my love life is a broken record

Peanut: i think she, like everyone else around me, is just kind of tired of the whole thing  
Peanut: being heartbroken is pretty boring to other people :P  
Peanut: "what are you up to?" "crying." "how are you doing today?" "miserable." "do you want to do [insert anything here]?" "no, i hate everything."  

Poco: I don't think it's boring, it's sad  

Peanut: it's a bit monotonous

Poco: I'm sure your friends sympathize  

Peanut: i guess. to most people it's weird that it's hurting me so much since we only dated about 2 1/2 mos  

Poco: connections happen fast sometimes

Peanut: but i just feel so hopeless and worthless and betrayed... it's a culmination of ALL the times this sort of thing has happened to me, and how i'd just given up so it wouldn't happen again, and then i met him and had hope and it got squooshed again so i feel stupid for believing anything  

Poco: :(

Peanut: and how i knew going in that it was a possibility bc i knew about the relationship and the recent breakup  
Peanut: and i did it anyway, thinking maybe this would be the time it would be different  
Peanut: but no  
Peanut: it was the same

Requesting Good JuJu

Once upon a time, what feels like a billion years ago, I was friends with this guy D. He worked with some neat people, and one day he invited me to a Saturday brunch with some of these people. They were lovely, pleasant folks, and I connected with a few of them on Facebook afterward.

One of them I've seen a few times since - he came to my birthday celebration, I went to his, I've done some cat-sitting for him; another I haven't seen at all since our meeting; and the third I believe I saw once more, at some kind of company event of theirs - but I'm not actually sure, because I was ridiculously drunk at this particular event. I'm still embarrassed remembering it.

Then one day earlier this year, the third girl invited pretty much every single person she knew on Facebook to her 30th birthday party. It looked like a pretty fun event and I'd get to dress up all cute. I had nothing else going on that night and I figured I might meet some cute guys, even though as we all probably remember, shortly after this year began I basically gave up on dating because fuck that noise. I just kind of wanted to dress up and go flirting. Off I went, said hello to the birthday girl, and then found myself sitting with another girl about my age and a few guys, making small talk.

After a while, I got bored (small talk and I do not get along) and stood off to the side. The other girl in the group and I began chatting and somehow got on the topic of dating. I, of course, rolled my eyes and grumbled about how dating in this city is REALLY fucking difficult and how I have decided not to do it anymore. She agreed enthusiastically (about the difficult part, not the "fuck this" part), and we bonded. By the end of the night I'd introduced her to a ridiculously tall fellow and I had a somewhat shorter guy talking with me, but we kept reconnecting with one another, and before she left she promised to find me on Facebook. She did, and then I did a very un-me-like thing and sent her a message suggesting we meet for lunch some day during the week. A few lunches and nights out later, I'm happy to say I feel like we're pretty good friends and I'm well on my way to feeling like I can really trust her. She's the one who was with me the night I found the coconut.

Don't Push Your Peener on Me

I'm running into a problem lately.

Here's my thing: when I'm in social situations and I get uncomfortable, I blurt things out, I ramble, I generally get panicky and say stupid things. And when am I uncomfortable in social situations? Almost always. No joke. So then I announce, "Ducks have corkscrew penises!" which inevitably leads to me explaining how barnacles have the largest peens, as far as peen size:body size ratio goes, and this is because hey! Barnacles don't move much! This way the boy barnies can just reach over to a girl barney with their peener and go *waggle waggle* (which is weiner-speak for "Hey baby, come here often? WANT TO?") and then sexing happens with minimal effort on the parts of both barnacles, except the part that is the reaching, searching, traveling peen.

There, see? I talk about stuff like that, because it's funny to me, but really, not terribly appropriate. Especially if I've just met you. "Hi. Nice to meet you. Um. So did you know that ducks are rapists?" This is why I don't get invited back to people's houses very much. Lovely low-key party? Don't invite this girl, unless you get a kick out of seeing all your other guests become wildly uncomfortable.

