The one who recorded live concerts

(according to this I am not a cradle robber, but still...)

In honor of the guy that I’m going on a date with tonight who just graduated college last year (that makes him what, 22? 23? Oy!) I thought I’d share my own cradle robbing story, but when I was actually in the cradle.

And while you read this, please enjoy Rod Stewart and the Faces' “Maggie May”: the best cradle-robbing-cougar-song out there.

The year I turned 24, I was the hottest thing around. I was living in a new city with lots of young single people. I had two boyfriends during that time and dated a few more. (I almost even had my first dating-a-girl experience; I still regret that that didn’t happen.)

Seriously, I think I had more luck in those 10 months than any other period in my life. I cough it up to the city.

I’m going to call this guy The Pirate because he recorded live music concerts, and even though he would have gotten approval from the bands to do so, it was still in a way illegal. He would go to a show and set up a huge microphone on the floor and stand there with his arms crossed.

I was 23, he was 32. He was the oldest guy I had ever dated. (Tonight it seems we’re switching those numbers around.)

I realize that I wasn’t as big of a music dork then as I am now, and would probably be even more into this guy now than I was then. It would be an interested in experience to date a guy like that now.

I met The Pirate through The-One-Who-Paid-My-$250-Parking-Ticket-Late. It was weird, even though I knew he liked me, he sort of pawned me off to his friend, The Pirate, thinking that we’d get along. I remember that I was watching the Sex in the City DVDs and felt like I was in the show with all the men I had in my life.

I didn't really get anywhere with The Pirate. I think I tried kissing him once and he wasn’t ready for it. I seem to do that a lot, don't I? What’s wrong with me, eh? But we did hang out quite a bit there. And he did give me a bike rack for my car that I used for years. Wasn’t that nice of him?

Rawrrr, well tonight I’m a cougar. Why not? This kid has great hair (like this guy). Seriously.

UPDATE: Just got home: GGFG (Gay Gay Fucking Gay) as my brother would say. Sort of a bummer, but he's so sweet, I want to be his friend. He's moving not to far from me, so I'm glad to hang out with him as he gets to know the city.

The one who left for a three month Zen Buddhist retreat

It would be just my luck to meet someone right before they left for three months to find peace meditating in the mountains. Additionally, I’m not sure how he feels about me, but when is that ever the case, especially right when you meet someone?

I met the Music Engineer at a party where I was providing the iPod mix. He recognized one of the tracks he put together in his studio on it and took a liking to me immediately. I think he gave me his card twice. He’s kinda funny looking but still very handsome and cute.

And even though I never share names on this blog, let me just tell you that his name is one of my all time favorite names in the world and when I start having children, if my husband doesn’t have this name, I think one of my children might have to. It would also be a great name for a dog or cat. That’s how much I love this name.

ANYWAY, I followed up with the Music Engineer like a good networker should and we ended up having lunch, which he paid for. And I thought, hmm, that’s nice of him to have paid for that. Was that a date?

I called him a few days later to see if he wanted to hang out that evening. He told me he would let me know if he could, and emailed me the next day explaining that he ended up working until midnight with no offer to reschedule. I thought maybe he was blowing me off until I got an invitation from him to a going away party; he was leaving for a Zen Buddhist retreat in 10 days and would be gone for three months. That explains that maybe he wasn’t blowing me off, just that he had another things on his mind.

I figured that was that, but then he called and invited me to a wine tasting party that evening. Even though I was battling a cold, I went. We had a great time and there was even a strange moment where a friend of his said that’s a long time to go away and the Music Engineer and I exchanged what I understood to be, a yup-it’s-a-long-time-and-our-timing-is-terrible look.

So long story short, I missed my train and ended up having to stay at his house, on the couch. The Music Engineer lives at his recording studio, so he sleeps upstairs in the loft. So I could hear him, and he could hear me cough and sniffle all night.

Hot. I am super hot.

And, I didn’t know if I ended up on the couch because I was sick, or because I was going to end up there anyway.

In the morning we had breakfast and talked music, it was fine. I still felt a little awkward about it, but he was great about it.

I went to his going away party, had a great time. Met his Dad and a bunch of his awesome friends. I even made some musical connections that might prove to be very useful.

I emailed him later to say thank you and that I’d love to see him before he left if it was possible, but I totally understand if it’s not. He was trying to wrap up a bunch of projects before he left. I promised I would send him postcards.

He’s leaving in two days and I’m now having fantasies about him calling and asking for one last night of earthly pleasure before he goes to full on monkland and how that conversation would go. Of course I would agree.

I'll let you know if I hear from him. But otherwise I’ll be sure to send him postcards.

The one who was a sexy kisser

I met the Hipster Lawyer online. He had a picture of him and Henry Rollins in the most hipster bars of hipster-dom in town. His handle was something about music being his crack.

I had to write to him:

"Please save some of that crack for me, I need the music to survive as well."

Hipster Lawyer was humanitarian lawyer, you know, the sexiest type of lawyer. He worked from home, so he didn't look like a lawyer at all. He was scruffy with overgrown hair. He was a little bit older than me, and super hot.

At the end of our first date (at a bar) he kissed me on the cheek and gave me a big bear hug. I loved it. At the end of our second date (also at a bar), I got out of the car claiming that I wanted a hug, and oops - we made out a little bit and...

OH-MY-GOD he might have been the best kisser EVER. A little nip there, suck there and oh-LORD-wowie-wow. I was hooked. Too bad he was aloof, texting me back at weird intervals and not contacting me at all after our dates. It was all me.

I'm not so good with waiting for guys to ask me out again if they make me wait for a few days. I figure, I want more, I'm going to go out and try to get more. Men are stupid and don't know what they want... HA! Wait, that never really works... but I do it anyway because I get antsy. I read "He's Not that Into You" and sadly, it's true. If they want to see you more, they'll make it happen.

