Dating is fun as long as it’s fresh. The beginning of a new romantic relationship is always nice, but the outcome often isn’t. But what’s in between can be quite interesting, as this book will demonstrate.

One thing I want to clarify up front is that this is not meant to be some sort of feminist manifesto in any way, there have already been plenty of those. I am grateful to those women who have paved the way for my generation, and I won’t be melodramatic here and list names the way movie stars like to thank everyone individually when accepting awards, and considering the content of this book, religious folks would want to behead me if I continued my expression of gratitude by also thanking God in movie-star fashion. Feminist movements have made it possible for women to get an education, to be able to work and to express their opinions and beliefs without being burned as witches at the stake. In most cultures, that is. And yes, emancipation has opened up many new possibilities for the “weaker gender”, but in my humble opinion it has not been beneficial when it comes to relationships between men and women.

Most men certainly feel attracted to this new, emancipated generation of strong, independent women, what a challenge for their hunting male ego to conquer an ‘untamed’ woman! But the sad fact is that in the end, most men simply cannot handle a strong, independent woman who isn’t willing to put up with their crap (pardon my French), who rather walks away and takes care of herself instead of cleaning and cooking for some guy who’s been spoiled by his mamma. Their hunting instinct makes men go for the kill (translation: get that unattainable, strong-willed and self-sufficient woman they want to conquer), and if they don’t kill their prey immediately, they slowly torture it to death. Well, metaphorically speaking, but you get my point.

Is it that they can’t handle women who don’t need them for survival any longer and are men simply too weak to handle an equal opponent when it comes to relationships? Is it some sort of genetic predisposition they cannot fight against? Have they failed to develop in the same way women have developed? I guess that has yet to be scientifically determined, but by the time men will have adapted to stronger prey, I will probably be out of the dating scene, living as an old lady on a farm with lots of animals and books… and the occasional hot, young and well-built gardener and pool boy. As for now, I have renounced men. I have not turned towards women yet, although I have considered the option a couple of times, but I think it might be even harder to deal with a woman considering all those unpredictable hormonal issues I know quite well from extensive personal experience.

As opposed to previous generations of women, most women from my generation, i.e. women in their mid-30s at the beginning of the 21^st century, know that they can live very well and survive without a man in their lives. Granted, an empty bed is not very appealing, but peace of mind is. Instead of being with a prick who drives me up the wall, I prefer being alone. Don’t get me wrong, not all men are pricks, I get along with and like men, and I prefer male friends to female friends, but only up to the point when romantic notions or sex enter the scene. Once I start to get romantically attached to a guy, some protective mechanism inside of me makes me start running the other way, stampeding over any obstacles (I am a Taurus, after all), including the man I am starting to develop feelings for. I have noticed that certain astrological signs such as Scorpios and Leos are extremely sensitive to such conduct and that they don’t forgive my stampedes easily (or not at all), while some other signs bounce back, which doesn’t mean it necessarily leads to a happy end.

But let’s not get into astrology or my psychological profile when it comes to dating, the aim of this book is to share some of my encounters with men in an entertaining manner, as simple as that.

Oh, but there’s another thing I should clarify: contrary to all the catholic beliefs I was brought up with, the experiences presented here should not lead to the assumption that I am some sort of man-eating femme fatale and that this is the diary of a ‘loose woman’. It’s not like I have had a gazillion guys in my life (my ‘experience’ amounts to a two-digit number in the twenties, that’s decently innocent, wouldn’t you agree?), it just happened that the men I shared the ‘experience’ with came from various parts of this world, more precisely, from four continents. I have ‘experienced’ the three main religions, but contrary to my initial idea and since there are only three main religions, I could not base the structure of an entire book on them. There have already been enough wars on the grounds of religion, so why add fuel to the fire and categorize my men based on such a touchy subject?

