First Date Etiquette

In the infamous words of Chris Rock, "When you're dating somebody early on, you're not dating them. You're dating their representative."

For the most part, we all put our best foot forward in the initial stages of a dating situation. I certainly don't mention this blog or my past sexual escapades to a potential suitor, figuring it will all come out in the wash if it needs to. There's also the simple fact that if you throw all your cards on the table too quickly, eventually you run out of things to talk about.

Then, there are the situations where it feels mutually appropriate to become revealing, and the other person takes it WAY too far, to the point where you never quite look at that person the same way again.

I dated somebody this winter, who, well-intentioned as they may be, committed that ultimate cardinal sin. We had been going out for a couple of weeks when, after a night of drinking, he asked me what the worst thing I had done to somebody in retaliation was.

It's not in my nature to lie, but I also didn't want to scare this guy off. In the end, I decided that honesty was the best policy and to tell him.

I lived with a guy who I had been dating for about a year, and eventually we broke it off. He started bringing a new boyfriend to the apartment shortly after, who was a total asshole to me despite the fact that this was clearly not a competition. After moving out of the apartment, I got drunk one night and decided to take action. I got a box, went into the bathroom, shat in it, and mailed it (with a fake return address) to this individual. Inside the box was a note from me that said, "I heard you have an eating disorder. Eat this."

Luckily, he thought this was funny. Unfortunately, his story wasn't quite as amusing. As nervous as I was about telling my story, his vindictiveness trumped mine by a long shot.

"I dated a guy for three years and he dumped me by fax," he said. "CBS letterhead fax. And then I found out he had been cheating on me with more than one person for the last six months of our relationship."

"That's horrible," I said. "So what did you do?"

"I got him deported out of the country," he said with a straight face.

"WHAT?!"

"My uncle is a judge," he explained. "I had him look over his papers and he had been in the country for a year longer than he was supposed to without renewing his paperwork, so I had him kicked out."

I sat there incredulously as he took his drink off the table.

"It's the only way these faggots are gonna learn," he said, taking a swig of his beer.

If a friend were telling me this story, it would be the funniest thing ever. However, when a potential boyfriend tells you this, it's slightly more horrifying. I have no desire to be booted from the States. Needless to say, it eventually fizzled from there.

The Naked Tennis Instructor Does Dallas (And Your Windows)

“So, who do you think is going to win the election this year,” a voice called out next to me.

My boss sat in a chair, calmly observing me. I had never discussed politics with an employer before, but this was the first day at my new job and I didn’t want to risk offending him by not offering an opinion.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think Obama has far more redeeming qualities though.”

He gave me a condescending smirk before getting up from his chair. He was shirtless, with a beer gut that likely protected him from seeing his penis within the last decade.

I was on my knees scrubbing his kitchen floor, completely naked. Shortly after returning from a post college trip to Australia, I moved into a dilapidated two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that my roommate referred to as, “the last cheap shithole in Williamsburg.” After being rejected from a series of low-paying temp jobs and running dangerously short on cash, I soon found myself scouring the “Adult Gigs” section on Craigslist for any job that didn’t involve a video camera or anal beads.

Eventually, I interviewed for a now defunct agency called Your Nude Maid, which offered erotic cleaning services. They screened the clients beforehand and, for a cut of your salary, gave you the option of showing up with an armed bodyguard. I had never worked as a houseboy before, but figured that having my ass in the air in front of a complete stranger couldn’t possibly be any more degrading than moving back in with my parents.

The interview took place at a run-down building in downtown Manhattan that also shared space with The Sex Herald, a monthly publication whose content was self-explanatory. Interns who were clearly being taken advantage of in the name of college credit sat in their cubicles, frantically typing away their reviews on the latest butt plug. I wondered if they were allowed to test these products at home, or if all their “work” was done on-site.

A strikingly beautiful woman appeared out of an open room, wearing a short black skirt and black boots that rode up to her knees. She was at least six feet tall, with pale skin and her brown hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail. She was also holding the largest dildo I had ever seen in my entire life.

“Company meeting,” she said, continuously smacking the dildo against her palm with a startling lack of emotion.

That would be the cue for most people to run to the nearest exit, but the whole situation was so absurd that I found myself unable to get up from the chair. If nothing else, this was going to make a great happy hour story for later.