But I just wanted to kiss him more. Really.

The third date we went to a music festival in town and were going to meet up with a bunch of his friends. All of them bailed except for this one girl. I asked him how he knew her,

"We used to date, is that okay?"

Sure it's okay, she was nice. And weirdly enough, it was nice to have someone else there to talk to. Definitely a sign that Hipster Lawyer and I were not meant to be. She just seemed a little nervous and was worrying about everything. I told her so - to her face. That might have been a bad move on my part because he asked me about it later. Was I annoyed with her? No. She was just worrying a lot.

We did get to kiss in the car later, and I told him that the only reason I keep called him is because of that. He seemed into it. We meshed that way.

Didn't hear from him again... but I figured I'd make a move anyway and ask him to a show. I heard back THREE DAYS later claiming that he'd like to go but had to "be up early the next morning."'

So I let Hipster Lawyer slip away. I did, at least, get some good kisses out of it.

The one who wasn't crazy enough

The Professor was nerdy and cute, just the way I like ‘em. But one thing kept us from really connecting: he just wasn’t that crazy. And I mean crazy in that dirty, playful kind of way.

The Professor was seven years older than me and a math professor at a small Catholic college (a good place for a nice Jewish boy). I met him on that Jewish dating website. His pictures were nothing special, I think what drew me to him was his love for his students. I was in academia once upon a time, so I could definitely relate.

The Professor also loved music.

He sang in a local choir, liked to jam out to Billy Joel and musicals on his keyboard. We bonded over our love for the Camina Burana. He didn’t own a pair of jeans, was allergic to cats and lactose intolerant. He also danced like a white man should. You know, like my Dad.

Sounds like my type right?

He hadn’t had a lot of girlfriends either, surprised? Turns out, The Professor had dated a woman a year before me who he said showed him “the ropes” (remember he was seven year older than me, putting him in his mid 30s). So once he worked up the courage to kiss me, we entered that territory.

We would make out on his couch and then he would say “Want to go inside?” Meaning, “let’s go in the bedroom and get naked.” Whoever this woman was that he dated the year before taught him well in some areas but I don’t know what was going on in others. He was good with his hands, but when it came to “performing” it just wasn’t there. I blamed it on nerves and figured maybe it would get better in time, but no dice.

He just also wasn’t “crazy.” I mean there was no passion in the bedroom, he wasn’t into trying something different and I didn’t know what to make of it. Was The Professor still nervous? Was he just too nerdy? Was he just not comfortable? Was he really a 17 year-old boy and had an aging disease? WHAT? And of course I was too weirded out to ask him. I figured we’d work it out if and when we had to.

What was bizarre about that though is that just being around The Professor physically excited me. So there was definitely something going on there.

We had only been seeing each other for three months and he was scheduled to go away for six weeks for the summer to visit his family. About two weeks before he was supposed to go he had a little picnic in the park with some of his friends. I noticed that he wouldn’t show me any affection in front of them, it was really awkward and it made me very uncomfortable. I didn’t feel this way when I had met his friends before and he hadn't acted in the same way.

I confronted The Professor about this the next day and all he could say is that we didn’t have that "lovely- dovey" vibe he wanted. So I said, well, I’m not waiting around six weeks for us to figure it out. So I guess I’m just going to go home.

And that was that.

And it was okay. I needed to go find me some dorky AND crazy.

I know he's out there somewhere. I keep getting closer and closer to him. I can feel it.

The one that I totally forgot about: continued

I'd like to refer to the one I totally forgot about as the Lawyer Artist.

So this thing with the Lawyer Artist is getting more and more intense. What the hell am I doing?

I made him a mix CD yesterday and sent it over. Since we talk mostly about music and he likes everything from classical to Malian to alt-country. It was really fun to make and I thought that he would really appreciate it.

But listen, I kinda went over the top: IT HAD LINER NOTES! I briefly explained who the artists were or why I picked the song. CD mixes are deeply personal to me and I feel like my music is a way for others to look into my soul. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true. I spend a lot of time and energy making them, I love to make them and I love thinking about the recipient, and it doesn't matter how well I know them.

CD mixes are my creations. They are my own personal art form. (I'll make you one if you promise to report back to me and tell me what you liked/hate)

I requested Lawyer Artist to make me one. Because you know that a CD mix is the way to a music lover's heart.

Whatever, I'll make one for anyone that asks.

He's sent me a few mp3s: some from an Algerian artist we both like and some from this samba/merengue singer, of course all in other languages.

Well, the one I got today is this band called Blackmore's Night. a song called "Wish You Were Here" and he made sure to tell me the name of the song.

But um... check this out and some of the lyrics

Wish You Were Here...
Me, oh, my country man,
Wish You Were Here...
I Wish You Were Here...
Don't you know, the snow is getting colder,
And I miss you like hell,
And I'm feeling blue...

I've got feelings for you,
Do you still feel the same?
From the first time I laid my eyes on you,
I felt joy of living,
I saw heaven in your eyes...
In your eyes...

And I miss you like hell...
And I'm feeling blue...
I miss your laugh, I miss your smile,
I miss everything about you...

etc, etc, etc...

WTF??

I'm trying not to get carried away, but it's really hard not to.

I'm having fantasies of moving, getting married, having babies and going to lots and lots of concerts with him. jesus christ.

Like I said, if this goes on, I'm going to have to go there just to see what it's like physically being there with him.

The one who wears cool hats

Yeah that's right, I said that in the PRESENT TENSE!!

I have a crush on the guy who leads the band I'm in through the place I work.

He's a little jew who plays the piano and accordian in a klezmer band and spent 20 years in New Orleans. He moved after Katrina.

He wears these awesome brimmed hats. I love men who work the brimmed hats.

I hear he takes off as many jewish holidays as possible.

He also might be married, I'm not sure, but I'm gonna find out.


