Sex Says Read online

  I wasn’t sure if this was an exercise in compassion or torture, but I was ready nonetheless. I gestured toward his desk with a gallant roll of my hand. “By all means, let the reading begin.”

  He grinned. “I honestly think grumpy Lola is my favorite Lola. She’s so agreeable.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah…about the article, Joe? How about we just get on with it?”

  “And a bit of a smartass, but I guess I’ll turn a blind eye to that,” he added with an amused tone as he slid on his reading glasses, cleared his throat, and dove right in.

  Signs of Mr. Avoidance & Why You Should Avoid Him

  The date was right, the signs were there, but when the time came to follow through, he ain’t got none, hun.

  A topic we’ve all heard before, but one we can’t hear enough—and quite frankly, spans gender borders.

  Listen, I know you know this, but to begin, let’s go over the point of this column in one concise statement.

  If someone is into you, it will be obvious.

  Seems simple, right?

  But we’ve all avoided this simple edict more than once, pretended it didn’t exist or didn’t apply to us, and I’m no different. But when we break it down, really look at it line by line, it’s not as easy to avoid.

  Wondering why they haven’t returned your calls or texts? Feel like you need to send out a goddamn carrier pigeon or a blimp in the sky to get their attention?

  These questions? They are your answers.

  If someone likes you, if they want to progress further into a relationship with you, there won’t be any doubts. They will make it known; it will be shown.

  Still need more convincing? I know, it’s hard to accept.

  Here’s some anecdotal evidence.

  A few months back, I had dinner with two of my closest girlfriends, and the conversation migrated to dating. One of my girlfriends started to complain about a guy she had been on a handful of dates with and how he wasn’t returning her calls and how she could go days and days without hearing from him. “I just don’t get it,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  My immediate response? “He doesn’t want to be with you.”

  Her jaw dropped, seemingly shocked that I would say such blasphemous things.

  But it’s clear to you too, right? Because when we step outside of ourselves, away from those messy things called emotions, it seems impossible not to see it.

  Like lust, interest of any kind means contact. And what’s more readily available than that?

  Nothing.

  It doesn’t mean a trip to the store, a horseback ride, or waiting in line at the post office.

  It’s in the phone permanently attached to their hand, the computer at their side, in an app that promises communication in a snap.

  The facts are cold. They’re hard. They’re altogether unwelcoming.

  But they’re true.

  And that’s okay, right?

  I mean, we can’t like everyone we date.

  And everyone we date can’t like us.

  And why wouldn’t we want to see it?

  Why would we want to waste our time trying to make sense of mixed signals?

  Personally, I want a man who treats all men and women well. Not some schmuck who is a total prick to a woman because he’s simply “not interested in her.”

  That’s crap.

  If he doesn’t want to be with her, then he should do the respectable thing and tell her. He shouldn’t pull a Houdini move and disappear off the face of the earth. He should have enough respect to call her after that first date and say, “Hey, thanks for the date, but this isn’t going to work out for me.”

  There are ways to do this without coming across as a complete toolbag.

  There shouldn’t be stringing along.

  There shouldn’t be fake smiles and fake kisses and half-assed dates.

  There shouldn’t be any of it. There should be truth and honesty and respect.

  If you’re not all that into me, tell me.

  I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t into me. And you don’t either.

  I know when I’m interested in someone, it is obvious. I answer calls, return calls, visibly show interest in arranging the next date and the next date. There is no avoidance or mixed messages. I don’t make that person feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway trying to catch my attention with last-dig-flare efforts.

  Dating is hard, guys. Why are we making it even harder on ourselves?

  We shouldn’t waste any more time on someone who is not interested in us.

  We need to stop looking at this as rejection.

  We need to see it for what it is, two people who are not right for one another.

  That’s it. It is seriously that simple.

  You’re still beautiful. You’re still intelligent. You’re still you—a person who is worthy of love and friendship and happiness.

  Sex Says: If you have to question why he hasn’t called or pursued a second date, then it’s time to move on to bigger and better things, preferably a naked Bradley Cooper on a yacht in the South of France.

  1:16 p.m. the clock on my living room wall taunted, the tick, tick, tick of the second hand like water constantly dripping from a faucet.

  Ten, fifteen, twenty… I counted the hours back until I almost got all the way to fucking fifty and rubbed my eyes.

  Well, fuck. I’ve been awake for forty-eight consecutive hours.

  This probably wasn’t the time to get on my computer and record myself talking about this article, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I’m way more of a lover than a fighter, and I hardly ever get revved up or rattled by anything.

  But I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins now.

  If this Lola Sexton was going to keep putting this kind of shit out into the universe, it was only fair that I balanced the effect by sending an opposing view out into the same space.

  Right? Damn right.

  Besides, I coached myself, the only one she isn’t doing a disservice to is herself, assuming she actually believes the “advice” she’s spewing rather than focusing on selling. These people need this.

  Convinced of my necessity, of the very principle by which I lived, I opened my computer and spun my finger on the mouse pad to rouse the screen. It came to life far slower than my current patience level demanded, but before I reached out and smashed it like I was so tempted to do, I stopped and took a deep breath.

