I Don't Remember How to Do This

So I have the beginnings of a post on the perils of Internet Dating sites, which I keep meaning to finish off eventually. But today I've sort of been musing on the Post NRA II: RNRA interactions with the opposite sex.

There was the guy who gave me a total intellectual & physical wide-on. We played a few rounds of tonsil hockey, until I discovered that he was actually dating a friend of a friend. Who was a single mom and had the usual single mom problems with the father of her child. She was extraordinarily cool when we talked, but to say I felt like absolute shit  is a mild understatement. Actually, I thought I was gonna hurl. "Hi. Yeah,  I didn't sleep with your boyfriend, but we made out in his car." I was torn between abject grovelling apologies and wanting to beat the everliving shit out of this dude for her. You don't fuck around with single moms. Single moms are sacrosanct.

So that sucked.


Then there was the married male who is old enough to be my father who was trying to nose around me. I couldn't tell him to fuck off as he was indirectly involved in a work project I was doing. So I got to walk the tightrope of Keeping A Good Distance While Not Telling Him to Fuck Off Outright. Annnnd now that I'm thinking about it, there was another guy who was a colleague of Pervy Old Dude, around the same age, who I think was trying to do something similar. But after I had sent him my project estimate, I never heard from him again. So, yay?

I had also become the Snogging Queen of Rome, in as much as I'd get as far as tonsil hockey, but meh, didn't really feel like giving up my Secondary Virginity. Let's hear it for faking being on the rag! But this eventually lead to an incident that made Will to say "If you go without sex for a year again, I'm buying you a fucking prostitute so you don't do stupid shit for penis."

So I had pretty much resigned myself to dating the Energizer Bunny, possibly punctuated by a yearly gift of prostitution courtesy of Will.

What's that trite saying about things happening when you aren't looking for them?

I think I might be dating someone. At the very least, I am definitely shagging someone.

Ooooo god I just jinxed myself, didn't I? And just the D word is bringing me to the edge of hysterical hives.

But homeboy sort of snuck up on me. I've known him in a passing acquaintance type way for about a year. And we got to talking a couple nights in a row at the Bar We All Frequent. And he drove me home a few nights, and there was nary whisper of inappropriateness. In fact, he was a perfect gentleman. And then the following week we're talking again at the Bar and BAM! STEALTH SNOG! One minute we're chatting and the next I find myself measuring his esophagus with my tongue.

So there were a few more snogging sessions, which eventually lead to getting my Secondary Cherry popped. And man, have I been walking funny ever since. I have permanent beard burn on the lower half of my face and am applying chapstick every 5 minutes. The morning after the first sleep over, I got out of the shower and did a double take. My lower lip was black and blue.¹ I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT COULD HAPPEN PEOPLE.

There has been the predictable ribbing from friends. Some because he's about 5 years younger than me. What, is there a Catch & Release policy for females seeing younger guys that nobody told me about?! This sort of irks me, because apparently a guy dating a chick 10 years younger is normal, but I am A COUGAR IN TRAINING for getting my horizontal mambo on with a younger guy.

Then there's the ribbing about the B word (boyfriend). Because he calls or texts me pretty much everyday. Which is where the title of this post comes in because it sort of feels like the last time I did this whole courtship ritual was back when Grunge was in fashion the first time.

And in social situations he's been, as my girlfriends & I term it, "marking his territory". Which also means that the Gossip Chain has begun, spreading the news to a wider number of people and ensuring more ribbing is on the horizon. So the whole B word thing also throws me off my potential response snark game, because all I can manage is some stammering along the lines of "Boyfriend? Whoah, hey this is all pretty recent." while blushing & giggling like a fucking 12 year old.


You read that right. I am blushing and giggling like a fucking 12 year old. And I'm also running around doing my best Cathy impression ACK! ACK! ACK! HULLO NEUROSES! And I stop and force myself to take a verrrrry deep breath and calm the fuck down, because, hey, take it slow and one day at a time, no cart before the horse and do NOT take things too seriously just yet.

I am gonna fucking hyperventilate if I take any more deep breaths.

...

Yeah, I'm guessing that I won't be finishing that "perils of Internet Dating sites" post any time soon.

¹ Will asked me how that happened. I replied "I'm guessing the same way hickies do: suction."