Misseducated

I have indeed hosted a naked party. So, here’s what I’ve learned about how to host a fantastic naked party...

* Spread the word to like-minded people.

* Lead by example, i.e., Be naked. 

* Curate a safe yet exciting experience.

Warm, Comfortable Space

Technology & Privacy

No Hard Alcohol

Activities & Ambiance

* Consider a theme or designated phases of the evening.

* Try to reach a critical mass of nudity, with female bodies first

* Have a vetted guest list.

Conclusion

I withheld sex from a man this week. To be honest, as a woman who likes sex, it’s something that I rarely do. But certain times call for certain measures.

I was lying topless in my jeans on the couch in Miguel’s apartment. It was a Monday. He had a nice enough place. His dog sat across from me in a small, bundled bed on the living room floor. There was a large TV and a box set of Catan sitting on the low table beneath it. We were on the 5th floor. The apartment’s windows looked out over the gentle night sky and the lit football pitch of a park nearby.

This was the second time Miguel and I had ever met. I had left him a vulnerable voice note in Spanish that morning:

“I’m feeling kind of lonely these days. Any chance I could come over and we could cuddle?”

At this point, we had been making out for about an hour. Miguel had gotten up to fetch the food we had ordered from Rappi. I was left there, puzzling to myself: Was I going to have sex with him? Did I want to? Of course I did. He had a great mane of thick, long hair. He was far taller and stronger than me. Strangely enough, he had almost exactly the same day job that I used to have in Business Analytics. At times during our brief conversations, he had been gentlemanly and sweet. He had served me a small glass of whisky. And yet. And yet.

I jumped up off the couch just in time, as he opened the front door of his apartment, bag of sushi in hand.  

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I called out. But I didn’t need the bathroom. I needed a small, quiet moment with myself.

I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. My skin was pale. My hair, a short bob perpetually fading from blonde to brown, was a mess. I wore a multi-colored beaded necklace. My eyes were deep, dark brown, and my cheeks were rosy. I felt attractive, but I also found myself playing along a dicey line. Part of me desperately wanted to have sex with Miguel. And part of me didn’t. And I had about 30 seconds to figure out why.

I thought back to the hour we had just spent making out. Miguel had been constantly trying to undo the top button of my black jeans. Again and again. I kept batting his hand away. It was like he had the memory of a goldfish swimming around and coming across the same single leaf in its fishbowl. After last week’s casual sex, I was looking for more than just a one-night stand. I wanted to have sex with somebody I loved. I wanted to make love to somebody, literally. I wanted to be able to look them in the eye.

Was I withholding sex from him because I was a prude? Because I was ashamed of what we were doing? Out of fear or the feeling that my sanctity, somehow, as a woman was going to be slightly more shattered into a million pieces than it already was? I had to delineate this in my mind, because I had been raised with the idea that sex was bad and that the more I could claw back of my virginity, the purer, the more desirable and ultimately the more lovable I would be.

But this situation with Miguel was about something else. This had nothing to do with the shame and angst of my body. This was about his intentions. Why did Miguel want to have sex with me? Did he love me? Did he care about me? Did he want to hold me through the emotional rollercoaster of these last days of my period? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. I was left in doubt.

When it came down to it (no pun intended), I decided to not have sex with Miguel because I liked him. I wanted to give him a second chance. I wanted to see if he’d take me out for another date. If he’d message me the next day and ask how my day was going. If he’d help transport us to some unknown date in the near future, when he would be a little less sex crazy and a little more willing to ask me questions about how I saw the world these days. It's a paradox, I guess. I live in a world where I can swipe on apps and find people to hop in bed with all the time. But somehow, that has manifested in me choosing not to have sex with someone, if I think there might be something more.

So I returned to the living room. Miguel was waiting for me on the couch.

“Hey,” I said to him, “I do really want to have sex with you. But I only really enjoy having sex with people that I know. I feel like I don’t really know you yet, so I’d rather wait and see. I’m looking for someone whose more of a lover right now.” Obviously, I wasn’t going to reveal that I thought we might have a future together. But I told him I wanted something at least a bit more serious, an amante or a noviocito.

