Dirty Irish Awesomeness

So, along with every other American female out there, I am a sucker for hot accents. Show me a gorgeous guy with a British accent and I am dunzo. But I have never really gotten the appeal of dirty Irish guys, the Colin Farrell appeal if you will.

That is, of course, until I met Epic Fail's best friend. Oh my god. This kid is the epitome of dirty Irish hotness. He has these giant forearm tattoos, one is a giant Catholic cross (could he BE more Irish Catholic?), and just oozes sexuality. And I found myself inexplicably attracted to him, despite the fact that he is everything that I am not looking for in a boyfriend. And quite predictably a total manwhore.

I could not help but observe his interactions with females, and was fascinated to see that he turns most girls to mush, the same way he did to me. On the few occasions I was out with him, he went home with a different girl every night.

I actually heard him say to one, "Hey, look, I'm going to be honest with you. I'll take you home tonight but I'm never going to call you again."

To which she giggled and took him home!

Amazing!

But the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated his straightforwardness. I mean he doesn't promise these girls anything, doesn't set up any unfair expectations; he just lays all his shit out on the table and tells them how it's going to be. Therefore, if they are stupid enough to go home with him, they know EXACTLY what they are getting into and have no one to blame but themselves when they never hear from him again.

On the other hand, I'm sure these girls are either too drunk to really take his words into account, or think he's just joking, and this is all part of his dirty Irish charm. And then he absolves himself of any guilt by saying that he told them how it was going to be, and therefore it can't be his fault; thus justifing his dirty manwhoring.

And somehow, despite knowing all this about him, I could not figure out why I still found him so attractive. Then one of my friends explained it to me:

He looks like he's dirty Irish mafia. He's the kind of guy that would take you home, throw you around, but then be all sensitive afterwards. And then in the middle of the night, his cell phone would ring, and he'd have to get up to go kill someone. So he'd put his shirt on over his tattoos, kiss you, and say, "Baby, I gotta go," and wink at you before he takes off.

So I sat there, and pictured this scenario, and I had to agree. It was totally hot. I was practically drooling just thinking about it.

Cowardly Men

I guess I've always known that guys are total cowards, but it still manages to surprise me every time.

A few months ago, I was out with L and a bunch of his friends from college when I met Georgia Boy. He was cute, tall, nice, and I struck up a conversation with him. He made a point of asking me if L was my boyfriend, which I of course shut down, and apparently went around asking everyone else what they knew about me. At the end of the night, he asked for my phone number, asked if he could take me out to dinner, and told me I was "stunningly pretty." He texted me within the next five minutes that it had been great to meet me.

I was feeling pretty confident that he would call, which is always a mistake, because he never did. I even went so far as to call him myself and leave a message that I'd like to see him again, never to hear back.

So after all this, I just wrote him off and figured I'd never find out what happened there.

Well lo and behold last weekend while I was watching Epic Fail make out with his ex-girlfriend, L attended a birthday party for one of his friends from college and Georgia Boy walked in. Being the loyal friend he is, L asked Georgia Boy why he had never followed up with me and what the deal was, to which Georgia Boy replied, "Well I just don't really want to date anyone right now, so I never called her."

Aside from the fact that this reeks of some horrible excuse, it was the lamest thing I've ever heard. If he wasn't interested in dating anyone, then what was the point of asking me out on a date and taking my phone number at all? And since he had taken the effort to do that, would it really have been that difficult to call me and tell me he didn't want to date anyone? Seriously...

Look, no one likes to have awkward conversations. They are, almost always, intensely awful. But once you suck it up and just have the conversation, it usually makes things better. It probably would've been pretty easy for me to just stop calling Old Fart, and let it go that way, but instead I told him that I didn't want to date him anymore because I wasn't really feeling it. Was it uncomfortable? Yes, of course. Am I glad I did it? Um yes, absolutely.

