It's Not Okay: Turning Heartbreak into Happily Never After (11 page)

• 
Age 28: single and still heartbroken

• 
Age 29: begin dating

• 
Age 29
¹
/
₂
: become desperate enough to go on Tinder

• 
Age 29
³
/
₄
: become embarrassed enough to get off Tinder

• 
Age 30–31: continue dating

• 
Age 31: freeze eggs

• 
Age 32: have a steady boyfriend

• 
Age 32–33: find a boyfriend willing to propose to me

• 
Age 33: get engaged

• 
Age 33 + 1 day: begin planning a wedding

• 
Age 34: get married

• 
Age 35: unfreeze eggs and start trying for a baby (if my uterus still works)

• 
Age 36–40: pop out a bunch of babies

• 
Age 40: my vagina falls off

So according to this new plan, I have screwed up my time line by, oh, only twelve years. Basically, not only will I be the oldest mother in the neighborhood, but while my friends are hiring babysitters for their young children and having couples’ nights out, I’ll be at home with a baby latched on to my nipple. In essence, because I have wasted my twenties on countless failed relationships, I will now have to waste my entire thirties on dating and birthing children. FML!

And that’s the best-case scenario, because if you really think about it, the odds of falling in love and staying in love forever absolutely
suck
! If you do wind up finding love, becoming one of the lucky ones sporting a nice diamond ring on your left hand as you walk down the aisle, guess what you get? A 50 percent chance of living happily ever after! How shitty is that? Half us are doomed from the start. I am officially destined to be alone forever, aren’t I?

Okay, fine, maybe we won’t be alone forever. Sure we think we’ve already had that pure, undeniable, can’t-imagine-life-without-him love that’s so extraordinary that it only comes once in a lifetime, but we’re wrong. Not about the undeniable and pure part, but about the once in a lifetime part. Nothing in life is final, except death, and if you’re reading this, you are very much alive. There is no one shot at love, no end all be all, not when it comes to a man. Dammit, you found it once, girl, you can find it again! In the meantime, might as well enjoy our time alone and relish the perks of being single. There are plenty, trust me:

THE PERKS OF BEING SINGLE

• 
The entire bed . . . it’s yours!

• 
You can take as long as you want to get ready.

• 
You can follow whoever you want on Twitter.

• 
Hello closet space, I’m back!

• 
Christmas just got a lot cheaper.

• 
You can #MCM any hottie you want.

• 
Girl trips whenever you want.

• 
No need to get that painful Brazilian wax every month anymore.

• 
You don’t have to worry about anyone searching your web history.

• 
The remote control is all yours. Can you say
Real Housewives
marathon?!

• 
Bye bye uncomfortable sexy lingerie, hello boy shorts.

• 
That hot guy at the bar? He’s fair game, baby!

• 
Curfew? No such thing!

• 
You get to do what you want, when you want,
how
you want.

• 
You are officially allowed to dance to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.”

Lesson learned:
Screw the time line, enjoy the single time!

**UPDATE**

In case you were wondering, I successfully made the trip to Target to replenish the tissues without any major meltdowns. Round of applause for me! Eighty-seven dollars later, I had not only tissues but the latest Essie nail polish, three packs of Sour Patch kids, two bottles of red wine, Buffalo Wing Pretzel Thins, Twizzlers, and a box of Junior Mints, all of which is sitting in a giant mound next to me on my bed right now. I figured, “Screw it, if I’m going to have a pity party for myself, there at least needs to be junk food involved.” I’m not going to lie and say that I haven’t spent the day giving myself a pedicure and picking all the red gummies out of the Sour Patch bags, and no I definitely did not break each Twizzler in half in an effort to convince myself that I was practicing moderation, when really I ate twice as many halves as I would have wholes. But dammit, this is
our
pity party and we can cry and eat Twizzlers when and how we want to, right? (And Sour Patch Kids, and Pretzel Thins, and Junior Mints . . .)

I
s it bad that even in my state of self-pity I’m also horny? The last time I went this long without sex was, Jeez, probably a year ago. I mean, isn’t one of the rewards of getting into a relationship sex whenever you want it? My horniness makes me want to call Number Twenty-Six and indulge in a quickie, but I know I can’t handle the aftermath.

Speaking of sex, I remember the first time Number Twenty-Six and I did the deed. It was about seven or eight weeks into my “journey,” and it was time for the highly anticipated overnight dates. Part of me was excited, considering I’d been surrounded by hot men for so long without anything more than a make-out session, and I was finally going to get time away from all of the cameras and producers, but I was also apprehensive, given how disastrous this date had gone for me in the previous season.

There were three men left; I’d gone on several dates with each of them, met their families, heard them say their “I love you”s and was now less than two weeks away from potentially getting engaged to one of them. There we were, just the four of us (and cameras and producers, of course) in the Dominican Republic, where the rum was flowing and the sexual tensions were blowing the ozone layer off the Caribbean sky. In other words, it was the time where every girl finds herself ready to pull the car over, pop the hood, check out the engine, and examine the dipstick. And I was no different. I had spent days preparing for this moment. I did extra crunches in the gym, I shaved my legs, and I even got the unbearable but necessary Brazilian wax. The physical part of the preparation, albeit painful, was considerably easier than the mental part. The thought of bedding three different men in a period of ten days didn’t sit well with me. I was never, nor did I intend to start being, the girl who recklessly threw around her vagina simply for the thrill of it.

Luckily for me, it was really down to only two men at that point, a number that was much easier to justify. The real competition was between Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six, both of whom had long been the front-runners, with Twenty-Six slightly in the lead. I liked them both, but their pronounced differences left me puzzled as to who would be the right man for me.

