Age Aint Nothing But a Number

“Age ain't nothing but a number

Throwing down ain't nothing but a thang

This lovin' I have for you

It'll never change”

For the past few weeks I have been reflecting on these wise words of the late Aaliyah and thinking about how relevant they are to me lately. Because let me tell you, it’s rare when a day goes by where I’m not made aware of my age.

Firstly, the topic of my age (or rather, lack of it) is a constant source of jokes at my job. Not only am I the youngest person on the staff by three years, but some of the INTERNS are older than me. You’d think my coworkers would be over this by now, but questions like “were you even alive for that?” or expressions of disbelief at my lack of 80’s sitcom knowledge are something of a daily occurrence for me.

It’s a total mood killer. Secondly, while attempting to flirt with one of said interns last week he asked me, “so wait how old are you?” My first thought was to LIE LIE LIE and say, “24” to close the gap between my young self and his wise 27 years. But my first instincts are never the ones to trust. I admitted my real age... “22...going on 23,” and watched his entire demeanor change as he took a step back. He then started to regale me with a tale of his own youth: “When I was your age...” I was crushed! ...Well, I actually wasn’t all that crushed. But it would have made for a better story if I was! 

Third, I recently saw the movie “Liberal Arts” with Josh Radnor, in which a 35-year-old lost man child  starts an ambiguous relationship with a girl who’s still a sophomore in college. Because of her age, he completely shuts out the possibility of any real romantic relationship with her, yet in many ways she is more mature than he is. (It’s probably for the best that they don’t date, but that doesn’t help out my argument, does it?)

Fourth, there’s always the moment on first dates where the guy will calculate exactly how much older he is than me and then chuckle awkwardly. But then, it is simply my responsibility to chuckle as well and then point out that, even though I’m 22, I’m quite mature for my age. “Do you really think I look 22,” I say? The answer is then usually, “No,” followed by an immediate sense of peace of mind on his part. (It's not my fault I like more mature and older men!)

But while I have become quite adept at handling these comments when they come up, my age still finds new ways to cause these troubles. Most recently, a coworker had plans to set me up with her friend’s brother, but I was denied the date when his sister heard my age and nixed the whole idea, claiming that I was “too young for him.” My feeling of defenseless against her rejection of me was all too present. How am I ever supposed to prove to a stranger that I’m mature and want someone equally mature when I’m not even given a chance to do so?

While I can’t say there aren’t things I love about this age of youthful skin, few responsibilities, and more stamina in the boudoir, more often than not my age feels like a burden that I can’t grow out of soon enough. Some of you may scoff at this seeming desire to skip my early twenties, but that’s not what I want.  What I’m asking for is for people to measure me based on my intelligence, wit, and disposition despite my young years. So, to call on the wise words of Aaliyah once again: “age ain't nothing but a number.”

So, stop treating me like one, and focus on me!

OkCupid: THE BEGINNING

Hey everybody!

The following post is a “first” in several ways. As I’ve previously only contributed to Libidinous Ladies in the form of cartoons, it is my first written entry! Also, it’s intended to be the first of a small series of posts, which will tell the story of my time on OkCupid.

Hope you like it.

...

Despite the genuinely enthusiastic support I was offering friends who, like me, were exploring online dating for the first time, it took me a little while to regard my own entry into this realm with the same unabashed positivity. (I know, I know, how hypocritical of me!) It’s not that I wasn’t interested in the site or opportunities it had to offer; in the first few weeks after I created my profile I spent PLENTY of time scanning profiles, usually in bed right before I went to sleep (okay, and when work got slow). Yet I still had this undeniable sense of embarrassment about the whole thing. Excepting conversations with friends of mine who were also on the site, I wasn’t planning on coming clean about my new e-dating habit to anybody anytime soon. Whenever somebody got within ten feet of my laptop while I was cruisin’ for dates, I would quickly minimize the website window (which, in all the glory of its flashing hot pink text alerts – “XxTr33huggerTacoxX has just picked you!” - and its catalogue-like display of headshot thumbnails, pretty much screams to anybody who happens to walk by your screen that YOU ARE LOOKING FOR DATES) in favor of something that seemed less… desperate? 

