June Update!

I've had a request from a reader for an update...and I could not be more thrilled by the request! Thanks for the kick in the ass to get myself in gear! The truth is that there are so many updates, and I'll cover them all one by one.

Howie: My friendship with Howie has suffered unfixable damage. It isn't my story to tell, and one that I don't feel comfortable talking about here. I take full responsibility for some of the damage, but I will spend the rest of my life wondering how important to him I actually was. I may go back and document some of our super hot sex (the cemetery story still needs to be told and I hope he'd be ok with me telling it), but he is no longer close to my heart- a truth that devastates me.

Abram: OVER! And not a bad thing. I struggled with Abram for months (as the last update talked about), and was in the process of figuring out that he was more friend than lover when I met the person I'll talk about next. A huge clincher was when I timed him arriving and my house and me hopping out of the shower. His response was to cover his eyes rather than look at me naked. DONE AND DONE! We also went on a hike a week earlier, and he refused to walk more than a few feet from the car. I'm the type of girl who would happily roll in the mud, and this did not go over well with me.

All of this leads me to my next (and current) story!

Aziz: A little over three years ago, someone who works in the same building complex as I do passed me his business card with a note on the back saying "I think you are the most beautiful girl and I'd love to buy you a drink." At the time, I was holding a giant torch for Howie, and decided to pretend like it never happened. In classic Candi style, every time I saw him for the next three years, I would run away. Because that's TOTALLY mature. I bumped into him in the cafeteria at the end of March of this year, and he asked me out for a second time. It was early, I was pissed off at Abram and I didn't have a good reason to say no. So I agreed to go out and have one drink with him that Friday. Well, one drink turned into last call, and I was smitten halfway through that first drink. I spent the night at the bar in his arms while talking, laughing and stealing kisses. I remember getting dressed to go out and texting with Howie that I was so annoyed that I had even agreed to go. And waking up slightly hungover the next morning feeling truly happy for the first time in a long time. 

Dating Aziz has its ups and downs, and if we are able to make it work, we will truly be the American dream. Aziz was born in a Muslim country and immigrated to the US in his twenties. He is very dedicated to his friends and family, and often works second or third jobs to send money home to his parents, which makes it difficult to spend time together. He also occasionally doesn't have a problem with canceling plans last minute because he's exhausted from working too hard or needs to do something for a friend. Yet, if something breaks at my house or I need a ride somewhere, all I have to do is ask and he is there. All of this leads me to spend half the time thinking he's an insensitive douchebag and the other half wildly in love with him. I've been in rollercoaster relationships before, and I'm still undecided as to whether or not I want to continue on this one. It's currently Ramadan, and we are on somewhat of a hiatus. I'm trying to decide how invested I'll be once its over. 

But...since this is a sex blog...OMG the sex. We waited a couple of weeks before we got into bed (mainly because he was working so much) and holy crap was it amazing. I had convinced tmyself hat after Howie, I would never find anyone who is as adventurous as I am, but I think I've found my match. Even standard vanilla sex is amazing, and he'll let me fuck him as long as I want- until I'm a sweaty drooling mess and can't move anymore. I'm sure that he's been with a ton of people with the type of work he used to do in his twenties and early thirties, but how good we are together surprised both of us. One morning, we were half asleep spoon fucking, and after he came, he muttered that he "didn't know it could be like this." From my perspective, I knew things were on the right track when he picked me up from the airport after I had been away for two weeks, and he leaned my chair back and gave me two orgasms as he drove me home without caring who in the world could see. I'm also so attractive to him that I've made him cum in his pants just by sitting on his lap while I talked on the phone at work, without any lap dance-style moves, which definitely makes me feel good about myself. He's also talked about going to a sex club with me so that other people can watch us fuck.

All of this kind of makes me wonder. Aziz is a semi-traditional Muslim dating an American girl and had sex with her after a month of knowing her. Is this just a fling for him? Does he tell me he loves me just to keep the sex coming? Does he have a wife waiting for him at home? I honestly don't mind if this is a fling for him, but I hope he's being honest enough with me before my heart gets too invested. I have friends on both sides of the fence and I know I have to make up my mind soon.

AND UPDATE OVER! Wow, that's a long one. I hope you read until the end! I'll keep everyone posted on how things go over the rest of Ramadan as our hiatus ends and things go back to normal. Or as normal as they can be in my world...

