The OKCupid Chronicles – “Things”
A common misconception about me is that I date lots of guys and have lots of sex. I talk very candidly about my “dating life”, as well as my views on men, relationships, etc. I blog about hating feelings and having the hots for terrible dudes. My OKC mailbox fills up every other day with messages from men who want to date me, or fuck me, or have me mother their children. In real life, I go months without getting laid. Right now, I’m over a month deep into the misery that is involuntary celibacy.
It’s not because I don’t have options, I do. I collect hollers from dudes at bars and even dudes at grocery stores. And there are always guys who I used to get naked with who periodically text me at 3am. But at this point the sex I could have with dudes who aren’t that into me is almost as undesirable to me as sex I could have with dudes I meet at bars.
For lack of other options, I’ve spent the last 2 years having “things” with dudes. Mind you, these are “things” and not “relationships.” Relationships are what happens when two people like each other and don’t mind if other people know about it. They involve declaring your status on Facebook, hanging out sober, and becoming socially irrelevant. I’m really just guessing at this because I haven’t been in a real relationship for 4 years. Maybe 5. And maybe the one real “relationship” I was in was kind of a disaster. Regardless, I have had lots of “things” in my lifetime. “Things” involve intentionally accidentally running into each other at bars, leaving separately (or secretly) to go hook up, hurt feelings, lots of drunk fucking, inappropriate texting, miscommunication, booty calls, etc. Some “things” I’ve had look and feel like “relationships” only without the ever elusive “boyfriend/girlfriend” titles. Some of mine have involved dudes actually giving a damn about my feelings but usually they involve me really liking dudes who just don’t really like me – at least not enough to let a “thing” become a “relationship.”
I know better than to blame my persistent singledom on the guys I’ve tried to date. I do have a thing for emotionally unavailable douchebags, but I’ve dated some nice guys to whom I was the emotionally unavailable douchebag. Sometimes I let the walls of cynicism down just enough to let a guy know that I have a heart, but usually that involves him taking my heart, fucking it in the ass, and then not returning it’s texts.
That aside, most recently I had a “thing” with a guy for about 8 months. We met because we had a “missed connection” on the bus one day. No one ever posted anything on Craigslist, but we eye-fucked each other on MUNI pretty hard and I definitely searched m4w all week looking for “cute girl in the Nirvana shirt on the 49.” Thankfully, fate (aka malt liquor) brought us together at a dive bar a couple weeks later. After drinking a 40oz of Mikey’s on the bus one Tuesday, I developed the superhuman ability to drink a thousand cans of PBR and then not give a damn about approaching a cute guy at a bar (aka punching him in the back) to tell him that I know him, because I like, “saw him on the bus one time”. I don’t exactly remember what happened after that. Somehow my missed connection (let’s call him MC) was not completely freaked out by the whole situation and we exchanged phone numbers. I also vaguely remember making out around the corner from the bar, but up until recently I wasn’t sure this had actually happened (it did).
After leaving the bar, I proceeded to accidentally send MC some texts intended for another person (mind you, NOT accidentally intentionally). I then threw up in my bathtub for a couple of hours and passed out with my shoes on. Malt liquor and I don’t have a very healthy relationship.
I have no idea how or why MC didn’t write me off as another insane San Francisco girl, but he didn’t. And we hung out a couple of days later. We hooked up awhile after that. After hanging out a few more times MC told me that that he needed to talk to me about something. I was prepared for “I have a girlfriend” or “I have herpes” or “I have a kid,” so the “I just got out of a relationship and I’m not looking for something really serious” wasn’t actually that bad. MC is one of the only guys I’ve ever “dated” who warned me about these things ahead of time.
MC made the hard cold lump of stainless steel that is my heart throb a little bit. We had infrequent, but very intense sex. He would sometimes hold my hand in public. He is the only guy I’ve ever dated who likes sleeping in til 4pm and eating disgusting amounts of skittles and gummy worms.
He was also terrible at texting – which drove me nearly insane. I realize that the expectation that someone have their phone on them at all times and respond to texts in a timely fashion is kind of absurd. But it’s 2000andfucking10. The average person DOES have their phone on them pretty much always and DOES respond to texts within an hour or so. An unanswered text is a subtle, “fuck you.” An unanswered text from a dude who has gotten you naked is a definitive, “I’m not that interested in you.”
MC was a bad texter. Which meant he wasn’t that into me. But when we did hang out, he was funny, and kind, and looked kind of like Conor Oberst. It helped that he was prone to asking me to meet him in the bathroom or outside the bar, pinning me against the wall, and making out with me in a way that left me with ripped tights and weak knees. We hung out maybe once a week, sometimes less, for months. Our “thing” never became a “relationship” but MC never lied to me, or treated me like shit, or was disrespectful to me in any direct way. In a lot of ways he made me realize that I’m pretty alright, and date-able, and maybe even lovable.
