Love & Haterade

In Honor of Earth Day...

I'm thinking about recycling.

Specifically, what happens when, hypothetically, you break up with someone under the party line of "right person at the wrong time" and then, hypothetically, the right[er] time presents itself.

Hypothetically.

Intermission: Anti-Game Game

Due to the unexpectedly high volume of emails I received from men asking for more specifics on the anti-game game of which I speak, I felt the need to stress the following points:

• Anti-game game cannot be taught or learned (because if it could be taught or learned then it would just be game),
• Anti-game game is born of the union of absolute sincerity and complete insecurity,
• Anti-game game doesn't live in the twinkles or sparkles in someone's eyes, rather deep within an integrity that borderlines sublime,
• Anti-game game is four-parts charm, three-parts intelligence, two-parts Olympian hand-holding, one-part someone who is really, really, really good at making you feel butterflies for an extended amount of time before your first physical contact,
• Anti-game game is so innocent that chances are if you think you have anti-game game, you probably don't. 

The Lure of the Sweatervest

He'd stared at me from across the room, outside the window a setting so pastoral and autumnal and picture-perfect it looked like a painted backdrop someone had pulled down from the sky.  I did all the secret things girls do when they know someone is staring at them across a room and don't want him to stop.

And he didn't stop.  In fact, the out-of-town presentation we were all attending in the middle of nowhere sort of blurred and blended into the background.  He stared and stole glances like he'd never grow tired of doing it; I pretended not to notice even though I could feel his eyes taking in every detail of my face.

Later that afternoon, I ran into him at a divey cafe on Main Street...like Cameron Crowe himself was directing a movie about my life.

"You look so familiar," he said.

"Well, you saw me this morning," I replied.

"No....that's not what I meant. I mean, I feel like I know you. From before today. I just can't place you."

It was a fairly typical approach, I'm told by protective male friends irritated by my swoon, but I was touched by his glasses and flattered by his earnest attempt across a crowded bagel shop in the middle of the afternoon with no alcohol involved.

Being flattered quickly accelerated to being charmed when he slid his business card across the counter and said, "Tell you what. You think about it. And if you can figure out where we've met email me and let me know."

Anti-game at its finest, it was direct/subtle. I emailed him one week later.  He asked me out to dinner.

I wore herringbone gauchos, a velvet blazer and open-toed high heels.  He wore a rumpled, navy-blue, three-button sweatervest.  And while I've never been one to dismiss a man for clothing or shoes or bad haircuts, something about that worn, crumpled sweatervest...I didn't quite know what to do with. 

To begin with, it reminded me of my junior high geometry teacher which was disconcerting. But also Werther's Originals which felt safe.  Sure, I'd never met a man who made me lusty in a "God, I'd love to pin him up against a wall and rip off his sweatervest" kind of way, but then I also thought that men who wear three-button sweatervests without apology also probably don't cheat on their girlfriends three days before they propose.  And that maybe, maybe woven into the threads of his worn, warm cotton outerwear there was an earnest decency and something to be said for giving Old SweaterVest a chance.

He wasn't all good, in fact. He liked my high heels which made him a little racy. [He mentioned it three times which catapulted him close to seamy.]  He told me I was beautiful and when I blushed and looked down and fumblingly thanked him, he adjusted his glasses and said "That wasn't really a compliment, it's a matter of fact."

Anti-game game. (Though, not the anti-game I talked about here.)

We shared romantic histories over wine and cheese.

I was part-enchanted, part-wary.  If the past year has taught me anything, it's that talk is cheap.  Dropping the beautiful bomb is easy. So is paying a woman a weighty compliment. If every adult woman has at least two moves that she knows work for her, it's fair to say I think that every man has at least two lines in his arsenal that will not fail him when sexual tension is on the table. 

I've also learned that enamored men do crazy things.  And as most single women in their late twenties will agree, the goal isn't to make a man so enamored he does something crazy; the goal is to make a man so enamored he does something sensible: like choose to be with you. Forever.

I might have written Sweatervest off then and there but for his delivery which was bumbling, his glasses which were fashion-backward, and his dreams of being a high school English teacher which were as worn and comfortable as the tan leather briefcase he carried around that matched it all. 

What was left to consider in that moment was the RipYourClothesOffFactor.  If it wasn't high, would I be happy? And how would it feel, at the end of a long, satisfying life, to know that you were with someone who didn't feel that way about you?

I wasn't sure.  What I felt, as we ambled home on that chilly October night in comfortable silence, the soft leather of his bag hitting my bare legs, and all I could think about was being curled up, safe and warm, in the right hip pocket of his comfortably worn cotton-wool blend dreaming sweet, buttery, toffee-flavored dreams.

The Dinner Bell

It is worth pausing to stop and say that, by far, the best thing about a much-needed, five-month ManFast is getting to the day where you realize you're ready to break it.

The God of Small Things

Smiling at someone you don't know across a crowded room is a lot easier in theory than it is in practice.

And not unlike good sex and flirtatious emails, at its best it's vulnerable and intimate, warm and friendly, scary and sexy and always leaves you excited and a little bit breathless; at it worst, it pretty much makes you want to kill yourself in the moments following because your gut instinct led you to complete and utter disaster.

There's a way to do it, too.

A delicate dance of exchanged glances and averted eyes, tossed hair and pronounced mannerism, slowly parting lips, hesitation, and, finally, gleaming white teeth.