This is probably pretty naiive of me, but I do believe that the truth makes everything better, and will inevitably come out eventually. I found out six months after the fact that my ex-boyfriend had been cheating on me for at least a month before we broke up. If he had told me this up-front back then, yes, I probably would've kicked him in the nuts, but it would've spared me a great deal of suffering. I guess it's the fear of the kick-in-the-nuts that prompts guys to lie and shy away from uncomfortable situations.

To which I predictably say, man up and grow some balls.

The Mystique of Strip Clubs

So, as a female, I have long wondered about the appeal of strip clubs, and why some men are so obsessed with them. From what I could tell, going to a strip club meant that a hot stripper was just going to turn you on and leave you with blue balls. And charge you for this? By this logic, I should have been getting paid all through high school.

Trying to expand my boundaries, I went to a burlesque club with my then-boyfriend and L this past summer, having heard a lot of hype about the NY burlesque shows. And to be honest, I think I had a far better than either of them. I loved the costumes, the glittery makeup, the nipple tassels, the blatant showmanship of the whole event. It was entirely entertaining. But that still didn't clear up the strip club question in my mind.

Then last week, I was out grabbing drinks with L when my girlfriend K called me and said, "Would you be willing to go to a strip club tonight?"

I laughed, not sure if she was kidding, and asked what the occasion was.

"Nothing," she replied, "I've never been to one, and all the guys are going to go, and I don't want to be the only girl there, but I'm totally curious!"

And that was how I wound up at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club at midnight on a Wednesday.

K and I were joined by a handful of our good-looking guy friends, and literally the second we sat down, we were surrounded by a hoard of beautiful women, swooning over the guys and offering up lapdances as the guys pulled out the wads of twenties they had just taken out of the ATM.

I was pretty entertained watching all the boys get lapdances and eavesdropping on the conversations they were having.

During a lull, I turned to one of the guys and asked him what the point of the whole thing was. They obviously weren't going to take any of these girls home, so the entire thing seemed like a waste to me.

"Look S," he told me, "You walk in here and all of a sudden all these hot girls are all over you, giving you attention, wanting to talk to you, willing to take their clothes off. It doesn't matter that they're paid to do it, or that you're not going to get to have sex with them, it's the illusion that you could. Where else could you walk in somewhere and have hot women all over you like that?"

I thought about it for a second and said, "I'm trying to picture a place where I walk in and guys are all over me, and it doesn't seem that appealing to me."

He laughed at me and said, "Well, S, that's because the place you're describing is called a bar. Or anywhere else that you go where there are single guys looking to hook up, which is pretty much everywhere."

True fact. I suppose as a girl I'm used to going places where it's just a given that guys are going to hit on you, and you quickly develop the instincts to give the cold shoulder and rebuff their advances. Most guys who aren't Brad Pitt/Tom Brady/someone equally gorgeous probably don't experience that too often.

I guess that solves the mystery. Not that I plan on ceasing my field trips any time soon.

Virginity: The Last Taboo?

I recently went to see “Spring Awakening,” an incredible Broadway play that circles around the sexuality of several teenagers in 1890s Germany. One of the main issues in the play concerns Welda, a 15-year old who inadvertently gets pregnant when her mother refuses to teach her about sex. This got me thinking: sexual education is a crucial part of our culture and there are many debates about whether schools should be teaching/preaching abstinence or safe sex. But in the long run, does it really make a difference?

I tried to make a list of all the people I know who are virgins and came up with a very short list. Since I am in my mid-twenties, most of the people I know who planned on waiting until marriage have either left that by the wayside or got married immediately after college. I had a close friend my senior year of college who admitted to me that he was a virgin, but not by choice, and subsequently lost his virginity a few months later. And that was the last time I can recall having a friend who was an admitted virgin.

In today’s society, it seems it would be difficult to abstain from sex, especially with the plethora of media that is consumed by it. But even on a personal level, I’m not sure someone would be comfortable in my social circle were they not sexually active. Many of my conversations with my friends revolve around sexuality in one form or another, and I’d be hard-pressed to have a conversation with my girlfriends that didn’t include who they or I had hooked up with recently.

