Boys boys boys (Part 2)

B beat me in Scrabble. And my roommates all like him. He gets a third date this weekend.

So I left off with GayJ, our questionably queer friend.

Let's start with a physical description. It's actually pretty easy. He looks a little like Colin Farrell, but daintier. Yes, I just described this man as being dainty.



He's such an oxymoron. This is the guy who inspired the "Allure of the Bad Boy" blog that I wrote before, but he is by no means a true bad boy. Yes, he drives a motorcycle and drinks Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. Yes, he wears biker boots and smokes incessantly. He looks the part at first glance. But if you look more closely at his stance and listen to the stuff that comes out of his mouth, you begin to wonder if it's all some elaborate act, maybe so elaborate an act that he's even fooling himself.

I first met J back in September when I bought my bed from him off of Craigslist. When I first moved to LA, I was strapped for cash and living on my own in a city that's not exactly... cheap. It's not Manhattan, but it's still not inexpensive. So I became best friends with a little site known as Craigslist, and every day, I'd scour the "free" and "furniture for sale" sections, hoping to find a steal. I found an ad for a gorgeous dark wood California King size bed and called the guy. He seemed surprised to get my phone call; his phone had't been able to receive any incoming calls for days and mine had mysteriously gone through. So he took that as a sign from fate and agreed to sell me his bed. When I arrived, I was limping from having recently fractured my left foot (yet another drinking casualty), and he was nice enough to take the bed apart and load all of it into my car for me with his friend. It took a while, so we talked about why he was leaving LA and our jobs and the usual small talk. Well, it turns out this guy used to be a daytrader back when the dot coms were hot, and he'd trade thousands of shares on margin to make teeny tiny profits per share. He never filed his taxes from that endeavor, however, so he had a lot of explaining to do to the IRS. It looked like he had made millions of dollars when really it was only thousands, so he decided rather than pay, he'd run. I probably got some of the information mixed up, but the idea I got was that he was leaving LA bc he'd finished working on a movie, and he was visiting his mom in Hawaii before moving to Costa Rica to flee the IRS.

*Crickets chirping*

At this point, you would be completely in line were you to question my taste in men. Strangely enough, it's the ones with weird backstories that catch my eye. I like it when guys are at least a little bit off. I think it makes them interesting. Anyhow, so that's how J and I first met. Through the course of the following months, he would text message me randomly and in December informed me that he'd be moving back to LA in January and that he wanted to hang out. I figured we'd have a drink or something, but didn't expect much more. Well, then he wanted to hang out all the time, and I'll admit, I didn't mind keeping his pretty face and warm body around. Sadly, though, while GayJ may be nice to look at, he's a little bit vacant. His pie chart is 99% good looks, and the remaining 1% is divided between personality and brains.

Meaghan and I have talked on more than a few occasions about how nice it would be if he could just come out of the closet in his True Religion jeans and Juicy hoodies and be our hot gay friend who loves fashion and shopping and gossiping about celebrities. I mean, this is a guy who says stuff like, "Do you have any moisturizer? My skin's feeling so dry." And he like to try on all of my hats. He also can't stop commenting on who's gay and who's not in Hollywood.

Here's the icing on the cake, however: he was in this movie called "The House of Adam." He had mentioned it in passing but I looked it up on the internet and was dismayed to find that he starred as this gay cop in a movie about a gay man who gets lynched. When I asked him about it, he was visibly taken aback, and went on the defensive immediately. He asked me why I cared, and I said I was just wondering if the people he worked with thought he was gay. (That was my indirect way of asking him, ARE YOU GAY.) He skirted around the issue a bit, saying that he didn't really care who thought he was gay, except that it really bothered him when girls he liked thought he was gay and wouldn't date him.

Yeah, that would be me.

But the more I hung out with him and talked with him, the more convinced I've become that he's either soooooo unbelievably metrosexual that he's easily mistaken for gay, or that he's gay and has no idea because he's in a very very deep state of denial. Not like, six feet under denial; we're talking 20,000 leagues under the sea denial. He gestures with his hands. He knows way more about fashion than I do. Though that's not saying much. He saw a picture of Colin Farrell in US Weekly and commented that he needed to get his eyebrows under control. But then he also takes every opportunity to assert his straightness in stride. He doesn't do it in a way that makes me think he's doing it to cover anything up, but in such a way that may have developed as a result of people always questioning his sexuality.

