"Why I'll Never Date Another Guy Named 'Tom'"

My latest essay at The Frisky is entitled "Why I'll Never Date Another Guy Named 'Tom'" and looks at exes and names and how they affect our perceptions of future people we encounter with the same name. Name as dealbreaker? Yes...probably.

Relatively recently, I dated two men in a row with the same first name—I’ll call them both Tom for the sake of this essay. One I fell in love with, and while I’m mostly over him, I’m not there all the way. Both are guys I was friends with before dating them, and I considered the possibility that the name thing would get weird with Tom 2.0, but I’d had a crush on him, so I overlooked it. They’re fairly different in personality, but the fact that in addition to sharing a name, both Toms have similar body types and professions adds to my sense that men with this name are not my type. Not to mention the fact that after I dated Tom 1.0, I had to keep calling Tom 2.0 by his full name when telling my friends about him, lest anyone get confused.

Dating men who share a name is not the same as, say, dating one guy who’s the spitting image of another, but it’s close.

Read the whole thing

Sex diary!

This week's sex diary: "The 26-Year-Old Woman Screwing Her Ex in a Public Bathroom.

We've all screwed an ex, right? Well, I have, that's for sure. I've never screwed an ex in a public bathroom. A current...um, possibly (not recently though, but 2003? yes indeed).

Sex column: "Rate Me — Not: Why I Don’t Want to Know How Many Stars Your Ex Gave You"

My latest SexIs column is called "Rate Me — Not: Why I Don’t Want to Know How Many Stars Your Ex Gave You" on why I don't need a website to rate my exes or see how future dates are rated. I get that we are into commoditizing people and summing them up pithily but I don't think you can ever know everything about a person from a screen (or really ever know anything about a person at all).



Here’s what was on the Ex-Rated site as a “review of the moment” the first time I visited: “Andi was an incredibly difficult, but sexy woman who, frankly, smelled better than any human I’ve ever met since.” Now, based on just that sentence, I have no idea whether this is someone I’d want to date. Even if I got a full dossier on her (or him), it still would just be words on a screen and, more importantly, a very subjective opinion. Maybe Andi is laid-back and casual around other people and her “difficult”ness was a function of something specific to their relationship.

Relationship post-mortems work well amongst friends because they know the backstory and have likely met the person and seen you together. They know the history and can judge when you’re being dramatic, have just cause to be upset, or are justified in trashing (or praising) someone. But in the absence of any other context, it’s dangerous to judge people based on “reviews.” People are not products, and while I spend a lot of my time observing other people’s language, expressions and actions and drawing my own conclusions, I fully admit that those are just my own conclusions.

Read the whole thing (and if you like it, please like it on Facebook if you're so inclined)

The Female Student Discovering the Thrill of Ex Sex

This week's Sex Diary features "The Female Student Discovering the Thrill of Ex Sex." Ah, sex...as always, if you are or know a New Yorker who'd have good sex stories to anonymously share (and get paid), have them email sexdiaries at nymag.com with their info.

"Are You (Sexually) Experienced?" - new column up

I mention Cindy Gallop’s TED Books e-book Make Love Not Porn (which despite the title is not anti-porn, see link below), Thought Catalog’s Sleeping With a Slut" essay and "beginner’s mind" in this column, "Are You (Sexually) Experienced?" Considering that I run into exes or ex-flings all over the place, it’s a timely topic. Love that a friend said: “forewarned is forearmed” re: running into exes. Indeed!

"Ex Sex (Toys)" - my latest column

My latest Secrets of a Sex Writer column at SexIs Magazine is about what to do with sex toys you've used (or planned to use) with a partner. Maybe I'm too sentimental, but it's a dilemma for me (then again, some of them get lost in the madness that is my home). And if you want to catch up on the archives, click here.

Oh yeah, my last The Frisky column and visiting my ex

I feel so weird always saying "my ex" or "my ex-boyfriend" since it's not like it's a secret who he is, but anyway...I wrote my final Dating Drama column for The Frisky on how to deal with an ex. As in, do you stay friends? Don't talk at all? Do what I'm about to do and probably sleep with them?

Speaking of breakups, rejection and the like...I've been assured by my two very awesome editors there that it wasn't me, and it wasn't them, but the economy. At first, of course I was upset because nobody likes to be told their writing is no longer needed, plus I had just updated all these bios saying I write that column, and, yes, the money. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was fun while it lasted but is totally cool with me. It frees up my mind and my energy to write about other things; I just pitched a parenting mag and am gonna keep doing so until I start breaking into that market.

But I'm hoping to go back to pitching some more salacious things for The Frisky, like some of my Dealbreakers, and also kindof looking forward to not having to mine my dating life for material every week. I loved the opportunity and would do it again in a heartbeat, but I'm not gonna lie; having a guy you're kindof seeing, or something, read every column, is challenging.

So that's where that's at. As for me visiting my ex, well, I miss him, and this is hopefully my last Bay Area visit for a while. I feel like I know SFO and the two Sephoras there like the back of my hand. I have a lot of mixed feelings about him, us, our breakup, and while I am trying to move on, and doing pretty well, to not see him would be weird, especially given the circumstances of tomorrow's reading. It just feels right.

I am treating myself to a hotel on Sunday, just haven't figured out which one.