These days I’ve been trying to listen to men more. In the past, I’ve been tempted to only hear what I wanted to hear, and not grapple with the reality of our situation. I’ve clung to men who told me they didn’t want a relationship with me, only to finally get the message some months later. That often left me with a painful hole in my heart. With so much societal b******t and pressure about finding “the one”, I’ve found it hard to tear off my own pair of rosy-glow sunglasses. I can get so swept up in seeing what I want to see.

With Miguel, I was determined not to do that. When he spoke, it ultimately brought up some red flags. He told me he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. That the maximum he was looking for was an open relationship. He wasn’t considering commitment at all. And he was probably going to be moving to Brazil. His words proved to me that we had entered into this situation with different intentions. Still, I couldn’t process all my emotions in the moment that night. It just felt incredibly jarring. Like we were two tectonic plates shifting over each other, jamming together, rather than moving in delicate unison. Him, trying to have sex, and me trying to push him into other, more intimate activities, like cuddling or being present. Seeing each other vulnerably, so that one day, we might be able to make love.

Sometime later, after I had resisted a great deal, Miguel finally convinced me to get naked with him. We moved to his bedroom. He was able to make me orgasm and squirt, but then he was really into tit-f*****g me. That made me feel degraded, as did the fact that he insisted that I give him a b*****b.

Overall, I enjoyed having all kinds of sex that isn’t penetrative with him. And I wasn’t afraid to cuddle him. I did my best, in my witchy, womanly way, to show him that I could be more than just a sex buddy. I could be a lover. I tried to give him a hint of what it might mean to be loved by me. But that dark cloud of doubt lingered over my head. We ate sushi in his kitchen until about midnight. That’s when he told me had wouldn’t have time to hang out with me before he left on a trip to Europe. He’d be gone for three weeks, essentially. That made me feel, well, in tech product language, deprioritized.

It's been a couple of days since then, and I’m not holding my breath about Miguel. He messaged me, but he hasn’t asked if I want to hang out with him again, at least not before he leaves. Who knows if I will even hear from him again after he sets off. My guess is, probably not. I thought that sexual liberation was about getting to f**k whoever you wanted all the time. But I’ve found that for me, this attitude is not very fulfilling. With Miguel, at least, it was nice to find someone who I could see a future with. Such men do exist, even if they come commitment-phobic, incredibly horny and a little emotionally distant. Even if they are wrong for me, I am glad to know that they are out there.

The Launch

It started last Thursday night, in the nook of a wine bar near my house. I was on my way back from a palatable but slightly boring crypto event, not quite ready to call it a night. I got lucky. Soon, I was sitting at the bar, sipping a mezcal Negroni with Andres and his friend. They were from Puerto Rico, visiting Mexico City for the weekend only.

As we joked in Spanglish about my embarrassingly terrible sense of geography, I got a good look at him. Andres had jet black hair, and round black glasses, and a black mustache. He looked like he belonged in a hip, punk record store in Bushwick. The smoky aroma of burning candles, and their flickering orange glow, kindled a warm, gentle energy in the room.

I had been going around town complaining to everyone for months that I was “as dry as a desert”. Yet now I was sitting in Andres’s presence, this handsome 34-year-old man with a mischievous gaze. I found myself flicking my hair and giggling (in a way that annoyed me) as he compared me to Shiv Roy from “Succession”. I bathed in his attention. It must have been my blonde bob haircut. I posed, resting my chin on my hand, and batting my eyes at him. I felt like a fraud, testing out the rusty tricks of my old trade in real time. Even though he was sitting right next to me, Andres seemed so unreachable. They were on their way to a concert. A couple flirtatious jokes later and we made plans to meet up in the same place tomorrow. We didn’t exchange numbers. I made some excuses about having to send emails at 10pm on a Thursday, and we parted ways.

The Bumpy Lift Off

The next day, Friday, was the full moon. It was just what my writing teacher had prophesied. I had to use the energy of the moon and let go of “whatever wasn’t serving me.” By this the universe meant my celibacy, or so I interpreted. I was going to wear my trendiest, most colorful suit, look like an absolute hot badass, and get my way with Andres.

