Where do I go from here?

I deactivated the blog for awhile for many and varied reasons, but have made it public again. I saw in my stats that some posts in the past have been useful to people.

I am no longer in my late twenties and I am no longer a virgin, but am keeping this blog up for any virgins or others with a "low sex drive" who may benefit from the older posts.

Even though I am no longer a virgin, I have only had 2 partners and haven't had sex in three years. So I still don't feel like I have a normal or typical (whatever that means) sex life. Actually, I recently came across the orientation, "demisexual." I've been watching YouTube videos, looking up websites and even joined a demisexual group on facebook. The testimonies I have read really resonate with me.

In fact, I have a lot to say about what demisexual means to me and why I think it fits who I have been all along, but I may save that for another post...or blog

Anyway, I guess this really isn't "goodbye." I am exploring the demisexual orientation and seeing what I can do with my posts from my virginal days. There will be more to come once I figure it out.

In the meantime, good luck dating, and I hope these ramblings help you in your journey.

Also, I have a new twitter handle: @popcherrypie

I'm vegan. Should I only date vegans?

My short answer is, “Maybe.” 

It’s funny.  Whenever I start dating a guy I particularly like, the first thing my friends ask is, “Is he vegan?” That question usually precedes “Does he want kids?”

“No kids” is my main deal-breaker!  

However, I went on some dates with a vegan guy recently, and I'm seeing the advantages. 

I forgot how big a deal it is to be a vegan.  Food is so central to socializing, to being human.  Pretty much the last thing even Jesus did before he died was have dinner with his buddies! 

Prior to dating Vegan Man, I didn’t think being vegan was crucial.  I did date a vegetarian, Catholic guy for a minute.  Wouldn’t a liberal, Catholic, vegetarian, activist guy would be a good match?

Nope!  Politics, religion and diet didn’t matter. Our personalities weren’t compatible and he wanted kids. 

So I stopped caring about the dude’s diet.  As long as he respected me and was willing to go places where I could have more than a salad, all was good.

But, attention single vegan women!  Maybe you knew this already, as I tend to be delayed in learning things, but dudes will say anything to impress you. 

“Oh yeah, I like vegan food once in a while.”  Translation? Whenever he hangs with you.

“I don’t always eat meat.”  Or, “Sometimes I just get a frozen cheese pizza."

In other words, his lack of meat-eating may not be deliberate, intentional, like it is with you.

But with a vegan guy, wow.  It’s easier.  Any restaurant he suggests will be vegan-friendly.  And it’s not like you are dragging him somewhere he may not want to go. 

It does kinda suck when a non-vegan guy wants to take you to his favorite joint, but you have to politely, graciously decline.  Sadly, his favorite place is BBQ Meat-O-Rama. 

And if you want to try the new veggie-friendly spot in town, vegan guy probably will too.  Then, you can be all cute and try food off each other’s plates! 

Plus, if you ever go past casual dating and perhaps into more serious territory, on holidays, you won’t be the only vegan at the table.  The hosts will already be accommodating for him. 

Vegan Man and I are not serious like that, by the way. He and I have only gone on two dates.  We are in the same vegan group, but he is only in town once a month.

Fortunately, we are facebook friends now, and he is becoming one of my biggest facebook fans at least. Vegan Man is attracted to me, but I doubt how serious his attachment is.  Is it purely lust?

Though I still won’t make “must be vegan” a deal-breaker, I will say that this experience is showing me how important it is. 

I won’t tell you to limit your options.  But vegan girl, pay particular attention to the vegan guys…

Should women always let men chase them?

There is an "old" dating rule that is driving me a little crazy.  "Women should let men chase them."

Last night, I was facebook chatting with a friend who is on the dating scene.  When I told her about my online dating escapades, she asked, "Well what about the old-fashioned way?"  After I told her how that isn't working, she said to perhaps just stop looking and perhaps a man will come to me.


My response?  "They don't come to me whether or not I'm looking!"

I googled "should women always let men pursue?" Many results were in the affirmative.

To snag a man, let him do the chasing
Ladies, Let Men Pursue You!
Why You Should NEVER Pursue a Man

One link said women should always do the chasing, but I question anyone who references Ayn Rand.

However, not all my friends followed the "let the man chase you" rule.  Also, sitting back and waiting for a man to pursue puts you in a very powerless position.  It leaves you to their whims.  It turns you into a peacock. Dolling yourself up, on display, waiting for a man to notice you.

One could say to just work on you and not worry about men. So we should keep our eyes closed? Never keep an eye out for opportunities? Aren't men always on the lookout?