At first, I thought that my hesitation to openly embrace OkCupid was based on the cultural stigma attached to online dating sites and the people who use them, which I had not only long observed but undoubtedly perpetuated myself (probably before the days of OkCupid, but probably also before I had any sort of feelings of sexual angst, desire, or isolation) This stigma, as I experienced it, is generally held by people who have never actually used dating sites, and suggests that the only people with online dating profiles must fit one (or more) of the following categories:

A) creepy folks that are not who, or what they claim to be on their profile

B) people who have 'squicky' fetishes or kinks and/or are deep into the BDSM scene

C) reclusive middle aged to elderly folks with lots of cats, severely dysfunctional social skills, and/or a vast collection of sweatshirts plastered with one or several Disney cartoon characters.

Yet the more I perused my options, the more I realized that these misconceptions were not only unfair, but completely untrue. Although there were certainly plenty of profiles I found less than enticing (just as in the real world there are plenty of people that we find less than enticing), there were nevertheless a number of times where I read all the way to the bottom of someones profile, checked out their pictures, and realized that I was genuinely interested in having a conversation and maybe even making out with them. It was kind of exciting...

Success?

So I promised in the last post that I would give updates about my dating experiment- ya

know, actually meeting a prospective lova face to face instead of on an internet dating

website? Well, now I actually have a story about putting myself out there! As well as a revisit to old thought patterns that I can’t seem to shake.

Shortly after writing the first draft of my last post, I traveled down south for a work

conference. While I was lying on the grass in between workshops and soaking up the

sun that has been absent this in NYC’s gray winter, a man (that’s right, a real life grown up man) approached me. His name was Arizona (nickname, obviously) and we had met the previous September at a new staff conference. I remembered he worked in the southwest (can you guess which state?) and that I had thought he was cute at the time (he still was).

We talked and flirted for a minute or two and then parted without exchanging numbers or making any sort of plans to meet up again. But later that night, while sharing a couple of bottles of wine with my coworkers, I spotted him for a second time across the bar. We started chatting and I invited him to sit down with us, which to my surprise he did. In fact, he hung out with us for the rest of the evening, until we finally all got up to go to bed. As we walked back to our rooms my coworkers snickered about my new suitor, yet I was drunkenly disappointed that he hadn’t made some sort of more obvious move or gesture.

As I said goodnight to the last of my coworkers and turned the corner by myself, I could not believe my eyes when I saw Arizona leaning on the railing on my corridor. He invited me into his room for a drink and I couldn’t help but say “yes.”

Now, I’m not a total stranger to one-night-stands; I’m fully conscious of the implications and expectations associated with this type of encounter. Nevertheless, every single time that I partake in one I find myself thinking about the guy afterwards for longer than I’d like. I’m somehow fixated on the fantasy that we are two star-crossed lovers that are meant to be together and thrive on the notion that this encounter was “meant to be.” What pisses me off is that I hate that I have this fantasy. I don’t know the guy well enough to be thinking these things! I don’t know why my mind automatically goes to this place. Maybe it’s because I’m a romantic or maybe the “happy” chemicals that are released from brain after sex are particularly potent.

On the plane back home, I found myself feeling wistful for the next two days about the fact that I couldn’t start a relationship with Arizona, this guy I barely knew. I even went as far as Googling how long a flight would be from my city to his— who the hell was I!?! Obviously, these are just fantasies that I know my rational brain would never actually allow me to act upon, but to this day I continue to be disturbed by the places my mind wanders in its haze of post-humping bliss.

So although these thoughts upset me, I’ve learned that they are going to happen no matter what I do. Maybe it is just part of my brain chemistry? Or maybe I’m just a little coo-coo! Either way I know I’ll feel normal, in control of my wandering thoughts, and back to my independent, ass kicking, womanly self in just a day or two, so I try to sit back relax and enjoy the picturesque scenarios my uncontrollable mind can’t help but to create.

