"I guess one shouldn't make one-night stands a habit,"

K said, after I detailed my adventures from last night. 

Adventure summary: 

So, let's start by saying that (after a USPS faux-pas in which my costume, which was supposed to be here by Thursday, and is stuck in purgatory the post office in town) I was wearing my shortest freakum dress (which is luckily partially red, and thus appropriately festive) and four inch studded stiletto pumps; I might as well have been wearing a sign that said, "Fuck me, puh-lease" in flashing red and green letters. And one of my closest gay friends was drunk as shit and after a game of beruit, I started the night off by dancing with him as nastily as I've danced with anyone, while he fondled my breasts through my dress and detailed how he wished I made him hard because I'm so fucking hot and he wishes he could fuck me. And then I went outside with a few other scantily clad girls to ask random passerby if they were feeling naughty or nice, and inviting them to come inside and be naughty with us. So that should give you a good idea of the mood I was in.

Anyway, so I was on the dance floor getting my groove on, minding my own business, trying not to awkward dance near people who are dancing together, and then he came up beside me and did a little like, hip bump, which made me laugh, and quickly turned into us like, backwards grinding, ass to ass for the rest of whatever song was playing. When guys have done that with me before, it has led absolutely nowhere, so I'll admit I was a bit surprised when I turned around and cautiously backed it up, and he was right there ready to actually grind me with. 

So we're grinding or whatever, and I'm pushing back on him and he's leanin up on me and I realize that this is a BIG dude, because I'm a little over 6'1" in those heels and he still had inches on me. And when the first song changes, we blend seamlessly into the next, and the next, and eventually his hands start roaming, sometimes to find mine to hold them while we dance, sometimes to run up and down my thighs/torso/chest. He surprised me with an over-the-dress boob-squeeze, which actually caused me to arch my back and moan audibly. He held my hand and started to raise my arm up, and I caught his drift and moved my hand to the back of his neck, both giving myself more leverage and, according to some blog I read once, exercising the universal dance floor sign for I want you tonight. At some point, he decided to make his move and very delicately kissed the back of my neck. He moved from there to my shoulder, up the side of my neck, and finally started to nibble on my earlobe, and I was done. The safety was off and all hell was officially allowed to break loose: I stopped giving a shit about how high my dress was riding up (my friend Kelsey actually came over and reached her hand between my legs to pull it back down, because evidently I was trying to give the whole room a show) and started bending over to grind on him with my hands around my ankles.

When he starts kissing my neck again, I make my move and turn around to face him so I can kiss him properly, and tentative kisses turn into more ravenous kisses with a quickness. (Remember that at this point, I don't even know dude's name.) We alternate between grinding and making out, and he wins further cool points when the DJ plays Nelly's "Ride Wit Me" and I start rapping and homeboy jumps right in--he knew all the words! (Any White guy that knows 90s rap has gained awesome points in my book. Oh, yeah, did I mention he's White?) As the DJ wound down from the last song, I turned to face him to ask him name and tell him mine. We stayed through Pianoman (as a ritual, my eating club ends every night by singing Billy Joel's Pianoman in a circle) and he knew all the words to Pianoman as well, and had no problem joining the circle. At that point, I had basically decided I was going to take him home with me. (As C said when I told him this later; he was obviously a keeper if he Pianomanned with us that well.)

But I realize that I have no idea how to tell this guy I just met that I want to keep this going past the party. He goes to the bathroom and I run upstairs to get my coat, and I go back downstairs and he's lingering, so I start talking to some friends, and then he makes his way over towards me and sort of nods in my direction and I smile and say bye to my friends and start walking towards the door, making sure he's right behind me. We get out the door and his jacket-less self starts commenting on how cold it is, and I use this insertion of normal conversation to ask a few questions about him: year, major, where he's from. He was with a friend inside, and I'm wondering whether we're waiting for that friend or standing here for no reason when he kisses me again, and we make out for a long time in the cold in front of my club before I decide to accelerate this process, and I grab his hand and start walking. 


