I wanted to touch you

So I know it’s been awhile, but I’ve been too busy falling in love with the people in my life.
I can’t write at all. I often look at blank pages and think of nothing clever. I feel as though time is my enemy, because I don’t have the hours to be apart of everyone’s lives that I want to be. I have a million destiny’s and I only will experience one. All of this makes me anxious. Quite truthfully I’m scared.

I heard a song on my ipod today as I was driving home from work, Chad VanGaalen’s ‘Rabid Bits of Time’. It made me think of how intricite our lives are, and how much time we spend hiding a portion of ourselves that we only want others to appreciate. As I see glimpes of this side of people, I instantly fall in love with the person they suppress. Maybe it’s the curiosity it excites within me, or maybe I want to connect with others on a deeper level, I’m not sure. But I want to be there for people who I’ve only just met. As I was driving, I saw a montage of their faces, old friends, new ones, past boyfriends, my parents, and I wanted to be there for them. Even if it was just laying beside them on cold pavement, watching their chests heave in and out as they slip from consciousness. Don’t we all want to slip from consciousness sometimes.

But it’s just life. We have our own lives, and to realize the value of others is some Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs craziness. Everyone tells me I’m young, and this is my time to be selfish. But in my selfishness, aren’t I blind to the world around me? Every person I work with has been through things that are responsible for sleepless nights, scars, timid laughs. We’ve all seen things that we shouldn’t have seen, when we were too young and too gentle to fight back. “You have to look out for yourself” my mom’s always told me, while at the same time she weeps from a loveless house with light less windows. Too often it’s easier to look out for others.

Maybe I’m rambling. I don’t know what conclusion to draw from this. I just think the man I choose to sleep beside right now really could be any man. Every action we make adjusts the outcome of our story. I don’t know if I can be in a relationship because I am too eager to be apart of everyone’s story nowadays. I’ve altered his life, it almost feels as though it’s time to move on and alter someone elses’. And with a wide heart I’ll only bring destruction. Someone once said we destroy the things we love. Now I believe you.

Maybe at some point I need to realize I will inevitably separate from the people I once cared about, I was in their lives for an instant and then I was gone. I can’t touch everyone I touch. I can’t hold eight hands, I can only hold two, someone else’s and my own. It’s nice knowing someone is there, but at the end of the day we dream in solitary. We spend 700,800 hours on this earth, writing ourselves on pages someone else gave us, making ourselves always the protagonist of our own story.

I want to read your story.

No.
I can’t touch everyone I touch. Somehow in 700,800 hours, there’s just not enough time.

– The Tall One

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

If there’s someone you have fun with, who makes you laugh and feel safe, who likes you back, and the sex is good, am I a shitty person for feeling like something is missing? Or is this just my subconscious using it’s reaction formation defense mechanism? Do I actually really like her but I want to convince myself that relationships aren’t worth being in?

Sometimes I examine myself and I don’t know how I got here. Not that “here” is a bad place, in fact, it’s probably the best place I’ve been in, in a while. But somewhere along the line I went from being a hopeless romantic in a committed relationship to craving feeling new hands on my skin, exploring new skin with my tongue, meeting someone and knowing them more intimately than the majority of the rest of the world within hours.

I molded myself into a new person, adopted a new persona so that I could repair my heart while having fun. It was temporary. That phase everyone goes through in their 20s, only now I have someone that I could have a genuine relationship with and I’m second guessing everything because I’m not sure if I want to give up the chase. The chase of skewed perceptions of intimacy through orgasm filled haze followed by complete disinterest.

Part of me knows that this won’t be forever. I’ve still got more drunken nights in front of me. More hallucinations to experience, more vaginas to taste. I completely want to walk down the aisle in a white dress and either wait for my bride, or look at my bride while I do it. But for right now, fuuuuuuuck that. Love is great, I know it, everybody knows it, even those people that claim to be so anti-romantic they’d rather watch sweatpants and watch Netflix. Well I hate to break it to you, but that’s a kind of romance. We all crave another person to share our quirks and experience shit with.

