Drunk Dialing & Air Mattresses

I wasn't old enough to get drunk before cell phones existed, but I imagine when you got wasted and wanted to bother someone you just bothered the person closest to you.  Cell phones started this drunk dialing phenomenon almost instantly, making booty calls and love confessions dangerously accessible.  The only person who enjoys drunk dialing is the drunk.  Nobody cares what you have to say at 4 a.m. when you can barely even walk much less construct a coherent sentence. 

Drunk dialing and drunk texting are annoying at any age, but as a 27-year-old woman I just can’t.  I cannot have a 30-year-old man calling me at 4 a.m. telling me he wants to come over, or worse, calling me in the middle of the day from a pool party confessing that he thinks he should be together, forever and ever. 

I like to drink occasionally but I don’t like to talk about it.  I thought it always seemed so immature when people made a big deal out of drinking, when they like to advertise that they are smashed, get all excited about day drinking, and expect you to think it’s what? Funny? Cool?

Maybe it was the alcoholic ex who turned from Ryan Gosling into Charlie Sheen the second he fell off the wagon, but I don’t find drunkenness attractive or amusing.  Going out and having your signature man drink, like  a special scotch on the rocks, sipping slow and being controlled while still getting your buzz on.  That is sex.  Downing beers and shots like you are a Frat pledge.  That is trash. 

Recently, I have been seeing this man named Stephan, and I use the term "man" loosely because homeboy barely has his shit together.  I have been iffy about Stephan from the get-go.  I could sense his lack of motivation, his insecurity, and his overall air of possibly being a shit. I don’t mean to brag, but my shithead identifying skills are better than most.  I credit my intuitive Pisces nature and a few, very dark years of dating the worst men ever.  I have tried to be patient and nonjudgmental with Stephan; I wanted to give him a chance and get to know him and understand his situation.  Two years ago I would have already wanted his babies by now.  He is incredibly sweet to me, and unbelievably sexy, but there was just something not clicking, despite that tattoos and the 6’3”-ness and the mind-blowing sexual chemistry we discovered on his air mattress. 

Yep, 30 years old, air mattress.

This is a tricky little subject for me.  I once, long ago, dated a boy with no sheets on his bed and I still slept over.  He was the absolute worst and I let myself fall for him in a post-breakup I-can-do-whoever the-eff-I-want phase.  I am absolutely embarrassed of him.  He is the one guy that I would be mortified for people to know I dated.  You would judge me for it, hard.  I finally confessed to my best friend that he didn't even have sheets on his bed and from that point forward I promised myself that after that I would NEVER accept a bed without sheets.  But, I mean, at least this guy had a bed, right? 

When I moved to New York City, I was on my own, poor, and struggling to find a stable living situation which resulted in my not getting a bed for the first seven months there.  Instead I had an air mattress; a fact that made me feel like a piece of shit and made me recall the boy without the sheets.  But, in my defense, it was a really comfortable air mattress; a Queen Size, extra-high air mattress with an expensive and plush mattress cover and high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.  All the boys I let come over all said they were surprised at how comfortable it was, or maybe they just wanted pussy.

 I wouldn’t notice if I fell out of  Stephan's “bed” onto the floor because the air mattress is only a few inches thick.  There is definitely no plush mattress cover, he has a loose-fitting fitted sheet and two small fleece throws with holes in them.  But his room is full of really nice shoes, everywhere.  I have to jump over shit as I make my way to the air mattress that he has to inflate before we fuck. I just can’t.

His bed situation irritates me SO much.  I feel like a hypocrite since I was living on an air mattress for 7 months, but that was New York City, you scrape and grind to make it there.  I was new, it was acceptable.  This is Arizona, where he was born and raised and has had thirty years to build his life, then left all his shit in his ex-girlfriend’s apartment when they broke up.  It’s not cute, but I looked past it. 

This weekend we made loose plans for him to come to my house since I have only been to his and I refuse to stay there because he has an air mattress.  They weren’t super solid plans with details and times, but they were definitely spoken about and agreed upon.  Friday night we did separate things and he text me at 3am, I responded although I was already in bed and passing out.  Then he decided to call and I ignored that because my eyes were closed and I knew drunky monkey was going to ask to come by.  Fuck.  That.  If you want to come to my house you can spend some time with me in the evening, maybe watch a movie and cuddle on the couch before moving it to my room, which by the way has a real bed.  You are not going to be out drinking all night then call and expect me to be excited at the prospect of dealing with your dumb ass at 3 in the morning. 

We were texting the next day and he told me was that he was at the pool with his boys drinking.  I don’t know why he had to add in drinking like that was such an important part of what he was doing.  Then next text was that he was already tanked.  What a fucking idiot.  Do girls respond to that?  Do some girls write back “lol, omg” and think it is adorable that this 30-year-old man wants you to know that he is drunk at his apartment pool with his buddies at 2 p.m.?  I bet they do.  I bet some girls think it is cute.  I bet some girls ask to join because “omg, I looooove day drinking!”  He proceeded to text me again that night before they went out, I responded without enthusiasm as I had planned on an evening in with a bowl of cookie dough.  At 3 a.m. again, in the midst of my slumber, I received a stupid series of texts about how he hates the douchey scene in Scottsdale where he goes every weekend. Then an hour later, “no response huh?”……

When I woke up to those texts in the morning I wrote back, “Yeah, no response at 3 a.m., don’t you have booty calls you can call at that time?” He thought it was smart at that point to write back and say “Not a booty call.  Sorry I was stupid drunk lol.” 

No, you’re just stupid.  This is just not the way a man acts and I don’t have patience for boys.  I am not your mother and I don’t want to be.  Dating guys who don’t have their lives together, or goals they are working towards, makes you their nurturer, motivator,  and counselor.  It doesn't make you free to be fun and flourish in your own ways.  I hate the person I am when I am dating a boy.  When I date a man I get to just be me, worry about me, work on me. 

No sheets was a serious problem.  No bed…it’s worse. 

And once again, I should have known!