OkCupid for friends and lovers – SD Survival Guide Critical Strategy and exposé

It’s not that San Diegans aren’t friendly. If I’m out at a bar, I need to just affect the breezy impermanence of a tourist at an ocean resort and feel quite comfortable talking to people. SDers are flakes anyway, so it’s quite safe to start conversations because, without considerable effort, you’ll never see these people again. Join the permanent vacation vibe.

But I’ll tell you what makes driving 15 minutes (every commute is exactly 15 minutes, right?) out to a bar alone, hunt down and panic my way into a parking spot, and pay for my own drink (the first one, anyway) worth it, and that is a gloriously awkward first OkCupid date.

mmm….options

And for all you non-single monogamous / polyfidelous / otherwise-not-available people out there… OkCupid dates start out 100% as friend dates, anyway. Sure I flirted with them online, but most people I meet are savvy to the “friend-date unless proven otherwise” rule. I’m sorry, there’s just no way of knowing you’ll crackle my thunder ’til I meet you under the literal firmament. So, not only do plenty of people use the service for “just friends” (it’s an option), OkCupid culture naturally supports friend dates.

I learned how to really appreciate the awkward first date after a bit of practice, and if you follow my strategies, I think you will, too. The key is to go on enough of them that it becomes almost routine. And I tell myself that one of these is going to turn into a great story. I’m still ready and waiting for my first Trainwreck Date.

Overview:

Write a smoldering profile…
…but don’t rely on it. Force yourself to send messages out.
Find that correspondence length sweet spot…
…but hurry to set a date.
Choose location wisely…
…and score a new friend/lover/significant other.

1. Profile Writing

Write your profile like an intimate letter, not a résumé. Here’s how mine opens:

I rewrote the bulk of this profile because I realized I misrepresented myself as responsible and organized. I can do responsible and organized, easy, but that’s not the kind of cupid I want shooting my arrows.

For some reason this picture gets me the most OkAction

I’m bragging right now, shamelessly, really…but I get a lot of messages (after this rewrite). And people tell me I’m a good writer and it makes me all happy on the inside of my body.

Anyway. I’ve learned that this is one of the few times where talking about what you are like and not what you do is probably more interesting (thanks fellow ‘Sam’ and OkCupid analyzer for that insight). Possibilities are more seductive than facts, and the romantic brain is an engine of imagination.

In other words, I deleted the part where I said I had a degree and a job yadda yadda and added this:

Yes and no are my greatest powers – and it feels like I always get what I want, now that I know what I want.

The goal is to just get all sparkly with your personality and show off what it would be like for them to have a conversation with you over a Sculpin.

The six things you could never do without

This is not the time for extreme literalism. No one thinks you are witty for being the 5,708th person who lists oxygen. This is time for hyperbole and passion and a little bit of adorable quirkiness. I included….

Seeing a non-human animal at least once a day

…amidst serious stuff like art, my brother, & a job that makes me feel valued.

You should message me if…

Steal this. Just steal it and put it at the very bottom. It gets me a ton of compliments, and even a few messages from shy people. It’s genius and I thought of it and I hope it goes viral:

*******
If you are shy on okCupid, just c&p this:

“Hi. I am really shy. I like your profile. Will you go look at mine and message me back if you are interested?”

2. & 3. Messaging & Maintenance

Facebook hack

You actually have a facebook email address. It’s [yourusername]@facebook.com. If you don’t have a fancy pants smartphone (ugh…) with like, app thingies, and you check facebook all the time, you can set up OkC to send messages there. Then just be sure to drag one of the notifications from your “Other” to your regular “Inbox” messages and you’ll have an extra reminder that attractive people want to talk to you. Kinda buggy, though.

Send messages!

Experiment with these numbers, but here are my benchmarks:

(When you first start out) Dedicate 1 night a week to seek new people and start 3 message threads. Each query ought to be a paragraph or two long. Show that you’ve read their profile. Lists can work well, i.e. “I think we should meet someday for these reasons…”
Find the comfort-zone of correspondence with each person. Generally I go for two volleys (I write two messages, they write two messages) before offering my number and a date, but sometimes three. Offering my number too quickly makes people think I am desperate and/or creepy and/or a robot and they ignore me and I cry. Offering too late… well I mean if you don’t take this seriously you are not going to make any friends and you will be lonely and boring and sad.
Don’t get caught up on % matches or profile details. People poorly represent themselves and also don’t know how to fill out quizzes (seriously y’all drive me insane) and only people equally as neurotic as me score a 99. Your goal should be to find people who seem to have some potential, you know, get the important stuff right, and hurry to actually MEET THEM. You really can’t know what someone is like ’till their face is three feet or less from your face.

The Follow-Up

There are two basic types, and they’re critical.

You let a thread die and stopped responding, or just never responded in the first place because you were waiting for a time when you were less drunk at 3am in the morning to think of something witty.
They let a thread die because you were too cranky / intimidating / boring / weird / they are such hotties their inbox is bursting with noise and they lost your diamond in the rough.

I like to get a little creative with these follow-ups, but the main goal is to give both parties the benefit of the doubt that messages aren’t perfect and everything still has the potential to be shiny.

Aww sorry I never got back to you. I didn’t get the butterfly connection at first and wondered what would make someone think of soft sweet jazzy pop from the 60s while reading my profile and was so despondent I got distracted.

Anyway I don’t normally ignore attractive PhD chasers with sharks on their heads and a 92% match score. How are you?

Again, it is IMPORTANT to follow-up with dead threads. If Katelyn never came back with her glorious witty comment, we’d never have met :( :( :( Good thing she is an OkC professional. I learned from the best!

[text removed for brevity – also her username is not xxxxxx…don’t even try]

5. It’s just a freaking internet date

You are meeting a stranger. Off the internet. You do not need to invest heavily in this date.

