Karma and I...we's a BITCH

I realize this brief, bitter, cold post will hammer home the sense that I'm a real bitch....but you know what? So's karma. And why is karma a bitch? Because karma keeps it real. Because it reminds us that none of us are immune to life's hardships, that none of us can get away with dishing out the bad only to receive the good in return. It sounds more to me like karma's life's vigilante, out to remind us that we're mortal and vulnerable, after all. If that's a bitch, then I'm happy to be one.

Like Single Librarian, my good friend and co-blogger, I also occasionally think about my last true love. But Single Librarian is, I'm quite confident, a better person than me. I broke up with my ex, for the first time almost two years ago and for the last time almost a year ago, and I still to this day feel my blood boil at the mention of his name. So when a mutual friend shared with me that my ex was be heading to Cabo last week on a vacation to an all-inclusive resort to which I had introduced him, and to which I begged him to take me only to hear repeatedly "I can't afford it," I just about lost it. Seriously? It felt like just another petty, immature snub so typical of him, another demonstration of his all-consuming selfishness. I heard through the grapevine that he had posted online: "heading to CABO!!! I sooo deserve this." I just about came through my skin. Really? You, who emotionally abused me and tried to control me and couldn't get around your own needs and desires, you? You DESERVE the vacation you promised and then denied me repeatedly for years? Right.

But karma finally came a knocking. And I don't mean that karma was alive in the repeated tearful phone calls and late night texts  he sent to me over the last year (yes, YEAR) declaring his shame and guilt. I don't mean that karma is the knowledge that he is still not over me and has dated almost 10 girls since we broke up, not to be satisfied by or interested in a single one. Because those things are mostly a nuisance to me...and karma doesn't seem to be coming back around when I hear those things--it seems to be losing direction from it's real target and goal, and it's just annoying me.

Nope, this is karma: hearing that during the trip he "deserved" to the place to which he promised but failed to take me, my ex got Monzuma's Revenge, aka, Traveller's Diarrhea, aka E. Coli. And he spent most of that trip shitting himself in a Mexican hospital and still hasn't recovered.

That's karma, my friends...and the bitch is still smiling.

Redbeard

Three years ago I met a man I thought was going to be the love of my life.  He was slightly older, dedicated, intelligent and he declared his love for me swift and often. He had a beard before I even knew I liked beards and ginger hair.

At first I wasn't even sure I could like him because I could barely see his eyelashes and his nine years senior was something I hadn't bargained for. But then he brought me a college sweatshirt to my library when I got into graduate school and made me tea in the morning. So I fell hard and slept in his bed most nights.

For a long time, things were good. Really good. There were trips and lots of laughs. People pulled me aside at parties, called me on the phone, sent emails; all to tell me that he was a keeper.  "He's the one you've been waiting for," they said. And I agreed with every inch of my being.

And then, at the start of a fresh new year, it ended. I came home on a Monday to find him still in sweatpants, his teeth unbrushed, some unremembered movie on the television. I hung up my coat, asked what we were doing for dinner and he responded with "We need to talk," started crying and broke my heart.

Within an hour the new luggage set my parents bought him was reclaimed with my dresses and shoes. Long forgotten mail, mismatched socks and granola bars I just purchased stuffed into a half dozen garbage bags. He refused to look at me and washed dishes in the kitchen.

Then there is long story of how I made my body forget him. How my winter was cold, my spring sad and how in summer I decides to let go. But the truth is that I haven't forgotten him. If I pause long enough, make the world quiet enough, I still smell him. I see the way he smiled at me when I was being emotionally ridiculous.

I love-hate that. Part of me never wants to forget that a person once loved me so completely. The other part of me wants to ship away the memories and start fresh. Even if means never feeling that way again.   Finding that feeling just doesn't happen easily. At least not for me, the girl who dates but rarely has a boyfriend. Not before, not after.

See, I'm celebrating birthday number 30 this week. It's been filled with flowers, lunches and dinners. There were gifts and Facebook messages.  But nothing from him.  I'm not foolish enough to be shocked. But I can't help but be disappointed that I mean so little.  Did he really forget our first unofficial first-date was campaigning for President Obama on my 27th birthday? Did he really forget that our 3rd year anniversary is this weekend? Because I just don't understand how a body can remove those things from memory.

If there is a secret, I'd love to know.

Can men and women be just friends?

There's a great scene in When Harry Met Sally where Harry explains why men and women can never be just friends:



I thought of it tonight when I was explaining to a friend how somehow, in the course of a year, I feel like I've lost all of my male friends. For years, I had many male friends - great, fun, close male friends. And then I got divorced, I became single... and sex really did get in the way.

I scroll through my phone these days, and there's not one guy in there that I'd text just to say hi. Yeah, if I'm in their city, I'll call them up for a beer, or I might text them to trash talk during a football game. But I used to have friends that I'd really talk with... about life, and love, and girls, and work, and other real things. I don't have that any more, and it makes me sad.

There are two guys in particular that I thought I had solid friendships with.

The guy I love.

This is the guy I was drawn to as I was going through a divorce. I thought he was cute, we clicked, we had fun, we hooked up. Things got weird, we got over it, we hooked up again. I tried to just be friends with him, but things kept getting in the way, and I think I've reached the point where I can't stand it any more and need to cut him out of my life. I really do think, deep down, he's a good guy. And I don't think he's malicious or intentionally hurts me. I just don't think the two of us are cut out for being just friends, and we're not cut out to date, so we're left with this limbo that's just torture.

The guy who loves me.

This one cut me out the way I should probably cut out the first guy. And it wasn't till that happened, and I questioned mutual friends about why he was acting weird, that I found out he'd had feelings for me for years. He (in true guy fashion) never actually said anything to me about it, just drifted off and started avoiding me. I wish I had feelings for him too. It would be so easy - he's a wonderful, thoughtful, smart guy. But I've always thought of him more as a brother, not as a boyfriend. And so another friendship slipped away.

I want these guys back in my life. I considered them among my closest friends for awhile, and I feel a void without them.

Now that I'm in a new city, it seems very unlikely that I'm going to make male friends. I've got a few acquaintances here and there, but I've already screwed up a work friendship by making out with the guy. And when I think about my friends, very few of them have guys in their crew. The couples have couple friends, but overall, I now look at my girls and see them hanging with other girls, and the guys hanging with other girls.

I thought we lived in this enlightened time where men and women are equal. But I'm starting to wonder if Harry was right... can men and women be just friends? Or is sex always in the way?

Sweet Lips or Sucker Lips?

Sometimes a first kiss can be all wrong.

You may remember "Sweet Lips," the cute, kinda sexy guy I introduced in the cast of characters section of my first post. We had been out on a few casual dates, I thought he was intriguing, and he kissed me like he meant it.

A couple of weeks can change a lot. Come Monday of this week and I was just plain bored with him. His "mysteriousness" seemed more like laziness, and, call me high maintenance, but I need a little more than a text every few days to make me feel pursued, adored, and all of the other things I like to feel from a man. Besides, a lot can happen in two weeks when you fall off the radar...like Medina.

So when Sweet Lips asked to hang out this week I reluctantly invited him to join me for Trivia night at a local bar and then immediately regretted it. Ugh. Don't really feel like hanging out with him. It's a little too much work. I'm bored with this guy. Just not that into him. Medina on the brain. But, as is par for my course, I went back and forth in my mind until it was too late to cancel and not look like a total douche.

Sweet Lips showed up at my house to pick me up for Trivia and this time he didn't look so cute or mysterious. He looked like a dork who thinks too highly of himself. He maintained his cool, aloof attitude, leaving it up to me to initiate conversation and not really looking me in the eye. I found myself wondering, why the hell did you even ask to drive almost two hours to see me if you don't actually want to look at me. Was he nervous? Too cool? An asshole? Either way, it was suddenly totally unattractive. What did I see in this guy to begin with? At one point I was kind of into this guy? How could my visceral reaction change so dramatically in a couple of weeks?

And then I remembered the Theory of Relationship Relativism--we read men in relation to other men. For example, coming out of my last relationship, a relationship with a control freak who couldn't stand for me to have friends of the opposite sex and even got jealous of my girlfriends, any man who even asked me "what did you do today" became unattractive to me. In fact, I developed an immediate and incredibly strong aversion to those men because comments like these were interpreted as a control freak's attempt to dig info out of me. A simple question felt like an interrogation. So compared to the ASSHOLE (the nickname we'll give my psycho controlling ex), Sweet Lips's detached demeanor was "sexy." But compared to Medina, Sweet Lips just looked like an asshole.

When he dropped me off later that night, I thought to myself, well...at least maybe I can get one last sexy goodnight kiss out of this guy. When he leaned in for a kiss I hesitated, even pulled back. "You're not going to kiss me?" he asked. Despite my better instincts, I thought, what the hell? and leaned in to meet his lips. Five minutes later, I left the car with two swollen lips because, in the words of the lovely Charlotte York, "he raped my face! I'm never seeing him again." AMEN. Fare thee well, Sucker Lips.

Always a...

Bridesmaid. Earlier in the week I was asked to be one. Again. For the 8th time in four years.

So once again this spring I'll be donning a brown dress with a bubble skirt and getting my hair done while trying to put on my face that suggests I really care about flowers. And though the dress isn't actually hideous and though the bride is truly someone I love and one who waited a long time to find love, I can't help but dread it just a bit.

