Reckless

I just read a quote that really stuck with me, and with which I struggle:

 "Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with those who are reckless with yours."

I'm the epitome of a cheerleader for others, encouraging them, supporting them through the rough times, overlooking their faults and believing in them when no one else would. I guess I have this fantasy that after doing all that (especially when it comes to a guy), the favor will be returned, the person will forever be indebted to me, and their loyalty to me (like mine to them), will be immeasurable.

But, as it turns out, when you stick by people, hoping they'll be there for you, overlooking their faults and not noticing that they don't display any of the characteristics of a person who would even be CAPABLE of being grateful, you sometimes get burned and end up being threatened with court proceedings over a car which is in your name and for which you've been paying (true story). Sometimes, unfortunately, you find out that no one else believed in them because they didn't deserve that kind of support, of energy, of emotional and fiscal investment.

But what do you do when this happens? When you end up with a fractured spine and two broken legs after going out on a limb for a dirtbag, what do you do afterwards?

Do you close off your heart and never let anyone in again, regardless of whether they have all the same red flags as the person who hurt you? Maybe they're just the same sex and that's enough reason to write them off. I've read enough books, watched enough stories and seen enough "empty shell people" (phrase courtesy of "Under the Tuscan Sun") to know that imposing your own version of "locked-in syndrome" for your heart is probably not the best or healthiest way to live your life.

Do you brush it off, say "c'est la vie" and go dashing into the fray once more, figuring that that person was a fluke but the next will be better? That doesn't seem quite right either, as that implies that you haven't learned anything from that little mishap, that maybe love and men and unscrupulous people will ALWAYS turn you into their sucker. If you want to keep your money, dignity and sanity, I wouldn't suggest that route either.

Obviously then, the best solution is something in between. Some way of cutting off SOME people from getting close enough to hurt you, but not the GOOD people. Well, how do you know?

First off, after a train wreck situation like mine, I needed to revamp my allowances from the other person. I was DEFINITELY letting several of the men be "reckless" with my heart, all for the sake of getting to say I rooted for the underdog. But the underdog is a long shot and in the movies, they don't show the other 95% when the underdog finished dead last and bankrupts the team who backed him. And I should have cut them off then instead of hoping their story would turn around. But I didn't, and that's something I need to learn to do.

Secondly, I need to lengthen the screening process for the men I deal with. Maybe 1-3 dates ISN'T enough time to decide I want to pursue a serious relationship with them? Maybe that's not even enough time to decide whether I want to be PHYSICAL with them! Because, as much as people like to pretend, sex is just physical intimacy, and, if you're not ready to get intimate emotionally, you certainly shouldn't be willing to get intimate with your body. Luckily for me, I found that out without needing to test-drive half the men in NYC (although, the way my mother chastises my choices in men, you'd think I did), but the few experiences I've where physical intimacy occurred too soon were painful nonetheless.

Thirdly, I need to take a moment to learn from my mistakes. Following my last relationship, which bordered on apocalyptic for my heart, mind, body and soul (and I get angrier and angrier the more time I spend thinking about it), I tried a fling. Now, the reason I hadn't had a fling before that time was because I'm not a fling type of girl. I get emotionally attached. And that's what happened for me, but luckily the relationship wasn't long enough for the attachment to be too deep to get over, leaving clinging for dear life rather than ending it like I should have. For the first time, I could just walk away. And I also realized, for sure, what I already knew, which is that flings aren't for me. But if I get attached so quickly after physical intimacy, then shouldn't I be being careful about who I go down that road with? The answer is yes. And although it's hard to do, I plan on enjoying the company of several men, but getting physical with NONE of them. They need to know me, they need to LIKE me, they need to CHASE me, and I only need to declare a winner for the most worthy candidate, not the one with the most POTENTIAL, flowery words and attraction.

So, don't give your heart to just anyone, don't stay with someone who's reckless with your heart after you give it to them, and don't assume history will only repeat itself, but also don't assume it can't.

Everybody Plays the Fool...

