I spent all of yesterday suffering from a disgusting hangover.  See, I don’t think my hangovers are the same as other people’s hangovers.  Mine are not the kind you wake up with and sorta need some water and brunch.  They are evil, vicious beasts that make me unable to function for days at a time.

For example, I woke up at 6 a.m. yesterday on my brother’s couch, having passed out there after a night out with my friend Jess (besty in the hometown).  I drove home and spent my entire day off sleeping it (it = four light beers and a margarita) off.  I tried to eat some fries and fizzy Coke from McD’s at some point, but I was too sick for even that magical hangover cure.  All I could do was lay around and try to be unconscious so I wouldn’t feel my uncontrollable headache and nausea.  At one point, I told SO that I was, “too hungover to talk on the phone.  Speaking words will make me puke.”

And this morning I wake up with a headache STILL!  WHA!?  From five drinks??  I don’t think so, papa.

It’s not fair… and here is why:  I really, really like drinking.  I like cheap beer.  I like expensive beer.  I like beer in a cold glass or straight out of a bottle.  I like WINE!  So much.  I like it when it tastes like grapefruit and you can split a bottle with your friend.  I even love a good vodka-something mixed drink now and again!  And I like being drunk!  How else is karaoke ever going to be fun?  I like sitting on barstools in a dark, quiet bar and having a H2H over a few drinks.  I like it all!

So what do I dooooo?  It’s so bad.  It is NOT NORMAL that I can’t eat or drink or move or talk for a full 38 hours after a night out.  That isn’t right!!  For years I thought maybe I was just a louder complainer/bigger baby than everyone else when it comes to hangovers (entirely in character for me), but now I am beginning to think that I really do get them worse than everyone.  I think my cutoff is two to three drinks and then water for the rest of the night, but how fucking lame is that??  I don’t want to be the girl who can’t hang!  Am I just a washed up loser who should just quit trying to be cool now?  Am I really just a huge whiner?  But how can I be exaggerating my pain if I literally cannot eat or drink anything?  I need to solve this mystery!

:: door creak ::

… hello?

I randomly woke up this morning feeling the need to write.  I made one of my giant cups of coffee and went straight to my old blog.  It just made sense… six months later.  I also have been feeling the need to analyze why I stopped writing.  So (:: clears throat ::) … LEZZGO!

See, I have always had a real problem with pride. Particularly, setting ridiculous standards for myself and not being able to be proud of myself unless I live up to them. I think some of this stems from the fact that I am one of those people (like many) who is good at a lot of things, but not GREAT at any one thing. If you are like this too,  you know how infuriating it can be. It turns you into a perfectionist of sorts… you feel like you have to do everything as well as possible because you don’t have that one GREAT thing to fall back on. A few years into college, however, I found out that I was pretty damn good at communications. And at getting good grades. So I rocked my education, hard. I got a 3.8 GPA and joined clubs and led presentations and made connections. And then I got a sweet job within three months of graduating. A job at a Fortune 500 company working on a massive rebranding campaign. And this became my one great thing. I loved my job. I was great at it. It became my rock in my life. I loved being that successful girl.

Then last winter, the company’s stock plummeted and they eliminated the rebranding project that I dedicated a year-and-a-half of my career to. Poof… in an instant, my job was gone. Fuck!

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at that point. I wasn’t in love with Rhode Island, but there was nowhere else I really had my heart set on living. This set me into a cycle of indecisiveness and a half-hearted job search. Why would I dedicate my life to finding a job in a place I didn’t want to live? But where did I want to go?

At the beginning of the summer, my unemployment ran out. I had been jetsetting and kinda job searching and NOT thinking about it until it happened. And when it did, it was like a kick in the ass/face/ohfuck!alertareaofthebrain. I was out of money. And time. I wasn’t any closer to figuring out where I wanted to live. Enter: The pathetic girl who moves back home at age 24 because she, for once, has nowhere else to go. I can’t stress enough how this was So.Not.Me. But I had to become that girl.