I'm touched that she asked me because we both lost someone important in our lives recently.  She's not a friend who is just trying to keep her numbers even or is striving to have the biggest bridal party this side of the Mississippi.  I wouldn't have ever dreamed about saying no, because I want to be there on a day that will surely be bittersweet but stand with her when she celebrates the true love she so deserves.

But here is the deal.  As a single girl who has never been engaged and certainly never been married. I can't actually admit to anyone except other like-minded women that I kind of dread weddings. I can't admit aloud that I have had so many years of oogling engagement rings and buying gifts off of registries that my heart is starting to grow cold.  I hate the bridal mentality of "it's my day so I get what I want" so much that I automatically anticipate it. I think it screams of selfishness and it's just plain rude. I hate how the whole day suggests that this one particular girl is better than the rest because some guy asked her to marry him. Nothing about the day celebrates her own accomplishments; just the ring on her finger and the white dress. So even if the bride never exhibits a lick of "-zilla"symptoms, I constantly fear it. 

No single bridesmaid can ever tell her bride-friend to cool it. That the fact that she hasn't considered the style of dress she picked for her girls may not be flattering, expects multiple bridal showers (and subsequently gifts), requests hair styled in certain way (and on the worst occasions dyed a certain color) just has to go unnoticed. None of that is even a fleck of pepper on your friend's teeth.  Because no one even debates for a minute if they should open their mouths and say something.  Because the unspoken rule is that you don't piss off the bride. No matter how unreasonable. And maybe it's because I have this overwhelming sense of responsibility to others, worry too much about the happiness of those around me and was generally raised to be polite.* But none of that sounds appealing to me. 

And being a bridesmaid is a day filled with so many emotions. It's about happiness for your friend, but dread because you know you're just a few steps closer to losing her. It's about looking pretty but understanding that no one really cares because you're not wearing white.  It's about the stress of wondering if your single-self will be honored with a guest invite, and when are, agonizing over who to bring. Chances are you'll go by yourself and take advantage of the open bar. You may say a prayer that just maybe this will be the event where you meet your significant other. Or in the very least you hope there will be a cute, straight groomsman. And then you'll be quietly disappointed when you realize that at this age, the single table is just a dwindling few and there is no one you'll be taking home. Not for a night. Not forever. Your fairy tale is not to be written while sitting in a chair covered in sheets that cost more than your cell phone bill.  And the worst part? The reality that you don't even want that story tends to get lost in the fog.

So yeah, I'll just be over here pretending that one more 27 Dresses comparison is funny. I'll start hoping that if I don't at least have a date for this particular wedding, I can scrounge one up for the other two that are on the calendar for next summer.  And if not? I better have fair better hair than Katherine Heigel ever does, a kick-ass pair of heels and they better be stocking a variety of alcohol at the open bar.

*Don't worry, I'm trying to work on this. It's probably deserves it's own blog post and many therapy sessions. 

Weddings are Evil

Weddings have the paradoxical effect of simultaneously making me feel thankful I haven't gotten married and lame for being single. It's baffling. The same moments at weddings that make me want to vomit up greasy, bland wedding buffet food in my mouth are the ones that make me feel sick to my stomach in a different way, in the gut-wrenching, God this is awful kind of way. From the name cards indicating your couple or single status to the cake cutting and slow dancing, I find myself thinking two wildly different thoughts: "thank God that isn't me" and "God, why isn't that me?"

Weddings hit on everything I resist about marriage as an obligatory social performance and rite of passage. The parading around of the bride and groom as spectacle, the huge, poofy, (usually hideous) wedding dress that probably cost as much as my Honda, the cutting and eating of a cake that almost always tastes like cardboard, but again, probably cost as much as my Honda, the endless kissing-on-command prompted by increasingly annoying choruses of clinking, and of course, the snagging, tossing, and replacing of a garter the bride has been hiding all day up in her hoo-hah.

And sometimes, I think, the performance of these expected rites of wedding bash bliss are analogous to the nature of the marriage itself--performed by the bride and groom out of a sense of obligation rather than a sense of true joy and will to share their lives together.

Of course, not all weddings feel like this. But the wedding I attended this weekend for my little cousin and his new wife was the epitome of everything forced and showy. I don't know how long they'll stay together, or if they even love each other. The wedding was straight out of The Wedding Singer. But no matter how silly the rituals, no matter how cheesy the marriage...I still felt almost the entire night that I was living without.

