Vol. 2, Post #69 New World Order

If you read NOTHING else of mine, read this! Shit has changed. My sex tips for girls* (*girls who are holding on to mid-life by a thread). A dating odyssey for Young Olds, (people with readers).

Last week, Dear Readers, I read something which hypothesized (paraphrasing) that straight men do whatever they want, first and foremost. Even when they give thought to their friends’ or partners’ feelings and opinions, if it doesn’t work for them, straight men usually don’t or won’t do it, and related, they feel zero guilt about it, or even have a need to explain themselves.

So, with that in mind: Hi, I’m Abbe. I’m now a straight man.

Where’s my Welcome kit?

Straight single men (well, the clueless ones) usually get a bit of a roasting here because, duh. But in fact, as evidenced at what I’ve sort of gleaned over these last few weeks, maybe there is wisdom to be mined from the way that they date. There is certainly peace of mind, in that straight single men seem to have a far shorter playbook than straight single women. It actually just contains variations on the following: You like it? Good, do it. You don’t? Walk away.

I’m not entirely kidding, by the way — I mean, on one hand, THE VERY LAST THING I’D EVER WANT TO BE IS A STRAIGHT SINGLE MAN, but on the other hand, the parameters they follow certainly appeal if you want to KISS (keep it simple, stupid) when it comes to dating.

Also, ^^^^ the image at the top comes from this piece, which I enjoyed, so I’m passing it along to you if you want to peruse. The title is Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is; it was published in 2012 and has been retooled for a ten-year-retrospective by the author (he added “Cis” to the title). It’s really about straight white man privilege, but the parallels are clear. And the image? The ratings system on video games. Apply those to dating. Straight White Males automatically get assigned “Easy” every time.

PS — I was intrigued since I’ve never played an at-home video game, so I looked up an assortment of ratings systems graphics. I liked this one A LOT! — it’s very Barbara Kruger, no?

Back to assuming my new identity as a straight man, I’ll add that “doing what I want” is not a big leap. Because, for the most part, I USUALLY DO whatever I want, which is why, after my aforementioned June 12th date with Mr. Clean, during which I planned to have some sex with him, I called off our burgeoning romance. Here’s me the next morning, letting the dog out to pee whilst making coffee:

Mr. Clean is two things that are “too something” for me, and I decided not to overlook either of them — because I AM DOING WHAT I WANT. Here are those two “somethings.”

1. He got too future-focused too fast. He told me on our second date that he knows himself well enough to say that if he’s interested in someone (in this case, me), he doesn’t want to date around. I want to date around. Related: on our third date and just over a week in knowing each other, he asked me to go away with him for a long weekend in July (less than a month away) — and I told him that until we knew how we were physically, AKA, in bed, that was a silly thing to think even about.

2. He’s too old for me. Maybe not chronologically, but in attitude. On our first date, Mr. Clean told me I was a “very youthful” 57 yo woman. I am. He is 63. Youthful is not how I’d describe him. I’d describe him as earnest and generally delightful and very open to being in a relationship. There is no doubt about it: Mr. Clean is a catch (like my former Nice Guy boyfriend — they have similar traits). Like a dear platonic pal of mine who actually hails from the same Long Island ‘burb as Mr. Clean. All of them catches. But, as I’ve written before, I am a catch too, and this fish? I tossed it back into the sea.

All of this is positive news to me. I was open to dating Mr. Clean because I thought it would be good for me and it was; it was VERY GOOD for me to confirm what I suspected but wanted to explore more deeply, which was this: Am I actually emotionally available enough to embark on a long-term relationship following some very specific healing work that I continue to do? The answer is yes, I think so. I felt scared in some ways when I met Mr. Clean but persevered and dealt with the anxiety of “Do I want to do this?” I hated that anxiety. It ate into my days and pushed me into spending far too much time weighing pros and cons of dating him at all, so I instead reminded myself to stop thinking so much and just be open to what comes. That was really hard to do. But I DID do it, and I was proud of myself for staying in the gray, as it were. That made the experience alone worthwhile. Being around Mr. Clean felt really comfortable and as I was attracted to him, I thought this new level of comfort and ease that I felt with him would make up for the lack of heat, which I didn’t feel.

