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.

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?

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?

Sometimes a Girl Just Needs Her Space-- Her OWN Space!

Back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and our grandparents were getting engaged, it wasn’t acceptable to become too intimate with a boy before marriage. It definitely wasn’t socially acceptable to be canoodling or, worse-- engaging in sexual relations-- with anyone before the papers were signed and the deal sealed.

But living together? That had to have been than just worse than just intercourse itself. It’s like a blatant statement to the outside world that WE ARE HAVING SEX. Almost as bad as if the girl were to get pregnant. But maybe not quite. At least there wouldn’t be an illegitimate child to forever be holding a neon sign saying “I’m here because my parents made a mistake before they were married!” It might even have flashing lights and ringing bells.

Now we’re in the year 2010 and, as we all know, the public opinion and trends in terms of living together before marriage have both changed drastically. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, “just over 50% of first cohabitating couples ever get married.” In fact, they also write that “Cohabitation, once rare, is not the norm: The researchers found that more than half (54 percent) of all first marriages between 1990 and 1994 began with cohabitation.”

So, for the purposes of this post, and because I think it’s fair to believe that the numbers have surpassed 50% almost 20 years later, let’s say that, on the whole, more people than not cohabitate before marriage. Not that there’s a pressure to do so, but it’s more acceptable if it’s the choice a couple makes. And, believe me, most people are curious about what their partner is like to live with. Does he clip his toenails in a nausea-inducing manner in front of her? Does her dog destroy all underwear that she can get her paws on? Pair that curiosity with society’s acceptance towards living together and we’re certain to get more and more people trying it out before making any legal commitments. And we have.

What if, though, living together is what you both want to do, but, at the same time, it freaks you out a little? What if you feel smothered for space? Or what if you’re just worried about going to the bathroom with your lover on the other side of the door?

These all represent legitimate concerns, that’s for sure. It’s hard to adjust to living with someone new, especially if you’re sharing a bed, eating your meals together, using the same closet space etc. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a solution to these concerns.

OK-- not maybe-- there IS a solution! But you might judge me for it. Or simply say that if a person opts for this choice they’re just not yet ready to move in with the person they supposedly want to live with. (I, on the other hand, maintain the opinion that it’s good to stay independent, whether you’re living together, single, married, divorced, whatever.) What can you do? You can each maintain your own space.

What do I mean by this? I mean that maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world for each person to have a part of the home that they could call their own. His space could be where he keeps his Little League trophies and action movies. Hers could be an escape where she keeps her bed dressed in fresh smelling sheets, covered with her childhood stuffed animals and bordered by bookshelves featuring her favorite chick-lit. What both places would have in common, though, would be that each would represent a place to take a time out, to take a break from communal living space. Because sometimes, a girl just wants to sit on the phone with her best friend and gossip, not worrying about her partner’s input. And we all know that tons of men rely on their video game time, but that most women don’t want to be involved in the . At least in my opinion, these diverse interests make for healthy relationships. After all, we can’t spend all of our time (or even a majority!) with those we love most.

Of course when I brought up this idea of separate bedrooms or individualized spaces with my friends, most were shocked or even horrified. Why would you move in with someone if you don’t want to share a bedroom? Isn’t that the point of moving in?

Yes, I’d argue that in general it is. But, that said, I’m not arguing that people who select this choice wouldn’t be sharing a bed on a nightly basis. I’m not even saying that they wouldn’t spend time in each other’s spaces. It’s just that sometimes being alone is the most rewarding and luxurious time of all. We all need it and that’s nothing to be embarrassed about. And for couples just moving in together, of course living in such close proximity is an adjustment. So why not, like with most other things in life, start off slowly? You could then gradually combine your spaces and things over time.

I bet you can imagine some of the specific reasons why it might be beneficial to maintain separate spaces or even separate bedrooms. I found a great article, “8 Reasons Why Married Couples Should Have Separate Bedrooms,” and it’s certainly worth considering. See here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/270260/8_reasons_why_married_couples_should.html?cat=72. A couple of years ago, in 2007, the Huffington Post even called this concept of married couples having separate bedrooms “all the rage.” See here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/03/10/separate-bedrooms-for-mar_n_43118.html.

