Can I get that sex back? And other first dates

This is a piece from a couple years back that’s been living in a cardboard box next to a book about the elusive orgasm. The names have been changed. Posting it in fond nostalgia of a time when there wasn’t a correlation between hugging your mom and ICU capacity.

Sometimes you have to man up and eat two dinners cause you thought it was just a drinks thing.

And maybe halfway through the date you’ll regret saying yes to the guy you met on Craigslist while you were looking for a new place to live because you broke up with your partner of seven years.

While at the time it seemed like a great story to tell your future kids, he’s currently leaning back in his chair flicking his tongue against the inside of his cheek to make raindrop noises.

You still don’t know what Cody does for a living. When you questioned, he asked if he should grab his suit jacket from the car if you wanted to get all serious. And when you mentioned college, he said he got a degree in underwater basket weaving. So original.

He’s asked if you’d ever been in a power outage and told you not to chew your ice (which, to be fair, you probably shouldn’t have been doing, and especially not on a first date). You’ve covered his opinion on how the California drought is made up, and you’re pretty sure he wasn’t kidding.

The evening is starting to feel like a waste of a face mask, and you’re regretting all the time spent making yourself look human and all the nervous poos you’ve done over the past few days in anticipation of your official first first date in seven years.

You let Cody kiss you at the dinner table even though it was pretty cringey and you’re embarrassed for the server. And again in the parking lot, partly because he paid for dinner, and partly because it’s nice to kiss new lips, even ones attached to someone you have no intentions with. You feel his hands roam over your body as he invites you back to his. And you decline, in the same manner that you politely decline a second date too when he texts the next day.

You invite him out for comedy instead with an offer to be friends, and he says he’s not interested in being friends, but to let him know if your feelings change. On lonely nights you sometimes think about texting him, but then remember how during a particularly forced part of the conversation he asked if you liked electrical outlets, and think that maybe you aren’t actually that lonely after all.

***

Luis hasn’t text you back, and it’s freaking you out.

Granted, you only went on one date, and it was pretty bad, but that definitely wasn’t because of you. Please. You were charming and funny and pretended to be interested in the mechanics of nuclear power plants.

He asked your opinion on clean energy sources, and you genuinely thought it was a joke as you have no strong opinions about clean energy. You should really get on that. On account of being a strong independent twenty-first century woman and all.

You’d met his sister first, when you were staked out at a bar trying to bump into this other guy you’d decided was your soulmate who may or may not have mentioned said bar as his local.

She said you seemed really nice, and could she set you up with her brother who was also really nice, and just needed to meet someone nice. You could tell he wasn’t going to be your type just from all the overwhelming niceness going on, but you agree, mainly because going on dates is something you feel like you should be doing.

Texting Luis is hard work. Before you can fall asleep every night you have to jot off a paragraph about your day. And you never take kindly to anything that stands between you and your bed.

The texts slowly dwindle into weeks of quiet. Until he rises from the silence to ask if you want to meet up the next day, as you still haven’t met in person. You’re definitely free, but hell if you’re gonna tell him that.

He then suggests meeting on Tuesday at 5:40ish. There’s nothing “ish” about 5:40. Or texting an hour before the date saying he’s now available at 5:30 if you wanted to meet then instead.

When it comes to the date itself, you panic pay. It’s a pay at the counter ordeal, and after you order and the cashier tells you your total there’s crickets on his end, so you say you’ll cover his order too.

Because you’d rather pay for his food and later bitch about it to everyone you’ve ever met, than endure the weirdness of being on a date where you both paid for your own meals.

He hasn’t text since. You’re telling yourself you weren’t Catholic enough for him, as in, at all. Because that could clearly be your only ever fault.

***

You never ran into aforementioned soulmate during the staged drop in at his local, or repeated visits to the bar you met at — you dragged way, way too many friends to Frog and Peach that spring.