A couple of months ago I had the revelation that I’M A GROWN-ASS WOMAN and I did something I have never done before. I ended things with MC. Well, I didn’t actually end them. BUT I did tell him that I wanted more of a relationship than he was able to give me and I wasn’t going to continue doing what we had been doing. This was HUGE for me. I have never had the kind of self-respect to think that I deserved more than what a guy I was into was giving me, however little. MC was really nice about it, he told me he knew I deserved better and hoped we could remain friends. He told me what is in my book one of the sweetest things a guy has ever told me: “I wish I had had time to get sick of you.” I cried a little bit while walking home, and I never cry.
I hate to admit this, but one of the things that lead me to my grow-ass woman revelation was signing up for okcupid. There’s nothing to make you feel fucking worth it like 100 creeps hitting you up on the internet. No, seriously. For the first time in my life I had guys asking me to dinner instead of asking me if I was going to so&so’s party later or knew where to find some blow. I got messages from doctors and lawyer, bros and creeps and weirdos. I got messages from dudes who looked like Abercrombie models and dudes who looked like Larry David. What I realized is that there are, in fact, a lot of fucking fish in the sea, and a lot of those fish are down to date me.
I’ve since learned (the hard way) that you don’t know rejection until you’ve been rejected by someone you met on the internet. And I’ve since aggressively made out with MC in the photobooth at Pop’s and been spotted leaving his apartment in last night’s outfit. But I walk that walk of shame with my head held high. Because I’m a grown-ass woman. And there are plenty of fucking fish in the sea.
READ MORE of THE OKCUPID CHRONICLES:
The OkCupid Chronicles – Zero Degrees of Separation 2
So we left off ZERO DEGREES OF SEPARATION with our Okcupider, John, having swapped spit with my good friend Melissa, but there is another mutual friend to factor into this equation….
Friend #3 is someone I have known for the last 3 or 4 years living here in the city. We both grew up in the same town and although we went to some of the same schools and share many interests and several friends, we had never met. When I moved to the city and would talk to people about how I ended up here, David would always come up as someone I should know. We ran in similar circles and finally met, at of all places, Delirium (of course, of course). We hit it off but never really came together until one night in September.
I was beginning what was to be a magnificent career as a professional trainwreck. I somehow had found myself on “The Scene,” the mess of promoters, partiers, drug dealers, and DJs who essentially rule the bars of this city. I was new, and young, and thrilled with the prospect of going out. It was all very glamorous – the sex, the drugs, the music, the beautiful people. I was giddy with it. I became friends who two people who are arguably the most powerful promoters in this city. They throw the end-all ridiculously excessive, electro-party in the city. 18 and up. A shit show of magnificent proportions. They asked me to host, and I gladly consented.
Hosting a party is essentially helping to promote it. It involves you having your name on a flyer, drinking for free, sending mass texts, excessively posting party information on social networking sites, and making terrible life choices. It is a job that the most despondent of self-loathing party people aspire to have. It is proof that you are (finally) POPULAR (loved, wanted, needed, desired). It is the homecoming queen of nightlife. It is validation.
So, self-loathing, insecure, pathetic, 19-year-old me was ecstatic. I picked out multiple outfits, planned costume changes, handed out flyers and invited everyone I knew, friend or otherwise. And of course, I invited David.
I don’t remember much of that night past 11pm. There are brief flashes of taking shots, dancing in a onesie on stage, screaming into a microphone, and doing copious amounts of cocaine in a bathroom. Everything else is gone.
I texted David a few times in the weeks afterwards to see if he wanted to hang out again, but he was always busy. I had fucked up. We would run into each other from time to time and it was always awkward. Then I quit The Scene. Got my life together. Ran into David at a house party and talked a bit, I poked fun at how we had met, and in some strange way, apologized for the person I had been. We kept running into each other in the next month and ultimately ended up exchanging phone numbers again. Hung out. Discovered that we shared a love for some under-appreciated and very obscure bands. There was a small spark again. I thought he was dreamy.
Of course, this lead to me cabbing to his house one night at 3am and staying up til 5 to make out. I could tell he wasn’t that into it, but we repeated this pattern over and over again. This culminated in us almost having sex, but not quite. Sex makes things complicated. We would interact frequently online, Facebook comments, and Twitter replies. The strange new frontier of flirting. I wasn’t sure if he was into me, and I stopped caring. He was a cool guy, and a good friend. If we made out every once and awhile, so be it.
David is the 3rd friend that OKcupider John and I share. They had met a couple of weeks before, at a house show that David’s band played.