Where am I going with this? Well, I suppose it results in two problems, actually. One, I don't get invited to things. Which is probably fine, since I panic and feel anxious almost the entire time I'm there, anyway, and wish I'd stayed at home with a book instead. But two, and the one I really want to get into, is that people - and here I mean DUDES - think it's okay to bring up suggestive things to me on a regular basis.

Yeah, okay, I talk about peens. But you know what? Corkscrew duck wangs and blind waggling barnacle beacons are pretty de-sexualized. That is not me saying, "Your turn! Tell me about your personal, private peener now!" And it is certainly not me saying, "Please make eyes at me every time we talk and make sexual comments to make it very clear that you want to be in my pants at some time in the near future."

First of all, does that work? Ever? Just randomly blurting to your female friend something suggestive? Does she ever go, "Oh my god, I didn't know you wanted to bonk me! Let's go!"? (the punctuation in that is weird, and wrong, but I am standing by it, because I'm a rebel.)

Second of all, I'm pretty sure that's sexual harassment. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because it happens to me a lot, and it NEVER fails to make me uncomfortable, and I wondered, is sexual harassment just a workplace thing? And I don't think it is.

Sexually suggestive remarks/actions that are unwelcome make me uncomfortable. If I do not respond in kind the first time, don't fucking keep doing it. Also you should probably find a better way to hit on women, because there's a really fucking high chance that it will not work, and now you've made me feel awkward around you forever.

Maybe this isn't true for all women. But the guys that do this to me are guys who know me, and thus should know that if I wanted to have anything at all to do with their nether regions, I would have made that pretty clear right away. And really, I know it's me and I know everyone thinks I'm just this raging boner-loving slut machine who is perfectly happy to jump in the sack with anyone who smiles at me, but NEWSFLASH: that is not me. I enjoy flirting. It's fun, it's light, and it doesn't have to lead anywhere, and I love that. But flirting does not mean telling me I have big boobs, or suggesting that I want to hump [you/him/anyone], or asking about my masturbation habits.

Why don't I just tell these guys to go fuck themselves and leave me out of the whole process and NO, I don't want to hear about it later? Because when I'm in an uncomfortable situation, I feel helpless. Throw me a fucking life preserver, because I'm flailing out here, and I'm not as strong as I pretend to be. This was proven to me in a big, scary way just recently. I'm not sure why, but I can grab some convenient pop psychology to pretend to guess at it and say maybe it's because I was raised with a very strong sense of male authority and female subservience, and no matter how much I may logically disagree with that notion, things sort of get ingrained in you during your formative years and they're difficult to scour off. Plus I always wonder if I'm overreacting, because I do that.

SO. I hope that what you have taken away from this post is that barnacles have ginormously long dongs, and I hope that you're wondering, like me, how the hell the great traveling penis even knows it's reached a lady barnacle. Does a barnacle penis also have eyes so it knows where it's going? What if he bumps it into something that vaguely feels lady-barnacle-like and ends up raping an oyster? I feel like that would just turn out badly for both parties. Or would it turn out great for evolution?

Teaser

Peanut: I drew a bunny on a midget.

Genie: I'm going to need more info

Peanut: nah, I thought I'd just leave it like that.

I brought this on myself

As I mentioned recently, I've reactivated my OKC account. I'm still using it for people watching - not sending messages, not responding to messages. I even changed my profile so that it's completely ridiculous, just to have fun with it. I figured I'd get some really funny guys in with the super creepos that I am now pretty much inviting to my inbox.

Basically I rambled about the game Draw Something and how my friends and I draw penises in almost every round and how I find that completely hilarious. At another point, I talk about pooping. It's just me being as outlandish as I am, and not giving a shit if anyone cares to try to flirt with me because again: no dating for Peanut.

Not surprisingly, I'm getting some interesting messages.

