I need to interject a contradictory and seemingly hypocritical rant. Dating rules: love ‘em, hate ‘em, and it is perpetually proven that once I think I have a handle on them they inevitably change or some new circumstance crops up and alters everything yet again. Rules about calling after a date, for instance. God forbid you call a guy before the allotted 24 to 48-hour waiting period has expired. Or, depending on the guy, that you call him period. (Funny how old social mores never really die.) Yet annoying as these random rules are, they are also apparently necessary if one is to date effectively and progress from one date to the next. I refuse to agonize over whether or not a guy is going to call after a date. It’s not worth my time to sit and wonder if he’s interested, if he had as good a time as I did, if he’s not calling because he’s not interested or because he’s intentionally playing it cool. I refuse to miss out on other dating possibilities by waiting for a certain one to contact me (love ya Trish!). If it works out, great. If not, then I have nothing to regret on my end. I’ve been told that this is a cold and heartless way to approach the whole dating process – but isn’t that necessary? Dating is rough on the self-esteem sometimes, and it is often, if not always, practical to have some defenses in place with which to guard yourself. If you’re going to play the game you must be properly equipped. But how can you do that when the rules are unwritten and constantly fluctuating depending on the person and the situation and your level of interest? You have to keep a little distance in the beginning or you’re going to get worked over every time it doesn’t work out, which, let’s be honest, is more often than not.

For instance, I went on a date with a guy a little while ago. We had a fabulous time at a club downtown and a super hot make out session at his place, and then I didn’t hear from him for almost four days. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I know I said I refuse to engage in these waiting games, over-analysis, blah-dee-blah, but I actually like this guy, so not agonizing is way more difficult (hypocrisy? Perhaps…). And then I ran into him randomly in the produce section where he was squeezing a mango. Talk about your awkward situations! And I don’t do awkward. The allotted waiting period hadn’t expired yet and it was clear that he didn’t quite know what to do – did he intend to call after said expiration or not? Unanticipated interaction can often sound the death knell for any nascent, undefined situation. Or it can be great – it jogs the memory of either party into remembering that, “hey, this person is cool and I want to hang out/make out again.” And then there’s the inevitable questioning of what you say when you unexpectedly see that person: “hey I was meaning to call you…” as the voice trails off, he breaks eye contact and frantically looks for a means of escape. Or he doesn’t reference your connection at all and treats the situation as if he’s meeting an old acquaintance, the memory of whom has gone completely stale. Regardless of the details, because we saw each other in that weird limbo waiting period, it threw a kink in our whole process and so prolonged the wait for the next official contact which ended up being longer than I anticipated, which caused my usual cool to become extremely ruffled.

So this time, I obviously wasn’t a fan of the whole dating rule book. But there have been past dating fiascos where it has been vitally necessary. So what’s a girl to do? Inevitably end up drunk with her girlfriends minutely deciphering the actions of each party involved while strategizing the next move either could take and what the counter move should be. Needless to say, this is exhausting. I could suggest that we all just take a far more honest approach and not dick around with these guessing games. And sometimes that works, but you have to know your audience and be willing to accept the fact that the guy could very well - and probably will - freak out. So if total honesty isn’t the best option, then what? You can’t rely on memorizing all the rules because that quickly leads down the road to paranoid neuroticisim. I think the point is that there is no answer - isn’t that part of the reason we keep coming back and engaging in this ridiculous process? It’s the element of the unknown, the adventure, the mystique. There’s something primal and hunter-like about it all. And the payoff can be so good — assuming that after all your pain and mental anguish he has the ability to make your toes curl.

Bike messengers have always had a certain element of mystique that I am inherently drawn to. One deliciously cut courier delivers our paychecks every other Friday and we’ve had a mild flirtation for months. These men (yes, I know there are female bike messengers, but I’m not infatuated with them so I’m consciously choosing to ignore their existence, though they are, arguably, more badass than the men) risk life and limb every day just because they love riding. The intensity of their need for adventure and apparent addiction to adrenaline is tantalizing. Plus there’s the whole badass element, which goes without further explication. I don’t care how much of a nauseatingly goody-two-shoes you are – you’ve been inextricably attracted to a badass in one form or another, so you should all know what I’m talking about. Why is it that I automatically assume the sex will be better and – dare I say it? – positively earth-shaking simply because the guy’s lifestyle is more edgy and a bit (or a lot) on the extreme side? You’d think I’d have learned by now that there is not a direct correlation, but I haven’t. I’m intrigued: why would anyone choose a job where you know the consequences to be potentially dire, and where you’re practically guaranteed to fuck up your body?

