Keep playing games with my heart

Even though none of us particularly chose to participate in this version of 2020, we did have a choice about how we approach it. How we approached our careers, how we approached our physical and mental health, how we approached our family, and for some of us, how we approached our ‘intimate’ relationships. Looking back, I’m surprised the approach that worked best for me ended up being one rarely associated positively with relationships: games.

Let me clarify. I’m not talking mind games. Those I hate. Gaslighting, Shaming, Guilt Tripping, Sudoku⏤all of them! Being manipulated (especially through numbers) is obviously not sexy. 

And whoa there. Put that dusty Clue box back in your closet. Return the Nintendo Switch. I have no idea how to properly play Catan (Do I want wheat or brick?) and never could get into FarmVille. So WTF am I talking about here? 

Back in March, when ‘all this’ started (‘All this’ is the official name of 2020), life kinda felt like a game. The goal? Survive. The rules? No leaving the house or seeing other people. Every day was (and sometimes still is) a complicated maze of survival and sanity. Reality game shows like Big Brother and The Circle went from being laughable to “Oh, I should be taking notes.”  

So when I started messaging and reconnecting with someone, without realizing it, we were also using games to get to know each other. Personal trivia, intimate storytelling, role playing, video challenges, drawings, music, maps of our homes and lives. We developed our own revealing versions of Quizzo, Guess Who, Pictionary, Charades, Name that Tune, Strip Poker. I got a point for remembering what movie he saw on a blind date in high school, he lost one for not correctly guessing my favorite Beck song.* Did the points matter? No. But we were having fun playing.

And this was much more fun than playing the game of Survival 2020, which I realized wasn’t a game at all. Jane McGonigal writes in her book Reality is Broken, one of the reasons games make us happy is because they are hard work that we choose for ourselves. I certainly didn’t volunteer for the last six months. And not being able to physically be together, not knowing the future, we easily could have given up on our connection. But we didn’t. We chose to keep playing. 

Games provided a fun way to get to know each other during a challenging time, but will they prove just as fun and exciting without the restraints of a pandemic?

McGonigal writes that “Any pair or group of people who consistently play a game together, online or face-to-face, will have increased opportunities to express admiration for each other, to devote themselves to a common goal, to express sympathy for others’ losses and even to fall in love.[…]If the goal is truly compelling, and if the feedback is motivating enough, we will keep wrestling with the game’s limitations⏤creatively, sincerely, and enthusiastically⏤for a very long time.” 

I don’t think the games of my future relationships will necessarily be easily identifiable as ‘games’ but their goals will be the same: playing, exploring, learning and, most importantly, choosing to be there. So, if games can provide me the infinite challenge of falling and staying in love, by all means, Player 2, please, please, please keep playing games with my heart.

*Nicotine and Gravy, duh

Embracing my inner spotted lanternfly

Have you heard about the invasion of the spotted lanternfly?

The first time I saw a spotted lanternfly, I didn’t know what I was looking at. I was sucking on an iced coffee in my hometown of Collingswood, NJ. It was both my first purchased and iced coffee since the beginning of the pandemic when I came home to my parent’s house, so, yeah. I was feeling good. Sunshine, espresso, commerce. In the words of Austin Powers, “Yeah, baby!”

I was admiring the signs of peace and love and Black Lives Matter that proudly covered the gates of the Collingswood Presbyterian Church when I spotted a bug just as proud. I had never seen a bug like this before. She was trotting along outside the church in her Sunday best (which truthfully it was a Saturday but let me have this). 

Despite the one summer I captured, kept and ultimately (accidentally) killed lightning bugs—along with the years I spent cohabitating with mealworms I fed to my leopard gecko, Leo— I’m not a fan of bugs. Especially big ones. And this was no little lady. Had she been a spider or some sort of beetle, I would’ve definitely peed my pants. But I was urine-free and mesmerized. 

