Category — Love & Relationships

One of my friends has a client that wrote a book called The Ring Formula, How to Meet, Date and Marry Mr. Right.

He also has a blog.

I’m trying to be over this  ”Why Can’t a Black Woman Find a Good Man” meme, but something he said in one of his posts kind of struck me:

a man’s greatest fear is not commitment. Instead, his greatest fear is not marrying the woman of his dreams and, in turn, downgrading back into the less powerful and permanent bachelor Clark Kent.

My question, then: so he always has a roving eye? He’s always looking for something ‘better’?

I don’t know that am anyone’s dream woman, really.  It’s kind of depressing that I can’t bring myself to describe me as such. I hate a delusional chick, and me calling myself a man’s dream would be highly delusional.

Does any woman really feel like she is a man’s dream woman? Am I supposed to think that way?

I looked up some reviews of the book– none bad yet. A lot of people said Dr Tartt was able to bring the process down to a simple science. And basically, here’s what I’ve been saying to my “but you have a job and a place to live and a car and you’re self sufficient and men should love that” group of friends:

Newsflash: They don’t care. I mean, they care, just… not as much as you’d think they would. Men care about power, about feeling like the “head” of a relationship, about being needed, about being your man. They care about being visually and physically stimulated and being cared for and taken care of. They care about being made to feel important.

So for all my hard work and being independent,  it doesn’t mean as much as one would think it means. It does score me points in the ‘can handle myself’ and ‘responsible adult’ department.  My friends tell me all the time that they’d date me if they were a man.  I always laugh and say, “not unless you’re a man that thinks like a woman.” Those things I have, that you say make me a good woman, in my opinion only make me a good woman to a woman.

So, I’m trying to look at me from the perspective of a man. I wouldn’t date me. Honestly. Now to figure out why. And to change that.

On the dating front, I was talking to someone kind of nice at a dating site… but two weeks in a row he hinted at meeting up and never followed through with actually setting up a day and time. The second time, we had established a day and a location and then he went radio silent about a time. I haven’t heard from him since about noon, last Friday. *shrug*  I’m done.

I’m waging a war between being open minded, and knowing what I want and what I can deal with. It’s difficult. Kind of messy, inside my head.

This is a bit of a jumble, but it’s been rolling around in my head for awhile so please excuse the lint from the carpet of my mind. I meant to vacuum but I got distracted by something shiny.

The other day I was reading something at one of my online haunts. A member was talking about her current weight loss successes and failures and how that related to how men see her. She admitted to feeling like she wouldn’t get attention until she was at a certain point, that she didn’t feel attractive, all the feelings that sit on the shoulders and are worn on the sleeves of those of us trying to better ourselves and battle the demons that make us eat. I resonated with her feelings, as do a lot of overweight women, though I declined to publicly commiserate with her. As usual, our good friends in the community rallied around her to lift her spirits and reaffirm her beauty, her intelligence, her willing spirit (seriously if you’re in jail, this is the girl to call. Even if you’re in another state. She’d be happy to come get you.). Something in the advice, though, sort of stood out and as you know, sometimes I get to feeling some kinda way about things.

The advice given, and meant to be comforting and encouraging was, “you know, there are guys out there who like bigger women.” And while this is true, praise Weezy, I guess…you know, I guess this doesn’t really make me feel better. How awesome is it that there is a subsection of men that I can choose from, that actually like big women? Really?

Because here is the thing, and again, this is jumbled, so sorry but:

a) There are a lot of men out there with preferences and that is… well, that’s just fine.  I’d rather not meet a man that PREFERS a big girl. I dated that guy before. I gained 15 lbs with him. It was kind of gross, actually. And what if I’m not always a big girl…. then what? I fall out of his preference category and get replaced with someone……bigger?

b) I tried looking at some BBW dating sites and… iCan’t. I really can’t. I see a lot of guys who look like they get off on my fat rolls and want to sit and watch me eat. This isn’t sexy or attractive. It doesn’t make me feel good about my size. I don’t feel celebrated, I feel… objectified. To be completely honest,  I put these men in the same category that I put the men that want to know if I wear toe rings and anklets and paint my toenails, and the men that want to dress up in my lingerie  and squeal with glee at the verse in “SexyBack” that goes, “I’ll let you whip me if I misbehaaaave.” NO.

I know this doesn’t exist (or does it?) but what about the man that is interested in someone because of who she is? Fat or thin, short or tall, he likes me because I make him laugh or make him think, I am kind and generous and thoughtful toward him and he repays the favor, we have tons in common (or nothing in common) and he just enjoys my company. He doesn’t prefer me fat or thin or in between, he just likes me.

Hmmm. You know who these are? These are my friends. My male friends don’t really show a particular preference. They treat me the same no matter my size and yet someone who claims to want to be more than a friend is just so damn picky. > insert standard rant about black men, here. I just don’t have the energy to engage, today< But then I had to stop and think about my own list and preferences and  now I’m feeling a mite shallow.

