30 First Dates: The Sequel.

Everyday I wake up and I think that I've seen rock bottom - that I've climbed that mountain top - and then, another 24 hours goes by and I find someway to out-stupify myself from the day before. This is how an innocent new years resolution of 30 days 'til boyfriend has become 30 days to almost no friends, and most certainty no male additions. Yup, this is part 2, the deuce, the sequel. If you have no idea what I am talking about, read to post below this one but for the slackers; heres Wasser-World for dummies:

Last time in the Wide World of Wasser: "As I have been resoluting away the same ten pounds since 1997, I figured it might be time for a different, more achievable goal, to ensure that 2009 would be my best year yet. So rather than a size six, okay eight, I set my sights on something that even fat, ugly people have: a boyfriend." Single going into 2009 - resolved to change said singledom - the last posting was 30 days into my trek, and NOW at 53 days into 2009: I have officially traded resolve for vodka and not just any vodka - were talking the cheap kind - because it has taken approximately six sessions and $750.oo for me to be able to say I am self-sabotaging. Ironically enough, this is the exact conclusion drawn up by my friend Sam over coffee,... for free.

Yet however expensive the last 53 days were, I can't say they weren't eye opening; because after almost 2 months of trying to change my "relationship status" I learned the cold hard truth about the status quo:

My Personality Is The Best Contraception.

How do I draw this conclusion prey tell? I didn't. The guy behind the counter of my local liquor store did. Bitching and moaning about yet another failure to launch on my cell phone, my caring cashier was doing something other than ringing me up; he was eavesdropping. As soon as I hung up to replace my cell phone holding hand with a big bag of booze, he winks only to inform me. "well it sure isn't your looks!"... oh great? So it's me. In the coming weeks I have found out he is right.

While it is a known fact that love can make people do crazy things, as someone who has never been in love, I can only guarantee you that crushes can also take credit for ultimate acts of stupidity. Case in point; simply the person I had a crush on in the first place. When you have to preface your dating desires with, "He's really smart,.. and funny, I swear" only for people to see a photo and go, "him?... really? hmm.... okay,.." - there is probably a big giant red flag as to why you should move on, and fast. But like a retard at a MENSAH meeting, there were just a lot of very obvious things that I didn't get - for one this was doomed to be a disaster. We work in the same company which means that my already un-sly mating ritual gets thrown for yet another loop as every time we we're within 50 feet of each other it became the "how do I flirt with this person without anyone else knowing this is going on,... including him.. just incase it is not returned making my already awkward behavior that much more awkward."

I don't know why I thought that making advances on someone while trying to make them think I'm not making advances on them was ever thought to be a good strategy... but I have grown up during the Bush Years; even with no chance of victory: literally by George, I will stay the course. As such, when we happen to be in the same bar, and I am alone no less, it became impossible for me to simply just say hello. Instead, I ordered yet another Vodka Soda or three (mistake number one) and just sat there, exercising nothing but my liver, waiting for him to get his happy ass up and give me the one thing I wanted; not a lot, but just a little bit of attention. This did not happen, and so me and my bright idea machine got to work (mistake number two).

Now this is where most interject, "why not just leave?", and well - I couldn't. I was knee deep in both booze and text messages to myself - simply so my own phone would light up and ring, attempting to create the illusion of my having a life. And as much as I hope we all haven't been there, let me assure you: once you go that far,... how much worse can it really get? Even to my surprise, it can get a lot worse. Sort of like mixing alcohol with Nyquil; heres another thing you should never mix alcohol with,... insecurity.

Interpreting our original quick "hello" and missed eye glances as "he is just being shy",... I will now take it upon myself to make an opening for him. Luckily, based on his seating loaction, there was also an easy opening for me. His table was right in front of the ladies restroom. Another misguieded intention but at the time, I could brush by him giving him the chance to perk up and if all else fails, I had a destination to stumble to. So off I went, with not so much as a syllable uttered in my direction and into the ladies room I go. Not even comprehending this outcome when I was making my failsale plan, I had also never thought of the fact that I now have to come out of the bathroom that is now unconvienantly located right next to his table. Making matters worse, my strut was definately looking more like a swivel and as such, again, my genius went straight to the drawing board.

