Pseudo-Celebrity Pseudo-Dating

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I recently decided to meet up with a guy whom I had only spoken with online.  We had mutual friends, and he seemed interesting enough, but really, I admit, half of me agreed to hang out with him because of the fact that he is somewhat famous and the child of celebrities, as well.  Part of the appeal of living in LA is that I am intermittently put in normal situations with people who are somewhat not so normal.  I truly convinced myself that I would ignore any hype and get to know him as a person, not let the celeb appeal sway me to feel any different about him than I would feel any other young, rich, slightly ego-swelled kid.  I was also convinced that it would be cool if I could make him fall in love with me, just for fun.  I was reminded upon our initial interaction that, oh yeah, I can never make anyone fall in love with me.  Sure, I’m not hideous and I have a certain quality that has been described to me as an “awkward charm,” but it started to seem completely unrealistic that by being myself, I could somehow romance the pants off of a total babe six years my junior, much less someone who parties with supermodels in Europe.  Despite his age, I’m sure he is quite knowledgeable of the multiple manipulating tactics of women, and has acquired his own arsenal of strategies himself.  I’m not sure if earnestly discussing philosophical thought, incessantly quoting writers, or occasionally letting me notice that he was staring at me with piercing blue eyes are some of those devices, but as the night progressed, I became a little frightened of the idea that, instead of him falling in love with me, I would definitely be in danger of falling for him if this kept up.  Eventually, after several hours of not making out, he made the small move to share a blanket with me on his friend’s couch he was crashing on.  He then fell asleep spooning me, leaving me wide-awake listening to the rain, wondering if I even liked this guy enough to fall asleep with my make-up on (break-out city!), if I was doing this to prove that I could hang out with pseudo-celebrities or that it didn’t even matter, would I want to be around him in the morning if I did fall asleep, if we would ever fall in love or at least kiss, if I was even being pursued to begin with or if I had merely been used as a temporary distraction to his apparent ennui.  I slipped out of the spooning position, gathered my things, and set out into the rainy night in a car I was borrowing from a friend.  A strong scent of expensive men’s cologne had taken over the car and I saw he had left a button down shirt on the passenger’s side floor.   Upon returning home, I sent him a text saying he had left a “manly smelling shirt in my car,” to which he replied “Haha cool!”  I have not yet received a reply to my text, “want it back?”  I am going to assume, he does not care.

vampires wouldn't bother

I've only been trying to date people for the last decade or so, but I think I could get really good at it if I was eternally in my mid-twenties.  It all seems so totally predictable.  No wonder vampires are so slick at seduction - if I was able to be alive for hundreds of years, I'd have my game down to a T too.  There would be no excuses at that point.  There would be no wondering about what a certain text means or what a certain pause between text means.  No, I wouldn't have to guess about someone being interested in me.  I'd have my object of desire in the palm of my hand, not my cell phone.  I'd be able to spot an interested person from across a crowded room, say "hello, there," to break the ice, and then the rest would would be so easy.  Instead, I wait for a drink at the bar and when someone says, "you look like someone I've seen before," I say, "thank you," because I really don't feel like trying to figure out why they recognize me.  Is it terrible that I don't really want to small talk at a bar with someone who I can't see myself either a) sleeping with or b) helping me in some way.  Honestly, a vampire wouldn't bother, so why should I?

tiki

living room

'would you like a gin and tonic?'

'yes please'

after drinking half this gin and tonic 'this is a bit strong isn't it?'

'i forgot the tonic'

'oh, i'll take some now please'

bedroom, keys, powder

'take this'

'i don't really want to'

'no go for it'

'ok. i hate ketamine. love peer pressure.'

eyes wandering and caught, hands find each other.

natural or easy? instinct/predatory.

NSA

I had put this Prada perfume on the inside of my elbows and I wondered if he had even noticed. I certainly noticed that, after he left, I could smell his scent on my skin. We had tried playing a game of truth or dare with cards from a tarot deck, just to further the game we had already played online:

1:04am M:hey kiddo

1:05amMe: what are you doing right now?

1:06amM: right now I'm watching Star Trek 6 on netflix on my tv

1:06amMe: boring

1:06am M: NO WAY! ok kinda

1:06amMe: do you have a car?