***UPDATE***

I love the internet, it makes stalking people so easy. Especially if they are professional musicians and have record contracts. There's promo shots (good lord he was cute when he was younger), performance videos on you tube, fan photos, past and future scheduled gigs, etc...

He's not married (at least no ring to speak of), but has a daughter who's probably a little tike.

But listen to this: he told me yesterday that he just started intensive chemo because he's got arthritis in his hands! Which is why he felt super shitty the other day in rehearsal. I just thought he had a cold. Poor guy's a piano/accordian player and has arthritis in his hands! He said at least it hasn't affected his playing yet.

My brother said, wow, I can pick 'em. They're either emotionally or physically fucked up. Go me.

***UPDATE***

He's married, to a freakin' neurosurgeon! Oh well. Actually this will make rehearsal a lot more fun for me. Since he's off limits (I'm good with guys being off limits) I can relax a little more and just enjoy the eye candy. : )

The one who lied about his height

Marc’s online profile said that he was 5’5” tall. I’m 5’3” on a good day, and when I wore 2” heels, I was definitely taller than him.

I know that some women are very picky about the height of the men they date. My thing is that I don’t like my man being smaller than me. And I mean this in that he can’t be super skinny, because I don’t want to feel like I’m going to crush him. I might be able to do tall and skinny, but I’d rather date someone with some girth. This is why I didn’t mind that Marc lied about his height, he was a thick guy (not fat at all) so I never felt huge hanging out with him.

The chemistry between us was evident even before we met in person. I sent him an email and even before he saw it he instant messaged me. I guess we both just really liked what we saw. (Since then he's taken down the good picture from his profile and replaced it with a really bad one, what is he trying to prove??)

For my birthday I asked my Mom to buy me a subscription to this website that I had used a few years before. I was ready to get back into it. Marc was the first person I had met on there and was excited that I might not have to do through a bunch of ho-hum dates like I had before. This guy seemed exciting!

On our first date we met at this awesome bar in a cool neighborhood that served every kind of hard liquor you could want. I noticed that the menu organized the Scotches by geographical location (which as a Scotophile, really appealed to me), and they had Scotch from the one distillery I had visited while touring Scotland. So I ordered one, and then another (but didn’t drink it all because after all, I did have to drive home).

Marc and I were getting along wonderfully. As soon as he walked in I thought he was adorable. He grinned at me the whole night. Marc walked me to my car on the way home and held my hand, but asked me if it was okay first. It was cute.

I dropped him off at his apartment and we made out for a while. He did that thing were he put his hands around my head and tugged on my hair a little bit. It was hot, but I had to kick him out of my car anyway.

We made plans for him to come out to my neighborhood a couple days later. And so he did.

For our second date I got us into this nice restaurant that my friend managed down the street from my house. She took good care of us and we got free drinks and dessert. Then we went across the street and drank some more, right through the last train back to his neck of the woods. So, well, he just had to spend the night.

This boy was so cute and sweet. The only thing I had paid for was the drinks at the bar. He wanted to wait to have sex, but that didn’t keep us from having other fun.

The next morning however was a little weird. We walked down to the main street to get coffee and to the farmers market and he just seemed tired/moody/regretful/hung-over… something! I felt a little put out, and offered to take him to the train sooner, but he insisted he was okay. He said he had fun as I dropped him off and kissed me good-bye, but I still felt that something was off.

I tried not to worry about it, but of course I did anyway.

So shoot me.

I'm a girl.

I worry.

I over analyze.

I drive myself crazy.

And blame it on him.

A day or two later when I was at my aunts house for dinner, he texts me, asking me to meet up with him and his friends. They wanted to grab a guitar and have a little bit of a sing-a-long/jam session. I told him that I was having dinner with my family and that it might be a little while until I got out of there. Then he kinda begged me to come meet them as soon as possible.

So I did.

Marc had an interesting day: his best friend had come out to him and I think he needed al little bit of emotional support. He was cool with it and still loved the guy, but it was still a little shocking. But we had a fine time singing and playing guitar, and after, I went home with him.

And it was fun.

We tried some things that I had never done before (like becoming a kinky boot beast myself!). And I guess it could have been *better*, but like I’ve said before, I’m a tough costumer and figure that by the way things were going with us, there would be plenty more opportunities for us to get more comfortable with each other.

Another thing that I was interesting to me was that in that past I’ve had problems looking guys in the eye in intimate situations. I like remember that it made me uncomfortable looking some guys in the eye when we were in bed. But I had not problem looking Marc in the eye.

I just thought he was so cute.

Anyway, the next day we slept in a little, but then he had to meet someone, so I got kicked out. And I say this in the nicest way possible. I felt weird about it, but sometimes it just feels weird the next morning and you’re not included in the day’s schedule. So I went home.

And then the real weirdness started, much like what I described in the one who stood me up on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t hear from him for like five days. Now, I knew he had a crazy job managing a swanky hotel restaurant downtown that demanded a lot of his time and energy, but I would have liked to have heard SOMETHING.

So I get a little restless, and start to get frustrated (hence the entry about the one who stood me up on New Year's Eve).
To summarize the next few weeks, he started backing off, and I think I didn’t want to admit that. So I would bug him and try to make plans, or I invited him out. He was tired. He had no energy. But he seemed to still be into me, maybe...I did stay over one more time and had to leave early in the morning.

Then his boss at his job changed his schedule so that his two days off landed right in the middle of the week and his shift was 7am-3pm. He was bummed. I think he convinced himself that his social life was over.

He told me that “he needed to figure things out” over a text. I didn’t text him back. He texted me last weekend while I was up in the mountains far far away from a cell signal. He texted me again and thought I was ignoring him. Today I emailed him and told him that I don't ignore people, I'm a better person than that. And also that he's not the only one who's having a rough time right now, I am too. He wants to meet to talk. I just want a sweater back that I left at his house.

