Brit

The Guy: Ryan

Brit recently went through a serious, extra heartbreaky break-up. In her own words, her ex-boyfriend turned out to be a massive drug addict.

If you ask me, that’s worthy of at least a few of the girly clichés Brit throws around after their breakup…

“I’m swearing off men for a while to focus on myself”

“I’m afraid to start dating because I don’t want to get hurt again.”

Those.

After a while, though, Brit decides it’s time to get back on the horse- the kosher kind- by attending a Jewish fundraiser at a trendy bar in Miami, where she lives. Brit (and her mother, and her mother’s mother, and mother’s mother’s friends from the club) hopes she will finally meet a nice, Jewish boy there because so far, her type has been ‘asshole gentile.’

She doesn’t.

At the fundraiser, Brit sees Ryan from across the bar and is immediately drawn to him because of his ice-blue (non-jew) eyes, and they hit it off. Ryan asks Brit out and on their date, she learns that he’s only in Miami for 7 days on business.

Brit and Ryan’s connection is undeniable and they spend those 7 days together in three 48-hour stints with a few hour breaks in between so Brit can “change” (poop). At the end of their string of marathon dates, Brit and Ryan decide their relationship shouldn’t end just because Ryan’s business trip does.

They decide to continue talking and hang out when they’re both in the same city again, which will be a few short weeks. It’s December and Brit has two weeks off work for the holidays. She is going to spend that time at her parents’ house in NJ, just outside the city, and Ryan happens to live in the city. 

Brit and Ryan continue their whirlwind romance there. They go to dinners, watch live music, see The Tree, and Ryan even meets Brit’s parents. They don’t talk about what’s going to happen after Brit goes back to Florida, obviously not wanting to even think about saying goodbye to one another. It turns out, though, they didn’t have to… because Ryan got super drunk one night and texted her super weird shit completely out of the blue, and completely out of character. Well, the character she believed belonged to him at the time.  

Note: I edited the overly-long, overly-weird string of texts to show you because, even for the internet, they’re pretty cray.

Here we go…

How nice of him…

and then nevermind.

Brit obviously ends things with Ryan, completely creeped out… yet slightly flattered. In her last relationship, the guy was addicted to drugs. In her latest, he was addicted to ass. In her next… good luck. At least things are looking up. Or down?

Either way, it turns out that Brit isn’t the only one who likes assholes. It’s just that Ryan doesn’t care if the asshole is attached to a Jew or not.

Jenny

The guy: Jay

Jenny is 32 and single, and makes jokes that she’s middle-aged and doesn’t date. Her jokes are funny, which is evidence enough that she’s young and cute, and doesn’t have a problem getting asked out. If she wasn’t, her jokes would be awkward and make everyone feel uncomfortable.

For the majority of her post-adolescent life, Jenny was one of those girls with the boyfriend “she’s been going out with forever and is going to marry.” Until they broke up, seven and a half years into their relationship. It happened in the front seat a packed U-Haul van, parked on the street in front of her apartment in Philadelphia, right before they were going to set sail for San Francisco to start their joint life together. After putting the key in the ignition, Jenny’s boyfriend hesitated and then told her that he’s terrified. The van was continuously, annoyingly beeping, reminding the couple to just start the engine and GO already. They didn’t. And it was over.

At 28, Jenny was living a real-life romantic comedy. Well, just the obligatory beginning-sad-part. If her life were a movie, this is what would happen next- It’s dark outside now because Jenny’s been crying for hours alone in the driver’s seat. A ambiguously ethnic delivery man knocks on the door and with a heavy accent asks, “Ma’am, are you OK?” He offers her the classic Chinese take-out box filled with Lo Mein, which she reluctantly accepts and then eats while she continues to cry. Noodles fall from her mouth, agape each time she sobs.

What happens in real life: Jenny screams and curses a lot, and then goes back to her parents’ house where she orders, and pays for, Chinese food, packaged in a more-practical yet less-charming plastic container, which she eats while sobbing in their basement. Her temporary home until she can find a new job.

Just four weeks later, Jenny decides to leave Phili, a city riddled with reminders of her ex-boyfriend, for New York City, the City of Love. No? That’s Paris. Damn.

In Manhattan, unfortunately, it’s very hard for a woman to find love. The ratio of single men to women is nearly 2:1. And when you’re single and in your early thirties, this ratio feels like 10:1. Maybe it is.

Now, when Jenny goes out to bars and meets guys, she usually finds herself having pleasant conversations with married men, and then later, flirtatious exchanges with the falafel guy stationed on the corner near her apartment building to compensate.

Jenny is cool and pretty, successful and independent. But even the coolest and prettiest, most successful and independent girl need some dating assistance with these sucky ratios. So, Jenny decides to sign up for OK Cupid, unknowledgeable that this is typically not an online dating platform for those who are serious about finding a relationship.