And not unlike falling in love, at its best it's pretty fucking fantastic; at its worst, you still feel pretty good in the long run because you put yourself out there and know you'll never wonder what happened if.

January was pretty unmemorable.  Nothing bad happened, of course.  The month just moved the way I imagine it would feel if to walk through a room filled with plain oatmeal: sticky, sluggish and a wholly bland experience. A creamy, nondescript blur filled with exhausting social obligations like hard, cold stones: smooth and without a decadent detail to be squeezed from them.

I wondered if this was it.  If after months and years of looking forward to the next emotional phase of my life, if I had finally crossed over into it only to realize it was so emotionally void and unattached that I could actually move life without having to experience it. 

Previous hope seemed naive, previous butterflies an extinct species, previous optimism a lost cause.  And as much as no one wants to read about it, I assure you that ten times more: I didn't want to write about it.

Until a Saturday night smile brought me back into orbit. 

I was dancing with a friend. I was having more fun than I'd had in a long time. I was happy. I was laughing. He noticed. He smiled. He crossed the room. He told me.

That was it, of course, nothing more, nothing less.  There were no numbers exchanged, no clever lines, no insincere commitments, no slick moves.

But sometimes that's all you need: to notice and be noticed, to share an unexpected moment, an unexpected glance, an unexpected smile with someone in a gray, half-zip, pullover sweater who leaves you remembering why you like life so much better when you're actually experiencing it. 

Glitter My Inbox

There's something slightly magical about getting an email out of nowhere from that cute, Indie guy you remember fondly from college telling you he's going to be in town and wants to take you out to dinner.

It was junior year, it was elective humanities.

He wore dark-framed glasses before it were trendy; I wore sweats to class before a more stylish pajama was marketed.

Nothing ever happened between us, of course.  But, since it doesn't happen very often, it's exciting to get the opportunity to have dinner with an old friend, to be who you were and who you've become all at the same time.

Make It Memorable

Perhaps the best part of a date you didn't want to go on is, one week later, getting an email that says...

I recognize that one statement I made in particular was uncouth, uncalled for, and unfounded. I apologize.

...and having absolutely no idea what it's referring to.

Six-Alarm Fire

I was on my second semi-date with a potential maybe when he blurted out:

"I don't want to get married till I'm, like, at least 35."

Till this point, he was a cute guy.  Really cute.  Smart-ish.  Nice.  Easy to talk to. Though, perhaps, even before this admission a little awkward, a lot immature, and generally misguided.

It was part-the actual words and part-the actual tone.  Like, if we had been near the neighborhood of a nonspecific conversation about marriage or I had somehow indicated that I was thinking about a future with him, maybe this would have been an appropriate juncture at which to make me aware of his timeline.  But, in fact, I think we might have actually been talking about the neighborhoods we've lived in since moving to the District and which we liked best.  It was the blurt to end all blurts.

It's, like, because I'm single and in my late mid-twenties, every non-platonic guy I share a dinner tab with immediately assumes I want him to be the father of my children. (PS: I don't.)

But what's wrong with wanting that...in the grander scheme? Nothing.  In fact, I'd say it's normal.  And, eight times out of ten, part of the larger reason we put ourselves through this bizarre modern mating ritual of correspondence and shared meals during times of day and days of the week that each carry their own weight and meaning. (You could say the larger reason is sex, but I also think if sex is really all you're looking for it probably doesn't take that much effort. Or planning.)

The thing is once someone says something like that, it's difficult -- as the alleged matrimonially-inclined half of the conversation -- to come out of it with your message in tact.  Not unlike NoExpectations: If you agree, you've become GoodTimesBarmaid; if you disagree, you've become the mantrap his mother warned him about when she told him he was the god's gift to the unvierse.

What I think I actually said was:

"Why 35? You think turning 35 is somehow going to magically cure you of all your commitment issues? Is that your grown-up age?"

There are men who can get away with that sort of thing -- the whole "I don't ever want to get married" thing -- and I think there's maybe room for one of those kind of men in every single girl's archive.  If you can tolerate him. But no more than one.  And I've already had mine.  And in his short-lived window he was glittering and bedazzled and fantastic.  Until he wasn't.  And then he sucked.

Here's what I've decided: It's not that every second date needs to end in daydreams of diamond rings and tearful vows and champagne toasts, but I think it's just as scary and twisted and presumptuous and six-alarm fire for him to bring up NotMarriage within a two-date time frame. Particularly, when I spent three-fourths of the day trying to decide if I actually liked him enough to actually go on this second date in the first place. 

I don't deny my biological clock; I never have. But I also refuse to believe that men don't have some kind of internal nesting clockwork, too.  Maybe it doesn't beat the same way mine does; maybe their ability for effective procreation is only contingent on a pulse and a functional erection; maybe in low moments they don't further upset themselves by getting trapped in complicated equations wherein they realize that in order to have their first child by the age of 30 they would have had to have met their future spouse three days ago.

But here's what:

Don't nervously ask me out. Three times. And email me constantly. Grab my arms or hands for emphasis mid-sentence across the table. Graze your knee against mine under the bar. Study my features and pay me compliments. Stare at me for one longer second than you're supposed to. And then try to defensively distance yourself from me in the middle of a conversation about something else by telling me you don't want to get married till you're 35.

I don't care if you don't want to get married till you're 35.  Don't worry. I could barely muster up the enthusiasm to have a drink with you after work, let alone sign into any kind of legal-cum-spiritual contract to see us through ages.