Rebounds Can Be Ugly.

Thankfully, this blog is not about things I am always proud of, ya'll. This blog is about shit that's real in my life, things that happen. And this story puts me in a pretty bad light. To me, it's amusing. It might not be that way to you. But there's a lesson here about bridging knowledge gaps. The thing that ends up hilarious about asking for something while you're still in recovery mode is that invariably there is a disconnect between you knowing what to ask for and the person you're asking knowing how to give it. Like once happened to me in fourth grade when I for some reason loved basketball, the stupidest feeling you can get is when your own damn rebound shot hits you in the face. Because you have no one to blame but yourself.

Like this guy I hung out with recently... on paper? He's great. Blond, pretty eyes (if more than a little crazy), smart, intellectual (not the same thing), and a READER. Oh yes, darlings, a reader with good taste. I was ASKING for a nice evening with a guy who actually was interested in what I had to say, knowing that this particular gentleman lives out of state, not really wanting any entanglement, but to just to go out with a guy who seemed like someone who'd at least be entertaining. And oh he was entertaining all right. And so was I. So was I.

Let's flash back, shall we? I met him at my usual bar a couple months ago when I was still semi-involved with a couple people, so I didn't pursue it beyond a cute facebook post on his wall... that he never responded to nor acknowledged. C'est la vie.

So imagine my sheer joy when those other two boys fell through, the year was nearing its end, I was craving a treat and I got a message:

I'm in town for the holidays. I was at The Bar last night and I was sad you weren't there.

And then comes the flirting. And the cute jokes. And the wordplay. He makes a joke about how to tell if a Hipster is an extrovert. I am hooked.
I'm at dinner, 'cause my incredible college friend is in town and we're doing sushi. I mention meeting up with the guy... let's call him Gail. Friend is down, she's got a hang out scheduled with someone, too. Our tummies full of sushi, our hearts high and hopeful, we go to The Bar together, expecting a charming evening out with our two gentlemen callers... err, texters. Whatever.

Darlings, this is when my anxiety and other people's poor social skills stop being polite and start getting real.

Gail walks into the bar looking around, and from the minute we make eye contact, I know. This is not going to end any way I'd hoped. Because his face goes from excited to slightly reserved. I can be rather girly, but this day, I was wearing my work clothes. I didn't get myself together. I distinctly remember wishing aloud that I didn't look like a giant bag of dicks. So this look on his face? It's a little disconcerting but ordinarily, I like a challenge. We greet each other and it's slightly awkward but interest seems to be present.

Friend grabs a table near the back and the chit chat begins. I'm feeling rather shy, they're talking politics and his work overseas. I have absolutely nothing to contribute to this conversation. I really don't. Those are two subjects I'm perfectly happy to listen to, but my opinions on them are tiny, pathetic and best kept to myself. Trust. This goes on for a bit and I grow less excited by him by the second, even though he talked about authors, it later dawned on me that he was talking about fucking Tolstoy. Fucking Russians.

Don't worry, guys! I was just as much of a disappointment to him, as you'll soon find out.

The conversation takes a turn towards a subject I'm more comfortable with and I try to interject and I catch a look on his face that is unmistakable. He's not interested in a damn word I have to say. He's got eyes only for Friend at this point. Which is just, well, weird. She's fantastic and wonderful and all the adjectives combined, but... wasn't he hanging out with me? Shouldn't he at least try to pretend that I'm still at the table? Maybe I'm just getting a weird vibe. So I try to pep myself up a bit and every. single. damn sentence I manage to moistly utter in his direction is poorly received. Which makes me say something a little soggier. Have you ever been caught in one of those feedback loops? Where no matter how hard you try, every cycle sees you forgetting a little more of the English language? More of the skills you've mastered since kindergarten are slipping away with each syllable... and for me that's particularly embarassing, as I assure you I mastered talking loooooooooong before I mastered the art of not peeing my pants anymore.
Seriously, that's how dumb I felt: sitting there in my warm puddle of word pee, feeling like everyone around is kindly trying to look around while I find a towel and hose myself off.
It was that bad.

AT this point, World's Dumbest something or other is playing on TV and I can't stop watching it. I'm so embarrassed and insecure at this point I've given myself a headache. I'm unable to join in any conversation, even when it turns to books, even when Friend is doing everything she can to help steer the conversation in a way that I'm gonna be able to at least make guttural noises of approval towards. I think the only positive contribution I made was to get REALLY excited about a video of Beaker singing Ode To Joy.

Suddenly, Friend's gentleman hangout arrives so she 23-skiddos. I'm alone at the table, with the guy who's really not been talking to me, even when it was sadly, pathetically apparent that I was trying to be an actual human being. We awkwardly converse. He's obviously noticed that this is a little weird. So he explains the situation the only way he can, apparently. He tells me in words that I WISH I could remember verbatim that he's been talking mostly to Friend because being overseas so much leaves him craving intellectual discussion and he couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Stop. Freeze.

This guy. This guy who's ostensibly hanging out with me, this guy who flirted with me all day, who knows that I'm not stupid, I'm just feeling awkard, just told me, no, dude, it's ok. I'm only shamelessly flirting with your friend 'cause she's smarter than you.

As E.T. would say, ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch.

I honestly do not remember how I responded. I just sat there, I'm pretty sure and managed to make a few inane vowel and consonant sounds into some sort of response. At least I'm pretty sure there were vowels... and I'm mostly certain I didn't drool on myself.
Hey! How's THAT for intellectual.
MENSA, are you reading this? Sign my ass up!
 (They have a committee that elects people for membership via the blogs about their personal lives and rampant abuse of parentheses, right?)

