Being A Cougar

Being a cougar is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's very much like dating yourself, but 5 years ago.
I met Paul at an Angels game at the end of April. I was still in the midst of using up any downtime that I had so that I would not sit at home and cry over what a mundane life I could have had with Graham. My good friend Keith is an A's fan, and got tickets for us on a Tuesday night. Our friend JR went as well, but said that some younger guys in his fraternity had his tickets, and he would meet up with us later.
I spent most of the night drinking beer and taking self-portraits of myself and Keith (or of the sky, our arms, anything but our faces). Since I was PMS'ing, I ate like a pregnant lady. I ate a hot dog (btw, Angels dogs are NO Dodger dogs) and nachos, and later, I would eat Paul's fries, double dipping (but not biblically, at least not yet) in his sauces.
I don't drink anything except for chardonnay, so when I drink any other type of liquor, I don't handle it well. After Keith and I had been up at the Bud Beer Garden, and after beer #4 or 6 or 12 I went to the bathroom. Stumbling back, I could not find my friend, one whom I had known for at least twelve years. I'm not sure how long they watched me scan the sea of red Angel hats for until they finally called my name. And that's when I looked up and saw Paul. He was cute. Really cute.
I saw Paul on Facebook the next day, and friended him. We talked casually for a while on FB, and then I sent him a message with my cell phone number. He texted, and then we slowly built a textual relationship. It was over a month before we finally sealed the deal, and I really felt like I had put in work.
Paul had a great body...and he required a magnum condom. But he was not circumcized. Which is fine, but there is something about an uncircumcized penis that is just so aero-dynamic. It's kind of like being f*cked by a Ford Windstar.
Since I had not been expecting Paul that night, I had went to dinner with my friend Coco. There is a great place right down the street from us that has $5 entrees and wine on Tuesday nights. Guess who has more wine than entrees? That's right. This girl.
I tried to set boundaries with Paul, like I'm not going to come over to your house after a night of drinking but I will send you a picture of myself in a bra and panties. Come on people, I was raised right. So when Paul sent a message that night and asked if I wanted to meet him and his friend out a mile down the street from me, I suggested a place in between (my laziness grows in exponential bounds as I age). Part of my putting up boundaries has to do with the fact that I'm not in my twenties any more, and I simply cannot exert myself like I used to. Double dipping, and not just in Paul's fries, is a thing of the past. People take notice if I'm wearing the same suit two days in a row now, and buying a toothbrush or panty hose on the way into work takes away at least five more minutes from my already bad REM sleep. Paul asked me to come over one weekday night around midnight, which I would have jumped at like a fat person clawing at a Twinkie, in my twenties. Now, these thoughts ran through my mind: 'I haven't shaved my legs. Do I have Scope? No. Crap, I'm going to have to brush my teeth again. Should I put makeup on? Straighten my hair. I'd only get a few hours of sleep after all of this preparation. Never mind. I'm just going to go to bed.' In my twenties I would have thought: 'This is just like a Porky's movie. Awesome,' and then I would have floored my car at 80 mph down sleepy Long Beach side streets to get to his place.
The second Angels game came a few days after Paul and I did the deed. The deed did not consist of earthshaking or mountains moving, but it was nice and I was hoping that a summer fling could commence. He brought his friend Nathaniel, who was a 4'11 Caucasian Jewish hip hop artist with a patch of gray hair on his bangs. The day was filled with booze which spilled back to Second Street after the Angels game was over. Paul was clearly over hanging out, but Nathaniel still wanted to party. My cousin Mindy, Nathaniel and I went back to my place where we downloaded Nathaniel's hip hop songs, and drank beer. I told Nathaniel that I wanted to hump Paul again...nothing more, nothing less. I'm still not sure where the distortion lies, but Nathaniel suggested that I send Paul a message, talking about what a great guy Nathaniel was and how funny he was, and how I'd like to hang out with Paul again soon. Exactly. The message was more of a bromance written note a la The Notebook than a message to get me laid.
Paul's birthday was shortly after that. Neither he nor Nathaniel bothered to invite me to the bash, which hurt my feelings since I had gotten them into the Diamond Club less than two weeks before. I wasn't looking for a relationship, but I felt kind of used and disrespected. I definitely wasn't planning a wedding and a future that included a baseball team of kids and quincineras. But the flirting was fun, and all I really wanted out of my friendship with Paul was the textual part of it. I really don't need much more than a man with opposable thumbs.