How A Sex Souvenir Got My Ass Dumped

5OClockShadow8 years ago

Gentlemen and not-so-gentlemen, I tell you this story as a cautionary tale. Like many of you, I constantly live in the gray area between exclusive dating and casual flings. I’m willing to give a girl a shot at the title, but if it just turns out to be a hookup, I won’t get hung up about it. It’s a totally fair policy. However, the trouble happens when those two worlds converge, because women, surprisingly enough, are not reasonable about this sort of thing.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of sex souvenirs, they are basically obscure items left behind at your place by the girl you sexually disappointed the night before. Not like a phone or a handbag, but things she may not care about or totally forget about, like jewelry or makeup. Whether she’s doing the walk of shame and disappearing without a trace or she stayed a bit and you gave her a ride home, it’s there, and if you aren’t going to see her again, it’s basically finders keepers.

I had just started seeing (read: sleeping with) this girl I met out in Buckhead who was job searching in Atlanta and going to move to town. I had been way too busy for the previous month or two to see anybody, so she was the first girl to spend the night in way too long a stretch of time. Things started moving really fast. She actually spent a couple of weekends at my place while finishing up her interviews and looking for her own place (because there was no way in hell she was going to live with me).

It was two weekends of above average sex and beejes. Needless to say, it was pretty great. Unfortunately, this meant sharing a bathroom. The very first weekend, she found some of the makeup and hair shit my ex-girlfriend had left behind a year and a half before when we broke up on New Year’s Eve. That didn’t take long. After the “what the fuck?” and before she could start asking a million nonsensical questions, I explained to her that she wasn’t a side piece, I didn’t have a girlfriend, and that my ex and I had been together for a whole year and obviously that meant she had left things behind and I hadn’t gotten around to tossing them yet. It was the truth, and I was relatively certain I had talked my way out of that one. But you know women: Once you plant that seed, you are essentially screwed.

The next weekend she stayed over, she had all her personal stuff wrapped up, and she was ready to move to Atlanta. I’d thrown in my man card and decided that we’d go exclusive. Pathetic and stupid, I know, but she had me hooked on the nook. It happens to the best of us. She left for the long drive to go back home and get her things packed. That same morning, the cleaning service I have clean my place came and, in the process of cleaning, had moved the desk in my bedroom. Underneath were a pair of pearl earrings embedded into the carpet. You’d think I would have seen them before, and since I hadn’t, I assumed they belonged to her. IDIOT. I thought she’d be happy to see that I found some earrings she left, so I snapped a picture of them, sent it to her, and asked if she had left them behind. My blind confidence turned to embarrassment as she replied, “No.”

Fuck. I had to scramble for a response, so I replied, “They have to be yours. I haven’t had anyone else over in months. Are you sure they aren’t yours? They have to be.” I literally had my fingers crossed that she had made an impossible mistake. “I always wear my diamond studs.” Fuck. Fuck fuck shit fuck ass shit fuck. I was caught, so the only thing I could think to say was, “I’m really sorry, I could have sworn they were yours, it was the only thing that made sense.” Then I thought I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. She replied, “That’s okay, I’ll just hold over your head for the rest of your life the fact that you tried to push another girl’s earrings onto me.”

Was that a sincere joke? Was she going to be cool about this? I mean, I obviously wasn’t cheating. A girl I had slept with a while ago had left a pair of earrings. It could have been an ex. It could have been a date a while back. I hoped she didn’t assume it was a one night stand, but she had to know I wasn’t some virgin. I was going to get out with only a few dings, right?

Wrong. Women don’t make you pay now. You pay later. She waited until she was all moved to Atlanta and I was on vacation in California, then dumped my ass via text message. I was dumped via email once, so text wasn’t that bad, but it was still pretty fucking shitty. Within a week she rebounded Charles Barkley-style after telling me she “wasn’t ready to date anyone” because she had to get her life together. Ouch.

Lesson learned — if you sense things are about to get serious, get rid of all your sex souvenirs or you’ll get eaten alive. I actually dodged a bullet because she turned out to be a horrible human being, but I learned a valuable lesson that I will undoubtedly forget. In any case, I need to find a way to get rid of this Kate Spade necklace I found in my bed the other morning, if y’all know anyone interested..