Disasters in Dating

by Danielle Allen

  “Especially with the number of dicks you’ve encountered in your heyday,” Carmen joked, forcing a laugh out of all of us.

  Dyani rolled her eyes even as they danced with glee. She flipped her black ponytail over her shoulder and tried to mask her smile. “If that’s not the ho pot calling the slutty kettle black, I don’t know what is.”

  Lifting her glass that shook with each wave of laughter that moved through her, Carmen retorted, “A toast to Dyani… apparently you can turn a ho into a housewife.” After we managed to stop laughing, she answered my question. “While I was on TenderFish, I met a number of men and you’d be surprised how many people are down to fuck without a condom. Not just that, they’re down to fuck without so much as a conversation about sexual history or status. I asked every single time. It makes—”

  “A toast to Carmen…” Dyani interrupted. “To the thousands of sex conversations she’s had with the thousands of men she’s had in her lifetime.”

  My stomach hurt so bad from laughing so hard.

  Nichelle looked at me. “You already know Drew and I went to the campus clinic together to get tested before being together for the first time. Prior to that, it was hit or miss with the conversation. But I always used condoms.”

  “Me too,” Anika chimed in.

  Dyani and Carmen looked at each other and laughed.

  “How are you ladies? Sounds like you’re having a good time,” the waiter appeared and refilled our drink glasses and another round of mimosas.

  We thanked him and waited until he was far enough away before we continued our conversation.

  “In conclusion, even though I’m so unbelievably horny I may spontaneously combust, I didn’t have sex with Brian because I’m waiting for his test results to come back. But in the meantime, we’re getting to know each other and it’s pretty great.”

  He texted me all morning about what a good time he’d had and how he was looking forward to taking me out again.

  “If you’re looking to have a ‘get back on the saddle’ fling, do it with the fireman,” Anika whispered, shocking us all.

  “What?” we screeched in unison.

  “Anika! Do you kiss your husband with that filthy little mouth of yours?” Carmen teased, causing her to blush.

  Looking around, Anika leaned up to speak quietly across the table. “You like Brian. He could be the one. Don’t rush into sex with him. But this fireman…” Her sentence tapered off with the implied meaning in the air. “You said he was just looking for a good time. Aren’t you?”

  “Although I am surprised these words are coming out of my mouth,” Dyani started, clearing her throat and making her eyes wide. “Anika is right.”

  Carmen and Nichelle gasped dramatically.

  Dyani ignored them. “Jayson is looking for a wife, but he’s rich and perfect on paper. Brian is perfect in person, but potentially unclean. You’ve been talking to a handful of other guys, but the only other one you refer to by name is Charles.”

  “I have a couple of others to mention. I have some other dates lined up,” I pointed out, holding up my phone. “I’m on fire right now.”

  “You have your ‘hot and ready’ sign turned on,” Carmen quipped, making me giggle.

  As if on cue, my phone vibrated. I slipped it from the table into my lap and opened it.

  Charles: Okay gorgeous, let me guess—brunch with your friends followed by a date with someone who isn’t me?

  Desiree: Ha! You would be correct.

  I looked up at my friends as they accepted the fresh juice and mimosa refills. They were preoccupied so I looked back at my phone.

  Charles: Why must we keep doing this dance, Desiree? You know you want to slide down my pole. You know I want you to slide down my pole. This should be a win, win.

  Desiree: How many women did that line work on?

  Charles: Only two… so far. I was hoping it would be a third, but I see you aren’t falling for my punny charms. They thought it was cute. In fact, it turned them on.

  Ha! Punny! I giggled to myself.

  Desiree: Did it? Did it turn them on? Did it make them hot? And here I thought you were trained in extinguishing hot spots.

  Charles: Ha! I light them and put them out. You know firefighters are always in heat and we are experts on what’s hot.

  Desiree: Okay, I’ll bite. What’s hot?

  Charles: The mental image of you biting is hot.

