I am not the world's oldest virgin!

And, as I've mentioned before, there's always Julia Child.

But a woman should never let facts get in the way of some good ol' fashioned "Oh crap! I'm getting older and I'm going to be sad and alone for the rest of my life!" birthday angst.

I never thought of myself as the kind of person to have birthday angst. I've always loved my birthday. I had epic birthday parties as a kid, including a Nickelodeon themed party complete with a giant food fight and slime! I thought I was above all of that nonsense...plus, Blonde Roommate is a professional birthday angster, so I kinda figured I'd leave it up to her.

But then came the dreaded 2-3. Yeah, I know...it's not actually a significant birthday, but it hit me all at once that I'm graduating from college, going to graduate school, and that my next big birthday will be *gasp* 30!

All of that, combined with the fact that my mom got married when she was 24, led to a series of minor freak-outs culminating in my seriously considering having sex with a guy I barely know just so I would no longer be the weird virgin in my group of friends.

Luckily, I came to my senses and went speed dating instead.

Where I was involved in this little gem of a conversation:

Guy: "I want something to drink. What are you drinking?"
Me: "Rum and Coke"
Guy: "Oh, that sounds good. I like rum and coke. Maybe I'll get a rum and coke."
starts to walk towards bar
Guy: "Or a beer. Should I get a beer?"
Me: "Do you want a beer?"
Guy: "No. I hate beer."
Me: "Then why would you get it?"
Guy: "It comes in a bottle. Bottles are harder to spill. I don't want to spill my drink. That would be embarrassing." mimes staggering around and spilling a glass

On second thought, maybe being alone for the rest of my life isn't such a bad idea. I wonder how my dog would get along with cats...

Back to Before

Sorry it's been so long since the last post, folks. I've actually had this story on the back burner for a while, but I was saving it for a 20something Bloggers blogswap that, unfortunately, never happened. And I can't bear to keep it from you anymore!

Also, today is my 23rd (gasp!) birthday! There will definitely be commentary on my existential getting-older crisis, but not tonight. Because I actually had a wonderful birthday and am a little drunk, as one should be on any and all birthdays after one reaches the legal drinking age in their respective countries.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.

Yeah, more Broadway song lyrics. It's just how I roll. And I keep on rolling. Rolling on the river.

Ok, that wasn't Broadway. But they sang it on Glee, so it still counts.

ANYWAY...

My frog issues have been going on for many, many years. You heard a bit about my first frog experience from the beginning of high school, but my first serious boyfriend was not until my senior year of high school. And what a whopper of a tale that turned out to be...

Broadway Frog and I had been friends for quite a while, but we really connected in Drama Club, when we auditioned together for the roles of John and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible. The audition was magical- the rest of the auditorium melted away as we looked into each others' eyes and pledged our characters' undying love to each other. Once the audition was over, we realized that something special had occurred, and that we both felt a deep and passionate connection to the roles and to each other.

Remember, this is not just high school- this is high school drama club. The melodrama quotient is about 400% higher than in your average relationship.

But there was one problem: Broadway Frog was dating another girl. Being the only relatively attractive boy in Drama Club, Broadway Frog made his way around the ladies of Drama Club, and I was determined to be next.

But how? I was a shy and awkward, much less pretty and, shall we say, "delicate" than the other girls. So I did the only thing I knew how: I became his best friend.

Over the next few months, we hung out together all the time, sat together at lunch, went to each others' houses on weekends to watch movies, did homework together, the whole shebang. He shared that he was starting to grow tired of his latest Drama Queen flavor-of-the-month, and I did nothing to dissuade him from throwing her out onto the curb. I knew I could share my deepest, darkest thoughts with him...

Or at least I thought I could.

