You know, I remember it like it was this very morning – July 18th, almost ten years ago, came up like nobody’s business- all bright and full of promise – just has she had predicted. There was nothing to fear really, it was all so very well planned out by my bride-to-be. Every last detail…the appetizers, the perfectly matched bottles of wine on the table for our friends to enjoy, the music – certainly the music, the perfect dinner – oh it was grand. To this day, friends will tell me it was the best wedding they had ever attended (followed by the inevitable and obligatory, “sorry to hear about you and the Mrs”). Maybe that was the problem. Maybe, living up to the grandeur of the wedding – in happily ever after style – was too much to ask of anyone, really. Continue reading
Sex and Relationships
151 posts
A Canadian couple is raising their 4 month old baby without telling anyone the gender.
In an email the couple explained, “We’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime (a more progressive place?…).”
Is this the height of progressiveness or politically correct ridiculousness? Parentcental.ca
Recently, noted drunken degenerate, soulless ginger and Crasstalk contributor Furiously Red wrote an article about how she had penis envy (Here). I found Red’s article both thoughtful and insightful, but it clearly showed she has no idea what having a penis entails. This is my rebuttal. Continue reading
I have penis envy. Continue reading
As you probably know, online dating sites only attract the most smartest and least emotionally troubled people on the internets. And no dating site attracts more emotionally healthy individuals than OKCupid, the free dating site that was founded by awful, awful nerds who should never have been let out of their mom’s basement.
Recently OKCupid recommended a hottie who, in her profile, describes her religious beliefs as “Christianity and very serious about it.” Continue reading
This post was written anonymously and does not reflect the views of the Crasstalk Staff. Continue reading
About a year ago, I decided to give online dating a shot. One of my girlfriends has been utilizing it, and though not all of her dates were winners, she seemed to be having fun. I thought, “What the hell?” I didn’t put much effort into my profile because, really, I wasn’t expecting much. Continue reading
There’s an old adage that says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” But what about close friends who have relationships with people that you don’t like and—more importantly—don’t trust? It can put you in an undesirable position whether you consider them to be hostile to you directly or solely bad to, and for, your friend.
I had a much-beloved friend (I’ll call her Leila) who married a man after dating him for less than a year. Before her engagement she had asked me earnestly what I thought of her then-boyfriend (I’ll call him Robert). I decided to censor my intuitive assessment of him in favor of saying what I thought Leila wanted to hear. So I offered, “He seems like a really nice guy”, and neglected to add, “but he’s also got definite control-freak tendencies and he’s way too possessive of you.”
I’d watched Leila endure a bad breakup from a longtime lover not long before she met Robert. She seemed head over heels in love and I wanted her to enjoy happiness for a change. It was clear to me that Robert was her rebound relationship, but I felt that Leila needed positive reinforcement more than a reality check.
Fast-forward to three years after their elaborate fairytale wedding at a lush estate in the rolling verdant hills of California wine country. Leila spent several years discovering the depths of Robert’s petty, controlling ways. Nothing improved with couples therapy and Leila finally filed for divorce. Their convoluted disagreement was not only over pecuniary matters, but over far more poignant matters of the heart.
Since the couple had never had children Robert manipulated Leila the way that he knew would be most successful, he denied Leila visitation of their two dogs until she made financial concessions that she never would have agreed to otherwise. I sat with Leila numerous times over several months as she cried her heart out over missing her precious pups. There was never an appropriate time to say, even gently, “I told you so”; it would have added insult to injury and, to my regret, I hadn’t told her so to begin with.
In hindsight, I have often wondered if I did her a disservice by not revealing my honest assessment of Robert’s personality from the very beginning. Would it have made a difference in her decision to marry him? Would it have prevented her from drifting away from our friendship after her divorce? It’s impossible for me to say, but I do know that if I had to do it all over again, I would have definitely told Leila the truth of what I saw.
When friends choose friends who are more like enemies, what do you do?
So this one time I got dumped for Jesus.
