Page 5 of Unrealistic Expectations

This was new information for Jessica. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She was used to being the person commenting on other people’s relationships, so having her friends do a postmortem on her own was extremely uncomfortable.

“You seemed happy enough,” Barbie said. “Like, the happiest we’d ever seen you. You know... you’re a very serious person. You’ve always found something wrong with the people we dated. We weren’t going to say something when you started dating someone who seemed like he was really into you and who you were willing to tolerate.”

“Am I really that hard on men?” Jessica knew the answer to this question. She’d always had deep-running trust issues, and she’d always been able to suss out if a man was only interested in something casual. And her instinct was a hair trigger when it came to cutting something off if it had the slightest red flag for an unhealthy pattern—like if she or one of her friends was too attracted to someone right away.

“I just have healthy boundaries. I had to develop them.” What Jessica didn’t say was that her friends had both come from reasonably functional homes. Their mothers hadn’t shown up at Parents’ Weekend and started hitting on the other kids’ married dads because they’d just broken up with their latest loser boyfriend.

“You told me you had to break up with one guy because he was ‘too good’ at kissing,” Barbie said.

Jessica wanted to stop this conversation. “He wasn’t looking for a serious relationship, and I didn’t want to get attached because he knew what to do with his tongue.”

“What I don’t get is why you were looking for a serious relationship while we were still in our twenties. Your twenties are for banging randoms for the story, not meeting your person.”

“I saw my mom bang enough randoms when I was growing up to last me a lifetime. And I have the stories to prove it.”

Kelly pressed her lips together as if she was trying not to say something but really wanted to comment on Jessica’s aversion to casual hookups vis-à-vis Laurie Gallagher.

Barbie had no such compunctions, though. “That’s bullshit. You were never going to be as irresponsible as your mom. But you didn’t have to save your cherry for... Luke.” That last word dripped with disdain.

“You know very well that I didn’t save my cherry for Luke. I’ve just always been selective.” She stuck her tongue out at Barbie. “Besides, the orgasm gap is particularly egregious when it comes to casual hookups.”

Both of her friends nodded their heads. They’d heard Jessica bring up the orgasm gap before, and their experiences bore it out.

“But Luke isn’t the guy that you give up your twenties for,” Kelly said.

“You gave up your twenties to become a doctor.” Jessica knew she sounded defensive, but she was feeling defensive.

Kelly wasn’t deterred, though. “That’s my point. Luke gave up his twenties to become a doctor, too. And you gave up your twenties to support him in that. And now that you’re actual adults and can lift your head up to enjoy how hard you’ve worked, he wants to leave and find something more exciting. Probably something younger, with perkier tits and less emotional baggage.”

Jessica didn’t want to be upset that Luke was probably going to trade her in for a shinier, newer model. If he hadn’t already.

“Being young doesn’t necessarily make life any easier. Every twentysomething who comes to see me is carrying a lot more than a sunny social media profile could ever convey.”

“But they don’t have to spend any money on Botox.” Barbie had been getting Botox since they were twenty-eight. It was practically required in her line of work.

“They might have more collagen in their skin, but I would never want to be twenty-one again. Plus, most of my younger clients are a lot more self-aware than I was at that age—some of them are more well-adjusted than I am now.”

“Any twenty-five-year-old that Luke ends up with is probably doing keto. They will not put up with the Millet Man for long.”

“I didn’t realize that I was eating brown rice every day and pretending to like it until he walked out the door. As soon as he was gone, I realized that our condo didn’t feel like a home without the both of us in it.” Every choice she’d made was in service to a relationship with a man who hadn’t loved her all that much. She’d thought that the most self-loving thing she could do was avoid her mother’s mistakes and attain a level of security. “I put security ahead of passion, and all the security disappeared in an instant.”

Barbie put her hand over Jessica’s and squeezed. “But now you have a chance to find the passion.”

Kelly waved down the server for another round. “Maybe he did you a favor.”

“Ugh. I really don’t want to date again.” Jessica wasn’t in a place where she’d consider dating for at least a few months, but stories from clients and friends had filled the entire two hundred pages of her book.

“Listen, sometimes the teacher has to become her own student,” Barbie said as she finished her second martini. “Besides, it’s not that bad. I only had to up my meds once the last time I was on Hinge.”

“This is why I only fuck guys I work with,” Kelly said. “If they get it in their heads to act like an ass, the hospital grapevine will prevent them from getting laid at work anymore.”

“But what about the interns? None of them will have the Dossier of Unfuckables,” Barbie added.

“Ew. I don’t do interns. But you could fuck an intern, Jessica. That would drive Luke absolutely insane,” Kelly said, greeting the returning server and their drinks with a smile.

“When I do start dating again—which will be a long time into the future—I’ll probably have to do the apps. It’s not like I work with any men, and all my hobbies are pretty girly.”

“You could try hiking,” Barbie suggested.

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