On our way down the street, we pass the guy he'd been with earlier, who isn't looking all too hot, and he stops to talk to his friend. He looks like he needs to be taken home, or perhaps even to Health Services, and in my officer-of-an-eating-club's-responisibility-mode, I suggested that we could get him taken care of before we went about our impending business, but he waved us off. [I'm guessing that it's written somewhere in guy code that a true friend never cockblocks, even when he needs help.] So we left him somewhat reluctantly, and M (which is how dude will be referred to for the rest of this post) extends him arm for me to link mine through as we walk. He asks where I live, and I say we're going to Edwards, and we chitchat about our majors and plans for the future and whatnot while we walk. 


We get back to my room and the first comment out of his mouth is about how high my bed is, so I guess there was no mistaking what was about to go down. I take off my coat and shrink out of my heels, and he kicks off his shoes and throws his sweatshirt in the chair, and suddenly we're making out again and he's walking me backwards to my bed. (Shoutout to that awkward moment when he's laying you down and you feel something cool and rubbery under your hand and realize you left your hot pink vibrator out in your bed, and quickly shove it between the wall and the bed, hoping he didn't notice.) I'll gloss over all the details, but despite some technical difficulties in the beginning, I was left incredibly satisfied. It was pretty vanilla, but he was wonderful with his hands, and after I teased him by focusing on myself he gave it to me right. Afterwards I directed him to the bathroom and he called the friend we'd kind of abandoned earlier, to learn that he was basically incoherent and had thrown up a few times, and so after talking about how much of a compelling argument I was providing to stay (even though verbally I was telling him to go play hero), he eventually left many many more kisses to go save his friend. 

So I, uh, went to the online roster of the sport he plays to figure out his last name this morning (shameful, I know) and friend requested him on Facebook. We'll see if anything comes of this...


...but I think the reason I wanted to talk about this, besides the fact that I generally allude or refer directly to my sex life often on le blog, and the fact that K thinks this is particularly interesting because "when do you ever hear about White guys hooking up with Black girls on The Street?" (which I think happens fairly often, but anyway), is that not having known his last name when I fucked him is the only thing I really feel any shame about with regard to this entire situation. Even if nothing happens, and M doesn't accept my friend request or we otherwise never interact again, I'm pretty sure I'll have no regrets. I have none now, because there was absolutely no emotional connection. It was really just I'm horny + you're into me = we can make this work for both of us. 


I like, am wondering whether I'm okay with how comfortable I am with the fact that I slept with a stranger. The sociologist in me is all, No Maya, you've only been socialized by a hating-ass patriarchal society to believe this isn't acceptable behavior, and you should be glad you've embraced yourself as a responsible sexual being, but still, I wonder. Me from as little a six months ago wouldn't recognize me from last night, and would be highly judgmental. But I don't see anything destructive or morally wrong with what I'm doing. It's...interesting, I guess, how your thoughts on things can change with experience. It's also funny how much the name we give something affects our reactions to it: "one-night stand" sounds so foul, whereas "hookup" is perfectly normalized.

This must be "Be a Gentleman Weekend" or something

This guy I met last night takes the cake. He was here from NYC with one of the dance groups on campus, which was having an afterparty of sorts at my eating club's party. He was chilling at the bar for a while while I was on tap duty, and he was laughing/chatting with me and some other hanging-out-by-the-bar-ers. A bit later, when the other people who were at the bar had wandered off, he asked me

Him: Do you know that song about the bartender?
Me: Which one?
Him: The one by T-Pain.
Me: Oh yeah! That's a good song.
Him: Well, I'm in love with the bartender. 
(He is actually combining two songs here, but they're both by T-Pain so I'ma cut him some slack.)
Me: *blushes* (y'all know I can't actually blush, so read this as: smiles demurely and lowers eyes) *rushes off to pour a few beers for the people who have appeared*
(After I've finished) Him: So are you working all night?
Me: No, I get off at one and then other people will be behind the bar.
Him: So maybe later you can come out here and dance with me?
Me: *blushes again* Yeah, I could do that. 


