About Him

These are the basics:

• Single
• Available
• Educated
• Taller than me

These are the adjectives:

• Creative
• Ambitious
• Hilarious
• Adventurous
• Healthy Inside
• Genuine
• Optimistic

If you have the following, let's just save us both some time:

• Herpes
• Crabs
• Gonorrhea
• Untreated Alcoholism
• A pony keg for a coffee table
• Your mom for a ‘roomie’
• An 'ex' that remains your best friend
• A same sex friend that you shower with on occasion
• An unemployment check every week
• An imaginary friend
• A perpetually runny nose
• Funky mastication habits
• The inability to spell
• A cat

If you have any or all of the following then hurry up and email me before someone else snatches me up!:

• A second home in Rome
• Backstage Passes to SNL
• Hillary Clinton on your speed dial
• Recognized Culinary Skills
• Over twenty used Lonely Planet Guides
• A passport that has been filled
• A job with Rick Steves
• Photo’s you took yourself, framed on your walls
• A Pulitzer prize
• A Grammy
• An Oscar
• An alphabetized spice rack

Him

It starts about the same time every day.

The lonely, self-pity hour that brings a flood of memories and fantasies about "him". The now, ex.

The man who was never really available and thus destined to haunt me for the duration of the next year.

The year of the dog.

I met him over the summer. R isn’t conventionally attractive, but he posesses the most beautiful gray-green eyes. One look could melt me from my toes to the tips of my eye lashes.

The first night we met he squeezed in close to me on the red stool at Pravda. After ordering a twenty dollar martini, he explained that he was in town for a brief amount of time assisting a Hollywood Icon with the creation of an epic film. His world was most definitely more glamorous than mine.

I ran into him whenever I met up with my friend C in the East Village. He bobbed and weaved, avoiding my radar until the first chill of the autumn air in New York. After saving me from a blind date gone terribly wrong at a haunted house on the LES, I saw him with new eyes. Once registered, he crept into my thoughts with his daily phone calls.

In the beginning I tried to play it cool. Seemingly unaffected by the new distraction, I propelled myself into the illusion of a busy party girl. My date book became bloated with girls nights out, bar hopping, Christmas parties, family visits, weddings, and weekend trips out of town. I filled my life with time commitments that I thought would save me from the option to sit at home and obsess.

"Is he going to call? When is he going to call? Why hasn't he called? Does he think I'm fat?"

I would rather sit by the phone and obsess over his next phone call then think about the unsettled and unhappy state of my own unrealized destiny. He was the hope.

But he never delivered.

Interesting life, but sadly-not interesting. R didn't want to be bothered talking about life, the world, morality, or spirituality. He made fun of me for dwelling on these topics and fed my secret assumption that without having to prove it-we were just smarter and better than most others. Filming a movie in the final weeks of shooting meant that he was always busy, couldn’t make plans in advance, could only talk for three minutes and could speak of nothing but set news and gossip. While we had a few dinners in fancy restaurants and a handful of trips to artsy films, he claimed his busy schedule left few other more creative options than dinner and a movie.

Perhaps had he been more into me—the dates would have been extraordinary and creative, the conversation deeper, and the sex more about me. But they weren't.

And he wasn't.

Despite these clear relationship inadequacies, with disturbing momentum I whipped myself up into a frenzy of possibility. And isn’t that what we really miss when they are gone? The possibility of what we could have been.

I would have rather focused on anyone but myself.

I was unhappy in my career and feeling like a glorified and thrice humbled admin assistant. I wondered if I was doing the right thing with my life. I missed creativity. With friend and family visits I had no time to sit still and certainly no time to think about the course of my life. I was just crossing off items on a long list of obligations to get through the months.

And my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

For our last week together, I accompanied R to the Dominican Republic for shooting. A microcosm of our relationship, he was rarely around, discouraged me from coming to set, rarely checked in on me without being prompted, and when he was around was so tired that he could barely keep his eyes open. I had a great time, and made more than the best of it. I met movie stars, made new friends, explored a beautiful country and slept next to his warmth every night. But as I kissed him goodbye for what would be our last kiss, I realized that we had made it through the week without ever having a real conversation.

Despite all of this, I miss the fucker. What would you say is wrong with me, that at 4:00 PM every afternoon I am overcome with longing and sadness?

What is it that I miss?

The End

Since I was leaving the DR on Friday, R suggested I come by the set for Angie's last day of shooting.

I met my DR BFF Organic on the sidewalk outside the Sofitel and we walked the few cobbled blocks of the Zona Colonial to the set. She was another crew girlfriend. Three of us had bonded around the pool and were spending our days exploring the DR countryside together, talking about our relationships and giving one another tools to this very unusual world.

A guard stopped me as I tried to duck under the yellow tape separating the public from the lights and cameras.

“We are with the crew?”

The guard pinched his brow and pointed to the other side of the tape.

“No really, we are with the guys that know the guys that wouldn’t have a problem with us being on set.”

He didn’t look amused.

“Okay, I’ll just wait over here.”

Organic and I humbly took our place with the other onlookers. She picked up the cell to call her Boyfriend, Gordon. We could see him standing inches away from the camera lens, pulling focus for the DP. But before Gordon had a chance to pick up, R was there. Tapping me on my shoulder.

“Hey there.”

His tone sent shivers down my spine. I turned around and drunk him up in a long hug.

He gave me a quick peck and pulled Organic and I through the crowd and under the divider. R flashed his badge to the guard and the guard looked tipped his hat and let us pass. R brought out headphones and radios so Organic and I could hear the audio on the scene. His boss looked over at R arranging us girls, shook his head and gave me a closed mouth smile. R rolled his eyes.

“It’s been a crazy day.”

I put my hand on the side of his face as he hooked up my radio to the headphones and tested the frequency.

“You okay?”

Of course honey.” And I believed him. Because he had calming eyes. Gray with swimming flecks of blue, his focused stare could always stop the bickering in my head and bring me back into the moment.

“Hey R." He looked up from the cords.

"Thanks for taking such good care of us. Organic and I promise to invite you next time we decide to have a pillow fight in our panties. Ok?"

