Now that I’m single, I have a strong desire to get a little wild, to make a few more notches on my bedpost, to sow my wild oats. My ‘number’ is pitifully low, because since I was eighteen, I’ve been a serial monogamist. Now my twenties are almost over and I’m single for the first time in a decade and I find myself thinking, fuck, I don’t want to fall in love, I don’t want another long-term relationship, I just want to slut it up a little bit.
Of course, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks over night. I’m still cautious and shy and you know what, I’ll probably never be the kind of girl who goes to a bar solo and picks a guy up. So I’ve turned to the internets (specifically to internet dating – I haven’t been cruising online communities and picking up local guild members from WoW). During the semester I was too busy to really put much energy into the whole enterprise (although there was one entertainingly gin-soaked and embarrassing encounter that is a post for another time), but now the semester is over, the sun is out, and I want to have some fun.
I have a few ground rules. I only plan to sleep with people I’m physically or intellectually attracted to (because, given the elements of sexual rejection involved in the breakup, it would be quite easy to fall into viewing being desired as a band aid for my wounded self-esteem and thus to sleep with guys I’m really not into, and I don’t think that would be good). Before the deed occurs I’m going to be upfront about my current lack of interest in monogamy (because clearly, some men on these sites are really looking for happily ever after, but I don’t kid myself and think that lack of exclusivity would be a dealbreaker for most guys). And of course, I’ll keep in mind the advice that Condoman dispensed in these PSA-type cartoons from my youth:
Already, I’ve realized that internet dating sites are weird. If I was too fussy I’d get nowhere. Some of my early criteria (that I’d only communicate with men who could generally spell, who shared at least some of my taste in books/movies/music/tv, or who weren’t creepy and sleazy in their profile) have gone out the window because goddamn, that would make the whole enterprise just about moot. Because I’m a bottle blond, still in my twenties, and have a nice smile, well all kinds of men (many more than old enough to be my father) have ‘winked’ at and ‘kissed’ me (ugh, these sites are so twee in the way they structure encounters), despite the fact that early forties is my absolute max. Plus, when it comes to constructing my profile, I’m not going to ‘dumb down’ the fact that I can think, write, and reason, and I find myself constitutionally unable to talk about ‘Mr Right’ or cuddling (ok, that could be because I’m a robotic monster sent back in time from the future). However, I’m trying to remain open minded about the whole thing, and to remind myself that I’m not looking for a companion so much as ‘company.’ For my purposes, maybe it doesn’t matter so much if I don’t have that much in common with a guy, and up until now, I’ve always had a pretty clear type (skinny, tall, brainy, funny guys), so perhaps I should broaden my horizons.
I think this summer will be an interesting experiment, where I think about sex and men in new ways. *fingers crossed* Being in a strange new city has its advantages, because I can’t make the obvious mistakes (like sleeping with friends) and because my dalliances will be mine to divulge or keep to myself.
And the title. Well, in “Heathers,” one of my all-time favourite movies, Veronica, a junior in highschool, is at a college party having been set up with a guy called Brad. After an evening of awkward conversation, he crassly propositions her for sex. She declares, “You know, I have a little prepared speech I tell my suitor when he wants more than I’d like to give him. Gee, blank, I had a really nice…” and Brad, who is sprawled on a sofa, drums his hands on his chest and interupts with the titular line. It has always cracked me up (even when I was an ignorant ten year old who didn’t know who Malcom X was), and now it makes me laugh for a slightly different reason – I want to claim a little Brad for myself and tell some hapless guy to put out or get out.
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