Monday, May 30, 2011

A Memory

My best (gay) friend and I sitting in the library. All of a sudden, he looks at me and says:

"I think we should get married."

I smile and then return to my work.

 "No really," he continues, "we would make a wonderful couple." He began enumerating the reasons. He said we'd raise good children. He said we would balance each other. He spelled out the strengths I'd bring to the union and explained how he would complement them.

He sounded serious. And then he made his big pitch.

"I meanm there wouldn't be any lust there. But trust me....there would be love."

Thursday, May 19, 2011

When it doesn't last forever

I unexpectedely ran into an old college friend of mine earlier this week. I hadn't seen him in more than eight years, so I figured we'd have a lot of ground together. But his interests - or rather atterntion- was more singularly focused on the events that had unfolded in the last 12 months.

As it goes, he dated his college sweetheart for six years before they decided to make it official and get hitched. They had several different ceremonies, articulating their vows three times over. One year later, they had filed for divorce.

I watched him as he struggled to put words to something that made uterrly no sense to him. It had been more than a year and a half since it ended, and it was clear that he wasn't much closer to figuring out what went wrong. What stuck with me was when he said: "When you get married you think that it's going to be forever. But I guess my thoughts on marriage have changed."

I can't say that I know why his marriage ended either. There are always two sides to a story and a lot of history that feeds into a relationship.  But what I do know is this: it's easy sometimes to focus on the wedding as the goal instead of the long-term relationship. I have caught myself sometimes thinking of my life like a checklist. College diploma, check. Travel overseas, check. Graduate school, check. Challenging career, check. Marriage, house, kids....pending, pending, pending.  It's almost as if the timing of when I get married is more important that the person with whom it's with.

As my friend and I brought our discussion of love and marriage to a close, we became more forward-looking. As (nearly) 30-somethings, we both wanted similiar things,  intimacy, support, a thought partner. The main difference is that he had the trauma of a divorce coloring every potential relationship.

So as eager as I am to meet someone, I am going to remind myself to resist the urge to rush in. Because after all, almost no one gets married thinking that there's is the one that isn't going to last.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Cancer

Thus far, I've been lucky, I guess. People close to me have been touched by cancer, but not consumed by it. Tumors found early and nipped in the bud. Malignant cells in bodies  well into their 90s. I've seen it dramatized in movies, retold in novels and speeches, but I never had to see it up close and person. That is until this past weekend.

Last Sunday, I saw a family member for the first time in about six months. She had been battlling cancer for nearly a decade, but I had pegged her as a shoe-in to land on the side of the survivors. She had always been strong. A modern day Amazon. Towering over the other female folk by nearly a foot and having a take-no-prisoners attitude to match. With a big boisterous family, she was energy personified. Which is what made it all the more startling to see her.

Just over 40 years old, she shuffled into the room,  wearing her own skin like it was two sizes too big. Her already short hair had receded as did the flesh around eyes and  her mouth as she kept a smile fixed on her face. Seeing her, a sickness, or maybe it was an extreme sorrow, swept over me. She looked as if she was already halfway onto the next world.

It was whispered to me that she was stage 4 now. The cancer had reached her bone.

Over the course of the night, I struggled with the competing feelings of wanting to look away and being completely drawn to her. As I was working to negotiate my own emotions,  her husband got up to dance. He took her in his arms and floated her across the dance floor as if she was the most beautiful woman in the room. Because, I think, to him she was the most beautiful woman in the room.

 As hard as the whole night was to swallow, as harrowing as it was to peronally see the cruelty of cancer for the first time, I must also acknowledge the flip side: I'd also never seen a love like that before.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Monday Morning

It's not even 7am on Monday morning and the news has already spread through the building. One of my co-workers got engaged this weekend.

I am working very hard to be happy for her. Really, I am. But until then...

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Going on Thirty

I had brunch with a very dear friend of mine, and he asked me how I felt about my upcoming 30th birthday.

I paused before answering, reflecting a bit about the 10-year-old, 16-year-old and 21-year-old versions of myself and where they thought I'd be when I turned 30. And then I responded with something along the lines of, "I am really happy with my career and the work that I do, but in terms of my love life, this isn't what I had pictured for myself-"

Being the good friend that he is, he interrupted me, and said, "Well, then it's time to paint a different picture."

As trite as that sounds, he couldn't have said anything truer. The younger iterations of myself, also didn't imagine that I would explore, hang upside down, lead. In order to fit all that other important stuff in, my picture had to look a little bit different. And that's not something to be sad about.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Hollywood and High Hopes: Part I

When the same idea  is repeated over and over, even if it makes little sense, you start believing it's true.Things like: the 100+ degree temperature in Arizona isn't that bad because it's dry heat. Or, that organic junk food is somehow not bad for you. Or, that falling in love while on vaction happens...often.

Let's stick with that last one for a  moment. If I had to estimate, I would guess there are about a million  movies out there that are conspiring to make people believe that love is just a plane ride away. Like this one:

And this one:
And let's not forget  this one:



But what happens if we really look at the data? Let's use me as the sample case.  In the last 10 years, I have on average gone on 4 vacations a year (pretty cushy, I know). Out of those 40 or so vacations, the number of romantic encounters I have had adds up to exactly...wait for it...one. That's right, my odds of out-of-state lovin' right now are 1/40. A totally depressing figure.