This bug was beautiful! Her wings were as catchy as Carole Radziwill’s closet. Her confidence was as intimidating as a Bethenny Frankel insult. I half-expected her to do a sassy spin and tell me “Even though I’m a bug, I always dress to impress!”

I started filming her on my phone. I overlaid the dirty beat of Radio Slave’s “Another Club” and bam! I posted that hot bitch to my Instagram story. “People are gonna love this!” I thought. Not quite.

“Kill it!”

“Die, bug, die!”

“Murder that bitch!”

It turned out my beautiful bug was the notorious spotted lanternfly that up until then I had only heard rumors about. You see, the spotted lanternfly, while native to Asia, is an invasive planthopper bug that had recently made its way to the Northeast. And the reason everyone had their murder pants on about her was due to her nasty habit of destroying crops and trees. The spotted lanternfly was technically a pain in the ass. But all I saw was a hot piece of ass. 

It didn’t matter what I saw though. The people wanted her out. In fact, it’s been recommended to kill any and all spotted lanternflies you, um, spot. Set-up traps, destroy the eggs, squish, splat, that’s a wrap on their ass. I couldn’t understand how we were split about masks, climate change, Black Lives Matter but miraculously bipartisan on the decision to Kill! That! Bug! What kind of world is this!?

I didn’t immediately share the popular, unpopular opinion of the spotted lanternfly. Instead, I sympathized with the bugs. Heck, I related to them. Spotted lanternflies and displaced thirty-somethings are really not that different.

Both of us suddenly found ourselves living somewhere we didn’t belong. We were taken out of the comfort of our homes either by Hertz or an overseas shipping freight and plopped into the suburbs of New Jersey. We were outsiders. But we were outsiders who had no interest in blending in. We didn’t want to sit in our discomfort and we certainly didn’t want to show it. No, we grabbed it by the balls. We reversed it and we owned it. 

When you’re a thirty-something suddenly living in the town you grew up in, there’s no other way to approach the situation except with an obnoxious confidence you can’t control. We roll our fears of running into our exes, our disappointments with our career paths, our sudden loss of being able to masturbate to abandon into a giant ball of “I could give AF.” I wasn’t sucking the sap out of trees, but I was sucking the life out of my parents.

My obnoxious confidence was my defense system. I didn’t have my normal life and routine but I still had me. And like the spotted lanternfly, me was one sexy creature. I understood their need to show off. To strut. Every walk I took around town was an opportunity to be seen. “Air pods? Check. French Bulldog? Check. Way too sexy of an outfit for a Tuesday night? Check. Pheromones? Check, check!” Some of us want to destroy trees, some of us want to destroy our exes.

How could I get mad at the spotted lanternfly for their invasive nature when I spent every day posting selfies and videos to my Instagram story in an invasive attempt to not be forgotten? “Hiii! I’m still here! Look, I’m eating breakfast! Now I’m dancing in my backyard! Like! Fave! Retweet!” So yeah. If I had the power to cover a tree in a bunch of me, of course I’d do it. 

But like any good home invasion, mine was short lived. I’m back in my comfort zone, in my apartment, in my city. I’m no longer an outsider and I’m no longer dressing to impress anyone but Ricky on the stoop. My confidence is back at its normal levels (somewhere between Barely Give AF and Give AF). 

I’m glad I left South Jersey before having to kill a spotted lanternfly (and before being killed). I wish my bugs were able to do the same. I wish my bugs were able to realize that while it’s important to make the best out of a bad situation, it’s equally as important to know when to leave. Make a scene, turn heads and then GTFO. Obnoxious confidence only works so long. Use it sparingly, use it wisely and most importantly, use it before your ex turns your dead body into earrings.

Getting ready for bed is the new getting some

It's been over 3 months since I’ve touched or been touched by another human being. And now with record-breaking virus surges, I’m wondering if it could be another three. Or 4. But that’s ok. I’m ok. Because I have...my bedtime routine.  Yes, my bedtime routine has been my one stop, curbside pick-up shop for intimacy and human connection, albeit my own. The secret’s out my horny, social distanced friends: getting ready for bed is the new getting some.

