what i need

my dad always told me never to "need" anything, because then it will elude you. to only "want" or "desire" something, to put that into the universe, and then if you were meant to have it, you could create the reality for yourself in which you receive it.

well, tough. apparently he has borderline personality disorder and i no longer have to be brainwashed by that bullshit.

i have needs---everyone does. water, food, shelter, warmth...then there's a step up from that---family, career fulfillment, interests, hobbies.

let's pretend that all (or at least a whole bunch) of those have been met: i have a great job that allows financial security and freedom to travel. my friends and family are, in my biased opinion, the best fucking people on the planet. i never go hungry, i can afford rent and new winter boots.

and everyone has different priorities. i have friends who are desperate to marry and have kids, others who have no interest in those things. the number of home/condo owners i know increases by what feels like the day. RRSPs and 401Ks and investments are now discussed openly and seemly urgently. debt isn't laughed off as easily anymore.

my priority, for better or worse, my ENTIRE life, has been love. love of my life, my friends, my world, my interests, my job...and of course, as a straight woman, the love of a man.

i have certainly tasted this delicious treat. i have been lucky enough to have had men love me, who i have loved. i have loved when it wasn't returned, and in hindsight i am still so glad i got to experience love on any level.

i have always wondered why i lack the drive and ambition to carve out a professional life for myself. i grew up knowing that i had the smarts and faculties to accomplish anything i set my mind to. i've toyed with going to school, entering various other fields...but i never do it.

however, when it comes to love, man oh man do i go for it. as i have gotten older i have definitely become more cautious, but by comparison to those around me, i am an all-in, full on kind of girl. if i like you, i like you HARD. living a life without true love isn't even an option. i put a TON of energy toward finding the guy for me, and every time i have been knocked down, i pull myself up and keep going.

so what do i actually need? i have realized recently that a man having a job is pretty nice---not an issue even a few years ago. i love to laugh, and be social, and require someone with the comfort levels, social skills and sense of humour to match mine. sex is hugely important to me. and i have half-jokingly set up a list of "dealbreakers" to help me sift through the never-gonna-work-out dudes: 1) no consumption of rum & cokes (are you a 16 year old girl?); 2) you cannot be from sudbury (i have my reasons, and they are valid); 3) if the band slayer is in your top 5, i'm out (it has only proven to be a problem); 4) if the words "i never dance" comes out of your mouth, you are NOT the man for me (really, at our wedding, you won't DANCE with me?!?!).

i need you to be considerate. call/text when you say you will. assure me you prefer me on a sunday morning with my hair up and glasses on, but tell me how hot a look on a friday night. for the love of god, don't keep your hands to yourself. ever. kiss me---lots. make me laugh, let me cry. hold my hand. choose me over sleep, not all the time, just often. get to know my friends and let me get to know yours. cuddle me till we're both falling asleep and then give me some space. have your own life, but share it with me. read. get off the computer. put down the video game. don't keep your hands to yourself. ever.

i am learning how to date at 28, so i am open to all kinds of advice---from my ladies, from my boys, from strangers. "play it cool", "be yourself", "go get him", "let him call you first"; i've heard it all. i hate the idea of me and a 30-something man playing games instead of being ourselves. you're gonna get me eventually, you may as well know what you're in for!

it's obviously impossible to predict how things are going to go, but no matter what, i'm ready. because despite every lawrence, matt dickson, daddy issue and total freak-ass loser in between, i'd rather put myself out there and get a little beat up, if in the end, i am lucky enough to have love.

matt dickson

this one gets his full name, because on the off chance this gets read by anyone besides my friends, he deserves to be outed.

i wasn't going to include him. but i must.

i had just gotten back to victoria after spending christmas in toronto. after my break up with chris, i couldn't afford to move everything home yet, so i was back, trying to make enough money to move back across the continent for the second time in a year...5th time in a decade, i should add.

my friend and i wanted to go out dancing. it was a sunday in victoria, not exactly the best day in the best town for a party, but we persevered. we cabbed from place to place, the last of which was a club i had never been to.

we walked in, two of maybe a dozen people in a minimum 100-capacity space. we went straight to the bar and ordered two coronas, two tequilas. like good service industry kids, we made friends with the bartender right away, buying him a shot.

