So I am attempting to dip my foot into the dating pool again. Attempting. I’ve gone back to online dating because I live in Atlanta and while there are men here, the chances of meeting a single, good one through a friend are pretty slim, at least on its own standing. Sites like Meetup are full of wonderful women… but men– single, eligible, date-able men– typically don’t attend meetup/etc.  events. In order to widen my pool of availability I decided to re-open a closed door.

And when I reopened that door, I got a whiff of what I used to hate about it. The ‘poses with his shirt off, in front of his car’ guy. The ‘I hate women, guy’. The ‘passive aggressive message to all the women on this site that rejected me, because this totally makes me seem like a winner’ guy.

And the ‘moves way too fast before he even knows my name’ guy. I don’t know how to stop this from turning me off but it is an instant dryer-upper for me.

It’s called Online Dating. There’s a process. Online Send Me Your Phone Number Cause You Don’t Feel Like Typing ? I cannot.

I mean… am I the only one this happens to? Yesterday, I got a response from what seemed like a real nice guy. HE  emailed ME. I responded. Then I get maybe two lines in 2 emails. I don’t know this dude, he barely knows my name, he doesn’t know I’m (not) psycho, he gives me his phone number.

What are we supposed to talk about? Invariably, this is how it goes.

Me, calling some dude I don’t know: Hey, how are you? This is [username] from [dating site]
Him: Hey. What’s up?
Me: Nothin’ much. What’s up with you?
Him: Nothin’.
[silence]
Me: So what’s up today, what are you doing? Got any fun plans?
Him: Not really. Just hangin’ out.
[silence]
Me: Oh. Okay. I’m just hangin’ out too. There’s a Criminal Minds marathon on. What kind of shows do you watch?
Him: Little bit of everything. You know. I’m versatile.
[silence]
[silence]
[breathing, yawning, TV blaring in the background]
[silence, while he waits for me to entertain him]
Me: [sigh]. Well…I guess I will go take care of a few things around here. Nice…uhm… talking to you.
Him: Yeah, you too. Feel free to call anytime!
Me: [hangs up] [throws phone across the room] [searches for cats and a rocking chair and a porch on which to place rocking chair online]

I’ve gone through that enough times to know that’s how it’s likely going to pan out. It is painful and annoying. And a severe turn off. I have tried, really hard, to overcome it… I can’t help but feel like it’s really lazy and it makes me feel like I am chasing someone and that’s just something I won’t do.

It seems, yet again, that I’m expected to do an awful lot of work and he gets to sit back in his comfort zone and let the ladies come to him. I don’t wanna do it anymore, bBut it seems like that’s the only response I get.

How do I make it stop?

Please do note that when I try to circumvent having to call the guy, or let them know I’m just not ready to go there yet, I’m dropped like a hot potato. “Too much work” I’m guessing.

MJoy sent me an article, a recurring meme that I’ve seen going around ad nauseum about how it’s been “Black Women Ain’t Sh*t” Year for a few years now. Never in the history of black women have we been so maligned and disrespected and reported on in such a negative fashion. These sorts of reports and articles and blogs perpetuate the idea that the black man is a hot commodity and even if he looks like roasted ass, he might have (or feel like he has) the pick of the litter. These reports have made single, eligible Bachelors feel like a million bucks, so if they don’t wanna work for it……..they don’t have to. The women will come to them. Like I said to MJoy, “I can’t compete.”

In my journey I’ve shared some prime (and by prime I am being very sarcastic) choices with Sarah and Green Eyes. I mean, we all need something to roll our eyes at. Something Sarah said to me, after staring at the latest ad riddled with bad grammar (subject-verb agreement, anyone? Spell check? Buehler?), she noted that some of the ads specify a distinct distaste for black women and openly requested other races. “You know,” she emailed back, “I think you have it harder. I don’t have to worry about the race thing.” I responded to her that I had to find something funny in every encounter because if I did not laugh, I would cry.

This is frustrating and demeaning and my self esteem is taking a beating. We’re about to have a MAN DOWN situation!

The answer, instead of giving some of these dudes a dose of reality and a roundhouse kick to the throat is to lower our standards. Don’t be afraid to date the plumber, the cable installer, the trash man.  He got bills, 2 teeth, no car and lives with his mama? Girl, you better be lucky a black dude wants you! That is a good man! Let me just say, here, that single does not equal eligible. Mkay? Don’t make me pop somebody.

Or… the answer du jour… go outside of our race. Date other races of people. This would be an awesome answer if I lived in a city (and a time) where men of other races were vying to date me. Dating a man that isn’t black seems to be harder– harder to find him, a challenge to keep him without becoming the spokesperson for my race. And really, I love me some Eminem, but I am not looking for a white version of a black guy.  The idea doesn’t scare me.  I’ve dated outside my race, but I moved to Atlanta so that it wouldn’t be the only way I got a date. Ya know? Alas, I did open my profile to all races.  As Green eyes would put it, I’m now down with the swirl. I immediately got some……..savory characters. We’ll see what happens.

I’m frustrated, though. I feel like I am being asked to bend over backward and step completely out of my comfort zone so HE can be comfortable. That’s just wrong. Inside my head, it’s wrong.

It would be so much easier if I just deleted my profile and quit trying.

But my Chocolate Nerd! He’s out there! I know he is!

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.

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!

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.

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 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.

