Eyes Wide Open

There comes a time in every walk home when the front door is reached and the inevitable goodnight kiss commences. You thank the guy who just walked you home, and from there it's like clockwork. His hand finds its way to the small of your back, you look up (or if you're me, you look directly level) at him and your faces close in on each other. The kiss starts out soft, but then the world begins to whirl around your bodies. If you're sober, this the whirling of your emotions, indicating that you really like this guy. If you're not, this is the churning of your stomach, indicating that you took one to many shots. While the sober girl doesn't invite the man who walked her home inside because she wants to take things slow, the not-sober girl doesn't invite the man who walked her home inside because he's bound to get a mouthful of nastiness before she will.
The other night I went to a party within walking distance from my house and continued to get obliterated in bliss knowing that I didn't have to worry about finding a ride home. Hours later into the early morning people began clearing out and I suddenly grew less confident about walking home alone. I slurred out a plea for company and in response a guy friend of mine offered to walk me home. While I found this to be a nice, wholesome gesture, I didn't take into consideration that when you're wearing a spandex dress, you have no guy friends. We walked the two blocks to my house and once we reached the front door, it was like drunken clockwork. His hand had found my lower back (and by "lower back" I mean my ass), our faces closed in on each others, and we began slobering at each others faces like dogs. The world began to whirl around me as it suddenly hit me, if my eyes are closed any longer, I'm going to throw up in this guys mouth.
I'd been hit hard with the spins, so I opened my eyes, but even that didn't help. I needed to focus my vision on something. As if it'd been a BBM from God, I instantaneously felt the vibrate of my phone, so I stealthily pulled my blackberry out of my pocket and began reading my messages over his shoulder while we made out. He didn't realize for a good minute and a half until I started responding to my texts.
"What are you doing?" he pulled away.
"What? Oh!" I opened my eyes as wide as humanly possible and stared at my phone, as if I, too, was surprised it was in my hand. "I was just, uh, checking the time."
"How about we go inside?" I didn't know how I would keep my vision focused on my phone now that I apparently was up-to-date on what time it was. I also didn't know how to tell him that the only thing that would be getting it in tonight would be my toilet bowl.
"My parents are asleep," as if that's stopped me before.
"Bummer, well goodnight. We'll hang another time." He kissed me goodnight.
"Yeah, definitely," I watched him walk down my driveway, then I held up my hand with my phone still in it and slurred out "text me!"

I Was Like, Why Am I So Obsessed With You?

After any hook up I've ever had, I've found it impossible not to obsess over it the entire next day (or in some cases, the entire next year.) Regardless of whether the hook up was good or bad, I can't help but look at the person's facebook the next day, and even jump whenever my phone vibrates thinking that it could be a text from them. For some reason, any sexual encounter I have gives me a case of obsession. Obsessing is like Herpes; you contract it from sexual activity and while there's no cure for it, you can lead a perfectly healthy life only having to deal with the occasional outbreak.
But what triggers outbreaks can vary from an actual hook up to just a brief encounter with someone you've had feelings for. Just when I thought I'd dealt with every obsession-worthy encounter Saturday night, this Sunday morning brought on an obsessive event all it's own. I was roused from my sleep at 9:30 a.m. by a phone call from a guy I'd hooked up with a few times in the past couple weekends but hadn't seen out the night before. In all of five seconds I went from being engulfed in a deep sleep to painfully awake with my heart pounding in my throat. What could he possibly want? I was dying to know what he was calling me about, but at the same time I couldn't muster up the courage to answer the phone. It's probably a butt-dial, Taylor. Don't overthink it. I silenced the ringer and crawled back into my bed. In attempt to go back to sleep, I shut my eyes, but both my mind and my heart were racing. But why would he call me and not just text me? Maybe he had something important to tell me. And is it even possible to be butt-dialed at 9:30 on a Sunday morning? Because I don't think people are conscious and moving around enough to make Sunday mornings a plausible butt-dialing time. I was having an obsession outbreak, and so it goes that for the next three hours I laid in bed, wide awake, contemplating every possible reason for why this guy would be calling me at 9:30 on a Sunday morning.
But if obsessing is an STD, is it contagious? Is it possible that while I'm still sitting here wondering why he called me six hours after my phone rang this morning, he's sitting around wondering why I didn't answer his call or even why I haven't tried to call him back? Or can some people be immune to obsessing? When you have a sexual encounter with someone, is it possible to never think about it after the fact? A part of me almost wishes my sexually transmitted obsession was a viral problem, and not a mental one. For Herpes, you pick up an antiviral prescription from your local pharmacy. But for obsession, the most you can do to treat it is pick up an issue of Cosmo and pray the answer to your questions lies in one of the articles.