Life’s not a rush, nor is it a competition or comparison between people. Do what you need to do. But no need to be assuaged by the masses. After all, if we were to allow the American public to sway our decisions, we’d all be spending our lives eating McDonalds and watching NASCAR. Let’s face it, both are bad ideas. So maybe we can cohabitate in the not-traditionally American way, too. It really could benefit all of our relationships.

i love you but i'm not IN LOVE with you.

This past weekend I was shopping with a close friend. While walking past a row of dresses, she stopped and pointed to one.

“Do you like this one?” she asked.

“Mmm I like it but I don’t love it,” I answered.

“Haha, R.,” she continued, “that’s so funny. My friend and I were just having a conversation about this last week! She said that when she goes shopping she separates things into categories-- she either likes something, loves something or has to have something.”

My mind immediately flashed back to some dressing room (I think at a Nordstom somewhere) where the room included labeled hooks: “Like it” and “Love it.” It was a brilliant idea for someone like me-- obsessively anal and organized-- who does that naturally. Now there were printed labels. Amazing. Fabulous way to feed into my OCD behaviors.

Anyway, after we decided that we weren’t in love with the dress on the wall at Anthropologie that day, my friend and I got to talking. Maybe this seems a bit shallow, but in some ways making this distinction between articles of clothing that we like versus love versus must have parallels our experiences with men.

Allow me to explain. A lot of girls in this world date someone because they like them. They don’t love them, and they’re certainly not IN LOVE with them. But, at the same time, they don’t hate or even dislike the guy they’re with, either. Sometimes the relationship is one of convenience, other times it’s one where one party settles for what they think is the best they can find in terms of a romantic partner.

We decided that it’s almost sad to be with someone that you don’t love or aren’t in love with. Granted, unless you believe in love at first sight, it’s going to take some time before you put your partner into one of these categories. Right now I’m talking strictly while ruling out new or budding relationships. You can’t pick which hook to hang that guy on until you’ve been dating for a substantial enough period of time to accurately decide. But, even then, please don’t hang any man (or woman) on a hook in a dressing room. That just wouldn’t be nice. And it might creep out the girl picking up the unclaimed merchandise. Just a thought.

Love certainly develops and grows stronger over time. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. What I’ve also learned is that usually it takes even longer to decide that you’re actually in love with someone. Believe it or not, you can’t fall in love with someone as quickly as you fall in love with that shiny pair of stilettos at Saks. When you do fall in love with a person, it’s actually more emotional than when it’s with a pair of shoes. (This is where it’s obvious that I’m completely different than Carrie Bradshaw and she’s not all my inspiration, right?)

This passing conversation with my friend did make me stop to consider something important, though. I’m not suggesting that it’s wrong to be with someone you’re not in love with-- we all know there are certain situations where it’s acceptable for that sentiment to be non-existent-- but I am suggesting that things are much better when you do find true love. It feels amazing to be able to say that you refused to settle for however long of a period of time and ultimately found someone that you’re really just in love with-- I guess more or less on a simplistic level like that little black dress that you hung on the “MUST HAVE” hook in the store. Besides, you wouldn’t go out with a heinous pair of pants that you really didn’t like, so why bother doing the same with a boy?

It’s also important to consider the difference here of “love” versus “in love.” Just for the sake of comparison and analogy, I’m going to say that love is when you deem a potential purchase to be something you love-- you really really like it, to the point that you care about if you buy it and really feel the need to label it as being more than just something you like. When you’re in love with someone, it’s like you snatched that scarf right off the rack and immediately threw it into the “must have” pile. You can’t live without it. You need it. You think about it, even obsess about it. Your life wouldn’t be complete without this goddamn scarf that’s going to cost you a day’s paycheck. Maybe your feelings aren’t rational, but they’re there and they’re real. You just have to have that freaking scarf or your life might fall apart.

