Boy + Girl

My first solo date with Boy came a few weeks after our initial meeting. I was excited to be spending some alone time with this cutie but I was also well aware of my ability to screw things up without really even trying. This time I was going to make a concerted effort to downplay some of my train wreck traits like telling elaborate poop stories or listing the guys I’d made out with.

On the appointed date day, my friend Sara called and asked if I wanted to meet out for a drink before my date. That alone wasn’t a problem, but sitting in the sun drinking margaritas until a half-hour before my date didn’t give me a huge window of time to get properly freshened up and pointed the evening in a slightly shaky (and train-wrecky) direction. I ended up rushing into a dirty strip mall bathroom on my way to the restaurant so I could change clothes. I had no choice but to shove my sweaty undies, shorts and tank top into my purse, swipe some deodorant under my armpits, and finger fluff my hair in front of the smeared bathroom mirror.

Despite the feeling that I smelled mostly of salt, tequila and sweat, I was excited to finally be sitting with Boy alone in an official date setting. We talked and drank and laughed for hours and I barely moved from my chair (partly due to the great conversation but partly because my legs were sweaty and I was worried that standing up would cause my skirt to slide up due to the sweat lube pouring down the back of my legs).

By the time I cooled off enough to feel comfortable making a trip to the bathroom, I became less worried about sweat and more concerned that I would fall on my face when I tried to walk because my legs had fallen asleep or atrophied from lack of movement.

Eventually Boy asked me to dance (we had been shouting above the live music for over an hour and I was beginning to lose my voice as well as run out of witty banter). About 12 seconds after he put his hands on my hips and we started shaking it, the band took a break. Quite honestly, this was a selfish move on the part of the band since I needed them to keep playing to justify this level of physical contact with Boy, as well as sweat out some of the alcohol floating in my system.

When Boy suggested we get some fresh air, I agreed faster than you can say heavy petting. The clear, starry sky and the slight breeze seemed to indicate that God wanted us hook up pretty badly. (I love it when the big guy upstairs is on my side. Usually he only goes along with my way of thinking when he wants to use me as a cautionary tale. This was a refreshing change.)

We walked to a clearing that doubled as the most perfect make-out spot in the universe and planted ourselves on a public access dock (that coincidentally faced the full moon, starry sky, and glistening lake).

By this point, I had given him a taste of all of my best date stories and jokes and had made a vow to withhold any additional quips or comments until he kissed me. Eventually he awkwardly put his arm around me but made no further moves. I will admit that a tiny part of me started to wonder if maybe he was picturing himself in this exact same scenario but with another person, like a guy named Marc or Thomas. If he was going to ask me to be his sham girlfriend so he could carry on with a hot gay man, then he had better do it quick before I sobered up and kicked his cute ass into the murky lake water.

Before I could get any further along with this line of thinking, he gave me a squeeze and planted a kiss on my forehead. It felt nice and I realized that we did have quite the little romantic scene going so I just tried to shut my mind off and soak up the scene. We sat in a comfortable silence and were probably 30 seconds away from a nice, long make-out session when we saw two headlights approaching in the distance, signaling the arrival of some intruders.

It turned out it was a pontoon coming to pick up some friends from the bar. The pontoon creaked and moaned and shuddered up to our dock… backwards. It was obvious the drivers were either very drunk or very confused.

We helped them dock their boat and kindly accepted their Coors Light (no need to piss off drunken pontoon pirates at 1:00 in the morning). They explained that the only gear that worked on their boat was reverse, which at least explained their backwards entry but did not explain why they would even attempt to drive it across the lake in the dark with three coolers’ full of beer.

The pontoon pirates had no idea where their friends were or if they had docked their pontoon anywhere near the designated pick-up spot. We could hear a lot of drunken commotion in the woods but it was hard to say if they were 10 feet away or across the lake. Instead of using cell phones to track each other down, the pontoon pirates would yell to the drunken forest mob and we would then hear the drunken forest mob get closer and then further away and then closer.

Just when I was starting to fear for everyone’s safety (because I was about to start kicking some ass), the drunken forest mob appeared and stumbled aboard the love boat. They set sail and we listened to them as they backward sailed to the other side of the lake.

With our romantic setting ruined, we decided to call it a night. He walked me to my car and gave me a quick hug and kiss. It was not exactly the full-grope I was hoping for, but I was coming to the conclusion that maybe this “dating” thing didn’t have to involve inappropriate touching and bad decisions from the outset. The shame spiral could wait.