  I rolled my eyes and looked up to find everyone staring at me. My eyebrows jumped to the middle of my forehead and I looked around confused. “I’m sorry, I must have missed something.”

  “We were going back and forth about Charles and sexy firefighters in general and then we noticed you were sitting there staring at your phone, grinning with a halo of hearts around your head,” Nichelle recapped for me.

  With the biggest smile on my face, I responded, “I wasn’t grinning and there’s no halo of hearts!”

  “Who was that?” Carmen asked loudly. “Was it some new guy?”

  “Or was it Brian?” Anika asked dreamily.

  I shook my head.

  Not wanting to feed into the Should I Sleep With Him thinktank my friends created, I changed the subject smoothly. “I have a date tonight.”

  Carmen stood and gave me a standing ovation. “This, my friends, is called the trifecta, and our dear sweet Desi has landed one within two weeks of her online dating life. She deserves a round of applause.”

  I laughed as Nichelle and Dyani stood. Anika covered her face with her hands and shrank in her seat.

  “Who is this date with? We need details!” Dyani bounced in her chair like an excited school girl.

  “Well, it’s with a guy named Mitchell. I’ve been talking to him for about a week, and he’s pretty cool.” I closed out of my text message conversation with Charles and opened the conversation I had with Mitchell. He’d sent me a picture after he was dressed for church. I flipped my phone so the table could see it. “This is Mitchell.”

  “Oh yesssssssss!”

  A wolf whistle followed by a grunt.

  “Wow!”

  “Very, very nice!”

  My friends catcalled the handsome man in the photo and I smiled.

  Mitchell was very good looking. He was built like a football player—more of a meatier defensive linebacker than a leaner offensive player—and he appeared to be equal parts soft teddy bear and equal parts strong grizzly bear. He had a great smile and unless he was using a filter in every single one of his pictures, his skin looked radiant.

  “Well, here’s the thing with him… he’s been this complete gentleman the entire time I’ve known him,” I started, feeling my eyebrows pull inward as confusion swirled around me again. “He asked me out to this outdoor classical concert at The Perch.”

  “Oh, nice!” Nichelle commented.

  I gave her a look. “Right? And tonight is supposed to be gorgeous so it should be a really nice time.”

  “Romantic setting. Romantic night. Romantic music. Hot guy. What’s the issue?” Anika asked before smiling a hopeful smile. “Is it because you like Brian?”

  I rolled my eyes and Nichelle groaned.

  Carmen gave Anika a look. “Do you have a thing for Brian? You keep going back to him. He was three conversations ago!”

  Anika looked down into her lap. “I was just asking.”

  Dyani threw her arm around her neck. “It’s okay to be interested in hearing about a man who isn’t your husband. Brian’s cute. You’re married, not dead. You’re allowed to browse with your eyes, just not with your hands. Well, unless…”

  “Don’t listen to them,” I interrupted, kicking Dyani under the table and giving a death glare to Carmen. “I know your interest in Brian is because you think there’s something extra special between us.” I couldn’t help smiling as I said the words. “It’s unusual for me to click with someone as quickly as I clicked with him, but I’m taking each day one day at a time.”

  “Thank you,” An
ika said, perking up a bit.

  “But if I’m not into a guy, it doesn’t mean it’s because I’m into Brian.” I paused. “Although I have definitely compared a few to Brian.”

  “Is that what you did with Mitchell?” Anika asked.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Mitchell and I actually have a natural attraction. We had lots of great conversations. He was a complete gentleman. And then this morning he asked me to send him a photo. I was sitting in the living room, drinking coffee and watching church on TV with just a tank top and a pair of shorts, so I took a selfie and sent it. He sent me a picture of him fresh out of the shower.” I glanced at my girls as they were staring at me wide eyed. I could feel that they knew what was coming.

  “And…?” Carmen stretched the word out, rushing me along.

  “And I jokingly said, ‘Okay cool… I guess we are at the naked selfie stage of our relationship…’ or something silly like that.” I pushed my hair over my shoulder and leaned forward. “And in response, he sends me a picture of his dick.”