So, last night I had a great date. My date was a musician I'd played with at a few gigs previously who was older, seemingly stable, successful, and had a car (which in NYC is a huge bonus). All those things taken into account, I was understandably excited when he asked me out on a date. I'd known he was somewhat interested in me from the first time we played together, but never acted on it because I was nervous and also because his vibes weren't overt enough for a person as shy as myself to act upon.

Anyway, he asked me out on a Monday or Tuesday for that Thursday and I was psyched. I was psyched, that is, until it was Wednesday after midnight and our plans still hadn't been firmed up. I thought about letting the whole thing drop, because if he wasn't excited enough to solidify his plans with me, then maybe he wasn't excited enough to go out with me period. But then I thought, hey, why not give him one pass and just ask if we're still on for tomorrow night? That doesn't qualify as chasing him and it's completely legitimate the day before we were supposed to have a date. He gets back to me after a short wait saying he's still down and he'll catch me after his gig. Still no real plans have been made, but we're confirmed to hang out, so I figure I might as well.

But, since the enthusiasm doesn't seem to be mutual for our date, I, of course, require a pep talk from my mom.

Me: "All the books say you're not supposed to remind a guy to think about you. If he doesn't do it on his own, he's just not that into you. Yeah, he could be really busy, but I don't feel like rationalizing his actions before I even go out with him."


Mom: "You're right and you shouldn't. But how about you think of it as just a get together with a friend. Come with low expectations, come with the intent of having a good time, and leave it at that rather than trying to analyze this from a romantic standpoint from the start."

She was right, of course, so after taking an hour to put together an outfit that was sexy but also didn't look like I was trying too hard (and deciding to skip the makeup), we met up to see a movie we'd agreed upon.

The movie was great. And the conversation was great. He leaned a little closer than necessary to talk to me, he played with my bangles, and he touched me "casually" several times as well, letting me know that, if I had any doubt before, this WAS a date and he WAS interested. Because he's a successful musician and a little bit of a sensation, we actually ran into friends of his before and after the movie, with whom we had funny conversations. And even though it was a Thursday night and It was already almost 2am, I said yes to coffee in Times Square. Well, technically, it was tea. But people don't say "going out for tea" yet.

We grab a seat in the many tables in the middle of Times Square and talk about everything and nothing. The conversation is great, it's a nice night out, and despite it being 3am, it was still relatively lively. By 3:45am, he asks what's the next stop, to which I reply I should probably get home.


Him: "What? You didn't tell me you had a full day of work tomorrow. I wouldn't've kept you out so late."


Me: "Believe me, if it was a problem, I would have said something. But I've been hanging out really late lately and tomorrow's Friday so I'm down. I should probably head home now though."

We joked about how "cool" I clearly was if I was so laid back about agreeing to have less than four hours of sleep and walked back to the car. On the way home, we talked and jokes and, again, the conversation was great. The vibe was definitely there. We got along like close friends and joked about how I'd been "too busy" to return his calls in the past (i.e. I was in a relationship with a jealous guy), almost all the way home.

But to get to my place, we had to pass his place, and since he'd already mentioned he'd like me to see it someday and since it was too late to matter if I lost a little more time getting the grand tour, and since we'd already realized it was like ten minutes from me, we stopped at his place.

This dude is living the life--a chic setup, music and art everywhere, no tv (very hip) and plenty of square footage. We listened to music and talked some more and I really felt like an adult. And finally, FINALLY, he got up the nerve to kiss me, etc.

After all that talking and listening to music, etc., it was already time for me to wake up for work! It had been a great night with great, unexpected chemistry and we'd talked about how he'd liked me from the beginning and how I'd inadvertently been polite but abrupt with me when he gave me a ride home that first time. It was a perfect night and he was a perfect gentleman and after a kiss goodbye and a "hit me up later today", I went in and got ready for my work day.

And then something strange happened.