1:07am M: remember when 'drove' to your house?

1:08amMe: i didn't know how you got to my house. i don't ask questions

1:08am M: do you have a car?

1:08amMe: no i do not

1:08am M: then how are you gonna get over here?

1:09amMe: i guess i'll have to hitch

1:09am M: that's too dangerous

1:12amMe: i will let you use your imagination. oh I KNOW! why don't you drive to MY house?

1:14am M: mmm ..I suppose I could do that..what are you wearing?

1:23amMe: now you'll just have to find out

1:24am M: oohhhhh k. but I'm pretty tired. I can't stay up till 4 again watching movies

1:25amMe: ok

1:25am M: maybe we could play a game. got any cards?

1:26amMe: probably

1:27am M: ok, see u in a sec

It was that simple.

I didn't end up having a deck of cards, so a tarot deck would have to suffice as the thinly veiled device for sitting on my bed together at 2am. The cards didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. We were both waiting to get laid. He didn't mind that I had been sleeping with his friend about a month earlier, a guy who had since stopped talking to me, a guy who, as this pillow talk session revealed, already had "a lady." I had been spoken of highly, and was assured that he had left out the details.

Afterward, he asked me how I felt.
"Tingly...how do you feel?"
"Like how you feel after you've slept with someone you don't know very well."

He wanted to know the basics, asking my age, and guessing 22. I laughed.

"So you're 26, why don't you have a boyfriend?"
"You're 32! Why don't YOU have a girlfriend?" I was quick on the defense, because I had no answer.
"Because I'm in love with someone who doesn't love me."

I guess I couldn't blame him for being honest.

He left around 3.30am. I stayed up for another hour - slightly shaken by the fact that I felt a little sad and naïve and that sometimes when I think I get what I want, it turns out that I don't know what I want at all.

Hi again,

I think you are beautiful like plants sprout

and dew dries up and soil is a

mother to new plant children.

And everything

in between

is simply

evaporatory.

Substance you can fake

but in between

is where I find you.

I want to find a home in this

and

I want you to be building.

We can share

these walls.

We can find eachother

insulate.

avoid

am i just imagining this? it's a space. it has a shape. there were dimensions and since there was a person in it all of those previous criteria have been rendered irrelevant. it's now a void and i can fill it physically and i will. it will be enough to glance it over but that's not enough and too much. put it to the side boy.

What Will Not Become of Us.

Perhaps I'll never look like a lady because ladies always look like they have somewhere important to go and they knew the right belt to wear with their outfit. And I am getting too old to ever look like the peaches-and-cream girl who rode horses and only has to smile, closed lipped, and nod her head to get her point across. It's really a shame, though, because it seems to me that the men I'm attracted to always go for those girls. My type, the "combed-hair-secret-family-wealth-I-went-to-art-school-so-I can-work-for-my-heroes" kind of guy, falls in love with the closed-lip-smile girl over and over again. She is the girl of his fantasies. She will make everything magic. They will walk hand in hand through a field and bring watercolours and not notice when it begins to get dark. She will not try to be physical with him and he will hold back his own desires to ravish her there in that field. He knows, if he only can make her stay with him at least three more weeks, he will meet her mother and then they will be bonded for life. She is his inspiration; a slightly smiling well-bred beauty with pleasant opinions and an ivy league degree who will accompany him to his family vacation house and take naughty showers with him in the guest bathroom. She gets asked to model sometimes, her girl-next-door looks and her thin frame make her a perfect blank slate, but she prefers her job at the library.
Anyways, I will never be that girl. I smile, baring my teeth like a scared chimpanzee. Riding horses was a passing fascination for me at the age of twelve. So, when I meet those guys, I get a polite "hello," but it will never get past that. They know I will try to get physical with them in that field, no mystery there. I will not be their silent inspiration because I will always have something to say, always stating my opinion despite what is appropriate at the time. This is too much clutter for his streamlined sense of self. His need for documentation of his picturesque life will suffer for I do not take pictures or photograph well, so our time together will be limited to existing at that moment or in our memories. To him, it might as well not happen at all.