Tag: #truestory

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The Statute of Limitations on A Booty Call: Weird Dating Tales of Old

I’m taking a break this week from my 30-Day Space Available Adventure to dip back into the Dating Vault. I was joking with one of my younger single friends about booty calls.

How long is it acceptable for a guy to keep your number in his queue, then call you up out of the blue expecting you to be receptive to his advances? The weirdest one I had was a year.

Yep, you read that right. A year. This was after he DID NOT call me back after our first and only date. Now, I will say after that less than stellar date, I wasn’t hankering to hear from him. which was why I was surprised to get a booty call more than a year later.

Let me set the stage.

My sophomore year in college, I decided to try out the on-line dating thing again. One such date was a guy named *Mike. Mike and I chatted online for a bit before deciding to meet for dinner. We had pretty good rapport in our online messaging and phone calls, so I was pretty excited about Mike. From his online pictures, he was good-looking (I know, I know, some of you sense danger already. This is when online dating was in its infancy). I even went out and bought a new outfit for this particular date.

I would regret wasting the money later, though I still have the shirt. what can I say, I’m kind of a clothes hoarder.

*Once again, name have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent

What’s the Most Taboo Topic on a First Date?

My regret was not in how Mike looked. His pictures were spot on. My regret was in our dinner conversation over Mexican food at Azteca* restaurant.

*I mention the specific name because it will be an important detail later during the booty call!

I think everyone can agree that exes are typically something a person shouldn’t bring up on a date, right?

His Ex and her Magnificent Fake Breasts

Not in Mike’s case. He spent the whole date getting wasted and talking about how gorgeous his ex was. I got to hear all about her plastic surgery and magnificent fake breasts (and how much he missed them). His grand plan was to train to become a pilot so that he could make enough money to impress her to win her back.

I stabbed at my chicken enchiladas trying to pretend to be interested in this bizarre conversation. I seriously wondered why the hell I was there. I couldn’t even have a margarita since I was driving, though I planned on drowning my angst when I got home.

When I got up to use the ladies’ room at one point, Mike made sure to comment on how great my backside looked in my jeans (but not in such polite terms). When we finished dinner and split the check, I declined the honor of going back to his place.

SHOCKING!

I know, how could I resist such charm?

Obviously, he never called me for a follow-up date. I never called him requesting another either. The feeling seemed mutual at the time.

Can I pick a winner, or what?

A Year Later…The booty Call

Late at night, over a year later, I was sitting on my couch studying for one of my electrical engineering finals. You can imagine my surprise to receive a random text from a number I didn’t recognize:

HEY, WHAT ARE YOU UP TO TONIGHT?

Baffled, I replied:

WHO IS THIS?

A few moments later:

MIKE! WE HAD DINNER AT AZTECA!

I’m sitting on my couch holding my phone surrounded by piles of engineering notes. My phone was one of those small, gray Motorolas that were popular circa 2003. Not great for fast texting, but practically indestructible. I’m staring at this thing trying to figure out who the hell this guy is, then it hit me.

It was the creepy guy that went on and on about his ex, her fake breasts and his pilot lessons.

So I texted back:

HOW ARE THE PILOT LESSONS GOING?

Funny…he never replied.

Personally, my statute of limitations on booty calls is pretty short. If you didn’t get any on the first go round, probably doesn’t make sense to call me out of the blue a year later. But then, there is the saying, “Fortune favors the bold.”

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About the Author

I joined the Navy at 18 to escape a small town in the Mojave Desert. A diagnosis of MS disrupted my dreams of becoming an astronaut or a super spy. I made limoncello from my lemons and became a super electrical engineer instead. My fascination with live high voltage drew me to Alaska. I came for the job, but stayed for the adventure. I enjoy blogging about my journey as a woman working in STEM, my experiences dealing with everything MS has handed me, and the wonder of the Alaska wilderness. My husband and I have undertaken the task of turning 30 acres of remote land into an off-grid retreat. I write stories about unique women in STEM who save the day and the hot guys who sometimes help along the way, as well as historical fiction about the Klondike Gold Rush. Teasers for these stories can be found on my website. I self-published my first horror novella, The Dark Land, on Amazon in May of 2020. I released the sequel, The Devil’s Valley, in May of 2021. Both stories are set in the wilderness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and draw on the Athabascan “Head Waters Peoples” legends of the Cet’ann, or “The People With Tails”.