It’s her first foray into online dating. Girl’s got a lot to learn.

Jenny “swipes right” when sees a guy named Jay, who looks extremely handsome and polished in his picture. Perhaps too handsome and polished, as if he’s a J.Crew catalogue model. Later that day, she gets a message from Jay, cutting straight to chase. He writes, “You look cute. What’s your number?” Though skeptical, Jenny decides to put herself out there and go with it. She sends him her number and he texts her later that same day.

His texts are whack, but Jenny, who is trying not to retreat from being “out there,” plays along as best she can. Until she can’t any longer.

Jenny confidently infers from their exchange that Jay is a dumb cat-fishing perv. Clearly, he took a took a screenshot from J.Crew.com and made it his default and clearly, he is somewhat illiterate. Hey, if it walks like a duck, quacks likes a duck, looks likes like a duck, it must be a dumb cat-fishing perv, right?

Personally, I love that she tried to get him to send her a dick pic, for no reason other than to see if he would do it. I also love that she changed his name to “Perv.”

Anyways, in the end, Jenny had yet another dating mishap, this time about online dating for the first time, and continues to make jokes that she’s middle-aged and doesn’t date. We’re still laughing.

If this were the romantic comedy version of her life, I’d say we’re nearing the middle part now, where her dating-bad-luck-streak ends and she finds her Freddie Prince Junior. This isn’t to say there won’t be any more funny dating stories down the road, about which I’ll be very excited to hear, and then document on this blog in exhaustive and probably embarrassing detail.

Molly

The guy: Troy

Molly attends her first charity gala because she’s well-connected and highly liquid.

OK fine. Let’s start again….

Molly attends her first charity gala because her sister is the host, and her parents pay for her ticket. Waiting in line for the open bar, where she spends the majority of the evening, Molly sees one of the most attractive men she has literally ever laid eyes on standing right behind her. His name is Troy.

Molly turns around to face the beautiful man with the confidence of a girl who has gotten her (parent’s) money’s worth in unlimited top-shelf booze, and then insults his sour-mix drink order and intentionally spills some of her supposedly “cooler” drink onto his silk tie. This is a bad idea, and Troy is not appreciative of it. Actually, he is  rather upset by the abusive flirting. But Molly is a pretty 22-year old, and Troy is a way-older-than-she-is creep, so he asks for her phone number anyways.

A few days later, Troy takes Molly out to an upscale wine bar. After this legitimate first date, Troy asks Molly out on more casual dates. Or, as I like to call them, “let’s just have sex at my place” hang-outs.

Let’s split a bottle of wine and watch Netflix.

Let’s order in Sushi

Let’s meet up for a nightcap.

Molly really wants to believe Troy when he says he’s tired from a long day at work.

Or has to wake up early for a meeting.

Or is trying to shake a cold before it starts.              

Or is jet-lagged traveling all week.

Or would prefer some peace and quiet.

Or… you get the point.

She doesn’t, though. So, with the confidence of a girl who landed a date with a gorgeous man after drunkenly bullying him, Molly tells Troy that he better ask her to do something outside of the confines of his apartment, at a time of day during which most people are awake.

Troy follows through with Molly’s reasonable request. Well, kind of. He texts her on a Wednesday at 2:45PM asking if she would like to meet him for coffee by his office, which is more than 30 blocks uptown, and then caveats that he will need to leave to make it to back for a 3:30PM conference call.

Molly is obviously not going meet Troy for coffee, even if his invitation was sincere. Which it clearly wasn’t. So she sends him back a text declining the offer. A text she thinks is harmless.

Molly: “Your apartment would be closer ;)”

The intended meaning behind the text- A dig at Troy for always trying to get her to come to his apartment.

The actual interpretation of the text- Molly wants to bone.

Within the next 10 minutes, while in a meeting, with her boss, Molly receives a flood of sext, yes SEXT, messages from Troy.

A sext trilogy.

A cellular series of erotica.

A mobile novelization of a wet dream.

A soft-core iMessage pornography.

A… you get the point.

Disclaimer: These messages are explicit, and gross. Read at your own discretion. Also, you should know that Troy is Australian, which will explain a few of the choice words he uses.   

Molly doesn’t respond to Troy’s texts, primarily because she has no idea how to respond to Troy’s texts. Her way of dealing with the situation is pretending like it never happened. Kind of like when the guy sitting near you at work almost-silently farts.

Hey. Troy is good-looking, and we all know that sometimes good-looking people get undeserved passes in life.

A week later, Molly is still demanding to be taken out on a real date, and this time it seems like Troy has actually listened to her. He makes an 8PM dinner reservation at a public establishment and tells Molly about it a reasonable amount of time beforehand.

Then, just when you think he’s being a good guy for once, there’s this conversation:

Molly asks Troy if he can move up the reservation.

Troy says no.