He laughed. He put his hand over mine and brought my palm to his lips for a quick kiss before he headed back over to Bob and the camera. From where Organic and I were huddled, under a tree and out of the way, we could watch the scene unfold.

Matt was standing nearby waiting for the scene to begin. I waved. They were powdering his nose to take away the shine. He looked my direction and mouthed my name.

"Hey Jane."

Angelina sat behind Organic and I with an assistant that had a serious gum chewing habit. I tried to avoid her funky mastication, but one would have to be deaf not to hear her cracking her Bubblicious. Adding to the tension in the air was Angies presence. The set was hyped, Paparazzi swarmed the rooftops, everyone was sweating.

Including R.

This was a world to which I had never sought access, but could enjoy through proxy to this man with whom I was sort of falling for.

With the eyes of a child, I observed as they shot for a few hours, weathered a flash flood and shot a little more. The scene was outside a church surrounded by a courtyard that had been made into a Haitian market. Tomorrow it would be the streets of Cuba. On the corner of the courtyard was a house that was meant to be in Africa. I love the movies. Within less than half the length of a football field, I can pass through three continents.

As darkness approached and shadows fell over the actors faces, R came over and suggested I invite the girls to join us for Angie’s wrap dinner that night. ‘The girls’ referred to my new girlfriends. Organic, Kelly and I had busied ourselves through the week with early brunches, riotous laughter, afternoon cappuccinos and day trips to exotic parts of the DR. We all tried to act cool, but we had just been invited to dinner with the two most famous people in the world right now.

I went back to the hotel and waited. I found R nervously pacing the lobby on his cell phone a few hours later.

Since I had arrived in the DR, I could see him, I could touch him, I could sleep next to him, but I couldn’t feel him. He was swept up in the machine of everything around us and getting his connection to run deeper than a shallow kiddy pool was as likely as an Aniston-Pitt reunion.

“Where are they? This is ridiculous….”

I left him to wander back into the bar and join a group of crew. Matt stood up and kissed my cheeks.

“Jane. Enjoy your day on set?” His eyes were red from late nights filming and the few beers he had been drinking since they wrapped. I sat for a while and listened to everyone swap stories about the day.

"Yeah. Very cool. What can I say? It's still impressive to me."

"I always say, the most exciting day of my life was the first day I stepped on a movie set. And the most boring, the second. We are heading over. You coming?” Matt asked me.

“Waiting for the guys. You know how it is.”

“See you over there. I heard they have bottle dancing.”

“Great. I'll wear my sneakers.”

R came around the corner with a few members of the crew. We headed outside to join the procession of black SUV’s lined up outside the hotel. R and the guys threw down beers during the short car ride and complained about work.

We arrived to a circus of color and sound that was already in full motion. Music blared from speakers too small to support the volume. Colorfully attired dancers swirled in circles on a tiny makeshift dance floor. A Dominican woman hollered while she spun atop a wine bottle.

We entered the section of the restaurant cornered off for our party and as we passed by each table we were received with handshakes. We air kissed the important players, my short arms pulled over tables laid out with red beans, rice, plantain chips, grilled vegetables, fried bread and several little dipping sauces. My right breast grazed a bowl of chili’s as Matt tried to partner his handshake with an awkward hug.

After we were seated, Brad and Angie made an entrance. Security filled the room. Tourist camera flashes lit the restaurant.

R’s eyes began to twinkle from the drink.

Foreign dignitaries pushed their chairs closers to Angelina’s. She was composed, careful about her movements. I watched as Brad sat silently by her side. He slumped over the back of her chair cupping a beer. He ignored the activity around him, remaining cool while waiters in straw hats and bow ties danced around him. He looked bored. And tired.

Angie looked hungry. Bob looked stressed. I looked nervous.

When I get nervous, I talk. A lot. Jokes awkwardly flew out of my mouth. I laughed so hard that crocodile tears swept down my cheeks. I told inappropriate jokes. I sat on the producers lap in a charade of chicanery.

"She's a live one. Are you sure you can handle it?"

"I can handle it."

The girls roared, their boyfriends looked shocked. R just laughed. Closing out all the noise for a moment, he grabbed my hand across the table. And for a small amount of time, suspended betwixt Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, a table of new friends, snapping tourists, plastic parrots, El Presidente Beers, DR beans and rice, eighteen security guards toting hand guns, brown bodies adorned in yellow and orange costumes dancing on a bottle in our periphery vision… R and I, we were okay. We cared about each other. We were going to make it.

... and then the music flooded back in. R was pulled away to help settle the bill. One of the crew boyfriends disappeared, Angie got tired of waiting for her food and attacked the buffet, the girls stepped outside to catch rides back to the hotel.

And I was alone again.

The Dominican Republic

I placed my overnight bag on the floor next to check-in and wiped the sweat from my forehead. It somehow didn’t feel right to check into a five star hotel wearing sweat pants, a t-shirt with arm pit stains and an Adidas back pack.

I had begun my journey to the Dominican Republic at 6 AM that morning. It was now 4:00 in the afternoon. Trying to make new friends and mix with the locals, I took a ride with a man and his girlfriend from the airport. But they segued to his moms house for lunch. As I nervously chomped down a typical local lunch, I listened to my boyfriend tell me over the cell phone that I was absolutely crazy.

I chalked up my behavior to not being accustomed to having to think of someone else when traveling. But that was crap. I was less than an hour off the plane and already creating a contingency plan in case R decided he no longer wanted me, and kicked me out on the curb. My insecurities were in rare form.

After a fear filled lunch and several refusals for a tour of the city, I convinced my new friends that I really needed to check in to the hotel, so they drove me through the Zona Colonial of Santo Domingo and dropped me at the gorgeous Sofitel.

“I am a guest in room 415.”

The hotel concierge looked me over, grabbed an envelope from under the desk and handed it to me with a smile.

“Welcome Mrs. Mcgloughlin.”

“It’s Ms. Schmo, thank you.”

