Well, This Is Exhausting

by Sophia Benoit

  Anyway, I got a Bumble message from Brandon/en/yn that was like I’m here for three nights only, do you want to do this or not? Reader, of course I wanted to do this. He was a fit semi-fratty guy, which is not my type but it wasn’t like we were going to be talking to each other. He was like, “I’m tired because of the time difference, so if you want to come over in the next hour or so…” and I, being the desperate slut I am, was on board.V There was nothing special about Brayden other than he was direct and clear that I could come over and have just sex, and that he offered a nice hotel to do it in.

  The only problem: I hadn’t shaved my legs in ages because I’m not fucking Bella Hadid. I’m a normal lady. So I broke out the razor and tried to speed-shave in my bathroom sink (didn’t want to risk getting my hair wet in a shower). Then I put on leggings and an oversize zip-up hoodie that I’d stolen from the lost and found at work, which I thought made me look effortless.VI Here’s the thing, Past Sophia: he had sex delivered to his hotel-room door. He did not care about any of this shit!

  I drove twenty minutes and then got lost because it turns out there are two Marriott hotels over by LA Live, and it turns out he was not staying in the nice fancy one. So I had to pull over into an abandoned parking lot where I ran over some glass and thought I popped my tire, which would just serve me so right for being a little harlot, wouldn’t it?! And then I had to message him and get the actual address for the hotel, which was very embarrassing because it seemed desperate to be like, “HI I’M TRYING TO FIND OUT WHERE YOU’RE STAYING; I WENT TO THE WRONG HOTEL FIRST!!! BUT I’M STILL SO READY TO FUCK THAT I’M GOING TO KEEP REACHING OUT TO YOU.” I’m sure that is not how it read to him, but I have anxiety, so it felt like that to me.

  I finally found the Lesser Marriott, parked in the LA Live parking lot,VII walked a block alone at night to his hotel (safety second; dick first), and then went and met him in the hotel lobby, from where we shared a very awkward elevator ride up to the 1,004th floor.

  Much like starting a run from your house,VIII there’s no good way to transition into a hookup, especially when you’re both sober. Sober hookups are excruciating. Like running, you just kind of have to submit to the awkwardness and get going. So we had a nice little chat about safe sex and went on our way.

  He unzipped my hoodie and I wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath. I had a good bra on (forethought!) and he was like, “I was waiting to see those.” Which is just so gross and corny that I had to stop myself from laughing in his face. He’d apparently liked the Bumble photo of mine with cleavage, which, to be fair, I did look good in. But please, sir, cool your fucking jets. Then we got to the pants-being-taken-off portion of the evening, and that’s when I discovered that I had blood running down my legs from shaving, which I tried to wipe off with my leggings while his back was turned before hopping into his bed with extremely pristine white hotel bed linens where all the blood would be very visible. I think I made it work; he didn’t say anything about my bleeding legs.IX

  Anyway, by the time the sex was getting close to done he was like, “Where should I come?” and I was like, “I don’t care,” and he said, “Is on your face okay?” and I said, “Sure.” And he said, “My ex never used to let me come on her face.” To which I said, out of politeness and a touch of duress, “Really?” To which he replied, “Yeah, that’s why she’s an ex.”

  There’s a lot to unpack there (and I sincerely hope my parents followed my directions and didn’t read this far into the essay) but one thing that needs to be asked is: Why the fuck did we have so much time to talk between when he said he was going to come and when he came? A mystery for Scooby and the gang!

  Anyway, I got cleaned up and I’d unfortunately gotten a little come in my eye because that happens when someone comes on your face, folks. And then I just grabbed my shit and said goodbye and left, because, look, there are things Brennens from Ohio can do, and having a nice postcoital chat is not one of them. On the long ride down to the lobby I was in an elevator alone looking up at the mirrored ceiling when I noticed my eye getting kind of red and I thought to myself, Fucking hell, if this is how I go blind, I’m going to die of shame. How does one even explain to their parent that they lost sight in one eye because of the jizz of a stranger from Ohio?

