Ever wonder how to get over the girl you’ve gone on one date with? Keep reading. Your lesbian big sister is here to help.
Can we take a moment and discuss a true lesbian epidemic I seem to be encountering more and more as of late? Not being able to shake off a girl that we’ve gone on a mere one to three dates with. But don’t you worry; I’m going to teach you how to get over the girl you hardly know but can’t seem to get out of your head.
Before we deep dive into this ever-so-complicated mess of a situation, I’m pressed to tell you something ~utterly~ important. I’m not judging any of you ladies who are currently in the thick of this illness or have suffered through it in the past. I am in absolutely no place to judge, for this kind of thing has most definitely happened to your lovely lesbian big sister (me).
Close your pretty eyes. It’s storytime.
Once upon a time, I found myself in one of the worst dating ruts I’ve ever experienced throughout my decade long residency on the (proverbial) Isle of Sapphos.
It wasn’t that I was going on bad dates — I was going on no dates. I was living in a smaller community, and if you’ve ever tried to date in New York City, you know how hard it is to meet someone who hasn’t dated or slept with all of your exes. When you’re living in a town, you’re simply screwed, darling.
I had dated one woman in town, and after we broke up, it felt like no one who wasn’t either an ex of hers (or whom I was even remotely attracted to) would ever appear on my horizon again. I made a plan to move back to the city, but in the meantime, I accepted the pending drought and prayed I wouldn’t die of dehydration for its inevitable duration.
Until one night, when I was dancing with the gay boys (which there seemed to be a never-ending supply of, even in this mostly-straight small town) and I felt a tap on the shoulder. Annoyed at being disrupted from my meditative Maddona turn-up, I rudely yelled “What?!”
“I just wanted to introduce myself,” said a throaty, deep lesbian voice. (Don’t tell me there isn’t such thing as a lesbian voice. There is).
I turned around in disbelief. Was this a mirage? Had someone slipped psychedelics into my champagne?
Time stood still as I took in the sight of this wildly unexpected creature standing before my shocked eyes. My mouth fell so wide open it hit the floor. Seeing a lesbian I didn’t know out in the wild was as rare as spotting a unicorn on the crosstown bus.
Seeing a lesbian I was attracted to? That was like Jesus rising from the dead and showing up unannounced at a gay bar. And I don’t even believe in the whole Jesus thing.
The New Lesbian In Town was exactly my type: Long hair. Skinny jeans. Blazer. Swag. Most importantly, she had that glint in her eyes. You know the glint? Those eyes that sparkle with sex appeal? Yeah, I figured you knew.
Within an hour, we are salaciously making-out on the dance floor. It’d been so goddamn long since I’d experienced such intimate human contact that I feel like I could have fourteen orgasms just from kissing. In between kisses, I snuck a peek at my phone. It was 1:30 a.m. Dangerously close to 2 a.m., which I’ve always deemed “bad decision o’clock.” As the great Paris Hilton once said: “I don’t like parties past 2 a.m. Then it’s all losers and weirdos.” And we can all read between the lines on that gem: *We* become the losers and the weirdos.
“I need to go home,” I slurred, forcing my lips away from her lips. It felt like there was a magnetic pull, a force greater than god, bewitching our bodies together.
“Me too. Can I have your number? Would you be down for dinner?” New Lesbian In Town asked.
“I would love that,” I practically sang. I smiled as a warm, cozy rush swished through me. Was I feeling feelings? I didn’t even know this girl! Was it possible? Was I insane?
For the next two days, we furiously texted one another. We texted each other with the intense ferocity of lovers who have just been released from a long prison sentence. She told me she was an interior designer and would be in town working on a specific project for at least six months. I told her I was moving to New York in six months. I felt my whole body smile when she replied that she was considering taking a job in New York next.
On day three, we decided to meet for dinner at a small but sexy sushi restaurant on a quiet street in town. On the taxi ride there, I felt butterflies fluttering madly around my stomach. I felt the corners of my mouth curl themselves upwards without my permission. I felt my heart skip gracefully across my organs. I felt the terrifying, stupid, embarrassing, intoxicating rush of a new crush.
“You’re, like, really pretty,” New Lesbian In Town said, her eyes flickering, like little flames up and down my body. I basked in the heat.
“You’re, like, really pretty too.”
“Is this what straight people think lesbians do on dates? Just tell each other how pretty we are?”
I laughed nervously. “Probably.” I couldn’t think of a better response because when I’m into someone, I lose my personality. My tongue felt thick like a slug in my mouth. It was a wonder I could make out a single word at all.
“I bet they don’t think we have sex on the first date,” Her eyes glittered. I *love* glitter.
For theatrical purposes, I wish I could say that we ditched our sushi and got down and dirty right away. But we didn’t. Sometimes life is even better than theater. We sat at dinner for four hours engaging in the best foreplay to ever exist: stimulating conversation. We talked about our childhoods. We talked about music. We talked about art, heartbreak. trauma, our mutual love of the written word. We even talked about Lana Del Rey.
The next thing I knew, we were on the goddamn beach looking at the stars, at the black water, and the black sky. I know people hate on beach sex, moan about how sandy and itchy and dirty it is, but my experience was entirely different. I’ll spare you the graphic details, but let’s just say it was some of the best sex of my life.