I wonder what he wants to talk about. This is such a break from the usual pattern! Is he actually going to apologize?? If he does, and I can lay the smack down, I'll think about going out with him again.

It’s just depressing that something that hot simmered out so quickly, like in a week! And I know that there’s a serious ex-girlfriend in the recent past that Marc was living with, but I haven't hear much about that.

Maybe it was too hot and intense and he freaked.

Maybe he just really had to get laid, because no one wanted to go out with a short man. But for a little while there it seemed like we might have something more than that.

So I feel that because I’ve been treated badly, it is my right to make fun of his height, even though it didn’t bother me in the least. No wait, it’s not that I want to make fun of his height, it’s more that I want to make fun of the fact that he LIED ABOUT IT on his profile. Because you know what, I’m sure that lots of women aren’t interested in being taller than their man.

But why replace the good picture with a crappy one? I don't get it.


***UPDATE***

Just had a rather intense conversation where I listened to Marc try to explain why we haven't seen each other in a couple weeks. And you know what? I'm not sure I understand exactly what he wanted to say. Something like it got too intense (especially physically) too quickly (for him) and he got uncomfortable and then the work shit got in the way and made him depressed. We sat there in silence a few times where he was trying to form the sentences.

I think he was trying to say that he's not "breaking up with me" but he never really did say that. And maybe we could try again or something.

I told him that I honestly did know if I wanted to or not. And yes, he fucked up and I'm used to guys doing this (the backing off and making it seem like they're not interested) and while it sucks, I'll get over it. In fact, I am over it. If we had this conversation two weeks ago, it would be difference. But I know how to protect myself, I move on.

But I did stress that I appreciated this conversation and that when guys had pulled this shit in the past, I never really got to have this kind of talk.

I told him that obviously he had some stuff he had to work out and that if he wanted to call me, he could call me, if not, whatever. I just want my sweater back.

He said that I often left that duty on him, and I said 1) that's not true, you didn't call and I was the one who bugged you to go out and 2) I don't want to be the annoying girl. If you want to go out with me, you want to go out with me. If not, I'm not going to be annoying about it, even if in my head I'm going insane. He said that I wasn't annoying, and I said, well good, that means I did it right. Cause man, I could be really FUCKING annoying if I let myself. You know, like calling you over and over again and wondering if you were thinking of me one, two and three days after we had sex. You know, cause THAT would be annoying. Instead I left myself go crazy and let 5 days go by before I called him.

So he wants to give me my sweater in person. I said fine. But let's wait til next week. I really don't want to deal with him right now. I'm also going out with someone else this weekend, who I haven't made out with yet.

I think I'm going to send Marc an email saying two more things. 1) You pulled this shit right before my birthday and valentines day and that was really lame and 2) You wouldn't have wanted me to have been as annoying as I cold have been.

Email or no? He seems to care. I'm going to do it. It will make me feel better....

ok, I ended the email with:

"oh, and if someone ever calls you for a surprise make out session and you ignore it... that's a sure way to make someone feel like shit. Because that's probably one of the coolest , rarest and fun things that anyone will do, and that's just the kind of girl I am."

And damn it! I am the COOLEST, RAREST and FUN girl you'll ever meet, and if you're too stupid to notice it, then see ya fucker!

Thanks for letting me vent. Sorry if this didn't make any sense, it's good to work it out and try to see what exactly just happened...

The one who really just needed to get laid

There was this guy named Glenn in one of my grad school bands, that as far as I'm concerned, just dripped sex. There was just so much sexual energy between us, it was ridiculous.

He had gorgeous long dark curly hair, not so different than the one who had great hair, had an awesome body (and wore t-shirts that showed it off), had a sweet disposition and would just smile at me. I'm sure I did the same back.

Man oh man, that year my band was overflowing with hotties; Thursday nights was three hours of eye-candy pleasure. The tattooed Eastern religion student, the flakey yet talented guitarist, the hot laid back lesbian keyboardist/saxophonist, the silly and conceited vocalist, and Glenn, the sexually frustrated percussionist.

There's not much to tell here but I would stare. I would. It was bad.

I learned at one point from a mutual friend that Glenn had recently gotten out of a bad relationship and was probably still very much healing from it. He had made out with a female friend of mine who would become the one and only girl I have ever referred to as my girlfriend, and she said that he was very sexually uptight because of the ex-girlfriend.

Well, we kinda skirted around actually hanging out, and one night we were supposed to have a drink and he just invited me over instead. And I'm like, "okay."

We had some beers, had sex and I went home early in the morning. Simple as that. Sometimes it just happens like that.

It wasn't so great unfortunately, but we both needed it, BADLY. Glenn met the love of his life soon after that. So I figure it was good that the sexual tension between us had been broken. There are times that it just needs to happen. And I didn't have to see him much after that, and when I did, it was fine.

Sometimes it's just been too long since the last time you got naked with someone, right?

The one who had been dancing all night

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged about steamy romance, and this one’s gonna be a little longer than normal. But here goes…

I was on a choir trip in college that toured through England, France, Belgium and Holland for about two weeks. We got to sing in amazing spaces like Chartres Cathedral in France. It was a fantastic time and an incredibly amazing opportunity. One of the perks of traveling through Europe is, of course, the European men that you might come in contact with. And since the group I was traveling with was compromised of women only, any attention and/or distraction we could get from the opposite sex was welcomed.

In my experience, I’ve found that traveling with large groups of people can be rather exhausting. Nerves and patience become rather sensitive because you just can’t get away from someone if they’re bothering you and attitudes can get ugly. At least my attitude can get ugly.

Traveling with a group of all women is different from traveling with a group that includes men. When you’re traveling with men, at least there is the possibility of flirting, or watching the boy you like flirt with someone else (stay tuned for, "the one who my friends thought was an unattractive douche") or be witness whatever scandal that might occur from male and female hormones interacting with each other.