Some places were never meant for humans to trespass: The Dark Land
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A Rift Opens with A Hard Truth: My 30 Day Space Available Adventure, Part 4

Killing Time and Relaxing

Those summer days hanging out on the beach, sometimes with Jake, but most of the time alone (he did have a job) were some of the best of my life. I finished The Two Towers and started The Return of the King. I managed to burn the hell out of my back because I lay on the shore too long in my bikini top and cut-off shorts on my stomach without putting on sunscreen or flipping over. Jake laughed at me that night and rubbed aloe on my back when he saw my burn (I hadn’t realized it…yet).

Isle of Palms Beach. On of my favorite beaches near Charleston, SC

He and his roommate had a band, and some nights I watched them rehearse. The Saturday before I was scheduled to leave, they were performing a huge party that one of their co-workers was planning. For the most part, it was a laid-back week of relaxing and just enjoying each other’s company. I didn’t have to put on a show or pretend to be perfect for him. He already knew who I was and liked it.

Spider Man

Me in downtown Charleston in August, 2003

Remember the giant spider the night I got there?

One night when we got home from dinner, the giant spider was halfway between the house and the tree in the front yard. No really, it was suspended by the lines it had created across the open space.

“I’m done with this. This is creepy!” Jake yelled, grabbing a shovel from the back of his truck. He annihilated the spider mid-air while I cheered him on.

A Divergence Arises

At the same time, a rift was opening between us.

A deadline loomed. It came to a head one evening.

“I wish you still lived in Charleston, and we could date for real again,” Jake said over dinner out of nowhere.

I looked at him across the table and said, ‘I wish I could too.”

In that moment, what wasn’t said was just as important as what was said.

The next morning when Jake got up early for work, I got up early too and drove to the beach. It was something I used to do a lot when I was stationed in Charleston. I would get up early and sit on the beach to watch the sunrise.

I needed to think.

I had already made one really naïve mistake with Bob.

Movies and romance novels make it sound like love conquers all. If you have amazing chemistry and you’re right for each other, relationships just magically come together. But this isn’t Sleepless in Seattle.

There’s another cold hard truth in life…

Relationships are work.

Long distance relationships even more so. Couple that with the fact that Jake and I were at two different points in our lives and diverging, and it becomes more than just work.

I was living in Seattle with the goal of getting my bachelor’s in electrical engineering. I still had three years to go in the program. Aside from the cost of moving, the program that was paying for my schooling was now set, unless I wanted to fight for my funding again, I had to stay in Seattle until I graduated.

And believe it or not, Jake understood. He wasn’t asking me to give up any of that. He, like me, just wished that somehow things could be different.

But they weren’t.

Jake had married and divorced early in his military career. He had made quite a few mistakes after his divorce (I was one of them when he ghosted me in our first go-round). He grew up and learned from his mistakes. He was almost ten years older than me, established in his career and looking to settle down and get married again.

The Hard Truth

I was leaving in a few days. Unless something miraculous happened, it was unlikely that I was ever moving back to Charleston. There was no future for me and Jake after the end of the week.

We both knew it.

