This is a story about #love, but it's not a love story (Part 1)

Mar 28

Editor's Note: This is an epic epic epic series of posts. No, like seriously. The week these were posted was hands down our biggest week ever on the site. It's very involved and very addicting. I warn you of this not to toot my own horn, but to make you aware that this will take time away from your life. If you have children, please make sure they are fed - and the dogs have been walked. Disclaimer over.

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Part 1 (See Below)

In conducting my OKCupid social experiment for the last 8 months, I have found that out of 98 dates, there were only 4 of which I actually felt that "spark" with. All of the 4 have come from different backgrounds, have entirely different personalities, and look completely different; I've isolated as many of the variables as I could (with what little I knew about each one) and discovered that the only trait they all shared was emotional unavailability. I don't believe in soulmates or this notion of there ever being a "one." I think we are attracted to someone because of there being a lack within ourselves that resonates within this other person - and vice versa. In fact, I'm pretty black and white on that. So, I am attracted to emotionally unavailable men which results in me continuously having my heartbroken. I am so not kosher for that passover. I have to get over my emotional unavailability. What's my next doable action in that? Addressing the cause of said emotional unavailability. I present to you ... my best attempt ...

First up ... this is what's groovin in my ears ... HIT IT Cee Lo!

Alrite, so it's no secret that one of the reasons this site got started was because of a broken heart. Like a really really really bad broken heart. The kinda broken heart that pains the soul, and leaves you incapacitated for an extended period of time - OR motivates you enough to change your life for good. Yay for taking the more productive of the two!

I've sort of talked about it, but I haven't publicly released any of the anger that I still feel. I am ANNNGGGRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY at this human being. Like, I swear to you, if I ever see him - there is no doubt I am going to deck him. I use his face all the time as I am boxing. HAHAHA, I was actually in a training session once and I was so pissed off at him I threw this medicine ball and broke it. Clearly I have some unresolved issues with this human being - and it is causing a major blockage in my current dating situation. I need to rectify it at once. I am hoping this post will help. I'm not an angry person - the exact opposite. There's gotta be a way to work through this. Alrite, enough delaying Jen ... spit it out.

The story of the mentalist. You ready? I actually knew him for a few years before we started dating (as is typically my MO, I almost always end up dating boys from my circle of friends). I met him the way that I meet most people, in the most RANDOM scenarios ... this one was on a super shuttle back at the end of 2007. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and I was flying to NY to do this charity event that I was hired as a producer for. Super rad! Was getting off the phone as I sat down next to this duderino who was also the only other person in the shuttle. We strike up a conversation, I have no idea over what, and then he goes - I'm gonna read your mind right now. Me being me (who else would I be in this scenario. What does that MEAANNNN), and alwaysssss game for a good mind fuck, I said alrite! Followed his little rules, wrote it down on this card ... didn't show it to him. Whatever. Low and behold, he actually got it. The reveal was incredibly impressive. He does this thing where he looks you dead in the eye and tells you to hold onto the name. In my head I'm thinking as he's going through the alphabet, are my pupils dilating when he reaches each letter? Of course that's not the case ... ALL of these tricks are crazy stupid simple (mirrors, little pencils under the fingers) - it's all for show.

Well, bottom line - he was totally good, and totally got my number. I was actually interested in talking to him as well for the charity event I was working for. I said I had no idea in what capacity I could use him, but that I thought he was good ... damn good. At the time he was on this big show on a major cable network, so he told me he'd be busy for a bit but would love to keep in touch. He then friended me on Myspace, and Facebook - and we kinda just went our own little ways.

Flash forward to the spring of 2009, and he had posted this thing on Facebook saying that he was going to be on this super super super huge talk show. I watched that show religiously at the time, so I was all STFU!!! That's AMAZIINNNNGGGGGGG!!! I was on the east coast at the time, and he was on the west coast - so of course the second it came on I messaged him saying that he did such a great job, because again, this dude's talent has never been in question. He is very. very. very. very. good at what he does. A little too good. We then started exchanging Facebook messages back and forth, and he asked for my number, so that quickly turned into some long phone conversations. I fell for this dude - so so quickly. It was the first time in my life I felt like I was dating someone as smart as me; mentalists aren't dumb. My dating record prior had been a lot of GQ looking boys that were straight up dumb as rocks. It was tragic actually - but those were the only boys that would really ever talk to me. The douchey ones are the ones that have nothing left to lose and will at least say "how you doin" at the bar. This was the first time a guy wasn't intimidated by my intelligence, dude, I could use BIG WORDS!!!!!!! omg omg omg omg omg such a turn on.