Yet, the idea of the holiday romance is so pervasive that it trumps any  evidence to the contrary. Last week,  I had designed a solo vacation for myself in Arizona that mainly featured scenic drives and remote hikes. I couldn't have built in more alone time for myself if I had vactioned in a monastary for a week. In spite of these circumstances I couldn't fight the nagging feeling that I  was the star of some Hollywood film, and I was right at the brink of meeting my leading man.

Did I meet someone? No. Do I still have hopes I might meet someone on my upcoming trip to South America? Well...kind of.

Now that's a powerful myth.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Can Women and Men Just Be Friends: Part II

So there's this guy that I work with. I think of him like my brother, and as the unlucky winner of this title he gets the full on, uncensored version of me. He hears about the goings on of my digestive track. I snore in the car when he gives me late night rides home. I call him on every instance that he tries to puff himself up (as well as all the instances when he tries to sell himself short).

But somewhere in the back of mind, I have the suspicion that if I made a romantic advance, he wouldn't turn me down. And so I hesitate before making certain jokes, and I think twice about buying him birthday and holiday presents to make sure that they are appropriately professional and platonic.

These slight amendments I make with him that I don't with my gal pals makes me wonder: are we truly friends?

Monday, April 18, 2011

Can Women and Men Just Be Friends?: Part I

For most of my life I have strongly argued that it is possible for women and men to just be friends. But the older I get, and the more complex romantic relationships have become, I’ll have to admit that I am wavering some.

For example, last weekend I had drinks with a good male friend of mine who I’ve known since high school. He’s a real guy’s guy, so we spent the evening at an Irish pub, where he was sporting his typical attire of a Yankee’s cap and a Guinness t-shirt. At some point over the course of the night we started into one of these “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” type conversations. His gripe: why do women read so much into things?

 He proceeded to tell me a story of a recent tiff he and his live-in girlfriend had. He had gone to a family wedding solo (no plus one was offered on the invite) and then to save money ended up crashing on the hotel room floor of a female childhood friend .Nothing happened., but yet, his girlfriend was pissed .She made him go through every detail of the night, questioned every other alternative he could have taken.

There’s a time in my life, where I would have been on his side. And even that night, there was a moment where I thought she was being a bit unreasonable. But I couldn’t bring myself to voice the words that I knew he wanted to hear.  

Instead I said this. “Of all the people in the world your girlfriend could be with, she chose you. And she’s happy. So from her perspective, it’s really hard for her to imagine a woman out there who knows you who wouldn’t want to choose you too.”

He took a slug of his beer and looked up at me, “You know, sometimes you make too much sense.”

Monday, April 11, 2011

Just when you think you know someone...

Friends and family who met their spouses in college or at work often question me about my dating habits. The exact questions may differ, but the heart of at least one of them is always the same: How do you know that your new crush isn't crazy?

Sadly, the answer is that I don't. And there's no way that I can ever know. But that's the risk with any relationship.This week's Modern Love article in the New York Times demonstrated just that: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/fashion/10Modern.html

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Flying Solo

I've decided, once again, not to let being single (and relatively friend-less in my new adopted town) get me down. Despite my natural inclination to want to work my 60+ hours a week and then hide out in my apartment catching up on some HBO or Showtime series, I'm instead going to do all of the things that I enjoy to do, even if it means doing them by myself.

Does this sound desperate and a little despressing? Maybe. But, I like to think of it as liberating and free. I refuse to let my current social circumstances stop me from having fun. Today, I ate a fabulous Sunday brunch at the counter of a popular eatery with only my newspaper to keep me company.

Next up: solo vacation to the Southwest U.S. and then seeing Alvin Ailey perform when I return!

Monday, April 4, 2011

The Full Package

I found myself this past weekend in the awkward situation in which I was asked to give an ex-boyfriend feedback on his online dating profile. Now, believe me when I say that I strongly resisted taking on the task. But this ex is newly single with a track record for serial monogamy. In some ways, this was his first real foray into dating in his whole life, and he had no idea what he was doing.

Having a certain expertise in pimping myself out online, I approached the lose-lose project with the same enthusiasm I generally have for skimming through online profiles (read: none).

I first honed in on the pictures. He featured a lot of artsy, half-obsured shots, which the skeptic in me usually hates because it leaves me wondering whether the person is strangely disfigured or a criminal on the run.The one frontal shot of him was not representative of his looks and, to make matters worse, showed him sporting one of *my* old t-shirts. Unbelievable.

I then started reading his personal summary and his various likes and dislikes. As I scanned through the sections, I had to restrain myself from making massive edits. I kept thinking as I read: why would he mention this annoying thing about himself and this other annoying thing.

And then it hit me. I had always thought that the things that bothered me about him  were exceptions to who he really was. But then looking at his profile, and seeing it all laid out,  I realized those things weren't exceptions; they *are* who he is.