Those people in my life are my friends and obviously my relationships with my friends don’t suffer when I’m in a relationship, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to give that up yet. Being youthful and in oblivion is blissful. It’s a selfish time in our lives when we don’t have to worry about anyone’s feelings but our own.

I like her enough, I think she’s great and beautiful. But is liking someone “enough” ever enough?

I think I’m ready. It’s in the little moments when we’re in the middle of the forest and the silence feels like we fit perfectly in it that I know I’m ready, but those moments when I’m alone and not hating being alone make me question things.

Sometimes, you have to take the plunge. Or at least take the steps towards making that plunge. I’ll miss the carefree lifestyle. But at least I have friends like The Tall One who can occasionally remind me that oblivion doesn’t have to disappear when you have friends who are always willing on taking that break from reality with you.

I’ve been reminded that you can’t give up on love, even temporarily. This isn’t the last selfish time in my life, but when you find someone who makes laughing feel second nature, try not to be afraid of it. Don’t run from it, just let yourself exist in it.

– The Gay One

The Backseat

SO YOU LIKE A GUY, AND SO HE HAS A LOT OF GIRLS THAT ARE FRIENDS. SO WHAT? SO EVERYTHING!

I’m not the jealous type, I’m not the type to put my boyfriend on a leash and keep him away from all the beautiful lassies frolicking on local fire hydrants, but I am one to hate feeling second rate, and I am one to hate feeling excluded.

The situation is just this, I’ve started seeing this guy, and it appears we’re very into each other, yet he hangs out alone with girls all the fricking time. He told me it has been a problem for his past girlfriends, as they feel uncomfortable when he goes out for beers or drives these women home from the bar at 4 am. But quote on quote this is what he told me, “Obviously I think my friends are beautiful, and they are, but just because I think that does not mean that the reason we’re friends is because I want to bone them”. Well then….

Here’s where the situation gets uncomfortable for me. Last night he invited me to a concert, that I presumed we’d be going to alone. I got a text an hour before he was supposed to pick me up, saying he had to get his friend Sam too. I thought he was just giving her a ride, but little did I know she’d make me the third wheel all night. So we got to the bar, and immediately they engage in their best friend shenanigans and stories and inside jokes. I sat awkwardly to the side wondering if I could find a way to squeeze my large body into this seemingly closed off box; and I really couldn’t. Even when he would say things that could apply to both of us, he would only make eye contact with and talk to her. I began to stop my fake laughing and my lips quivered as they released the permanent “I’m having so much fun” smile. I began to get increasingly pissed.

What helped though was the fact she wasn’t exceedingly more pretty than me. I know this is superficial and horrible to say, but if the guy you’re into has a best friend who is hotter than you, then there’s going to be some jealousy regardless of their relationship. She was pretty though, tiny, quirky, unique face, unique style. I found myself staring intensely at her features comparing each square inch of her face to my own. I feared I was acting like a crazy bitch. But when you’re in a room, seemingly engaged in conversation with two people, and you feel like you could slip away and they wouldn’t even notice, life fucking sucks. I’m sure many of you have been there before.

I sat there for a good hour, cycling through the emotions of jealousy, anger, guilt, self hate, them hate, and sadness, trying to figure how I was going to endure two more bands and probably 3 more hours of this. I was angry he wasn’t paying more attention to my face, I put effort into the whole smoky eye thing and felt so under appreciated. I started to think of ways to turn this night around, to pick myself up out of the corner I had been left in. The solution, alcohol. Of course getting plastered would solve everything. So I did. And the rest was history….Joking, but I did take the time to chug five pints of Mill Street Organic like it was no body’s business and make eyes with every single 7/10 guy at the bar. Once I was drunk, I didn’t notice them at all. I gave no fucks as to being excluded, and just enjoyed the music. I even found myself talking to new people, not even to make him jealous but because I wanted to. Anything was better than feeling cold beside someone who usually makes you feel so warm. Anything.

