relationships

European Vacation

Posted on by akiwifreund

I’ve been able to make three trips to Europe thanks to the generosity of my friends who live in the U.K. – I met C. when he was a foreign exchange student at the university we attended in 1992-1993. C. has always been really good about keeping in touch with me, so our friendship has weathered 23 years with an ocean separating us. He and his family have graciously played host and tour guide every time.

The first time I was there, C. was still a bachelor, and he and his father shared the house in which C. grew up. Unfortunately C. was not able to request time off from work, so his father A. was my tour guide. A. was a charming Welshman who liked one particular pub, so every day, we went to The Cricketers Pub.

It was mostly older, retired folks gathering midday for their whiskey and beer, but I became acquainted with two men who were a bit closer to me in age. One was Michael; I remember he wore a blue and tan sweater and blushed like a choir boy, and I’m thinking he was in his mid-30s. The other was Barry, who was around age 45, and had an unfortunate run-in with burgundy hair dye that he had hoped would make him look younger, but instead gave him an unnatural purple halo. The other regulars at the pub teased him mercilessly.

While the older patrons and I chatted, I tried to draw Michael into the conversation, but with my brash American loudness, I think I might have been too much of a bulldozer for him. However, I discovered that I unknowingly caught Barry’s eye.

The next day we entered The Cricketers, the barkeep held up an envelope and sang out gleefully, “I have a note for you!” That set all of the elder patrons into squawks and chirps – it seems it was the topic of the pub, something to break up the mundane. It was a love note from Barry. He was requesting the pleasure of my company if I had time during my holiday to join him for dinner.

I left A. at his table and went to a shop to purchase blank notes to reply back. When I returned I sat with A.’s cronies and I wrote back to him that I was flattered, but I had a boyfriend and wasn’t available to date, and wished him well. I think the elders were hoping for a little more juiciness. I left the note with the barkeep.

The next day we returned to the pub, and the barkeep waved me over for another note. Barry said he understood that I was not available, but wondered if we could at least be pen pals. I left another note with my address. I did receive a few letters after I returned back to the states, but did not keep up correspondence on my end, so that was the end of that.

By the time I took my second trip, I had relocated to Arizona and had been working at a large international bank for three years. I worked in the tech area, which in 2006 was still greatly dominated by men. I managed to become acquainted with a woman in my area, S. (Her brother is the one that set me up with his work buddy who was still married and tried to assault me on our date.) We became closer when I changed from wearing blonde wigs to dark red ones; she walked past my cubicle and said, “Oh, that one girl is gone, and they hired another one with the same name.” Nope, I was the same person, just a different wig – but that’s hilarious and something she will never live down.

By the time I made it over for this visit, C. had gotten married to his wife E. and they had a little girl together, K.. C. encouraged us to go to the town center and see some live music or whatever entertainment we could find – the next day was a bank holiday, so he expected everyone to be out, even though it was a Sunday evening. He dropped S. and I off and told us to call when we were ready to come home.

We walked up and down the center, but it was very quiet, and most places were closed. We happened upon an old church that had been re-purposed as a bar; we asked the doorman if it was worth paying a cover to enter. He looked us up and down, told us we were too posh for the bug eating contest that was happening, and suggested we try to find a particular jazz bar.

We walked up and down that street and couldn’t find the jazz bar for about an hour until we realized it was closed for the evening. S. and I ended up at a pub, bought one rum & coke (no ice, of course, because Brits do not put ice in their beverages) and then called C. to pick us up. When C. got there he had a loaf of stale bread with him; he said he wanted to feed the ducks and geese while we were down there. C. pulled into a spot by the river and we grabbed the bread and ran down to the edge. By that time we were thoroughly cold and jetlagged, so instead of tearing off nice little hunks to feed the birds at 11 pm local time, we heaved the whole loaf into the river with a loud ker-plunk that sounded like an alligator made a landing. We were ready for that day and night to be over.

During the 2006 trip we also all hopped on a plane to visit C.’s friend J. in the Czech Republic. We planned it so C., his wife E., their daughter K., C.’s dad A., S. and I could spend some time in Prague in addition to being hosted by J. and her little family at their house.

By that time, A. was elderly and had to be pushed around in a wheelchair – no more pub hopping with him. My friends suggested that S. and I run around Prague on our own since it was our first time in that city, and we could meet up later in the restaurant below our hotel.

S. and I signed up for a tour of the palace grounds and cathedral, as we figured it would be a good introduction to some remarkable history. We bought our tickets and sat in a little bus that would take us to our starting point. After we sat, a man with four henchmen entered and sat directly behind me. They all stared openly at me; the main guy leaned forward and asked me where I was from, visibly trying to turn on the charm. I told him I was from the U.S. He smiled and told me he was from Jordan. Then the men rearranged themselves in the bus seats so we were surrounded on all sides. S. and I gave each other side eyes.

When we arrived at the palace gate to start the tour, S. and I lost all of our cool points because we started swooning over the guards. At one point she and I ran over to one who was standing still as a statue and we both attempted selfies without being too invasive. S.’s picture of the guard was of one eyeball and eyebrow, and my picture was of his very perfect lips and cleft chin. We didn’t feel bad about missing our own faces because he was so handsome. Our tour was timed perfectly because we actually got to see the changing of the guard as well.

Our tour guide was a very short German woman who gave the tour in German and English. At that point I remembered enough German to understand what she was saying.

The Jordanian man and his bodyguards became more bold with me. I’m not sure if he was fascinated because I looked to have green eyes and red hair, but he was convinced I was going to be his next wife. The bodyguards started snapping photos of him standing near me. Imagine if you can a very serious Jordanian man photobombing me to make it look like we were together.

S. and I were creeped out. We tried to stay close to the tiny tour guide, but as stern as she was, we knew she wouldn’t be able to physically help us if the bodyguards decided to snatch me. Susan and I linked elbows and kept moving out of the way of the men. Eventually they tired of the cat and mouse game and started mocking us and imitating us with our arms clasped together.

