Thursday, December 15, 2011

Digital Dating

I come from a land of digital dating.
I am the early 20s dater.

When I was a young tyke running around the playground, my parents were just starting to get these things called mobile phones. Computers popped up in my school, and I was forced for an hour everyday to learn how to use them. By the time I reached junior-high, I no longer called the home phone, because my mom would seldom answer. I called her cell phone, and should I want to talk to my friends, I didn't pick up the phone, I joined the secret elusive world of  America OnLine Instant Messenger, "AIM."

Living in a rural/suburban community for my entire life, walking across the street to see my friends was not an option. One time I did find a bridge across our local canal and attempted to visit Lindsey who lived 4 miles away. I made it halfway into some random cow field before I realized that I had no idea where I was and there was a bull staring me down. I ran home faster than you could say Moo.

When we were younger my friends and I called each other to see about sleep overs and play dates, but AIM offered something different - something exciting.

By the time I got into high school, long gone were the days of calling my friends. In fact, whenever I did call someone my crappy RAZR usually echoed my voice back to me, and it freaked me out. I know what I sound like in my head, but over the phone, god, I think I sound like a seven-year-old child still telling Barbie that she can't be with Kokoum because he didn't wear a shirt and that just isn't proper.

Look at him, he's savage! (Disclosure: I'm Native American)

So like the majority of my friends instead of conversing by phone, we started communicating via AIM, text, and "against-school-rules-pop-up-boxes" which we figured out how to create while sitting in computer class. They looked like little warning boxes. It was the best. 

We were never told that these forms of communication weren't socially acceptable. We were excited by the new-ness of them. We were excited by the "secrecy" of them. Unlike with a phone call, your parents couldn't hear what you were saying on the phone and if they popped into the room to see what you were doing, the magic little X button made sure everything went away. 

As we grew up during high school, texting arrived and before we knew it, we were using texting how we would normally use AIM and racking up $1000s on our parents phone bills, so parents complained to the phone company, and then we got unlimited texting plans. Which to us, were like little unlimited IMs back and forth. 

Why call someone when you can text them, because that's what we were trained to do! It's so much more convenient! I can answer a text hiding out in the girls bathroom or in between classes hidden in my locker. 

This generation took ahold of texting and instant messaging like it was our job. Because for the majority of us they were interchangeable as the same form of instant communication. Major companies realized this and added them onto their services like, Facebook IM, and GChat further integrating digital communication in our daily lives making picking up that phone to call someone practically unnecessary. 

And it doesn't just cut off at employment door. In my line of work we use ichat, skype, gchat, and texting to get information across fast in a way that wont ruin a take on a movie set. Sitting in meetings, my boss can shoot me a gchat to tell me to make a calendar reminder for him or to schedule a lunch and with open table, guess what. I can do it all without ever opening my mouth. 

Digital communication is HUGE. 

So why does everyone kvetch and moan about using digital communication when dating? 

It's a part of our social culture, everyone's social culture. When Facebook opened to the public, people outside of college were crazy intent on joining. People of all ages flocked to facebook like sheep flocking to the second coming of Christ. So it doesn't just have to deal with age barriers. 

I've dated a pretty wide age bracket. I've dated 12 years over me and 1 year younger than me, so I know from experience, however, that this divide of using digital communication as a primary source of interaction while dating/in a relationship with someone has more than a little to do with age. 

I grew up on the computer, but the people just 10 years older than me, didn't. 

Now I can't tell you the exact age bracket that this phenomenon revolves around, but I do know that it affects my brother and I both, as well as my younger cousin, so I'd say it's currently the anyone given a phone by their parents when they were younger (probably 12 thru 27 age bracket) relies on texting as their most popular form of communication, with 27 being a border age that usually flip-flops depending on if they had rural or urban childhoods.

I say this because, in my experience the guys I've dated in their late 20s thru mid 30s age bracket love calling just to hear the sound of my voice, which is nice. 

They enjoy seeing how my day was with an end of the day phone call, which will usually last 1-3 hours and usually involves me saying, "I'm sorry I didn't hear you, can you say that again" at least 20 times, for which I blame my genetically bad ears, my love of loud music, my lack of telephone skills, and the guy's ability to mumble his feelings. If I ever texted them at the end of the day, they'd usually just pick up the phone to call me back. 