Not exactly in a sexy way. Well, I guess it’s possible that this guy was fucking some Latin dude named Jesus, but I find that to be somewhat unlikely—I have totally awesome gaydar! He was cute, funny, and made a shit ton of money. I have never been a very good gold-digger, as I tend to gravitate toward men who think a bed frame is an unnecessary expense and who appear to subsist entirely on ramen noodles and PBR. It did seem, though, that it might be nice for once to not have to be the one buying the Chipotle. Maybe even go to a movie! You know, in a theater! All you really need to know about me can be summed up thusly: I am seduced by the promise of stale popcorn and box springs.
As you might guess, two months later, this gentleman began to perform the Fade Out®. The Fade Out is a trademarked move used primarily by men between the ages of 14 and 60. When employing the Fade Out, the man either slowly reduces the frequency of phone calls, text messages, and Facebook “likes” or, in extreme circumstances, ceases all of these activities immediately until the female on the receiving end does one of three things:
1) Remembers something she maybe once heard about him not being that into her, stops calling, and moves on with her life.
2) Continues to call and text unawares until giving up after one month to several years later and moving on with her life.
3) Becomes increasingly obsessive in correlation to the decreasing frequency of phone calls and text messages, until one night she finds digging through his garbage and peering through his windows, since obviously he must be dead or at the very least stuck under something very heavy because it just DOES NOT MAKE SENSE THAT HE WOULD NOT CALL ME BACK AND OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME I AM GOING TO DIE ALONE. Sob!
Actually, I lied. There is really only one response that women have to the Fade Out. It’s number 3.
So, dude pulled a Fade Out. I should really not have been surprised by this. This was a man who paid for his Lexus, house and apartment (yes, I’m a whore for popcorn and real estate) working in mergers and acquisitions for a very large healthcare company. One so large, in fact, that it was my healthcare company. Basically, this is the guy who lived solely buy out smaller insurers so that his company could get a bigger market share, driving out competition and doubtlessly contributing directly to exorbitant cost of the $11,000 tonsillectomy that I had soon after we broke up. The one I could have gotten for $20 from a back-alley doctor in Tijuana. I mean, I could have probably done it myself with a pair of scissors, a stapler, and a very large bottle of vodka, but when it comes to my healthcare, I’m all, “Jesus, take the wheel,” you know?
Oh, right, Jesus. So a few weeks after he starts pulling the Fade Out, I gave in and called him (see #3 above). And he answered! My heart fluttered.
And then informed me that he was sorry he hadn’t called. He had been busy at church because he had Found the Lord®. This is a less-used but also trademarked move in which a man claims that Jesus has become his One and Only while in fact he is fucking another redhead. Guy had a thing for gingers, apparently. I know this because I saw it on Facebook, and the Book of Faces never lies.
C’est la vie, I guess. He wasn’t a good, ahem, fit anyway. (Zing!)
I don’t pretend to know why men love this Fade Out technique. I don’t really know a lot about men, despite having three brothers. Like, why do men always need to scratch their balls? What could possibly make them so itchy? Do they have mites or fleas or something? And why do they believe that putting Gold Bond down their boxers is the Best Thing Ever? If I did try to hazard a guess, I would venture that the appeal of the Fade Out probably has something (okay, everything) to do with it being the path of least resistance. You meet a girl, like the girl, sex the girl up, and things are fine but then one night you find her steaming open your mail or drafting Save the Dates two weeks after you met and you figure that perhaps this is not meant to be. Easier than having some kind of talk is just gradually ignoring phone calls and text messages, hoping that the problem will resolve itself.
Men (and women): this is a shitty way to end things. It is also selfish. Okay, sometimes I have done this, too. But that is because I am a selfish person and probably a hypocrite. Be ye not like me.