That evening, I set off to the wine bar again, looking as fabulous as I hoped I could feel. I had quietly mentioned my plans to get with him to all of my friends, except one. And this is where I made a terrible mistake. I invited my beautiful Colombian female friend, Isa, to join me. The paradox of female friendship gets complicated. My beautiful female friends are also cool and interesting people that I want to hang out with. But the problem then is that every guy I introduce them to also wants to f**k them.

When we finally got back to the wine bar, my god, I could feel that Andres was attracted to Isa. I could feel myself searing in silent jealousy. He was supposed to be mine. And now he was asking her all kinds of suggestive questions.

“What do you do for a living? Do you have a boyfriend?” Andres muttered to her in Spanish. I found myself steering the conversation back into English and Spanglish, like the drunk driver of a runaway train, trying to regain control. My Spanish is good, but not good enough to compete with the incredible Isa for the man of my fast-f*****g dreams.

As the night went on, Andres seemed like a puppy lost in a park. He kept saying things like,

“Where should we go next? You know this city better than I do.”

All I could think about was that I didn’t want to be responsible for chaperoning him and his dude friends around the city. I imagined Andres had a very controlling mother or past girlfriends. He wanted someone else to make all the decisions. One of my ex-boyfriends had a sergeant-like mother and had also wanted me to be his mother and make all his life decisions for him too. So I wasn’t having any of it. It was a big turn off. But because I’m an opinionated woman with a bristly personality, as far as first impressions go, I seem to fit that part.

I found myself growing quieter at the table. Andres decided on the bar we’d go to next. I grew quieter and quieter still, as our group banded together down the street. Isa and Andres walked together, while I chatted to Andres’s friends and tried to play it cool. It was a vicious cycle. I was internalizing my own inferiority.

“Excuse me,” I said, leaving the group at the next bar. I went to the bathroom. I locked the door and looked at myself in the mirror. I saw the tight, velvet straps of my thin tank top. I saw my cleavage and my bare arms above the colors of my patterned suit.

“Come on, Tash,” I wrangled myself, “You can do this! He’d be stupid not to get with you.”

I kept muttering to myself, as I returned to the table. Isa and Andres were sitting next to each other. I sat down, stuck yet again in a conversation with Andres’s perfectly charming friend. I tried to laugh. I tried to crack jokes and just seem like the funnest girl in the whole of Mexico City.

“My Uber is here,” Isa said at last. I noticed the way Andres was looking at her, and I grit my teeth. I had to make a move.

“Want to come check out my place?” I asked him, biting my lip suggestively, “I’d rather not walk home alone.”

Andres smiled at me a little, with a glint of surprise in his eye. Then he nodded emphatically. I glanced over at his friends.

“We’ll go check out that club,” they muttered quickly. 

The Landing

It was strange walking back to my house together. We were speaking Spanglish, but when we switched to just English or Spanish, small things were getting tripped up and lost in translation. I tried to keep the conversation flowing as we weaved through the darkened streets. We both knew what we were doing. That much was clear. And yet, I felt so awkward about it. What if Andres stopped at my front door and went back to hang out with his friends? What if he took one look at my giant triangle of pubic hair and thought nope?

Time was of the essence. Andres was leaving for Puerto Rico on Sunday, so we had a maximum of two nights together. Back at my house, I turned on the light and got us a glass of water each. I found myself nervously rearranging my piles of stuff. Like my backpack and clothes that had been on my couch, and a blanket and some papers and other inanimate crap. Anything to distract me in the moment from whatever we were about to do.

Andres sat down. I sat next to him, leaning in. Then s**t got weird. I can’t remember how it came up, but we started talking about him doing something to impress me.

“What would I need to do?” he said.

“It depends on how well you perform,” I replied.

“Well, what do I need to do to perform?”