Other possible tensions arise simply from specific personalities clashing with one another, whether or not they are based on romantic or sexual circumstances, and not getting a break. Of course some of these possible situations do not provide a positive and healthy environment, sometimes quite the opposite, but they at least do make for a lively one. Traveling alone is great, but it can get boring.

Traveling with a large group of only women takes away the sexual tensions (unless there are at least two lesbians or bi-curious ladies along) and just leaves the silly, stupid and annoying drama that occurs when women spend too much time together.

I’ve never considered myself a girly-girl and tend to stay away from women who seem to fall into this category. I’ve found that I tend to make friends with edgy, dorky, intelligent women who don’t get overly excited by all things makeup, shoes, hair product and clothes.

So a small group of women (mostly altos, interestingly enough) found ourselves to be the gals who sat in the back of the bus. Ironically when I was on a bus tour with men, I was among the same category of women, but we sat in the front of the bus. What’s up with that?

I mention the dynamics of traveling with all women because you need to understand why it is so amusing for me to compare my experience to some of those I overheard from these more frivolous girly-girls. Let’s call them Sopranos. And yes, I am generalizing. These were nice girls, very sweet, but I had no real interest in becoming lifelong friends with them or swapping makeout stories on the way to Brussels, like:

“Oh, we met this good looking Frenchman last night who bought us all drinks and promised to meet up with us in the next town.”

or

“Did you kiss him? I can’t believe you KISSED him!”

or

“That gorgeous Italian really wanted my email but I wouldn’t give it to him! I mean what’s the point?”

Jeeeeeeeez, how BORING. WHO CARES?? Maybe I was just jealous, it’s certainly possible.

So us Altos would hang in the back of the bus feeling like the high school outcasts that just couldn’t be bothered with these silly Sopranos. And, like, the front of the bus is for teacher’s pets or something.

One of my favorite memories from this trip was at a bar in Holland where one of the specials of the night was an “Orgasm.” I, new to this whole drinking thing (you know, being under-aged and all), asked the bartender “what is an orgasm?” which I realized was the wrong wording for the question because he grabbed my wrist and said “Come, I show you!” HA! Silly Dutchman. So cute!

But I’ve not gotten to the crux of the story, the one who had been dancing all night. So here goes:

On our last night in London, my friend and I found our way into a dingy club that we had gotten a flier for, advertising cheap drinks and cheap admission for ladies. There was hardly anyone there that night and in typical clubbing fashion, the music was terrible. But we had paid to get in, and we really didn’t want to wander around looking for something else considering we didn’t exactly know where we were anyway. So we got our drink and dance on and ended up having a darn-tootin’ good time.

I met this little Irishman named Sean. He was your typical light haired bloke, keen on showing a cute American bird a good time (sorry, but my British vocab was dying to be used just there). He bought me I-have-no-idea-how-many Mike’s Hard Lemonades (don’t make fun! That drink was new to me at that point! Didn’t matter what country I was in!) My friend met a guy too, a cute curly haired English one.

I don’t know how it happened, but Sean invited us ALL back to his house and he and the English guy didn’t even know each other, or so it seemed. I figured that since I was with my friend, it would be fine. We were meant to catch a plane to Amsterdam in the morning, but we would be able to take a cab back to the hotel from Sean’s house and we would totally be fine.

Sean rented a room above the Irish pub he worked at and we all piled onto his bed, turned off the lights and put a movie on, I think it was, umm…I think, maybe… you know what? I have no freakin’ idea what the movie was, cause it took no time for us to get, uh, distracted...

My friend and the English bloke left Sean’s room and I assume found a couch in the hallway, leaving us alone to get up to our own debauchery. At this point I was still very new to all of this, you know, intimacy with men thing, especially the taking clothes off bit. I was VERY new to this oral sex thing, I had never done either form of it and asked Sean if he would. Well, he did, and honestly it was pretty horrible. And in typical first time fashion, I didn’t really know what or how to tell him to do it any better. But since he at least made an effort, I figured I would offer to return the favor.

He said, “No, thanks.”

Seriously?

Even now, years later, I’m still amazed by this. I mean, and I’m going to put this bluntly, WHO SAYS ‘NO’ to a blow job??? Who!!??

His reason?

“I’ve been dancing all night and you just don’t wanna go down there.”

How freaking decent is that?

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

It’s not like I wasn’t fumbling around down there anyway. Even though I had little to compare it to, I was already aware of Sean’s size and the fact that it did kinda curve to the right. So it’s not like he was ashamed of it or something. He was just concerned about his “swamp crouch” and how gross it might be to really get down there.

Incredible.

Anyway, in the morning he puts the three of us in a cab, gives me his address (not email) and cash for the cab. (Why do I meet the decent ones in other countries??)

My friend and I get back to the hotel, pack our stuff and get on the bus in just enough time. No problem.

We get on the bus and I’m looking at all these girls, beaming with what I thought at the time to be the best secret in the whole world. You know that morning-after-hookup-glow? I love it. I love feeling scandalous. It’s invigorating.

I just sat there smiling as the Sopranos told the newest round of foreign men stories.

It was a long time before I got to engage in the afore mentioned sex act but was incredibly excited to have made out with a cute boy with a hot accent in another country. I think you’ve learned that is something I take pride in.

I think I might have sent Sean a postcard just for shits and giggles, but never heard back. Didn’t expect to.

But one thing I can credit Sean for is jump-starting my fascination with Irish boys. They seem to like me, I don’t know why.

Eat your heart out Sopranos!

The one who had his own secret symbol

You know, like Prince, or the-artist-formally-known-as-Prince. Whatever...

Except I gave Will this symbol. And I did it while Prince was still Prince, way before the conflict with his record label even started.

