Category Archives: Step 11

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Good Time Guys

This summer was an odd one for me. It challenged me to sincerely examine myself and what I want, and gave me the bittersweet opportunity to take a step back and reevaluate my life. Though I was terrified to see what was under all that bright spunk that gave me the alter-ego of someone totally together, I knew if I wanted to succeed, if I wanted to be happy – I had to look under my own hood.

Somewhere between working at a business magazine that wasn’t my thing and being in a relationship that wasn’t exactly healthy, I not only forgot where I stood but where I wanted to go. So when a buzzing and wonderful new job opened the door for me to be happily content in my career – the boyfriend started to lose his luster. Sure, it’s impossible to have all parts of the JAM secure at one time but you can’t have something at home keeping you from being able to pay your bills so you have that lovely home.

So for the last month or so, I’ve been pulling away from what I had to figure out what I wanted. And more importantly, to find that sassy confidence, that style that captures attention, that talk that makes the walk special, that certain something I’ve always had. But what I found wasn’t that something, but a challenge: Lindsay needed to get her groove back. I felt it slipping away because I was spending countless weekends wrapped up in two very burly, studly handsome arms that made me feel good but also felt quite suffocating, too. I didn’t want to be tucked away in Brooklyn – I wanted to be in the city, in my city, with my friends or even by myself. Just as long as I wasn’t wasting away with someone who gave up on gumption and was slowly, bitterly wasting away already.

Maybe it was the sudden upswing of my career or maybe my bulls**** meter just finally boiled over – but about a month ago, I developed a new perspective. The relationship didn’t change, I did. I started becoming more demanding and quicker to complain. I asserted what I needed and if it wasn’t met, I with held my company and found the company of my best friends instead. I made a short list of what I no longer wanted to hear about (like ex-girlfriends, maybe?) and if the conversation developed toward that genre, I turned my head in defiance until it shifted. I stopped being the fixer-upper who made dinner, folded clothes and made sure all was well and satisfied, and I started doing whatever I wanted to do. I took on the role of Mr. P, basically, to see if he would do some role playing with me.

Could he be understanding and doting? Pick up the slack when I relaxed? Give me those things I needed to find happiness and security? Grant my wishes because I felt disrespected when they were ignored? Step up to the plate because I had been holding it with one hand, with even one finger, for far too long now?

And the answer has been ringing loud and clear in the silence of my voicemail, the emptiness of my inbox and the hole that’s growing in my stomach – he may not be a guy for the long haul. He could just be a Good Time Guy.

The always seem like the best kind – don’t they? When you’re in the beginning stages of dating, when you’re first getting to know each other personally and sexually – they are so much fun. You let yourself go, you dance on tables and you stay out later than you normally would because their attention is just so intoxicating. Just being around them makes you feel sexy and beautiful, like this wild little thing who was alluring enough to hold his glance just a second more. You can really talk to them about anything because everything they say just feels so good. Their words and especially their touch make you feel alive, make you feel like you could…

…really fall in love with them. But it’s in that pivotal stage that they become dangerous. Good Time Guys are good times until times aren’t good anymore. When you start to feel stronger than they do, when you begin to need more than what they can offer, when your vulnerability becomes more tender than they can handle – they want you to go back to your Good Time Girl self. They want you to slow down and stop having such deep feelings that they can’t latch onto. They want to pretend the aching elephant in the corner of your relationship isn’t there, and more so, they want you to admit that any type of anything isn’t progressing more than they are comfortable with.

Good Time Guys may want more than the good time – but only if it is on their terms.

And the problem when a Good Time Guy meets a girl trying to get her groove back is that they clash. She’s turning back into the hell on heels she once was, the good time girl that he fell in love with but because she witnessed what he was like when she wasn’t at her hottest…that Good Time Guy stride isn’t as magnetic. Instead when the girl gets in her groove, he starts to look quite pathetic.

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Champagne & Pretty Things

Tonight is a New York wonderment – Fashion’s Night Out. It’s the brainchild of the iconic Ms. Wintour and the headache of every editor who had anything to do with fashion or beauty. The idea is that everyone should have access to fashion, and while we can’t all be front row at Chanel’s show, we can go to the Chanel store in Soho and drink the bubbly and admire things we can’t afford. Last year, I met Vera Wang and my desire to meet a fashion designer was fulfilled.

This year, I’m taking it easy – only hitting a few places with M, including a Barbie Bus that I’m super-duper excited about. This season FNO holds a special place in my heart, reminding me of the fun I’ve always had in New York and giving me a break from the melodrama that’s been my life the last few weeks.

Tonight is only about two things: champagne and pretty things. And for the next few hours, that’s all I really need.