It was jarring. Andres was so attractive, and yet the sexy talk was like jamming two pieces of Lego together that were never supposed to fit. Rather than continue it any longer, I kissed him. We quickly turned over, ripping off our clothes, severing the anticipation that had built in the 30 hours since we had first laid eyes on each other. We rushed to peel back all the layers, with no idea of what we might do once we got there. I found myself naked within the first few minutes. Making out on a couch in a suit, it turns out, isn’t that comfortable. Once my suit was off, well, I was barely wearing anything.

In the scratchy light of my living room, we saw each other in full flesh. I felt like I had unwrapped some unwanted gifts. Was it disappointment? Trickiness? Complexity? Of course, I wanted him to f**k me. Soon enough, I was lying naked on my couch. And he was eating me out quite handsomely. And all I was thinking was: Am I really all that attracted to men? Why are we doing this? I know nothing about this man. I barely know his first name.

The Learnings

With casual sex, it’s all the physical. And don’t get me wrong, the physical can be hot. With Andres that Friday night, it definitely was. But once the basic surprise and anticipation of the physical is out of the way, it begs far deeper, different questions.

First of all, I was reminded that having sex with someone who I have no emotional connection to is no fun at all. A one-night stand such as this is like eating a delicious meal without getting any of the flavor. Sure, you’re hungry, you’re starving even, you’re going to e…

Hello everyone,

I’m super excited to share my interview with Dr. Kristin Neff, self-compassion expert, author, researcher, professor and TedX Speaker.

Check out her website and workshops at the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion: https://self-compassion.org/

Link to Dr. Neff’s TedX Talk (one of my personal favorites!)

Link to her latest book, Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power And Thrive

Stay up to date with her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neffselfcompassion/

I hope you find a self-compassion technique or practice that works for you! :)

Lots of love,

Tash 🤗 🌷

Hey friend,

Have you ever returned to a place, only to be flooded with memories from when you were there before? Maybe it was a small, forested park where you went on a date with a previous partner, at a time in your life when you were deeply in love with each other. Maybe it was a candlelit bar where you went drinking with friends you no longer keep in touch with. Yet returning there, after time has passed, feels both visceral and nostalgic. That’s the position I found myself in a couple weeks ago. I wrote this piece about my experience and performed it at the Spring Salon of my writing class, Notes on Your Notes, taught by Joshua and Adam. They are great writing teachers who have built a wonderful community. Paid subscribers will get to listen to the story. So, tell us: when did you go back somewhere, only to be flooded with memories? Who had you been there with? And where were you in life the time you went back? What was that like?

Lots of Love,

Tash 🤗

I’m over the moon to share today’s episode of Misseducated with you: Female Orgasms 101, with Dr. Laurie Mintz, where we dive in deep all about female pleasure, the orgasm gap and how women can have more orgasms. Here are a couple show notes:

* Contact Dr. Laurie on her website: https://www.drlauriemintz.com/about-laurie-mintz

* Buy her best-selling book, Becoming Cliterate: https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Cliterate-Orgasm-Equality-Matters/dp/0062484389

* Her articles on Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/stress-and-sex

* Find her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlauriemintz/

In this episode, I read aloud my article, "How To Achieve Orgasm Equality". This piece discusses sex in depth. I advise my family to not read it. Continue at your peril.

I have had sex with about 40 men in my life so far. Sadly, only a few of them could make me orgasm; I remember all three of them fondly. A couple of others allowed me the time and space for my vibrator. When I realized how rare these men were, far greater questions hit me. Did I pick the wrong guy 37 times? Or put simply: is there something terribly wrong with me?

It turns out that I am not alone. My experience is so common there’s a statistic in social science dedicated to it: the orgasm gap. We'll dive into: what the orgasm gap is, and how big it is, the clitoris, redefining what we mean by "vagina" and "sex", vibrators, anal, and all kinds of other tips. Enjoy!

Warning: sexual violence and death are mentioned.

This week, on Wednesday March 8th 2023, it was International Women’s Day. Almost two years to the day since the most traumatic event of my life.

Misseducated is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I left my house at about 3pm to attend the women’s marches in Mexico City. I was wearing purple, following the dress code my friend had told me about. As I left my apartment, I grabbed a 500 pesos note from my drawer. I knew instinctively what I had to do.