In fact, my friend from college admitted he was a virgin after a night of drinking when we were going around a table and announcing where the weirdest place we’d ever had sex was. He got quiet and uncomfortable and finally pulled me aside to tell me his not-so-tawdry secret. It was my glimpse into a world where your lack of sex is something to be ashamed and embarrassed of, and makes you an outsider.

So, after all this musing, I decided to do some actual research. I started by asking my female friends if they knew any people who were still virgins by choice, and not for any staunch religious reason. The only person who actually knew anyone was my little sister E, but her friends are still relatively young (late teens to early twenties), so it wasn't entirely shocking. Otherwise, none of my close female friends could name a virgin that they were close to. Granted, one could argue that I run in a certain circle where it would be difficult to be a virgin, and therefore they do exist but are hanging out in alternate circles, but I checked through a pretty wide cross-section of females.

Then, I went around asking my guy friends what they thought of virgins, and if they would be more likely to sleep with a girl who is a known virgin, or known to be promiscuous. And for a wide range of reasons, almost all of my guy friends said they would choose the promiscuous girl over the virgin. Some of them claimed that they figured the sex would be better with the non-virgin, but overwhelmingly the response was that they wouldn't want to be remembered as the girl's first.

One of them turned to me and asked if I would remember my first time for the rest of my life, and I responded that of course I would. And he looked at me pointedly and told me that he wouldn't want to be that guy.

Which implies, with my limited research, that in NYC society it's far more acceptable to be a slutty mcslut slut slut than it is to be a virgin. Which definitely wasn't the case historically. What brought upon this change? Madonna? Sex and the City? The 60's? Sexual education? The existence of Charlie Sheen? The accessibility of porn to our generation? All of the above?

Old People Are Weird

First of all, before I go offending anyone, I want to say that all my 30-year old friends are awesome, and the blatantly rude comments I am about to make don't apply to everyone, except old farts.

I met Old Fart at a going away party at a bar. He was a friend of a friend and seemed cute enough, so I talked to him for a while. We had a typical conversation, where'd you go to school, where'd you grow up, what do you do for a living now, how old are you, and I distinctly remember him telling me he was 28. (Granted, I was drunk, but I swear this happened.)

He asked for my number, I gave it to him, and he texted me the next day to go out for drinks. It was then that he decided to disclose to me that he was in fact, not 28, but closer to 38, as in he'll be 38 in a few months. And asked me if "that was a problem," to which I responded, "No, of course not," as if there was a giant mothball in my throat.

Alright this is the part where I might get offensive, so earmuff it if you're sensitive. The first thought that went through my head was, "Ok, he's almost 38 years old, still single, never been married, and is out on a date with a girl who's more than a decade younger than him. What the hell is wrong with him?"

The rest of the conversation just highlighted my fears even more. He is extremely good on paper. He owns his amazing loft condo in Tribecca, with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a hardwood floor, and its own washer/dryer, nothing to sneeze at. He works as a lawyer at a successful financial institution. He dresses well and has a six pack, which is remarkable.

So, I was left with the nagging curiosity of what was so wrong with this guy that no one had snatched him up yet.

Not really able to get over that, and because I had decided he was far too boring for my tastes anyway, I told him we should just be friends.

Fast forward a few weeks and I had a bunch of friends over to watch the season premiere of Lost (greatest show ever). Old Fart texted me that day to see if I wanted to come over to his place to watch Lost, which I found to be an odd invitation since we weren't dating anymore, but I told him my friends were coming over and he was welcome to join.

He showed up late, right out of work, and sat down across the room from me in one of the few chairs that was still open. The show was about to start, so the chit chat had dissolved to a minimum. About an hour into the premiere, Old Fart announced he was going to go home and watch the rest of the episode tomorrow. I walked him out to the front door and leaned in to give him a hug when he physically pushed me away and said, "You owe me an explanation young lady."

Young Lady? Are you kidding me? The last time someone called me young lady was in elementary school.