At the end of the tour, the Jordanian man confronted the tour guide and demanded a refund because he wasn’t allowed to enter a particular room in the cathedral. It ended with him being completely nasty to the guide but finally giving up his demand. After that he turned to me and put on his charm and asked if I enjoyed the tour as if he hadn’t at all been unpleasant seconds before. I simply said “yes” and S. and I linked arms again and took off. No one came after us, so we figured he gave up.

At the end of the day we all met up at the restaurant for some goulash. S. and I were sitting next to the window, and who did we spot? The Jordanian guy with the body guards – they were walking down the sidewalk towards the city center. S. and I immediately dove under the table. Our friends were completely flabbergasted and convinced we had lost our marbles. After peeking a number of times, we climbed back up and told our tale. Luckily, we didn’t see that guy any time after that.

S. and I tried to go clubbing in Prague. We left the rest of our friends at the hotel and went to a place that J.’s daughter recommended. We had to take an elevator to the top floor of a building to get to the club. When we arrived, no one was there, and it was approximately 10:30 at night. The doormen gave us wristbands and said we could leave and come back later when it was much busier. We did, but it hadn’t improved when we returned. S. and I decided we just wanted to dance, so we did. Out of the shadows men converged on the outer edge of the dance floor, basically forming a circle around S. and I as we were dancing. After about four songs we got creeped out and decided to give up and go back to the hotel.

After we returned to England, E. and her daughter K. brought us to London for another mini trip. We were one stop away from the infamous Leicester Square. E. encouraged us to go out to the clubs while she and K. stayed back at the hotel. We went to the square and received many solicitations for the various nightclubs, and we finally settled on one. It was the same as in Prague! Hardly no one was there, and when we decided to say screw it and take over the floor, men came out of the shadows and stood around us in a circle while we danced. That was the final straw. S. and I headed back to the hotel.

When we returned to the town where C., E., K. and A. lived, C. offered to drop us off again in the center for one last night out. We turned it down. S. and I agreed that we were not meant to have wild nights out on that trip, no matter how hard we tried.

I returned to England in July of 2012, three weeks before the Olympics. By that time, C. and E. added a son to the family, J. Little J. was young enough that that trip had to be planned around the needs of the family, so there was no chance of me venturing out for some clubbing. At that time I was more fit than I had been in decades. It’s too bad I couldn’t go out and become acquainted with some British future husband(s). It may have been my last European holiday.

Vacations overseas never turn out like they do in the movies, that’s for sure.

To Date or Not To Date, That Is the Question

Posted on by akiwifreund

I hear this sentiment often from fellow “spoonies”: They have given up on dating. They enjoy my stories (thanks, I try!), but they are not putting themselves out there in the dating pool. And why should they? It’s tough. You’re naked and vulnerable and your waves of pain crash into your body so that you can barely stay afloat. You get tired sometimes – exhausted, really – of paddling just to keep your head above water.

But to borrow from Mindy Kaling’s new book Why Not Me?, all I can say is, why not me?

This song from Andrew McMahon reminds me of my teenage years. I didn’t actually go on my first date until a week before I graduated high school, when I was already 18. I was a late bloomer. But I felt free, and I couldn’t wait to live my life and choose my own adventure.

When I finally did get into dating, it was just how I imagined it would be. And by “it,” I really mean the men. The kissing, the making out, the talking about nothing and everything, felt just like I thought it would. I felt passion and I felt heartbreak. I felt excitement. Sometimes I felt like I was on fire.

It has been a very long time – possibly a decade, if I think about it – since I have had a love who freely returned love to me and wasn’t afraid to say it. Though this rare disease has eaten away all of my supposed “good years,” when I am finally relaxed and confident in my own body, I’m not ready to give up. I still think I can have the same feelings I did at 18, even if I can no longer stay out till the wee hours of the morning with groups of people I’ve just met, and then crash on a random couch or floor or bed and trade secrets with a man who is enchanted with my eyes and just wants to hold me and see a little of my soul.

So, man whom I don’t know yet, I’ll meet you at the high dive. Take the leap with me. I promise that I’m worth it.

 

Caught Between a Rock and a Short Bus

Posted on by akiwifreund

The problem with losing every hair on your body, or very nearly (because my big toes are always the last to shed), is that you have to find a way to define your facial features but still blend in with the rest of civilization. My eyebrow tattoos were last touched up almost two years ago and were fading and turning a pinkish hue of tan, prompting me to color over them with a combination of pencil and powder. This is not a durable solution, though. I still have really oily skin like a teenager and usually within an hour, if I go to push my wig bangs out of my eyes, I end up schmearing my eyebrows in the process, so I look like a crazed devil.

It took me a while to find a permanent makeup artist in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area – first because there don’t seem to be many at all, which I blame on everyone being a tree hugger and shouting from the rooftops how “natural” they are; second, because I don’t want to get just anyone to ink my face. I finally found someone who seemed to use the methods that I was familiar with to give me the most natural-looking brows possible, who also has a decade of experience under her belt.

The ride out there via Metro Mobility (http://www.metrotransit.org/metro-mobility if you’re curious) was pretty uneventful despite the dispatch center’s computers being down – everyone just made do. My driver was on time and there was only one other lady on the bus. The ride back, however, was a little more interesting.

The woman who was our driver for the trip back was very, very nice and good-natured. Unfortunately, I realized that she was used to a certain clientele because she was talking to me as if I was deaf instead of mostly blind. She was shouting, actually, and using small words. I was only the second rider on and she had to pick up four more people before she could start dropping us off. For most of the ride I was the only female on the bus. My trip lasted almost two hours.

