Mr. Unavailable #121: Unavailable By Design

Vital Stats: 24, 5'8"ish. Otherwise, I don't know what he does for a living and I don't care. Aesthetic: Holy shit. (Translation: He looks great in a tight shirt and jeans.) Demeanor: Oh. My. God. (Translation: Smoldering.)

The day after the haunted-apartment dinner party, Zoe packed up and ran off to the airport for three weeks of international errands, including a long-overdue shag with an Egyptian, and I retreated to my suddenly silent and spacious apartment to sleep and throw myself into work—but mostly sleep. I stirred from hibernation long enough to meet Nora and Kevin at a Friday night gathering of like-minded downtowners. I got there late, sat down next to Nora and looked up.

There, front and center, was The Only Guy On Earth With Whom I’d Consider Having a Meaningless Sexual Relationship. Seeing as I’d just ended things with #120 because he wanted to continue to sleep around, the paradox of it was not lost on me. I thought about calling #120 and saying, “Actually, on second thought…”

...Because standing at the front of the room was the picture of smoldering manliness. I'd seen him around for more than a year, had referred to him as my "inappropriate crush" and wondered if other women thought “sex” when they laid eyes on him, too, or if it was just me. Only somewhere in his early 20s, he’d already been through a lifetime’s worth of pain. But it wasn’t the details that intrigued me, it was the way he wore them. Physically, he was built, it was true, but he had a strong, nonchalant kindness mixed with enough of a self-deprecating sense of humor to tell me he was neither a total asshole nor a complete idiot. I’d probably never said more than 15 words to him, but, then again, my designs on him weren't verbal.

When a woman who was sitting to my right spoke to him, I looked over at him and had to immediately look away. I looked again. And again, I had to look away. Either he was staring at me or he had eyes that looked like they were following you. I looked at him about a dozen more times and, every time, it seemed like he was looking at me. Afterward, I got caught up in conversation with other people and, when I turned around, he was gone. Still, I was giddy. I headed to Quantum Leap on Thompson for dinner with Kevin and as soon as we sat down, I said, “I have a question for you.”

“This sounds good,” he said. It was more my level of excitement that Kevin was reacting to than my imminent question—I was practically bouncing in my seat.

I told him about The Only Guy On Earth With Whom I’d Consider Having a Meaningless Sexual Relationship and then said that I thought he was staring at me.

“I swear, every time I looked up, I was like, ‘Whoa!’”

“He probably was staring at you,” Kevin said.

I asked Kevin if I should friend #121 on Facebook. He said yes. I picked up my phone and sent the request. A few seconds later, it was accepted.

“Holy shit,” Kevin said, remarking on the promptness of the acceptance.

Over the next hour, I messaged #121 and every time I sent him a message, he’d reply instantly. And, when he did, just like a girl, I’d scream. The only reason it lasted an hour was because I was checking out his Facebook profile—he was 24—and taking between five and 25 minutes to compose what I wanted to say. I wanted him to catch my drift, but I didn’t want to completely cross the line.

“I’m tired of everything being so heavy. I'm tired of meeting these guys and hoping that they're 'the one' and then investing so much emotional energy and then being crushed when it inevitably ends,” I said. “I don’t want to care so much. I just want to have fun. And with this, I only want him for one thing. It's kind of a relief to not want anything more. I don’t even care if I get rejected.” And I kind of didn’t.

Kevin was excited for me. “This is great,” he said. “You’re doing exactly what you want to do and not overthinking it.”

Not yet anyway.

After dinner, Kevin and I met Nora and Liz for coffee at Café Dante (incidentally, the scene of my third date with #111). The four of us composed the last couple of messages—and not without hilarity. Nora told us about the time she texted a guy she was obsessed with and, trying to get him to respond to her, wrote, "It's not like I boiled your bunny." We also proposed and rejected several messages that I could've sent to #121 that would've not only crossed the line but completely leapt over it, such as, “Would you like to see my vagina?”

The closest to the line I was willing to get was my last message to him:

“What can I do to make sure you won’t forget about me?”

“I wount I promise,” he wrote back.

We were all puzzled, unsure if he got it or not.

“I’m going to let it rest for now,” I said, and then we did a re-enactment of the potential-staring situation right there in Cafe Dante. Nora and I lined our chairs up next to each other and sent Kevin diagonally across the room. Kevin looked at me and I said to Nora, "Does it at all look like he's looking at you?"

"He's definitely not looking at me," she said.

Kevin walked me home so he could pick up his Tony Robbins CDs and, because I’d been on a bad post-#120 sugar bender, so he could take the ice cream out of my freezer.

“This is so awesome,” he said. “To do what you did takes…spirit.”

I liked that. I wasn’t slutty, I was spirited.

Signs of Hope: #121 wrote back instantly every time. And maybe he was staring at me.

Red Flags: I know I was being evasive, but did he catch my drift?

Turning Point: When I friended him on Facebook, all the lights changed to green.

Diagnosis: For him: Hopefully available for a roll in the hay—or several.
For me: Hopefully available for a roll in the hay—or several.

On a sidenote: When, after #120 and I had gone our separate ways and Jo had said, “Just focus on finding #121," I don’t think she had this kind of #121 in mind—not only because I have specific designs on him, but also for the fact that when I was beginning high school, he was beginning life. But no matter.