After all, this is LA. If there were ever a place to come out of the closet, this would be one of the best (falling behind only San Francisco and New York City). He's been in a gay movie, shown as a cover model on a gay magazine, featured as a hunk in a "Hunks of Hawaii" calendar, and lives with a gay producer. He says he doesn't enjoy doing all the gay stuff, but for some reason, all these gay men in the industry take a liking to him and want to help him out. I have to bite my tongue so I don't accidentally say, "It's because they all want to suck your dick, J." I'm sure they all think he's gay. Shit, I did! Do... Did? I dunno. Nor do I care, really.

I asked him to have dinner with me last night so he came over and we went to get sushi and then talked in my room for a bit. I told him about C, the non-boyfriend. I told him about going on a date with B. And I told him that I couldn't see myself with a guy like him in the long-term, but I enjoy his company. Also, I said that he wouldn't be getting any (and by any, I mean ANY) because I didn't like to sleep with/ get hot and heavy physically with any guys if I am seeing more than one. So, tadaahhhhh! I was completely honest with him, so now I can still get him to buy me dinner and drinks, cuddle with me at night, and I'm not obligated to make out with him or anything. I think I got a pretty good deal. It's like having a fabulous gay friend who just doesn't know he's gay yet. So maybe he's not fabulous just yet, but we're working on it. After all, Meaghan's gay co-worker said that when he was pretending to be straight, he'd make out with girls, too. I'm not trying to get involved with a gay man trapped in a straight man's body. That could be disastrous for my ego later on. However, I feel like I've done my part in disclosing my current boy situation and telling him that all I want from him is his company and some cuddling. Sweeeeeet. You could never get that kind of deal from a straight guy.

I think that's about it for the boys who are currently on the rotation.

And there is the possible return of Alden Glenrock. Klein and I had a little adventure last spring at Busby's where we met Alden and his friends and had perhaps the craziest night of our lives. And I had this complex about how crazy he was bc I'm not normally that crazy, so when he'd call, I'd be a complete bitch to him or ignore him altogether. He's kind of a cutie, though. Looks a little like Paul Rudd but not.



Let's see if he calls again after my last phone call to him. I told him exactly what I just told you guys: that I don't normally party quite as crazily as we did when we first met him, and
that's why I was mean to him. And he said he understood, and that his friends who had been with him then were gone, and that they were kind of the crazy influences in his life. So... he's shed himself of the friends and maybe we'll hang out and have some quiet time. Who knows? Follow through...

Boys boys boys boys

Boys I do adooooooore!

I started writing this e-mail to my girlfriends and then realized after I finished the entry on B that it got super-long. So... instead, I'm going to serialize it. Leave you wanting more. (Or wanting me to stop writing them, whatever.)

I know it's been a while since I have spoken to some of you on the phone, but I wanted to try and fill you in on what's been going on in my life as of late. Well, more like who. Work's fine. I'm heatlhy. Mom and Dad are great, and Dan's doing well, too. He's excited about getting the hell out of South Carolina, even if it means that he's going to be going to Iraq to do it.

The most interesting developments, perhaps, have been in the romance department. Let's start with the old. You all know how I feel about C. C is my non-boyfriend. We still talk at least a few times a week, we make plans to see each other at every opportunity (though those are few and far between), and we talk about marriage and child-rearing, though not ever about our marriage or our children. I don't think I have all that much more to add, except that I've pretty much told him at least twice that I would be willing to forego dating other men if he could promise me he wouldn't date other girls. Which actually means I want him to be my boyfriend. We had this discussion about how he feels like the title is overrated and puts too much pressure on the relationship, and with the two of us being 3,000 miles apart and God only knows where he'll end up for his residency, there's no point in trying. I think there is, but there is no way in hell that a long distance relationship will work when one person is less than totally committed to trying to make it work. So there went that idea. I am disappointed, but whatever. So I decided to start dating again. But I told C I wouldn't let them see my boobies. So far, so good.

After the conversation where I put my ego on the line and told him I'd like to see him exclusively (and after his brutal rejection), I decided I deserve better than to pine after some guy who isn't sure he wants to be with me. Now, don't get me wrong, I haven't written him off completely. He and I have this weird chemistry. We just click. I believe that actions speak more loudly than words, especially for men of few words like C. Might I remind you all, even as you're shaking your heads in disapproval, that C came to visit me in LA for his Thanksgiving break, even though he was supposed to hang with the guys in NYC. And that he also came and stayed with me in NoVa over Christmas break when he could've been kickin' it with his boys. I appreciate that, and I know that for him, it's a big deal, even though he'd never admit that.

