Its funny to me that when I am trying to get laid it never happens. I want things to be perfect, I want candlelit romance with fine wine and the sweetest leaf.
If I clean my room, dye my hair, take a shower, gussy myself up, and go out crusin’ lone wolf style it is 100% certainty that I will come home alone, drunk, and disappointed. The nights that I am absolutely irresistible are the nights that my crotch smells like yesterday’s left out cat food, I am wearing a frumpy sweater, no makeup, no inhibitions, possibly bleeding, definitely not looking any kinda way.
Saturday I went out on a whim and never expected to even talk to someone, let alone take them back to my car like the true dirt grub I am. This boy was cute as a button. It was the same night as The World’s Largest Disco, so it wasn’t weird that he was wearing polyester bell bottoms. He looked so young and eager to please. Must have been 21, but dangerously close to it.
He told me that I was his favorite Stripteaser, that he loved how I took chances and was politically charged in my work. Ok, tell me more. He said that he had been coming to the show every week for a few months but was too scared to talk to me. ME?
At this point he had my full attention. We had an incredible conversation about art and the state of politics and the world in general. I was in awe of how much he was in awe of me. It was bizarre for this beautiful boy to be such a fan girl.
The bar closed and he was shocked when I asked him what he was doing after. His friends called him both a “savage” and a “pimp” as they watched us walk away. We were just going to my car to light one up and then started making out.
I forgot for a second that I didn’t brush my teeth that day and had just peed in an ally. It was excellent. He made me feel like a teenager. We kissed, he touched me, I touched him. He kept accidentally bumping into the horn, it was cute.
The cherry on top of this story is when he was fingering me and Nickelback came on the radio, I couldn’t help but laugh. Almost 30 years old and I am being finger banged in my car to Nickleback.
What is this life I live? I wasn’t going to have sex with him in my car, so I eventually bid him farewell. With a hickey on my neck and my heart racing I saw him disappear into the night. Of course I said “See you next Tuesday.”
I feel like an idiot for letting him go without even getting his last name or phone number. I was swept up in the moment. I wonder if I will ever see him again?
I need to be more of an “act now” kind of girl, stop second guessing everything. I let him walk off because my room was a disaster and I was embarrassed. I let him walk off because I didn’t shower that day or feel worthy of his sweetness and affection. He wanted to stay, but I pushed him away.
He did not show up at The Stripteasers show. Well that’s that. For my show I even dressed as Chad (the lead singer of Nickelback). I had done Nickelback about a year ago as a joke and still had the costume. My roommate joked “Bro, you know what this means? You have a NICKELBACK routine!”
It was incredible, I gave every person who tipped me a dollar a nickel back. The bar phone rang an hour later and it was a man calling saying that his girlfriend forgot her nickel and wanted it back.
“It was special because the performer gave it to her” I ran to my car to dig for a nickel that would be special enough to be cherished forever. When I gave it to her later she did not recognize me out of drag.
I am often paralyzed by my own self doubt, I think that someone so beautiful would never ever be interested in me. I see my flaws like roadblocks with flares shooting off of them. I often feel like the only person in the world who is alone.
I know thats just crazy, but the feeling is real. I feel old and inadequate. Like by now I should be successful. I mean, it is all how you measure success, I guess.
I don’t make much money but I am happy, I love my job, it is stress free and wonderful. I love burlesque, I love the time I spend traveling, I love so much about my life, it would just be nice to share it with someone.
The times I have fallen for people it has been hard, always one sided, just me not seeing the obvious, just me getting my head smashed, never their fault, always mine for assuming I will get what I want. I am an only child spoiled girl who also has white privilege and middle class money, so I am comfortable, I am safe.
I was born into middle-class America. I have all the makings of a cookie cutter success, I did well in school and got a college degree. I am beautiful, symmetrical, I have great teeth because my parents got me braces. I am an artist. I am a fucking catch. Single, sleeping alone with my crust skin and my lovely cats, surrounded by piles of costumes.
I get laid when I least expect it, so love will be the same. Love is inconvenient and imperfect, it has no rhyme or reason. You cannot control love. People fall in and out of our lives at random.
I never understood the people who had it all planned out: in 5 years I will be married with a child and a house with a white picket fence, there’s a mini van in the driveway and a golden retriever in the yard. These people will settle for the first available mate, the first person who is willing to also be tied to that plan.
I am insane, I could never plan my life like that, I don’t even know what I want, let alone how to find it. I will never settle, I will never be unhappy or partially happy. I will know it when I see it. I will know who I love when I meet them.
Was it the guy in my car that I sent off into the night? Was it that beautiful girl in Montreal with the pink hair and glasses? Was it the one that got away? It is most likely someone I have never met, but maybe seen in passing, maybe they know me, I am just oblivious.