So I moved home and didn’t want to be here, just like Rhode Island, so I didn’t look for a real job. I took a crappy office job at a retail store and just watched the time pass. And here is the big reveal of why I haven’t been writing: I was embarrassed. I still am.  I am not proud of myself that I have no fancy job to speak of.  That I am wasting all my talents and doing absolutely nothing impressive with my life.  I’m really, really ashamed.  And that’s the truth!  That’s why I stopped blogging… even though I have absolutely HILARIOUS stories to tell about my time at home and time working at a shitty job, I am too embarrassed to tell them.  

I think admitting this is a step.  But I still feel like my career defines who I am and if I don’t have that, I have nothing to be proud of.  That is pretty sad, if you think about it.  What about being proud of who I am, in general?  Of my friendships and decisions and family and lifestyle and everything else I do?  Nope… not good enough for me.  I feel that I am not a worthwhile person if I am not making a lot of money doing something important.  And I really don’t think I’m going to get over that anytime soon.

So about a month ago, I started hardcore studying the job market in Los Angeles for someone in my industry, at my career level.  Just to see… is that a place I could set my mind on?  After all, it is where my boyfriend lives and it is sunny and fun and I have a lot of friends there.  And I liked what I saw!  There is a LOT going on over there for communicators at my level.  There are new jobs that are perfect for me being posted every single day.  The bad news is they don’t last long — I’ve been monitoring the posts, and they usually disappear within 1-2 weeks, sometimes less.  So the competition is fierce.  But it is THERE.  There are things happening.  And I think if I were to go and jump into it headfirst, I could be inspired by that competition.

So I’m going to go.  A lot of people have asked me why I don’t just start applying for jobs out there NOW, which sounds like it would make sense.  There are a lot of reasons, most sounding like excuses.  Maybe I’ll get into it another time.  For right now, lets just say I want to get through the holidays and then make the move as soon as possible after that.  January/February.

And that’s it!  I’ve disabled comments for now, which I know is incredibly lame.  I’m just not ready for that whole world yet.  But look at it this way… you can lurk my blog for awhile with absolutely NO pressure to comment!  I’ll enable them again at some point, I’m sure.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with something funny since you just had to read a whole pile of serious.  And we all know this is NOT a serious blog.

So I work at a jewelry store as an office manager (ugh ugh ugh so embarrassed).  This means I sit in an office and do a lot of dumb stuff that involves tracking lots of merchandise.  It’s boring and takes 1-2 brain cells, max.  One of my responsibilities is to ship merch to be repaired to vendors.  There are two types of merchandise I ship:  jewelry and watches.  That is it.  For every piece I ship, I file a slip to track it in either the box labeled “Jewelry” or “Watches”.  Every so often, a jewelry slip will end up in the watch box, or vice versa.  Obviously just a misfile, and it happens a lot since employees are constantly having to look up the slips and pull them out for reference and then refile them.  Well, every single time the assistant manager in the place finds a slip in the wrong box, she will come find me in a panic.

“Beth!  I need to ask you about this.  What is this??  This slip says this is a RING but it was in the watch box!  I don’t understand!  WHAT IS GOING ON!??!”

I am dead serious.  It sends her into a panic every single time.

It’s amazing.  I have to talk her off the ledge and explain that someone just put that slip in the wrong box.  EVERY.  TIME.  And it is hilarious to me… EVERY. TIME.  She honestly cannot understand simple things like this.  I’ve never met anyone in my life before who is 100% incapable of analytical thinking or reasoning. It blows my mind and I’ve started doing experiments to test her level of incompetence.  At this point, my scientific analysis is showing that it has no limits.  Astounding.  I am also convinced that this woman does not know how to read or write and is hiding it.  More on that next time.

In a fit of drunken lust/irresponsibility/boredom on Tuesday, I booked a one-way ticket to LA and here I am… in the sexy dojo once again. Where is the corporate, responsible Beth of a few months ago? Last time we saw her, she was buying pencil skirts from Banana Republic and analyzing powerpoints. Does anyone even remember her anymore? And what does one of my best friends, TF, think of this new Beth? How did one of my closest friends react to the situation, back when I announced my intentions to come here the first time? Is SO only charming on the internet? What are the top three most awkward things anyone has ever said to a wingwoman? Read on for all these answers from none other than the amazing and wonderful and hot and skinny… TF.