I did hit him up (despite the fact that I really wanted HIM to hit ME up and be "the pursued" in the equation), and he hit me back. But ever since I mentioned having a great time and let me know when we could do it again, it was radio silence. Nothing. My mind went a little crazy and started coming up with scenarios and theories, rationalizations and excuses (the way all women are bound to do), but then I finally settled on "Everybody plays the fool", and maybe I'd just misread the situation.

Or did I? "Playing a fool" would imply that I specifically made a bad decision, perhaps even knowing it wasn't the best idea. But "Wedding Crashers" has one of my favorite lines: "We make the best decisions we can, based on the information at hand", and I believe that applies here. So maybe he did do the guy thing and act weird after a great night. Or maybe one of my many possible excuses was legit. Either way it's out of my hands and should be out of my head and this weekend looks to be a real scorcher. Maybe everybody DOES play the fool, but you should never be ashamed to play the fool. Live your life, and make the best decisions you can.

Party Like It's...2003.5

Ahh, so where was I? Yes, we're in the club and it's 2:30am and my friend has just been aggressively twirled around by a strange dude wearing shorts and sneakers in a Caribbean night club.

SIDENOTE: Is that really how they get down in the West Indies? All the West Indians I've EVER met in my whole life (and I only started to meet them when I moved to the Northeast, 'cause Austin only have Blacks, Whites and Mexicans) have cared more about fashion and their outer appearance than the average fashion designer, so what was that dude doing looking like he just got done playing a pickup game of basketball?

Anyway, when we finally got her down, needless to say she was a bit flustered and that got the Twilight Zone that was this club off to a fitting start. Next, she taps me on the shoulder and says discreetly, "Is that a genie behind you?" I turn around to see a man of ambiguous race wearing loose linen pants, a loose button down long-sleeved shirt and a brown vest, twirling around with great majesty and grace, doing his best impersonation of a male belly dancer. He actually looked more like Aladdin, but that didn't stop me from laughing with gusto and confusing the group of men sitting next to me.

 

SIDENOTE: I hate to say it this way, but what's going on with men today? You have a dark room, pumping music, hot men, scantily clad women and alcohol, and rather than make a move, you want to ride the wall as if you ENJOY spending $20, getting all dressed up and piling all your 50-11 boys into your 2004 Ford Focus just to watch OTHER people dance. Please tell me how this makes sense because I'm at a loss.

To the left of "Aladdin", we see another dude who's content to make his own party, dancing with the enthusiasm of someone dancing home alone, and grabbing every girl who makes the mistake of standing too close to him. A couple of time my friend and I let him take us for a spin, just because we got tired of waiting for the non-crazy men to approach.

Despite the lack of dancing, it was quite stifling, and just to add to the craziness that was that club, on the way to the bathroom for a touch up, I run into the best friend of my ex with whom I'm amidst legal proceedings. He sees me, says hi and goes on his way as if everything's peachy, but I, of course, am thrown off for a good ten minutes worrying if he's only PRETENDING that everything is cool when really he's waiting to shank me while hidden amongst the crowded club.

I keep one eye out the rest of the evening, but my friend and I stay anyway, because we want to get the most out of our $10. This was a bit unfortunate because I've been to better parties in the basements of dirty frat houses in college (hence the 2003 reference). They actually played R. Kelly's "Bump n' Grind", just to add to the nostalgia.

Closing time (4am) came just as we were ready to get the heck out of there and perhaps call it a night. My friend, however, had been getting texts from one of her many suitors asking if we wanted to come hang. At a 7:2 guy to girl ratio, meeting them at the club to hang wasn't possible, but over 85 carefully thought out texts, they conveyed that they wanted the two of us to meet the main guy and his friend to "listen to music" (aka FOOL AROUND) out in Canarsie. I know "listen to music" is code for several reasons:

• It always has been, from the beginning of time, just like "Do you wanna grab a cup of coffee?" does.
• It was 4am.
• Before I was invited to come along, my friend had to send my pic from her phone for their approval.

Anyway, I was down, because I was in the mood for an adventure and as it was already 4am, what was the harm in staying up even later?

