Eliminate the Positive

Step away from the hot guy and listen...hear the flapping of all those red flags in the breeze?

Even cool-head, unflappable me is susceptible to developing crushes. You know – that giddy, giggly junior high feeling you get when you meet someone new and hit it off. You try like hell to play it cool and keep the proper perspective (because dear, you just met this guy a few weeks ago and know nothing about him) but instead find yourself gushing to your (annoyed) friends about how cute he is and that sweet thing he did on your date and how you slow-danced to “We Are the World” unironically and how ohmigodheissoperfect!

Slow. Your. Roll. Getting all caught up in a virtual stranger is a colossally bad idea. While you’re busy imagining what your children will look like or what shade of green you will paint your future master bedroom you may be missing things. Important things. Red flag things. Like the fact that he didn’t call when he said he would. Or the lame text asking to “hang” tonight. Or the unwillingness to do anything other than just lay there while you do all the work. And yes I mean in bed.

Now if I focused on the fact that he is ridiculously good looking and likes to hold hands I would probably miss those glaringly obvious signs of trouble mentioned above. If I think about those broad, amazing shoulders and pecs I would miss the fact that I’ve been the one to initiate over half of our dates. If I remember how rock hard those biceps are I might overlook the fact that in all the time we’ve spent in each other’s company he has never once complimented me on how I look, smell, and that I bring alcohol.

The next time we meet and he flashes me his fiercest Blue Steel, I pray for the strength to remember all that I’ve seen and say thanks, but no thanks.

Why I Want A Ghost Boyfriend

Have you been watching American Horror Story? NO?  Go on.  I’ll wait.  A very naked Dylan McDermott rubbing one out and then sobbing?  A mysteriously sexy and murderous man in a head-to-toe vinyl gimp suit?  Delicious housekeeper in french maid outfit that will make sure all your needs are attended to?  This show is dark, disturbing and fucking sexy, in all the right (and wrong) ways.  But what does it for me is – SPOILER ALERT – Tate, the ghost boyfriend of the teenage daughter Violet.

So what if he's technically dead and a mass-murderer? Total hotness...

Once you get past the fact that he’s dead and all I think that little Violet is on to something here.  Having a ghost boyfriend could totally rule!  Consider the following:

• He can’t leave the house so you always know where he is. Except on Halloween.  Although, you will get chased by the ghosts of all those kids he executed Columbine-style in the library so that’s a bit of a bummer.  So much for the romantic beach bonfire he promised you!
• When some local tweakers pull a combination home-invasion/murder re-enactment at your house, your ghost boyfriend will be there to back your shit up!  Then he and the ghost-maid will clean up and dispose of the bodies for you.
• While you’re away at school (because, you know, you’re all alive and have to go do shit) he will leave sweet ghostly “I Love You” messages on your blackboard.
• Cheating is probably not a great likelihood because, as Chris Rock so astutely said, you are only as faithful as your options.  Unless he suddenly develops a taste for gimp suits or the maid gets REALLY bored, you won’t have to worry.  **Update – wrong about this one.  Ghost boyfriend is a total cheater.  Like the kind that rapes your mom.  Not cool ghost boyfriend.**
• Condoms?  Who needs ’em.  Ghost boyfriend is most likely shooting blanks.  Plus, it’s not likely that he can pass along any STD’s, right?  **Update – wrong about this one too.  Damn ghost boyfriend – why’d you have to go and knock-up my mom?**
• He is stuck in 1994 when music totally ruled.  He will listen to Nirvana and Pearl Jam with you non-ironically and without nostalgia.
• That bitch at your high school that thinks she’s all that and wants to bully you for smoking on campus and being all cool and different?  You can lure her to your basement with promises of free coke and your ghost boyfriend will join forces with the mutant ghost-baby that the abortion doctor frankensteined in the 20’s and fuck her shit up.  Then she will be scarred for life and become your new bestie!

So sorry boys – my Wednesday nights are taken by Tate, my ghost boyfriend and the most awesome show on TV right now!

The Bad Date Chronicles – The Racist Ace Ventura Edition

Back in my college days in the late 90’s I experienced what remains until this day, the WORST.  DATE.  EVER.  I am hard pressed to imagine a scenario that could hold a candle to this one and so it is with great pleasure that I bring you the story of The Racist Ace Ventura.