Next Adventure: A Quick Trip to Savannah, A Wild Party, Acceptance, and Parting for Virginia

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I joined the Navy at 18 to escape a small town in the Mojave Desert. A diagnosis of MS disrupted my dreams of becoming an astronaut or a super spy. I made limoncello from my lemons and became a super electrical engineer instead. My fascination with live high voltage drew me to Alaska. I came for the job, but stayed for the adventure. I enjoy blogging about my journey as a woman working in STEM, my experiences dealing with everything MS has handed me, and the wonder of the Alaska wilderness. My husband and I have undertaken the task of turning 30 acres of remote land into an off-grid retreat. I write stories about unique women in STEM who save the day and the hot guys who sometimes help along the way, as well as historical fiction about the Klondike Gold Rush. Teasers for these stories can be found on my website. I self-published my first horror novella, The Dark Land, on Amazon in May of 2020. I released the sequel, The Devil’s Valley, in May of 2021. Both stories are set in the wilderness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and draw on the Athabascan “Head Waters Peoples” legends of the Cet’ann, or “The People With Tails”.

Some places were never meant for humans to trespass…
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Electric Connection: My 30 Day Space Available Adventure, Part 3

We left off last time with Jake’s request:

“You don’t have to sleep in the Livingroom tonight. No. Let me put it another way. Sleep with me tonight?”

So what did I do?

Spoiler Alert! I didn’t sleep on the couch…

I will spare you the gory details, this isn’t a purple prose romance. But yes, there was always an intense connection between me and Jake. It was instantaneous and electric, as if no time had passed. There was no being near one another without touching. No touching without kissing. No kissing without…you get the idea.

Confidence is King

I bet you’re curious as to what Jake looked like. I think it’s funny how so many romance novels describe these towering six-foot-tall “Alpha Males” with bulging biceps, and tanned washboard abs. Jake wasn’t like that at all. I’m five-foot-nine, and Jake was slightly taller than me. Many say that confidence is sexy, and I can attest to that. Jake had a quiet, calm confidence that in my encounters over time with other men, few have ever been able to duplicate. His confidence drew me like a lode stone swings north, and it was comforting to connect with him once more.

Tough Questions

Toes in the silky white sand of the Carolina shore, I was reading The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers while I drank cheap beer with Jake on the beach. I made it my mission on this trip to finish reading the entire Tolkien trilogy since they were making all three into movies, and the third one was coming out in theaters soon.

Laying on the beach blanket next to me, Jake asked, “Are you still going to try to fly to Germany and see him?”

I knew this wasn’t an idle question. Remember that confidence, I mentioned about Jake? His confidence wasn’t a brash arrogance. Nowadays we hear a lot about “mansplaining” or guys just giving their advice without asking. Jake wasn’t like that. But he would ask questions to draw you out, at times even play the Devil’s Advocate. He wanted to know what I was thinking without trying to tell me what to do.

I put the book aside and rested my head on my hands. While I hadn’t officially “broken it off” with Bob, in my heart, it was over. The initiating event of what he had said about “not wanting to work,” had been weird enough. But his violent, expletive filled emails showed me a side of him that was truly terrifying. If he could be like that in an email, what would he be like in person when he got angry?

“No, Jake. I don’t want to go anywhere near him.” I looked out over the waves crashing against the shore, thinking about how Bob was over across the sea somewhere. It was strange how fast my thoughts about him had changed. Less than a week ago, he was a guy that was professing that he wanted to marry me and that he loved me. Now he was sending me hate filled emails about how horrible I was.

I didn’t know him at all. I felt incredibly stupid and naïve.

“You’re going to stay with me for the next week or so, right?” he asked, handing me another beer. I could see the tension release across his shoulders and the relief in his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve got a whole month off. I talked to my friend Bri. You remember her, right?”

“A little bit, she was in your class in Prototype.”

“I told her if I could get a flight, I would try to make it up her way to Virgina.”

He smiled, “Well we’ll make the most of your time here until you go.”

Another Message From Bob

The Insincere Apology

That afternoon we went back to Jake’s to clean up before we went out to dinner. He took a few days off from work in honor of my being in town. I decided to go online to check for flights for the following week. Indeed, there was a regularly scheduled flight from Charleston to Virginia, leaving the next Monday. I could hang out with Jake for almost nine days.