The bedtime routine begins anywhere between 3pm and 5:15pm. I close my bedroom door, light candles (flameless cause I’m quarantining in the attic at my parent’s house in the suburbs) and put on my Spotify Bedtime Routine Mix. Part 1 is my absolute favorite of the whole process as it involves a full-length mirror and an ‘impromptu’ striptease that I rehearse every morning in the shower very carefully. The first song on the mix is Gold Dust Woman so trust me it’s hot.

I dance and take off my clothes until about minute 1:18 in the song, at which point no matter where I am in the choreography, I stop to touch the reflection of my face in the mirror. I do this for the entire length of the chorus. After Stevie ‘picks up the pieces and goes home’ I dramatically collapse onto my bed, writhing my body for as long as it takes to feel something. 

Roughly forty-five minutes later, things continue with a very intricate exfoliating ceremony. It involves none of the expected tools of exfoliating—no pumice stones or rice enzyme powders—it’s just me rubbing up against a bookshelf asking myself “Babe, why are you so good to me?”

(Note to reader: If dominant/submissive role plays aren’t your thing, skip to the oral paragraph below.)

Things get a little kinky in part 2 of my bedtime routine. Let’s just say I’m a bad girl, who likes to say “Avee-no!” to dry skin. If I was a good girl who made it on time for all her Zoom meetings that day, I massage my lotion into my legs in long, deep, tenderizing strokes. But, uh-oh. Today I accidentally slept through the virtual birthday cake for Dick ‘Refuses-to-go-by-Richard’ in Finance. Now my lavender lotion must be spanked on as punishment. 

On to oral. 

I have to charge my electric toothbrush mid-brush ever since brushing my teeth turned into a 10+ minute dental dance, of which I devote the previously recommended two minutes entirely to my tongue. I’m also pretty certain I scrubbed every layer of enamel off my teeth in a failed attempt to climax by brushing. 

I was never a fan of water picks, but in COVID times I have 2. When I hold them at just the right angle it kinda feels like the sloppy make-out session before a drunken threesome. It’s nice, however, I’m considering buying a third so we can just double date instead.

After the brushing of the teeth comes the brushing of my hair. I brush my hair with the seriousness of a Juliet about to poison herself for dear, Romeo. I stare at myself in the mirror as I complete each full, 10-15 second stroke. It takes an hour but it’s worth it. I smile when I’m able to run my fingers through my knotless head of hair as I finish another bottle of wine from a New Jersey vineyard I’ve never visited. “Tomasello’s Daffodil White, this do I drink to thee!”

Cleansing and moisturizing my face is my battle cry. I’ve never had to Lipsync for My Life before but I imagine it’s quite similar. There’s beats. There’s pauses. I throw a kiki. Everything I ever learned in a soap commercial is put to the test. 

It starts as most romances do with a cotton ball soaked in toner. I’m usually not a fan of PDA, but I don’t mind it here. I drag the cotton ball in seven long strokes down my face, saying my name each time as I do. I run a finger over my eyebrows and ask myself, “Baby, why are you so cute?”

Once that is complete, the curtain rises for the finale and star of the COVID-bedtime routine: the night cream. Previously, her swan song consisted of a dab. Perhaps a dollop if I was feeling wild. I mean at close to $20 for a 1.7 oz jar, she was not one to use in excess. But in this new touchless, sexless world, the night cream flows like a river. I scoop her up with 4 fingers and spread her on like war paint. I hum deeply as I rub her in my skin and imagine our life together.

With the face moisturizing officially complete, I look back in the mirror and once again run my fingers down my reflection’s face and neck. I have completely and fully given myself over to the bedtime routine. I give my reflection a kiss and hug myself tightly. 

It is time for bed, baby.