We both blushed. I shamefully wandered off to let the hotel staff marinate with the idea that room 415 had an unmarried couple shacking up. Any shame I felt was washed away when I arrived in the room. White sheets, wicker furniture, cool tile beneath my toes, a mosquito net floating above the bed, the room was perfect. Tucked in the back corner of the hotel, it overlooked the pool and a slivers view of the DR harbor. It was also next door to my boyfriend's boss.

R had been working for Bob for almost a year. His line of work meant that he had to constantly be available to his boss. No matter what time of night. No matter what state of naked disarray.

I unpacked and waited in the bar next to the pool. I hadn't seen him in a week and I wanted to just grip him when he came around the corner. Something about his stare always made me want to lay him down on the tile floor and show him what I feared would scare him if I ever said out loud. Before long, Bob walked abruptly around the corner to find us wrapped up in conversation, R's hand on the small of my back.

He saw Bob and sat up straight. “Bob, this is Jane.”

Bob looked at me and back at R. He offered the tips of his fingers for me to shake and lifted one corner of his mouth. Who the hell is this girl and why are you introducing us? He didn't have to say it. I could feel it.

R and Bob disappeared for about an hour. Upon their return, Bob's expression had softened. Now he looked me in the eye and firmly shook my hand. R had cleared up the mystery for Bob and must have explained that he did not just meet me poolside that afternoon.

I just wish R could clear up the mystery for me.

The DR was a last ditch effort to save our relationship. I had sort of given him an ultimatum. Either he takes some time getting to know me or he let's me go. Neither of us was sure where this thing was going. It had been an intense three months but with all the traveling he had been doing for the film, we rarely saw one another. I had to know if we could co-exist in the same space for longer than five hours.

Later that night, a group of us lounged poolside making jokes. Bob drank a martini while the group tip-toed around him. Cognizant of my boyfriends boss but completely unfamiliar with Hollywood rules or the job related worries of those around me, I spoke with absolute candor. A few times I saw R cringe, felt him squeeze my leg under the table and watched him open one eye to see if I had offended his boss.

Bob just chuckled. And as he got up to leave, he leaned over to R, "Why don't you bring your 'friend' along with us tomorrow night"

Friend?

The next night, R faked displeasure at having to go to dinner with his boss. But I knew this was one of the perks of the job that he secretly loved. R loved his industry and loved his job, but he was affected by the disease of workaholism. He was perpetually stressed out and nervous; paced back and forth on his cell phone and sweat under pressure. I wanted to help him relax but my efforts fell like trees in Thoreau's woods, with no one around to hear them. His mind was elsewhere.

Matt and his wife Luci waited outside the hotel with me while we waited for the car. R looked at his watch and back into the hotel lobby, sighing deeply. I ignored him. Instead I chatted with Matt and Luci and watched as they swayed back and forth into the curves of one another's body. Newlywed bliss.

When the car arrived, we jumped in to the back seat and hollered out the door for R. He shook his head. “There isn’t enough room.”

Matt grabbed Luci and pulled her on his lap. “There is now. Get in!”

I squeezed up close to Matt, Luci wrapped her legs over mine, and R reluctantly moved in after me. He was sweating.

Our Range Rover with the tinted windows, two guards in front and a car of guards behind us, set off to drive the five blocks to Bellini's. A labyrinth of one way streets in the Zona Colonial meant the trip took twenty five minutes. We made the best of the time.

"I'm teaching Matt Spanish." Luci said, pushing Matt's hair to the side of his face and gently holding his gaze.

He looked back at her and squeezed her closer.

“I’m an actor, what do I know?”

Couple talk normally grosses me out. But Luci was pregnant, holding her hand permanently upon her pregnant belly. And how can you be grossed out by a pregnant woman and her doting husband?

Especially if it is Luci. Radiant Luci hid behind her long brown hair when she answered my rapid fire questions. They complimented one another. Matt made jokes. Luci focused him. She didn’t defer to Matt, but she let him direct the conversation. A sharp contrast to my own demeanor. In fact, R rarely got a word in edgewise. He had stopped trying by our second date.

At the restaurant, Matt engaged the right side of the table in political debate. I wanted to chime in but they were a close circle of friends. Regardless of the merit of my two cents, it fell on deaf ears unless I was brought into the conversation by someone on the inside. And my usher sat quietly at the end of the table sipping wine.

I pushed out of the men's political discussion and leaned across the back of Matt's chair to talk to Luci about our previous lives as waitresses. After awhile, Matt leaned back and asked about my past State Department work.

"I want to hear this too." And R scooted his chair a little closer.

Had I never told these stories to R? Had he never asked?

I bored Matt with too many details. His focus made me nervous. R didn't look at me anymore when we talked and I was unaccustomed. Usually, I would speak and R would scroll through his messages. He only fixed me with a stare when we were having sex.

Matt pushed his chair back so his wife could lean on his shoulder and they could both look at me and listen. I choked under the heat of their attention and quickly turned the conversation back to travel and wine. R loved to talk about wine. And apparently, so did Matt.

"I've got a few cases of Barolo at my place in The City. You two should come over after we get back."

He placed his hand in his wife's lap and looked over at me. "We live close to you, actually."

R and I exchanged knowing glances. We were invited to dinner in the DR, but we knew we were never going to dinner at Matt's NYC loft. At least not together.

Matt didn't let go of Luci's hand for the rest of the meal. When he ate, he switched over the fork so the other could caress her fingers. If he had two hands free, he used one to rub her back. When he got up to go to the bathroom, he didn’t leave the table without kissing her forehead. He placed his hands in hers, wherever her hands were resting. It was the small sign of a man willing to bend to make her happy. And I noticed.

As the dinner finished and Bob and Matt fought over the bill, I tried to steal a moment with R outside. But I arrived too late, he had already begun his nervous dance. He juggled two cell phones making logistic arrangements to get everyone back to the hotel. R didn't see Bob approaching from across the courtyard amidst snapping camera flashes.

Bob grabbed the top of my arm and leaned in gently.

“I like you. You have a nice sense of humor.”

He let go of my arm and then sort of pat my hand.

“You’re a good girl.” He said, before the restaurant owner asked him to pose for a few photos.

I smiled. He had noticed.

The Uncomfortability of Something New

I have been dating a boy for a week.