Meanwhile, an email from Bob made my stomach sink. It was an apology—sort of.

“I’m sorry you took what I said the wrong way. I forgot that girls can be so sensitive about crap. I’m going out for a field exercise for the next two weeks. When I get back we can talk.”

Yeah…okay.

I showed that and the other emails to Jake. His jaw set in a hard line.

“You don’t think he’s sorry, do you?” Jake asked me, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Not for a moment.”

Next: Making and Breaking Connections and Slaying Giant Spiders…

Thanks for reading!

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I joined the Navy at 18 to escape a small town in the Mojave Desert. A diagnosis of MS disrupted my dreams of becoming an astronaut or a super spy. I made limoncello from my lemons and became a super electrical engineer instead. My fascination with live high voltage drew me to Alaska. I came for the job, but stayed for the adventure. I enjoy blogging about my journey as a woman working in STEM, my experiences dealing with everything MS has handed me, and the wonder of the Alaska wilderness. My husband and I have undertaken the task of turning 30 acres of remote land into an off-grid retreat. I write stories about unique women in STEM who save the day and the hot guys who sometimes help along the way, as well as historical fiction about the Klondike Gold Rush. Teasers for these stories can be found on my website. I self-published my first horror novella, The Dark Land, on Amazon in May of 2020. I released the sequel, The Devil’s Valley, in May of 2021. Both stories are set in the wilderness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and draw on the Athabascan “Head Waters Peoples” legends of the Cet’ann, or “The People With Tails”.

Some places were never meant for humans to trespass…
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A Long Flight and A Dark and Stormy Night

My 30 Day Space Available Adventure, Part 2

People complain about how the discomfort of airline seats. Don’t get me wrong, I think they are terribly uncomfortable, too. As if the airlines go out of their way to engineer the seats to dig into our legs and backsides. I’m not sure how some people can sleep on airplanes. But I can attest that not much more uncomfortable than the hard metal of the jump seat of a C-130. Fortunately, for the 6+ hour flight from Washington State to North Carolina there was only myself, one other passenger and a bunch of pallets of cargo. After takeoff, the Load Master gave us a couple of gray military blankets and allowed us to stretch out on the floor.

It was a very cold metal floor. I lay on my back in between the cockpit and the pallets, staring up at the ceiling. The plane’s engines roared as we puttered east. I hoped it would drown out the growing doubts in my head. On the surface, I was calm. Inside, I was having definite second thoughts about my impetuous plan to hop on a plane and fly across the country. The less than amicable reply from *Bob about not coming to see him didn’t help matters. An when I say less than amicable, I mean yet another profanity laced missive telling me how horrible I was.

But his reply did cement one thing: he wasn’t as nice or caring as I thought, and perhaps my only mistake was believing that this was a worthwhile relationship.

The other passenger was an attractive, divorced, retired Army Colonel named *Erin on her way to North Carolina to visit her son. While eating the sack lunch provided, we fell into a fun chat about her exploits flying Space Available all over the world in between her business trips.

At some point during the flight, I confessed to my travelling companion what I was up to. She offered to give me a ride to the rental car place. I hadn’t considered the distance from the terminal on base to the rental car facility in town. I figured I would just take a cab or walk. It was a good thing I didn’t by the time we landed almost eight hours later…

Torrential Downpour

Not only did the flight take longer that originally forecasted, but we landed in the midst of a tropical depression. Since this was back in the early 2000’s cell service was still iffy. I landed only to find out that the rental car facility with which I had made a reservation closed at six. It was seven.

I had a meltdown…

Not being very sound of mind as it was, admittedly I started to cry. I was exhausted. It was seven at night in a strange town, and I still had a four plus hour drive ahead of me—assuming I could get a rental car. My mind raced through options. Maybe I could get a cheap hotel and regroup in the morning. I checked my phone. *Jake had called several times. I needed to call him back, but I wanted to have a plan first.

