toothbrush

in my dating life, the moment I give someone a toothbrush carries a lot of significance. it means you've slept over at least 4 times and it doesn't make sense for you to just chew some trident before bed anymore. it means I have an expectation that you'll make good use of that brand new toothbrush, that there's some sense of permanency of having you in my life. it also means that I'll have a daily reminder of you sitting on my bathroom sink. having your own toothbrush is a prerequisite to having your own hanger, which opens the door to having your own drawer, key, etc. It's the commentary equivalent of Summer letting Tom into her room for the first time.  

today I threw wbf2's toothbrush out - and all of "us", whatever that was, along with it. I immediately felt a wave of relief and freedom - who knew a dental cleaning tool could carry such emotional symbolism? 

wbf2 and I had been loitering dangerously close to the border of relationship status, and it was only a matter of time before we accidentally inched a toe across that line. for us it was a weekend of fighting like a couple, realizing we cared, having way too many relationship-y lectures, being grilled by friends about our status, and sending a kissy face emoticon that set us over the edge into that relationship minefield. as the grey area crumbled, we turned and ran full speed the other way until "relationship" became a laughable foreign concept. 

I have one toothbrush left, and you can bet I won't be giving it to another placeholder. 

30 seconds from my thoughts

While looking at Facebook newsfeed: 

Who is this guy? Why are we friends? Did we make out? When did we make out? Wow, I REALLY can't remember if we made out or just ate Mexican food drunk. 

placeholder.

I've been thinking for a while about how to recap my recent dating activity, and finally realized it can all be summed up with one theme: commoditized dating. probably the most notorious evidence of this can be seen in online dating - "giving" away unwanted matches to your friends on coffee meets bagel practically turns men into trading cards, and "liking" photo after photo on tinder makes it hard to keep track of which Matt or John you're messaging with today.

The title of this post is not for lack of a title, but rather that the men in my life have been commoditized to a point that they are mostly placeholders - guys I keep around for companionship and entertainment until someone better comes along. before I elaborate, I should also mention a second theme in my dating life: I can't stop dating co-workers. No, I'm not referring to work boyfriend, but a new, improved model who my friends and I have aptly dubbed "wbf2", or work boyfriend 2.

wbf2 is smarter, more ambitious, and funnier with more in common with me, but on the physical scale he's a bit of a hairy beast (though still over 6 feet with a fairly nice body). like the original, wbf2 is also foreign, but seems to have acclimated to the american way of dating, despite his claims of hating how casual it is.

in fact, our office tension broke about a month ago in the most casual way possible - through a drunken hookup after a night out. the events that followed reminded me only too much of another office romance where I asked for my caught-in-the-middle friend to conduct some recon. literally almost word for word to the Folgers situation, wbf2 described me as "smart, cool, and very pretty" but "didn't want a relationship", noting excuses about not wanting to date co-workers, not being sure how long he's going to stay in the states, (and after that all I heard was blah blah blah).

so I heeded his warnings and wishes to remain single and kept a distance from him at work and outside of work. that is, until last weekend when we took a work trip together to Seattle. sunshine, alcohol, views of the pacific northwest and a shared hotel made for quite the weekend, ahem.

ever since then, we seem to have been in some sort of relationship limbo - not quite friends with benefits because we both sense there is something deeper, but definitely no where near relationship status.*

we are simply placeholders. 

now this is not my first or even second attempt at reverse dating, so if placeholder does end up being synonymous with friends with benefits, I think I can be ok with that. for now.

*he even tried to sabotage himself just like Folgers by telling me about all the other women in his life, and how I didn't want to date him because his ex might be visiting (so clearly, this means they are going to hook up, well why not). the excuses were all too familiar - but they did prompt me to tell him about the accountant I had been seeing every so often. I felt bad at first for two-timing but when I heard about the women in his life, I felt like I should have been three- or four- timing to even the field.