Charming, but single

Note: This is long. Like almost 2,000 words long. Deal with it! There is actual boy gossip at the bottom. My low-key New Year’s Eve turned out to be a flurry of text messaging and alcohol that ended with me hiding my head in my blankets and pillows, mortified that I’d let myself act so needy and ridiculous and wishing I could ask for a redo. I started the evening by opting to wear one of my go-to black dresses, dangly red earrings (that broke midway through the night) and black satin platform peep toe shoes with a backstrap. I figured that I should be dressed like the hottest thing to go to bed alone. I topped my look with heavier-than-normal eye make up (it was New Year’s Eve, after all) and my newly perfected nighttime hairdo, which involves many products that both volumize my hair while also smoothing it so that it hangs flat after some light straightening. Prom Date arrived right at 9 p.m. and we cracked open the first bottle of white wine. I’d already had two beers of the yummy delicious localish seasonal brew variety. We planned to hang out for a little while before descending upon the cigar bar for the actual New Year. It was not to be. Prom Date’s friend (and The Blackberry’s former roommate) called to say that our beloved bar was charging a $20 cover and that very few people were there. (See: $20 cover.) I would have paid the cover, but the boys seemed highly perturbed that the bar where we always hang out, which is hardly a happening hotspot, would charge a cover. And so we decided to celebrate chez moi with wine and champagne and bowls of yummy wasabi peas and sesame sticks and fresh-from-the-box brownies. Another glass of wine later and I was ready to start spreading the text message love all over my cell phone’s address book. On Paper and I had exchanged a few texts – I’d assumed he didn’t want to see my anymore after some quite cold behavior on his part, but he called this week and we’d talked. I have no idea what he wants or if I can give it to him, but we’ll hopefully be hanging out this coming weekend, as he had a cold and did not go out New Year’s Eve. (Which I am inclined to believe, as he is pretty forthcoming about his plans.) I’d thought I’d seen The Nurse as I padded through the Fancy Chain Grocery Store earlier that evening to buy some last-minute supplies and two slices of olive-heavy pizza. It wasn’t him. Rather, it was a man of his height and approximate stature with reddish hair and similar features who was dressed and styled the way I’d always secretly wished The Nurse was. He had short hair (The Nurse had a tendency to let his get a touch too long) and a beard (not necessary, but cute in the winter) and was wearing well-worn jeans that actually fit and did not have tapered legs and a cream colored sweater with a zipper that clung to his frame just right. Well, this faux Nurse sighting got me thinking about the actual Nurse and of course I turned into a blathering idiot who thought it was a good idea to send him some early New Year’s greetings via text. Much to my surprise, he actually responded in kind. However, when I attempted to flip this into a late night visit to my place, I was summarily rejected as he ignored the several poorly-spelled texts I’d tapped out. At some point, I’d decided to instant message The Blackberry to see what the crowd at cigar bar was like. And this led to some stupid flirting. And the boys sent several messages to The Blackberry posing as me. I teased him that he didn’t have my gate code and wouldn’t be able to get into my apartment complex. I eventually gave him the code. “You better watch yourself,” Blackberry’s Friend told me. “That boy likes you. And if I know him, he sees your flirtation as an invitation to set up camp outside your apartment until you relent.” “Hardly. I have been quite clear about my intentions from the get go and I can promise you that I will not be sleeping with him. And I have told him this many times before.” “I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter what you say if someone believes the exact opposite.” But I was drunk and I didn’t think The Blackberry would actually come over when he had a whole bar full of women to hit on. He is a man of numbers – he’s said so himself – and the numbers were in his favor at the bar. As the night crept past midnight, champagne glasses were emptied and refilled and then emptied again. And the boys headed home around 2 a.m. I locked the door and curled up on the love seat. When I stayed still, I felt as if the room was spinning and I needed to grab onto the edges of the sofa to steady myself. I was near sleep when my cell phone went off. Someone was at the front gate for me. I groaned because I knew exactly who it was. And I could have ignored the call. But I figured he’d just keep calling until I buzzed him in, so I did. A few minutes later we were having beers. I was sitting in an easy chair and he was on the love seat. I’d chosen my seat strategically so that he couldn’t