding mine slowly around my waist.  I froze.  He waited.  He was asking for permission.  This guy is so different than what I’m used to. I craned my neck back so I could make eye contact.  With great intention, I transformed my smile from quizzical to an invitation.  He kissed me.  Before long, he was groping around inside my shirt and I could feel his erection digging into my rib cage (did I mention he was tall?) It was a huge (pun intended) ego boost to feel so unabashedly wanted.

ME: It sucks you have such an early morning.  
MIKE: You…  could come with me, if you wanted.  
ME: That is seriously tempting… but I have a busy day tomorrow, too.  
MIKE: No worries.  Until Saturday, then?  

I liked his smile.  I was surprised by how warm it made me feel.  It was comical how far he had to bend down to kiss me, but that was pretty nice to.  

By the time I made it back to the party, it had cleared out.  Katherine was still there, unsurprisingly, and Matt was starting to pack up.  

JASON: I’m getting pretty tired [smiles at Katherine in a way that implies he’s not tired at all].  Do you need any extra blankets, Jo, or will you be ok with the one on the couch?  
JO: Uh… actually, I have some stuff I need to do tomorrow.  I was hoping for a ride to the train station.  
JASON: Oh… really?  
JO: Is that a problem?  
JASON: No.  I’m sure Matt could give you a ride.  
MATT: I only brought my bike.  
JASON: So, Jo grew up on the back of a motorcycle and I have an extra helmet.
MATT: Fine!  I’ll take your stupid friend on my bike.  
JO: That doesn’t sound awkward or anything.
JASON: Matt, you seriously have no idea how much shit she lets you get away with.

Was that Jason jumping to my defense?

MATT: What could Jo possibly do to me?
JASON: She threw a pair of scissors at me once.
ME: Are you ever going to let that go?
Jason: I don’t even think she was that mad at me at the time.  That was her mildly irritated.  

It was weird having Jason jump in for me like that.  Generally, he let me handle myself but it felt good to hear him bring up an old story after hearing him and Katherine do that all night.  It was both stranger and more meaningful for him to interject between me and Matt.  Jason was eternally amused by our distaste for each other.  Matt was someone I wouldn’t even bother to insult if I met at a party.  But he was pack.  The litmus test for us was always violence.  Would I kill for this person?  That list is short, but then, there was the broader pack – maybe I wouldn’t kill for you but I’m not exactly going to tell the fuzz where you hid the body either.  I knew that Jason would kill for Matt.  And if Jason ever needed help hiding a body, I’d be his first call.  I knew Jason would kill for me.  And if we needed a third, he’d call Matt. So I couldn’t stand Matt, and he fucking hated me, but I knew we’d go to jail for each other, complaining the whole time.  Jason liked having that kind of power.         

JASON: I don’t mind driving you.  You don’t have to go with Matt.  It’s just… well… I have some free time tomorrow.  And I didn’t really get to see you tonight.  I was hoping you would maybe… stick around.

I was so torn about this.  Firstly, I’d just told Mike I was too busy to go home with him. Also, I’d slept downstairs while Jason banged someone more times than I could count, but not like this.  Also, I still didn’t really understand why I was so jealous.  To me, that’s a feeling reserved when someone has something I want but can’t have.  I saw her dynamic with Jason, and I didn’t want that.  Sometimes I wanted a little more attention than he offered, but the amount he gave her would have overwhelmed and embarrassed me.  I can’t even deal with handholding on a private walk, for fuck’s sake. The things I did want – their easy laughter and inside jokes – I already had.  This wasn’t exactly jealous; I felt weirdly betrayed.  Why didn’t I know who she was?  My desire for reassurance overrode any conflict, and I blew off all my responsibilities.   

Surprisingly, I slept like a baby.  I heard a few vague grunts, a moan or two, and a couple solid smacks, but they were barely warming up when I passed out cold.

The next morning, Jason walked Katherine to her car and then snuggled up to me under my blanket,d grinning.  