By the time it was my turn to get dropped off, I was mostly blind. The last passenger we picked up was an elderly lady who seemed pleasant enough when she boarded, but when the driver went to escort her to her seat and strap her in, the woman refused to sit down. I could immediately feel the tension ripple through all of us. We had been on for quite a while, someone in the group wasn’t really big on bathing and we were in that odd space of being too hot or too cold on a winter day trapped in our layers of clothes and dependent upon the driver to run the bus’s heater. We were all individually and collectively ready to pounce on the woman if she didn’t cooperate. Luckily we didn’t have to, the driver distracted her by saying she was carrying a lovely bag; the woman was still confused by the seat belt the driver was hooking up for her (“What in the world are you doing??”). So when the driver was required to escort me to my front door, she just kinda did an “Okayareyougood?Ineedtogoincaseshedecidestoescape.”

I discovered that while I was out getting my eyebrows put back on my face that the financial coordinator from Johns Hopkins had called to tell me that medical assistance didn’t have any record of my request to be seen at JH. Since I had had four separate conversations with the company in charge of my Medicaid and they had actually called the PCP who was supposed to submit the request, I knew that was not correct. I spent another hour on the phone trying to find out who had ignored the notes and faxes on my file that I had sent in myself; I had to leave another message for the financial coordinator to ask her to try again. I really don’t want to piss her off because she is the first person I’ll deal with at Johns Hopkins, so what she does or doesn’t do is going to greatly influence my time there.

The eyebrows, the special request for medical assistance, the stuff that fills my days now instead of a job and trying to plan my next social event, is not anything that normal people can relate to. How can I explain it? I can’t even summarize it all in a sentence or two.

I also had messages waiting for me from two men – one from OKCupid, and one from Match. They are actually both ten years younger than me and seem to be very physically active. I’ve traded messages with them before so I have a somewhat superficial handle on their personalities. I instantly developed anxiety when I saw their messages. One made it very clear to me that he is a fair weather friend; I told him that I thought he would be a fun person to know, but he would become bored with me because I can’t go out and do things like he does. He responded by saying that I should contact him when I’m “better.” Well, there were only about two weeks between his last message and today’s, so this just proves to me that he thinks I’ve got the equivalent of a cold. The other one suggested meeting up in our last exchange. I told him that it had to be in my neighborhood and within walking distance for me, and then he didn’t respond for a little over a week. Today he indicated I should call/text so we can meet up. Does that mean he’s okay with my circumstances, or that he’s hoping that it’s not as bad as I am saying? I’m trying not to let my self-doubt rule, but now I’m fighting the urge to crawl under my blankets and overdose on emo music.

How do I explain having to use the short bus? And dammit, now I have to wait another week to even try to go on a fly-by date with the second guy because my tattoos need time to heal. Right now they look like two greasy, dark, flat caterpillars have been smashed on my forehead because I have to keep them moist with ointment. If I keep throwing these obstacles at him, am I driving away a good date?

Tonight’s music selection reminds me of Heath Ledger every time I hear it (a la 10 “Things I Hate About You”). It makes me sad because I remember thinking that when I saw him in it, I was convinced he was very quickly going to become a star and would be easily recognized – and he did.

 

It’s That Time Again

Posted on by akiwifreund

I’m not talking about Daylight Savings Time (I really think that should be done away with). I’m not talking about burning a yule log and sipping a hot toddy. I’m talking about putting on the most ridiculous paper “gown” and having my girl parts checked.

Five years ago this month I made the best decision I ever could have made and that was to push for a hysterectomy. I had had many, many problems since the age of 19, including some fast-growing fibroids that had taken over my uterus and prompted a quickie biopsy (without any anesthesia or numbing). I remember the doctor coaching me through the pain of that biopsy and at one point saying, “You’re doing good, we’re halfway done.” And like Satan’s wife, a deep, hideous voice came out of my mouth that said, “Only HALFWAY??” By the end of 2010, if I was lucky I had a whole week off every month from bleeding, rather than the reverse being true. So at age 36, I kissed my uterus goodbye – or rather, I gave it a good shove and told it to kiss my ass.

Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about birth control or how to control a flow. But I still worry about diseases, so I requested a full workup from my doctor – peeing in a cup, scraping the “pouch” that was left behind where the cervix used to be, and a couple of vials of blood took care of all of the testing. The person I saw today was new to me, so it was kind of odd that I had to convince her to check me for everything, as if she was thinking I was too old, too disabled or too nice to have had multiple partners – or all of the above. What I didn’t say was, “Yes, I’m still sexually active even though I look like Quasimodo right now. You’d be surprised what guys will overlook with the promise of getting a piece of ass.” A couple of times she paused as if she was waiting for a number. I finally said, “Look, I’ve never been married, and I’ve been single a lot, so yeah, test for everything.” I don’t like to leave anything to chance.

Then we had a conversation about the hair “down there.” She wants all ladies to go back to the ’80’s, when porn didn’t dictate the majority of women under a certain age shaving. She was singing the praises of how the hair kept pollutants out when women weren’t punishing themselves for being adults rather than little girls. I reminded her that I really didn’t grow hair ANYWHERE, and she said that she didn’t want me to get rid of anything – that I should try to keep whatever I could get. I snicker now because the next logical progression if I made that choice would be explaining crop circles in my kitty hair when I’m naked with my next partner. Alopecia makes hair fall out in perfectly round circles; when you have universalis, most or all of the circles have melded into one universal loss of hair everywhere, but I sometimes have some patches. If you have ever thought to yourself, “That dude should just give up trying to grow a beard because it ain’t happening,” that would apply to my situation too.

Today I remembered a doctor’s visit a few months ago when I was waiting in line to check out. There was a kid in his early 20’s who didn’t have much experience with going to the doctor or the intricacies of dealing with insurance. He was bounced back and forth between the front desk and the back one because he really just wanted an appointment for STD testing, but it wasn’t included in his “free” yearly exam as he had hoped; he finally left the office without getting anything done. I could tell he was worried about paying his co-pay and co-insurance. I wanted to step up and offer to pay for it, but I would have violated what little privacy he tried to keep – I didn’t want him to know I heard everything, but I also didn’t want him to walk away without getting tested. In the end I had to let him go. I sure hope he was able to take care of it sooner rather than later.