2020 Award for Best App for Sexting During a Quarantine

Congratulations Instagram! You are 2020’s Best App for Sexting During a Quarantine! 

You’ve beaten out Facebook Messenger, Twitter DMs, WhatsApp even Marco Polo! And while you don’t have the extra added thrill of possibly being found out by HR like you do in a naughty Slack message, you do have everything a horny person needs to communicate through a global, gut-wrenching pandemic (and more)!

At first glance, Instagram seems like every other app out there - you can message, you can send a gif, you can add a photo - all great! But within the basic framework of Instagram messenger lives so many creative sexting possibilities you and your lovers need to start putting to use. Here are my virtual foreplay, fave four:

1. Tease ‘Em
What I love about Instagram messenger is the option to take photos within the app to either disappear after first glance, allow for a single replay, or remain in the chat. Oh, darlings, what fun you can have with that! Keep them on their toes. Will your photo blow up in their face or will they be allowed to keep it and admire it for weeks? Make them work for those permanent photos. Oh, you want to look at this amazing selfie I took using the Hands Free option in the pajamas you love over and over again? Well, what’s in it for me?

2. Auditory Lovers
My sex playlists have become as dusty as my sex life. But with Instagram, the music I’d like to be boning to can be added to the pictures and videos I’m pretending to bone to. Having the option to add music to messages can really set the mood, especially for auditory lovers like myself who can’t get off without the Pitchfork described ‘Plutonian pings’ of Air’s 2004 Talkie Walkie.

3. Boomerang It Baby
You may be used to seeing Boomerangs of glasses cheering drinks, a jump in the middle of the street, a silly dance move at a wedding or bar. But I’ve found the Boomerang really booms when used for sexting. Where are those fingers going? Is that shirt being taken off or on? Omg that line of drool is about to fall right out of his...woop! Nevermind! It went back in!

4. Filter Roleplay 
With all the various filters available for selfies, there’s no reason why you can’t keep up with your favorite role playing fantasies in mind (puppy fetishes, anyone?). Does your lover get off on you with long eyelashes? A Mouth Face? Bunny ears? Maybe you’re sexting with a freak who has a very specific Twin Peaks: The Return fetish? Get on with your evil, horny self! 

A Wartime, Love Letter To My Sex Life During Lockdown

My dearest, darling sex life,

 Oh, how I long for you! 

I’m sick to my stomach about leaving you behind in the city while I quarantine at my parent’s house. When this pandemic was thrust upon us (Ugh! Thrust!), everything was spinning! No one knew what was happening! I packed my bags and escaped to the suburbs in such a panicked rush that I foolishly forgot to let you out one last time. Now I’ve been here without you for three months and I am full of regret.

Particularly at this time, without me, you may be asking yourself, “Why are we not spending day after day, night after night together? You wear pajamas daily and are horny from sunrise to sunset!” And I just want to assure you, not a minute goes by that you aren’t on my mind.

Summer is near and the days are long, darling. Every night, just like I’m doing right now, I watch the sunset alone with you in my thoughts. The cool breeze tingles like my feet used to before climax. The sliver of the moon smiles the same smile you have brought to my face. Remember when we first met, dear? Oh, how you brought me such a fright! I didn’t even know it was in me! I contemplated our relationship for years wondering what the big deal was about you. But you eventually showed me your true self. Reminded me you were more than just a charlie horse in my calf.

You haunt me. 

I swear I see you in the clouds. Is that you, sweet pea? I close my eyes and see the many versions of you I have learned to love. The quick, the long, the quiet, the loud, the bathroom in the bar, the threesomes. How innocent we were doing it in public or with multiple people! Will the virus change all that, darling? 

I am horny, my love! 

These are hard times, darling. But we must remain in good health. We must find ways to stay sane and happy while we’re separated.  I have been finding pleasure in my own two hands. Can you believe it, love? These ten, simple, fingers bringing me to climax! I think I can hear you laughing! 

