Archive for June, 2010

Red flag #4: His True Friend is a True Jerk

Typically it takes a few weeks of dating before you get to meet the new boyfriend’s best friend. When you do, pay careful attention lest you experience my fate. Years later, I still cringe at the thought of it.

Here’s what happened.

I met Robert online and after a rapid fire exchange of witticisms (mine) and entertaining retorts (his), we decided to meet for a drink. A big bear of a man (a description which I later changed to, “he’s fat as a house”), I immediately put him in the safe and cuddly box. This assessment turned out to be half wrong.

I moved in with Robert after a month of dating. (I had my reasons–they were all insane.) To any outsider, Robert, an attorney, appeared to lead a pleasant and orderly life. He got up at 6:30 AM every day; seemed enthralled by me; got excited about trying new recipes and wines; and took the whole corporate attorney thing in stride–upon arriving home, the first words out of his mouth were, “I’ve got to get out of this monkey suit.”

One night after dinner, just as we were wondering what was on TIVO, the doorbell rang. I gave Robert a startled look as this had never happened before.

“It’s Bullwinkle,” Robert said as he went for the door.

“The cartoon character?” I asked incredulous. “He’s alive?”

“No, numnuts,” he said, “My buddy, Adam.”

That was the first bad sign—his friend was named after a moose.

The second was Adam himself. Six-five and on the hefty side, everything about Adam was super-sized. He talked too loudly, smelled like a gas station, and dressed like a slob. He charged through the door and lumbered over to the couch where I was sitting.

“She’s hot,” he said staring at my chest. What’s her name?” I crunched up my nose and tried not to breathe.

“Knock it off, Bull,” Robert said indulgently. “That’s Pam.”

Bullwinkle pounded his feet on the floor and yelled, “Oh yeah!” holding up the third bad sign: a gallon of vodka.

The fourth bad sign I would not have predicted as the eighties were a long, long time ago. Robert reached deep into a cupboard and pulled out what turned out to be a bag of Coke. They cut lines, bowed, and snorted deeply. It was like watching two jet airplanes fire up and get ready for take-off.

It was horrible.

I watched them taxi out to the backyard–two monster-sized idiots, carrying jumbo-sized vodka-and-tonics, having just lost their pea-sized brains. Then I went to bed, locking the door behind me and jamming a chair under the knob.

A loud thud woke me around 4 AM. I found Robert teetering in the hallway like a life-size punching clown. I punched him and went back to bed.

I’m embarrassed to admit, I had a codependent streak in those days: I stuck around thinking I could make him stay the nice, normal Robert I’d met on our first date–not the binge-drinking-and-snorting guy he turned into every weekend. When I tried to talk to him about it, he’d complain, “You just don’t like my friends.” Couldn’t argue with that, I thought to myself. It soon dawned on me, I didn’t like Robert either.

I guess the point of the story is, if you suspect a guy you just started seeing has a dark or secret side, ask to meet his best friend. Then step back and watch them do their thing together. If you’re right, you’ll have to decide if there’s enough room in the relationship for you, Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde, and all their buddies. Here, let me save you the trouble: there’s not.

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Luna Beads & the Orgasm of My Life

I’ve taken a break from the Red Flags of Dating Over Forty (see Red Flag #1, #2, #3)  series to talk about another matter: my vagina.

Most women don’t worry about their vagina until after giving birth. I, however, have worried about my beaver ever since a guy I dated in my twenties told me it felt “kinda loose.” I told him the problem was his too-small dick, but still, I couldn’t shake the comment. Oh sure, I’d tried doing Kegels over the years–those exercises where you squeeze and release your vaginal muscles to tighten them. But I’d quickly get distracted, lose count, and start eating.

Fast forward to recently when I started really obsessing about the “beave” going soft on me. That got me thinking about Ben Wa balls, which eventually led to Luna Beads by LELO. I’ll get back to the Luna Beads in a minute. First a bit about Ben Wa balls.

I’m walking through San Francisco’s Chinatown when a couple of shiny chrome balls nestled in a red silk-lined box catch my eye.

