Online Dating-- In Public

On the way to work each day I stop at the same Starbucks near my office. And every day, for the past few at least, I've seen this guy at the bar, "working" at his computer. Seems normal, right? Until you notice what he's doing. No, he's not watching porn or looking at erotic images. Conversely, he's not doing anything seemingly normal, like applying for jobs or reading The Economist. So what's he doing? He's online dating. In a Starbucks. During peak rush-hour coffee addict traffic.

I need to make it clear that this man is not sitting in the back of the store in some corner, hidden by a bazillion other customers. He's not even at a table. He's literally sitting at the bar that parallels the line of people, waiting ever so eagerly for their hot cup of caffeine. Not only that, but he's seated on a higher platform than the customers standing on the ground. That's how I was able to see this guy in the first place. And that's how I've been able to entertain myself while I've had to so painfully wait in line for two whole minutes every day.

Maybe that doesn't sound interesting, but let me assure you that it is. Not only do I know what this guy is doing (trying to pick up pornstar-esq chicks posing suggestively in their profile pictures) but I also know HOW he's doing it. He uses a site called datehookup.com. First he finds his targets. Then he emails them, explaining that he comes "from a wealthy family." Not what I'd want to read in an initial email from a random stranger, but it turns on some girls, so all the power to him.

Much to his credit, though, he's careful and he's organized and even methodical in creating these potential dating connections. I mean, I consider myself to be disgustingly organized in some regards, but I was never this good with online dating. This man creates a folder on his desktop for each and every woman he's in contact with. He saves their emails and drags their photos into their respective files. Impressive, honestly, especially after having forgotten countless names, occupations and life aspirations of many of the men I spoke to online over the years. Sorry, but if I've never met you, I'm not going to remember your name or job. But I might remember your dog's name or where your sisters live. I'm weird like that.

I agree that it's creepy, though, that I know all this about this random dude who frequents the same Starbucks as me. But, at the same time, I think he's asking for it. When he's sitting with his screen facing the crowd, you know, with sexy (or trying-to-be-sexy) women blown up on his screen, he's asking for onlookers. And when DATEHOOKUP.COM flashes ever so brightly, who WOULDN'T look out of sheer curiosity? I don't know this man, have no personal attachment to him, haven't even spoken to him, so in theory I shouldn't care what he's doing. But it's interesting-- I mean, who really would choose to do this in public? And, who isn't curious about how other people pursue online dating?

Usually online dating is an activity that we take on inside the privacy of our own homes. On occasion you'll find a coworker scoping out their options while inside their cube (also a no-go) or maybe you'll be invited to look online with a friend to help her weight her options. (Because I'm so cool, a friend and I used to spend time online on Friday nights looking at all the guys who were contacting us, and then we'd share our opinions with each other.) But in a coffee shop? Really?

Be careful where you are when you online date. I'm serious. Or else you might end up with someone like me blogging about you. (But, in all seriousness, Mr. Mystery Man, thanks for entertaining me each morning. Stay at it and maybe you'll find your match.)

The Disappearing Act

It happens all the time. Girl goes out with boy. Boy and girl both have fun. It seems like they share a “special” connection. Both go home smiling. Maybe they share another night out. Maybe not. Boy never calls girl again. Girl wonders what happened. Boy never tells girl. Girl never finds out answer. Story ends.

It's all too common yet I hear this recurring tale from girls' perspectives all the time. "We had everything minus our mothers in common!" they exclaim. "It went perfectly and I was never so comfortable in my life on a first date!" others tell. What they all wonder, no matter how they're phrasing it and regardless of how they proceed with their lives, is WHY. Why didn't he call? Why didn't we ever see each other again? Did I misjudge the situation? Am I really actually not so accurate when it comes to reading people and did he not actually have fun?

Well, ladies, it's a harsh reality out there: sometimes, you just won't know. You'll never know. Ever. Maybe it sucks, maybe it frustrates you, maybe you want to know what went wrong so that you can finally sleep again or know that it wasn't entirely your fault. But you can't. Sometimes there's no way of knowing. And that's just life.

I've been in this situation many times myself. Sometimes I've found out the honest answer, like when a close guy friend who I seemed to gel with perfectly told me flat out that he's "just not attracted" to me. At the time I was offended; in retrospect, not so much. It was honest. Blunt, hurtful (although out of my control) but honest. Had we not been such close friends as well, I think in that instance that statement would have explained why, even though we connected well, we didn't end up dating.

Likewise, I've also dealt with the Houdinis of dates-- the guys who pull the mysterious disappearing act for reasons that I've never know, only to magically pop back into my life weeks or months later. Maybe they've reappeared with the intentions of scoring more dates with me, or maybe they've just wanted a booty-call. I usually imagine that they've tried out some other girls (perhaps unsuccessfully) and are trying to revert back to me, their second, seemingly safer option. But, let's face it, I no longer want to see you again, no matter how much I felt like we connected in the past. You've already proven to me that you're not reliable or, really, all that serious in pursuing me.

A strong emotional spark means a lot and there's no arguing that, but it sure aint everything. Dependability, on the other hand, represents a greater part of the equation than we usually imagine. So you've got some amazing things in common, but does it ever really matter if he doesn't call when he says he will or never initiates plans with you?

Yes, we can sometimes learn from our mistakes but, quite honestly, when a guy just fades away, there isn't always something to gain from knowing why. I'm a believer in constructive criticism, even when it hurts, but sometimes, like in many of these situations, there's nothing really constructive to say. Maybe he's just not interested or perhaps he just has bullshit commitment issues and is scared to actually get into a serious relationship.

Knowing about any of his personal mischegas (the Yiddish word for BS) won't help YOU. You might even find yourself wondering if you can convince him otherwise or help him in some way. But don't. Just don't. Take it for what it is: it wasn't meant to be. If he wanted to date you he'd make it a point to call you and make plans and treat you well and impress your friends and family. Maybe in the future he will be ready, and he might come crawling back. It's then up for you to decide if you want to get involved or not. That's when you have to weigh the evidence and go with your gut.

