Married Men.

Recently I got back in touch with an old friend from college. Mark and I were very close all through college and our relationship was filled with crazy sexual chemistry that we never acted on. He was always dating someone, or I was, and quite frankly I thought he was too good for me. Mark was charismatic and laughed easily and intense in a very relaxed way. He was attractive, a sort of blend between Chris O'Donnell and Paul Rudd. Girls had crushes on him and guys respected him for his skills on the rugby pitch. I was always very aware of the times I would get special attention from Mark, like when we would stay up all night talking about what had meaning for us at the time or when he would come and find me in the cafeteria. I wasn't sure if the aliveness and connectedness I felt with him was just my own perception and was a bit afraid of how much of a charge there was between us. Instead of dating him, I dated his best friend and nearly got married to him. Mark did marry, and I attended his wedding, slightly aware of my left-behind feelings, wondering what it was that his wife had that I didn't.

When Mark friended me on Facebook a few months ago, I was thrilled to be back in touch with him. I immediately felt the same connection and spark that had been there 10 years ago, but again assumed I was the only one feeling it. Until he asked me to have an affair with him. Then I knew it wasn't just me (I know. Don't be jealous of how perceptive I am).

The chatting started off mild and only bordered on flirtatious. I liked the attention I was getting from him because I like him, so much. There are very few men that I have met in my life that I feel as much love and respect for. Not to mention the connection... it is powerful what we have. We talked openly about our lives; me, about my struggle to be in relationship with my father, he about his stale marriage. He adores his wife, he said, and they are best friends. But the sex is bad. "Always has been," he told me.

It doesn't take long before it's all out on the table. He wants to have an affair. He doesn't think it's wrong. He doesn't want to lose his wife and family and doesn't want to curb his sexual expression. I tell him there's no way I'm being that girl and he is surprised at my scruples. I tell him, "Get divorced, have sex with about 30 other people, then call me."

In the meantime, I am still fielding responses from my Local Booty Call ad. One evening, while chatting with Mark on Facebook, Shane texted me (no, not the same Shane. There's a story here. I'll tell you about that later). Shane is a guy I'd been avoiding because he was ridiculously attractive and was convinced would have nothing to do with me once setting eyes on me. He was insistent, so we talked one night on the phone. That night I was chatting with Mark his text said, "There's something I need to tell you.... I'm married."

WTF?! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

Shane's story is the same as Mark's, down to the whole I-want-my-cake-and-eat-it-too idea of not leaving the wife but enjoying me on the side. In a long lunch-break conversation the following day, I tell him that I will not have an affair with him and I urge him to have a conversation with his wife. "Talk to her. Tell her what's going on for you. Perhaps you guys can make some arrangements, get creative, go to therapy, decide to have an open relationship. But Shane," I cautioned, "You will not feel good about cheating on her. It sounds good now, but it will eat at you every day."

The next day I got another text. "My wife and I had a conversation. We're on our way to having an open relationship."

Sheesh.

I'm left to wonder what it is about me that I'm attracting married men. As a therapist, I know that women who get involved with married guys are waving the huge, "I'm afraid of intimacy and commitment" flag. This might be true about me. But the fact that I'm not going there (yet), I believe, speaks volumes. I think it speaks to my integrity. I think it may also say something about what I do want in a relationship some day.

But until that relationship shows up, I'll keep writing...

While the parents are away, the Bunny will play...

My parents are out of town. They left to go celebrate their anniversary in New Orleans a few days ago and will be gone for about a week. Hearing that they were going on a vacation was music to my ears, and for more than just one reason.

I have been craving solitude lately. After several years of living alone, having roommates is just awkward. I have to be concerned with how my living affects two other people. I can't play my music at ridiculously loud levels or leave nasty dishes in the sink for a week. There's also my own weird issues of not wanting them to see how much TV I watch or how much time I spend on Facebook instead of doing something more "productive," and so I quickly disengage from these guilty pleasures when I hear my mom's footsteps coming down the hall. Like I'm 16 years old again, hiding shit from my parents. Plus, my parents- while very lovely people- tend to bring out some of the worst in me. Just the sound of my dad's voice can make me feel like ripping off my ears sometimes.

