This is mostly catharsis for me, if you're looking for something a little different and honest and mostly a fantasy of all the stuff I want a partner to know.

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The headboard creaked. I tried to stop it by pulling on it with my hands, with the pleasant side effect of allowing me to pull up on my hips with my abdominal muscles. I clenched my vaginal wall as I felt the warm girth slide in and out of my wet slickness, my tits bouncing, my tiny bit of stomach jiggling, as he held on to me with his hairy and muscular body, sticking two fingers into my moaning mouth in a feeble attempt to keep me from crying out or saying anything.

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"'Nother beer?" Mike asks.

"Errrmmmm..." I take into account 3 dozen variables as my brain decides how to react-should I get drunk with him? Do I trust him? Do I trust myself? Do I want to feel bloated tomorrow? Do I want to undo the work of my earlier run? If a guy drunkenly hits on a girl he's seen as forward; if a girl does it, she's seen as foolish. Or rather, that's how she sees herself, as far as I can project my own experience onto all women. I can't say I hadn't thought of him naked, muscular and stocky, the hint of chest hair sticking out of the neck of his crew neck tee a preview of what's underneath. It was the time of month when I was at my thirstiest, playing with my vibrator at least once a night, often while doing something completely innocent like reading a book. But the one beer I'd had was barely anything so... what the heck. "Sure!"

"Alright." Turning to the bartender, he raised his voice over the background music of the mostly empty bar. "Hey Marcus, can you get us two more hefes over here?"

"Sure thing man."

I sat there invisible almost, the overt male bond flaunting feeling almost gross as it was performed right in front of my face. Fuck men, I thought. Men and women can't be friends: one of them is trying to get fucked, the bartender thought. Gibberish gibberish gibberish, Mike thought. (I had no idea what he thought, though I tried.)

Feeling honest, and just slightly irritated at how I must seem trying to hang out innocently (while having not-so-innocent intentions), I asked Mike: "What's it like being a guy? I'm genuinely curious. Like, you can come hang out here after work and it's not weird."

He looked at me and laughed. "I never thought of it that way. I don't know, you can hang out here too and it's not weird."

"Yeah it is. This is guy space. Or coed-'Friends'-style space. It's not girl-sitting-alone space."

"It's mostly a space for alcoholics, is what it is."

"That's just the thing though!" I objected, spilling some beer as I gesticulated. "Women drink a lot. A LOT. Not all women of course, but it tends to happen alone at home with a bottle of wine. Like, I used to keep boxed wine around, at first so that I wouldn't have to finish a whole bottle by myself, and then so that I wouldn't have to confront the fact that I was drinking more than a full bottle."

"You were an alcoholic?"

"Well not in the way you read about it, it was pretty easy to stop, but it was still a drinking problem. But men can do that in public and it's fine. It's just part of being a man."

"Yeah... I will admit to getting sloshed more than a couple times a week."

"Right, but if a woman does that in public it's way more pitiful or pathetic or just plain reckless, right, because part of being a woman with her shit together is being on alert all the time. I used to be angry about that but that's how it is. Then you get home safe and you're all, 'well I guess I deserve a glass or 3!'"

He laughed. "Damn I really never thought of it that way. So it's like we're having the same experience in different worlds but because the female one is done in private people think men and women are so much more different? And yeah maybe the one that's done in public is more represented..."

"Right! And that makes it almost more valid. Because it's public, it's really seen as more open or honest, whereas the stuff women do is 'performative' if it's done publicly. I think that oversimplifies it a little, but that's how I feel."

"That makes a lot of sense. I think I, and probably other men, have this resentment of women, but if we knew more about the shit that women did privately wouldn't we "get it" more?"

"Probably, though women resent men plenty as well so it's not like it would solve all the problems. And it's on women too to stop playing into a male fantasy."

"Like how?"

"Like... women have bodily functions. Some men are soooo angry that women have bodily functions, because they want pristine holes to fuck not creatures that shit and bleed." Mike flinched a little. "But we are people, and even though it's really fun being a sex object like, sometimes it's good to be acknowledged fully and still be thought of as sexy instead of resented. Or on a less gross note, men do have an irrational hatred of older women. If you're wrinkly or saggy you're not just unattractive you're like, hateable. Especially if you're wrinkly and saggy AND horny, then it's gross or sad. Ugh, like... the obsession with Game of Thrones and other time periods is like, there were historical times when it was totally cool to be like 'she's 20, she's too old for me. Already had 4 kids, ew gross. and i'm the king so i can say stuff like that."

"You don't like game of thrones?"

"No I love it! But come ON, how much healthy romance does it portray, and how much healthy romance does it portray with older women?