Good locations:

A dive or beer bar, like Bar Pink, Lancers, Small Bar, Tornados, Hoffers, Red Wing
A coffee shop e.g. Lestats, Filter, the Living Room
Mexican food. No? Haha. I’ve never done this, but if someone will agree to meet me for Mexican food, then I will like her already.
Somewhere you would go anyway, and you could run into friends, and seem all popular… such as Gossip Grill or The ~~Ruby Room~~ Merrow

Also, I am desirable and important, so I save my Fridays and Saturdays for old-friends-are-gold-friends and first dates get a weeknight. It is pretty embarrassing how often I’ve re-used the Taco Tuesday theme. (El Zarape for dollar fish tacos & the best green sauce you’ve ever tasted sober….and Lancers for a $6 Bloody Mary, poured heavy, with like 5 vegetables, and spicy like I like it.)

6. Results

Guys, I got Katelyn from OkCupid. Enough said. <3

Bonus section: Don’t be an idiot

Rejection

Please don’t tell someone you’re “just too busy.” That’s exactly the same as saying “Well if I was lame and didn’t have activities I would be desperate enough to hang out with you.” Obviously you have a profile and you’re looking for something. If you’re too busy to build friendships/relationships then disable that monster.

It is perfectly conventional to just ignore the first message if you’re not interested, and many people are okay with not following up after one boring date. I agree that blatant rejection hurts more than mysterious no-response. I do try to give closure to people I’ve met for a date whom I don’t feel particularly drawn to befriend or befuck, but damn it takes a lot of effort.

One last thing

This question KILLS me. Come on, San Diego.

–

….Aaaaaaaand now you know I spend way too much time on OkCupid. Seriously though, it’s one of the best ways to break into interesting friend niches in San Diego. Unless you want to be a redditor forever…

Cell Phone Plans in San Diego – Survival Guide Style

First I’d just like to say my I can feel my blood cells crying inside of me. There is a lot of poison in there. I hadn’t been doing my usual thing Wednesday nights and boy did I just jump right back into old habits last night. I have confusing text messages in my phone from “Poppa Sara.” Everything is still in my wallet that was in my wallet, but it has been thoroughly re-arranged. This morning my mouth tasted like chocolate cake and eyeliner.

Anyway. I need to talk to you about smartphones.

My phone is not very smart. It is a feature phone I bought in 2011 for $99. It has a slide out keyboard. It *can* connect to the internet, but I like to avoid that. Instagram is not even an option, haha, no, why would you even think that?

I got bad olives or a bad roofie in my martini one Goth Night @ the Flame and a phone just like this one went way down into a toilet. I tried to fish it out but there was nothing I could feel except my lost dignity. So I re-ordered it off Amazon. Besides a brief stint with CHINAFONE, which was cool because it had A FREAKING RADIO ANTENNA but not cool because it didn’t send picture messages even though it had a camera wtf… I have been loyal to this phone for the past two years.

Samsung T669 Gravity Touch, your time is coming to an end. I need 4g. I need more than 2 megapixels. I need Facebook in my pocket.

Katelyn needs a new phone as well, because it never seems to work when I need her immediate attention and dammit why doesn’t she ever text me back? Anyway, she went in for the HTC1. The sales rep, who for now I’ll call Mr. Sprint Guy, saw me send a text message on my piece of junk and slyly said, “Actually, we have a Buy One Get One sale on this phone next week.”

I tried very hard to replicate the face I made then but I think I’m a little too hungover. Just imagine this with me making a creepy “heeeeeeeeee?” noise:

I guess I could have just put a picture of Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black.

Mr. Sprint assured us that he’d be able to get me in to their plan, “Oh yeah, I can work you in there,” even though Katelyn and her family are maxed out at 5 lines. With the Katelyn family discount, that would mean $30 a month or less for unlimited high speed data. And a free HTC1 (well at least half off). Sign me up.

Plus like, shiny matching lesbian phones. Adorable!!!

See, I’ve been with T-mobile for years and have never gotten a subsidized upgrade. My parents always stole my device upgrades. Now I’d have to pay full price to change my phone. Or $200 to leave T-mobile. It was $200 I was willing to pay…. or at least try hard to get out of paying. I mean, my reception really, really is terrible.

We went back the next week and the same Mr. Sprint was there again! He grabbed our two HTC1s, a couple of Otterbox cases he said he could price match to Amazon, and started ringing us up. Then things got weird.

Katelyn: “So you can grandfather in Sami to the plan, right?”

Mr. Sprint: “Well, I actually have to change the plan, but it’s really just a change in the name. It’s basically the same thing. It’s hard to explain. I wish I had something to show you.”

Katelyn: “Wait, you’re changing the contract? Can I get a printout to compare?”

Mr. Sprint: “They’re just changing the way things are named and the way the numbers are organized, but it’s basically the same thing. I can’t know the actual numbers until after it’s rung up and the taxes are added.”

Me: “What do you mean by ‘basically’ the same?”

He got a little uneasy because I called him out all cold-blooded like I do. Katelyn repeated her request to see a printout of both her current plan and the new one. He grabbed a pamphlet and showed how her current plan works. He had to clock out to avoid overtime, so he handed us off to a supervisor. She walked us over to a tablet, and showed us a magical webpage that I can’t locate now. Seriously where is that webpage? It was kind of like T-mobile’s pretty webpage, in that you could easily mess around with the plan and see what kind of price it made.

I got on chat today and got the details for you. I lied a little bit. Also I wasn’t as nice as I usually am to customer support because Cathy (not her real fake name) was inept and went on a completely inexplicable tangent and also my liver is made of sadness right now:

Cathy: Thank you for visiting Sprint. What questions can I answer for you today?

You: I’m trying to get to this webpage they showed me in the sprint store that showed us how to have 6 phones on a plan

Cathy: I would be happy to help you with the Sprint services.