(*because Head Over Flats was taken, which I’d like to claim credit for making up. It is genius and nobody appreciated it!)

With Beth turning into a jet-setter overnight, it has been hard to find time to catch up with her recently. We planned to do dinner on Tuesday night and if any of you can remember, Tuesday was this beautiful 80-degree April day in New England – rare, I must say. I had to work all day, so I was craving sunshine by the time 5 p.m. rolled around. Beth picked me up from work and we went straight to a little Greek restaurant that we LOVE and just so happens to have outdoor seating. We sat outside with sunglasses in tow, and could not be happier. We drank a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wine — which I claim tastes exactly like Beth (it’s her favorite kind of wine and she always make everyone drink it) — gossiped for hours about our future careers and men, and ate delicious food.

I haven’t always been this supportive of Beth’s and SO’s relationship. Beth doesn’t have a track record for picking the most upstanding citizens to date (Beth will kill me for publishing this) and I was doubtful of her ability to identify a good guy from the internet, of all places. What if she was going to be stuck in LA with a Rugby-esque idiot? I needed her to be prepared for this possibility.

The whole announcement of her gchat/phone flirtations sort of took me by surprise so I shrugged it off until the day she told me she had booked a flight to LA. What? Who does that? I went over to her house the very next day to try and talk some sense into her, but the only piece of advice that seemed to stick was that I didn’t want her to expect things to be perfect the minute she stepped out of the plane. Beth likes to romanticize things if you didn’t already know. I think it’s from reading too many books.

Anyways, I was still really nervous for her, but decided to be supportive because I had never seen her this happy before. The night before she left for LA, I went over to her house to help her pack and distract her – talk about hearts in her eyes – and she hadn’t even met him yet! I was sitting at her computer as she was packing/doing laundry and we were listening to Taylor Swift (amazing) when SO sent Beth a gchat message. I saw my opportunity to get some first-hand knowledge of this guy, so I started talking to him online. Within his first two words, I was hooked. Butterflies in my stomach, hooked.

One highlight of my chat with SO was when he asked me about one of the more hilarious “Being Beth’s Wingwoman” stories he had heard. He wanted my firsthand account of what it was like to sit next to one of Beth’s more questionable love interest’s awkward friends (we’ll call him Awkward Willy) during a night of dinner/drinks last summer that has since turned into almost an urban legend among our friends.

TF: yeah, I sat next to Awkward Willy at dinner
SO@24: top 3 Awkward Willy lines.
1
2
3
GO
TF: ahhh I’m nervous!
okayyy –
TF: 1. I’m nervous ordering red meat
SO@24: HHAHAHAAH
TF: 2. I feel so cool right now
SO@24: …
TF: 3. What are those olives doing in your glass?
SO@24: no
no no no
TF: yes
yes yes yes

Obviously, I don’t actually have a crush on SO – I’m 4-years deep into my own, great relationship – but I could instantly tell why Beth was hopping on a plane to go see him. (I just hoped he didn’t have any friends like Awkward Willy.) And, ever sense I have been one of her biggest supporters!

I just hope he is as charming in person as he is online… I’ll know when I meet him. Soon. When he comes to the East Coast. Ahem SO. Ahem.

Xoxo,
TF

That’s it.  I’m just going to stop even unpacking my suitcase at this point.  I am clearly allergic to being in my apartment for more than two nights in a row.  I just got back from LA two days ago and I already have plans to go up to The Lawyer’s tomorrow for some serious Pretend We Are North Shore Wives With No Jobs And Nothing To Do But Eat Lunch.  Then I’m going straight from there to Boston to have partytimes with KT and NMRM on Friday and Saturday.  What am I thinking!?  And I didn’t mention this, but I was home in NY for Easter weekend in between LA weekends… so that is a grand total of: A really fucking long time being away from my apartment (remember I was house-sitting for 10 days before I went to LA the first time too!)