Online Dating Blues

As single ladies try’na make our way in the post-college dating world, the blog’s resident cartoonist/editor (we’re going to refer to her as “Doodles” from this point on) and I recently decided to jump on a bullish new hipster bandwagon, which is not only free but also incredibly addicting. In other words we created profiles on OkCupid— the dating website of our generation. 

When I joined OkCupid at the start of the summer, I had just returned from college and was living at my parent’s house in the suburbs. Accustomed to more or less guaranteed run-ins with my hookups and/or crushes at campus parties every weekend, I was suddenly feeling utterly clueless about how to make contact with dudes (not counting the ones making cat-calls to me on my way to work every day). So the prospect of regular dates, which I could choose from a virtually unlimited pool of guys on OkCupid, was a dream for me. I could actually have guys take me out to dinner and romance me instead texting me at 2am for no strings attached sex? Count me in! 

My first few weeks of OkCupid dates were simultaneously thrilling, overwhelming, nerve-racking, and at times super awkward. Barring a few initial flubs (which, I’m told, are par for the OkCupid dating course) it wasn’t long before I began meeting some decent, well meaning guys, one of whom was mentioned in a recent post (cough coughMr. Sterilecough cough). I could spend a LOT of time describing the variety of guys I met and went on dates with— dudes with questionable sexualities, sexy times that were totally hawt (I can’t believe he found my clit on the first try!), and disappointing /lackluster endings. But right now I’d like to look at the big picture and talk about the pros and cons of online dating.

Last weekend, a guy I had been on five dates with  (I’ll call him “The V”) called me up with a confession that in my opinion was slightly overdue. Although we’d had a good time togetherI was the first girl he had dated since his 5 year relationship had ended and he just wasn’t ready to get serious with me at this time.  I couldn’t say I was totally surprised; just a week earlier I’d complained to my friends about our awkwardly silent fooling around session which had left me with a pretty strong gut feeling that there was no real romantic future for this sweet, goofy guy and myself. Even so, I was feeling pretty dejected, not to mention wholly unenthusiastic about the fact that I would have to go back trolling around OKC for guys that were A) Over 6 feet tall B) Attractive C) Had similar interests to me. And it wouldn’t stop there! It would take another two weeks for [insert new guy’s name] and I to have the obligatory “do I really want to meet this person?” message exchange and then five or six more dates before we’d know if the relationship had any long term potential. I could be in relationship dating limbo for another two months and goddammit I was tired of it all!

Naturally, I called Doodles after I hung up with “The V” and lamented to her about my dilemma. We vented to one another for a while about our frustration with OkCupid, which eventually led us to have an important realization: while dating through OkC makes it easier for you to meet someone with similar interests/outlook on life, it nevertheless lacks a certain key element that’s automatically built into real world dating— the guarantee of face to face, pulse poundin’, sweaty palmin’ PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY. While you can get a good idea of what a guy looks like (provided he’s represented himself honestly!), learn about his hobbies and perhaps exchange witty anecdotes about your daily routines, it’s important to realize that you still don’t REALLY know who this person is. The impression of a person that you build up in your head prior to meeting them is an INTERPRETATION which you’ve created by piecing together what information you have and filling in the rest of the blanks with your IMAGINATION. When you meet them in person, there will be disparities between your impression of the person and the actual person, guaranteed! 

While we’re focusing on OkC’s negative aspects, it can also be pretty unsettling to think that since OkC offers an endless supply of willing singles, the person you’re on a date with/have been on a few dates with is more likely than not still chatting with, dating, or planning to date other people in addition to you. Of course, this is completely allowed; I’ve been guilty of it once myself (once I got home from a date in the afternoon only to immediately begin getting ready for an evening date with another guy). While OkC daters have every right to “play the field,” so to speak, it just doesn’t seem natural to me to be dating multiple people at once.  Regardless of how you plan, at the very best you’re only devoting a quarter of your attention to someone who could potentially be great for you, and at the worst you’re spreading yourself too thin and setting yourself up for major disappointment when all of them don’t work out. Whew! I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I’m completely burnt out by online dating. I’m sick of having 3 first dates in one week or juggling two guys at once only to have both prospects fizzle out. My ego and spirit can’t take it anymore! 