JASON: Woo!  God damn, what a night!  Seriously! That girl has the Best. Ass. Ever! ME: Really?  I’m not so into skinny girls.  But glad you had fun.  
JASON: I’m really glad you finally got to meet Kat.
ME: Kat?
JASON:I guess she goes by Katherine now.  
ME: That was Kat?  Like, you’re high school girlfriend, Kat?
JASON: Uh-huh.
ME: Kat who used to put ice down the back of your shirt from the vending machine behind the theatre? The chick you had a crush on for 3 years but didn’t have the balls to tell until senior prom? Kat who gave you your first blow job but then dumped you because you were moving away for college? Kat, who was not the first girl you ever jacked off to, but was the first girl you jacked off to and then later had sex with, even though it wasn’t til years after in college when you were a fucked up alcoholic sex addict.  Kat, who I’ve been hearing about since I met you, Kat?
JASON: Yep.  That’s Kat.  Katherine.  Whatever.  Anyway, it feels really good to have two of the most important women in my life finally meet face to face.  Like… the whole pack is united.  

Jealousy is dumb.  I am dumb.  This would all be easier if we were actually wolves, so I could just go up and sniff her to get all the information needed about our social dynamic.           

 

.  

KKK

I mentioned in a previous post that my 6-month long train wreck of a relationship with Jason all those years ago, has little to do with our current weird friendship.  That doesn’t mean that I didn’t learn a lot about him as a human being back then.  He was in a dark place (we both were), but he didn’t completely stop being himself.  If he had, it wouldn’t have taken us 6 months to end things.  

One thing that I learned about Jason while we were “dating”, which is a fundamental part of his personality rather than a symptom of situational depression, is his pathological need to make people laugh.  I knew this early on, but I didn’t realize how deep the need was until he damn near killed us both, trying to lighten the mood.  He picked me up at my house.  I don’t remember what for.  I just remember how angry I was at him.  Deep, seething, unrelenting anger.  All day he tried to be charming, or make me laugh.  He was trying so hard, it would have broken my heart, if it hadn’t been so hardened by bitterness and rage.  On the way home, he was starting to get desperate.  He would crack some joke, not even a good one, and stare at me waiting for a reaction.  When I maintained my death glare at his windshield, his tourettes would flare up and he’d start to twitch a little, until he could think of another joke.  

Finally, he started jerking the steering wheel side to side, and made whacky noises. Typically, this would have made me giggle.  I grew up in the sticks, and when you live in the middle of nowhere, driving like a maniac is one of the principal forms of recreation.  Jason is a suburban kid but has enough of an inner daredevil to be entertained by such antics.  Jason is also a very confident driver.  Before he stumbled into modeling as a career, he considered being a professional stunt car driver (also an SVU detective, but that’s another story).  I trust him behind the wheel, at any speed, on any terrain.  There have been many, many times when most of the improv troupe would be piled into Jason’s car and he’d start driving like a lunatic.  Everyone one in the back seat would be whining, or looking like they were going to throw-up.  I’d be sitting shotgun, giggling like a little girl, which was clearly why he did it.  I’m not gunna lie, the fact that he was willing to make a car full of people miserable just to entertain me added weight to the experience.  

This time, his little wheel jerk was not going to make me laugh, no matter how wacky the accompanying noise was.  I was angry, god damn it! As stern as I felt, happy memories of our friendship (which, I’d started to fear I’d lost) flashed unbidden through my mind, and my death glare must have softened perceptibly, because Jason decided that he’d found the kind of humor that could make me crack.  He increased his speed, and swerved more severely.  Nothing.  He tapped his break and made a little yipping noise, which succeeded only in slamming me into the passenger-side window.  He took a deep breath and looked very serious for a moment, a signal that always precedes something colossally stupid.  My anger had been dulled slightly by curiosity.  I glanced at him, wondering what he was about to do.  He steered the car into the lane of oncoming traffic, let go of the wheel, and stared at me, waiting for a reaction.  There was a semi coming towards us at alarming speed, but Jason didn’t even look up at it.  I could have said something.  I could have grabbed the wheel and swerved us back into our own lane, I could have yelled at him to knock it the fuck off.  All of these things would have prevented our sure and imminent demise.  However, our survival was wholly dependent upon my reaction.  In that moment, I was sure that Jason would not take the wheel again, until I did something.  He was so determined to make me laugh that he was willing to kill us both to do so.  Jason isn’t actually crazy.  Even on his darkest day, he has more of a passion for living than most people do in their sunniest moods.  But in that moment, he might literally die if I did not laugh.  It was pathetic.  It was strange.  It absurd and emo. It was… terribly funny.  

