To Love One's Self

"To love one's self is the beginning of a life-long romance." - Oscar Wilde

I don’t like to sleep with the men I date. Rather, I like to engage in date-like situations with friend and then go off to sleep with a fuck buddy. It’s much less complicated than a relationship and it keeps things simple. I had an ideal night about two weeks ago:

6:30 pm Cycling home from the library I realised I was hungry and lack of food in the fridge meant that I’d have to go shopping. Option B was to just duck into a pub to grab a bite.

6:35 I’m in a pub alone. Walking in to a room mostly dominated by men is always a self-esteem booster as most of them will stare a bit, some smile, a couple may even say hello as you walk by. The gestures are always returned with a smile, or if they’re cute, a return “hello.”

6:37 Order a pint of Aspall and the soup of the day. Go find a well-lit corner to sit and read in while I wait for my food.

6:45 Food comes, but am now writing about sex so I push the soup aside and let it cool while I scribble on about-

***

Cut to me taking a break in this story to maniacally tear my room apart to find this notebook. There are now clothes strewn about everywhere, my bed is perpendicular to where it had been and shelves have been annihilated. Didn’t find the paper in any of the obscure places I thought I may have hidden it, but I did find a condom that a guy I slept with a couple weeks ago left behind and it expired in 09-2009. What a knob. Good thing we used my condoms.

I eventually recovered the scribbling. It was in my backpack where I stuffed it after the dinner-for-one I’m writing about.

Sometimes I really wonder about myself …

***

-while I scribble on about exactly what I’m ranting about right now. Here is the first sentence:

“As odd as it may sound, I would rather go out to eat in a restaurant by myself than with a date.”

This is very true. I went out on a date the other night and inadvertently ordered something that cannot be gracefully eaten with a knife and a fork.

“Just use your hands,” he suggested.

Yes, but then it’s all over my hands and I don’t really like touching food (neurotic, I know), and it has onions and garlic in it so it’s going to make my breath smell bad, and I want to sleep with this person tonight so garlic breath would be a disaster. This entire train of thought occurred while he sat waiting for me to pick up my food. I eventually offered it to him, saying I wasn’t hungry. He declined, but luckily men aren’t like women and self-conscious of their eating so he happily finished his meal while I consumed the better half of our bottle of Chardonnay. (The sex later that night was fantastic in case you were wondering.)

But, THAT is why I enjoy eating by myself. I can sit there and be as neurotic as I like with my eating habits and not worry about coriander in my teeth or bad breath.

7:08 I finish the soup and write a bit more before heading back to college where I’m meeting up with Doctor Boy. Or, Dr. B as I shall now call him.

Back-story on the Doc: At an event where there was copious amounts of unlimited alcohol, Dr. B and I attached at the lips for the later half of the night. When the event ended we hailed a taxi and with complete disregard for the driver, continued to make out for the duration of the ride. Dr. B wanted to stop and get chips but I didn’t really fancy cleaning up smashed potatoes from my floor in the morning so I directed the driver to my front door.

Sometimes, and probably often for Dr. B, boys get so drunk that they cannot shag. This night was one of those times. We woke up naked with lots of wrapped condoms strewn about, unused. I’m usually up for morning sex – but it didn’t seem that Dr. B was going to be able to get up in any sense of the phrase, as he was in an absolute state. This, quite frankly, was fine with me as I had consumed my share of alcohol the previous night and was quite hungover myself.

This encounter was on the brink of the end of term and so we parted ways for a decent stretch of time. I went home for summer holiday and came back with a boyfriend. Once I dumped that boyfriend the Dr had a girlfriend, and still does. We enjoy each other’s company though so we frequently get together for a drink and some awkward sexual tension.

8:01 Drop off my backpack with the notepad so snooping doctors don’t find it.

8:04 Meet Dr. B in the college bar, get some pints, go situate ourselves in front of the telly.

8:05 I’m bored of football. Conversation moves to the night we hooked up.

8:06 We’ve recalled all the details, or rather lack of details to remember.

8:07 “Have you dumped your girlfriend yet?”

“Ha, no not yet.”

8:08 I text a Boy I’ve been sleeping with. He says to come over.

8:09 I call a cab.

Just kidding, I finished watching the football, had a few more pints, and talked nonsense with the doctor some more. He is an incredibly charming and funny young man with whom I will gladly jump in the sack with once he’s single. Considering how much we talk about eventually hooking up though, not sure I’d ever date him. I certainly wouldn’t want my boyfriend making plans for after our inevitable breakup while we were still together. And how do I know they’ll inevitably breakup? Because he talks about “after I break up with …” all the time. Also, they haven’t even announced the relationship on facebook. That’s not a real relationship. If you’re relationship status doesn’t link you to your significant other and you are looking for “Whatever I Can Get” you aren’t what can legally be described as a boyfriend. Or at least not a boyfriend I would want.