While we were firming up the details, we went by the McD's in the Village to refuel and were accosted by two Dominican dudes who wanted us to go home with them instead. I'm not sure whether they were brothers or just good friends, but one of the guys basically sat down with us (although we were actually only PERCHING on the edge of the booth seats, as that particular McD's is covered with chlamydia) and proceeded to tell us how he was on the Subway diet and his boy had a body girls go crazy over ("No homo", he repeated, WAY more times than necessary). Then the other guy, while he was on the phone, proceeded to reach into my girlfriend's fries (without permission or shame) and just eat them, as if this was some sort of potluck and our fries were the contribution. Ummmm, NO!

So we left and finished finalizing out plans on a busy corner with a bunch of other people coming off their club highs. And yes, I do notice that I'm mentioning many things that were occurring while we were firming up our post-club plans, and that's because the dudes we were working with were taking FOREVER. In the meantime, we were acting a fool and some other guys (quite cute, in my opinion) started laughing at/with us about the whole situation and flirting. With a little prompting from my friend, I flirted back and we started talking to them while the other dudes got it together and came to pick us up (heck no we weren't going to take ANOTHER cab just to meet them to drive us to Brooklyn).

When the plans with the other dudes were finally firm, we asked the new dudes if they would walk us to meet them, just in case we decided we didn't want to go, and we could chill with them instead. They weren't doing anything, so they agreed and we chatted and laughed all the way to the corner to meet the other guys.

The other guys were waiting for us in the car but, because they'd taken so long to make the plans, we kept them waiting for a bit. By a bit I mean, like, THREE MINUTES after they said it was indeed them in the car. After only three minutes of lollygagging and no calls or texts from the dudes telling us to hurry up and get in the car, they simply sped off into the night without us.

Ain't that a bitch?! So now my friend is having an angry phone call with the dudes who were pissed they saw us talking to other dudes (even though they didn't even KNOW me and none of the dudes claimed my friend either) and I'm openly flirting with both of the new dudes who turned out to be brothers. Once they heard how pissed we were to lose a ride home, they mentioned they had actually had a car and could give us a ride.

Praise Jesus! Sure, it probably isn't the BEST idea to take rides from complete strangers at like 5am with no clue whether they're fit to drive or whether they may, in fact, drive us to an abandoned truck yard and murder us with NYC rats eating all the evidence...but we were already in "adventure" mode, so we said sure.

And actually they turned out to be really cool guys. They plays "classics" for us (including "Ice Ice, Baby" and "Hammer Time"), joked around the whole time, and they were Lakers fans. One of the brothers took our numbers and texted me after they dropped us off. I thought that'd be the beginning of a little back and forth, but it stopped around 6:30am and I haven't heard from him since. C'est la vie. It was still a lovely and quite memorable night.

Anyway, that's why it was impossible for me to blog: I was recovering. If you can believe it, we went out again on Monday, lol. I think these New New Yorkers are infecting me with their enthusiasm for the city. That's fine by me!

Party Like It's...2003

It's been a bit longer than normal since I posted and I thought an explanation was in order.

Well, as I mentioned, I'm trying to fill up all my "free" time with socializing and worthwhile endeavors lately, so it's not "free" for any BS to creep in. In keeping with that, I met up with my old crew from college for a long-postponed reunion in the city. It was just supposed to be a late lunch at four o'clock, shopping, a visit to a wine bar and then clubbing, but by 4:15pm, we already knew those plans were dust.

Of course, it's 4pm, it's past lunch but it's not quite dinner but with this ridiculous NYC heat and humidity sapping the life out of us, we were already hungry. Did we grab a quick slice? Did we hit Subway so we could eat and shop? Patronize the nearest Gray's Papaya? No. Instead, we went to a ridiculously overpriced restaurant in the Village, specializing in Asian-Brazilian (or "Braz-Asian", a term coined by my loctician) fusion. It was restaurant week in NYC, and we could have gotten a full course dinner for $30. Did we do that? NO!