So that’s where the idea arose to present my ‘united nations’ in the following manner, by ruminating my experiences by portraying some of my guys in an easy-to-digest manner based on their country of origin. Forgive me for not aiming for the Nobel Prize for Literature (or any other prize) and for not attempting to enlighten the world. As I’ve said before, this book is simply meant to entertain.

While documenting some of my encounters with men might have served as some sort of catharsis to me, this is not a biography, albeit certain personal information will be discernible. Some of you might remember some of your own experiences while reading this book, some will gulp the book down, while others might hate the book and think that I’m a silly cow, but guess what? C’est la vie, deal with it! I learned long time ago (although it was quite a tough lesson, I must admit) that I cannot be loved by everyone. My needy ego might not be excessively thrilled about this, but there is nothing I can do about it. If you find this book and its approach shallow, go read something more sincere. I prefer to live by my favorite Oscar Wilde quote stated at the beginning of this book, life is serious enough.

I also have to point out the important role girlfriends have played in my dealings with humanus masculinus. What would I have done without my girlfriends in all those moments when I got more wrinkles around my eyes because I was crying my eyes out over some nitwit moron? I should get botox or hyaluronic acid injections and charge them to some of the bastards who have made me cry. Girlfriend advice such as “He’s a loser.”, “He is so not worth it.” to “He looks like shit in his Facebook profile pic.” and “What goes around, comes around.” has been absolutely priceless and highly cherished! And apart from offering countless bottles of red wine and great psychological support, a couple of friends also served as excellent proofreaders/initial critics of this book, while one friend came up with the title of the book.

The opinions presented here are highly subjective and are in no way meant to be interpreted as a case study conducted on a representative sample, far from it. Some will agree with my approach and points of view, others won’t, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose.

Oh, and if any of the men who might be reading this recognize themselves in any of the patients described, get a life! The world does not revolve around you….

Germany & Co.

This is where it all began a long time ago. With all the clumsy (quasi)sexual experiences that led to many future disasters. When you are a (female) teenager, you are brainwashed that your first sexual experience should be a special occasion and that your virginity is something that should be sacred to you as it increases your value on the marriage market for some odd reason (and let’s not fool ourselves here, this doesn’t only happen in what some may refer to as ‘backward and undeveloped’ cultures, it applies to many western cultures as well). As a teenage girl you are told that the first time is a special occasion you should share with ‘THE ONE’, preferably the guy you’ll marry one day. Paradoxically enough, if you were a ‘proper’ girl, you shouldn’t even have slept with him before getting married because he might think you’re a slut and never marry you, even if he was the one who ‘deflowered’ you. Go figure.

But nobody actually tells you how disappointing the first time can be. Maybe I’m not a romantic soul and too much of a realist or simply too sarcastic, but how can this ‘deflowering’ (where did this word come from, anyway?) be anything special?!? Ok, at least it’s better if you get deflowered voluntarily (even with lots of alcohol it’s still voluntary) instead of your mother-in-law getting in there with a napkin wrapped around (who knows how many) fingers to steal your virginity and to prove that her son just married a chaste woman. Yes, it happens in certain cultures, and some women who have had sex prior to getting married end up seeing a doctor to have their hymen stitched up again before facing their mother-in-laws in their wedding night, which is pure masochism, if you ask me. Why go through the pain of having your hymen pierced all over again? And what if the doctor who is stitching it up again wants to teach you a lesson and triple-stitches it as punishment? Or would it make a woman extra-chaste if her hymen can’t be pierced at all?

Virginity is highly overrated. Let’s be realistic, when you acquire a car or house, you don’t go for the first option, right? It’s the ne plus ultra of business to check out all options, to shop around, and marriage is a business undertaking, so why would you ever want to buy a pig in a poke?

What’s all the fuss about? Why would anyone want to marry a virgin anyway? Is it a trophy thing? Oh please. What about complete incompatibility in the sack? Then the trophy wife might be degraded to the role of mother and wife, and the hubby gets to have all the fun and a girlfriend (not that men need sexual incompetence with their wives to chase other skirts)? Yes, this certainly is a blatant generalization. But there is some truth even in blatant generalizations. I find it quite lame how many men want a ‘proper’ woman at home, someone who won’t talk back and has no a life of her own, willing to do his laundry and raise his kids while accepting the fact that he sleeps with anything willing to endure him, and while he goes out and shags all those women he has the hots for, but can’t actually handle in reality.

For some such wives, their social status and some luxury gifts will suffice to remain in an unfulfilling marriage, while family/society pressure will keep others in an unhappy union, others might not have a choice. I am admittedly slightly radical when it comes to the whole issue of relationships and marriage in particular, and some might even be so bitchy as to remark that it’s no surprise I am single and haven’t had kids despite the fact that time is running out for me on the hourglass of fertility and as my value as a woman is further decreasing in the opinion of the small-minded. But at least I can do whatever I want and I don’t need anyone’s permission to do so. Of course I miss waking up and falling asleep next to someone, but if I have to choose between peace of mind and nerve-racking, between complete independence and whining, pooping children and a life of household chore slavery, I’ll definitely opt for the former. This way I also get to choose who spends the night with me, and trust me, that person will think twice before farting in front of me or leaving his dirty laundry all over the place for it to be picked up by a miraculous, invisible fairy and to be returned spotlessly clean directly into his closet. He will never even consider forming a habit of sitting on the couch in his sweatpants, scratching his balls and working on his beer belly, because if he doesn’t have the feeling that he has fully conquered me yet, he will continue to make an effort to go for the kill. Once you’ve been conquered, why should he make any more efforts? Since when do predators care about their prey once they started mauling and digesting it? They move on to other prey, don’t they?

The same actually applies to me, I will also continue to make an effort to stay in shape and look good if I don’t have a guy by the short and curlies. If I know that some guy will stick to me for the rest of my life because of social rules and family ties, why torture myself with a Brazilian bikini wax and similarly painful procedures to keep enticing him? Oh please. Men want their woman to stay hot and sexy (this blatant generalization is nothing but the truth, admit it), but the same should apply to them as well. Just remember how people start making an effort again when they have an affair, so why is it so difficult to keep it up throughout? I believe it’s actually better to have some ‘fresh meat’ here and there instead of sticking with the same ‘rotting flesh’ for ages. Who ever came up with the notion that humans are monogamous beings?

A couple of hundred of years back I would’ve been burned at the stake for my blasphemous (what a relative term) and sacrilegious (equally as relative) statements, but luckily I was born at a time when I am allowed to speak my mind more or less frankly. Maybe reincarnation is possible after all and after suffering above-described fate long time ago I have returned with a vengeance? Like some sort of female terminator here to avenge … what?

But before I get carried away here with my theories on philandering men, submissive and docile women and the plight of relationships, let me try to remember my “big day” (or was that supposed to be the day I got married?). My first time happened simply because I was fed up with being a virgin, without a clue as to what my friends who had already slept with a guy were talking about and why they kept telling me that I had to get it over with. As simple as that, no fancy butterflies flying around my tummy, I just wanted to get it over with. So I came up with an action plan and what came out of it? My math tutor. A guy who was actually quite cool considering he was a math tutor had the honor to ‘initiate’ me into the world of love, well, the world of sex. Or something like that. He had no idea what he was getting into, poor guy, and he never managed to teach me math either, but he served a good cause.

I still vividly remember my disappointment when it was over, I was like “That’s it?!?”, and I kept asking myself why everyone was so mad about sex, why everyone made such a big deal out of it. But I was happy not to be a virgin any longer and never slept with the guy again. So my first time was actually a one-night-stand, and I was/am very okay with that.

Since the math tutor had completed his contribution to the realization of my action plan, and since I was quite disappointed, I didn’t want to see him again. Since I was useless when it came to math and since I wasn’t really all that into the guy, I convinced my parents that I no longer needed any more ‘tutoring’. Luckily they had other things to worry about instead of inquiring about the reasons for my sudden change of mind.

But the guy also worked as a DJ at the hottest club in town, so I kept bumping into him, and I have to admit that for a while I thought I might be infatuated with him. Looking at it from today’s perspective I realized that spoiled me probably merely wanted attention. Soon I became very good at ignoring him and today I don’t even remember his last name or what he looked like.

***

My next German actually did manage to leave a lasting impression because he holds a unique record amongst my men. But let’s start at the beginning, which shows how strange life can be. The first time I saw this guy was in a magazine article about him as a well-known party organizer, and I thought to myself that I’d love to meet this guy. I still remember the picture accompanying the article, a bald guy with an Indian-style cap on his head and an army-style satchel, an intelligent face with mischievous eyes grinning into the camera. An eclectic mix of various styles, but cool in his own strange way. And sure enough, a couple of weeks later a friend of mine took me to some random party, and out of all people, who did she introduce me to? That very guy, whom I will refer to as Goya, for reasons to be explained later on. We clicked right away and I liked him because he was different. Little did I know how different…

After a couple of dates we ended up at his place, which was a slight shock, to say the least. He lived in a single room and shared his toilet and bathroom with the rest of the tenants on his floor (yuck). I will spare you the details about the state of the bathroom/toilet and his immediate neighbors, but something like this was the last thing I had expected from someone who gave off such a cool vibe. So much for the impression people give off and the cold truth behind the façade. It’s all about good marketing, I suppose. Granted, I had not expected him to live in a penthouse, but I had certainly not pictured this type of scenario.

However, the next shock was to follow soon after, namely once his boxers came off: the size of his you-know-what. And this is where he holds a sovereign record: the record for the smallest penis ever! To this day I wonder whether my utter astonishment and disappointment showed on my face when he took off his boxers, although I did try really hard to conceal my disappointment. At that point I was still very inexperienced when it comes to sex, but I knew that 3 – 4cm in an erect state was not good. Yes, size is only one factor when it comes to good sex, I agree, technique is far more important. But in this case not even technique helped considering that I didn’t even feel anything when he was inside me. Nada, zero, zilch. I was trying hard to feel his movements inside me, but even with my wildest imagination… Nothing! Meanwhile he was fascinated by my curves and kept saying that I looked like a woman out of a Goya painting, hence his nickname.

And here I would like to award myself an Oscar for best lead actress in the show I put on, pretending that I was enjoying myself while I wasn’t even sure whether the guy was inside me! Now try to moan rhythmically without hearing the beat of the background music (in this case, without feeling his movements inside you). Somehow I managed to pull it off, and I even returned one more time in the hope of … I don’t actually know what I was hoping for. Overnight penis enlargement? We stayed in touch for some time, but needless to say, the sexual part was over, thus his guest appearance in this book has also come to an end.

***

German specimen No. 3 was in his prime when I met him, good-looking and fit, a tennis instructor and party animal. I met him while he was a bartender in a bar where I spent a lot of time, I loved the naughty expression in his eyes and his insolent manner and humor. It took a while before we ended up in bed together, I actually don’t remember how it happened, but it did happen. It happened a number of times, but I don’t remember the actual acts as much as the complete mess in his room. From tennis rackets and dirty socks, to random items strewn all over the floor, an utter mess. Funnily enough the rest of the flat was neat and tidy thanks to his roommate. I also remember that he was extremely annoyed by the fact that I could never spend the night at his place because of my parents. I was still living at home at that point, and staying out all night was a no-go in my proper catholic home, with parents still hoping for a chaste daugther.

The guy, let’s call him Bartender, was a lot of fun, unless he talked about his best (female) friend by the name of S. It drove me up the wall to hear “S. this, S. that” as he constantly talked about her. He kept assuring me that there was nothing but friendship, which I believe now, but which, of course, fell on deaf ears then, in the midst of my possessive tantrums. The two of them were constantly together, and when I had to go back home after a night out together, they would stay out and party together till dawn, which drove me mad, needless to say.

