You Might Think

It was 2001. It was my first date with LG. I had been crushing on him peripherally for as long as I could remember. We got together in my last single phase (pre-Illinois) when I decided it would be prudent and fun to try and hook up with / date everyone I had been curious about all the years I had been with Brooklyn; you know, before moving on to new people. He was one of them. I got to the restaurant first. Before he got there I drank two beers. Singha I believe? Since I had gone for a run immediately before meeting him I was tipsy from the two beers. He arrived. Turned out he had stopped drinking because he realized he had some issues with the sauce. Me being semi-drunk when he arrived = faux pas. We were at a Mongolian Barbecue place and we both got the mongolian barbecue with beef and the peanut sauce, going up to the counter and choosing veggies and different kinds of noodles. I reminded him of how much everything shrank after it was cooked so to really pile it on. He did. As it turned out, he piled on more than he could finish. I was able to finish mine. And I was still hungry. So I took his and finished it. Faux pas? Most girls would probably say so; we aren't supposed to eat like that front of guys. Did LG and I go out again? Yes. Did he think differently of me after watching wolf down my food and some of his and get desert? Nope.

2000. I'm at a Veselka with Staten Island. We finish our meals and to prepare for the beautiful summer Sunday that lay ahead of us we both went to the bathroom. I went first. He went after me. Let's just say, I didn't go number one. Staten Island came out of the bathroom and told me that I hadn't flushed. Major faux pas; that's another thing us girls just don't do. Did we stay together? Yes. I was embarassed but I brushed it off. I still don't understand why he didn't take the gentleman route and keep my faux pas to himself but that's a whole other story.

It was the night after the SAT's. I was in Princeton with A. and D. visiting D.'s cousin and after drinking 40's of Old English we cruised around Princeton trying to get into some college parties to no avail. D's cousin picked daffodils out of someone's yard and gave them to me. Daffodils are my favorite flower. Suddenly I really liked D's cousin. We were all sleeping at his place. Later on that night D's cousin and I were fooling around in his room. I drunkenly realized I had my period or maybe he found the string - I don't recall. Either way, I pulled out the tampon with flourish and threw it on the floor, right there in front of him, in bed with him. Gross. Another faux pas, I'm pretty sure. But that didn't stop us that night or the other few times we hung out thereafter.

Last Friday I texted New Year's Eve guy asking him to go to a party with me. Moments later, I felt my phone vibratating and fumbled to see what all the commotion was about. I ended up erasing all of my texts, both incoming and outgoing. I didn't know if he had written me back or hadn't written me back. I asked A. what I should do. She advised that I should write him back and tell him what I did, that it would be cute; and anyway he probably responded. I did what she said. Hours later I get a voicemail from New Year's Eve guy specifically stating that he recieved my text message, actually both text messages and he clarified that he hadn't responded. I cringe just thinking about it; Briana, how overeager and desperate do you seem?? A double text, whoa! But he did come to the party. Was the second text a faux pas? Was I supposed to just cross my fingers and hope for the best? Maybe. I wanted to know that he knew that I wanted him to come to that party, only way to do that was to send that second text so in an abundance of caution I did. Of course my wuss ass self should just have called him in the first place, but then I wouldn't be my wuss-ass self now would I.

There are many others. Farting. He may or may not have been asleep but the fart was loud so it's possible he was wakened by it. Hope it's not a deal breaker. I know I have been the recipient of the farting and it hasn't been a dealbreaker for me. But I think guys expect girls not to fart (even though I just learned that the average person farts 15 times per day). At least until they are your boyfriend and realize you're human. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've probably committed every faux pas / possible dealbreaker there is. There doesn't seem to be any correlation with the guys that end up becoming my boyfriend or liking me with those faux pas I've committed.

Look what happened with 31 that fateful morning in August. I hightailed it out of his apartment like my life depended on it. Was it ruder to hightail it out there the way I did or was it ruder to have an 'accident' on his living room floor in front of his friends who were all going out to brunch. That's a no-brainer but unless you know what was at stake for me that day, you don't know why I was so rude and brusque and might think I am a bitch or a slut or both. Although I am no prude, I am not a 'wham bam thank you ma'am' kind of girl. Usually if I am sleeping with you I like you and want to hang out with you. A lazy Sunday with breakfast and some more sex thrown in is my kind of day but that day it was impossible. A faux pas? No. Although I have written volumes about the weirdness that ensued between 31 and I after that day I am pretty confident that it had nothing to do with my behavior that morning.

We try to control our bodily functions and our impulses to impress other people and try to be 'perfect,' whatever that means and sometimes we slip up and our humanity is revealed. At least I hope that's what is revealed. I hope those things allow us take the other person off the pedastal and allow us to see them as equals and dispel some of our nervousness about being with them and bring us closer together. That's what I feel everytime a guy comes to quickly the first time we have sex or commits one of the other so called deal breakers. So maybe those things aren't deal breakers? My deal breakers are a lot more substantive than any of those things and even they are usually negotiable, although I can't imagine sympathizing with any guy's reason for being pro-life. But hey, you never know; I'm crazy like that.