You: Thanks, so how do I get to that webpage? I started trying to look at a plan but it only let me add 5 phones

Cathy: Once you submit your personal information during checkout, you will receive a credit evaluation to determine your eligibility for service. There is a page in the order process that will indicate if a deposit is required at this time.

Cathy: If additional information or a deposit is required after you have submitted your order, one of our Order Support Agents will contact you.

You: That is totally not what I want

You: I just want to know what the plan looks like to have 6 phones. Currently I am with T-mobile and I was thinking of switching to sprint if I can have 6 phones

Cathy: Alright.

Cathy: I am going to ask you a few questions to better assist you today.

You: ok

You: See tmoible has a nice and easy to use page here: http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/family.html…

You: I thought you have something like that

Cathy: How many of those lines will be smartphones and basic phones?

You: 6 smart phones

Cathy: How much data would you need for each line? Do you prefer 1GB or unlimited?

You: unlimited

Cathy: Thank you for the information.

Cathy: Based on the information you have provided, the Unlimited, My Way plan will cost just $360 per month, before taxes and fees.

Cathy: On the Unlimited, My Way plans, the first line is $50 a month, the second line is $40 a month, the third line is $30 a month and each additional line (up a total of 10 lines), is $20 a month.

Cathy: Each smartphone will require either a $30 unlimited data package or a 1GB data package for $20 a month.

Cathy: Each line on our Unlimited, My Way plans receives unlimited talk and messaging.

You: Ok, thank you for that information, that is exactly what I needed!

Cathy: My pleasure.

Cathy: Are there any other questions I can help with?

You: That’s it

Cathy: Thank you for visiting http://www.sprint.com.

Ok, have I lost you yet? That was really boring. I apologize. Wait, no I don’t. NEVER SAY SORRY. Never.

The important thing to realize is that $360 is NOT ‘basically’ the same as her current plan. Katelyn left the pamphlet* at work, so I can’t give you exact numbers, but her current plan + $30 a month is more like $180-200 dollars. Um, no. Mr. Sprint your new name is Mr. Scumbag.

You should have seen the look on Ms. Sprint’s face when Katelyn did the math for her, and it sunk in that she had been living in Mr. Scumbag’s fantasy world where a $100+ difference is basically the same. Except the name is different. Right.

We walked out immediately.

Moral of the story, kids, always insist they show you a print-out before they take your credit card. And if anyone has an old smartphone they don’t want I’m in the market…. Not that I couldn’t drop 600 dollars right now for a brand new shiny one but I don’t feel like carrying around 600 dollars in my purse at all times. Ya ya ya I know there is insurance but Anxiety is not a cooperative member of the United States of Sami and insurance doesn’t make the panic go away when it’s two days before Christmas and there’s a hole in my car and… that’s a tale for another day…

All told, it’s not that Sprint is worse than any of the other cell phone companies out there — they’re all about the same when you average out the pros/cons — it’s just important to remember that some salespeople are scummy scummy loserfaces and they don’t care about your feelings. And also if you really want 6 phones on a Sprint plan, stick with the old plan and just add an additional phone on a separate line for $80 cuz you’re still better off that way. So, put on your consumer armor and don’t let the Mr. Scumbags of the universe trick you into giving them lots of your moneys.

*I can add this pamphlet to the interwebs later if anyone would like that. Probably should, as a public service.

Know-it-all Syndrome

Know-it-all Syndrome. You know what I’m talking about. Well, generally, it’s a bit more extreme than what I’ll discuss. “Sufferers” of this disease are known to annoy everyone around them by pretending knowledge on every topic of conversation. What I’m aiming at, however, is more the general adaptation of this habit, where you nod away things that are going over your head. What’s the harm in pretending to know about something you know nothing about? You’ll just Google it later.

Look at this sheep. It is so smug. ‘Cuz it has cooler tastes in music than you.

Recently I promised myself to stop pretending. The idea for this vow grew out of the little brown notebook I carry in my purse. I’d started writing the things people told me, as they spoke to me. I named it my memory augmentation device. (My memory is unreliable enough without the drinking.)

Something started happening. I noticed a twinkle, an edge of excitement in their voices as I wrote. They’d add more, “oh, and look up The Ben Heck Show.” I’d latched on to the idea a long time ago, from some reading, that “observation is sexy” and I realized I could show a little appreciation for someone just by writing these things down in front of them. Look, I’m listening.

This didn’t cure my know-it-all ‘syndrome’ right away. First, I must add that my case is a little unusual. Due to my delusional escapades as an alien princess, a Christian, a heterosexual… my connection to reality is a bit flimsy. I can never be sure just how far off I am when I’m confused about the order of things. Which century was pointillism? Where is the Bay of Pigs? I know the answers, I really do, but pretty much anyone can make me question myself. Hey, they didn’t spend 7 years of their childhood sharing brain-time with an extraterrestrial dignitary. They might be a little more in tune with the real world.

And look, I will never catch up with people who have been paying such close attention to 90s pop-punk that they actually know the name of the lead singer of Blink-182. (Seriously I don’t know and I don’t care.) So, I nod and pretend to know a few things about ‘culture’ and hope the subject changes soon. If a subject is truly boring to me, why slow down the trivia slinging? This I’ll allow, despite the vow. Let the nerds exchange their factoids quickly before they realize they need to educate me.

But, what I’m going to quit doing is going along with something I don’t know just to seem cool… and smart… and stuff. I kind of realized that no, just no, it doesn’t do you any good. People like being experts, they like knowing some esoteric thing about history, or science, or just some band you didn’t know existed. I’m going to let them show off that knowledge to me.

And, really, is there any shame in not knowing everything? In this information age, there is so much to know. Let’s stop trying to stay up on the same trends. Let us meander every which way, collecting data deeply, and share synopses. Let us learn this world collaboratively, and stop believing the loneliness will only go away as soon as we know exactly what our neighbor knows. Ask each other, what do you know? and stop pretending to know it, too.