One fine evening I had plans to hang out in my dorm room with my ex-boyfriend.  No – not THOSE kind of plans.  We were completely, 100% platonic friends.  Both of us were transplants to Southern California and dealing with a lifestyle so different from where we grew up that it was cozy and welcomed to remain friendly with each other.  This night, however he had brought a gift for me – one of his delicious, finely muscled  friends from the base (he was in the military at the time).  I had a weakness for military men back then. Not sure if it was the delectable bodies they had from all that training and working out.  Or the intoxicating danger that they could, at any time find themselves in. Or perhaps the douchey alpha-male bros-before-hos attitude they all seemed to espouse.  (Hey – I was 18.  Cut me a break!)

After a few beers, my ex fell asleep and I spent the rest of the night talking and yes, making out with his buddy.  He told me the heartbreaking story of the marriage he just ended (at the tender age of 21) to his high school sweetheart because the child she passed off as his was actually fathered by his former best friend.  You can’t make this shit up folks.  This was a real life white-trash Jerry Springer episode come to life and I just ate it all up.  He was just so wounded and bereft about it and the sight of this rather large and imposing man being so vulnerable was almost too much for me to bear.  Chalk it up to homeless puppy syndrome but panties were almost dropped right then and there, just mere hours after I had met this guy.  However, I just didn’t want to bone down with him while the dude I boned through most of high school was asleep in the same room.  So we made plans for the next weekend which also happened to be my birthday.  Happy Birthday to me indeed!

I was beyond excited.  After all, I had a sneak peek of what my birthday present would be (hint:  it was large and lived in his pants).  The plans were of the classic rom-com variety – dinner at an Italian Restaurant followed by “movies” in my dorm room.  We both knew what was going to go down.  That is until, he showed up at my dorm at the appointed time bearing a rose for me and 2 6-packs of Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor Brew for himself. The next hour or two consisted of me watching in horror as he proceeded to drink ALL 12 OF THEM.

No. Let me tell me "ass" YOU a question!

I’m not sure whether or not Ace came out during the 1st or 2nd 6-pack.  What I do know is that he was here to stay.  And he was angry.  So here I was in my dorm room with a highly intoxicated man who was expressing the deep pain and regret in his life in that melodious and not-at-all annoying Ace Ventura voice.  Dinner reservations were fast approaching so I did what anyone in this situation would do – I phoned a friend to help me get his ass in the car and to the restaurant.  Don’t judge – this guy was the hottest thing I had ever gotten my hands on and I was bound and determined to sober him up and get some awesome birthday sex out of this ordeal.  (Did I mention the large present he had brought me?  The one in his pants?)  What better way to do this than shovel a plateful of pasta and bread down this throat?

Now, I’m pretty sure that the Ace Ventura franchise, being the successful multi-movie venture that it was never dealt with issues of racial inequity, affirmative action and misogyny (unless, of course I was SERIOUSLY not paying attention) but this guy decided that it was the perfect cover for him to just shout out any old thing that came to mind.  The entire way to the restaurant, he hung his head out of the car window, doggie-style, and shouted out the most offensive thing he could at whoever was passing by.  Stop lights were a particularly harrowing experience.  It’s a small miracle that nobody shot at us, as we were in a pretty crime-ridden part of the city.

Things didn’t get any better once we got to the restaurant and got seated.  I’m pretty shocked that the staff seated us at all.  Maybe they, much like myself, couldn’t believe that this was actually happening.  Picture this – a rather large, visibly intoxicated man with a crew cut literally supported by two tiny college girls show up at a suburban Italian restaurant.  But hey – we had reservations so…

The next hour or so was surreal.  He insisted on speaking in the Ace Ventura voice the entire time and yes, even ordered his food that way.  Each time the waitress, who was obviously concerned and let’s face it, frightened, came by he commented on some part of her anatomy or ordered her to go get him something else.  ALL IN THAT VOICE.  This dude was NOT getting any less drunk as the minutes ticked by.  When he started to get up to “Ass me a question” and knocked over a very large glass of water all over my lap and onto the table, I gave up.  Check please!

Me and my girlfriend got this guy out of the car and upstairs to my room. She looked at me once as if to say “good luck” and beat a hasty retreat.  Safe in my room, I figured I would start the movie, let him sleep it off and then pounce on him in the morning when he was sober.  I was bound and determined to salvage this encounter in any way I could.  I had gone way to long without sex and was still willing to overlook the horrors of the evening.  But it was not to be.  He mumbled something about having to use the bathroom, stumbled out of my room and then…nothing.  He disappeared.  Hours went by and I finally gave up and went to sleep.