For me, finding an eligible suitor isn’t about staying true
to a “type” or ticking a certain number of boxes on a list of desirable
mate-traits, it’s about feeling something. In your heart or gut or whatever you
want to call the part of your body that physically reverberates with your emotions.
This came up last year in a conversation with my stepmother, in which I said
that I didn’t think I could have feelings for a man who frequented, shall we
say, performances of erotic dance? I didn’t mean that there is a box on my list
for “NO STRIP CLUBS” I just meant that I thought it doubtful a connoisseur of
those arts could really light a fire in me. But then again, I did once date the manager of just such an establishment. But the saga of Strip Club Tony is a saga for another day (he definitely wanted to pour his sugar
on me, if you know what I mean). It’s not about requirements, it’s about (for lack of a better
word) butterflies.
Funny story, I used to be mortally afraid of butterflies. But definitely not now. Of course not, silly.
I can only really
remember this happening to me twice, as an adult anyways. Teenage me definitely
reverberated with pretty much anyone on the cover of the teen mags I pretended
not to peruse while in the grocery store checkout line. Especially the artist formerly known as JTT.
The first time was with this totally fratty guy from the
college town a half an hour south of here. I met him on OK Cupid. By the way,
it freaks me out when people refer to OK Cupid as “OKC” because that’s what we
call my hometown. So when someone says “I met my boyfriend on OKC!” I’m like “How
the hell did you find a boyfriend in Oklahoma City? That’s like actually
finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.” See? I said I was going to talk
about Folklore.
But I digress. I can’t remember Total Frat Guy’s name, so
let’s call him Matt. I think that might have been it. Anywhoodle, Matt and I
had our first rendezvous IRL one morning at 2 a.m. after I and some other
totally well behaved young ladies had given our custom to a totally not sleazy
club in which I would totally still set foot (…no I wouldn’t). Following the
established practices of our culture, we adjourned to the nearest International
House of Pancakes as soon as the lights came up and we could actually see the
faces and wedding rings of the men with whom we had been dancing. Matt and I
had been feverishly texting and in a frenzy tipsiness and sugar intoxication,
it was decided that he should join us at the IHOP. After my friends decided
that he was unlikely to axe murder me, they left and he and I sat in my car
talking until the sun came up. He was funny. I laughed, like really laughed,
because I was amused and not because I know that boys like it when you laugh at
their jokes. We kissed a little, which was excellente, and I was basically
ready to doodle Mrs. Erin Frat-Guy on my imaginary trapper-keeper. But, as I
was to discover, this guy had issues.
We all have baggage, in fact, I will readily admit that I
have a comically large amount of baggage. Emotionally, I’m basically the bimbo
in the comedy movie that shows up to the airport with what we all recognize as
far too much luggage. But, you know, its feelings rather than matching Louis
Vuitton valises. Matt had issues that 21 year old me could not handle. Like
me, he had just lost a crapload of weight and didn’t have his self-confidence
sorted out. And that’s understandable. I spent two sexless nights at his place,
exhilarated with butterflies and the NBA playoffs. That pleasant, gentle kiss
we shared at daybreak in my car suddenly morphed into a tongue-led expedition to
discover my uvula. My face felt bruised from how hard he pushed his skull
against it.
But I still liked him, because he had made me laugh.
He moved to Tulsa that same week and didn’t contact me for two weeks. When he did, I was too hurt to act like it didn’t
matter. I’m still not sure if
I did the right thing, but I guess the best case scenario would have ended with
us married, 2.5 kids, etc. And then I would never have gotten my super
awesome, but not apparently very useful, Master's degree, lived on the west
coast, and then spent most of 2014 in London. So I’m calling it a win.
The second time that I felt the butterflies was this last
March, and frankly it was more like a donkey-kick than a soft fluttering thing
with pretty wings. One of the many cool things about London is that all of
their top notch theatre and all of their film and television is all happening
in the same place, as opposed to the NYC/ LA divide we have here in the States.
So pretty much every play I saw there had an actor I recognized in it, even if
it was just Lady Edith’s boyfriend from Downton Abbey who got (SPOILER ALERT)
beaten to death by Nazis (or something? I really wasn’t paying too much
attention by that point). After a play in the West End, I got to briefly speak
to an actor I admired and deeply wanted to bang. I was terrified and wearing a
red coat, which meant that my face matched my clothes (the curse of a Celtic
complexion), but I knew I was going to regret it if I didn’t at
least compliment him on his performance. The thought that really triggered the
donkey-kick feeling was the fact that his eyes, a commonplace green on TV, were
actually a pale, almost celadon color, just a few shades more chill than lime.
BOOM. Kick in the gut. He was very polite, but in retrospect, my eye contact could have been a little less intense.
There’s no moral to either of these
stories, but they did instill in me a sense of “this is what it should feel
like” instead of the feeling I usually get before dates which is abject dread.
Dating is terrible. Hworf. (BTW, that is a vomit noise, if you couldn’t tell).
I don’t expect New York to be any different from London in terms of dating, but
of course, Hope, that fickle temptress, never seems to quite leave me.
This is actor David Oakes, not the actor from the story, but very fine and LOOK HOW MUCH OF MY SHOULDER HIS HAND IS COVERING, DAMN!
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