An opportunity to test this theory came up immediately after I took the vow. Recently, I admitted I didn’t know what the Camino de Santiago was. I’ve been in a long conversation with a pretty pen-pal and I figure she deserves, as much as anyone, the truer me. So I confessed. I added, “Let me know if you find this endearing or you like me less for not memorizing all the same things you have memorized.”

She responded, “Now, I do find it endearing that you didn’t Google The Camino de Santiago. Although when I wrote it, I expected you would.”

What followed, in her own voice, not Wikipedia’s, is a personalized and very real description of the Way of St. James. I read it, twice.

A conversation with my brother

It’s 11:59pm. I miss a phone call.

“Oh it’s Zach, it’s only Zach,” I say loudly and facetiously to my lovers.

I call my brother immediately.

“Zach, you there?”

“Hey, hi, I just wanted to like talk or something,” the drawl in his voice is permanent so I can’t know if he’s drunk, just affectionate, or both.

“For sure, what’s up?”

“You like at a party or something? You busy?”

I explain that I’m not. Loosely. Through a few dropped calls, we establish that he’s lonely and that I’m available to talk.

“It’s just that back home,” he means San Diego, “I’m a God. You know what I’m saying?”

“And you’re a– in Berkeley you’re a puppet.” He’s told me this before, how he’s a character, how he performs. But he adds something new:

“I’m a clown. And everyone laughs at the clown. But the clown cries you know. This is just an allegory. I mean. I’m — a metaphor — I’m using poetry, here.”

“Right, you’ve got a tear painted on your face…” He keeps talking like he doesn’t hear me.

He mentions feeling better than everyone, how maybe he’s a sociopath. “But I have empathy. I love every fucking living thing on this planet.” He’s just surrounded by morons. People who can’t even distinguish a rectangle from a square, or solve a crossword puzzle. He reads The New York Times every day.

“Hey, Sam, can I ask you something? How many people died in the Syrian Wars?”

“Uh,” I guess blindly, “30,000?”

“That’s cute. One hundred ten thousand,” he says.

“See, I don’t know anything. I’ve been asleep.”

“Right, everyone is clueless.”

“I’ve realized lately that I’ve been out of touch with reality for most of my life. Now, I finally fucking care. I want to know everything. All of art history and science. I want to understand things like I’ve never understood them before,” I say. I mean it, too.

When we talk I giggle loudly. It’s good, his voice is good. Other people don’t sound like themselves on the phone, but I just hear my brother in the hot piece of plastic against my ear. He mentions how the Illuminati or maybe the overlord lizard-brains are monitoring our call, trying to intercept it, how he’s been really into conspiracy theories, “But I’m just high, it’s fun to talk about these things. I’m just augmenting my brain chemicals or some shit. Hey Sami, I’m going to drop a bomb on you, k?”

“Okay Zach.”

“You know when you were little, I was like 3–” he’s wrong, he had to have been at least 6, but he remembers things from age 3 so I don’t blame him for thinking it could have been then, “–I overheard you talking about your alien thing, Anastasia.”

“Venastasia.” I correct, and wonder now (and not a moment earlier) what the other people in the room think of my side of the conversation.

“Right. I just think there’s something about us.”

He asks me to lucid dream with him. When we were young our grandmother told us stories of sharing dreams with family far away in Michigan. She told us how our uncle, at 7 years, would touch people in the grocery store, and they would start crying. “Either she’s fucking crazy, and it’s in my genes so whatever,” I imagine his squinty self-deprecating laugh, “or there’s some extra-dimension bullshit going on.”

I have asked myself in the past if I were crazy, and I know the ache and frenetic sadness that comes with that. Even though I hear my brother saying these words, asking me if he’s crazy, I’m not worried. Somehow I’m confident he’ll be fine.

We finish our conversation with these thoughts, “You’re the only person I can really talk to about this, Sam. You know you share more DNA with me than anything else in the world.”

“I think about it every day, Zach.”

“Meet me in your lucid dream, in the café on Mars.”

FOMO NO MO’ (How to Cope with a Fear Of Missing Out)

So the strep and its zombie cousin stole 4 weeks of my summer.

I MISSED PRIDE.

I had some serious FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) anxiety that could only be staunched with coping strategies of questionable healthiness. Please benefit from my guide and learn how to conquer your FOMO.

FOMO Coping Strategy #1 — Disparage their fun!

Nope to the festival, I’m not going to pay to let people hock their merch at me, even if their merch has little plastic rainbow flags stuck in it. Last year I did get free stuff. Free TRASH stuff. The only thing I even wanted to see this year was the parade, but ew parking and ew getting up early and ew the sun.

Nightlife? Who wants to pay $20 for a block party that ends at 11?? And how much did Rich’s charge for cover? I heard Brass got up to $30. You know what, people said it wasn’t as fun as last year (even though it only was the most historical year of Pride in my life as an adult so far…) But like three people said it wasn’t as fun.

FOMO Coping Strategy #2 — Your alternate plans are so much cooler/mature/subversive

Yes, I had to stay in, and yes for my health I didn’t want to drink. But wine is just juice. I can have juice. I also invited over a couple of attractive people. Attractive people who recently went through antibiotic regimens like me! We covered the floor with records: Steely Dan, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Undertones, Elvis Costello. Our tastes are so sophisticated. And we got all artistic with some body painting. And we went night swimming. (Because swimming in a pool at night when you are sniffling and coughing is sound decision-making. Thanks, wine juice.)

FOMO Coping Strategy #3 — Escapism

I’m not into minecraft anymore; I’ve just played too much of it and you can only put so many low resolution cubes in your castle before… Oh, heyyyyy there, Minecraft. On a new server. With my brother. You build the farm. I’m going to go chop some wood. Let’s put the mine shaft outside the main house instead of underneath it, this time. Holy what happened to 4 hours?