I’ve become very close with my imagination in our weeks apart. Last night I imagined the ceiling fan was spitting into my mouth! Silly me. These outlandish thoughts are kind but they do not bring me the complete joy that you do. You penetrate me, split me, drill me, make me crawl. You are magnificent and I love you more than seems humanly possible. You will never be replaced. When the stars finally align for our timely reunion, I will give myself fully and completely to you. 

The sun has just about set. I must leave you for tonight, dearest. Whenever you read this, please imagine me melting and moaning and begging for pizza after. Let’s hope it won’t be much longer before we can order a large with extra cheese again. 

I’ll be dreaming of you. That is a promise. Dream of me?

Yours wholly and truly,

Carolyn

P.S. Honey, I could use some cigarettes if you got any.

Make new friends or just keep the old?

There are always going to be moments on dating apps you come across people you know. Colleagues, friends, someone with a familiar face you can’t quite place but know you’ve met before. For me, it was those profiles that gave me the most thrill. The profiles that would make me stop swiping, study every picture and say to myself, “I know you!” 

It feels a little naughty, right? Like catching someone in the act. Especially the times I’d swipe across someone I knew used to date someone else I knew. Those would be the profiles I’d judge the hardest, especially depending on the circumstances of the break-up.

There have even been a few times I’d get a text message that when I opened was a picture of myself from my own dating profile. Me trying to look sexy, me with me dog, me doing whatever it was that I decided I wanted to share on my profile. The screenshot would stare up at me. Carolyn, 33 (Yeah, okay, I’m 34 now). It was a metaphorical ‘Found you!’ that to me always read as a ‘F**k you!’

If I’m on a dating app, I don’t like being reminded that I’m on it. No one needs to be reminded they’re dating. Just like no one on LinkedIn needs to be reminded they’re looking for a job. But I get it. In swiping through a sea of shit strangers, it’s exciting when you see someone you know because, well, dating blows. 

Which is why I’m surprised to read that apps like Tinder and Bumble have reported a double-digit increase in messages during the recent pandemic. Even the real-time dating app Flutter, only ‘open’ on Sundays, has seen a 78% increase in weekly messages. We talk and talk and blog and blog about the horror that is dating so why when we physically can’t, are we doing it more than ever? 

I recognize the obvious answer to this question: We’re alone. Or if not alone, unable to escape the people we’re stuck with. No matter how many or how little people we’re currently flattening the curve with, we’re all experiencing a new form of loneliness and no one should be judged by their reaction to it. We’re all doing what feels right, right now.  But to start virtual dating, something I don’t particularly enjoy and am not good at, did not seem like the way I wanted to combat my loneliness. 

There has never been anything enjoyable about the pre-date texting that comes along with app dating. There has never been a beginning question which blew me away or an emoji that didn’t make me want to throw my phone. Why would I purposely commit myself to the absolute worst part of the mating ritual? Plus, what would even be the quarantined version of myself I put out there? 

Buuut I admit it, I made a profile. I thought maybe something would feel different about it in these unprecedented times. Maybe the conversations would be richer, easier. Maybe I’d even...find love. No. It felt exactly the same except more pictures of men at Eagles games since my location settings were now set near Philadelphia. The first guy I chatted with used an emoji in his first message and the second guy stopped responding. As suspected, the only person I got excited about was someone I recognized. It wasn’t his looks or personality that got me to stop, it was the fact that I once met him in real life. 

In the absence of naturally meeting new people, getting excited about those I know has become even more appealing. Reconnecting has been a happy accident of the virus. I’ve enjoyed talking to the people I already know or knew and want to know again. Before COVID, there was a lot of pressure behind reconnecting with someone. Now a simple, ‘How are you?’ is okay. You don’t have to apologize and make excuses for your lack of communication. It’s fine. Hello! 