  Why the hell am I so worked up over this?

  I searched the recesses of my mind for an answer, but it never came.

  It doesn’t matter why, my sleep-deprived brain reasoned. It just matters that you are. Get it out.

  Blindly, I obeyed, clicking into my camera and setting it to the video function.

  I didn’t have a plan, and for me, that was nothing new. I just had feelings to get off my chest, and this was the fastest, most effort-effective way to do it.

  I centered myself in the screen and clicked the red button to record before reaching forward, shoving the window open and pulling a cigarette from the full pack on the desk in front of me.

  Patting my pockets until the bulk of my lighter formed a mound between my hand and body, I pulled it out and flicked the wheel. A flame flew up to singe the end of my waiting paper. One deep inhale and I was ready to roll.

  “Hello, world,” I greeted cheekily, pulling the smoke from my lips and leaning back in my seat. A teasing smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth, the idea that anyone other than me would see this thing laughable in every possible way. This could be just a very vivid dream.

  I leaned forward and pulled the rolled newspaper from my back pocket and splayed it wide on the surface of my desk, so I could reference it if necessary. I doubted it’d come to that—I had this fucker pretty well memorized.

  “Today seemed like it’d be any other Wednesday as I ventured home from work and stopped by one of my favorite refueling stations—aka coffee hangouts—Hallowed Grounds. Seriously, if
anyone ever happens to see this shit, stop in and give Tony a visit, and tell him I sent you.”

  I took a drag of my cigarette and smiled, a wicked gleam in my eye and my heart.

  “Tell him you want the twenty-percent Reed Luca discount. He may resist a little at first, but he promised it to me this morning, so just keep at him. He really likes that.”

  I bit my lip as I thought about how much Tony would fucking hate that. Please, let at least one San Franciscan see this fucking video.

  “Another patron got up after reading the little article that led to this sleep-deprived reflection, and I have to theorize that her blind and immediate distrust of me was facilitated by the contents of her reading.”

  I picked up the paper from the desk and flashed it toward the camera.

  “Sex Says,” I read. “The byline reads Lola Sexton, and if you are, in fact, a real person, Miss Sexton, I entreat you.”

  “Stop dictating. Stop telling. And stop goddamn lumping every human being into one obscure heap. It may seem like a good idea, in theory, helping the pleading factions by subsidizing their lack of opinion with some of your own, but the only thing blanket advice is good for is smothering individuality.”

  “One size does not fit all when it comes to people, problems, love, and intrigue. One size does not fit all when it comes to dating and the possibility of more. One size does not fit all when it comes to what a man is looking for, what he’s expecting, and what you should expect out of him.”

  “It’s true, some guys don’t call because they have better options or don’t click with you at all. Some don’t call because one of their most prominent personality traits is most easily described as assholeishness. And some don’t call—and they never will—because a steady girl isn’t what they’re looking for.”

  “But some men don’t call because the woman they spend a couple of mundane hours with isn’t the woman you are. It’s some bland, scrubbed-down version thanks to articles like this one and the stereotypes they perpetuate. Some men don’t call because the confidence you lack is small in comparison to the vast emptiness of their own.”

  “Be you. Not what some faceless Simon behind a computer tells you to be—and not what the person you’re trying to impress wants. There shouldn’t be a fucking break-in period before you can be you or an amount of time you should wait to make a move. And there are instances you should be able to give a guy the benefit of the doubt. If you’re bold, be bold. If you’re clingy, cling. Because there are seven billion people in the world, and Reed This, Sex Says: There’s someone out there for everyone. But good fucking luck finding the right one for you while you’re pretending to be someone else.”

  I brought my cigarette to my mouth and leaned forward at once, stopping the recording on one last frame of my face, smoke obscuring the details.

  Lola Sexton’s words didn’t directly tell anyone to pretend to be someone else, but that was the ripple effect. Sweet, trusting women would go into dates jaded by the past and a skewed sense of what every signal a man sent must “mean.” They’d discount a nervous, otherwise caring guy because he didn’t have the confidence to make his feelings known immediately. There were no hard or fast rules in love, and her column read like there were.

  Not one to blog in the past, I wasn’t proficient in any aspect of it now. But after a few minutes of fiddling, I finally got the video uploaded to a YouTube account I’d just created, and I left it to find a small home in the world.

  Maybe it would find someone who needed to see it, needed to hear it, and maybe it wouldn’t.

  But it gave me the outlet I needed to move on.

  With one last drag, I shut my computer, stubbed out the cigarette in my ashtray and stumbled to my bed, pulling my T-shirt over my head and falling face first into the covers gracelessly.

  I didn’t set an alarm, and I didn’t struggle to find sleep. Confident in who I was and what I wanted out of life, I drifted off like a content baby in the womb.

  A delivery truck honked its horn, and my hands jerked the handlebars of my bike a little, causing the wheels to roll over a bumpy section of pavement. My body shook from the vibrations, and I silently cursed the man driving the monstrosity on tires.