As I walked to the march, crowds of women also wearing purple and holding signs gradually gathered around me. My throat started to swell up. I hadn’t expected to get emotional already. The chanting, the energy, the spirits of all the women overwhelmed me.

“¡Señor, señora, no sea indiferente, se matan las mujeres en la cara de la gente!"

(“Sir, Madam, don’t be indifferent, they are killing women in the face of the people!”)

If you didn’t know already, I am one of the millions of women who has experienced sexual violence in Mexico. At the marches that day, I thought about it a lot. I thought about how much I had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder these last two years. I thought about all the women who had never made it out alive, who had never been found, and who might have been saved if they had had 500 pesos on them at the time. And how many of their abusers were living free out there in the world, like my abuser was. I also thought about how unbelievable it is that I now call Mexico my home. This country is so beautiful, so vibrant and magical. But there is no justice. When unspeakably awful things happen here, there are no consequences for the perpetrators. In addition to not committing crimes in the first place, that is what needs to change.

By the time I met my friends at the Angel of Independence statue, I was crying already. I was embarrassed about being so emotional in front of them and was grateful that they held space for me. I had a good old sob, right there in front of the crowds of people. But I felt determined to make it count.

I shared my plan with Itzel, my amazing photographer friend, and her friend Renata, who I had just met. We walked around the statue, dipping through the crowds to find the right angle in the sun. I took out my 500 pesos note. I held it up to the Angel of Independence.

Another girl gave us some flowers.

That’s the story behind these pictures. Two years ago, I made it out of there. I live to tell the tale today. I am free. He didn’t get me. But I was only saved because I had money. My story is that 500 pesos, about $25USD, was the difference between me being raped or not raped. Killed or not killed. This privilege is not lost on me. It’s the harsh, damning reality of the world we live in. I think of all the missing women in Mexico, and the family members I saw that day who were marching for them. What would it have taken for them to be saved? How many of them would still be alive right now if they had had $25USD in cash?

The crowds were singing and the air was vibrant and fun. There were beautiful signs of painted uteruses with the ovaries putting up two middle fingers.

“¡El que no brinque es macho!”

(“Whoever doesn’t jump is a macho!”)

After that chant, the entire crowd would start jumping each time. There were “callaberas” (horse riders) on horseback from Veracruz. There were Otomi women, the oldest indigenous group in Mexico who also predate the Aztecs, in their colorful, traditional dress.

But as we headed down Reforma, to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, I couldn’t help but notice the few men in the crowd. They were often holding crosses or signs with names on them, “Jimena”, “Diana” or “mi prima” (my cousin). They wore t-shirts with a woman’s photo on them. Each one a named face of the roughly 25,000 desaparecidas (missing women) in Mexico. Families and friends travelled in groups, often wearing similar clothes, like beacons of their loved one’s voices in physical form. This was a stark contrast from the flyers stamped across the graffitied fronts of buildings, with pictures of men’s faces and their names, tagging them as “violador” (rapist), “golpeador” (beater) or “abusor psicológico” (psychological abuser).

We passed one woman holding up a sign which read,

“Escribeme el nombre de tu acosador / violador / feminicida”

“Write the name of your stalker, rapist, femicide”

People were queuing up to write names all over her body with thick, black markers. This was another emotional moment for me. I knew I wanted to write something. But the truth is, I don’t know the name of my abuser and I never will. I used Google translate on my phone. I was shaking as I wrote on her arm, “Anónimo” (Anonymous). Itzel captured this really incredible picture.

I felt the weight of my privilege as I was writing. I thought about all the women in Mexico who had experienced violence at the hands of someone whose name they would never know, like me. I thought about the women who had died at the hands of anonymous abusers. That moment was incredibly heavy. But it made me think about how I could be using my privilege more to help other people. I felt like I was carrying the weight of duty on my shoulders.

At sunset, we passed about a hundred female police officers, silently standing in a long row. Some had flowers stuffed in the pockets of their black armored suits. Others stood expressionlessly as the thousands of women marched in front of them. When we arrived in Centro, the downtown area, I saw some stores had been smashed. The air was more tense and seemed angrier there. But none of the damage done to the storefronts could compare to the gravity of what the women were fighting for. To the absolute unspeakable immensity of how many people had been murdered, how many innocent lives had been lost or ruined forever by violence and grief.

