As I left my lucky parking space and set off toward
the hotel, I felt off balance. I should have probably turned around and gone
home. Even though I was in the gridded middle of the city, I got turned around
and blew a few blocks off course like a leaf.
When I walked into the hotel lobby, it seemed entirely
fictional, a piped-in version of artsy, like a set on some tech-bro sitcom.
There he was in the middle of all the primary colors and fake Lichtenstein
vibes, wearing something like a Captain America t-shirt. Definitely cute—Black,
bespectacled, with that adorable combination of sculpted arms and soft tummy.
I complimented his butt on the way to the elevator,
and he made an extremely dreary remark about parental weight gain. His daughter
was twelve.
“That door’s mine, and so is this one!” He said
proudly, ushering me into his suite. It was...two rooms.
Okay, I am Toxic Romcom Girl. When he’d enticed me
with his “upgraded suite,” I pictured fluffy robes, snacks, okay yes I may have
pictured some champagne. I wanted to be spoiled. It was shallow and silly but I
kinda stand by it.
But! The bed was big and the pillows were many. The
guy was cute. I took off my work clothes, brazenly walking around in my
workday, go-all-the-way up undies and comfy utilitarian mint green bra. I
pulled the blue-rose bobby pins out of my hair and put them in the pencil case
I’d pulled out of my work backpack and drafted as a purse.
I snuggled in with him among the pillows. Theres such
a well-being that settles through me when cuddling a stranger. As he drifted
between chitchat and sleep, I loved the intimacy of hearing him snore. I had a
pleasant daydream about all the lone travellers who must be occupying the
downtown hotels. I could make it my literal business to snuggle them all! If I
weren’t already working four part-time jobs, Snuggler of Strangers would be a
great side-hustle.
Chitchat-wise, he wasn’t the romantic free spirit his
profile promised. (Who among us is?!) He was a pretty-recently-divorced guy who
was irritated by the return of condoms to his life. I was really glad I wasn’t
there to have sex. May I live a thousand lifetimes before I have to listen to
any more dudes gripe about condoms in a post-Roe world. Fuck that all the way
to heck.
“Uh,” I said, struggling to keep the pillow chat
light. “You’re old enough to remember the Nineties. We’re all just out here
trying to not DIE.”
That terribleness aside, I still felt safe and cozy
next to him, so I asked for spanks. He’d described himself as a “pleasure Dom,”
but I felt a not-unpleasant sadistic sting and said so. I thought we were
bantering, but his tone shifted abruptly.
“I want to touch you, but you don’t want to touch me.”
It was so out of left field that I felt like he was saying it to somebody in his
past, with me as a proxy. (I have 100% done this to people!)
Yikes though. The whiny, entitled tone drove home the
point—To him I wasn’t a potential friend or a comet prospect, I was the human
equivalent of a Doordash meal.
“I don’t like
this.” I said. I hopped out of bed and started getting dressed. I gathered my
things carefully, stopping to pee before the drive home.
I have lots of thoughts about the transactional parts
of dating, the constant risk that I might be a fantasy or an opportunity
without being seen and treated like a whole human. The following week, a text
flirtation went south in a similarly entitled way.
Dating makes me sad sometimes. A few paragraphs ago, I
was daydreaming about snuggling all the lonelyhearts in the downtown hotels,
but I’m the loneliest lonelyheart of all. I want kindness. I want to make friends
with someone cute and get to know each other and snuggle forever. Sudden hotel
dates are probably not the way to accomplish this, but who knows?