Hey, he did a pretty good job of leaving me alone when I was parading around the facade of being busy while I was at the bar. Ill just put my phone to my ear, continue to be ignored, cut and literally run. I look in the mirror, and hey, even blurry I look pretty hot: I am Erika Wasser... this is horse-shit - I am finally ready to go. The bathroom door flies open creating enough wind to blow my hair back, which is sometimes all thats needed for another kind of wind: a second wind of confidence. My swivel is returning to strut, my phone is to my ear. As I approach the table I do my best Kate Moss stare ahead when WHAM!

"Hey Erika, I didn't want to bother you before or when you were on your way to the bathroom..."

Thrown off guard that maybe my cockamamie plans actually ended up working, what in gods green earth do I do NOW with the phone that is attached to my ear, with no one on the other line? The IPhones screen is large enough where I can't just pull it away revealing a dark blank screen. If I don't at least attempt to talk into the phone, it will also be revealed as a prop piece. Being "quick on my feet", I decide I will give him the hold on let me get off the phone face, turn around to conceal said blank screen, and end my make believe conversation in hopes of starting a real one. Just as I commit to my plan, my grandma in Long Island committed to having my use my phone plans minutes. So there I am, standing over a table of himself and his two friends while my phone is ringing, while still being held - no clutched - to the side of my face. Once my Eric Clapton "If I could change the world" ringtone made its full chorus, struck in awe, I just look up, look down, and look for the exit. I can go now.

Okay I can admit strike one when it happens, but Im an alcoholic not a quitter, and so the following week I was back up at bat. Things got off a bit slow, but recurring the last time I let the worst of me get the better of me, I decide to try a new route: cool, calm, and collected. Who knew that when not scheming, everything goes according to scheme. Drinks come, lashes are batted, there was one small snafu of him getting the impression I was a vegetarian after finding out he was a vegan,... but I didn't lie: I do think the way animals are treated is inhumane,... I just left out the part where I don't think that a personal ban of Tuna Tar Tar is going to change that. So I did what any self respecting girl would - popped an altoid, and made sure there was no leftover hamburger in my teeth. 2am comes, I am going to be sick. Luckily, he was right there with me,... so he had 2 and I had 6... I mean please, if all I ate were nuts and grains I wouldn't have much of a tolerance either.

So off we went to the only place in Boston that drunk people can sober up in this great city: The International House of Pancakes, street name: IHOP, and this is where Erika the now non-meat eating idiot strikes again.... not only is there nothing for an aspiring vegan to choose from on the vast late night menu, as there is even "milk" in the name of buttermilk pancakes but his order of nothing was only followed by my order of chicken fingers. I am a chicken eating vegetarian... which as a side note, is actually pretty accurate. I only eat raw fish, and don't really like red meat, but that is neither here nor there because strike two in this grand experiment looked a lot like this: Me, with a vat of fried chicken in front of me, at 2 in the morning, right after I rallied animal rights while he sipped his water, watching me eat they same little birds I would truly like to see better fed. But unfortunately, the buck did not stop there. I am pretty sure, even post fried chicken, he may have tried to kiss me. Now for most people this is black and white, but I was wearing a hat, didn't see it coming, didn't want to hit people in the face with said hat... and still don't know if was never actually simply originally intended for cheekdom. Based on the events however that happened to complete strike three, I am pretty sure the [Wasser] world will never know.