However, 

My experience with my age bracket is one of epic, marathon texting sessions that can go on for 8+ hours a day, because while we're not on the phone vocally for 1-3 hours, the same amount of information is exchanged, either way. It has been my experience that in dating each party is curious to know more about the other person, so a plethora of questions are asked, whether it happens vocally or textually. 

But this all brings me to my point. 

I've recently read a lot of articles about how you shouldn't text when you're dating. You should just call them up, because texting only leads to mixed communication, due to the inability of texts to convey emotions, which will most likely cause someone's feelings will get hurt.

I disagree. (1) I'm just saying emoticons are popular for a reason. You might not like them. They might seem girly, but they work. (2) Texting is a different form of communication. Eventually you learn that certain things that the person you're texting says should be taken a certain a way. You learn that "UGh, I hate you" doesn't mean that person hates you. It's usually a playful jest. You learn the intricacies of what certain phrases mean, for example this picture. 



But if you start to actually think about how texting has infiltrated the sacred world of dating, you'd realize that this is just the new battle of old school vs. new school. 

 I'm sure that when phones first came about there were a lot of old fashioned women and men who believed that you shouldn't call the woman you were courting, you should call on her like a proper gentleman and sit in the parlor while a chaperone made sure you did nothing untoward. 

And I'm sure there were people who thought that instead of calling them you should write a love letter instead. I'm sure that when the first written word came about people thought that you shouldn't write your Love a love letter because she probably couldn't read it, so you should just go calling on her. 

The evolution of dating happens whether we like it or not. Younger generations will always come up with a new form of communication, which puzzles the older generation. Texting is here to stay; it's not going to just go away because a group of people think that it's messed up to text the person you're dating in the middle of the day to see how they are instead of picking up the phone. 

Because to be honest, as an early 20s dater, I prefer texting to phone calls. 

I would prefer the guy I like text me to see what's going on versus calling me because I can live my life and respond when I have the time instead of dropping everything to have a 1-3 hour phone call with him. 

I like it because I don't have to hear my seven-year-old child voice. I like it because I can text a guy on my bathroom break at work and not have to worry about whether or not he hears the toilet flush (don't lie, you've totally texted someone in a bathroom before).  I like it because I grew up in a world of digital communication which spawned digital socialization. It's how I interact socially with my friends and to be honest, if that's how I talk to my closest friends, then the guy I'm dating should get the same treatment. 

Dating is the experience of learning about another person and figuring out whether or not they're compatible with you. It's a give and take. This war on texting is just a narrow minded view point of people who aren't willing to bend their ways to the desired form of communication of their partners. 

When I date older guys I don't tell them, "Yo I hate when you call me, because I can't understand you, so I feel like a retard asking you to repeat yourself every five minutes." Instead I accept that this is how they date. This is how they interact with the people in their lives, and so I accept that and make it a point to call them when I want to interact with them, usually sending a "hey, you busy? Can I give you a call?" text message before hand, because I don't want to catch them at a bad time. 

But that's just me. Just because you don't prefer the person you're dating's method of communication doesn't mean you should refuse to date them, because they're "inconsiderate" with how they contact you. Maybe it's just that they grew up like I did, in a world of digital socialization. It doesn't mean they're a horrible person, it just a different method of communication in dating. 

And the age lines are not exclusive. One of my closest friends, Sam, prefers calling to texting and she's in my age bracket. A 30-year-old man I dated for 3 months preferred texting to calling. It's all about learning and asking what method of communication that person prefers, because if you don't know then your phone calls could unnerve them and make them feel awkward, which prevents them from being their normal easy going self. 

So my point is that text messaging should be allowed in dating, but it's your responsibility to let the person you're dating know that you would appreciate calling vs. texting or vice versa. Take hold of your dating life. Don't just piss and moan because you think texting is inconsiderate. Do something about it. 

However, text message breakups are still the most cowardly thing a human being can do, right behind telling a robber to shoot your friend instead of you. 

Just saying... 



Sunday, December 11, 2011

Where are all my bad dates?!

A lot of people get into writing dating blogs, because they have a series of really god-awful dates. The stories are amusing. One of their friends say, "hey, you always have the funniest dating stories, you should write a blog!" They come up with a clever name, and then they start writing, which is good because bad dating stories are hilarious.

But as a dating blogger, I feel like I'm missing out on a key part of life because,

I never have...