  “We’ve got a dick pic!” Carmen cheered, pumping her arm in the air comically.

  I chuckled at her absurdity.

  Although I’d gotten numerous pictures of dicks sent to me in the SOS messages, I’d never had any of the men who I’d given my number to send me one. It was both abrasive and comical because I didn’t see it coming and then because when I saw it, I didn’t expect what I’d seen.

  The two tables on the other side of the restaurant hadn’t been paying much attention to us until Carmen’s outburst. Between the two tables of twenty-somethings who’d stopped eating and were looking at us, and the group of older women in church hats who had just walked in, our group was the center of attention.

  “Hi ladies,” an older waitress with her greying hair in a tight blondish bun said. Her voice was lowered as she addressed us in a friendly, but firm voice. “Unfortunately, you can’t yell dick loudly in our establishment.”

  “Oh, my God,” Anika groaned, covering her face and slouching in her chair.

  The rest of us were laughing so hard that we had tears streaming down our cheeks.

  I barely heard Carmen apologize over the sound of our gasps and giggles. When we finally calmed down, our to-go boxes were placed in the middle of the table.

  “Are we being kicked out?” Nichelle wondered aloud, causing us all to fall into a fit of giggles again.

  “I’m not getting kicked out over a dick pic I haven’t seen.” Dyani crossed her arms defiantly. “If I have to pay for this food, I’m staying right here until I’m good and ready to leave.” She looked at me, and I knew what she was going to ask before she even asked it.

  Opening the text message up, I showed her the unsolicited picture of Mitchell’s dick.

  “Oh, my God,” Anika groaned again. “If he sent you that in confidence, you shouldn’t show anyone!”

  “If he had sent it to me in confidence, I wouldn’t show anyone.” I moved the phone from Dyani to Nichelle and then to Carmen. “Or if it was small, I wouldn’t show anyone because I wouldn’t want to embarrass him. He sent me an unsolicited photo of an impressive dick. Keyword is unsolicited.”

  “Yeah,” Nichelle agreed, taking the phone from my hand and bringing it close to her face, analyzing it. “Had this been Desiree’s man or even a guy that she requested the dick pic from, that would be different.”

  “But I’m sure he didn’t think he was sending it to you and you’d show your friends,” Anika argued, averting her eyes so that she avoided a glimpse of my phone.

  “Listen,” Carmen started, her eyebrow raised. “If you send a dick pic to a woman with friends and you’re not her man and she didn’t ask you for it, you know she’s going to show her friends. If it’s big, you’re basically asking her to show her friends. If it’s small, you’re hoping to God Almighty that your face isn’t in the photo and that you don’t have any distinguishing birthmarks to tie you to the micropenis.”

  I laughed and Nichelle high-fived her.

  “I don’t send naked photos of myself to anyone. But if I did, it would be someone I was in a relationship with or at the very least, it would be someone I was intimate with. If I sent it to a guy I hadn’t even met yet, I would be ninety percent positive he’d show at least one friend,” I replied, shrugging. “That’s why you never put your face in the shot.”

  “Even after you’re with him,” Nichelle added. “These dudes ain’t loyal.”

  Dyani nodded. “You have to married at least a year before you can send a nude with your face in it.”

  “Miguel can’t get a nude with my face in it until he after it’s too late for the marriage to be annulled.” Carmen banged her fist against the table, rattling the glasses. “He’s not going to be out here acting like the marriage didn’t happen, posting my big ass all over the internet.”

  “But if it’s a pay site…” Jokingly, Dyani moved her hands up and down like she was weighing her options.

  “Oh if it’s a pay site and I’m going to get rich from it, sign me the fuck up!” Carmen and Dyani stood up and high-fived. One and then the other started twerking.

  I put my hands together in prayer. “Why, Lord? Why?” Looking between them, I shook my head. “Next brunch needs to be at church.”