PS: I’m looking for other Love & Sex bloggers to participate in an exciting thing for my REAL job. Email me your deets.

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Oh, The Impossibilities

As soon as I ordered the Mac N’ Cheese with bacon at 9 p.m., I instantly regretted it. But I was starving. Mr. Possibility and I returned home from an outing with his family and I was still exhausted from the night before, so I took a nap while he ran errands. It was a restless rest though – my mind was somewhere else. Mainly, it was wondering what I should do and coming up with every excuse to do nothing at all.

He returned to find me freshly showered, my hair curling unpredictably as it always does, on his computer probably writing something for this blog, and wanted to get a drink and some grub before calling it a night. It was Sunday but during my two weeks off before I started my new job, and so against my better judgment, I threw on a cotton black mini and a t-shirt to head outside.

It was raining but Mr. Possibility has something against umbrellas, so I walked slower under the evening shower as he hurried along, trying to find us a place to relax. After considering a few menus and turning our noses away, we settled on a lodge-like establishment just a block away from his Brooklyn apartment.

We’re the only ones here, I whispered as we were seated, feeling guilty for keeping the wait staff here any longer than they had to be. Should we ask when they close? I asked eagerly, hoping Mr. P shared the same blame I did. He shook his head, motioning to some newcomers at the bar. I turned, saw them and sighed. Guess I’m not getting out of this, I concluded silently.

We were nestled indoors but without anything separating us from the outside and my toes could feel the cool water running underneath them. I watched the rain paint abstract shadows in the streetlights while couples held hands underneath printed umbrellas and wore matching Columbia jackets. I counted at least a dozen pairs of Hunter boots and made a mental note to invest in some black ones this winter. I longingly lusted after the cabs that came in perpendicular directions, moving traffic along with their impatience and taking their passenger far, far away from this borough. I wanted to jump up from the table, throw some money for the bill, run to the corner even though it was down-pouring, and wave my hand in desperation until a yellow chariot came to my rescue.

But I never carry cash, I already ordered and I really could never do that to Mr. P – regardless of how impossible he is. Or how impossible we had become. And though I had put off expressing how I felt for some time, it was now near impossible for me to hide how I was feeling anymore. Especially when I picked up the pitcher of water and instead of pouring it into the mason jar of water I was drinking out of, I poured it on the candle that was lighting our table.

Linds? Why did you water the candle? Mr. P asked kindly, half-smirking, half-confused to my agitation. I laughed, nervously apologized and said, for the 100th time that I was tired. He continued to talk about something – which is never just something to me. He used to inspire me – he engaged me with captivating stories of the life he led. And though he has always been some sort of lost soul, I always had faith he’d find his way home, he’d find his future and within that, he’d find how those things put together create…me.

You’re so quiet baby, I’m not used to you being like this. What’s wrong? He asked and cradled my hand, squeezing my fingertips sharply. What’s wrong? I wondered, avoiding his blues, again. What should I tell him that’s wrong?

I could talk about New York. About how it is everything and nothing as I expected. That it makes me remarkably happy and bitterly disappointed all at the same time, but I always resort back to loving it. I could talk about me. How I’m getting ready to start this brilliant, beautiful chapter of my life, finally doing what I’ve always wanted to do. How I finally feel so proud of myself and like I have landed on my own two feet, without any help at all. I could talk about him. How I want to rescue him, how I want to be kind and understanding enough to pull him through anything. How I want him to fall in love with me in a way that I’ve never experienced before. How I worry about him, constantly. Or I could sum it all up and talk about how all those things are as inconsistent as the traffic patterns outside. And that they have been for a while now.

Over the last year, he’s been my tourguide, my confidant, my protector, and my very best friend. I found peace in his arms, a safety in his Cartier-heavy wrist wrapped around my waist, and more than anything, I felt like I belonged in this city when I was with him. But he is eight years my senior, and it is increasingly impossible to ignore the age difference, even if the possibilities of what we could be always seemed to be quite endless. Until I realized how drenched they were in the residue of the past. He chronicled his failures in the way I collected my successes – placed on mental bookshelves, collecting dust and more despair, only to be pulled out in the moments where he needed a reminder of what he was. Or at least, what he thought he was.

And while we created a friendship based on passed grievances, I had moved forward and past the pain I felt and I was now ready for the future. Sitting across from me, talking about something new that’s causing him grief, I couldn’t shake the certainty I felt that he was stuck somewhere between the guy he’s been the last ten years, the man he hopes to become and the stagnant existence he has now.