as we stood there, a man i hadn't noticed walked up to us and started flirting with me. right away, i knew i wasn't interested. he was very tall, with a to-the-scalp shaved head and an accent---new zealand, i discovered upon reluctant investigation. i was about 2 beers and 3 shots in---by no means my limit, but i was feeling good enough that i was able to at least humour the man who had the nerve to approach me---an uncommon occurrence.

as he got closer, and my friend continued to talk to the bartender, he bet me a dime that he could kiss me without touching my lips. innocent to this ploy despite years in bars, i took the bet. of course he kissed me and handed me the dime and i felt like an idiot, duped.

then i blacked out.

i woke up naked, in a strange bed in a strange apartment, with this man standing over me, fully clothed and brushing his teeth, waking me up.

now, i should state here, this wasn't TOTALLY foreign to me. i had definitely woken up in a similar situation as this before.

when i sat up, i felt like i was still drunk. so i assumed i had gotten wasted and just gone home with this idiot against better judgement. again, not the first time. i quickly dressed---my clothes were neatly folded and on the couch---and tried to pull it together, act cool, everything's fine. he called me a cab and on my way out the door, i stood up on my tippy toes and kissed him good-bye.

when i got home, my friend, who i was staying with, was already up. "how was YOUR night?" she asked. "ok i guess" was my response, i think. i stumbled into the living room/my room and passed out.

when i woke up, i knew something was wrong. i felt weird, wonky like i'd done e or something---and i have done enough drugs to know when something foreign is in my system. in an effort to straighten out, my friend and i walked to our usual sandwich place. it was when we were walking home that i realized, all of a sudden:

i had been drugged.

i had been drugged by some asshole at some bar, who knows what he'd done to me, and i had KISSED HIM WILLINGLY ON THE WAY OUT.

of everything that has come out through this experience---the hospital, the rape kit, the questions, the police reports---THAT is what kills me. that i have put myself in so many fucked up, terrible sexual situations that when i was put in one involuntarily, i couldn't tell the difference.

i wish i could say this woke me up, changed my ways... i went the other way. in my last month in victoria, i slept with half a dozen strangers, eager to erase any evidence that this piece of shit was ever inside me. when i returned home, i continued on this charming path, taking my clothes off for pretty much anyone who gave me the time of day.

but when i went to that bar in victoria that night, i was looking for the same thing as i have every time i've walked into any bar or social situation. a fun time with a girlfriend, and maybe a chance at love.

dad

it seems impossible to write about the men that have affected me and not write about the very first one.

obviously this is different. but having just seen this man, helpless and sick in a devastatingly depressing nursing home, with mixed emotions i can't even begin to list, i realized this is perhaps the most important one of all.

dad is and has always been dynamic. my charisma; my charm; my open book, no hold barred attitude, is all him. even laying in that bed, unable to move or even really sit up, he captivated my sisters and i. it is always, and has always been, all about him.

when i think about him, i think of promises. all of the promises he made, from a car at 16 to his support throughout my life, to barbies as a child. one of ten were met. most were forgotten about---by him---only to be replaced with new ones that would meet the same fate.

i also always get this unnerving and mostly unfounded feeling of inappropriate behaviour on his part toward me. the only tangible thing i can remember was when i was about 12. he began introducing me to his employees (he was a general contractor at the time), always making sure to note how "hot" or "gorgeous" i was. i'm sure other adjectives were used. being an awkward preteen, at the time i ate it up, although always with some trepidation. these poor men, aged 20 at the youngest, were of course forced to agree with him.

i was an excellent student, socially adept, well read, a budding writer...none of this was ever mentioned. it seems too simple, to say, "my attitude toward my sexuality was clearly coloured by this behaviour", and yet clearly that's true. i have never thought of myself as the pretty girl in the room, instead relying on my humour, wit, and innate comfort in social situations. but i also have always required that i be desired. to that end, i suppose i depended on being sexy, or sensual. hey, even the homeliest girl in the room can get laid if she puts it out there, right?

my dad left when i was 13. he informed me of his impending absence before he even told my mom. nice, right? i tried so hard to continue to allow him in my life, desperate to cling to this idea that my dad still loved me (obviously true) and that i was still, and would forever be, a priority to him (less true). in fact, at 23, i went to stay with him back in l.a., attempting to salvage a relationship, leaving with a final statement from him that would change our relationship: "you and your sister aren't my responsibility".