Molly explains that she needs to be back to her apartment after dinner to pack for a trip she is leaving for the next day.

Troy says to pack beforehand.

Molly tells him that she is getting out of work too-late to pack beforehand.

Tory says to make it work.

Molly’s done. Finally, done. She knows that Troy just wants her to come back to his apartment after dinner, instead of going back to her apartment alone. Tired of being considered as nothing more than a hot, 22 year-old piece of ass, Molly lays into Troy for being a hot, but not worth it piece of shit.

Fast forward a year…

Molly, who works in advertising, is on her way to a Client meeting with her boss, when she sees Troy standing close by on the same subway platform, waiting for the same train. She dramatically gasps and leaps behind a graffitied pillar, which causes her boss to ask why she’s acting so strange. Molly responds just that she went out with “that guy over there” a few times.

The F train stops and Molly walks into the subway car in front of the one that Troy has chosen to ride. From where she’s standing, she can see Troy through the connecting car door’s window. Molly takes a picture of him sitting there, oblivious to her presence, and once above ground, she sends it to him.

Her boss knows there’s more to the story- the gasp, the hiding, the stalkerish text message- and presses the issue. “What happened?” she asks over and over again. Molly is a terrible liar and shows the text messages to her boss, who surprisingly happens to find them far more hilarious than disturbing.

Later that day, back at work, Molly passes by her boss who is having a conversation with one of the executive creative directors at the ad agency. A high-up executive. When Molly’s boss sees her, she calls her over to the executive creative director’s desk, where she insists that Molly let him read the sexts. He begins reading them outloud, and soon everyone seated near him is listening, like some sort of fucked-up story hour.

Molly is mortified, but she learns two valuable lesson from all of this.  First, attractive people don’t deserve a pass. And second, the only reason she ever wants to be noticed at work from now on, is for actual work.

Disclaimer: This post is explicit, but not dirty, really. 

NORA

The guy: Ben

Nora is fine at having sex, but not great. It’s kind of similar to how she fared athletically in high school. She started on the varsity soccer team her sophomore year, but she would never be able to play in college. She’s fine at having sex because she’s pretty and has decent rhythm, but not great because she can’t touch her toes, feels uncomfortable not saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and frequently and out-of-the-blue becomes too tired and then rolls on her side, and then snores. 

Nora was talking to her guy-friend one day, and he told her something “awesome” that happened to him after sex-with-a-girl one time. The girl, who he said was “great” at sex, took a hot towel after they were finished and placed it gently on his ding-dong.

Later…

Nora meets a boy at a bar, Ben. He’s cute but too poor, so she writes him off early as just a one-night stand and brings him back to her apartment. 

The “too-poor” thing was a joke, so if you didn’t bat an eyelash, you’re a terrible person. 

They have the sex, and then, no more than few seconds afterwards, Nora remembers her guy-friend’s story about the hot towel on his ding dong, and how it felt quite pleasurable. Her guy-friend, though, did not explicitly tell her that the sex goddess had used a real, cloth towel, one with a high thread count, which is apparently essential to the pleasurable experience. Since Nora thinks that she has nothing to lose, having already deemed this male-suitor a one-time sexual partner, she immediately orders Ben to get up and walk into her living room. “I have a surprise for you, Benjamin,” she says, not even sure if that’s what his name is short for.

That last part quickly transitioned from Tennessee Williams (a swell male-suitor) to Nazi-pirate (walk the sex-plank, Matey) to stage-five clinger (“‘Cuz, I’ll find you.”).

Ben, or Benjamin, is groggy and confused. Unless the surprise is that she is joking, and he is dreaming, he is not interested. But he follows the inflexible girl’s orders anyways. Once in the living room, Nora pushes naked Ben onto her couch by aggressively pressing down on his shoulder and then scurries into the kitchen. He hears the faucet running and is probably thinking to himself, “Is she drinking water? Because, can you bring me some?? Also, can I go to sleep now? Please? “

No, Nora is not drinking water. Nora is dousing 8 feet of a Kirkland paper towel roll with lukewarm water, because it’s taking too long for the hot water to come out. She carries the heavy, overly-saturated mass of paper towel into the living room with two arms, as if cradling a soaking wet baby, and then, once her arms are positioned right above Ben’s ding-dong, she suddenly releases it.

Splat!

Ben, or Benjamin, is no longer groggy, but he is still confused. Very confused, in fact, probably wondering why this random girl is trying to waterboard his crotch. “What did it ever do it you?”

Nora waits for Ben to give her some form of confirmation. However, met with no more than blank stare and cocked eyebrow, Nora concedes her sexual-experiment a failure, and the rest is pretty much as awkward as you would imagine it to be.

Nora gathers the heavy, now-cold but less-saturated mass of paper towel, as most of the water has leaked onto Ben’s lower-half and absorbed into the couch cushion, and carries it back into the kitchen with two warms, as if cradling a baby damp with penis water.

