The “boyfriend” issue

September 23, 2008 at 12:06 am | Posted in relationships | Leave a comment
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Hello, darlings. I know I haven’t posted in a while. I could give lots of excuses – dates, depression, grad school-related freakouts, “actual” writing, and various productive activities (including the Progressive Reading Series event at the Makeout Room on Saturday night – lots of fun, but god do I hate the bar scene). But it doesn’t matter to you, does it? That’s okay. I thought I’d post a quickie to tide you over until I can get something substantial written later this week.

I saw Seth twice last week. The first time, over dinner, I did manage to mine him for information that would lead me to believe he is a wounded, sensitive soul like yours truly, and that was basically a success. The fact that he isn’t batshit-crazy means that I am not tearing my hair out over the prospect of spending my life with him (or is that, dare I suggest it, a sign that I might be growing saner in the realm of relationships? A girl can dream…) but I’m pretty happy with that.

On Saturday night he met me at the Makeout Room and proceeded to drag me unexpectedly to some Google party a few miles away. If you didn’t know this about me, I really dislike surprises that involve putting me in a room full of strangers for any length of time. I’m completely socially inept and it takes me hours, sometimes days, to mentally prepare for that kind of event. (For this reason I am terrified of this weekend’s Folsom Street Fair, which will be my first, in the company of Seth’s poly entourage no less.) So I knocked back a second G&T (jesus, were they strong; props to the Makeout Room) and we headed over. Well. First of all, it was a costume party which of course I was not prepared for. Luckily the cocktails were working their magic and I didn’t care much about any faux pas I may have committed. I was served champagne and was promptly drunk, but managed to keep deadly quiet throughout our appearance. I got to meet Seth’s long-term partner, who seemed nice enough, and her other boyfriend. I also got to listen to conversations among several Google employees and their lovers or whatever. Let me tell you, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so stupid in my life. And I enjoy dating nerds, or at least I continue to gravitate toward them, but these were SuperNerds. Which is cool; I respect formidable levels of intelligence. But man oh man. I felt like some brainless piece of arm candy. I guess there’s a first time for everything.

In the morning after brunch, Seth walked me back to my car and referred to himself casually as my boyfriend. Now, I could have been a good little girl and let this slip right by, then spend the next twenty-four hours agonizing about it with my friends. Instead, I cocked an eyebrow and said, “Boyfriend, eh?” He seemed to be caught off-guard, and began to backtrack. I assured him that I wasn’t trying to argue; I was just curious about whether he really meant it. After all, this was our fourth date. I was, of course, flattered; it’s clear that he likes me, though I honestly can’t comprehend why (if he doesn’t need fixing, then what the hell good am I?). But I hate when people – no, let’s face it, I hate when guys say shit like that just to make a girl go all soft and fuzzy. If someone wants to use a word like “boyfriend,” well, there are expectations attached to that. But then I thought about it: what the hell is so special about being a girlfriend to someone who’s poly and already in a primary relationship? This commitment that in my previous relationships has meant that I must take myself off the market and certainly not sleep with anyone else suddenly loses all of its regulatory import. All I can figure the label to mean is that we like to spend time with each other (and fuck) and plan to continue to do so for as long as that remains true and other things don’t get in the way. Big fucking deal. I don’t even think we know each other well enough to be able to offer serious emotional support. And besides, it’s clear to me that he gets most, if not all, of that from his partner. My obligations are basically zero. His obligations to me are basically zero. And my expectations of him haven’t changed at all. To wit:

Expectations of a Boyfriend (as previously defined by Jana and as still defined in monogamous situations):

  • be completely enthralled with me at all times
  • read my mind
  • understand all of my crazy bullshit and display infinite patience with it
  • split my esthetician bills
  • plan major events for my birthday
  • promise to be with me forever
  • plus all of below.

Expectations of Seth as a “boyfriend”:

  • be a decent human being
  • always tell me the truth when I ask for it
  • honor commitments
  • be respectful of me
  • be great in bed
  • think I’m pretty awesome.

But, see, I require all of the latter list from people who choose to spend any time with me at all (except for the great in bed part). So, even if I hadn’t scared Seth temporarily away from the word “boyfriend,” the only thing that would have changed was that I would feel like less of a pathetic waste of flesh for being Single. Which is in itself pretty goddamn pathetic.

Newsflash: Jonathan Brandis is dead.

September 17, 2008 at 11:12 pm | Posted in reflections | 1 Comment
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Over dinner tonight my friend Lana and I were discussing David Foster Wallace’s recent suicide, and trying to come up with other writers/artists who had offed themselves in the past several years. She mentioned Brad Renfro – what was ultimatey deemed an accidental heroin overdose at the beginning of 2008. I was surprised; I hadn’t heard about this, though my posse in middle school had considered him one of the teen celebrity heartthrobs worth swooning over.

Then she said Jonathan Brandis was dead. I was absolutely floored. Yes, for anyone who gives a shit, this is old news; he tried to hang himself in 2003 and ended up dying in the hospital from his resulting injuries a day later. But I was completely out of the loop with this one. I was infatuated with him when I was twelve and thirteen; I remember watching episodes of Seaquest that were incomprehensible to me, just to catch glimpses of his lovely face onscreen. One would hardly consider this a significant relationship, anything that would lead me to feel so fucked up over his suicide. Chalk it up to residual adolescent delusion if you like.

