Tails of a 17th Street Geisha

Why is friendster popular? Like OHMIGOD, I dunno.

Maybe because it makes us feel like the cool kids in high school. If you’re like me, you were NEVER cool in high school. You were popular with your own group but we were never the coolest. My peeps were the drama kids (closeted boys), the MUN’ers, and the AP-College-bound kids. Friendster makes our beta-clique feel a WHOLE lot bigger. We got our network, our inside jokes, our hot pics, our memories in testimonials a la high school year book, and our constant stream of chatter over messages and IM. It’s like this  global hallway filled with lockers and ours is decorated with music, pics, club affiliations, and notes. We are as cool as the number of friends we have, the groups we’re members of and the cleverness of our testimonials. Those who are constantly online, on frienster are like the kids who can never leave school and just go home (they’re all making friends or loitering around on the field!) Oh Chris Trott, I always see you on friendster! What are you doing online for so long!?!?! Of course, for me to see you there always is telling about my time on the site. I’m simply fielding messages and staring at a picture of a certain someone who is far away who makes me drool.

Myspace is what happens when you traverse the lockers of the punks rockers, the misfits, the artists, the pimps, the ho’s, the goths, and all the kids outside of the mainstream. I didn’t even realize this, but even my pictures are edgier here (there’s a bad one that I can’t believe I still have up there and that my good friend Steve spoofed as "boobra streisand" on friendster). There’s more you can do with your myspace profile if you spend time on it–much like the rebel kids tearing up their school uniform or graffiting the campus. I went through a goth phase for a couple of years as a teen and so I identify with the feel of both myspace and friendster.

Why else are these sites popular?  Because people inherently want to meet one another in ways that are not intimidating? Because people feel free to express themselves as they are and recreate their identities without fear of retribution from intolerant a-holes? Because people are looking for dates or action? Because in an ADD society, blasting a message or posting on a blog or bulletin board is the easiest way to keep in touch with massive amounts of friends and to keep tabs on your friends if you’ve lost touch? What do you think?

I don’t want to appear jaded, but I’m not sure how much this campaign is going to work. At the same time, we can’t go down without a fight.

That said, I live in Washington DC and we have no Senators (surprise–it’s "Chocolate City" and 90% of black voters reliably vote Democrat) Nagin is nuts! Anyway, I don’t have representation so I must participate vicariously through you state-dwelling folks. Actually, I’m going to call the judiciary dems and ranking dems in Senate anyway AND SO SHOULD YOU! Do it, take 5 minutes tomorrow to and if it doesn’t work, at least we can say "don’t blame me!" when they turn the clocks back on women’s rights, civil rights, civil liberties, gay rights, etc.,

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATOR tomorrow. It couldn’t be any easier than picking up the phone (see numbers below) and urging them to filibuster.

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To say "Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day" !

I am so wrapped up in this dating nonsense that I totally forgot to pause and dignify the one day in the year that we celebrate the life and accomplishments of a tremendous civil rights activist and progressive leader.

Tuesday–12:57am    I just now finished one of several projects I was supposed to do over the 3-day weekend. It took 6 hours to do a fancy layout for a 6 page tri-fold brochure.

urgh!

I need to have a personal blog some place else, where it can be anonymous, because I have all these stories and thoughts that I am DESPERATE to share, but it feels weird to talk about guys I’ve meet up with who I KNOW are reading this. I will share them with my closest girlfriends and gay boyfriends, but in the meantim…

All I can say is that I’ve been out with 6 guys on match.com, 3 guys on friendster and one guy on myspace (wouldn’t call that a "date") and the guys on friendster are a million times better than match. They’re hipper, nicer, more relaxed, and i connect with them better.

How do people date?

After being a serial monogamist since college and having one long-term boyfriend onto the next without "dating," I’m new to this whole shit. I just can’t date a whole bunch of people at the same time. I mean, I just did a round of first dates (fuck, this sounds like a job hunt) but there are a couple of people who want to go out on second dates . I can’t date 3 or 4 guys over a period of time at the same time–I just don’t want to! I feel as though I have to pick one over the others so that i don’t complicate my feelings. Maybe blogging about this will eliminate some of the friendsters who don’t want to go out with me because I’m also dating other guys?

I’m probably over-analyzing this a la junior year in high school, when I tried to figure out if Tristan Verbergt liked me for me or just wanted me to be his MUN partner at the UCSD meeting. I really liked him.

My whole weekend has been totally thrown out of whack. It’s almost as though I’ve been drinking!