  I then had to basically bribe a man to let me back into the LA Live parking lot because that part of the parking structure was meant to be closed and he asked where I had just come from, and I’m a fabulous liar, and an even better one when adrenaline is coursing through my veins, so I immediately said, “The movies, but I forgot to validate.” And he just shook his head and asked me if someone else had told me I could park there; I said yes, which was another lie. But no one had told me I couldn’t park there after 10 p.m.!

  I got in my car, unduly proud of myself for a successful random hookup, especially for someone who may have been going blind that very moment from come in the eye. And on the way home I got a Bumble message from Brayden, who was like, “You’re the best blow job I’ve ever had.”X Which is just true. He was from Ohio and the bar there is probably low. Also, who is giving it their all with a guy named Brayden? The answer is me, because I was overweight in high school. I said, “Thank you; glad you enjoyed it,” because I’m nothing if not supremely awkward. And this motherfucker was like, “Was my dick the biggest you’ve ever seen?” I almost threw my phone out the window.

  To answer the burning question on everyone’s mind, the man had a very average-size dick, like almost everyone else. But he did have the distinction of kicking off Cocktober, which he doesn’t even know about, sadly. Poor Brandon.

  The next hookup came about a week later, which was a frequency I had not experienced before in my life. I was used to maaayyybe hooking up with someone once every couple of months. Maybe. I don’t remember the name of the second inductee into the Cocktober Hall of Fame. I do remember that his Bumble profile had a photo of him with a kitten in his shirt pocket and my opening message was, “Nice pocket pussy.” And then we met up in a bar where he told me that he was getting really into Charles Manson’s music and that some of it was actually good, which is a red flag for two reasons: (1) the murder/cult situation, and (2) Charles Manson’s music isn’t actually good. Anyway, after a few drinks, and I guess not that many other red flags, he offered to drive me home even though it was very much out of the way—which I did not think was him making a move, because I’m an idiot. When we got to my house, I was like, “Thank you so much for driving me extremely out of your way. Okay… bye.” I walked in the house and got into pajamas. He messaged me on Bumble from outside the house and was like, “You could have invited me in, I would have said yes.” Which sounds kind of creepy, but it wasn’t! I just was very new to hooking up after getting drinks with someone and I didn’t know how things worked. So we hooked up and he kept biting me hard, but again, it’s sex with a straight guy, you can’t expect it to be actually good. Afterward, I walked him out and said goodbye, assuming, of course, that we would never speak again. He stopped me and was like, “Wait a minute, give me your number. We should do this again.” And I was very down for that because he was chill enough and hooking up is fun. So I gave him my number and he was like, “I’m out of town next week, but let’s hang out after that.” Again, this is all him—I had been ready to never learn his area code, never see him again in my life; I hadn’t even invited him in my house. But I just followed his lead and a few days later I texted him like, “Do you want to hang out sometime next week?” And he was like, “Oh, I don’t know my schedule yet. I think I have to stay in Philadelphia longer.” And then he never texted me again.

  We can assume, of course, that he died in Philly.

  * * *

  In my mind, Cocktober has loomed very, very large, and then I went back and read my journals from that time, which of course include details about 100 percent of the hookups I’ve ever had because each one felt like such an anomaly to me. It turns out I only hooked up with two guys during Cocktober, Charles
Manson boy and eye-come Brandon. This may seem like Cocktober is a misnomer, like you’ve been lied to by Big Hookup. But what I also found when I reread my own report of that time is that I almost hooked up with a couple of more people, and in fact, I turned them down, for various reasons. One guy asked me to drive to Marina del Rey,XI where he promised to leave me like a “hard-fucked rag doll.” Yes, I’m as confused as you are! (Does he fuck rag dolls? I don’t know.) My guess is had I not hooked up with two guys already that month, I probably would have driven all the way to his house and had incredibly dissatisfying sex and then gotten in my car and driven home. But I had Cocktober confidence on my side; for the first time in my life I felt like there would probably be another chance to have sex with someone and I didn’t need to jump at every opportunity. What freedom!