So LA weekend (… v.2) was even better than the first trip.  The first trip will forever be the most amazing weekend of my life and was full of vomitworthy fairytale feelings and mush and all that.  It was SO at his best and Beth at her best, and it was great.  This time around, however, it was like everything was more relaxed and real and more… in the moment?

I think the first time, the feelings were so foreign and overwhelming, it made me feel like I had to figure out what to do with them righthenandthereandwhatisgoingtohappenomg.  But this weekend, I think SO and I both realized we should just really enjoy the amazingness that is the first stages of dating.  I’m supposed to be unsure and nervous and giddy and spontaneous right now… we don’t have to answer everything or figure out where this is all going at this moment.  We can just… be.

And it’s fucking great.  Eesh.  I can hardly believe we are real sometimes.

In other news, I realized I never even wrote about how I quit The Restaurant Second Circle of Hell and started freelancing.  Well, technically I quit the restaurant in a fit of irresponsibility before I knew that I had this freelancing gig lined up, but who’s looking at the exact dates really… (Answer: RI unemployment who is currently auditing me and I will probably lose benefits…. oops?)

So I’m pretty much working for myself and that is why I have been able to be a super jetsetter (Where to, Gumshoe?) and do all this spontaneous traveling.

The main thing on my mind right now is:  what’s next?  All I know is that I need NEED some stability, and soon.

Paycheck?  Yes, coming in and fortunately I am using my brain/talents to make money (unlike waiting tables where I was using my ability to impersonate a brainless robot who loved spaghetti to make money).   But my projects could end any minute and it’s terrifying.  This is nothing like having a stable check.

Money in general that is not used to pay bills and eat?  Wha?  Huh?  No.

Lovelife? Uh.  Fantastic, but 3000 miles away and still really new.  Talk about complicated.

Friends?  Family?  Things to do?  ::looks to the left and right slowly::  Uhhh… not in this town!

Living situation?  Condo that I rent is officially for sale.  Could be sold any time and my lease is up August 31.  Additionally, Rhode Island is a blowjob.  

More about that, actually.  I need to get OUT of here.  I was waffling on whether or not to try to stay and make RI a home and make it work or to move somewhere else.  TF sat me down a few weeks ago and looked me straight in the eye… “Beth.  What are you doing?  Get the hell out of this state.  Your family doesn’t live here.  I am your only friend here and I’m leaving soon too!  Go.  Get up and just GO.”  I blinked at her a few times while what she said sunk in.  And I realized just how right she was.  

The next day, I walked out of my apartment and took a good look around.  I do not love this place.  I have tried to.  I really have.  I’ve been here for almost two years and I have tried to make it a home, but it is still not.  I gave it a fair shot.  It’s time to move on.

So the only decision that has been made right now is:  NOT Rhode Island.  The rest?  Who the hell knows.  All I know is that I have some major thinking to do.

PUMP THE BRAKES!  PUMP THE BRAKES!

That.  Is what I want to say to life right now.  I can hardly keep up!  Orrrr maybe everything is a blur because I am super distracted with this thing:

What a cute thing!

So back to what I was thinking before I left and then I will get to some juicy juicy details of my trip:

With all my flat shoes packed up and less than 24 hours to go, I revisited all of my fears about the situation and tried to lay them to rest.

Fear #1:  There would be no attraction.  I pictured this as the saddest scenario, because I already knew how much I cared about SO and he cared about me.   The thought of one of us not being attracted to the other in person was devastating.

Fear #2: There would be attraction, maybe up to The Lick, so we could have a fun weekend together but not enough attraction that when I left, we could continue all of the amazing, fun, flirting conversations that had been happening.  This was scary because I didn’t want that phase to end… but after a weekend with only moderate attraction, where could we have gone?

Fear #3:  The Play-Doh would be off the charts.  As I said to SO in one of our conversations… “Imagine if we are totally perfect for each other and then I have to leave after four days.  That shit is gonna hurt.”

… I guess I forgot to add “and also be SUPER fucking confusing and hard” to the end of that last one.  Crap.  

I can honestly say, from the moment I saw his Diane Beaver sign by baggage claim, the giant smile on my face never disappeared.