Because  I know for me, I kind of don’t want a real skinny dude. Just not attractive to me. Neither do I want someone very extremely overweight. Average is fine. A little chunky is fine. I want to be able to find his body part, is what I am saying.

How fair is that? How shallow am I?

I have this saying, that I say all the time when it seems like people are a stickler for rules until they apply to THEM:

Rules are rules unless they apply to you, and then there are exceptions.

And by you I mean me.

Everyone has to abide by certain standards, until self is involved, and then there are stipulations and exceptions and changes and but but but… I feel like I am excepting my own wants and expectations.

I know this doesn’t make a lick of sense to you. It doesn’t to me, either. All I know is that telling me that there are men out there that like fat girls doesn’t make me feel better. What I want is a man that doesn’t care that I weigh X or wear size X. I don’t want him to care that I am fat. I don’t want him to be particularly interested in my size. I want him to be attracted to me as a person. Not my rolls.

I definitely don’t think my friends are encouraging heavy women to go out and find themselves a freaky fat admirer and live happily ever after. I definitely think my friends are encouraging women who don’t fit the ideal 36-24-36 shape to not focus on men who ONLY look at those numbers, that there are men out there that aren’t very concerned with them.

It’s just that…………..when I hear “there are guys out there that like bigger women...” my first thought is ‘Gee. Thanks.’

And yet, if you try to introduce me to a skinny man I will probably wrinkle my nose at him.  Like, I don’t think the two issues are any different. And yet they’re not the same.

Maybe because no one looks at a skinny guy and says ‘ew, he’s let himself go.’ No one looks at a skinny guy and a skinny girl and wonders how they got together. FK used to think I was INSANE, because we’d walk through a mall or something holding hands, and I’d be embarrassed. Not to be with him, but because I thought that people looked at him (OMG CUTE) and then looked at me (OMG FAT) and thought, ‘how’d she get him?’ I didn’t want anyone to think FK was one of those ‘guys that like bigger women‘. FK didn’t really care. He just liked me.

I have issues, huh?

This still doesn’t make any sense.

Hola and Happy Friday, Blog People! This is going to be a fun weekend, since I’m having my first house guest! All will go well if she doesn’t look in the refrigerator or my closets!

There’s an article that I picked up on twitter this morning that really made me feel some kinda way. You know that feeling where something seems all stuck up in your craw, but you don’t really know what it is or how to express it, you just know that you have ~feelings~ about it. We call that ‘some kinda way’ and that’s how I’m feeling.

Gaze upon it, from The Frisky:

Awhile ago, I went to one of those psychic-type people. I don’t think she called herself that, but you get the point. Anyway, she said something that has stuck in my head ever since. I think I made a passing reference to finding “The One,” and she made a face.

“There’s no such thing as ‘The One,’” she explained. “There is only the one who is ‘The One’ right now.”

And, you know what? I think she was right.

To be clear, if you think you’ve found “The One,” more power to you. I am not trying to rain on your parade. Although, it would bear pointing out that one never knows what the future holds, and “The One” today may be replaced by “The Other One” tomorrow. But I guess I felt like I’ve spent my whole life searching for “The One,” and, honestly, a few times, I thought I had found him. So, when he turned out not to be “The One,” I felt, well, stupid. Like I was wrong.

That’s why I was intrigued by what the not-psychic said. What she was suggesting was that I had been right all along. That every guy I thought was “The One” was “The One,” for that moment in time, for that part of my life, for what I needed right then. As it turned out, though, he wasn’t the one for the next day, or five years down the line, or for forever. He was “The One for Right Then.”

It was a brief comment she made in the course of a long conversation, but in a way it really changed the way I think about all my relationships over the years. They’re like hard, dark vertical lines on a long, multicolored horizontal line that’s the story of my life, and they were all “The One,” and that was perfect, that they were each there when they needed me, and when I needed them.

To a degree, it takes the pressure off, looking forward. I don’t have to worry about finding “THE ONE.” I can search for “The Next One.”

All I can really say is…. really? I mean for all my jaded bitterness, maybe I’m not that jaded. I believe in love and romance. I believe in soulmates. I believe in The One. And I guess I am kind of leery of people who

a) can be so easily swayed from something they’ve believed in for a lifetime, something that means something to them; and

b) someone who can justify possibly bad judgement and bad decisions by deciding that something just doesn’t exist.

For example, I suck at math. Like… really bad. I can’t add in my head, I have to take my shoes off to count to twenty, really bad at math. Because I suck at it and I fail math tests 99.9% of the time, I’ve decided that there’s no such thing as a correct answer to a math problem. Uh… that’s not really right…. is it? Just because I suck at doing it doesn’t mean there’s not an absolute answer.

To me, that’s what this article seems to be saying. Referring to the ‘The One for right then’ and ‘the next The One’ is creeping me out in a major way. It sounds, supiciously, like ‘Mr Right Now’, who I have no interest in. I take myself and my feelings and my committment to people pretty seriously.

Maybe I shouldn’t?

I don’t know, but don’t f*cking waste my time if you have no desire to meet me where I am. If you don’t feel like I do, if you’re just dicking around and having fun and not looking for the real thing, let’s be friends. Then I can laugh at your ‘anti commitment’ antics and shake my head at ‘you guys’ and not feel all…. some kinda way… about you, and like I wasted my time opening up and getting to know someone and putting my ~feelings~ out there. For you to step on them and smash them like so much roach in your kitchen. Bleh.

Mkay, emo moment OVAH!

So, what I think is…. some of us suck at relationships. Some of us have bad judgement. Some of us hang on to something that has gone bad for far too long, because we don’t want to be alone, or we don’t want to be the one that gave up too soon. Some of us thought we found The One but didn’t. Some of us found The One but he didn’t agree that he was The One.

I also think that rather than ‘The One for right then’, couldn’t there be more than ONE person on God’s green earth, on Al Gore’s innanets, that could be The One?

I’m not of the belief that there is no such thing as The One. I think that’s a copout for people who suck at relationships and makes them feel better about it. And I’m saying I suck at relationships, so I’m not down on anyone about it… I guess I am just not as bitter and jaded as I thought I was. Which is surprising. Then again, talk to me next January and I’ll probably be pretty bitter!

What say you, Blog People.  Am I overly idealistic? Dumb, stupid, and you wanna pull my pig tails? Talk to me!

I’m sort of halfassing this ‘getting back on the dating horse’ thing. Last week I sort of wandered around the internet, pretending I wasn’t looking at dating sites, while out of the corner of my eye, doing searches at random sites. There’s a couple places I am never going back to, ever again. Yahoo! is one of them. I’ll never do eHarmony again. And I think Plentyoffish has PlentyofLosers. I don’t even know why I am looking online– I sort of am not interested in dating anyone from an online dating site. I guess I am just testing the waters. Checking it out.

So this weekend, I was pretending to not be at Chemistry.com and I was also not at all taking their personality test and also didn’t fill out a profile. And after I didn’t do any of that, I got a neat little page that said basically what kind of person I am and what my best traits are.

I find these things pretty interesting. Not that I don’t know myself, but how I can answer some questions and it can spit out something that really, seriously sounds like me. I know, it’s probably a bunch of bunk. It stays very basic and is a lot like me in the way that the Zodiac description of an Aries is ‘a lot like me’. Basically, there are exceptions to every rule and I of course have a few.

And yeah, Chemistry costs the same as eHarmony.  I did happen to notice that while I wasn’t looking. Probably why I haven’t paid anything. That and the matches they’ve sent me (already more than eH sent me but still)?

>_< That’s my crankyface. Sometimes I see people and I know why they’re on an online dating sites.  [/mean]

So anyway. The here profile said some stuff that I wanted to take note of, maybe keep in mind. First of all I am, apparently, a Negotiator first, Builder second.

With Negotiator as your primary type, you can be:

• Good at seeing the big picture
• Empathetic
• Imaginative
• Trusting
• Intuitive
• Introspective

All relatively true. Basic, but true.

With Builder as your secondary type, you can be:

• Traditional
• Patient
• Social
• Community Oriented
• Loyal
• Orderly
• Skilled Verbally
• Dependable

I am not so much on the patience and I can be social, it just doesn’t come naturally. The other is pretty dead on.

About your personality

You are interested in the big picture. You like to examine large, ambiguous issues and ideas. You carefully weigh all of the variables involved, connect disparate facts in novel ways and regularly come up with imaginative solutions to complex problems. You see holistically and can be visionary.

You are friendly and humane. You have a big heart; you tend to trust people and sympathize with them easily. You intuitively know what they are thinking and feeling. And because you are agreeable and mentally flexible, you go out of your way to make others comfortable and happy. You seek to make intimate, meaningful friendships.

Your empathy and altruism spill over into a desire to make the world a better place. And with your resilience and imagination, your ability to do many things at the same time, your people skills and your command of language, you can be remarkably effective at improving the lives of others.

You are also traditional. You have clear moral values and tend to stick to your point of view. Yet you almost always seek consensus and harmony, and are willing to give up some of your pleasures to build an orderly, harmonious home and family life.

Yup. I mean, what else can I say? Also basic but me to the core.

Relating to others

You tend to be well-adjusted, trusting, compassionate, intuitive and interested in people. And you work to keep your networks intact. You also look in as well as out; you are introspective. And you like probing the meanings of life. So you avoid casual chit-chat. You can be so agreeable that some people may overlook your complex personality.

I wouldn’t say I work to keep my network intact… that’s something I sort of stopped doing because I always felt like I was the only one working, the only one that cared. I hate running after people and begging them to be my friend, so I don’t do it anymore.