It's comforting when we have answers. It really is. Especially when we know things happened because they were out of our control (even as frustrating as that can be) because we know that we didn't do anything wrong to precipitation the situation. The fact of life is that we don't always have answers. Just like we don't know how the world came to be or why Bill Clinton ever thought it would be a good idea to bang Monica Lewinsky (couldn't he have done better?!), we don't always stop dating someone with full knowledge as to why things went down the way they did. (Not him on you, sickos! And, if that is what I'm referring to, maybe your answer is that you just didn't smell that clean. If so, take care of that now, missy.)

Speculating isn't worth our time. Making an effort to find someone reliable and respectful is. And it's important to remember that.

Being grateful for what you have.

This weekend was supposed to be a good one. And it was. It just didn't start out that way. Let's just say I was supposed to spend Friday night to Sunday night celebrating my boyfriend's birthday in New Orleans. Due to a missed flight in Philly (thanks, US Airways, I love you!) I ended up spending the night there and not scoping out all of the trash (human and not) in the Who Dat Nation.

So I'm sitting on the plane to Philadelphia, watching the seconds tick by on my phone (using airplane mode, don't worry) and realizing that no way in hell am I ever going to make my connection to NOLA. The plane finally lands after having left the gate 15 minutes late, hanging out on the tarmac for 45 extra minutes and then circling around Philadelphia and-- yep-- my connection had already left. Not only had it left me, but it also left 11 other lucky souls-- so lucky, in fact, that they were able to witness my near hissy fit when I found out that we had just missed the final flight to Louisiana for the night. It became clear that I was going to be spending the next 12 hours in a dreary airport hotel room, when really I should have been down south taking jello shots and collecting Mardi Gras beads.

That was until I met my N, who I'll call my"new best friend." N had been sitting behind me on our delayed flight and happened to be heading to the same final destination as I was. We bonded as we battled the incompetent morons who sat picking their noses and rolling their eyes from behind the "CUSTOMER SERVICE" desk. When we both realized that no supervisor would actually be arriving after we requested one about nineteen times, we decided to make the best of the situation: have dinner, get rooms in the same hotel, make sure we both woke up for our early morning flight and have breakfast together. And so we did.

I'm not going to lie, but our dinner felt like a first date. A first date gone relatively well, mind you. Too bad we weren't looking to date each other; rather, we were both stuck in this miserable location when we were both really supposed to be in the south visiting our boyfriends who temporarily both have moved from our home city there to work. But, as far as girl dates go, this one was as good as it could have been. In fact, we had a lot in common, and if I had to choose someone to be stranded in an unfamiliar city with again, it might actually be her.

What I didn't expect, though, was that I'd actually learn something at dinner. My boyfriend, C, has been away training for business in Arkansas. N's boyfriend, a civil engineer, is temporarily in New Orleans, working on some sort of flood wall project. C is gone for 3 months. N's boyfriend, when he finishes up the project, will have been gone for two years. After I heard that, I began to recognize a lesson learned about long distance relationships:

It could be a lot worse. And I really mean A LOT worse. What if, god forbid, I were with someone off at war in Iraq? The worst thing I have to worry about is that my boyfriend is going to come home addicted to fried catfish, but not if he's going to come home at all. I'm so lucky, I realized, that this is temporary and, what's more, that he's in my life at all. So for all those moments when it feels lonely to have a partner away for business or something else equally as trivial, I've realized that we all need to be reminded how lucky we are. Some people aren't fortunate enough to ever know when that special person in their life will ever come home. And, more people than not aren't even lucky enough to have someone they even consider special in their life at all. Maybe I got a little of the south in me when I was there this weekend, but really, kids, [insert southern accent here] count your blessings. You've got more to be happy about than you think and, more often than not, you're not in the worst situation possible. Doesn't mean it's not a hard circumstance, but plenty of people have it so much worse-- and their version of worse might be forever.

My dinner date also made me recognize how great it is to learn about your own strength and independence when the one you love is so far away. N started telling me how she rarely complains about her boyfriend being absent, mainly because of the reason I listed above and because she knows she can handle being on her own and having her own routine. What drives her insane, she explained, is when her girlfriends will call her upset because their boyfriends are gone for a couple days on business or for a family function over a weekend. Funny how it's the same thing that makes me crazy. Together we decided something: if you can't handle your man being away for a couple of days then you've got a problem. A serious problem. It's called co-dependence. Be grateful you're in a loving relationship if you are and that your circumstances are only temporary. Then tough it out like a real woman.

They say "distance makes the heart grow fonder," but after my lengthy discussion with N I've come to the conclusion that distance makes the mind grow stronger. It's important to learn how to be independent, how to go out with friends and spend time apart from your significant other, no matter how much you love them or are in love with them. I've realized that I look down upon people who can't do that, people who complain about a couple of days apart from their relationship. And I've learned that some space can be the most special and magical thing of them all.

My boyfriend thinks that girl's sexy and I... AGREE!?

My disclosure: Some of you are going to be weirded out by this post. Not only that, some of you are going to think I’m crazy—which I may very well be. There’s a slight chance you might agree with what I’m about to say, but it’s unlikely. I encourage you to share your thoughts either way.

I’m going to throw this out there: I don’t get offended when a boy I’m dating comments on the level of attractiveness or sex appeal of some other girl. I don’t throw a girly fit, snap at him or threaten to break up with him. In fact, I do the very opposite: I’m willing to engage in thoughtful discussion with him about it. I mean I guess maybe thoughtful isn’t the appropriate word—is a conversation about judging someone’s appearance really that detailed, serious and important?

You might wonder if I get jealous when my boyfriend tells me he finds another girl attractive. The answer is no. I don’t get jealous whether he sees her on the street and makes that comment. Nor do I care when I show him a picture of a girl that I personally think is cute or pretty or sexy or hot and he responds with an affirmative opinion.

