I’m in my third year of college. When I went home for winter break this past December, I expected to just sit on my ass all day, watch seasons 1-4 of House, stuff my face, and basically just live the life of a glutton. Luckily, a few close friends from high school took pity on my miserable existence and dragged me out to their mini elementary-school-friends dinner reunion, which consisted of an ex-boyfriend, two best friends, and a certain Marine who was about to be deployed to Iraq. We all went to high school together and were in the same graduating class, but the four of them went to elementary school together as well so they shared memories and bonds that I was not a part of. The only person I didn’t know well in the group was the Marine, so fortunately the outing was not too awkward.

After dinner the five of us headed to a house party thrown by a couple of the Marine’s brothers. There, I ended up shooting tequila more times than I would have liked on any normal day and ended up in a hot and heavy tongue-hockey session with him. Fortunately for me, I did all my heavy drinking at the beginning of the night so as the hours progressed I was able to slowly regain coherence. He, however, did exactly the opposite and I believe it was 11 shots later, he was sprawled on the floor putting up an extremely good fight for someone so inebriated against anyone who tried to coax him into the car. As 5:00AM dawned, we eventually were able to help him into the car and drive him home—during, which, he decided that I was the love of his life and he serenaded me with slurred syllables and insisted on eye contact that he was incapable of making. Hands down, the worst car ride I have ever been on. All parties were completely sober by then which magnified the level of discomfort we all felt.

However, I don’t count that as our first date. That was merely our first encounter post-high school. The Marine and I were always on each other’s distant radars, but we never spoke much in school because he hung out with a group of guys I absolutely detested for their utter stupidity. He dated—no, he had a three year long saga of make-ups, break-ups, and tons of drama-rama with—a girl my group of friends and I always considered a little bit crazy (low self esteem, mood swings, penchant for sleeping around, and self-mutilation). Keep this in mind as she comes into play later. The next morning I left for Berkeley, leaving all of that behind and expecting to never see the Marine again until he came back from Iraq.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. A few days later he called me and asked to take me out to dinner because he felt that we had gotten off on the wrong foot. I regretfully informed him that although I appreciated his gesture, I was 500 miles away from where his base is and cannot possibly meet up with him. He responded by saying that he gets MLK day off and is willing to make the drive up to see me as long as I give him a second chance. I found him very attractive at the time (perhaps a bit more attracted to the fact that he is military-trained and that boosted his manly points) and agreed: if he was to drive up to see me, I would go out to dinner with him and put a roof over his head for the duration of his stay. Thinking that there was no way someone I didn’t even know would drive six freakin’ hours to see me, I pushed him to the back of my mind and went on in my merry way. The Saturday before MLK day, he calls me and tells me that he is at my doorstep.

And thus begins our first date, since it was technically our first one-on-one meeting. Dinner itself was rather nondescript. We talked nonstop, but mostly about what we did in high school and why we weren’t better friends and what we were up to now. What happened after dinner and the week following is what makes this my craziest date of all time.

After dinner, I hit up my friend Peter and asked him what he was up to (Peter is in a frat and usually knows about all sorts of parties—and if he didn’t, he usually invites me over to play beer pong at the house). Turns out, there was a giant “Welcome Back to Cal” party going on at the house that night and so, the Marine and I went. Needless to say, alcohol was shot and judgment was skewed and personal barriers were let down. I slept with him on the first date. Oh god, I am that girl. The sex itself was pretty vanilla due to the fact that we were both so hammered. Actually, he hammered more…like a Mexican jackrabbit hammered. I woke up the next morning with a sore vagina, and not from sexual satisfaction. During the act, he had initially started with unprotected sex, but I was luckily (thank god luckily) able to stop him and tell him to get a damn rubber on before he did anything. I had no idea whether or not he was satisfied, but I assume so because after awhile he stopped and we both went to sleep. Definitely not one of my finer sexual conquests.

The next morning he left to drive back to Alhambra and he promised me he would keep talking to me. I agreed, because what harm could really come from some innocuous flirting with a guy that lives so far away? Wrong, again.