“What are those?” I ask the sleepy clerk as I pick up the oversized marbles, enjoying their cool, shiny smoothness.

“Ben Waaaa balls,” she hollers like a wailing infant.

“Ben What?” I ask sharply, my head snapping around to give her a raised eyebrow.

“Make sex better.” She yawns and walks away.

Call me slow but I could not fathom how a pair of balls could do anything except contribute to a juggling act. So I looked up Ben Wa balls on Wikipedia when I got home as I clearly needed some educating.

Also known as Burmese bells or Geisha balls, Ben Wa balls go back eons. They were originally placed in the vagina to enhance intercourse (some prefer the anus—just reporting facts). They’ve also been used to increase the strength of the pelvic floor, in much the way Kegel exercises do, increasing vaginal elasticity and bladder control.

Because I could imagine getting the Ben Wa balls in but not out, I kept on with my research. Eventually I found Luna Beads, designed by the Swedish sex toy company, LELO. The Luna Beads are securely housed in a girdle, which is attached to a very strong string, so you can easily pull them out. That’s appealing.

I contacted LELO and requested a pair in exchange for a write-up without a promise of any editorial control on their part. They agreed and sent me the Luna Bead “kit,” which includes one light pair (2 x 28 grams) and another heavier pair (2 x 37 grams).

Here’s what happened.

I inserted the lighter balls and the beaver swallowed them whole. I panicked thinking they’d migrated somewhere they weren’t supposed to be (though that’s not anatomically possible as the vagina is “land locked”). I pulled them out, inserted the heavier balls, and went grocery shopping. As I stood in the produce aisle squeezing a largish cucumber for firmness, I could feel my vaginal muscles holding tight to stop from giving birth to a pair of bouncing beads. It was a good feeling–at least one part of me was defying gravity.

Since that day several months ago, I’ve been using the Luna beads for about half an hour every other day. Sometimes I’ll find myself “clenching” around them, sort of like doing a Luna Kegel. Most of the time though, I forget they’re in there, which I’m guessing is an indicator of how taut things are getting down there. But if you want to know the real benefit of doing your Luna Kegels, you’ve got to have an orgasm. I’m talking intense, like, wow, where’d-that-come-from intense. Of course, I did research on that too and discovered there’s a real connection between stronger vaginal muscles and stronger orgasms.

Looks like I’m going to be doing my Luna Kegels for a long, long time.

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Red Flag #3: You are the object of his affection.

Let’s say you find yourself with a moment to spare and surprisingly, perhaps, you’re feeling a little horny. Being a very busy woman, you might consider doing what my friend, Lily, does. Click onto youporn.com, and get off. No muss. No fuss. You don’t even have to leave your desk.

This leads me to Red Flag #3: You’re his favorite thing, as in object of his affection, as in piece of private property.

It’s a bit of a leap, I know, going from masturbation to objectification but allow me to explain. Lily had been dating a super hot dude in his early forties . I saw some pictures. He was leaning casually against his motorcycle, his lithe body emphasized by tight head-to-toe leathers. A primal confidence in his eyes led me to believe that his “riding” skills were in no way limited to being on top of a bike. This Lily confirmed. “The sex is amazing.”

Months later, something changed. It started with his complaining about worsening allergies, even going so far as to suggest she was the cause. Lily stopped using all fragrances and still, his nose ran.

Then came the blow up.

As they had shared a vigorous life in bed and as Lily is by nature an honest and forthcoming woman, she happened to mention her Youporn “dalliance” by way of explaining why she hadn’t picked up the phone right away when he called.

“What were you doing?” he asked slightly bored.

“Oh,” said Lily cheerily. “I just had to finish something.”

“What?” he pressed.

“I had to finish masturbating,” she said casually. Lily could hear him suck in his breath and mistook it for mounting excitement, causing her to elaborate. “Once in a while, I’ll get on youporn. It’s fast,” she added almost apologetically.

He could barely speak–a tsunami of words crashed into his mouth at the same time. “You WHAT?” he sputtered at last. It was as though she had confessed sneaking into his garage to vomit all over his motorcycle. “I can’t believe this! I thought we shared everything? How could you have this, this, private thing and not tell met? I feel so betrayed.”