I've had awkward dates.
I've had mediocre dates.
And
I've had wonderful dates.

That's all.

The worst date I ever had was with a gentleman from the internet who was really into marathon running, staying healthy, keeping an active life-style, while eating a strict regimen of raw organic food.

He managed to struggle down the pizza we shared, but I knew that the wedding bells were not going to chime on that one.

Because, I really like twilight zone marathons, staying in the kitchen (oh yeah, bring on your jokes), keeping an active social life (*cough* drinking *cough*), while eating whatever cheesy and tomato sauced confection winds up on my plate, including but not limited to enchiladas, chicken parmesan, mozzarella sticks, pizza, pizza bites, mexican pizza, pizza bagels, pizza sandwiches, etc.. My exercise routine is a series of dancing at the bars, in my apartment, in my car, elevators, public bathrooms, etc... I really like dancing.

Even though the wedding bells didn't ring, and he knew it was not meant to be, the very decent and upstanding man paid for the date and walked me to my car, which to me was a very, very sweet thing to do. I thanked him profusely, and we parted ways.

That's it.

That's my "bad" date story.

And it's not like I didn't try to find one, for a while when I first started dating fresh out of college, I didn't turn any one down... but nope. Not a single bad guy in the bunch (aside from Dicky MacDickerson). The guys I date and I are just never really meant for each other.

Now that doesn't mean I haven't had bad make out stories, because those could fill a book...

For example this one time I was making out with this guy and he stopped in the middle of it to ask if he could put on the movie, "Dawn of the Dead," while we were making out. So I said, "uh suuuure." Different strokes for different folks and all that.

Oh wait... scratch that. That was every night for nearly three months of my freshman year of college. Seriously... I dated a guy for three months who really liked making out to "Dawn of the Dead." I've seen the beginning of that movie AT LEAST 90 times (and people wonder why I dont like zombie movies).

And it's not all on the guys either, one time, I was making out with this guy and I had read in one of those Cosmo type magazines that the way to blow a guy's mind was to actually take his breath away in the middle of a kiss.

Well I'm a horribly curious individual, so I wanted to try it. So I'm in the middle of kissing this guy and I do the whole, suck-the-air-out of the guy's mouth thing. Not only did it fail miserably, after attempting it for the better part of five/ten minutes I only succeeded in gagging myself twice, sucking his gum into my mouth, and biting my own tongue.

Disclaimer: I told him what I was trying to do, and he got it on the first try. Rude. 




So what I guess I'm trying to say is, I want to hear your bad dating stories!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Bad and the Ugly, OkCupid


Some of my most favorite messages I've received from the OkCupid. These are the messages in their entirety, names may be changed to protect them from embarrassment.

So that some of these make sense, you'll need to know that my profile features a picture of me shooting a gun, talking about my love of semi-colons, and a horrific gumbo making experience where I melted a spoon into the food and then ate it. As for what I ask of the men folk - I want them to look like lumberjacks, not have girlfriends, and since I dislike chasing men they have to chase me. (It's the little things really).

The regular writing is the message, anything in italics is my opinion...
-----

http://style.org/unladenswallow/

Wow, too cool, but I hate math and stopped reading when it got technical. 
-----

I too like semi-colons (he said not using a semi-colon...)


... Who refers to themselves in third person while trying to impress a girl, she pondered. 
-----


hey,so its really funny that you like austin grill. i know you were one of the many people in Bethesda that was mad that it closed in the area. funny that you go all the way to DC when theres one in Silver Spring. I only tease you about it bc i work at the one in Silver Spring. Also feel like you about the Eagles being a disappointment


Free salsa? Yes? Please? Thank you! 
-----


Just a small time girl living in a lonely world, She took the midnight train to dc and then she found me


This stopped being cute when you got the lyrics wrong. ALSO metro seldom runs past midnight... 
-----


Have to admit, I'm a bit curious about your fascination with men who chop wood. I know the perfect man for you though, he was 10 when I taught him to swing an axe. You'll just have to wait a few years, because it wasn't that long ago :p 


Are you encouraging pedophilia?! 
-----


haha, you ate plastic gumbo. wow. You seem neat. Im neat. We should meet. wow that was corny...!!!
-----


hey i have a question for you I noticed you viewed my page but didnt say anything, can u tell me what turned u off about it if you dont mind, oh and u being able to shoot does make u awesome


