When size matters

On most days I’d argue that size doesn’t matter. If I’ve learned anything at this stage of life, it’s the importance of acquiring expertise in one’s, eh um, craft. That and a little bit of tenacity go a long way.

And those guys who are well endowed are annoying anyway. The ones who lay back with this gleam in their eye that says, hey Baby, look what you’re gonna get, wink wink. They’ve got one trick and they’ve got it down pat.

Well, a while back I discovered that I had a balance of almost $1,000 left on my medical flex spending account at the end of the year. That’s a use it or lose it deal, so I started looking for ways I could spend that money. You can only buy so much Tylenol and Benadryl before you have to start looking in another direction, so I downloaded the whole list from my insurance provider and started the search.

A, aspirin; B, bandages; C, and this is where it got interesting, condoms. Oh yes. Condoms are covered by flex spending.

Okay, I didn’t spend the whole $1,000 on condoms, but I did stock up. I tried to balance the long-term projected sexual activity against the expiration date, an equation that can have a lot of variables. But I did the math.

There were other considerations, too. Lubricated or non-lubricated? Glow-in-the-dark or regular? Warming? Ribbed? Colored? Flavored? Latex? Wow!

I opted for variety. A box of this, a pack of that. Why not have a little fun with it.

The one thing I didn’t consider was size. According to AskAlice.com, a good fit can not be under-estimated. She says, and I quote, “a poorly-fitting condom can undermine its effectiveness, as well as interfere with the pleasure and sensations for both partners during sex.”

We wouldn’t want to interfere with the pleasure and sensations.

I figure the most common penis length falls somewhere around six inches. All my condoms are “large,” (which I’m pretty sure is actually medium), so I’m probably covered for most situations. And, of course, condoms do stretch, so I think an above-average partner would also be, um, covered.

But, what about the guys whose penises are less than average? Alice says in that case a standard condom could simply fall off during sex. No one wants to see that happen.

There was only one thing to do: change my online profile. Sexually active female seeks men with medium penises. All others must BYOC.

Failure to Appear

I don’t want you to think all my dates are bad.  I met a guy for margaritas on Cinco de Mayo last year. Let’s call him Bob.  We’d been chatting online for several weeks, so I knew he was witty, he could construct a sentence, and he had a fairly good handle on the English language. He had a steady job, a car, and he could even make conversation. 

So, we meet. He was warm, he was charming, he was sweet.  He gave me this kiss goodnight that made me melt, and I thought maybe I was onto something. 

I got an email from him the next morning.  There was more chatting, more flirting.  Another date was arranged.  Wow.  So I had my girlfriend google him. 

B-O-B, I tell her.  See what you can find. 

About an hour later she comes back with the results: one warrant, failure to appear.  No biggie.  And anyway, Bob is a pretty common name.  Maybe it wasn’t even him.

Our next date was dinner, an evening at the Herberger,  and drinks after the show.  He was clearly a good dater.  Very attentive, very engaged.  At the end of the evening there was more kissing, and we made plans to have dinner later in the week.  In the meantime we chatted online and talked on the phone.  He told me he was smitten. That was the word he used.   And did I mention the text messages?

The time for our next date came and went–no Bob.  Hmmmm. 

The next day I get a very apologetic message explaining that he had fallen asleep.  Please, could we reschedule?  He’d make it up to me. 

Ok, it could happen to anybody I guess.  But, as time went on it seemed like it happened about every third date.  It gave a whole new meaning to the term “failure to appear.”

There were all kinds of excuses.  He got tied up, we didn’t have firm plans, he forgot, whatever.  And he seemed a little ticked that he even had to explain.

I could see that things were deteriorating fast, and I’m smart enough to know that, at this age, guys don’t change. I’m feeling like he can tell it to the judge.

Funny guy

My most recent date was with a guy who really thought he was funny.  Let’s call him Bob.  It started on the phone with his complaints about the inauthenticities of internet dating.

“I have this little quote about internet dating,” he tells me. “On the internet, all men are Brad Pitt and all women are Julia Roberts. Until they meet, and then they’re both Pinocchio.”

“So what are you lying about?” I ask.

He thought that was funny, but I thought it was a valid question.

I should have known better, but we meet for happy hour.  We make small talk about our families and our living situations.

“Do you have a dog?’ he asks me.

“Yes, a little black mutt.” 

“Can your dog do back flips?’

This is confusing, but hey, maybe his dog does back flips. “No,” I say, “she doesn’t.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out this tiny plastic wind-up dog that does tiny little back-flips. Oh yeah, it barks, too.  He’s a prop comic.

The rest of the evening he toggles back and forth between complaining about former dates and making lame jokes.  There’s the girl who called out the wrong name durning sex, the girl who was a former lesbian, the girl who lied about her age by 20 years, the girl who refused to hug him.  There was the incest joke and the farmer’s wife joke and the Chinese laundry joke.  He had a million of ‘em.

Finally the evening winds down and the check comes.  He reaches for his wallet and asks me if I’d like to see his pride and joy. I’m a little afraid, but I go for it. He pulls out a photo of cleaning products–Pride furniture polish and Joy dishwashing liquid. 

I’m pretty sure he’s thinking right now that the date went well.

The first one’s a throwaway

My very first date after my divorce was with this creepy old dude.  Let’s call him Bob.  On the phone his social references seemed a little off.  He referred to his previous partner as his “companion.”  He liked playing poker in Vegas and bragged about his money.  His dream vacation was a luxury bus trip around the U.S. He had a real Rat Pack attitude.  But I told myself, the first one’s a throwaway, just get it under your belt, so I agreed to meet the guy.

He invited me to go dancing, but the place was hard to find so he suggested we meet at a corner gas station. That should have been my first clue. I pulled up, and he was absolutely grotesque. I’m not the superficial type, but seriously, it was bad.  He ‘d said he was 59, and I was 48, so it wasn’t too far off.  But I swear to god if this guy was 59 then I was 15.  His hair was long and unkempt. His fingernails were overgrown. Did I mention that he was old and creepy? 

This voice inside me told me to run for my life.  It would have been so easy to just drive away, but I was either too nice or too dumb, so I followed him to the Elk’s Lodge. 

He got out of his pick-up and walked toward me in these orthopedic shoes, hunched over and almost hobbling.  I was sick to my stomach.  Inside everybody in the place had white hair. He bought me a Coke and we chatted. He could tell I was weirded out, and he asked me what was wrong.

“Well,” I said, “this isn’t the kind of venue I was expecting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone here is quite a bit older than I am.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he tells me.  “They don’t even notice.”

Maybe not, but  I sure noticed. I gave it a few more minutes. Finally, I thanked him for the Coke and said I didn’t think this was going to work out.

“Can I ask you one question?” he said.

Okay, I’ll bite.

“Would you consider having sex with me?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, “but thanks for the offer.”