It baffles me. When I say I don't want to get married, I mean it. I was engaged once and called it off. I don't daydream about having my own wedding someday, or about having kids. I've been the one to break off every serious relationship in my life because the man in my life wanted to marry me and I didn't want to marry them. The people I care about in my life keep saying, "oh, you'll change your mind when you meet 'the one'!!" But I'd bet them every meager penny to my name that they're wrong. I love my life the way it is. But I don't care how happily unattached and independent you are...there is something about a wedding--any wedding--that makes you feel deep inside that something is wrong with that. Maybe it's the fact that a wedding is a celebration of two people sharing a life together, maybe it's the pitying eyes my elder family members shoot me when I'm the only one at my table not getting up to slow dance with a significant other, or maybe it's the smugness of the bride thinking she's a fucking princess for a day just because she's valuable enough to some man that he put a ring on her finger. But weddings almost always make me feel like shit.

These are some but not all of the reasons I was counting down the minutes until "Medina" picked me up in his big truck to take me out for some after-wedding drinks. We laughed and talked and those liquid eyes bore into mine while the world around us disappeared, as it did on the first date, for three hours. I was drunk on something when he dropped me off back at the hotel, and it wasn't alcohol. And then he kissed me...and I don't quite think I've returned to the real world yet.

On paper, we're opposite in so many ways...he's tattooed and tough and republican and chill, and I'm polished and girly and WAY liberal and uptight. He told me he snores like a person with sleep apnea, and I can't even stand to sleep in the same room with someone who breathes audibly. We're die hard football fans for rival teams. We live in different cities.

I'm a list maker, so let's be fair and make a list of the things we have in common. We're both scorpios, which explains the liquid eyes thing. We're have close relationships with our families and have parents who have been married for 35+ years. We're both hard workers...he's the first person I've met in a long time who goes into work earlier than I do. And I think if you compare this list to the last one, the commonalities are far more important than the differences.

But if I stop thinking and just feel, none of the lists really matter. Because when we're in a crowded room his eyes never leave me. When I'm around him the space between us is practically buzzing with electricity. 24 hours later, I can still feel the way his hand tangled in my hair and his scruff tickled my cheek while he kissed me. And that, my friends, is the za-za-zoo.

I want this.

Ally McBeal is one of my favorite shows of all time. Robert Downey Jr. on Ally McBeal is one of my favorite characters on one of my favorite shows, and so a perfect ending to last night was crawling in bed with one of my best friends, pouring ourselves some wine, and firing up her DVDs to watch a few RDJ-centric episodes.

In case you didn't watch the show, Ally is a neurotic 30 year old lawyer. She hears songs in her head and sees things like dancing babies. She's a hopeless romantic and yet completely unlucky in love. But one day she meets Larry (portrayed by the completely wonderful Robert Downey Jr.). Larry has issues of his own (an ex-wife, a son), but the two completely click, and their first kiss is an amazingly romantic scene:



If you were to ask me right now what I want from a man, that's it. I want to tell him my insecurities and my problems and my fears and him say, "OK. We'll work on that." I want him to know all the issues I've got inside my head and all the things I think about way too much, and I want him to just not care about them. I want him to look at me the way Larry is looking at Ally, and I want him to kiss me the way he kisses her.

After this scene aired, my friend said, "That doesn't happen in real life!" And no, it doesn't. Not scripted like that, with perfect lighting and an incredibly gorgeous guy. But if I completely lose faith that it ever will, I will go insane.

This week on one of my other favorite TV shows ever, How I Met Your Mother, Ted gave a little speech about how, little by little, he's losing faith. He used to believe in soul mates and destiny, and he's been beaten down so many times that he doesn't quite believe it anymore. I feel the same way. I don't know how many of my friends - wonderful, strong, beautiful, funny, intelligent women - continuously strike out at relationships. When one in two marriages end in divorce these days, how can you keep faith in any relationship? How do you know that somewhere out there, there might be your own version of Larry - someone who will accept you for who you are and help to make you a better person?

Even on TV, sometimes things don't work out. Unfortunately, Robert Downey Jr. was still in the midst of his drug problems when he was on the show, and he was written off when he was arrested for the upteenth time. At the end of the series, they didn't even end up together. But I like to think, in the TV universe inside my head, that eventually they found each other.

I don't know that I'll find my Larry out there. I don't know that my next relationship won't end in heartache. I find it really hard to keep believing, but I have to. Because if you completely lose faith, what's the point at all?

Sleeping with the Opposite of Enemy

I had sex with my best friend. Rendezvous,, in a fancy downtown hotel, but completely sober-kind of sex.

It's been a long time coming actually.  See, we met through a mutual friend at the beginning of our college days. But bumbled through ten years of flirtation while we lived in different states, had significant others and earned an assortment of masters degrees.  With the exception of a few heavy make-out sessions, hook-ups and one weekend spent together in a state no one wants to visit, our history was made through AOL instant messenger, phone calls, texts, sporting events and Gchat.

And then situations collided.  A new job, a new single life and many, many years of unfinished business called for us to get it out of our system. And well...it was good. I could go into details of why and how but come on, now that would just make me seem sluttier than I really am.