FOMO Coping Strategy #4 — That-fun-thing-you’re-missing actually would have killed you. Obviously.

We all know that the Zombie Strep is activated by heat and debauchery and I’m sooo glad not to spend a boatload of money to 1) get sunburned at the parade and 2) get drunk in a pit of attractive queer women who want to make out with me. Do you realize how many strains of new and exotic viruses are flying in from around the country, world even? No thank you, spawn of swine flu.

FOMO Coping Strategy #5 — You are going to have way more fun! IN THE FUTURE. It will just blow away all the fun you used to think was so important, haha, silly you

Other cities have pride, and on weekends that don’t coincide with the nastiest string of sicknesses I’ve had since I was too fever-delusional to watch anything with more emotional intensity than South Park. Palm Springs Pride, woo here I come! Palm trees! Warm weather! Drinking! Everything I would have got in San Diego but not in San Diego……..Oh, heck yes, Palm Springs night…life…?

Anyway.

How are y’all nerds coping with your SD Comic Con FOMO? I’m using my family reunion as an excuse to dip town, as well as strident self-affirmations that I don’t care about Comic Con because I suck at geekitude anyway and it’s not like all my friends are going (all my friends are going).

Unrelated Life Update

Hey you. I’m going to do Novel November. Exciting! By the end of that month, I’ll crank out a swanky first draft of a book I’ve been prepping since last year. I’m sort of anti-procrastinating by doing some of the legwork right now. Feels like I’m breaking the rules. I love breaking rules.

One of the most important steps to successful novel-ing is developing your “Elevator Speech,” which starts with an intro/summary that you can say in one breath. To some schmuck in an elevator. Who you found out is a publisher/agent/millionaire/popular-kid. And you need them to like you. And you have 1 minute of juicy trapped-together-in-elevator time. Go.

Through conversations with her father, a daughter discovers the ghost of her dead brother inside her childhood alter ego as an alien princess.

Maybe sort of interesting, ya? Let me clarify. I’m writing a book that is a true story. Nonfiction. About me.

Through conversations with my father, I discover the ghost of my dead brother inside my childhood alter ego as an alien princess.

So, it is really important that I get honest reactions to these scripts. Please respond privately in the box below, or with your real face on the facebooks.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Your reaction can be one word. Even if you just type “WTF?” into the box, it will give me some idea of how the world feels about my story. Be as critical as you want. I haven’t even started writing the book yet. Maybe I’ll write a book about belly button lint instead. Anything can happen at this point.

Thank y’all <3

Sick of Partying, Pt. 2

The z-pack should be called the zzz-pack. I can barely stay awake, and when I do manage, I’m confused and vaguely nauseous. (Or, currently, really nauseous.) I’m back on antibiotics, and the strong stuff, because I seem to have relapsed. The strep is back from the dead. Zombie strep.

Zombie strep is re-animated by heat and debauchery. I have the sun/rugburns to prove it.

Naturally, after two weeks of staying in and minding my health, I poured a little liquor on my wilting party monster. It scrapped up and bared a smile of disorganized, razor teeth. More? We drank Jameson that wasn’t Jameson (I’m a little concerned no one would tell me what it was in that bottle), lost a game of darts, avoided the hot tub (!), lost our white rabbit ears… Party monster started to feel alive again.

Then, after 1 hour of sleep, on Sunday, I co-hosted The World’s Worst Yard Sale. When the other host switched from Saturday, I knew we’d miss out on all of the churchgoer traffic. Since I dislike most churchgoers, I thought we might get a more interesting crowd. True, when we did have ‘customers’ they were ‘interesting.’ A woman who said she just got out of a 20-year coma grabbed a chair between us and told a slew of cow jokes:

What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef.
What do you call a cow with one leg? Steak.
What do you call a cow with two legs? Lean beef.
What do you call a cow with three legs? Tri-tip.
What do you call a cow who just gave birth? Decaffeinated.

There were more, but, as if she wanted to make up for a quarter-of-a-lifetime of silence, she spoke too quickly for me to catch them all. Her brother bought an Masaru Emoto book and they left.

Then we mostly sat, drank beer, and overheated. Beer helped. Beer helped a lot, but it did not make me invulnerable to the rage of the sun. No one, by the way, ever tells you to put sunscreen on your feet. They started burning first, and as the sun crept under the shade of the garage door, my sleep-deprived effort to slap on sunscreen revealed itself in red patches on the inside of my upper arms, weird lines on my thighs, and the tops of my knees. I crawled off with my 5 bucks (I think we made $20 all together) and slept in feverish discomfort. Literally feverish, probably, but I didn’t know to suck on a thermometer at this point.

When I woke up Monday morning with a sore throat, I opted to work from home. By 2:30 I signed off. (I started work at 11. I didn’t make it 4 hours.) I tried to ignore my building fear. I peered down my nose at the numbers growing on the digital display. First reading: 100.9. No. Not. This. Again.

Look guys, weathered wood. This could be an Etsy listing.

Desperate, I allowed a doctor’s appointment at 8:30am the next day even though that is an hour I meet only in the stupidest of circumstances, like a yard sale on a Sunday morning. Because I fear known enemies more than novel experiences, my inner hypochondriac started to bargain for something more exotic than strep. What if it’s Toxic Shock Syndrome? My sunburns became rashes, my next temperature reading confirmed I’d be up to a deadly fever in a few hours. 911, I need an ambulance, I’ll be in the pool trying to lower my temperature… It’s not like I really wanted this, but my fever brain likes to trip on weird scenarios to keep itself entertained.

I eventually maxed out at 101.5 but by then had given up on taking pictures.

