Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Anti-Rebound

Last night, I went out for impromptu drinks with a guy. It's not like I went to my night class thinking, "Whelp, it's the last class of the semester and everyone is ridiculously stressed in Hell Week before Finals, so why don't we choose now to find someone to go out with, eh?" But that's what happened. As we chatted instead of working, and added each other on Facebook (the "hey, I'm interested in you" move of the 21st century,) we realized we had some mutual acquaintances in common-- namely, my most recent ex and all of his friends. It's official. I have to move out of Vermont. I have dated EVERYONE.


This got me thinking about one of the most ugly terms in the dating world-- the "rebound." While both my new friend and I were very open with each other about the fact that we had both recently gotten out of serious relationships and were still recovering from them, I knew what word would be on everyone else's lips were they to know that three weeks after the Hindenburg crash-and-burn-in-flames end of my last relationship, I was downtown slinging back beers on someone else's tab. While the most recent ex is undoubtedly taking a new girl out on the town, it makes me wonder-- what's the double-standard for switching dating interests so quickly? Do his friends care? Do they miss me? And do rebounds really matter anymore, or are they just another way to brush the dust of your last relationship off of yourself?

While my friends are glad that I'm back on the horse that so uncharacteristically bucked me off with aplomb, I find myself questioning what my dating and relationship mentality has evolved to. Though I still mourn the loss of my last romance, as it was a great one right up until the point we suddenly weren't together anymore, I've realized something that's become equally evident to others-- after over half a decade of dating, it's become harder to get as attached to someone (or the IDEA of someone,) and easier to deal with and mend from failed attempts at love than it used to be. For the five-plus month duration of my last relationship, I always maintained the mentality that nothing was guaranteed; it could end the next day. I was guarded with my mother and friends; less than hopeful when making reservations for one extra seat for my graduation dinner. So when it suddenly ended, I was somehow more prepared and less affected than I'd ever been previously. And healthy or not, that's how I found myself out last night with someone who potentially knows my ex even better than I do. (Slightly hilarious, I'll admit.) It wasn't because I'm some callous bitch who thinks all men are expendable and I don't know how to be or want to be single-- it's because I want to NOT be a callous bitch and learn how to acknowledge and move on from the end of a previous relationship as best as I can.

We tend to look at rebounds as some meaningless, interim fun. But the best part about last night for me wasn't getting the validation that I still got it, but rather, bonding with a guy over getting past the past, and having us both realize that we could have a good time out with a member of the opposite sex again. (It was a little bit like Heartbreaks Un-anonymous, not gonna lie.) To me, THAT was more valuable than scoring a second date, though, this girl's still got it in her. So, to make it clear, people, it's not a rebound-- it's a growth opportunity.

XOXO

Sunday, April 17, 2011

"O" Makes The World Go 'Round.

I'm taking a break from my Hell Week before Finals and graduation to bring you something I found while researching for my Gender Com. paper: A response from a potential student's father to the University of West Florida's sex column from March 2009, saying, "What possible editorial and journalistic motive was there for printing such trash-- was this an opinion piece meant to elevate the discussion on sex, excess drinking, drug use or STD's on college campuses?...[Readers] learn from this enlightened young lady that...girls at UWF want what Pixie wants-- "a belly full of beer, a taquito from Whataburger and an orgasm. UNBELIEVABLE!"

Now, I don't know about you, but those three things sound just downright wonderful to me right about now. Who else-- besides obviously not this father-- is with me on that one?

While large quantities of beer and the perfect taquito may be fleeting desires, I often say I come with a disclaimer-- if I don't come at least once a day, I can be a f***ing c**t. THAT'S how important an orgasm a day is to me-- that if I don't get one when I need one, somehow, it ruins the rest of my day, and can even impede on the general good mood of yours. In other words, it is in everyone's best interest that we have orgasms.