Now, I really hope that no one ever feels that strongly about a scarf, but I also hope that you now get my point. There’s a difference between that accessory that you really want and the one that you have to have. There’s also a major difference between that guy that you really like and the one who puts a smile on your face when you’ve just had a miserable day. Those are the keepers and maybe, just maybe, unlike that scarf, they’re worth a day’s pay, or perhaps more.

What Goes Around Comes Around-- Really.

Back in the day, when I was a little college baby (man, I’m dating myself already!) I interned in the newsroom of a major business news magazine in Manhattan. It was beyond an amazing experience, maybe not the work itself but the whole living in the city as a 21 year old, staying out way too late, having a little too much fun and definitely spending a little more money than I should have been.
Years later (I won’t tell you how many though) I’m still using what I learned from my entire experience that summer. For example, I can still look back on the nights that I didn’t come home until the sun came up. Bad idea. Fun at the time, but really, bad idea. Going on dates with boring accountants? Also might seem like a good idea at the time, but when you’re sitting at the table in a Thai restaurant and your date can only discuss the best times to file your income taxes, you soon learn that accepting the date was also a bad idea.

But, of course, we also learn good ideas while misbehaving-- err, uh, having a good time-- during a more wild part of our lives. Who would have thought that it’s always wise to keep a little toilet paper in your purse when heading out to the bars? We really have no way of knowing when that place that offers $5 free refil Bud Lites will run out!

And that you should always be aware of your surroundings. You never know when you’ll overhear a fashion designer talking to a religious Jewish man in a 24-hour deli at 2:30am. They might both then ask your opinion on fabrics to pair for fashionable yalmukes, or Jewish head coverings. You also never know when a NYU law student will approach you while you’re eating hot dogs in the middle of the night in Union Square, offer to read your tarrot cards and, believe it or not, be correct in saying that you’re going to have a fabulous sexcapade in the fall. Not kidding here, by the way. Both really happened.

What I also learned was that it’s more useful than I realized to stay in contact with all of the people you meet on these interesting journeys. I certainly don’t have the name of the law student, and I definitely don’t know if the men in the diner ever successfully developed a JCrew-esque designer yalmukah line. I probably should have kept his card though-- who knows how famous he might be now!

I wouldn’t have realized but the people I met that summer have helped me in ways greater than they would have imagined since then. The intern coordinator at the magazine? Unbelievably kind and helpful whenever I email her with a writing question. My friends that I met at work? A couple are still close to me and help me get through each and every day at work-- thanks, Gchat!

But, what I’m realizing now is that these relationships really are reciprocal. I’m trying to not laugh out loud at my desk right now, but it’s hard not to. Here’s why:

I recently learned that a reporter from the magazine was in search of stories from real people who had quit their job in a funny way. I wasn’t sure that what I did to my awful boss was funny per se, but it was definitely a bit dramatic and perhaps just what this kid was looking for. (I wrote about my bad boss on this blog back on May 19th.)

Essentially I had been abused for months upon months but, like so many Americans, I couldn’t quit my job because I needed the health insurance and the money. But, when I finally had another job lined up, I happened to know that Mr. Asshole was on the side of the road somewhere waiting to get his car towed. I recognized that it was the perfect opportunity to finally stand up for myself, explain how I had been mistreated and quit my job. Ultimately, of course, this made his life more difficult-- he had to interview people and hire and train someone new. Poor baby. Real work can be exhausting!

Anyway, this supposedly is just the type of story that this writer was looking for. I don’t know that I would have qualified this story as “funny” but it’s certainly a good example of how, as I said in the last post, karma is a bitch. It also shows that it’s important to maintain our connections with other people, not just so we can help ourselves but so we can help others. In this case, I think I can aruge that I helped both the reporter and myself: he got his story, I got the satisfaction of saying my piece. Now I’m not out to hurt anyone or damage anyone’s reputation, but ahh, revenge is sweet, isn’t it?