A few days after we started “talking,” he started to sound really strange over the telephone. His animation level dropped and he was beginning to sound like an annoying emo kid who seeks out attention in any way possible. Every time I would ask him what is wrong, I would get a “Nothing, I don’t want to talk about it” thrown in my face. He even called me at 4:30AM one night (morning) because he couldn’t sleep and even then he would not tell me what the fuck was going on. At this point I started to get pissed because I am not the type of girl to cater to a guy’s stupid emotions and coax something out of someone. If you have issues, I’ll gladly listen, but if you want some drama to go along with it and someone to feed your ego and make you feel like they REALLY WANT TO KNOW, sorry, I’m not your gal. So I backed off.

And he caved. “You really want to know? Fine. I’ll tell you.” He made it sound like he was doing me some giant favor. I was regretting getting involved with this guy already. But then he dropped a load of giant timber: “I got a girl pregnant.”

Not just ANY girl. This was his ex girlfriend that he had been fooling around with during the time between our tongue-hockey sesh and when he came up to see me. This was not the high school shared-saga girlfriend, but another one, two years our junior. THE GIRL IS FRIGGIN’ EIGHTEEN. AND she doesn’t believe in abortion. I’m not saying that there was no fault on his part, but abortion is a pretty damn good backup plan if you don’t want your life fucked forever. I asked him how the hell this happened and he said he thought she was on the Pill but post-ejaculation it came out that she wasn’t. Um, Plan B, anyone? Anyone? He told me that they weren’t thinking about that and that they were both tipsy at the time and just crossed their fingers hoping that nothing would happen.

And then he asks this: “You don’t think of me any differently, do you? Would you still want to go out with a dad?”

Right. You have a baby on the way and all you’re worried about is getting some more ass. But oh no, it wasn’t over: I asked him why he and the girl don’t just get an abortion and he says, “I can’t go through that again.”

Wait. Again? What again? Turns out, he and the high school girlfriend had not only one but TWO abortions together. Safe sex, just not his thing, huh? Wow, I sure went ahead and picked myself a winner here to deal with.

We talked some more that night and I spent some time speaking reassuring words I didn’t really mean because all I was thinking was, “GET. OUT. NOW!”

We no longer talk. Last I checked, he wants to name the baby Noah. Because he really liked the Notebook.

In an attempt to put myself out there after a particularly emotional breakup, I stooped so low as to post an ad on Craigslist. I assumed it would be mostly for entertainment value, but one of the responses I got actually seemed like a cool guy. We talked online for a few days and he was funny and interesting and so I decided to just go for it and asked if he’d like to meet for coffee.

The night arrives and I’m waiting anxiously at the Boston library. I don’t remember his name, but the guy, let’s call him James, showed up and I was relieved. Although he isn’t normally my type he was a perfectly fine looking guy. However, as soon as he opened his mouth I got a weird feeling. He didn’t seem to have much of a mind for standard social interactions, or realize that a blind date was an awkward situation and immediately started talking to me as if we’d been friends for ages. I wanted to give the guy a chance, though, and agreed to accompany him to buy gloves at Marshall’s.

When we left the store I was already trying to think of excuses to cut the night early, but since I am a nice person I asked him where he’d like to go for coffee.
“Oh, I don’t like coffee.”
“You don’t? But, I thought we were meeting for coffee…”
“Yeah, but, I mean, I don’t like it. But if you wanted to go for coffee, I would go with you.”
“Well, I’m not going to go if you don’t like coffee. What would you like to do instead?”
“I don’t know.”

As we were discussing this, we were absentmindedly continuing to walk down Boylston. We couldn’t decide on what to do instead so we just kept walking. After a bit I asked again, “What would you like to do?”

“I don’t know. I live this way so I’m just naturally walking this way.”

This is when I realized he clearly was under the impression that we were going to have sex. This was not happening and I started racing to come up with an escape plan.

We continued walking as he blathered on about the most absurd topics (for example, he shared his thoughts on the design of intersections in Boston) and I continued panicking. After awhile he stopped at this metal door between two restaurants and started to unlock it.

“Is this your dorm?” I asked, not recognizing it as the Northeastern campus.
“No.”
“…is this your apartment?” I asked, even though he told me he lived on campus.
“No.”
“…so what is it, then?”
He didn’t say anything as we stepped inside to yet another locked metal door.
“…where are we?”
“This is my little underground lair.”
I swear my eyes popped out of my head. “No, I’m not going into a place that you call your “underground lair.”
“It’s fine.”

