What Possessed Me

“Feeling kinda sick”

I’m so sorry to do this but I have to cancel :-( I am feeling kinda sick. R u free Thursday night though? Sorry!


After I receive the text message from Hot Psych Professor yesterday, My Little Pony is all dressed up with nowhere to go. It doesn’t occur to me until I receive an email from Heidi that he might be “afraid of the lederhosen” – that he actually believes that I am going to show up dressed as a plastic figurine and expect him to wear nothing but traditional Austrian alpine costume. I imagine him curled up in a tiny ball, sucking his thumb and rocking back and forth in contemplation of our meeting. This depresses me for two reasons:

1. HPP thinks I am a big bucket of crazy suitable only for institutionalization at McLean Hospital. (This has occurred to me as well, but sometimes it’s important to get confirmation from a professional.)
2. I have no male friends in New York.

I’ve been thinking about reason #2 a lot lately, because it seems unnatural to me that my life is so devoid of male companionship (save the company of my older brothers and father, who don’t really count). I used to think that male-female friendships were a bit of a crock, because eventually, someone goes wobbly and ruins everything. Lately, I’ve revised my theory to include certain conditions under which such friendships can exist:

1. You have already shagged, and it was awful.
2. You have no desire to shag, and the repulsion is mutual.
3. One or both of you is shagging someone else, with no plans to stop, other than for an occasional adult beverage or pee break.
4. You suspect that he is gay and unattainable, which makes it safe to a) lust after him and b) befriend him.
5. Your entire friendship exists over Friendster or MySpace.
6. You have been platonic too long and it’s too much fucking effort to make a move. Besides, you suspect he’s a bad lay.

We’ve rescheduled for next Tuesday. Unfortunately, the small Thai boy is unavailable that night, as is the My Little Pony costume. What am I going to wear now?

Ich mag Ihr lederhosen

So dinner with Hot Psych Professor is tonight and I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t had a chance to field suggestions from all you lovely peeps about what to wear. What does one wear to a strictly platonic blind-date dinner with an HPP? Left to my own devices (always a dangerous thing), I had to come up with something:

Hey,

See you tonight at 7:15.

I'll be dressed as My Little Pony, with a small Thai boy in tow. You won't miss me. (But if you do, say hello to the tall girl with dark, shaggy hair. She has some anxieties about men who wear diapers during sex and might need your professional help to work through that.)

I assume you'll be wearing lederhosen and nothing else. Don't disappoint me.

Best,
P.

Day Four: Asinine Behavior Indulged

Here is the situation: I often behave like a complete and utter ass. I can usually pull myself together at work, where I am paid to speak and write like a grown-up, but when I’m unleashed upon the world, especially around pathologically normal people, I start to get twitchy. I start to say things – bad things, tactless, demented, idiotic things – and I cannot help myself. I feel an inexorable force pulling me into a downward spiral of verbal diarrhea and…what? Downward spiral of diarrhea? I don’t think that works. Anyway, there are people in this world who indulge this behavior – enjoy it, even – perhaps because it makes them feel better about themselves. Perhaps they think, I may be a transgendered tranny ho, but at least I don’t scream ‘CALL 411!’ when a drunk homeless man hits his head on the ground, causing a massive head wound. Or maybe they think, Wow, I’m so blessed that no one has ever run away from me on a subway platform for fear of having their bagel stolen.

In short, I like to make people feel good about themselves. I think that’s what I’m doing with Hot Psych Professor, who broke the four-day silence with a lovely note that clearly illustrates his appreciation of my fuckwittedness as a foil to set off his own social graces:

Thanks for being honest and letting me know about your maelstrom...hope that has been fun and not too crazy-making (as I know romantic maelstroms can be!). Hanging out nonetheless sounds great though. Since roller discoing would be painful embarrassing for me as I would be on my ass most of the time or would likely knock into you propelling you onto said ass (but I too have a talent for embarrassing myself so this could also work), we would be relatively safer with drinks (minus a possible spilled drink or two, here and there). How about next Tuesday night?

Who am I to let HPP down? He’s feeling good, why let the self-love die? So I write him back, compelled to share more of myself with him, so that he can thank his lucky stars he’s single and not dating me:

The maelstrom is definitely making me crazy (see above regarding insane proposals for roller discoing, etc), but I'm coping by abusing heroin, spray adhesive and small Thai boys. Also, I like tattoos. A lot.

Yes, let's meet for a drink on Tuesday. I want to hear about your work! I was grilling Heidi about hers on Friday and found out all sorts of interesting things about people who wear diapers during sex and like to get it on while dressed as stuffed animals. I am clearly in the wrong business.

You know, it’s so good to give back.