lonely hearts club

Considering my track record of ridiculously impulsive decisions, I've been holding up pretty well with my latest and greatest guy.

Am I even allowed to call him my "guy?"

Well, I am calling him "guy" for lack of a better name. Granted, I'm not completely stress-free, but I am definitely handling it a lot better than I normally do. If he didn't like me enough to set up another date, then why dwell on it right? It's saving me a lot of future worry and neuroticism anyways.

So despite the fact that I think about him at least 2.4 times every 3.5 hours and will occasionally wrack my brain for any warning signs that he did not appreciate my company, I can say that I'm pretty calm about the whole situation. Yes, I did have a minor set back when I asked my gal pal, who has a similar dating track as I, about what I should do, but she verbally bitch slapped me back into reality. Much appreciated.

Yet, I am still wondering what protocol is when it comes to guys making plans with girls they may have potentially liked. I'm taking his "I'll be in contact with you soon" as a good sign, although I somewhat did feel like I was leaving a job interview rather than a date. As far as I could tell, he is a person who is extremely careful with his words and would have much rather have left with a "It was nice to meet you" rather than a "I'll be in contact with you soon" if he didn't want to see me, right?

So here it is, sex and the fucking city, but this time I can hold out on the sex and I really just want the fucking city to be on my side. I'd like to be romanced and appreciated for my brains rather than my body--at least until we make our way to the body part. In that case, please, do tell me I am a goddess.

Betches be freaking out, but this betch be as cool as a cucumber.

When somebody tells me they don't like social media or spending time in front of a screen, my immediate reaction is to think that they are either:

a) extremely paranoid

b) live under a rock

c) a hippie

So when he told me that he didn't like "spending time in front of a screen" and thought that we should carry on a conversation without revealing any sort of personal information, I was just about to write him off as a highly functioning, socially unique New York City hippie. I'm all for spending less time with technology, but by no means was I ready to sign another clipboard supporting an obscure cause. Yet, as counterintuitive as it sounds, it was exactly this predisposition to discretion and secrecy that kept me intrigued. It doesn't hurt that he had fantastic brown eyes and really soft looking hair, but I digress.

With our boundaries set in place from the beginning of the date, we began to talk. It was hilarious at first, awkward almost, fumbling around our words in order to meet our predetermined criteria. It didn't take too long before we fell into the rhythm of obscure, yet refreshingly intimate conversation about our families, shitty excuses, and his trip to Chile. We didn't even order our drinks until thirty minutes into our conversation.

As we ventured further down the rabbit hole of getting to know each other without revealing any personal information that would leave the other with any sort of room to stereotype, our competitive natures got the best of us and we continued for another hour. Though we both agreed we could have kept up our antics, we thought that we had gotten to know each other well enough in order to judge that the other was not a psychopath. 

So bit by bit, we revealed tiny slivers of information; where we grew up, what we studied, our jobs, our internships. It was like filling in the missing pieces, that strangely, didn't feel too lacking the past hour and half. 

And just to set the scene, we spoke, sitting by the window, until it grew dark and we had to leave per our inability to order alcoholic drinks. Well, in my case, not his. 

So we left and before we parted ways, he left me with a promise to "be in contact soon." 

And though a hopeless romantic, I can't help but be skeptical about such promise. 

The lonely hearts club doesn't seem so lonely when you're living in a city of ten thousand plus,  lost souls. Though we might not admit it, we're all here searching for something.

You're either bold or desperate. You really can't be anything in-between, but when bold encompasses getting what you want, you can't really help but come off as desperate can you? Because for some odd reason, somewhere down the line, the time at which you text a person and the amount of time you leave within each response has become a direct insight to who you are as a person. And because you didn't wait that extra five minutes before pressing send, you're suddenly the crazy, obsessive girl who, given the chance, will be the clingy, jealous girlfriend. Clearly, the time at which I decide to send my texts is a direct indicator of the personality I've spent my entire life cultivating.

So despite all the prodding and preparation you've had to treat a romantic, late-night adventure as a beacon of hope, we've had to retrain ourselves to think that even the most innocent of midnight strolls have become code word for late night rendezvous. Not that I so much care that we may or may not sleep together (only if the feeling is right, of course)...it's more the fact that the male species has gotten so adept at faking what should be such a genuine moment, one that warrants a call the next day (or at least the day after that), that really throws me off.

And to think that it's always the boys who leave their hearts on their sleeves that very same night who seem to have the most misguided of intentions.

It's sex and the fucking city that's going to leave me heartbroken and battered.