10:00 Dr. B and I have walked to a pub and I’m on my fourth pint. He’s on his sixth. The pub is in the direction of where I’m eventually going, so as long as I’m en route to sex it’s all good. I told the Other Boy I’d be at his around 10 or so, more the “or so” than 10 it seems.

10:47 I’m close enough to the Other Boy’s house that I bid Dr. B adieu and make my way towards Shagville, population soon to be 2.

11:01 That pub was much further away from his house than I thought. I’m bad with distances.

11:05 I get to Other Boy’s house. (He doesn’t have many distinguishing qualities to make an interesting name out of. Shag Buddy isn’t that appropriate – we’re not really friends. SB is better than OB though.) He tries to start some sort of banal conversation but this quickly turns to kissing as I lose layers of clothing.

11:07 We’re both completely naked and in bed. The reason I keep calling SB is because he’s pretty decent in bed. Not the best sex I’ve ever had, but it’s fun, and he constantly tells me how gorgeous I am.

11:09 We’re having sex. Sometimes I’m just not into foreplay. Actually I’m usually quite keen to get to business. SB has good stamina as well, so it wasn’t as if it was going to be over quickly.

11:29 We take a breather.

11:30 SB is putting on another condom. He positions himself above me, stops for a second and says, “You are fucking gorgeous.”

11:51 We fall asleep. I’m little spoon. I like the smell of his deodorant, and my arm will inevitably smell like it after having him wrapped around me all night.

2:37 I need to go to the bathroom. Try to carefully peel his arm off of me and quietly crawl out of bed.

“Are you okay?” he asks in a very coherent voice, as if he hadn’t been snoring in my ear five minutes earlier.

“Yeah, yeah. Just need the toilet.” I kiss him and he falls back to sleep. I slip my dress on and make my way upstairs. In the bathroom as I’m washing my hands his housemate barges in and immediately has a look of shock on his face. I’m guessing he did not know I was in the house, or that his housemate was sleeping with me (I met SB through this particular housemate).

“Uh, sorry! Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I was done,” and luckily dressed. “See you later.”

“Yeah, uh, bye?”

I headed downstairs and slipped back under SB’s arm, dress still on. I don’t like to sleep naked when I’m staying with a boy. I also don’t like to be watched while I dress, so best to be halfway dressed before you get up.

7:00 One of our alarms goes off. I need to be somewhere by ten and he has to write an essay.

7:00.5 We are making out and he is pushing the hem of my dress up above my waist.

7:01 Repeat of 11:30 last night.

7:18 We’re asleep again. The dress is still on.

8:00 Another alarm goes off. It is ignored.

9:00 Alarm no. 3 goes off, we have sex again.

9:32 I realise I have 28 minutes to get across town.

9:33 I realise that I am going to miss my 10 am lecture.

9:34 The dress is off and on the floor.

9:44 We are asleep, all alarms are turned off.

12:00 We wake up. Serious debate over whether we should get to work or have one more go at it. He’s out of condoms so it’s the former. I get dressed and he walks me to the door and kisses me goodbye.

“See you soon.”

“If you’re lucky,” I say over my shoulder as I walk out the door.

Thus ended the perfect night. Dinner with an attractive, smart, funny, intelligent person – I’m really my own best company. Beers and footie with Dr. Boy who has great banter and makes me laugh. Then sex with a boy who adores me and is good in bed.

This isn’t to say I never sleep with men I go out on dates with. That would make me, to be blunt, a complete bitch if I did that. I do like the boys I date, but when you start sleeping with someone and consistently hanging out with them so many complications arise. Too many for my busy schedule. Thus, I go out with male friends quite frequently in what could be considered a “date-like” situation, but we take turns buying rounds, talk about sports, talk about other girls, talk about school – if I were a man the relationship would be described as a “Bromance.”

It’s as if my dating life and sex life are two separate things sometimes. It’s rare that I’ve found someone I want to date AND sleep with. Don’t get me wrong, most of the male friends I hang out with would sleep with me given the opportunity, but it’s not their number one agenda. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. Either way, I have many functioning relationships with men my age that don’t involve sex. I’ve had one-night stands with some friends, and guess what? We’re still friends. Some of them even have girlfriends now that I’m friends with (we keep the one-night-stand-thing on the downlow by the way).

It’s hard to have a relationship with someone you weren’t friends with to begin with. I was dumped by someone recently, who asked, “Can we go back to being friends?”

(Cheeks flushing red from anger here … and maybe from amount of alcohol consumed) “We weren’t friends before, so no, we cannot go ‘back’ to something we never were.” Like Lady GaGa says, “I don’t wanna be friends!” That’s just not a natural progression for me. If we were friends to begin with, things will generally go back to friendship with time.

The breakdown: I go on dates with myself, sleep with people I have no intention of dating, whether they’re friends or someone I’ve just met. I have serious relationships with men, they just don’t involve sex. Am I an absolute nutter or what?