Today is World AIDS Day. The prognosis has changed greatly since the early ’80s thanks to advancements in medicine, but I’m more than happy to get tested regularly so I don’t end up being part of that demographic. I’ve got enough going on as is.

Duck – Here Comes Another Turkey!

Posted on by akiwifreund

The Quiz Master (previously referred to in “What’s Going On With Your Face?” post) messaged me today and wished me a happy Thanksgiving. It was not his first message to me since he signed off with a “goodbye and good day” after I told him to stop contacting me. Oh, no. I knew he couldn’t be counted on to leave me alone, considering how obsessive he is. The Quiz Master also texted me on November 15th and said, “Hey, how are you?” as if I hadn’t cut him off. As if I would come to my senses and say, “Oh, you’re the best Quiz Master ever, I don’t know what I was thinking in telling you to go away.” He, of course, told me that I was pushing him away just because I am stubborn – not because I actually want him to leave me alone. “No” doesn’t actually mean “no” and all that bullshit, according to him.

I also got a cutesy cartoon from the church guy who went radio silent in “Showing Up is Half the Battle.” This was after he sent me messages saying “happy turkey eve beautiful” yesterday, and before that a message saying his aces were up while playing poker and that he wished I was by his side as he was winning.

Don’t worry, I didn’t reply to either of these jackasses. And in perfect harmony with this post, “A Little Respect” by Erasure played on my Pandora while I was typing.

On a different note, I traded emails with one of my mom’s sisters and updated her on what was happening with my situation. She said she had contacted my cousin, who is a doctor of osteopathy (DO), and he said that the doctors are turning me down not because I’m giving them too much or too little info, but because they can’t “win” with me – there is no way they can diagnose me. As it stands right now, there are approximately 7,000 diseases out there in the world that have no name or etiology, and the majority of them are similar to mine only in that the symptoms are neuorological in nature. I have been in contact with some groups that I think should be able to put me in touch with the proper researchers, and there are rare disease groups that focus on finding resources for patients. However, I’m feeling a bit like I’m drowning again. A lot of these groups talk specifically about patients that are children. I know it’s especially troubling when children are stricken with major illnesses; after all, I was sick for most of my childhood. However, now that I’ve managed to become a middle-aged adult while this particular disease popped up, does that mean that my life is worth less? I had my chance to reach adulthood so am I therefore not worthy of assistance?

Every person I talk to tells me not to give up. I am not sure I can anyway. I mean, I had to give up my house, my car and working – what else am I going to do with my time? But at some point I need doctors and researchers to fill in the blanks. I can’t imagine going another 10 years like this and waiting for technology to catch up.

Today was the first time in about 23 years that my sister, my mom and stepdad and I were actually in the same state for a holiday, so we pigged out at my sister’s place. Yesterday and today were pretty difficult for me and I think it has to do with the temperature, air pressure and humidity; we got snowfall that actually accumulated and stayed today. I had to spend most of the time in bed because of fibromyalgia pain, but also my CSF was accumulating like the snow. I was hoping I’d be able to hang out for a few hours before my brain started being crushed, but instead I began drooping noticeably as soon as my stepdad picked me up, and I had only been upright for about 45 minutes at that point.

Wherever you are in the world, I hope that you can find things to be thankful for every day. I’m working on my list.

 

The Dog Days of Dating

Posted on by akiwifreund

I’ve got two accounts going, one on OKCupid and one on Match. After making one acquaintance and laughing about my crazy exchanges, it really drove home the fact that I am likely expecting too much from one and too little from the other (Match is supposedly where the more serious people go to look for love). So I changed the first line of my OKCupid profile to say, “I’m not looking for a hookup.” I also removed some items and added some more to dumb it down. For instance, my introductory paragraph has bullet points and includes, “I’m a feminist. This includes the concept that no means no” and “I don’t believe in organized religion.” Further down for the section that starts with, “I spend a lot of time thinking about” I finished it with “equality, healthcare, social justice, cats and dogs and why I can’t have them, and how much I want pizza.” Lastly, in the section that begins with, “You should message me if” I entered “- You are a non-smoker (of all things); – You really are single, not looking for a third in your threesome or looking for someone “discreet” so you can cheat on your wife. C’mon, it’s NOT complicated – you just wanna catch you some strange, let’s call it what it is; – We live in the same country. Please, no penis pictures. Seriously.”

So the first message I get after my revisions is from a guy with one photo where he looks like a total mouth breather, 34:
Him: How are you doing today? I would love to talk with you more. You are very beautiful by the way 🙂
Me: Hi, thanks. What would you like to chat about? What style of literature do you normally read?
Him: I read all sorts of books. What are you doing today?
Me: Today is laundry. If you are going to say “Let’s do something,” I have to warn you – I can only be upright for about 30 minutes, tops. We could probably do a high five on the sidewalk. 🙂
Him: Why only upright for 30 min?
Me: Super rare brain disease.
Him: Well we could have fun lying down? Lol
Me: Nope, not looking for a hookup. That was just a line about wanting to chat, huh?
Him: Why no sex
Me: Am I just here on this earth to fulfill every man’s fantasy and whim? No. You want to stick your dick in me without treating me like a fellow human being with value. I’m not interested. After that he blocked me. I am just going to assume it’s because he’s trying to stop himself from making the same stupid mistake again because he won’t remember soliciting me for exactly the same thing I specifically said I didn’t want.

Man, 50, lives 80 miles away:
Him: you want to take me out to lunch your treat
Me: Aerosmith, “Dream On.” It’s my song gift to you.
I blocked him. I didn’t have the energy to educate him on how to score.