The killer thing about all of this (the guy you’re into being best friends with another girl) is if the girl is genuinely nice. Sam really was nice and a total sweetheart, and I don’t think she meant to exclude me. It just kind of happens, ya know? She did enough as to acknowledge me, ask a little abut my life, and fix my broken leather bra in the bathroom. She did enough. It’s him that concerns me.
Shouldn’t he know when I feel excluded by now, and what are his motives for being so buddy buddy with all these girls?

Can a single guy and single girl of the same sexuality and interests ever really truly JUST be friends? Maybe I’m dumb for thinking they can’t, or maybe I’m even more dumb for thinking they can.

Although I was very plastered, and my perception of reality got a good spanking on pint 3 and 4 quarters, I do remember one thing. On the drive home Sam sat in the back seat, and I in the front. He reached his hand in the back seat while driving to get something, and jokingly said “Don’t worry Julia I’m not doing any funny business back here”, to which we all laughed. Sam going along with the ‘joke’, if we can call it that, said “Bryan don’t, she’ll know about us, she’s right there!” They laughed again, and not to feel awkward so did I.

I looked out the window, letting out my character giggle that comes as naturally as breathing. I half turned and saw his eyes meet hers in the rear view mirror.

And I, for one, refuse to be oblivious to what goes on in the back seat.

– The Tall One

The Pursuit of Happiness

The thing that no one tells us about dating is that it hurts as much as it is exciting. Casual dating in theory is amazing, all the fun stuff about relationships (going on dates, sex, cuddling) without any of the commitment (time and emotions wise) that come with a girlfriend. But, first dates tend to feel a lot like job interviews, which makes not getting a second one make me feel more than unqualified.

A girl walked into the quasi convenience store I work at on campus and took me aback. I could tell that she was young but she just had something about her and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I’ll be the first to admit just how much I love cliches but being so drawn to someone was something that I hadn’t really experienced. It was like I had to get to know her. So, using the creeping skills I had been blessed with, I found her online and took the chance I seldom take to ask her on a date.

The date was the first one I have had without even a single beer, which meant that conversation wouldn’t necessarily just naturally flow the way it does when you’ve got the help of alcohol. So I was shocked when it did; when shy, freshman-her and awkward, awe-struck-me, talked about movies and music and all the things you talk about on a first date. Laughed when my hands struggled to remember the chords in the guitar store. Didn’t move away when we sat side by side without space between us on the bus.

It’s hard not to be excited when you lock eyes with a girl it seems like you’ve been looking for across the cupcake shop and then it hits you that’s she’s willingly there with you. But when she didn’t want to go on a second date, or so I can insinuate from her vague and aloof reply to my follow up, I realized that sparks aren’t always felt by both parties. Again.

Through movies I learned that first dates are either so obviously awful or simply magical with no gray area in between. Also learned that good dates lead to a good relationship or at least an intense fling. The truth is that the pursuit of happiness of lined with broken idealizations of romance and bruised egos and I felt unqualified. Unqualified to love, to make someone happy, for someone to take time to make me happy back.

In the 20 something culture, we’ve learned that the only way to be casual is through half an hour of fucking followed by a swift exit until next time. Going on dates means I automatically want a relationship, liking someone enough to follow up that same night isn’t “casual” enough.

Simply fucking is easier. You’re more than happy just doing it once with someone, but dating requires repetition. Liking someone enough to want to be in their company even if you aren’t going to have a love story to spend 9 seasons telling your kids about.

You both have to be single, attracted to each other, looking for the same thing in a relationship, and looking for the same thing in a person.

There are people like me stuck in the in-between. Relationships end either in breakup or in marriage, and I’m not ready for either one. I’m tired of feigning interest between grinding hips even though I’m not necessarily tired of meaningless sex. But, I want someone who is going to be around long enough to figure out how my body works, memorize which spots make me moan the hardest, spend lazy Sundays with.

In the early 20s, we’re young enough to be painfully optimistic but old enough to have been broken before. Most of us are stuck in this limbo between craving affection and keeping people at arms length.

