“Mark my words, I will never sleep with another man who wears an earring again.”
Making eye contact with our waiter, I signalled for the cheque, before drawing my eyes back to my best friend. “Aside from the fact that you just might fight over jewellery, if that were the case, why exactly are you making this profound declaration on a Monday?”
“Because I’m going to assume it means they’re shit in bed.” Leighton huffed dramatically in exasperation.
“Is this the Tinder guy?” I wanted to face palm on behalf of her stupidity.
She nodded, stabbing one of the ice cubes in her Coke Zero with vengeance. “He was so promising. So much potential.”
I wanted to kick her underneath the table in frustration, but at the risk of scuffing this season’s Steve Madden ankle boots, I poked her in the forearm with my salad fork instead. “I told you to stop sleeping with the idiots from that website. This isn’t Sex and the City, Leighton. You’re not going to end up with a Mr. Big.” I paused for effect. “What you’re going to end up with is another broken heart from some ass clown who isn’t worth the breath it takes you to talk about him, or worse, an STD.”
While I had my issues with men, and I’d admit they ran deep and ugly, my self-preservation instincts were fully intact, heightened rather. Honestly, I think people would do anything in the name of love. Sometimes I had to wonder if it was just stupidity that made us that na?ve, or if we were all just clinging to a desperate notion that we remained hopeful romantics and not just selfishly seeking out partnership to even the playing field within ourselves. Ensuring we were gold-plated in the areas we lacked, rather than polishing the authentic twelve-karat facets of our personalities. It was easier to believe you just had to find the right person, put up with the right asshole, and settle for a little less than the dream, because you’d be happy, or at the very least, you wouldn’t be alone. Because the alternative was eating Chinese takeout, alone, in your one bedroom walk up and looking inward at the abundance of work it would take to heal by your own hands. And that seemed to be a job description most of us weren’t willing to sign on the dotted line for.
Happiness and love were among the most fickle and fleeting of emotions. I had no time for either, yet in no way was I a sadist or among those adverse to romance. The fact was I’d spent much of my adult life in the company of great men, and I wanted to love each of them. I wanted them to save me, but each time, as the high ran dry and true colours were bled, I did what the past in me had bred and I fled, downward and fast, until I was picking myself up off the ground again, piece by piece, little by little, bloody knees and broken heart in tow. Maybe that was the problem: my insecurities and ill fitting need consistently led me to believe my saviour would be a gentleman caller of sorts. My mind relentlessly insisting I was a queen, but my heart reverently convincing us we are a lady in waiting, a lady waiting for a man specifically.
While I toyed relentlessly with the ebb and flow of love, Leighton, however, was a true bleeding heart. Trusting and full of unrelenting hope. I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing, but every guy she encountered who had half a brain somehow managed to prey on her romanticism, and while she was off planning their Page Six wedding, he was juggling a handful of other women and she was none the wiser.
Her latest venture to find men? Tinder. The online, grown-up version of Hot or Not. Ever wondered what ordering a person to your door like pizza looks like? That was Tinder.
“Where else am I supposed to find a man with the hours I keep?” She pouted.
Tucking my napkin under my salad plate, I looked up, pretending to search for an answer before locking my eyes with hers and raising my brows in surprise. “How about, real life? You work in a building full of men.”
Fidgeting, she pursed her lips. “Pompous men.”
“Yes, because the Tinder Trophies you’re racking up are of substantially higher quality.” I cocked an eyebrow at her, sarcasm hanging off my words in the air.
“I guess so.” Furrowing her brow, she made a funny face. “I think his studs were bigger than mine,” she whined, twisting the princess cut diamond in her right ear.
“The bigger the diamond, the bigger the douche.” I laughed, tilting my glass in her direction in a mock toast.
“And the smaller the dick,” she grumbled, just as our waiter returned to the table, cheque in hand.
“I thought you were into your dentist anyway,” I offered as our joint chuckles subsided, signing my haphazard signature across the bottom of my bill.
“He was just,” she paused, struggling to tuck her wallet back inside her structured black tote, “too into me.”
Women.
“He was too into you?”