Forever Nerdy

by Brian Posehn

  I intended on finally sleeping with her after I recuperated from my accident at my mom’s, and then I got a girlfriend, Natalie, and Lizzie got a boyfriend. The main reason I regret not taking lessons from her is because you just read several sentences about how I almost fucked someone. Great.

  Every good nerd has a “one that got away” story. I’m a great nerd—so I don’t have a “one that got away” story; I have a couple who got away and a couple I awkwardly sent away. At the end of the day and this book, the only one who really, really matters I’ll be with forever. And she gets a whole chapter.

  There are probably twenty or so girls I used to wish I had sex with but didn’t. Here goes. Number one. Kate Beckinsale. Not that I ever had a chance with her, but I’ve been in the same room with her a handful of times. So maybe in a universe where I had a 19 charisma instead of the 3 I rolled at birth, I could’ve made that happen. She is fucking stunning. And I think she’s actually a vamp, because she refuses to age.

  Number two. This indie rock singer. She’s famous, and we met when I first started dating my wife. In the beginning I thought my girlfriend, now wife would break up with me any day and I would call the rock star. It’s been twenty years. I’m happier than a guy who married twenty rock stars.

  Number three, Paige.

  Number four, Lizzie.

  Number five, Cheryl. We actually dated, but my fears of being a terrible sex partner killed that. Cheryl was older too and divorced with a kid, but, oh fuck, was she hot and sexy and I was skinny and long haired and at my most Jeff Spicoli. We didn’t have that much in common other than we both were trying to be famous and wanted to bang each other. It was purely sexual.

  We met in Los Angeles; we were both winners of a Sacramento talent contest. For winning, we got a free trip to LA to meet with real, live casting people. Cheryl won for modeling and acting, and I won for comedy. After meeting a casting agent, we made out on the patio of my room and were about to totally do it when she noticed that my roommate Paul was hanging right behind me in our room, windows open, looking at us. Weirdo. We all flew home on a private plane (that was part of the prize). So we made out on the plane. Not part of the prize, but awesome. She climbed on my lap while we made out. I came. Almost instantly. She didn’t jump off of me or punch me in the face, so I don’t think she knew. That was my Mile-High Club experience. I was even too early for that.

  On our second “date”—but our first real one—I took Cheryl to a free meal at a bowling alley restaurant. I had won a gift certificate there in a comedy competition. Cheap date. She was disappointed with my low level of romanticism. I was twenty-two and broke and horny. Give me a break. Even though the night was not a success, we still almost humped in my car in front of the bowling alley. We were sloppy drunk. Because of the free food, I was able to afford many beers.

  The third date was in 1990, after my injury. It was almost two years later. We ran into each other at a Sacramento bar. We were both very excited to see each other. There was an instant attraction. I looked like a stud to my friend Sean because he thought we had just met, so when Cheryl and I were making out against the bar a minute later, Sean was surprised. He had just tried hitting on her. He asked me what was going on with Cheryl, and I admitted I had known her from before. He told me he was impressed and wished me good luck. We went back to her apartment. I asked about her kid, and she said he was staying overnight at her mom’s nearby. We talked, made out a little, and looked at her exotic fish.

  Cheryl brought me a drink and took her clothes off. I said, “I guess we’re done looking at your fish.” She laughed. She was tiny, so I easily lifted her up and kissed her. I carried her into her room and gently threw her on her bed, and she giggled sexily. In a sloppy attempt to pleasure her, I was so excited the second I started, I came. Again, I’m pretty sure she had no idea. I was instantly ashamed and embarrassed. I had a pretty bad case of hair-trigger with her.

  I could have maybe finished the job and recovered, but I was so mortified. Even though Cheryl had no idea, I had to get out of there. So I abruptly stopped. When she asked what was happening, I told her I had a girlfriend and was feeling guilty. I didn’t, but it shut the situation down and I was on my way, driving an hour and a half home to my mom’s at, like, 3 a.m. Sad. Why I thought it was better to make a girl hate me rather than admitting to the embarrassing act, I have no idea. I was a fucking idiot.