I couldn’t help it.  I wanted to yell at him, to scold him, to tell him to quit being a dick and drive me home, but the idea that this boy was so obsessed with performance that he would take such an astronomical risk seemed irresistibly hilarious.  My mouth cracked.  Just a little smile at first.  Then a smirk.  When I saw the look of relief on his face –  which was still fixed on me – I lost it, bursting into sporadic giggles.  He grabbed the wheel and jerked us into our own lane just in time.  He smiled softly and held my hand.  I laughed and shook my head the whole way home.  He followed me inside, wordlessly.  He seemed exhausted by the experience.  I led him into my bedroom and he held me like he thought I might escape.  

There may be some hyperbole here. This was by no means the closest I’ve ever come to being hit by a semi (but that’s another story).  In hindsight, I’m sure that Jason wouldn’t have let us die, regardless of my reaction.  It’s more that he had faith in me to create a way out of our predicament.  There’s a certain sense of trust between people who have performed together.  The look he gave me in the car was very much like the one you’d give a fellow actor who’d forgotten their line.  A bit more desperate, to be sure, but Jason trusted me to… to laugh? To scream? To respond to him in some way that moved the action forward (or sideways, into the correct lane).  I’m sure there are those of you reading this who are thinking, “This wasn’t a performance! You could have been killed!” And to those of you I’d like to point out that Jason has also dabbled in circus work.  High wire, fire eating, sword swallowing and the like.  This thing in the car was just another high risk bit.  I was both audience for Jason’s antics, and scene partner.  His driving was both the joke, and a set up. My laughter, a rave review, and the punchline.  

Not all of Jason’s performances as death defying but performance – as a rule – carries risk. You have to make yourself vulnerable.  There is an intimacy there that is straightforwardly terrifying to me and that Jason thrives on.  He craves both the connection and the attention.  Like many performers, Jason doesn’t seem to care if people are laughing with him, or at him.  During a particularly memorable improv performance, Jason mispronounced the word Nicaragua not once, not twice, but maybe a dozen times. He not only mispronounced it, he pronounced in the worst way possible.  He had no idea he was mispronouncing the word, but the first time he did, it got a laugh.  A normal person might stop and wonder why the audience was laughing, but not Jason.  He just plowed straight through, finding all kinds of excuses for repeating the word in a range of ridiculous accents, every single time maintaining the horrible error in pronunciation.  Finally his scene partner ended the show, saying, “Thank you ladies and gentlemen for coming out to see the only improv troupe in town where three quarters of the cast can correctly pronounce “Nicaragua.” Jason, realizing his mistake, looked momentarily embarrassed before shrugging it off, saying, “Oh well! I got a laugh, so my job’s done!”

I have told you these two stories so that I can tell you this third one.  

Idiosyncrasies fascinate me.  I love it when I can hear someone’s voice in my head when I read a text message, for example, because that text is just so them.  This is all the more impressive with very short, simple texts.  I feel a certain amount of warm fuzzies when my friend, Kay, texts “okie doke,” or when my Brother-In-Law types, “10-4” because they’re the only ones I know who respond that way in a text. Jason’s standard acknowledgment is, “Kk.”  The first time I saw it, I thought it was a typo.  Then I remembered that Jason never types out his texts.  He uses voice recognition – very carefully enunciating in absurd staccato, drawing out each in-di-vid-ual syll-a-ble, he dictates his text messages aloud to his phone.  There is no reason for that second k, and that makes me smile.  

At one of Jason’s frequent BBQs this summer, a few members of the old improv team showed up.  We don’t get together much anymore, especially en mass.  When we do, we tend to be a very insular little group.  We talk about old times and riff off each other, ignoring the lesser humans with whom we’ve never performed.  At some point, Jason got a text from his girlfriend and tried to steal away for a minute to respond.  We followed him, and all conversation ended while we watched him dictate his reply.  For the first time, I actually heard him say, “K,” pause, “k” aloud.  Someone in the peanut gallery exclaimed, “He always does that!”  

IMPROVER: I know, why the second k?
ME: After the Nigeragua incident, I’m always afraid he’s going to toss in a third k!  

There was much laughter, Jason blushed a bit and we moved on with our evening.

Many weeks and at least a dozen “Kk” texts later, I was having a bad day.  I texted Jason, hoping he’d have time to hang out.  He didn’t.  I told him to hit me up when he had some free time and replied, “Kkk.”  I was waiting for a train when I got that text, and my sudden outburst of laughter was so forceful, a mother pulled her small children away from me.   