Crappily Ever After

When I found out Boy was back on the market, my first order of business was to find out just how single he was and if he was still as cute, funny, smart, and creative as I remembered. My friend Beth (who had been subtly suggesting that Boy and I would be a perfect fit for years) had done a background check to determine his level of singleness as well as his aptitude for making out with me. Based on her research, we determined that he was currently unattached, clearing the path for me to make my move. I had been on a self-imposed Man Embargo for the past few months and I began to look forward to having a cute boy to flirt with and possibly coerce into doing inappropriate things.

Beth and I had been friends since high school and at the thought of Boy and I hooking up, we instantly reverted to 17-year-olds again (minus the Keystone Light and Great White/Poison/Winger tape collection) as we plotted ways that I could ever-so-subtly reconnect with him.

Email from Beth, Monday, 1:35 p.m.:
I saw Boy last week and jokingly mentioned that I have wanted you two to hook up for years and he wrote me today to mention that since I mentioned it he’s been thinking about it. Tee hee hee, he also said he’s had a crush on you that goes way back.

Response from Jenny, Monday, 2:00 p.m.:
Boy's had a crush on me?!...I never would have guessed that... but I love it!

Email from Beth, Monday, 2:12 p.m.:
FYI, Boy just rejoined Facebook. You could friend him !

Response from Jenny, Tuesday, 1:29 p.m.:
Befriending complete... we'll see if he accepts!

Email from Beth, Tuesday, 1:35 p.m.:
Oooh! How could he refuse?

Response from Jenny, Tuesday, 1:50 p.m.:
He accepted! Yay!

During the course of this email exchange, I also went to Facebook and looked up his profile through Beth's profile (Facebook makes cyber-stalking so convenient!). It was a little hard to determine his current cuteness level from a one-inch-by-one-inch profile picture of him in a hat, but it was enough to pique my interest, which in turn was enough for me to take the ultimate risk and send him a Friend Request.

I didn’t take a Friend Request lightly because I was potentially allowing a complete stranger access to my Vegas vacation photos, silly status updates, and the lame applications I inadvertently downloaded (In my defense, I didn’t know how to un-install SuperPoke or make it disappear from my profile). Providing this information to a virtual stranger seemed equal to flashing someone in the middle of the mall so I didn’t want to make a rash decision. I’d already had to un-friend a few people due to my hasty acceptance of their Friend Request and I didn’t want to be known as the Facebook Slut who went around friend-ing everyone only to un-friend them when she found someone else to friend.

Shortly after Boy accepted my friend request, we were in business. Within the week we had turned our friendly catch-up session into some mild flirting and e-stalking (Isn’t that why you only upload and/or tag the cute photos of yourself on Facebook in the first place?)

We made plans to hang out with Beth and her husband Dave as a kind of dating test drive. I didn’t want to end up spending six hours with someone who talked excessively about his mom or his ex-girlfriend(s) or his awesome Star Wars collection. Instead I wanted to talk about reality television, myself, and sex (not necessarily in that order) which would then lead to kissing and/or groping. I needed Boy’s agenda to match my agenda or our first date would end up on Masturbation Road versus my favorite destination of Sexytown. (Sexytown always seemed to have something going on anytime night or day, and I couldn’t wait to go to my favorite penis bar and order a few orgasms to go.)

When the day of our group date arrived, I wasn’t nervous because we had been e-flirting for weeks and had plenty of topics to discuss. (Plus, we had Beth and Dave to use as buffers if we wet the bed conversationally.)

Since this was my official re-introduction to Boy, I wanted to break the ice slowly even if we had already covered a lot of the common date topics via email. So when I arrived at the restaurant and immediately launched into a poop story, I was just as surprised as anyone. Maybe I was already drunk and I had forgotten?

I knew that Beth and Dave loved my poop stories (Well, anyone’s poop stories. I can’t kid myself into thinking my poop stories are any better than anyone else’s. Let’s just say they are poop story enthusiasts.)

This particular poop story had happened on a night out a few weeks before. I could not have anticipated that I was going to have a Code Brown that night because it was not like I had a stockpile of constipated poop in my system and I was pretty sure I had actually just had a decent poop that morning. Regardless, my stomach started to churn and growl immediately after my first bite of nacho. I was hoping it was just gas and tried to drink my way through it, but after 30 minutes of poop-tractions I knew I would have to go spend some time in the bar bathroom.