By this point, we had entered the Zocalo, the main square and the center of government. The crowd was booming. Itzel, Renata and I felt exhausted. We were ready to go home. The last sign I took a picture of was:

“Existo porque resisto”

(“I exist because I resist.”)

I thought about how I still existed because I had resisted in the moment on that hilltop in Oaxaca two years ago. I felt incredibly grateful for that, for standing up for myself so that I could have a chance of being whole again, like I feel now.

As we got in a taxi to head back to my apartment, I remembered a sign I had seen earlier that day.

“Por que? Algo tan simple cómo volver a casa es un privilegio.”

(“Why? Something as simple as coming home is a privilege.”)

p.s. A photo of Itzel being a badass photographer:

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Alessia said she wasn’t looking for anything serious. She said she just wanted to be friends.

How could that be? I dared to entertain the question. When I had held her in my arms only a week before. When she had curled up into my chest, as I ran my fingers along her back searchingly. When I had gone out on a whim and decided to secede myself to being the man in our relationship. When I had admitted to myself in a state of weakness, or perhaps, in a state of emboldened vulnerability that I wanted to take care of her. That I wanted to make her happy. Make her smile.

Hold her hand. I felt resentful of the universe, for some reason. Bringing something, someone, so beautiful into my life, only to have them turned away in an instant, like a swipe on a dating app, as we descended back into the distance of acquaintances. And I began to question again whether two people can ever really love each other in the same way at the same time.

The more she pulled away, the more I began to see what I was projecting onto her. Me, the analytical. The business-like. The practical. Wanting a partner, the creative. The more fun-loving, free-spirited. I have been told since I was young that I look like my dad, and that I’m practical like him too. This was finally a role I was willing to perform. Not the female, receiving. But the male, competing, asserting, prospering, creating, protecting. 

The truth is, I had to overcome so much of myself just to admit that I was interested in her in the first place. I decided to act on it, to face the inner battle. And though I have lost her now, in my woundedness I have gained battle scars, and confidence. I have found new strength. Alessia may have been the first girl I have kissed in six years. But she is not the first girl I have ever been attracted to. Not even this year. Not even in this phase of life. 

In fact, last week, the strangest thing happened. Alessia had invited me to a party just after we met. On my way to meet her at the party, I was doing all manner of questioning my sexuality. I knew this time I was too interested in her, I liked her too much, to let this one go. I bought a bottle of wine for her friend’s birthday. And just as I was heading down the busy, lamp-lit street, someone called my name,

“Tash?”

I squinted, confused between the hood lights of cars and the faces of a group I was passing. I focused in on the person standing in front of me. It was Shayna. Shayna Weldon. A woman I had worked with eight years ago. A creative director at a non-profit I interned at in D.C. We made small talk on the sidewalk, before we promised to get coffee that week. As I walked away, I could hardly piece together what had happened. Shayna was a hectic, zig-zagging artist. I remember she brought a couple of us to her co-op and laid out all these design books and print magazines on her floor all those years ago. And I was so in awe of her. And I was so inspired by her. And at the time, I remember, Shayna had a girlfriend. And I was 20 and had a decent amount of acne from the humidity of the D.C. summer. I remember that I had felt that pull in my body, that crush on Shayna. I was attracted to her. That was my truth. 

I don’t claim to be bi-sexual. I’m considering, perhaps, that I can begin to claim that I’m queer. But then I think of my family, and how I’m the oldest of the four siblings, and all my siblings are in monogamous, heterosexual relationships and I’m just not. Of course there is some deep-seated, bellyaching, twisted shame there. My great-grandmother’s brother was gay in San Francisco in the 1940s and onwards. He taught piano at Mills College. I have a great picture of him. But he’s the last gay in our family’s village. Certainly for a couple generations. Why do I have to be the one in my family to break convention over and over? Move to Mexico to become a writer, leaving the stability of my corporate crap and the world of expectations and business school behind, now only to become a lesbian? Jesus Christ. Why do I have to be the one to go out on whim after whim? Why can’t I just go home to England, and marry a nice, rich but terribly boring banker, and butter my scones with a specific, small, silver butter knife that’s only used at tea parties?