sit next to me. This worked for about five minutes until he asked me to join him on the love seat and I bragged about how comfortable my chair was. The next thing I knew, I’d volunteered to switch places with him so he could feel how comfortable the chair was. And then it took another three minutes for him to join me back on the loveseat. And then we were making out. He is an aggressive, tongue-happy kisser who is a bit sloppier than I enjoy. And he let his hands travel down my sides and I stopped him and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I was not going to sleep with him, take off my clothes, take off his clothes or anything else like that. He was mostly respectful of this, though I had to remind him of it a few times. He suggested several times that we move to my bed, but I shot him down each time. “We’ll just kiss, I swear,” he pleaded. But I was not giving in and his insistence began to wear on me. Finally I got up and sat on the chair. “It is time for you to go home,” I yawned. “I want to stay here.” “No,” I said firmly, motioning to the door. “It is time for everyone who doesn’t live here to not be here anymore.” He argued with me. “I won’t touch you, I swear.” But I never relented. I was losing my freewheeling buzz and I did not want him in my house when I woke up. Because I’d realized that this was a mistake. I’d worked so hard to continuously shoot him down over the past few months, as he is a terribly inappropriate man to date. He’s cocky to a fault and he talks about women like they are conquests. And I fear that I’m now going to be on that list of women he talks about as they walk through the bar. “See baby, see her? I know her REAL WELL, ifyouknowhwhatImean,” he says as he sees former flings. Whether or not he has slept with them, no one knows. But he leaves little doubt in people’s minds that he has bedded them all. Perception is reality in this case. I don’t want to be one of those women. And so he had to leave before I preemptively slapped him for saying such things about me. And before I realized that I would have to stay away from my favorite little cigar bar for the next few weeks to avoid his smugness. And this did not please me. At all. “You have to go now,” I said. I walked to the door and opened it, like a flight attendant giving him directions off of a plane. “Baby, I want to stay.” “No.” “I will just sleep on your doorstep.” “Go.” I closed the door and waited for him to leave. But I could see his outline in my window. He wasn’t going to leave. I pulled the door open. “I knew you’d change your mind, baby.” “I have not. Please go home. I am serious. Go home.” I shut the door again, flipped off he outside light and locked the deadbolt. I walked to the kitchen to get some water. But I could hear him talking outside my door. I didn’t see him in my window or peephole. I opened the door and he tumbled backwards onto the floor. He had been sitting on my doormat. “[Blackberry]! GO HOME!” “I’m not leaving.” “Get off of my porch.” “Fine,” he said. And he stood up and walked midway down the stairs and sat again, still talking. “I have NEIGHBORS,” I hissed. He wasn’t going anywhere. Like a stray cat. He’d tasted the milk I’d given him and he wasn’t going to leave now without eating a feast first. Well, I know a few things about stray cats. Not having a hose nearby, I decided I would have to improvise. The concrete felt cold beneath my bare feet and the wind whipped around my legs as I tip toed down the steps to where he sat. “Oh baby, you changed your mind,” he said, looking up at me hopefully. “No, I didn’t. You either go or you get wet,” I said. It was then that he realized I had a very full cup of water in each hand. “You wouldn’t,” he said. “I will,” I said, tipping one cup slightly so that a dribble of water sloshed over the side and onto the step behind him. “Either you go or I will soak you.” “Baby, I don’t want to go,” he said, as he eased up to a standing position. “Then sleep in your car,” I said, cocking my arm back, ready to splash him and his tan linen Miami Vice wannabe jacket. “Babe,” he said, backing up. “GO HOME.” He looked in my eyes and realized that I was dead serious and that he would soon be drenched if he called my bluff. So he went down the stairs, turned around and looked to me, begging for a reprieve. I tip toed back up to my apartment, pulled the door shut, locked the dead bolt and set the chain. I turned off all of the lights and climbed into bed, but not before I gulped down one of the huge cups of water. The next morning I woke up, moaned and reached for the other cup of water, which I’d wisely placed on my nightstand. I went into the kitchen to get some Advil for my pounding head, which felt like someone had sawed it open, replaced my normal-size brain with a much larger brain and stapled my head back shut. My computer was still on and I had an instant message from The Blackberry. “I got home safely. I had fun, did you?” I slammed my laptop shut and sulked back to my bed.