Here is what we do know in the world however, I am in no way shape or form sly, smooth or discreet and apparently my torturous game of how to conceal a crush, to some, wasn't so concealed. After the last debacle of the kiss that never came, or maybe was never even coming, I thought okay - at least now we are getting somewhere. I guess we sort of had a meal... even if it was one sided and ruined my entire Saturday, but I am working on not being so picky. So a couple of weeks pass, and here we go again, to put the final nail in the coffin that is to become the future of my crotch. The aforementioned 'some' to whom my crush was a laughing matter more than a surprise, also works with us. Now when you put three people in a room, two of whom know a secret and the third of whom the secret is about, and supply them with Grey Goose and a restaurant that serves until three.... Strike Three was simply inevitable.
The sun starts to make its way around the world, and our fun night of laughing and sillyness is about to come to a close, so now what? This is when I really wish that my co-worker obliged to the Wasser Family motto: either stop drinking, or stop talking. He is not in the Wasser Clan however, and instead, made it his job to make sure that I can never continue the Wasser Clan. In what seemed to happen as fast as crackhead could steal a little kids bike he slams his hands on the table and screams out "ERIKA JUST WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU"... repeatedly. Know what I would like to do repeatedly right about now? Let's just say it requires said loud mouthed co-worker and a frying pan, and if that doesn't work, a man who goes by 'uncle joey' or charlie... you get the drift and just like that I was catapulted from cool, calm and collected right back into scheming... and this is where it all goes awry.

I could have just stayed silent, remembered our family credo and had another drink. I could have laughed it off, laughing off with it all suspicion of truth to that statement. I could have just left well enough alone, and used this as the easy way to get the word out so I could stop acting a fool! I could have done anything,... anything would have been better than what I chose to do. Embarrassed and humiliated that I had been outed, and even feeling like there was a bit rejection thrown into the mix, I wanted to destroy any inkling that my co-workers statement came straight from the horses mouth. How do I decide to go about damage control prey tell? By overreacting and driving two points home: 1. I absolutely wanted nothing more than to have sex with him and 2. I am a lunatic.

I decided the best laid plan would be to wait until after the event had already happened, when everyone probably had already forgotten, no harm no foul until it is only he and I. I then stare him down, straight in the eye, and say the following:

"I do not want to have sex with you"
Something tells me that this ones going to backfire, not too many ways to read between those lines,... and then I had to drive him home. Making matters worse: we get in the car to have Celine Dion's cover of "Alone" blare through the speakers. As I am still getting over the fact that we sat there as "Til' now, I've always been fine on my own,..." serenaded us, I haul ass to liquor store to tell my new friend and cheaper therapist,  the local liquor store cashier.  Through his grimace and "sheesh" he recommended the one thing stomach butterflies, and nervous anxiety just wouldn't let me do: "why don't you just be yourself?" Sir,... that is exactly the problem - I've got 99 problems and apparently being a bitch is one.

So now after pushing my New Years Resolution all the way to Washington's Birthday, I am pretty much just where I started. A little worse,... but also a little better. The good news? I've been inspired to create my own t-shirt line. Rather an an up and down arrow declaring "The Man" "The Legend" - my shirt also features an up and down arrow but only one word: "Vacant".

From New Years Day To Groundhogs Day: 30 First Dates and the Problems with Resolutions

New Years Eve is a holiday that for most is not to be remembered. An excuse to drink to much, sleep too little, and swap saliva with a stranger only to pay for it at 10am the next morning; and while that may be holiday for some, it is habit for others, namely me, and as such I take a different approach to the end of the year: scrabble, self-reflection, sleep and of course, resolutions. Either because New Years has always been a family holiday, or because I have become one of those spiritual crazies who believes that the way you start the year is indicative of the year you will have - there is only one way to wake up January First: Sober. This is ironic, because it is one of the only days of the year that I do that - which just proves that the spiritual crazies are just that - Nucking Futs. 

