“You should be very proud of yourself,” he says grabbing me as I try to get up from my bed to go and turn off my bedroom lights. It takes some effort, but I finally manage to get up from his arms and walk towards the door. On my way, I readjust my crumbled up boxers over my jeans. “I don’t usually do this,” he says.

“Yeah, I love to wrestle in bed,” I respond, dimming the lights.

“No, I mean, hook up that often.”

I’m confused. I had totally pegged him as a total player. The day I met him at a mutual friend’s BBQ, he had gotten in a fight with a drunken straight guy and called him an asshole. All while hopping around on crutches. He’d broken his left foot jumping down a fence and had to get a cast, but that didn’t stop him from provoking a riot.

So I figured that the testosterone that muddled his temper also filtered down to his crotch and fucked up his libido – encouraging every impulse to “hit that.” It had definitely fucked with mine. I was instantly attracted to this Potential Player and his straight guy-like bravado. And I refused to watch from the sidelines.

But playing with bad boys is a dangerous sport, and I didn’t want to end up getting hurt and calling foul. So I didn’t think much of this guy with the sexy dimples and messy hair who always wore his shirts wrinkled. I wasn’t even expecting him to call me, even though we did have an intense, shirtless make out session on my friend’s couch the night of the BBQ. With his foot in a cast, I had to lift him up and support him on my shoulders when we started to dance, swaying slowly to “Electric Feel."

And then three weeks later, there he was: free of crutches and inviting me to his birthday celebration.

Potential Player has this way of making every guy feel like the only one on the team, which solidified my first impression that he would pitch to whomever was willing to catch. And that’s what caught me at the beginning. He has the confidence of a Casanova, never mind that he prefers LMFAO to MGMT.

The night of his birthday, he brought about 25 guys to his party at Trigger. Impressive considering we live in a city often unwilling to commit. The sexy bartenders flowered him with even more attention in the form of drinks. But I kept sober.

Despite the fact that it seemed as if I were playing Marco Polo in a pool full of men wanting to swim up the birthday boy’s trunks, I felt a little like Michael Phelps, for I had already won. I’d hooked up with Potential Player the night before. See, I don’t do sidelines.

So the next night at Trigger, I felt quite secure in my position as starting player on his team. A little past midnight, I gave him a hug and made up the excuse that I had to meet up with some other friends in the Mission. I didn’t want him to think that he was a starting player on my team. Before I exited the club, he gave my number to one of his friends, a tall, hunky blond.

“My phone is about to die, and I forgot my charger,” Potential Player explained. “I’ll call you tomorrow on his phone.”

And he did, and we hooked up again. But this time with the lights off. And I felt like the only one on the team.