Do not send these messages. Just DON'T. 
-----


"if you want me, come get me" Priceless! What's your name? I wouldn't mind chasing you down the rabbit hole.
-----


You make this chasing thing difficult; I don't really send out messages, because I figure they get buried with dozens of others from 46-year-old married men. Of course, I could just be an incredibly handsome 46-year-old man who lies about his age... 
Anyway, you had me at guns and steak. That's refreshing from the average 'I work at so-and-so leftwing nonprofit "saving the world!" and looooove NPR!' ... so, thanks for being from Texas first off. Second, for this lumberjack thing... do I have to start wearing plaid?


You should have started this by attaching a photo of yourself in plaid... bonus points. 
-----


So my friends say I move too fast but I'm going to go on a limb here... will you marry me? Shoot... I meant to say hi :)


This never works... unless I'm drunk. 
-----


Hey There, 

Your gumbo story made me laugh, probably more than it should have. I haven't made gumbo from scratch in awhile but I make a mean shrimp/sausage gumbo. The real question is, do you like Okra or not? 
Anyway, a bit more about me... 
... (This went on for 750 more words... I checked)... 
Hope to hear from you soon, 
Guy


An essay? You send me an essay?
-----

Hey, you should take down that picture on your profile.


Why?
-----


Howdy! 
Sadly, I'm not a lumberjack. BUT! I do own flannel and I've cut down a tree. So...that counts, right? 
One of my close friends is from Texas. And to be honest, I'm a little scared of her. Actually, come to think of it, she's the only girl to have ever punched me. I'm pretty sure I didn't deserve it... 
I hope all is well with you!
-----


Hello, 
I deeply regret to inform you that you are above and beyond our maximum standards in looks. 
You are clearly a 9/10 and here on OkCupid we only allow 6/10 maximum. 
Your account will be CLOSED unless you reply to this message with your name, favorite flower, how many cheetos you can fit in your mouth at once (just curious), and if you prefer Italian or Chinese take out. 
This message should not be taken lightly as it may anger my boss, Poseiden, lord of the seas. 
Thanks, 
Bob


Points for creativity. However I just had an image of you killing me in my sleep. So no. 
-----


lets see 
can cook gumbo; 
Might pick up a hitchhiker; 
thats okay one extra person to invite to a gumbo dinner party ; 
if it gets out of hand you can point the gun at the hitchhiker and force him to cuddle;
I can tell tall tales too :) and use semicolons!
-----

 You sound like you've got a good mix of modernization and country bumpkin in ya. :P


I like to think so... 
-----


Salutations, on lumberjacks, do you professionals or do you mean just someone whose cut down a tree and chopped it for wood?
-----


Hey I liked your profile and was hoping we could chat. I like that you love pizza. I work for a dominos and can get you all the free pizza you want. Hope that gives me a bonus lol. Hope to hear from you. 


If you had worked at Ledo's we'd already be married. 
-----


I'm 6'3", 240 pounds and I stay in shape by boxing and splitting logs for firewood..so I can sit by my fireplace during winter and drink..and wonder why I don't have a doberman. I look like a lumberjack. First time a woman's asked for that specifically lol. 


You lost me at doberman. . . 
-----


Hey, what's up? Usually, I run the oppossite direction from DC girls, but since your from BethASSda I guess that's some sort of technicality. Anyway, if you'd like to chat sometime hit me up!


There is not a single picture of my ass in my profile... try again. 

Monday, December 5, 2011

Why I'm Still Single (Part Done)

A month later, Can-Can Boy was back - in full force, flirting and texting late at night, and asking me all about my life, and what I'd been doing with my life, and who I'm hanging out with, and why my best friend defriended him on facebook (cause you're an asshat, dumbshit).

About a week after she defriended him, I sent him a message letting him know I couldn't look at his face or facebook anymore, and since he wasn't all too fond of who I was becoming... that I was defriending him.

He didn't like that. He was actually really pissed off about it.

Well I had moved on, since clearly he had, and I felt the need to tell him.

Lucky for me I was dating a really smoking guy at the time. Group 3 People, Group 3. And I felt the need to divulge every lovely detail to Can-Can Boy. Sent him a picture via text of this guy, and if he even texted to see what was going on, I'd bring up New Guy. Bitter, why yes, that was the least of it. Grudge is actually my middle name.