This curiosity, plus the fact that this guy is super hot (and I couldn’t help wondering just how ripped he was under those bike shorts), led me to suggest we meet up for drinks. We met at some little hole-in-the-wall frequented by, surprise surprise, bike messengers and a motley assortment of other hard-core athletic types. Let me be very clear in distinguishing this set from the gym-rats. These people get their exercise through their lifestyle, not through spending thousands on a gym membership where “runners” will never encounter asphalt or gravel. While there is a definite aroma of exaggerated male ego when around messengers and their ilk, it is – to be fair – at least partially deserved. They ride a lot. They sweat a lot. Their muscles are chiseled. They exude raw testosterone. And now that I’ve thoroughly distracted myself…

Anyway. About the date.

He bought the first round – some kind of micro-brewed beer for him and gin and tonic for me. We talked easily, and he wasn’t the least bit phased to hear I’d been in grad school, which can often be a conversation inhibitor with certain men (Competitors in particular). Though, there is a fine line between not being phased and not caring. He shared the mechanics of how bike messengering works and talked at length about the pros and cons of riding a fixed-gear vs. the more traditional geared bike. There was a slight sneer of scorn when I admitted I was ignorant on this point. And then, somewhere into the third round, I asked him what he wanted to do after he was done being a courier.

And that’s when it all went horribly wrong

They are definitely recurrent themes.

The Good Boy (Can you screw him? He might cry.)


The Huggable (You want to hug him, but do you WANT to screw him? Probably not.)


The Creeper (Hits on waitress when you’re in the bathroom.)



The Competitor (The guy who can’t shut up and who can’t be wrong. Or lose. To a girl.)

The Sissy (Does he like you? He doesn’t know.)


The Mamma’s Boy (Don’t take it personally, it’s just that your breasts will never be enough.)


The Artist (Brooder and the Asshole + ponytail and a studio apt + heroin)


The Trust Fund Hippie (Wants to talk about the environment until he rolls up in a BMW SUV.)

The Barista (Loves everyone. Is loved by everyone. Is completely unavailable.)


The Mechanic/Construction Worker/Professional Athlete (Applies himself to physical tasks like a champ. Otherwise…)


The Student (Lives in the world of academia. Probably lives out more fantasies in his bedroom than you do. Will rarely, if ever, venture out.)


The Modern-day Chauvinist (If you shave your armpits, legs or nether regions, will likely look down upon you as an unfortunate, brainwashed female. Loves his “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt.)

…are these truly recurrent themes? Or just a good time? No matter- they’re fun.

-The Anti-Indie (the poor thing tries and tries but to no avail. just don’t tell him that. he might cry.)


-The Pseudo-Indie (almost there! but don’t introduce him to your real indie friends. they will make him cry.)


-The Brooder (Mr. Darcyesque- will make you cry. then will go home and cry. or drink.)


-The Asshole (you cry. you take him back. you cry again.)


-The DIT (douche in training)


-The Overcompensator (has perfect image of perfect date, at the expense of the poor girl on the date)


-The Dog-lover (makes out with his dog in front of the girl he’s supposed to smooch)


-The Cat-lover (read above)


-The Closeted (offers to swiffer other people’s desks at work and wears the apron upon request. yipee!)


-The Architect (tries to demolish and rebuild girlfriends’ self worth)


-The Technerd (easily recognizeable by lee-tle belly and kind of pastey skin. Otherwise moderately effeminate but sweet.)


