Dave

I met Dave in a Creative Writing class. We were in a critique group together. Like the demonstrative attention-seeking fuck I was am, I wrote about the time I tried to cut my wrists open because I wanted Joe to feel badly for laughing at me. I wanted him to see that I tried very hard not to be crazy, but other people picking at me like he did made it more than I could take. I wrote about this, but I made the suicide attempt sound much more impressive than it was. I’m not kidding when I say I barely needed a band-aid. Hospitalizing me after the fact was probably more to save other people the headache of trying to quiet me down. I don’t think I ever really had the balls to do anything that final.

Well, Dave read my story, asked me if it was true. I said that it was. He didn’t say anything else in class.

It was only a week or so later that I stopped at Taco Bell on the way home from class. Since I still lived in the middle of nowhere, I went to college in the next largest city. On a good day, it took me a little under an hour to get there. Which sounds wild, but I had to drive 25 minutes to get to the grocery store. Long drives are the norm when you live on a dirt road on a mountain.

So most days, I stopped at the Taco Bell down the road from the college on the way home. The only fast food places anywhere close to my house were Wendy’s and the two aforementioned Dunkin Donuts (as long ago as it was, it’s still funny to me how many messages I got on MySpace “Heard you bitches are the reason the good Dunks’ drive-thru is shut down?”). Anyway, I stopped at this Taco Bell and who was behind the register? This guy from my Creative Writing class.

He was fidgety and awkward while he took my order. Then after he gave me my bag of food, he said, “I liked your story because I did the same thing once. Tried to commit suicide.” He said it very loudly and a lot of people looked over at me. I forgave his awkwardness because he was obviously nervous.

“That’s…okay, yeah…I’m sorry.” I genuinely had no idea how to respond, so I said a bunch of random nothings at him. then I left.

We were assigned to new groups in class. My teacher did rounds like that, with different groups for different rounds.

I thought about Dave for a little bit. He was goofy and didn’t seem comfortable in his body, always fidgeting. And you know what? I could vibe with that kind of energy. Also, he had brown eyes.

Wish I knew what is up with the brown eyes thing. Some women only like tall men. Some women only like men with long hair. Some women only like men who play guitar. For me, it’s gotta be brown eyes. I can’t take green or blue eyes. No offense to the light-eyed men of the world. A pair of brown eyes (and the darker the better) is basically all it takes for me to be like…

I’m very attracted to eye color and have never met anybody with as strong an eye color preference as I have. I’d tell you why I’m like that if I knew.

Dave had brown eyes and he was nice to me like once. Criteria filled.

I put on a cute outfit and went down to the Taco Bell.

I laid it on thick. I always laid in on thick when I was irl flirting. I didn’t do this online, but that’s because every online interaction was a stressful interaction and it always felt like I was the one talking slow like nobody-make-any sudden-moves, and the sudden moves was someone pulling their dick out and saying gross, graphic shit to me. I’ve literally had guys tell me this doesn’t sound real. That guys don’t act like that online. But the same guys who said that went on to tell me that if it DID happen, well that’s just female privilege right there and the fact that I even found it upsetting is misandrist.

I’m allowed to find any behavior I want unacceptable. There were a lot of years that I didn’t know this. But I know this now. I find the way men treated me online unacceptable. I find it despicable to be so presumptuous and treat someone like they exist to serve some sexual need for you. If they’d thought of me as a person, they would have moved slowly, sussed out whether I wanted that or not. I am not a feminist, but I’ll admit when they get something right. “Inconveniently sentient” was a phrase a feminist writer used once, referring to odious behavior from men and how they must view women. That phrase resonates with me. They treated me as if I was a body to fuck, but an inconveniently sentient one.

For this reason, I was much more reserved in online interactions. A lot of tense clenching the mouse of the shared computer, staring at the screen like, “Talk to me like a person. Get to know me. Tell me who you are. Don’t start asking about my pussy or telling me where you want to cum. Get to know me. Let me get to know you. Let me see you. Let me fall in love with you.”

In real life though? Well, it’s probably because guys like to be flirted with. So flirting really obviously was always kind of fun, because they always looked so pleased with themselves. Okay, not always. Sometimes they seemed really uncomfortable. I dialed it back and went away when that happened.

I went to Dave’s work, where he was working front counter again and I flirted really obviously. And he neither looked pleased with himself or uncomfortable. He didn’t seem to notice what I was doing. There were no other customers, so I took my time chatting with him. When that led us straight to nowhere, I upped the ante.

“Do you want my number?” I asked him.

“Sure.”