February Dating Update

February has been a strange dating month. I was slightly discouraged at the end of January, and was debating dropping out of the game entirely. Rejection hurts, even when it has to do with someone else's baggage. Yet I managed to pull myself off the floor and back onto OKcupid.

I started chatting with someone based on their interests, not actually assuming it would go anywhere (because, at least for me, 95% of the conversations are duds). Turns out he is almost seven years younger than I am: from early-thirties to mid-twenties. Quite the age gap. Yet we met up to grab coffee and seemed to have some chemistry.

Since I do love to give everyone nicknames, lets call him Abram. After coffee, Abram never really left. He brought me dinner in a snow storm, takes me on dates, complimented the tacos I made for him for a week and is generally a nice guy. We are compatible to the level of lying on the couch for a night binge watching Jinx and talking until the middle of the night. Which is secretly a fabulous night in my books.

But there's one catch. And it is kind of a major one. Abram is concerned by my age, and justifiably so. He made a comment about how it bothered him on our second or third date. And I assumed that I'd never hear from him again after he said that, and I was okay. But he still kept coming back. And texting and calling and all the normal things that people rarely do.

The last time I saw him, a couple of nights ago, we were drinking a bit, and the subject of dating came up. We were talking about what we wanted in a partner, when he asked me if I considered us dating. My response was purposefully vague, because I don't want him to feel pressured. He then made a comment about have been drinking too much and changed the subject. We talked for a few more minutes before he realized that I was cold, and proceeded to pull me into his arms for the next several hours.

And the problems get deeper. Because it wouldn't be a Candi story without problems. We've fooled around exactly once. And it didn't even get that far. Since then, we've kissed and we've snuggled. But all clothing has stayed permanently attached to our body. It doesn't matter what type of seduction technique I've tried, short of sticking my hand down his pants and pulling his cock out, nothing has worked. And I'm rapidly approaching that point.

All of this makes me assume that I've been put safely in the friend zone. But at the same time, he continues to show up at my house every other day and takes me on dates. I talked to Howie about it yesterday (yes, it is quite odd to be talking to my old lover about my new problems. But he's turned into quite the good listener) and he hypothesized that Abram could possibly not be that experienced and that I should keep trying. I find it hard to believe that someone in their mid-twenties could be inexperienced, but it is possible. He also reminded me about how pissed off I'd be if all Abram wanted was to fuck and leave, rather than building a relationship first.

All of that said, I still don't know. I know he's been on OKcupid since we met, which is totally fine because I don't even know if we are dating. Chances are good that he is still looking for someone else since he's been logged in. And I also know that I haven't heard all that much from him since the dating conversation a few days ago, which is slightly unusual for him.

This whole situation reminds me of myself when I was slightly younger than Abram. I met Sean in my mid-twenties when he was in his mid-thirties. Sean was ready to settle down, get married, etc., when I met him. I was so not ready at the time, and eventually drove him away with my immaturity. He ended up cheating on me and then shacking up with someone for a few years, before finding someone else who he married and eventually had a child with. I couldn't be more happy for him. Fast forward almost ten years and there is me, ready to at least have a stable relationship, and a mid-twenty-something living in a rented room. Chances are good that Abram looks at my life and isn't ready to be part of it. In which case, I don't think I can blame him.

Beyond the positive of having a few weeks of good company, I've also learned some interesting tidbits about my sex drive as part of this. If I have someone to be attracted to, my sex drive returns with a vengeance. I had an amazing drive when I was with Howie, even if we didn't see each other for months at a time. The dirty pictures and thoughts kept me going and feeling good about myself. I've always had someone like that in my life, from the time I started thinking about sex in middle school. The last six months was the first time that I haven't had a willing sex partner or plaything. And the lack of that person made me feel so unattractive to myself that I didn't even want to get off. As soon as I started getting turned on by Abram, my sex drive came back. I've watched more porn in the last three weeks than I have in the last six months combined. I hope that I can keep feeling good about myself even if he is no longer in the picture.

This may be the February wrap up, but I have a feeling that there is more to come with this story. It could be spectacularly bad, with me sticking my hand down Abram's pants and not getting the response I was hoping for, or it could be spectacularly good, with a steady sex partner who also will take me to dinner. Stay tuned!!