Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me - Ben Karlin [54]
In college, there was Anya—a striking Sandra Bullock look-alike from Portland. Anya took a lot of classes on human sexuality and enjoyed telling me the content of those classes, including how they related to her life. I’d listen intently, nod my head, then spend the next half hour digging my fingernails out of my leg. Anya eventually became a noted sex researcher and wrote a book on her year of living with the girls at the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada. (Fun Fact: If you want a threesome with a black and a white woman, just ask for the “Salt and Pepper Special.”)
Years later, as part of my job as an editor at Esquire magazine, I oversaw the sex column, which was written by another impossibly attractive woman. Every week or so, we’d have long, intense phone discussions about, for instance, why lesbians in porn movies seem to enjoy fellating dildos. Then I’d hang up and furiously edit an article on how to write a thank-you note or the world’s best golf umbrella—anything to calm down.
Those were tough, for sure. But my most agonizing experience with a bawdy girl was with my friend Chloe. We met in college, but started hanging out in earnest after graduation, when we were both living in New York and severely underemployed. She was hard to miss: Blond hair that was seriously blond, like the color of a smiley face sticker. She wore a massive silver Playboy pendant, cowboy hats, tiger-skin pants, enormous pink sunglasses—shirts and dresses all with plunging necklines. Her theory being if you look and act like a celebrity, you will eventually become one. She was basically an early version of Nicole Richie, but with a high IQ and no trust fund. And it worked—a little. She did start to hang out with the famous, or at least to inhabit the fringes of celebrity culture. You can spot her as one of the official “hot girls in the background” of the opening credits of early-nineties Saturday Night Live.
She was funny and smart and outrageous and let me tag along with her everywhere—to bars that were too hip for me, parties that were too hip for me, concerts that were too hip for me. We once went to the Catskills together, and when I was with her, it seemed the Catskills were too hip for me too.
I was smitten. She was not. But she was no prude. She was quite romantically adventurous with other men. And she liked to tell me about those romantic adventures.
She told me about how this indie film director was performing oral sex on her the night before and, while he was doing it, he made her call her mom and discuss Thanksgiving plans. It gave him some sort of perverse Freudian thrill. The sick bastard. The sick, lucky bastard.
She told me about how, when she was in Florence, Italy, she got drunk at a café, and at the next table was a famous network sports anchor who was even more hammered. They, of course, ended up messing around in the restaurant bathroom.
She also had a weakness for musicians. It killed me. How could she fall for that cliché? Why not a weakness for something more original . . . say, Boggle players? Or guys who’ve read every Hercule Poirot mystery? Or men with moles on their face? That’d give me a fighting chance. (And not just because I have a giant mole on my face and can quote Poirot chapter and verse.)
But no, she went ahead and had flings with guitarists and lead singers, probably a drummer or two. I’d never heard of any of the bands these guys were in, but apparently they were well known to people who read Paper magazine and rented walk-ups in Alphabet City.
So I’d listen to the stories of her escapades. And I’d pine. For those who’ve never endured this particular torture, how can I describe it? It’s like