But one of the best things about them being gone for a week is.... boys. I get to invite boys over to the house! Talk about being 16 years old. I spent some time sorting through my local booty call responses and decided on Shane, a 31-year old recent transplant from Madison, Wisconsin who is a professional poker player who canvassed for Obama in several Wisconsin counties. Shane is witty and intelligent and easy to be around, and attractive in every way. He and I drank way too much whiskey, watched episodes of The Flight of the Conchords, talked politics and waxed poetic about our love for Obama. Shane was Friday.

Saturday I had a girls night out and Sunday was a different boy, Tim, a flight student from England. He was all British and great shoes and amazing kisser and knew way more about American politics than I do. And Pete just left, moments ago.

I don't have a boy lined up for tomorrow night. It seems a shame to have a night at home without the parents around go to waste...

Johnny.

I have learned something about posting Craigslist ads: you'll need a whole day to manage the replies. It's a bunker down with popcorn, a cocktail, and laptop in a comfy chair kind of experience that really does require a good eight hours or so. Eight hours? Really? Really.

The response to a Craiglist Casual Encounters ad, if you include a photo like I did, and if you don't sound like you might be trying to get a guy to go to your website with a credit card, is overwhelming. 400+ emails overwhelming. Within minutes of clicking the word "publish," the emails start flooding in, one after another at an alarming pace. You'll read through one email, delete it, and find 3 more in it's place. You'll read one of those three and 5 more are in your inbox. And so it goes for the next 24 hours.

One guy who responded, Johnny, I initially deleted. He was just too Jersey meathead for me. He looked like a guy who was far too into himself for me to enjoy being around. But then he and I ended up chatting through gmail and my mind changed about him. He had good chat manners. He used good grammar and his sentences were strung along with proper syntax. He was charming but not ewww. He was interesting but not self obsessed. He asked good questions. And, he offered to buy the drinks.

He suggested Margaritas at my favorite restaurant in east county San Diego, Por Favor. We met, drank, had easy conversation with no awkward lulls. He had been married once, had a son who lived with his mother most of the time, and had spent time training Navy Seals. He had a degree in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State where he had been recruited to play football. His father was dying and he had ambiguous feelings about this. He told me he had never mourned his mother's death, was afraid to be alone, and that I now knew more about him than most of his friends. He asked me, "How do you do that? Get people to feel so comfortable around you?"

I was liking Johnny. He was sexy. He was playful. He was strong and tall and would pull me close to him and say, "You have no idea how sexy you are, do you," and then kiss me. He liked being seen with me, I could tell, and there is no stronger aphrodisiac than catching your guy feeling proud to be seen with you.

Except maybe a good kiss, which he also had. And a gorgeous home. And a fantastic body. And a great, big bed with clean, expensive sheets. And pretty amazing skills in bed, if ya know what I mean. What girl doesn't like to hear "I looooove eating pussy." I was thinking I had struck local booty call gold.

Until.

He couldn't keep it up. Bah! What!? NO! The poor guy tried and tried and tried, and then I tried and tried and tried, but the soldier had lost his salute. Now, this is just an awkward situtaion all around and I did my best to fumble through it. "What do you need?" I asked, hoping it wouldn't include a closet with chains and handcuffs. "To eat your pussy some more." Oh, just that. Okay, I'll oblige.

But no dice. Fortunately he had a different sort of sex toy supply that did the trick, and in a phone call the next day he invited me over for round two. He apologized and blamed the alcohol and told me he couldn't wait to do to me what he hadn't been able to do last night. Quite frankly, neither could I.

So when it happened again on night number two, the awkward level went way up. He was trying to stay calm, but I could feel the frantic underneath the sexy exterior. I was trying to not call myself a fat, disgusting pig who makes guys' penises go limp, but the body loathing had set in and all I wanted to do was run out the door. We both kind of floundered around like fish on a boat deck for what felt like a really long 15 minutes before I finally called the game. "I've got to get up early," I lied. "I should go."

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah. I'm okay," I lied again, close to tears.

"Look, I can tell you're getting frustrated. Please know that this is not about you."

"I'm having a hard time believing that, " I said, honest for the first time. "It's kinda starting to mess with me."