After a competitive game of Scrabble where spelling errors and three-letter words were more common than not, along with pages of self-reflection, it was time for the nitty-gritty: resolutions. As I have been resoluting away the same ten pounds since 1997, I figured it might be time for a different, more achievable goal, to ensure that 2009 would be my best year yet. So rather than a size six, okay eight, I set my sights on something that even fat, ugly people have: a boyfriend.
After making sure that January had 31 days, I gave myself one month, exactly four weeks and three days, to rope up what seems to be, for some, as common as a sinus cold, or an iTunes account. Hell, I have friends who have had more boyfriends than metro cards - that being said, how hard could this be?
Well,... here we are four weeks and five days later, (and if your asking where the extra two days came from I gave myself off for Martin Luther King Day, and National Hat Day (Jan. 15)) and very much like the 'me' I was on Jan. 1, I can describe myself using one word, that starts with the letter S, and contains two syllables. No, not sober.... single. Hindsight being 20/20, next year I will be celebrating January 17th - "Ditch New Years Resolutions Day" - but then again, next year I will also go back to managing my midriff.
11pm, December 31st, 2008: I am exactly where I want to be - in bed, alone... but not for long. Tomorrow the sun will rise along with 52 weeks of opportunity, growth, and now with my new boyfriend/resolution making its way in the universe - consistent, condom-less, intercourse. Not that I am promoting unprotected sex, but I always felt like the lack of 'protection' so to speak is one of those fringe benefits of relationships that spruces up serious coupledom and is simply just scary when wheeling and dealing in one-night stands. As fate would have it however, I apparently need to re-read the "Frequency of Thought", because not thirty minutes into the New Year, my thought frequencies found somewhere better to go than the higher power, like a bar with every other schmuck on New Years.
At 12:30 I am awoken by my cell phone only to find a guy I would rather have left in 2008 on the other line. Maybe I wasn't clear when I said I am cooking, and staying in tonight - or maybe he simply just did not believe me, but one of the two prior reasons somehow led him, and what sounded like 15 of his friends, to my lobby.

"Okay, well if your not going out, were here! Hope you have food and drinks!"
I blame the fact that he is European and doesn't completely comprehend the concept that no means no, which is frankly how we got ourselves into this 'acquaintances who slept together' predicament in the first place, but I have now been taken out of a drunken sleep, I'm wearing more flour than I cooked with, scrabble tiles are covering my floor and for reasons I haven't even thought of yet; no... You, and your friends, are not coming into my apartment.
It seems that when he asked "What are we doing for New Years" and I said "Nothing" that I was not explicit enough. Reiterating that exact conversation, and knowing he has a plethora of friends in my building, I suggest going to one of their apartments and I'll get myself together and say Hi. Not accepting this as a response, he did what would be expected of a frustrated Frenchmen and surrendered,… by hanging up. So literally less than two thousand seconds into the New Year, I have already been accosted, and hung up on - and just like that, I was headed back in the direction of the condom isle.
Where does a girl go when she's already up and not ready to admit defeat? Not to sound cliché, but that tacky show Cheers was on to something when they said you want to go to a place where everyone knows your name. Where is that place for me? The South End. So with ten minutes, a pair of spanx, and a Michael Kors clutch - out with my spiritual soberness, and in with my two fail-safe vices: vodka and gay men. Alone both vodka and gay men have the innate power of making everything infinitely better around you. The combination? Saddam Hussein himself could have given you herpes, and all of a sudden you'll feel as if Herpecin-L hanging out of your pockets is the must have accessory of the season. Come 4am, J and I were sufficiently drunk, both been kissed, and were back at Casa Wassa with George Michael in the background.
Looking as if 2009 had a striking resemblance to 2008, after only one day it was far too early to throw in the towel to my grail-quest. I mean even average American's last until Jan. 17th until they "ditch their resolutions" on "Ditch New Years Resolutions Day". Thinking myself better than the average American, I was going to keep walking down Ridiculous Road. Luckily for me, January First showed promise that maybe my road was not so ridiculous.
After ditching my original hope of waking up sans hangover to reflect on the year that's gone by, I had to come up with a new plan, and so rather than yoga and nothing fried, J and I towed it to the Bristol Lounge. All seemed right in the world: it was noon, and we were tipsy. Turning our usual state into a utopian one, we were also surrounded by truffle fries. To look back on 2008 and forward into 2009, we played our favorite game, 'Inside the Actors Studio', where we ask each other seeming deep questions in comedically serious tone. By champagne bottle #2, the serious tone, became not so serious, and the deep questions came to "do you consider me an A-List celebrity?",... "Would you rather be sitting with Britney Spears?” Before I could tell Jamie, that while I do love his company - Britney would be nice, in walks a regular of the restaurant Jamie manages. Older, but cute. Well dressed, well built, and hey - I'm a bottle and a half in,... everyone was looking pretty good to me.
We all start talking, and the infamous question arises, "Are You Single?” Why yes sir, I am! Too bad for him however, he was picking up food for his pregnant wife but that doesn't mean he wasn't going to then try to awkwardly set me up with his friend. After the usual nonsense of "he's really good looking and the nicest guy, and he's a Jew!", he looks me dead in the eye like he's about to ask me for my liver (which quite frankly anyone who gets stuck with my liver? Jokes on them) and says, "So, can I set you up?” What would usually be an automatic 'no' was stilted by the fact that I have my resolution in mind. "I know he'll like you - because I like you". Seems like good enough logic to me, and then his goodwill took a turn for the worst. 