  Unlike John Mayer’s wiener, my wiener is not racist. I’ve also disappointed Asian, Hispanic, and black girls. First was Sidney, the girl whose play I was in at American River College. She had approached me in drama class to be in a one act she wrote and was directing. My slightly racist grandfather had to voice his disapproval. “Some people might not understand that.” Clearly, you don’t. When I was living with my mom, right before I reacquainted myself with Natalie, I went out with a Sonoma girl, Marissa, the punk-rock chick I worked with at a record store.

  We only went out for a couple of weeks. We made out behind the video counter on the floor in a sloppy pile. We almost did it there, but she was worried about getting caught, though that wasn’t a concern when we boned on my mom’s couch. My mom wasn’t there, but I kept hoping she would catch us so she’d know I liked girls. Because I was such a late bloomer, she had expressed concern. I once farted while I went down on Marissa. I was completely mortified, and she didn’t seem to care. She laughed and told me to finish. Punk rock, for sure.

  When I moved to San Francisco I had a couple of crushes, but when I acted on them the girls turned me down politely. There were a couple who made it clear they needed to go out on dates first because they were then in their late twenties and didn’t just drunkenly fuck whoever was close when the night ended.

  I dated three different comedy club waitresses: Kayla, Natalie, and Kristen. Kayla cooled on me pretty quickly. I saw her at a pro-choice rally, figuring that would get me points. It didn’t. Natalie and Kristen both became my girlfriends. I got slightly better at sex after having it on a regular basis. At least I wasn’t freaking out about finishing before I started anymore.

  There was also a street prostitute in San Francisco I had a crush on. Let me explain. She looked like Brigette Nielson from that one minute when Brigitte Nielson was sexy, Stallone’s Cobra. All the comics talked about her because she was always in front of the Improv and really cute—not just cute for a street prostitute cute but, like, actually very cute. Her sales line one night was “Would you like some company?” It almost worked, because that is so nice—who doesn’t want some company?

  I’ve never had a three-way, because GROSS. I did come close to a four-way once, but I was too dumb, too wasted, and much too much of a chicken to follow through. When I left San Francisco my friends threw me a going-away party. I was supposed to drive to LA the next day. But by around three in the morning I was ridiculously hammered. Next thing I knew I left my own party with three girls. We get to their apartment, and I remember figuring out what was happening: two of the girls were trying to seduce me.

  Of course, I was more into the third girl. I made out briefly with all three and then started to fall asleep because I was so wasted and lame. I also remember a sense of the usual performance anxiety, now three-fold, because there were three girls to disappoint. Instead, I disappointed them by breaking up the party awkwardly and heading back to my apartment. During the Mr. Show years, at the beginning of the internet, I received a note from a girl who wanted to have a three-way with David Cross and me. David Cross and some girl. Any girl. Yuck. That girl or woman was incredible at bad ideas. Her name was Kellyanne Conway. Not really.

  I didn’t have sex with Kathy Griffin. Not everyone can say that. We went out maybe three times. She made me take her to a hot Hollywood nightspot, not the kind of place I’d ever been to. She only wanted to go because she heard it was really popular. We went to the Roosevelt Hotel. She wasn’t really a drinker. I drank. Pretty sure I was also high every time I was around her. Not on purpose. If I were around her
now, it would be on purpose.

  I was a fan of Shakes the Clown, Bobcat’s fucked-up clown movie, so that came up when Kathy and I were out. “You were really funny in that…” I said. We had nothing in common other than the fact that we both had red hair and performed comedy. Oh, and we both had moms. “Janeane said you don’t like physical contact or hugging or anything.” By the way, she was talking about Janeane Garofalo. I said, “Uh, I guess that’s true. She said that?” Kathy said, “She sure did. Are you weird? What’s that about?” Me: “I think hugging is fake. And it makes me really uncomfortable, and being my size sucks because I could hurt people.” Kathy laughed, “Ha, you are weird. Want to order food?”

  She made me make out with her in front of the hotel bar as we were leaving. “Uh, Brian, I’m a pretty girl. Why aren’t you trying to kiss me?” When she put it that way, I didn’t have an answer. So I kissed her in the street as we walked to the car. I lifted her up a little, and she swooned. That had become my “go-to” with petite girls—lift them up a little. I think she wanted to do it right there. We went back to my place and made out in her car in my driveway.

  It got a little heated. I wanted to take her upstairs to my room. Or do it right there in the car. She read the signs—and by that I mean she probably felt my boner—and said, “Your roommates are home, so I don’t want to go to your room, and we’re not doing it in the car, so why don’t you come over to my place?” It sounded so simple. It wasn’t.

  Kathy lived on the West Side. I lived in Laurel Canyon. Her place was about a half hour away. My door was five steps away. My roommates were home. And that meant video games and weed. I thought about the drive there and back and passed. I think I said something like, “Well, it doesn’t make any sense for me to drive all the way over to your place.” She was kind of annoyed, and rightly so. I went up and played video games and got high. Not in that order.

  She called me a day or two later and very seriously said we needed to talk. Okay. Would I go see Grumpy Old Men with her at the Beverly Center? I guess. I brought my friend Doug Benson. She was bummed. Not too bummed, though—she “dated” him next. But first she had to break up with me. Why? We weren’t actually going out; nothing had ever been said. Did people usually prefer weed and games over sex with someone they were dating?

  Nevertheless, she broke up with me. In the garage of the iconic Beverly Center Mall in Hollywood. We weren’t going out, remember? And yet she told me she had something to tell me. After the movie she went to Cinnabon and got a treat. I was thinking, What in the fuck is happening? She asked me to go to her car with her. I walked her to her car. She said she had to break up with me, that it wasn’t working out. I said, “We’re not going together.” She said, “Whatever, Brian, you’re crazy! We can still be friends.” I thought, Do we have to?

  Before I got married I went to strip clubs. A lot. I used to dumbly think that lap dances aren’t cheating. But they are. Especially the way some girls do it: “You came on me. You tip me now. Three hundred dollars.” This was a scary Russian lady, if you couldn’t tell by my kinda racist broken English schtick. I paid her. The last thing I wanted was her to scream at security, “He come on me!” And then sometimes they’re really nice. Just like real people—mean sometimes, nice others.

  In those years of dating I didn’t know what to do. Ever. Flowers scared girls off every time I bought them for a date, and I bought them every time, because of movies. In real life, on first dates, girls think it’s weird. What the fuck? Didn’t they see the same movies as me?

  Girls often confused me, and every once in a while that would lead to frustration and anger. Nowadays I’d be a woman-hating online troll. No, I wouldn’t. Those guys are shitty. But when I first moved to LA I didn’t want a girlfriend really. I liked a handful of girls at MTV. I was kind of a pig. I liked flirting. When we started production a whole new group of girls showed up.

  And I met Paula, my first long-term girlfriend. We only flirted while we were in production. At the wrap party I made my feelings known. The next morning we were in love. She was awesome, and we moved pretty fast. I eventually moved in with her. We dated for four years. We had a lot of fun. I wasn’t a great roommate—kind of a messy slacker. She kicked me out, but we continued to date. I moved in again with Dave Rath, my manager. This time we lived in a house in Encino that looked like it had been in a porno. That didn’t bode well for Paula and me. I broke up with Paula in early December of 1997. I used the “see other people” cliché bullshit, and that was part of it. Part of me also felt that if we couldn’t live together, we probably didn’t have a future. And I wanted to see other people.

  And then on New Years Eve of 1998 I met my dream girl. Tiny. Blonde. So cute. And sexy. Like the sexiest cute girl I’d ever seen. And because it was the nineties, she had tight plastic pants and a cute halter-like top, with her tan shoulders and neck adding to the look. She had pigtails and was twenty-five and super cute. Did I mention she was cute? She looked like Buffy from that show I liked. I was a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, so it was love at first sight. I didn’t know who “Buffy girl” was, but I had to meet her. I didn’t even talk to the poor girl, and I still had to get to know her. She left the party. The end.

  Nope. Keep reading, silly.

  NINETEEN

  NERD GETS CHEERLEADER

  So I had to meet this Buffy from my party. Like all the other crushes, I thought that would never happen. This sounds creepy, but I had a picture of her. I showed it to my roommate, Dave. “Oh, that’s Melanie. We just hired her.” I started calling her immediately. But I first needed to go through Cindy, the main assistant. She knew before anybody that I liked Melanie. Then I would engage in small talk. It worked, talking more and more each time. She was incredibly easy to talk to—so friendly and the perkiest, sweetest, most engaging person I had ever met. She was from a small town outside of Fresno, had been a cheerleader, and was the youngest sister in a big family. She loved her parents. She was normal. It’s not as corny as it sounds. She was also smoking hot.

  How does a nerd get his dream girl? Well, luck mostly, but by the time I met Melanie I had kind of figured out dating. I was still awkward, but I didn’t make any of the early mistakes. Actually, that is not true. She still talks of the first time someone told her I liked her and she didn’t believe them. She showed up at a party at David Cross’s apartment, and my friend Melissa saw her and, on my behalf, said, “Brian Posehn likes you.” Melanie, being super confident and the coolest girl ever, said, “Oh really? I’m gonna go talk to him.” She came up to me, and I froze like a giant dork. She said I blew her off, but I know it was because I was petrified.

  She was super way out of my league. (Have you looked at any of the pictures yet?) But she was sweet and actually interested in me. Flowers worked. They weren’t weird for her. They were seen as the old-fashioned romantic gesture I wanted them to be. We moved slowly at first. We saw a couple of bands; it was more casual. Our first date was low key: we went to see Gorgeous George at Luna Park in West Hollywood. It was super casual. I had worked up the nerve to call her and ask her to see my friend’s band. Blues Sarceno was a shredder guitar player I had met through Dweezil Zappa, and he had asked me to check out his new band, Gorgeous George. They were cool, but she was incredible.

  I was still awkward around her, but she was so easy to talk to that the more time I spent with her, the better I got at talking to her. That first night we had a couple of drinks and talked a lot. At a St. Patrick’s Day party I asked if I could take her to see the band Tool for her birthday. I got to introduce them, and we had backstage passes, so I’m sure that got me extra points. That was our first real date and our first kiss. Melanie, of course, made fun of my kiss. She called me a “little pecker.” It could’ve been worse—she could’ve been talking about my tiny wiener.

  Her teasing didn’t hurt, though. It was gentle and with love. I only wanted to kiss her more. I fell pretty hard. I had a short phase of being a jealous boyfriend—
she hated that. I didn’t want to lose her, so I quickly checked my jealousy. She also assured me that I had nothing to worry about. It wasn’t all perfect, though. Like any drunk twenty-something girl, she liked to sing, and it was almost a deal-breaker when she and her roommate sang my least favorite No Doubt song, “Don’t Speak,” at the top of their lungs. Don’t speak? Don’t sing.

  Speaking of deal-breakers, I almost lost her in the beginning when this idiot here showed her the movie Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. What the fuck was I thinking? In my defense, it was totally innocent. I showed her Harold and Maude too. I was just trying to share my love of movies with her. But in her defense, what girl wants “date movie night” to be a raw portrayal of real-life serial killer and rapist Henry Lee Lucas? It’s super brutal; it feels like you’re watching a snuff film. He kills his girlfriend. SPOILER. And puts her remains in two suitcases. And I owned it on DVD. I almost lost her. She thought, What kind of a creep owns that movie? Not this creep—I got rid of it. Still, I think singing No Doubt is kinda worse.

  We moved slow those first couple of weeks, and then we moved incredibly fast. I wanted to be around her all the time. I’m not going to describe here any of the sex acts with her like I did with the other girls I dated. I’m sure you understand: she’s my wife and my kid might read this someday. But I will tell you she blows everybody else away—the best. It felt perfect, like we were meant to be together. That unreachable ideal. We had crazy, fun times in the beginning. I always felt lucky to be with her. The first time I saw her breasts it was magical, like seeing a Disney princess’s tits.