The next morning, Ben shockingly asks Nora for her number. On their date, Ben less-shockingly asks her to split the bill. Her total came to $12.

Through the course of my blog’s online presence, I’ve had some fans reach out to me, to let me know that they like what I’m doing. All but one reached out through a Facebook message. They think it’s less personal that way, but little do they know that my Facebook messenger app is always on, so I’ll respond to you, pretty much, immediately.

Meredith: OH YEA, YOU LIKE IT?
Meredith: YOU THINK I’M FUNNY?
Meredith: THAT IS AWESOME.
Meredith: WHY? TELL ME MORE.
Meredith: hello?
Meredith: u there?

Plz don’t stop writing me Facebook messages.

The lone fan to reach out to me in-person did so accidentally while I was out with him. He unintentionally referenced something from one of my blog posts, really almost quoted me word-for-word. Then had to confess to having read all of my blog posts. Then to being terrified of being featured in a future blog post. Which, I realize, I’m doing now. Hey, sorry. Text me?

So, anyways. My biggest ‘brush with fame’ came last weekend. My parent’s have a summer home, at which my whole family congregates during weekends in the summer. My siblings and I threw a 4th of July party last weekend, each inviting a handful of friends from our various walks of life.

Insulated suburban high school, top-rated public university, gentrified city neighborhood, corporate job, expensive hobby, etc.

‘Cuz I’m Slim Shady…

A few of my brother’s friends, who are more than a few years older than I am, confess at breakfast that they read my blog. Later in the afternoon after a few beers, one of them asks how my friend Sara is doing. “Who is Sara?” I ask him. He answers, “The one you write about on your blog.” I know who he is talking about but before I have a chance to say anything, he continues, “You know? The one with the boyfriend who is old-as-fuck.”

This is awkward because Sara is not her real name, but a code name I used, and the real-life Sara is standing right next to me.

It’s even more awkward because real-life Sara’s ‘old-as-fuck boyfriend’ is standing right next to her.

I laugh too loud.

Err, who wants to play a drinking game?

Later, during the ‘official’ party, more than a handful of people come up to me and tell me how much they love my blog. OK fine, I threw the party. And so what they were wasted? I didn’t even know most (one or two) of these fans, they were friends of friends. I felt just humbled by it. lol, nah. I walked around around the party interrupting group conversations to tell them that that I’m famous. If I didn’t host the party, they probably would have made me leave.

One drunk actually-invited guest solicits her third-party guest to tell me a story.

“Wait, MER,” she slurs, “She hazz. THEBESTSTORIEZ.”

I whip out my iPhone and open up the notes app and type while listening to the story like I’m Zooey Barnes working for Slugline. Really it’s just a bunch of autocorrected words strung together. This is what I remember, no thanks to my notes.

This girl’s name is Debra. She is a lesbian and told me about at date during which she and her date got food poisoning. Debra is leaving for Las Vegas the next morning, and because she can’t leave the bathroom for more than few minutes that night, she calls her dad to come over to help her pack. Her dad is supportive of her lifestyle but doesn’t necessarily understand it… nor Las Vegas, nor being a woman in general apparently. Debra gets to Las Vegas and unpacks a carry-on sized piece of luggage only half filled with sports bras, Umbro soccer shorts, flip flops, and a work blazer.

I still can’t tell if that’s funny or not. The haze of fame must be clouding my judgement.

I’m going to be transparent with this blog post- unlike the girl who uploads a flattering picture on Instagram of herself in a bikini and writes a caption about the nice weather- “Guyz, I’m famous.”

KAREN

The guy: Randal

Universally accepted fact: The ratio of men to women in New York City is a bit skewed.
Single-lady complaint (HAY!!): It’s not in their favor.

This story proves just how factual this fact is, and justifies why single ladies (HAY!!) complain about it.

And it starts with me.

You’ll remember that one of my best friends, Sara, is seriously dating a guy in his early 30’s, so I hang out with his group of friends a lot. Last summer, Sara invites me to a BBQ for one of her boyfriend’s friend’s birthdays, at said boyfriend’s friend’s apartment. I accept their gracious invite, and dress like a manic pixie dream girl. You see, that week I was watching a lot of The New Girl and decide to channel my inner Zooey Deschanel. I wear a flouncy, retro sundress and ballet flats. I curl my hair and adorn it with a thick bright-pink headband. I wear over-sized Warby Parker glasses. I look stupid.

Every attractive guy at the BBQ is in a serious relationship, engaged, or married. Every attractive guy except Randal. Randal. I set my sights on Randal and then after some foundation building, we make out in the kitchen. Not because I’m frisky (on second read- I don’t even think that Frenching in a kitchen is considered frisky). It’s because that’s where the birthday cake is, and Randal finds me eating it solo. I was an extra big asshole about it too, because I used real silverware, which I found after opening a bunch of kitchen drawers. Plastic is for peasants.