I wish I could say at this point that I was smart enough to just turn around and leave, but for some reason I followed him through the door and down a flight of stairs where I could hear loud music being played behind more locked metal doors. I had visions of some crazy underground club where I was going to be gangbanged by businessmen or sold into white slavery. All the while he was saying, with a laugh, “yeah, this definitely used to be used for something illegal.” “Well, what is it used for now?” He seemed to never recognize when I spoke and just kept spilling out his internal monolouge. We stopped at one of the doors and as he unlocked each of the three padlocks he handed them to me. “Some guy rents out these rooms to students to have practice in.”

We walked into the shithole of a room where, thankfully, there truly was a bunch of instruments lying around and not a group of men panting eagerly. All I could think of, as the drummer next door pounded away, was that if something were to happen no one would be able to hear me scream. Imagining myself as the inspiration for the next Lifetime made-for-TV movie, I started scraping for schemes again. I stood frozen in the doorway, visually uncomfortable with the situation as he wandered around the room talking about god-knows-what, playing a few of the instraments and lounging on the ratty couch. I texted my roommate, who was out to dinner with her boyfriend and his father, but was the only one I thought could help me.
“HELP ME!”
“What?”
“Worst. date. ever.”
“Do I need to call you telling you I’m pregnant?”
“Call in ten minutes.”

The minutes passed so slowly that I was certain my roommate had forgotten about me. I was barely muttering answers to his questions and he kept looking at me with this wide-eyed “i can’t believe I have a girl alone with me” expression. Every now and then he’d come over to me and put his hands on my face or my shoulders saying “why do you look so nervous?? Don’t be so nervous! Come, sit on the couch with me.” “No, I’m fine here.” I’d say, praying that my phone would start vibrating. Finally I felt it. “Oh, sorry, hold on I need to take this” I told him.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Celeste. I’m calling you.”
“Hello???”
“…hi.”
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Um. Yeah, I can hear you.”
“Hello? Hello? I can’t hear you, hold on.” I look at him with with the best “i’m sorry” face I can muster and say, “I just need to go outside and take this for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
“Oh, do you want me to come with you?”
“No! Uh, no. Wait here. I’ll be back.”

The minute I step out of the room I start running up the stairs. I burst out of the doors into a crowd of drunk students and scare the shit out of everyone, turn in the opposite direction of how we came and sprinted around the corner. Now, it needs to be made clear that I. Do not. Run. Ever. But I fucking RAN, all the while yelling to my roommate “I’M RUNNING! I’M RUNNING!”  I had this vision of him chasing after me until I couldn’t run anymore so I tried to throw my imagined persuer off by twisting and turning around the back roads until I had absolutely no idea where I was anymore or where to go. And even then, I stood hiding in an apartment building’s doorway.

After a few minutes, with my roommates assurance that I wouldn’t be murdered if I stepped back out onto the street, I emerged from my hiding place and walked around trying to orient myself. Eventually I found a recognizable street and wandered until I stumbled upon the Symphony T station. As I sat waiting for the train, i jumped at every beep of someone coming through the gates. Looking back on it now, it’s likely I wasn’t in any terrible danger, but at the time I was terrified. I can only imagine what it was like for him to realize that I bolted on him. I returned home to find an email from him apologizing for not being the type of guy I was hoping for. The sad thing is, I don’t think he ever figured out it was taking a girl he just met to his underground lair we had to get to through three padlocked metal doors that did me in. I guess that’s what I get for trying out Craigslist.

I also used to have a hard time believing in love.  My first “serious” high school boyfriend (of all of ten weeks) dumped me because I outscored him in AP Chemistry.  Things didn’t get much better in college: I dated a guy who believed he was Nietzsche’s intellectual heir and had to place one fuck buddy on suicide watch.  So, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of romantic entanglements when I left school for a summer job in development in India.  Two weeks in, I knew I was right.   In conservative South India, white women are de facto porn stars – it’s only fair since all the contraband porn that sneaks in features whites.  As a result, I got plenty of attention (think drive-by sexual harassment moped-style) but made little romantic headway.