Likewise, I don’t find some secret pleasure if and when a guy that I’m with points out an unattractive girl on the street. Actually that evokes the very opposite reaction for me—why would I want to be dating someone who is evil enough to comment on the heinous nose of a girl he doesn’t know or on some stranger’s botched haircut!? Sure, like any girl, I can admit that I do experience a little pleasure when anyone close to me has an opinion aligned with mine, especially if it’s about a particularly unkind girl and her dreadful appearance.

I know that some people will argue that I’m objectifying women here. There are always a few people in every audience who claim that the person speaking is objectifying women or men or animals or SOMEONE. To clarify, I believe in starting a thoughtful (again, not MEAN but rather constructive) dialogue about a person’s aesthetics.

In my sick and twisted mind, I justify this viewpoint as being the same as looking at a piece of art. Just like a Monet or a Picasso, a woman can be beautiful, exotic, unappealing or simply hideous—with many other things in between. If I were in an art museum with a boyfriend, I’d value and seriously consider his opinions about the pieces hanging on the walls. Why, I wonder, should this differ from any human face or body, essentially works of art in and of themselves? Why shouldn’t I be interested in my partner’s opinion on that as well?

The truth is, if you’re comfortable in your relationship, you shouldn’t take issue with the fact that your significant other finds someone attractive. If you’re worried that because they find them attractive it means they want to run out to a Motel 6, rent a room for an hour and screw them, then yes, by all means, you do have a problem. But if you believe that, maybe you shouldn’t be in that relationship at all.

Face it, people: even when we aren’t single, good looking and ugly people alike still exist. Just because we find someone attractive doesn’t mean we’re attracted to him or her. And, even if we were, it doesn’t mean we want to bang them for hours on end.

So get over it. If your man tells you on occasion that some other girl is good looking, take the comment for what it is and move on. (Granted, it’s a different situation if he’s constantly commenting on other women or if he fails to ever compliment you.) If you really find his comments worrisome, don’t bother shrieking, hissing or withholding sex for weeks on end. Then it’s just time to evaluate the level of trust in your relationship and really consider if this is someone you want to be with.

Just when I thought girls would grow up...

It was that moment that most women dread every year: the annual checkup with our doctor. As if it’s not annoying enough to hear about all the vitamins we should or shouldn’t be taking, all the unpleasant tests we’ll have in the coming years, we have to be weighed. Maybe it doesn’t sound like a big deal but, for people who are at all concerned with weight management, having to face “THE NUMBER,” especially in front of a medical professional, proves especially daunting, uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking.

So this year, it didn’t help when I mentioned to the doctor that I’m slightly concerned with THE NUMBER. Sure, I’m in great shape and it’s not like my diet include McDonalds or even regular trips to the bakery. But, as is the case for most people, my habits leave something to be desired and there is certainly room for improvement. So, in considering all this, I asked my doc, a female in her mid-thirties, if I should be concerned with what the scale told us.

“No,” she answered, “not really. I mean, we don’t really start to talk about gastric bypass until your BMI reaches a 33 or so.”

GASTRIC BYPASS. The words echoed in my head so forcefully that I really thought it might explode. I glared at her, gripped my stomach and asked “If you were going to do gastric bypass on me, WHAT WOULD YOU EVEN TAKE OUT!?” I was clearly referring to the fact that I’m a healthy size six. That’s less than half the size of the average woman in America!

Needless to say I came home from that appointment shocked, horrified and, of course, a little anxious. No one in my life had ever mentioned that phrase to me in connection to my own body. Why now, especially when it’s clearly so inappropriate considering my physical presentation?

After I finally calmed down, I called a guy friend who I confide in regularly.

“Rach,” he said, “it’s so obvious. It’s sick but it’s clearly that whole catty girl mentality,” he explained. He then went on to ask if the doctor is small or large herself, to which I noted that she’s actually heavyset. It then clicked: yes, the competitive relationship between girls has even entered the clinical setting. For all this doctor knows, I could be a vulnerable girl who, while concerned about my weight, also isn’t the most mentally stable. She could have been “encouraging” my weight loss while also promoting self-destructive or even deadly behavior. Fortunately for her, I’m confident enough to know that I don’t actually have a problem and that, yes, my friend was right: her competitive female behavior penetrated the doctor-patient relationship.

I would have liked to think that a doctor would have more common sense and decency when conversing with a patient. I would like to think, for that matter, that any grown woman would know how to speak to other women with kindness, dignity and respect.

Boy am I wrong. Other recent examples have proved how wrong I really have been.

I work in an office surrounded by many other women. It’s a fabulous place to work and the company really treats us well. Unfortunately for me, not all of the women treat each other with the same standards as the company does. More and more, I’ve learned that this competitive, catty and flat out BITCHY behavior also applies to working professionals in big companies. Apparently my interaction with my doctor was not some of anomaly-- some women are just mean to each other for trivial or even non-apparent reasons. And that’s a fact.

I’ve recently been noticing that a group of these women (all of whom work in close proximity to my cubicle) have decided that it’s OK to not only comment negatively on my performance, but to also stab me with nasty remarks when it seems that no one else is listening. After our manager said that I should use one of these women’s printers, the employee lectured me sternly, saying how she HOPES I’m not “using that printer out of convenience.” That little comment was followed by a barrage of questions about my own printer and whether I was just using hers because mine wasn’t working. At this point I had (foolishly) assumed that offering to purchase her ink and extra paper would be enough, but it seems that she was more interested in having a reason to reprimand me than to accept me printing a page or two at her desk.

Today, another co-worker (also female) shot me back a nasty, three sentence email about how I was so inappropriate to state to a colleague that she was “working from home” for the day. Perhaps that was an over-share on my part, maybe it was not something I should have disclosed. But would I have cared if she had told someone else that if I were doing the same if I truly were? Of course not. Again, another prime example of an angry female just scanning for reasons to condemn a younger, more vulnerable female’s behavior. Fortunately for me, I know that I have my youth, whereas all these women have is the ability to gossip and whisper in front of my face every day. (Yes, they do. I swear.)