I’ve since hung out with John and few times, and we’ve talked more candidly about the whole situation. Thankfully we both found the situation to be far more awesome than awful. Recently there have been plans made for John, myself, David, and John’s friend to go on a double date. I am very excited about this.
It should be noted that David and myself fit quite unwillingly into the genre of “hipster.” We listen to obscure music, like art & stuff, and wear mostly clothing we’ve scrounged up from various thrift stores. The fact that we’re both from an affluent town known for it’s ridiculously hip kids with trust funds only makes things better. Of course, neither of us would ever consent to being labeled a “hipster.” That would be, like, totally lame.
John and his friend on the other hand, are not hipsters. John had been dubbed a “Dude-bro” (see previous post) although I have since assented that he is not quite a Dude-bro in the conventional sense. He prefers the term “Tool.” His friend is in many ways his female counterpart. Our double date is to take place in the Marina. And it is a competition. Tools vs. Hipsters. Winner takes Delirium. David and I have been fucking practicing, and with out doubt, we got this. No problem.
THE POINT IS:
It is impossible to meet anyone, online or otherwise, that is not in some way connected to oneself. Seriously. And fuck that “6 degrees of separation” bullshit, this is San Francisco, consider yourself lucky if you and the person you’re interested in have not had sex with the SAME PERSON (this is arguably the gayest town in the world, where sexuality is like quicksilver), let alone made out with each others’ friends.
Unfortunately, this is just the first example of my theory, which was still just a theory until on a recent date, when I was given further proof that I have no hope of meeting someone who is legitimately a stranger.
But I’ll save that for next time.
READ MORE of THE OKCUPID CHRONICLES:
The OKCupid Chronicles – Zero Degrees of Separation
So I have encountered a problem. My attraction to dating on the internet was partially rooted in the anonymity of it all… I can be whomever I want. Not that girl who is dated so&so, or the chick who made out with your roommate’s friend, or that promoter girl who was a HOT FUCKING MESS ’05-’08. Similarly, I like the idea of meeting people whom I would never meet otherwise, who are far enough from my incestual circle of friends that I can be sure they have not already slept with someone I know. The internet is big enough that there is security in having an interaction with someone untainted by history. There is the promise that, for a moment in time, you can be exactly who you want to be without having to explain your past. You have the liberty of presenting yourself and your life in whichever light you choose, and that is empowering.
Unfortunately, San Francisco is such a tiny, fucking cesspool that meeting someone who is legitimately a “stranger” is IMPOSSIBLE.
PART ONE, “JOHN”:
I met someone on OkCupid whose similarities to myself were mainly our personalities and outlook than our lifestyle or interests. This promised an important social distance and made me confident that he had little to no chance of knowing any of my friends. WRONG.
For the sake of anonymity, and because he might very well read this, let’s call this person “John.” Some light detective work on John’s part revealed several startling things – all stemming from the fact that we have three Facebook friends in common. The first friend is inconsequential – someone far enough removed from both of our lives to be harmless. The other two friends are not so negligible.
FRIEND #2, “MELISSA” :
Delirium occupies a very special place in my heart. I would estimate that I spent more time there between the ages of 18-20 than I did at my own apartment. I have done a variety of inappropriate things in their bathroom, most of which are illegal, all of which do not make me seem like a particularly decent human being. For many years Delirium was the hipster mecca of San Francisco. The place was (and still is, too some degree) veritably crawling with art school students in tight pants, vintage T-shirts, and flannels. In recent years, as mainstream media has adopted much of alternative culture, there has been an influx of … well, non-hipsters. People from the Marina in Polo shirts ordering Coronas and enraging the hipster population. As a result, many hipsters have abandoned Delirium, retreating deeper into the mission or staying home in order to get fucked up and work on their “art.” The weekdays are “better” than the weekends, when most of the douche bags in this city are so occupied with their 9-5 jobs that they don’t have the time or energy to rage in the Mission. So Delirium exists as a sort of middle ground, where hipsters and non-hipsters mix and mingle, sometimes peacefully, other times not so much.
Delirium’s reputation as a hipster bar, and now as a disenfranchised hipster bar, is only preceded by it’s reputation as a place to get laid. I will admit that probably half of the people I have made out with, gone home with, or brought home with me, I met at Delirium. Something about the place makes people just want to get down. Maybe it’s the $2 Tecate cans? I can only guess.
The point of this is:
1. Delirium is a place where hipsters and non-hipsters mingle, or rather, collide.
2. Delirium is a place where people exchange body fluids.
Is this beginning to make sense? Friend 2, Melissa, is acquainted with our OkCupid-er, John. BEFORE YOU GET AHEAD OF YOURSELVES, the people in question are both adults, and not the 18-19-year-old idiots who spend most of their time having regrettable sex. They are grown-ups who know better. As grown-ups, they only engaged in some “aggressive making out.” Harmless – seriously.