I'm sure he profiled me, figured out what type of person I was so he knew how to play me ... again, this guy does this for a living. I am not ashamed to admit that I fell for it (a bit embarrassed, but not ashamed). He then said he wanted to come out to Florida to see me - he was going to fly all the way out there specifically to get to hang out with me. Amazing! I thought! Who does that for someone unless they really like them? Huge deal. Fucking huge.

I met him at the airport, and I just instantly fell head over heels in love with this dude. Like hardcore. Head. Over. Heels. There's clearly no doubt that I was played, but there was just this organic component of absurd attraction. Whatever this guy had, I wanted. Bad. He stayed in town for a week, and we got to know each other. I'm so embarrassed for how quickly I fell for this boy. I mean you just have no idea ... putty. I was fucking putty. I really enjoyed spending time with him. He was so smart, and so accomplished - he had this air about him that was undeniable. It was insane. At the time, I had never met anyone like him. He was different, for sure.

He would tout his celebrity status in my face all the time, and when he was offered a car at the car rental place of COURSE he upgraded to a Mercedes - but none of it interested me. No literally. Like none of it. My parentals have a Mercedes and it's a nice car and all - but meh. Shit like that doesn't work on me - I come from it. It's like so what. It was his happiness for what he did, and this unshakeable confidence that attracted me. When he walked into a room, you might not have noticed initially - but you were left completely stunned by what he was able to do, and you wanted more. He was just one of those. There was something special about him, I can't describe it.

He wasn't commercially speaking the most attractive person in this world, but I remember picking him up one time at the airport and he literally took my breath away. It was just this feeling of - wow. He had it. Whatever that "it" is.

So, we had a wicked time in Florida ... and back he went on his adventures. He said he had to go to Jamaica (remember that tidbit) for a performance, and a wedding. Super cool. Was totally jealous, always wanted to go.

I actually had a shoot the weekend after he left, and I used him as inspiration- even posted it on Facebook:

How disgusting is that. Like seriously? Tell me that's not the face of a chick that is SERIOUSLY in love.

Oh shit ... I feel it coming ....

Crazy.

At the time, I had been wanting to go back to LA (as I was commercial modeling in Florida for about 7 months), so I used him as the best excuse to head back home. I asked him if I could crash at his place for a bit while I got back on my feet looking for an apartment with a girlfriend of mine, and he had no problem with it. Of course as any chick knows, that was just a rouse to get my foot in the door. I was only 25% serious about wanting to get a place with my friend. I just really wanted to be around this human being, and I can't help but go after everything that I want in life.

We moved in together (again, a bit under false pretenses. my b), and I'm not even kidding you, I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life. He gave me this escape from what I thought I knew about life to something that I constantly wanted to question. I wanted more! We talked at great lengths about the universe, and what consciousness is ... amazing. He would run all of these tests on me, asking when I touched my hair, what was I thinking? I used to be a constant fiddler - so this went on for a very long time. I could tell he was taking an inventory of my emotions and my response to stimulants, but I just didn't care. I found the fact that he could figure me out super sexy; it certainly kept me honest knowing that I couldn't tell a lie (which of course I tried a few times, and was immediately called out on).

I asked him all of the time if we were boyfriend/ girlfriend - but he kept insisting that he didn't want to label what we had. *cough cough BULLSHIT* He didn't even position it that way, it was just more of a "let's see how things go" type scenario. I, at the time, adored labels. I kept saying over and over that I didn't want to keep introducing him to my friends as just a friend - I wanted a relationship. I said I can't even look at another guy - let's make a go at this. Yeah, cardinal rule #1 in life, don't ever pressure dudes for anything ... ever. He brushed it off ... and brushed it off ... til eventually I gave up asking.

I had won a settlement in a lawsuit a few months earlier, (in 2007 I lost everything I owned in a massive cockroach infestation. Can't talk about it per the settlement I signed, but it was a nice lil' chunk of change) so I didn't have to go immediately into a job search or anything. I was honestly learning as much as I could about the social space while at the time feeling completely consumed with this head to toe love that I felt. He was pretty savvy when it came to business, so he and I would sit there and really get off on talking about business and how I can help his career etc. I can't be with a guy that doesn't LOVE what he does. I knew the web, the social space, and can edit videos, so I offered to help him as much as possible.

After a few weeks, he came back from the pool one day and said that we were going to have some visitors. Visitors? Oh peppermint patty. Alrite, I can deal ... a little weird I thought since it was a 1 bedroom apartment, and not exactly a spacious one. Where the hell are they going to sleep? The living room, he piped up! He got out this queen sized air mattress, and low and behold later that evening, there were 2 girls that started to live in the living room. He had told me that they were in town for a few weeks from England, and had been kicked out of their hotel room. He felt bad for them and wanted to take them in. It didn't help that both of these chicks were serious hotties. I mean - wow. Total Betties.

