Flypaper for Freaks

My best friend CB says I am "flypaper for freaks".. Our definition being that if there is a drunken, unstable, psychopathic, emotionally crippled fuckwit within a 5 mile radius, they will usually find me, like deranged moths to a flame.. This theory of hers has been proven time and time again.. This most recent event incedence has, once again, given me cause to pause in consideration of my desire to remain a single, heterosexual female.. Sometimes it just seems it might be a more prudent course of action to go all Catholic and become a nun, switch teams and become gay, "full on Liberache gay" or just admit defeat, lower my standards appropriately and start corresponding on Meet An Inmate.

Our story begins as I am out jogging at Lake Lynn, a nice scenic jaunt, not too far from my parent's house.. I've got the iPod feeding angry rock music directly into my gray matter, the weather is lovely and life is good.. As I make my first round, I notice a moderately cute boy on his bike pass me and smile.. Ego boost.. As I head further around the path, he comes around again and says hi... Interesting.. The third time we pass, he pulls over before we meet and waits for me.. By now, I'm feeling pretty damn good about myself..

Pride goeth before the fall, my children..

Now, I'm quite happy with my position on Team Single but I am forever willing to make new friends and if I happen to meet Prince Charming in the process, well, so be it..

Semi-Cute Biker Boy and I strike up a conversation about generic, non-committal things and spend about 4 minutes establishing rapport.. So far so good.. Then, as inevitably it does with every man I meet, the other shoe drops.. He proceeds to tell me he's had a really stressful week.. I express sympathy and ask what happened to make the week so stressful, assuming work pressures, maybe he was moving, you know, normal shit.. This was a highly erroneous assumption.. And asking about it was a mistake of biblical proportions..

Over the course of the next 15 minutes he proceeds to tell me the entire history of his recently ended relationship with his former fiancee, about all the fights, ugliness, bitterness and recriminations, infidelity, emotional abuse with the tale culminating in their most recent breakup, predominately centered around the fact that she got pregnant to try to trap him into marriage.. And than when he said he didn't want to get married but wanted to be a part of his child's life, she decided to terminate the pregnancy.. That the whole reason that he was out riding his bike that day was becase at that very moment, she was having an abortion to end the pregnancy..

Yeeeaaahhh.. I'm going to have to go with "over-share".. That this may have been more information than was necessary to reveal a whopping 19 minutes into our tenure as acquaintances.. Actually, it may have been more information than was necessary to reveal outside the sanctity of the confessional booth.. To quote Sliding Doors (a brilliant movie) "I have people I consider soul mates that don't confide this much in me.."..

I spent about 5 more minutes wrapping up the conversation as gracefully as possible (a daunting task for even the most genial of individuals) and said I hoped things worked out for the best for him.. He asked if we could possibly get together one night for a drink to discuss more pleasant topics.. Like what?? Genocide in Dufar? Rectal polyps?

To hasten my departure, I accepted his email address (his name @ your basic popmail.com) and said I would drop him a note so we could get together.. And promptly made a mental note to switch back to Shelly Lake for future jogging excursions.. I also prayed earnestly that God would be kind and our paths would never cross again.. Apparently, God is not on my side these days..

Fast forward to a last week at Alive After 5, our local Thursday night live music gathering..

AJ and I are out having a few frosty adult beverages and plotting our next locale change when she suddenly nudges me and sayd we are getting ready to have company.. I turn to see who it is..

Fuck.

Well, hello there Crazy Biker Boy.. He comes up, gives me a hug and says he was hoping to run into me again as he had never heard from me.. I quickly say I must have had the address wrong because the email "bounced" and I was sorry.. His reply was that he suspected that and had set up a special email account just for me, in case he ran into me again.. I braced myself and asked what it was.. He replied "pleaseemailme @ your basic popmail.com"..

I swear to God. AJ probably will need extensive dental work because her jaw just about broke when it hit the ground..

Being the get-along-girl that I am, I promised to write him and quickly wrapped up the conversation and got the holy hell out of there.. As my guy radar has been known to be massively flawed in the past, I double checked with AJ as to the creepiness factor of the whole exchange.. She was in complete agreement that on a scale of 1 to Insane, that was a "Jame Gumb".. As in "It's puts the lotion in the basket or it get's the hose"...