He wanders off elsewhere into the party. When I get off a little after one, I don't see him and am kind of sad. But whatever, I go and dance with some other people, and then I want another drink so I make my way back into the tap room, and run into a friend of mine. She's talking to two guys, one of whom happens to be my suitor from before! He's being a wingman for a friend of his who is trying to get my friend to dance with him, and then he says, "Well I'm going to dance with her," gesturing to me, "so you should dance with him," and we walk off. I was trying to go out to the dance floor, but he says no, we're going to dance right here, so I turn around and start to back up on him. He is impressed by my moves, especially when I bend over for a minute after he suggests we move backwards to the wall so that I can push up on him better, and he puts his hands on my waist tenderly. I put my hands over his, to say that I like their placement, and he interlocks our fingers. Everything about this man cries sweet and gentle, yet strong and forceful enough to be pleasing, and I just want to keep dancing with him. 

So when mere moments later, another man I don't recognize walks over to us to tell him that they're leaving, and he backs away from me without letting go of my hand, I am legitimately saddened. I'm not ready for this to be over. He explains that he doesn't want to, but he has to go--that guy is his ride back to New York. He thanks me for the dance, saying he had been waiting for it all night, and with that he begins to turn away. I let go of his hand slowly as he turns, every fiber of my being screaming reluctance. 

Nothing beats a man who can make me feel simultaneously sexy and respected. And I hate the fact that I don't even remember his name. Ah, what might have been.

[I feel obligated to mention that he was White, but couldn't think of an appropriate place within the story to insert this detail. And since he was here with that group, he most likely breakdances.]   

How I realized I was actually over it:

"I have let you go, and everything I went through was beautiful." --Jill Scott, "When I Wake Up"

Very-drunk-dancing-with-random-Asian-kid me did something sober-reflective me was quite proud of last Thursday. Asian kid had maneuvered us against one of the columns that conveniently frames Quad's dance floor, and I guess I had my eyes closed or I was looking down at my gyrating hips or something, because all I remember is looking up at seeing that a girl I know was grinding all up on my ex...

...and the world didn't end. I didn't stop dancing with Asian kid--didn't even lose track of the beat. I certainly didn't freak out about it. In fact, I can't remember thinking about it any more substantively than just like, noticing because it was in my direct line of vision. I subsequently noted for the third or so time that night how ridiculous his outfit was, and then I...kept it moving.

And I didn't want to say anything for a few days, because I was fairly convinced that some sort of feelin some kinda way would creep up on me, but it's been almost a week and I've only thought about it as it relates to writing this post. I was bracing myself for flashbacks to when that was the two of us, to our first kiss that happened on that same dance floor...and let me tell y'all, I got nothin.

I watched some other chick grind all up on the first guy to ever tell me he loved me and I really and truly didn't give a fuck, and it wasn't just because I was busy gettin busy with someone else, because I still couldn't possibly care less. It was as uneventful to me as watching any two other friends of mine dance, because we stepped pretty seamlessly into that friends role when we got back to campus, and while I'm certainly missing ze cuddles and ze cocoa as the weather gets colder...I don't miss him. 

I suppose this is what it feels like to realize that you're over someone, rather than just to declare it and hope it comes true.

A detailed account of why you didn't get laid:

Dear Asian Kid from Thursday Night,

I think your name was Patrick, but that's unimportant. Kid seems more appropriate. I know there's no way you'll ever see this, but maybe by writing this, I will help someone else out who might be planning to fuck up the same way you fucked up and thus end up with zero fucking in his immediate future.

The situation: It was somewhere between 1:30 and 2 am. We were on the dance floor at my eating club. I was dancing in a circle of sorts with some girls of mine and you came over and joined our circle. I semi-recognized you from when I'd been on tap duty earlier, and I always feel bad for lone dancers on floors full of circles, so I didn't side-eye you out of our space. I also (somewhat racistly, oops) figured you were trying to dance with E, and was preparing myself to be entertained by her shutting you down. But then the song changed and you disappeared from my peripheral vision, and all of a sudden there were hands on my hips and a groin perfectly poised for me to push up on, and I was surprised, but it was on. 