I have undoubtedly never been a “good girl.” This does not automatically mean that I never wanted to be one or was never jealous, as a teenager, of the girls who oozed wholesome naïveté and as such were instantaneously loved by teachers and friends’ parents. But I got over that jealously by the time I got to undergrad. Now don’t get the wrong impression – it’s not like I was screwing around at a terribly young age or had some kind of skewed vision of how I should handle my sexuality – if anything it was too much the opposite. My single hippie mother made damn sure I knew everything there was to know about sex and the human body and its normal functions and desires. She was the mother who encouraged masturbation and made sure I knew the ins and outs of condom usage, much to my mortification at the time (but it sure came in handy later…). I was the girl in school who told all the other girls about sex (not because I was having any but because I was the only one who’d been remotely educated about it outside the sex ed classroom); my upbringing made me the only authority in an otherwise relatively conservative neighborhood. This prized information came at the price of not being invited to others girls’ homes and birthday parties because their mothers considered me to be a “bad influence,” and my mother’s single status made my presence all the more awkward for others who were from more conventional, if not functional, families. That is, until they found out I was also the smart kid, and then my association and influence were suddenly prized by bitchy neighborhood mothers.

I remember feeling bored throughout high school. I had friends in almost every group (though the stoners were always my favorite) and I floated a lot from clique to clique. I got good grades but never really had to try that hard, which is an obnoxious thing to say, I know, but it’s true. I had more drug-related experiences than sexual ones, which was reversed when I left for college (especially when I started dating one of my professors…big giant oops on that one.) I think most people assumed that I lived a wilder, more sexually-explicit/porn-like existence than I did. I’m not entirely sure why this is - apparently I emanate some kind of “fuck me now” or “I’m a nymphomaniac” energy that invites these assumptions. Regardless of what it is or how it’s interpreted, it has resulted in a definitive “bad girl” reputation.

I don’t know my dad – I met him once when I took a road trip out to California to look at colleges during high school. Then he lived somewhere around Humboldt in northern California and was not excited to see me arrive on his doorstep (sounds like a movie, I know, but there was no saccharin ending). The last I heard was that he’d moved to Los Angeles with his family and makes a shit-ton of money as some kind of doctor. It would be fitting if he were some slimy plastic surgeon featured on E! but he’s actually a pediatrician. When my mom met him he was trying to make it as an artist – I’d like to know where that ambition ran off to. Like most kids with one parent I dreamed of meeting the other and winning him over, but thankfully that faded somewhere in high school. My mom never openly (or otherwise, as far as I know) regretted the circumstances of my birth (a brief tryst while she was vacationing on the west coast in the last hey-days of free love and unprotected sex) and has never referred to Karl as my father – he was the sperm donor and that’s about it.

So obviously we could do some kind of Freudian analysis on how my lack of relationship with my father/absence of male role model and/or authority figure has negatively impacted my interactions with men and is perhaps directly correlated to my “bad girl” status. But I think that’s bullshit. If anything, my “bad girl” status is a result of not having a repressed sense of self or sexual identity – and if it’s necessary to label that as “bad” then I’ll accept the title with pride. I’ve had lots of sex but that doesn’t mean I’ve been indiscriminate or that my sexual behavior is a negative reflection of who I am as a person. I won’t say that sex is a celebration of the body because that sounds trite and, once again, too much like my mother. It feels good. It’s fun. And there’s nothing wrong in indulging these senses. Not even indulging, because that implies that it shouldn’t be done with any kind of frequency. Gratifying would be more appropriate. Satisfying, perhaps or fulfilling would be more accurate. It all just boils down to the simple fact that bad girls have more fun.

We are incessantly bombarded by the unbreakable dichotomy of whether or not we are “good girls” or “bad girls”. We all know exactly who we think are the good and bad girls, but are rarely capable of explaining why. It would likely be an unfortunate revelation of our inner thoughts to describe our weakest biases. Whether male or female, we hesitate to admit why and how we think about women the way we do. Of course, biases are demonstrated in a number of ways and are directed at an endless supply of individuals, but this being a uterus-oriented post, we’ll stick to female judgement, and more specifically, the prolific “Madonna/Whore” complex…