(For the record, it *was* sandy. I found sand in places I didn’t even know I had. But who cares? I would happily inhale a beach’s worth of sand if it meant I got to have great sex.)
The next morning, I sent her a text. I never send the first text because I’m terrified of rejection, but I felt so blindly confident that our date had been such a mega-hit that there was no need for the push/pull bullshit. Three long hours later, I nervously peeked at my phone. Radio Silence. By the end of the workday, the silence was so loud I could hear it’s vibrations zapping through my bones.
Needless to say, weeks went by. Nothing.
But still, the New Lesbian In Town remained front and center in my brain. I was tormented by her ghost. Whatever had I done wrong? How could she toss out the most fabulous date ever and feed it like scraps to the dogs? I mean, we had chemistry.
“STOP IT RIGHT THERE!” a voice boomed. I turned my head.
It was my common sense making a rare appearance. She was sitting in the corner of my bedroom, clad in flat sensible boots and an expensive-looking peacoat. It’s the kind of purchase your mother tells you to invest in because it’s “timeless” and will never “go out of fashion.” My common sense read my mind. She gestured toward her coat. “Don’t look at me like that; I’ll have this forever. Unlike that ridiculous thing you’ve got wrapped around your shoulders.”
I had a very “of the moment” Alexander McQueen scarf clumsily strewn over my limbs. It was hot pink with yellow skulls. It had cost me a month’s worth of lunches, and I was already sick of it. “Can you just tell me what I did wrong?” I pleaded.
“First of all, how can you say you had chemistry with this chick?”
“I could feel it.”
“Feelings aren’t facts. Besides, maybe you felt the chemistry and she didn’t. Maybe you were just a fun one-nighter for her.”
“Impossible,” I declared. “I’m not an idiot! I am a sex and dating writer. I know when someone likes me. She liked me.”
“You don’t know anything about her. You met her twice.”
“SINCE WHEN DOES TIME MEAN ANYTHING!” I shrieked so loudly it was as if I’d opened the window and let a nasty gust of wind inside.
“You can’t have feelings for someone you don’t know. It takes time to get to know someone. You’re upset because you projected a fantasy on to her. A fantasy of this new, amazing, sexy woman you want to date. But fantasies rarely make it past date one, darling. The second date you could’ve found out she was a Trump supporter or something, and you wouldn’t have been so into it, huh?”
“She was not a Trump Supporter. She’s an artist.” I winced at my own stupidity. But nevertheless, I persisted. “Plus, I know she connected with me. We had incredible conversations, aside from the mind-blowing sex.”
“Oh, honey,” my common sense took a sip out of her Nalgene water bottle. I noticed she was wearing black jeans and a crisp white oxford beneath her pricey peacoat. She looked simple and chic. Like she had her shit together. She cleared her throat. Her sane eyes met my feral eyes. “Do you know how many times you’ve done this exact thing to other women?”
“Done what?” I spat.
“Had a fabulous, nuanced conversation with them on a first date? Made them think you were beyond into them? Maybe you even had sex with them, and the sex was mediocre for you, but your melodramatic moaning made them feel like you were falling in love with them. And then you never texted them back because it was a ‘blah’ experience for you, and you endlessly made fun of them to your friends for being so obsessed with you after one date?”
I was stunned. My common sense was right. I felt foolish. But I also felt free.
“I think my work here is done,” common sense whispered, studying me. And like that, she was gone, but she didn’t need to stay. Once my common sense makes an appearance and tells me like it is, she’s never forgotten.
Here’s what I realized in that pivotal moment: If you’ve gone on only a few dates (or in my case one date) with a person and you catch feelings, those feelings aren’t real, girl. They are shadows of the feelings you’re desperate to have, and thus, have projected onto this (very attractive) stranger.
I was lonely in those days. I didn’t realize how lonely and how bored I was in my dating drought. So when someone came along who was sexy and single and a semi-smart, all the longing that was stewing inside of my body waiting to be set free wrapped its arms around her. And it clung fiercely to her, because pent up desire doesn’t like living alone. But pent up desire has low standards; it will attach itself to almost anyone.
And I am more than my desire. You are more than your desire.
I also realized a lesson that was hard for my ego to absorb: Just because you’re having the best date of your life, doesn’t mean the other person is. Ouch, that stung.
And while a sting is most definitely painful, it doesn’t shatter you like a real heartbreak does. In fact, once you acknowledge its burn and treat the wound topically, it usually goes away pretty quickly. (And if it doesn’t, you need to see a doctor — as in a therapist. Because if the pain doesn’t go away, there was something else — something much bigger — lurking beneath the surface).
I mean, so what that sometimes we like people who don’t like us back? Welcome to the human experience, babe. We will all get rejected. Everyone gets rejected. Even models get rejected.
And is it even a rejection after a few dates? Not really. Real rejection is when someone has the time to get to know you, inside and out, and then decides they don’t want you.
But you don’t get to deeply know anyone after a few dates. You get to know their exterior, the shiny outfit they adorn their bones with that covers the naked, raw truth of who they really are. They’re just rejecting your outfit, not your soul.
So push this girl out of your beautiful mind. Get on Tinder and keep swiping! There’s a whole world out there to explore. Don’t get stuck on a stranger who has a different taste in fashion than you do, because that’s all a first date is: a fashion show.
What Do You Think?