i couldn't say how exactly my relationship with dad has affected my relationship with boys/guys/men in my life. perhaps my opinion isn't very high of the gender in general, but i think that has more to do with actual life experience. i am definitely boy crazy; my troubled father-daughter relationship certainly hasn't scared me off men in general.

i have several very lovely male friends who i consider "bests". their advice for me is always to slow down, play it cool, don't sleep with them too soon, etc. I am compulsively incapable of any of those things. i suspect the shaky foundation beneath my father and my relationship makes me want to know, constantly, where i stand with men. do you actually like me or are you just screwing around? do you see a future at all with me? would you be a good father and do you think i'd make a good mother? does your last name go with my first? do you think i'm beautiful? do you think i'm smart?

these are questions i undoubtably ask way, way too soon. and who can blame me, as i remain, and will always remain, full of questions for my father.

chris

chris was the first man i thought i actually had a REAL chance at sharing a life with. should've known better. you'll see why.

i met him at the bar i worked at. he and his coworkers/friends would come in on a nearly nightly basis, and drink loads after a long day at the "office". the very first time i met him, he asked me for my number. we went for a smoke outside and he admitted to being fresh out of a marriage--not even divorced yet. this, coupled with my own knowledge that he consumed more cocaine than has ever been my tendency, turned me right off.

that night, his over-zealous attitude about our vague date concerned me. i decided to blow it off, gently. to my memory i told him straight out why i couldn't go there. for three months, he continued to pursue me. i was simultaneously dealing with the aforementioned rob, so i was distracted.

in september, on the night i was meant to be at rob's sister's wedding reception, my absence due to rob's insistence that i not be there, i caved. we ended up snorting and snogging and shagging til daybreak.

i fell hard, and fast. in retrospect, all of the rob stuff probably pushed me to latch onto the first man who showed me attention. ah, retrospect.

about a month in, chris went MIA on me. a couple days went by, the first of which we had plans for, and this time i wasn't going to take it. i confronted him, told him either you're in it or you're out.

he was in.

the first year was amazing. we partied too hard, and loved just as hard. amidst all the drinking and e and coke and 6 am confessional drug fueled confessions, we built a strong relationship the likes of which i had never had. we became best friends. our friends liked each other, and each other's friends liked each of us.

we moved in together, with none of the doubts i'd had with my previous live-in boyfriend. we started to talk about the future in a real way, rather than "when we grow up, we should ______".

following a massive fight with his boss/friend, it came to be that he was moving to victoria, bc, for work. did i want to come with him?

BOOM! despite my enthusiastic (ish) "yes!" and plans going ahead, i panicked. i had always said i would move anywhere for true love, and i have never had any problem picking up and taking off. no, there was something else.

we both began the excruciating process of sabotage. i started. on the night of a friend's restaurant opening, i drank too much cava and tequila (a winning combo, lemme tell ya), he left early, and i had sex with someone i actually always quite disliked in the washroom downstairs.

low. LOW LOW LOW. lowest of the lows. you get the point.

chris found out. i failed to delete the text messages i received after from the other guy and chris found them. doesn't even matter why he looked at my phone, i was the guilty one.

after 24 hours of hell, he forgave me. i guess. then i got pregnant. chris, realizing that this would throw a rather large kink into our plans to move, combined with his knowledge that, unbeknownst to me, he'd become a full blown addict, made him suggest that perhaps now wasn't the time for a kid. after that whole process, i started to push him away, spending any time i wasn't working on the couch, stoned and depressed, or drinking til dawn.

his turn. about three weeks after my procedure, he woke me up in tears. he'd been fired, needles had been found at work. what? you're a tattooer, there's needles everywhere...oh. somehow for weeks he'd managed to hide evidence of shooting up cocaine. brilliant. by the end of the day i'd rallied his two best friends, gotten him to his hometown, and a bed coming up in a detox centre. ok.

he got sober, i began to forgive him, and poof! it was time to move out west. smart, right?

yeah, no. the first month or so was great, discovering the beautiful town together, looking for apartments, beginning what seemed to be the rest of our lives. but i was lonely, and his band of tattooed/semi sober/alternarockabillymetalheadweirdos weren't gonna cut it. i tried to make friends at work, but i was also trying to avoid drinking etc for his sake.

