Mattress Surfing
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the third date is the sex date. Or at least in my experience it is. That’s when the men I date invite me to their apartment to cook for me, and what else could their intentions be with that? It’s also how I know men think women are stupid. Like, You don’t think I’m gonna notice you’re the third guy to pull this move this year? You don’t think I have basic pattern recognition skills?
In any case, this is how I’ve had the good fortune to see bachelor pads across the Greater Portland area and, thus, notice the commonalities.
For example, the first time I saw a mattress on the floor was on a third date with a guy I met on Bumble. I sat in his yellowing apartment at the bottom of State Street and wiped sweat from my brow as he stir-fried some rice and vegetables in the July heat, because the sex date meal is always some kind of stir fry that somehow manages to be both greasy and burnt.
I drive past that apartment building all the time now to get on the Casco Bay Bridge and hit the beach, go to Red’s, or meet friends at Lambs for martinis and sourdough. And I remember that bedroom: the mattress on the floor, yes, but also the system of laundry baskets instead of a dresser or closet, and the stacks of books along the walls, such as The Communist Manifesto (read strictly out of curiosity, he insisted after I didn’t ask) and Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — And Keep — Love (his was an avoidant attachment, but that was probably clear already).
I ate my burnt rice and greasy vegetables at the coffee table in front of the worn, floral-print couch he inherited from his grandmother, and once the sun set sufficient to dim the sight of the dust layer covering every surface, it almost felt romantic. If you’ve ever been 21, you understand. At that age my sense of self-worth didn’t come from within, but from the number of guys who wanted to suck my face off, so an eligible bachelor inviting me to his home to feed me and fuck me was a win. Whether he genuinely cared for me or I for him — and they never did — could be sorted out later.
We carried on in this fashion for several weeks before I made the mistake of asking him what we were to each other. I knew he was my boyfriend because I’d been eating his dreadful dinners and sleeping with him a few times every week, and because I’d told my friends about the great new guy I was seeing (Oh, the lies we tell in our youth!), and he said, “Well, I haven’t slept with anyone else since we met, if that’s what you mean.”
Don’t believe what they tell you, ladies: chivalry isn’t dead.
Alas, instead of telling him where he could shove it, I slept on his floor mattress that night and for many nights after. I undertook to improve his life in aspects he didn’t ask me to fix, just to prove my worth, like rescuing a dresser from the side of the road and helping him neatly fold his shirts inside so he didn’t have to use the laundry basket system anymore (he still did). I did the grocery shopping and paid for the food he would burn for me. I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom every time I was there, because if I didn’t, he’d have eventually run out of surfaces to cook and eat on and I probably would’ve gotten an STI from the toilet seat.
I rewarded myself for these efforts by storing a toothbrush and mascara in his medicine cabinet. He put them in a plastic bag and handed it over when he broke up with me a few months later.
Why did I stick around after that third date instead of fleeing as soon as I saw the mattress on the floor, leaving dust clouds in my wake like the Roadrunner? It’s easy to look back at that night now and see a naive little girl, but I’d felt like a grown-up at the time. Now I’m old and disillusioned enough to realize the guys with a mattress on the floor are most definitely not grown-ups. They’re also almost always the guys with the most expensive record player and stereo system, and the ones who will nickel-and-dime you on every date. You can ride that swell of mattresses for years if you really try, and might even have some fun doing it, but you’ll never catch a wave.
Emma Chance also writes The Overshare at emmachance.substack.com.