What do I make of all of this? I’ve decided that I need to take it all in stride. Girls will be girls no matter what age they are. Such spiteful behavior isn’t acceptable or appropriate, even more so in a work or clinical setting, but it happens. It’s important to not over-analyze these situations or to dwell on them, but it’s also necessary to recognize that there’s a reason that grown women like these choose to pick on others. Maybe they’re jealous of my age or my work capabilities, who knows. Regardless, it’s important to step back and recognize that sometimes the younger (and skinnier!) person can be the bigger person. It’s comforting to know that even if they’re putting on their antics so regularly, I’m still going to treat them with kindness and not let them know they’ve upset me.


My best friend’s mom used to tell her this as a kid and I think it still applies: “I am rubber and you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.” Take that, ladies, and grow up.

Facebook: Making Breakups More Painful

Today I was talking to K, a close friend, about how Facebook makes breakups even more devastating than they already are. There's nothing worse than already being heartbroken than to have 65 of your acquaintances bombard you with emails, texts, gchat messages and calls asking what happened. They're looking for answers about what went wrong when... OH YEAH, you're wondering the same thing. Read below for a truly passionate, heartfelt analysis of how Facebook really complicates an ended relationship even further.

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R has kindly allowed me to hijack her blog for a post about breaking up in the age of Facebook. Children of the early 80s such as myself (I’m actually 3 years older than Mr. Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg) are in the unique position of having experienced serious breakups in both the pre- and post- Facebook universe. Having just experienced an especially soul-crushing breakup, I’m here to explain why Facebook makes the entire experience a thousand times worse.

First, a brief word of background. We fell in love. We moved in together. We got engaged. We set a date, I bought a wedding dress. He ended it and threw me out. I moved back in with my parents. That about sums it up.

Background out of the way, let me launch into why Facebook makes this situation even more unbearable.

1) The Shame Quotient

In a pre-Facebook world, I grant you that a lot of people would have known that I was engaged. I would have told many of my friends about my wedding dress, as well as other details of my wedding and generally how happy and in love I was. But would 500 of my closest acquaintances, frenemies and ex-boyfriends have been privy to that information? Most definitely not. Part of me thanks God that the ex decided to drop this bomb before the Save the Dates went out, but really, would recalling those be any more shameful than changing my Facebook relationship status? Changing one’s relationship status is akin to saying to everyone you’ve ever met in your life, “Remember how I used to be really happy? Remember how I posted over and over that I was going to be with this person forever? Well I was really really wrong and stupid, ok?”

I will say that I have appreciated the outpouring of support from many members of my Facebook community in this difficult time in my life. But I can’t help but think of every frenemy and ex that I never bothered to de-Friend who must be experiencing no small amount of schadenfreude every time I post a comment expressing my sadness and pain. I could start de-Friending people, but they aren’t really the people that have wronged me, and I don’t actually know what they are thinking. So instead I just live with the shame of thinking about what they might be thinking every time I feel the urge to post.

2) The Ex Factor

Even if you do decide to start culling people to limit your shame, that brings you head to head with the second big issue of the Facebook age: de-Friending the ex. In the old days, once you’d moved out, paid the last utility bill, and had him mail all the stuff you forgot to pack, you had to make an active effort to keep him in your life. That’s not to say that plenty of drunken “why don’t you love me?!?!?” phone calls didn’t occur. But those calls did not give you the all-access pass into What He’s Doing Now You’re Gone that Facebook provides without any effort on your part. Especially when your ex, like mine, is an active user of not only Facebook, but also FourSquare. There’s nothing quite like signing into Facebook in your pajamas at 6:30pm to find out that your ex is currently enjoying a night out at one of the fanciest restaurants in your former hometown. Facebook and FourSquare allow you to bypass the pesky logistical and moral details of stalking someone and let you to launch straight into the crazy that results when you know more than you should about his life After. Before you know it you’re overwhelmed by questions of “how can he be over it so fast? Has he found someone else? DID I MEAN NOTHING?!?!?!”

So you decide that you don’t want to be Crazy Stalker Lady and that you should un-friend him. But now removing him entirely from your life, Facebook-style, has become as active an effort as keeping him in your life was pre-Facebook. Un-Friending forces you to confront all the tiny little breakup voices still lurking in your head. “But what if he posts that he really misses you right after you block him?” one voice might whisper. “Isn’t it better to know what he’s doing than to wonder?” another voice (posing as the voice of reason) might argue. To de-Friend requires a Herculean effort to shut out all the little voices, a task that is often beyond the recently dumped.

And if you have been together a long time (living together three years and friends before that for two more, for example), de-Friending him is only the tip of the iceberg. What about the hundreds of mutual friends that you share? Some are easily categorized as His, but most you don’t want to lose just because he dumped you. But as long as you are friends with them, there is a chance he will continue to infiltrate your Facebook world. And what about photos? In the old days, it was a simple matter of either shoving the photos in a box under your bed or making a little funeral pyre for them (depending on your flare for the dramatic). But now your photos represent Who You Are to the Facebook world. Deleting all the ones of you and him together, or you participating in things you did together, means essentially deleting the last 5 years of your life. You don’t want the world to think you just didn’t exist for most of your twenties, even if, looking back, you wish you had existed a little bit more without him. And if you aren’t going to delete the photos and you aren’t going to un-Friend mutual friends, unfriending him becomes essentially an exercise in futility.

I realize this post is going to out me as a crazy lady to many people, including many people who have no idea who I am. I think bad breakups make all of us a little crazy. I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to keep Facebook from making the little bit of crazy a little bit worse.

I ended it with him... not because he's a pest but because he HAS pests!

A couple of years back, my close friend was plagued with the roommate from hell. No, she wasn’t bringing back strange men, drugs or stinky food. In fact, she wasn’t bringing back anything to their apartment. She just thought she was. She was convinced she had infested their space with bedbugs.

At the time, a couple of years ago already, her incessant fears seemed ridiculous. Bedbugs!? Her bumps on her legs could easily be explained by irritation caused by shaving. And those night itches? Those could certainly be explained by anything at all that causes itching, not just bedbugs.

