Your shoes, babe.

So I'm out with Gwen and Wes, our most fabulous of fabulous gay friends, and Wes whispers to me that there's some adorable dish eyeing me from across the bar.  I casually look up over the rim of my dirty dirty martini and see that indeed, there is a lovely specimen of man giving me a shy smile.  I'm sizing him up immediately (as I'm sure he's doing to me) and have yet to find anything deterring me from the approach.

Well groomed hair, nice button up shirt, perfect teeth, either whiskey or scotch on the rocks and--are those--dimples?!  I'm a lost cause at this point.

I grab my clutch and drain my 'tini and head in the direction of the bathroom to powder my nose (with the pretense of going in for the kill on my way back), and then I see them.

Below his well-pressed slacks (crease and all), his feet rest beneath his stool encased in dirty, beat up cross-trainers.

Ugh.  There goes my hard on.  I get into the bathroom to fix my makeup and tell myself that all is not lost.  He could be on his way to or from the gym.  He could have been walking to work or on his way to pick up his shoes from the cobbler (do people still go to those?!) and I'm making excuses for him before I even met him.  You may think it's judgmental, but quick judgments are an evolutionary tool that we've developed to avoid wasting our time with those less than worthy.  But I've talked myself into giving him a chance by now because of those fucking dimples, and am determined to figure out those ghastly shoes along the way.

When I leave the bathroom, he's paying his bill.  He turns to me and gives me a little wave, and walks out the door.  I get back to my seat between Gwen and Wes, and the bartender comes over to hand me a business card.

"The guy left this for you," he says.  Underneath his name, it reads Life Coach.


"Is this a joke?"  I ask the bartender.  I can't tell if it's flattering that he gave me his number or a dig that I need some kind of life coaching help.  Therapy, yes, probably, but life coaching?  Gwen and Wes are dying of laughter.  The bartender shrugs.  I toss the business card in the trash.

Wes pays for my next dirty dirty martini and takes my hands.  "You don't need a life coach," he says.  "You need to get poked.  And not by some "life coach" in bad shoes."

Gwen and The Satanist

First of all, consider me *so glad* that tattoos are more socially acceptable nowadays.  As a minxy lady with a fair amount of ink myself, it's much less trouble if and when I forget to cover up some of my own tattoos and go strolling about in some public, conservative place.  People are just used to them now, I guess.  We're all using the same tools to claim we're independent and different from society, but let's face it - we're all only slightly different versions of all of the sameness in our own generation.

Did that make sense?  Whatthefuckever.  I'm two glasses of wine down and that soapbox isn't even worth standing on right now and it isn't my point.

My point is that, holy fuck, I have seen some stupid tattoos and they have been on some stupid men.  My absolute favorite, though?  My best friend since birth, Gwen, briefly dated a Satanist who had portraits of serial killers tattooed on his arm.  "Seriously?!"  I can practically hear you saying incredulously to me.  Yes, damn, relax and I will tell you the story.

Gwen had just gotten out of a relationship and was in the midst of exploring her options, and met this young piercing apprentice.  Though not unfortunate looking, the gentleman clearly had some white trash in him.  I met this guy when I was out with Gwen at a bar--she called him to come out and he rolled up in all his trucker hat'd glory.

He straddled the barstool next to me and I glimpsed the black and white faces sprawled across his arm.  Almost immediately, I recognized Charles Manson's warped grimace scowling at me from the crook of his elbow.

"Oh, you have *got* to be kidding me," I said loudly to Gwen.  "What the shit is this?"  I said to the Satanist.

"This one," he said, pointing to a dark, goatee'd fellow, "is Anton LaVey.  I'm a follower of the Church of Satan."

"Frankly," I muttered to Gwen, "I would be impressed if this fool could *spell* 'Satan'."

But The Satanist was dead-as-fuck serious and proceeded to lecture me on what he felt the true Satanist believed and obviously, got it completely wrong.  Now, I am no Satanist, but I know my way around them and their belief system.  Yes, I've fooled around with other subscribers of this belief.  Yes, I was friendly and partied on occasion with the lovely Szandora LaVey, Anton's now ex-daughter-in-law.  Yes, I've rolled around in the sheets of the seedy underbelly of perhaps undesirable and lost souls, but I've never pretended to be a leader on the subject.  Until, of course, some fuckbag popped up and tried to date my way-too-good-for-him best friend and still got his shit wrong.  And you know what?  He drank like a pussy.  Sorry, but so inexcusable.

So, I schooled him.  I ripped holes in his theories.  I called him a coward for trying to believe in something that directed one's moral compass to exclusive hedonism.  I essentially forced him into a corner where he found himself incapable of defending his own beliefs and then, I kicked him when he was down.

"And?  Your tattoos are fucking shitty.  If I were you and I was still trying to "save money" by living in Mommy's basement, I'd take what I was saving and get them removed so you don't end up with some fucking Kathy Bates psycho straight outta "Misery" because Lord knows that shit you have scribbled on your arm is just for show.  If you believed any of the principles that those men held on to, you would not be in a bar stuttering to me to defend something that you know nothing about, just so that I'll give my friend--the girl you want to fuck--the go ahead to let your dumb, loser ass spill your fucking less-than-worthy DNA all over her.  You would be holed up in some cabin in the woods, duct taping C4 to PVC pipes and threatening to bring your judgment down upon the establishment.  Sack up, buttercup, or ship the fuck out."

He, of course, tried to laugh all of this off.  Maybe I was harsh, but I don't regret a goddamn second of it.  Gwen never saw him again.

So like I said, I love that tattoos are acceptable now.  I just don't love that people think that means that bad tattoos are acceptable.  Additionally, getting tattoos does not make you unique or clever or smart or even worth my time, unless you have something sitting in your skull to back it up.  Ink doesn't change the fact that you're still a loser, loser.

--Smashy

It doesn't count as a date, so why is it already awkward?

A boy that I have been trying to seduce for the better part of a year is coming over later to "hang out" because we have been talking about hooking up for some time.  There is a lot more to this story, but at this point in time, it does not matter so much, suffice it to say that he is the most confusing man I have ever met.

He sexts me incessantly, which would be fine except for the fact that he said we would need to hang out a few times before having sex.  That would be fine, too, if it wasn't for the fact that I am moving out of the city and I have made it clear that we are not anywhere near the dating arena.  This will be physical, and we are running out of time to enjoy that part of this.

Oh, hot confusing man, why are you so perplexing?  Are you trying to appear chivalrous?  Will this rule go out the window when we are messing around and I want to go further?  We shall see.

I really need to stop having sober, no-strings flings and attempt to find someone worth dating.  I will, too.  After this one.  (Maybe.)

PilloWTF Talk

A couple of years ago, through a random series of events that I will not go into right now but probably will in the future, I was in the midst of drunken mistake sex with a guy friend of mine and he paused in the middle to declare his intentions to me.

"This doesn't mean I want you to be my girlfriend, or that we're dating."

I quoted that directly, as it was burned into my memory and will reside there until I bite the bullet.

Right after him, I dated a man who asked me to be his girlfriend while we were in bed together.

Most recently, I was dating a man who would discuss at length how our relationship was "undefinable" while we were in bed.

Above all, overwhelmingly, I want to know:  since when is the bedroom the right place to worry about if you have to change your relationship status on Facebook?

- Smashy