After my divorce 6.5 years ago, I was in absolutely no hurry to get out in the world and date again. As a matter of fact, due to the crazy, turbulent time that was my last year of marriage, I hadn't even had sex since December 1998... the divorce was final in January 2000.
Everyone... friends, family, even my therapist... was eager to see me get back on that horse... the therapist even referred to it as getting in some "batting practice" or something to that matter.
"I just got rid of a dick!" I exclaimed. "Why would I be in any hurry to take another?"
She prattled on about needing to regain confidence and some other hoo-ha, but I tuned her out... instead, I sank with queasiness into a pit of despair, thinking, "What's wrong with celibacy?"
Many moons went by... about 5, I guess... when I was suddenly confronted with a series of experiences that threw me back into the "let's-get-physical" plane... forcing me to find out rather suddenly why no woman is an island, because there'll always be some guy to molest her and drive her from it.
The first incident was in passing, yet still jarring. As I was walking into a popular lesbian metaphysical bookstore in a hipster part of town (no, I don't swing *that* way, I'm straight... but I'm not narrow), and I was just pulling the door open, I heard a screeching of tires and a loud, rumbling muffler. And almost immediately after that, I hear in a very loud, very thick drawl: "Hey baby! You want summa this?"
I look over my shoulder to witness a shirtless, overall-wearing 'neck pointing at his crotch and directing this question at me. I think I visibly shuddered. Then I turned to enter through the door that I was still holding open, only to be face to face with a pack of four very butch looking women, who had a mixed look of surprise and amusement on their faces.
"Ladies," I said, as I sheepishly lowered my head in shame and slid past them into the store.
A day or two later, one of my professors... a friend, or so I thought... asked me out to a comedy club one night and then later back to his place. I was too naive to know better, so I went... thinking his offer to watch a dvd was genuine. It wasn't, and after an hour or so of him pawing at me and me pulling into a tighter and tighter ball, I finally sprung out of my skin, found my legs and fled in sheer terror... with him nipping at my heels all the way to my car, where he pinned me inside and planted a kiss (and a grope) on me, while I recoiled in horror and some paralysis. Definitely not the best way to jump-start one's dating life, certainly.
Then in retelling these two events on the phone the following day, I was interrupted with the response, "I hate to break it to you, but guys are always going to see a pretty eyes and a nice set of jugs."
"Wow. Thanks, Dad," I replied in resignation to my father. Yes, my father.
After those incidents, I decided to tell another professor friend about my long-standing affections for him (not for his grabby cohort/pal/former roomie), hoping maybe for a rescue at least, or for returned feelings at most. Instead, he fled from me almost as fast as I'd beaten a path away from the other man... and I hadn't even gotten a grope out of the incident, as this was all in email form.
Story of my life.
But that combination of events made me loosen my standards a bit and was the rocky beginning to a path that (hanging my head in shame as I type this) spelled a life sentence in online personals. You may think "life sentence" is hyperbole, but I've known felons who get out on good behavior quicker than I've made it out of this conviction. Worse yet, I'm a repeat offender... returning time and time again to the scene of the crime... as I've done just recently, as a matter of fact.
Oh sure, my foray into online dating began innocently enough... all filled with hope and positivity in the early days of internet personals. A mere 9 months later, however, I was as sucked dry and as jaded as they came, openly asking this question to the online universe after yet a different first date managed lure me to his home to "watch a movie" and then managed to pin me down, rip off my shirt, and nearly raped me, before I escaped:
Luckily, I got away with my sense of humor in tact, thanks to my "scary voice" that apparently works as well on date rapists as it does on ferocious attack dogs. That picture also got me "personal of the day" after I posted it on Salon.com back in 2001. But I'm getting too far ahead of myself. Back to the "simpler" beginning...