We met months ago, but it took him months to finally make his move. Friday night my friends and I ran into him, yet again. But this time, he called me before my head hit the pillow and talked me to sleep. The next day he called me and asked me out to dinner. By Sunday he was texting me ten times a day with funny thoughts. By the time I slid onto his lap on Halloween night, my fighter pilot suit was wet with the thought of the steamy make-out session we would have later. The texts continued into Wednesday afternoon. “When can I see you?” they repeated.

Then we slept together.

The next day he called to tell me his schedule was going to be insane for the next two weeks and he wasn’t sure when he was going to get to see me.

“Are you sick of me already?”

“Don’t be silly.”

By Saturday, the texts sloughed off, the phone calls lessened. The earnest “When can I see you?” changed to “Well, do you still want to get together?”

Did I let him down in some way, or was his interest purely sexual; and once satisfied, died out? As much as I want to hate him, has he really done anything wrong? Have I?

Maybe I should not have had sex with him. But wouldn’t that have just prolonged the inevitable? Or is this just what we tell ourselves to rationalize our behavior?

Did I really like him – or was I just attracted to his aggressiveness? I do like to be wanted. Sometimes, I like to be wanted more than I actually like the guy.

Was I imagining the spark of something real? What if I've only projected this pure and romantic ideal onto him and he's just trying to get laid? Just because I want something to be pure and romantic, doesn't make it happen.

I'm at that moment, in the start of a relationship, when you want answers but you can't have them. I thought I had them all figured out.

Boys, that is.

Younger Men

I once loved dating younger men.

I loved how amazed they were by my confidence and accomplishments. I loved how open and innocent they were to my experienced manipulations. I loved how eager they were to spend an entire night rolling around in bed and still be able to get up at 8 am for an early brunch. But then-somewhere between 30 and now-I began hating the sports bars, the ‘dinner-and-a-movie’ dates, the sweat pants on a Sunday and the expectation that I plan any possible romantic moments in the relationship. I began craving men with experience and the ability to offer more to the relationship than just, well….really, really liking me.

So, I’m often disappointed when I discover a man's age. Drawn in by his charms and then shattered when the age card is layed on the table. I don’t have time for it.

Take for example, the young man I met this past weekend. There I was, all 32 years of me standing awkwardly in a sea of bachelor and bachelorette parties being yelled at by the bar maids of Red Rocks. The reality that I was suddenly way too old for this scene washed over me with the same reluctance as the day I looked at my thighs in the mirror and realized I could never wear a miniskirt again.

My friend from work had dragged me here and I was uncomfortably hugging a diet coke to my chest and praying I wouldn’t be thrown up on the bar to dance next to one of the adorable little girls wearing a tube top, sporting bare legs and flailing pre-middle-age toned arms in the air. An aggressive man jockeying for a better view pushed me out of his way and sent my nose into the rock hard chest of the man behind me. I apologized, but lingered, made witty comments and before you knew it-I had broken through the protective barrier of his guy friends and he had taken my hand and moved the group along to some over-hyped and over-crowded dance club in the meat-packing district.

He was charming and kind. Turns out he is an investment banker and lives on the Upper East Side. Upon hearing this, I bet him twenty dollars that he had both a J.Crew and a Bannana Republic card and I asked him to produce his wallet for inspection. In reality, I knew I was going to be locking lips with this guy at the end of the night and -I had already forgotten his name. I coyly scanned his driver license for his name... and then, there it was. He was born in 1978.

1978 was the year I started Kindergarten and ate play-dough for the first time.

Disspointment registered on my face as I thought of the hours I might waste getting to know this guy at baseball games while he ate chicken wings and drank beer by the pitcher.

Maybe he would be different.

He seemed confident. I didn’t think it was the alcohol that boosted his ego enough to playfully offer that we “just stop by” his Upper East side apartment. I declined because I live about two blocks from the bar and because I only fuck men that can put out the effort to get me to a fourth date. Maybe JR would surprise me and be one of those men.

He asked me for dinner and we made-out in my doorway. He left me at my door and as I fell asleep on Friday night, my phone registered a new text message. “Sweet dreams.” A girl can dream, right?

Dream dashed when I got the Sunday text: “What R U doin?”

I texted back that I was brunching with girlfriends. “What about you?” I wrote.

“Watching football. Going to the gym later.”

“How manly!” I teased.

I didn’t hear back.

Tuesday night I got a similar text: “What’s up sexy?”

I texted back with a witty comment. We engaged in stupid texting banter over the course of the next hour.

Why can’t he just pick up the phone? Scared? Too much of a commitment? By the time his last text arrived with still no actual invitation to the dinner he had promised, I gave up and went to bed.

Does he expect me to ask him out, pick the restaurant and arrange the details?? This is the problem with young men, I have to do all the work. They just want to ‘hang-out’.

Well, I just can’t date little boys anymore. I refuse to initiate all the fun dates like concerts or street fairs or nights of bowling and days in Coney Island. I wont talk for four hours on the telephone about my last three serious relationships. I can not text back and forth all night when we are both just sitting at home in our pajamas. I can’t watch another man sit on the bar stool drinking himself into oblivion and yelling at the Red Socks.

Dear Lord, please send me a grown-up with sophisticated taste, cultured interests, a job and really hard abs.

AMEN

The Experiment - Post Analysis

Introduction

Beginning August 9th, I began a social experiment. I gave up attention seeking behavior for 30-days. I was not allowed to go on any dates; flirt with any boys, small animals or large groups of gay men; or draw attention towards myself in group settings.


Background

My dating life had become a scene from the movie ‘Groundhogs Day’. I just kept having the same date over and over and over again—with different men. We meet for coffee, I smile, he charms. We extend coffee into a walk through some New York Park. We nearly always eat ice cream and share off the same spoon. I tell the same jokes. He laughs at the same point in the story. I think the first time I told the funny story it was original and witty and cute. But now that I have told it fifteen times on this same park bench I feel like a dating machine.

Night falls we stroll, he grabs my hand, I act like this is just so special. Because that trick always works and I’m sure I once really believed it.