my turn again! rob got in touch with me, missed me, loved me. i was thrown off. of course we all know rob didn't follow through, and instead disappeared again. apparently, i found later, on his own coke-addled journey. when chris found the emails, he somehow let it go. i guess.

it was inevitable, our separate lives. i began going out, he stayed home. and one drunken night, just a day after we had already discussed the very real possibility that this wasn't working, i slept with someone else. two days later, i repeated the offence. i had, i thought, learned my lesson and deleted any correspondence between this man and i from my phone. but drunkenly, stupidly, there was one i forgot about. and once again, chris found it.

that was it. the next morning, i was out of there, and began the two month process of couch surfing in the homes of friends i had just made, people who barely knew me. i was disjointed and finding solace where there was very little to be scrounged up. when i went home for christmas, i felt lost. i knew that he and i weren't meant to be, but i had also lost my best friend.

a few months later, i needed him. i was in a strange town, surrounded by people who didn't REALLY know me, and i was drugged and assaulted at a bar. and he couldn't be there, of course. i understood. but it was the double trauma of breaking this truly deep down wonderful man and being shown just how disgusting and horrible a man CAN be. that finally taught me: when you break other people's hearts, yours gets broken too.

HE has moved on to a new woman, with whom he has a new baby. and me?

i went home, and, well...

rob

this is when it all changed.

this is when everything i thought i knew, about men, and about myself, went flying out the window.

i had decided i didn't want to serve or bartend anymore. what else did i like? hair! i started at a salon as an assistant and befriended the only girl who wasn't being supported by a parent.

it turned out, we had so many mutual friends! and this discovery without the help of facebook!

one night, she took me to visit her boyfriend and brother at the bar they worked at. i had already been filled in a bit. rob had just returned from new york following a nasty break up with a girl i apparently resembled ever so slightly. okay.

he came to the table to introduce himself and i almost died. it was like the scene in "big fish", when he sees his future wife and time stops and the popcorn is still in the air... i didn't have a chance in hell. he was gorgeous. clean cut, but with tattoos...i still get dreamy when i think of how gorgeous he was. is. whatever.

he ate me alive for a month or so, saying things like "did you feel that?" when we touched, and ended it suddenly around christmas. when i saw him 6 months later, at one of those mutual friends' birthdays, we both stopped in our tracks. within minutes we were making out in the gross bathroom of our friend's bar. within hours we were tearing each other's clothes off. i was done for, worse than before. he had so many issues at this point---the ex was married, he was doing a ton of blow, his job sucked---but i was determined to elbow my way into his life, i suppose thinking what so many women make the mistake of thinking: i can change him, i can fix him, i'll be the exception.

i couldn't, i didn't, and i wasn't. and yet for FOUR MORE YEARS, despite other relationships and months without seeing him, he had me. he had me in a death grip that i saw no way out of. i fancied myself a tough girl, but with him i was a puddle, a shell of myself. i felt sick and elated simultaneously every time i saw him. he consumed my thoughts and coloured my interactions with other men. somehow despite his shoddy treatment of me, no one seemed to measure up. it was the connection we had, the time-stopping-pulse-racing...it made me believe that if i was patient, he'd wake up and realize we were meant to be.

patient. one night, at our friend's bar, he put "patience" by guns n' roses on, said it was "our song", and proceeded to slow dance with a girl in front of me. THAT'S the kind of "man" he was. is. whatever.

every so often, like clockwork, as soon as i started to heal from the last heartbreak he'd put me through, he'd appear again. "oh! she's not thinking about me enough! i should call her/email her/show up where i know she'll be!". his psychic abilities astounded me. and every time, i succumbed to him, completely addicted to him. every time, he swore it was different, that he loved me, that he was sorry for before. and i'd pretend to fight it, trying to salvage whatever dignity i was under the delusion of having until i crumbled under the weight of my obsessive love for him.

and he'd disappear again.

and again.

and again.

then i started dating leland, his friend of sorts. who i swear is the last of that group of guys who will ever be inside me, so help me god.

and leland had insider information. rob was gonna be a dad. i saw him a few times, thankfully sans baby mama. he told me how he thinks about me all the time, how much he misses me, and how maybe in 5 or 10 years, blah blah blah...and still the nauseous elation every goddamned time. the last time, i think was the last time.

i was at a bar with a girlfriend. he'd texted me the week before for my birthday. this time he asked where i was, and when i responded, assuring him that "no one knows him here", he showed up. i was just drunk and single enough to kiss him---oh the kissing.