I was mildly impressed by your ballsy approach, just starting to dance with me rather than asking me to dance, despite the fact that you were this skinny Asian kid who was shorter than me and whom I'd never seen before. It had been a while since I'd danced with a man who was sexually interested in women (which I presumed you were, given the situation), and I saw no reason not to back up on you. The music was bumpin and we had a nice rhythm going, so I'm not gonna lie, I kind of liked it when you slid your hands forward and wrapped your arms entirely around my waist. When one song ended, we transitioned seamlessly into the next, a feat I'm usually unable to accomplish. (My grinding abilities increase exponentially with my levels of drunkenness. Part of it is probably drunken recall, but most of it is just a drastic lowering of inhibitions--which I what this semester/year is devoted to anyway. When I am wasted, I am not shy.)

 You somehow maneuvered us over to a column where I could push up on you good, and I was running my hands up my thighs and playing with my skirt as you inched your hands closer to not-in-public zone, and you leaned in and said, "You're so fucking hot. Do you wanna get out of here?" 

Dude. We didn't even know each other's names. What kind of girl do you think I am? "No, I'm alright." You questioned this response somehow, and I said I don't really roll like that. That could have been the end of our encounter, but you didn't stop dancing when I dashed your dreams, so neither did I. The couples started to break apart when the DJ played "You're a Jerk," and you asked me if I could jerk. I said no, but that you could if you wanted to, and you said you didn't want to let me go. I was simultaneously flattered and creeped out. 

After "You're a Jerk," the DJ played Rihanna's "What's My Name?" and while we were singing along, you--in the one truly smooth move you played all night--leaned forward and whispered into my ear asking, "What's your name?" I told you, and you told me yours, and then you asked the question that let me know I needed to get out of this embrace of yours asap: 

"Do you go here?" 
RED FLAG. ALERT. ALERT. Of course I go here, why, where the fuck are you from, kid?  "Yeah...I'm a senior." 
"Wowwww. I'm a freshman at Rutgers."
 Seriously?! *cue record scratch*

I leave that one unanswered, and he starts going on again about how fucking hot I am and at one point even says something about my "booty". I know, I should have been long gone by this point, but it was a hardcore case of My mind's telling me No, but my body, my body is telling me ye-e-esssss! It felt so good to be dancing with someone who wanted me and feeling that he wanted me (not like that, you dirty minded scoundrels), and I felt like people were watching me give it to this guy (which turned out to be true, based on the comments I got on Friday), and I wanted to continue both of these things for as long as possible. I felt hot, but I also felt kind of skeeved out...I just let hot win for a while.

Then we made our way to the tap room and he got another beer and K ran over to tell me "Get your man, girl!" You came back over and I asked what brought you to Princeton tonight, since you go to Rutgers and all, and you said you were here with some friends, but they left and now you "have nowhere to spend the night," as you tell me in a voice that's begging me to take you home with me. Brain screams, 'ALLOWABLE LEVELS OF CREEPINESS OFFICIALLY PASSED, ABORT MISSION LET THIS GUY MAKE YOU FEEL SEXY!!! REPEAT, ABORT MISSION!!!' You started asking where I live and whether that's close to here, and I try to counter by asking where your friends are staying, but you "don't know". And then, by the grace of alcohol, you have to take a piss, and I run over to K and beg him to save me. He laughs me off, so I decide to run upstairs and hide, and he doubles over laughing as I run off.


I wait upstairs for a few minutes, hoping that you'd lost interest/found someone else to sketch on, and then made my way back downstairs and joined another circle of girlfriends. E said K explained that I was running away from you, and thus when you tried to join my new circle, my girl J started grinding up on me to prevent you from taking that spot. Later, a female friend whose name also starts with K and one whose name starts with B both took on this role, much to the delight of a male friend, R. You were across from me in the very large Pianoman circle, looking cockblocked, dejected, and like you were so drunk you were barely supporting yourself. I felt less skeeved out and more entertained when I realized that, and as soon as the song ended, I grabbed E and we walked home arm in arm, laughing at you all the way. 


