Dr. Phil

Hi name isn't Phil and he wasn't a doctor, but stick with me for a minute.

I meet Phil, this incredibly handsome man on Tinder. So freaking hot. We make plans to meet for dinner by Greenlake. I arrive first and find that the restaurant I picked is closed. I text him and figure out a Plan B.
I arrive at the newly selected location and he's...just not as hot as his pictures. Disappointing. Maybe he's just crazy photogenic? Whatever, he has the capacity to be hot and he's not bad looking in person and I'm already there so we sit down for dinner.

Over drinks, Phil discloses that he is a vegetarian. This really isn't a big deal, so long as no one tries to convert me. Because I'll give up cheeseburgers when you pry them from my cold dead fingers. I'm not sure what the etiquette is so I order a vegetarian dinner too. I'm not worried about this at all because I don't need to eat meat all the time (That's what she said!) but a small (insane, over-thinking) part of my brain is worried if we start dating seriously he might not love my carnivore ways.

After dinner we head around the corner to a bar. I'd never been to the Little Red Hen, but if nothing else came of this date, at least I discovered this bar. Its small and divey and hasn't been updated since at least the 1970s. Its a country music place and on this particular night, we watched about 20 20-somethings learn to line dance.

We have a couple rounds of drinks, conversation flows easily and we watch the line dance student and try to guess which are dating and which guys are trying to pick up girls. When we decide to call it a night, he walks me to my car. Phil expresses irritation that I've parked directly in front of a gym full of people getting in a late night work out. He suggests we walk to his car so we can more fully say good night.

This turns into a pretty sloppy but excellent make out session in the back of a Volkswagon Jetta. The making out leads to a bj in the back of a Volkswagon Jetta. I swear I was raised better than this. Afterwards, he walks me back to my car and we actually say good night.

We text a bit and then a few nights later we FaceTime. And here's where the nickname Dr. Phil comes in. At the time of our date, I was early in my progression to being a slut. I had nagging feelings of shame and disgust and regret. I was desperate for Phil to continue some sort of a relationship with me, no matter how casual, because then I could tell myself that while I did move too fast on the first date, it turned out ok.

It did not turn out ok.

While on FaceTime Dr. Phil starts asking deeply probing questions. And I answer honestly. Y'all, he cracked me like an egg. I have no idea how he knew the things to ask to trigger my tear glands. I have no idea why i continued to answer questions of a very personal nature. By this point I'm making heroic efforts to act like I'm not silently crying. We get off the phone because I'm a wreck. I feel unlovable. I feel stupid. I feel ashamed to have let this man into my head.

A few days later Dr Phil tells me he wants to "tap out" of our interactions. Which makes perfect sense because I was acting like a goddamn mental case. Because he had contributed in making me a goddam mental case.

In the following weeks, we had no contact. But I had some growth. I need to set boundaries for myself. Just because someone asks a question, you don't have to answer. Don't do anything you are comfortable with. Don't feel guilty if two consenting adults decide to have fun.

The thoughts rattled around in my head and gradually I got more ok with my slutventures. I'm not ashamed that I like sex and sometimes have sex with someone who I don't love and who doesn't love me. So while I call myself a slut, or make self-deprecating jokes about my situation, I really don't have a problem with my life. I make mistakes. All the time.  But I'm making my own choices.


Epilogue: 5 months later Dr Phil texted to ask how I was doing and would I like to meet up and give him a bj again because I'm "dynamite" at it. That was definitely an offer I turned down.

And then another 2 months later he turned up sniffing around again. He got huffy when I wouldn't meet with him or send him sexy pictures. Hopefully he's gone for good.