Guest Column: Making it in Missoula

Of Hangups and Hangovers in Missoula

By Beefcake Wellington, 2-25-07

The morning after the Old Post’s re-grand opening, I woke to a quickly solidifying headache and a strong desire for some coffee and hash browns. As I was deciding if I was really ready get out of bed yet, I heard these words:

“Do you know where my shirt is?”

Not an unreasonable question. Except that for the past six months or so I’ve been chronically single, and so hearing anything in the morning other than NPR was slightly disquieting.

I rolled over to find Pajaro sitting up in bed, scanning the room for her clothes. The light was still dim, so I pretended to go back to sleep while I tried to figure out how such an attractive woman ended up in my rather shabby bed.

It was probably the Cuervo Gold margarita that started it. And the multiple rounds of double-gin and tonics. Followed by more double-Jack-and-gingers. Toss in a little bluegrass and some serious jonesin’ and it wasn’t hard to see a clear arc in a very blurry evening. But now what?

“Breakfast?” I suggested from deep in my pillow.

The coffee was hot and the hash extra greasy, putting down a nice insulating layer on my stomach. Things seemed fairly copasetic as we waited for our food. Talk tended toward the banal; things like the crappy weather and whether the guy sitting across the way kind of looked like a fat John Cusack. The food showed up about the time we ran out of stuff to B.S. about and then, quickly it seemed, we were outside. A hug, vague mentions of catching up later and we were on our separate ways. 

Now, I know this isn’t an event one usually shares with a widespread and anonymous readership, but stick with me. Though the one-night stand is a fairly common occurrence, and I’ve been on the other side of the Morning After table listening to friends recount their own foggy exploits, this was my first go-around, as it were.

During a day built around eating a lot of toast and watching Law and Order reruns, I didn’t feel the somewhat sullied freedom most people I’d talked to about one-night stands express. I had a much different reaction, and when I figured out what it was, I kind of freaked out. I wanted to see Pajaro again. I, on some weird gut level, expected more out of it than just the one night. 

This was not good. What I’d gleaned through vicarious experience was that this is how these things go; it happens, end of story. I knew I was supposed to be grateful for the lack of expectation. Except I wasn’t. I harbored a sense of connection, the implicit sense we’d shared something “special” and that it could manifest as something more. Not only did I feel it, I sort of wanted it. And so I became slightly, um, concerned with how things were being perceived on the other end of this thing. Maybe I wasn’t alone in this.

Torn between addressing my feelings immediately and giving it some air to see how sincere they were, I slept on it for the rest of the long weekend. Good call. By President’s Day things had subsided a bit and I realized maybe it wasn’t the true love I’d envisioned. Still, I had some residual feelings that were making it difficult to move on. I needed a solid answer. 

God bless text messaging. With some crafty wording and careful feints at various angles, I got the skinny. Probably not as definitive as if I’d actually grown a pair and called, but whatever. Even still, when I got the answer I expected--and was kind of hoping for—I wasn’t entirely satisfied.

There was still a part of me that felt bruised by the fact that it was just “one of those things.” I didn’t really want to accept that Pajaro and I weren’t nothin’ but mammals, doin’ it like they do on the Discovery Channel. After six months alone I had latched pretty tightly onto this human connection, sexual and otherwise, and was having a hard time giving it up.

“Does that make me a sucker?” I asked my friend Don Julio over beers this week. “You know, that I was hoping for some kind of relationship?”

“Nah, it just makes you naïve,” Don Julio said. “And maybe a little bit femme.”

“But that’s cool,” he added, draining his glass. “Chicks dig that.”

BEEFCAKE’S QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
(At The Union Club)
Girl: Yeah, I had sex with my first black man on Valentine’s Day.
Guy: Oh.
(Awkward silence)
Girl: Do you ever watch basketball?

If you, too, have a story you’re burning to tell about Making It In Missoula, email bigsis@newwest.net or littlesis@newwest.net to learn more about writing a guest column.  And don’t forget to turn in your Valentine’s stories by Tuesday, February 27th, for a chance to win a bouquet and a bottle of wine with the “You Made It” contest!

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