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! ;)

*

The whole nerd, mousy thing did not go away when I went to college. I was social with my roommate, the students I worked with, co workers. I was never into the college party scene. I wasn’t a drinker or a smoker or a dater. My friends tended to be nerdy, quiet people. I was just happy to be out of the house and away from home– I wasn’t really thinking about going wild. I had moved out and then moved back when it turned out that I wasn’t allowed to stay in the apartment my friends had, and was moving out again. In an odd show of closeness, my parents drove me to the University and dropped me off.  I was supposed to go off to school and become a teacher. One of the best teaching programs in the nation is at a University not far from my hometown. My college town was only about 25 miles away. I wasn’t going far.

A few days after I moved into my dorm room, met my roommate, had my experience with group feeding, otherwise known as The Commons (where, by the way, I could eat cereal for dinner, if I wanted. HEAVEN), I noticed a guy kind of hanging around up on the main floor. He seemed to be waiting for me when I came upstairs to check my mail. He was on the maintenance crew; I think he wore overalls with the University logo on them. I managed to chat with him off and on and he was friendly. He was from Africa. I know some of you know where this is going.

In my experience, Africans have a different method of approaching women and relating to them. They are aggressive and straightforward. I found them to be pushy and brash and overly eager. I am sure they have sentiments about black American women. The similar skin color gives a false sense of familiarity and closeness. The cultural difference creates a giant crevasse.

He lived in an apartment off campus but since he worked for the University, he was around a lot. One evening, he was hanging around the dorms and stopped by to see me. I would never let him in my room, mostly because I had a roommate, and because I didn’t want to be trapped in a room with a man. We talked in the hall, and after awhile, I begged off because I had to study. There was an interior door, a stairwell, and then the exterior door. He cornered me in the stairwell, between the two doors, leaned into kiss me and palmed both of my breasts. And squeezed.

I have always had a pretty rockin’ rack but no one had ever touched me there. All of a sudden everything my mom ever told me and everything I had ever been afraid of popped up in my mind. I was pretty sure I was about to be attacked or something. He scared me so bad I punched him and ran. He didn’t even know me and he put his hands on me. The groan that came out of him was… ugh. I wanted to throw up and I felt like I had done something wrong.

Weeks later at a campus dance, he sidled up beside me. All smiles and laughs and grabby hands. There was alcohol on his breath. I was disgusted. I pulled away from him and tried to walk away. He grabbed my arm roughly, tightly.  I pulled harder, yelling over the music, and he let go. I left him standing in the middle of the gathering room-cum-dance hall, left the dance and ran back to my room. I never saw him again. That was the last campus dance that I attended except for a Homecoming dance that I would attend much later.

The next four years were full of classes and work and friends, movies and papers and campus activities, ski trips and working with English language programs. I had friends, even some guy friends. A few guy friends I liked as more than a friend, but the feeling was never mutual. That was when I started hearing the phrase that stars in my nightmares: I just like you as a friend. If I never hear that phrase ever again, it will be too soon. I do anything and everything to avoid hearing it. You don’t have to say it. I already know.

I got through my entire college experience, the post-college crap jobs, the tiny apartment,  the beat up car, the “searching for the meaning of life” phases without so much as a hormone-ridden backseat make out session. I had never been kissed. I had never had sex. A man had never seen my body. I had never seen a fully grown nude male. I was so, so behind, but at around age 24, I’d say, I was catching up.

I finally got pretty.

I’m not saying that to be vain. I’m just saying that I knew, growing up, that I wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t even cute. I am legally blind and I have to wear glasses to correct my vision. There were no such thing as thin lenses when I was growing up. I wore big pink coke bottle glasses that were entirely too huge for my face.  I had buck teeth and an overbite and scoliosis, so everything hung off of my body in a weird way. I was always sort of in my own mind, so I never had any idea about fashion or trends. I couldn’t buy those clothes anyway, so there was no sense in paying attention to them. I wore donated clothes from people who had grown out of their stuff and were buying new things. All through high school I wore what was called a ‘Care Free Curl’ which was like a jheri curl but wasn’t drippy and wet. What it really amounted to was an afro me because I didn’t really know how to manage it.  I alternated between a Curly hairdo and braids. I have a Tyra Banks FiveHead © (a forehead so big it’s really a fivehead), so I just had an altogether weird face, odd shape, lost and nerdy look about me. I was never surprised that boys didn’t like me.

It took me until I was in my 20′s to grow into my head (though I still have a Fivehead, I just don’t care, lol or I cover it with bangs)  and my buck teeth and my big ass and big boobs and hourglass shape. I learned how to do my hair. I got new glasses that fit my face. I started wearing makeup (I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup when I lived at home and at college I just never found the time to learn how). I had braces my last two years of high school, which helped considerably with the buck teeth. I had a great job and I was having fun, which helped immensely with confidence. When I looked in the mirror, I was starting to like what I saw staring back at me.

I was 25 when I experienced my first kiss. He was almost twice my age. I had NO business messing with him.

I was working for a group of AM/FM radio stations, owned by a TV station. MB worked in the creative department—if I remember right, he made all of the graphics that are used on-air during a broadcast. He was well into his 40’s. White guy. Kind of short. Thin. Funny. He and I would talk at station gatherings. He must have sensed my naiveté, because as soon as he found an opportunity, he pounced.

What I didn’t know was that MB had recently spent some time away from work, at a treatment center for drugs and alcohol. He was a big time talent in New York, had been married, and had a great home, nice car, bright future. Life would have been great, except he snorted it all away. His marriage, his family, his home, all gone thanks to his cocaine habit. He was back in Podunk, WA, living with his parents in his childhood home, working for this small time TV station.