I’m going to text you to follow up, I’m going to make you mix CDs because I care, I’m going to pick up things I see that remind me of you. But this doesn’t mean that I’m planning to have a drawer at your place by the end of the week or that I want to meet your parents or that I want to be exclusive. It means that I’m engaged. That spending time between your legs means that I can express that it’s worth my time. It means that I’m okay with building temporary connections. That non-commitment doesn’t have to mean non-connected.

Until the elements fall into place for me and I find someone I’m not terrified of U-hauling with, I guess I’m stuck in the endless loop of first dates and strange hookups.

At least I have beer, Netflix, and my cat.

– The Gay One

We’ll be back to regular scheduled programming after these messages

Sorry folk, it’s finals season and we got a little busy. We’ll be back soon, promise!

 

The Best I Never Had

I don’t think I can write about anything beautiful tonight, I think I can only write about the last time I slept with you. You wanted to come over, quite frankly you invited yourself. I, being a sucker for sex, and a former sucker for you, agreed. I guess I hoped I would feel intimacy. I guess I hoped I would feel love. I guess I hoped I would feel something, so I let you into my bed one last time.

We rolled around in awe of each other for what seemed like hours. The chatter of girls, and cooking, and the TV were drown out by our immediacy. You held my face while you kissed me, stifling my moans with your tongue, and hand, and body. I latched onto you, like you were the my last source of life, my morphine, my support line. There I was, flat on my back, with you rocking in and out of me like never before. I was so wet that you had no trouble sliding yourself inside. Your hands were urgent, they wanted to be filled. You grasped at my hair, my hips, my breasts. You looked down at me, tracing my jawline with your forefinger like you trace the lines of your sketches. I felt made, I felt created. I felt like I was constructed solely for your pleasure. And I came. I came so hard.

You had just the tip inside of me, and were using your hand to stimulate my clit. You told me I look so beautiful when I cum. I craved you, but I wanted with every ounce of my soul to love you. Our bodies were meant for each other, but our minds were meant for someone else, I know that now. And when it was over I turned a pale shoulder, clutching at cold sheets which should have been warm. I could already feel your absence, and I was comfortable.

You left me before, but this time when you took 7 inches out of me you actually intended to stay. I told you I couldn’t feel anything when I touched you, and it was your own doing that led to the disconnection between my heart and my body. I could feel the anger rising hot in your lungs as you calculated where exactly you had gone wrong. I wanted to smile at the discontent spreading like peanut butter across your face. Everything cums full circle, and it finally came for you.

So It’s moments like this, when I’m half drunk and a little scared, that these things happen.
It’s the nights when I crawl into bed alone, and not with the guy who lives next door; the reminiscing starts, the thought binging occurs, and all I can think of is what was. It’s nights like this, where I always remember you.
Your love is the best I never had. But I don’t miss you.

I sit here typing these words with a grin growing from ear to ear, wondering how much it hurts to kick oneself repeatedly. I’ll never fuck a bruised body again.

Those who break hearts always break their own.

– The Tall One

The Time I Decided to Dabble in Dick (for the last time)

(alternatively How I Made Sure I Was Gay)

While trying to navigate the limbo between teenager and adulthood, I forgot about the evolutionary quality that the world has. Things were happening that were finally making me really happy and I assumed that they would stay this way forever. One day, I thought I knew who I was, who I was attracted to, and who I was going to be with forever but not shortly after that, I was single, heartbroken, horny, and trying to figure out if I was actually gay or just hurting from the breakup.

Navigating sexuality is hard, getting through a broken heart is hard, but trying to figure out your sexuality while dealing with a heartbreak is like swallowing shards of glass engulfed in flames while listening to Pitbull on repeat. But things started to make sense, and I could feel a shift. The previous label of bisexual that I had worn started to feel uncomfortable, like it had shrunk three sizes in the wash and it just didn’t fit anymore.

The thing about heartbreaks though, is that I always want to shut out my brain and let my impulses take over. Plain and simple, I wanted to fuck. I went from having a very active sex life to going cold turkey and I just wanted to fill the void I felt with a temporary warm body next to me in bed. I knew that I wanted to feel long hair tracing down my back, and wanted to know what tits felt like under my tongue, but at that point, anything was better than dying batteries and thin walls.