  “Amen!” They said in unison, causing us all to laugh at their antics.

  “Between the table twerks and the community dick pic, we all should be in church,” Anika mumbled, embarrassed.

  “You want to see the picture, don’t you?” Carmen retorted, and my eyebrow lifted as I was going to say the same thing.

  “No!” Anika blushed as she shielded her eyes. “I’m just hoping no one I’ve ever sent a naked photo to ever showed their friends.”

  “Okay, wait a minute.” I gestured with my hands up for emphasis. “How many times have you ever sent a nude to some guy you don’t know out of nowhere?” I looked around the table. “Any of you?”

  I received head shakes and raised eyebrows in response.

  “I almost did once when I was trying to seduce this guy,” Dyani recalled, pulling at her ponytail. “But since I’d just broken up with his friend and I was just going for a revenge fuck, I thought… wait, what was the question?”

  I shook my head at the adventurous life my friend had led pre-motherhood. She shrugged and winked.

  “I’m sure there are women out there who’ve done it. But I don’t, and I don’t know any who do. But even before I got on SOS, when I was checking out the other sites, I would get messages that would just be random dicks. No hello. No how are you? No small talk. Just a picture of a dick.”

  “Same here,” Carmen chimed in. “And if you think sending me a dick as a hello is appropriate, you obviously don’t mind strangers seeing your dick.”

  We nodded in agreement.

  “In my opinion,” I continued. “There is an unspoken rule with photos. If you request the photo, there’s a presumed responsibility of privacy. But if you just send me a picture of your dick without my consent, participation, or expressed interest, the photo is not protected under the presumed responsibility of privacy.”

  “If anything, it’s just like the screenshots of the bullshit men say to us that we send each other,” Nichelle reasoned. “And when we tell each other the play-by-play of the bullshit arguments we have with our husbands about the bullshit they do that gets on our nerves sometimes.”

  “It’s also no different than when we ask Desiree to read us the filth men send her for our amusement,” Carmen added. She seemed to sense that Anika was feeling attacked, so she flashed her a smile. “But I know you’re a good girl so you don’t have eyes for any other cock but your husband’s.”

  Anika giggled.

  “Speaking of cocks…I’ve been accosted with a lot of them over the past couple of months, and can I just say that I feel like the guys who are initiating conversations with just a dick pic usually have the most unappealing dicks. Is that just me?” I wondered. “Becaus
e most of them have nothing to brag about, but there they are…proudly jutting from their owner. Or is it something about me that’s attracting unprovoked small penises?”

  My friends laughed and agreed loudly.

  “SOS… Someone Small,” Carmen joked.

  “This is so true. Even off dating apps, back when I was wild and free, it was always the guys with the really little dicks that said something like ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’… and then they’d go on and on about how they can tear it up in the bedroom.” Dyani rolled her eyes. “I don’t judge a book by its cover. I’m judging you because of the short length of the book. I’m judging you because of the lack of girth of the book. Hell, I’m judging you because you sent me this small ass dick as a hello.”

  Our simultaneous cackling almost sounded musical.

  I looked at Anika who was biting her lip to keep from laughing. “What’s really going on?” I asked gently.

  I should’ve known not to ask any follow up questions. Because out of left field, she gave me the look.

  “If this guy is the one for you, I just don’t want to have seen his dick. I hope and pray that one of the men you meet will be your happily ever after,” Anika said with an open and genuineness that sucked the humor out of the conversation. Her eyes were so bright and so hopeful.

  And full of pity.

  I sighed. The look.

  “Mitchell isn’t the one,” I replied, my tone dry.

  “Hmmm, but maybe Brian is?” Nichelle speculated in a sing-song voice, holding my phone out to me.

  I take my phone and instantly smile.

  Brian: I know we already talked this morning but, Desiree Johnson, I can’t stop thinking about you. Last night was amazing. You’re amazing. I’m really looking forward to talking to you when I get home. I hope I can see you again soon. I want to take you out on Saturday if you’re free.