#70 THAT OTHER ONE NIGHT STAND WHOSE NAME I BARELY RECALL: THE CAPTAIN WHO KISSED MY SHOULDER
A hot one-night stand whom I scared off (like so many before him)
I only had two one-night stands in my dating ‘career.’ The guy I picked up at Target and Ethan number two (read about Ethan number one here).
This Ethan had the same real name as the other guy so I’ll call him Ethan as well. In real life, the name sort of reminds one of an accountant not sexy, tall blonde men with sparkling blue eyes, which both of these Ethans had.
I was attracted to the first Ethan back in my university days because we partied together and he owned a motorcycle (complete with motorcycle leathers) and seemed dangerous and cool and sexy but in a nice guy kind of way – not a ‘man versus bear’ way. He was legitimately a nice guy and I hurt him deeply so much so that he never spoke to me again.
Sometimes I think my Substack should be called The Starbucks Chronicles or The Captain Chronicles instead of Why We Met, but oh well. Jokes aside, as the chapters chronicle all the good and bad of my dating (and married) years that led me to my current husband, who is just a darling (and kind and gorgeous and funny and intelligent – all the good adjectives).
However, there’s yet another Army captain to write about. I spoke in this post about how the Manoeuvre Captains Career Course (MC3) was held at Fort Benning, Georgia and I was teaching freshman/sophomore uni courses (as a low-paid Adjunct Prof) in Columbus, Georgia at the time which is practically the same place; thus, many, many Army captains made their way from wherever their previous duty stations had been to live for a year to eighteen months in Columbus, Georgia. As far as bases go, I think Fort Benning/Columbus was one of the more preferred places but not more preferred than, say, Germany or the Netherlands or more exotic locales like Japan or South Korea – or better US places like Colorado or California if you couldn’t get the Europe stations.
I met this second Ethan on a night out in Columbus in the Fall of 2012. I was twenty-five and maybe a week or five shy of meeting my first husband and it was around the time of Captain Cambridge but post-breakup with Captain Thor.
I’m not sure where my friends Anna or Annie were. Anna had maybe paired off with her future husband Eric by then and wasn’t going on nights out. Brittany was never a partier at the bars. I’d met a new girl, Aubrey, who I randomly messaged online on OkCupid as a sort of “do you want to be my wing-woman?” kind of creeper message. I didn’t know how normal people made friends outside of uni so I thought I’d take my chances. We went out about three times and she was fun.
So, Aubrey and I went out to the bars in downtown Columbus, which is a super cute and hip downtown (I think the Canon Brew Pub and The Tap), and Ethan was out with his Lieutenants and Sargeants and they were all buying him shots to celebrate his passing his Career Course or becoming a newly minted Captain (or something like that). Somehow, I ended up flirting with Ethan because, frankly, he was hot in the sort of Glen Powell All-American way and he had a killer body. I mean can you see the arm muscles through that boring plaid shirt? He also had abs to die for. I’m not sure who initiated the flirting first but obviously, I was a sucker for someone I liked the look of. (Worst trait of mine ever!)
The night devolved into Ethan’s men buying us all shots and drinks. I can see my drunk eyes shining through my blurry Sony Cybershot camera selfie. I still didn’t have a smartphone at twenty-five, by the way. I still had a flip phone. Not by choice but on account of the fact I was a poor teacher working two teaching jobs and as a legal assistant and scraping together a living. Probably hence the dating and drinking, too, as a sort of existential crisis and quest for love and validation.
Army men wake up early, usually for physical training (PT) where they run and do pull-ups and push-ups. I’m talking around five am. Even though I now wake in the region of half six to half seven, back then I thought anything prior to ten in the morning was torture, especially because I’d mostly stay out well past the time my carriage turned into a pumpkin.
The next morning, Ethan got up early and showered. I think he very sweetly brought me a glass of water and put it on the nightstand (one of which was an old TV cabinet and the other was one of those folding tables). I woke up with my pink lacy thong on the floor (I didn’t wear a bra with that dress) and a hangover with only vague snapshots of what had happened.
Trigger warning: click away now if you don’t want sordid, semi-NSFW details.
I wrote this seemingly depressing note to myself two years after it happened. I have always remembered this encounter with a sort of neutrality. The fact that I was cripplingly insecure and these men who I considered hot and in shape chose me felt like validation somehow (thanks to my therapist for that lovely revelation). In my mind, since I was ‘attractive enough’ to nab them – if only for a night – despite the fact I wasn’t rail thin, then their shine somehow rubbed off on me. I had a real hangup that being ‘model-level thin’ was the secret to life without the willpower or natural metabolic rate to be that level of thin because I’ve always loved eating. And it’s sad how much life I have wasted on this thought when approximately zero people (or very few) have ever worried about my dress size or body fat percentage – and how many women spend time worrying about these things.