But it’s the strep. It’s the goddamned strep all over again. I guess debauchery has its consequences.

Don’t Apologize & Never Say Sorry

I cringe when people apologize to me. Exchanging guilt and forgiveness is one of the most awkward human experiences, in my opinion. When a scared dog is on its back pissing itself, I’m not feeling like the sadistic alpha with all the power. Instead I’m thinking, “Oh, no, jesus, there is urine everywhere.” There’s something insane about the idea that I should barter my shame for an ounce of redemption, when I honestly think most people don’t even want my shame. I mean, they want to hear about it, but they don’t want it specifically vomited in their direction like some sort of unanswerable question.

Think about it. Any time someone has told you in so many words, “I’m sorry, I’m terrible, I’m a worthless person,” you just wanted them to shut up. Are they trying to get you to comfort them? When did you sign up for this? You were so over that thing they did so long ago that you forgot it was even a thing.

At some point in my life, I just stopped saying sorry. Repercussions? Zero. I think people like me better for it. “That lady is kinda mean but I think I like her.” I am a whirling force of fun. Some calamity is inevitable. I make it clear I intend no malice, and the impressions of my misdeeds fall away like fat off a spit-roast. Besides, I pay for most of my sins automatically, foremost in nasty hangovers. And, you know, I get the strep of death.

I really think nobody cares that I almost never apologize. No one is keeping track. Nobody notices what you’re doing, until you do it eleventeen times and they finally realize you are a writer because you like, have a blog…

Guilt feels like a wasteful emotion. I know if I wrong someone bad enough, begging for their forgiveness isn’t going to magically make them happy with me again. If I can’t fix things, or time can’t fix things, or if their achy breaky heart just don’t understand….then they’re kind of a lost cause to me. Feeling guilty is all that’s left and is really my own problem, a problem that I choose to not have.

Just saying sorry is totally different than owning your mistakes. I still do this on the regular. “I totally thought your drink was my drink, and I drank all of it.” You should see the relief on people’s faces when the source of their woe is a real human person and not malicious, drink-stealing mystery gnomes. People only like good mysteries, as in, “Sami is being mysterious, maybe she’s fantasizing about me being naked with her. Maybe she is writing this as a secret message directly to me because she thinks I’m super great. Naked. Great when naked, specifically. Ok maybe in general, also.” People hate bad mysteries, as in, “Is that vomit on the floor, or just rice pudding?” When you can fill people in on the mistake or bad decision that negatively affected them, they are usually relieved that the puzzle is solved. Oh, that’s Susan’s vomit on the floor? Susan better clean that up.

Or, of course, there’s the scenario when you know somebody is guilty and you’re sure they’ll never confess. Suddenly you’re relieved when Susan says, “I did it. I threw up on the floor.” And you had worked out an intricate yet stressful plan to expose her to everyone at the party for the secretive puke monster you assumed her to be…

So, yeah, if I screw up I will do the opposite of try to hide it. Bonus, if I shout my mistakes to the world they are more receptive to my bragging. “I know Sami said she is a badass who orders bacon on her vegetarian sandwiches, but I am more likely to believe it because she also admitted she sucks at Pinterest. Haha, Pinterest is so easy she must ~~be an idiot~~ be a well-rounded individual who is totally dumb at some things and totally awesome at other things.”

Other people have not gotten on my anti-apology train. For long-time friends who make a habit out of saying sorry for everything, I just let my eyes glaze over and pretend it didn’t happen. Or, if they know me well enough, I tell them, ENOUGH WITH YOUR PARANOID GROVELLING. Prospective friends get a brief on my feelings on the subject. Most do well and quit telling me they’re sorry they said this thing or the other when my reaction isn’t immediate sugary approval.

BUT, once in awhile, from the leftest field of whackadoodle, I get an “expired apology.” That’s what prompted this rant, btw. An expired apology is one that is so old in respect to its crime that it’s completely missed its window and should stay in a deep basement to rot with the rest of your baggage. Seriously, it would make the recipient way happier if you just felt bad about yourself the rest of your life rather than bother them by digging up that musty dirt clod…

This particular musty dirt clod was an ex-boyfriend. He preempted his apology by saying, ‘I know this is too little too late.’ IF HE KNEW THAT WAS TRUE, THEN WHY BOTHER? He wrote to me what, if I based my knowledge on the serial-dater that I once knew, I could only assume came from an apology form letter that he sent to all 20 of his exes. Hint: if your apology contains the words, “I fucked up and there’s no excuse or explanation that can make up for it…” you are not revealing a mature knowledge of your mistakes and their consequences. You’re just pissing yourself.

I planned to contemplate why he might be contacting me 5+ years after our brief and ridiculous relationship to solicit forgiveness. I really don’t assume that he gave me a form letter – I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are being sincere, and I bet he wrote up a stale-apology just for me. I was going to try to offer him some solace, tell him I was crazy back then anyway and it’s not a big deal.

But I didn’t do that. Maybe apologies confuse and irritate me or maybe I’m just a big meanie but I definitely did not react the way he hoped when he sent me his plea for a pardon. I’ll share my first paragraph:

Come on, we dated for 2 or 3 months. If you really think the damage to my pride via you lasted more than a couple weeks, you’re insane. Sure, when people are exchanging dating horror stories, I do tell them about the immature and idiotic way in which you ended our relationship.* I hope you’ve learned not to date anyone when you are literally too broke to afford to dump a woman over coffee like an adult.

Or I could just be bitter because I thought I was in control and so out of his league like I was his Charlie Nicholson, but he dumped me.

I have had apologies come from the deep past and work. The key, it seems, is when the ex-boyfriend first attempts a conversation with me. A conversation without motive. This ex was my high-school beau, whom I dated for a long freaking time. We ended up in a class together in college, and I decided to reward his uneasy wave and smile by taking the seat next to him. I wanted to be an adult, too.