I was fully expecting the first night to be awkward and hesitant– both of us wanting to test out a kiss, but neither of us having the courage.

Uh… nope.  

We only made it through one appetizer and were practically chugging our wine (checkpleasenowpleaseNOW) at the restaurant.  We got to his apartment condo dojo and he planted one within two minutes.  Being attracted to one another was even easier than talking– it just felt natural.  I know it is hard to believe, but there was truly no awkwardness.  I was so nervous about transitioning to being comfortable feeling all sexytime with someone who I met online and in this weird situation, you know?  But it was the most comfortable sex I have ever had.  It was like we would be laughing one minute, being mushy the next, and then being dirty a moment after that.  I never thought that I would have all three of those things so quickly with someone.

I also thought that SO would be (based on his blog) super nervous and unsure of what to do.  

Uh… also nope.  SUPER confident and aggressive and as I told him, “A really good toucher.”  I don’t know why I was so surprised, but I guess it is just another testament to how well we clicked.  The thought of him writing something about how apprehensive he was to kiss me is almost comical.  The levels of instant ease, comfort, and attraction were eerie… nervousness and hesitation would just never happen between us.

There are so many details I want to write here but if I start going into them, I’ll never stop.  But some highlights include:

- When we sat across from each other at a restaurant, we obviously weren’t going to be disgusting and hold hands across the table, so I would kick my sandal off and my foot would get tucked up in his legs.  I don’t know why that is significant to me, but it is.

- It was physically impossible to be apart from him for more than a moment.  Impossible.

- We had perfect days.  Waking up to each other, laying in bed for hours, followed by lunch at restaurants that looked like tree forts, getting a few drinks in the afternoon, strolling around holding hands… I want to puke on myself right now, but IT REALLY WAS that perfect.

- The laughing.  Oh God.  The laughing.

- I just threw up in my trash can.  I’M SORRY WE’RE SO ADORABLE!!  I REALLY AM!!!  

- I promise I will be sarcastic, self-deprecating, and original again at some point.

- Popping into a bookstore so he could pick-up The Missing Piece.  Sooooo SO.  

- Getting beers in the afternoon right after that at a little bar and pointing out our favorite parts of The Missing Piece.

- Eating In-N-Out at a little table while the sun set behind us on my last night.  I wore no makeup and his old baseball tee and licked ketchup off my hand while I told him the story of how Shorty and I met.  It felt like a regular Monday night and the most perfect Monday night all at once, if that makes any sense.

PUKE!

OK, to make up for the vomitworthyness, I’ll give you a brief overview of our other activities Friday through Monday:

…

Oh, and I guess I should mention… tomorrow?  You know, not even a full two weeks after I left to go to LA the first time?

I am going back.  

For five more days.

Because I can’t not.

“Does it bother you that I’m shorter than you?” he asked, glancing back at me over his shoulder and squeezing my hand as we walked to the car.

I blinked at him a few times in the California sun.  The question didn’t register at first.  Bother me?  How could anything about this man possibly bother me?

I mean, I had certainly thought about it enough leading up to coming here.  The height thing.  But in the blur of the past few days, it was funny to me how much it didn’t matter.  In fact, it was to the sickening point where I might have actually preferred it.

…

But I guess I should back up.  The whole story.  From the beginning.  Because this shit is too damn good to keep to myself.

It all started a stormy night (lies) in March.  I have no idea how long this will take for me to tell, but whatever.  

Lezzgo.

Sometime in early March, good ole SO@24 commented on a post asking if I lived in NYC.

I e-mailed him back, “No, Rhode Island.  Unfortunately.  Why?”

“I’m going to be in New York for work next weekend.  I wanted to meet up.”

From there, we started e-mailing about everything and nothing (A/N: “everything and nothing” is just the beginning of the vomit-worthy, unoriginal cliches that are going to be dropped in this series.  I can’t help it.  I’m sorry.)

In true SO fashion, he offered up his gchat soon and his phone number not long after.  On my birthday, I sent him the first drunk text.

Two days later, I got a drunk dial.