You were doing so well in the beginning. You made me feel sexy and wanted and were a good dancer. I was horny, and though it was an unfortunate time of the month for sexytime, I might have at least made out with you if you'd just shut the fuck up and danced with me. If you'd made me feel like hooking up with you was my decision because you made me feel good, rather than like you were trying to worm your way into my room/pants. You shot yourself in the foot, kid. Boys and their stupid mouths.

When I was telling him about how I wanted to get away from you the next day, my friend C made a joke about how this dude wasn't even a 16, meaning that I'd had 16 drinks and still wouldn't sleep with him. But it was really his attitude that was past a 16, not him.  

Halloween Adventures

So last year around Halloween time, it dawned on me that for the first time in my life, I was going to be celebrating with a group of people who I am comfortable enough with to be a slu...scantily clad for Halloween. After much perusal of the interwebs, I decided to be a sexy nurse, and to make a long story short, my friends and I had a great night (as evidenced here), I got a ton of compliments, and all was well with the world. And as the relative size of my boobs has become a meme and a good 20% of my club has seen me naked, it was clear that this year's costume should show even more skin. I wanted to find a good cop costume (because handcuffs sound like a fantastic idea), but then Amazon had a great deal on a sailor costume I liked, so sexy sailor it was. 

When my costume came in the mail, I tried it on and learned to my dismay/delight that bending over would be problematic. Thus I reminded myself that I needed to wear sexy undies. XD

We started the evening by having our Thursday night Pub dinner in full costume, so my skank-itude started early. I had a respectable six drinks at dinner, then moved upstairs to watch Ghostbusters and eat candy with some fellow 'Dranglers. During the course of our movie-watching, I finished a 5oz flask of blue raspberry UV. At some point before the party started, I had a shot of pumpkin liqueur, even though I don't like pumpkin, because shots were being done and I certainly wasn't going to miss them. Then whilst I was on tap duty, I had two shots of Chambord. Then some friends decided we were going to go (eating) club-hopping, so I grabbed my coat and my bestie and we went to TI, where I had two beers (and now I can cross going to TI off of my senior year bucket list), and then to Cap, and then back to Quad. 

At TI and Cap, I was grinding on and being grinded on by my gay friend , which was interesting because neither of us was wearing pants. My friend J got into the mix too. But my real dancing adventures started when we got back to Quad. This dude deserves his own post, though, so stay tuned for the next one.

Then on Friday, I went to a play with E and another friend C. It was a fairly trippy show, a remake of a Greek classic, and afterwards there was an afterparty with an open bar (6 drinks on the University's dime? Yes please.) and some "spooky" snacks and great Halloween decorations. The Beatles brings old people and young people together in harmony, and it's funny as hell listening to a very white guy dressed like a zombie rap a Nicki Minaj verse. E won a $25 gift card to a local bar, which we will def be using in the near future. In fact, K and I are planning to go there tomorrow night for some actual Halloween celebrating. I might even bust the costume out again...

That awkward moment when...

...you're at a party, gettin it on the dance floor, sweatin, hips swervin to the beat, singin along with the music, not carin whether/if anyone is watchin, and then all of a sudden you realize the words you just sang along to were:

"Girl, don't take this the wrong way, but you look better with the lights off, better with the lights off..."

Pause. Hold up. Whatchu talkin bout, Chris Breezy? Is there a right way to take that? (Hint: hellllllll to the naw.) And by dancing/singing along, have I somehow just shown approval (or at the very least, tolerance) of this message? 

This is all kinds of problematic.  

My GBF asked me a very serious question tonight.

He was completely shitfaced, and we were grinding about as intensely as a gay man and a woman can grind, per usual when he is quite drunk, and all of a sudden he backed up and asked permission to ask me a serious question: does my dancing with him limit my potential with other guys? 