I have always been a good girl. I never rebelled, really, and spent most of my high school days with my nose stuffed into an orchestra folder. The problem with that, though, is that I really, really wanted to. I spent my time with the kids who smoked too much pot, and who would drink too much and then drive across town to a show they snuck into. They usually avoided school, but when they did attend, excelled. I thought they were a bunch of self- righteous, reckless assholes, and I absolutely adored them. We got along alright on good days, but I undeniably left their presence feeling that I fulfilled the “old lady” role and very little else. I envied their carelessness. I desired a kind of validation from these people, while at the same time felt no respect for the other kids at school. They were who I wanted to be. It was a lusting after the fearless denial of tradition, and watching while everyone else shuffled and panicked according to the dictation of predictability. They became my only, and desperate, means of expressing my disdain for the strenuous demands of the strict framework I was a part of. Really, though, at that age, the options are limited to say the least. My renegade fiber, if it can have such a title as that, is less about breaking silly laws, and more an adrenaline-loaded fantasy featuring a rebel army assembled to protect the interest of the (capital p) People, or breaking small children out of a brothel in the depths of a disease-infested city, or driving 120 mph down a dirt road, escaping a ravenous threat-wielding authority.

I knew, at the tender age of 16, that my time to flip off the Man had not yet come. So I made do.

To feed the ever-growing adventure lust, I worked on wooing the epitome of the class badass. He swaggered with more conviction than any boy I had ever seen, and spoke loudly and nonchalantly about all the things I wished I could have done. The selling point, of course, was his respect for a substantial vocabulary, his penchant for a good fight, and his commitment to the cause of the day. In him was the key- I would not be responsible for any of those ridiculous and totally-not-worth-it activities if I could just bag him. His interest in me was enough to send me to the top of the badass list, with no sacrifice of my own, or so I thought. One overlooked question I would realize five years later after lots of sex and very little else, was the status of my good girl title. Had I sacrificed it? I certainly wasn’t acting in accordance with my good girl self-image, and yet in my mind, it remained unblemished, as though at some point I had forgotten to re-evaluate. My whole-hearted good girl qualities (motivation, planning, prioritizing, etc.) had contributed to a bad girl rap, and I was totally unaware. My topping the badass list did not make me feel more hard core. In fact, I was so sidetracked by the acquisition that I lost all concept of the reward. Worse, the people around me started responding to my bad girl ness more than the good girl. Suddenly, I found that I had transformed, under my nose, from the madonna into the whore. There’s nothing like innocence to send us reeling into the unprotected realm of the things we seek to become. I’ve since receded into my madonna costume again, and I find a kind of respect for women who carry around, proudly, their bad girl indicators. Sure, there might be something internally that smacks of the attitude I once touted, but I find a certain comfort in seeming like the sweet one. People don’t challenge that. Bad girls have to defend themselves.

Let me start by saying that there are 1,143,358 attorneys in the US, and 147,096 active attorneys in New York state alone. They are multiplying like the rabbits in my parents’ backyard. They make a shitload of money (yea, through a hyper-costly certification process followed by ten years of hell), and they still have a novelty sparkle when they give you their card. Did no one tell them about the lawyer standing behind them? And three feet in every direction? But despite the fast-waning bring home-able qualities of lawyers and doctors (Who don’t make shit these days. Show me a plastic surgeon and I’ll show you a perky rich guy with a knife. Where have all the family physicians gone?), we still want to date them, precisely because they are unaware of their own expendability in the professional department. They make us feel like we are dating up. Which is precisely why I was in that salon the day that I fell upon “the other”. Granted, I had no idea she was my shadow (or was I hers? we can’t decide anymore), and to each other, we were little more than client and stylist. Her friend Sara cut my hair that day, but Mel was in the chair next to us, coping with some smug bitch from the UES. The only time this vision in ill-chosen boots spoke was to whine, which is NOT something you do to a trend-setter with shears.
Mel must have heard my story about the Attorney (specifically DUI- eek I know), and enough important facts to be more than a little inquisitive about who exactly this guy was. He sounded familiar, and I could practically see her ears prick. Well, now, in my memory I do. I was actually totally clueless to her fascination with my conversation despite the barking brunette planted in front of her.

Hot Chip had long-since faded into Interpol, which had segued into Rilo Kiley (really? bleh.) and now made a glorious return the sophomoric Faint album.

I looked around the salon, and yes, there was a plethora of important-looking (read: acting) people populating the perfectly assembled, though small and surprisingly not smelly spot, but I had settled into a comfortable chair, with a seemingly down-to-earth stylist. She didn’t even check my jean label as we walked to the sink. It was amazing! My suspicion quickly transformed into relief as we laughed, talked about work and commiserated over silly date anecdotes.