He stops me and we kiss. We kiss on every street corner between said park, restaurant or bar and my little apartment in Union Square. We look in same shop windows. I always stop at the pet store on the corner and pretend to spontaneously suggest we go in and hold the dogs. We convince shop owner we are moving in together and looking for a pet. Shop owner looks at me like I’m a fucking nut case because I’ve been in every other night with a different guy pulling the same shit. Date and I leave and just as we reach French Roast, as if on cue--we collapse in giggles.

Mine, are fake.

We arrive at my door, he tries to talk himself upstairs, I decline. We make-out on New York street. And I’m getting what I want… twenty minutes of feeling like the center of this person’s universe. Twenty minutes of pure attention.

This is a New York Date.

I can predict the next move like I’m watching a re-run of Three’s Company.

After another repetitive and unoriginal date I realized I needed to give myself a break. I decided to cut men out of my life for 30 days.

I’m tired of it… I’m tired of the hangover of too many dates in one week. I’m tired of feeling cravings for attention and mistaking them for cravings for men. Or worse, one man in particular. I’m tired of picking girlfriends based on the amount of male attention their friendship will garner, only to discover they are shitty friends. I’m tired of making fun of the people I love in order to gain more attention from a room full of strangers. I’m tired of thinking there isn’t enough attention in the world to fill me up.

For all these reason, I enacted the experiment.


Purpose

To discover if I have something else to offer others than my sexuality and playfulness. To push myself to engage fully with friends and family in a loving way. To rid myself of an obstacle wedged between who I am now and who I would like to become.


Methodology

The rules:

1. No extended eye contact
2. No flirty conversation with strangers
3. No witty banter with the coffee guy
4. No back and forth with the Taxi driver
5. No striking up conversations on the Subway, not with old couples vacationing from Florida, not with other peoples kids and definitely not with any cute boys
6. No calling ex-boyfriends
7. No accepting dates
8. No dominating dinner table conversations
9. No jokes at anyone’s expense
10. I must remain in my friends lives-connected and committed
11. I must strive to be present in every conversation with another human being

The time period expires September 8, 2005.

Summary of Findings

· First lesson of giving something up is the sudden realization of how often we did it before. I am sickened by how many times in one day I have to stop myself.
· Week one I am grumpy and uptight. I don’t want to go out or engage with friends because I wasn’t don’t know how to act.
· I note that several of my girlfriends find my experiment makes me boring and have an expectation for me to entertain or engage in the kind of attention seeking behavior that brings lots of men over to the table.
· I’m afraid people wont like me if when I first meet them I don’t get there attention. But I’m also afraid that my current friends wont stick around if I don’t try and entertain them.
· A guy from a meeting I regularly attend asks me to join him at an AA meeting later in the week. I don’t think it is a date, because who the hell asks someone to an AA meeting as a date? Clearly this sort of arrangement qualifies for him. After the meeting I tell him that I am not dating right now. He gets weird and gives me one of those long hugs goodbyes where he won’t let go and it feels creepy. I realize that this is exactly the kind of man that when I’m jonesing for attention reels me in and we end up dating for a few weeks before I figure out what a freak he is and back out slowly with a major feeling of doom and dread hanging over my head.
· Week three… I’m relating to people in a professional and non-sexual way and I’m feeling very smart, very capable and surprisingly confident. I am also eating everything in sight as if being acknowledged for having a brain means I no longer have a body.
· Week four… labor day weekend at the shore, a wedding and my family. A recipe for experiment failure. But, I find myself pausing, biting my tongue, letting others talk—not chiming in. I find that when I don’t talk and carry the conversation and I let a little silence hang in the air… someone else fills it. And by filling it, this person feels important.

Evaluation

· A big part of my personality and spirit is tied up in attention seeking behavior. It’s sort of who I am. So, who am I without it?
· Attention seeking behavior is ultimately self-seeking and yet masks itself in the guise of generously “entertaining” others.
· By seeking attention I’ve alienated and hurt people I care about. I can no longer count on one hand the number of women friends who say that I become a different, less likeable woman in groups. I see now how my attention seeking insults in their direction caused them pain.

Results

· Day 31… went to a party hosted by Nicole Ritchie and spent the evening charming the bartender and flirting with everything that walks. My drunk friends hardly noted my teasing them, they just laughed. End of night, three drunk girlfriends, Brian has my number in his pocket, Everyone thinks I’m fab.
· Next day… No one calls.

New Orleans

It is August 6th and I am carrying my bags from the New Orleans airport as the hour of my birthday approaches. I packed smart, a carry-on and tote bag linked neatly over my forearm. The wet heat of the city greets me as I step between the red and yellow lanes of the airport traffic to hail a cab.

This year I made plans to go out of town on the weekend of my birthday. I want to avoid a painful day of obligatory phone calls and the .

Even though I have been respectfully employed for the past eight years I have worked seasonally at the Retail Tobacco Dealers Association (RTDA) show for Porsche/Bugatti designs selling lighters and accessories to smoke shop buyers. It's leftover business for friends, part of another life that I just can't seem to let go of.

The RTDA show occurs once a year in August-usually on my birthday-but always in some fabulous city of sin. About 3,000 overweight married men smoking cigars descend upon the lucky city for four days of buying and partying like rock stars past their prime. The tobacco vendors fall over themselves competing for the vendors attention with conflicting parties and events.

After I check into the hotel, I walk around the city exploring. I take a photo of the man playing sax in front of the church. I admire the French balconies and old street signs. I buy local jewelry from a woman with a thick Creole accent. I stop in to the overpriced specialty shops and chat with the women that work behind the counter.

There is the sound of French music lilting through the streets. I drink Espresso and eat a pastry in an open courtyard as the sun sets. Walking back to the hotel down Bourbon Street, I can feel the energy as the night begins to explode. There is something about the New Orleans air that smells like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. Perhaps it is old water. Or perhaps I am experiencing sensory memory. But the vision of a man on a balcony trying to entice me to flash him for the delight of some plastic metallic beads reminds me of that Anaheim Pirate chasing that woman round and round the mechanic balcony pole in Disney's version of the Bayou.

