Good Or Evil...With a New Purpose

Embrace your freedom
(without becoming a flipping whore).
This is the eternal quest of any woman who finds herself free of the eternal demands of a boyfriend/partner/husband/child/parasite. Labeled as a serial monogamist, I finally have found myself in a place where I am a.) 23 years old b.) single c.) not ready to settle down and d.) flaming hot. What to do? I have no experience in this field. I feel like I am in middle school again--curious about that cute boy, but waaaay to scared to talk to him. So as I find my way out of these woods, I will share my experiences with you. Hopefully we can all learn from my mistakes and laugh at the idiot things I do. I'm up for it.

The scene: Two weeks ago, out for an early drink with my friend, Jessa.
Jessa is my extremely forward thinking friend from Boulder, CO. She's 29, and a seasoned veteran of dating, being single, being engaged, breaking engagements, and finding the one she wants. I worship the ground she walks on. Her confidence is radiant. Jessa is my very first lesson.

Lesson 1: Find someone you admire and respect. Learn from them, emulate them. My relationship with Jessa led me to one of the most enlightening conversations I've had about casual dating. The advice she gave me that afternoon was, "Find someone HOT, there are so many HOT people out there. After I stopped dating so and so, I made out with lots of hot people."
Then I asked her, "Did you have sex with any of them?"
"No. Just make out."
Ok, sounds easy enough. And it was. That night, I went to a BBQ with some people from work and I got drunk and this Hot Boy got drunk, and we went back to his place and made out. Done and done. I had never done this before, but it was so easy. And my night with Hot Boy #1 leads me to...

Lesson 2: Don't have sex because then they'll have a lot of leverage and you'll feel used. I told him on the way home that sex was out of the question, and he said, "Fine". And that was that. I learned even more the morning after.

Lesson 3: Keep track of your shoes. Drunk people don't care where their purse, left shoe, or bra end up. You should, because when you're getting ready to leave, you don't want to have to search under the bed for these things. Just contain your personal belongings and you can make a smooth exit. I just said, "Hot Boy, I'm going to leave". We kissed, said goodbye, and I walked back to my house. Done and done.

After some reflection on the night, I tried to highlight why this situation worked out so beautifully. It was because certain factors were in place. Here is one of them.

Lesson 4: [Qualifications] Degrees of separation (DOS) between you and Hot Boy are ideally greater than or equal to 2, but less than 4. Examples:
Your best guy friend (DOS = 0 = Bad idea).
Your friend's best friend (DOS = 1 = bad idea still).
Your friend's friend from work- not YOUR work (DOS = 2 = approaching acceptability, especially if you're both tanked).
Some random person from a bar that you have never met in your life and for whom you've never completed a background check (DOS= infinite = poor decision even while under the influence).