But seriously, I've been in some fucking awkward situations and I have never in all my born days felt more confused and out of sorts than I did that night. And as the drinks kept on comin', it got to the point where he was interrupting my sentences as soon as his whirring mechanical brain clicked on over to the Not Interested setting. Friend honestly moved to sit by me at one point so I would at least be in his line of sight.

She and her hangout are freely moving around the bar, which honestly never occurred to me. The gravity of my embarrassment kept me planted in that one spot. He tells me that he's too drunk to want to drive immediately and my place is out for an after party, so I ask Friend's hangout if we can head back to his place, as he and I are on good terms. He says sure! And off we trot. We manage to navigate to the apartment complex and  man, am I glad we did. Because I will cherish the moments in that apartment for years to come. I'm already not interested in this person, thank the Lord. Because the verbal gymnastics that guy was flipping to try to impress Friend were spectacular. The looks we all exchanged were pretty phenomenal. It's not that he said things that were exactly stupid. And I  managed to say stupid things aplenty. Not just awkward but actually dumb. But just... his desire to somehow sway Friend to his charms was palpable. It became the fifth person in the room, and believe me, it was doing alllllllllll the talking.

It's clear that I'm ready to leave and so is he. While we're trekking back to the vehicle he turns and asks if he can stay at my house. And he's too drunk to drive anywhere. So, of course I say yes. When the conversation turns to WHERE he's going to sleep, I'm torn. Someone is currently sleeping on our couch. I can't explain what I did here except that the whole night has been so weird, I just don't care anymore and I say it's fine if he stays in my room.

We get in there, smoke a cigarette and look at my books, which actually sparks some discourse. I ask him to turn his back so I can change. Lacking a desexing stick to wave around most unsexily, I put together the most horrible sleeping outfit that I could imagine. I got my grey-green four-sizes-too-large Wallflowers shirt, my oldest, nastiest purple plaid pajama bottoms. I smelled like the bar. I left the usual knee high socks I wore to bed off as I hadn't shaved my legs in days and I figured if Jakob Dylan's face didn't deter him, the veritable briar patch on my legs just might.

Guess what. It didn't.
He starts grabbing at my waist. Running his fingers along my back. It gets to the point where I'm literally having to buck my hips to keep him from getting his hand down my panties.

He apologises for groping me and I tell him that I'm really in two minds about it. And I'm drunk, I'm still all awhirl. I'm also a little embarassed because I've got a couple pounds on that aren't making me happy and this guy, for all his flaws, has the most perfect damn body. His abs, his arms, his hands. Gorgeous. Seriously. It almost made me reconsider the desexing powers of Jakob Dylan for like a nanosecond. Anyway. He asks me what the two opposing thoughts are and I desperately am trying not to blurt out the words, "I don't fuck people who flirt with my friends when they're supposed to be hanging out with me." And I have no idea WHY I didn't just say that. Maybe I was trying to keep things copacetic 'til the inevitable dawn. Maybe I just wanted to see how this particular little adventure will go. Maybe something about being insecure and single and still wanting this guy's approval. After all, he's in my bed! that validates me! Right?!

So I blurt out a very true but still odd fact: I do not have single serving sex with anyone. I am proud of the fact that I do not, ever, ever just sleep with someone once. I actually sleep with people that I am interested in being around for more than a few whiskey-soaked, sloppy hours. When it comes to the alternative of regret and feeling slightly used, well, I don't think so. Ho Me don't play dat.

Before we even get to the other half of my two minds, he informs me that he doesn't want to have sex with me. That he will not have sex with me. In those exact words. Glad I misinterpreted the hand trying to go down my pants, yo. But whatevs. Now's the part where you judge me. I gave him a dose of his own medicine. I turned my head away from him and started grabbing his abs. I trace my fingers over his skin, which is warm and firm and absolutely beautiful. He actually breathily spoke the words "touch me" aloud... appropriately, "me" in this case did in fact refer to a dick. And I refused. Eventually, I grew bored with being petty to myself and him and rolled over and went to sleep. After he again groped me in the morning and I again managed to gyrate enough to avoid getting fingered, he put himself together and I let him out of my house. He sent me a flawlessly worded text thanking me for my hospitality and told me to wish Friend the best. She later denied his request on facebook. And except for the random status updates and a link he sent me about an article about women not marrying in this generation, I let him out of my life, too.

I learned about myself that night.
I learned that especially when stuff gets awkward, I am still capable of making bad decisions in a champ-like fashion. I learned that though I've come through this life of mine lately with most of my finer points intact, my pride/self-esteem is still among the missing. I learned that within these parameters, I'm still awesome at being self-destructive. But mostly I learned that even though I know I can be an asshole, when confronted with someone who's being a bigger asshole than myself, I can survive and look back and laugh. Because this entire, absurd, stupid interlude just gives me the giggles. I hang out all night with a guy who's flirting with my friend, let him sleep in my bed and then give him the bluest balls I can manage when he STILL thinks he's gonna get some sort of play? I'm an asshole for not throwing his ass on the porch, or at least on the couch or the floor. But people are attracted, instinctively, to what they're projecting at the moment. So maybe that's why I stayed. Maybe that's why I gave consent to the whole situation. Maybe I wanted to see into whatever he was going through because it would help me better understand what I was/am going through. Even though we were never really looking at each other, I kinda think we were using each other, equally, to help us decipher a little of the fucked up behavior we were individually exhibiting. Maybe it's fitting that we didn't have much to say but like true extroverts, we were using interaction to help us sort through the mess in our heads. So we didn't have to walk a mile in each other's moccasins to learn whatever it is that we each needed out of this thing that happened between us. Our moccasins were the same in this situation and we could recognise that without ever having to really look each other in the eye. Like he told me. You can always tell if a hipster is an extrovert 'cause he looks at your shoes when he's talking to you. Ours just happened to match.