You mentally pen a children’s book called Looking for Jonah about your borderline creepy search which culminates with you walking into his work and asking him out. You had polled lots of friends for their opinions on this, and an overwhelming majority said not to do it.

In all fairness you were more than a little delusional when it all went down. You’d moved out of your place with your ex the day before, had gotten maybe three hours of sleep that night, and had been picked to sit in the box for jury duty.

Showering was a distant fantasy that week. And it showed. Wide-rimmed glasses break up the landscape between your bloodshot eyes and the deep bags beneath them. Contacts had been too ambitious.

You take a deep breath and head into the outdoors store.

You ask the pretty girl at the front if Jonah’s working, simultaneously wondering if he’s fucking her, and feeling like a fraud asking for Jonah, as if you had some sort of right to be there.

She says he’d stepped out but would be back in a minute. You browse the shop trying to busy yourself, and wonder why there’s so much underwear on display. You pretend to be enthralled in a rack of backpacking food, when Jonah asks if he can help you find anything.

You both do a double take and you’re more startled than he is, despite the fact that you came in looking for him. You ask him out, and he responds with enormous casualty, as though frazzled, deeply exhausted women hunted him down on the regular.

***

In hindsight another thing you probably shouldn’t have done was fail to download normal-people music to look like less of a hot mess freshly broken up from a seven-year-long relationship. So that the rest of the world doesn’t have to witness the Lizzo-on-loop side of things.

So that, hypothetically speaking, if you happen to find yourself on a road trip with a tall handsome man named Jonah who is also an outdoor guide, and a scuba divemaster, and funny, and interesting, and kind, and asks you about your family, and recounts the story of how his dad proposed to his mom.

And you can’t help but think that you’d very much like to marry him one day — or at least bone him — and he tells you to put your tunes on, you can have options downloaded besides the HellaWella Strong Women Workout Playlist and the Breakup Workout Get Pissed Playlist. And maybe a few fallbacks besides the Finding My Way Playlist, and the Girl Power Run Playlist.

You also wish this scenario could be a little more hypothetical.

There was definitely some Kelly Clarkson involved in the mutual decision that you guys should put his music back on again. If it wasn’t apparent beforehand that you are so-completely-and-totally-very-much-absolutely-without-a-doubt-over-your-ex-thank-you-for-asking. It was after.

A few months down the line when he introduces you to his friends as his “lady friend,” you realise that this isn’t actually going to go anywhere. And while you don’t want a boyfriend, you’re open to being offended if someone doesn’t want to be your boyfriend.

***

Carson bailed. Again. Shocking. This time it’s because he doesn’t like the beer they serve at the bar the gig is at. And apparently he “spaced” when you invited him yesterday, which he waits to tell you until you text him a half hour before it starts.

You’re already perfectly shaven, like every lady bit imaginable. Including body parts you don’t even know the name of, but probably should get around to holding a hand mirror up there and checking out.

This is the fourth or fifth time he’s bailed on you, depending on how you define bail. There was last Sunday when he text saying he’d stepped on a bee the day earlier, so your date was off. And the Sunday before that when you were supposed to go hiking, but didn’t hear from him. He later blamed it on having a friend in town and being drunk most of the weekend.

And then there was that time you offered to take his dog out, as an excuse to see him. He said he’d join you, but bailed last minute because he forgot he had to go to the gym with his roommate. You take his dog for a run on your own in full makeup.

You regret deleting his text thread in a moment of frustration, because sometimes it’s hard to remember just how shitty someone can be, and future you can use all the help she can get.

You change every other contact in your phone to “Not Carson” in an attempt to save yourself from disappointment every time he doesn’t text, again. And it’s just your mom asking how Facebook works.

You try to remind yourself that it’s for the better that he bailed tonight. Because if he’d shown up, then you probably would have had sex, and most likely your IUD would have failed, and then you’d have his kid, and then you’d have to deal with Carson standing you up for the rest of your life. So while him bailing hurts a little bit now, it doesn’t hurt as much as pushing his child out of your vagina in nine months would.