I am a BIG FAT LIAR.

Scant minutes - minutes!! - after writing yesterday's post, I received the following email:

I'll be in LA in a couple weeks on business. Want to catch up for a few drinks?

Let's call him Crew Guy, because - that's right, got it in one! - he rowed crew undergrad.

Let's see. We met through friends the spring of sophomore year. No, wait. We met the fall of sophomore year, but he was always that weird guy who would make random comments to me when I ran into him at parties. Then one fine spring day, I had just returned from showering after a nice jog (what, me run? I know, it was a very odd time in my life when I ran for fun), all bundled up in a thick terry cloth robe.. and who else is sitting in my dorm room conversing with my roommate but Crew Guy.

I am NOT looking anywhere near my best at this moment.

We get to chatting. I want to change into real clothes. But I'm polite, and we talk even though I just want to kick him out.

Him: So, I hear you're quite the chef.
[I was one of the few people off meal plan that year, because I'd rather walk the mile to the supermarket in order to buy and prepare my own food rather than consume that inedible swill called cafeteria food. I would, however, persuade friends to use their guest credits on me on chicken tender days.]
Me: Yeah, I suppose so. You want to have dinner sometime?
THINK BEFORE YOU TALK YOU MORON. Goshdarnit, look at what the merest bit of flattery does to you.

Before you know it, we had a whole - gasp! - date planned, with a visit to a museum before a home-cooked meal. When he left, my roommate burst out into hysterics. "You have a date with him!" she chortled. Him, the way she said it, was not in the oh-my-god-he's-so-hot-how-did-you-score-that sense, but rather the what-in-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you sense.

Keep in mind, he was hot. Or so I thought at the time. 6'4, big strong strapping rower, with sandy brown hair and blue blue eyes. Did I mention the muscles? I am a sucker for that part on the upper arm where the deltoids curve into the bicep. And I am even more of a sucker for blue eyes. (Everyone I have gone out with - with the exception of one - has coincidentally had blue or green eyes. It's not a conscious choice on my part, I swear. That one exception wore blue contacts, so I thought they were blue at first.) And he was not just your average dumb jock - oh no! He was majoring in art history and classics. He was a smart jock!

But dammit. I should have taken more heed of my roommate's warning. Mutual friends, over the course of the week, were just stunned.

What in the hell are you doing with him?
[laughter]
You're way too good for him.
Do you know what you're getting yourself into?
You? Him? [laughter]

Did I listen? No. Because I'm stupid.

And so began the story of my life for the following two years, where we hooked up off and on and on and off. There was never any real commitment - oh yeah, because he couldn't handle it. It's quite the sad and classic tale. We'd go out on a couple of dates, which would then just devolve into booty-IMs for the next couple of months. Then we'd be on vacation, and he'd start proclaiming that he missed me and he couldn't wait to see me. We'd get back to school and he'd all of a sudden be "dating" someone. So we wouldn't talk for a couple of weeks, then it was back to the booty-IMing. It's really pathetic that it went on for so long, but I kept thinking that he had turned another leaf. That he really meant it this time. I mean, hell! After I returned from Paris, he couldn't stop with the, "I can't wait to see you again"s (I have it all saved on IM to prove that I'm not delusional) - then he came to NY to visit me that summer, and it was just bizarre. (Actually, fuckwit was my rebound from Crew Guy. Funny how things work out.) He would bring up questions potentially leading to commitment, such as: "Would you raise your kids Jewish?" (he is Jewish, I am not) and "Would you convert to Judaism after you got married?" and "Where do you want to get married? Oh, the beach? That sounds like a great idea." What was a girl to think? I just kept "seeing this other side" to him that nobody else saw - the sensitive, intelligent and caring side - and I'm convinced it's still there. It's just too bad he has to act like such a jerkwad because for some reason he needs to be all cool and macho.

By the fall of senior year, I started to tire of this back-and-forth, and would do things such as get him to invite himself over to my apartment, where then I'd suddenly - yawn! - be too tired to do anything, and all I really want to do is sleep thankyouverymuch. I was able to pull this stunt many more times than I should've been able to. Or I would know that he wanted to hook up, by the way he hovered around me, so I would purposefully bat my lashes at the closest cute guy and flirt massively with him instead.

Finally, I did finally, more or less, cut him out of the booty call cycle the spring of senior year, as I had bigger fish to fry. (That would have been my slutty phase of college, of which funnily he was not a part. This was around the time he quit crew and started getting a slight paunch. Not coincidental, I swear.) There was one last night in Italy, but that's rather forgettable.

Did I mention that even though this lasted for over two years, we never once had sex? He never even attempted it. My theory is that he must have been a virgin. Obviously he was attracted enough to me to keep hooking up. So either he was a virgin, or he was balls-out terrified (haha!) that sex equaled commitment, which it so doesn't, not all the time at least. But I like my virgin theory better. Seriously. Two years.

But since then! My life has been Crew Guy-free! Even though he lived up in Boston (he has recently moved to DC), I kept my contact with him to a minimum because he is sometimes just so annoying.

So back to the present day. Why did I agree to have dinner with him? At one of the nicest restaurants in LA? Ah, well, he appreciates fine dining. He doesn't know that fuckwit and I have broken up. Oh brother. What did I get myself into? I've definitely dug myself a nice pretty hole with this one.

Remember: THINK BEFORE YOU TALK YOU MORON. Obviously, I have not yet learned this lesson yet.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. Date with Blue-tie Guy early next week. He apparently knows that we went around calling him Tie Guy. Hahaha! Ah, and I have the feeling he's in The Industry, based on the fact that he said he works at Universal. Sigh. At least now I know his name. That's a good thing, I feel.

I suck at keeping resolutions.