So let's just say it wasn't awkward as it would have been years ago.  We're older, more comfortable in our skin and skill. But most importantly, there was no pretense of what happens next.  This time around neither of us were trying to fill a void; we were just trying to scratch an itch. Because if there is one thing we have learned about ourselves since we were young college kids, it's that we can't force relationships and maybe, just for now, we're better off alone.

I'm not waiting around for my friend that everyone says I will end up marrying anyway.  He's the guy my parents not-so-secretly pull for, the one ex-boyfriends have always been jealous of and one that I even kind-of confessed my love to a few years back (I blame weddings and loneliness and probably some wine). And sure, the romantic part of me thinks that *maybe, just maybe* it will work itself out in our 30s.  But then realistic/jaded part of me is pretty sure we'll dance around, sext and talk a good game.  Until he starts dating someone in his small town or I start dating someone in my bigger town.

Because I'm not chasing.  At all really.  But in this instance, I'm not chasing him because if that's the road we're going down, it's his turn. And because if that's not our path, then I'd really just like to say he's still my friend in another 10 years time.

But I'll admit this, girls. I would not turn down another weekend of fun.

Wake me up when September ends.

I mentioned in my last post that I have started to accept that being divorced is something that happened, but not who I am. I'm going to try not to dwell on it, because the tone of this blog is hopeful and looking forward, not depressing and looking back.

For the most part, on most days, I'm ok. But this time of year is really hard for a multitude of reasons. The ex's birthday is tomorrow. Fall was our favorite time of year, which is why we planned a beautiful wedding full of chocolate browns and bright oranges and pumpkin pie... which is why watching my marriage crumble over the course of one fall two years ago made things even harder.

I now have a really tough relationship with September. So many things this month have made me happy - the arrival of the pumpkin spice latte, football season, hockey training camp, cool weather and the chance to break out the boots, sweaters, and hoodies. But now all I can think about it how terrible I felt during those first few weeks, and then it brings back all of the bad feelings I've been fighting with for two years.

I’m supposed to feel good about being single, right? I’m supposed to be happy that I escaped a bad situation, that I refused to stay with a man who wasn’t faithful and that I deserve better. I’m supposed to be confident in my decisions and happy with my life and content as a strong, independent woman. Sometimes I am. But often, including this week, I am definitely not.

I’m pissed. It’s nearly two years, and the first emotion I feel when I think about it is still anger. I was never given a choice or the chance to fix things. I was caught completely off-guard, betrayed by the one person I thought I could trust, and in the blink of an eye everything I believed was taken away from me.

I’m jaded. I don’t believe in soul mates or everlasting love right now. I’m just waiting for the next of my friends to get a divorce. I hate going to weddings because all they do is remind me of what I don’t have. And that makes me feel guilty for not being completely happy for my friends, and then I feel even worse.

I’m sad. I’m lonely. Cold winter nights once spent in someone else’s arms feel a lot longer and a lot colder now that I spend them alone. I miss the little things – a shoulder to lean on when I have a rough day at work… someone to kill spiders… someone to share inside jokes with. When I feel sad, I wonder if I’m not so jaded after all, because I so desperately want to feel all that again.

I’m frustrated. New York might be the hardest place on earth to meet available men, and I feel like I’m having even worse luck than most. I can count the number of real, decent dates I’ve been on in the past two years, and it’s not many. I haven’t met a guy I was interested in since Memorial Day. The glamorous lifestyle my friends think I live is completely a lie. And the worst part is that I don’t even know where to start. I can’t bring myself to sign up for an online dating site, and I work in Connecticut, and my friends aren’t the kinds to have many male friends. And so I feel stuck, with nowhere to go. I could very easily walk into any bar in this city on any night and find someone to have meaningless sex with. And I have, trust me. But I'm over that, and I don't want that anymore. I want something that's going to last more than one night.

I’m confused. I have reached the point where I wonder if I made the right decision. Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe there isn’t another person out there who I’ll connect with the way I connected with my ex. Maybe there isn’t another guy who would enjoy talking about football in one breath and Shakespeare in the next. I was perpetually single before him; what’s to say I won’t be perpetually single from now on? I’m not saying I need a man to be happy… I’m just saying I don’t want to be alone forever, and any woman who tells you otherwise is insane.

I’m stuck. When things first went down, I was so determined to not fall apart. I threw all of my energy into school, finding a job, moving to New York, finding another job. When I sorted out all of the other unknowns in my life and settled down, I allowed all of the feelings I’d repressed to boil up to the surface. I now have time to think. I don’t have anything else to plan for. And it’s terrifying. Now that I want to talk, and I want to try to work this all out, I feel like my friends are sick of hearing about it. “It’s been two years,” I imagine them saying. “Why can’t she move on?” Maybe if I’d let myself fall apart at the beginning, I’d be better off now. Maybe if I made the time – and money – for real therapy, I’d be ok. But right now I feel like I’m treading water, barely keeping my head up, and I’m a little bit scared.