Will was my first real crush, right after the week long crush I had on Mr. Idiot the-one-who-reminded-us-of-Gonzo. He was sweet, thin, and had blonde hair and blue eyes. I know, right? Totally NOT my type. But I was 11, I was still figuring out what my type even was.

I think I came up with the symbol by writing his name over and over again and realizing that I could combine the letters to make two super letters. It came out looking something like "Bb." And rather than writing his name all over my notebooks for everyone to see, I could crush hard by writing the symbol and not look like the scary stalker little girl I actually was.

I did ridiculous things like cutting up photographs with him in them and just keeping the bit that he was in. I think I actually carried a photo of him around with me in my wallet for awhile. Right, I know, SCARY!!

I'm sure Will knew that I had a huge, scary crush on him, since I had a handful of obnoxious friends that probably told him. But he really was a good sport about it and was always nice to me. He was a quiet kid anyway and never really got in anyone's face about anything.

I have this hysterical awesome picture of Will and I "slow dancing" at a classmate's party in sixth grade. I'm wearing tapered jeans, an oversized U2 t-shirt and keds. Oh yeah, I looked hot. I've got my hands on his shoulders, he's got his hands on my waist and there's about three miles between us. It's adorable.

I'm pretty sure it took all the courage in me to ask him to dance. It still takes the same amount of courage to hit on guys that I have crushes on these days, which is why I don't do it often. (I'm trying my best to do it more, and trying to get the nerve up to do it soon actually.)

Will moved to Iowa or Montana or some faraway state like that and no one has heard from him. I don't even think I'd recognize him if I saw him.

I wonder if he realizes that he was lucky enough to have his own kick-ass sign like Prince??

The one who paid my $250 parking ticket late

Cory was adorable. A bit of a whiny, worrying, emo kid, but adorable. And he was about 9 years older than me.

I was an intern where he worked and was therefore off limits, as far as having a relationship went anyway. This didn't stop him from making comments that were blatant come-ons, but I was still supposedly off the table. He would even tell me this. "Our time will come if it's supposed to come" Cory would say, or something stupid like that. I think he had just gotten out of a serious on-and-off relationship that left him a little wounded. Timing IS everything ain't it.

Cory would come to where I was working and just kinda hang around. He was totally a grown up version of that dorky, four-eyed, over-eager boy in high school that you'd get annoyed with but know he really does mean well.

He made it clear to me that he liked me and that whatever kind of relationship I was up for (as long it wasn't a REAL relationship) would be fine with him: friends, lovers, mortal enemies, whatever.

I remember going over to his place a couple times, he wanted to show off his original Fela Kuti LP set and watch the Ramone's movie Rock'n'Roll High School. He said that I reminded him off the main character Riff who is madly in love with Joey Ramone and brings rock and roll to take over the oppressive school administration. It's so 1979.

So one time while I'm over there, it starts snowing, like hardcore blizzarding. So OF COURSE I can't go home. He invited me to stay, and even though there is talk of him sleeping on the couch, not surprisingly, I ended up in his bed and we had some fun. Nothing serious, or incredibly memorable, but it happened. Although I do remember that he was more attentive than most.

I get up the next morning and my car has been towed. Since it had snowed the night before, The city needed to plow the street that I parked on and gave me a freaking $250 dollar ticket! I tell Cory about it and he offers to pay it since his parents just sent him a generous check. So I give him the ticket and he pays it, supposedly.

A few weeks later I get a letter from the city saying that since they got the payment late, there is a late fee which needs to be paid. And that fee is DOUBLE the original ticket. I'm not about to pay another $250, I'm an intern, I work for free. And I'm definitely not about to ask Cory for another check, I felt weird enough about him paying the first time.

I had to ask Cory if he had indeed paid the ticket late. Did he have a copy of the check so that we could prove it to the city? No. Did he have the receipt? No. I could have gotten pissed at is lack of organization, or at his lack of responsibility if he did pay it late. But like I said, he did pay for it. He didn't have to. I couldn't get mad.

So I take it up with the city. I go to the courthouse, I fill out appeal forms. All I remember about that was that by the time I moved away months later, the matter hadn't really been officially settled. I just never heard about it again.

I saw Cory about three years later and had dinner with him and a friend of mine that he didn't know. He tells me about his new 23 year old girlfriend who he has a long distance relationship with (barf!) and casually brings up in front of my other friend that he and I had had a "tryst" once before. What the hell? I just looked at him and said "do we really need to talk about this here?" and dropped it.

I'm still trying to figure out if $250 was worth all of that.

The one who had been celibate for five years

Alex was a little weird, he was, I'll admit that. He was a DJ on the late night shift. And because he was often the only one in the station, he basically got paid to talk to himself for 5 hours each evening, 5 days a week. The one time my friends met him at a party, they thought he talked loud and was a little obnoxious. But that's because he wasn't used to talking to REAL people. And I liked him, and that's all that matters, right?

This station was one of the five in the country not owned by Rupert Murdoch, but he could still only play the same mediocre pre-approved tunes over, and over, and over again. And because of this new-fangled technology, he could pre-record all of his spots and simply man the computer the rest of the night and make sure it didn't explode.

I met Alex online and we emailed back and forth for several weeks before we met each other. He was crazy witty, very funny, flirtatious and had an endless amount of interesting information in his head. I later found out that he had film and political science degrees, to me the perfect combination of serious issues and pop culture topics. It was never boring hanging out with him. And I liked telling people that I was dating a radio DJ. To me Alex was a fricken' local celebrity! He even had stalker stories! And I made sure that I didn't become one of these stalkers.

Sometime early on in the dating, he told me that he had gotten published on a website for funny hook-up stories, you know, kind of like what I'm doing now... Actually this was more of a "how not to hook up" website; date stories that ended horribly, also like what I'm doing here.