When I used to go nuts, I would party until 2am, get up at 8-9am, at work by 10am, out of work at 8-9pm and into the clubs again by 10:00pm. I was too tired and had little time or inclination to work out. I was crabby, out of shape, brain-dead, and a major train-wreck waiting to happen.   

What has happened to me? I feel the same way all over again! The only difference is that I’m going to work at normal hours and I’m not hardly eating (no time and I never had any food at home that’s ready-to-eat).

This weekend went a little something like this:

Thurs-Fri Evening/Sleep Schedule:
8:00 pm         Dinner with Chris
10:30 pm       Home and online, catching up w/ friends
11:00 pm       Chatting with someone really cool
12:30 am       In bed
1:00 am        Asleep
5:00 am        Awake and tossing/turning
6:30 am         Out of bed, brain-dead and too tired to run

Fri-Sat Evening/Sleep Schedule:
8:00  pm            Dinner with coworker
10:00 pm         Party with friend @ match.com guy house
1:00 am            At home
3:30 am            In bed
4:00 am            Asleep
11:00 am        Awake (ended up shopping with Brad instead of running)

Sat-Sun Evening/Sleep Schedule:
9:30  pm          Botched meet up with friendster friend (take one)
10:30 pm         @ Bar with Gianni and friends (friendster friend attends towards tail end)
1:00 am            At home (not mine)
6:30 am            In bed
9:30 am           Awake (begrudgingly)
6:00 pm           Finally home and in bed
9:00 pm            Awake

…slowly I become the zombie that all came to know and some came to love on 17th Street!

I met someone on friendster… he’s adorable, sweet, funny and we have a ton in common! We were going to meet up Saturday night at Bar Rouge but something crazy came up and couldn’t make it out. I ended up making plans to meet up with Gianni and some of his friends and he calls me 5 minutes later and says his disaster was temporarily diverted and that he can meet up! We go to El Rincon and then to Chloe… our conversation is great and we stay up until 6am talking about random things like electronica, LOTR, and comedians. We even have a  "who’s geekier" contest. I won. Until the next day, when he starts talking about Star Wars. Well, not really. I really geeked out with the whole, "my brothers and I used to play D&D…" Repeat after me, I am not a nerd…

I’m running on serious fumes. I’m so EXHAUSTED. This was such a busy week and I haven’t slept a decent night’s sleep. I’m typing this shit up @ Gianni’s while I wait for him to get ready to go shopping. Gianni met up with me and friendster @ Ballston mall (they fortuitously both live v. close to eachother.) If I go shopping with Gianni he’ll drive me home. It will take ages to get home from Virginia, so I figure I get a trip to Targay and a ride home in the same time as it would take me to just go home via metro.

Tonight I’m meeting up with Diane and friends to go clubbing and with another friendster friend.

If my brain was working right now, I would cancel on everything and just sleep all day. My sleep is SO IMPORTANT. I need to go for a run too… haven’t been to the gym in AGES…

so tired. must sleep. or die.

It’s 2:14am and I can’t go to sleep. I’m surfing the web mindlessly. I posted my blog on dating (a mindless, idiotic, pointless rant) an hour ago and some of you received an email update about it.

I think that email update brough Charles, Chris T. and Steve on friendster because now they’re online! If you’re online, post a comment–bitches!

I went on another date. This time with a guy from Ecuador who called me every day at least twice a day leading up to this party that we arranged to meet at tonight (Friday the 13th!!!) I thought it was a bad sign (his calling) but he actually was very sweet and genuine when I met him. He’s not aggressive, just extremely interested and friendly.

He invited me to a party in Bethesda. My friend Shannon drove us up and we had a bitch of a time finding it. It was so DEEP in the backwoods of Bethesda that we went UNDER the beltway and drove along the Potomac River. It was in a massive mansion and I couldn’t believe the cars of the people attending this shindig. My poor ass felt out of place immediately… I don’t even drive let alone could afford a fancy european sports car. I didn’t even recognize them and Shannon was all ooh-ing and ah-ing these cars and motorcycles parked in the driveway and all around the street.

He meets me at the front door accompanied by a girl. Turns out they’re really good friends from way back in the day and I can tell from their rapport that it’s mutually platonic. He seems put-off but meeting for the very first time on these things is always awkward. Well, except when I met Bryan. I immediately told him I thought he was cute, he said I was cute, and we were both nervous in a great way.

