"I thought I should acknowledge the elephant in the room."

I've been trying to think of the best way to write this blog entry. When I came home early this morning in the car and my mental volume was somewhere around 15, the entry would have started like this:

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!

Instead I texted those words to Dennise -- three words that succinctly expressed the outcome of the latest foray into Operation Find The Lesbians.

Picture the scene: Midnight. South Slope of Brooklyn. Anne, a girl from Lesbian Club, and I lay on her bed. Everything up until that point has been great -- brunch at a French cafe, a meandering walk through Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Cobble Hill. Playing Spades at another French cafe and drinking beer till the sun went down and then heading back to her place. Most importantly, there's been flirting.

A bottle of red wine later, Anne and I have moved from the couch to her bedroom. Recent sage dating advice runs through my head as I try to summon the courage to make the move. (First base for first dates.) Anne and I seem to be moving in the direction of making out, both lingering on the bed and waiting for something to happen. We all know how bad I am at making the first move. Finally she breaks the standoff.

"Can I tell you something, Rouge?" she says shortly after sitting up.

A surge of nerves makes my stomach backflip a little. I know what's coming. "Yeah?" I answer, voice shaky.

"I really want to kiss you right now."

I have this bad habit of stammering when I'm nervous and I unleash a torrent of verbal diarrhea that lasts about a minute. She quickly apologizes for being forward.
"I thought I should acknowledge the elephant in the room."

As she speaks, I place my glasses on her desk, lean in, and kiss her. For the moment I think nothing more than the joy of kissing and breaking my three year dry spell. Both the angel and devil on my shoulder are cheering me on. Oh wait, Anne's pulling back and saying something.

At this point I really want to do my best Dianne Wiest impression a la Bullets Over Broadway. Don't speak, I think. Whatever you do, don't fucking speak! Why do girls have to over analyze things sometimes? Just fucking kiss me! It's not difficult!! Here, I'll make it easy, and I lean in to kiss her more.

Oh no, kissing has definitely come to an end. Warning! Warning! Anne looks like her nerve is failing her. I try and establish why things have suddenly cooled.

"You're really beautiful," she says, brushing the hair back from my face. "It's that I suddenly see where this is going and it's going to end badly. I'm just really crazy and I don't want to ruin our friendship."

Hmmm . . . this sounds strangely familiar. Why is it that I am attracted the odd balls? Whatever. It's not like I'm looking for an engagement ring here, just some action. C'mon! I'm giving you a limited time offer guilt free ticket to Lesbian Land. Don't tell a woman she's beautiful and you want to kiss her only to pull back.

But Anne is looking at me plaintively and I soon realize that this isn't going to happen. I try and hide my gargantuan disappointment and put the best spin on the makeout session before asking her to call me a car service. By the time I get downstairs, I want to scream.

This incident will now be referred to as The Great Sexual Frustration of 2006.