It was humiliating for him to be back working local news after working for a major station in NYC. He was unhappy. He was in recovery. He was looking for someone to hang onto, I guess. Use up some time and energy. Everyone else at the station seemed to be hip to his game. I was the only one, apparently, who didn’t know. I love how no one said anything until after it was over. I was so, so naïve.

The details of how I came to be spending time with him are jumbled in my mind. This happened over ten years ago. Some things I remember like it happened yesterday. Some things I can’t seem to remember no matter how hard I try. I remember we were extra friendly right before the company Christmas party. He was making the video that they showed at the end of the party every year and I stopped in to watch it. We sat really close on the couch in his office. He laid a hand on my thigh and I thought my heart was going to explode, it was beating so fast. It took everything in me not to get up and run out. I probably should have.

After the annual party, I’d stop in and see him in his office if I happened to be walking by. His office was on the way to the front desk and I had to go to the front desk 10-12 times a day to deliver prizes to radio contest winners. I don’t remember if we talked on the phone first or… what… but he ended up at my house one night. We sat and talked and watched TV. Casual

He tried to kiss me. I pulled away. He tried again. I pulled away. He asked me what was wrong. I said I didn’t know how to kiss. He laughed and laughed and then realized that I was serious. I know it’s not rocket surgery, and it’s mostly instinct but still, I didn’t know how. He tried to talk me into it, said it was natural and easy and I’d like it. Press, press, press. I don’t do pressure. The more you try to press me into doing something, the less likely I am to do it. He was pushing so hard that I was completely turned off and I made him leave.

I rolled into bed that night feeling really stupid and amateur and immature. I felt about 12 yrs old. I was 25 and had never been kissed and some guy wanted to kiss me and I wouldn’t let him.

The next night, or a few nights later, he was back. This time, I let him kiss me. It was okay. Really, just okay. Some lips on mine. Alright. I felt nothing. Probably should have been some kind of sign? And then I let him really kiss me, tongue and all. And that was okay, too. I’ve been told that I’ve never really been kissed if I don’t enjoy it, but I think I have been kissed enough to know that I just don’t like it. I have issues, and I am averse to saliva (even my own) and most of the time, guys can’t kiss. It’s just a fact, jack. When I meet someone new, I have to brace myself for the kissing. Oh my GOD, I am weird. Well, we made out for awhile and then his hands started to wander and against my better judgment, I let him creep up under my shirt.

Over the next week or so, I saw a lot of him. And I don’t mean that we had a lot of dates. :/ I had never seen an erect penis before. He happily showed me his. I remember asking if it hurt. *shrug* He laughed at me! I do remember that after this guy, I stopped asking questions and started doing my own research. I guess it was pretty weird for a woman in her mid twenties to ask such a juvenile question. I just… didn’t know. Anyway, he also saw some of me, but only the top half. The bottom always stays covered.

The things happened with MB were all about him. It was about him getting what he wanted and he wasn’t, at all, concerned about me. I was basically just some titillation for him.

One of the statistics that the Sextistics special talked about, that I really wanted to see was the section on the effect of an orgasm on the brain. Drug addicts are known to develop rampant and sometimes deviant sexual behaviors after or during recovery. I watched this happen with a friend of mine. The list of her sexual partners tops 100. I’m not sure if it’s still climbing, but man or woman, married or single, she’s done them. This person now claims to be a sex addict. I don’t know about all of that, I just know that sex seems to become a huge deal to an addict because an orgasm affects the same part of the brain that a cocaine high would. When MB pleasured himself, it fed the same part of his brain that cocaine fed. The high would not be as intense, but it would be the release he was looking for.

MB was fiending. He needed me to get off, to get his high. It was like he was using, all over again. He was using me. I was none the wiser.

After awhile though, I got tired of him. He was unavailable until he decided he needed to come over. We couldn’t be ‘out’ at work and he wasn’t all that affectionate. He wasn’t particularly interested in me or my life or the details thereof. It was really all about him. He would come over, talk me out of my top and bra, and masturbate. I got nothing out of it at all, just some bad kissing. Not even an orgasm. He didn’t even touch me, just looked. Then had the nerve to call and ask if I would ‘dress up’ for him. LOL WHUT?

I was frustrated, since I had an idea that there should be much, much more to this. We stopped seeing each other in early 1999. It was relatively painless, but he avoided me most of the time after that.

One Saturday morning in May of that same year I got a call from my Supervisor. MB had collapsed that morning and was unable to be revived. We suspect he had been dabbling in cocaine again in the previous months. Maybe drinking again, too. After being clean for awhile, going back to it must have been an intense, incredible high. His already damaged heart couldn’t take it. I attended my first Catholic funeral. It was surreal, watching that casket roll by.

I certainly felt sad for him but, I can’t say that I felt guilty or anything. I had long since figured that there was nothing I could have done for him. I got no joy out of what we did. In my mind it was pretty much good riddance. I saw him every day after we stopped seeing each other and felt nothing.

That experience awakened something in me, though. If that guy could want to be with me, surely there were others.  I would locate these ‘others’ and have experiences!  I didn’t enjoy the kissing much, but I liked being kissed, if that made sense. I liked the expectation of feelings coming and I liked being close to someone. And while MB was relatively harmless anyway, I had gone through, albeit short, an evolution of a relationship and come out unscathed. I was primed to try it again. It was exciting to me, deciding that I could set aside so much of what I thought and believed about men.

I started dating, after that. Since I was quiet and shy, I tried the online dating thing. It would allow me to get to know men before I had to meet them and talk to them. The problem was that my hometown is kind of a small town that is spread out. There really aren’t a lot of men to choose from, and few of those are black. Few of those black men wanted to date black women. If the woman was black, she had to be thin, athletic, bubbly personality– even if he was 5’2, had one leg shorter than the other, a  dried up jheri curl, three missing teeth, a lazy eye and a job as a security guard. I kid you not– the sense of entitlement among ugly men is astounding.

The hardest part about dating, for me, was… the dating. I didn’t know how to have fun with a guy. I didn’t know how to talk to them- what kinds of things was I supposed to say? I didn’t know how to be charming and mysterious. I had no clue how to flirt. I spent every date with my mental dukes up, waiting to fight him off. I was just always wary that he was going to try to have sex with me. And oh my God, that is an awful thing, isn’t it, for a man to want that? For a long time, I was absolutely offended that a man wanted to have sex with me.

I realized, years later, that it wasn’t about the sex. It was that I didn’t feel special. He didn’t know me and he wanted me to lay down with him and let him violate me. And then? Nothing. It would mean nothing and be about nothing. He would pick up his clothes and tiptoe out and I’d never hear from him again and there I’d be with my slightly used virginity hangin’ out.  To me, that was a waste of my time and affection. At that point I couldn’t just go to bed with someone. I had to know and trust him enough to even want to be alone with him. And maybe that wasn’t fair to him, but that’s how it was, for me. Maybe it wasn’t fair to me for anyone to expect me to lay back and spread my legs without knowing anything about me. I’m not a machine.

I knew what they wanted by how fast they ran away. I met person after person after person, each who immediately fell off of the edge of the planet the minute they found out I was a virgin. By this point, I was too old to toss it away on some horny ass who wouldn’t remember my name the next week. I wasn’t hard up for sex at all, so I wasn’t giving it up just to have it.

I didn’t want anyone wasting my time, but I wanted to at least get a few dates in before he ran away. Maybe he could just get to know me and decide I was worth the wait, or something. I varied the approach I would take in revealing my “situation”. Sometimes I’d wait a few dates to tell him. Sometimes I’d tell him up front. Sometimes I’d wait awhile. No matter. The second he found out, the shoulders sagged, the eyes closed, the chest heaved a sigh, and I got the gentle hand pat and the words that are supposed to be warm and comforting, but amount to nothing. Platitudes that are supposed to make me feel better. Something about how I will meet a man who will really appreciate that, someday. Awesome. What you’re saying, without saying it, is that you’re not that man.

What amazed me, I think, was how sex has become some sort of ritual in dating. It’s up there with the first kiss, now. You meet someone, exchange numbers, talk, meet for a drink, have sex. There is nothing in between. There is no getting to know me, there is no making sure I am comfortable with you, there is no span of time for us to become close enough to share a bed. I used to say I wasn’t having sex until marriage. Then I said I wasn’t having sex until I loved him.

Now? I don’t know. I’m not having sex until I’m ready. But for my first time, I am most definitely not hopping into bed with someone after only knowing them for 13 hours. This situation complicates dating like you wouldn’t believe… and it led to my decision to stop dating altogether.

But that will come later. It took a lot of experiences to get to that point and make that decision.

Post September 11, the economy anywhere, everywhere, but especially in my small town were so many companies had moved their headquarters because the Inland Northwest was cheap, was dismal and dropping. People were being laid off left and right. The company I was working for was slowly going under. I couldn’t compete in the market. And I couldn’t find a damn MAN. So I decided to bring my behind on down to Georgia.

I had a million reasons to move to Georgia. The sun and warmth was the biggest, because I suffer from S.A.D and I needed longer days and warm weather. It starts getting dark at 3:30 in the winter back home. By 4:30 it is pitch black outside. I could not spend another winter in a corner of the closet sobbing my head off. I had to leave or I was going to kill myself.

I was immediately giddy about my choice. I was encouraged by the possibility of starting over with a Big Sexy New Life, far and away from my family. I could wipe the slate clean. I could live a diferent life and be a different person and be vibrant and successful. I really wanted that. I really wanted to shed the former me.

The other reason was that black men here date black women. This is not to say that I am against interracial dating. While I do have some issues with the reasoning behind a person exclusively dating outside their race, I am not against it at all. I have done it and if I met a man who was not black that I liked and got along with, would happily do it again. I think my only issue was the same with the African men that I met– the cultural differences can create such a divide. Unless there is openness and understanding and a willingness to accept and learn, these things can drive people apart. I’ve seen many a successful interracial couple, and– confession– my heart smiles when I see a black woman with a white man. You go girl, it says to her. We hear so much about a) how black men don’t want black women and b) how white men are afraid of black women, that seeing that combination out destroying myths and stereotypes gives me hope.

There’s something about a black man, though. I can’t and won’t apologize for being attracted to and wanting a man of my own race. If I listen to ABC news and every other survey/self help book/Oprah broadcast, the chances of me finding my Chocolate Nerd, and him wanting to marry me and stay faithful to me for the rest of our lives is slim. Even slimmer is the chance that he’ll have hair, teeth, any kind of relationship with his mother/father but those are other subjects…. In the words of one of my new favorite blogs, though… Hope Dies Last. I choose to hope. I’m holding out for my Chocolate Nerd. I’d take a Vanilla one, though, if he comes first. I’m just saying.