BUT SERIOUSLY?!
Why does EVERY single guy I meet, even on the goddamn internet, have to had exchanged some kind of body fluid with someone I know?
As with most disheartening situations in my life, I found this one to be ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS. And really, this little bit of familiarity dispelled some of the creepiness of meeting someone on the internet, and made it less awkward to consider actually meeting John.
Of course, there is the third friend to take into account, but I’ll get to that next week.
READ MORE of THE OKCUPID CHRONICLES:
The OKCupid Chronicles – An Introduction
AN INTRODUCTION OF SORTS
There is something wrong with me. When I walk into a dive bar and am greeted by the smell of puke & PBR, the montage of flannels and black beanies leaves only one thought in my head:
I WANT YOUR BEARD BURN ALL OVER ME.
I am a grown-ass woman. I have two jobs. I have my own, sweet fucking studio apartment. I have health insurance. I have a killer resume. I have a savings account. I have a goddamn OkCupid profile. I am winning at life, not by a lot, but I am winning.
So why the fuck does the sight of some unemployed, un-showered douchebag exiting the bathroom with a vacant stare and white ’round his nostrils make me want to have unprotected sex on a couch somewhere? A bike lock in a Chrome bag makes my panties drop. If you tell me that you can’t afford to buy me a drink, but would be stoked if I could, like, buy you a Hamm’s or a shot of Jack or something, I might be into it. Let’s be real, I am probably all about it
It’s not that I have no morals, because I do, it’s just that I am one of THOSE GIRLS.
I date dudes in bands. And DJs. And bartenders. And dudes who went to art school (preferably, those who dropped out of art school to pursue a career in making coffee). I date dudes who cannot afford to take me on dates, and if they could afford to take me on a date, would probably use that money to buy beer and drugs.
I have been that girl since I kissed my first punk rocker in leather pants and a bullet belt. I have an arsenal of Mix CD with hand-drawn covers and Bright Eyes B-sides. I have a restraining order. I have Polaroids of myself making out with various ex-boyfriends. I am about three steps away from having some dude’s name tattooed on a part of my body.
BUT…
I’m done. No, seriously, I’m done. To be honest, a part of it is that most of the dudes I’m attracted to when I walk into a dive bar, I have already made out with. Maybe. Ok, probably. Or at least they are good friends or roommates with some dude I dated 
summer ’07 – or have slept with one of my girlfriends. San Francisco is a tiny, and very slutty, little city. I know, because I have done my part to make it that way. Regardless, I have paid my fucking dues. I have done my time posted up at Delirium, and Hemlock, and Pop’s, and most other bars that offer a dollar beer. I have convinced a large portion of the female, hipster population of San Francisco to hate me. (I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you used to date, and that you still love him or whatever. Also, please don’t hurt me.)
The point is: I’M A GROWN-ASS WOMAN. I am beginning to realize that the fact that you have that one limited release EP on vinyl does not mean that you are THE ONE. In fact, that might be the only thing going for you, and unfortunately that just isn’t enough for me to go home with you, let alone try to date you.
I’m sorry, but if you can’t afford to pay your phone bill, I don’t think we should hang out. I know you can, like, @ reply me on twitter to arrange a time and place to meet up, but later, after you’ve called your drug dealer from my number, and he won’t stop calling to harass me about the money you owe him, I’m gonna be sort of bummed out.
Similarly, if you are like, staying on your friend’s couch for awhile until your unemployment kicks in, I’m not into it. I know that he doesn’t mind if we have sex in his living room. Even better, I know that you really appreciate it if you can, like, crash at my place for the weekend. But I’m just going to have to say no. You being hungover here is seriously getting in the way of me eating candy alone while watching Law & Order SVU. Please leave.
I’m not saying that I’m done with scumbags, because I’m not. Scumbags are my bread & butter. My scummy dude friends are my everything, and I gladly play wing-woman so they can bag bitches a few years away from being as bitter & jaded as myself. I am, essentially, a scumbag myself. I’m just saying that I am done dating scumbags. I’ve put in too many long, painful years of “romantic” benders and bar-bathroom hookups, it’s high time someone actually took me to dinner or bought me a drink. I don’t know if I could handle it if a guy bought me flowers, but I really hope that I can get to the point where that sort of thing doesn’t make me cry til I hyperventilate. Hence, I am forgoing the bars and turning to the internet. And if I know anything, it’s that shit’s gonna get weird.
READ MORE of THE OKCUPID CHRONICLES: You Should Message Me If…