In love and relationships

You are a die-hard romantic, and you must have depth and meaning in your relationships. You like heart-to-heart exchanges that explore personal philosophies, goals, ethical dilemmas, and the meanings behind art, music, poetry or some other abstract topic. You are emotionally expressive and want your partner to share his or her genuine self with you. You also admire people who make plans and schedules. And you are attracted to a mate with a fixed moral compass. Moreover, for you, love must be embedded in a stable long-term relationship beginning with a march down the aisle. Most important, to balance your imaginative and supple spirit, you gravitate to people who know their own mind, make decisions quickly, focus on one thing at a time and can provide a stable home. And you can be very sensitive to your mate, communicating your emotions clearly and tenderly.

I highlighted genuine self, because that is really important to me. There is this dating phenomenon out there, where people are on their very best behavior for a few months, and then the real ‘them’ comes out. It happened with FK. It happens to everyone. Hell, it might happen to me. I think one of the reasons dating makes me SO TIRED is that I work overtime trying to be charming and delightful. I wish we could all just be ourselves, from the gate. Our genuine selves. I don’t want to meet or fall in love with your ‘representative’. Put him away. Give me you, because that’s the you I’m going to have to be with for a considerable amount of time. I want to know You as soon as possible.

In case I need to feel special, it tells me that the following people are also negotiators:

• Katie Holmes
• Leo Tolstoy
• Oprah Winfry
• Bill Clinton

Well that’s just… that’s just fine.

What the profile doesn’t tell me is who is best suited for me. It tells me what I have in common with people that they match me with, which is cool.  Though, I sort of feel like I am an “opposites attract” kind of person. Most of my friends have traits that I admire that I don’t have, interests that I don’t have, viewpoints that I don’t have. I guess I am more interested in seeing how the other half lives than in finding someone exactly like me. I don’t want to date me. I want us to accent each other.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

This all your fault. ALL of you. Even if you read this blog but don’t comment, it’s your fault too!

The other day, when I was ‘Up In the Gym, Workin’ On My Fitness’, I had the highest number of visits. Ever. I have no idea why, still. But I was digging through my stats to figure out of it was an anomaly, or did I ping the damned blackberry forums again, or am I really that interesting?  I’m not really that interesting.

Anyhow, there was a term that someone used in search to find my blog. One of my weird habits is that I like to search the same terms to see if my blog will pop up in my search. It never does. Anyway, it DID lead me to this relationship forum that I used to post on. I lost the web address two laptops ago and hadn’t posted there since just after FK and I split. 

I had to dig up my login information, but apparently I love the sight of my own words because I looked up all my old posts. Some from dates I’d had before I met FK and then the post from after I met him, and two weeks in, four weeks in, a few months in, so happy at 5 months in and then we were done.  It started off so great, and then I started making posts about how I was confused about something that happened or things he said vs things he did and the ‘wtf’ posts became more and more frequent. I chalked it up to having never been in a relationship before and tried to take advice to heart. It was actually kind of nostalgic to read my reaction to our first few dates. I was so sure he was the One.

So sure. Meh.

Anyway, I had to close the page because I was getting all misty. My eyes skipped along the rest of my posts until I came upon a post that made me roll with laughter. I remembered that one! It was a post from when I was at Yahoo! Personals. Form letter, no doubt, but I like to call this one, “Dude, Step Away From the Thesaurus!”

.. am looking for a single woman who is a Christian, career working woman, physically attractive, in good health, sensual, delightful, exquisite, attention giving, has a loving demenor, tantalizing, succulent, mentally and emotionally stable. I am also looking for a single woman that is sweet, spiritual, sincere, special, dependable, genuine, loving, loveable, easy to get along with, thoughtful, supportive, understanding, caring, consoling, nurturing, respectable, reliable, trustworthy, family oriented, wise, intelligent, great communicator, good listener, nice, kind, cheerful, a happy person, someone who can treat a man nice, sacrifical, good mannerisms, good attitude, liberal and opened minded, can express her love willing, openly, and support a good man effectively, considerate, compassionate, romantic, warm-hearted, and just a little kinki(smile).

I seek a single woman who loves and respects her father and currently has a positive relationship with him. I also seek a woman that soft, delicious, affectionate, humble, classy, humerous, tender, patient, good-tempered, desirable, generous, huggable, squeezable, blissful, blossemed, hospitable, assessable, reliable, responsible, motivated, loyal, and she can keep her man first, continually pleased and satisfied (smile).

Right? Hilarious. Just the general humor of the entire note is… wow. Don’t want much do you?  What’s even funnier is I HAD ALREADY MET HIM.