The make-out is cut short because I realize I’m late for a friend’s birthday party, which is being celebrated at a bar near the Meatpacking District. Randal comes and meets me at that bar later and when everyone is leaving at around 1am, thinking I’m being all spontaneous and shit, I ask if he wants to stay out with me and go somewhere else. He says OK and suggests a place called Raven. I don’t know what Raven is but I act like I do, and casually say OK. As in “that’s chill.”

But it’s not. Because Raven is a nightclub.

Pretty sure the fact that I just called a nightclub a ‘nightclub’ proves that I don’t frequent them often.

I guess Randal ‘knows people,’ so we cut the line, get escorted up a back staircase and are seated at a private table where we are delivered the standard club liquid-buffet: bottle of vodka with carafes of cranberry juice and soda water, and a bottle of champagne.

I’m thinking “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? AND WHY AM I STILL WEARING THIS?!”

I’m also thinking “MAYBE IF I DRINK MORE, I WILL UNDERSTAND?”

However, I don’t understand, and now I’m too drunk. I deal with this the only way I know how- the good old Irish Exit. I run towards the door when I see Randal turn his head in the opposite direction, take a black car back to my apartment because I can’t find a cab (which happened to be driven by the nicest Indian man who felt bad for me because I was so drunk and didn’t make me pay), walk to Key Foods, buy weird sushi, eat mostly all of it with my hands on the 90 second walk back to my apartment, and then promptly pass out once I get inside.

After that night, Randal texts me a few times, trying to get me to go out with him at 11pm on a weeknight to a super ‘trendy’ place, probably so he can take an Instagram pic and tag the location. I stop answering him because he’s lame and I never heard from him, or about him. Until now.

Fast forward to last week:

Another one of my best friends, Karen, texts me: “How do you know Randal McRandalson!?!?!!!”

I give Karen a very abbreviated answer, only because I hate texting- “I made out with him once when I was drunk.” This ended up being a very good response because Karen also made out with him when she was drunk the weekend prior, and actually agreed to go out with him at 11pm on a weeknight to a super trendy place, probably so he can take an Instagram pic and tag the location. (They went to Catch).

Karen texts me back: “Do you not want me to go out with him? I honestly don’t care. Plenty of other fish in the sea.”
I don’t answer because I’m in the shower.
Karen texts me again: “You can honestly say no.”
Once out of the shower, I respond: “OMG. I don’t care even the slightest bit.”
What I really meant to say was “OMG. Please go. If only so I can write this story, go.”

The day after their date, Karen likes Randal and wants to go out with him again. This is because she has on, what I call the “post-date rose-colored glasses.” The rose tint, however, fades in the few days after their first date, and as the lenses fade, Karen starts to remember all of the questionable things that Randal said/did. Once totally faded, Karen decides that she doesn’t really like Randal and doesn’t really want to go out with him again.

A few of the questionable things Randal said/did:

• Randal asks Karen if she has ever been with a black guy
• Randal tells Karen he is 28, but only after he “jokingly” tells her that he’s 39 and sees her reaction
• Randal texts her the next morning that he was so hung over he had his assistant ‘fetch’ him an Adderall at work

Cool, bro. You’re almost 40. I mean “30”.

Back to Karen’s text from earlier: “Do you not want me to go out with him? I honestly don’t care. Plenty of other fish in the sea.”

Are there, though?

Tara

The Boy: Halloween White Kid

I realize that a lot of these stories have been about Halloween. I’ll analyze why sometime later when I’m drunk and get back to you…

Both Tara’s apartment building and the company where she works are located in lower-enough Manhattan to have had their electricity completely fucked during Hurricane Sandy. For an entire week.

Electricity gets completely fucked for an entire week? Tara gets completely fucked up for an entire week.

Ha ha? No? Not funny. Oh. 

More clearly written (or at least written in a way that isn’t so forced just because I was trying to use a pun), Tara gets highly intoxicated every day for a week because she doesn’t have to act like an adult and go to work or make her bed. Tara and her roommate crash at Tara’s older sister’s apartment on the Upper East Side for the week. Like drunken refugees.

I feel like the Manhattan gods were like “Hey UES, I’ll cut you a break. You’ve had a rough couple of years now. Your rep has, like, totally gone to shit. When people watch Gossip Girl nowadays, they probably can’t possibly understand how Blair Waldorf lives there. And no one believes that person who keeps insisting that the area is ‘up and coming.’ So, I’m not going to destroy you during Hurricane Sandy. In fact, I’m not even going to touch you. Gross.”

The Manhattan gods are kind of dicks, eh?

Anyhoo- The week of Hurricane Sandy was also the week of Halloween. Tara and her roommate left their Halloween costume shopping until the last minute, which means that they didn’t get to go Halloween costume shopping. At least in the traditional sense.