Now it is later that evening and I am one of only twenty women in a bar of four-hundred drunken men smoking Cubanos. I am sweaty from clapping my hands and dancing to the beats of three trumpets, two guitars, a banjo, a steel drum, an accordion, sounds like a harmonic and and certainly a tambourine. I feel like I have been swept into another time and another country.

An incredibly handsome man is dancing a few people over from me with no care for the fact he is sweating through his crisp, French cuff shirt. He is taller than anyone else on the dance floor so I can see his head moving above the crowd. He rocks his head and shoulders to the Cajun beats and moves his hips smoothly with great confidence. He doesn't look at me.

Not even for a moment.

My friend Thorston presses his way through the mob, grabs my hand and says in his thick German accent, "Pull yourselv avay from them - they are go-ing to eat you vith a spoon. Come meet my friends".

And he swings me around, and I am face to face with the beautiful tall man and his seductive hips.

"Frenchie, I think she likes you," Thorston says.

With a slight French accent, he extends his hand to me and dips his head in the middle of the swaying mosh pit, as if it's 1763 and I was just presented in the Royal court.

Just then I am bumped from behind and my nose falls right into his lower chest. He places a protective hand on the nape of my neck. I feel safe and like I belong to someone. I can feel the tremor of his chuckle through the light curly hairs under his shirt that are cushioning my fall. He bows his head down to my eye level and very slowly and cool-like he says in his staccato French accent, "So nice to meet you."

But then Thorston is tugging on my shoulder and he wants to twist me around in some crazy Euro-trash swing jumble. Frenchie turns back to the stage and begins stepping in time to the rhythm. He sways and dips his hips and shoulders like a salsa dancer. A really tall, really hot, really cool salsa dancer.

I keep looking back over at Frenchie. But he doesn't look back. He is swept up in the local Creole tune that has everyone in the House of Blues on their feet and moving. He wont look over and I can't look away.

There was something in that moment. I am not like this... I feel giddy, like a teenager and I am jostling to try and find myself in his line of vision. But he won't look and I feel like I am sixteen, in the third row of a Pearl Jam concert, trying to catch the eye of Eddy Vedder. Because when he sees me, he is going to want to tell me his secrets and love me forever. I am so retarded.

As I take turns being swung around the dance floor by filter paper salesman, I scold myself for my high school antics and focus on the groove of the music. By the last song I am glistening, my body's been felt up by every man on the dance floor (but Frenchie) and I am sore from hip swivels and fancy foot work.

Thorston and the other Germans are leaving and I can't wait around any longer for 'him' to talk to me. It's just not going to happen, and I can't manipulate the situation so it will. He is just not that into me... and I am too old to linger. I am ready to go back to the hotel, lay in bed and fantasize about how I really want the night to end.

I walk outside with Thorston and the others and raise my hand to wave goodbye when I feel the coolness of breath along my neck, sticky from the dancing and the humid Southern air.

"You can't go just yet. You have to save a dance just for me without all those terrible men around you."

I turn to see that the source of the lovely French accent whispering in my ear. Frenchie.

He looks fresh and full of energy and he signals to Thorston's German's and his own gang of merry Frenchmen wearing Italian suits.

"Let's go gentlemen." He politely guides me towards Bourbon Street and all the others fall into step behind us.

They are speaking in foreign tongues so I can't understand a word and I am trying not to sound like an idiot every time I open my mouth to speak to Frenchie.

It's a seven minute walk from House of Blues to the bar we were going to on Bourbon Street. But in seven minutes, we discover that we both studied International Affairs, owned our own business's, had enjoyed equally entertaining 15 minutes of fame, both wanted to travel the world as diplomats, love to dance and have a passion for voodoo.

After we arrive at the bar, we dance salsa to twelve long hard rock songs in the middle of the dance floor before Frenchie grabs my hand and sneaks us out the back door. We flee the bar, the ACDC cover band, the metallic purple and gold beads, our drunken friends, the rowdy crowd, the whore houses and strip clubs littering the sides of Bourbon Street.

We walk rapidly away from it all and fall softly into the shadows of the dark cobblestone streets of New Orleans. Even at 1:30 in the morning on streets only lit by vintage gas lamps, there is a spirit amongst us and a taste of adventure in the air and a feeling we are not alone on these haunted streets.

We are like kids on a field trip, we stop at every historic plaque, we weave through the dark alleys singing funny songs. I make him look in the windows of every significant building. We dip our toes into the Mississippi and tell dirty jokes and funny stories. He tells me about his culture, his life at home, his ambitions. I tell him mine. We walk through Jackson Square, he tells me historical facts about the early shipping years in Louisiana. He convinces me to slide through the locked fence and lie on the wet grass looking up at the stars over the mystical city. Even though only our shoulders touch it's like our bodies are tied together. I can feel every chain effect of movement in his frame through that shoulder and even the slightest increase in pressure makes me shake down to my toes.

We talk about pirates and treasures and the bones of ancestors. We step out from under the statue of Andrew Jackson and walk towards the river when he stops me to say, "I was so nervous after Thorston introduced us. I couldn't even look at you."

My ego swells. My heart opens. The sun is starting to come up.

We throw rocks in the river and try to skip them along the glassy surface. When the sun begins to illuminate the waters edge we both realize we have to be on the sales floor in an hour and a half.

"We should go," I say reluctantly, tossing my last rock into the water.

His gaze stays on the ripples now breaking up the peaceful slumber of the Mississippi and he says a little boyishly, "I could keep talking to you all day."

It's the kind of sweet thing I would never expect a tall, suave, Frenchman wearing flat front suit pants that after twelve hours of walking in the Southern heat still look as if they were just pressed to ever say to this girl-next-door.

"Me too."

We start the walk back and even though it's 8:00 AM and I've been up all night dancing and my hair is pressed to the side of my head, he takes my hand like I'm a delicate porcelain doll and glides me back through the maze of the French quarter.

He doesn't try to kiss me good morning when he leaves me at the hotel. He doesn't even try to rub up on me. He just tries to talk to me more until I see my co-workers coming down for breakfast.

"I will see you soon," he says.