It did not make up for that lack.

So, like a card-carrying straight man, I’m out.

Of course, I’m being facetious, but it took ZERO minutes to decide, as Mr. Clean left my house on Thursday night, that I didn’t want to keep dating him. I didn’t hesitate for a moment, didn’t vacillate back and forth over these “positive” attributes — his generosity, his emotional availability, his kindness — in an effort to talk myself into dating him and just “staying open.” Nope. He’s not my guy. I delivered this news with what I thought was tender directness the next day:

I’ll spare you MOST of the details but on our date, we DID go to bed together and for me, it was simply a confirmation that we’re not going to work. That kind of thing can morph and change as your intimacy deepens, but for me, if it starts off “wrong,” it rarely rights itself.

I swear, never in the history of someone leaving my house had I been so happy as the moment he left. Eight hours of blissful sleep (that hadn’t been the case earlier in the week) and a sense of joy and CALM as I opened my eyes to greet the day.

After waking, and making you the little vid above, I did go in to my Hinge account and change my filters to 38-58 years old, and set that filter as a “dealbreaker,” meaning, I did not want to be shown potential dates younger or older than that range. My college girlfriends, AKA #mypussyposse, were amused.

And then I went about my day and got ready for another date. With a new guy.

Yup, you read that correctly. As I told Mr. Clean, I am planning on dating around, and I had met someone else who seemed interesting, so I was going on a date on Friday. Let’s call this guy Beacon Beanpole, since he lives in neighboring Beacon, NY and is tall and slim AF — like a beanpole.

Beanie is in the arts and also owns a lucrative service business, so our chat was lively from the get-go — we covered music, Downtown New York Back In The Day, how crazy we are about our dogs, and how much we love living in the Hudson Valley. We made up an imaginary punk ska band, since he plays keys and I play drums. He had chosen a great place for a drink, and our drinks morphed into dinner. We ordered and shared our plates like champs as we both are adventurous eaters. He was charming and engaged.

Beanie and I will also not be going out again.

Why? Because he had three glasses of wine (rapid imbibement) and a cocktail during our date. And that tells me he drinks too much. He made a joke about it; how he was enjoying his liquor after a really long week. He also walked me to my car, gave me a nice brief kiss, and then walked up the street and back into the restaurant — some friends of his had come in and were at the bar as we were leaving, and I assume he was meeting up with them for a nightcap.

I drove home completely satisfied that I had met a nice guy who would no doubt activate any number of stresses and guesses around substance abuse for me — two of my former partners were prone to this. Just no thank you, and no wistful wishing it away, no “but what about the good stuff?” Ta-da! Easy!

Next up over the weekend, I went back to my beloved Astoria, Queens with two pals who had never been and had requested a patented Queen(s) Abbe tour. We had a really fun day and that evening, at Taverna Kyclades over superb grilled fish, we were seated next to a lone dude named Jimmy who was a teacher’s aide in a nearby middle school, and was…35 years old. He and I really hit it off. Like, we just yakked and yakked, much to my pals’ amusement. And when we got the check, and Jimmy stammeringly asked for my number, I told him, “Oh Sweetie, have the best life ever!” before we strolled down the street to our car, laughing at how I had magically brought my new Hinge dating parameters to life. Here was me, by the way — as we like to say, “Swingin’ my paint can!”

Baby, I’m just stacking my pizza slices and gobbling up life. I am completely OVER any sense of “What’s coming? Who’s showing up? What makes the most sense for my next chapter?” I’m just some straight man, taking a look at this one, or that one, seeing what looks good.

At the time of writing this, I am lazily perusing the reasonably high number of new men in my Hinge feed who fit into my younger dating desires. But before I tell you about the few potential matches with whom I’m chatting, who seem to mirror my energy level, let me tell you about a match who cost me more than a few hours of my precious peace of mind and time, underscoring why my new Straight Man attitude is the way to go, with regard to staying out of the messy head space in which so many Young Old women find themselves.