Tara and her roommate walk back to their apartment late in the afternoon on the Saturday of Halloween weekend. By the time they get there, it’s pretty dark. Less than 10 minutes until it’s completely dark… less than 10 minutes to look in their closets and see what costume they can pull together with the clothes that they already own.

Time’s up.

Tara’s roommate grabs her deceased grandmother’s short-haired wig, jorts, Merrells, and an Obama pin. Her costume- ‘androgynous, liberal person who likes to hike.’ I think.

Tara grabs every cheetah-print thing she owns, from shoes+socks to neck scarf. Her costume- ‘ [also androgynous] cheetah.’ Duh. (“I’m a mouse. Duh.”)

After Tara and her roommate get dressed to go out that night, Tara’s brother-in-law says to them, “There is absolutely no way that both of you will go home with a guy looking like that.” *judgmental finger point up-to-down*

Really, bro-in-law? Game on. GAME ON.

To end the story about Tara’s roommate ‘cuz this story ain’t about her- Tara’s roommate did not end up going home with a guy that night. Instead, a guy went home with her. To her apartment located in, if you don’t remember, lower-enough Manhattan to have had its electricity completely fucked. He climbed 17 flights of stairs to bone her. Something he probably would not have done if he knew she was only half-decent at boning. Hindsight’s 20/20.

Back to Tara…

Tara sees a boy at the bar who is totes bangable. She makes her move. He is dressed as one of the Droogs from Clockwork Orange. See reference below:

When they exchange numbers, Tara, drunk, saves his number in her phone as ‘Halloween White Kid.’ I guess, at the time, she thought that was a differentiating enough way to describe someone she meets at a bar in New York City. I don’t know…

Tara goes home with Halloween White Kid (‘HWK’ for short from now on). Once in his apartment, HWK takes Tara by the hand and leads her to his bedroom a closet. Huh? Tara’s confused. Then, HWK parts the jackets hanging in the closet like a sauced Moses parting the water in the goddamn Red Sea. And there beyond lies a room.

A room with no floors. With just a mattress bordered by all 3 walls, like a bay bordering land. It’s wallpaper, red and floral-printed. And fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling, illuminating, in neon, the wallpaper’s floral-print design.

While making out, HWK keeps trying to turn Tara in the opposite direction, so that she’s not facing him. That’s cute, Tara thinks, but she doesn’t want to spoon quite yet, (gurl’s feeling Xtra frisky 2night, y’all) so she resists and keeps turning back around to continue kissing him. This happens over and over again. And over again.

Then, a little later, Tara sobers up enough to realize that she’s in a fucking sex dungeon and wants to get out the fuck out of it. Pronto. Plus, she wants McDonalds. Pronto. So, she gets the fuck out of it, leaves his apartment, goes to the nearest Mickey D’s, spends a weird amount of money there, and cabs it back to her sister’s apartment at 4am.

The next day, over a hearty breakfast of shit-they-took-from-their-apartment’s-freezer (hotdogs, prob), Tara’s roommate casually said something that ended up being quite revealing. Turns out, Tara’s roommate, and the boy she ended up boning later that night, both saw HWK make out with a dude earlier in the night. Yet still, they allowed- no, encouraged– Tara to go home with him.

Tara realizes HWK didn’t really want to spoon.

#WhatWhat

So, in the end, Tara proved her brother-in-law wrong. She got her McFlurry and ate it too.

I’m not totally sure that this means that she won…

IZZY

The boy: Wolf Boy

#TBT to:  Junior year of college

Izzy and I were in the same sorority in college. In October of our junior year, our sorority was having a Halloween-themed party, which was standard protocol. Because in college, almost every Greek life party in the month of October is a Halloween-themed one. I personally enjoyed this normative social agenda because it allowed me to fully diversify my costumes- slutty/funny/clever/’group’/inside-joke/alt. slutty.

This party wasn’t just a regular party, though. It was a ‘date party’. And a date party is the best kind of party. For those of you who do not know what date party is, at least where I went to college- It’s a party hosted by a fraternity or sorority, pre-paid for by dues, at a decently nice offsite venue that is attended only by members of the host sorority/fraternity and the guys/girls they ask to go with them as their dates. Hey- Thanks, mom and dad!!

Izzy was planning on asking this super-hot boy from the track team to go with her as her date. But then I accidentally went with him. And by ‘accidentally,’ I mean that I’m an asshole.

Whatever. Judge me. He was BANGIN’.

Izzy was set up with a fellow sorority sister’s guy friend in a frat, who was planning to meet her at the date party. Izzy, who dressed up as a sailor, went a bit overboard at the pregame (LOL) and blacked-out by the time she got the date party, which she ended up attending solo. It’s not that her date didn’t show up to the club. He did. But when he saw how wasted Izzy was, he immediately left.