"I know. I understand. But you've gotta trust me. It's so not about you."

I left and we haven't spoken since. He's texted a few times, and I lied again about being sick. He called again today, while I was writing this and I ignored the call. I'm not sure if I can lie again. But I also know that my fragile body image can't quite take these kinds of blows. One guy friend I told this story to said to me, "Don't take it personally. Keeping it up takes a lot of work. Sometimes, when given the choice of chasing tail or getting a burrito at Sombreros, I'll choose the burrito." Another friend, Crystal, said, "Girl, you shouldn't have to work this hard in a booty call! A marriage, maybe. But for booty! Shit. Move on."

I might just move on to a guy whose burrito works with minimal effort on my part. In the meantime, I could use your stories. Girls, have you had this experience? Guys, what should we think? Educate us.

Local Booty Call

It occurred to me that I would like to have a local booty call as I was driving home from a friend's house whom I frequent when one or the other is feeling... restless. Sex with this friend, who I call "the Dude" due to his personality's uncanny resemblance to The Big Labowski, is fantastic. It's nasty and grabby and sweaty and noisy. It's headboard banging on the wall and steamed up windows and me getting tossed around. There's nothing romantic about the kind of sex we're having and I'm not sure I want it to be. There's no lovemaking going on with the Dude. It's just raw, animal sex.

The Dude has never let me down. Every time I have called he's said, "Come on over." I arrive, he pours me a drink, we chit chat about our lives, maybe even care about each other's lives. At some point we find ourselves a tangled mess in his bedsheets, and then I am out the door. Sometimes, while we're both at work, we'll send flirty texts back and forth through Facebook, recounting last night's events or anticipating the next time I'm over at his place. I have had to really struggle to stay at work, some days, knowing that he's at home just 10 minutes away. My relationship with the Dude is easy, clear, and simple. It's not fulfilling in every way, but it doesn't need to be.

My only complaint about the Dude is that he lives 40 minutes away. Driving home, at 3 am, after a cocktail or two or six, and after being fucked every which way is... not fun. I hate it. But I have no choice. I have to get home to wake up with my son. My parents usually think I'm at my girl friend's house or playing poker with buddies, and thanks to their addiction to Ambien, they have no idea that I'm arriving at 4 am instead of midnight. My son reliably sleeps through the night, so my slinking home in the twilight hours has gone totally unnoticed. Except by me, who is horribly wrecked the next day due to sleep deprivation.

So it occured to me that I need to find a more localized sex friend. But then it occured to me that I live in east county San Diego, where things like the republican party, confederate flags, flatbillers, methamphetamine, and high school drop-outs flourish. And while I realize that I'm not trying to attract my life partner in a booty call, I would like to be around them without hating everything that comes out of their mouth.

I had already tried the local bar which was a TOTAL bust. Every guy there looked like this. And all of the girls in that bar were total bro-hos with the long nails and the dark-underneath-light-on-top hair and who had clearly chosen the all-you-can-tan monthly plan at Hollywood Tanning. Clearly, I did not fit in here with my short hair and disinterest in Nascar and failure to be turned on by barfights and racist tattoos.

So, I did the only thing I knew to do. Craigslist Casual Encounters. I had overcome my fear of it a few months before in a state of total and complete need-t0-have-penis-now (and, oddly enough, met the Dude that way) and so decided to give it a second try, this time with some more stringent location requirements. If you'd like, I can write more about how I went from a judging people who post on Casual Encounters as skanky, pathetic, disease-ridden sex addicts to thinking it's a healthy outlet, later.

Here's my ad:

Do You Live in East County? Do you NOT fit in?

Maybe its because you listen to NPR.  Or maybe it's because 

you voted for Obama.  Maybe youshare my loathing for

country music.  Maybe you participated in some higher

education.  Maybe you are self aware, compassionate,

open-minded, non-discriminatory, environmentally conscious,

don't go to the river on the weekends or have a confederate

flag hanging in your front yard?  Maybe you're not a bro,

don't wear the bill of your hat ridiculously flat, don't own

a pair of dickies?  Or maybe you're not a fan of Nascar,

don't know who Junior is, and have never been to a

monster truck rally?


