About six years ago I dated a really sweet guy after I got divorced. Smart, well educated, thoughtful, smitten with me, decent in bed but only so-so in the looks department. He made good coin and drove a nice car, and he really liked taking me out to dinner. I was fairly happy with him. He was different enough from my ex husband (i.e. he actually liked socializing with people) that I was having a great time.
Not that there weren't signs of trouble...
He once told me that I swore too much. My response? What the fuck? No fucking god damn way could that shit possibly be true. But I digress.
He took me to church. He wasn't Catholic-no biggie since I am not big on the catholic church anyway as I haven't found time to leave it yet and seem to be content living by my own rules and twisted interpretations. His church was in Durham and was a christian denomination that I can't remember - perhaps Presbyterian, perhaps Methodist. (Hee hee baptists who can read...) Damn I am digressing again. So we go. I am enjoying the morning, thinking of the great dinner and sex we had had the night before, analyzing what everyone is wearing (quite a mixture of what I call Durham granola lesbian chic and uptight almost Baptist Belk outfits with a smattering of almost preppy mid-nineties Dookie) and not at all paying attention to the songs, prayers or what my date was doing.
But I should have been paying attention.
Because when I did come out of my selfish critical fashion daydream, there was my guy singing with his arms raised up towards the ceilings - a la southern preacher praying over his congreation. Like Jimmy Swaggert on tv. Almost, but not quite, like jesus on the cross.
Ugh. What is this?We don't do this in catholic church. We keep our adoration quiet and well behaved. We don't even sing that loud or well.
Only a few other people were doing it. He was REALLY into this church and god thing. Wow. I just ignored it and went back to imagining what everyone life was like in the rows around me.
A week or so passes, and I get another 'sign' that things are a bit different between us. He calls me from his car while he's driving over to pick me up. His radio is blaring. At first I was like, cool, my guy is totally rockin' out on his way to see me. But then I hear a snippet of the song.
"Our god is an awesome god...."
Huh? Holy evangelistic weirdness Batman!
Soooo. I ask him what he's listening to. He says:
"This is my 'pump me up' music."
I get the pump me up music. Nothin gets me in a good, sexy mood like hearing the opening 20 seconds to Van Halen's "Ain't talkin bout love" or the riff from Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years." It's why I have trouble running without my iPod - the music usually gets me going even if I have no energy.
Christian pump up music? Sandi Patti? Before a date? Let me rephrase that - before a date with me?
I file this away and just try to hang out and be blissfully ignorant.
Then, the final straw.
We go out a week or so later -typical Saturday night date of dinner, drinks, back to my house. We have sex. Its pretty good. (Again, good is relative. All sex is good. Its like pizza. Is there really bad pizza? Not really. Like the pizza you had in high school - all frozen and rectangular shaped. Was it gourmet? No. Did you eat it and enjoy it. Yes.) So the sex is just good, and we are finished. This would be where one would like up a post coital smoke if one were so inclined. I don't do this, neither does he. Instead he asks:
Can I pray?
(This is where it got surreal.)
I say sure! I'm thinking he wants to pray siliently. This is how I was raised. We catholics, outside of mass (and hell even during some parts of the mass) like to keep our prayers to ourselves, mostly so no one knows the stupid shit we pray about. (Please god, please please please let the Orioles win tonite against the Yanks. I can't stand to see the smirk on Johnson's face every time the Yankees win. Please let Murray just wail one out of the park. Oh and can I please get oral sex sometime this month?) So I figure, he's gonna get quiet for awhile.
Well.
He takes my hand, and begins to talk, out loud, God.
"God."
"God, thank you for (insert my name here). Thank you for all the good times we have..."
OUT LOUD. THIS WAS SAID OUT LOUD.
Cue to me, on the other side of the bed.
On the outside, I am all calm. But my eyes are wide in disbelief, and inside of me, the little voice is saying what the fuck? Is this happening? Is he actually thanking god for me? Is he actually thanking god for orgasms? IS HE DOING THIS OUT LOUD????No fucking way. No fucking way.
I gotta go to sleep, and then I gotta break up with this dude. Done and done.
So I broke up with him post haste. Told him he was a little too into God and I was nahsomuch so, and alas this would not work. He took it very well, and we are still friends.
It took me a long time before I told anyone that story though. But when I did, people laughed. Not point and giggle laugh but belly I cannot fucking believe you experienced that laughs. And my friends gave him a new name:
Mr. Pray After Sex
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