Girl About Town Seeks Resolution

One of the things about writing this blog is that it’s my job to go out, meet people, and do things in the name of single girl-dom. Although sometimes there’s really nothing I would love more than to stay home with my Shaw’s Le Bakery chocolate chip cookies and play Russian Roulette with my physique and will-power by keeping the bag within arm’s reach, duty calls when friends call and say that they have things I should go to. Hindsight being 20/20, I really should have named the blog something like “Celibacy in the City,” and kept the expectations low. Sex, not so much of. Orgasms, yes, but sex—not lately.

Instead, it remains “Sex and the College Girl,” and so sex this college girl will try to have. Though I may not being hitting it up and down and all over town, I rarely turn down an opportunity to go someplace and meet people. Church Street, with all its tourists and locals on foot, is one of my proverbial play-grounds. Flirting on the run is so easy to practice there. I enjoy eating out (and wish I actually had an income to do it more often,) for the chance to see and be seen. The other night, when one of my Soho Boys had drunkenly cornered me on Facebook chat to try flirting with me, though it was SO WRONG and I finally could relate to the hot young high school substitute teacher who has to deal with the horny teenage boys must feel like—flattered, but still, icky—, I couldn’t help myself from promising to bring him to the beach with me next time I went. I figure, hey—if nothing, I’ll get a few free beers and some male company out of it. Things like this make me the quintessential Girl About Town. And though I may have to recycle a few outfits, and although I sometimes don’t really feel up to it, I rarely pass up a chance to go out, especially if it looks like I might get a column out of it.

Tonight, Cait called saying that two of her boyfriend’s friends from home were up visiting, so why don’t I come over to Justin’s house where they were having a little get-together, play some beer pong, and meet some new guys? She promised that they were attractive, and I come at an easy price. Though really all I was feeling was staying in my apartment in my boy’s Adidas soccer shorts and bra and eating my cookies in front of the new episode of “Royal Pains,” I instead lied a little bit about being out to dinner, which bought me enough time to shower, get dressed in something boy- and public-friendly, grab a beer, and go. Though it was hard, and I was grumbling under my breath, I kept repeating the mantra “You have a blog and it’s your duty to go out, and you never know who you might meet,” like a record with the needle stuck in a groove.

Well. I met two very nice, very casual guys, who were, as Cait promised, attractive. Both were tall; one had dark hair and long eyelashes but a vaguely lumpy body, and the other—well, when I first peeked into the kitchen and saw him, I felt like I had taken a punch to the gut. He looked like a watered-down blonde version of Perfect with a bad haircut and a weed habit—half the body-size, but with a similar enough nose and facial features to give me internal existential break-downs every time I looked at him, searching his face for more Perfect, and less Other Dude. There is nothing like being young, out-and-about, meeting new people, and desperately wishing with all of your being that they were someone else.

But you can’t force this into happening. This stranger couldn’t turn into Perfect any more than I can morph into Sarah Jessica Parker at will. Yes, I could have gotten black-out drunk and spent the night and slept with this Less-Than-Perfect Perfect substitute, but when it comes down to it, I am a girl with morals and restraint. (I am also ridiculously committed, as it has been pointed out; even when I am not in a committed relationship, I remain a one-man girl.) And so, I drank my one beer, played two rounds of pong—one of which I won—ate some delicious Wings Over boneless golden barbeque wings, made small-talk, and then peaced out after an hour and a half using the (valid) excuse that I had created my own parking spot and didn’t want to get ticketed or towed to come home, back to my apartment, my laptop, and my cookies. (Which I haven’t eaten any more of, because I. Have. Willpower.)

Though I may be a Girl About Town, I am not quite yet a Girl Without Commitments, even if those commitments are tangled, twisted, and unexplored and unexamined. I still feel them, and that’s all that matters for now. Depending on the outcome of this whole Perfect affair, I still have time to regroup, get my A-game back together, and meet lots of other new people. I’m just not ready for it yet. I’m still living in Perfect’s shadow, and though sometimes it’s hard to understand, I’m happy with that for now. Until things either get worked out with him, or I meet someone else who completely blows my panties off, I’m fine with staying in the same place Perfect is and not being over us yet.

(Aside note: Oh, wait—what’s that, dear reader? You say, “What?!” to that comment about Perfect not being over us that I tried to so subtly slip in there because I didn’t want to have to end such a poignant column with one of these explanations paragraphs in parenthesis? That’s right—I’m horrible at keeping you up-to-date. There will be more to come later when I actually finish the column I’ve been working on about life’s most recent events, but to make it short and sweet, while having a serious conversation with Cait last week, she let it drop that the reason why Perfect has been so weird lately is that he’s not over me, or what happened with us, and has realized that the feelings he had for me were bigger than he thought, and he, in fact, still has them. Since this revelation, the Crazy Girl part of me wants to snatch up my cell phone about four times every day and scream at him, “Maybe if you’re having such a hard time getting over me, you MADE A MISTAKE!” But the Sane Girl in me always stops my fingers from pressing “send” and instead says just one word: “Wait.” So I’m waiting—I’m playing it cool, I’m waiting it out, and we’ll eventually get to talk, in person, about what we’re both going through and decide where to go from there. See? Even I mature, after all.)

And it gets later yet, mon petits choux, and I need my beauty sleep, so—

XOXO.