Alex's story was something about going out with a co-worker on new year's, getting ridiculously trashed, trying to hook up, but because of the shear amount of alcohol he had ingested, the little man was down for the count. He also throws into this story that it had been almost five years since the last time he had sex, FIVE YEARS.

I was sort of confused, was this his way of telling me that he was out of practice? Or had he not realized that information was in there. Whatever is was, I realized that there might be something horribly wrong with this man. My friends even warned me: "GET AWAY WHILE YOU CAN! This is not normal for a 30 year old man!"

The other problem with this dating situation is that I only got to see Alex about once every week or two. We had completely opposite schedules, I worked during the day, he worked at night and it worked out that I would go out of town one weekend, he would go out of town another weekend, he got sick...whatever, I never got to see him.

I'm a patient person. I could wait. No problem.

So when things finally got to the point where sex was a possibility, the poor boy must have been so nervous that he had, well *problems,* not much unlike The one who was so hot and didn't speak much English .

I'm a patient person. I can wait till he was comfortable.

I could tell after a little while that he was kinda pulling away a little bit too. His emails became less frequent (at first we emailed once a day) and I would be the one to bug him to make plans. But of course when we did hang out things seemed all good. And, once again, I was getting ready to leave town for good, so I just wanted this to last until I left.

I also wanted to be sure to have a hook up-buddy if I back in town if I needed one. So I wanted to end things on good terms. I even had him promise me some nookie when I did come back to visit. But it never works out for me like that. Other people get hook-up buddies in other cities, but not me!

We really only had sex once. ONLY ONCE!! And by then the little man had no problems, in fact the "little" man was not so "little." It was darn right huge! But for me sex is never really amazing the first time. You have have to get used to each other, you know? So I was looking forward to more.

But more never came.

I left town. I heard from him a couple times. He didn't email me back once. Then I called him and he never called back.

So that was it.

My luck. Just my luck.

Oh, the potential. It was so sad.

I could listen to his show online right now if I wanted, but that would be like stalking him. I'm no stalker! And anyway, my new computer doesn't have the right plug in...

The one who had no neck, poor thing

And yes, I say "poor thing," you can hide a small penis, a drug addiction, low self-esteem or a hairy back (most of the time), but you can't hide a no-neck. You just can't. It's just always not there.

Justin was a really sweet guy, and good friend in Australia when I lived there. But not only did I simply not find him attractive, he, like the one who didn't know how to get over it (a.k.a. the one with the tiny penis) had developed a hardness about him. At age 20 he had given in to a life of bitterness and pessimism toward the world. But he I think meant well and was trying to deal with what life had handed to him in the only way he knew how. And I don't think he got a whole lot of attention from the opposite sex. Even for those who could see through the surface, there was another layer that was hard to get through. Justin wasn't ready to let them in.

Australians are drinkers. And like the best of them, Justin was a drinker. And when he drank, he would come on pretty strong. He would try to kiss me, hug me, and confess his feeling in a number of ways. He once confessed his feelings for me to someone sitting on the couch next him as if I wasn't also sitting in the room within earshot. And I'm sorry, yes, Justin had no neck, but this drunkeness was not attractive. It just wasn't.

I hung out with him and his friends quite a bit and I began to develop little crushes on his friends. Justin would get angry in his drunken states when his friends would flirt with me. He would tell them off and give them attitude, it was embarrassing.

I started taking guitar lessons with his teacher and that increased his feelings for me. I probably should have stopped hanging out with him all together, or at least had a talk with him about it, but I didn't. But, like a few of the guys that have had feelings for me, it was only when he was drinking that I had to be worried about what he would say or do to affect my comfort level. When he was sober, it all was fine.

As I'm writing this I feel like such a hypocrite since I tend to be at my boldest when I'm drinking and I'm certainly not alone in this. I feel like many of us get into trouble when we drink and our inhibitions are down. But what I don't do is repeatedly put someone in an awkward position when I'm drinking. I think this is pretty inconsiderate and disrespectful.

That being said, he was an interesting person and a pretty good friend when he wasn't drinking. We would talk politics and Monty Python. And he did, of course, have a cute Aussie accent, and we know how I feel about accents. He even offered to give me a ride to the airport when I flew back to the States, which was pretty long drive. I remember dreading the good-bye hug, but the moment passed and it was all over.

I keep tabs on him on one of those socialization networking websites and I really hope that the poor kid is getting more comfortable in his own skin.

I say, if you've got a no-neck, work it! Make it one of your finer qualities!

The one who made me a Beatles mix tape

This is the boy who is responsible for my initial love of The Beatles.

In 8th grade I was friends with this group of nerdy indie rock boys. I realise in retrospect that I should have dated at least half of them at some point since they were cute, sweet, smart, funny and dorky, totally my type! But at the time I was too shy to do anything about it. And so were they. And anyway, I had a crush on the boy with the beautiful singing voice that made my heart skip a beat whenever he talked to me or looked in my general direction. So I was too distracted to see these boys as potentials. Even when it was totally obvious.

Matt loved The Beatles, LOVED them. I told him that I didn't know where to start with them since there were so many albums. So he made me a Beatles mix tape that I listened to up until last year when I got a car that sadly didn't have a tape player. It's a great tape. I miss it. It's sitting in a box in storage somewhere.

I hooked him up with a friend of mine, which I stupidly managed to do several times in high school. I realised in college when I was hanging out with the same group of boys over a holiday that I always kinda liked him. I also noticed that he had really bad breath, so maybe it wasn't a bad move afterall.

The one who didn't know how to make up for it

The longest relationship I've ever had was four months long. I'm not super proud of this fact, especially considering it really should have lasted less than one month. I met Adam at a Purim party and he liked me immediately because I joked that it was really scary being in a room full of desperately single Jews. I met some really bizarre people that night.

Adam asked me what I was going to do the next day, and when I said I didn't know, he surprised me with "well you're hanging out with me!"