I was relieved that that were three stalls in the women’s room and I took the liberty of hunkering down in the spacious handicapped stall since I felt nearly handicapped due to my intense stomach pain.

I pooped. And pooped. And pooped some more.

And I flushed. And flushed. And flushed some more.

I was trying to contain the toxic smell from seeping outside of the stall and/or bathroom. Unfortunately, the flusher stopped working about midway through my epic poop and left me with a tough choice to make: Do I finish the job and leave a huge mound of gross poop in the toilet until someone alerts the bar staff that they have a disgusting broken toilet situation on their hands? Or, do I pull up stakes and finish the job in one of the other toilet stalls?

I had to act quickly because the bathroom was currently empty but I knew that wouldn’t last long. I wiped my ass as thoroughly as possible and tried to hide the poop mountain by adding a thick layer of toilet paper on top of it (I’m sure plumbers love the added challenge of digging through a half a roll of poopy toilet paper plus the poop itself to fix the problem) and I shuffled my way to the next stall over. I did a trial flush on this toilet to make sure I wouldn’t be repeating the same mistake and once that was complete, I was able to finish the job in peace and quiet.

The bathroom was getting busy again and there were three ladies waiting in line when I left my stall. We all commiserated about the “gross scene” in the handicapped toilet stall (clearly it couldn’t have been me since I had JUST EXITED the stall next door!).

To complete my Walk of Poop Shame, I exited the bathroom with my cell phone to my ear to try and give my friends the illusion that I had been missing in action for 20 minutes due to a phone call I was on versus being the person who just detonated a poop bomb in the women’s room.

I can’t say I was thrilled that a poop story was the first thing out of my mouth on a date, but I also couldn’t stop myself from saying the words. I was trying to slide a few glances in Boy’s direction to check out his cute face, as well as to properly position my boobs so he could check out my cleavage if the poop stories got to be too much and he was thinking of taking a runner. He didn’t seem to bat an eye at the fact that the conversation so quickly turned to poop, which made my naughty parts tingle for him a little bit.

Once the poop talk was over, we headed out to do some karaoke at a nearby bar where I made a silent vow to keep my mouth closed to any additional poop stories and instead focus on looking and acting cute and flirty and fun. Plus, I was a little worried that if I talked about poop too much that I may actually make myself have to poop and I didn’t want this night to be a part of my growing list of “Night on the Town” poop stories.

I was a bit nervous about the karaoke portion of the evening. What if Boy insisted on doing a duet of Islands in the Stream and I choked and murdered the Dolly Parton part? I was in North Dakota and these people do not take a shitty rendition of their country music icons’ greatest hits lightly. I would not only get booed off stage but likely lynched in the parking lot of the nearest country bar with Boy leading the pack of angry mobsters. I knew he would not want to go anywhere near my mouth if that same mouth did a Frankenstein’s version of the song.

On the flip side, what if Boy unleashed some sort of inner rock star during his solo karaoke performance that caused me to rip off my shirt and demand that he pleasure me on the dance floor? I didn’t really view this as a problem but more of an annoyance since I didn’t bring any condoms with me nor did I shave my legs.

One thing I did happen to do quite well was drink. A lot. And make fun of the other karaokers. A lot. I don’t think either of those items are noted as “things to do” in the dating handbooks but I did them anyway. I just secretly hoped my rendition of Loveshack and Copa Cabana painted me in a flattering light and that dancing all night would keep me from getting so drunk that I slipped in a pile of my own sick and fell to the floor.

The advantage of a test drive date is that you have two capable buffers to help you get through an unendurable night. The disadvantage of a test drive date is that your two capable buffers are there with you all night even if it is the opposite of an unendurable night. Our lovely buffers offered to give Boy a ride home at the end of the night, leaving me to wave goodbye to all of them awkwardly as my drunk brain slowly realized that they had just driven off with my potential make-out partner.

I didn’t fully realize how much of a victim I was to the drink until the next morning when I woke up in the same clothes with only a vague memory of the night before. I remembered smiling a lot and taking a lot of pictures, but couldn’t really identify any sort of conversation between Boy and I outside of the sexy poop story I had told.

I hoped Boy would be up for a redo date where I got less drunk and skipped talking about poop for an hour. A few weeks later, I invited him out to dinner again with Beth and Dave (I would have been fine with a solo date situation but I decided that this was a Complete Date Do-over so I included all of the original cast members).

Tune in next time to find out if my Redo Date was a success or an epic, poop-filled failure.