We chatted at each lecture, both very aware that he had been awful to me (that is, more awful than teenagers are to each other by default) but wanting to be civil. After all, we’d spent a good chunk of our lives together and it seemed silly to not try to be friends, or to not, at least, try to learn from each other. Eventually, the apology came. He hinted at some horrifying moment in our past, and stopped. He said, “I understand now that I was a complete asshole to you. I’m really sorry.” Now that, that was a professional apology. He was owning his mistake, when it was relevant, and not making it more or less than it needed to be with platitudes or drivel. He wasn’t saying it because he wanted my forgiveness, he wasn’t saying it for closure, he didn’t have aims to say it in the first place. The moment came for it, he took it, and I do feel a lot better hearing it.

An apology is meaningless when you ask it for yourself, when it is presented without context, when it is premeditated and rehearsed, when it is meant to heal your own shame. But if you’re ever given the chance to tell someone, honestly and without personal gain, that you’ve made a mistake, take it. Strangely enough, I think that’s the moment you’re most likely to receive forgiveness.

*He dumped me over the phone because he didn’t have enough gas money to meet me. This, after spending the night at my place the evening before. Poor planning, really.

LGBT Art Exhibition

I will be performing at the Lambda Archives for the Queer Artists Project on March 15th. My performance will start around 8pm.

Friday, March 15th | 8pm | Facebook Event

I’m imagining building a fort and plastering it with No Trespassing tape. Behind my baricade, I calmly target the audience with a mic and a video camera. Isolated sounds float disembodied through speakers and the images I gather project onto my body.

That’s what came to me last night after a brisk cold walk to the bar from my car.

I think I want to comment on the appropriation of gay culture by popular cultures.

This is my homage to Jeremy's style. It's amazing how hard it is to find sparkly mens spandex shorts on Polyvore -- that is, until you type in the word "fabulous."

This is my homage to Jay’s style. It’s amazing how hard it is to find sparkly men’s spandex shorts on Polyvore — that is, until you type in the word “fabulous.”

A friend of mine adorns himself with glitter and nailpolish. He minces and flames. He’s 100% straight.

I adore these things about him. I pinned my rainbow button to his drowsy girlfriend’s sleeve as she sat in his lap. She is trying to explore her bisexuality – I wanted her to know that I see her. But also, in away, I wanted to say that I love and accept them from the bottom of my little gay heart.

Recently, however, I saw a picture of him with rainbow suspenders and I recoiled. I thought of the trendiness of swinging, straight couples hunting for that perfect bisexual woman who will love both of them in a harmonious triad, and 1-dick-per-relationship policies. I thought of dudes who ask me to sleep with their girlfriends, but insist that they at least be allowed to watch. It’s hardly a gracious offer.

Jay is not selfish or rude unlike some people who seem to forget what the word “lesbian” means. I’m ashamed that for even one second my brain wanted to connect the dots between him expressing himself and people who suck.

I don’t own all the rainbows and unicorns and I can’t deny the fun of a threesome that lines up perfectly with your expectations and fantasies. I know I am projecting my own fears and injuries. I think I am bitter. The collective pressure to submit to a normative sexuality, the times when I did submit, and (when I am angry and/or drunk enough to claim) that I was “collectively raped by society,” fill my mouth with pith and poison. I have taken man to access woman; why shouldn’t a straight pair do the same?

Here’s a drawing of Katelyn murdering a unicorn.

I gave myself the power of “no” too late in life. And so, when a man asks access to my body even after he knows I’m gay I feel forced to use my no. It feels less like a choice and more like a struggle. Years of all the unsaid NO gather in my fists and my eyes. They don’t know the implications of what they are asking. They haven’t studied the male gaze nor been pinned under it like a lizard under a curious child’s hands. Yet every time they ask (I’ll write a post someday about the frequency zomg) I’m hit by a truck.

There is a conversation. It is not that tourists and heteroregulars infiltrate our spaces, our bars, our clubs. We also invite them. I literally bring Straighty McStraight guys to my bars. Like some kind of sadist, I toss ’em in the sea of gay fish and the evil voice in my head says, “swim sucker! Dog paddle like I have to do every day of my life.”

I’m one of them lipstick lesbians or something.

I am only vindictive when I am weak. Really though, I need my rainbow-suspender-wearing friend. He is a pioneer in this conversation as much as any of us queermos. His choice of attire asks, “Will the straight community accept this?” and inversely, “Will the gay community let me borrow this?”

I’m a femme, so at first glance most men assume I want to bang ’em. Kidding, but many assume they even have a chance. I borrow femininity and receive invisibility. I access a “normal” that butch does not. I allow the assumptions and the lack thereof. I ask, “Will strangers accept my sexuality even if I do not perform under their expectations or stereotypes?” I ask myself “how much of this crap will I put up with before I out myself….?”

Yet I’m not femme because I want to be a pioneer. Like my friend I’m just trying to do what I want. We just freaking like nail polish. AND GLITTER. And extra vaginas for everybody to share. Being in this larger conversation about sexuality and freedom and agency feels less like a choice and more like a struggle. What is my responsibility, what is his?

So the video projects on my body, but I also select it. I target the audience, but they also see their image on my skin, can smile or frown, wave or duck. I allow, they infiltrate, and visa versa. That’s the idea with this project anyway. Thoughts?

A Maddening Manic Monday

Hey gang. Time for some real talk.

About 40 seconds after I pushed my last post public, the sweat and nausea of shame descended on me like a Jim Beam hangover. Normally I have guts of steel with these kinds of things because I’m awesome so this was a weird and unpleasant experience for me.

“Every show I do is poorly promoted
And if you like this it’s cause my little sister wrote it.” Click for music video.