What drives us? Orgasm. What is the Number One most constantly pressing need in my life? To orgasm. It is not the need for food, water, shelter, love, money, or success that we all seek with a single-minded drive like a wolf pack on the scent of a wounded moose calf-- it's the need to orgasm that defines us as being alive. Bear with me here, I know that that was a potentially loaded statement. But let's think about it, for a moment-- how does the human race continue our existence? Procreation. And what occurs during procreation? A man has an orgasm. Ergo, orgasms = life. Our drive to carry on the human race and to make babies is what, really? The continuous quest for an orgasm. This father, who was sooooo outraged that a young woman bluntly describe her Holy Trifecta of Awesomeness, unless he is some odd asexual freak of nature who somehow managed to find it in himself to have sex once and thereby create his son with whom he was touring UWF with, is most probably also a devotee of the House of Orgasm. Unlike the House of Valentino or Dior, that's a house that never goes out of style.

There are so many ways to achieve an O that it literally blows my mind sometimes. With a patient, and direction-taking or naturally gifted partner. Or on your own. A response to a weekly sex column run in Burlington's local alternative newspaper, Seven Days, that questioned the phenomenon set off by Natalie Portman's self-lovin' scene in "Black Swan" really made me see for the first time how completely we focus on getting our rocks off; the reader writing in asked the resident sexpert if masturbating "facedown" could help achieve better orgasm than her standard "on her back" position.

I had NEVER thought of this before. EVER. By this point in my life, when finding myself Suddenly Single, like right now, I generally go right back to my Old Faithful routine. I have a feeling this is the way it is for most people who take the task, so to speak, in hand, for themselves. I doubt that many people, other than this letter writer, really fux with something like achieving orgasm once they have a good thing going. But like this letter and response pointed out, there are so, SO, SOOO many different ways to O. On your back. On your stomach. Through underwear. With fingers. Strictly clitoral. With some sort of penetration. With toys. Now choose a toy. Is your mind blown yet, as well? IS THERE AN EVEN BETTER WAY TO GET OFF THAT I JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT?!

Yup. That's about it for now. Let's all go ponder the state of our orgasms as we all quake in shock knowing that there might be a better way out there, and that really, when you wake up tomorrow morning, it's not because you want to live another day-- it's because you want to O another day.

XOXO

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Spring Cleaning

I look down, and still see your
Pubic hair
On my bath mat.
There probably isn’t a less
Romantic line
Anywhere in the rest of the poems in English in the world,
But it’s something about how
The sight of it
Makes me
Feel.

You left
Visible reminders behind you everywhere,
From your long and curlies on the bathroom floor,
To the hole you accidentally punched in my wall when last
You came.

I separate your socks from
My socks you wore,
Tossing
One lone, stretched-out straggler in the wash.
I empty the ashtrays in my room,
Dumping even
The ashes
Of our relationship
Where they will no longer scent my dreams.

Everything of yours you left here fits
In one 12-by-4 inch box.
The hole in the wall will be spackled over, in time,
Just like the cracks in my heart.

XOXO

I know, I normally don't leave poetry here, but as I am hard, hard, HARDER than Ron Jeremy at work to finish my thesis this week, I wanted to give y'all SOMETHING. So "something" became the poem I scribbled out last night, while sitting (majestically) on the toilet. Yup. End-of-college life. It's so beautiful, moving, magical, and FUCKING FRANTIC AND UNCLASSY.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Self-Censorship

I do not mean
to exploit our relationship

All that I have
learned from you
I cherish most

Should I keep it to myself?
Should I keep you to myself?

What is personal?
Should I code what I say?

I say so little
too much

when meanings are already hidden
Should I hide them?

What am I going to keep for myself?

The wild woman is unkempt
The changing woman is unkempt

She speaks her mind.

- Excerpt from "She" by Saul Williams, that quite handily describes how I feel about choosing content and censor events for this blog.

XOXO

Ask Men, Get Real Women's Answers.