So I was all pissy that he "young lady"-ed me and that he was being such an ass. I called him the next day to ask him what his problem was and he told me that he couldn't believe I would blatantly flirt with another guy in front of him. I was extraordinarily confused, and asked what he meant. He proceeded to tell me he had been watching me and over the course of the evening, I had allowed one guy next to me to put his hand on my knee and then when I got up to get drinks, I had put my hand on his shoulder and L's shoulder.

Slightly baffled, I said, "So you are mad at me for being affectionate with my male friends?" And he said, "I don't think they're you're friends, I don't touch my female friends like that."

Even more baffled, I told him that maybe it's cause he's an old fart and he doesn't get it, but I am affectionate with my friends, male and female, and it means nothing. And on top of all that, him and I aren't dating, so he really has no say in anything I do.

His closing statement was, "Well I just thought it was incredibly rude and disrespectful of you to have me over to watch you all over some other guys. But I guess we'll agree to disagree."

And that, boys and girls, is why he is 38 years old and still single. The apartment is sweet though. Too bad it would be the only highlight of dating him...

Later when my friend C and I were discussing the whole situation, we agreed that perhaps male/female relationships have evolved a lot in the past 20 years, and the closeness I experience with some of my male friends, which is purely platonic, can seem odd to people of another generation.

I guess it all goes back to the "When Harry Met Sally" thesis that men and women can't really be friends because the sex thing always gets in the way. And I happen to vehemently disagree with that.

Epic Fail

So in going through all the stories in my head to see which one I'd like to start with, I decided the funniest should be the winner. So here goes...

I met Epic Fail at at a New Year's Party. In fact the meeting him was slightly genius. I noticed he was the hottest guy there that wasn't attached at the hip to another girl and turned to my friend L and said, "He's hot, go talk to him." And L said ok, "Come find me in about 5 minutes."

So L walks over, starts chatting with Epic Fail about guy stuff, and then I wander over in 5 minutes and go, "Ohmigod L I've been looking for you everywhere!" And then he introduces me to Epic Fail and excuses himself to "go get more ice for his glass."

I know, it's a fantastic routine that will be repeated in the future.

Epic Fail (prior to being known as an epic fail of course) was cute, interesting, a fellow writer working on a screenplay about autism, but kind of odd. I mean odd like it's a given that he smokes weed every day, but also that he might be severely ADHD. At least that was my first impression.

I left him to hang out with my friends, disappointed in the lack of possibilities, when he found me to ask me if L was my boyfriend. Of course I laughed at him and made my "ew" face and vehemently denied it (Sorry L, I know you hate when I do that). Then as I was leaving, he asked me if he could take my phone number or if we should just "leave it to serendipity to run into each other again." I looked at him funny and gave him my phone number.

Much to my surprise he called me the very next day to ask if I'd like to get together the following day. I was about to leave for a week-long vacation in the Bahamas, so I told him I could grab drinks, but it would have to be quick since I had packing and whatnot to get to. He said he'd be done shooting around 4PM, so he'd call me then and we'd figure it out.

He did text me around 5PM to say he was done shooting and ask what I'd like to do. I answered that we should just grab drinks and meet up around 8, and then nothing.....as in I didn't hear from him for the next couple hours and was thoroughly confused slash kind of stood up. I finished packing for the Bahamas and was about to get into bed when I got the text: he had taken a nap after work and fallen asleep and slept through our "date". Could he get a rain check for some other time?"

Fail 1.

I raised one eyebrow, told him I was about to leave for the Bahamas but maybe after we got back.

Fast forward a week: I got back from the Bahamas totally refreshed and out of nowhere Epic Fail asks me if we can get together on Saturday night. I said maybe because bff K was in town and we had plans with various friends. But I decided to head over to meet him at a bar and was reminded of how cute he is in person, which is why I had decided to talk to him to begin with. He introduced me to all his friends (they apparently all work on a movie together right now), and I made friendly chit chat with them.

About ten minutes later, I turned around to see what Epic Fail was up to and if he would offer to buy me a drink, but it was hard to get his attention since it was on top of another girl's face as they were making out in the middle of the bar.