I thought, when I moved to Georgia and I had established my Big Sexy New Life, that things would change for me. I would have more opportunities and more dates and I would be able to grow and flourish. For the most part, in every area but where men are concerned, I have. I drove to Georgia this same week 7 years ago. I am a completely different person than I was in ’03.

I’m still changing and growing, but that feels good, at least.

Coming soon: Getting Down To The Nitty Gritty

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:

So, using my regular old household broom, I dug my car out from a crusted cap of about 4 inches of snow on Saturday morning, and then started it up so it could get warm and traipsed on down to CVS.  I swear, CVS is my favorite store, ever. They almost know me by name there. Whenever I just need two things, I go to CVS.  You know how Target is the $100 store? CVS is the $50 store. I always buy way too many things.

Anyhoo, I walked in and they had a lovely display of fresh flowers for sale. Some lovely Asian lillies, some roses, some mixtures. They were beautiful. Made me wish I was getting some. And then I thought, ‘well I could buy them for myself. That wouldn’t be loser-ish. Would it?’ The more I circled the table and looked at the pretty flowers and smelled them the more I liked the idea of getting some. And then I looked at the price tag. Yeah, I didn’t really want to buy flowers for myself at that price.

What I do love, and what I rarely buy for myself for some reason, are the scented soaps and lotions– you know, the ones you usually get from Bath and Body Works that give people headaches. I recently got a set from B&BW called Moonlit Path because someone gave me a gift card. I wore it last fall when my friends “The Twins” came to Atlanta. One of them kept asking me what I was wearing and said she wanted to jump my bones. I take that as a compliment of the highest order.

I decided to look around and see if I found something I liked and if I did, I’d buy a set and call it my Valentine’s Day present. Giddy– because I really do love smell goods– I walked up and down the aisles looking and sniffing and testing and trying. Putting some in my cart, then changing my mind and putting some back. Spraying some body mist into the air and sniffing it, trying another and yet another. I think I spent about an hour just in the shower gels and fragrant scents aisle.  This is my brand of fun.

I only went to CVS for some toilet paper and maybe a diet pepsi. I spent $60. *SIGH* God, I love that store.

Normally when I buy myself things, I can’t wait to get home and tear it apart and use it. I don’t buy things to stock them up– I buy according to need, so if I bought it, I probably needed it yesterday. But this was special, for a specific day, so I would have something to open, so I got home and put away my booty and didn’t let myself look at it until this morning. I woke up all excited and walked into my dining room to see this:

I wish there was really Lush in that bag, but that place gives me a headache. It was still exciting to see the bag on my countertop.

Inside was some yummy stuff– smell goods and taste goods:

I got myself a set of body wash, lotion, body mist and body butter. The scent is Apple Pomegranate– normally I don’t like to smell like food, but this scent is decadent, and really light. It was love at first sniff. I smelled everything to see if anything else smelled a good as that did. It did not, so I got it. I also got some lip butter but I opened it yesterday….oops… And my favorite cookie in the whole world are Lorna Doone shortbreads. And I also got some gummy hearts. YUM! *clap*

It will be an enjoyable day. The sun is shining, I think it’s above freezing,  and Lionel Richie is on Private Sessions on A&E. *flips my bic…. or turns on my Blackberry and swaaaaaaayyyyss*

My birthday is coming up soon… I can’t wait to see what I get me!

Happy Love Day to everyone!

]]> http://diaryofcurvyjones.com/2010/personal/curvy-jones-onskys-the-limit-when-youre-your-own-valentine/feed/ 3 http://diaryofcurvyjones.com/2010/personal/curvy-jones-on-sixty-dollar-sex/ http://diaryofcurvyjones.com/2010/personal/curvy-jones-on-sixty-dollar-sex/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:30:22 +0000 Curvy Jones http://diaryofcurvyjones.com/?p=479

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?”

I say, “Uh. I have tried it. Twice.”

She says, “But you might meet some nice people. Maybe a good friend.”

I said, “eH is not the kind of place where you meet friends. Have you even ever been there?”

“Nope,” she says. “What do you mean? Is it expensive?”

“Go to the site. Check it and see. I’ll wait.”

A few minutes later, I see that GreenEyes is typing, and the most hilarious message pops up. “SHIT! They want damn near  $60!”

I proceeded to laugh so hard I nearly fell out of the bed. “Do you see, now, why I’d never sign up just to meet friends? Does it SEEM like a place you’d meet friends?”

“Hell no!” She types, rather quickly. “For that kind of money, I better meet Mr Right! I mean REALLY MEET Mr Right! $60!”

“Right? And for $60, he better be handsome too. We better have a really great date.”

“Shit, for $60 we better have some sex.”

“Right,” I agree. “Good sex, too. Not that “TGI Fridays Appetizer Platter and Fernbank Museum Imax Movie” sex. Not that cheap stuff.  The GOOD stuff.”

“Exactly. For $60, we need the good sex.”

“Not the half ass $39.99 sex you get with Yahoo or Match.”

“Hell naw. Ima need tricks and shit for $60.  Some acrobatics. Some showing off. $60! DAAAAMN!”

And so, since then, eH has come to be known as “$60 sex”.

Well, this weekend “$60 Sex” is having an free communication weekend. Just in time for you to desperately zip your way through hundreds of tricky questions designed to define your entire personality. 26 DIMENSIONS, you guys. 26! 25 is to few. 27 is too many. Ahhhhhhhh 26 Dimensions, I feel really good about. And if, by chance, you make it through and wait the oh, HOUR it takes for them to toss up some (probably  fake) matches (designed to make you feel good), you might actually secure a last minute date for Valentine’s Day. With a preacher.  From South Carolina.

GreenEyes didn’t learn her lesson the last time. She made mention of the free Communication Weekend (aka, nice try but we don’t have anyone for you, try back conveniently after the Free Communication Weekend is over and by the way please pay $59.99 or you can’t talk to anyone).

I said, “Yeah. Go on over there and get you some $60 Sex.”

“Not gonna do it, “she says. “Not gonna pay more than $35.”

“Nope,” I said. “eH is $60! A MONTH. Or no sex.”

“No payment plans? Can I put a deposit down? Buy Here Pay Here?”

“No, that’s called prostitution.  They’re classy. No prostitution. $60 Sex is for the Elite.”

“I guess that’s outta my price range.”

“LMFAO. Hey, Facebook has some Jews for you, if you’re interested. They’re always suggesting Jews for me.”

The scourge of not having a Valentine and being desperate enough to log onto that site with any glimmer of hope of  finding someone? $60

Friends that help you laugh it off, make light of it, and even help you feel normal about having to sit on your fingers so you don’t try it AGAIN? Priceless.

Is it Feb 15th yet?

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

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.

I felt creepy, really creepy but it was there, all out in the open. It was like reading a book, the story of her life. So many things that Sarah had to say about life and love and men and people, I felt the same! I wanted the same things! I felt the same way! I had the same fears and haven’t had nearly the relationship troubles that she’s gone through.

I often feel really really alone. I know that I’m not, but sometimes I’m really self centered and I really think that I am the only one that feels what I feel and knows what  go through. It’s such a quiet, lonely place to be and sometimes I just need to know that other people have felt the same way.  That in some parts and pieces of my life, I am actually normal. Imagine that. Me? NORMAL! WOO!

So, I wanted to post a thank you. Not sure if she’ll ever see it but I’m linking the hell out of this post, and I know she’s up on looking up stats and stuff, so I’ll just wave ‘hi’ and keep pushing. And thank her for opening up at least part of her life, even if the blog was more therepeutic than rambling entertainment.  I don’t doubt that it has helped more people than you realize. You should be VERY proud of yourself. You’ve come a long, long way.

That’s it.

We’re revamping our website at work and our web guru dude insists on writing. He can’t write. But it’s easier to edit than to make it up, so in some ways I’m grateful. Anyway, I have a lot of writing to do, so I’m off!

Have a super day!

Curvy Jones

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.

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).

Then the internet became slightly more available and with it came the abundance of websites taking over cyberspace, including dating sites. They were kind of hokey and clunky, but I remember logging into Yahoo! Personals (remember when it was free??? Wow…) and reading through some ads, kind of amazed at it all. Felt the same about Match when it launched. And Love@Aol! SIGH. The good ole days.

With the rise in convenience and reduction in price of the home computer, it became even easier to get online.  Now any creep or weirdo or psycho or perv with a phone line and a computer could log into the internet. Add cable internet and WHOA!  Internet trolling at high speeds!

All this innovation really meant that people could get more done in less time, thus creating empty space in which to fill more things. Suddenly we’re so busy we don’t know if we’re coming or going, and if we see ourselves on the way out, we should ask us what we’re having for dinner. We’re caught up in the world and being a swinging single, which is great when you’re young and footloose and fancy free. But the older we get, the less likely we (women at least.. okay ME! ) are interested in bouncing around from person to person, testing the waters and giving of oneself over and over to gain nothing in the end but a dent in the couch the size of your last man. We (I) wanted someone to spend quality time with.

But we (I) was shy. Terribly. And socially awkward and kind of a nerd. Gone were the days where I would feel comfortable online, a nerd among nerds. Now there were jocks and teachers and scientists and bankers. People who were more cultured or more sophisticated, made more money, lived in better areas, drove better cars. And those were just the men. I always check out the competition. There was a lot of it. Women with longer hair and whiter teeth and brighter eyes and thinner figures, who were comfortable with themselves and their bodies, and not ashamed to have a racy tagline.

Well, I bit the bullet and did it. And for more than ten years kept doing it. Over the course of those years, I met some nice guys. Happy to say I was never kidnapped, no one ever stole from me. The guys I met were the guys I expected to meet online: the slightly-less-than-handsome, the totally geeky never-had-a girlfriend, the I-don’t-know-what-I-want. Which was fine, because I was awkward, slightly-less-beautiful-than-a-supermodel, nowhere-near-thin, totally-geeky, never-had-a-boyfriend-before, had-no-idea-what-I-wanted-or-what-I-was-doing.

I also met the jerk, the guy only looking for thin/white/lightskinned/exotical girls, the guy only looking for sex, the “Christian” who could have been classified as a gigolo, the guy who was brutally honest  (“yeah you look fatter in person”), the guy who cried… a lot…and the one that I thought I fell in love with.