It only took a week or so before he asked me if he could call me his girlfriend.

Our relationship only should have lasted another two weeks after that. But I was leaving town in four months for grad school and figured, "Why the hell not?"

Well here's why not, and to put it bluntly, because there's no other way to put it, the man had a unfortunately tiny penis.

Really tiny.

Like once I asked if it was still in. Really. All he said was "Well THAT'S not a good thing to hear." Um, oops.

And even more unfortunately, he didn't know how to "make up" for it. Which I put up with, because I was leaving, and hey, I've got electronics to make up for that.

But unfortunately He had developed a bitterness toward life because of his size I think. He was pretty moody. And even though his mom has recently died of lung cancer, he smoked. Not enough to make it an issue for me, but he did smoke regularly. He also LOVED pool and poker; two games I couldn't fully get behind. He had a cool job in the video editing world and complained about it constantly. I think he still works there, and I dated him almost five years ago.

Not that he was all bad, he liked cooking, he was an EXCELLENT kisser (this should never go unappreciated, because there are some god-awful kissers out there, I've kissed many of them), he liked going to shows and movies, he didn't mind sitting around doing nothing when the time called for it and had good taste in music (and we know how I feel about that).

My rationale was that I was leaving in four months, I wasn't getting too involved, he was usually good company except when it was "that time of the month for men," and I didn't have that many friends in the area (and he was better than nothing). I still stand by that descision. A couple of my friends got really mad at me for this, and my family thought he was weird, but as you know I like them weird...

When I did confront him with the "making-up-for-it" issue he claimed that he just didn't "like" doing it and defensively asked "would this be something that you would break up with me over?"

I said "no, I wouldn't, but other women might. And I'm telling you for you're own good and for the future, you're going to have to learn to like it!" He didn't like that answer. At my brother's suggestion, I didn't go near the "your penis is small" conversation. I thought that was wise. Wherever would I get with that comment?

When we finally did part ways, he gave me a mix CD called "Love Songs" with all these old indie rock emo-esque tunes like "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols and "El Scorcho" by Weezer. I didn't quite know what to do, was Adam in love with me? I wasn't going to ask. I just let it go.

I was kind of a bitch to him after that. He would call every now and then checking up on me in grad school, sometimes mentioning that he wanted to come visit. I once made the mistake of telling him that I would be back in his area but ended up freaking out and cancelling on him at the last minute over email. I haven't spoken to him since.

The one who got high off NyQuil

I'm not kidding.

Mike didn't come to one of my house parties in college because he was TOO HIGH FROM DRINKING TOO MUCH NYQUIL!!! What? We had our own keg, full with regular alcohol, what's wrong with Rolling Rock? Not strong enough for you?

Wow, can I pick 'em... why did I like this boy? Oh yeah, he loved The Beatles, had worked for the British Parliament and loved British Indie rock, which I think is a good reason to like someone. Really, I do. One night he played the guitar and sang to me. I'm kind of a sucker for that. He had good CD collection and went to shows. I'm a music whore, what can I say?

I met Mr. NyQuil Drinker at another house party, and that night passed up a wonderful opportunity to makeout with the one with great hair in a weak moment. DAMN! I'm sure that's one thing I'll regret on my death bed.

We were friends, kinda, when we lived in the same city after college. He started going bald at the age of 24. I laughed. Too much NyQuil?



****As a side note, I thought it was interesting that many a googler has found this post by looking up "NyQuil High" or something like that. It must be trendy like sniffing glue...

The one who loved Led Zeppelin

He was my 23rd birthday present.

I worked with Ron for about a year and I thought he was adorable. He was a short, but not too skinny, funny, cute, lover of music, especially Led Zeppelin, and was a total flirt. But of course, he had a super hot Phillipino girlfriend.

But they eventually broke up.

We bonded over Zeppelin. He gave me copies of some of the many Zeppelin CD's he had including a couple of those really cool "Influences of" they made now featuring Muddy Waters and old British folk music tunes. He even overdubbed 2001: A Space Oydssey with Zeppelin music, I think we were stoned when we watched it. It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen, it was like playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz. He said he would make me a copy.

We had a good makeout session after that, which made my actions on my 23rd birthday understandable.

I had my 23rd birthday celebration at a martini bar and got just completely wasted. Everyone kept buying me expensive and exotically flavored drinks that I would never order myself.

There are pictures of me from that night hugging my friends in pure glee, my eyes are totally glazed over. I'm in total bliss.

Someone took me home and Ron got out of the car to give me a good night hug and I drunkenly said,

"Aren't you coming in?" and he just looked at me and responded,
"You're horny aren't you?"
"It's my birthday!" (This was the only thing I could come up with?)

So we're making out on my bed and my roommate is making out with her quasi-boyfriend on her bed. My roommate and I shared a room in the attic of a large house, the room was kinda an "L" shape," so I couldn't see her bed from where I slept, although this doesn't make the situation any less bizarre, but hey, it was college and we were drunk. Very drunk.

At some point we convinced the boys to do a little striptease for us. It was pretty awesome, I have not had the pleasure of anyone since entertaining me with a striptease. Ron got totally into it, my roommates' boy was a little embarrassed. At some point, I just jumped Ron cause he's just so damn cute.

He later tells me that we can't have sex because I'm just too good of a friend. Which was absolutely fine with me since I was still a virgin. It is funny though that we could do all sorts of other things, but actual sex was out of the question.

We stayed friends (unfortunately without benefits from them on) until I moved away and we then sorta lost touch.

He randomly called me last month wanting to know if he could enter my name in the competition to win tickets to the Led Zeppelin reunion concert in London in honor of late, great Ahmet Ertegun, the Producer from Atlantic records who discovered and signed them. He said that if I won, I had to take him. Sure Ron, sure.

I'm still waiting for that Zeppelin/Space Oydssey DVD.