"You're a weirdass motherfucker. Interesting though. Good job ;o"

"What is a Golem penis? This seems like crucial information I should know, as my people did invent the Golem." (oh... um... so I know the character in LotR is spelled "Gollum," but my friend was drawing "Golem" for me and either didn't know the difference or just thought this would be easier to guess/draw, so he drew a penis Gollum. the word was Golem. So on my profile I probably should have spelled it right, but in my defense I filled out the new profile while stoned. Either way. Points to me for confusing someone, I guess.)

Several messages saying how I'm really funny/hilarious and then attempting to join in on the humor by saying something about penises, poop, or boobs, but not actually managing to be funny at all. One guy sent me a long joke about old guys and technology that ended with one of the old dudes walking around with toilet paper hanging out of his ass, so that was at least effort, but mostly just weird because the first 2 old guys had phones embedded in their flesh so, you know... WHAT.

"Your profile cracked me up! Doing stand up yet?" Yep. It's all about peens. And I sit down while I do it. Because I'm pooping.

"Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello!!! .... A lot of people often comment that by just sending that to someone isn't enough to catch attention warranting a response. Obviously my ingenius fix to this is to type it six times instead of once. Hello!"

And then I got 2 in a row asking me if penis size matters. Even stranger: both guys who sent me messages asking that are from Las Vegas, and one of them has now deleted his profile. OKC TROLLS! I have opened my virtual door to them, I suppose.

Desk: Redux. Redexsk?

That's hard to say... redex-sk. But fun!

Right, so. A while back - I think a few months now, but I'm not sure - Desk was back at my office, building more desks with his company. I honestly didn't know they were here and went up to talk to the receptionist about something, and saw him. Almost didn't recognize him because he was wearing a hat and had grown quite the face full of beard, but he waved and smiled sort of shyly at me and it clicked.

The weird part is how long it took me to realize it was the insane amounts of facial hair that made me not recognize him, not the hat. He was very clean-shaven when we dated, and now he was a fuckin' mountain man, but yeah... that ballcap REALLY changes everything.

Later that night, or maybe the next, I was at the grocery store. I was feeling a little... lonely? nostalgic? forgiving? All those things, I suppose. So I sent him a text asking if he'd like to grab a drink sometime and catch up. I honestly didn't have any ulterior motives - as amazing as we were in bed together, I didn't want to go back to that. Especially not with the mountain-man-thing going on. Oh, yeah, and the whole really awful email thing, too.

Anyway, he texted back saying he was pleasantly surprised by my offer, but that he was planning to move to Portland in just a couple of weeks, so was a bit overwhelmed with planning and packing and such. We text-chatted a little back and forth that evening, and that was it.

Until yesterday.

I came home to a coconut

I don't think I wrote about it here, but back in February, I got a delivery of flowers at the office. There was a lovely note attached, reading:

Happy Valentine's Day!
[Peanut], you are a super lovely, super geeky, super sexy and an absolutely bad-ass one-of-a-kind girl!!!
I hope these flowers will bring at least a little of the happiness and sunshine into your day that you brought into my life.
From, Your Secret Admirer

 I'll admit, my first reaction was anger. I'd told my boss the day before that if anyone tried to treat this day as anything other than a regular Tuesday, I was going home. I knew these were pity flowers. Some friend of mine felt bad for poor, single, lonely me on this stupid over-hyped couples-centric day, and thought this would make me feel better. I even accused my boss, because he is regularly trying to bolster my confidence and self-esteem (to no avail, but I guess it's nice he tries). He denied it up, down, and sideways, and finally I was pretty sure I believed him.

My list of suspects was pretty short - I'm not close to many people. And I was totally baffled until I realized I've listed my workplace on Facebook, and anyone with half a brain cell could easily look up the address. I finally had one girl at the top of my suspects list, a girl who is sweet and thoughtful and always trying to cheer people up. Feeling ashamed of my earlier anger, and grateful that anyone cared about me enough to think of trying to cheer me up, I sent her a message saying if it was her, thank you. She neither confirmed nor denied, but I went on with my life thinking I'd figured it out. As another friend said cryptically on Facebook, "the exclamation points give it away."

Then, last Friday, which was Friday the 13th if that matters, I got a coconut.