"And we can go for lunch today and dinner tonight and brunch tomorrow morning?" His slickness has melted away to reveal an eager little boy trapped in the suit of a business man. I pull away from him laughing and he looks at me like I'm Gloria Steinem, Marilyn Monroe, Margaret Thatcher and Lucille Ball all wrapped up in one. I've never felt so seen. I've never felt so pretty.

After he walks away and I'm riding the elevator back to my room, my cell phone rings and they tell me I'm leaving on the early plane back to New York. It's too late to catch him. I don't have his number. My heart falls into my gut but it's out of my hands now... And well, we will always have New Orleans.

Click here to see a list of organizations accepting donations on behalf of Hurricane Katrina victims.

New Shoes and Shallow Sex

The birthday came and went and I muddled through. But not without pain and discovery. For some reason, this last week has been a complete struggle. I've been reaching for methods to feel different as if I am in some state of unbearable pain. My desire for new shoes and shallow sex is directly correlated to unwanted feelings of discomfort and pain.

It started as harmless birthday shopping and escalated into an uncontrollable desires to lay down the credit card and come home with overflowing bags of clothes and shoes that lay in a pile on the floor still sealed with colorful tissue paper.

I'm obsessed.

It's the same way I used to drink. I'm sitting in a cafe with a friend and while I nod my head and watch her lips move, I am thinking about the skirt I saw in the window at Anthropologie. Can I get it on-line when I get home??

The boy thing has been growing for a while now. This obsessive search for attention in the form of a date or a night of dressing up and shamelessly flirting with anything possessing a penis (Yes, that includes children and small animals) has been building momentum for the last three months. My social experiment was an attempt to stop this madness. But ever since I started the experiment, everyone looks hot. I'm jonesing for the UPS man, wondering what the Pakistani guy that makes my coffee is like in bed and thinking about calling the exterminator to just come over, fuck me, spray for ants and leave before I finish my last orgasm gasp.

I'm longing--no-crying out for something to remove my pain. What is so painful ??

The Experiment - Day Three

Three days into my "no men" for a month experiment and I'm already grumpy. Trying to go cold turkey from men and shopping.... and well, I'm only 12 hours into my anti-new shoe campaign. This shit is hard and I needed a reward. Wedges make everything in life less painful. And it beats watching old seasons of Sex in the City.

Friday night I attended a white party at the loft of a wealthy retired investment banker from Ireland.

The cast of All My Children sandwiched me on the dance floor and I made excuses to slip away to the roof. I was tempted to flirt it up with the short guy who enjoyed bragging about his bit part as 'Jock #1" in the runaway hit "Girl Next Door". He was eyeing me most the night, but I purposely avoided eye contact as he made his goodbyes and lingered around my group of girlfriends before giving up, grabbing his paint splattered designer jacket and hitting the road with the rest of his pretty boy posse. Sure, it would have been a good story to tell--but I still would have been alone on Monday morning.

Saturday night, I did the unthinkable. I went out... with a couple. We had dinner, talked about life, caught an indie flick and I was in bed by 12:30. Sunday, I cancelled plans with a guy friend that I knew would have resulted in shameless flirting and games that culminated in a long and lusty kiss goodnight and a week of avoiding his calls and 'let's just go back to being friends' chat next Sunday night. Instead, I met some girlfriends and more couple friends for a late Sunday afternoon brunch at a restaurant in SOHO.

At the AA meeting tonight, I kept myself from scanning the meeting room for cute men, focused on the topic and shared my insight on a Big Book reading. Still afterwards, I was approached by this adorable grad student getting his executive MBA at Columbia. The old me (from 3 days ago) would have manipulated a group 24 Hour Diner experience and tossed a casual invite his way. At dinner, I would have been witty and smart--getting him to walk me to the subway stop and then exchanged numbers on the corner. But I resisted, spoke professionally and kindly with him and then busied myself with my women friends until he sulked away.

I've stacked myself with work this week so that no boy can find his way into the mix. 27 days and counting... I'm just praying that every single man in the city isn't married by the 20th of September.

The Experiment - Day One

Today is day one of my social experiment.

For thirty days, I pledge:

no boys
no flirting
no attention seeking behavior
no dates
no extended eye contact
no free coffees
no batting eyelashes
no resting on my femenine laurels

Just me. All the time. Can I do it?

Boy Overdose

Last weekend, tucked away in a girlfriends hidden beach house on Long Island, I met with fifteen unlikely friends and we had what turned out to be a women’s AA retreat. Like true New York women in recovery, half the group stripped off layers of black clothing, lay their white bodies out on the sand, doused their tattoos with sunscreen and sat up periodically to smoke cigarettes. The other half, with no tattoos or piercings, slipped out of Indian sarongs, sat in lawn chairs reading trash magazines, sipped lemonade through straws, and forwent the sunscreen. Subsequently, I’ve spent the past week rubbing layers of dead skin off my reddened chest. The two halves mixed evenly on the beach and later into the night when we stayed up counting stars and giving one another advice on boy troubles. That's when I got the idea for the social experiment.

It started when L called me out on my excessive dating.

“I’m really not looking for anything serious. I just enjoy dating,” I said.

“Do any of these men have potential?” she asked.

“No, but they're fun.”

“Do you think you might want something serious with someone in the future?” she probed.

“Sure, but I’m not ready," I said quietly.

L looked at me rather matter-of-factly, “I used to date a lot of men I new weren’t going anywhere. I also thought I really didn't want a relationship. But then truth is that I did want a relationship, just not with any of the men that I was dating. And dating those guys was keeping me from meeting someone I could really care about.”

She shrugged, rubbed her wedding ring on her sweats and resumed pointing out constellations with the rest of the ladies. I paused, sipped my lemonade, and started thinking.

I couldn't stop thinking about what she had said for the next 48 hours.

Do I really want a relationship? I guess I do someday, but I’m totally freaked out about the idea of one right now. I’m not good at them. I always fuck them up. Besides, relationship=boring in my mind. And I’m not ready to find a pint of Ben and Jerry's and netflixs a hot Sunday night date. Fear of relationships is such a cliche. Is it really possible I have fallen into the trap?