Instead the hostess seated us at a booth where we were promptly distracted by hot Brazilian men in soccer shirts (and we spent a good fifteen minutes debating whether to switch tables to be closer to them), and real Carnival dancers sashaying through the restaurant every fifteen minutes. Needless to say, that made choosing from a menu a little tough, so, FOR NO REASON AT ALL, we decided to pretend we were ballers ("pretend" is the key word, as with all of us being no more than three years out of college, NONE of us are ACTUALLY ballers) and just order a bunch of things to be shared amongst the table. Reminder!: We had NO restaurant week coupons.

The waitress came and we each pointed at about menu items like we were choosing from the dollar menu, when they were really about $16 a pop, my girlfriends drank cocktails like they got free refills (NO, they did not), and when we were still hungry after a table full of tiny (but tasty) expensive food (including half a lobster), we ordered a table full of dessert. Basically, each time the waitress came by, we ordered something new, and we kept laughing amongst ourselves that there was NO reason for us to be doing this. But hey, it's NYC, and sometimes you just have to blow some cash.

When the check came, the party slowed down a bit: $193.47. Let me repeat that again: $193.47. For THREE people, for LUNCH. Oh yeah, we were pretending to be ballers, and next week, we'll be pretending to be BROKE. With tip, my girlfriends paid $90 (EACH), and I paid $60 (giving up alcohol may be the most cost-effective lifestyle choice I've ever made).

After that catastrophe (which we all stayed good-humored about and could, thankfully, actually afford), we decided to make ourselves feel better with a little retail therapy. 'Cause that makes sense: sad about spending too much money? Spend more money! We visited an adult shop that I've accidentally been to about four times (I keep thinking I'm going to a different store until I get inside) and joked about the ridiculous contraptions and costumes all over the walls (all of which looked slightly dirty, like this was a delayed shipment from 2002).

Next, my girlfriends felt like their buzz was wearing off and we ALL agreed it was time to see some beautiful Black men, so we went down to a Caribbean hot spot for drinks and a little nosh. We flirted with the bartender, we openly oggled the waiters and any man not with a date, they ordered several CARAFES of rum punch and wings, my friend dropped it like it was hot in a classy dress better suited to the Kentucky Derby, and added some more friends to our little "I Love NYC" party. The waiter actually commented that I was the sane one of the bunch, probably because I was the only one who hadn't been drinking since 4pm (it was 8pm now), and because the most sophisticated one of us was now dropping F-bombs like confetti.

Our new friends hadn't eaten, so while they stayed in theVillage, we went Uptown for cheap karaoke. The DJ there was hot, but not sending any play our way. There were clearly several other parties including a bunch a Latino folks (and no offense, karaoke sounds horrendous enough in English, but to add that I couldn't understand what they were saying and that each song was about EIGHT minutes long, I was about to blow my eardrums out on purpose), and a group of people that were clearly models, as they were almost killed by the air conditioning unit on the low ceiling of the stage and because they were way too tall and perfectly beautiful to be normal people. One of the friends from the Village finally joined us after he'd eaten and TWO HOURS LATER, we finally decided to head BACK to the Village to go clubbing.

We searched everywhere on the strip for a club with enough Black men for our tastes (and a new friend we'd who'd met us along the way had a few hookups along the way to avoid all the covers as we perused the club's racial makeup). Unfortunately, we came up empty, and settled for cheap shots at a hookah bar until we remembered the Caribbean spot we had drinks earlier is a club in the late night hours, so we went back.

When our friend who normally clubs for free and our grad student friend found out the cover was $10 (some strange man we THOUGHT worked for the club got us a discount from $20--he didn't actually work for the club and kept saying "I could sell ice to an Eskimo."), they passed and it was just me and one girlfriend left.

Immediately, we enjoyed that our people were thick in there--so thick the heat and humidity INSIDE was stifling. A man, out of nowhere (and wearing shorts and athletic shoes in a CLUB), picked up my friend and started twirling her around. It took three people (including our friend from outside the club who acted as our guardian angel the entire time in the club) to get her down.

The time was now 2:30am. We didn't get home until 6am. To be continued...