Walks of shame (part 1)

The first time I heard the phrase “walk of shame” I was 21 and it was a couple of months after I had moved to the USA for grad school. Unlike any normal 21 year old I had no clue what it meant. The occasion was not helping either. It was around 9 am on a Sunday morning and I had just spent the night at my friend’s house. The reason was that we had gone out the night before, my friend got completely wasted and started throwing up before we even left the bar. I, being the good friend, decided to stay at her place, and actually spent the night on her floor, by her bed, bringing her clean plastic bags to throw up or holding her hair back while she was doing that. Looking back at that night, I believe that I definitely deserved the “best friend” award. I mean it takes real dedication to hold someone’s hair back while they are throwing up. No one should ever need do that…unless you are married to them, in which case there should be a law regulating this! So, back to my point. Since that was not a planned sleepover I had no pajamas with me. My friend’s roommate who was closer to my size than my friend (who was wearing a 0 – is that even an actual size?) gave me sweatpants and a t-shirt. The next morning while I was getting ready to go back to my apartment, in the borrowed sweatpants since there was no way I was going to put back on jeans and heels, my friend informed me while giggling that it will look like “a walk of shame.” And this is how I learned the phrase. I stared at her and said in my Greek accent “I don’t know what that means” and she proceeded to enlighten me. So, now I knew. Of course, right then I promised to myself to never get in a “walk of shame” situation ever again! Imagine the embarrassment! Little did I know!

Fast-forward three years. Still at the same place, still a graduate student. There was some progress regarding my love life but since I have a talent in getting into inconvenient and awkward or disastrous relationships (right now I believe I am cursed) I was in a long distance relationship. My then boyfriend was living not only in another country but also in another continent, with a six-hour time difference and all. The only way that that relationship could have been more long-distance-y was if he was an astronaut and on a mission in space. Seriously! Of course there were no occasions of any walks of shame! In the happy occasions that we actually got to see each other we stayed in the same place.

One night, I met with my friends at the dive bar that we used to hang out (unfortunately about a year after that we decided that we were too good for it!). There is no need to describe the amount of drinking that took place not only that time but every time we went to that place. Just imagine a group of graduate students on a Friday evening at a bar that sells extremely cheap beer – in pitchers and plastic cups! Chances are they will get wasted. Around midnight most of the people started heading back home. One of my good friends, a (hot) guy this time, and I decided, probably because we were more intoxicated than anyone else, to stay until the bar closed. And so we did. We continued drinking until 3 am when they basically kicked us out. So at that point we are both standing (or trying to stand) outside the bar and I’m demanding that my friend should walk me home. After some debating, which made no sense because drunk people cannot really get into a debate, we both ended up going back to his place. Let me just repeat here that I was in a relationship and he was sort of involved with someone. Both cases long distance. Nothing happened though! In fact, I slept in his bed (after I made sure there were clean sheets) and he slept on the couch. I know it sounds weird and I’m not pretending that I didn’t think about…stuff…. But, for whatever reason and despite our intoxicated state nothing happened! Back to the point. As before, this was not a planned sleepover. I was wearing jeans and heels. My friend, being a gentleman, gave me clean sweatpants and a t-shirt. And I put them on, grateful that I didn’t have to sleep in my jeans. But I definitely look hilarious in them. My friend is 6.2 and he is a big guy (he used to play football before grad school…then the road to the Ph.D took over that). Imagine me, 5.5 and half his size, wearing his clothes. They were practically falling off. When I wanted to use the bathroom I had to hold the sweatpants at the waist so that they would not end up at my ankles in front of my friend. But you know, better than jeans, and they were clean!

So I slept and didn’t wake up until early the next day because my phone kept beeping. First it was my mom who could not find me online and assumed that I had died. Then it was my roommate who had realized that I hadn’t gone home the night before and was ready to call the police. After I texted back my parents and informed them that I was safe and definitely not dead (just hangover) I woke up my friend who drove me home. Of course I was still wearing his clothes and I looked ridiculous the least! Being hangover does not really make you look fresh and pretty. So I arrive at my apartment, open the door and my roommate is seating at her desk, right by door. And all of sudden I’m realizing how I look. I mean I’m wearing a man’s clothes and I did not spent the night at home. Obviously I must have had a wild night! So I open my mouth and tell my friend where I was and I realize that I’m actually making it worse not only because my friend knows the guy but because she also knows that I think he is hot! Once I realized that what I was saying did not sound particularly innocent and that my appearance was not really helping I started repeating that nothing happened, etc. Who knows if she ever believed me! I would definitely not believe me! So, I went straight to bed and I promised to myself that the next time I would look like I was doing a walk of shame there would actually be some action involved! If people are going to think that you are getting some…you might as well do!  

To be continued….

  

A lovely shade of purple...

About 3 months ago I met this guy who, surprisingly, did not seem like a jerk. Said guy, let’s call him HBD (Hot Black Dude), was polite and funny and interesting. Did I mention he was hot? As in I-would-like-rip-your-clothes-off hot? HBD was a couple of years older than me and, thank god, NOT a student. And, get this, he owned a house. And not a crappy, the-ceiling-will-collapse-during-my-sleep house. He owned an  actual house, with a real kitchen and even art (the affordable kind) on the walls!

So we started dating and all was blissful in my head. I got to see him every week and stay over, I met his friends, we had a lot of sex AND there was a toothbrush, just for me, in his bathroom. Now, this toothbrush thing might not be a big deal for most, but for anyone who grew up with the song “Πάρε πάσα μου, την οδοντοβουρτσά μου...” this IS a huge deal! But then again, I’m willing to accept that not everyone knows the song.

