The First Time I Brought A Man Home After My Divorce - And Others Failures
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, and as additional proof that my life is basically a romantic comedy- except no one gets laid and everyone is awkward, let me tell you about the first guy I brought home after my divorce.
One random weekday night, I was feeling particularly down about my divorce, living alone and the miserable struggle that is relearning yourself. A friend was over and we were nursing our second bottle of wine when she gets a text.
“I’m going to be at Elm Hill if you want to hang out.”
A super casual dive bar invitation from a new guy she’d just started talking to. Perfect timing. I hadn’t been to a bar in months thanks to the pandemic and I needed to kiss a stranger’s face immediately.
I make a mad dash to put on real pants and she yells from the bathroom asking if I have tampons. I say something about them being on the top shelf, as I change shirts, throw on some mascara and red lipstick. All before she opens the door. I am the fastest person I know at going from looking utterly homeless to socially acceptable enough to walk out the door.
We get to the bar, a term I use loosely here, because it’s a total dump – blacked out windows, wood paneling, not a car in sight. Apparently, they weren’t “open to the public,” but regulars had a secret knock and could enter through the side door. Sounds like a speak easy, looks like where you’d go to score some drugs.
We grabbed a drink from the bar and found her fling of the week, looking like anti-social Jesus in the corner booth, a real hipster.
We were making small talk with him when I spotted a hipster all my own near the pool tables. We’ll call him Bryan. Six foot, bearded, full head of hair and great teeth, basically a unicorn in the looks department. We spent the next several hours playing pool, pounding light beers and taking cheap shots of tequila like it was a college frat party. It was exactly the night I needed. I was remembering what it felt like to be happy, feel attracted to someone and hopeful.
He was pressing me against the wall outside near the trashcans with some heavy petting and hardcore making out when I decided I was going to take this one home. It had been months. It was time to get back on the metaphorical horse.
We headed back to my house around 3am once we’d sobered up. Dancing and singing at the top of our lungs to 90’s tunes, laughing at how ridiculous the other looked. We were really gelling. As we walked up my front stairs, the chat went a little something like this -
“Do we need to be quiet because of your roommates?”
“Uh, what roommates?”
“You don’t have roommates?”
“No. I’m 31.”
“I’m 36 and have 3 roommates. How long have you lived here”
“I bought it in March” I say opening the door.
“You own this house?!”
And just like that, I’m dry downstairs. His unicorn status is gone and I now remember what it’s like to date in Nashville.
I’m giving myself a mental pep-talk to mask my current disappointment. “That’s okay. I mean, he’s a “musician”/bartender with three roommates and no goals, but at least he’s attractive. Not every connection is forever, right? It can still be fun.”
We sit on the couch snuggling, kissing and I assume we are about to get to the good stuff, so I excuse myself to the bathroom to freshen up.
My house was built in 1947. It’s basically a walk-in closet and has some seriously old copper pipes. You DO NOT flush anything down them other than toilet paper, for any reason, ever.
So, I finish using the bathroom and flush. The water is rising, and rising and rising. Then a tampon floats up. My friend had flushed her freaking tampon!
I’m hyperventilating a little, water is flowing over the side of the toilet, there’s a used tampon circling the bowl and there’s a hot guy on my couch I just met tonight. I grab the tampon by the string and toss it in the trashcan, lunge for the plunger and start plunging lightly, hoping he can’t hear me cursing and water hitting the tile.
Mid-plunge, I yell from the bathroom, “Bryan, can you please let my dog outside? Yeah, like now. She really has to go.”
Trying to get him farther than two feet from my bathroom door, praying Bryan isn’t hearing the suck and bubble of water in and out of the plunger.
“Uh, sure.”
I roll a towel up to block the bottom of the door. It’s a flood. I return to plunging, violently now that he is in the backyard. I am putting my whole body into it. By the time he closed the back door, water was successfully flowing down the toilet. Thank God. I reach for more towels, slip and ram my knee against the sink, hard.
He definitely heard that.
I grab all of my gorgeous, fluffy, white Vera Wang towels I wanted so badly when I registered for the wedding to sop up my floors. I threw them all in the tub and closed the shower curtain. Hiding the evidence.
I stepped out of the bathroom and he was standing there. “Um, are you okay?”
“Yeah, great, so great.”
I grab his arm, pulling him into my bedroom. Clothes are flying, there’s biting, kissing, heavy petting and I’m getting excited I got away with flooding my bathroom and we are back in the mood. And then, of course, his dick doesn’t work. It’s this sad little puddle of play-dough flopping over on his thigh and he says the line all men say when they drink too much, “This never happens to me, I swear.”
Great.
We pass out and two hours later, I wake up with a bruised knee, pounding head and blanketed in disappointment.
Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. I got out of bed and he didn’t.
I went into my office and continued to suffer all day. All I wanted was to take a giant poop, eat McDonalds to soak up the alcohol and lay on my couch in my sweats while attempting to work. But 10am rolled around and he was still there.
I taunted my dog with treats so she’d start barking, hopeful it would wake him up and he’d leave. Instead, he woke up, said how relaxing my house was and WENT BACK TO SLEEP!
At noon, my butthole was puckering, waves of nausea were flowing over me and I’d had enough. I walked into my bedroom and started pulling clothes from the closet and drawers, being extra loud. He rolled over,
“What are you doing?”
“I am meeting some friends for lunch, so sorry to wake you at noon.”
He started getting dressed while I pretended to look for more clothes, as if the five shirts I’d laid out already weren’t enough.
He finally left and I sprint to the bathroom. Sitting there, surrounded by wet toilet towels and in the trashcan, the villain from just hours before, I had to laugh.
And this is why they make vibrators.