It was late winter of 2006, and on a particularly nondescript day, my roommate somehow coerced me into signing up and submitting my picture to Hot or Not [www.hotornot.com]. For those unfamiliar, it has basically a slideshow of photos of people, and your job as the ultimate judge of human attractiveness is to rate them from 1 to 10 – 10 being super hot, 1 being super not. I usually hate to put myself in those kinds of quantitatively defining situations, but somehow I ended up yielding to her wishes. Maybe it was the boredom. Maybe it was the curiosity. Maybe it was all that opium I had just smoked. Either way, within a few hours I had some votes, which averaged around 7.5, which I actually thought was about right. Later, as a completely nonprofessional social psychological experiment, I tried posting different pictures of me – one bumming with a sweatshirt and glasses [averaged 7], one quite dolled up [averaged 8], and one where I was leaning over and provocatively displaying my cleavage. The last, unsurprisingly, averaged 9, which just proves that showing your boobs always makes you look more attractive. Maybe it makes you look less intelligent, but brains are overrated, anyway.
Through a random series of events, I ended up meeting a guy on there and we talked fairly extensively via Instant Messenger, then phone. Immediately I was intrigued – he was random, funny, and creative, and encouraging of my desire to write. We had long and entertaining conversations, but he lived about 400 miles away in a different state. Being young and craving love, I thought this could be something special, and ended up putting a lot of my heart into this relationship, and even making plans to visit him, only to have my hopes dashed about three months in when he began dating someone from his workplace. Someone in “real life.” I was upset initially, and then chocked up the experience to a learning experience, and a fun story to reflect on in the future. Sadly, we lost touch shortly thereafter.
However, through the magic of the interwebs, he found me on Facebook about two months ago [coincidentally almost exactly two years after our first introduction], and we reconnected. He and the girl had broken up, as had my boyfriend and me, so we were both single again. We talked online and on the phone like we had so many years before, less often this time, but still with the same spark and vigor that was intriguing previously. Although this time would be different, as I had no intention of putting so much of my emotions into the relationship, and thankfully I was, and continue to be, successful in this regard. Just coming off a devastating heartbreak and loss doesn’t make me that interested in gambling with my heart again. Not this soon, anyway.
One day I had an idea: I was going to be spending two weeks in Philadelphia at a conference, and since he lives only about an hour north of the city, I called and suggested he come to Philly and we finally meet up. To my relief, he thought it was a great idea, and we made plans. It was an exciting prospect to meet this funny, interesting guy with whom I had shared so many conversations and laughs, and the week preceding the date I went over and over different scenarios in my head. I thought of how I would greet him – with a handshake, hug, or by jumping into his arms. I thought of what activities we would do – getting food, coffee, drinks, maybe going to Atlantic City, maybe participating in some gang initiations. The possibilities were endless.
The day of, I readied myself with the requisite hair and make-up routine as usual, making a special effort with a flatiron to minimize the frizz associated with June humidity. I wore a new blue silk dress that I thought accentuated my good parts and hid the bad. While I waited for his call to announce his arrival, I nervously brushed my hair and powdered my face over and over again, as is typical with my pre-date OCD routine. Then my phone buzzed. He was right down the street. I walked out of the building and immediately spotted him on his cell phone about 100 feet away. The greeting was an exclamation of “Holy shit!” and a full embrace, which was held twice as long and stronger than I had expected. It was a good hug, and a good start to a great day together, which was comprised by a late brunch, great conversation over coffee, walking around downtown in the sweltering heat, delicious food and beer at one of his favorite local spots, all capped off with showers [yes, separate] to wash off the sticky sweat of the day, donning pajamas and a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit, where he said I impressed him with my useless knowledge and claimed a victory. We then listened to music and talked, cuddled a bit, and finally kissed. Lately, it seems the guys I have been kissing are either too excited or don’t know how to kiss, because I often have to wipe my face off mid-make-out session due to their attempts at swallowing my face. Not this time. He kissed me exactly how I like to be kissed, and that fact alone made me smile inside.
When I noticed the sun starting to rise and we were still awake, I was quite surprised. Obviously both getting tired, I settled down and rested my head on his shoulder, with my face nuzzling his neck. As the sunlight peeped through the shades, I drifted off to sleep.
Doesn’t that seem like a sweet way to end a great day together? Oh, if only the story stopped there.
Seasonal allergies usually kick my ass, and combined with the cold I’ve unfortunately held on to the past three weeks, I’ve generally been a hacky, sneezy mess. I coughed pretty much our entire day together. I cough as I write this.
As I was falling asleep, I can only guess that perhaps an allergen particulate wedged its way into my sinus cavity, and irritated my allergen sensors. Having been quite ill the prior week, I had not been taking my Allegra as I didn’t want to overmedicate – it was enough for me take massive amounts of Advil, Tylenol and DayQuil. However it happened, this particle aggravated a sensitive system in my nose and caused a horribly undesirable action while I was sleeping.
I sneezed on his face.
Yes, that’s right. I’m still perplexed as to the exact details, but I think it went something like this:
Me: [sleeping] Ah-CHOO! [waking up, horrified]
Him: [waking up, also horrified, wiping off face] What the –!! Did you just sneeze on me??
Me: Oh, SHIT! I’m sorry!
Him: Well, thankfully I don’t think there was any excretion.
Me: [still horrified, rolls away] Ohh, God…
Him: Hey, don’t worry about it.
Me: Oh, that is so embarrassing [silently swearing at self for being a fucktard].
Him: It’s ok.
[silence]
Him: Hey, remember that time you sneezed on me?
Me: Oh, fuck you!
Him: What, too soon??
Earlier in the evening, he told me an embarrassing story, and asked for one of mine. Racking my brain and coming up with nothing, I commented, “I don’t embarrass easily.” I guess I was just asking for it.
