I Don’t Want You, I Want Your Mom

Ah, the many ambiguities and confusions of casual dating/friends-with-benefits. They’re pretty much endless, no? From the ubiquitous scenarios (she wants to get serious, he doesn’t) to the embarrassing (a blast-from-the-past man catches you six months unwaxed and looking like the Bride of Sasquatch) to the plain ..!?!?… (such as I am about to relate)…FWBs are fraught with minor minefields. So much so that I wonder why anyone bothers with them. Until I dabble my toe in the ‘serious relationship’ pool…and then I remember.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. I have a bit of an odd situation with Chris, my occasional FWB of two years. In short, he wants me (this week) and I want his mom.

No, not in thaaaat sense, you filthy freaky dirty bird!! I just want to talk to her. In specific, I heard from her lovely son, that she is a Boomer dater and budding writer of some skill…and since Kim of this very site is looking for Boomer writers (or was; don’t quote me), I thought I should perhaps pass the word along.

Trouble is, I would have to go through Chris to do it, and then I would have to explain why I don’t feel like having sex with him. (Answer. No particular reason. I’m busy.)

I like Chris. I was happy to hear from him the other day…it had been a couple months. However, I was out of the country when I grabbed the phone, and therefore rather quick to hang up, after agreeing to call him the very evening I got back.

(This was just a downright silly thing to ask on his part, by the way. Who calls a casual friend the minute they get out of Customs at 10PM on a Sunday? Nobody. You’re grumpy, been standing in line for an hour, you just want to grab your bags and go home. I don’t know why I even pretended I would call.)

Anyway. Obviously I didn’t call straight out of Customs. Nor did I call the next week. Nor have I yet. It’s slipped my mind, what with work and travel and dieting to fit into the bridesmaid’s dress for my sister’s wedding. And I don’t feel too too bad about not calling, because I figure if he really wanted to hit it talk, he’d call me again. We don’t stand on ceremony.

And then came the thought with his mom.

I almost just sent him a text: Does ur mom still want 2 write bout dating?

But I thought that might bring up a whole bunch of questions and I really didn’t want to get into it, being that I am not actually doing the hiring–just giving a heads-up.

If I’d had his email address I would have emailed him: Sorry have been so incommunicado, ask your mother to email clips to my ed, and I’ll get back to you personally when next available for casual sex.

However. I do not have an email for Chris.

That left a phone call, and for some reason I just balked at making the call. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to chat, quite yet, knowing what chatting leads to with him. Maybe I have more social graces than I realize…to the point where I feel a bit untoward telling my casual fling that I don’t require his company, and am only calling him back because I want to encourage his mother to post her most private, personal business on the Internet for all to scrutinize.

And then there’s the last thing: It’s bad enough to say, “Hey, friend, I want your mom,” (in the metaphoric sense) but much worse to make the probable eventual followup call a week later…”Sorry, my editor took a look at her stuff, and we don’t actually want her after all. Thanks for playin.'”

Hmmmm….no. Maybe she’d consider it the opportunity of a lifetime, but I think I’ll just sit on this one for a while.

Hottie neighbor, I never knew ye

Ah, well, gosh darn and heck. My hot little (not so little–about 6’2 actually) neighbor is moving away tomorrow, and I am bereft. I always thought I might hook up with him some day when we both had the time. But I was always roaming around the freakin’ world, hanging out on fishing boats and at casinos and in various Chinatowns in various cities…and my neighbor got bored of the South Bay, and off he goes.

I wonder what his girlfriend thinks about all of it. She used to glare at me because he said ‘hi’ when we saw each other in passing. She must seriously be Medusa-faced now that he’s ditched her for a $50K pay raise and a change of scenery.

(Girl. A tip from me. He’s 26 years old. That’s what boys that age do.)

When I first thought about sleeping with my neighbor, a wise and jaded former friend-with-benefits said, “Don’t do it. You’ll bump into each other all the time, and if either of you happens to be with a girlfriend or boyfriend at that moment, things will get super-awkward.”

This made sense to me, so I decided not to jump on my neighbor, even though it would literally have taken just one jump: right over the little iron railing and onto his balcony, where he’s always hanging out on the weekends, shirtless, with six-pack abs and dimples and a leftover buzz from the night before. He’s the jock you can’t help but like–the one that gave a damn about school and went quasi-corporate and goes on heli-skiing vacations and is as adorable in adulthood as he was growing up.

I have a weakness for those guys, I admit it. They’re so…mellow. Like Labs, kind of. Yeah, I wanted to sleep with him, but I also wanted to scratch him behind the ears and give him a biscuit. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why it never panned out.

Instead, I entertained vague but enthusiastic notions of introducing him to various girlfriends of mine. (“He’s sweet, he’s tall, he’s got a nice body, he’s an attorney…what more do you want?” I would demand of them.) And I promised him that I would come out drinking, or go to his house and engage in drinking, or that he could come to my house and there we would drink. But when all was said and done, I don’t feel like hanging out with frat boys in my spare time, and he was always in the midst of a pack of them. So…

 Au revoir, neighbor. I can’t for the life of me remember what your name is, but I’ll miss seeing your smile. And your abs. And I’ll miss bumming cigarettes off you at 1 in the morning when we’re both more drunk than we should be. Good luck in your new home…and I hope you find a new girlfriend who’s less of a jealous bitch than the old one.

Oh, and stop dying your hair black. I realize it’s your last vestige of schoolboy rebelliousness, but it’s more trouble than its worth, since your hair is only an inch long. If you really want to make a quiet counter-cultural fashion statement, pierce your nipples. That’ll get me over your balcony in 2.2 seconds flat.