AskMen.com has the ability to really piss me off sometimes. Other times, I give them a hearty "A-MEN!" (Yes, yes, as always, pun intended.) Because I'm currently slaving away at my senior thesis for my B.S (NOT bullshit, as you might think), and don't really have any relationship fodder for you at the mo' as I have no fucking clue what's up with TGIS (or most of my life, for that matter), here are two articles I found while looking for sources for my thesis that I thought were damn good, and really pertinent to the whole male/female communication thing. Feel free to print them out and leave them lying around for your boyfriend to find. (Passive-aggressiveness for the win!)

1.) Why when a woman says "You did that wrong," what she really means is, "I love you and am only trying to make you the better man I know you have it in you to be." (Why She Criticizes You.)

2.) This one got the heartiest of hearty agreements from me-- Why when you text your ex or mention how often you hang out with your female friend, your girlfriend goes mentally a-prat on your ass and relationship. (Sound familiar? Want to know why we/I act that way? Read "What You Do, What She Sees.")

Enjoy!

XOXO

Monday, April 4, 2011

Numbers

Four days. For four days, I housed you. For four days, I let you into my life. Totally. Completely.

Three nights. For three nights, you slept beside me. For three nights, I smoked you up.

Twice. Twice, I cooked you dinner. Twice, we had sex. Twice, you told me how nice I was to you.

Once. Once, you ate without even talking to me, preferring to stay online instead. Once, you browsed other girls while laying in bed next to me. Once, you convinced me that you had given my number to other guys "for a good time." Once, I told you three nights together was too much.

Well.

Four days. For four days, I loved having you here. For four days, you got closer to me than I let nearly anyone else.

Three nights. For three nights, I slept fitfully because I knew you were there. For three nights, I woke up with our heads touching, forehead to forehead. For three nights, I dreamed of you.

Twice. Twice, I loved cooking for you. Twice, I thought how fantastically lucky I was. Twice, I thought how nice you were to me.

Once, I got so mad at you because you'd rather chat online than talk to me where I sat in front of you. Once, I got upset that I might not be enough for you. Once, I got upset because I liked you so damn much, and when you pulled the joke over my head, it felt like all I was to you was a "good time," when to me, you were so much more, and I didn't want to be out there on that far, far limb, all by myself. Once, I didn't know how to tell you that, so instead, I told you three nights was too much.

Five. Five months I gave to you. I would have hoped for more from you, but whatever.

Well. I guess I'll never know what happened, anyhow.

XOXO

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Other Women.

The other week, TGIS (again, that's The Guy I'm Seeing) and I were chatting about a mutual acquaintance as we were getting ready to go out for brunch, per usual, when he let something slip that wasn't the usual. "Yeah, I went out on a date-slash-lunch date with _____ around Thanksgiving, and we were talking about him and how every woman is in love with him."

What I wanted to say was "Hold up, there, buddy, you were seeing ME around Thanksgiving! What is this disclosure, your rules to speed dating?!" What I actually did was meekly chuckle. To get the facts clear, we were not "together" around Thanksgiving-- we had just started hanging out. We hadn't had sex yet. We weren't monogamous or committed. But while in the long-run, it may not seem like a big deal because of these facts, it made me think back and wonder. He was uncharacteristically out-of-touch over Thanksgiving, if my and my cell phone's memory serve right. And while at the time, seeing other people would have felt to me like trying to cram more clothing into an already stuffed-to-the-brim suitcase, it seemed to him to be as natural as breathing. Which brought up the point...

What is the politically correct way to say "Are you currently seeing other women? And if so, STOP."

How come it seems as if men seem to have all the fun and never worry about "where their relationships are going," and women get all the stress and the suspicion and are the ones that feel all the desires to have "The Talks?" It doesn't seem very fair. Just one day, just ONE, I'd love TGIS to be the one to turn and look at me and say, "Hey...I've been thinking...You're not seeing anyone else, right? We're all good, right?"

XOXO