Bartender and I dated for a bit, I was growing ever more annoyed by his relationship with his best friend and his love for cocaine, while he got ever more annoyed by the fact that I wasn’t free to stay at his place all night and that I hated his best friend (fyi, she hated me equally as well). I broke up with him after a couple of months because the relationship simply wasn’t going anywhere and his coke habit was seriously getting out of hand. He was all cool about the break-up, no reconciliation attempt, which admittedly hurt. I know he cared, but at the same time he was too caught up in his party world to be bothered. But in light of the pain that I was to experience years later, this ‘lovesickness’ was nothing when looking at it from today’s perspective.

I kept bumping into him whenever I went out since he was omnipresent in the nightlife scene in that particular town, and there was always a spark between us and lots of flirting going on, but we never actually went back together. Many years later he admitted that it had been his fault that the relationship had ended and that he regretted it. C’est la vie, as the French would say… Soon after our relationship ended, I left Germany (for good, as it turned out), and whenever I would come back for a visit we’d meet up, but it was never the same again. He certainly tried to rekindle the flame, but the well-shaped, hot tennis player had slowly turned into an enormous mass of fat! I have nothing against fat people, but I simply cannot be sexually attracted to a guy with a huge, wobbly gut who is breathing heavily at the merest exertion and who shoves absurd amounts of food into his face while producing disgusting sounds.

Although Bartender was aware of the fact that he had grown out of proportion and even cracked jokes about his obesity, he obviously still thought that he was hot, which baffled me, to say the least. Whenever we’d meet up, he would hit on me, make sexual allusions or try to kiss me. I really don’t think I’m shallow and superficial, but his attempts to touch and kiss me made me feel sick to my stomach and I’d shrink away from him as if he were a leper. He must have noticed, but his self-confidence was as enormous as his body, so he didn’t give up.

When I was working on my thesis, I had to spend a week in the German city Bartender lived in, so he offered that I could stay at his place. I accepted the offer because he was living with a (female) roommate and because I had my own room. My room was right across the hallway from his room, and I did consider locking my door at night, but figured he wasn’t the type of guy to attack me in the middle of the night, and luckily I was right. But as the days of my stay at his place advanced, I grew ever more uncomfortable around him and ever more disgusted by him, and I was very happy when my research came to an end. It’s not like he was cornering me or trying to rape me, but he kept making insinuating remarks, he tried to be physically close to me and I was constantly making sure that my body language and hormones clearly told him to stay away. It was tiring to keep a three-tonner in check.

Now, instead of calling me arrogant and insensitive, do me a favor and picture the following scenario: Picture one of your exes who was hot and slim at one point (male or female), and now picture that same person being a complete slob, someone who grunts like a walrus while moving around, who loves to drench obscene amounts of food in ketchup, then heaves his enormous corpse onto the bed, places the plate on his (or her, although her breasts would get in the way?) enormous gut and noisily shoves the food in its mouth (‘its’ was intentionally used here due to the lack of human characteristics during the food inhalation). And now imagine (sound effects included) this huge mass of wobbly flesh attempting to have sex with you. Now you tell me whether I am being superficial!

For some odd reason he absolutely loved to walk around in his ribbed undershirt and boxers, and it literally made me gag to watch all that fat move around as if it had a life of its own. He had this certain familiarity around me many people probably have when being around their exes, but to me it seemed outrageous that I had ever had sex with someone like this. Granted, back when we used to be in a sexual relationship, he hadn’t been fat, on the contrary, but at this point I was so disgusted that I couldn’t even remember what he had looked like as a fit tennis trainer.

Bartender also had this urge for physical contact, which I avoided like the plague, of course. During my stay at his place he’d hug me whenever possible, he’d drop himself on my bed, which sent me screaming (and shock waves through the mattress). Well, I wasn’t literally screaming, but inwardly I was winning a screaming contest. The highlight of my entire stay, however, where my jaw just dropped and I was unable to react (which doesn’t happen often), where I was not sure whether I should start laughing hysterically or vomit, happened a couple of days before my departure. He was watching TV in his bed, I was leaving my room to go to the kitchen for some water, so I asked him whether he needed anything. His reply: “A massage and a blowjob”. I simply continued towards the kitchen.