  One thing that rather surprised me about Cocktober is that I genuinely liked hooking up with strangers. I had fun having one-night stands; I felt I got something out of them. I mean, I’d thought I would enjoy it—I initiated it, after all—but I also had so many friends who had for years talked to me about how much they felt gross or guilty the next day. That isn’t to say that my friends always had bad encounters, or that they universally felt shitty about the hookups they had, just that it was a very common experience for them.

  It wasn’t just my friends, either; there’s a bunch of media out there reminding you that sex is better with someone you love, that hookups are dirty, that the morning after should naturally bring shame (to the woman, of course; the man is scot-free). And I simply didn’t feel that way. I know sex is supposed to be better with someone you love, but most things are better with someone you love. Riding the subway is better with someone you love. Going to dentistry school is better with someone you love. Playing tennis is better with someone you love. That doesn’t mean you never play tennis with someone just for fun; that doesn’t mean tennis isn’t still a nice little workout. Instead of these hookups making me feel small or worthless, I actually felt incredibly validated by them.

  Part of it was likely all my aforementioned desire for male approval (and what could be a better sign that someone approves of you than them fucking you in a Marriott?). I had a good time, and part of that good time is likely inextricably linked with the feeling of validation. To some extent, it certainly felt like I was wanted, and being wanted always feels nice, whether it be a friend inviting you over to have a game night or a Tinder match being balls deep in you. Even if it wasn’t long-term coupledom—which is not the only thing worth striving for in life, by the way—these hookups gave me a measure of self-confidence that obviously, ideally, I would not have needed to get from random men. But we do not live in an ideal world (otherwise acid reflux and genocide wouldn’t exist), so grow up and get on board with me buttressing my self-worth with dick.

  Sleeping with strangers wasn’t some magical salve that cured me of all my personal shortcomings or anything. I still had a lot of anxiety; hell, I still have a lot of anxiety. But I felt calmer, more anchored, like I had experienced this thing that everyone else had experienced, like I had something to offer people, even if it was being good at sucking dick or telling funny, terrible hookup stories to my friends. I was doing things in my early twenties that other people were also doing in their early twenties. I was finally hitting milestones at the same time as my peers, something that I had not done before due to a heady combination of being overweight and overly responsible.

  The feeling of having the option to hook up with someone, to get validation in that specific way, was such a windfall. Is that shallow of me? To base a large part of my self-worth on whether someone would hook up with me? Probably! But self-confidence, I’ve found, is somewhat like a snowball gathering in size as it rolls down a hill. The more little boosts you get, the more confident you get, which leads to more situations where you’re boosted, which leads to more confidence. Hooking up with guys simply helped to push the snowball down the hill. By having the potential to have casual sex, by being valued in that way by some people, I started to like myself more. Ironically, it helped me to care about other people’s opinions a bit less. Again, I’m not saying I’m not still an anxious disaster a lot of the time, that I don’t worry about what people think of me, but I just have a deeper well of self-assurance to dip into.

  Cocktober could have turned to Novmember to Dickcember—I was ready to keep using the “skills” I’d learned in a few short weeks, to capitalize on my newfound confidence—but then I stupidly went home for the holidays (a major dick interruptor) and came back and had a crush on my friend and started sleeping with him and then dating him. What can you do? Sometimes you love yourself so much that you accidentally get a too-good-to-pass-up boyfriend when you were just getting in the swing of sleeping around. I’m still dating that guy, and now I use the stone-cold self-assurance running through my veins to go approach people on behalf of my friends.

  Oh, and I do still have vision in both eyes.

  SECTION THREE,

  in which I get very tired of trying so hard, realize I was wrong about almost everything, and save my boyfriend’s life.