The situation spiraled out of control when my friend would wake up at 5:00am only to find her roommate sealing all of her clothing in plastic bags. She was struggling to keep those imaginary little critters off of her linens and, as far as we know, she was successful: she never really did have any bugs. We ultimately recognized her insanity when she called her mom as she was packing for a trip to Italy. She panicked that not only her bugs would follow her to Europe, but also that it would be her fault that the entire continent would later be infested.

Crazy? Yes. Unusual fears for then? Certainly. But now in 2010, with a bedbug crisis pervading through most of New York, does her behavior still strike us as insane? Perhaps a little, but definitely not as much as it was back then. I guess we could argue that she was ahead of her time, but I think that I’d still say she represents a psycho-roommate.

In 2008 it was absolutely a little nutty to be freaking out about potential bedbugs and even crazier to have to listen to your roommate stress about them. Who would have thought, just two years later, that her irrational fear would become a rational one for countless people? And now this fear doesn’t just involve roommates, but also boyfriends, girlfriends, dates, husbands, wives and one-night stands.
The thought had never occurred to me before reading a CNN article called “Got bedbugs? New Yorkers may scratch that relationship.” Having bedbugs, whether imaginative or real, seems to effect our relationships with those around us, mainly because there is such an infestation in our country right now. Who would have thought that we’d have to consider the presence of actual bugs before hopping into someone’s bed? Moreover, who’d think we’d have to consider other bugs besides scabies (EW.) before sleeping with someone?

According to this article, these little guys are breaking up relationships (both casual and not) more often than we’d imagine. The situation causes people to forgo physical interaction with others, in fear that the bugs might spread to their own bodies and clothing. Additionally, the bugs are causing more people to panic like my friend’s roommate did, even when no bugs really crawl through our rooms. That constant panic alone can easily cause rifts or tension in a relationship. I mean, really, would you want to deal with someone whose thoughts of bugs occupy their entire train of thought all day?

We can, though, learn a few things from this article. First, you shouldn’t crawl into bed with a random person. This is not only because of the factors we can all name immediately (STDs, physical danger, etc.), but because you really don’t know what else is lurking under their sheets. We also can gather how serious of a problem these bugs are-- how quickly they spread and how rampant they truly are-- and why it’s so imperative that we take action if we ever actually find them in our apartments.

But do I really think that we can definitively say that bed bugs ruin relationships? Absolutely not. We all face stressful matters in all of our social and romantic relationships. But if you’re going to let these teensy little dudes ruin what you have with your significant other, I’d argue that you have much bigger problems somewhere. We can all easily mask the issues and say that bedbugs are ruining our lives, but really, it’s important to realize that maybe you’re ending your relationship because of your small guy and not because of your small creepy-crawlers.

PS: I actually don’t mean that. Well, not completely at least. Don’t break up with a guy because of his size. Just don’t. But we’ll get into that another time.

“Apologies” for the Past-- with a Conniving Twist

On my way to work two days ago, I was obviously reading the iPhone version of the New York Times that I had so brilliantly pre-loaded before my subway went underground. In the section that hosts the “Most Popular” articles, I touched the article on the top of the list. Turns out it was about Anita Hill, the woman who, in 1991, accused Supreme Court Justice-to-be Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. She testified under oath that he had subjected her to comments of sexual and pornographic nature. Thomas still managed to receive the nomination to the United States’ highest court, but his ordeal with Hill has perhaps forever tainted the opinions many Americans hold toward him.

So in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of days (I don’t think any of my readers are starfish or worms, but who knows...) let me inform you that Hill was back in the news because of another interesting situation. Apparently she arrived to work at Brandeis University one morning last week, only to find a voicemail waiting from Thomas’s wife, Virginia. Virginia had decided that one morning at 7:30am just 19 years after her husband’s battle against Hill would be a good time to call Hill to “make amends.” Hill, upset and concerned for obvious reasons, called campus police who later informed the FBI. But, like any girl would, she made the situation explode even further: she also called The New York Times to let them listen to the message.

“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” she said in the message. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”

She went on to tell Thomas to “have a good day.”

If I were reading that out of context, I’d have assumed that Thomas were asking Hill to apologize for something that happened yesterday or maybe the day before, but not nineteen years ago. I also would have thought (rather, hoped) that someone married to someone as much in the spotlight as a Supreme Court Justice might have a little more tact and understanding in terms of which battles to pick and when.

As I went to bed that night watching the news, I realized that this situation wasn’t going to blow overly so quickly and that Virginia’s message is still reaching “across the airwaves.” Yet another newscaster was providing their commentary on the story. Now, let’s be honest. Virgina must have been able to predict that her message would have become public, and she certainly couldn’t have thought that Hill would have kept the instance private. She had to have known that this would become a rather large and well-known scandal in itself.

At least in my eyes, this is the classic scenario of not only girl-to-girl bullying, but also a pathetic cry for attention on the part of Virginia. (Likewise, we could probably argue that to some extent Hill was vying for attention by publicising the occurrence.) I would have hoped that women of their age could have matured enough to avoid not only such a public spectacle, but a public spectacle nineteen years after beginning.

But, here’s what it boils down to: sometimes apologies (or some semblance of an apology to some degree) come when you least expect it. Maybe both women were instigating their own drama, but the situation shows that people revisit the past when the timing seems unusual or random. No one knows what triggered this event, perhaps marital problems between the Thomas’s, but what matters is that the Hill-Thomas situation was revisited and, even though it involves two prominent women, they still managed to slide in a conniving and girly twist. Apparently I was wrong in thinking that women grow up. Figures.

Summing up my post: WHY I DON'T WANT TO RELY ON A MAN TO SUPPORT ME.

Kick-Ass Quote of the Month...

Comes from a woman who listened to the KQED interview Michelle Cove did this month about Seeking Happily Ever After, her new documentary about women getting married later in life. Her comment:

"Being single in your 30's or older simply means you have to WORK to CREATE your life. True, it's probably not for the weak, lazy or uninspired. I've always chosen to create my life than to fall into a cookie cutter plan society has mapped out for me. The result? Passion, purpose, growth and a lifestyle most people I know say they envy. I consider myself blessed to walk the 'road less traveled.'"