*crickets*

I hadn't really ever considered this before. I mean, it's not like I was beating guys off with a stick even before I met him. On the one hand, dancing with someone I'm comfortable with like I'm comfortable with him highlights my dancing abilities much more than dancing by myself in a Circle of Death in which I always feel a bit awkward. I can't see why it would really automatically engender any detrimental effects: one person once asked me to clarify what exactly what was going on between us, as our obvious incompatibility is sort of overshadowed by our odd couple sort of chemistry; but that was just one person. 

So I guess the answer is, "I hope not. ...And it's not really going to stop me if it does." 

One of the unfortunate consequences of this drunken grinding and groping is that I always end up back in my room horny and ALONE. Lulz at my life.

I have a love-hate relationship with hip-hop.

At least, that's how I usually describe it, but in all honestly, the loving and hating are compounded by a general sense of ambivalence. Unless presented with what I believe to be an extreme on either side, I generally don't care about hip-hop. There is now, has always been, and will always be more music in the rock, R&B, and Soul genres in my media library than Hip-Hop and Rap combined, and while this surprises some people, it doesn't usually cause issues in my life. 

But there's one situation in which it does: when I go to some sort of predominantly black party on campus, which isn't nearly as often as it was, say, freshman year. And I usually attribute that fact to the fact that I was a non-drinker when I was a freshman, and now I party on The Street, but in all honesty, that's not the whole story.

As much as it pains me to admit this, to a certain degree, I feel uncomfortable at black parties. I don't know most of the music, and as a first-time listener don't really appreciate much of it either. I feel uncomfortable when a group of people I know hear the first few notes of a song, yell something to the effect of, "Yo, this is my jawn!", and proceed to line up and all do the dance that goes to this song. I don't know how to dougie. My Asian best friend can jerk better than I can. While I can drop it low and back it up, I much prefer for the focus of any attention paid to my body to be on my 38Ds and not my pear-ish middle section, because noticing that I got a donk must be accompanied by noticing that I'm also just generally heavy in the stomach/butt/thighs area. I realize I am supposed to appreciate this as "thickness" in some measure, but...I don't like to draw attention to areas of my body that I don't necessarily like. I don't like that I am expected to devote time and energy to knowing and performing these dances on demand, but I also don't like feeling like I have to slink off to the sidelines when everyone else does these dances because I can't join in.

Long story short, I often feel like I am not black enough to be at a black party, and this pisses me the fuck off. I'm always the first one to voice the opinion/raise the concern that blackness is not homogeneous, that it comes in all shapes and sizes and colors and mixtures and genders and classes and religions and sexualities and hair textures and just about any other distinction that can be made amongst humans. I'm always the one to rally against generalizations about black people--even those that aren't inherently stereotypical--and to question the use of the term "the black community" in nearly every circumstance. I'm the one who became disenchanted with our "black community" at Princeton after seeing what a truly encompassing black community is like at Yale last year. I'm the one who became a much happier and more satisfied individual after branching out. But I am actively a black person, no longer a person who happens to be black. I am a black woman--not a black person who happens to be female or a woman who happens to be black, but a black woman. I identify as black, I am politically black, most of the time I am academically and scholastically black, and my most prevalent when I grow up fantasy at this point in life is to be a Black Panther. Who are you, friends and DJ at this party, to make me feel like I'm not black enough to be here? Who the hell are you to make me feel like a cultural outsider in a so-called community I have given immeasurable amounts of time and energy to strengthening? Who gave you the right to make me wonder if K felt as out of place as I did, and tell him I'm ready to leave whenever he is, and what part of his immediate exit was caused by everything I'm talking about now?  

There was a white grad student there, and I remember wondering if he felt as out of place as I did. He looked as though he were having fun, and a little voice in the back of my head said, "Well, so do you. You're trying really hard to look like you're having fun." and that's when I knew it was time to go. Why does the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Multicultural Understanding throwing a formals afterparty constitute black people having a party, and why does not fitting into--or really even wanting to fit into--the cultural preferences of the overwhelming majority of a collection of black Princetonians make me feel like I'm not black? Who gives the crowd the right to define ME?

...oh wait, that's the whole basis behind life as social creatures, isn't it?