  Kirkwood, Missouri

  In case it hasn’t been made abundantly clear by this point, I’m incredibly privileged—like the most you can get unless you have naturally perkier tits and a smaller rib cage and fewer chronic health issues. I’m a cis white middle-class lady with American citizenship. I’m disgustingly lucky. And for most of my childhood-through-teens I grew up warmly ensconced in that bubble. I thought that if you voted Democrat every four years that meant you were a good person; clearly, then, you couldn’t possibly be racist or sexist or horrible. Obviously that is an incredibly ignorant opinion, which you might generously dismiss as part of being an eighteen-year-old. But my ignorance can’t be pinned entirely on “just being a kid.” I was (and am) white and middle-class (or upper-middle-class, depending on what the boundaries are) and the accompanying privilege—not my age—is what allowed me to be ignorant. Being white and middle-class is the reason I thought you didn’t have any obligation to do anything other than vote every four years. I’m sure that it wasn’t about being a teenager, because when I go home there are plenty of people who are forty-seven and sixty-eight who think the same things I thought at eighteen.

  I grew up going to schools that taught only good things about capitalism and that conveniently stopped covering racism once Martin Luther King Jr. got shot. And often, even more conveniently, right before that event.

  What’s especially weird about this looking back, and when I say weird I mean “part of upholding white supremacy,” is that I went to a school that was made up of about 30 percent Black students, most of whom were bused in from the city of St. Louis in a program people casually called “deseg”—short for desegregation. In 2010 administrators at our school were all saying “deseg”!!! And yet, no white person ever talked about race.

  There is a small, small part of the town I grew up in that is predominantly Black. It’s called Meacham Park, and every year it gets smaller and smaller due to things like gentrification and the need for a TJ Maxx right there, apparently. This tiny enclave is the only part of the school district that is predominantly anything other than white. It’s not just white, either, it’s a specific type of white. Almost everyone is Christian, a few Catholic. Being Italian is spicy for these people. There were very few Muslim students at my high school, and even fewer Jewish students. The entire thesis of the place was white Christianity.

  Kirkwood—the city/neighborhood I grew up in—is about 90 percent white. Meacham Park is about 98 percent Black. Meacham Park is directly south of Kirkwood, and is its unincorporated neighbor, willfully neglected by those in power; if you live in Meacham Park, you go to Kirkwood schools and Kirkwood’s city hall is supposedly yours. Kirkwood’s money is not, however, put into your community. When I was in high school a man who lived in Meacham Park shot up a city hall meeting, due in part, supposedly, to the eminent domain project that saw much of Meac
ham Park being razed for the aforementioned TJ Maxx. Six people died, including our mayor. Still, no white person talked about race. At least, not explicitly.

  Most of the white people I grew up around would describe themselves as someone who doesn’t “see” color. They were people who would hesitate or whisper when describing someone as Black for fear that that word might be offensive, but they somehow always managed to include the detail in their story. If you make sure that the party line is “I don’t see race,” if you keep pretending that race doesn’t exist, then no one can ever bring up racism. Heaven forbid a white person feel uncomfortable when confronted with their own racism.

  For most of my childhood and teens I’d been taught that being racist was always overt and easy to spot, like “I won’t swim in the same pool as people of a different race” racist. I thought that you had to mean to be racist to be racist. I certainly didn’t understand all the ways in which I was racist, or all the ways in which racism benefited me. It was hard for white people in my hometown—myself at the time most certainly included—to imagine racism as much beyond slurs or people who flew the Confederate flag. It was not hard for white people in my hometown to have no Black friends, to make snide comments about being professional or the importance of “correct” grammar, to brag gleefully about St. Louis being the “most dangerous city” in the world, despite the fact that crime would likely never ever touch them or their neighborhood. I was in AP classes throughout high school, and for the most part the same group of kids was in most of the honors and advanced classes. I never once had an AP class with more than one Black student; no one seemed to ask why that was.