Facebook and Our Feelings?!

So here’s an interesting one. Facebook cares about you. Not only does the company/website care about you, they care about your feelings and your emotions, especially when it comes to romantic breakups.
According to Samuel Axon’s “Facebook stops showing you photos of your ex” (http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/10/20/facebook.ex.photos.mashable/index.html?iref=NS1) on www.cnn.com, Facebook “used to constantly show you photos of your ex, which might have reminded you just how great things were before he or she dumped you, but it has stopped that now. Exes no longer show up in the ‘Photo Memories’ box.” For those unaware, the “Photo Memories” box refers to that subdivision of your Facebook screen that appears in the top right corner of certain pages on the site, like when you’re viewing friends or photos.

Now, if I remember correctly from The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg certainly cared about algorithms. He definitely didn’t care about social relationships on the personal level. Rather, he was concerned about how they applied to other people and how he could capitalize on essentially helping technologically define other people’s social ties. But, hey, money talks and a good business person knows what their client is after. And Zuckerberg’s clients, we can assume, certainly aren’t after making their lives miserable and depressing through constant visual reminders of relationships past. Well, some of them might be, but here I’m assuming that we’re not all crazy emo people who strive to be depressed all day. Or at least I hope not.

Anyway, according to this source, a group of people made a Facebook group where they protested the “Photo Memories” box. Their efforts, it seems, made an impact as they got their way. Facebook developed a set of rules in their programing code to make it so that our exes essentially no longer pop up unwanted on our screens. What the code entails no one but insiders knows for sure; maybe the system recognizes when we used to click on someone’s profile all the time and then stopped, or perhaps it’s based solely on changed relationship statuses. As one of my friends said once, “I don’t question it, I just know that Facebook somehow knows everything.” Scary but somehow true.

Since Facebook already has way too much of my information (and I’m really the only one at fault for that) I’m not sure what I think. I can’t decide if I like that they’re using my clicking-habits to help me out or if I’d really appreciate that they stay out of my personal life. I’d like to think that when I feel as if the whole world knows I’ve just experienced a tragic breakup at least animals and non-human, inanimate objects, like the internet and our computers, are unaware. Apparently no long the case.

Now, I do have to say that it might bring on a sense of relief if an ex’s picture no longer pops up when we didn’t even go to their page. I mean, sometimes it’s unavoidable, especially if you two still maintain mutual friendships. He or she is bound to appear in a picture you’re looking at for an entirely different reason than to stalk him. My own algorithm helps me calculate me that there’s a good chance this will happen. (Funny role reversal here, I’m pretending to enter the mathematical/computer science world as Facebook and its developers try to edge into the realities of the social world.)

When it comes down to it, I think I appreciate the intentions of the company here. In the olden days (read: Y2K and before) we didn’t have to look at pictures of an ex unless we pulled out and dusted the photo box we kept under our bed. Now, with the prolific nature of social networking online, we have no choice but to keep seeing reminders of what was. If Facebook can even help me to avoid one of those hurtful moments, even just one, then I say all the power to them. I’d prefer to spend that moment not thinking about an ex, wouldn’t you?

WHY I DON'T WANT TO RELY ON A MAN TO SUPPORT ME.

I’ve got a problem. I’ve become a feminist. I’ve never been a feminist before and, quite honestly, I’m not really sure what to make of it or how to deal with it. Before you go off thinking that I’m about to be burning my bra and protesting the male race, hear me out.

It recently occurred to me that I value my education, acquired skills and the mere fact that I have a job and an income. At this point in life there are very few things that are worth more to me than being able to support myself financially, pay my own bills and, as a result, not have to answer to anyone or anything besides myself. Maybe that’s being selfish, not feminist, but I personally still think it’s a little bit more feministy than I’ve ever been in the past.

I have to take a step back and wonder why this whole overarching “job” and “career” and “financial stability” concept is so important to me right now. Why this second? Why do I care?

First off, I realize that at some points during my educational career I worked hard for my grades. Sure, in college I slacked off plenty, but just being in college (physically) was work on its own-- both emotionally and academically. But moreso emotionally. (Hey, it’s tough to learn how to share a living space with conniving girls or to deal with that best friend whose idea of a good time is to get wasted and then destroy property!) Second, I realize that I’m goddamned lucky to have a job during these years that are so difficult financially for most Americans.

After considering these two things, I then think about so many girls my age whose only wish (whether or not they have yet fulfilled it) is to get married and have babies. Now, I’m not about to argue that either of those are bad things in themselves, but I will defend my opinion to the death that there is a proper time and place for these things to happen in our lives. Just as much as it wouldn’t have been appropriate to pop out a few kids in high school, it wouldn’t be the ideal time in my life now, either. I’m 23 and baby, I’ve got this decade to live without the hassel of raising my own family. I need to raise MYSELF before I can be responsible for anyone else. I just envision myself encouraging a child to make their bed or maintain a healthy diet when I don’t yet do it myself. Those alone provide an instant reminder that I’m not ready.

I also have decided that if I were, in theory, to just quit my job to get married and have kids, it would demonstrate a complete lack of ambition. Don’t get me wrong, I understand how challenging it is to raise a kid and maintain a household even without a job. As Oprah says, being a mom is the hardest job in the world. But if I were to marry someone in order to have kids right now for any other purpose other than for love, it would not only be not only unfair to the guy, but really unfair to myself. Why shouldn’t I be in a position to strive to improve upon or advance in my career? Do I really want to have to trust one person’s dealings at work to ensure my own monetary stability? Why should he have to do all of the work outside the house to support me when I have a perfectly worthy college degree?

All in all, it comes down to one thing: I don’t want to be lazy. I’d like to think that I have more personality, education and intelligence than to just give up my outside world to rely on some husband’s paychecks so I can clean toilets and do laundry all day. There is absolutely no reason for me to resign myself to a life at home watching soaps while the baby sleeps. It’s early enough in time that I can still prove myself as my own person out there in the working world while saving time in the future to both have a family and a career.