Some might argue that "chasing" is desperate.  How is initiating contact more desperate than lifting your skirt, batting your eyes and winking at every cute-ish dude across from you at a bar? Why is it "desperate" for a woman to initiate contact but "normal" for a guy to do so?

Now, the June boy, that I chased a little, said that he wants to stay friends, and I haven't heard from him since 4th of July.  I sent a mass "Happy 4th of July" text to my friends to which he responded.  Whenever guys say that they want to "just be friends" with me, I don't really believe it.  I think they were just feeding me a line to "let me down easy." I didn't hear from them again.

Just say, "Thanks for the nice times, good luck with everything." Man!

I don't know if I turned him off by chasing or if he was never that into me, but it is fun being the pursuer instead of the pursued!  And it's not like I texted him every darn day or begged him to take me out.  I just texted a couple times a week. And I kept my flirting at a low level.  Just occasional compliments. 

My feeling now is, every relationship "expert" has contradictory advice. From now on, I'm just going to do what feels right to me, and if dude don't like it, if he is turned off or threatened by a woman sending the first message online, then he isn't the guy for me.

What do you think? Should women always let the men chase them?

What exactly is a "virgin?"

I've been pondering this a lot lately.  Although I'm still technically a "virgin," I'm not quite as virginal as I was earlier this year...

I had a fling in February, though I didn't know it was a fling.  There were signs along the way that the guy and I were falling into the fling zone, never to leave, but I hoped anyway.  February was A LOT of fun!  March and April were terrible.

Now I have an idea of what it must be like to go through withdrawal from a drug.  Although the guy and I didn't go "all the way," we did visit each others apartments, and clothes kind of just fell off...

Even at "third base," my hormones go nuts!  I read somewhere that the chemicals in the brain that fire while doing cocaine, I believe, also fire during orgasm. Or something. Here's an article about it.  Recovering from a boy is like recovering from a drug!

Anyway, it makes me wonder about the definition of a virgin.  Sure, me and my bestie both have never had vaginal sex, but are we in the same category of "virgin?"  I went from never kissing a guy to third base in one night! Amy isn't even comfortable dancing, just dancing, with a stranger, if he puts his hands anywhere on her abdomen.

It goes to show how labels are not always accurate.

I learned a lot from my experience with the February Fling, more than I could cover in one post.  However, one of my biggest lessons is now I know how far I can go, physically, without attaching to a guy.  I now know, in the future, that I can't even go to third base and then not see a guy ever again. 

There will be no happy-fun-naked times outside the context of a relationship.  No matter how tempting it is to recapture the ecstasy I had in February, I can't go that far without commitment.  The heartbreak aftermath is just not worth it.

Thankfully, the guy I'm "hanging out" with now is truly respectful and interested in me, not my body.  For those of you who are Jane Austen nerds like me, well, in February, I dated Mr. Wickham.  Now, I think I'm hanging with a version of Mr. Darcy!  I don't know if we'll go beyond friends, or go beyond one month, which is my record with any guy.  However, things have not been going the way of Mr. Wickham, and that is a very good thing!

So how do you define "virgin?"

Where should I look for my kind of guy?

I've been reading the book, Buddhism: Plain and Simple, lately, and have started thinking about it in relation to my lack-of-dating life.  In this book, the author, Steve Hagen, discusses "seeing" a lot.  He says that Buddhism is partially about really seeing what is in front of you.  Not analyzing it, not creating ideas about it, just "seeing," truly seeing.

I went to a few events last month, one of which was aimed at Catholic, young adult singles. Some things were becoming clear to me, once I opened my eyes and really saw what was in front of me.

As soon as I pulled into the lot of the Catholic singles event, I saw a bumper sticker for Bill Brady on one car and another car with a "crisis pregnancy" center bumper sticker.  Crisis pregnancy centers are basically pro-life centers.  If I wasn't meeting my bestie at this event, I would have left.

Not only were there signs of Republicans, but most of the guys who were there were either too old or way too young for me.  The guy who spoke with me the longest actually had kids. And the conversations were mostly boring small talk, like about jobs.

Again, if it hadn't been for "Amy," I would not have stayed longer than an hour.  Some other friends of mine happened to be there. The world of Catholic singles in my city is small after all.  I talked to them until Amy arrived.

Surprisingly, though, or maybe not so surprisingly, when I went to the community center where I met Jack, I felt very comfortable.  Much more comfortable and welcomed than I did at the Catholic event.  They were screening a progressive, radical movie.  Complete strangers willing to strike up a conversation, usually about social justicey things.  And of course, there was a potluck with plenty of vegan-friendly food.