Strangely, I think that the suicides of these celebrities I don’t technically know but nevertheless am fond of makes me feel like I have even more in common with them – like their deaths have revealed to me a bond between us that is at once encouraging in its familiarity and terrifying in its black nature. Obviously I haven’t committed suicide, but it’s something I’ve thought about a great deal in my life, something that I feel I might be able to understand and sympathize with better than many others. So I guess in this sense, finding out about people who have killed themselves stirs the part of me that feels tempted by that route, and makes it feel all the more substantial and powerful.

God, he had a beautiful face. So sad.

R.I.P. David Foster Wallace

September 14, 2008 at 1:32 pm | Posted in writing | Leave a comment
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Shit like this scares me, as well as makes me sad. He was brilliant, he wrote brilliant stories, he seemed pretty well set up as writers go. And he offed himself.

For those of you unfamiliar with David Foster Wallace’s work, I highly recommend you check out the short piece titled “Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR,” which you can read online in the Google Books version of The Girl with Curious Hair.

You can also read his commencement address to Kenyon College from 2005. Gives a little insight to his personality.

I noticed someone on WordPress was searching blogs for “David Foster Wallace” and “astrological chart.” I took a quick look at his birth date according to Wikipedia – he’s an Aquarius/Pisces cusp. I’ve found that those dudes have a tendency to be mentally unstable. Sigh.

I wonder whether writing is bad for one’s mental health, sometimes – whether it perhaps encourages those of us who would be better served resolving our neuroses and moving on with our lives to instead dig around in our misery until it poisons us irreversibly. Makes me think of something I read while reviewing my astrological chart on astro.com yesterday:

Your life will be marked by your shrewd, secretive, obstinate, clever, and reserved disposition. You remain an enigma: with these traits, your life events could be either very tragic or very fortunate. To which category of Scorpio do you belong? There are two types, the extremely emotional, attracted by those pathological aspects of biological relationship, or the highly mystical, concerned with spirituality.

I definitely think that my writing leads me to focus on emotional pathology rather than sublimated versions of same. It’s a switch I’ve made in the past couple of years. Should I reconsider? I’m disinclined to, but I’m becoming increasingly worried that dedicating myself to a life of writing will be the equivalent of taking up a pack-a-day smoking habit.

I am already developing way too many gray hairs as it is…

Overanalysis, pt. 2

September 14, 2008 at 12:57 pm | Posted in relationships, sex | Leave a comment
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Part 2 of the second date with Seth is now complete. Commence processing.

As I’d suspected, pretty much as soon as I got to Seth’s apartment last night I was on my knees in his living room with his cock in my mouth. And not long after that we were in his bedroom. The sex was great. He has a really nice cock, big enough to cause pain from most angles, just the way I like. And, as I’d also predicted, after the sex we talked. Whether I learned very much about him is questionable. I am slightly more confident that he has simply made it to a point in his life where he’s well-adjusted, rather than hiding any horrible secrets fro me. It sounds like when he was younger – adolescent and early twenties – he had problems similar to my own. But now he’s better, though he can’t tell me exactly how that happened. I guess I should be encouraged, but I’m not, especially. He said that he hoped he didn’t turn out to be too bland for me, considering my penchant for getting involved with messed-up guys. I guess we’ll see.

He also told me about the other women he’s sleeping with, besides his primary partner. It was late enough by then that I wasn’t able to keep count, but I think there might be two local girls and three long-distance. With more in the works, perhaps. This doesn’t include me, by the way. This information didn’t sit well with me. I had a hard time sleeping, mostly because the mattress was so firm that I felt like I was lying on the floor of a coffin. So this unpleasant feeling stayed with me throughout the night. I think the main problem is simply the risk involved in terms of STIs, even though he has protected sex with all of these people. I would really, really prefer not to catch HSV-2. Thanks. I suppose I’m also a little surprised at how many partners he keeps in his stable, so to speak, and curious about what his motivation is behind that. I am guessing it’s tied in to his Leonine need to be noticed and wanted and admired and attended to. The more people he can add to the list of fans, the better it is for his ego. In some ways Leo men (and women) are simple… once they hit that balance in their lives that satisfies their need for attention/adulation and quells their insecurities, they can more or less coast. My Scorpio placements seem to make that coasting impossible, and I don’t have a problem with the fact that that’s how I am. It just means I need to find people who can relate to that.

So I don’t know exactly what my verdict is. I guess I’ll have to ask him about how well he knows the sexual safety of his partners, and when he was last tested for HSV. If I end up feeling comfortable with the answers, this arrangement could probably continue on a very casual basis, but I’m still concerned that I will not find any solid common ground between us, at least enough that our emotional/mental connection will carry us once the novelty of a new sex partner has worn off. I’m also, I guess, slightly confused about how his life is structured. It seems that he spends almost all of his free time on dates with various people. I have a hard time relating to this level of social activity, since I’d probably lose my mind without more down time than that.

Anyway, I suppose the bottom line is that if, in the next two dates or so, I don’t find an “in,” a way of relating to him on a deeper level, I probably won’t continue seeing him. Eh. We’ll see what happens. Too bad. He is a nice guy, and an excellent kisser. In truth, I’m feeling a little depressed. Maybe it is left over from my frustrations earlier in the week. Maybe I am just missing the emotional intimacy that makes sex really special.

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