Man, 39, local:
Him: Wow…..you are absolutely gorgeouz!! I wish I was your type.
Me: Thanks. So why aren’t you my type? Would you be mean to me, or try to send me inappropriate pictures? Or rub your cats in my face and send me into anaphylactic shock? (He has a couple.)
Him: None of the above…I’d actually treat u like a queen….but I’m sure my cats would cause an issue……hence..not ur type??
Me: Yeah – I looooove cats (and dogs), but have to take four meds and only hang out for two hours, tops. Maybe in my next life I can have pets. 😦 So best wishes to you in your search!
Him: Well….I could always,come over…undress and.hang out. No cat then. 🙂
Me: Would it surprise you to know that’s not the first time I’ve heard that offer?
Him: No….but I’m sure I’m not gonna be the first you say yes to though…
Me: Well, that got weird.
Him: Lol….how so?
Me: It’s never fun to be on the receiving end of implied sluttery.
Him: Oh…no…I was implying the opposite my dear. That you have yet to accept an offer…
Although I’d dig being the first….
After 8 hours:
Guess not
I didn’t bother responding. How would you respond if he acted the exact same way he claimed he wasn’t acting? It boggles the mind.

Kid, 26, 80 miles away:
Him: Hi you’re sexy
(I’m marginally impressed that he knows the proper usage of “you’re” but not enough to reply)

Man, 48, local:
Him (obvious copy and paste without reading anything about me): I am a single father, a bit shy at first. New to the dating scene. I actually look forward to just meeting and getting to know someone, I want that someone to enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs. I do not like to play games, I like honest and sincere people Have a blessed Day…
Me: Hi, honesty and sincerity are great. Is your work winding down for the winter, or do you stay busy with projects?
Him: am off work for Now … How Are you doing ? would you like to txt me .. i don’t get don’t the site that much ….. what’s your name Beautiful
Me (cringing at being called “Beautiful” – not at all sincere – and the “blessed day” already rubbed me wrong): I’ve had a few stalkers, not comfortable with immediately giving out my cell.
Him: I understand How you feel … i can see you real an honest and open minded woman … and that what i want in my woman … what do you like doing sweet woman
With only 45% of our answers being marginally close and 70% flat-out enemies, I am going to let him pass me by.

Then I got a message from a man, 30, and in the U.K., and I immediately went on high alert:
Him: hello how are you today?
Me: I’m okay, how are you?
Him: im doing well thank you
just back home from work
i ve had a long day
Me: Ah, you’re working late!
Him: a little bit but have u seen that im living in england and im just having a trip soon to MN and lookining for friends and maybe more….
Me (really, really frustrated at this point): Ah. I’m not open to a hookup or a long distance romance. I’ve got a lot going on with my health right now.
Him: what are u looking for in here ?
Me: I’m looking for a long term relationship. What about you?
Him: im same really just its not easy o meet the right one
After this, I decided to put away my baseball bat before I smashed my computer to bits and give him a chance. We actually had decent conversation and it seems like he is sincere, but obviously I don’t know him at all, so I’m still on guard.

Man, 38, Philadelphia:
Him: hi how r u
Me: I’m fine.
Him: Don’t let the distance fool u I get to fly for free
Me: So, whose photo are you using for this site?
Crickets. I did a reverse Google image search and found that he had downloaded some photos from a bodybuilder’s site who was in the UK competing at the same time we were chatting.

Lastly, I got a message from someone that I knew 24 years ago. My gut reaction was to say “CRAP!!!!” because I’ve never lived in a city long enough to have my past come back to me like that. Now that I’m back in my old stomping grounds, I have to reconcile concepts like my family being fully aware of my dating life, and for previously-known people to find me again. I asked this guy about what his experience has been on OKCupid, and he said he’s had bad luck. I commiserated with him and told him that a lot of guys were just approaching me for sex, and he said he was getting the same thing from the ladies. (Really???? Man, I have a hard time believing that. I mean there’s always going to be the ones who have been married for 20 years and want some action, but I don’t think that’s all of us. Maybe I’m naiive.) He told me that not all men were just looking for sex. I then reminded him that he messaged me out of the blue about 2 years ago on Facebook to tell me that he was horny after we hadn’t talked for 20 years. His reaction was, “Oh, sorry about that – I must have been a little drunk.”

The quest continues!

 

 

On Love and Loss

Posted on by akiwifreund

“The Anatomy Bequest Program at the University of Minnesota is is a whole body donation program.” As my family found out on Tuesday night, it is also the largest in the world of its kind. http://www.med.umn.edu/research/anatomy-bequest-program

I have always grappled with organ donation – but only because I’m not able to, ever. I want to. But thanks to all of this autoimmune stuff swimming around in me, and my eyes being damaged from the pressure being placed on my brain from this mystery disease, there isn’t any part of me that is safe to transplant into another person. This anatomy bequest program seems like the next best option. I envision baffling some of the medical students with my weird disease – or maybe they open me up and immediately figure out what the problem was, and it was nothing that could have been detected with scans. My brain will be sliced and sectioned and labeled for its “A-ha” moment, and I’m perfectly fine with that.

I sat with my sister and her little family, and we knew our brother-in-law and another family member were somewhere in the audience. We were in an auditorium on the U of MN campus to watch a show put on by students and staff as a thank you to the family members of the people who had passed and donated their bodies at death. I knew it was going to be a tough night. I could feel the sadness rolling off of the people around me and I immediately started choking up. I had tears during the first performance, a pianist playing a Debussy piece. A little of the tension was relieved when it was announced that a trio was going to perform a Lynyrd Skynyrd song and an old hippie in the section next to me let out a gruff and enthusiastic “All right!”

The performers took a break and a slide show began. Each donor was being shown in pictures chosen by their spouses or families, with Joni Mitchell’s version of “Both Sides Now” playing. I knew our sister was going to be there on the screen very early on alphabetically and the tears came again. After her time in front of the crowd, I just closed my eyes for a while. People around me were sobbing quietly. I have no idea how recent their loss was, but it really doesn’t matter, because we were all there for the same reason. We loved our people.

