The Reality of a Vampire Boyfriend

I’m happily married, however, like all normal females, I am a total Twilight fan.  I have been completely swept up into the saga of the love between Bella and Edward and their passion for each other.  A passion so intense they actually compared the addiction of one another to that of heroin.  Does it get any dreamier than that?  Okay, throw in some werewolf abs and you have the perfect storm of females sighing all across the world.  And I am totally onboard.

But let’s face it.  The reality is that even if I wasn’t married, I don’t really want a vampire boyfriend.

“I like to watch you sleep. It’s sort of fascinating.” 

Let’s get this ball rolling with the fact that I don’t want to be stared at all night while I sleep.  That’s not cool.  It’s especially not cool since, according to my husband, I have recently started to snore.  Where’s the romance in that?  It’s especially not romantic when your dreamy vampire boyfriend wakes you up from a deep, deep sleep with, “Would you just stop snoring! It’s so irritating.”  I’m not saying anyone living in my house has ever done that…

If my husband was a vampire and he actually uttered the words to me, “I don’t sleep…ever.”  My first thought, sad as it seems, would really be, Does this mean I get the bed all to myself every night for the rest of my life?  This might be followed with a first season opener of ER type fist pump to my chest a la Eriq La Salle.  Sometimes, having the bed to myself is my own personal brand of heroin.   Just keepin’ it real.

Let’s forget playing any kind of game or sport together.  He wouldn’t be able to ever “let me win” and make me believe that I actually won. That would never fly.

And yes, it’s true that Bella is one of the few women who can actually say, my boyfriend’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble and be certain she won’t meet with  an incredulous Edward replying, “You told them what?” when she tells him who needs a good butt kicking.

It’s a woman thing to want to feel physically protected, however, I keep reminding myself that I don’t live in a world where people want me dead and I think having my husband and his family avenge my most recent office cry by snapping someone’s head off and burning their body parts is a little bit of overkill – forgive the pun. 

The truth is that the fantasy is dreamy, but the reality would completely annoy me. 

Personally, I need space.  I need distance.  I need for you not to GPS locate me using your sister and all the people I’m talking to at any given moment.  Can you say, clingy?

My cell phone rings.

“Rachel?”

“Yes, dreamy vampire boyfriend?”

“Are you at Pinkberry again?”

Ugh.  “Yes.”

“Isn’t that the third time this week?”

“Maybe.”

“No, it is…I’m a vampire and I’m telling you it is.”

“Okay, then yes. It is. So?”

“Look, we’ll talk about this after I’ve devoured some wild animals.”

“I hate your stupid vampire metabolism.”

See what I mean?  Technically he can’t read my mind, but one quick mind read of his sister who would “foresee” the numbers on the scale on my weigh-in day and I would be so busted. 

It would be the end of secrets as I know it. 

I think in the end, I much prefer a man with no magic powers, no addiction-like thirst for my blood and no ability or even desire to know what I’m doing at every moment of every day.  I much prefer my independence.

The Adventurer in Me

First of all, there is absolutely no adventurer in me, whatsoever.  I do not have the thrill seeking genetic code in my DNA.  I’m not a daredevil.  I’m not a risk taker.  I’m not even a free spirit.  I’m a rules follower…plain and simple.  I learned a long time ago, that I don’t like to be in trouble.  And people who follow the rules, don’t get in trouble.

When I was in my last year of college, a friend of mine and I went to Las Vegas for a wild weekend – yeah right.  If by wild you mean playing nickel slots and in bed by nine, then I was wild. 

My friend tried to talk me into all kinds of thrill seeking excursions while we were going to be there.  I did not want to go skydiving.  I told her I’d stand on the ground and cheer for her.  I really did not want to go bungee jumping.  I told her I’d wait at the hotel and she could call me to let me know she was still alive.  I also let her know that I was O negative…just in case. I didn’t want to balance on one leg on the edge of Hoover Dam holding a rattlesnake in one hand and a lit match in the other.  Okay, so that wasn’t a suggestion but I’m convinced my friend would have done this.  In a way, I did envy my girlfriend.  She loved the adrenaline rush.  She loved to feel like she conquered something.  She liked the idea that she broke the laws of nature and laughed in their face.  For me the laws of nature were laws…and I don’t break laws.