Before you judge me too harshly for stealing Izzy’s intended date before the date party, Izzy stole someone else’s actual date during the date party.

Except this guy wasn’t a sexy, nationally-ranked track star. No. He was a scrawny, dorm-dwelling freshman boy. A scrawny, dorm-dwelling freshman boy who was dressed as a wolf, invited to the date party by a freshman girl who was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.

Poor girl, now-dateless and wearing an irrelevant costume, made even less relevant.

Not yet initiated into the sorority, the freshman girl had no choice but to stand by and watch Izzy run off with (corner, and aggressively grind on) her canine sweetheart.  And of course, the freshman boy didn’t correct the situation because he’s thinking that he’s the man for running off with (getting cornered, and aggressively grinded on by) a junior girl, no matter how incapacitated she may be.

Fully committed to his character, the freshman boy, who I will further refer to as ‘Wolf Boy,’ wore a horrendous wig, had awkwardly adhered an amorphous-shaped patch of fake fur to his chest and painted very-thick black whiskers on his face.

After grinding with Wolf Boy, Izzy’s costume had some random chunks of fake fur on it. And after making out with Wolf Boy, her face was covered with black face paint. A real good look for a girl who was already holding up so well.

Izzy is now (unintentionally) making everyone around her laugh by drunkenly dancing, or stumbling about, on the club’s stage. This, combined with the blackface she’s now (also unintentionally) sporting, made it easy to confuse Izzy for a bigot dressed as a 19th century minstrel show performer. So, time to step in…

With more than a considerable degree of force, a friend finally detached Izzy’s big ass from Wolf Boy’s small crotch, and then dragged the drunken sailor into the bathroom to try and wash the paint off of her face. It didn’t really work, though. Partly because the paint was stubborn, and partly because so was Izzy. She kept turning her face in the opposite direction as the paper towel, so the paint kind of just smudged rather than came off completely. Only when the paper towel was held down would Izzy look straight at her friend, but only to ask over-and-over again, “Am I pretty? Amy I pretty?”

This is what Izzy looked like when she came out of the bathroom, so you decide for yourself:

You’re probably wondering what happened to Izzy, Wolf Boy, Little Red Riding Hood, Track Star, and myself at the end of the night, and afterwards.

And the answer is, kind of nothing…

Izzy (thankfully, and not without some slight restraining) went home sans-Wolf Boy shortly after coming out of the bathroom that night, and nursed a nasty hangover the next day. She never spoke to Wolf Boy again.

And because there were like 65 girls per pledge class in our sorority, and because it’s a sorority, Izzy pretty much never spoke to Little Red Riding Hood again either.

Track Star ended up ‘trading-up’ to a plain blonde girl who was in the #1 hottest sorority house on campus. And I moved on to his less-bangin’, but more interesting track teammate who had a small gauge earring.

MEGAN

The guy: Tarek

Megan’s boyfriend broke up with her.

She’s 27, and they were dating for 5 years. 5 years.

Megan thought she was going to marry him. Marry him.

Nothing specific happened to cause the break up- no one cheated, there was no blowout fight, no confessed homosexual preference. Plain and simple- Megan’s boyfriend broke up with her because he didn’t want to marry her. Deep down, though, Megan knew didn’t want to marry him either but she chose not acknowledge it, not to ‘go there.’ A decision due not to a lack of self-confidence, but to a known myriad of sucky break-up consequences. Such as:

1. Society’s all like, “You’re doing it wrong.”: Megan’s now in her late 20’s and single, an age at which (really emphasize the air quotes on this one) “society” says you should be thinking about settling down in a relationship, instead of starting over and trying to find a new one.

2. You have to re-define your life, without him in it: Megan’s boyfriend was a huge part of her entire post-graduate life. A break up will essentially put her back in the mindset of a timid 22-year-old experiencing life in NYC for the first time, instead of the mindset of a veteran 27-year-old.

3. You have to learn how to navigate the ‘now-future’ dating world: Five-years-ago, the dating world was a different place. Now, Megan has to learn about these new ‘scary apps’ and social norms. When she talks to her friends about dating, it sounds like she’s your parent. Similar phenomenon to when your mom calls weed “Mary Jane” or your dad’s life is turned around when he puts on noise canceling headphones for the first time (While dad has headphones on- “I LITERALLY CANNOT HEAR A THING. SAY SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.” After dad takes headphones off- “[Insert some joke about using the headphones to ignore your mom]”)

4. Your Jewish mother plays matchmaker: Megan’s Jewish mother will come to the ridiculous and illogical conclusion that she will never have grandchildren, so she will constantly try to set her daughter up on dates.

5. You will deeply upset your Jewish grandparents: Megan’s Jewish grandparents will act as though Megan has personally offended them, upset they will now have to “think of a way to tell their friends” the news. Some of the ways they will tell their friends:

• “Ya know, she’s already lost a few pounds.”
• “It’s for the best, his parents don’t even live on the East Coast.”
• “You know Megan, the granddaughter that graduated from [insert hard-to-get-into college].”
• “I think his family has a history of heart disease.”

