As of 9th grade, I'd never been kissed. Well, that isn't entirely true. At the 8th grade dance, Patrick Sanders (on whom I had an enormous crush and who, as it turned out, was fantastically gay) kissed me on the cheek at the end of the evening. That was it. I entered 9th grade with absolutely no experience when it came to the fellas. I had a working understanding of the male anatomy because of perfunctory sex-ed classes. Certainly no carnal knowledge.
I kept this a secret. One night, I slept over at a friend's house and in between late-night viewings of Cabaret and Evita (we were in theatre), the two other girls, both be-speckled, removed their glasses and had a contest to see how could fit the side piece furtherest down their throat. Noting that I was participating, they turned to me and asked how far I'd gotten. I was still trying to figure out the purpose of the contest and how it related to guys at all (my mother begrudgingly explained oral sex to me during the Barbara Walters/Monica Lewinsky interview after I asked if President Clinton was in trouble for talking dirty. Talking was the only "oral" with which I was familiar), and was not about to cough up the particulars.
I did get my kiss. Just not in the way I had anticipated. The production that Spring was The Merry Wives of Windsor and I played Rugby, a page to one of the play's various suitors (the details are fuzzy. It's one of Shakespeare's comedies. There's a buffoon, a pretty girl, some mistaken identity, a few jokes about the French and it ends with a wedding or two.) At the close of Friday's show, Jimmy Waters stuck his tongue down my throat after I said I'd go out with him. I had been expecting a longing gaze, Jim just led with his tongue. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy it. I'd just been waiting for a while and wanted to work my way up to choking on someone else's tongue.
Since that first kiss, the longest I have been without a boyfriend is six months. In eight years, I've had a boyfriend (four total, but two of them had made repeat appearances) for about six, give or take a month. I was in a relationship for two and half years, single for four months (wherein I had various dalliances we will not discuss), and then found myself in a relationship for the next three years. I don't even know how it happened. Other people, I am told, date for months. Not years.
It's been two months since Walt and I broke up. I miss the dalliances. It would be easier to say that no one has seemed interested in me. That isn't exactly the case. About three weeks after we broke up, I tagged along to a party with my brother and his friend Mark hit on me. Granted, I did not know that was his intention until after he stated it directly (albeit it sneakingly inserted into the end of an otherwise innocent questions). I thought we were just discussing Derrida and Ulysses. There's nothing wrong with Mark. Were he not two decades older than me and one of my brother's very good friends, I'd probably have gone for it. The newness of my break-up didn't help much either. Neither did the promise I had stupidly made to Walt that I would not start dating again until after he'd met someone new (I know, I know.) At least with Mark, there was hope.
Later, on my last night in San Francisco, a guy named Kenya (no, seriously. His name was Kenya) asked me out while I was waiting for my burger. Again, it started innocently enough. I figured he was just making conversation while we both waited for our food. I lied and told me I was meeting up with my boss for a drink and really couldn't flake on her. Today, while I was trying on shoes (a sacred and personal endeavor, during which one should not be bothered), I was asked out by a shoe salesman. He did not offer me a discount. He asked if I liked movies and if I lived in the area. Then he asked if I minded being friends with men. I told me yes on two counts and only if the men intended on remaining platonic. I have very little room in my life right now for messiness. Al (yes, a shoe salesman named Al) then asked if I had a boyfriend and I said I don't but didn't particularly want one right now as I had just ended a rather long-term relationship. He gave me his card regardless and told me he was very much like Professor Higgins in that he " was serenely independent and content before we met! Surely [he] could always be that way again." Yes, the professor Higgins of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady fame. I decided not to explain to him that I always thought Shaw was didactic without merit and it's a supreme joke that the Nobel committee honored him and not Joyce.
Can you veto someone because of a dead Irish playwright?
Haven't I earned a legitimate rebound? I haven't had one yet. Legitimate or otherwise. Instead, the universe has thrown me dud after dud. Mark probably wasn't a dud but it still didn't feel right. Kenya, was a good foot shorter than me and reminded me very much of Walt's old roommate, Paul. Al has no tangible chin and, in addition to quoting a musical when he asked me out, told me that he hated most people but that I seemed like I might be smart. Seemed, but he was not sold. Man, does he know how to man an offer a girl can easily refuse.
Granted, I suppose I can't actually have a rebound until I start meeting new people. The only two ways I'm about to have of meeting said new people are graduate school and the hip-hop dance class I'm trying out on Wednesday. They'll both probably be chock-ablock of ladies. Joy of joys. This isn't to say I don't like my people. I adore them. I just wish they would invite attractive, tall, eligible bachelors to parties so I can have my legitimate rebound and move on to the business of being alone for a good, long while.
Just a kiss or two from the lips of a determined man. Is that too much to ask?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment