Sunday, May 8, 2011

Welcome to Ferriday

I met my first boyfriend at a gay bar on Bourbon Street. What do you want from me? I'm not running for Jesus, here.

Like most of life's milestones, it was a complete chance encounter that happened as a series of events unexpectedly came together. I wasn't even supposed to go out that night.

I was on my way home from a long night of waiting tables when my friend Lesly called me to meet her at Oz. I told her probably not, but then reconsidered when I came home to an empty house. I was under the strobe lights within twenty minutes.

We were sitting at a two-person table near an opening in the wall that overlooked the dancefloor when I saw him.

I remember saying something like, "Jesus, the dude looks shitfaced." He was the only guy in sea of shirtless men who 1.) was younger than 30 and 2.) had all of his clothes on. He was also the cutest guy I'd seen in real life. His little blonde mop top was shooting around like a pinball from shirtless bearded man to shirtless bearded man. The look on his face said "I've had multiple handgrenades and I'm having trouble living right now."

By the time I was trashed enough to start dancing, I'd stopped keeping tabs on his whereabouts. And then he bumped into me.

He looked me dead in the eyes and said, " Can you please pretend to be my boyfriend so this fucking weirdo will stop grabbing on me?" He motioned to the six foot tall bear behind him and grabbed my hand with his. I pulled him close to me, smiled, and started grinding until Fuzzy McGee got the hint and pranced away.

He asked me to be his real-life boyfriend a week later.

I started calling him Ferriday, his hometown and source of his thick, Central Louisiana twang. Our relationship only lasted a few months, but it stressed me out more than the time I thought Wit's End gave me gonorrhea. It also taught me everything I'd ever need to know about my boundaries and my threshold for patience.

Our relationship may or may not have completely wasted me for all the men that followed, but he helped me become the lovable chauvinist with a heart of gold that writes a blog about being a shitty boyfriend.

...and now he's the fiancé of a 49 year-old lawyer in Lake Charles. Everyone wins.

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