I like to think this is just a bad period. I tell myself I’m going to get through it. I got through those first few weeks, when I cried myself to sleep every night. I keep thinking I have to turn the corner eventually. Right now, though, I’m just not sure.

"I've Named the Puppy"

If you're an attractive, single woman above the age of, oh, say 12, I'm fairly certain you've encountered your fair share of "douche drive-bys." What's a douche drive-by, you might ask? Well it usually looks a little something like this:

http://youtu.be/YXQ2m-rbozk

You know...you've seen it before. Douchy-Mc-Douche, usually accompanied by at least one douchy wingman, rolls up on you and, without warning, let's the full flood of his man-hurricane loose, "accidentally" groping some part of your woman business in the process. 

Now, to be fair, those of you who have seen the movie from which the clip is drawn, The Sweetest Thing, know that Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate's characters do plenty of their own drive bys. But the point of the movie--and this scene in particular--isn't to make some douchy claim about how one sex is more douchy than the other. The point of this scene is to show how forgettable the man (or woman) behind the drive by really is. Cameron and Christina don't know these guys' names...and they'll never WANT to know these guys' names. These men remain anonymous in the eyes of their prey, permanently filed away and hidden beneath the veil of the douche.

If I were to speculate the number of forgettable drive bys I've experienced in my lifetime and compare them to the number of memorable, interesting guys to whom I've actually wanted to attach a name, I'd say a 10-1 ratio would be an accurate representation. This weekend alone, I've had at least 4 douchy drive by encounters of the worst kind, which I would identify as attempts by completely inappropriate men to hit on me. And sure, I could spend the rest of this blog entry describing those encounters. But why would I spend time describing in any detail what I could describe in one sentence: "This weekend I was douchy-drive by-ed by a man so in love with himself he spent 20 minutes narrating his awesomeness before I got a word in edgewise, a man who cracked his knuckles in my face while he talked, a boy young enough to make Miley Cirus feel like a cougar, and a used car salesman twice my age." Moving on.

Much more interesting to me is the fact that I've named the puppy. Perhaps you remember me introducing to you a man named "Medina," a man so memorable that, when I met him in another city 6 hours from both of our respective home cities, I put him in my phone as "Medina" because I couldn't remember his name. Now this might seem to be the epitome of the douchy-drive-by. Meet in a bar, talk for 5 minutes, receive late night text from him and realize that (IDIOT!) I had given him my number. But despite the fact that I met him in a bit of a drunken stupor after stepping off a party bus I'd been on for hours, despite the fact that I didn't remember his name and we live in different cities, I returned his texts. I made plans to meet him for dinner during an upcoming visit to his hometown (which, ironically, is my REAL hometown). And now I remember why I listened to that gut instinct telling me not to blow this guy off as another Douchy-Mc-Douche.

And just in case you aren't up on your Sweetest Thing references...here's what it means when you "name the puppy":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK_49CU65mM&feature=related

I've named the puppy...and his name is not "Medina." He may very well turn out to be another Douchy-Mc-Douche in the world of narcissists and car salesmen...but this time I might be interested enough to take the time to find out. We met for dinner at a trendy bar in a trendy neighborhood outside the city. He picked the place. I walk in, see the ambiance, and expect to see him walk in fully metro-ed out, pink shirt and matching tie included. Instead, I spot him at the bar, already sipping a beer and wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. From just the right side of his profile I spotted 2, possibly 3 tattoos. Buzz cut, sexy facial hair, bedroom eyes. I suddenly felt like a complete tool in my vintage floral dress, nude heels, and trendy new haircut. We talked for 3 hours until I finally had to head home. For 3 hours the rest of the people at the bar disappeared. Cliche, I know...but cliche for a good reason. I learned that he was a marine for 6 years, served in Iraq, has 5 sisters, owns his own business and 3 houses, remodeled one of them completely by himself, and loves dogs. But none of that on-paper stuff has been as memorable to me as the way those eyes looked at me...and none of it has me up wondering the way I've been wondering where those tattoos lead. Now I remember why a guy can hang around for almost 3 months and still qualify as a "douche drive-by," but another can chat you up for 5 minutes in a random bar in a random town on a random night and still have you thinking about him a month later.

Check Me Out

I struggle with introductions. I want to come off polished and put-together so much that I usually end up tripping over my words and making a fool of myself. And apparently this affliction carries over to the Internet as well.  I've been struggling for a few days on what to say in my first official post.

But what is better to discuss than the truth? I'm making a solemn promise to myself and our readers to be as real as possible on this blog. Put the good and bad out there and though I may regret actions, I have no intention of feeling sorry about feelings. No time to start than the present.

So many events that occurred in my 29th year (Why hello 30, I see you sitting there on the horizon. I'll deal with you in a few weeks) felt like my world was bottoming out: the demise of my long-term relationship, the death of a family member, moving in with parents, readjusting my short-term goals. It was just too much to take.

And then you know what? Suddenly it wasn't.  It was accepting that a boyfriend who would rather spend time with porn than with you isn't the right long-term match. It was understanding that our loved ones want us to be happy, so it's time cut the crap and move on. It was accepting that we're all going to have setbacks and in the long run, mine wasn't so bad.

Not that I would try to suggest that all of this happened brightly one morning and all was fine. Most definitely not. It was more of many nights crying my eyes out, soaking my poor soul in the bathtub with wine and books by my side, a healthy amount of friendship and a job that saved my sanity. Arguably some margaritas, a few mini-trips and retail therapy too.

My new smart is realizing that this single me is a brilliant dichotomy. I can read contemporary literature then veg out for hours with a reality show marathon. I am the girl his parents love but have him begging for more before dessert.  I'll mock your wedding shower but be the one crying the hardest out of happiness when you walk down the aisle. I don't know if I want to have children, but I do know I'd love to adopt. I live on a a cramping budget but I'll find to a way to hop on a plane and go on vacation.

Suddenly I've reached a point in my life where I actually have a small pool of men vying for my attention. I can boast a masters degree, teaching certificates, a foreign country and even a few local newspapers articles written about me. I wear pencil skirts, kitten heels and you'll rarely catch me in pants because I love my body. Through the struggles, and even in the midst of the fog of doubt, I've reached one of the happiest junctures in my life. I'm dedicated, I'm loyal, I'm sweet. But I'm also bold, sassy and surprisingly sometimes shy. This is me and I love it.

I may not be one of those women who sees themselves flying through life solo and feels at peace with it. I want to share my world with someone. I hope to find the one who wants to stick around. But until that actually happens, and my now-jaded shell starts chipping away, I'm going to have pursue my own balance.

Someone else can go ahead and settle for the boring guy who is going to buy her designer handbags and take her to the beach every summer.  I'll be over here going on first dates, telling great stories and not feeling guilty in the slightest for ordering another drink at happy hour.

Single in the City

I never really had a plan.

Some people can look forward at age 20 and know who they’ll be at 30. They know how many kids they want. They know they’ve wanted to be a doctor since they were eight years old, so that’s what they’ll be. They know they’ll never leave the hometown in which they grew up, and they’ll marry their high school sweetheart.

I wasn’t that girl.

At 20, I had no idea what 30 would look like. I had ideas, but they were vague concepts, not concrete plans. I thought I’d be living in a city. A successful businesswoman. Well-traveled and educated.

I certainly did not think I’d be married and divorced by 30.

Maybe I should have had more of a plan. During my twenties, I held five different full time jobs. I lived in three different states and two different countries. I got engaged young, and, perhaps in hindsight, a little impulsively. I was married by 25, separated by 28, and divorced by 29. I got hurt more than I would have naively thought possible at age 20.

It’s taken awhile – nearly two full years, in fact – to get to the point where I have any interest in dating again. It’s taken me awhile to accept that being divorced is part of who I am, but it’s not all that I am – to be able to talk about it as something that happened, but not as something that defines me. Nearly two full years after I stormed out of my apartment, I’m almost at the point where I’m not embarrassed about it or consider myself “damaged goods.”

Almost.

Without that divorce, I wouldn’t be living where I am, in the greatest city in the world. I wouldn’t have a job that I love more than any I’ve ever had. I may not have accepted myself for not wanting to have children. I may not have made the friends I’ve made, met the people I’ve met, and seen the things I’ve seen. Because, even though the past two years have been the toughest I ever hope to have in my life, they’ve also been pretty amazing.

So here I am now: single and fabulous in New York City, closing in on my 30^th birthday. Trust me, I am not Carrie Bradshaw. Aside from our unruly hair, affinity for high heels, and love of writing, the similarities end there. Life in Manhattan as a 30-year-old woman is not anything like hers. In reality, we deal with high rent, pricey cocktails, dirty subways, and a 5-to-1 ratio of single women to single men.

Those are things I’ll happily deal with though, for the honor of living in the greatest city in the world. I’ll complain, and I’ll struggle, and I’ll gradually become comfortable in my (somewhat) new single skin, but I’ll do it for the love of New York.

Or at least that’s my plan. For now.

Hell on Heels?

"I'm hell on heels,

Say what you will,

I done made the devil a deal.

He made me pretty,

He made me smart,

And I'm gonna break me a million hearts,

I'm hell on heels, baby I'm coming for you."