"And that's the thing," I continued. Having been set off by the bar's machismo, I just couldn't stop. I knew this was ruining my chances with Mike, but it was for the best. I was finally able to be honest. "The thing is, 'love' for men and for women are different things. For men it's having their desires realized, and for women it's having a guarantee that someone won't leave you or hate you or neglect your sexual needs when you're not an object to be fetishized."

"Hmm." Mike took a sip and looked thoughtful.

After a pause I impatiently chimed in. "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing it's just, you seem to be making it out to be that men and women want totally different things, when you started out saying that men and women are secretly the same inside."

"Right but the male side is so publicly displayed. Artists who portray exploitative or fetishizing behavior are heralded as visionaries. Like wow how well they captured what sets off their boners! Such genius!"

"It's beyond men and women though, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's not maleness that's held up as the epitome of great art and culture, it's machismo. It's masculinity."

"Hmm. Guess so."

"I know it's different, but men do fall under the same pressures you're talking about. You're supposed to be macho, and instead of feeling love you feel infatuation with beautiful young women, and anything else is defective. Woody Allens of the world are vindicated for their feeble non-macho exteriors because of their 'healthy masculinity', And people like Gabriel Garcia Marquez sometimes does the same thing, elevates to 'divine love' what is just like, horniness in old age or something. It's like if we're not always horny we aren't worth anything."

"Hmm... and meanwhile if women are horny a lot we aren't worth anything."

"Right." He looked off thoughtfully. We sipped our beers. "So then can I ask if you think men and women are the same when it comes to sex?"

Suddenly self-conscious that I'd been peddling my half-baked opinions forged out of bitterness at my own naivete as fact or insight, I laughed. "Well as the foremost expert on the topic..."

He laughed. "Well I mean you seem to think about it a lot."

"Mostly because I'm bitter and foolish in equal amounts."

"You assume that anyone else's opinions aren't formed out of their emotions in the moment?"

"I'd love it if I could have like objective opinions, not emotional opinions."

"Objective opinions... do you think that's a thing that exists?"

"Point taken. Well hmm..." Gathering my thoughts, I started picking at the corners of my beer bottle's label. "So okay, in some sense men and women are the same when it comes to sex. Like sometimes we want it sometimes we don't, men just can't hide their sex drive as much and also are rewarded for expressing it while women aren't. But I don't know... even the best men I know prize looks over everything else. To be fair a lot of women prize masculinity over everything else. But there's something gross to me about how men do it."

"I'll admit, men are gross about it."

"Right. So like, I'm coming from my perspective completely. I'm 29, and I've gained and lost weight, so some things might not be as perky as they used to be. And my skin is pretty alright, but I'll never look like I did when I was 15. Can you imagine wishing you were 15 again, just to get back to when you felt the most desirable? I was blonder, thinner, weaker, less capable. And men of all ages wanted me. But as soon as I didn't act naive, they didn't want me anymore. They wanted to overpower me. So that was me at my 'hottest'."

"Wow that's pretty fucked up."

[The author notes that all she ever wants is a guy to express the fucked-up-ness to and for him to validate it without saying the following...]

"I'm so glad I'm not a woman."

I sighed. I wouldn't go on to explain how amazing it felt to be in this body; though society couldn't imagine a woman being happy as a woman, the joy of connecting with one's gender, of identifying with one's gender, could happen to anyone in any body. I didn't want to tell him how fun it was to feel sexual in this body, how much I enjoyed what little power I have over male libido... I just let out a short laugh.

Looking over at me, Mike smiled and said: "Well I happen to still think you're doing alright for yourself."

"Thanks." I smiled. We finished our beers, paid, and as we headed out the door I asked innocently, "walk me home?"

He did, of course. Neither of us was drunk; it was just two beers. I was clearheaded when I invited him up with some excuse, clearheaded when I let him fuck me, clearheaded when I saw glints of that feeling I imagine all men to have of revulsion or hatred at imperfect female bodies-the stubborn softness of our bellies, the spots of hair we might have forgotten to shave, the sag in our breasts. I wanted him to notice, to be a little turned off, to lose respect. I wanted to see anger in his eyes as he fucked me; it made me angry. It got me off. It got me off when he fucked me from behind, gripping my neck with minimal tenderness, as I faced away from him. It drove me wild when he pulled out and jerked off on my ass, dumping his seed on me, like it didn't matter. He was my friend, but in that moment we hated each other, just a little. He hated me a little when I hated him a little for not getting me off; he cuddled me as I touched myself drawing circles to completion, almost indifferent to his presence. Both of us lay there after, a little angry and disgusted with ourselves, and so turned on. Feeling the same things for different reasons.

Maybe that's all the human connection we can really hope for.