To combat fear, I normally exert a tremendous amount of control over my life. And when I try to control my life, I lose sight of what “the spiritual part of my being” has in store for me. Dating men that I don’t see a future with is my way of shielding me from the pain of being alone or being in a dysfunctional boring relationship. These "fun" men are my condoms against the penetration of something more serious and potentially more painful. But what if that is what I really need. If I let go of trying to control the situation will I open myself up to something great? I decided to give it a try.

I came back to New York convinced I need to let go of the men in my life that hold no future promise. So basically, I broke it off with the six or so guys I was dating. It was actually quite easy once I decided it was the right thing to do. The day after I spoke with the last broken fling, I felt a vacuum of loneliness and I compounded the feeling by isolating and turning inward. I began to feel like there was no one out there thinking of me. It made me really hungry. I craved carbs.

But it’s an experiment and I want to see what happens if I let go completely and have a little trust in the powers above. Can I let go completely and only date men that have potential of becoming something serious? Can I let go of a man once I begin to realize I wont ever be happy with the level of commitment or effort he is bringing to the relationship? Can I turn down really steamy kisses in unlit doorways with hot foreign men whose names I will likely forget in three to four weeks?

What will become of my social experiment?

Reality TV

It was Saturday night in Washington DC and I was so tired that I doubted I could pull it together to rally for one more night. But Molly Jean was visiting, and it was important to me that I show her a ‘good time’ and hold up the false pretense that every Saturday night I could be found out dancing on tables and picking up undergrads.

It was much more exciting than the reality that most Saturdays would find me masking a broken heart and working the double shift at the neighborhood cocktail lounge. It was much more glamorous than the fact that I was 30 years old with a Master’s degree and still waiting tables, three months out of a failed near engagement which I sabotaged like all the rest.

Molly was also tired. Even though I hadn’t seen her in five years, ten years of friendship meant that I could tell. I wondered how long we would both be able to keep up the pretense that we were still 23.

Molly moved from the couch, her long delicate legs dragging over the wood floors in my studio apartment. Her height made her tower over me in photos, her delicate beauty and womanly figure made me look fourteen. This Saturday night, she gracefully removed the stylish reading glasses from her chiseled nose and stepped effortlessly into a pair of tight jeans. She stood in front of the mirror and threw her head of long auburn hair, recently straightened with a flat iron, over her shoulder.

“I’m ready whenever you are." And she sat back down on my suede chocolate couch with her recent release paperback book.

My neighbor and his best friend arrived and instantly began ogling Molly. I’m accustomed to the attention she attracts. She took off her glasses and began to hatch under the heat of their stares. She was oblivious to her charms. She laughed at all their jokes.

We head laughing into the DC February night.

At the bar, I watched the guys throw back cocktails, weave between flirtatious glances, hand out phone numbers, and act interested in conversation that was impossible to hear over the furious pump of loud rap tunes. Molly and I danced and disappeared for a moment into a time when we wore tiny cocktail dresses, moved with bodies that were thinner and tighter and acted without fear of what other people thought about us.

We left Ouzo’s and rounded the corner of Connecticut onto 18th. I thought the two women on the corner were handing out flyers for an after hours party but they were production assistants looking for willing men and women to try out for a new reality TV series they claimed would air on MTV.

MTV looking for willing men and women to try out for a new reality TV series !
$10,000 if your cast
Come hang in Cali
PARTY! PARTY!!PARTY!!!

'PARTY! PARTY!! PARTY!!!' was hardly my thing. I let out a snicker over my shoulder as I stepped around the PA's and continued walking down the street.

I wasn't looking for love. Recently escaped from a serious relationship, I was avoiding deep connections with the opposite sex like making eye contact with the homeless asking for change on the subway.

“You can make $10,000 dollars!” She hollered after us.

“It will only take five minutes.”

I could hear her feet on the pavement behind me.

The truth was, I was exhausted trying to entertain my BFF with DC's slim offerings and this little adventure would tie our night up perfectly.

"Yeah, sure, okay. What do I have to do?"

I thought perhaps a questionnaire, a photo... But within moments, a camera and microphone hung ominously over my head.

"So who ended the last relationship? You, or the guy?"

"Do you have any hidden talents?"

"What is your father like? Do you guys get along?"

"So, like, do you think we should be at war with Afghanistan?"

Cameras, terrify me. I focused on Molly, standing behind the camera. I used her unwavering confidence in my humor and sassiness to distract me from my fear of looking like an asshole.

I saw the red light and could feel my lip begin to quiver. Like an alcoholic tremor, the more I tried not to let it happen the more it seemed to reveal my utter insecurity. I must have been okay, because through the fog, I could hear Molly's laughter.

Then, off went the light and my face relaxed. Like Novocaine wearing off after a visit to the dentist for a root canal, I slowly came back into the moment.

I had no idea what had come out of my mouth.

But soon Molly and I werere blocks away, laughing until we couldn’t breathe, skipping down 18th street wrapped up in the warmth of our new memory.

*******************************************
The following Friday, I got a phone call.

"Hi, I'm a casting agent calling from LA. We saw your tape. The one you recorded in the street last week in DC. We want to talk to you more. Can you come out this weekend for a casting call?"

She told me she was casting for an MTV Bachelor take-off. Some in descript number of single men and women, all living in a house together. She wouldn't tell me how many people. She wouldn't tell me where they were filming. She wouldn't tell me the name of the show. She cautioned me that every step of this process needed to be strictly confidential.

I hung up the phone and called Molly.

************************************************************************

When I arrived in LA, I was driven to a hotel about two blocks from LAX, told I wasn't allowed to leave my room for any reason unless escorted by a member of the crew and given $25 to survive on for the next three days eating nothing but room service.

Over the next two days of casting calls I met five other women. We were nothing alike. They were young, average pretty and innocent. They had wide eyes and giggled a lot.

The casting agent phoned two weeks later.

"Hi there. Good news. Guess what? You have totally been cast on the show. Congratulations! Are you just totally psyched or what? Oh my God. Isn't this great. Are you crying?"

I packed my bags, told my friends I was going to Liberia for two weeks and called my parents.