New Guy was absolutely great if you're into the long distance/see you on the weekends kind of thing, but I realized something about 2 months in... I was dating him in order to wave my happy little relationship in Can-Can Boys face. He might have been gorgeous, but I wasn't all that 100% into him, and I just got out of the long distance thing a few months before and where most people would drool over him,  all I wanted to do was find someone who could be there for me.

A few weeks after the break up, Can-Can Boy asked why I never brought up New Guy anymore, dumbly, I told him we broke up.

Can-Can Boy never really left me alone for more than 2 weeks after this.

And he had a 6th sense of when he could find me at my most vulnerable moments.

A relationship ends - guess who texts me consistently not 30 minutes afterwards.

I fail epically at a job interview - guess who texts me.

I hit a depth of despair - guess who texts me.

Someone dies - guess who texts me.

It's not like we were friends on facebook. He couldn't see all of this going down. Because after he got the new girlfriend (the blonde girl who kept popping up in pictures while we were "exclusive"). I blocked him. I didn't want to see him, and I didn't want him to see me.

-------

I tried to move on with my life.

But when the last person you loved just slammed the door in your face against your "kind of love" and potentially cheated when you have trust issues already, it's hard to let anyone else in again.

The emotional scars lasted for two-fucking-years. Every guy I dated afterwards could see them, like a fucking beacon shouting, "NOT LETTING YOU IN, TRY AGAIN!"

And then it got worse. Somewhere in my vulnerability, I started letting Can-Can Boy back in, again. What started off as, "let's just be friends" turned into one of the most fucked-up series of late-night sexts and emotional outpourings, which no one I know has even been able to match.

Every single weekend for nearly a year... he'd pop up, or I'd text him, because if no one else better was around, he was there.

And originally I thought, "he still loves me. He's going to break up with his girlfriend, and we'll get back together. He graduates soon!"

Nope.

Somewhere in the midst of all of these late night texts he was sending me, he proposed.... to his girlfriend.

That didn't stop him from still sexting me, while he had a fiance.

I didn't find out about the fiance till a month later, after a month full of texts that should they ever find their way to her computer... would make her eyes bleed.

Who does that? Tiny fucked up men, that's who (I dont mean tiny in the sense that you're thinking, I mean someone who doesn't have the balls to stick with their decisions. Men without honor or dignity or morals).

I tried to to cut it off. I told him he had to stop texting me at night. If he wanted to be friends, we could be friends, but that meant daytime-texts only. None of this late night bullshit anymore. He was engaged to be married. The sanctity of marriage is something I don't mess with. I went out with a married guy, ONCE, and that was because I didn't know he was married until he told me on the date.

But did Can-Can Boy's new engagement stop him? Nope.

What stopped him for a short while was a post on my blog, where I mentioned that maybe his girlfriend would like to see all of those sexts he sent me.

He flipped. He freaked. And he texted me in a panic asking me to delete everything he had sent me.

It hit me like a NHL Defenseman cross checking me into the boards, when I was focusing on the puck.

He had wanted to have me sextually, but he wanted her to have everything else.

That was the hardest part.

--------

From all the scarring, and through all of this... I developed a really unfortunate side-effect.

For the last year and a half, if the need to be serious with someone reared its nasty little head, I would indulge... in guys I can't have. Guys who can't emotionally damage me, because they never get past the gate.

For starters, I am really good at being the other woman.

It evolved from not being able to trust anymore, so why not be with ones I know are completely untrustworthy from the start? At least then I know not to trust them with anything other than my presence.

(1). I do not run around with married guys. That's not my bag of tea, personally, but (2) everyone else is fair game.

At last check I have been in two, 9-month-plus affairs with guys who both have serious girlfriends.

Next, I am a champion of the long distance if-you-were-here-we'd-be-together-thing.

Back before chatroulette got 100% sketch I met some pretty interesting characters... some of who I still talked to on a weekly if not daily basis through Skype. These all turned into phone calls and texting and promises of visits across the country, which I never planned on actually doing.

I did recently shut all these down, because long distance is wrong distance for me, and it just got cruel to lead them around on a string, hoping. 