It is one thing to make sweeping statements like, "oh can I set you up?", it is quite another to get his friend on the phone, describe me to said friend like I am not sitting right across the table, and then chase me around the Bristol Lounge with a digital camera, on top of asking me to turn around so he can take a good look of my ass. He immediately turns from amicable to assailant, my liquid brunch is on the tilts of being ruined, and I have had enough. Making matters worse he finally gets a flash in my direction only to look at the camera, and go, "well, its as pretty as pretty needs to be". First off, what in fresh hell does that mean? Secondly, what happened to your pregnant wife? Go Home. Thirdly, only after he forcefully threw his phone at me with his "really good-looking, nicest guy ever, Jew" friend on the other end - I found out there were a few descriptive words that our friend here left out. Along with "nice" and "good looking" and "Jewish" should have been "Widowed" "Over 40" and "Three Kids". Needless to say, back to the boyfriend drawing board.
More than halfway through the month, it became clear to me that all men were one of three g's: Gay, Gross, or had a Girlfriend. Sparing everyone the details of 21 days worth of worthless dates and mates, it all came full circle at lunch with my girlfriend who had to sit by and watch as my cockamamie experiment went from novel idea, to bad, to worse. Lets just say, I have come up with my first book idea; From New Years Day to Groundhogs Day: 30 first dates, and the Problem with Resolutions. With every story I told her, along with laughter, was this face of, for lack of better word, pity. D is one my close friends who is smugly coupled with a man I would never date - he and I just don't see eye-to-eye. (Although he doesn't see eye to eye with most things, as he has barely 5' 7'') Regardless, she has the audacity suggest that maybe it is I, and not the first half of the phone book that I have surely dated, that has the problem. Can you believe that? Me? Moi? Honey - what you confuse for picky, I call basic standards.

"Well, what about Brad?"
Him! Are you kidding me? That could have never worked for two words and one reason: Faneuil Hall. He saw nightlife heaven, I see tourist trap, Celtic's Jersey wearing cesspool where drinks are served in dixie cups and top shelf alcohol is Absolute. So the hours of us going anywhere after ten were out. Aside from the fact that one mans trash is clearly another mans treasure, he invited me to keggers and flip cup tournaments. I didn't do that shit when it was age appropriate, aka 17; I am sure as hell not doing that shit now. Next?

"Okay,... and what was wrong with Robert?"

Short and geographically undesirable. Dating him would mean two things I just don't do: Flat Shoes, and Suburbs. Kapeech?
Down the list we went until she finally waved her white flag of disapproval and settled for another drink, and another topic of conversation. The only good point she did make was, "if this is how we talk about other people, what do you think people are saying about you?" Having an answer for almost everything, I had an answer for that too. We can thank the Bristol Lounge Photographer for this one; I'm "as pretty as pretty needs to be". But on a serious note, I ask you, given the aforementioned reasoning, is it me? I didn't think so either until the turns of fate had their way...

To Be Continued,...