After the break up, Megan was like “WAHHHHHHH” for a long time, but then she was finally like  “WOOHOOOOOO.” And when you’re like “WOOHOOOOOO,” you’re ready to talk to boys again.

Yes. That is how I explain the grieving process of the dissolution of a 5-year-relationship. In 2 stages: “WAH” and “WOOHOO.” Simple… and uniformed. Clearly, I’ve never experienced heartbreak like Megan’s.

Megan goes to her company’s holiday party, which started at 1PM. Then, she goes to the ‘after party’ (‘cuz we all know every company holiday party has one) at a cheesy Midtown East bar. One of Megan’s work friends tells her guyfriend (see definition below), Tarek to come.

Tarek is 32. The adult-kind of 32. He’s successful, a sharp dresser, uses hair gel in a sophisticated way, exudes confidence, etc etc. Megan wants to kiss Tarek, so she plays a game that only girls can successfully win- the “I’m younger and less informed than you are, so please teach me something so you feel big” game.

Tarek is a consultant for Blackberry, so Megan pretends like she can’t figure out how to use some of the features on her work phone, so he can teach her how to do it and feel big.

Normally, I’m not cool with this type of dating-game but in this kind of situation, it’s kosher. Izz coo. Typically, said game type involves a dumb girl perpetuating a negative female stereotype to get the guy. However, in this case, it involves a smart, yet very drunk girl strategically using a negative female stereotype to her advantage to get the guy. You see, a smart, yet very drunk girl cannot use her intelligence to get the guy because she’s so damn drunk.

It worked, and Megan is French kissing the shit out of Tarek in the middle of the bar. It’s only 8PM but for wasted Megan, who has now been drinking for 7 hours, it’s the end of the night. And at the end of the night, which is typically post 1AM, this type of behavior is common and those observing this type of behavior are unfazed by it.

Tarek, so consumed by Megan having had her tongue in his mouth, forgot his laptop case, with his laptop in it, when he left the bar. He remembers, though, that he stashed the case somewhere, mid-make out, in an effort to hide it, so that he can fully discover Megan’s body with his hands.

The next day:

Hungover-Tarek goes to the bar, where the manager allows him to go into the back room and watch the security tape from the night before. Tarek starts the tape from the initial peck until he sees himself walk over to the corner booth, and stuff his laptop into the triangular-shaped negative space between the wall and the curved booth. This happens 17 minutes into the make-out sesh.

What happens, at the exact minute, while Tarek watches the security tape  in the back room

• Minute 4: One of the bus boys walks by and sees Tarek watching the security tape.
• Minute 5: That same bus boy leaves and tells two fellow bus boys about the back-room screening.
• Minute 8: Three bus boys are standing behind Tarek while he watches the security tape.
• Minute 10: All six bus boys on-shift are standing behind Tarek while he watches the security tapes, a hootin’ and a hollerin’.
• Minute 11: Now only five bus boys are standing behind Tarek while he watches the security tape, a hootin’ and a hollerin’.
• Minute 13: The sixth bus boy comes back into the back room with a few bread baskets.
• Minutes 14-16: Six now-satiated bus boys-turned-ANIMALS are standing over Tarek, really vocalizing their excitement.
• Minute 17: A six-man loud and uniform sigh ensues.

Tarek leaves the bar feeling fully embarrassed and totally violated.

Things didn’t end up working out between Megan and Tarek (the relationship quickly fizzled, as these types of relationships usually do), but Tarek got his laptop back and Megan, her mojo.

It’s this mojo that helped Megan French kiss a lot more frogs and finally, a year later, land her prince.

Megan’s now married and her husband is the fucking BEST. So suck it Jeff Tinker.

Guy Friend → Dude Friend → Man Friend → Boyfriend

*Developed by the wonderful Whitney

Guy Friend:

A friend who just happens to have a penis. Your friendship with him is as close to platonic as a straight male and female can achieve. You have never hooked up.

Dude Friend:

A friend who has a penis, which you have touched, or at least thought about touching, once or twice before. You’ve hooked up in the past when you were both wasted, but have no intention of doing it again. Unless you’re both wasted.

Man Friend:

A male friend for whom you have feelings, and whose penis you have consistently been touching. You both essentially act like you’re in a relationship but you’re also both very aware that you’re not. You’re incredibly worried about accidentally letting the word “boyfriend” slip during conversation, as if you’ll spontaneously combust if you do so. Your relationship is in that grey area before it’s either defined as a relationship, or blows up in your face. One of you is hesitant to move out of that grey area.

Boyfriend:

A male with whom you are in a relationship. You introduce him as your boyfriend and he introduces you as his girlfriend.