And that’s why, holding Alessia in my arms, (for the record, she is another hectic, zig-zagging artist), it had taken a lot inside of me to get me there. I felt like I had already gone all the way with her.

I told her that I can’t be friends with her. I like her too much. She’s too cool for me to just see casually, to get hooked into the never-ending sea and landscape of heartbreak of the millennial world of dating and sex. And so, somehow the wounded yet adult-inclined part of me managed to express my need for a partner to her, for something more. And if she couldn’t give that to me, well, I figured it would be better for me to not see her at all for a while. After eight months of being with a guy that I was holding myself back from, somehow I let her in. Somehow I told myself this time, I would let myself love this person fully. Perhaps that’s what I come away with. The true, deep-seated feeling that I have it in me to give myself to another person and not hold back.

Still, I’ll always remember when I first kissed her in that mescal bar. And how sweet and good and intense it felt. And how we almost had sex right then and there, standing in the tiny, crowded space in front of all those people. And I felt like a pillar of myself. I felt like a column, a tower. A sexy temple. 

Hello! I usually only write about my romantic life for my paid subscribers. Today, I’m offering a story for everyone, to give you a taste of what’s behind the paywall. All my stories are true, as I remember them, but I have changed some details to protect people’s privacy; as my writing teacher, Ann Randolph, tells me, “A story told twice is fiction”. So, consider subscribing to read more stories with all the juicy details.

I’m also going to enable to chat feature in Substack so you can tell me about the times you’ve looked for a lover also…

I lay on my couch last night. It was a Thursday, and my mood was sour. It had been a long week, almost a month since my breakup. I frowned in the low light of the early evening. I felt apathetic, yet restless. I wanted to dip into the distraction of my phone. It was like I was becoming a crotchety old lady. Like the one in London who used to shout down at us from her balcony when I was a kid, when we filled the bird bath with twigs and stones.

I grumbled to myself. Why was my bed so empty? When was the last time someone had given me a hug? Images of couples walking down my street holding hands, or stealing a kiss, surfaced in my mind. I could have smelt the sickening sweetness rolling off their shoulders. How come they? Why not me? When will I?

I hugged my navy blue couch cushion tighter. I nestled my nose against the warm skin of my own shoulder, imagining that it was someone’s chest. Open. Warm. And that he was cradling me in his arms.

I had spent most of that week hopping between galleries at Zonamaco, or Art Week in Mexico City. I had descended upon the stained-glass, art-deco facades of trendy, candlelit bars in Juarez and Roma Norte and Condesa. I had tried to admire some of the art, at least. But these events had been far more about the people than the paintings or the portraits; the city’s hottest Bright Young Things were there, only a century after Evelyn Waugh.

I had tried to flirt with a guy in a crisp, lime-green suit, wearing thick rectangular sunglasses indoors. I had tried to chat to a bearded man in all black, a turtleneck and a long, leather coat. Like he had been picked up from some underground rave in Bushwick and plonked into the middle of this cavernous room of bizarre, contorted statues and screens for the NFTs. I had tried to get the attention of a man with dark ginger hair, wearing a mosaic of necklaces and embroidered shirts. He had smelled like incense, and said he ran a boutique mushroom chocolate business. But as we had exchanged phone numbers, and I had glanced hopefully up into the warmth of his green eyes, I knew he would never silently shut the door of my apartment behind us. He would never lie down on my couch. He would never assume the exact position where I was at that moment, with my navy blue couch cushion and my own shoulder there, trying to comfort myself.

As I rolled over and considered taking a nap, suddenly my phone screen flashed through the darkness. My friend had texted me. An invitation to a piano bar nearby. Suddenly I felt the deep silence of my apartment. The stillness was haunting me. I texted my friend to tell her I would be there. I waited to see if she would text back. As I lingered for a moment, I decided I couldn’t sit in the emptiness anymore. I wanted something. I wanted somebody. I wanted someone to fill the silence.