“I’m Olga,” she said, extending her hand out. “Are you here for the agency?”

“Uh, yeah,” I stammered, shaking her hand as I looked around for the nearest bottle of Purell. I didn’t want to know where that dildo had been, or when it had last been washed.

She led me into a room that most closely resembled an FBI interrogation chamber. It was barren save for a desk and computer, and two hard folding chairs. The walls were painted white and a small lamp dangled from the ceiling with a fluorescent light that made fully opening your eyes almost impossible. She sat down at the desk and pulled out a pen.

“First question,” she asked. “Are you straight or gay?”

“I don’t think that question is legal,” I said.

“Neither is this agency,” she replied.

Touche.

It turned out, unsurprisingly, that many of the cleaners that the agency hired were also prostitutes. Olga had nothing to do with that part of the deal, but many times the client and the person they hired would work out some sort of arrangement on their own. I made it clear to the agency that my services would strictly start and end at fantasy, and was comfortable with receiving less work as a result. Watching Oz as a small child instilled a crippling fear of being ass-slammed in prison, and I didn’t want to even entertain the option of doing something which would cause that to happen.

The rest of the interview went smoothly and Your Nude Maid offered me a job. To the shock of no one, the people who signed up for this service were total freak shows. I opted to go without a bodyguard the first time, only to realize this was a terrible idea when the guy whose house I cleaned reached out to give me a good-bye hug at the end of the session. This was no mere hug. He charged towards me like a pole vaulter, wearing only multi-colored boxer briefs, leapt onto my midsection, and wrapped his legs around my hips as though he were a koala clinging onto a tree branch. I felt tufts of back hair in my hands and didn’t like it one bit.

“Don’t go!” he yelled.

“What?”

“I’ve never had that kind of connection with anyone else,” he said. Considering that only minutes earlier, I unclogged the sink in his bathroom as he sat on the edge of the shower, with my penis dangling inches away from his mouth, I was willing to take his word.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “You need to let go.” He clung on tighter.

“My body, my choice!” I yelled, pushing the orangutan off me as he crumpled to the ground.

Central Park Zoo wasn’t hiring at that time, so if I wanted to continue working with animals in their natural habitat, a bodyguard was going to be necessary. My second session with the agency took place at a swanky Midtown location, and I was accompanied by a gigantic black man. His name was Terrell, and he was scary. He was about 6’6,” with tree trunks for legs, wearing a t-shirt that could have sheltered multiple Vietnamese families which read, ‘Guns don’t kill people, I do.” Although he was carrying a gun, I felt confident that Terrell would be able to protect me even without a weapon. If anybody shot him, it would probably just make him mad.

We walked to the apartment and he knocked on the door in appeared to be normal manner for him, but which resulted in the second coming of the Kobe earthquakes. I fell back a couple of steps, now questioning whether to be more afraid of the client or the bodyguard. We waited for a few seconds with no answer.

“Do you get to kick the door down?” I asked.

“No,” he said in a booming baritone.

“Would you consider wearing a gold chain and periodically saying, ‘I pity the fool?’”

“No.”

“Great,” I said. “Let’s get this party started.”

That session went smoothly and surprisingly, the handful I did after that went without incident as well. What caused me to quit was the lack of work from the agency. I naively assumed that my clients would continue to hire me weekly, in the same way that one would hire a traditional housekeeper. This proved to not be the case. The bottom line was that not putting out was killing my chances at more clients, and waiting weeks at a time for a normal gig just wasn’t satisfying. If I was going to be a whore, I wanted to be a well paid one and do it on my terms-- which means that I really didn't want to be a whore at all.

Lance Bass Found Me A Fuck Buddy

Apart from coming out of the closet in a desperate publicity ploy, Lance Bass has disappeared off the face of the earth for the better part of a decade. Like most of the free world, you probably lie awake at night, wondering where this man has been and what he does with his days.

Well, my friend, I’m here to tell you that he’s been spending his days infiltrating my sex life. That’s right. I’m living every teenage girl’s dream from ten years ago.

I had sex in his apartment (although not with him), and my newly acquired fuck buddy is a result of a six degrees of separation scenario.