I felt like my last post was way too cute. I’m adorable enough as I am without needing to ‘write safe.’ On a related note, I’m re-thinking my ban on curse words — vote below. Anyway, I’ve re-focused and this blog will center around my personal experiences rather than a slew of topical rants. Occasionally, though, I will need to gripe about general San Diego tropes. Who had ‘fun’ driving last Friday??

My aim is to collage together my exploits with more editorial content in an effort to distill a “VIBE” of San Diego subculture. Anyone not familiar with Tavi Gevinson’s work and her vibes needs to check this out. There’s nothing quite like living here, which is why they’ve dubbed us the Whale’s Vagina.

–

Anyway, enough with the meta, I want to talk about an encounter that is still stuck in my mind.

Manic Monday at the Brass Rail is my church. Even though (as the designated driver) I’m limited to one or two stiff, $2 drinks, it is one of my favorite nights.

But sometimes I really wish I could be wasted on Mondays.

I get all my awesome 80s clothes at the thrift shop just like Macklemore.

In Hilcrest we have two types of “tourists.”
1. Out-of-towners who may not be used to the San Diego flavor of gay and
2. Gawkers who visit any LGBT club like it’s a zoo.
These are not to be confused with the heteregulars (I just made that up!) who frequently join the party because they live nearby, like the area, like the drink specials, and/or have friends/family in the community.

Mondays tend to be quite a mixed night. We’ve got sexy sorority-types who show up way too early and entertain themselves with group photos. And make out with me when I’m looking particularly non-threatening and feminine. There are friendly gay boys who might spill a cocktail on you but won’t hesitate to say hello. Glittery accessories weigh down slight and strong wrists alike, sequins sparkle in the red light of the smoking patio, and the variety of drinkers spill together on the hard ground like the contents of a toxic stomach.

I am grateful for the straight visitors, both tourists and not, because their money helps support the venues that I love. Even the “explorers” tend to amuse me with their antics in a “Kids say the darndest things” kind of way.

This tale of fury is about one of the regulars, not a tourist. Sometimes the sense of belonging and community will get to their head and a straight guy or gal will act they’ve earned The Gay Seal of Approval™ and/or Badge of Honorary Membership. Some of my closest friends are guilty of this at times…whoops.

One such self-stamped mutual “friend” has been openly pushing my buttons since the day I met him. I’ll call him Chuck, as in chucklehead, because I’m mean like that. And the word chucklehead makes me giggle.

I say openly because he told me that “pushing” my “buttons” is exactly what he intends to do. Also, he’s actually doing me a huge favor because he’s teaching me to be more understanding and tolerant of male attention. It’s not his fault I’m so amazing and he’s attracted to me. He can’t help himself. He’s Italian and it’s “just the way they are.” I wish I could better convey sarcasm in text because I am typing so jaggedly that my nail-beds hurt a little….

My snake eats the cutest size of mice right now. It’s kind of depressing.

I told him that the mouse being electrocuted doesn’t realize it’s for the greater good. Probably came to mind because my date that night experiments on rats for a living. Oh yiss, sexy neuroscientist lady…

Now before my beloved guy friends start to wonder if they risk offending me with their compliments or affection, let me stop you. I make it clear when someone is gettin’ in my bubbles and disturbin’ my comforts. Which is why, immediately after Chuck crossed the line between drunken false-familiarity into disturbing amounts of sexually-charged attention, I told him to back down. My first approach was subtle; I told him I’m not very affectionate and shrugged out of his arms. I used to try to be diplomatic because his best friend is super sweet and I like listening to her talk.

After several encounters and a mixture of polite, frank, and even harsh rebuffs with no progress, I no longer had patience for his continued harassment. Just a couple of weeks ago I had told him that I don’t like it when he puts his arm around me. He hangs heavy around my neck which is uncomfortable no matter who does it. First thing he did when he saw me: drape on me like a wet towel. His lips a hair from my ear, he told me that I’m beautiful.

My friend Xanadu said I look like a gay ghostbuster :D

Wish I’d been wearing my “gay ghostbuster” uniform instead of the tights and dress in this story.

Trapped in a bar stool between smokers, a railing, and his body, I felt like a cornered animal. Even as I chewed him out for what must have been at least 20 minutes, he stood alternatively with his face so close to mine I could feel his breath or with his crotch against my leg. Through my thin tights I could verify that he at least had the decency to not have a boner. Eeeeeugh. “You don’t come to my bar and rub your balls on my knee and act like you have the right to pretend you’re helping me,” I said to him. My friend Richard gave another one of his “Mhmmm’s” and a sassy head shake.

Finally Chuck tired of my rapid rebuttals to his hippie-dippy rationale for harassing me the way he does. For the first time ever, he was the one to walk away from our troubled interaction. VICTORY.

Now, I realize that he was quite drunk and probably didn’t learn anything from me. I hope if nothing else he recalls a sense of negative emotion and hesitates to force his “love” on me next we meet. Love without respect just gets squicky and I am too in touch with my personal limits to let someone willfully make me feel uncomfortable.

I really don’t know what the protocol should be for dealing with persistent arduous attention. I’m a sexy beast; I get a lot of advances. I’ve tried diplomacy, I’ve tried deadpan rejection. Nothing seems to work better than a pre-emptive bitchface (learn the techniques here), but I hate doing the bitchface. There’s no one-size-fits all approach and I’m forced to scrape up patience and empathy all night until I’m exhausted. It’d help if people just took me at my word. I’m pretty good at saying what I mean.

By the way, I don’t mind writing about this publicly. Yeah, he might read it. There’s nothing I’ve said here that I haven’t tried to say to his face. I told him all I want is peace. I guess that’s true, but I’ll settle for the glow I get from being righteously angry at chuckleheads.

San Diego Survival Guide

Sami navigates and examines being young, gay, and weird in San Diego. Updates (every other) Taco Tuesday. Now with more activism.

Category Archives: Journal