Interpersonal Communication

This story is from Eliza, a law student in NYC, as told to Raz:

It was the beginning of my first year of law school, and, in some of my more boring classes, my girl friends and I played a game where we made lists of those in the room we’d be willing to sleep with.

One guy on my list, Jack, was wholesome looking. He was the type of guy you’d see in an American Eagle ad. You know, he looked like he probably went to Dartmouth. Obviously, I didn’t know him at all.

One day, I got a text from a number I didn’t know: “Haha you’re on call for Civ Pro tomorrow.” A little research told me it was Jack. So I texted him back. And over the next three or four days we exchanged probably 200 text messages. Just texting. No actual speaking.

Eventually, we made plans to study together on Saturday—and we continued to study together, but just study, every Saturday after that. A few times he’d text to ask if I wanted to do lunch, but never followed through. I was getting frustrated, but he only seemed interested in an elaborate text—and sometimes gchat—relationship.

On Halloween, we had our usual Saturday study session. I was pumped to go out that night, but he said he wasn’t interested. Something about having to wake up early to study.

As usual, we were texting throughout the night. I was three blocks from his apartment, and at about 2am, he asked if I would come over. So much for getting up early to study, Jack. I tried to get him to come to the bar and actually be social, but he insisted that I come to him, even offering to pay for my cab.

Excited that something was finally going to happen, I walked the three blocks. But as soon as he opened the door, he seemed shocked.

“Are you drunk?!” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes.”

He sat me on the couch and made me chug a glass of water. When he was satisfied with my water intake, we started making out and, eventually, having sex. And, man, for someone who barely likes to talk in the real world, he sure liked to chat—or rather narrate—during sex. It wasn’t in a kinky way. Actually, it seemed more overwhelmed than anything else.

“Oh, slow down, what are you doing?” he said. Trust me, we weren’t doing anything that exciting. This was normal, vanilla sex. I went in to kiss his neck and he jumped back, yelling “No hickies!” After a couple minutes, he announced: “I’m going to cum, but I shouldn’t because we haven’t been having sex for very long.” He was wearing a condom, but still told me he thought it was best to pull out. OK, then. He did, and I was left very unsatisfied.

I went to put my arm around him, but he immediately jumped out of bed, put his clothes on and threw mine at me. Fine. I put my clothes on. When he got back in bed, I went to try cuddling again. “Don’t you know guys are really sensitive after they cum?” he asked. So much for that. Whatever. I was exhausted and ready for bed. Just as I was about to doze off, he announced that I had to take my makeup off before bed. Aye aye, captain.

By the time I got back, he’d turned the TV on and was watching “The West Wing.” Even if I’d liked that show, my contacts were out and I couldn’t see anything, so I just passed out.

When we woke up the next day, I went in for the kiss. Morning sex should be better than only-one-of-us-is-drunk sex, right?

“I don’t like to kiss before we brush our teeth,” he said, pulling away.

“Do you want me to get up and brush my teeth?” I asked.

“If you want to.”

No, I didn’t want to, and he seemed completely uninterested in touching me. Instead, I made myself a bowl of cereal, checked my phone, and texted my friend from school Annie about the ridiculous situation I was in with the hot boy from Civ Pro.

“Who are you texting?” Jack asked.

“Annie.”

“Is she going to know I’m here? We should call her.” So we called Annie on speakerphone, and chatted with her about nothing for five minutes. We hung up, and Jack still seemed to have no interest in getting close to me.

“OK,” I said. “I’m going to leave.”

The next week, school was cancelled for Hurricane Sandy. I texted him a few times, figuring things were weird, but maybe we could work on this. And he barely responded. This was nothing like the text essays I used to get from him. I guess he just wanted to sleep with me once, I thought.

When we finally got back to school, my gchat was going crazy with messages from Jack, just like it used to. Yup, I was officially confused, and I think he could tell. A couple days later, he texted: “Are you mad at me??”

I decided to go with honesty: “I didn’t really appreciate the way you acted after we slept together. But we shouldn’t talk about this by text.”

“I agree,” he said.

I’ve seen him almost every day since. We never spoke about it again.