I had already written it on a slip of notebook paper. I was wearing leggings. Yes, the kind that are supposed to be worn under skirts, not as pants. I was shameless. My ass is like my one really attractive feature and I’d hit a point where I was really looking for some dick. Well, love. But also dick. I was lonely and I was horny, but I’d decided it was better than screwing around again. Because it’s not like women even get off in random hookups. I’d figured out by that point that you can’t really get off unless you are loved by the guy. Searching for that special, connected, satisfying feeling inside of things that were cheap and disposable and didn’t even feel good physically was senseless (I know it took me long enough, but I got there eventually).

So like the trashy fuck I was, I pulled my shirt up just enough to reveal the waistband of my leggings. I rolled the waistband down enough to reveal a flash of hip. I pulled the folded piece of paper out from where I had it tucked into the waistband.

Looking back on this…..yeah, I see it now. I see why I had so little interest from decent guys. I wasn’t acting decently myself. And I see why men treated me like I was a thing to fuck. That’s how I treated myself. It’s like I ran an advertising campaign and then acted shocked and appalled when people showed up looking for the weekly deal. All I can say is, it’s difficult being this much of an idiot.

I put the folded paper in his hand. He got it then. He was a dense fuck, but he got it then.

“You want to be friends, right? I already have a girlfriend.”

I was mortified. “Of course,” I laughed. “I just want to be friends, yeah.”

I left with my face flaming.

To my surprise, he started texting me.

And he friend requested me on facebook.

Oh yeah, facebook was the big thing by then. I barely ever went on MySpace anymore.

We started talking a lot. He told me a lot about him. He didn’t really listen. He wasn’t a good listener. Anything I said, he turned it around and found something to say about himself.

Still, I decided he was okay. Just awkward.

I found out his “girlfriend” was a 19-year-old girl from the Phillipines. He had never met her. He had never even talked to her on the phone. they talked only on facebook.

“Oh boy,” I thought. “He’s that kind of stupid, huh?”

Well, I still wanted some of the D. Other than being kind of dumb and being a shitty listener, he was definitely my type. A big anime nerd, and despite not liking anime myself, I always found guys who like anime a lot very sweet and gentle. Especially after Dennis. He had brown eyes. He was very tall. And like I said, I like tall and short guys. I like both. This dude was probably 6’2. I’d never met a nerdy dude who was 6’2. Dave dressed like he only wore clothes his mom picked out for him from k-mart. And I can’t lie, it sort of did it for me.

Well, I wasn’t going to come onto him while he was dating this girl from the Phillipines. He was always posting sappy stuff about how much he loved her and how he couldn’t wait to be with her one day. I didn’t flirt with him after he told me he was taken. I did hold out hope they’d break up and I could shimmy on in there.

Until, he was a little too pent up and got in my DMs one day.

He started talking about how he was a virgin.

He asked me a lot of questions about sex. I mean, I answered them. I thought he was just trying to talk to a friend.

“It really sucks being a 23-year-old virgin,” he said. “I feel like I’m missing out on this thing everybody else has experienced.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be dating someone you might not ever meet,” I replied. “If you weren’t e-dating this Fillipino girl, I bet girls in real life would be interested in you.”

TRANSLATION: I WILL FUCK YOU. IF YOU WEREN’T IN A RELATIONSHIP, I WOULD HAPPILY ACCEPT YOUR DICK.

But my man wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

“I’m in love with Liza. We’ve been talking for over a year.”

“I guess you’ll have to wait until you can meet one day then.”

“Right. I know.”

There were a couple of minutes in between that message and the next one.

“Maybe I could find an experienced girl who would have a friends with benefits kind of thing with me? Then I’d know what I’m doing when I finally meet Liza. Then I wouldn’t feel like a little kid when my friends are talking about sex.”

I saw red. I was livid. There was no way I was gonna let him ask without asking. I was gonna make this motherfucker be direct.

“Dave, you better come right out and ask what it’s obvious you’re trying to.”

I didn’t fly off the handle right away, because I wanted him to say it. I didn’t want him to have an out, where he could deny what he’d meant.

“I’m not asking anything.”

I waited.

He sent a follow up message.

“Unless you’re interested.”

I went off on him. He was trying to cheat on his girlfriend? I was good enough to fuck? I was good enough to hang out with? (He’d already invited me to a party at his house the following week). I wasn’t good enough to date?

He acted dumb and I hated him for it.

“Whoa, whoa, are you saying you want to date me?”

“Go fuck yourself, Dave.”

And then, feeling especially mean, I sent one final dig.

“Since you can’t find anyone else to do it.”

Weirdly enough, Dave still sort of was my friend after this. The way I dealt with him was to shut off and stop talking to him the second he got in my DMs all pent up.

When we finally stopped talking when I was 25 and he was 27, he still hadn’t met Liza and he still hadn’t had sex.

Absolute fucking dumbass.

I’m not one to talk. I was a dumbass back then too.

But not dumb enough to fuck a guy who was clearly saying “She’s the Madonna. You’re the whore.”