This guy was smarmy and wasted my time.  He made me meet him in a bank parking lot. It was clandestine and NAS.TY. I shiver at the thought of him. Claimed it was ‘really safe cause it was right off of a busy street’. Proceeded to ‘interview’ me as to my worthyness to date him (because women who were in their 40′s were wanting to date him… uh huh) and there were plenty of fish in the sea. First he berated me for not giving him my phone # when he asked for it– because he was in such high demand that he expected to get what he asked for and if he didn’t, he could just move on to the next person. Then he berated me for being cautious and choosing to remain near my car. I am 5′ 3″, he is well over 6′ and I’d guess to be about 250ish. He scared me, and he made a lot of assumptions about me, my sexuality and whether or not I was interested and would be devoted to him.

When I emailed him later that I was not interested in pursuing anything with him, he said that I needed to be more open minded and trusting of people, and that I needed to work on my interpersonal and nonverbal communication skills– he said I appeared to be closed off and untrusting and not open. DUH. I really wanted to write him back with some choice suggestions for him, but I refrained. And promptly forgot him.

Two years later, I got a message from him on Yahoo!, like we’d never met and had an awful exchange. Really, you can’t remember women you’ve already met?  All I remember of his ad was that it was unimpressive. It may as well have said: Wanted: SuperWoman. Qualifications: None.

I wasn’t a paying member at the time so I couldn’t respond. I considered it, so I could send this:

Thank you for your response to my profile. However, sir, we have already met and you have already deemed me to be unsuitable to date you. Therefore, I would like for you to go away, leave hastily, hurry on, clear out, depart, leave, move, pull out,abandon, abdicate, absent, beat it, blast off, blow, cut out, decamp, desert, disappear, emigrate, escape, evacuate, exit, get away, git, go forth, make feet, march out, migrate, move on, move out, part, perish, pull out, quit, remove, retire, sally forth, say goodbye, scram, secede, set forth, shove off, slip away, split, start, start out, take leave, tergiversate, troop, vacate, vanish, and withdraw.

*shrug*

This reminder is going a long way toward killing any desire I had to return to online dating.

The years since FK have been full of those Single Girl cliches that you read about in magazines and relationship books. Traveling, having fun, cultivating friendships with women, being busy busy busy, so busy that I’m not supposed to even notice that I’ve not found The One.  Busy not looking for anyone (he always comes when you least expect it, or some other pandering bullshit), busy not having expectations, busy being fulfilled in my career, busy building a life. To say that the men I have met in those years have not managed to spark a morsel of  real interest would be an understatement.

The last dates I had were in the summer of 2008. I thought I had met a pretty cool guy. He worked at Home Depot. I LOVE Home Depot. I used to walk through the model kitchens and bathrooms in there.  We had a great first date at a cafe–Intermezzo is one of my favorite first date places. Conversation was good, so we decided to go to dinner at a nearby restaurant. He was great to talk to, told awesome stories about his time in the Army in Germany.  As he walked me to my car, he saw that I had a pair of windshield wipers in my backseat. I sheepishly admitted I just hadn’t made the time to switch out my wiper blades. He suggested we meet the next day for brunch and a walk thru the Park and he would switch them out for me.  I was excited. I kind of liked him.

We had a pretty cool 2nd date. We ate, then walked down to the park, sat on a bench in the sun and talked and fed the ducks. Laughed about our favorite movies and episodes of Family Guy. He never did switch out my wiper blades, but we had a long, full summer day together. After which he didn’t make further plans with me.

I was determined to not be daunted by that.  Meanwhile I am messaging GreenEyes like crazy. “What do you think? Does he like me? Will he ask me out again? Should I call him?” After getting a series of  ”Calm your ass down” messages from her, I relented. Go with the flow. I’m breezy!

On occaision,  he would call when he got off work, and we’d talk for a few minutes every night. Since he worked retail, his  schedule varied wildly but after a few weeks he made another date. YAY! We met at Outback t in the Perimeter, and then after lunch he invited me over to his place. I didn’t have any weird feelings about him, so I went. We ended up watching a couple of movies. He was all close and touchy feely  (hand holding and such) but didn’t try to kiss me and didn’t go for any heavy petting. Except for that, actually, he didn’t make any moves at all.

He seemed nice. I liked him. We got along, and he made me consider doing things I normally don’t do, like sit at a sports bar and watch football. There are few people I will do that with.

I invited him to my place for dinner. We watched a movie and ate. He sat all the way on the other end of the couch. Didn’t make one move. Conversation was still great, but I was already feeling the slide.  The slide to the Friend Zone.

One day we were talking and the language changed. The things he started saying,  and how he would say them, couched between ‘friend-like’ phrases. This was something I used to get on FK about, like calling me ‘buddy’. I hate being called buddy.  This guy would call me up and say, ‘Hey bud, what’s up?’ One day he decided to give me some advice on how to attract men.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if the advice didn’t start with  ”If things don’t work out with us, you should be more open to meeting new people, instead of sitting in the house all the time.”

