Last week when my insomnia reached fever pitch, I was forced to go out and look for street opiates.  My doctor doesn’t prescribe anything stronger than sleepy time tea and the usual home methods don’t work.  Vodka:  it makes you pass out but then wake up at 2:00 and go for a ride on the tedious thought merry-go-round.  Weed:  similar to vodka except you are up all night making origami animals out of the sheets.

I’m a firm believer if you go out and make your needs be known, somebody somewhere will come up with a solution.

“You don’t need opiates, you need to get laid,” suggested the helpful butcher.  Oh great, he just woke the big sleeping bear.  If the dudes in that shop only knew of how long a run my dry spell has been, they would mercifully tie me up and lock me in a box in their basement and make me their gimp, Pulp Fiction style. Yes, please, I will have the bone-in pork sword special.

I’ve become such a social misfit during the last five years, and I simply won’t call on boys.  You never know if they’re married or not.  And I am insanely shy when it comes to mating rituals.  A couple of years ago, there was dude at the gym I kind of fancied, he was “age appropriate” and he had no ring, so I decided fuck it, he’s not all that, I will smile at him and say hi.  He smiled back and said hi, and it went on like that for a couple of weeks and then we started having friendly banter at the water cooler.  That’s the thing about me, if I can’t make ’em hard, I can make ’em laugh.  The gym has a bar (!) and one day he bought me a beer.  It’s a super casual type place where you can have a drink by yourself and not feel like a trolling weirdo like in Starbucks, where the desperation in the air is as thick as homogenized foam and everyone in there is frantically searching for their soul mate.  Anyway, I took this free pint of Stella as some progress and he was really growing on me.  Even his facial tick was starting not to bother me.

A few days later, I ran into him at Loblaws, with his wife and baby!  We caught each other’s eyes and he looked away quickly, as if he didn’t know me.    Hmmmfffff, you’d think at some point he would have mentioned he had a family, but no, dude was out prowling on collector lane while his wife was at home, changing diapers, lactating, and whatnot.

Maybe there is an iPhone app for my problem.  In gay world, there is one called Grindr that uses GPS as gaydar to let you know when there is a gay in the general area.  You can check out their profile and if you want to meet, you can message them.  Brilliant!  Is there an app similar for straight people?  I wondered.  Yes, there is, said my gay pal, it is called “Look Outside.”  Very funny.

I found one in the app store called OkCupid, but it’s more or less a dating website, not a boner tracker, but I decided to sign up.  Pro Tip:  If you are thinking about joining one of these sites, think about how you are going to write up your profile beforehand as there is nothing more morose and tedious than filling out these things.

I flew by the seat of my pants:

Create a user name:  I did this once before on some other site  6 years ago (for about a day) and called myself “Girl Afraid” and the only one who got it was “Frankly Mr. Shankley” who was a gay and messaged me just to find out if I had heard the new Morrissey album.  I decided on “Mudflapangel” which is the moniker I use when commenting on other blogs and probably best describes my nice and dirty personality.

Make up an opening about yourself:  “I am an insomniac.  I like a joke and a stiff cocktail.  If you pull my toes, I will make you a sandwich.  I like a dude with calloused hands who smells of WD-40 and can swing his dick around like a floppy eel.”

What are you good at:  “I can estimate the correct size of rubber maid container that will fit leftovers without too much extra room or excess spillage.”

What are you doing with your life:  “I write a blog, in fact read it:  mytorontoeh.com” (*I figured at least the blog can get some hits even if I can’t)

Message me if:  “You like sushi.”

I gave my real age too, which is old as fuck but I figured these dudes can just take me as I am or go home.  Then I had to answer 800 inane multiple choice questions that started filling me with rage because you had to qualify with “how important it was.”  Like: How do you feel about kittens?  I like them very, very, much and I don’t give a crap if you like them or not, what does any of this have to do with getting some bone? I had answered but a few when I noticed I was already starting to get some messages in my in-box.

“Do you want to meet for coffee?” Was the first one.  No, dude, I have insomnia, the caffeine will keep me up.  Are you not reading what I’m writing down here?

The messages came in chunks of dozens throughout the rest of the day and there were too many to reply to but it is good to know there are men out there with floppy eels in their pants.  One thing that stood out:  There are no single men my own age, they are all married! Surprise! Calling all LOCAs:  You need to know that your husband is on-line trying to pick up chicks like me.

Only one message was by far and away the shining star in the batch and it was from a 25 (!) year old who made me laugh and blush at the same time. I messaged him back, then we started texting, or sexting, then we talked on the phone.  For me, a voice is more important than a penis.  If I don’t like how you sound, I can’t get a lady boner, and I’m looking right at you, David Beckham.  Luckily “Boss” had a voice I could splay for, he also talked really fast like a Gilmore Girl.  Men who talk fast make me think of 1930’s screwball comedies and I am tickled and smitten.

So we arranged a meet up.  This is unorthodox and I know breaks all common sense rules but I have to do things in my comfort zone or I will have diarrhea and barf at the same time.  He has to have drinks on my porch and meet my entire family and neighbours…I know, right?  Crazy.  But it’s okay, I can sense if he is a serial killer if I meet him at Point A and then if I like him, he goes to the second location, Point B, the porch.  The neighbours are all down with this, although one of them thinks I’m a lunatic, and the kids are home with a bunch of friends, all poised for some mass slaughter.  “Mother, he is 25!  You could have given birth to him!”  But I didn’t so shut up.

So in the early evening I went to meet him.  First impression: Brown and muscly, zero body fat, compact, pheromone bomb swaggering  toward me…no serial killer vibe at all, phew.  He is shorter than me but I don’t care, I think tall men are way over-rated.  Do you ever notice how they usually only date really short women? It’s as though to swing a stump around their cocks makes them look mightier.  Short men try harder and have that alpha male compensation thing going on which I think is pure bone power.

We went to the porch.  He brought vodka.  He assimilated like a boss.  The dog loved him and he loved the dog.  We had a couple of drinks, laughed a lot and then what happened next is that although I don’t squirt and tell, I will  let it be known that the sky opened up, and the universe finally got off its lazy ass and threw me a bone.  And it was good.  And I slept, but just a little bit, it was a long night.