When that last one and I broke up… via email, mind you… after a whirlwind four months in which I thought I was the luckiest girl ever, I never made it back onto the online dating horse. I found it hard to open myself up again. Call it walls, call it being leery or careful or safe, but yahoo!personals and match.com and ugh…ehscamyourmoney just didn’t hold the same appeal. I felt like I was meeting the same guy with a different face, and they all wanted something from me without having to give up so much as a middle name. I felt uncomfortable and like I should be thankful someone was even interested in talking to me because, especially in Atlanta, men were seeing the droves of women coming at them and figuring out that there are more of us than there are of them. They didn’t really have to work that hard for attention and were definitely believing their own hype. In fact I had one guy tell me, “what you won’t do, 101 other women will. You’re lucky I chose you to talk to. It’s up to you.” I chose to walk away.

After a few blah, boring, lame dates filled with the toothless, the bald, the dirty, the boring, the ‘oh, I forgot to tell you about my daughter that I haven’t mentioned in the three weeks we’ve been talking for several hours a day’, I decided to hang up my mouse and call it quits. I was done with online dating– I wasn’t finding what I was looking for, it was a waste of money and time, and I really felt like I wasn’t what anyone else was looking for, either. I can meet a man in the grocery aisle just as easy as I can meet a man at Match.

I have… for some reason… one last profile up. And I can’t delete it. I don’t even like the site, really. It’s free, so it’s really klunky and simplistic.  I’ve never really found anyone there that I really wanted to talk to or interested me… except the man I thought I was in love with.

It’s become fuzzy, after a few years, but I remember just nonchalantly tossing up a line.  The usual picture and a paragraph and after it was approved was the usual wait. Wait to be noticed, wait for someone to have the balls to contact me, wait to check their profile and see if they looked crazy.  This handsome chocolate thing with light brown eyes sent me a message. “Hi.”

He had me at Hi, ya’ll.

I answered back. And he answered back, and two hours later, we were still chatting. The next night we moved to AIM. And three nights later we moved to talking on the phone. That weekend we met. And he was awesome. So cute, very quiet, funny, very much a gentleman. I couldn’t believe my luck. Our first date was cool– we went to the Martin Luther King Center tour, then lunch, then neither of us felt like ending the date so we got some movies and went back to my condo. I have no idea how Hotel Rwanda ends…. we were busy. (Mind you, we didn’t ‘get busy’ but… yeah. Busy). Later we watched Anchorman and laughed until we were sliding off the couch onto the floor. Our second date was the next day. We went to a movie-Crash, one of my faves– in which he held my hand and lent me his jacket because I was cold. We took a walk through Piedmont and got some ice cream at Cold Stone and went back to my apartment because the NBA playoffs were on. Bliss. I was in heaven.

He was my first. Boyfriend, love, person to really care about me in that way. For awhile I really thought he was The One. I don’t think he thought that, though… because at about month three, right as I’m feeling really comfortable and really start to open up, he starts to change. Or maybe he starts to revert back to the old him. No matter… the man I was dragging through our relationship was not the man I met. He became standoffish and inconsiderate. I always felt like it just……wasn’t enough. I hated that feeling that I wasn’t getting enough from him. He was always at arms length, emotionally.

When it fell apart, I was devastated. It took a long time to get over him and to not think about him or talk about him. I kept his emails forever, years after. I always delete the phone number in the first few hours, so I don’t call him.  There were pieces of him all over, though. Pieces I kept around, to remind me of him, remind me of how I felt and how I was able to let myself even consider being in love, remind me of how I felt when I thought he loved me. And to remind me how, if it was that great when it wasn’t right, how much greater it will be when it IS right. When it WILL be enough. When he WILL love me.

So, that site sort of has a special meaning for me. Maybe I feel like I’ll meet another HIM there. But the real Him. Or maybe I’ll see him there, again and he’ll be all ‘I should have never let you go, we could have been married by now’ and I’d be all ‘well we all make mistakes, wanna start over?’ and he’d be all ‘yeah, sure’ and we’d live happily ever after. Or not.

Every Monday, I get a piece of HIM in my mailbox. I get an email from that site, saying ‘new matches, take a look!’ I never look. I know, for sure, there’s no one there I’m interested in talking to. It’s the memory, the piece of him, the feeling I’m reminded of, once a week.

I need to unsubscribe from this site. I can’t seem to let it go. I shall challenge myself to do this. I’ve deleted all the email, all the pictures. Long since deleted the texts and voicemails. This is the last piece.

Letting go of this piece means I am 100% free of my memory of him. No more reminders. Clean slate and things like that.

And then I can really rebuild and heal and try to tear down the walls I have up… not about him, just in general. I want nothing more than to be open and loving.

I find this incredibly impossible at the moment. I want it to change.

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.

I have been doing some writing, chipping away at my ‘Get Your Words Out’ word count goal for 2010. My YTD goal at the moment is just over 20,000 words. Not too shabby. I need to write ~25,500 words a month to keep up. That doesn’t include NaNo in November, which will give me about two months of wordcount by nature, so I’m not worried if I don’t hit that number, some months. Just aiming for it is good enough for me.

One of the things I wanted to do this year was write more SHORT stories. Drabbles and snips and pieces, so I’ve started entering blog contests. These usually aren’t all that serious. The prize is nothing more than your work appearing on a blog, but it would be nice to be ‘featured’ like that, so I am gonna go for that, a few times a month. I entered my first contest today. I’ll find out the results at the end of January. I enjoyed writing the piece though and I’m really happy that I was able to wrap it up in a few thousand words and not have it drone on and on.

Much like this blog post.

