Enthusiasm

It's story time!

There once was a bar.
It was a magical place called "Rumors," and during the day it was a bar that catered mostly to the rainbow crowd. However, one night a week a magical thing would happen there. In fact, the MOST magical thing ever:

80'S NIGHT

It's the most wonderful and special night of the week. You dress up, get 2 dollar Wells, and then you dance until your feet hurt and you're no longer sure what Michael Jackson song you're listening to but you fucking KNOW it's the best song ever. You do the sprinkler. You do the cabbage patch. You make fun of couples trying to grind. You sing along. And you certainly DON'T STOP BELIEVING. 

Anyways, so, yeah, 80's night.

I went two weeks ago. It was the most wonderful thing to ever happen to a human being.

Or...that is until I started dancing with a guy.

Is guy the right word? A dude? A man? A gentleman? No, none of those quite work. I'm going to call him: OverlyEnthusiastic McTextTooMuch

OE McTTM!

We danced (not as awesomely as P-Swayze and Baby though) 

and OBVIOUSLY we ended up 'going outside for a smoke' and making out. Surprise!

He seemed nice and we almost had a real conversation when he wasn't trying to make my come back to his house in Lynden (fuck that noise) and I wasn't giving him bullshit excuses like class and homework. 

Because of my 'too nice to say no' thing, I gave him my number. My phone had died but I promised to charge it when I got home. Eventually my excuses wore him down and he left, and I was able to go back to my friends and get some good dancing in before the end of the night.

When I did get home I remembered to charge my phone, and as soon as I plugged it in...HOLY SHIT! a text from OE McTTM. Who would have guessed that plot twist?

I responded. Because I'm a moron.

Thus began a two day text conversation, which, for those of you who are real people, is WAY TOO LONG to text a person you don't know. 

He would send those "I'm bored, what are you up to?" texts as if we had known each other for a while. He send PICTURES of himself on his motorcycle or in his tank. He told me about his friends, and what they were up to. He, most importantly, asked for pictures.

What is this, junior year of high school? Sexy pictures to a person you don't know? Really?

Who the fuck does he think I am?

No way.

So this dragged on. He kept asking me to call him, and trying to call me. He kept talking. I kept awkwardly responding. I honestly didn't know what to say. It's so cool that he really likes paintball (which I've never played and never plan to), and it's cool that he's in the army (yet another thing in which I have literally no interest), and blah blah we have nothing in common. But man, did he keep texting me.

Like we were six months deep in a relationship, or were planning a goddamn bank heist or something (relationships and robbery are pretty much equivalent, right?).

Then he tried to call me one last time.

Ignored that shit.

Everything went quiet. Three days passed. I could tell he was pouting, I could just feel it from the silence. Then the next 80's night arrived. 

Around 4pm I received this:

"R u coming out tonight?" (text speak infuriates me)

I did not answer.

Around midnight I got this:

"Come out."

Aaaaaaaand case closed.

That well constructed and convincing argument was really hard to ignore, but somehow I managed. You must be impressed with me.

That should have been the end of it.

Well...it's not.

I wasn't participating in the magical wonder and joy that is 80's night because I had a friend's 21 Run on Friday, and when I went out for that...GUESS WHO WAS THERE!

Oh, OE McTTM, you tricky bitch.

I was in line for drinks, buying shots for my and K-Dog (my newly 21-year-old friend) and when I turned around he was rightbehindme! (the lack of spacing indicates just how close he was to me)

I smiled politely, because that's what you do to people you make out with at bars, right? WRONG. He looked at me, glared a tiny bit, and then looked away.

Flat. Out. Ignored.

I guess he goes out a lot in this city. So...I'll probably run in to him more.

Lucky for us.

Moral of the story: Don't text a girl for two days straight right after you meet her. It's fucking annoying.

Holiday Hello

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, SLUTS!

How To:

New Feature:

Every few posts I'm going to share with you the best possible way to do something. A How To section, if you will.