Read More for the Melody “phrase of the day”

As my esteemed partner in complicity has pointed out, The Attorney is a douchebag (though no, Trish, I know you would never actually use that word). But in all fairness, he didn’t seem to be a big giant douchebag at first. But when is anyone (male or female) ever upfront about their douchebagishness? I was suspicious when I first found out he’s an attorney because I don’t really date lawyers. They’re not my type. There’s something inherently slimy and insidiously money-grubbing that turns me off. Plus they all tend to use way too much product – yes, it’s a blanket generalization but I don’t care. I’m a stylist (read: blue-collar, not rich, supposedly stupid and can’t get a “real” job) so generally I’m not their type either (and I’m damn good at spotting incorrect product-usage and not afraid to call them out on it). I don’t have a 401K and my stock portfolio consists of 50 shares of something my grandparents gave me when I graduated high school (shocking as it is, I have no idea what stock it is – maybe I’m actually a millionaire and don’t even know it). I cut hair because I love it, not for the money or the prestige (HA!) and certainly not for the arrogant bitches who sit mewling in my chair, perfectly complacent in their disregard for life and its intricate novelties, much less my existence. End of rant. For now.

And so I met the Attorney, which was not a terribly inspiring event. I was having drinks with my friend Kayla whose boyfriend, ironically enough, was just discovered to be a cheating bastard. It wasn’t so much “having drinks” as it was me sitting across the table from her, watching her get more blitzed than I’d seen her since we turned 21 (which was a while ago). I don’t know why people come to me for that kind of shit. My sympathy output is shockingly limited. My friends know this about me, which is why I don’t understand why they would even attempt to rely on me for anything but a modicum of empathy. I will happily analyze the situation over and over again, as any good girlfriend should, but I refuse to lambast anyone simply because they were the dumper and not the dumpee. Just because you get dumped doesn’t mean the other person is automatically evil — I realize this may make me unpopular, but it’s entirely unfair to hate someone just because they are no longer interested, and I won’t participate in those kind of bitch sessions. However, having said that, if the douchebag is actually a douchebag, and not simply the recipient of the wrath of a woman scorned, then all bets are off. If anything I’m probably harsher on my friend’s significant others than they are. What can I say? I’m protective of my friends. But I digress.

While Kayla is wallowing in her 6th vodka tonic and vacillating between hating the jackknife and lamenting the fact that he’s gone and she’s devastatingly single again, I’m scanning the room, hoping there is someone else there that I know and can escape to, as Kayla’s constant avowals to love the cheater forever are quickly shifting from mildly irritating to obscenely maddening. And I see this guy standing, no, sorry, leaning, in the quintessential “I’m looking to get laid” pose, at the bar and he’s staring right at me. I stare back, not because I’m interested but because who the hell does he think he is? I’m not going to play the coy female and pretend I don’t see him, or worse, glance at him every few seconds in the hope that maybe he’ll come over and buy me a drink in the oh-so-tragically stereotypic situation that makes me want to yarf. I think of this as a challenge - if he can hold my eye contact and not look away or give me that smug smirk, suggesting he thinks he knows the kind of girl I am (simply because I’m a female looking directly at him and not blushing) - then maybe, maybe, he’s worth talking to. But the Attorney doesn’t engage in any of that, despite the very posed lean. He walks right over to our table (without breaking eye contact I might add), where Kayla is now in serious danger of teetering off the stool and crashing to the floor, and asks if I’d like help getting my friend into a cab. I just didn’t expect it. Someone offering friendly assistance in this town? Without giving off the impression that he’s acting friendly just so he can try and get in my pants? After half dragging, half chucking Kayla into the cab, he hands me his card and says, “you seem interesting.” He half shrugs, smiles and walks away. That’s it. I realize this is not the smoothest or most original pickup line, but there was something in the simple and direct way he said it that made me want to not immediately throw his card away. I called him the next afternoon (I know, I know, you’re not supposed to call that soon, but how often do those arbitrary dating rules actually work? Especially when both parties know they’re intentionally playing a game with unspoken rules that are constantly fluctuating and changing, depending on the situation?) and we met for drinks the following day. That’s how the Attorney, and all his douchebagery, entered my life.