Finally she suggested we take a horse back riding excursion around the rim of a canyon to view the Nevada countryside.  I liked horseback riding.  While truthfully I would have been completely satisfied trotting around a closed ring on the end of a line held by a trained professional in the middle of the Nevada countryside, I caved.  I could do this.  I could ride a horse around the rim of a canyon.  So long as no one was asking me to then base jump off that canyon while still on the horse.  Again, had that been an option, I fully believe my friend would have done this also.

The first thing that always happens in horseback riding adventures is the assigning of people to their correct horse.  The staff takes a few moments to size up people to animals.  It would be dreamy to think these horse whisperers were matching you up to your animal based off your 27 levels of compatibility but let’s be honest…they are assessing your weight and trying to find the toughest, least likely to sue to put on the horse with the history of bucking its riders into the canyon below.  These horses can be easily picked out because they are named accordingly.  More than once I have been clinging for dear life onto “Bone Crusher” or “Satan’s Horse” only to look up through my sweat drenched bangs to see my friend frolicking in the meadow on “Wildflowers” or “Snowball”.  I was always put on the crazy ones. 

In fact, the last ride I had gone on in North Georgia was still cattle branded into my brain.  I had taken my cousin, a 13 year-old girl who also happened to be the Associate Pastor’s daughter at my church and her homeschooled BFF on a mountain ride one beautiful Saturday in October.  I mounted my animal confidently only to be told that “Hitler” hated all the other horses so I should stay away from them while riding.  That should be easy on the trail ride, in a line with the other horses.  This instruction was followed quickly by the staffer slapping my animal on the rear and telling me to have a great ride.  I could have sworn I heard her laughing as I made, what I like to now call the mountain ascension of death. 

At the very top of the mountain and to my horror, “Hitler” bit another horse, reared up and took off down the mountain with me hanging on for my life.  Down the mountain, Hitler went. We passed other families having a fun family day. We passed people nuzzling “Buttercup” and “Little Lamb”. We passed the Associate Pastor’s kid and we passed her homeschooled BFF.  Down we went, me and Hitler, the whole time, my mind was saying prayers, but my lips were screaming, and I do mean screaming every obscenity known to man.  Did I mention I was an employee at the church?  I spent the entire drive home trying to explain to the Associate Pastor’s daughter and her homeschooled BFF that I was cussing because I thought I was going to die and that, under the circumstances, I’m sure God understood.

So six months later, when a cowboy named Tex decided I had a sturdy enough build to ride “Hellhound”, I called a time out.  Negotiations began.  “Say Tex, let’s talk for one hot second. Got any shorter, kinder, gentler horses?  Tex stared at me. I decided hand motions were in order.  I sized up my desired mount by holding my hand at stomach level.  Tex smirked.  “Look, Tex, I don’t want an invigorating gallop, just a boring stroll on a short horse?” I am convinced it is not enough to specify just a gentle horse.  Any horse can have a bad day.  In the event of a bad day, I wanted a horse where I had a shorter fall.  Of course, at that time, I did not consider that the height of the horse would not matter, if I fell over the rim of the canyon.  At that time, I wanted short horse.  I wanted a pony.  Heck, I wanted a really big dog to be saddled up.  What I got was Rose.  Rose was gentle.  She was docile.  Goodness gracious, she was certainly short.  I felt I had finally found my equine soul mate.  Who cares that when I look back at the pictures, it looks like my friend is riding a Clydesdale and I’m riding a Great Dane.

So off we went on the ride to climb up out of the hole and onto the canyon.  Now, number one – I had no idea we would be climbing on these animals.  Number two – had I know this, the following still would never have occurred to me.  My pony’s legs were half the size of every other horse’s legs on that trip.  As the other riders were taking the rocky ascent like it was a street curb, Rose would stop in front of every step.  She would stand there for a few seconds, staring at the task ahead of her, panting.  Then she would grunt and will her front legs up on the step.  She would stop, pant, grunt and hoist her back legs up the step. 

The climb was clearly challenging to this animal.  I suddenly felt very self–conscious about my weight.  This trail ride was about as memorable as the time the doctor told me my ankle would heal slower than the average person because of my “sturdy” build or when the man at the passport office said I was the spitting image of Roseanne Barr. It was clear, Rose was not my soul mate.  Real love means never making me feel heavy.  My body mass was apparently stressing out a pack animal. Like all good love stories, ours was fading faster than my nickels in Vegas had.  To make a long story short, I survived the canyon with everything but my self-esteem and self-confidence (but hey, those are kind of overrated to begin with), went back home and joined a gym.