Besides, the workplace is often the best place for me to get story ideas. And we all know I wouldn’t get to maintain this blog, one of my favorite things to write, if I didn’t have interesting stories. I’d rather be writing from my Cloroxed cubicle than from a rocking chair as a baby spits up on me, thank you very much.

You Ended It, Now YOU Move On.

At one point or another, most of us have been there: we’ve been broken up with. We know what it’s like to feel torn apart at the seams, and we suddenly recognize what our old stuffed animal felt like back in 1989 after we chewed him apart a little too much. Maybe it feels as if life will never be the same since that person who played such an important role will now be out of the picture. Maybe we feel hopeless-- will I ever find someone to love me as much as he or she did?

Oftentimes when someone breaks up with us they shoot off a barrage of excuses. “I just want to be young and party unattached” or “I’m just not at a place in my life where I can have someone else relying on me.” Truth of the matter is that, yes, maybe your significant other is telling it straight. Or, if you know me, you know that I always refer back to the basic premise of my favorite book: maybe, just maybe, he’s just not that into you. A lot of the time we don’t know why exactly someone chose to end things with us, especially when we haven’t done something especially wrong or offensive. It doesn’t take an episode of cheating to make someone want to make a swift exit from the relationship. Sometimes it just happens, for whatever reason, and the person ending it doesn’t provide a proper explanation. It sucks but it happens. We all deal with this.

So maybe the person doesn’t give us a good explanation as to why they’re ending things. Perhaps the breakup leaves us wondering what we did wrong or how we could have salvaged the relationship. At one point or another, though, I hope that we all come to the same conclusion: it’s over, it will be over forever, and there’s not a heck of a lot that we can do to change it. I know it sounds pessimistic (and it actually is) but hey, that’s reality. Can’t spend our lives chasing something we really shouldn’t have. As my roommate explained, “In some situations you realize that you wasted just way too much energy on something to make it work when, in reality, it was no longer worth the fight but it takes a bad break up to make you realize it.”

So months later, when you finally get over it, something interesting inevitably happens: your ex comes crawling back. Now I’m not suggesting that it ALWAYS happens, but, a good chunk of the time when things ended expectantly, it does. Usually it’s when you least expect it, like you’re sitting at your desk at work on a Thursday at 4pm and-- oh hey-- one new email in your inbox. Your heart stops because, well, that name hasn’t appeared in your inbox in months!

Sometimes, in the worst of situations, it’s in public. An ex might approach you when other people are around, just so that you feel the need to be a polite and proper person and actually have a conversation. Or, unfortunately, sometimes an ex isn’t so kind. In the case of my roommate, her ex-boyfriend isn’t even attempting to put on a gentlemanly act. Rather, he’s resorted to the oh-so-mature behavior of public embarrassment, screaming at her across the room at parties and talking trash behind her back to all of her friends. Now, if he’s not embarrassing HIMSELF in public, I don’t know who is. Hello, YOU made the mistake, and now you’re taking it out on her, right after she’s gotten over you? I say let him keep shouting and making scenes. Pretty soon other people besides us will realize that he’s beating himself up for what he did and trying to place the blame on her!

As Bob Dylan sang, "I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind.You could have done better but I don't mind.You just kinda wasted my precious time." Sometimes, we just have to look back on things and realize that, yes, maybe we think we wasted some of our time, but everything usually works itself out well. We learned from our past relationships (I hope!) and, believe it or not, the person who wrongfully ended them (if that’s the case) usually learns their lesson as well, as evidenced by the ones who come crawling back. After all, isn’t it nice to realize that we’re living in the present while an ex who hurt us so much in the past is still living in it?

From Coffee Dates to Booty Calls: Unacceptable Dating Trends

It’d be a little inappropriate if a guy asked you outright for a first date that included not only dinner but a sleepover and breakfast as well. It’s not unheard of though, and it definitely happens all of the time. It would also be odd to take a date to meet the parents (or even the friends or extended family) on a first date. But, after talking to countless girls about their dating lives, I’ve learned that this experience, too, is also not unheard of. People have different expectations about what should happen on a first date and where it should be, but there are certain things that just cross the line. And, as Joey from Friends would say, sometimes people cross the line so far that the line just looks like a dot to them!

It’s important that I make something clear here. We often focus on when men have gone too far and have done too much on a first or second date. Perhaps they took the girl to somewhere too extravagant (a wedding or work gathering is clearly not appropriate for a first meeting) or they expected the meeting to go on for too long. Much too often, though, girls overlook the very opposite phenomenon: the guy who just won’t step things up.

For a first date, I like to suggest to both other people and myself to keep things simple. I’m talking a Starbucks get-together or a casual outdoor walk. No reason to have a higher-pressure situation, like dinner, where oh-so-many things could go wrong. Sure, with a coffee or tea date someone could spill, or with a walk someone like myself could trip and end up in the hospital. But there’s much less risk involved. Most importantly, it’s easier to scheme an exit plan when things are left simple. If you’re dying over dinner because that guy is just leaking partially chewed food from his mouth, there aint a hell of a lot you can do besides wait for him to finish and hope to god the check comes soon. And he better be paying. Especially after putting you through that disgusting behavior.

Basically a first date should be short, sweet, easy to get out of but, if it’s good enough, one that wants you leaving more. That said, what happens when a guy keeps the dates short and simple? What if he never makes the transition from your local coffee shop to even your neighborhood pizza joint? Or what if he does take you for dinner, but then never wants to even do as much as get ice cream afterwards?

That, my friends, is a problem. If a man really wants to get to know you and ultimately date you, he should, at the very least, buy you a nice (not necessarily expensive, but nice) meal and want to spend time with you. Under no circumstances should you “not be worthy” of his time for dinner; rather, if that’s the case, he’s not worth any of your time at all.