Please tell me you exist.  I could use a friend out here
amongst the natives.  

I am looking for a friends-with-benefits kind of
relationship with a single guy who lives out in East County
(El Cajon, Santee, Lakeside, La Mesa) but who, like
me, doesn't fit the stereotypical east county mold. I want
this to be stress-free and with as little drama and
weirdness as possible, so please don't respond if you
are married or attached in any way. I'm a busy, single
mom who would love to get out of my house a once or
twice a week and enjoy being adults together. You'd
need to host every time as my place is not an option
(roommates who are conservative... but excellent
babysitters!)

I'm well educated, laugh easily, outgoing, quick-witted
and am turned on by a guy who is confident without
being cocky. I'm active (run 2-3 miles a day) but still
have curves (some of which are in the right spots, some
which are... not), so if you're into skinny girls you can
move right along. I'm not into drugs (including pot) and
don't want to be around them. I'm clean, disease free,
and expect my new man friend to be the same.

Alright, so that's enough for now. Please send a photo
or two and tell me about you!

Sexual Anthropology, 101.

I'm 32 years old. I have two master's degrees. I have a 2 year old son and I've never been married. His dad is not involved, and this is fine with me. I work as a clinician in the mental health industry. And I just moved back in with my parents.

I like to tell people that I moved back in to help my aging and ailing parents so that I don't sound like such a douche about living at home again. The truth is that I can't afford to live independently on my measly salary and I went a little crazy working two jobs. So now I'm living in my childhood home, raising my son in the very home and yard I ran around in when I was his age. Which is incredibly surreal at times.

Living at home is embarrassing to admit, but enjoying living at home is even more embarrassing to admit. After working as an apartment manager in a total shithole while holding down a full time job working with mentally ill children while raising a toddler on my own, moving into a beautiful home on several acres with a pool, jacuzzi, huge back yard, with built in babysitters has been fantastic. Dinner, which used to be an allusive, vague idea a few months ago is now waiting for me on the table every night when I come home. Laundry, which used to be a nearly impossible task to do with an infant in an apartment complex where the laundry room is a half mile away (seriously, HOW do you do this? Baby in arms, laundry basket where? Okay, baby in stroller, laundry basket in other arm, detergent where? Leave baby in the house? CPS is called?) is now a simple walk down the hallway. Leaving the house for a quick jog or for a trip to the store, once an impossibility without baby in tow, is now a regular part of my life.

Life is just easier for me now. I only work one job. I get to exercise daily. I eat healthier, well cooked meals. I have moments alone where grandpa takes my son in the backyard and plays baseball with him. Hell, until recently my parents had a housekeeper who cleaned my bathroom! It's kinda felt like resort style parenting. As a result, my energy levels are up, my mood has improved, and I've lost a lot of excess weight. And, as a result of that... my libido has shot through the roof.

Through. The. Roof.

People, I'm not sure I can adequately describe how intense I am craving sex these days. It is all I can think about. I mean, all I can think about. I walk past men and imagine throwing myself on them. I scroll through the contacts on my phone over and over again to see if- maybe this time- I'll find a male friend who is neither married nor gay who will have sex with me. I don't care if they don't love me. I don't care if they never want to see me again. Hell, I don't even care if they pack up and leave the moment we're done. I just want a penis in my vagina.

Which, brings us back to living with my parents. Holy shit, I live with my parents. I want to get laid and I LIVE WITH MY PARENTS. This concept- that living with my parents would equal no sex- had not occurred to me prior to moving in with them. This is because for the past three years I have been living in the Sahara Dessert of sex drives. I have had no interest in sex whatsoever. With men, with myself, with anyone. Zip, zilcho. I had no reason to believe that would change.

Well.

The experiences I have had in the past few months in my pursuit of sex have spanned the gammut from awkward, sexy, depressing, and exhilarating to downright weird and bizarre. They're too good to not share with someone. But unfortunately, I have found that (most of) my girl friends are not like Miranda, Samantha, Carrie or Charlotte and do not want to talk about our sexcapades over breakfast. In fact, I find that most of them are really uncomfortable with my sexuality and are "concerned" and "worried" for me. So, I've decided to make this space my trendy little New York cafe and you my Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte.