Pastor Billy.
My adventures with a newly single conservative Christian. Plus: Nico starts to pull away from me. (Again.)
My name is not Naomi. It’s a nom de plume to protect my identity. Though names have been changed, all the stories are true. If you like what you see, please share with your friends. I rely on word of mouth to grow my audience!
Neck tattoos are usually a hard “no.” But this guy is six foot four and handsome. Meaning: he’s sexy enough that I am willing to overlook the ink. (Not to mention the t-shirt emblazoned with the name of a Los Angeles gym. And the camouflage pants. And the two gold necklaces.)
I like his profile back.
“You’re very sexy…but so young!” I write.
A few days later he writes me back.
“age is just a number haha”
“any plans today?”
I tell him my day has been quiet. I ask about his.
“kinda same, just had the day off”
“just looking to throw someone around lol”
I ask him what he does for work.
“I work in finance” he replies.
Me: “All the guys say that.” (A lot of them do.)
Him: “it’s just our nature, what can I say”
Me: “In guys’ nature to fib!?”
A moment passes.
“fib?” he asks.
I burst out laughing but I have to remind myself that he’s twenty-six. Besides, I’ve promised my friend Natalie — mother to four adult children — that I won’t fuck anyone younger than her oldest son.
I’m in a bad mood. Nico hasn’t reached out to me for days and I’ve felt a cooling off of his attentions in general, which always happens and yet always seems to catch me off guard. He is especially prone to withdrawal after we’ve had an intense back and forth or show and tell. This time it’s coming on a heels of a “session” in which I dress up in lingerie and pose for him as he works out in his home gym. Live video, face to face. None of that pre-taped stuff we used to do.
I start writing Nico a note about how much I hate it when his attentions become infrequent. Then I delete the note because it makes me feel pathetic. Instead, I turn off notifications on the texting app on which he and I communicate. Maybe I’ll check the app in the coming days, maybe I won’t. But I want to give myself the illusion of having some control. I hate playing this fucking game. His fucking game.
Another reason I’m grumpy: The handsome, freckled 29-year-old high school biology teacher I’ve been talking to has flaked on me. He lives 25 miles away, in Long Beach, and he’d said he was open to driving north to have a coffee. And maybe, sex. But when push comes to shove, he balks at the distance. He’ll let me know next time he is up in L.A. he says. But I disconnect from him. I’m annoyed. After all, I’ve gone and shaved my legs.
The biology teacher isn’t the first high school instructor I’ve matched with. There’s also a 40-something-guy named Billy who teaches math at a fancy private school near my house. Billy is very tall and square-jawed, with dark blonde, close-cropped hair and glasses. He looks sort of like a Ken doll, with the body to match.
The night we “meet,” Billy and I have an hours-long texting session where he tells me about his conservative, Christian upbringing. He’s been married since his early 20s, he says, and now that he and his wife have separated, he is looking to explore his sexuality. In fact, he is brand new to the sex app and I am the first woman he’s matched with.
I tell Leah about Billy the next day, describing him as nice and authentic and very, very earnest. “Pastor Billy!” she shrieks. “Does he have, like, a Corinthian’s 4210 tattoo? Psalm 18 Four Book of Job?” Leah is a 35-year-old real estate agent but what she really needs to be is a comedian.
On our first date, Pastor Billy and I have an impromptu drink and he tells me about his somatic sex therapist. I don’t know what that means and I’m not sure I want to. Then we go to my place and dry hump for hours. He’s a good kisser, and the dry humping is hot. It is like being a teenager again. “A spontaneous alcoholic beverage, and then a dry hump to end the night!” Leah says later. Indeed!
On our second date, a long park walk, Pastor Billy tells me that he really likes me. Could he kiss me, he asks? We stop on the walking path and kiss for a minute or so, his hands on my face. Tender. Later, as we make our way out of the park, I tell Pastor Billy that he needs to be careful with his heart and his body; he is rebounding. Don’t get too attached to anyone, I advise. Nothing wrong with attraction, I explain, but he needs to consider the idea that his extreme enthusiasm for me is but a temporary excitement.
I feel protective of Pastor Billy; perhaps I see in him a bit of myself, especially from before, when I first joined the sex app. Before my heart got a bit bruised. I want him to learn from my mistakes. Namely: Don’t get that excited about people you meet on a sex app, and don’t take it personally when they behave badly. Pastor Billy doesn’t seem to be listening, though; he keeps beaming at me in a way that seems both sweet and a little naïve.
After our walk, Pastor Billy and I go dinner at Blair’s and then, to my house. We talk for a bit and then head to my room. He has trouble with the condom — I guess it’s been a while — but overall, things are fine. What isn’t fine is Pastor Billy’s change in demeanor over the next few days. He becomes remote and untalkative. When I make a comment about it one weekend morning, Pastor Billy concedes that he is having “complicated” feelings and asks if he can come over to talk. I find this request a bit odd but I say okay, and 15 minutes later, we are sitting on my porch. Pastor Billy tells me that he noticed a feeling of “contraction” in himself the day after our hookup. This doesn’t sound good, I think. Maybe it’s something he learned in somatic sex therapy?
Anyway, what Pastor Billy appears to be saying is that having sex and being intimate with someone spooked him. I tell him that I understand, and he seems grateful for that, and unburdened. Then we go inside my house and talk some more and began to make out and I give him a blow job. A good one, too.
When Pastor Billy gets icy again the next day, I speak up about it.
“I’m concerned that our interaction yesterday is causing you to feel distress or emotional or spiritual or physical ‘contraction’ again,” I text him. (I consider ending this sentence with an eye-roll emoji but think better of it.)
Him: “You are perceptive. Honestly, I do feel like I’m moving too fast, and that has left me feel off center. When I joined the app about a month ago I thought I was ready for an actual relationship then last week that changed to maybe FWB, now I think I underestimated how much time I would need to actually adjust to being single.”
He continues: “I actually deleted both of my dating apps today just because I realize I don’t want to be on them for a while. I was thinking about talking to you about this on our hike on Thursday, but actually some time to think about this would be good and we can check in when you get back from your trip. I’m sorry that I advertised I was in an emotional place that I now realize I actually am not capable of right now. Sorry for the LONG paragraph.”
I think about how, at the beginning of the previous year, I’d decided to commit to making myself more vulnerable with men as a way to honor and articulate my own needs. I know that, instead of trying to come across as breezy and unbothered by his withdrawals, I need to be authentic with Pastor Billy. His behavior has hurt me a bit.
“No worries about the paragraph,” I write. “But I am not in a place where I want to engage with men who are inconsistent or unavailable – I’ve been there and done that.”
I continue: “And I don’t like it when I’m vulnerable and open and physical with a man who then pulls away right afterwards. It makes me feel shitty.”
“It was nice to meet you, Billy. I hope you can take the time you need to heal and get to a better place.”
Then I block his number. Go with God! I think.
A few days later, Leah gives me an update on her relationship with a guy she’s been dating named Hiroshi. Hiroshi has also been acting strangely towards her lately and now?
“I don’t know why he had to see me in person and fuck me just to agree we shouldn’t continue to see each other,” Leah texts. “I hate men.”
Me: “Yup.”
A minute or two goes by. Then:
Leah: “Ugh I got the best yogurt.”
Me: “Erewhon?”
Leah: “Yeah.”
Hinge isn’t giving me any good guys, or, for that matter, much material. There is one promising man, an older cinematographer from Latin America, but his pictures are a little too slick and posed, even the seemingly impromptu ”action” shots. Also, after I mention that my mom recently died, the cinematographer tells me to call him on the phone so he can offer me “comfort.” I think this is weird, though also kind, and I tell him so. (The kind part.)
Still, the behavior of the guys on Hinge is far better than those on the sex app. “I want to use you like a hooker,” was one guy’s opening line. Last autumn, there was another guy, a millennial, who wanted to get together the night of the presidential debate. I said okay, and we made a plan to meet at Edendale at 9:30. At 9pm he messaged me to tell me that he was about to leave.
“See you in front?” he asked.
“In front? Why?” I said.
“So we can get a look at one another and see if we like what we see.”
My face got hot. I informed the millennial that I don’t perform for dudes on sidewalks outside bars so that they can determine whether they “like what they see.” I also told him that if he says something like this to another woman in the future, she’ll respond in similar fashion. “Get a hold of yourself,” I added. “You’re not that special, and this is not a way to get laid.” Then I blocked him and turned the TV back on and watched the post-debate analysis on CNN and MSNBC.
Fucking millennials. Fucking Edendale.
Note: From time to time I’ll augment each Thursday’s “sex post” with additional material and observations from the wider world. This weekend, I’ll share some thoughts about the recent New York Times Magazine story on the sex lives of Gen X women, which went up online just two days before the launch of this Substack. (It’s the Zeitgeist!)
"Go with God"! 💀💀💀