For our first time, I'm going to teach you:

How To Make A Guy (Or Girl) Stop Hitting On You.

We have ALL been hit on.
For some of us, it happens almost constantly and to the point where you run out of ways to say no.
There's the classic: "No, I'm not interested."
A more polite: "No, thank-you though."
Or the more forward and more rude: "Get lost."
There's even: "Get out of my face."

But those don't always do the trick.
Sometimes a dude is too forward or too drunk and you gotta pull out the big guns.
Pretending to be a lesbian only works if he isn't going to try and make you come home with him AND another chick.
Saying you have a boyfriend is reliable but he could always ask you to come for a ride anyways, since your boyf isn't here, obviously.
Or you can ignore him and walk away, but that can be awkward and usually means you spend as much time avoiding someone as you do enjoying the bar or club or museum or opera.

Here's what I've started doing:

Say you're married.

I was in Florence about two months ago and I was walking to the store to get groceries for my family while they were at a museum.
A guy came up and asked me for a cigarette and I gave him one. He then started making conversation.
"Where are you headed?"
"The store, I have to get food for my family for dinner tonight."
I don't know why he assumed this, but he asked, "You married?"
My choices were to say no and have to keep talking to him, or lie.
"Yeah, three years now."
In my head I'm married to this guy, just for reference:

Oh Jason.
And the guy said, "Oh, wow, I really respect a married woman, that's great."
"Yeah, love of my life, haha."
"Do you have kids?"
Well...I hadn't seen that coming. But sure, already married to Jason Segel, might as well have a kid...and a fat dog:

Only after telling him I was married and had a child did he seem willing to let me walk away and buy a pound of brie at the Esselunga.

Moral of the Story: Tell 'em your married. It's douchey to hit on married women.

Stalking and Shocking

Stalking is a major problem in relationships. Women often find themselves the subjects of these unwanted advances and creepy fans.

I am looking out for your safety, here at the Not So Virgin Mary blog, and so, in the interest of keeping all of you un-dead, here is a pair of cautionary tales.

My friend Alison.

That's all you need to know.

Alison is...not good at noticing things. She doesn't notice people staring at her in public places, or that she's about to try and wear that shirt she spilled Bagel Bites on, or that she can't drink half a fifth without getting sick (this based on the fact she's tried it a couple times now and it has yet to go well for her).
There's the back story.
Here's the rest of it: Alison started taking Russian during the Fall quarter of our freshman year of college. In that class she met a boy. His real name is Cole but we call him "Russian Boy." He's not Russian, he's just from the class. He asked her to be 'study partners' and we all know what that means...except Alison. She did not see it coming when he kissed her.
He came to her dorm room, crawled onto her bed, snuggled in and tried to make her study something else (heyoh). I'll describe the following events in her own words, "I only got a hickey because I was busy thinking about sandwiches so I didn't tell him to get off my neck."
So yeah.
They 'studied' together a few times and then she stopped answering his texts and calls part way through the quarter. It was half because he was coming on really strong and half because I might have broken her phone so she couldn't read and respond to texts...who knows the real reasoning?
He got really mopey.
THEN COMES THE CREEPY PART:
One morning Alison's roommate woke up to go to work at 6am. She left the door unlocked. Alison roused a few hours later, confused and bleary eyed but certain of the thing lying next to her bed...a rose. A single red rose. YEAH. That happened. She rolled over and hoped it would go away but no, when I came over later that morning to make her come get breakfast/lunch with me, it was still there.
My theory: he broke in, cuddled with her, left the rose and gave her a single, lasting, final kiss before leaving her forever.
That rose.
A symbol for creepiness for all times.