The performances continued after the slides made it through the L’s; one poetry reader encouraged us to hold hands with the people next to us while she read her poem about hands. I could feel my older sister and I freeze at the same time, uncomfortable with the suggestion. I leaned over to my sister and whispered, “I’m good.” We weren’t the hand-holding types.

After more performances, the slides continued with the rest of the donors. I’m not sure when it started, but as each picture was displayed, these little groups of people would clap when their person was shown. Some whooped a little; one woman yelled out, “We love you, mom!” There was more sniffling and sobbing, more tears. My sister and I were surprised to see a former classmate’s picture at one point – she had died only about 2.5 months prior from breast cancer. I imagined that her parents were somewhere in the mass of people, also proud and incredibly sad.

It turns out that our brother-in-law was just in the next section and so after the auditorium started emptying, he came over to us. He has always been a jokester, so it was especially heartbreaking to see him openly crying. He apologized when he hugged me, which is what we all do when we think we have to hide our pain. He is the one I worry about the most. He is now alone in his big house, a home that has so much of our sister still in it. She had MS and was confined to a wheelchair for most of their marriage, and the house was modified to accommodate a wheelchair and scooter. He cared for her, turned her, carried her when she needed help getting to the bathroom. They were each others’ best friends. He couldn’t even take much time off from work to mourn her because he had used up all of his allotted time to make sure she was comfortable in her last two months while cancer took over.

I know our brother-in-law mourns deeply. I am having a hard time finishing this post because the grief keeps crashing into me in waves, and I have no doubt that he feels it more than any of us. My singular wish for him is that he will be able to find someone to love again when the time is right. I don’t like the idea of him holding onto the memory of our sister for the rest of his life and turning away from another great love, and I don’t think that is what she would want for him either.

I am grateful to the U of MN for having this program that allowed us to come together and celebrate the giving and joyful heart of our oldest sister.

Paper Doll

Posted on by akiwifreund

Warning: Read at your own risk. Adult situations discussed.

Okay, so we know about Mr. Friday Night and his toe and pantyhose fetish. I did him a solid and dressed up and painted my toenails to his specifications. It wasn’t that big of a deal as far as fetishes go – not like he asked me to shear a sheep so we could screw on some real lambswool.

Another guy on OKCupid caught my eye. I was actually looking forward to chatting with him because according to the algorithm, we answered over 90% of our questions the same (or similar enough). His profile had enough funny stuff to show that he had a good sense of humor, and we had a love of the arts, board games and museums in common. Pretty promising, right? So I struck up a conversation with him, and during the course of chatting, I discovered he was a brass player. I’m going to christen him Gabriel.

Gabriel wasn’t very forthcoming with info about himself when I would ask him open-ended questions. He would give me one or two-word answers, or it would take him a long time to answer. Then he started dipping his toe into the sex pond, and he couldn’t stop talking.

At first Gabriel wanted to know if I liked to cuddle, and I answered yes. Then he started asking me about my favorite sexual acts. I informed him that I had a FetLife page and he revealed to me that he did as well, so we checked out each others’ pages. Gabriel then confessed to me that he wasn’t really single, like his profile said – he was separated, and he claimed that he was living with his parents and his wife and kids were living in the house. However, he assured me that there was no going back and that divorce was a sure thing. We talked more about our likes and dislikes, and Gabriel admitted that he had only been intimate with three women. My number is nowhere near his – I mean, I have never been married, and for the majority of my adulthood I haven’t been in a relationship. We had a chat about STDs.

Eventually we worked out a date night. At first it was on the premise of cuddling and a movie. Then it evolved into him asking if we could do certain things. Gabriel also specified what he would like me to wear – which included a skirt, pantyhose and heels. Luckily for him I had gotten two pairs of pantyhose because of Mr. Friday Night, so I could accommodate that request. I told Gabriel that if his penis was going anywhere near me, he had to tell me his last name.

The first time we got together was very nice. We did cuddle, and we both got some action. He reminded me a lot of the guy who plays Kelly Severide on the show “Chicago Fire,” though a bit beefier. When we were done messing around, we laid in bed and laughed and talked, and Gabriel did his impression of Christopher Cross/Michael McDonald/Peter Cetera, which he admitted sounded like the same guy. We discussed his frustration at not being able to find a job that matched his degree, and I offered to put some feelers out with my friends. It’s just the sort of exchange you’d expect with friends with benefits, which is what I assumed this would be, since I couldn’t go on real dates with him.

The second time he came over, Gabriel asked if I could do some very specific things he wanted to try that he had listed on his Fet page. I will just be clear and say that it was stuff he wanted me to do to him, not with him. Gabriel also asked me if I could wear a specific undergarment, and since I had it in my possession already, I obliged. He asked me if I would ever try some of the things that he wanted to, including three-or-moresomes and anal sex, and I told him I had tried them – many times – and I wouldn’t do them anymore. First, I’m not attracted to women. Second, my health problems extend to my bowels and anal sex is painful. So keep in mind that this conversation about my hard limits happened face to face. Gabriel left after what he wanted to happen happened. I gave him a smooch and told him it was okay, he’d get me the next time.

Between the second and third dates, we chatted via text a few times, but it was only late at night, and he would only talk about sex. Gabriel would ask things like, “Do you ever just walk around your apartment naked for no reason?” I told him no, it was never for no reason – usually I was changing clothes or hopping in the shower. Then he would ask me if I was playing with myself. I get weary of being asked the same questions every time a guy talks to me, so I stopped playing along – I didn’t pretend that I was doing that just to make him happy. I even reminded him a couple of times that I was a whole person, not just interested in sexual acts. I mean, for Pete’s sake, we had a lot of common interests.