Oh that's right, he had his tongue down her throat not 4 feet from me.

At this point I was thoroughly confused so I started getting ready to peace out of there. When he came up for air, I pulled him away to let him know I was going home. Epic Fail then said to me, "S, I can explain. It's not what it looks like. She's my ex girlfriend."

Ex girlfriend? That makes it better how?

(A general note for guys out there. If you're trying to dig yourself out of a situation that doesn't look good for you, the words "ex girlfriend" and "mother" should probably never come out of your mouth.)

I just rolled my eyes, got in a cab, and laughed to myself about what a total fail of a night that was.

Fail 2.

The next morning, I proceeded to get about 15 text messages in a row to this effect:

"Yesterday was an epic fail on my part."
"I can understand if you don't want to talk to me let alone see me, but I would like the chance to make it up to you."
"At least so I could explain what happened last night."
"I was hoping dinner and a movie and drinks after."
"Or we could go skydiving."
"Your call."
"Unless you have a better idea."
"Do you like French food?"

Yes, that absolutely should've clued me in that the kid's off his rocker, but I kind of thought it was amusing and figured I could at the very least get a free dinner out of it. So yes, I went out with him to dinner.

The explanation was as follows: his ex-girlfriend was getting uncomfortably hit on by a guy who wouldn't leave her alone, so she asked Epic Fail to "play her boyfriend". Apparently doing so, meant shoving his tongue down her throat. He swore it meant nothing and he would do it for any of his friends if they were in such dire straits. I just kind of sneered at him and told him I have never once made my ex boyfriend make out with me in public to get someone to back off and that's pretty much the lamest story I ever heard.

But other than that, Epic Fail was pretty harmless and sweet and smitten with me, perhaps since I didn't particularly care about the incident with the ex. Well, whatever the reason, I agreed to accompany him to a party his friends were having where he promptly introduced me as his "girlfriend."

Now, anyone who knows me, knows I consider this to be a very serious thing, and it is SO not ok without checking with me first after we have been dating for like only two days. So I am pretty sure that my face registered with immediate panic.

Shortly after, I called him on it, and he apologized by telling me that he was just doing that to make sure other guys didn't hit on me, and he totally understood that we weren't in the girlfriend/boyfriend zone yet.

Phew.

Later that night, a few of us went back to his apartment to smoke. We climbed out onto the fire escape and were having a deep discussion on which Jim Carrey movies are actually funny when we heard footsteps in the living room.

Let me cut to the chase: it was Epic Fail's mom. And no, he had not informed me that he lives with his parents. And she was asking if we could keep it down because we had woken up her and Epic Fail's father.

Need I even say Fail 3?

So as it stands right now, Epic Fail has just failed one too many times and will only be asked around when people need bad excuses after they find themselves making out with their exes in bars.

The Stony Heart - A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time not too long a girl met a boy in a bar. It was dark and dirty and everyone was tired and hungover from the festivities of the night before, including the both of them, so names and smiles were exchanged, but nothing more. It was just a passing introduction, nothing noteworthy, except that they eventually became friends and spent countless hours laughing together drinking beer in bars and watching movies while eating Cheetohs on their respective couches.

Now, looking back with the introspection that only time and distance allows us, she wishes she had relished those moments more. To her, they had merely been fun but passing experiences, time spent with yet another friend. She didn’t realize at the time she was in the midst of a love story and she would want to save those memories to savor at a later date. She wishes she had taken pictures with her mental camera so she could pore over the brown of his eyes, the smoothness of his hair, his crooked smile, the way his lean body languidly sat on a stool and stretched out over his sofa. Click click click.

One night, during one of their normal drinks and TV-watching sessions, she felt his hand reach over and twist her long hair. Although it wasn’t unpleasant, she felt her stomach tie up in knots and said good-bye to him awkwardly that night, only to dwell on that moment for the following weekend while he was out of town. To her amazement, she found herself missing him while he was gone. And all of a sudden it hit her that there might be something more there, and even more surprisingly, she wanted to find out if there was. It was a startling revelation.