Now, most of Jason’s acknowledgment texts come in the standard 2k format, but anytime I’m feeling a little down, we haven’t had time to connect, or there’s a need for a little increased intimacy, he send me, “Kkk.”  I can just picture my blond haired, blue eyed (Jewish) Jason on set at some modeling shoot, or driving to LA with some random rideshare people in his car over-articulating, “K” pause “k” pause “k” into his phone.  I picture the discomfort on the faces of the people around him, and the pride that would likely be on his, knowing that he can crack me up – and make me feel… special – with 3 little letters.  And it makes me laugh like my life depends on it.            

                   

Schrodinger’s Love

My memory is essentially chronological.  I remember feelings and conclusions better than facts and details, and the way I feel about any event in my life is informed by all the events that have come before it.  So it bothers me that I can’t remember when exactly I started fucking Angel.  I know she sent me a message for the first time while I was in LA trying to feel out the possibility of a relationship with Piz.  I know I definitely viewed her as a sort of partner, one of my quiver of (potential) lovers, by the time I moved into my new house, whether that means that our makeout sessions had escalated into sex by that point or not.  I’m sure we were fucking before Piz dumped me for a porn star, but I wish I remembered the sequence of events more clearly.    

One reason my memory might be failing me is, until Angel, I hadn’t really nailed down what I counted as lesbian sex.  In high school my best friend said that she considered a blow job to be “sex.”  I knew I didn’t, but my argument at the time focused primarily on the semantics – if you needed to put a modifier in front like oral sex, than there was obviously some distinction between it and “real” sex.  I’d fooled around with guys I hadn’t had intercourse with (though, at the time of the argument, I believe I’d only ever blown one guy and we were also having sex) and there was definitely a difference between the intimacy of a hand job and what I thought of as sex. For example, one time I went to wedding on a hippy commune and fooled around with a unicyclist. We’d been completely naked, touching each other, etc, but as far as we were both concerned, he entered my tent a virgin and left in the same condition. Granted, no one had an orgasm, but that isn’t exactly a good measure for what qualifies as sex.  I didn’t cum (even alone) until I was 21, and to this day, rarely orgasm during intercourse.  

I was never such an asshole that I thought lesbians couldn’t “really” have sex.  I’ve heard that argument and it’s one of the most ignorant, patriarchal piece of nonsense I’ve come across. It would be infuriating, if it wasn’t just so sad.  Seriously, how fragile must your ego be that you don’t think sex is sex unless there’s a dick involved? However, our culture is so phallocentric that a diluted form of this attitude probably informed my ideas about lesbian sex.  The result was that I kept track of male partners numerically – I always knew Ted was the 6th guy I had sex with, Piz was 16th, etc. Women… women were tracked separately in this sort of nebulous thought cloud of sexual experiences. For years I had no idea how to respond when people asked if I’d ever been with a woman.  Any answer felt somehow dishonest, like I simultaneously had and hadn’t.    

Should I count Katharine, with whom I had my first threesome?  We didn’t make it past second base before turning our attention to our male companion, though we later admitted that neither of us had any interest in the guy.  We just needed him as a surrogate to explore our sexual interest in each other.  He was just an awkward, shy virgin we felt safe enough around, for him to provide a rather bland palette for our sapphic expression.  While we may not have had sex in the most conventional sense, I literally held his penis and inserted it into her.  Does that count?  I’m still honestly not sure.    

What about Raven?  We met at in college at an annual event to promote safe sex.  It involved a scantily clad dance party and burlesque style performance intended to make condoms look sexy.  She was one of the performers and invited me to the after party.  Everyone was making out, and we ended up finding a quiet room to ourselves. It was a den, so there weren’t any doors to close.  As a result, we both kept our skirts on (thankfully, this had been one of the rare occasions I’d decided to wear a skirt, thus providing easy access. Specifically, I was wearing this tiny, bandaid-esque strip of metallic gold fabric that barely covered my ass). Breasts came out of shirts and underwear were pushed aside.  This was the first time I’d had any form of penetration by a woman. Sadly, it was cut rather short because the cops were called and the party was broken up.  We were both underaged, and more than a little bit tipsy, so we bolted.  I never caught her number.  At the time, I considered it “just fooling around,” as we’d been fully clothed.  However, in hindsight, this is completely silly.  No one would ever claim that sex with with a man wasn’t sex just because you kept your shirts on.  