  Midday traffic in San Francisco was a real bitch sometimes. Hence, one of the reasons I was on the bike in the first place. The other reason was that I was the kind of weird you couldn’t learn. Nope, like it or not, I was born this way.

  I slipped my hand into the side pocket of my cutoff jean shorts and tapped the volume button a few times to drown out the annoying sounds of people in a rush to get somewhere they probably didn’t want to be.

  The last time I had driven a car, I was eighteen, and it was my dad’s old Astrovan. With its maroon paint, sliding doors, and spacious back seat, that van was a goddamn relic. It was a sad day in the Sexton house when my dad had to send Delilah—that was her name—off to the junkyard because she had turned her very last mile.

  Unfortunately, her aging process worked the opposite of wine. But in her prime, she had taken us on vacations all over the West Coast. I loved that big-ass van. She had been a part of the family, and after she died, I made a promise to myself that I’d never own a vehicle unless I knew it was The One.

  It’s safe to say, I have an unhealthy penchant for attachments to inanimate objects. Not in a kinky way where I had the urge to fuck my microwave. But for as long as I could remember, I’d named all the material things I loved. In Delilah’s case, I’d considered her to be another sister. Hell, some days, I’d loved her more than my blood-related sister—probably still would if she were still burning up the road.

  Why am I telling you about Delilah?

  Well, in a roundabout way, it has prepared you to hear about my bike. Brace yourself because this girl is what makes my heart beat faster.

  Daisy was a true beauty. With her pretty white frame, her bright pink wheels, and her convenient metal basket hanging off the handlebars, she was what little girl bike dreams were made of.

  Besides walking, taking the bus, or catching a cab, Daisy was my sole means of transportation. She was also the absolute apple of my eye.

  I mean, if you owned a car in the city, most days you were five minutes away from selling your soul to the devil just to find a parking spot. But Daisy—we might hit a couple bumps in the road, but she never let me down.

  BØRNS was just starting to serenade my ears with “Holy Ghost” when I finally reached the San Francisco Times’ offices. If I weren’t supposed to attend an important, last-minute meeting, I might’ve just said fuck it, got back on my bike, and pedaled around the city—a less busy part, of course—and enjoyed one of my favorite albums of all time.

  But I didn’t have that option today. Joe had woken me up with an eight a.m. phone call to summon me for a powwow.

  So, like the good little employee I was—well, I tried really hard to be…most days—I parked my bike inside the bike rack, locked it, and headed through the entrance of my place of employment.

  Although I did my very best to avoid these offices, I occasionally had to attend team meetings and monthly in-person chats with my editor, which were mostly nonsense created for the sole purpose of annoying me.

  I just preferred to do my work from home, or at my favorite diner, or coffee shop, etc, etc, etc. I had a long list of places I loved to work, but these offices were certainly not one of them. I was not one with them, but they weren’t one with me either.

  One month after they had hired me to write Sex Says, I had driven Joe to the point of insanity with my inability to stay seated for more than fifteen minutes. After watching me skip to get coffee, tap dance to the bathroom, and twirl to the break room one too many times, he had decided it would be best for everyone if I worked from home.

  In my humble opinion, besides hiring my eccentric ass, it was the best damn decision he had ever made.

  It should be noted that I wasn’t always an expert in the world of sex, dating, and relationships. T
o say I was a bit of an awkward late bloomer—cough, nerd—would’ve been an understatement. A plastic banana ripens faster than I had blossomed into an actual woman.

  While my fellow horny teenage classmates were going to dances and boning like bunnies, I coddled in my womb of unconventional nerddom. Anyone who had the opportunity to go into my parents’ garage and find my Pandora’s box of teenage embarrassment would understand what I meant. Gilmore Girls DVDs, Harry Potter—the books and memorabilia, not the actual wizard—Danielle Steele novels, and trophies from my high school bowling team made up about half of the contents. The other half I refuse to talk about.

  Yeah. Tame your boners, boys.

  Although, I had to say, my glittery pink bowling shoes and matching ball were still something to be proud of.

  My first kiss didn’t occur until I was a junior in high school, and my first experience with sex happened when I was nineteen. It was terrible, in the back of my then-boyfriend’s van, and if there would’ve been a lava lamp, it could’ve easily passed as an actual nightmare.

  Eventually, after a few long and bumpy roads of self-discovery, I had bloomed and blossomed and gained a better understanding of sexual exploration, healthy relationships, and how to navigate the dating world.

  My early twenties had been filled with bizarre dating situations, one-night stands, several failed relationships, and a personal blog on Wattpad where I shared all of my love woes, no matter how embarrassing or absurd.

  And by some stroke of luck, my ridiculous yet oftentimes hilarious dating and relationship stories and love anecdotes had gained some attention. By the time my blog had over 300,000 followers, I had received a call from the San Francisco Times, and voila, Sex Says was born.

  I’m sure none of this comes as a surprise.

  I mean, I ride around San Francisco on a bike named Daisy.

  It’s safe to say I’ve still got a little bit of geek in me.