It’s hard for me to get excited by new people right now, when the old people in my life are those I miss and cherish the most. Even if their role was previously small, I’d still rather talk to them than someone who never had a role to begin with. And unfortunately (or fortunately?) this isn’t unique to quarantine. I realize I get excited by the faces I recognize because that means a connection already exists. Because a big, stubborn part of me wants to believe that I’m good. I have all the people in my life I’m supposed to have and when the right time comes to reconnect, we will. 

Is now that time? I don’t know. However, one of the many lessons this virus has taught me is that we’re all connected. As my dear friend Bill said, “This planet is giving us tougher love than we have ever known, but the message of connectedness is coming thru loud and clear from a mysterious entity that can only be seen with specialized microscopes.” What that means for my future outlook on dating still remains unclear. Maybe the microscope I currently use will break or become stronger or, fingers crossed, disappear completely.

Fuck, buddy!

The title of Lynne Truss’ book on punctuation Eats, Shoots and Leaves, has always amused me. I love how the addition of that one comma drastically alters the sentence and what was meant to be a simple fact about panda bears becomes a comical (and dangerous) situation.

I thought of this book as I sat in bed the early morning hours of the new year. I had just taken my first sip of coffee in 2020. It was a cup of coffee that I did not make and it was a cup of coffee that I did not request. It was a cup of coffee that, without me knowing, was placed near my face as I slept. It’s invisible smell twirled into my unconscious nostrils and then, like a cartoon character following their nose to a freshly baked pie on a window sill, I woke up sniffing.

In front of me was an outstretched hand holding this cup of coffee in a perfectly shiny, perfectly red mug. It could’ve been Heaven. Or an IKEA ad.

“What a perfect start to the day, to the year, to the decade!” I thought as I sipped. “I could get used to…” But before I could finish that thought, reality abruptly reared her head. She came with the reminder that even though I was in the bed of someone I’ve been visiting for over a year and a half, this was still a bed that belonged to, pardon the expression, a fuck buddy.

I’ve never been a fan of the term ‘fuck buddy’. I go out of my way not to use it and for the past few years, prefer to call those I’ve been intimate with as lovers. Many people laugh when I do. I think they can’t help but hear Rachel Dratch and Will Ferrell crooning ‘lov-ah’ in a hot tub. But I don’t say it to be dramatic or funny. I say it because, casual or not, my decision to be intimate with someone is not one I make without some serious thought. My lovers will always be important to me for one reason or another. 

Especially this particular lover. Our non-relationship/relationship has been a consistent, surprising, fun, unique, eye-opening, blindfolding good time. It’s why I trusted him with my last hours of 2019 and my first hours of 2020. But when I received that cup of coffee, my brain took it upon itself to twist the non-relationship/relationship I knew and loved and created what the comma did to the panda bear’s eating habits - a dangerous situation.

I envisioned him waking me up like this every day. Every new year. Living together, being in love, maintaining our odd libidos despite everything working against us. 

“Fuck, buddy!” I said to my brain. “Why are you going there?” 

I knew perfectly well our connection wasn’t meant for that scenario. We weren’t Friends with Benefits that would see the light and finally fall in love in a flash mob. I knew all this, accepted all this, was happy with all this and yet for a brief moment my brain decided, “No, this should be something more!”

Even though it was just a cup of coffee and not a wedding ring, it was still a reminder that despite all my self-proclaimed growth, I’m still getting used to simple acts of intimacy and kindness coming complimentary with relationships of all kinds, even the casual ones. I hope that changes. Because even though the disruption was quick, it made me question what I knew was a perfectly good thing. What I knew shouldn’t change. He has exactly one photo hung up in his apartment. I have over 30 in my entrance. It would never work! And that’s ok. 

Putting limits on our relationships with others doesn’t make the relationship flawed, it makes it honest. Whether it’s your Sunday lover or a parent or a colleague, no one should be forced into a role they don’t want to or can’t play. Fuck your buddies (or your brain) and their judgement. Punctuate carefully but don’t be afraid to edit your script, change your settings, and write the scene that works for you.

Happy new year!