He went on in this vein for some time. Naturally Lily was very upset.

“What the hell is his problem?” I asked.

“I guess he couldn’t believe he wasn’t my only source of pleasure,” said Lily. “He said if I was going to watch porn then why didn’t I watch it with him. I mean, we’re not even at the half year mark and he’s already wanting to spice it up with porn?”

“First, he has no imagination,” I said annoyed for her. “Second, he should read Mating in Captivity. The author, Esther Perel, talks about how not everything needs to be revealed and that we should cultivate a secret garden.”

“That’s never going to happened,” Lily hissed. “He’s proud of the fact that the only book he’s read cover to cover is his M.O.M.–motorcycle operator’s manual.”

Lily and I went on to agree, any guy who treats your body, your actions, your desires and  whims, as being under his control and jurisdiction is sending up a big red flag. In his head, Lily was no different than his motorcycle–a beloved object to be sure but an object all the same. Not only is it dreadful to be treated as someone’s private property, a man who demands a woman relinquish all her secrets robs the relationship of the most exciting ingredient for erotic sex: mystery. By demanding to know everything, he had squeezed all the magic out of the relationship, which was possibly why their sex life was fizzling.

Lily didn’t have to think long or hard to get over motorcycle dude. And what about Youporn? That got bookmarked for future reference.

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Red Flag #2: He’s had a religious ephiphany.

A young friend who works as an admin assistant set me up with her father. She said he was a semi-retired architect, a salt-and-pepper creative type just like me, looking for “the one.” I cringed and said okay and we met for dinner later that week.

Okay so my heart thudded hard when I saw him waiting for me at the bar. The guy was sexy in a commanding, super-suave kind of way, causing my mind to race ahead of me—like way ahead. By the time I got through my glass of wine, we had been married in a small church in Tuscany, were still reminiscing about that funny lady-man we met on our honeymoon in Thailand, and he was drafting blueprints for his and her studio additions while pinching a handful of belly pudge (because I’m such a good cook).

Back to the dinner table.

He was talking about what he wanted for his future when suddenly I had this vision of him kneeling under a stained-glass window, sunlight streaming in from above to create a super-illuminated effect around him. I laughed at how cliché it seemed.

“What’s so funny?” he said cutting through his cannelloni with the side of his fork.

“Oh nothing,” I giggled, “It’s just that, well, have you ever had an epiphany?” I said it, casually as if I were asking, “What’s your frank opinion of colonics?”

He dropped his fork. I watched it clatter to the floor. We looked at each other.

“Once,” he said slowly. “It was years ago, something happened to me. I was sitting on my balcony late one night. I had been watching the thunder and lightening earlier. Suddenly I saw light streaming in through a stained-glass window of…”

“I know, I know,” I said waving an asparagus tip at him. “JC, right?”

He stared at me intensely, an eerie mix of anger and saintly reverence in his eyes.

“Are you a Christian?” he asked after a long solemn pause.

“Not exactly,” I said, explaining that in my view, all paths lead up the mountain.

“That’s devil talk,” he exploded. “You are the devil!” His head spun around looking for the exit.

For a brief second I thought he was pulling my leg but then I felt the eye dagger. At that point, things went from freaky-weird to scary unpleasant. I tried to mollify him by saying how much I respected his views even though I didn’t share them.

He raised his hand for the check as though summoning the inquisition, paid it immediately, and left without another word.

True story.

Now even if you are a Christian, this is a Red Flag for the simple reason that he thinks he’s special—as in sanctioned-by-the-only-deity-that-matters (his own) special. A guy who sees the world in this kind of black-and-white manner–dividing people into good (saints, like him) or bad (devils, like me)—is not exactly heaven-sent (if you’ll pardon the expression). Intolerance is just the tip the iceberg and all your loving ain’t gonna melt him. I’d stick to a normal, nice tolerant guy—the kind who thinks we all have a right to be here regardless of our beliefs. But at least he picked up the tab.

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