At the same time, I don't want to put my life on pause, so I'm going to date other guys. C's right; there's no telling where either of us will be a year from now. But it's been hard for me to be completely open to any male advances bc in the back of my mind, I still hope things with C somehow come together. In the meantime, I'm half-heartedly attempting to find a guy in LA who might change my mind for me. If I like a guy enough, I'll alert him in to my non-boyfriend
situation. If I start liking a guy, I'll let C know. I want a man who will fight for me. But he has no incentive to fight right now bc I am so apparently smitten with him.



Ugh. I can't even write about it any more. Let's talk about the new boys.

B and I met back in September over Labor Day weekend. You remember unidentified penis man? When Natalia was visiting me, we went to Cabo Cantina and got smashed there, neither of us remembers much from that night. When I woke up the next morning and started looking
through my pictures, I found a picture of a penis. Yeah, that was B. He is the kind of guy who has a very juvenile sense of humor. He's 30 and he still thinks stuff like that is funny. And I'm not gonna lie; I think it's funny, too. It's just that I'm not entirely sure I'd appreciate a guy I was dating to randomly whip his wang out and leave evidence of it on strangers' cameras. Hmm. That was probably not the best way to introduce you guys to B. Let me start over.

B's 6 foot something and 200 lbs. Big guy, but not fat. Just meaty.



B intrigues me. He's unlike anyone I've ever met. He's a party-loving frat boy and a perfect gentleman all at once. He never finished college, twice, but he strikes me as an incredibly
intelligent guy. He's opinionated on social and political issues (and he doesn't always agree with me and stands by his opinions) but he has an unfortunate tendency to mix up "you're" and "your" in his e-mails to me. You guys know how much I hate it when people forget basic grammatical rules. Some rules are ok to break when writing e-mails, but "your" and "you're" are not interchangeable under any circumstances. That is like, a hair away from being a dealbreaker for me. But I was delighted to discover that he's a big big BIG dork. Like... in college, he used to play that card game "Magic: the Gathering" and he was actually a nationally ranked player, playing in Magic tournaments and stuff. He likes books about dragons and shows like Battlestar Galactica. And he loves computer games. He's kind of a nerd, but he hated school. He tried to do the college thing twice: once at the University of Colorado, and then at University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign. He feels like he has to prove himself to people bc he never graduated from college. He quit school, decided he hated the cold weather in Chicago, and moved to the Caribbean to teach sailing and be the fun guy for Club Med resorts. After a couple years out there, he moved to LA and made ends meet by bartending. Now, he owns his own business "screwing shit into walls," as he puts it. Basically, he sells used needle disposal bins to hospitals and also installs them. He travels constantly bc he's a people person kind of guy and he knows that in order to win contracts, he has to put in the face time to build relationships. He's an insta-friend. You meet him, and while he's a little over the top for some people, most people take an immediate liking to him bc he's funny and witty and makes you laugh. He once won $47,000 on the Wheel of Fortune. And he loves the Vegas. Once, he wore a tux out and told everyone he was supposed to get married and got left at the altar. Got free drinks all night long and thought it was the funniest joke in the whole world.

He got my number at Cabo and never called me. I didn't think anything of it. We had had a very good conversation which ended with me giving him my number and him promising to call and take me out on a date. When he never called, I figured it was just meaningless drunk talk.
Well, a few weeks ago, I got a MySpace message from him, and it went something like this:

Hey-
This is probably the most random message you will get today. I hope
you remember me. I am B and we met at Cabo about 3 months ago. I
used to work there but I had quit when we met. We had had a pretty
good conversation that concluded with me asking you out. Now, if you
don't remember me, then this message probably just got a little
awkward. I'm not making this up. You can ask anyone who works at Cabo.
You probably can't ask them if we met or anything but they will vouch
that I worked there. At any rate, not long after, I destroyed my phone
in a terrible accident (I sat on it while it was open). My work has me
out of town at least 4 days a week for the next month or so but I
would still like to at least chat again sometime. I would say grab a
drink but I have sworn off booze for the near future and it looks like
you might have done the same. You can MSG me if you are interested or
you can call me. (phone number here). I fly out to the Bay area
tonight until Sunday and on Sunday I fly to Akron, OH (which I hear is
a happening place this time of year). I'll be back Wed morning until
Sat when I head off to Harrisburg, PA. Way too much info but I'll have
my phone and should have computer access most of the time. I hope to
hear from you.
-B

I was curious as to how he found me on MySpace bc it's not as though we have any mutual friends. So I asked him how he found me on MySpace. I wanted to know if he had randomly browsed and somehow landed on my page or if he had actively searched for me to try and contact me. He didn't really answer the question properly.