The next day I got a sober dial.  And then every single day after that.  More texts. And calls.  And after seven days (yes, you read that right.  Seven fucking days is all it took.)  I booked a spur-of-the-moment ticket to go see him in LA.  The Saturday after I booked the ticket, I got drunk (are you sensing a theme here?) and wrote this cheesy ass shit:

- From our first words, we could not stop.  Not stop laughing, not stop talking, not stop asking each other questions, not stop finishing each others sentences, not stop wanting to be in contact 24/7.

- We talked every day last week.  For hours.

- I got drunk on Friday and, after a +1000 line gchat conversation and a lot of eHandholding, just went for it.  And yes, he offered to come to me, but I have never been to LA and I am currently unemployed, so the better option was for me to go to him.  Also Rhode Island is tiny and cold.  Also he is taking me to Disneyland.  

Q&A

Q. Are you aware that this is batshit insane, desperate, lame, incredibly weird, insane, and also insane?  

A. Absolutely.

***

Q. Do you care?

A. Hmm.  Yes and No.  Read on.

***

Q. But you do know what this looks like, right?

A. What, you mean that I am going to be labeled as a crazy, desperate fool who is flying across the country to meet someone from the internet after only a week?  I would actually agree with that.  I. Fucking. Concur.  But… is that label enough to say no?  To turn away from something spontaneous and fun and possibly really exciting?  Not for me.  Believe me when I say, I know what this looks like.  I’m no fool (or am I?).  But, when it came down to it, I have never met anybody that has made me laugh that much and consumed my thoughts within a week, ever.  And is there a chance that it is not real, that I am clinging to the attention, to the thought of this person, and not the real person?  Yes.  But there is also a chance that I am supposed to really know this person.  A big chance.

***

Q. Why the hell are you subjecting yourself to blogging about it?

A.  See, a weird thing happened the first time SO and I talked.  There were no cards to hide or show.  No strategies.  No (p p p p p p) pokerfaces. What would be the point?  We live across the country from each other!  It was the strangest thing I’ve ever experienced.  I’ve known where he stood every minute of every conversation and (I hope) vice versa.  Nothing here is new to him, there’s nothing I could say about him that he would be surprised by and (I hope) vice versa.  

Additionally, if you are reading this, chances are you understand a little something about blogging.  Yes, it is honest, but it is also condensed, editorialized, dumbed down or played up, etc.  So, in this world of blogging that we all love… why not?  Why not share this crazy thing I am involved in?  Who wouldn’t want to read about two (semi-insane) bloggers who have only been speaking for a month meet up for a weekend of who-the-fuck-knows-what?  

And if we both tried to be all stupid-secretive about who each other was, well… that’s just arrogant and pointless.

***

Q.  Are you going to sleep with SO@24??!?  OMG, he needs to get laid, please say you are going to sleep with him.

A.  Fuck you.

***

So it was done.  I had my ticket.  I had this person.  I had never done anything like this before.

And I am going to write about it all.  You must understand if you are going to read this though, I am in a strange state right now.  As Shorty said when I talked to her a few days ago, “WHERE IS THE REAL BETH?!?!”  Because in the past, I would have puked all over someone who is acting the way I am acting right now.

I’m floating around with giant pink hearts in my eyes.  I actually possess a picture of SO and I KISSING on a BEACH.    I won’t listen to anything that doesn’t have the lyrics “now that we’re one now!” in it.  Chocolate covered strawberries are appealing for the first time.  Bearskin rugs all of a sudden make sense.  I’m incapable of having an original thought that isn’t soaked in cheese.

And I couldn’t be happier.

I’m pretty busy tending to my blog heart out in LA right now, but the amazing Not My Real Mom has been kind enough to fill in for me.  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be wrapped up in this crazy blog world and NOT be a blogger?  Also, have you ever wondered if I ever almost had a threesome with a hick in a tent?  Wonder no more:

I like to call this one:  The one where I get a little TOO honest with my diary and resort to white out.

