"My boyfriend wants me to stop writing about my ex-boyfriends," is what I supposedly said.
I might have, but who knows. It was my first day of class and when put on the spot I speed sweat and spew word vomit more vile than the fried-egg-tequila mix I threw up last Sunday.
I look a lot like a human blow-up doll and have found that stupidity is expected of me. I accept my unfair fate with mechanics and plumbers, or anyone repairing anything of mine considering I need assistance in repairing said thing. Although I do not appreciate the computer repairman's attitude at the hip repair shop in Williamsburg; he mocked my "inability to understand subwoofers" (no inability, I literally grew up in recording studios) and scoffed at my smudged screen -- he assumed it was make up. He was correct.
His name was Scott or something equally douchey and he spoke to me like an infant, which I usually don't mind from computer-savvy men because I envision them that night trolling Reddit and Jezebel and damning feminists to hell -- but this kid was different. I actually knew him; I had a Literature class with him in college.
It's people like maybe-Scott, and other fellow academics, that have caused my inability to perform on demand in a classroom setting. Maybe-Scott knew how well I had done in that class and that the notoriously ruthless, misogynistic professor (who was a woman herself) loved me and that I was at least moderately intelligent. He knew about the incident of the Hives outbreak that occurred in that class as well.
Despite all of this, he abused his self-proclaimed computer superiority and acted an absolute fool. (I ran into Maybe-Scott a few weeks later at a Christmas party. I was wearing antlers and refused to make eye contact.)
I've gone through life enduring the Maybe-Scotts of the world, and so when called upon in class, like I was on the first day of my Writing Workshop, the entirety of adolescence flashes before my eyes: one where I was always the punchline and everything I said was absolute trash. I overheat and my sweat glands start to party; my brain shuts off faster than a drunk driver having just spotted a cop. I lose control of my mouth and make noise with words; I hear how dumb I sound and my chest turns redder by the second.
I was asked to share what I'm working on and I don't really remember what I said. I know I discussed my boyfriend, and ex-boyfriends, then in an attempt to redeem myself for the word vomit made fun of myself by introducing my "writing vibe" as "chill slut;" exemplified by "I dated this drummer who lived off the Bedford L, he had a huge dick."
The guy sitting next to me said something supportive, which I appreciate.
My boyfriend really doesn't mind what I write about, he had access to the Internet before we started dating and was well aware of what I put out there: a lot of proud-chill-slut-talk. I write a lot about exes, not because I miss them but because relationships are insufferable and therefore inherently funny. Sex is weird and scary and so is human suffering; really ex-boyfriends are sort of all-encompassing-ideal writing material.
I think I do have more exes than most people, but not real exes, just human symptoms of aggressive online dating. I loved online dating! It's like a game! Like the Sims, really; you get to create this whole cyber persona and plaster fake-you on every social media platform and cater to whomever you please. It's sort of like the movie Her, but you design what you look like, too since you get to know your angles once you've taken enough selfies. You meet people along the way and some like you in real life and some don't -- most of them are horrific, but I've found some good friends along the way. One just invited me to a Selfie themed Facebook group.
I'm grateful for my self-taught dating knowledge -- my sentimental education, if you will (Flaubert reference anyone?) and have achieved such success that friends -- both male and female -- have asked me to write their online dating profiles. It's like I'm getting two MFAs -- Master of Fine, and Flirting Arts. (Sorry, had to.)
The real punchline here is how I met my boyfriend; it wasn't an online dating success story, rather, a failure.
I knew who he was from college. We went to a tiny liberal arts school in Upstate New York where everyone knew everyone's business and we had occasionally coexisted in the library.
So when he popped up as a potential match on Tinder I obviously swiped right because I vaguely knew him and that's the polite thing to do. But to my dismay, nothing happened. He didn't swipe me back.
I was hurt then forgot about it five seconds later. A few months went by and I was reminded of my Tinder rejection when I ran into him at a bar. In a drunken state of rage because my hair had uncurled itself, I cornered him and asked, probably spitting, "Why didn't you swipe right on me on Tinder?!"
He had no answer, and I don't really remember what happened, but we were dating like three weeks later.
The thing is, I don't really write about exes. I just write about things that have happened, and it so happens a lot of men have happened to me. I like relationships and I like the Internet, and online dating is literally both of these things and I'm a really fast typer, so sue me. I pride myself on my social media presence "Cyber" Danielle: the fake-busty-daddy-issues-suffering-Kardashian-loving-blonde with one selfie angle and two dogs named after musicians. I guess that's actually just who I am, but the Internet version is just a little enhanced -- you know, like an Instagram filter. Think Valencia.
I'll always happily own up to being a chill slut, although now I write more about pooping and less about dating, which no one appreciates except my father. At least I finally got to celebrate the two year anniversary of my pooping my pants at the Super Bowl.
Maybe I'll go back to writing about exes and quit writing about pooping, but really, pooping is a lot like dating. Everyone does it, it's almost always funny if the situation goes wrong, and it almost always ends because of an asshole. Maybe I should just stop writing about assholes.