And then I met A.  I had a sightseeing date with a (female) Japanese expatriate.  She brought her (male, very Indian) hot roommate.  At lunch, he ordered us lamb brain.  A week later, after a long, hard conversation with myself about mixed signals and conservative Indian values, after 10 hours of talking, smoking, drinking, and starring longingly (pathetically) at one another, I climbed on top of him and stuck my tongue in his mouth.  He was surprised to learn Americans kissed with tongue.  The next day, I moved out of my office, where I had temporary housing, and into his apartment.  My office boy, who had long been hoping to catch the American doing scandalous American things, was overjoyed.

If either A or I had anything that remotely resembled good sense, we would have quit the day before I left for America.  We didn’t.  And by the grace of video skype, things mostly worked out.  I promised to return in December (my winter break and India’s peak travel season), only to watch in horror as ticket prices escalated from $1800 to $3000 in the space of two weeks.  Undeterred, I procured my tickets using purchased miles (which is a breach of contract for most if not all airlines), only to be interrogated by corporate security about my sketchy itinerary when I reached the airport.  My heart thumping, I thought, “OMG, OMG, I am never going to see my boyfriend or the inside of an aircraft again.”  After I strongly implied that I was the mistress of a wealthy Saudi oil baron, who had given me the miles, the corporate fuzz let me fly onward.  In India again, I met my boy’s parents and helped perpetuate a mass lie to his extended family about my non-girlfriend status lest they all believe that he had morally lost his way.  On the upside, we also went houseboating and risked indecent exposure on an overnight train.  We’ve been making our impossible, mostly transcontinental relationship work for 8 months.  In between, he introduced me to great Indian film and literature.  I introduced him to Dan Savage’s column.  I’m a snobby, globetrotting Ivy League elitist.  My boyfriend grew up in working class Bombay and has never left India.  The fact that we can make a relationship work (and work, for the most part, happily) that transcends deep-set cultural and socio-economic differences (not to mention a distance of a few tens of thousands of miles) says something about the illogic of where and when we find love.  It also suggests that love is “memoryless” and that past failures have little impact on future successes except that they teach us a little bit more about what we are looking for.

Okay, so I can’t EXACTLY answer either of the questions for various reasons, but my answer is somewhat more relevant to question A. Now, I’m a lesbian who hasn’t dated, fucked, or even had a make out session in over FOUR YEARS. This is both sad and disturbing, I know. I mean I’m in college, if I can’t fuck a college chick then something is off. But, that is neither here nor there (hopefully i get some pity points, i mean c’mon..FOUR YEARS). But, my story deals with my lack of ass getting, and more importantly, lack of clit play. So.. obviously at this very sad and lonely point in my life, masturbation is my ONLY option. And, I must admit I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I know what to do, where to go, and how to finish. Well, apparently one should never masturbate in unfamiliar territory.

I was crashing on a friend’s couch after a long night of drinking games, smot poking, ultimate dance parties, and annoying picture taking. So 3am rolls around, and everyone is passed the fuck out at this point. I look around and think, “Okay, you can totally masturbate. This is a 100% kosher situation”.  So, yada-yada-yada..i’m doing what I do best..and all of a sudden BOOOOOOM CRASSSSSSH MOTHA F’ING BANGGGG..I lose my balance holding on somewhere between the GLASS coffee table and the couch..fall in the most horrendous position NOT ONLY smashing and breaking the entire glass table BUT BREAKING MY WRIST, spraining my ankle, and my entire left side is covered in blood, cuts, and immediate bruising. Of course the people sleeping in the 4X4 Beacon Hill closet wake up, run out into the living room, notice a pant-less and panty-less me looking like a hotttt messs, and at this point I’m screaming/crying/shaking because of the pain of my wrist and entire body. In response to all the “Whaaat the fahhhck, d00d???” ‘s, I start shrieking “I WASSS MASTURBATTTING!!! AHHHH OUUUUUUH, MOMMMMY! OUUUUUH” Sooo thanks to my buddies, took a nice little trip over to MGH where they confirmed all the damage I had done to my body, and I took home a nice little prescription for some nice little pills.

Moral of the story? Don’t let single, sex depraved lesbians sleep on your couch, ESPECIALLY if you have glass tables.

More important moral of the story? I’m a broke ass college student who needs a fucking sex toy.