But what I’m really afraid of is being stranded in the Land of Impossibility with him. I know what I want, he knows what I deserve and we both know that the main thing holding up our relationship is me. He’s been so timid of the word that it takes every bit of courage inside of him to even admit that I’m his girlfriend, regardless of how much love he professes when we’re alone. He’s been up and down, hot and cold, seeing the possibilities and highlighting the impossible the last six months of our exclusivity, and it’s just now, as my life comes together, as I find true happiness and content apart from him…that I find myself afraid of staying. But I’m scared of leaving too. Say something or he’s going to notice something is wrong, I snap myself back into the moment but the moment had already passed.

Linds? Baby? Want to go back? His eyes now glossed over in sincerity, unsure of what to expect from me. I turned my head to the side, grinned at him and finished the last of my locally-brewed beer and sat up straight. How could I put this in words? My job is to put things in words, why can’t I say the right thing here? What is wrong? What am I feeling? Do I want to go back to his apartment? The apartment I have a key to? Back with the man I love but I fear will never love me as I desire? As I need him to?

Silently, without fuss, without causing my cheeks to flush, without causing much of a disruption at all, I felt tears start to stream down my face, paving the way for me to say the only thing that I could. There in that corner restaurant, on that dreary August evening, I confessed to the only man I’ve truly loved: I’m not happy, Mr. P. You don’t make me happy anymore. I don’t want to feel this way, what do you want to do?

A month later, I’m still waiting for that impossible answer.


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My New York Skin

Standing, waiting, wishing for the train to come after work today, I tapped my heel in frustration. Why does mass transit in Manhattan come to a stammering halt when there is even the smallest trickle of water outside? 

There are always delays with rain for the MTA, and though I know this, it never fails to irritate me. Sometimes as I’m impatiently pacing the platform, I dream of the days when I could just hop in my car, drive myself home while poorly singing along to the radio with the wind whipping through my hair, and not having to depend on anything but my gas tank to get me from the office to my bed. But then I think how the city looks – even from the streets – in rush hour traffic and I count the simple blessing of a MetroCard.

Nevertheless, with my feet soaking wet and lugging around a gym bag and a purse that’s obnoxiously large for a 5’4″ petite woman, all I wanted to do was zone out, listen to guilty-pleasure playlists on my iPod and arrive at my stop promptly. After five minutes or so of glancing at the arrival screen, casually returning flirty glances with a foreign straphanger and triple-checking that I had my wallet, keys and phone, I heard the announcement I dread: Signal delays are affecting train service, no express service uptown, thank you. 

Without the threat of bar soap or penalties for my actions, I let one-four letter word that rhymes with luck (yet is the opposite of it) slip out of my mouth…several times.

I immediately bowed my head and avoided eye contact with anyone around me, while praying the little girl near me didn’t hear my profanity. I casually walked to the other side of the station, feeling guilty for cursing. It was one of my personal commitments after all – I vowed to never let New York change me into the stereotypical, angry city person who casually dropped the Fbomb in every day conversations. I didn’t want to lose any of that sweet Southern charm or dispose of the class I was brought up believing in. My mother always reminded me that a lady’s language doesn’t include “naughty” words of any form, so if I wanted to be treated with respect, I best respect that advice.

But ya know – New York has a way of making profanity sound eloquent. You’re having a great night out with your friends, sharing champagne and appetizers with the streets buzzing within your view, sometimes there is no better way to describe what you’re feeling than f***ing brilliant. Or when the city gives you these amazing nights, these moments that blow any elegant event North Carolina can serve up. I thought for the longest time that interjecting prohibited words into my vocabulary would make me less attractive and would come across as crass – but really, it’s just part of growing up. And frankly, it’s part of New York.

So I lifted my head up high and straightened out the black dress I was sporting – another rule I broke. A few months after I moved, my friend J said I needed more black in my wardrobe, to which I replied: “I love color! I don’t want to be like every other boring New Yorker that wears one shade.” I thought the same thing about my friend K before she was my friend, when she was still a figment of Mr. Unavailable’s imagination before he became Mr. Possibility – she is proud of her dark closet and the dress I happened to wear today is a K Exclusive Hand-Me-Down. Turns out, just like dirty words aren’t as dirty but can be insightful, black isn’t as black as I thought, but rather reliable, sophisticated and rather sexy.

I’ve ditched my sugary phrases for words that have more of an impact, my flowery high-waisted skirts for sleek, fitted, stylish pieces that give me an extra shine – and I’m not ashamed, I thought as the train arrived, finally. As I went to step up, a woman in a hurry pushed me into the side of the cart, spilling her bottled water all over my outfit, and there that word came again, but instead of shying away from it, I let it slide:

Fuck, my dress! 