It was the day after my 18th birthday, and all of my friends were gathered outside of TGIFridays (the only place in town other than Waffle House that would be open after 10pm) for a big birthday celebration for myself and a friend, whose birthday would be the next day. Broadway Frog and I were standing outside of the restaurant chatting when I decided to share some fantastic news:

Let me pause for a second to explain. At the age of 17, I was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor, which was removed a few months later. I was out of school for nearly three weeks, but I hadn't told many people why, as I was pretty embarrassed at having a disease that is really only supposed to strike older women and had, in my mind, robbed me of what little femininity I had (and, most likely, my fertility).
I could have sworn that Broadway Frog was one of the people I had told.

Apparently not.

I had taken a blood test earlier that week to look for tumor markers, and it had come back negative, which was obviously very exciting! So I gave Broadway Frog the short version:

"I don't have cancer!"

Broadway Frog turned pale and his eyes grew wide.

"Wait...you thought you did have cancer?"

As I stuttered and stammered and started to explain, Broadway Frog turned away for a moment of reflection.

Or maybe to hide his tears of love for me.

Or throw up into the bushes, which is what actually happened

That's one way to make an impression on a potential boyfriend.

They named an article after me!

Or my blogging pen name (keyboard name?) is just not quite as original as I thought it was.

Seems that way back in 2003, WebMD published an article about involuntary celibacy: "otherwise healthy folks who want to have sex but can't make it happen in their lives"

It's actually nice to know that I'm not the only one out there who deals with this, but it was a little disconcerting to see that the article was published in the men's health section of the website.

Because women can get laid whenever they want to, of course! Just walk into a bar, and there's a gaggle of gorgeous (depending on the prescription on your beer goggles) guys waiting to sweep you off to bed. Think about every TV plot you've ever seen about folks trying to get laid- it's never the girls who are sitting around the table at the bar bemoaning their sexless fate.

Why is that? Is this really an exclusively male problem (with the stunning exception of myself)? Why am I asking all of these questions? Where did the funny bits of this blog go?

Don't worry- they'll be back soon...but right now, I need to go to bed so I can concentrate "on school and then [my] career" instead of trying to get laid.

A Change of Pace

It's been a busy couple of weeks up here in NYC. Spring has (finally!) sprung, bringing warm sun, beautiful flowers, and...tourists. I've had a couple of friends visiting me, which gives me a fantastic excuse to visit places like Ellis Island and Madame Tussaud's, and to discover fantastic new bars and other hangout spots. Now, if I would actually make the effort to break my routine and go to these places on a regular basis...

Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. If I'm going to do a bit of spring cleaning of my social life, I need to start small. How about a new kind of dating story for you folks?

It seems a bit cruel to be constantly harping on these poor tadpoles. As much as they deserve it, I'm not exactly a perfect date myself. Take my tenth grade homecoming, for example:

Picture, if you will, two young, awkward kids who have known each other as friends for many years. I have had a crush on the boy for, oh..., forever. He is an awkward 15 year old who is basically dating me because I'm the only girl who will talk to him.

Because we are both 15, we have to be driven to dinner and the dance by my mom. And, as we learned from Raspberry Beret, being driven to a date by your mom is never cool.

Awkward Boy chose a gas station for dinner. To be fair, it was an old gas station that had been converted into a restaurant. And it was one of the nicest restaurants in town, y'all!

So, there we are, all dressed up, staring at each other across an old picnic table inside an old gas station, picking at plates of fried chicken and trying to make conversation while my mom is sitting at a different table and pretending not to be there. I was trying desperately to make a good impression- I was hoping that this dance would be a magical, teen movie night, complete with my very first kiss, and I knew just what to do to make my dream come true...

I would be flirty! So, while the Boy was talking, I grabbed my glass of sweet tea and started playfully spinning the straw while gazing longingly into his eyes. I maintained my fabulously flirty eye contact while sexily licking my subtly parted lips. I bent toward my glass, making sure to display my decolletage, and grasped the straw

Or where I thought the straw was. But all I got was a less-than-sexy mouthful of air.

Determined to salvage the moment, I lifted the glass and reached my lips towards the straw.

And missed again.

But I was not to be defeated! I kept my eye contact and, as sexily as you imagine it would be, chased my straw around the glass with my tongue before finally getting the damned thing in my mouth.

Needless to say, that was the most action my lips got that night.