As advertised by Zeitgeisty, last night the three active bloggers on Date Machine went out on a non-date. (spjv has been incarcerated after a bar brawl and fishnets is locked in a tiny box after a revenge attack)

I hadn't planned to meet them because a) Zeit insisted on Manhattan and b) from some of their blog posts, it didn't seem worth the price of a babysitter.

But, it's Spring Break and my kids and their father cooked up a last minute scheme for them to spend the night at his apartment. This was the first time they'd ever slept over so it was a big deal.

I needed somewhere to go as I was feeling a little emotionally fragile and didn't want to spend the evening alone and, since most of my friends have kids, it was a bit late to make other arrangements. Upshot is, I met them in the East Village.

Ambo looks exactly like his photographs. There's an English expression for it: dragged through a hedge backwards. I mean that kindly. He has chaotic hair and is long and lean with a nice smile and laughs easily. He didn't say anything creepy the entire evening.

Zeitgeisty looks uncannily like his photographs. Actually, now I think of it, we've all seen him in 3D on the chicken dance video so maybe that's why he seemed so familiar. What was surprising about him was that he has a really soft, pleasant voice.

They are both abundantly bendy it would seem. At some point or other, they sat cross legged on the banquet seating. Are skinny people always bendy?

Neither one is remotely obnoxious and both were charming company. My reality has shifted.

Anyway, it was a fun evening and I was really glad for the distraction as I would have been miserable at home. I came back to an empty house and couldn't even go into the kids room because their absence was horrible. I didn't get to sleep until about 3am - it was so weird to be in the house at night alone. It occurred to me as I lay awake, that I haven't slept in a house by myself in 6 years. The last time I took a business trip was back when my first son was just over a year old. He stayed in our Manhattan apartment with his dad - we were still a couple - and I flew to LA to work in the garment center there. 4 nights without him back then was tough, but different from now because I wasn't so enmeshed in my role as someones mother.

Since then, I had a second child and they have been with me every single night with the exception of a long weekend when I went to Aruba with a girlfriend for my 40th and 9 nights when I went home to see my Dad before his surgery last year. Both times, I slept alone, but there was someone else in the house.

I missed them.

Although it did occur to me that my dating life would be easier and less expensive if I got a night completely to myself every now and then.

On the Date Machine non-date, we talked about booty calls and friends with benefits.
Both Zeit and Ambo said that they weren't into the concept, but kinda wished that they could be at times. Both don't seem to be able to separate affection from sex.

I was thinking about that last night, given that I couldn't sleep and there's precious little else to do at 3 in the morning in a house by yourself.
In the past, I wasn't able to separate the two either and could never have had the constitution for a FWB a few years ago, but now I've developed the ability to compartmentalise my needs and separate my desire for sex from my desire for love.

Like most things in my life, it all comes back to being a parent.

I am loved.  As my kids and their dad got ready to leave yesterday, my 5 year old said "take my picture mummy so you can remember what I look like". I nearly cried. The theory of this event was great, but when the reality of it came, small son couldn't stop crying and had to be physically carried out by his dad (whom me loves, but he is just very attached to me)

I am loved. I am adored even.

I have some great friends so that's companionship covered. I have physical affection on an hourly basis from my children. What I am missing is sexual intimacy. And you can get a version of that with a booty call.

It's not the perfect situation - ideally I'd love to have love, companionship, physically affection and sex all from one person, but in the meantime I can get by with them in segments.

Synergy, or something.

Here are some I made earlier:
Is this thing on? Does anyone find love on Nerve?
Do you attract douchebags?
Jaded or pragmatic?
Let down badly by an Englishman
Dating and dying
Do your friends hook you up?
Is size everything?
King dong and kizz volume
Prostitues - yay or nay?
The female orgasm
Fabulous at 40, the reprise

I like this guys body, but there's something deeply disturbing to me about a man being coy.