While he was right, he pissed me off by offering the advice in the first place. If he wanted me to leave the house more often, why not invite me out? Why am I getting advice on how to attract someone besides him?  I gave up, right there. He was, to me, brushing me off, trying to pawn me off on someone else already. I stopped answering the phone when he called. Eventually he stopped calling.

This is what happens. I meet someone, it goes okay, and after a date or two, I become “the friend”.  Or we might have a few dates and the guy says,  ”I know you want to wait, but I can’t. It would be unfair of me to try to push you into doing something you don’t want to do– but we can be friends. “ Oh, thanks for playing, here’s a consolation prize! My friendship!

*flips the bird*

Dudes, I’m not trying to be your friend. I have male friends. That’s not what I was looking for with you. I can’t do the Friend Zone. I can’t be demoted from Someone Special to Someone You Know. My brain and my heart don’t work like that, and I know I shouldn’t be ‘that’ attached to people right off, but I have to really like someone to go out with him in the first place… it’s just not that easy for me.

This isn’t a traumatic, He Done Me Wrong song. I know that this is dating. This is what happens to millions of women who date. It’s a game of chance, it’s a game of numbers and it takes perseverance and a iron will to keep pushing through. Or maybe a lot of alcohol. Either way, I just wasn’t cut out for it. I felt rejected at every turn. When I asked men about why I end up there, in The Zone, I get a myriad of answers. Most of them involve sex- if I’m not giving it up, men are not interested.

I don’t understand, then, how some of my (admittedly thinner, cuter, more stylish and worldly) friends can go 4,6, 9 months of dating someone before they decide to take the step.  I feel like I offer a lot to men. I also feel like everything I offer is not enough if it doesn’t include sex on date two. Booohiiissssss.

I made the not very difficult decision to pull myself off of the market.  It was nerve wracking and my self esteem took a beating every day that I was out there. It’s hard work, being charming and open and trying to be the Right One, just in case He’s right around the corner.

I took down all my ads, stopped reading relationship books, stopped thinking about dating, talking about dating, wanting to date. I believed that I wasn’t what men were looking for. Some  said maybe my standards were too high. Maybe I was pushing them away, somewhere. I had no clue, all I knew was that what I was doing wasn’t working and I am hardly insane so I am not going to keep doing the same thing and expecting something different to happen. I didn’t like dating at all.  So I stopped doing it.

Years ago I eavesdropped on a conversation that a guy had with a girl. He mentioned that he was looking for the woman that made him do the relationship work. And then in the next sentence, said something about knowing that he could walk into a place, pick a woman, be nice to her and know that he was going home with her that night.  And that he would, because he could. All the commentary about what he wants doesn’t match what happens when his feet start walking and his nether region starts talking.

I’m so tired of lip service. I’m so tired of relationship books that tell me what to say, how to act, what to change, who to be in order to attract a man, without doing the same for our counterpart. I freely admit that I am a complicated, sometimes nutjob of a person.  Newsflash: Men are not the easiest to deal with either!

I hesitate to type this, like it’s an impossibility (sometimes I feel like it is), but I want to date. I want to return to dating, that is. I miss feeling attractive and desirable– those feelings, though fleeting, were nice when I felt them. I want to meet someone that likes me for me, that is interested in more than what I can do for him in an intimate setting, who ‘gets’ me.  I want to say ‘we’ and ‘us’  again. I only had one chance at that, with FK. It was nice.

I am really embarrassed to admit that I want to date, I want to return to my quest for The One. In fact I have held this post for awhile, simply because that sentence is there. If it was just whining and lamenting about dating, it would have been up on Tuesday.  It could be because after years of searching for it, it has eluded me, so I have insisted that I don’t want it. I don’t need it. It’s not for me. I don’t think it’ll happen for me. I don’t think I’m made that way. I don’t think men want me. I’m not the kind of girl that men are looking for. All of those phrases have left my mouth at one time or another and at the time I believe I truly meant them.

I don’t think I mean them anymore. If I do, I am tired of meaning it.

It makes me sickly nervous to even think about going on a date. I’m not the best dater anyway, but on top of that it’s been forever since I went out with someone. What will he think of me? Where would I even meet him, since the pool of viable online daters has severely dried up, here?  A quick romp through my usual haunts reveals men who’ve been there since 2005! And I know, for sure, that I am not physically ready to get back out there. I want to look and feel my best and be confident in myself. I’m decidedly not there.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t see bright eyes and a cute nose and full lips and (when I actually DO my hair) great hair and a rockin’ rack and a curvy shape. I still see that awkward, bucktoothed, blind as a bat, unfortunate looking creature that I was in my teens. It’s a picture I am trying hard to erase but even after I close my eyes against the image in the mirror, it stays in my mind’s eye. It is the picture of me inside my head, when I see myself. It is the picture of me that I think everyone sees. It’s that ‘assuming the worst that people could think about me’ and believing that and basing my whole experience on that assumption.

