twenty six and plenty sex.

i turn 26 on sunday. i didn't fully process this until i was unpacking things in my room and wondering what my birthday theme should be. Smurfs. Thunder Cats. Muppet Babies. All 80's cartoons. FUCK. I'll be 26 soon. then i got to thinking about my cousin jason. he's my age. he proposed to his girlfriend of 7 years. he's saving money to buy a house, marry his fiance, and start a family. and here i am, trying to figure out which 80's cartoon will be the perfect theme for my 26th birthday party. then i realized how many people around me are getting married. as we grow up we all encounter milestones. when you turn 18, you're attending high school graduation parties and going off to college. when you're 22 (or somewhere around that age), you're attending college graduations. and i guess based on the people around me, when you hit your mid to late 20's, you start going to weddings. so as my domesticated, traditional cousin prepares for his wedding, i'm still trying to figure out how the hell to date.

while i've learned a thing or two through these adventures, i'm still pretty baffled about how this it's all supposed to work. the most important lesson i've learned, however, is that if i can't picture myself having sex with you, then i probably shouldn't date you. i know, i know...shallow. but i tried dating with no hang ups. i put myself out there and went on dates with guys that would typically make me feel dirty inside and want to take 5 showers in a row--and it didn't work. sure, the majority of these dates were pleasant. entertaining even. but i started to sound like a broken record: "he was really cool. i liked his personality but there's no chemistry." and i'm starting to realize that "no chemistry" is a euphemism for "i think he's really ugly." i can't seem to find the happy medium. when i find someone extremely hot, i don't want him to have a personality or any substance. and when i think the person is ugly, i expect him to have personality for days.

i think the problem is that i'm having a hard time reconciling the idea of a harmonious, commited relationship with the idea of sex. for me, the two can't seem to co-exist. i guess the catholicism is rooted in me because it boils down to the whole "virgin/whore" dichotomy. how can i possibly be sexual and carnal with someone i'm supposed to respect and love? i can't make sense of it. so yeah--i admit--most of my sexual encounters have been with guys that i don't see as...human, for lack of a better word. it's just sex. raw, emotionless, but fucking HOT--sex.

so this all wasn't in vain. as cliche as it sounds, i guess i've pinpointed the problem, and that's the first step to fixing it. so from here on out, i'm only dating guys that i find attractive...and hoping that i don't automatically think of them as vapid pieces of ass. maybe i can learn to have sex with a person instead of a body. now i have to figure out how to snag a date with someone i find attractive. that's tricky.

i think i'll figure that out at 27.

for now, i'll try listening to the lyrics of this song while imagining love and butterflies and all that sweet shit.

sometimes, it's better that way

a friend sent me this video. i never really like to sit down and watch videos on youtube that last longer than 5 minutes, but this definitely made my day. as i watched the short film, i thought:

1) that's how i feel every morning when i go to work!
2) ooh, he's cute.
3) awh. stop it. i'm gonna vomit, it's so cute.
4) see...sometimes it's easier not to meet people in person first.

it kind of reminded me of online dating. the power of communication. the fact that you don't need face-to-face contact to feel the butterflies.

enjoy.

back in the game...thanks to friends

it's been a hot minute since i've gone on a date. i've had a lot of disposable conversations with guys, but nothing even close to semi-interesting. i have a "date" tomorrow. i met this one through mutual friends so it'll definitely be worthwhile to see if i'll enjoy myself. while this could be fun, it could all potentially be very dangerous. what if i don't like him? will my friend be insulted? even worse -- what if i don't like him and then i feel insulted because my good friend set me up with somebody that i didn't mesh with? friends are supposed to know you and they should have the scoop on what makes you tick, when you're sad, how you react in certain situations. if this date is a complete failure, does that mean my friend doesn't know a thing about me? perhaps it means i know exactly what i want and it's all so crystal clear in my head but i'm unable to articulate it to anyone close to me.

either way, i'm just going to enjoy it. i know nothing about this guy. he lives in los feliz and he's really tall. but that's all i know. the mystery is kinda fun.

i was a little scared when i found myself canceling on people. did i give up too soon? i think i just needed a breather. besides -- it's about quality. and i'd like to think that my friends would set me up with a qualified person. the plus side about this date is that if we ever run out of things to talk about, we can just gossip about our mutual friends and eventually become....friends.

but we'll see...

hopefully my friends won't let me down...

the beautiful ones

there are certain guys i refuse to get close to. it's just easier to admire some people from a distance. for me, they tend to be the beautiful ones. those guys that are just ridiculously hot that it starts to hurt a little but you can't keep your eyes off of them because you secretly like the pain -- yeah...you know what i'm talking about. perhaps keeping the distance is a way of keeping my fantasies in tact. there's no way that these guys of hotness have any kind of substance, right? they have to be douche bags. but as i continued to stalk this hot guy on facebook, i felt conflicted and i started to wonder -- am i really keeping my distance because i don't want my perception of them to be interrupted by reality, or am i keeping my distance because i'm afraid that they might potentially have an interesting personality? because that's not fair. these guys can't be painfully gorgeous and have smarts, thoughts, and feelings. absurd! they have to be dumb pieces of hot flesh that serve one purpose...eye candy.

then i felt guilty for stripping these people of their humanity for seeing them merely as bare bodies and flawless faces. they're people too. but when someone is strikingly good looking, it's hard for me to believe that they have anything intelligent to say. maybe this is my way of coping with my own self-esteem issues. if i rationalize in my head that hot guys have to be dumb, then it justifies why i'm not like them -- because duh, i'm smart. does this make me a hater? slightly -- because in a sense i want to bring them down and bring myself up, but at the same time, i'm drooling over their hotness. the most confusing part about all of this, however, is the fact that i can't figure out whether or not i want to be them or if i want to do them. i think i'm coming to the conclusion that maybe it's a mixture of both: i want to be one of these hot guys so that i'd want to do myself. like...masturbating to my own reflection in the mirror (because you know that they secretly do that). if i were one of the beautiful ones -- i don't know what i'd enjoy more -- having sex with someone who is just as hot, or watching myself have sex with someone because i think i'm hot. the vanity is disgusting but strangely intriguing at the same time. the beautiful ones -- they always confuse me