For our third get-together I didn’t have to wear any specific clothing, thank goodness. We messed around (no p-in-the-v, but honestly, that’s not the only sex act as far as I am concerned), and had another talk about my hard limits. Gabriel said that the next time he came over, he thought it would be nice to just watch a movie, and I agreed.

Gabriel’s texts became further spaced out; sometimes I would send him a quick note to joke about something that popped up in the news that we had discussed. He would only text me to ask me if I was playing with myself. Then he started only asking me one word at a time: “Anal?” “FFM?” “Swallow?” My tolerance level is pretty low, especially if I have to repeat myself. I know what guys think, which is that if they ask the same question enough times, eventually they will wear us women down into agreeing to do stuff. After I said no, Gabriel had the balls to tell me that maybe I would like that stuff if I tried it – as if our numbers were reversed and I had had three partners, and he had…not three.

I finally texted him back to say, “Look, I have tried what you have listed, and I’m not going to do it.” Then I told him, “I feel like we get along well enough, but now you’re listing stuff that we have talked about that I’ve already told you that I am not interested in revisiting. I don’t want to hold you back if you want to find someone to help you check these things off your list.” Gabriel hates anything that is not “Minnesota Nice,” meaning he would have preferred me to agree to do these things to fulfill his porn-driven fantasies, or to lie to him and tell him that I would do them eventually. So Gabriel has cut off all communication to me.

My prediction for Gabriel: He and his wife are going to resume their marriage “for the sake of the kids” after he has checked everything off his list. And they’re going to hate each other.

I have been chatting with another guy from OKCupid who had actually hit me up on FetLife first. Here’s the kicker: he has a foot fetish too. So one of the first things he asked me to wear if we met is a skirt, pantyhose and heels.

My only conclusion I can come to is the reason these poor, deprived men in Minnesota crave heels and pantyhose is because it’s thirty below zero all of the time and it’s not safe to walk in heels in snow and ice. Snow boots are decidedly less sexy.

Please enjoy this song by one of my favorite singers, Rachael Yamagata. Every time a man asks me to dress up to his specifications, I feel like a paper doll.

Netflix ‘n Chill

Posted on by akiwifreund

Minnesota is a pretty great state to live in right now. There’s lots of resources – especially in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area – and a push towards smarter and greener living. Unemployment is super low. I have forgotten what it’s like to be around nicer people (rather than worrying about being shanked), so I find myself thinking often, “Wow, that person is so nice!” Don’t worry, I know about “Minnesota Nice” – but usually I’m on the giving end of it, not the receiving end. On paper, it would appear that I wouldn’t have any trouble at all finding a match, because there are a good number of people with shared values.

However, I’m that person. I can’t go out on dates. I can’t join someone for a bike ride and a hike. I can’t say that I have to work until 6 pm, and then can we meet up for dinner later? I can’t go out on multiple dates with someone and then decide he’s not a match for me, and never have him know where I’m living in case he turns out to be stranger danger.

My only option left, really, is to tell dates they can come over to my place to, you know, watch Netflix and chill. Except every one of them thinks that I want to bang. I don’t!! It looks bad, I know. My apartment is a studio so the couch I have for visitors is in very close proximity to my queen-sized bed, so even if I told a date that I didn’t want to have sex, THERE IS MY BED, calling like a siren song.

I want to go out with men who are active and enjoy movies, wine tastings, art festivals, live theater and traveling, but those are the ones that do a crab crawl backwards away from me. Instead, I get messages on OKCupid from guys like Alex (age 28), who wrote two sentences to me, didn’t answer any of my questions, and then a week later said, “Hey, how about after work we have a lazy evening on the couch and watch shows?” I said, “You mean, ‘Netflix and chill?'” He said, “Does it sound better if I say that?” and I said, “No. I’m not interested in sextracurricular activities.”

On the flip side, someone whose junk has been up close and personal texted me a hello and asked what I was up to, then said that watching a movie sounded really nice. I asked if that was code for Netflix ‘n chill, and he said, no, he really did want to veg out and watch a movie. See? Sometimes men can act like normal human beings and not try to hump everything in sight. I’m guessing we have to put you on a 60+-hour-workweek first, though.

So, anyone wanna come over for Netflix ‘n chill, but not?

What’s Going On With Your Face?

Posted on by akiwifreund

This morning I woke up and said to myself, “I’m going to urgent care.” Not for fun, mind you – I have been having horrendous heel pain in my right foot and haven’t been able to bear weight on it; I couldn’t even stand to rest it on top of my covers to sleep at night. Nothing has helped either, including ice and ibuprofin. Getting my shoes on took seven tries and a few tears.

I also had conversations I’ve had many, many times. The first was with the nurse. As we were talking about my meds and allergies, she said I was lucky to have a cane handy to help me with walking through this problem, and I told her I use one anyway because of vertigo, and warned her that I could feel the CSF pooling and starting to press on my nerves. I had been laying down until right before the cab picked me up, so I looked normal when I first hobbled through the door. She was watching my face as it became paralyzed and asked, “So you have Bell’s palsy, right?” I answered, “No, it’s not that, and it’s not Myasthenia Gravis or anything else you’ve heard of. It’s a rare condition without a name and I can’t get a diagnosis. But that’s okay, I really want to find out what’s happening with my foot right now, I don’t want to unload all of the stuff about my CSF issues on you.” We finished up with the vitals and she left to get the doctor.

He came in, introduced himself, and said, “I understand you’re here for foot pain. My nurse filled me in with that and gave me background on your really big issue. What’s going on with your face?” I explained briefly that it is yet undiagnosed, and that the latest of a series of rejections from the Mayo Clinic to see me came from a neurologist and a neurosurgeon stating that what I had is so rare that they wouldn’t be able to diagnose me or treat me. But then I said again, “It’s okay, I don’t expect you to do anything about that. I would really like to try to figure out what is wrong with my foot.”