I don’t know how to block that image and those thoughts. I wonder do they ever go away? If I lose 100 lbs, will I still feel like a fat girl? If I got contacts and a weave, would I still feel like the ugly duckling?

If I decide to get back out there, muster up some strength and confidence and put my best foot forward and just keep pushing and keep going for it, could I still never find HIM? Could I still end up alone?

The scary part of asking those questions is that the answer could still be yes.

Post 2! Thanks for reading and commenting. Again, if you’d like to comment but you’d rather not do so in public, please feel free to email me at curvyjones[at]diaryofcurvyjones or mocahgirl[at]gmail.

At the top of this post on the right hand side you’ll see  a directory of sorts. All posts in this series will be tied together. You can view other posts in this series by clicking on the link in the directory.

This is a long entry, I apologize. I was going to cut it but decided to let it be. It’ll be here if you get tired of reading and want to come back later! ;)

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Courtesy Despair.com

I’ve never done this before, but I was inspired by a bout of Cabin Fever as a result of ‘OMFG, It’s Snowing in Atlanta And We Don’t Own Any Plows…2010′ .

The weird thing is that on a normal sunny warm Saturday, in which I have the freedom to go anywhere I please, I’m probably not going anywhere. I like being at home. I get my groceries, got my laptop, my Kindle, my writing, my TV and TIVO remote– I’m good. I spend all week getting up and going somewhere. On the weekends, the last thing I want to do is get up and go somewhere some more. But the second you tell me I can’t go anywhere, I suddenly have places to be and things to do.  The Dept of Transportation advised people to stay off the roads due to lots of black ice and snow… so naturally I had to go to CVS.

I do not own an ice scraper. I refuse to buy one. I use the defrost on my car every morning until it’s warm enough to drive. Sometimes I use my AMC discount card, but I am stubborn and don’t want to buy an ice scraper. This situation was ungood yesterday: [Read more →]

A few months ago, my good friend GreenEyes and I were chatting. She told me that Tex had told her that it was free communication weekend at E-scam-your-money(why do they run so many free communication weekends?) and she wanted to make sure to mention it to me in case I was interested. I immediately smote her,  and then tied her to the railroad tracks and left her there. How dare she suggest I might be interested in eH?

GreenEyes must not have been around when I tried eH. I did not enjoy the HUNDREDS of little dots I had to fill in, measuring every inkling of my personality, sometimes feeling like I was answering the same question over and over and over, just to see if I would trip up. These HUNDREDS of questions are designed to map out your personality into 26 Dimensions and then match you with people you are most likely to not bludgeon to death in their sleep be compatible with. That’s really only if the people you’re most likely to be compatible with actually make it through that survey and get to read all about your 26 Dimensions.

And also pay.

Because, you see eH  is a business, like any other. It’s basically an internet matchmaking service and if they’re going to go through the trouble of measuring 26 of my Dimensions, well… they’re going to get paid for it. Apparently GreenEyes was unaware of this fact. She says to me, “Why don’t you try it?”

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And I don’t mean God.

I mean the tenant in 8208.

So, listen. I know I’m single. And I’m not dating much. In fact I can’t remember the last time I went on a date. My last kiss, besides the ones I give myself in the mirror, is a distant, faint, dust covered memory. At this time of year, I am reminded on a daily if not hourly basis that I’m single.

I’m trying to ignore this message, and the inherent message that there’s something wrong with that. I’d planned on spending Valentine’s Day on the edge of the earth where roses, candy, and “Every Kiss Begins With Kay” does not exist. Lo and behold, I couldn’t get a flight out, so I’ll be at home doing whatever it is I do on Sundays.

It’s been a long, cold, dreary day. I came home from work and 3 minutes later had my pajamas on, was in my bed, and had Law & Order SVU on the TV and my blog reader on the laptop. And then around 6:30, I hear this rythmic knocking.

Really? At 6:30 in the afternoon/early evening? Well good for you. Let me just say this, though:

HURRY UP.

Cause I’m already not feeling well. Already in a bad mood. Already terribly single and sitting here directly under your bedroom listening to your bed bang against the wall? Not my idea of a relaxing Tuesday evening. So, if you could just hurry it on up, before I start to really feel lonely and sad and tired and all those things the media wants me to think about being single around Valentine’s Day, that’d be SUPER.

Many thanks,

The Girl Who Lives Below You Who, Despite Her Snarky Attitude, Is INSANELY Jealous

…on my own blog. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. It was there, and I was tempted, and it was interesting. I’m sorry baby. It won’t happen again!

One of my Real Life Friends (as opposed to my friends hat only live inside the computer) runs a blog called Journey to Blissville and goes by the name of Tex. Cause… she lives in Texas. Clever, huh. We do so love Tex and her penchant for foods I cannot pronounce, her happy-go-lucky-and-excited-about-every-damn-thing nature… even if she s annoyingly cheerful.  Tex created the phrases I repeat often, like “Damn Hondurans” (she’s Honduran, that’s not random), “living in Dick Cheney’s America” (it’s hard, according to Tex), and “Al Gore’s Internets” (which isn’t new but I didn’t start saying it till she did). Tex is one of the three bandits… KFlo and Tex and I run Houston ragged.  I hear you laughing, blog. We went to a strip club once. It sucked, but we went.

