Dating In The South: Sex and the Classic City

Hello there dears-

 

For those of you who are single, you know that dating in a small Southern town is something that is especially painful. If you’re divorced it seems to be even more so- but that’s not the problem my friend Blair has- that’s my own problem.

 

There will be plenty about me later, but for now I will introduce my friend Blair. She’s lovely, she’s beautiful- and well, I’ll let her speak for herself. I present to you her column from The Broad Collective: Sex and the Classic City…. (and for you with virgin ears, or eyes, y’all might not want to read this one)

 

Sex And The Classic City is a reoccurring series on the site; exploring one single girl’s (mis)adventures in dating around Athens. The author and the names mentioned have been changed to protect the innocent. Everything you are about to read is 100% true.

 

Everyone knows someone, who knows someone, who knows this girl. She’s smart. She’s funny. She’s reasonably attractive. She’s willing to spend more on shoes than say, the gross national product of Uruguay. And yet, she is deeply, deeply, single.

Call me Blair.

Obviously, that’s not my real name but if I’m going to be sharing the disasterpiece theater I call a dating life, I figure we may as well be on a first name basis.

Bored with simply amusing my friends with anecdotes from the front lines, I’ve decided to chronicle my single gal antics here. Bridget Jones had her diary. Carrie Bradshaw had the city of New York. I have you kids. And I plan on telling you every last delicious detail.

This week’s tale of romantic woe begins the same as a typical Dateline special – trolling the interwebs for companionship. Don’t make that face. Don’t act like you didn’t get all awkward and then try to hide behind that organic dog food display at Earthfare when accidentally making eye contact with the guy who forgot to turn on his privacy settings before stalking your pictures approximately 3.74 billion times either.

O wait, that was me. The struggle is real.

Online dating is everyone’s dirty little secret. Whether it’s relocating to a new city, shyness, a hectic schedule or simply the allure of being able to shop-at-home, ALL of us singletons do it. It’s just that none of us actually want to admit that we do. Fortunately for you looky-loos, I have no shame.

So I met a guy. We’ll call him C. C had all the hallmarks of a date-able human being. He’s witty. He’s successful. He’s exactly as darkly handsome as his profile picture, and he was tall enough that I could wear heels without towering over him like I’m the main character in Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman.

We met downtown for drinks and the second our eyes locked I felt drunk. That delicious, hazy, sort of intoxication that starts as a pulsating warmth in the pit of your stomach and then radiates out until your entire body is absolutely humming and you can feel your pulse in your ears. It’s a lot like drinking whiskey now that I think about it. Which probably should have told me something. There was no rational thinking happening though and the parallels between dangerous dudes and dangerous drinks eluded me. This guy was gorgeous. Completely out of my league. And charming. Or as I like to call it – trouble. The next five hours were a blur of laughter, mischievous green eyes, his cologne and . . . kill me . . . those dimples. The only sounds I can even recall were his voice, the clanking of cocktail glasses, and distant chatter. Everything else was out of focus. I was officially a goner.

Perhaps predictably, we ended up at his place and this is where the trouble started. I’m somewhat, kind of, halfway determined not to sleep with him. Yet. I just want to dance on the razor’s edge for awhile. I’m reckless like that. He pours me a drink and I settle on his couch, surveying his loft. It’s masculine and o so grown up, just like him. He sits down beside me, asks me a question he’s not really interested in hearing the answer to, and as I’m answering he removes the drink from my hand, sets it on the coffee table and snakes one hand around the back of my neck and into my hair  and the other around my waist in one confidently languid movement, priming to kiss me. Yeah. So hot. We start going at it on his couch and I am precariously close to just saying screw it and banging the guy right there in his living room. The man kisses like . . . there aren’t words for it actually, and I’m a pretty chatty person so that’s saying something.

The problem is I keep hearing shuffling from what I’m assuming is the bedroom. “Funny”, I thought, “I don’t think he mentioned a roommate”. But before I can spend another instant pondering the point, his hands are back around my waist and in my hair and I can’t even remember my own name, much less something as stupid as if he’d mentioned living with someone.

This is precisely where we begin our descent into what should have been awesome-town. Off comes his button up. Hello, gym-goer, how the hell are you? (Sexy, that’s how.) Looking into a clearly superior commitment to clean diet and regular exercise, I decide virtue is for the freaking birds. I’m also reminded I need to do laundry. Washboard? Check! You can imagine, then, my utter shock and disappointment when I come up for air only to find a slight, blonde, woman standing there starring at me intently.  I let off some really attractive noise like “Baaaahhhhaahhhh!” and C sits up. Before I can utter something completely naive like, “Your roommate is a real weirdo”, C stretches out this hand to her and says, “I brought you a present.” Blondie plops down beside me and looks at me expectantly. “I’d like you to meet my wife.”

“EXCUSE me?!” Oh god, I’m going to die. I bolt up from my seat. Is it just me or is not informing your date they’ve been invited to -surprise!-  a threesome WITH YOUR WIFE incredibly bad form?

I’m walking backwards stammering something to the effect that I had no idea her was married and that I have a very strong preference towards not dying and having people defile my corpse.

Turns out swingers wives don’t much enjoy the idea of springing an encounter à trois on someone either. She hissed, “You didn’t TELL her?” at him. At this point, I’m already standing, ever closer to the door mind you, and more than a little good on drama for one evening.  As they begin to bicker – loudly – I grab my Marc Jacobs bag and practically burst thru the wall like the Kool-Aid man. OH YEAH! I’m gretting the hell out of here!

You know the old adage about all the good ones being taken? Yeah, there might be something to that. Yikes.

I’d love to tell you that that was my first and last foray into the wonderful world of online dating. Sadly for me, but luckily for this column, it wasn’t. Will I ever learn? God, I hope so. Let’s find out.

 

-Blair

 

Well, I can tell y’all…. this is sadly a true story. And just the beginning of more. Want to read more about my lovely friend’s misadventures? Go here to The Broad Collective. And I’ll be sure to leave y’all with more stories about Dating in the South later on, loves.

 

 

Vivienne