He also had this typical German humor, which isn’t humor, if you ask me, and even in his late 30s he deemed it funny to crack the same misogynist jokes he used to love 16 years ago when I met him. Maturity is a relative term, I suppose. He doesn’t have much to boast of in terms of relationships with women, and at one point even his roommate, a model, couldn’t take his demeaning jokes any longer, sarcastically commenting on yet another one of his sexist remarks that he was such an expert on the subject of relationships considering his extensive relationship experience. Which shut him up, cracked me up and which will end his role in this book.

***

This category includes the smallest penis and the fattest ex boyfriend, so I might as well bring up the ugliest guy I have ever had since he belongs to this chapter. I won’t comment much on him because there is not much interesting to say about him and I don’t want to reminisce about him too much. He’s into erotic photography, which supplied him with an endless amount of fresh meat despite his ugliness, he has a very good eye and he was my first contact with kinky sex. That’s all I have to say on this subject matter.

This chapter will also include experiences with other native German speakers, so my one and luckily only Austrian experience to date belongs here as well. I met him when I was living in Balkania, where he worked as an expat, well, as the director of a car leasing company that carries the name of one of my favorite cars (you will have to read the following chapters to find out which brand that might be).

He contacted me via a social networking site which has played a big role in my dating life, I must admit, after he had seen on my profile that I spoke German, which he told me was very important to him. We met for drinks, he was civilized and we had a nice conversation, although I found it a bit annoying that he mainly talked about himself. Yes, when people meet for the first time, they are supposed to talk about themselves to get to know each other, but this should also include bilateral communication and shouldn’t consist of mere soliloquies. During his monologues I caught myself a number of times as I was thinking about something completely different or trying to stifle a yawn. Had his stories been a bit more interesting, I might not have drifted off, but listening to someone tell me about his childhood in the Austrian pampa (yawn), how he is all proud of himself for having obtained a PhD (woohoo) and how he had been forced to live with roommates when he went back to school in his late 20s (so?) just isn’t something that will knock me off my feet. But hey, I didn’t want to be too demanding and arrogant, so I decided to nevertheless give him a chance. Maybe pampa boy had some hidden qualities fate wanted me to discover? He certainly smelled yummy and was very well dressed, hence I turned a blind eye to the fact that he was my height, i.e. not too tall.

After a couple of days of intense text messaging, he invited me on a day trip to go see some famous waterfalls the following weekend, which I accepted. We had a great day, I was psyched to drive his absolutely fabulous sports car, and I dare say that both of us enjoyed the day and each other’s company. The confusing thing, however, was that I kept having the impression that he wanted to grab and kiss me a couple of times, but didn’t, which was odd, but what to say, maybe he was shy? It did occur to me that I should maybe just take over and kiss him, but something held me back because I had trouble ‘reading’ the guy. He kept paying me compliments, but I still couldn’t decipher him.

After our weekend trip, our communication boiled down to text messaging. Excessive text messaging. He simply loved to write messages, mostly with sexual content, which I found quite lame after a while because I’m more of a ‘hands-on’ person than a theoretician, especially since he was practically my neighbor, so why tell me your sexual fantasies via text messages if you can just visit your neighbor and live them out? Well, some at least. His behavior was strange, why would someone openly flirt like that without even trying to kiss me? Maybe he had issues? Size issues? Sexual issues? Disease issues??? At one point I even asked him whether he actually liked me, to which he replied asking how someone this smart and beautiful could ask such stupid questions. Hello? What kind of answer is that? I soon got bored by his Neanderthal approach and the failed communication attempts and cut all communication.

12 След.

Guys around the Globe

Welcome to my World!

Germany & Co.

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