Ok, so maybe I'm being too harsh.. Maybe this was someone who had been through alot of emotional turmoil and just wanted to get to know someone and make a new friend... I can admit that I have at times cringed when I had to reveal to people that I am unemployed and divorced with 2 kids, all the while, worrying that they are immediately summarizing that into "welfare mom".. I empathize with him for going through a difficult time and am sure that he was really a nice guy.. However, the part of me that is Co-Captain for Team Single was totally freaked out by a guy who felt a need to tell me all about his last relationships and ex-fiancee's abortion less than 20 minutes after meeting me and then set up a special email with "pleaseemailme" as the account name.. No matter how you look at it, that's just 8 shades of fucked up..

Every night as I tuck myself in at night, after I pray for family and friends and world peace, I say a wee prayer for Seriously Insane Biker Boy in hopes that he finds closure from his troubled relationship and the peace, love and the happiness that we all deserve..

And that we never, ever cross paths again.. No, seriously, God, I mean it this time.. Please, no more...

Amen

SPF ??? The Numbers Game

And then he asked the infamous question "What's your number?".. Yeah, right, like anyone ever answers that question with any degree of honesty past the age of 18.. Actually, we lie no matter what age we are at.. There may be a perfect month when we're, say 23, when we've only had maybe 2 serious boyfriends, 2 sort of boyfriends, that one night stand at the Chi Phi Purple Jesus mixer and the sum total of our sexual partners is enough to give us age appropriate bedroom credibility but not so high as to cause jaws to drop.. Then the next week the serious boyfriend cheats on you, your self-esteem takes a nose dive and you somehow manage to triple your number inside of a month.. I guarantee you at least half the women who read this will identify with that phenomenon.. After that, there's no going back and you just never tell the truth again.. So what's my number? I'll tell you what I tell everyone.. That's between me and my God..

So I grabbed a number out of my ass that was actually on the low side of life and to my utter amazement he was still shocked.. Like that scene from Clerks... When I was leaving, I half expected him to yell "Try not to sleep with anyone on your way to the parking lot..".. We sort of got into it verbally, arguing about how men are viewed as studs and women are viewed as sluts and then I completely threw out a number to the point of being ridiculous just to jerk him around: "Ok, just say it's somewhere in the triple digits, like, say for example 168".. This even further appalled him, but amazingly, at the end of the evening, he STILL TRIED TO TAKE ME HOME.. I'm guessing his assumption was if I was at 168, what the hell, why wouldn't I make it 169??

Now, without revealing my number, I will say that I am obviously not a virgin but I do have a penchant for serial monogamy. However, being 33 years old and single during an age where sex by the 5th date is generally the norm, hell, that's probably a conservative estimate, unless Prince Charming gets his shit together and shows up real fuckin' soon, I'm assuming my number will only go up.. Kind of like the express elevator at the Chrysler Building.. In all honesty, most long term single women I know in their 30's have had a fair amount of sexual partners.. It's not because they are of loose moral virtue or indescriminate sexual taste but because it's just inevitable..

So what would most guys say if a girl said her number was 25? Is that high? Is it low? Does that indicate she's slept with the entire highschool basketball team? That she was married? Maybe that she slept with married men? Engaged? What real information does that number convey?

Calculating An Average SPF (Sexual Partner Factor)

Let's run a rough draft for the average single 35 year old woman's number.. Let me reiterate this is not the rundown of mine or any member of the Sisterhood, just an approximate calculation based on what we deem to be normal dating experience.

Definitions:

Serious Relationship - Monogomous Committed Dating aka "Boyfriend, Fiancee or Husband"
Dating Relationship - Monogomous, Non-Committed aka "This guy I went out with"
Non-Relationship Recurring Partner - No Dating, Sex More Than Once aka "Fuck Buddy"(altho, this can be someone you hang out with, no hope of a relationship but have had sex with on more than one occaision, aka "Repeat Offenders")
Non-Recurring Partner - No Dating, Sex One Time aka "One Night Stand" (Not entirely accurate.. This also includes those guys who never called again.. Technically we call those "Assholes"..)

Let's run through an example, shall we??

The last 2 years of High School and College (6 years) - Let's say 3 serious relationships, a drunken one night stand with a frat boy, whoops, I mean 1 non-recurring partner and 1 dating relationship.. Total - 5.. Not bad.. Less than one lover per year..