Now, friends, I do not dare say that this is the worst way to break up with someone. I’m sure you all have been on the receiving end of worse break-up speeches and actions. Even more, I would not be surprised if you all have done some terrible breaking-upping things yourselves. So go ahead, tell me all about it…
Earlier this week, I was at a divey piano bar, and we were all having a good time. Until they showed up. A gaggle of girls/women. From Westchester. With their boyfriends. Everyone was drunk, and one girl was wearing a tiara (of course). They spent the time being obnoxious, loud, requesting Total Eclipse of the Heart, and then Grease when informed that this was a show-tunes bar. These are the types of women who have watched too much Sex and the City and usually have or crave their own Stanford Blatch to their Carrie Bradshaw. These women dread the phrase fag hag, because it tends to carry the association of being overweight, classless, possibly promiscuous, losers who don’t have anything better to do then hang out with their gay friends and discuss baby names for when they both hit 35, single, and their marriage compact kicks in.
No, these women will proudly let you know that they are NOT losers, and that their Bump-It™ and Prada bag informs you that they are a different breed of girl. There’s always some sort of stupid name they come up with whenever some drunken idiot comes up with “Hey, aren’t you Mikey’s fag hag?” “No, I’m not! I have a boyfriend! I’m wearing a tube dress and a tiara cause it’s my birthday!! I’m a fruit fly/fairy princess!!” Yet, I’ve noticed something missing about these women when push comes to shove. An inner strength that I found in every woman I’ve known who’s worn the badge “fag hag.”
In college, I knew two women who were loud and proud to be fag hags. One of them had the most active sex life I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot. Low self esteem has its perks). One of her specialties was to go out and find a big hulking red-neck and first introduce him to her gay friends, then the gay clubs she hung out with, and rock his world with things he never thought he’d allow himself to do/have done to him (we’ll just leave it at that). The other one I knew was one of the sweetest humans I’ve ever met. She always had a smile on her face, and a kind word. She’s the type that will grow up to be Sharon Gless on Queer as Folk. And that’s a good thing, folks.
Later on, I meet a young woman at a music conservatory who knew how to treat her gay friends. She was pretty, just out of the armed forces, and studying musical theater. She abhorred these bridge and tunnel bitches that come into the city and try and instigate Straight Night at Splash. As she put it, “As a straight girl at a gay club, you’re like the puppy someone walks in the park; you’re there for conversation starters and not to be the center of attention.” I might not completely agree, but I do appreciate that she was willing to recognize that she wasn’t in “straight world” and therefore, tiaras and annoyingly drunk behavior weren’t cute, nor were they wanted. As a gay man, I barely like that in guys that I’m interested in, so when Miss Jersey Ego shows up, it’s just insufferable.
On the flip side, I spent a few months being one of those folks who stop you on the street going “Hi!!! Do you have a minute for gay rights?” (we can talk about that later) Numerous times I stopped a young (or a youngly dressed woman), often carrying an armful of bags. I would proceed to get an earful about how they supported their gay friends (with whom they were having lunch with this weekend, even!!). And they vote for gay friendly politicians! (only, like, every 4 years, when it’s a choice between the Anti-Christ and a hard place) But, as I could see, they were broke (since they just spent WAY too much money on shoes) and they’d love to help, and couldn’t they volunteer or something? (do you have a law degree? No, well, we don’t really need any envelope stuffers, thank you.)
The girl I used to sublet from was one of these girls. Drowning in credit card debt (thus she was trying to sublet her studio apartment for double what she was paying), thought her Snooki hair poof was the shit, wore a hounds tooth patterned coat, dated a total jerk, thought I was super awesome for being gay, but quickly turned into disgust as it turned out that I wasn’t the type to fawn over her. Things got ugly VERY fast. And then she got hit by a car while out on tour, but that’s neither here nor there.
For a long time, I wanted to be liked by these girls (of course, I also wanted to be liked by a hot rich, hung 35 year old millionaire with light chest hair and a . . . I’m sorry, I’ll be in my bunk.). I thought it would mean that I had achieved some sort of level of social acceptance, like I finally took off the glasses and braids and put on a cute slinky dress to find that people really liked me. Only it took me a while to find out that when Josh finally asked me out to the Non-Denominational Winter Dance, that he was just using me for free publicity. While plenty of folks might be nice to that person’s face, at best, we’re all just waiting for her to end up as a Real Housewife, only without people being interested.
So, here’s to the fag hags, the girls who are a gay man’s true friend. The ones who will be there when you’re drunk and high, and can’t find your pants.