One Woman's Trash... Is Trash Until She Sees It's Another Woman's Treasure

Life would be much more convenient if we were dating inside a vacuum. A vacuum where each woman exists in solitude, accompanied only by her personal pool of eligible bachelors. Within this dating vacuum, we'd be able to figure out exactly what we want without having to second guess ourselves or make the same mistake twice. But unfortunately, we do not live in a vacuum. We share a world with three billion other women, creating competition within our gender. From the beginning of time, all the women of a village would fight over the hunter-and-gatherer with the biggest biceps and the loin cloth made of the finest animal skins that their side of the Bering Strait had to offer. Now, it's women from every social circle fighting over the untamable bad boy who juggles women and refuses to be tied down. For some reason, even more attractive than a guy with six pack abs, a sparkling personality, or even a meaty trust account is a guy who has other women interested in him. You don't even have to start out liking this guy, just as soon as you know that other women want him you then suddenly have to have him ("like, you don't understand, it's an emergency, I think I'm in love with him, like, oh my god.")
As easy as it is for me to roll my eyes at this pitiful attribute of womanhood, I myself am not immune to it. As I have learned over the past two weekends, competition is inevitably the ultimate turn-on. The saturday before last I had what I can honestly declare to be the worst sexual encounter of my entire life. This guy was not a good kisser, a terrible conversationalist, he didn't get my jokes, and to top it all off the only time I'd seen a smaller penis was whilst changing diapers (and at that size I think the scientific categorization changes from "penis" to "peepee.") And the worst part about it was that it was supposed to be a great hook up! He was gorgeous (minus points for being blond, though), tall, and we'd gotten along so well during our anthropology class! But the morning after our abominable hook up, I spent my entire hangover mulling over the perturbing event and came to terms with the fact that I was completely and totally over my crush and his peepee. That is, until the next weekend.
That following thursday, my friend Molly and I went out to a pirate themed party at the PeePee's frat where within five seconds of being there we saw the PeePee making out with a petite blonde girl. In shock, we scurried down the hall and ducked into the bathroom to freak out in the privacy of our own stall.
"Oh my god," Molly squealed, "I think that's his girlfriend from home!" My favorite things about Molly are that she went to high school with the PeePee, and that she, like I, enjoys Facebook stalking on-the-go via Blackberry. "Hold on, I'm looking up her profile," she said, fastidiously typing and scrolling, "yep, it's her. Her status says she's visiting for the weekend." And just like that, a switch had been flipped. I went from being beyond turned off to never wanting him more. I was lusting after the PeePee. I hadn't dressed up for the pirate party, but now I was on a mission to get someone else's treasure.
"Should I text him?" Never a good idea.
"Yeah! Do it!" Fuck you, Molly.
"Okay, okay, I'm doing it! I'll just pretend like I didn't see him and ask what he's doing tonight!" As I began typing my pseudo-aloof text, my phone received a text from the PeePee himself! A simple "Hey" that managed to make everything more complicated.
My pulse was racing. I texted back saying "Hey, I'm at your frat". Within the same minute he texted back saying "Where???" Now I was freaking out.
"Molly, he just said 'Where???' with three question marks!!!"
"Oh my god! Tell him you're upstairs!"
I answered with my location and waited for him to text back, but he didn't. Several minutes passed, rendering me debilitatingly anxious.
"Okay, he still hasn't answered, should I text him again like 'Did you want to hang?'" Even in my drunken state I should have known that if you have to double text someone, you shouldn't be texting them at all.
"Yeah, that's good, send that!" I hate you, Molly.
I sent the second text and still no answer. I felt like trash for allowing myself to become so vulnerable so easily, especially over a guy that I'd gotten over the weekend before!
"Let's get out of the bathroom, we've been in here for like, ten minutes. People are gonna think we had either diarrhea or lesbian sex." Still gripping my phone waiting for a text back, we left the safety of our stall. As we walked into the hallway, I didn't get a response text, but I did get a different message. I saw the PeePee walk into the same room that he'd brought me into the weekend before with his petite blonde girlfriend from home and shut the door. The room that I had never wanted to go back into until I saw the petite blonde girl go in there. The petite blonde girl that had transformed my trash into an unattainable treasure.
Molly put her arm over my shoulder, "Let's go get another drink." And so we did.

Can I Have Yo Numba? No.

Even worse than wishing you had somebody's phone number is the feeling of anticipation and potential rejection that comes when you know someone has your phone number and you wish they'd text you. That total anxiety, sending all your mental power into channeling thoughts that are sent directly to them telling them to text you. When you know someone has your phone number in their contacts, you don't even necessarily want something grandoise to come out of it, you just want a simple "hey, whats up."
This is why I've always found it's better to have someone else's number. Except for sending the not-so-occasional drunk text, this has potential to work out well. The antithesis to the problem of wanting someone to text you, the best thing ever is when someone gives you their number and tells you to text them, then when you don't, the next time they see you they say something like "Oh hey, why didn't you text me this weekend?" Can you say "ball's in my court"?
As I sit here typing, thinking about the time the hot guy from lecture said that very "why didn't you text me this weekend?" after getting his number, I'm absolutely rue-ing the day when I texted him asking what the homework was (I had already done the homework) just so that he'd have my number in his phone, with the hope that he'd text me that upcoming weekend. But on this thursday night, I sit anxiously by my phone, waiting for a text from him, sending positive energy to Verizon and also his hormones, waiting for a text from him, summoning every ancient God we learned about in our mythology lecture, still waiting for that text from him.
But it's not as if I said "text me this weekend, I would like to satisfy some urges with you," or even something normal like "yeah, text me if your frat has a party tonight," it was him who said "I'll text you if I go out tonight." I didn't prompt that statement and I didn't for a reason! That reason being it's driving me fucking crazy to see my phone with no new texts! Twenty minutes ago, my phone rang and I almost busted a proverbial nut, only to see that it was my mom calling! And then she had the nerve to ask why I sounded so erratic on the phone!
The potential teenage romance looming inside the lecture hall is not worth my current state of stress. I'm not giving out my phone number anymore.