The Kindness of Strangers

Fortunately, Erin was still with me. She and her son were kind enough to help me find another open branch of the same rental car company in Fayetteville. The company was still willing to honor the reservation, but all they had available was a small pickup truck.

Into the Darkness

Armed with my steed, a cherry cola and a bag of Cheetos I picked up at a gas station, I wished Erin and her son goodbye and headed of into the darkness of the I-95 corridor. Jake was relieved to know that I had made it to North Carolina, but worried that I was on the road so late. He let me know that he would wait up for me.

A Storm of Thoughts

I’ve always liked road trips. They are great for listening to music and pondering. I had a lot to ponder as the wipers did their best to keep up with the rain coming down in sheets. I had left Charleston three years before heartbroken and facing an uncertain future with a diagnosis of MS. Things were definitely brighter, in the sense that I was on track to get an electrical engineering degree, though I still had quite a way to go.

But was a heartbroken over Bob? I was struggling to come to grips with that. Dating had been tough since I had been diagnosed with MS. In Bob I thought I had found someone who was understanding. This incident opened my eyes to a different side of him. He didn’t care about me. He just wanted to use me. He also had a mean/abusive streak.

Then there was Jake…

Jake and I had tried to make it work once. Then he dumped me/ghosted me. We reconnected later. There was always that: what if?

  • What if I hadn’t been leaving Charleston?
  • What if I had stayed and gone to college back there?
  • Could we have had something together?

None of the songs on the radio or the constant drone of the rain against the windshield had that answer for me as I drew closer to South Carolina. Even though I was exhausted, I seemed to catch a second burst of energy as I pulled into his neighborhood. The rain let up, tapering off to a light drizzle when I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine.

A Giant Spider Web

I remember staring up at the house and noticing an enormous spider web across his front window. I’m not kidding. This thing had a diameter of about 10 feet and was clearly visible, with droplets of water clinging to the silky strands. It looked like something out of a Halloween store. Jake came jogging out into the drizzle in his boxers and a t-shirt to help me with my backpack. But first he gave me a big hug. No hug had ever felt so good in my life up until that point. We raced into the house past the giant web.

A Heartfelt Request…

It felt so good to shower and wash off the grime of the day’s travel. I finished the beer he had brought me and I lay back on his couch, grateful to finally relax. He had put out sheets, a blanket and a pillow for me to sleep there. He stood watching me, hands on his hips, forget-me-not blue eyes full of concern.

“Daniella, are you going to be okay?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, trying to ignore that familiar tug from his expression. “I made it here, didn’t I?”

“That’s not what I meant.” He bit his lip and looked over his shoulder toward his bedroom. Then he looked back at me again. “You don’t have to sleep in the Livingroom tonight. No. Let me put it another way. Would you sleep with me tonight?”

Question, readers…what would you have done?

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I’ll tell you what I did, next blog…

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About the Author

I joined the Navy at 18 to escape a small town in the Mojave Desert. A diagnosis of MS disrupted my dreams of becoming an astronaut or a super spy. I made limoncello from my lemons and became a super electrical engineer instead. My fascination with live high voltage drew me to Alaska. I came for the job, but stayed for the adventure. I enjoy blogging about my journey as a woman working in STEM, my experiences dealing with everything MS has handed me, and the wonder of the Alaska wilderness. My husband and I have undertaken the task of turning 30 acres of remote land into an off-grid retreat. I write stories about unique women in STEM who save the day and the hot guys who sometimes help along the way, as well as historical fiction about the Klondike Gold Rush. Teasers for these stories can be found on my website. I self-published my first horror novella, The Dark Land, on Amazon in May of 2020. I released the sequel, The Devil’s Valley, in May of 2021. Both stories are set in the wilderness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and draw on the Athabascan “Head Waters Peoples” legends of the Cet’ann, or “The People With Tails”.

Some places were never meant for humans to trespass