Post College 20's (8 years) - Let's go with 2 serious relationships, one lasting 1 years, one lasting 4 years.. Take a year off for grieving time.. During the remaining 2 years of single time, assume one non-relationship recurring partner, one non-recurring partner per year and 1 dating relationship every 6 months.. Total - 9 (Sum Total - 14)

Early to Mid -30's (5 years) - Assume 2 serious relationships of no more than a year each, and during the remaining 3 years assume 1 non-recurring partner per year, 1 non-relationship recurring partner per year, and 1 dating relationship per year. Total - 11 (Sum Total - 25)

How about that? We're looking at a 35 year old woman with a number of 25 over 19 years of sexual activity just through a normal course of dating and life experiences.. Can the number be lower? Absolutely.. If a woman was off the market for longer periods of time during relationships or marriage or if she is sexual only in committed monogamous relationships of greater than a year. The reality is, that's not bloody likely.. But if you look at the sexual history above, is this someone who is a tramp? Hardly, the history is based primarily in relationships, with limited non-recurring partners, most of which were probably of the Asshole variety.. The average number of lovers is 1.32 per year.. Not exactly someone making the rounds on the Strip now is it?? Yet most men would get hung up on the number of 25 without realizing that there is more to the story than a number..

Of course, the real kicker as I terminated the numbers discussion was when I sharply pointed out to him, it's better to sleep with an SPF 45 with protection, than an SPF 4 without.. That's one way to get burned for sure..

In the end, that's all your number is.. Just a number..

Men are from Hell...

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the gynocologist..

I stopped by a coffee shop to kill some time and read the paper... Lo and behold a cute guy sits down on the couch across from me and strikes up a conversation.. The first thing I notice about him is that he is wearing a wedding ring.. I don't jump to any negative conclusions, it is a coffe shop and I don't always assume everyone is trying to get in my pants.. As I am getting ready to leave, he asks if he could get my phone number and take me out for a drink one night.. I asked, ever so politely, if he would be bringing his wife and if I should bring my kids?? He proceeded to tell me that he is in Raleigh for business several times a month and that he lives in Ohio, further, he and his wife have an "understanding" about when he travels as she her sex drive disappeared after the birth of their 4th child.. That he felt a real connection with me and would like to get to know me better.. To this I replied that there was no point in getting to know me better b/c if he did, he'd know just how lucky he was that I was just walking away and not dumping a steaming hot chai tea over his head..

Out of the ordinary?? Nooooo.. Not even close..

Several months back, D and I were having drinks at the pub (as we do) and were approached by several gentlemen.. Again, no harm, no foul, we did the ring check, 2 with, 2 without.. One of the "without"s was passibly cute, he chatted us up and eventually asked for my phone number.. I gave it to him way too early in the night.. By the end of the evening, he was blotto, all charm had evaporated, he got handsy and tried to kiss me twice.. Blech!! After he finally left, I ended up striking up a conversation and hitting it off with a friend of his that came in a bit later than the rest (and was therefore sober).. When I asked the friend to call me, he expressed concern that I had also given my number to his friend.. This did take a bit of backpeddling to explain, but I was honest and said at the beginning of the night, he seemed ok but by the end, he was a jackass.. At this point, he tells me not to sweat it, I probably wouldn't be hearing from him again, anyhow because he was married with 2 kids.. Sweet.. Way to affirm my already non-existent belief in the sanctity of marriage..

So what? Lightning strikes twice? Uhh, more than that, kiddies..

Remember when Halloween, AJ and I met up with 2 handsome gents? I had previously written about how I had met up with Popeye and scared him off by joking around that I was a part time dominatrix (which I think I might be good at, in all reality).. Humorous post-script to that story.. come to find out, Popeye was married as well.. AND he and his wife are swingers.. Nice one.. He get's a bit squemish about the fact that I jokingly told him I spank people for a living but he has no problem passing his wife around like a joint at a frat party? I think "ewwwww" doesn't begin to cover it..

My beloved CB once said I was "flypaper for freaks".. I think we're going to have to ammend that to say "married freaks".. Altho, technically, I seem to attract the weird ones, married or not.. On one hand, I can see the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" attitude from the guy at the coffee shop but the guy from the pub, I just don't get.. He lives here.. What if I had seen him out day at the WalMart with his wife and kids and walked up and said something? "Hey! Gosh, I was wondering if I'd ever see you again after we almost made out that night.. I guess you must have lost my number, right??".. Something tells me that would not have made the little woman happy..

Yep, it may be time to start really weighing my options and seeing if that whole lesbian thing is worth a go or not..