The second tale is actually kind of scary.
Stacey was our friend during freshman year, but she was a year older than us. We loved her. She was popular with everyone, and that includes creepy dudes. She had been getting weird phone calls for a while now, all from a private number she couldn't call back. They were the heavy breathing sort of calls. You know.
One day she had a lab that got out around eight pm and she was walking across the main section of campus (Red Square) when she got the worst of these calls.
She answered.
"Do you feel safe walking across Red Square all alone at night?"
Here is what Stacey should have done: hung up, gone to a well lit and crowded place, called the cops, and filed a report.
Here is what she did: laugh it off, call her mom to tell her, then come to us and tell us about it. Point: SHE DID NOT CALL THE COPS.

My friends are not good at this 'life' thing.
Obviously.
So don't be like them: don't get creeped on. Or, more importantly, don't be a creeper.

Unless it's facebook creeping, that's unavoidable.

Moral: Don't be Alison and Stacey.

Dirty, Dirty

Once upon a time we went to Verona, Italy. I was invited by two of the girls in my study abroad program; Erika and Martini. They technically both named Erika/Eryka but I feel like that could be confusing to read and keep track of if you don't actually know them. One is very blond and the other is very not. They are a fun pair and I was excited to get to travel with them.
We left on Friday morning, via the train and it took a couple hours to arrive in Verona, which, you'll not be surprised to hear, was FUCKING freezing. It was raining, I had no pants on, and it was easily -312 degrees Celsius. So we arrived at our B&B and were surprised by how beautiful and clean and nice it was. For a place you find on hostelworld.com for 23euro a night, this place had super comfy beds and nice bathrooms and it was clean and cute and apparently run by a couple of gays (who were adorable). That's besides the point.
We then went exploring, almost died from frostbite coldness, and saw Christmas markets.

Verona is a beautiful place defined by a play written by a guy who never went there (Shakespeare never left Britain), and made up most of the people. There is some truth to the families, though they had vaguely different names. There was a feud between two of the families, but Shakespeare appropriated all that for his play. Verona obviously took advantage of the fame and made everything Romeo and Juliet themed. You can go to her 'house' and her 'tomb' and Romeo's 'house' and the only available souvenirs are Romeo and Juliet motif. In actuality, there is nothing particularly romantic about Verona.

EXCEPT THIS:

It's the name of a store we found.

After a day of freezing and hoping to find a fire to throw myself on just so my core temperature could rise a few degrees, we went back to our hostel and crawled into bed around nine. You may say that is kind of early for three awesome girls like us, and that's true, it is, but at that point we just wanted to be warm and we were exhausted from travel and being frigid cold all day.
So we were laying around, still super cold, laughing and talking into the night until we got tired.
Eventually someone asked, "What's your number?"
We aren't talking about phone number either. That's code for "How slutty are you?" or "What are the chances you have herpes?"

Erika and Martini answered, but their numbers aren't important to the story (and also publicizing that without asking would be rude), and then I told them..."Seventeen."
Martini laughed and Erika just shot up in bed and screamed "YOU DIRTY GINGER."
Which is funny a) because that has nothing to do with how many people I've kissed and b) because I'm solidly within the brown-blond range of hair color and totally not even sort of a ginger.

It was an interesting reaction to say the least, and it makes for a good story. Erika: great at life lessons...and insults.

Moral of the story: All gingers are whores...apparently.

Everything You Ever Needed To Know About Jamaican Men

Haven't we all dated a Jamaican dude? Even if we haven't dated them, we've all at least slept with a man from The Island. Right? Anybody? ...Bueller? ...Bueller?

Then I will rightfully assume that even if you have not done so yet then it is in your immediate plans to acquire some coconut scented, steel drum soundtrack'd, dreadlocked, ganja toking, Cool Runnings loving, Bob Marley-esque night time canoodling.

<-- Right? Am I right?

As someone who has kissed a Jamaican dude from time to time, I feel especially able to give you some fun facts about kissing them.