The first time I had (in my mind, anyway) “unambiguous” lesbian sex was, amusingly enough, with my Human Sexuality TA, named Crystal. We hooked up at the same annual event, one year later.  What we had in my mind was full on, fully naked, fully hot lesbian sex, but even this experience raised some questions about what “counts”.  For one thing, it was part of another threesome.  There was another lady involved.  I don’t remember her name to save my life and she didn’t actively participate once we got past the PG stuff.  We’d all been kissing and groping each other, but when clothes started coming off, she moved to a chair and watched for a little while. Eventually she bailed to find some dude to bang.  Should I count her as sexual partner too, because it was part of a three-way?  By that same logic, had Jason fucked Mike since we’d had a threesome?  I don’t think so.  

The involvement of a third lady wasn’t the reason I put “unambiguous” in quotes, though; I’m pretty sure Crystal didn’t consider what we did sex.  At one point, I overheard her talking to another TA who was going on about a hot guy in her class. Crystal said, “No way I could ever fuck one of my students.  Too weird.”  Then, she noticed I was listening and added, “now, I could see myself making out with one or two…”  followed by uproarious laughter.  To me, oral sex goes a bit beyond making out, but I realize there aren’t firm rules for what gets counted.  Also, she might have been trying to save face, since what she did (sex or not) could certainly have gotten her fired, kicked out of her grad program, and possibly worse.  I don’t know much about her sexual orientation, or if she’d given much thought as to what “counted” (though I should hope so, if she was teaching human sexuality); knowing so little about her, I chose not to take it personally.  If she wanted to maintain that narrative, that was her prerogative, but it was too weird to reconcile her perspective with my experience. 

Sex with Angel was different.  No one was drunk.  There was no third party involved. We talked about things.  We developed a common language to describe sex and our bodies, which is something I love doing with new partners.  She was the first (and so far the only) woman I’ve slept with more than once.  She was (and still is) the only woman I’ve ever laid in bed naked with, kissed, held, and enjoyed the post coital warmth of.  She was also the first partner since Martin that I felt really, deeply comfortable around.  There wasn’t a ton of baggage, like Jason, and I wasn’t worried she was going to freak out like Michael.  Spending time with Angel felt a bit like slipping into a nice bubble bath – comfortable, sensuous and warm.  While her incredible soft, supple skin provided a veritable feast for the senses, we didn’t have the sort of hot, artistically composed, beautiful sex that the straight, male gaze craves.  It was silly, awkward, fun and caring.  I always walked away from a day with her feeling like my batteries had been recharged.  

This was something I desperately needed after getting dumped by Piz, having a sleep-deprived threesome with Jason, and getting stranded by a transit strike.  Part of me wanted to sleep for a week, but I already had a date scheduled with Angel and I knew I’d deeply regret canceling, even if making it out the door took all the effort I could muster.  As usual, just walking into her home made me feel lighter.  She noodled around on her guitar while I talked about my weekend, then she made me strange tacos.  They involved miso glazed shrimp and guacamole.  I remember thinking I’d never have the balls to combine such weird, disparate flavors, but they were oddly addictive.  Between bites, she listened to me drone on and on, more about Jason than Piz.  I was grateful to Jason for rescuing me, but I was annoyed that I couldn’t quite shut up about him.  I could hear myself extrapolate ad nauseam, and I started to worry; was I in love with him? 

When we’d “dated” many years before – and I’m surprised this is the verb I seem to have settled on in old posts, though “hate-fucking through a rough patch in a loving friendship” is a bit of a mouthful, so I guess we’ll keep using “dating” as a silly euphemism – I was pretty sure I’d been in love with him.  Much like Angel caused me to reevaluate the definition of “sex,” Jason forced me to define what “being in love” meant to me.  