AN-T-WAY. This blog isn’t even about Tex. It’s about her blogroll. She’s such a vibrant person that any friend (or blog)  of  Tex is a friend (or blog) I want to meet (or read). I sauntered down her blogroll one day and came to a GREAT blog called He Loves Me Not, the story of Sarah and her journey from broken and broken hearted to a major personal success story.

I’d been reading bits and pieces, here and there as new posts came up in my Google Reader, but I became more and more confused because I didn’t know the history behind some of the current posts. So this weekend, I took it alllllllllllll the way back. To 2005.  And oh. [Read more →]

So, I did it.

I got the email today. The piece of HIM that I’ve become so accustomed to getting every week that it seems normal. It usually comes on Mondays, but it must have got hung up somewhere because it came today.

I LOVE email, and I have my gmail roll to my blackberry with a special notifier that lets me know I have mail. When I hear that jingle, I always feel a little happy and roll on over to that account and log in to see what gems await me. I subscribe to WAY too many blogs and newsletters, so it’s usually something I’ll want to save for later. Today, that email address and the form letter and usual impersonal format, the one that says ‘you’ve got matches, come look at  ‘em!’ was just… screaming at me.

But it wasn’t screaming, ‘click me! He might be waiting!’ This time I didn’t feel a warm fuzzy and remember HIM because that was where I met him. I felt pathetic and loser-ish for trying to hang onto HIM via a random email that had nothing to do with him. I felt ridiculous for hanging on for so long, for getting in my own damn way, for setting up my own roadblocks and helping to build my own wall.

Yeah, time to let go, I told myself.

So I logged in. And I deleted my account. It asks you why you’re deleting your account, and I sort of laughed at the reasons they listed:

• Did you find someone?
• Did you not find enough people?
• Did you have issues with the website?
• Did you give up?

The last one is kind of humorous, actually. But nowhere in the list did it say, “Are you not interested in using this site at all and were just hanging onto your profile hoping to remain some sort of pseudo contact with a man that isn’t even on this site anymore and furthermore broke up with you via email? Cause if so, good riddance, sister!”

That option wasn’t available. So I laughed and chose the last one and closed it out. For good. And didn’t feel badly about it. No pangs. No anxiety attacks. No regrets. I went on with my day and didn’t even think about it until a few minutes ago when I realized I wanted to blog about how easy it was.

Since I was feeling brave, I went ahead and broke up with Piz.za Hut emails too. Tomorrow I am pretty sure I am  getting an email from Wi.ng Zone. GONE!

Sweeping changes, people. SWEEPING changes!

I make myself laugh.

Let’s chat about something sort of taboo. Something people used to think was the sign of the Lahoooosaherrrrr. Something people attribute to the desperate and needy and undateable.

That’s right. Internet dating.

If you’ve followed me on Twitter for any amount of time, you know that I have a personal vendetta against eScamyourmoney (eHarmony), for no other reason than it didn’t work for me and it seemed scammish when I joined. Twice. Whatever, shutup.

There’s a lot to the story, and someday I’ll get drunk and rant it all, but HATE. IMMENSELY. And their commercials SUCK. I love how they pretend they’re not a hideously overpriced, judgmental, overly religiously based internet dating site. eH is no better or worse than Match or Yahoo! Personals.

So anyway. A long, long time ago, back when the internet was something nerds used to log into their AOL accounts and their alt.geekshit.incomprehensibleterms.net chatrooms, online dating was a really innovative way to meet new people. It was a very romantic idea to think that your Prince Charming, or reasonable facsimile thereof could be around the corner, or across town, and you’d never know it, and if it weren’t for the internet, you might never meet them.

The internet was rare, and it was slow and you had to be really dedicated to getting online. It was hard work, and it required a home computer and a little bit of know how. The people that you’d meet online where there on purpose. They weren’t just bored, or paying bills and happened to jump in a chat room for a second (online banking didn’t yet exist, neither did Pandora. Or for that matter iPods! Hang on, lemme turn the tape over on my Sony Walkman Sport Edition– this walk down memory lane is taking awhile). [Read more →]

… you know. The show about nothing?

I feel like everyone on the internet has already said everything I want to say, so I’ll just agree with the Universe. Yes. I agree. Completely.

So what’s going on? Stuff.

The year is off to a busy start. I’m hoping it stays that way. Me with nothing to occupy my mind, I think is what leads to boredom and depression. And eating. We don’t need to be eating. Well at least not eating more than needed. And might need to eat a little less. And do a little more moving. But… we’ll just go over that later. [Read more →]