My ex-girlfriend Lindsey(you can see her on my friend list) invited
me. She said it would be a great way to keep in touch since she no
longer lives in LA. At first I resisted prefering to talk to people in
person. As a poor second choice, sometimes I talk to people on a
phone. I don't like e-mail and I can't stand IMing people. I type to
slow.
Now that I am on Myspace, I realize my ex invited me as revenge for
dumping her 2 years ago. This thing is horribly addictive and I now
spend two hours a day writing messages to people and searching for
long lost friends. 2 hours a day I could actually go out and talk to
people who are actually there, you know, in person. This shit is more
addictive than crack. As evidence, I site the fact that I have never
been addicted to crack, yet now I am somewhat addicted to Myspace.
Oh well.
I am glad you responded and I'll call you when I get back to town. No,
really this time.
-B

"Preferring" has two r's. "To" is not the same as "too" or "two." But I'm willing to overlook that because his messages made me laugh. Plus, he sought me out. He remembered my name and he looked for me. I thought that was kinda cute.

He did take me out to the long-awaited dinner, and it was great. I was pretty nervous before hand. I don't know about you guys, but this was the first proper "first date" I've ever been on. You know, that thing where you meet a guy, he gets your number, you talk, and then he takes you to dinner. In my case, it's a little more convoluted. He got my number, we didn't talk, he found me on MySpace and suckered me into a long-delayed date with his little jokes, and then finally took me to dinner three months later. He took me to this really cute steak and seafood restaurant in Santa Monica called Chez Jay's. It's this tiny, hole-in-the-wall place by the beach with great food, a Santa Monica staple. Neither of us drank any alcohol. We had lots and lots of diet Coke, and sat talking for three hours. Yeah. Sober. He is laying off the booze until he gets below 200 lbs and well, as for me, I had just come out of a terrifying New Year's Eve. Do you know how weird it is to not drink alcohol when you're with a guy you barely know? Surprisingly, though, the conversation flowed well and perhaps more importantly, I remembered all of it the next morning. Why? Because I was sober. I've gotta try this sober thing more often. =) He dropped me off at my house and walked me to my door, and gave me a kiss on the cheek good night.

He's hilarious. But he's so funny that I don't know if I could take him seriously. He seems like the kind of guy who would hide behind jokes when it came to discussing things like feelings. Like if I got mad at him, he'd turn it into a big joke, which could potentially be more frustrating than a man who'd just get made right back at me. And I wouldn't want my boyfriend getting drunk and leaving pictures of his penis for everyone to see. But I don't feel like I should go into seeing someone hoping to change him, even if the change is in asking him not to take pictures of his penis, no matter how big a kick he gets out of it. That said, I had a great time with him and he came out to see me the next day when I was out at a bar, though he only stopped by briefly. This Tuesday night, we're doing dinner and playing Scrabble. We argued about which dictionary to use. He insists the Scrabble dictionary contains fake words. I can't really argue with him, bc I don't believe "et" or "qaid" or "qat" are words, but the Scrabble dictionary is so useful with all of its two-letter words and "q" words that don't need a "u" and the phonetic spelling of letters of the alphabet like "zee." "Zee" is not in Webster's, I'll tell you that much. So we're using Encarta instead. If he can beat me, I will definitely go on a third date with him bc he'll score some major points.

Aside: C can beat me in Scrabble, fair and square.

OKAY. B and I had a great date tonight where we went to get ghetto Mexican and then played Scrabble with the Klein. He beat me at Scrabble, fair and square. In fact, he beat me more than fair and square since Klein and I were ganging up on him. He had 200 and I ended up with 199. He gets a third date.

He also kissed me on the lips. After asking if it was okay. Is that a new thing? When guys ask if it's all right that they kiss you? Dude, I'm all puckered up and ready to go, get on with it already! Follow through...

When it rains

It pours. The drought has endeth and now I'm caught up in a veritable torrent of... the mens.

Let me try and sum up my love life for you in a nutshell: the nutshell currently runneth over. And that's not a good thing. Boy 1: I want him to be my boyfriend but he won't. Boy 2: Really hot but I'm afraid he might be gay. Boy 3: Super fun but don't know that I could ever take him seriously. Boy 4: Recently shed himself of troublemaker friends and wants to hang out.

I try and keep my references to the men in my life relatively vague, especially in the case that I have feelings or still care about him. I don't want my vulnerabilities exposed to everyone on the internet, I guess, but I'm also afraid that the guy I write about may see it. That would suck.

Secretly, though, (not so secret now, huh) I wish he knew all of the things I'm too chicken shit to say to him. I wish he knew that I'd gladly swear off of dating and embrace quiet nights. I wish he could trust me. Follow through...