Jack, of course, was a nice addition too.

If I really open my eyes, I see that Catholic young adult events for singles are probably not the place to meet my Mr. Right.  Yet I keep going to them.  I go to some hippie-liberal-progressive event, that isn't even a "singles" event, and feel much more at home.

Einstein said something like insanity is doing the same thing over and over though you're getting the same result. I'll go to Catholic young adult events for my own spiritual needs.  That's it.

Follow me on twitter @flamencokitty 

Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why I need to stop facebook-stalking

I facebook-stalk in an attempt to find out if the guy I'm crushing on is crushable. "Is he single?" "Is he straight?" Yes, I have this tendency to crush on guys who are gay, because I have a broken "gaydar."

But facebooking-stalking, lately, has been ruining the fun. It has abruptly stopped my crushing twice. Once I found out info on the guys, I said, "Oh, nevermind. We'll just be friends."

The most recent crush was a guy I met at a community center in my neighborhood three weeks ago. "Jack" is a cute guy. Short, curly black hair. Tan skin. Thick glasses. A few inches taller than me and a thin-to-average build. Super-friendly. And he busted out some Spanish at one point to some people who walked in. Bilingualism is definitely a turn-on for me sometimes. There were a few other volunteers at the center but he couldn't stop talking to me, asking me questions, smiling at everything I say.

I went back to the center over the weekend for a movie night. He actually remembered my name! :) We chatted for a bit before the movie started. After the movie, I ended up conversing with another guy and he ended up talking in another group.

I promptly proceeded to facebook-stalk that night. I only had his first name, but the movie night was posted as an event on facebook. I found him through that. Yes, I have some mad facebook-stalker skills.

Jack's profile was private! Boo. I usually don't friend people, especially people I just met. I let others friend me. But eh, why not? He remembered me, after all. I friended him and mentioned that I was at the movie night. To my delight, he accepted my friend request.

To my dismay, he is six years younger than me. He is also Atheist. Man. Now my crush is gone.

This is why I need to stop facebook-stalking cuties I meet "in real life." I have a rapport with a guy, then I discover incompatibility when I look him up. And it's not something unimportant to me, like music or movie tastes. It's something really important to me, like religion. And then I don't want to pursue him beyond friendship.

Of course when I return to the center for future events, I will gladly stop and have a conversation or two with him. But in the meantime, I guess it's back to okcupid.

Follow me on twitter @flamencokitty.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do I want a husband, or just sex?

I have mentioned before that my best friend, Amy, and I are still virgins. She is gung-ho about holding the cherry hostage until marriage.

Right now, I don’t care if I walk down the aisle de-flowered. I haven’t told Amy that I’m not feeling the “wait ‘til marriage” thing anymore.

Anyway, I think we’ve been having similar feelings lately and are interpreting them in different ways. She longs for marriage, like, right now.

For once, Amy’s been trying harder than me to get a man. Her skirts are a little shorter. She’s actually wearing skirts! And heels! And she is finally moving beyond solid colored cardigans and jeans and no makeup. Now she puts makeup on daily, shows a little cleavage and wears bright colors and patterns.

She even started online dating, two years after me. She gave up after a few weeks, though, when she couldn’t get past the online chatting with any guy.

Whenever she talked to a guy online, she told me about why she thought he might be “the one,” why he might make a good husband.

Yes, Amy flat out told me that she really wants a husband. She also hopes the courtship is brief, perhaps only a few months, just like it was with her virginal parents.

And every single time we hang out now, she talks about the lack of men our age in the place. I sometimes don’t even notice. I’m too busy eating or talking to her or whatever.

If Amy is feeling how I’ve been feeling lately, I wonder if it’s really desire for marriage, or if she is just “in heat?”

One of the many reasons I’ve been less active in dating since Spring is because of my toy. Whenever I get all aflutter, satisfaction is just a flick of the switch away. I know Amy has no “toys” and I’m sure she follows the Catholic rule of not pleasuring yourself either.

I can’t imagine the level of sexual frustration that is still pent up in Amy.

I am talking to new guys in public and occasionally send messages on OkCupid. I do try to stay open and alert for guys who are looking my way. I even talked to a guy in a bar recently!

But my level of desperation is not Amy’s. Marriage is not on the horizon for me, and I’m okay with that.

I mean, I still haven’t even been kissed. Let’s get over that hurdle first!

Follow me on twitter @flamencokitty .

Image: Sharron Goodyear / FreeDigitalPhotos.net