I knew I was into girls. But when a beautiful-Pete Wentz-Adam Lambert-hybrid-Bowie worshiping-man walked up to me in the middle of a crowded mall to introduce himself and ask for my phone number, I gave it to him while simultaneously counting how long it had been since I had sex last. 6 months, 17 days and some hours. Coffee became hanging out in his basement watching concerts on his TV and all I had was a craving for a white mocha that went unsatisfied.

The Smiths concert came onto his TV between mundane talks of our similar Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and his friend, an old Degrassi star and in that moment all I wanted was to fuck to The Smiths with a 24 year old boy I originally mistook for gay, in the basement of his parents’ Greektown house while in a city a 40 minute bus ride away from me. So I did.

I spent some time on my back critiquing his technique, thanking the sex gods that I didn’t have to see or touch his penis, and being mildly pleasured. Sweat trickled from his neck onto my neck and for a while there it got good enough to not care. I admired his impressive yoga poses that he would hold for more than 10 minutes at a time while still going at full speed but I stopped feeling entertained and started to get bored, wondering why he took so long to finish and why he made that face when he thrusts.

6 months later, he’s still texting me on Friday nights asking if I want to hang out despite never receiving a reply back. It had been a while since I had felt unfamiliar hands grabbing at my hip, and breathed in to an unfamiliar scent. Getting back on the horse took sex with one of 5 emos left in 2014.

Turns out, the thought of sex with men doesn’t repulse me, but I’m still mesmerized by a set of pretty eyes and a pair of great boobs. Greektown might not be the last man I sleep with in my life, but someone being inside me made me realize that I want to be inside someone too. So now I’m chasing hair tracing down my back and moans in higher octaves but I’m thankful for the time I decided to dabble in dick again.

– The Gay One

Casual sex, and Casual Cigarettes

SO this is the first.

SO this is what it’s like, to be touched by someone who doesn’t know who you were yesterday. This is the feeling you’re supposed to feel when you’re young. This is tissues in my garbage can. This is sweat on my sheets. Strange hands tracing curves of your body that you’ve grown up with, grown into. Strange hands gripping you like you’re the only woman they’ve ever felt before. Strange hands who truthfully only need you for twenty minutes, sometimes five, and then they need someone else. This is what it’s like to inhale someone for the first time, take them in and breath them out.

SO this is casual sex.

Often I wake up and I don’t know if this is a dream. There’s a man lying beside me, he has one arm draped over my chest, sloppy yet protective simultaneously. I see drool dripping from his mouth, his underpants are bunched up on one leg, and he’s off in another world drifting between thoughts of sex, pizza, beer, sex…. I’m lying beside him, arms folded into my chest, staring at a ceiling that’s never changing. I try to remember who I was the last time I stared at the ceiling, 2 sexual experiences ago, 10 days younger, 240 hours the wiser. I wipe yesterday’s mascara from my eyes, and exhale into the blanket to smell my breath. When they stay over, it’s never a one course meal.

Every night there’s possibility. I go out into the night for the first time, every time. I slam my beer back with people who I deeply love, people who ground me. I don’t go looking, but somehow it always finds me. And by the end of the night, there’s ten messages on my phone asking me to come over, and a cute boy on my arm wondering if tonight is going to be the night. I look at him, and I see it. I see him in my room, fumbling to get the clasps of my bra undone. I see myself kissing down his body, the motions I’ve choreographed 5,000 times over being altered ever so slightly to fit his size. I see him grabbing my hair when he’s ready, his pupils dilate, and then for a moment, I see his face as nothing else exists. Nothing else exists.

So I pick one, sometimes because I remember how they kissed, smelt, sometimes because of how they look, most often I pick one at random because I have the option to. Some girls are laying in bed alone as we speak praying to be touched by someone, anyone. For four months when my heart was shattered I laid in bed praying to be touched by someone, anyone. If I say no now, I’m biting the hand that feeds me. I’m a sucker for lust, I’ll be someone’s someone, even if it’s just for a night.