We even went to a wedding together! HBD made sure to tell me that going to a wedding together, after a month of dating, did not mean that we were getting married. Because, obviously, this is exactly what I was thinking. I mean what else could I expect after accompanying a man, whom I knew for a month, to wedding other than a Tiffany’s princess-cut diamond ring in my chocolate croissant the next morning and a promise to spend our lives together? Did I mention that we were only dating for a month?

According to my research all the good signs were there. And despite the fact that I desperately wanted, I managed to not bring up male-sensitive subjects such as feelings, relationships, being exclusive, etc. I was playing cool and I even accepted that Sundays were out of limits because they were devoted to football.

Until all of a sudden HBD became way too busy and we went from seeing each other every week to not having seen each other in a month (33 days, 7 hours and 12 minutes to be exact)! There were some phone calls with attempts on his part to justify his disappearance. And, because of my emotional stupidity mentioned before, I attributed his behavior to a male case of PMS. I thought about sending him a box of Midol together with some chocolate and a Hugh Grant movie (because we all know that there is nothing that the combination of those 3 cannot cure) but then I didn’t want to offend his manliness so I just practiced being patient (again, not one of my strongest points). Which brings me to this past Saturday when we finally made plans to meet.

The moment we set up a time I panicked because I realized that not having seen him in a month (meaning I didn’t need to get naked in front of anyone else other than myself) in combination with a bad case of a “grad student life crisis” meant that I was in desperate need of waxing (whole body that is…), eyebrow plugging, face scrubbing, finger and toe-nail painting, and hair-fixing. And so I spent the next 3 hours in a frenzy trying to make myself presentable to someone other than my fellow grad students who couldn’t care less whether I had a unibrow or not. I spent at least an hour waxing my legs during which I used every combination of Greek and English swear word I know. Try to reach the back of your thighs while they are covered in a sticky, honey-like substance and not make a mess…you’ll understand. And just to be clear; I don’t shave not because I like torturing myself (men take care of that business for me) but due to heritage issues if I shave in the morning I get a 5 o clock shadow by the afternoon! Then I proceeded to use my tweezers extensively so that there were 2 separate eyebrows, of the same shape, above my eyes. I showered, I applied multiple layers of body lotion and a face-mask and I painted my nails.

So I’m laying in bed, in my bath robe, and I’m trying to catch my breath because I feel like I just ran a marathon. My face, white because of the mask, is starting to burn but I’m willing to suffer. My nails are a lovely shade of purple and I’m doing my best to stay still and not touch anything while they dry. The only thing that’s missing are 2 cucumber slices for my eyes but I only had tomatoes in the fridge and I don’t think they would do!

And all of a sudden my phone beeps. Note that there is a limited number of people that could be texting me at 6.30 on a Saturday night. And one of them is HBD. So I take my phone and as expected I have a text from him. I put an enormous effort to unlock my phone and read the text without covering the screen with nail polish.

HMD: “I’m feeling unwell, sorry, let’s meet tomorrow. I’m willing to sacrifice football.”

Stelou: [in my head] I’M FEELING UNWELL TOO BECAUSE I SPENT 2 HOURS DE-HAIRING MYSELF SO THAT I WOULD LOOK LIKE A HUMAN BEING! AND WHAT ABOUT ME SACRIFICING BRAIN-CELLS EVERY TIME I GET A STUPID TEXT FROM YOU???

Despite the urge to throw the phone out of my window I didn’t because iPhones are expensive and as a grad student I could not afford another one. Instead I spent the night with Ben and Jerry (the ice cream, not 2 random men that I picked up from the street even though that might have been a better idea) while watching Billy Elliot and crying my eyes out.

At least my nails are still a lovely shade of purple… 

Dating 101

I think that despite being 28 years old I’m emotionally challenged. To be honest, emotionally stupid probably describes the situation better. But I’m cutting myself some sluck here. Or, as the Sex and the City ladies put it «emotionally slutty». Hmmm...I guess this does sounds better. I’m fairly new to the dating scene for two reasons. I’m a graduate student (for the past seven years) which means that I’ve been spending way too much time in the library. And we all know how great this is for someone’s love life. Also, I used to be shy, as in embarassingly shy, especially around men. At some point, I got over the being shy part (grad school is still going on) and I got in a relationship. When that relationship ended, being emotionally stupid (yes that’s definitely the right word in this case) I was naturally heartbroken and it took me a couple of years to get over it. And then I decided to try dating. Which brings me to the present.


But here is where things get complicated. I grew up somewhere in the Mediterranean where the dating rules go like this: boy meets girl, boy and girl go on a date, boy kisses girl at the end of the date, boy and girl are in a relationship. It’s as simple as that. No need to have «the talk» after a certain number of dates. No need to discuss whether you are dating casually, systematically, or whether you are in an exclusive relationship. The concept of «dating» doesn’t even exist there! Well, imagine my surprise when I moved to the US for grad school, in a city on the east coast, and I realized that there is this thing called dating, with a lot of rules that most of the time make absolutely no sense. Talk about being confused. So, I did some research - because I’m a grad student and that’s what I do. I watched all of the Sex and the City episodes, got a subscription to Cosmopolitan, took notes, etc. And I thought I’d give this dating thing a try.


Despite the research I seem to be unable to get the rules of the game. It’s like I’m missing the necessary braincells to understand American dating. And boy, do I get in trouble! Seriously, someone needs to offer a class in Dating 101. In the meantime I’ll just keep trying. Who knows...maybe one day I’ll get it!