Here we go: While generally they're the same as every other guy, you should know a few key things.  Somehow they have a magic ability to choose the best rums when you go alcohol shopping. It must have something to do with the fact that they drink rum instead of milk when they're babies...everyone knows coconut rum has the same nutritional value as your mother's milk.
Potentially don't insist they play steel drums all the time, unless they can actually do that and then make them follow you around with it and play a sweet tink-ly sound track to your daily activities. Also, speak to them in a terrible fake accent as little as possible. Turns out they're offended by that...sissies. Who gets offended by stereotyping?

How to Choose A Jamaican:

How tall is he? Over six feet? -Good Jamaican
How well can he roll a 'cigarette'? Excellently? -GOOD Jamaican
Does he wear a lot of Rasta colors? Yes? -Fun Jamaican.
Does he have dreads? Yes? -Get the fuck out of there. Dreads are gross on everyone.
But does he have an afro? Yes? -AWESOME Jamaican
Can he quote every line from Cool Runnings? -Yes? -Marry him.


I suppose much of my advice come from my experience with just the one Jamaican, but that's cool because they're all the same right?

Moral of the story: Racism works.

If You're Going To Be A Whore...

This is the story of how this blog got its title:

It all starts on a cold night in Florence, Italy where we stand awaiting a beer pong tournament at one of many bars crowded to the seams with American students.

There are girls in completely weather inappropriate clothing making out with 30-year-old Italian dudes who still live with their moms, and drunk American guys wishing they were as forward as the Italian dudes...or they ARE as forward as the Italians. That, I think, is worse because you can't just tell them you don't speak their language and walk away. You HAVE to talk to them because they also speak English and they have a cousin from the same city as you and that's cool and oh, hey here's a drink that's totally NOT called a Vodka Roofie-Tonic, and now you're trapped in fifteen minutes of awkward drunk chatting.

Just another night in a study abroad semester, but this is fine with me because anything is better than sitting in my room wishing I had puffy cheetos and Netflix Instant Watch episodes of Law and Order: SVU. That's a sad life.

So, there was a group of dudes, I don't remember from where or how we got to talking to them, but at a certain point we had to introduce ourselves, obviously. They are Americans who are trying to not feel like total lame-ohs while the Italians scoop up all the slutty girls from the study abroad programs.
Okay, so, anyways, the guy is moderately good looking (if memory serves...and it doesn't) and we're girls, so there are flirt missiles flying around like wasps on a watermelon.
It's balls-ass loud in here because of all the people and music and kareoke in the other room and somehow I think there's a parade outside so it's louder than that time I sat on the remote and turned the volume all the way up. That's pretty fucking loud. So we all have to repeat our names or shout them or over-enunciate and you can only do that once or twice before it's EVEN more awkward.  
The conversation goes as follows:
Dude: I'm Dude.
Everyone: WHAT?
Dude: DUDE!
Everyone: Oh, hey.
My friend: I'm Ari, like Ari Gold from Entourage.

(I don't watch the show, but I assume a character is name Ari Gold.)
 <--That guy? Google and Wikipedia tell me that's him. I trust those sources.

Now, I'm trying to be witty because that's what I do when I feel awkward about something, and one of these dudes was heavily invested in staring at my cleavage, so awkward was how I felt. Something else you may need to know about me is that I'm not very good at being in big crowds of people; bars, house parties, tourist attractions, riots, lunch lines, none of it really works for me. I get really uncomfortable and end up scooting to the edges and watching people and making fun of them when they can't hear me over the music and get upset. Anyways, I'm trying to be funny, so this is what I blurt out:
Me: I'm Mary, like the mother of God.
Boom.
Victory.

Everyone laughs, I'm popular! People will remember me! I rock!
It was a successful night of losing beer pong, and getting hitting on, and all the things you dream of when you're a little girl.

Then, as always happens, people find out how bad I am at saying 'no' to advances made by dudes over six foot two...or guys under six foot two...or...just...men in general. That fact in combination with how hilarious I was that one time, created the idea for this.
So now you have to suffer it.
Boom.
Victory.

So the moral of the story is that if you're going to be a whore, then you may as well be an awesome one.