I got up off my couch. I did my makeup. I put on a tight, long, pleather brown dress with a white turtleneck underneath. I locked my front door and left the darkness of my apartment behind me. I ate duck tacos at a restaurant on my own, unable to fully appreciate the delicious plum sauce.

As I paid the bill, my phone screen lit up again. My friend had cancelled on me. I would go to the piano bar alone. I walked down the street there alone also. At a crosswalk, I caught a glimpse of a man, one of the well-dressed bearded ones with nice cheekbones. But a car pulled up, and he got into it, and we drifted apart, like two suns spreading away in the vastness of an expanding universe.  

I turned the corner and reached the piano bar. Just then, I saw a couple smoking cigarettes outside. I don’t quite know how to tell you this. Maybe there’s no other way to say it. But she stood out to me. She had short brown hair, and styled bangs. She was wearing a strapless, black top. Her cleavage was deep, and so were her curves. A tall man with glasses and long, blonde hair stood next to her. I remember she was smiling. I remember she was smiling at me.

“Are you guys going to the piano bar too?” I found myself saying.

“Wait, what?” she replied. She was American, undoubtedly. And then, as if we had known each other for ages, she said, “We’re drinking with friends in the wine place downstairs. You can come sit down with us if you want.”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” I said, looking at the tall man then back to her again, “How do you guys know each other?”

“We met on the internet,” she said.

“The apps?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” I said, probing further. The tall man said nothing.

Her name was Alessia, she told me, though she wasn’t Italian. She was from D.C., but technically the Maryland part. She was half-American, half-Ecuadorian. And she was an artist. And she had a dog. I looked at the dark purple stone pendant hanging around her neck.

“I’ve been wanting to get a giant lizard tattoo on my arm for like 10 years,” she told me, “I finally booked my session on Valentine’s Day. I’m going to do it!”

“That’s awesome,” I said, noticing another long, rectangular tattoo with an inscription on her arm. I thought back to my ex, and the tattoos he had on his arm. And how much I loved them. And how colourful they were. And I thought about how edgy, and how sexy, she was going to look with her new tattoo.

“I like your dress. And your haircut. You won’t be single for long,” she said to me.

I smirked, but I felt myself stiffening. I folded my arms. My insides squirmed. On Feeld, the mother of all quirky dating apps, I had put my sexuality as “heteroflexible”. Was that what this was about? Was this a moment of pure fun? Or a moment of shame and weakness? I suddenly resented Alessia for telling me all about the cool art parties she was hosting. I felt like we had clicked, and now I wanted to unclick from her. And ignore whatever had happened. And continue on to find some swanky man with glasses in a suit at the bar. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

A couple days earlier, I had texted my gay friend.

“My great-grandmother’s brother was gay,” I messaged him, “Do they know if sexuality is genetic?”

“I think they discovered a ‘gay gene’,” he messaged back, “But it was debunked. Anyway, I think it’s socially constructed. Like no one can even grapple with just how thoroughly they’ve been taught to be straight.”

His words now felt like a tap at my shoulder. And then a slightly bigger slap round the head. Alessia brought us inside, and we went through the motions. We had a glass of wine with her friends. We got the check. Her friends left, and we went up to the piano bar afterwards, the tall man following quietly behind us. But all the while, my thoughts and my feelings were nagging me. I had barely had any encounters with women. Yet in those few cases, I found myself mystified. I was so nervous even though I was trying to play it cool. I had been to pride parades. I remembered when the White House lit up with rainbow flags the day that gay marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court. I had plenty of friends that were gay.  

“…no one can even grapple with just how thoroughly they’ve been taught to be straight…”

We sat down in the corner behind the piano at the back of the bar. I wanted to sit next to her, but instead I sat next to her date (apparently I wasn’t crashing whatever they were doing). I made small talk with him. It turned out he was cycling from Alaska to Argentina, or something as insane and adventurous as that.

Alessia leant over him, towards me. She handed me…