So, for a change of pace, Doodles and I have decided to take on a CHALLENGE to go old school, and start reaching out to real live people! (GASP!) We’re going to put ourselves out there to meet a guy in our neighborhood, out on the town, or while  stalking dogs at the dog park (please let this happen to me!). Of course, there’s no “right” way to do this, but that’s kind of why it’s fun. I for example am going to make a concerted effort to maybe approach the cutie on a park bench reading that book I love, or go up to that guy at my favorite café and finally say, “Hi, we’ve been making awkward eye contact for the past 10 minutes, so I thought I’d come over and say ‘Hello.’” Now, we know this plan isn’t foolproof— it’s far from it. The only thing we’ll definitely have in our favor is an immediate attraction to the person and possibly a favorite hangout out or reading material in common. But that’s more than we’ll have with a random guy from OkCupid, and it’s a change of pace that I think is much needed in my glamorous single life. 

We’ll give you updates and results as we go. While I have confidence in my one-liners and infectious smile, I’m still completely terrified of being turned down or a guy saying, “uhh, I’m married.” But if that’s the worst that can happen, then I guess I don’t have that much to lose. This is how basically everybody over the age of 30 met (and fell in love) back in the day and I think it would do us all some good to give it a try.

When You Meet a Mr. Sterile, Run!

Ok, so have you ever been in a situation where you’re dating someone who you know just isn’t right for you, but you stay with him (or her) anyway? (These reasons might include, but are by no means limited to the guarantee of being treated to very yummy meals, drinks at bars, and a companion to spend Saturday brunches with). Sometimes it is just so easy to be with someone because he's uncomplicated and provides you with a bit of spice in your otherwise somewhat monotonous life.

I think we’ve all been guilty of this at some point or another. It’s human nature to deny things we know to be true in favor of what we want to be true, i.e. to overlook a certain unattractive tendency (or three) in a mate in the hopes that it will POOF - disappear!

But when it doesn't and when we’ve finally realized that this someone isn’t exactly life-partner, let alone long term boyfriend material, does this mean we have to break up with him immediately? I think not. As long as we’re not giving him false hope about a long-term future or blatantly taking advantage of him, who’s to say we can’t enjoy his company just a little while longer?

The point of this post isn’t to debate the ethical gray areas of various breakup timelines. What I specifically want to focus on is what it takes for us to admit to ourselves that someone REALLY just isn’t right for us. So for now, I will divulge to you, my readers, an incident from my own experiences with a less than dreamy man…

***

This past autumn, I dated a guy – whom I will refer to as Mr. Sterile – for about two months. There were certain things about him that made me doubt our compatibility from the start – he was socially awkward, pessimism weighed down his every step, and he had [ultra] conservative views on social welfare– but I made a concerted effort to overlook these things in the name of keeping an open mind. We all have our quirks, right?

I should also add that Mr. Sterile was a classic germaphobe. Always equipped with a bottle of Purell in his pocket, he wouldn’t touch anything if he could help it. Sitting down on a subway car was out of the question. Opening doors for me was accomplished only with his shirt pulled down over the bare skin of his hand. Even the sweat, etc. accumulated whilst having sex had to be immediately followed by a shower (though maybe the view was just a bit less enticing than this). Although I found these anti-germ precautions to be a little irritating, I figured that they were overall harmless, and tried to convince myself that they were endearing rather than recognizing them for the flashing “WEIRDO” signs that they actually were. Folks, don’t ignore those signs!

I regret to say that my, er, optimism, was so far fetched that, even after THE incident, which I am about to recount, I did not immediately break up with Mr. Sterile. I am telling you this not to embarrass myself but to make an example of myself. If a partner performs an action that completely turns you off and is indicative of a trend that you know will never end, then listen to your gut! One must not cling onto someone who is not worth it just to feel wanted and told “you are so hot.”

***

What: THE Incident

Who: Mr. Sterile and me

Where: My Bathroom

When: The Evening

How: Sexy Time

So, Mr. Sterile and I were about to take our first shower together. As steam filled up the small bathroom, I decided to put on a little show for him; slowly unhooking my bra, I let it fall to the floor before sliding my panties off. Like any good seductress I coyly turned my head around to gauge his reaction, but his tongue was hardly lolling out of his mouth. He wasn’t even looking in my direction!