Anyway, he leads me and Shannon to this basement where the bulk of the peeps are, and they’re all euro-latino with euro-dance playing. It definitely reminded me of my peeps and my scene when I was in a euro-trash phase when I first moved to DC. kissy kissy on the cheeks, everyone’s speaking spanish with thick Spain-Spanish accents, and everyone is dressed v. well.

We talk, it’s fun, he’s drunk but I couldn’t tell (he tells me later.) We have good small talk and he introduces me to EVERYONE he knows. Shannon looks bored, she might feel like the third wheel and I’m awkward because we’re doing the whole "getting to know" thing and flirting and Shannon has no one to talk to.  He leaves to chat with friends (keeps pointing over at us!) and Shannon and I decide to leave. He thinks we’re both bored and is extremely apologetic.

By the way–a tip for women looking at men on Match.com–EVERY GUY I’ve dated on this thing end up way cuter than their photos! I’ve been dating guys whose pictures aren’t necessarily my idea of attractive to give them a chance in person and they’ve all been hot!

He thinks I’m not interested in him and I tell him otherwise, but I don’t know. I’m sick of dating already and I’ve only gone out on 2 dates since I re-joined Match.com. It’s a lot of work. It’s like traveling and having to be "on" with a friendly personality and an interest in the other person. I don’t know, I might just be tired from being sick, traveling and from an extremely stressful work day where my bossed yelled at everyone because we collectively asked for extra help during a staff meeting because our workloads are impossible.

It’s 1:20am, Friday the 13th is officially over. It started with me getting in the Washington Post (I’ll tell you later if you really want to know), then having massive loads of work dumped on me, then having this weird date meeting up at a party for the first time, and now, at 1:21am, writing this stupid blog. I’m tired and restless at the same time. I need sex and want it with someone I can trust and feel attracted to. Fuck!

So I’m back on the dating scene… I closed the chapter on my "relationship" with Bryan and have logged back onto Match.com! The weird thing is that once I closed everything off with Bryan, all of a sudden the dating doors blew open with a huge bang–lots of new interest on Match and a meet up with a cute guy on friendster and getting picked up by guys at bars (ask David… we got a total hook up in Adams Morgan.)

I’m not bragging!!! I’m shocked. It’s strange to me, this whole dating thing. I have worked for YEARS at the Feminist Majority, working like 70/hour weeks and then retreating in the off-peak hours at gay bars. For the last 4 years since my last real serious relationship with a Mr. John Punsalan (who can be found on friendster!) I haven’t been out much… I dated on Match.com for 3 weeks and had 3 dates before meeting Bryan. He was a warm up… As my friend Bri says, "I learned a lot." hehehehe

After my sister’s wedding, I decided to take a plunge and go back to that scary dating scene. I act cocky but I lack confidence about my appearance so dating is VERY scary. Rejection is scary. I used to think that my personality was too strong and confident for guys. I used to think that I wasn’t pretty enough. I’m changing my attitudes, slowly but surely. I used to worry about what he’ll think on the first date and not what I want. That’s kind of changing. I also used to think that guys were immature and only looking for sex. But I was wrong! They’re just like us! I learned from Bryan that they also want love, romance, and care. I also learned from Bryan that they can be moody, mean, cold, hurtful and with lots of baggage! okay, that’s not nice… but Bryan reminded me that men and women are also looking for love… *sigh*

so I went on a date with this guy on Match.com. My first since Bry-guy. He was hot: a cute face, nice height, hard body… we met up at Tryst. He really liked me, kept complimenting me on my looks or whatever. I couldn’t believe it! I thought he would take one look and run! He was funny and interesting. We had a drink, chatted for an hour and then went to the next bar.

Things were going great until we go to this other bar that he recommended… he knew the owner and started talking with her. He kept bringing up this other girl, Cassandra. "when did you see her last?" "When was she here?" "How is she doing?" All the while telling me how cute I was in my match photos and how I look even cuter in real life. EVEN THE OWNER FRIEND was like, "if I were your date and liked you I would not like you asking about other girls!" to which I responded, "who said I like him?" with a playful grin on my face of course, but BOY was I weirded out.

He ended the date practically demanding to drive me home and when I said no, he gave me a weird handshake-hug-kiss-on-cheek dealio. He said we should hang out on a Saturday night so that he can stay out later and party harder. He ended the date after two hours of conversation at two bars and two drinks each, but said would have stayed longer to chat if he didn’t have to drive to BALTIMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well… he’s a nice guy, funny, attractive, but I can’t get over this date-faux-pas! it was too weird. also, he lives in Baltimore, so it’s just too much of a distance. well, on with life!