So startling that when she called him she found herself stammering throughout the conversation, which had never happened before. Words and laughter had always flowed easily between them in the past, before the possibility of feelings were involved. But somehow she managed to squeeze out an invitation to go on a date to which he endearingly replied in confusion a real life date? before promptly and enthusiastically accepting.

On their first date, then went out to dinner and nervously chatted the whole time about TV shows and mundane details of their lives. It took a few beers (as it always does) to finally loosen them up and then the remainder of the evening was laughter and seeing each other through new eyes. She realized that she really wanted to kiss him, and feel his heartbeat, and wondered why this hadn’t occurred to her until now. They talked all night and it wasn’t until an unexpected lull in conversation as the night drew to a close that he finally reached over, pulled her close with an unprecedented gentle touch, and kissed her softly and sweetly, and the only strangeness she felt was in the realization that they should have done this a long time ago.

They fell in love slowly. Despite the months of friendship, everything felt new, the kisses, the quiet touches in the middle of the night, the first time they held hands in the safeness of a crowded movie theater, the way it felt when he spontaneously put his arms around her and kissed her on her forehead when they were walking down the street. She started to relish the smell of his skin, the way his clothes and sheets smelled. After he fell asleep, she would bury her small nose in the nape of his neck and inhale deeply, smile to herself, before drifting off to sleep and dreaming of him.

On the mornings when he woke before her, he quietly moved around and got dressed while she watched between sleepy, bleary eyes. She pretended to be asleep when he came over beside her to stroke her skin and drop little kisses all over her neck and face, as if nibbling her for breakfast. After the door closed behind him, she giggled to herself, pulled the covers over her head, and relished the wetness that his lips left behind on her skin.

Nevertheless, she kept her feelings at bay, telling herself it was just a fling between close friends. Before she had even met him, she had turned her heart to stone and forced herself to act cold and distant, so that she would never be hurt again. That was before she realized that no matter how much she denied her feelings, they would still be there, under the layers of sediment, and that when he looked deeply into her eyes in the moonlight and smiled at her, her heart would still flutter and she would want more than anything to be the girl reflected in the dark brown irises of his eyes.

The quietest moments were the sweetest, the best. One night she awoke suddenly after a bad dream and instinctively leaned over to his sleeping figure. Feeling her stir, he pulled her head onto his chest, wrapped both his arms around her tightly in a sleepy embrace, and kissed the top of her head. No words were needed. That night, she knew that she could try to deny it until her voice was hoarse, but in the silence the truth would emerge, that there was love. And as much as that scared her to her core, the only thing she could feel in his firm embrace was safe and content.

The day he told her he was leaving it crushed her more than she had ever believed it could. She had deceived herself into thinking whatever it was she had been feeling was a passing emotion, and she would look back on their time together with fondness, but no regrets. But now, the castles she had built up were crashing down, and the waves were attacking them violently.

She told herself that she was to blame, because she had read too many love stories throughout the years. In all of them, finding love was the end of the tale; it managed to conquer all the obstacles to triumph in a fiery glow. But outside of the books she had steeped herself in throughout her youth, love was not always enough. Sometimes, it was just a painful side effect. She rationalized that she should just close her heart up again, hide her real self away from the world. For in the process of letting him in, she had opened up herself to feeling, feeling everything, including the heartache that she had been desperately trying to avoid.

After the cascade of tears finally ended, after the questions were asked through muted lips, after the throbbing her chest faded, her mind finally quieted. And all the regret that should have been left over, all of the pain just gave way to calm and peace. For in the abyss he had left behind was the awareness that she could, and would again, love. And even though she would love him with a small piece of her heart for her remaining days, even if she never felt his heart beat next to hers again, she would cherish him for that. For no matter what happened in the end, there had been the purest and most radiant of love, and there had been the quiet moments that he had held her in his arms, smoothed her hair, and kissed her tenderly. And that was enough and that was everything.