I was honestly never intimidated by just how hot these chicks were (it's LA, hot girls are a dime a dozen), because after the first night of kicking it with them - they were so effin rad. Super sweet girls with the cutest English accents in the world. Like literally, we are all still besties on Facebook.

It was pretty much common knowledge in the house that the mentalist was off limits. I can be a pretty kinky bitch and all, but not when it comes to anything within a living situation. I am INCREDIBLY black and white about non-sexualness that goes on with roomies. Not going to happen, ever.

I asked them all about their life on the other side of the pond, and we bonded and gabbed like any 3 chicks living in a 1 bedroom apartment would.

The mentalist loved touting to his friends that he had all of these chicks living in his apartment. He totally got off on having a harem of sorts. Mind you, for me, if this was his little version of the Playboy Mansion, at least I got to be his number 1 - I slept in his bed.

This guy wasn't romantic - at all. He wasn't even particularly nice to me, yet I always brushed it off because at that point I couldn't help the fact that I was in love. (This part is so embarassing to write, you all have no idea - I cannot believe I let someone treat me that way.) He would tease me for dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld, or by sitting on Mashable morning, noon, and night. He literally used to just say, why don't you marry Pete Cashmore - you're on that damn thing so much. You and your social media!!!!! He teased me pretty much relentlessly, but I would always smile and just sort of brush it off. Dude, I grew up with an older brother - if anything I processed it more as a term of endearment. Very sad, but very true.

Sex with him however, was literally the best I have ever had in my entire life. We were anatomically very compatible. In fact, he gave me my first orgasm from intercourse. My body CRRAAVVEEEEDDDDDD him, and he turned me on to sex in ways that I didn't know my body could be turned on. I even at one point broke his bed, hahahaahahaahhaha!! That was fun!!!! (Like literally - I busted a support beam in the middle while I was on top and the whole bed just went BOOOOMMMMM) Again, it honestly had way less to do with anything he did in a physical sense, it was more of the fact that I had never loved someone like I loved him. Oxytocin and endorphins pumping through your body make you a bloody idiot.

All while experiencing my summer of bliss, my grandmother was in the final stages of her life. My family was an absolute wreck over it. I didn't know how to process this 24/7 doom and gloom of talking to my family and then this UNBELIEVABLE high from being in love. I did the only thing I knew to do ... I escaped into my bliss. Wrong, yes. Do I regret it? Kind of. There were CERTAINLY way better ways to handle the situation than completely just close up emotionally to my family. Like literally, screaming matches with my parents were a weekly thing. They didn't understand what I was doing, why I was treating them like that ... that in and of itself is an entirely separate story - and doesn't have anything to do with this, but the timing was also something to note. He actually encouraged me to talk to my parents, and continuously work things out. We talked about it all the time, he just kept saying, they're your parents - you have to be there. I couldn't deal. Emotional stability, at that time, was not my friend, as was evident from the time I threw my phone across the courtyard. (Yay the Voyager for surviving that one with just a few scratches! Muy impressivo!)

An emotional escape artist dating a professional escape artist. HA! Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Now are you starting to get why I am so insistent on life being so reflective? Kinda makes sense now? eh? eh? eh?

My parents threatened to come out on a plane multiple times to "knock some sense into me" - little did they know though, that he was in their corner. That's the truth! I just needed my own space, needed my own time to breathe. Again, worst. timing. ever. But everything for a reason, and I am still working on repairing our relationship which is all I can do at this point.

Alrite, I am going to take a breather here. The next bit of the story gets incredibly. incredibly. incredibly intense. It involves the English girls going home, two more girls from Minnesota moving in, a girl who baked brownies, and the blowjob that would change my life.

Again, this isn't about airing out dirty laundry on this duderino. This is just my side of the story, which is why I'd never publicly release his name - it's not my style. I very literally cannot move on with my OKC experiment until I emotionally release this individual from my life. I thought I had, but clearly based on my experiment's findings - I have a ways to go. It's amazing when you're naturally a busy worker - I can DRRROOOWWNNNNNNN myself in work. Fuck, because of this dude, I launched an entire brand with the energy I had for our relationship. That certainly says something ... but I still have to process the emotions behind it. It's the only way.

I ask as a favor to the community for comments, tweets, whatever to be INCREDIBLY gentle. These are very raw wounds I am exposing, and I am incredibly embarrassed by how fucking stupid I was regarding this individual ... but its a part of life, and this is my next doable action.

Thanks so so so much for reading. You have no idea how good it feels to just let these feelings out.