Last weekend, a friend and I made our fangirl dreams come true by launching StillNsync. Yes, it’s what you think it is, a fansite that answers all your ‘whatever happened to that one guy that used to be in Nsync’ questions. It’s fun and we’re pretty proud of it. It’s been a feverish, long suffering, labor of love and we have much more to come. As fans of a group that doesn’t exist, we feel like maybe we’ll be able to catch up with all the stuff out there, and have one central place for fans to come and remember and celebrate and squee and sing along and download.

I’ve also been busy doing some reading. Music and books really help me in my writing. I always feel like my brain needs to be fed and my creativity needs to be nourished. When I don’t read for awhile and I am watching too much TV and not really even thinking at all, my writing suffers. Not just the quality but the ease in which the words come to me… I just feel dry. So I’ve been watering my brain. I review the books I read on my writing blog. Recently I’ve read:

Sugar – Bernice McFadden

Her Fearful Symmetry- Audrey Niffenegger

Rainwater- Sandra Brown

I’m hoping to add to the short list of books I’ve read by reviewing what I read. It really helps me think in terms of an author and a writer. I read books once for content and enjoyment and again for structure and style and seeing how each author puts their story together, weaves it into a fabric, and then gives it back.  Mmmm. Love it. Hoping I’ll see my name on the spine of a book someday.

What else? Hmmm.

Yeah, so. My dad, I think, is not well. I don’t think my mom is, either, but she puts on a good front. He calls, pretty frequently now, just to hear my voice. He talks a lot about being worried about me because I don’t ‘do’ family. I’m a loner and always have been. I love people until they’re near me, and then after awhile I kind of want you to go away. That’s bad, I know. It is the way I am and I gave up trying to change me or apologize for being me awhile ago. Life is a lot less stressful when I’m not trying to be someone else.  I dont know how my brother is getting away with not having to deal with them, too. I kind of feel like they’re heavily leaning on me and he’s not pulling his weight in helping to lift them up. It’s been two years. I’m TIRED.

SIGH.

Work is… work. Busy, thankfully. I don’t like being bored at work, pretending to be working but not really doing anything. That’s stressful, too. I’d rather just be busy. Makes the day go faster.

I’m still fat. I still kind of don’t care. I’m still trying to decide if I’m ready to do something about it. Not sure yet. I bought some accessories and things but… it’ll be a waste of time and money if I’m not ready.

So, it’s been all over twitter and the internet and such,  this mysterious statistic about black women and marriage and how the two shall NEVER meet and black men hate us and they all want to marry white women and blah blah BLAH. You’ve read it, you’ve seen it, you’re as tired as I am of it, but like me, you can’t help but kind of laugh. My Twitterpals and I have made kind of a running joke of it, which is really the only way I can deal with the every 3 months, like clockwork report about how much black women suck and how much we’re doomed doomed DOOMED, OMGWTFBBQ.

I think this is all a ploy. Therapists and retailers and self help book writers and Ben & Jerry’s are all conspiring together to keep themselves rolling in dough. When we start to calm down and shop less and eat less and read fewer ‘How to Catch a Damn Man Already, You’re Not Getting Any Younger’ books, they release another report, which is supposed to send us flying back into the streets to start the cycle all over again. Well. Yeah.

I’m on to you people. Not falling for it this time.

I think that’s it, from this corner of life. I hope to have a more exciting update for you next time! Or not. *shrug*

CurvyJones

Sometimes I just don’t like people. I just don’t. A lot of times it’s because sometimes things come out of their mouths that are so…………..mindboggling.

One of the blogs I follow through my handy dandy google reader is Lost in Brook Lynne. I love to read blogs by people who engage me, make me think without trying to sound smart or deep or introspective by spouting off things no one else understands. I recently found Brook and enjoy her posts and perspective. So, in her most recent post, entitled “I beg your pardon?” and I kinda have to agree. Really? Really.

She writes:

“I doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship. … Neither Brad nor I have ever claimed that living together means being chained together. We make sure that we never restrict each other.” -Angelina Jolie.

Well, well, well. Let me find out, Miss Angelina. I won’t say if I agree or disagree, because I am not married, nor in an exclusive relationship. But, I will say, as of late, women are willing to do more and more to keep a relationship together. Including but not limited to, being more lenient with infidelity.

-blink blink-

Oh well, the quote makes it seem as though she is doing her thing too. So, in case you’re wondering how this glorious happy couple works, there you have it.

Scary, right?

(source)

Yeah. Scary isn’t quite the word for it. So, really… I could meet a man, have his kids, even adopt some kids with him and be totally happy… all I have to do to keep up the bliss is not marry him and give him the freedom to cheat? And I get to cheat, too?

BONUS!!! SIKE.

If that’s being happy in a relationship…. Singlehood, FTMFW.

Not only scary but really disheartening. More and more I’m afraid/convinced/100percentpositive that what I want (fidelity, loyalty, love unconditionally, best friend, all that) doesn’t exist. Not when this is out there and we let people think this is how people make it work. This is how happy couples survive. This is how it’s done.

Another of my fave couples, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett are rumored to follow the same policy– open marriage. I just can’t… iCan’t. I’m a good sharer– of crayons and play dough and toys. Not of people. I’m selfish with people. Especially people I feel I could spend my life with. Everyday I am faced with something new that says, ‘sure he’ll be with you, but not just with YOU‘.

These things are getting hard to ignore.

Finderskeepers, No Takebacks, man.