Cue to last August, working at the US Open in the media center. In addition to the wonderful absurdity of being paid to drink beer and watch tennis in courtside seats, the US Open has resulted in some of my most memorable sexual encounters. Shagging the USA Today reporter in the empty interview room, 20 minutes after Federer was done with his press conference, has left a permanent smile on my face whenever the 7 train pulls up to the stadium from Manhattan.
A guy named Ryan who worked for Adidas started talking to me in the middle of one of the matches and we hit it off. He invited me to a player party later that night, which ended up not being my scene.

“I’d love to grab a drink somewhere, but just need to drop my suitcase off at my friend Lance’s place,” Ryan said.

“Does Lance work for Adidas,” I asked.

“No. Lance Bass.”

I snarfed my wine and burst out laughing. Seriously? This was going to be a good night.

We took a cab to Lance’s apartment, and needless to say, I wasn’t going back out for a drink. This situation had to be taken advantage of. After a great roll in the hay in Mr. N’Sync’s bed, I walked out of the apartment into the morning sun, promptly threw up the remains of the previous night’s sake all over the sidewalk, and proceeded to text everyone I knew about what just happened.

Cue to three months later: I met a guy named Ward at a bar and he asked me out on a date. On the night we were supposed to meet up, I texted him to see where he was.

“I’m at the Standard Hotel having a drink with Lance Bass,” he wrote back. “Care to join me?”

This was too good to be true. Even though the hotel was just a 20 minute walk from my apartment, I jumped in a cab because every minute saved by not walking was going to be totally worth it.

I met Lance and Ward for a few drinks, and then Lance invited us back to an impromptu party at his apartment. As we walked there, Lance regaled us with how wonderful his new pad was.

“You guys are gonna love this place,” he drawled in a hint of a Southern accent. “I just bought the place five months ago and the building is amazing!”

It took every ounce of self-control to not burst out into uncontrollable laughter, and it proved damn near impossible to do so when Lance proceeded to give us a guided tour of the apartment.

“Seriously Connor, sit on this bed,” he urged. “Isn’t this the comfiest mattress ever?” Clearly, he had no idea that I was all too familiar with the comfort of it.

Ward proved to be an absolutely ridiculous human being. In addition to being so drunk that he could barely stand when we first met, he disappeared into an empty room at Lance’s place with a group of people, and popped back out 20 minutes later, clearly on coke.

If this wasn’t an indication that Ward was full of redeeming qualities, having him invite me over to watch a movie at his apartment for our 2nd date showed this obviously wasn’t going anywhere. When I complimented him for being uninhibited in bed, he told me he wasn’t because he used condoms. He thought uninhibited meant barebacking! Clearly, Ward may or may not have been retarded. What can I say? I always had a thing for Corky from Life Goes On…

A casual sex relationship would have been fine, but Ward kept insisting that he was looking for something serious. I wasn’t sure if this was his method for trying to get me into bed, or if he really was that absurd. Either way, I didn’t have to time decipher this, and walked away from the situation.

Clearly, the universe was listening to my requests for a fuck buddy (Thanks, Big Man!). Recently, after a four month period of silence, Ward texted me and asked if I would be an interested in a casual sex scenario.

This couldn’t be more ideal. Ward has a gorgeous body, is an animal in the sack, and I have absolutely no respect for him as a human being. Perfect! Having this scenario in place also allows me to jump back into the dating pool a little more freely. If something of substance comes along, then obviously a fuck buddy will be kicked to the curb. Until then, though, I’m a happy camper.

Women Actually Have Sex This Way?

I was having drinks with a close friend of mine last week, and the topic inevitably turned to sex (as it tends to after a few drinks). She described her sex life with her current boyfriend, who she's been seeing for a few years, and honestly, I was horrified. The discussion was fine, but I couldn't believe her approach to getting it on.

"He's somebody who needs to cum every day. There are times when we have romantic and passionate sessions, but there are other times where I'm like, 'Okay, if you get off, does that mean you're going to leave me alone?'"

Um, what?! Regular and intense sex isn't something I expect in a relationship. I demand that shit. Maybe this is just the fact that my experiences have exclusively been with men, and it takes next to nothing for us to be in the mood. However I would not be pleased if my partner was that uninterested, or putting a time limit on it.

So, question for the women who read this: Is your sex drive that radically different, or are you just (not literally) fucking with us?