Another similar issue that arises is when you come across a guy who, sure, he’ll take you for dinner, and he might even take you out for drinks and a stroll afterward-- on weeknights. But when it comes to the weekends he disappears. Well, listen to me, and listen to me well: that’s not acceptable behavior. If a guy isn’t willing to fit you into his oh-so-busy weekend schedule that doesn’t even have a second for you to see each other, then well, he’s just not what you’re looking for. A guy who’s truly into you should not only want to see you on the weekends (or all the time, for that matter, although seeing each other too often too soon is a totally different issue), but on weekend nights as well. He should be thrilled to share your company on a Friday night, rather than be out boozing with his bros and picking up hos. (Alright, I tried to rhyme, but actually if you think about it, there might be SOME sense in what I was trying to say.)

It all boils down to this: it’s totally fine if a guy starts things off slowly. He should. No doubt about it. But, if after a few dates he’s unwilling to, say, devote an entire meal to you or pen you in for a weekend meet-up, he’s just not worth your time. Remember, it’s not at all about buying you things, and a guy should never feel as though he always has to buy you dinner. (You should be doing it an equal amount for him, ladies!) But, he should be willing to sometimes take you out, and those sometimes should definitely be occasionally during prime going-out hours. If he doesn’t man up and have this happen, I’d argue that he really should be out with his boys looking for women-- trashy women not including yourself-- who will tolerate this disgusting behavior.


PS: Please remember that there are exceptions to every rule. Maybe your guy works night shifts and can’t have dinner. Consider other factors before jumping to any conclusions, but please oh please, don’t make excuses for him. He’s not even your boyfriend yet! Booty calls and completely cost-free dates aren’t going to cut it, and they damn well shouldn’t.

Love vs. In Love

I know that I haven't been writing multiple posts per week like I was this summer, but that's just because life has picked up and become busier. While it's definitely a good thing that I run myself ragged until I come home and crash at night, it means less energy to write for my readers. But don't think I haven't been thinking about you. The list of potential blog topics that I've generated has been growing steadily. Just today, while I was on a particularly head-clearing run, I came up with a few fresh ones. But even though that list has stretched in length, I think it's time that I tackle a big, important topic that countless people have encouraged me to think about: LOVE.

Over the past couple of months, I've found myself in conversation with friends about what it means to be "in love" with someone, versus to just "love" someone. Some people habitually use those phrases interchangably, but I really don't think that's always appropriate. I sure hope that we love the people that we're in love with, but do we have to be in love with those we love?

Absolutely not.

On the most fundamental of levels, think of it this way. Are you in love with your mother? If you are, stop reading. Stop reading immediately. Get yourself into the next available shrink. I'm serious. In all honesty, though, do you love your mother? (Or, if not your mother, then your father, your brother, your aunt, whatever other family members?) Most of us can probably say that yes, we love at least one of our family members. But does that mean that we're in love with them? I sure hope to God not!

What's the difference here? Well, it's romance of course. We love our family members, meaning that we care about them in an extremely deep sense. Perhaps it means that we'd do anything for them to ensure their happiness and/or wellbeing, or maybe it means that if something were to happen to them, we'd be forever changed and devastated. We love them in the sense that they mean a heck of a lot to us, but we don't love them in the way that makes us want to crawl into bed naked with them. Right there, that's the basic explanation of loving someone versus being in love with them. (I'm sick and twisted, I know, but just hang out and see where I'm going.)

Now, movies and romantic pieces of literature often consider that silly old notion of love at first sight. Do I believe in it? No, I definitely don't. I'm completely sure that it takes a long time to get to know someone well enough to love them, that love isn't based off of looks or initial interactions. Yes, both of those things can start us on a journey to ultimately finding love, but can you really say that you know your life would be ruined if that guy you saw across the bar tragically died tomorrow? Love is deeper than appearances, more serious than a crush. More serious than even the biggest of crushes. Really.

That said, just because you love someone doesn't mean you're in love with them. Maybe you care about them deeply and know that they hold a special place in your heart. But would your heart be broken if they were to disappear tomorrow? Would you forever compare every other person of romantic interest to that one person, always holding them in higher regard than the rest?

A friend and I were talking about this and we came to one conclusion, a partial answer to a question that really has no answers. We decided it's easier to tell if you were actually in love with someone in retrospect than it is in the present. When we're dating someone, we might THINK we're in love. We decide that we really rely on our partner for at least some of our happiness, that our life would be changed without them. We think about this even if, in the back of our mind, we know that they're maybe not "the one," or that they have some qualities about them that drive us so insane that we can't really overlook them and focus on the good.

Looking back on past relationships, though, is what often allows us to determine if we were really in love, or rather just having a good time with a person that maybe we even, to some degree, loved at the time. If you look back on that first relationship that you felt "in love," how does it make you feel now? If that person were to contact you right now, would you get butterflies in your stomach? Or do they really not mean a whole heck of a lot to you anymore? Do you remember what it felt like to kiss them, or is that a memory so distant that your mind has sort of just forgotten it?

Although I'm stating the obvious, I think that looking back on situations is what really allows us to evaluate them. Maybe we can't verify that we were really in love until it's too late, until our object of affection has married and had kids. Or, conversely, what I consider a good situation is looking back and not feeling anything about that man who broke our heart or that girl who crushed us. Maybe, just maybe, that means that we really weren't all that in love, even though we thought we were at the time and in the moment.

I've come to two conclusions while having written this post. One is that it's true, it really takes time to both fall in love with someone and to love them deeply. I don't care what Hollywood says, but you can't love someone when you first meet them, as you simply just don't know enough about them to love their entire being. Two is that time really does make a huge difference. When we break up with someone, we can often feel this awful pain that seems as if it will never go away. But, when we let the time pass and we look back on our relationship with that other person, sometimes time has allowed us to realize that they didn't mean as much to us as we thought. (Of course, the opposite can also be true.) Point is, I don't think we always can accurately assess what we have when we have it. But, if feelings of love and being "in love" continue over time without any doubt, then maybe, just maybe, we've found something worthwhile and what we can actually call "true love."