I matched with someone on Hinge named Jay who said he had a undergone a huge life transition and was so excited to be enjoying a new path and a new profession. I liked that, so I complimented him on being bold, and we were off and chatting. Boy, was he CHATTY! By the third or fourth very quick exchange, he had asked me about a dozen questions, including if I was indeed single and “free of my last relationship.” How odd, I thought, although I answered him by saying, “Isn’t EVERYONE on here supposed to be single?” He asked if we could text — he wanted to share a photo with me that pertained to what we were discussing. I said OK. But then…the first text he sent me wasn’t a photo; it was a message that read, “This is my real name. I am being protective of my identity,” which, to me, is always a red flag. He then asked, no, barraged me with even more questions, sent the photo he was referring to, and then followed that with a request to chat on the phone. As in, that very moment.

I was slightly taken aback. On one hand, it’s nice to get off the app and talk to someone but we had been connected for less than ten minutes and he was peppering me with constant questions and a request to talk immediately (on a lazy Sunday), so I politely declined and said I was writing (I was) and pivoted back to him, asking him how close he was to NYC, as he said he lived in Northern Jersey. When he ignored my NJ question, and instead told me several other stories related to the photo he sent (his father was a Borscht Belt comedian, so we had been talking about The Catskills), I wrote, “Hey, did you see my question? Where are you in Jersey?” He was not in Northern Jersey; he was in mid-Jersey.

Straight man attitude at the ready, I was realizing that this guy was not someone I wanted to meet for a few reasons, so I wrote to him, “Jay, I think we’re a bit too far away from each other but best of luck to you.” And considered the matter closed.

I was wrong. He wrote back right away, “Since romance is off the table, would you mind giving me some constructive criticism about our exchange since I’m newly dating?”

I thought that was a brave move (I’ve been asked to do this before and have done so without incident) and said, “Sure, can I text you later? I’m on a writing deadline.”

As I got ready to go out for Father’s Day dinner with some Beloveds, I remembered that I said I’d give Jay my thoughts, so I texted something to him that (paraphrased) read like this: “If you are truly interested in feedback, I’m personally put off a bit when someone asks me tons of questions, instead of letting things reveal themselves a bit more organically. And, may I suggest that you don’t lie about your name. I understand that you are privacy-focused, but it comes across as insincere. Once you texted me, I looked up your phone number and easily saw your full name as well as your social media links, etc. Just my two cents. Happy Father’s Day if you celebrate, and wishing you the best.”

I felt good about what I wrote and went to dinner. And when I looked at my phone a few hours later? There were 61 messages from this guy. Sixty. One. All of them were weird and nasty and most of them said things like, “You seem like you’re not any fun, not like me, LOL. I’m fun!” and similar. Lots of LOL’ing. Somehow, I was imagining a deranged Beavis or Butthead.

I’d screenshot a few of the messages for you, but I blocked him immediately and deleted the texts, without responding (duh) and then I went into Facebook and blocked him there as well in case he tried to reach out to me via social media to keep his party going.

Here’s what happened next that I didn’t like, big time: While I knew that shutting down that conversation and just walking away was obviously the right thing to do, I felt HORRIBLE. The guy was obvious bananas, but message after message about how awful I am and how great he is felt just…scary. That he asked me to give him some feedback and then ripped me to shreds? I felt very exposed and instantly reactive, NOT because I wanted to push back at him, but instead, because it made me feel ready to walk away from dating all together — the very same way I’ve heard many of you say you had “nightmare stories” about unstable people coming at you that sidelined your dating life. It took me a few hours to settle myself and, again, talk myself off the ledge about meeting new people at all. He wasted my time and made me feel attacked. By the way, this guy’s real name is Jeff. Fuck you and your privacy, Jeff.

Back to the other people now in the mix: I’ve enjoyed a few easy conversations with two younger guys (neither of whom want kids, etc. and both of whom seem “wise beyond their years.” Neither of them hesitated for a moment about our age difference either — which is 10+ years in both instances.) One of them told me that he’s going back and forth in terms of re-evaluating how to talk about dating goals with women, in that he thinks he wants a long-term partner but he’s also OK with starting off in the short-term and seeing where it goes. He told me that this scares off some women and asked me what I thought. I answered him honestly: “Yeah, I’m not sure what I want either. I’m literally just looking around and whatever happens, I’m not on any schedule except the right now kind.”

Here we are, two straight guys. Just looking around.