I was aware that he took up a huge amount of brain space, and there was no question I was experiencing limerence (a very useful word Crystal taught me in my Human Sexuality class) but Jason was a bit more complicated.  Limerence is supposed to be relatively short lived. It’s a bit like schrodinger’s box, except the thing that may or may not exist is reciprocated desire. This uncertainty is inherently unstable, and the pull between the fear of rejection and hope of reciprocity can only last a few months before it is settled one way or another.  To expand the metaphor, in absence of a clear sign of life, eventually the dead cat of your heart will start to stink, at which point, you move on. Whatever I felt for Jason went on for over a year and I don’t think either of us was ever sure that we were on anything like the same page.  To further complicated the issue, there is no question that I really loved Jason, and love is not really part of the limerence narrative.  The two terms are often thought to be mutually exclusive, though most of my instances of limerence have started off as loving friendships, so what the hell do you do with that?  Limerence is inherently selfish, and love involves care.  

I’d done my best to separate my love for him, and my attraction, but he never really allowed himself to be 100% compartmentalized in that way.  Our weird sex shit was inevitably tied to and informed by our deeper emotions.  Feeling love and limerence at the same time, up until Jason, had always meant I was “in love.”  So, I surmised that, even though it felt really different, I must have been in love with Jason. Then I started dating Martin. I felt comfortable with Martin in a way I never had with Jason.  I’d basked in the glow of certainty and security.  There had been limerence, and it had resolved itself into something beautifully mutual.  I decided that this is what being in love means.  This also fit into my narrative at the time which sought to downplay what I’d experienced with Jason.  However, I had that same feeling of ease with Angel, but certainly didn’t think I was in love with her.  I had intrusive thoughts and fantasies about her.  I couldn’t shut up about her to my sister.  When I was with her, I could feel the rush of oxytocin and my pupils dilated, causing all my images of her to be sun bleached, warm, and fuzzy around the edges.  Chemically speaking, there wasn’t a difference between my reaction to her, Martin and Jason… but psychologically, they were miles apart.  

That day in her home, I started to process through some of this.  While my mouth was working a mile a minute, droning on and on about my trip to LA and the complicated gratitude I felt towards Jason, my brain was busy chewing on linguistic gristle.  Once again, I was internally groping for what defined “being in love” and whether or not the semantic distinction even mattered.  Until Jason, I’d thought, “you just know” but, for the second time in our weird friendship, I really, really didn’t know.   

I also felt guilty.  Angel was so good to me, and here I was droning on and on about another person I may or may not have been in love with.  I knew she wasn’t jealous, but I hated it when partners used me as a therapist.  Talking about your problems was expected, even appreciated, but you have to make space for your partner to express their thoughts and feelings too.  I’d done a shit job of this, and the more self conscious I became, the more I ran my mouth nervously. I was incredibly relieved when Angel moved much closer to me on the couch, took my hands in hers and said, “sounds like you can use a massage.”  I did.  I needed the quiet intimacy that characterized much of our relationship.  I loved her touch, and needed a reason to shut the fuck up.

This was the first time we’d had sex at her house.  I knew her husband was out on a date, but I was sort of worried about him coming home.  Not in the jealous husband sense – I knew they had a very open, honest relationship – more in the way you don’t really want your dorm mate to walk in while you’re having sex.  Angel seemed unconcerned, and as usual, the fact that she was calm and relaxed put me at ease. Afterward, we napped naked in each other’s arms.  It was very restful.  Her husband texted her before he came back (duh! modern technology to the rescue), so we had time to get dressed before he came home with his girlfriend.  We all sat around for a bit, drank wine together, then his girlfriend drove me home.  I left, once again thinking that Angel was the perfect antidote for my erratic life.  She was so beautiful.  Our time together was beautiful.  I just hoped she didn’t resent my chaos.          

Transit Strike

Before he dumped me unceremoniously for a married porn star, I’d been planning to stay with Piz in LA for at least 3 more nights – plus I’d spend an extra night with Jason, as had become my long standing habit after our trips to LA. I’d taken time off work, cleared my social calendar, and arranged for Jason’s friend (sometimes roommate), Derek, to take care of my dog.  Given that no one was expecting me home for a few days, I ended up hiding out at Jason’s house, recovering from my physical and mental exhaustion.  After 3 nights – night 1 was the threesome with Mike, night 2 was the bbq and an intimate evening with just Jason, night 3 was uneventful and I crashed on the couch – I decided I’d imposed on Jason long enough and asked him to take me to the train station.

JASON: Sure you’re ready to go back? Derek has your dog for at least one more day.
ME: Nah, I wanna get out of your hair.
JASON: What if I like you in my hair?

I smiled, scritched his head, and he made a grateful little purring noise.  

ME: I’m sure you do… for a couple of nights.  But I know you.  A few days and you’re sick of me.
JASON: Have I ever said that?
ME: Don’t have too.  You just turn into an asshole after a week or so.  Why do you think we don’t fight anymore?  I bail before we have time.  Besides, I miss my dog.
JASON: Ok.  But call me if you need to talk.  Or have Piz gut punched.  Or want me to fuck the porn star for you.  
ME: You’re too kind!

I was only kind of joking.  Jason had always had a bit of a white knight complex, swooping into the rescue whenever someone needed, but in this case he’d managed to do so without making it about him.  He’d put me in the path of other people who’d cheered me up without me having to feel like a burden – a sexy exchange student who’d given me a huge ego boost, and and overgrown teddy bear who was happy to provide me focused attention (something Jason wasn’t always the best at).  As for Jason himself, he’d found a really good balance between listening when I needed, and distracting me when I was lost in the darker corners of my mind.  I didn’t realize it fully at the time, but it took being rejected by Piz for me to feel truly loved and secure with Jason.  Don’t get me wrong, the boy will always bring out certain broken-record insecurities in me and we still have our rocky patches, but after Piz we became far more demonstrative about our affection.  We talked more.  Sometimes these conversations are hard to get through, but it’s been a much-needed change for us.

At the time, however, I thought this was just part of the natural ebb and flow of our weird friendship.  When I asked him to take me to the train station, I fully expected the warmth and security we’d shared over the weekend to begin to recede.  I wasn’t ready to adjust with the changing tides, so I decided to get out of there before things shifted. However, life loves to laughs at people’s plans – especially when they take public transit.     

I got a really great kiss goodbye from Jason (the boy’s a hell of a kisser, but this one was memorable).  I floated towards the train station trying to enjoy the fog of oxytocin before I crashed into a malaise of guilt and regret.  I’d barely had a chance to dwell on my suspect life choices, before noticing something was off.   The train station had the wrong kind of noise.  I could hear people.  Lots of people.  Perhaps a few too many people for a non-commute hour.  Also, they seemed to be shouting.  Perhaps not that strange for public transit, but there wasn’t the usual hubbub, hustle and bustle noise bed I’m used to.  Things sounded, for lack of a better word, considerably too organized for a train station.  Also… I had yet to hear a single train…

…because they were on strike.  The “organized” shouting was coming from a picket line.  The trains were expected to be down for at least a week and the bus operators were striking in solidarity.  I was fucked. And not in the good way.   

I thought about calling Jason again.  He wouldn’t be far away yet.  He could come and get me, and as long as I didn’t mind following him to work, I wouldn’t even make him late.  But I was sick to death of feeling like a burden to Jason, even if I was increasingly sure he didn’t see it that way.  I tried calling my friend, Elise, who was between jobs at the time.  She was visiting family out of town but mentioned that of our perpetually unemployed friend, Margot, lived nearby and had been pestering her to make plans. I cringed a little.  

Ever felt bad and tossed an alley cat a french fry, only to have it follow you around all day yowling?  Yeah… that was Margot.  She’d decided after a party some years ago that Elise and I were her new best friends.  I didn’t feel like we had much in common, but she had an interesting backstory (and had dealt with a lot of shit in her life) so I’d be polite, invite her to group things, figuring she’d eventually get bored of me and back off.  Unfortunately, she was so self absorbed that she never even noticed enough about my personality to realize we weren’t compatible. Example: when I was mugged a while back, she insistently suggested that I go out a get a gun.  She ignored my protestations that pulling a gun on someone who had already pulled a gun on me was both impractical and dangerous.  She also ignored that, even if I could beat someone in a quick draw, I’d rather hand over my phone than shoot a 16 year old kid.  When she continued to ignore me, dumbed down my argument.  

ME: I don’t like guns.  
MARGOT: Don’t be silly!  As long as you get training, I’m sure you’d love them.  Look! They even come in pink!  

She’d known me for years by that point.  I felt like she should have heard at least one of the stories about me getting shot at by tweekers, or having to pick buckshot out of our pet wolf’s hip, or… well, there are enough unfortunate stories about me and guns to fill another blog. Even if she’d somehow missed every fucked up story that boiled down to my simple statement – I don’t like guns – it is difficult to know me and not realize that I hate pink.  I am not a girly girl.  I have short hair, rarely wear makeup, and live in jeans and a t-shirt.  I wear women’s clothing largely because when you have a 34 G bra size, you more or less have to commit to surgery to fit into menswear.  I hate women’s clothes, but not quite enough to go loping off body parts, though trust me… I’ve thought about it.  Basically, I am gender-queer as fuck.     

The pink gun maybe the most egregious example of her not really getting my whole gender thing, but it was one of the hallmarks of our friendship.  She sent me pictures of ModCloth dresses practically every week.  I’d reply, “I’m not really a dress person” only to have her continue her barrage of questions about the relative softness of various fabrics.  In her defense, I do actually own a couple of dresses and do, on rare occasion, have a strange urge to wear one.  I have, on 3 separate occasions, purchased a dress specifically from ModCloth.  These occasions were more than a year apart, and were specifically for something I could wear to fancy events that I was catering.  I’m not the sort of person who can comfortably drop $69 on an article of clothing I’m going to wear maybe a few times a year.  

This brings me to another reason she drives me nuts.  Margot is libertarian.  That, in and of itself isn’t a problem.  I have some libertarian leanings myself. But she constantly rails against the social safety net, claiming that everyone else is just gaming the system.  I am from a small rural town filled with hard-working people, and when they say shit like this, I disagree, but I can see where they’re coming from.  Margot, on the other hand, is on full disability for back pain.  She has scoliosis.  I have scoliosis!  I get there there is a wide range of pain levels associated with back problems, but she doesn’t seem to have any trouble going rock climbing, hiking or kayaking and has just enough self awareness to wonder if her condition is at least “partially psychosomatic.” Yet, she’s perfectly happy to let her boyfriend’s parents pay for everything under the table while she spends my hard earned tax dollars on ModCloth dresses.  

So, Margot would never really be my first choice of a person to call, but at 3pm on a weekday, stranded an hour from home, I took Elise’s suggestion and reached out.  

ME: Hey.  I’m in a bit of a bind here.  I’m right down the street from you at the train station, but it seems they’ve gone on strike.  I’ve had kind of a rough week and really need to get home.  Any chance you can give me a lift?  I’ll buy you lunch!
MARGOT: Sure!  I just got this amazing new dress and I’ve been looking for an excuse to wear it.  Some girl time sounds perfect.  Wanna meet at the station cafe in 20 minutes?  

About an hour later she finally walked up to our table.  We ordered club sandwiches and made small talk.  Even after I paid the bill, it was clear she still wanted to stay and keep talking.  It was pleasant enough, I suppose, but I was tired and anxious to get home to my dog. She was doing me a huge favor so I didn’t want to cut her off, but I was done.     

ME: Hey, thanks again Margot!  You’re a real life saver.  But I’m starting to feel kinda zonked.  Do you mind if we get going soon?  
MARGOT: Oh sure!  Ready when you are!
ME: Thanks!  Uh… where’d you park?  
MARGOT: Oh, my car’s in the shop but we have a guest bedroom.  I figured you could just stay with us until you figure it out.  

I was flabbergasted.  I’d wasted hours with her, when I could have been figuring out my shit – calling someone else, posting a rideshare, anything!  It took all my self control not to scream at her.  Finally, I stammered some excuse about my dog and sent her home without me.  Feeling defeated, I called Jason.

JASON: Jesus Christ, Jo!  Have you just been at the train station all day?  Why didn’t you call sooner?  I could have come and picked you up!  
ME: I thought I had it handled.
JASON: I’m kind of exhausted and not sure I’m up for driving you all the way back tonight, but Derek can handle your dog til tomorrow and I can definitely drive you up then.  What do you say, Jo?  One more night with me?
ME: Certainly beats my alternative.  What time do you get off work?  
JASON: Late.  But I’m not that far away.  It might be a $10 cab ride and you can come watch me teach a class.  
ME: Fuckin’ hell, Jason.  Am I seriously going to follow you to school again?  This little lost lamb routine isn’t very me.
JASON: Buck up, Jo.  Anything I can do to make it beeehter?  
ME: Oh, fuck you!  
JASON: That can be arranged, but probably not at school.  There will be kids around. Hehe.  Kids!  Get it… cause you’re a sheep?  

Somehow, this man, of all fucking people, had become the best and most stable thing in my life. What a world, huh?