Last week I heard the new Pistol Annies song, "Hell on Heels," on the way out for drinks with two girlfriends. 30 seconds and the above lyrics later, they had reached the conclusion that Pistol Annies is singing about me. 

Also last week--I received a message on facebook from a friend of a friend whom I've never met. The message, enclosed in a sea of smiling, winking emoticons, informed me that "We've all been trying to think of a single guy in your town that you can date!!! We'll find you one!!!"

The disconnect between these two interpretations of my dating life seems to me a pretty remarkable analogy for the two starkly different ways in which I've seen the "world" out there view my life as a single 30-year old. Those who know me well (and there are few, I'll admit) can tell you that I relish my life as a sexy, smart, single woman who can take or leave most men. But in most others I sense a kind of pathetic sympathy towards me...the desire to "make my life complete" or "fix" the perceived flaw of singledom by "finding me a man." I've got news for you, people...I don't need your charity. I find me a new man every time I look in a new direction. And you know what? For now, single is the new smart for me.

I'm 30. I have my Ph.D. and a job I love. I own my house. I'm cute. I'm about to race in my first triathlon. I'm happy. So why does it seem like the whole world is in a big old hurry to get me paired up?

Maybe I'll give in and get all coupled up some day...but for now, I'd like to introduce the current leading men in a little narrative I like to call "avoiding serial monogamy, a few men at a time." 

"MayBeGay" Guy--kind of sexy in a weird, intellectual, old-fashioned kind of way. Bends over backwards to display far more than the standard accoutrements of chivalry (like standing up when a lady enters the room...yah.) Drove 45 minutes to pick me up for a date 5 minutes from where he lives so I wouldn't have to drive myself. Are you picturing a knight in shining armor? Try picturing the knight's fairy godmother. Because I'd bet my life on it this guy secretly fantasizes about other men.

TriGuy--work colleague. Training for triathlon with me. Tricked me into a date by asking me to come over for a "dinner party" he was hosting; when I got there, there were only two plates on the table and three bottles of wine. Openly displays fetish for Asian women. I believe he probably has a whole skeleton closet full of fetishes. I think we're dating in his head.

SweetLips--I've been on 3 whole dates with this guy so far. Met him (EEK!) online. Quiet but confident, adorable eyes, musician. Kisses me like he means it. He's the right kind of wrong.

"Medina" (?)--Met him in a bar in a random big city. He was wearing the t-shirt of the rival pro football team I love to hate, a team that just happens to be from my hometown. I heckled him about his t-shirt, of course. I'm meeting him for dinner this week, and I have no idea what his name is. He's in my phone as "Medina" because all that I remember about him is that he lives in Medina and wears t-shirts for shitty football teams. Wondering how long this will be a problem.

9 1/2 Weeks--haven't seen this guy since college. Didn't really know him in college. Randomly, he started sending me flowers and other random items in the mail, including granny panties and pink fur handcuffs. (What?!?!). Sent me multiple one-way sexts. 2 days after I got the handcuffs in the mail, he declared that he was "in a relationship" with a random girl on facebook. (Again...what!?!?!)

F*$# Buddy--we dated for a couple of months after my last long relationship. He's amazing in bed. He annoys the f*@# out of me when he opens his mouth. I now see him for 20 minute sessions when I need a quick orgasm. He's ok with that.

I'm giving Ciara's song "Like a Boy" new meaning. If you have a problem with that, don't read any more of my posts.

Single is the Smart

Why single the new smart? Because it's 2011. And despite what the thousands of Facebook posts, magazines and blogs suggest, being in a relationship, having children, owning property and a whole slew of other "adult" things doesn't happen to everyone by a magical age.

It's okay to be 30, a woman and single. It means we're making decisions that buy us a new dress or an extra margarita at happy hour. It means we're more concerned about booking our next vacation than we are about interviewing babysitters. Dare we admit to be a little more worried about the deadline at work than we are about picking china for our registry. And it certainly means we are still having fun trying to figure it all out.

But smart and single doesn't come in one type of package. We're all single for different reasons, we're all navigating the dating world in very different cities with different budgets and goals. We all have careers that are taking us in new directions. We've had our hearts gutted, worlds turned upside down, trust broken. We're living in small apartments in the middle of big cities, houses purchased with our own money, or struggling to find reasonable rent all alone. No matter the path we took that found us here, we're all making the smart decision to stay away from settling.

So, welcome to Single is the New Smart. A small destination in the big wide world of social media that hopes to paint a true picture of 30-something single life. It won't always be pretty and it probably won't always be nice. But it will be four perspectives on real roads that are bound to have some trails, tribulations and hopefully a few good stories.

The basics? We're starting our 30s, we're all living in different cities and we're bound together by our love of Fantasy Football. Now please, stick around and get to know us a little bit more. You won't be disappointed, we promise.