Luckily, I have been able to decipher the first white out block.  The second one is still a mystery, but the first one is amazing… read:

Sep, 21, 1996

Dear Diary,

Hi!  The other day [my Mom caught me reading in the bathroom.  I] turned really red.  Also I’m having a party.  A halloween party.  Also I got my costume last night.  I’m a genie, It’s a real flashy outfit.  I love it.  You know who else I love?  Justin, Nick, Brian, and Andy.  I have fantisies of getting 60 seconds in heaven with them!  I hope I do!  were going to play suck & blow and spin the bottale!  How fun.

Love,

[symbol]

So some quick commentary:

1) Love LOVE the first white out block.  Reading Fear Street in the bathroom again, Beth?  How humiliating! 

2) I would give anything to know what raunchy thing I wrote under the second block.  Anything.  I guarantee you it was about doing a naughty thing at my party.  Or maybe it was about the time KT’s Mom caught us reading a sex ed book and we hid under her bed for three hours in shame.  It must have been good though, if it warranted a scribble out AND a white out.

3)  Four crushes?  Really, 12-year old Beth?  Four?  

4) Even with mentions of 60 Seconds in Heaven and other such gems, I still have to say my favorite part of this one is when I refer to my Halloween costume as “a real flashy outfit”.  It just shows what a total, total loser I actually was.

I’ve openly admitted before that I am very, very picky.  I’ve exasperated more than one friend with my picky antics in the past.  But, I’m not picky like a lot of people are… that is, I don’t have my list of “must-haves” in an ideal partner and I don’t really have any defined deal-breakers.  (Although, based on the total la-hooo-sirs I usually date, maybe I should think about having some.)  

What I am picky about is the intangible, the attraction, the chemistry, the spark, the zsa-zsa-zsu, etc.  I have always had my own definitions of it, but I’ve never put it into words until now.  I present to you…

Beth’s Attraction Continuum

Allow me to explain (what, that visual doesn’t make complete sense?):

Level 1: The Smush:  This one is pretty easy to get… it is the cheek pinch.  The “OMG YOU ARE SO CUTEEEEE”.  The feeling that you just want to grin stupidly at someone for awhile.  The Smush is relatively platonic, but it is the beginnings of really enjoying being around someone.

Level 2: The Smash:  This one is best described in a scenario.  Think of the beginnings of dating someone… just a few weeks in.  You may have kissed a few times, been on a few dates, whatever.  Or maybe you are just good friends who recently had a drunken hook-up (oops) and are now wondering if it could go somewhere.  OK, so now you are at a party with that person, but you are talking to different groups of people on opposite sides of the room.  During a particularly boring story about your co-worker’s dog, you glance at your love interest across the room and it hits you like a fucking train: you want to SMASH into that person.  Just go up to them and press your skin against theirs in as many places as you can.  The Smash usually comes out of nowhere.  It’s the first sign that you want to pinch a totally different set of cheeks than in The Smush.

Level 3: The Lick:  The Lick is when you look at someone and just. want. to. lick. them.  I usually get The Lick when I have been in Smash mode for awhile, and I am creepily staring at that person do some menial task.  I get it a lot by looking at hands, arms, or necks.  The Lick is a point of no return.  It is the full acknowledgment that you want to throw someone down and explore their body with your tongue.  The Lick requires a certain amount of comfort mixed with sexual tension.  The Lick does not come easy to me.

Level 4: The Play-Doh:  Until recently, I wasn’t aware there was a level above and beyond The Lick.  I thought it ended there.  (Because I have never experienced a level beyond The Lick, of course, so how could I know?)  But, it was recently pointed out that there is a level above:  The Mesh, also known as The Gray Play-Doh.  You know, when you were little and just HAD to make a cheeseburger out of your different colors (complete with tiny sesame seeds!), and instead of carefully disassembling it at the end you went NUTS and mashed it all together to form a giant ball of gray.  This is when you are the proverbial “One” with another person.  I feel this is explained nicely in The Spice Girls classic “2 become 1″… read:

Candlelight and soul forever 
Dream of you and me together 
Say you believe it, say you believe it 
Free your mind of doubt and danger 
be for real, don’t be a stranger 
We can achieve it, we can achieve it 
Come a little bit closer, baby, get it on… get it on 
’cause tonight is the night, when 2 become 1 

I believe those romantic and inspiring lyrics say it all.