Number Twenty-Five seemed like the intellectual type; he came off as more polished and profound, there was a depth to his words. He was transparent in his emotions, leaving no doubt as to where I stood, thus making him a safe bet. But there was excitement, too, when it came to him and the big city life he lived. He made me feel desired, he made me feel sexy, and he made me feel like a grown-ass woman. And to top it off, he had a secret weapon hidden behind his kisses that included him tenderly placing one hand on the side of my face while he ever so coyly slid his other hand around my rib cage and firmly pressed in, sending tingles through my entire body. It was as if he had discovered the above-the-belt G-spot, and I was dying to see what else he could discover.

Number Twenty-Six was definitely rougher around the edges yet charming, charismatic, and possessed the unique ability to make an uptight woman like myself feel like a young teenager in love. His kisses were nothing short of steamy, and he didn’t have to stroke my rib cage to indulge my body with the same tantalizing tingles. There was a comfort between us that made me feel as though I’d known him all my life, and better yet it was accompanied by the spark I’d been waiting for all my life. But despite the comfort, he was anything but safe. With the thrills came a looming dark cloud that I feared would create a torrential downpour at any moment. I had seen his temper during our fight in Italy and I wondered what he would be like without the cameras—would he bring up the lie detector test again or, even worse, other problems that he had been hiding? Had I let the strength of my feelings build him up into something he wasn’t only for it to come crashing down in one night? At times, I found myself putting all my eggs in Number Twenty-Six’s basket, with no certainty that the risk would pay off. He was my type, which hadn’t worked out so well in the past, and I wondered if he would follow in the footsteps of my past lovers. And though I didn’t know, I was damn sure going to find out.

With a million emotions swirling in my head, from fear to anticipation to pure giddiness, it was time for the most important week of dates to begin. First up, Number Twenty-Five. He met me at an airport with a helicopter fueled up and ready to go. Though I hadn’t seen him for days, the passionate kiss he immediately placed on my lips brought me right back to him. It was only a matter of time before those kisses would turn into more, and we both knew it, but first we had to get through the actual on-camera portion of the date. After a romantic chopper ride across the island, we landed on our own private island and enjoyed a day filled with sipping champagne and frolicking (and kissing) in the ocean. Rough life, huh? Seeing him shirtless on the white sand with the most unbelievably blue water I had ever laid eyes on should have been picturesque, but the dark mystery of what he would look like naked on top of me blurred my vision. I had one thing on my mind: sex.

When nightfall finally came, we found ourselves alone in a private villa with no cameras, no producers, no microphones, and no rules as we uncorked a bottle of wine and made our way into the candlelit bedroom. **DAD STOP READING NOW!** More passionate kisses (complete with rib cage groping) ensued, and as one thing led to another, I found myself having full-blown sex with him. Thirtysome odd minutes later . . . I had experienced the most cringe-worthy, lady boner–killing, awkward sexual encounter of my life.

Not what you expected to hear? Yeah, me neither. And it was all because of one very distinct, mortifyingly awkward conversation that I wish (and he probably does too) I could erase from my memory forever.

Oh, where do I even begin? Everything was going so well, he was on top of me as he gazed adoringly into my eyes. As he opened his mouth to speak, I was certain he was going to tell me he loved me. But instead, he asked, “Would you rather?” Naked, and caught completely off guard, I thought,
What the fuck?
I got it—this was a game he and I had played a few times, where one person asks “would you rather”
this
awful thing or
that
awful thing and then the two of us would hysterically go back and forth with outrageous answers. But in twenty-seven years on this earth, never have I ever (there’s another good game) played it while having sex. Though mortified for him, myself, and this moment, I still decided to throw him a bone and go along with it.

“Umm . . . would I rather what?”

“Would you rather make love . . . or fuck?” he asked without hesitation—or the slightest sense of how bizarre this conversation was.

What the fuckity fuck?
We’re finally doing the deed, I’m trying to make the scenario less embarrassing by leading him toward romance, and all he can ask is would I rather fuck or make love? What was I suppose to say in response? If I say fuck, then I sound like a slut; if I say make love, then I sound sappy, if I say nothing, he goes limp—or maybe not, actually. I decide to spare myself the slut shaming and in an effort to avoid whatever kinky shit I feared could come next, I reluctantly responded.

“Ummm . . . make love.”

Considering we are still having sex at this point, this should have been the time to take the hint and stop talking, right? Yeah, right! Men, taking a hint . . . ha ha ha, now
that’s
funny.

“Well, if I had four times, I’d like to fuck the first three times and make love the fourth,” he said.

So now, really,
WHAT THE FLYING FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCK?
Mind you, we are still having sex at this point—our first time having sex (or should I say the first time we are fucking?), and this is our pillow talk. We’d gone from passionate tingle-producing kisses, to a debilitating arid joke in a matter of one conversation. And while I’m all for overlooking first-time jitters, I’m sorry, but under no circumstances do you play a game like Would You Rather. This is sex, dammit . . . kiss me, love on me, and if you can’t talk without making an utter fool of yourself, then stay silent.

Mind you, had the sex been mind-blowing, I could have maybe overlooked this blunder . . . but it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything he did wrong. The fireworks between us just weren’t there. All of the kissing and groping and chemistry we had atop the sheets just wasn’t the same underneath them. And as promiscuous as it may sound, I was no longer sexually attracted to him, and began to question if I was emotionally attracted to him anymore either. All I could think was,
I endured a Brazilian wax for this?