Instead, Mr. Sterile was completely immersed in wrapping layer upon layer of toilet paper around his hand. Brow furrowed in concentration, he was carefully and deliberately mummifying his right arm, making the thing look less like something I wanted wrapped around my waist while he kissed me passionately and more like… well, a Q-Tip.

As I watched in horrified silence, he ripped the end of paper from the roll and carefully placed the sizeable ball of toilet paper on the bathroom carpet in front of the sink. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he then hooked his fingers into his boxer briefs and, in what was clearly a practiced motion, shimmied them down his legs and daintily placed the briefs on the mound of toilet paper.

“What are you DOING?!” I asked. “I just don’t want them touching anything,” he pleaded.

This was all occurring as my bra was on the floor, my wonderful rack on blatant display and all he could think about was how his stretched out Gap boxer briefs (that had been shoved up his butt all day) could get dirty from my bathroom floor! First off, my bathroom did not look like it was teeming with bacteria, hair, or even dust! Hello, I have a (wonderful) clean freak for a roommate!

****

Well we had a shower together anyway, although it was less than sexy. I didn’t even remember the incident until I broke it off with him a few weeks later due to other qualities he possessed that were less than desirable. But when I look back on that incident it should have been a clear sign to me that me and Mr. Sterile were not GONNA WORK and he was not NORMAL.

So my sage advice for all of you is that once you see a red flag, be it controlling behavior, uncalled for jealousy, or even nonsensical germaphobia, take a minute to reflect on that person you are with. Think deep and hard about whether he or she is really making you happy or are you just trying too hard to make it work?

A Post From the Resident Cartoonist

 So in light of recent events I am back on OKcupid (for the time being) to do a little harmless flirting and I thought I would share with you a little exchange I had with a 42 year old man (don’t worry, not all posts will continue to be about middle aged men).

I wrote on my profile that someone should contact me if (among other things), they won't kill spiders they find in their house. So I get this message:

The spiders eat the bugs that really creep me out…so I'm fine with them in or out of the house.
-AJ

And after checking this guy's profile and noticing that not only is he 42 years old and listed as "seeing someone," I obviously don't respond. But OKCupid notifies you when somebody checks out your profile (bad for the stalkers out there), so about ten minutes later I get another message from him that says:

Ok then, sorry to bother you. Good luck regardless.
-AJ

So I feel bad that I have looked at his profile and blatantly ignored his seemingly nice comment, and write back:

Sorry, don't take it personally. You seem cool, not to mention attractive. I just feel that our age difference is a little much for me. Good luck you too.                                                              

–Doodle Brain (not my actual screen name)

Then HE responds:

Ah I guess as you get older, you understand that individuals mean more than any one specific thing about them (hair color, age etc) and that limiting yourself to only those that fit into the predetermined box you have made for yourself limits your possibilities. Great things and people might slip right by. Have fun.                                                                                                       

 -AJ

UM, I AINT TRYNA GET LECTURED PAL.

Here are two snarky things I thought of saying back (neither of which I will actually send):

1) You're right, maybe I am letting great people and things slip by, by HAVING AN OPINION. But you know what's worse than that? A slipping ball sack, not to mention libido and metabolism.

2) Okay, thanks. If I'm still single and using this site when I'm 42, I'll reconsider my perspective.

WISHING YOU A STUFFED-ASS THANKSGIVING FROM THE LIBIDINOUS LADIES

 We would like to give thanks to:

1. Dan Savage and his sage advice
2. The power of a sexy piece of clothing
3. Lelo products
4. Nars Orgasm
5. Our boobs have yet to start sagging 
6. Our abundant natural lubrication thanks to our youth
7. Men/women who understand the importance of foreplay
8. Men/women whose goal is get us off
9. Being the little spoon OR  the big spoon
10. The ability to flirt ourselves out of tricky situations
11. Being able to have multiple orgasms
12. Not having to shave the stubble off our faces everyday
13. Not having a hairy back

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?