Finally, I didn't invest in just one guy anymore. My heart couldn't afford it. Through the past couple of years, I've dated some really great guys, with great jobs, great aspirations, great dreams, and great personalities, who want to shower me with love and never ending adoration, but I dated them all at the same time in varying levels of seriousness.  Because while my heart is over the moon, my head closed them out.

To be honest there were 3 guys who didn't have to share me at the time I dated them, because I honestly liked them... The Masseuse, Dicky MacDickerson, and Mr. Quirky, but if I felt one of them starting to get serious. I would find something to shove in their face and break it off.

Being good at ending things with people is not an admirable quality to have.

------

But I'm done with that. The Friday night before Halloween this year was an ugly, ugly wake-up call. Hoss still asks me if I'm going to have another "episode" whenever I walk into his bar.

Lucky for me, I have some amazing friends, who have smacked me into reality and who really take care of me.

I dont know what Sam texted Can-Can Boy to make him stop texting me finally, but I do know that all those texts he asked me to delete... all those pictures are saved in my old Palm Pre Plus. If he tries anything funny again (Text me again. I dare you)... I've got dated pictures from after he was engaged that can find their way to little miss blondie's computer faster than you can say, "hi."

I know it's low - it's questionable black-mail, and he might have something of mine that I wouldn't like out in the ether, but I'm tired of being used.

Note of warning - only sext people you trust, and you didn't screw over. 

I'm tired of looking to the past. The future is the only thing I have left.

The psychic was wrong.

He was the worst thing that happened to me since my first grandmother died in 1999.  She was Aunt Billie's sister.

The Saturday night before Halloween was the first moment since Christmas of 2009, where I felt free.  It was my night of redemption in more ways than one.

------

I recently started talking to a guy, who's funny and charming and great. I don't know where it's gonna go, but I do know one thing.

He's going to get a chance I didn't give any of the others, since Can-Can Boy.

It's time the walls came down.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Why I'm Still Single (Part 6)

The new semester started for him a few weeks after mine. He was studying to get a doctorate in blah-bitty-blah. And we had talked about how he wouldn't have as much time to really talk to me in the new semester.

But some how in the first month we found it easy to find time to skype and call. We had endless time on the phone to pick a couple's song, which I still can't listen to without cringing, and we had endless time to talk about why I was so unwilling to let him into my little walled up village I call emotions.

And eventually he broke down the little walled up village and sucked me into him.

It was at this point in time that I felt that I was done.

D.O.N.E. 

We'd been friends for almost a year and a half... it wasn't a spur of the moment decision.

I don't let many people past my walls. 1 in 10000 get to see behind my exterior, and for a guy to get past the walls... to have me really let him in, I trusted him so much. I adored him, and I thought that trust and adoration meant I was done. The psychic... she said that he was gonna be good for me!

About a week after I was d-o-n-e, done, he started bringing up his ex-girlfriend. His anger towards her was staggering. We'd talked about her in the past, but never in the present tense...  This is when he brought up how he'd been calling her, and I was hurt. I was a little pissed off, and I told him.

He slowly began pulling away, after I confronted him, but he didn't outright say, we're done. I still felt as though we had something and that this was just a rough patch.  I thought, "maybe he just needs to get this out of his system."

So I stopped calling, waiting for him to make the move, but if I waited for him to call... I'd wait 3+ days. I started calling again, he'd talk for a few minutes and then leave me with a dial tone as he ran off to study with his study group for some test.

It was a horribly rough semester for me. I was taking 5 grad classes as an undergrad, trying to maintain my 3.7 gpa. I had taken on a second little in my sorority, whom I love dearly, but taking a little is time consuming, as is a sorority in general. I was interning 20 hours at a really great internship downtown. I was getting maybe 3-4 hours of sleep every night, and on top of that, my great aunt was dying, and she had been like a 3rd grandmother to me.

My Aunt Billie used to make me little outfits for my barbies and ty beanie babies. She taught me how to sew pillows, and when I went to visit my mom's mom, she was usually always there. I loved her very dearly. And here I was 1300 miles away and couldn't visit her. I couldn't be there to see her, to hold her hand, to even comfort my family.

I was struggling. Physically, my immune system hates me, and I was getting sick every 3 weeks. Emotionally, it was like being in an emotional blender of constant drama.

On top of all this, Can-Can Boy insisted that 30 minutes of conversation time every 3-4 days was too much for him to manage, but he seemed to be making massive amounts of time for his study group and school chums, including a certain blonde girl who kept popping up in pictures...