The allure of the bad boy

Nobody makes me cream my panties quite as quickly as the bad boy. You all know one. He wears dark sunglasses and a sexy five'o'clock shadow and is often spotted with a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm and a cigarette dangling from his lips, oozing sex appeal. Very reminiscent of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. He drinks Jack and he shoots pool and pretty girls in miniskirts are always fawning all over him. It's because he is a brooding, mysterious bad boy. You probably don't know very much about him. In fact, he's probably very difficult to get to know because he is a man of few words. Verbal communication's just not his thing. You ask him questions about where he's from, what his family is like, and what he enjoys doing in his spare time, aside from shooting pool and riding his motorcycle off into the sunset. He's your modern-day cowboy. But you're hard-pressed for answers. He answers tersely. He leaves you wanting more; this is without question the most crucial component to the bad boy allure: the constant tease of fulfillment. So when he nonchalantly mentions that he and his parents don't really get along that well, you are excited. Not because he doesn't get along with his parents, that'd be screwed up, but because he shared this precious little morsel of intimate information with you. And then you wonder why he doesn't really get along with his parents that well, but you have to wait until he's ready to share that with you. And he always gets to decide when. As the morsels slowly accumulate, you start to put the bigger picture of his personality together, and it's like you've been let in on this huge secret that no one else is privy to, and you feel special. Actually, it can go one of two ways. It's at this point that the allure either becomes solidified or begins to evaporate. Some things are better left to the imagination.

But why is he so magnetic? Why can't you stay away from him even though you know that (a) you have to have the patience of a monk because that's about how long it'll take for him to let you in, (b) your parents and close friends will disapprove (though they'll probably all secretly agree that he's super-hot), (c) he'll probably break your heart in spite of your best attempts to break him in, and (c) you can't change him?

You want to save him. You want to save him from his delicious badness (and occassionally you might even want a taste of it), from his chaotic life of booze, bikes, and billiards. He intrigues you, draws you in, and then you want to protect this tough bad boy who's really not all that tough deep down inside, and only you would know, because you've seen that deep down inside. Follow through...

Wanted: the quiet life

I was lying in bed chatting with Natalia online and watching the USC/ Texas game in my underwear when Megan comes barging into my room smelling strongly of liquor and cigarettes, demanding that I get dressed and accompany her back to the bar. She'd been at Q's since 3, tailgating before the game started at 5, but I really didn't feel like getting up and putting clothes on to go watch the game in a crowded bar full of drunk football fans. Not that I have anything against drunk football fans; I'm just tired and I want to lay in bed in my underwear and eat peanut butter straight from the jar. Is that so wrong?

Megan left disappointed. I refused to get up even after excruciating naked tickle torture (I feel so violated) and a couple of very painful smacks on the butt. So I returned to my conversation with Natalia and it went something like this:

Me: I don't want to go out. I just want to stay at home and have someone to play Scrabble with.
Natalia: I couldn't get my fitted sheets on my bed by myself and I really wanted a boyfriend there to help me.
Me: I totally know how you feel.

Yes, yes, yes... women need to be independent and needn't feel incomplete in the absence of male companionship. I know. But geeeeez. Sometimes I can't reach the top shelf and sometimes I want to spend a quiet night in bed reading a book or playing a rousing (haha... a-rousing... I'm so cool) game of Scrabble or cuddle with something other than my pillow when I watch sappy DVDs. I firmly believe that it's important for a woman in a relationship to have her own life separate from that of her boyfriend's, like having a group of friends who are not his friends, like having her own place/ space, and having some occupation whether it's a job or school or hobby that doesn't include him. I'm all about the together time, but I feel like there's got to be some girls' nights and boys' nights.

(Aside: this is a really really good game. I've been trying to type while watching, so it's taken me like an hour to get this far in the entry. Evenly matched, well played by both sides. And Vince Young was aMAZing. Much like his buttocks.)

I've been watching a lot of Sex and the City lately. It's the season where Carrie has the short hair and Miranda first has her baby. Carrie's all cynical and sad and is losing faith in love. There are these publishing ladies that want to compile some of her columns into a book and they ask her what the overall tone of the book would be: is there hope or should we all hang ourselves now? And the answer at the end of the episode was that tribute should be paid to the eternal optimists, our Charlottes. The ones who believe in love no matter what, even when that faith is tested time and time again. To some extent, there's a little bit of Charlotte in all of us, I think. No matter how jaded I think I've become; no matter how jaded my friends and I become, even as we throw our hands up in frustration and worry that we'll die alone and be discovered three days later after our cats have eaten our faces off, still, hope lives on. Follow through...