And after we’re done, I have this strange impulse to have a cigarette. I don’t smoke, not on a regular occasion anyways. But for some reason when we’re done, I want to step outside and light one on fire. I want to fuel something I know is harmful, and watch it burn until it seers my lips. They always ask if I want them to come too, I say no. I’m not mad, or cold hearted I don’t think, I just like the idea of stepping outside after you’ve been touched so vigorously inside. I’ve had four fingers and seven inches inside me this whole night, but nothing feels better than standing on this porch, lighting a metaphorical cigarette for every damn feeling I wish I felt when I touched you .

So this is casual sex.

We fuck, we get fucked, I don’t feel anything. And yet here I am pondering the concept of regret. Out there on the porch, -15 degrees, in lace and silk that was never meant for you. You’re inside, you’re on my side of the bed. I won’t argue, for now it’s yours.

I’m almost done my smoke break, I watch the cats play on the street. I wonder if they’re having casual sex. I try to remember the last time I saw animals making love.

– The Tall One

Self Introductions Should Go to Hell

I guess I’ll follow suit!
I’m a bunch of things, but more often than not I want to describe myself as transitory. My concept of who I am changes every fucking day, and it’s sure as hell reflected in my life choices. I look to craft beer to solve all my problems, sometimes wine if I’m feeling fancy, and I sleep around for the sole purpose of chasing a feeling I once had with someone a long time ago. I find myself absorbed in so many people’s lives, without being fully absorbed in my own. I’m on a soul searching journey to find myself; cheap booze, disastrous hookups, and way too much of The National are my means to getting there. I spend days listening to music, raiding thrift stores, drinking lattes, and writing melancholy poetry that I somehow wish will materialize in my muses’ hands. I feel like this is my time and if I don’t seize it now it will be wasted, I’m a fan of over-romanticizing my youth.

That being said, I sleep with a lot of men, often. I’m chasing the high of feeling in love again, without actually wanting to be in love. Stay tuned for a series of misadventures, failures, cliches, triumphs, and dumb shit that we all go through when we’re 19, trying to get by on quick wit and fluttering eyelashes. Let’s disobey the lessons our parents taught us.

– The Tall One

Allow Me to Re-introduce Myself

I sleep with girls on the first date, my beer of choice is Moosehead, and I day dream about moving to Portland. I spend most of my time going on dates with girls I don’t like, striking out with girls I do like, and giving up and cuddling my cat instead. I’m overwhelmed and underfucked and trying to navigate the lesbian dating scene while trying to keep sane. Because the stereotypes are true; everyone has slept with everyone else, a lot of girls are still friends with their exes, and two sets of PMS is some type of sick joke. I laugh at myself more often than I take myself seriously and sometimes my life is just a series of unfortunate events. I dance battle when I’m drunk, I write passive-aggressive spoken word about girls and perform it when they’re watching, and I’m trying to master the art of getting past a second date. 

I’m an idealist, forever chasing the perfect combination of things that will give me that euphoric feeling I so desperately crave. Seeking perfection while settling for mediocrity. I may idealize the perfect moment but I find beauty in the chase. If it looks like it could fit perfectly into an episode of Skins or an indie rom-com, I want it. Drug induced awe at sunsets on the beach surrounded by friends, rolling down grassy hills and fucking at the bottom, waking up to pancakes in bed. Cliches are only cliches because we fail to believe in what can be. I focus more on possibility than probability and I’m desperately trying to experience as much as I can before I get too old for it to be acceptable to make mistakes. I want to fuck, get fucked, fuck up, and get fucked up because in the end, euphoria is the only thing keeping us all going.

That’s me in a nutshell; simply trying to get laid, graduate, make idealistic cliches become reality, live every day like it’s an indie flick, and meet a girl that doesn’t make me want to abruptly leave in the morning. If nothing else, there’s sure to be some laughs.

– The Gay One