Getting Myself Off

I NEED TO BREAK UP with my boyfriend.

I can hear the thunder and the rain. The sounds are boisterous, the rain pelting against the windows. It’s nearly midnight and I’m still awake, lying in bed. I’ve been avoiding my boyfriend. He calls, but I don’t answer. Instead, I pretend I’m busy when I’m not, or I pretend I’m already asleep when I’m wide awake. Mostly, I scroll through apps like Grindr. But why? I’ll never hook up with most of these guys. They don’t know what the phrase “No picture, no chat” means. They don’t even read my profile. It’s not the Magna Carta. It’s actually pretty simple.

NSFW pictures? Not at first.

But what do they do? They send the most god-awful ass pictures imaginable. Horrible angles, completely unflattering. I like stocky guys, but not messy guys. They send unsolicited pictures constantly. Sometimes it’s a picture of a dick—or what’s supposed to be a dick. Maybe I’m shallow, but I have big hands and I need something to grab. Not everyone can be blessed the way I am, I guess. Everyone’s beautiful in their own way, I suppose.

They either say “sup” or jump straight to “let me suck your dick.” They’ve never even seen my dick. So how many people are out here sucking dicks sight unseen? What am I supposed to do with that? And most of the time these messages come from blank profiles. Can’t you read? That’s probably the most unattractive thing of all—not being able to read.

Sometimes all they say is “Looking?” and that’s it. Looking for what? For you to come to my house or me to go to yours? And for what exactly? What are we even supposed to do? Because I need specifics.

There’s one guy who’s always on there. We hooked up exactly three times. All three times he tapped out after three or four strokes. I never even got close to getting off. That was unattractive. I told him as much. But he’s persistent. I block him and he just makes a new account and tries again.

Then there’s Tinder. I met a few guys there. One guy wasn’t all that interested because he said he didn’t like my facial hair. I thought about shaving it, but fuck him. Then one night I was drunk, we were texting, and I sent him a dick pic. I never do that. Guess what? All of a sudden my facial hair wasn’t a problem anymore. Suddenly he wanted to have sex with me.

I thought about it, but no.

I should break up with my boyfriend. I’m not in love with him the way he’s in love with me. I know this because there were other guys—guys I liked more than him. There was one guy who lived near the beach. We met on the apps. We didn’t even hook up. We just cuddled one night and it felt magical. I wanted to see him again, but he kept making excuses.

Turns out he was just playing the field. Then he met another guy. A guy who turned out to be a real jerk. He was abusive. He beat him. I felt sorry for him, but part of me was angry that he gave this asshole a chance and not me. Then one day, out of the blue, he wanted to hang out. So I drove two hours to see him. We had a great time. And later that night we had sex. It was incredible...and a year in the making.

Then all of a sudden he had all the time in the world. So I ended it, because I deserved better. My boyfriend—he’s nice, but he’s also very...something. I’m not sure what you’d call it. He feels more like a parent sometimes. He’s always telling me what I should do, when I should sleep, what I should eat, how I need to go to the gym, how I need to count macros.

I’m not super fit, but I’m not out of shape either. I look better than him. Is that shallow to say?

He called twice tonight and I ignored him both times. He’s always talking about politics. I hate politics. Politics make people crazy. Maybe he’s gone crazy too. I’m not sure. I close the apps. Nothing good is on there anyway. I open a porn video instead. It turns me on more than my boyfriend does. I get hard watching it and slide my hand down into my pants.

My cock throbs in my hand as I start to stroke it beneath the sheets. It feels good. I open another video.