Here’s what I wrote:
Mr 21 was my only legitimate one-night stand. The kind where you never really hear from that person again. He claimed I was his only one-night stand, but I doubt it. He was quite an awkward man in some ways, but handsome and overly muscular. He had a lovely smile. It began when he came and sat next to my friend and I at a bar and his friends were buying him drinks to celebrate something, except he was their boss so they weren't sitting with him exactly, and it turned into his friends buying us all drinks and I got very drunk. The details are hazy. I woke to texts the next morning that said something along the lines of, "Can I take you home?" and I replied, "Yes, but you can't come up." He did come up.
I guess I counted this one as ‘legit’ because I did have a date or so with Mr Target, my other one-night stand. Twenty-one because he was the twenty-first person on my list of sexual encounters in which I only counted full-blown penetration, which seems like a funny word. I had a separate list of people I’d kissed and those I had sex with – but in the same document. Honestly, I sound like such a weirdo/creeper.
And he was the last new person I slept with before I met my first husband. By ‘new’ I mean, I revisited a couple of people from the past one of which was the Air Force Guy. I was always a contradiction of wanting to be ‘free love’ and open and empowered and wrestling against my Bible Belt upbringing (the society itself and not my parents, who were very liberal on the matter). I also thought it was better to revisit past encounters because it wasn’t adding new numbers. Sigh! My logic back then was flawless.
I remember gracefully attempting to puke in my own bushes outside my apartment. I couldn't puke (disappointingly), even though the world was spinning. I didn't wonder at the time how we made it to my apartment since he was plastered and so was I. I was pretty sure he drove. The sex from what little I recall was pretty standard. Nothing bad. Nothing spectacular. He was attractive. His muscles were nice.
By which I clearly meant that he didn’t give me some memorable or mind-blowing orgasm but I don’t think either of us was up to much.
I woke the next morning and he kissed my shoulder, which I found odd and too intimate for a one-night stand. I recall someone being weirded out when I kissed their shoulder too.
That someone was the Hot Jewish Doctor and I may have found the gesture sweet if he hadn’t tainted it for me.
I had to go to a work meeting on a Saturday morning and he left. No chance to see if he'd buy me breakfast.
I used to judge people if they’d take me for breakfast the next morning which they generally did. I have no idea why I had a work meeting. He probably thought I was making it up to get rid of him and as any long-time reader of these chapters will know, I was legit not that cool or aloof.
It's not true, though, that I never heard from him. I contacted him again and he met me at a Starbucks. We'd texted through my dinner that night and I asked for details of our night together. He was horrified that I didn't really remember, worried that I was insinuating he [r-word/took advantage of me] me. I assured him that it was consensual even if I couldn't really remember everything.
Something like that incident could have had serious consequences for his career not that I ever considered it non-consensual, so I sort of understand the freak out. Despite my text saying ‘don’t come up,’ I am very lucky that none of my encounters has ever been something I didn’t choose. He was hot and in the moment, I enjoyed myself. He did have a gorgeous body.
Our meeting at Starbucks was awkward, a sort of attempt to know more about him on my part – the guy didn't even have a Facebook. I'm pretty sure we weren't all that interesting to one another, so I gave up after that and he never bothered either. He did question, though, why I wanted to see him again. It'd probably been a week or two after the fact, so I guess it was random.
I think after that first night he’d wanted to bury the memory of it all and I barely recall his first name never mind his surname and I’m sure he still doesn’t have social media. I do have distinct memories of crawling on all fours in my bushes and up the stairs to my room. That must have been a sight – and an annoyance for my housemate.
And I can’t help but think of all the sweaty un-showeredness of it all. The fact that yes, you do have to be fifteen shots in to recreate some of these young-people encounters. What was I thinking? I mean not a whole lot back then it seems.
Coming up next, the lawyer that never was.
Don’t forget to check out the other sixty-nine posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place – and the odd “present day snippet” of what I’m up to lately.
Do you bother trying to remember people from the past or live in the present? Have you ever had an encounter you’d love to forget (or remember more clearly)? Do you have any odd habits you’d like to share (like my weird self-emails or lists of things)?
A lineup of some of the past captains:
I was obviously doing my patriotic duty to my second country…
the starbucks chronicles haha! I am glad despite not remembering a lot of the night you felt like it was your choice. it could have gone badly. sometimes we think back to events and wonder: how did I make it out just fine?!
‘The fact that I was cripplingly insecure and these men who I considered hot and in shape chose me felt like validation somehow (thanks to my therapist for that lovely revelation). In my mind, since I was ‘attractive enough’ to nab them – if only for a night – despite the fact I wasn’t rail thin, then there shine somehow rubbed off on me’
We really are the same person 😂😅 No lie, earlier this week I was thinking about this facet of my personality in my twenties & that I should write about it. For me it was definitely also a power thing: I felt like I wanted the power that men had and this was one of the few ways I could get it. Thanks for sharing what can be quite a vulnerable topic.