So when Aunt Billie died somewhere in the depths of October, I knew that he was busy, but I just needed to talk to him. My roommates were all out. And I desperately needed someone to talk to. To have him comfort me, but when I called him that night, I didn't get a "aww honey, I'm so sorry."

I got a "Why the fuck are you calling me? I have a mid term tomorrow. LoRo, you have no idea what I'm going through right now. I'm studying for a fucking doctorate. I cannot talk to you all the fucking time."

"Ok, I just needed someone to talk to since my aunt just died, but I get that you're busy."

I hung up.

For the next two hours, I couldn't stop the ragged cries.

Can-Can Boy kept calling, but I had no urge to answer and I didn't have the ability to answer. See, I have this thing called the 'pissed off phone throw,' which my friend AJ pointed out - evolved during this semester. So my phone was out of my room and on the floor in the living room because I threw it so far.

EA came in when she got home, and after sitting down on my bed (This was no easy task. My room was a shit show), she took my head in her lap and let me sob.

At some point she left, and I finally picked up one of Can-Can Boy's phone calls (she brought me my phone).

He apologized profusely, but to be honest, I have no idea what he said afterwards. My ears were ringing; my head was pounding, and I could barely open my eyes. I could barely breathe through the snot and panic. He was the least of my problems.

So I hung up.

A few weeks later Can-Can Boy and I were still having these problems with time management. I had been taking a brilliant class with an absolutely brilliant professor who was like me, always busy. He had gotten to a point in his life where he had to schedule appointments with his daughters so that he could see them. He even scheduled wife time.

I thought this sounded like a brilliant plan. Taking the initiative, I brought up my brilliant plan to CCB, but guess what... he wanted no part of it.

"Look, I'm crazy busy right now. I'll have more time for you during Thanksgiving break."
"Like actual skype/phone call time?"
"Yes."

Wrong.

On Thanksgiving day of that year, my non-boyfriend who insisted profusely every day that he loved me... broke up with me.

But for someone who broke up with me... he wouldn't stop texting me. The day after. The day after that. A week after that... I asked him if he thought we were still together and he said yes.

3 weeks after that... He broke up with me again... On Christmas day. My Christmas eve phone call the night before had been, "over the top."

I was really feeling the holiday spirit.

I deleted him from my phone so that I couldn't text him, but guess who couldn't seem to stop texting me.

New Year's Day came and went.

At this point I realized that I had spent my last 2 years of college in relationships, and I had ONE semester left to truly embrace my new-ish sorostitute lifestyle.

I thought "I'm young. I'm not going to get any younger. I'm not going to get any thinner. Why not?"

So I went for it.

To say I jumped in with both feet would be an understatement. I cannonballed into the single life like a bat out of hell.

I don't know if y'all have heard of a slut list or not... best description I can find is here.

But that semester tripled my score. I didn't go jumping every guy that moved, but I sure as shit made out with a Shit Ton of men. At some point in time that semester I agreed to make Molotov Cocktails with a guy, just to ensure a make out afterwards. (No I'm not telling you where we threw them).

But through it all, guess who kept texting.

I told him to stop. I told him I couldn't do it anymore. I told him that he was driving me crazy...

Oh wait.. I skipped a part... 

The part where he had a girlfriend (that blonde girl who kept appearing in pictures) in February, an actual-facebook-official girlfriend. When only 2 months prior he told me, he "didn't have time for one." "Didn't have the finances for one." & "was happy with what he had."

Keep in mind January through February he was still texting me. Saying how he missed me, but he couldn't "love me how I wanted to be loved."

Stopped me looking at grad schools in Canballia real quick.

I can't prove that he cheated on our 'emotional relationship.' But to me it seemed so fishy. So fishy, and I really didn't have any reason to doubt him. I had nothing to say, "AHA! LOOK I FOUND YOU!" I had always trusted him, explicitly. Yes I was jealous of the girl in the picture, but I was jealous of everyone in the friggin' pictures that got to hang out with him when I couldn't.

What friggin' pictures? The ones he kept posting on facebook.

But no longer was that my problem.

I wish that this is the point where the story ended, but it's not.

One night after an influx of more texts than I could bear,  I told him to stop and only text me or call me when he graduated and had actual time to give me.