I went through a couple of cab rides for nothing, it turns out. The x-ray didn’t show anything wrong with the bones and that’s as far as they could go with imaging. The doctor offered me a walking boot, but I declined – I don’t want to set my foot down at all because of the pain, it’s not a stability issue. Well, okay, that’s a problem too because of my vertigo and penchant for leaning to the right because of my imbalance, but we’re not trying to stabilize the bones. He also offered me some opioid painkillers but I declined those as well. His conclusion: it’s a nerve problem. Unless there’s something wrong with the soft tissue, which can only be checked by MRI. Either way, I have to wait until Monday to see what the next neurologist says.

For the entire time that I was dealing with that, I was getting bombarded by texts from a guy I met on OKCupid. He is an H1B transplant from India whom I will call Quiz Master. Quiz Master is quite a bit younger than me – 28 years old. At first when he approached me online, I was extremely cautious because I am not attracted to younger men at all. He seemed okay, though, because he was actually asking thoughtful and non-standard questions, and he wasn’t trying to get in my pants or show me his penis. Still, though, I knew that culturally we would be very different.

Quiz Master would ask me questions, sometimes four or five in a row, and I would try to answer as quickly as I could, but I’d only be able to type up one answer and he would throw another five at me. He would then say, “But what was the answer to the question I asked you before?” I’d have to scroll through a bunch of stuff to figure out what he was talking about. It was very tedious. And then he’d say, “Now you have to ask me something,” while I was still trying to answer his questions that he insisted that I answer. Sometimes he would message me days later and say something like, “I’m still waiting for your answer.” A couple of times I had to tell him I had no idea at that point what he had asked because we had moved forward with the conversation.

Against my better judgment, I agreed to give him my cell number, because, again, he wasn’t trying to get in my pants. Quiz Master asked if we could meet, so I told him why I wouldn’t be able to go out on a traditional date, though that would be my preference (as opposed to having a parade of stranger dangers through my apartment). Quiz Master first told me that if I went to bed that night, every day that I got up I would feel better and better until I’m cured. I told him that applies to things like having a cold, but has absolutely nothing to do with what I have going on. Then he told me that I had to be positive and that if I keep up my hope, I would be fine. Rather than telling him to screw himself, I told him that he should try that experiment, but that his mission was to make his eyes turn from brown to blue. If he didn’t succeed, then it would be his fault for not hoping hard enough.

So Quiz Master said fine, let’s not talk about that anymore, and then he proceeded to bombard me with questions again. I think he was really embracing his role as an enthusiastic questioner way too much, because he would ask things like, “Are you different from when you were little? Why and in what way? Do you think growing up made you think of things different? How do you think you think different?” (I’m slightly improving the grammar he used – you get the picture.) I finally asked for a break because I really don’t like to text. Quiz Master said, “Oh, but we’re getting to know each other. You are doing fine.” That really grated on my nerves because I wasn’t asking for his approval on my texting skills, I just wanted to take a break from the hundreds of questions he was insisting I answer.

Since Quiz Master also found out that I don’t work, he started texting me all day, every day, for about five days. If I didn’t respond right away, he would send me repeated messages saying, “What are you doing right now?” I started avoiding reading his messages for a few hours so he couldn’t see the “read” stamp. It was taking just way too much effort – he would hound me if I answered, and he would hound me if I didn’t. Then Quiz Master started asking if he could come over. Actually, he was asking if I could ask my parents if he could come over. I was starting to lose my cool. I said, “I don’t live with my parents and I never said that I live with my parents. Why do I have to ask my parents if it’s okay for you to visit?” Quiz Master said that he just assumed that I did because I’m single. <insert eye roll> Huge cultural gap right there.

Then he switched up his questions, saying that he wanted to play a “game” with me: we could say an actor’s name, and see if the other person is familiar with the actor and if they like them or not. I only tolerated about three actors from Quiz Master and then said I don’t like texting all day, every day, and that I wanted to take a break. Again, he told me I was doing “fine.” Finally, I told him that I don’t like to constantly text anyone for hours, and that I wanted to not text with him for a few days. Quiz Master said he wanted to call me then. I told him no, that I didn’t want to talk at that point either, and that I really wanted to get some stuff done.

Quiz Master waited all of twelve hours to start hounding me again. Did I get done what I wanted to do? What was I doing right then? How about a few minutes later? Why wasn’t I answering him???? He’s JUST TRYING TO GET TO KNOW ME. I’M DOING FINE. DID I FEEL BETTER? I MUST BE FEELING BETTER BECAUSE I WENT TO SLEEP. I HAVE TO TALK TO HIM. He was getting really, really demanding.

I started getting a feeling like I couldn’t shrug his arm off from around my shoulders, weighing me down like a yoke. I couldn’t breathe. In fact, I was suspicious that he somehow got lodged UP. MY. ASS. And I just do not enjoy that at all.

Quiz Master bombarded me with texts the next morning again, asking me exactly where I was and what I was doing. I told him that I was at a doctor’s appointment. He offered to pick me up so we could meet and visit. I told him no, I was exhausted and uncomfortable, and did not feel that it was the best time to meet. He told me that it would be a good time to meet. I told him no, I didn’t want to. Then he started asking me the stupid actors’ questions again and insisting that I ask him more questions. I told him that I needed to rest and I didn’t want to text anymore. Quiz Master gave me six hours, then started in again. I seriously wanted to kick him across a field like a football.

This morning, when I got the now-familiar text telling me to tell him exactly what I was doing, I responded by telling him that I no longer wished to pursue any relationship with him, and that I wished him well. Quiz Master then sent me 16 texts about how he was respecting my space but I had to answer him, and we were just getting to know each other, and he still wanted to come over – oh, and, did I think he was trying to have sex with me? I simply wrote back, “Knock it off.” His last two messages to me were that he was assured that he didn’t do anything wrong, and that he wished me a good day.

Obsessed much, Quiz Master? I suppose I’ll have to be looking over my shoulder for a while. Good thing I don’t have a pet rabbit for him to surprise cook for me.