She noticed what she did and turned around quickly and responded in true Manhattan fashion: Fuck, honey. I’m sorry! Let me get you somethin’. I shooed her away while thanking her for her concern but a little spill never hurt anyone, and really there’s nothing else she could get me – I’ve finally accepted my New York skin.

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Ms. Pixie & Me

Dude, she’s just so cool, Mr. Possibility’s awkwardly handsome friend recently commented while we shared beers in Brooklyn. I mean, she’s just amazing. She’s like a dude but not. She doesn’t pressure me for anything and she doesn’t care if I call her back or not. It’s so cool. The sex is outta control, dude. Dudeee.

While a girlfriend of one of his other friends jabbered away, talking about high school though she was nearly 30, I found myself more distracted by the conversation Mr. P was having than the one I was attempting to avoid. His friend continued to blush about this girl he had met: she was beautiful but aloof, talented but not pretentious, available but unavailable, sexy but not intimidating. He loved that she wasn’t pushing for a title, though from the sounds of it, he is only sleeping with her. He talked about how well they get along, how she is up for anything and that he has no idea what goes on when they’re not together. She’s mysterious it seems and hard to get, yet he has her? Mr. P nodded along and I felt a sting of fear that he wished I was that way still: emotionally unattached, cool and calm, not wanting the relationship to progress from orgasms and Oreoes in bed to talks about the future and what kind of foundation we were building. I lowered my eyes and thought I’m not just not that girl, why do men want that type of woman?

She’s the staple of all romantic comedies: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. You know, Natalie Portman from No Strings Attatched and Garden State, Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She’s independent and feisty, off in her own little world and uninclined to invite any man into the mix. She usually has some sort of turmoil from her past that keeps her from falling in love or even wanting to, and she’s a tough cookie to crack, until of course, she does. She then turns to her manic side, becoming madly, deeply smitten with the dude who had to work so hard to capture her heart – and in an hour and a half, plus credits, she puts those scars behind her and trusts easily again.

It’s all very romantic, right?

I’ve wanted to be that girl the majority of my dating career (and yes, most of the time it feels like a job). I’ve wanted to not really care if a guy calls me back or even asks for my number. I’ve wanted to be so confident single that I’m not distracted by those silly emotions that lead us into wanting to be coupled up, to be wined-and-dined, and actually wake up with our partner the next day. I’ve wanted to be so caught up in my life, so ridiculously entertained with my own existence that men become disposable creatures that come as easily as they go. I’ve wanted to have frivolous sex, never text a guy before he called me and be so brazen that even the world’s most hideous pimple couldn’t sway my swagger.

But there’s this huge, tender, fragile and brilliant thing in my way: my heart. It makes me as much as it breaks me in the un-wonderful world of love.

I thought through this journey I may become the Ms. Pixie and win the love of jugglers, turn them into recovering players who want nothing more than to worship the pavement I frolic on. I thought maybe I’d extinguish that ruthless desire for happiness in love by focusing so intensely on what I want that I forget that what I want, when it comes down to it, is to be satisfied with myself but also have someone who loves that about me. I thought this journey would cure me of love addiction and perhaps it has – or maybe I diagnosed myself with the wrong addiction. Maybe I’m not really addicted to love, I’m just rather normal. I’d like to think I’m pretty remarkable (I’ll toot my horn if I wish), but maybe I’m like any other ordinary woman who longs to be extraordinarily adored.

I’ll never be that pixie chick, no matter how many 12-step programs I go through or how much New York tries to drown me in bitterness. That hope still lives down inside of me, as it does in even the most conceivable cynic. The pixie girl, as much as she’s portrayed as uninterested, always becomes intensely interested before the movie is over, doesn’t she? Perhaps men lust after her because they like a good chase but I think what they’re really lusting after isn’t what it takes to claim her but the fact that she’s so intriguing that they want to claim her, instead of feeling forced into a relationship by another broad.

I think Mr. P’s friend will find sooner than later that she may just want more than what he bargained for. That manic side will rear its womanly head – and he’ll find that Ms. Pixie is beautiful and alluring but if he’s fortunate, she’s got a heart too. She just happens to be one of the savvy ones who knows how to play her cards so well, how to be so distant, that she gets just where she wants to be without seeming like all the rest.

I could take notes from her – but I think I’m pretty good one my own. Even if Mr. Possibility isn’t a fan of my new sense of urgency in our relationship (once your other ducks are in a row – ahem, my dream job – you stop worrying so much about being the dreamgirl and more about having the dream guy). Perhaps he’ll learn that we all want what we can’t have, but if we’re lucky we still want it after we have it. Ms. Pixie may make men wait longer or take more courage to win over, but I’d rather be myself from the beginning, demanding what I deserve from the get-go and trusting my heart, then to play a character that ultimately will end up just as I am already, anyway.