(necessary tangent: no one in the history of anything has kissed like we kissed (just let me have it). the passion and craziness and desperation and oh my god everything between us, even the very first time---that's what did me in. our fucking kissing. i disappeared the moment right before his lips touched mine. the universe melted around me as we breathed each other in. when our tongues touched, my body was on fire. ridiculous. also, dangerous. pretty sure next time i'm kissed like that i will scream bloody murder and run in the other direction.)

but this time he stopped me. he told me he couldn't do it anymore, couldn't hurt me, couldn't drag me through his "shit" anymore. that it was different, now he'd really done it, there was a child on the way.

and as usual, i protested, insisting that i was fine, that i could handle it.

but this time he knew i was full of shit, and wouldn't hear it. and he left.

and after over 5 years of leaving me, he finally did it right.

ravi

after quitting a job that was affecting my sanity at a time of year not meant for quitting restaurant jobs, i found myself working at a shitty theatre district corporate type place. uniform, buffet brunch, menu tests...the works.

immediately, i came across a surprise. ravi, a man who'd lived with a friend's boy what felt like a million years ago, worked there. i was a month into living with my boyfriend, mark, who i adored but had already been unfaithful to.

luckily, ravi wasn't the "other man" type. we would go for a drink after our shift, talk, flirt, and i would go home and not have sex with my boyfriend.

i ended up leaving mark, and was able to explore other aspects of ravi. we had incredible sex, amazing conversation...i felt relieved. yes! this was what i wanted! he was supportive, encouraging, and seemed to think i was a rather special specimen.

then he told me that he was moving. to taipei. in a month.

suddenly my world crashed down around me. how was i not a priority? i had left my boyfriend for him (a detail they were both blissfully unaware of)! and he was leaving? mutually smitten, we made plans to keep in touch, maybe i would even visit?

i'd been through this years before, and knew that this was highly unlikely. or at least, i should have.

within two months the essay-long emails became one line notes. the occasional surprise phone calls stopped.

saw him again the next summer, had one night of awkwardly passionate sex.

i've never been sure why ravi affected me so much long term. i was young? on the rebound? but i still think about him, wondering how and where he is.

lawrence

i was working at a busy, trendy restaurant when an older man walked in. i was just a lowly busser type then, helping the servers make hundreds as i took my sad $50 home. he needed a table for two, his son was parking the car.

moments later, as i passed their table, i saw him. a mop of curly blond hair framing a smiling face and impossibly gray eyes. *swoon* the server was busy, could i get their order? yes, please.

what is my name? the father, clearly a lothario in his demographic, asked casually. then, what are yours, i asked? i was told to guess the son's name. it starts with an 'l'. liam? lawrence.

pause. my father's name. awkward. moving on. too hot to get discouraged by daddy issues.

could i wrap up his food, it was just too much!

i went downstairs, knowing i had to do something brave. as i scooped his food into the takeout container it occurred to me. egged on by the kitchen boys, i grabbed the nearby sharpie and scrawled my name and phone number (pager number, actually) on the inside.

the very next day, i received a page from a number i don't know. i called. it's him. he couldn't believe i had done what i had done, loved it.........but had a girlfriend.

two weeks later i got a page. the number looked familiar but i couldn't quite place it. it was him. they'd broken up, it's been a long time coming, could we hang out sometime?

we all met at a bar, my friends and a couple of his. a band was playing, the music so irrelevant i can't remember what it was. and he asked me to dance.

this, my friends, is my kryptonite.

when we slept together, i felt a need to please that i never had before. don't get me wrong, i was never a lay back and think of england type. but this guy, oh man. i just wanted him. i wanted him to love me and never leave me so it was acrobatics and blow jobs galore. it seemed to be working...

i was a goner. but a mere month after this, he was off to europe with promises of fidelity. i of course didn't believe him as far as i could throw him, especially assured by my worldly 19 year old girlfriends of the impossibility of this. at 19, i had never dated someone who had the resources (he was 21!) to travel abroad. what did i know of the power of actual french girls?!

i started up something with a friend of mine. turned out, a friend of his. it all imploded on my face after too much booze and a bit of lying on my part...and off he went, my gray eyed dancing prince that was the very last man i ever had the guts to really lay it on the line for. this, i have discovered, was the beginning of the end.