In June of 2000, six months after my divorce and six years ago from the present, I wrote my first online personals ad. Within hours, I had responses flooding me... and within a week or so, I had dates lined up. I can't remember all of the men's names that I went on dates with in those early days, but there were several... none of which made it past date one or two perhaps... all of which were guys who simply "went for it" by planting a kiss on me without asking first and left me hiding from them without so much as an explanation as to why I'd disappeared.
After about 2 months of this "seek and hide" pattern of mine, I finally decided that maybe that therapist had been right... maybe I did need some "batting practice" at last. At the very least, it would take the edge off of my skittishness and maybe allow me to finally let go a little of that squeamishness I'd had since my ex-husband's affair.
In what I thought was a very logic-filled way, I decided in much the same way as I had for my "first time" back in high school that I would finally "give it up" to whatever random guy came along next... so long as he seemed nice and was fairly cute.
Ask and the Universe grants.
Lo and behold, the very next guy to write to me, just days after I had made this pact with myself, was indeed fairly cute and seemed to be a nice guy. But the biggest thing worth noting (get your minds out of the gutter, people!) was his name: Random. Yes, Random. He wasn't just some random guy... he was some Random guy... having legally changed his name from Roland to Random about 4 years previous.
So of course, I had to sleep with him. I mean... if you place an order and it arrives, you should pay up, right? I wouldn't want to owe some debt to the Universe, having it rear its ugly head over and over like that creepy paperboy in Better Off Dead... though it would seem I'm still paying for something, I'm just not sure what.
I dated Random for about 6 weeks... again, that's pretty much my pattern and has been since high school... 6-8 weeks tops, then I disappear. Or rather, it's more like I can't keep pretending beyond that. He was cute and nice, sure, but he was also dumb as a post, God bless him. I couldn't ignore it anymore when, during one of our few conversations, he admitted to me that he wanted a big family... he wanted to remarry and have 4 children of his own with the next wife.
"But you've already been married twice before," I said.
"Yes, so?" he replied.
"And you had 2 kids with each woman, who you never see and can barely afford to pay support for now."
"That will change."
"Are you saying you want 4 more children?"
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?"
"Um, because you already have 4 you can't afford! Isn't that enough reason?"
"But I want to have a big family under my own roof."
"But you already have a big family!"
"But they're not all under my roof."
"How does having 4 more help the other 4 you already can't afford?"
"They'll benefit by having 4 more siblings to love, that's how."
I couldn't compete with that kind of "logic" and so I went silent. I believe that was the last time I saw the man... well, okay, we slept together one last time, sure... then it was the last time I saw him. I just disappeared. He continued to think we were still going out, I guess, because about 6 weeks later I received a phone call from him asking if it was okay with me if he started dating another young girl he'd just met in the mall.
I laughed. Hard. And then I told him he had my blessing.
I started thinking about this 2 weekends ago when I (A) re-upped on one of those online dating sites again, and then (B) went out right after that to the movies. That night I saw the mediocre chick-flick The Breakup. It was while watching Vince Vaughn and Vincent D'Onofrio argue as brothers when I started thinking, "When was the last time I saw them together?" It was then that I realized it had been during my first Random date... the night I "gave it up" after 7 years of marriage and 20 months of celibacy.
See, it turns out that 6 years ago, Vaughn and D'Onofrio were also co-stars in the mediocre J-Lo flick The Cell, and after the screening, the equally mediocre random-date asked me the mediocre random movie-type question, "So what'd you think?"
I, in my uppity film school glory, told him of the flaws and futility of such an unmemorable film and concluded that "Six months from now, neither of us will even recall this movie." Random disagreed and said he thought it was one of the best films he'd ever seen... just because he liked it, no reasons beyond that... and that he'd remember it for years and years and added, "I'm sure I'll even buy it when it comes out on dvd."
Although the details of that night have since become a wash of mere images to me, as have the details of that movie, what does stand out is the moment when I stood there looking at this Random guy and I came to the conclusion, "As long as he doesn't talk, I think I can still do this."
And, as you all now know, I did.
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