So, in the end, I recommended some photo change and left the text alone. Because, after all, he deserves a girl who can see him (and like him) as he truly is.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Failed

It's now the third of April, and I wasn't even close to meeting my goal for March. I've now officially been dateless for six months. In my defense, I did have something scheduled for last Tuesday, but he cancelled last minute due to work.

I wasn't heartbroken.

I had set out to do this March Madness project because I thought I needed to light a fire under myself to make sure that I was getting out there and meeting new people. I have set simliiar goals  for myself in the past with great success. What can I say? I am a competitive girl and usually respond well to a challenge.

But things were a little different this time around. And if I had to pinpoint what it was, I'd say it's because I am tired.In my efforts to see and be seen, I was losing the experience of the moment. Social outings weren't fun anymore. They all felt terribly strategic. It was exhausting to constantly create opportunities to date.

So last week I just threw in the towel. And I decided instead to do a whole lot of things that I love  that present almost no possibilities of meeting someone. This included:
* Friday Happy Hour drinks with my sister
* Saturday museum with friends
* Saturday dinner with a couple
*Sunday morning yoga followed by used bookstore shopping
* Sunday afternoon play (The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures)
* Sunday home-cooked dinner with another couple

And you know what? I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. No really. Failure never felt so good.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Call me frustrated...

but does anyone else think that the new Tropicana packaging is a little risque?


Seriously, I know Tropicana has struggled in the last couple years in rebranding itself (the last design was pulled off the shelves within months). While this packaging is moderately better than the last attempt, I still think overall it's a bust {pun intended}.

Unhelpful things that coupled people say

"You always meet someone when you're not looking."

Really? What would following this advice look like? Will Mr. Right suddenly materialize from my television set while i'm watching back episodes of the West Wing?

Yeah..I'm pretty sure that's not going to work.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Double Dipping

Two years ago I resolved to stop getting physical with people that I used to be romantically involved with.  As you can probably guess, it was a pretty severe problem to necessitate me making a resolution about it.

The truth is that as hard as it is for me to fall in love, it’s much harder for me to fall out of it. And, if I were to be entirely truthful with myself, I’m not quite sure that I’m not still in love with all of my exes in some small way.

This is not to say that I want to get back together with any of them. I whole-heartedly agree with authors Greg Behrendt & Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt that it’s called a break up because it’s broken. With possibly the exception of the last guy I dated, I am 100% clear that I don’t want to be in a relationship with any boyfriends from the past.

What I desire is far more elusive than that. The emotions that I continue to hold on to are a love for the way we used to be. I pine for the time before I realized that they weren’t perfect and when I  still believed we could be happy forever. I yearn for the giddiness that marked the beginning of our relationships and the intimacy that grew in the months and years thereafter. I used to revisit old relationships in hopes of tapping into all of the feelings that preceded the fall.

This weekend I had the opportunity to see an ex of mine. And like waves, snapshots of our former life together resurfaced in my mind. Not whole episodes, but things like the private smiles he would sneak me when we were in public places or the way that my whole body would feel it when he held my hand.When our afternoon plans fell through, I was relieved. While I am over the man, it is proving difficult to fully break up with the memory of him.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Strategy 2: Getting Seen

I have a theory.

The biggest hurdles to meeting other singles in urban areas is "seeing" and "getting seen."

You see, there's a whole lot going on in cities: a plethora of people, flashing lights, constant stimuli. In order to successfully get anything done, city-dwellers have to filter out some of the visual noise.

In my last 8 years of urban-living, I have learned that the key to getting through the day is to walk fast and keep my eyes tilted downwards. Falter just a bit on this and the next thing I know I'm buying stale candy bars from some big-eyed, baggy pants-wearing tween on the subway who not-so convincingly says it's a fundraiser for his basketball team.

On the flip side, not only is "not seeing" a survival skill, the ability to disappear in a crowd has some serious benefits too. Blend in and I can avoid catcalls from construction men, questions from tourists, and the accidental run-in with a more successful classmate from high school or college.

So the big question is: if you're single living in a space where avoiding eye contact is a necessity, how do you ever meet new people?

Last weekend, I tried to practice seeing and getting seen by camping out at a coffee shop on Saturday and going solo to a progressive hip hop show on Sunday. The results?

The coffee shop had a conspicuous absence of twenty-somethings with the people cycling through the neighboring table alternating between prom-crazed teens and Slavic-speaking  grandmas. On Sunday the age range was better, but I'm pretty sure I was the only one there who wasn't a friend of the bands.

Date count for March: 0

Photo credit: http://www.graffiti.org/nyc/newyork_112.html

Friday, March 11, 2011

Update on My Larger Than Life Crush

The One Who Got Away has announced his new project, and it's kind of amazing.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Strategy #1: Online Dating

It's nearly two weeks into March Madness and I have been knee-deep in online dating. For anyone who has ever dabbled with OKCupid and the like, you might already be able to guess what my date count is so far. That's right: zero.


So here's the thing. Online dating is hard. In fact, it might be harder than in-person dating. Sure, I have the benefit of addressing a targeted audience of young, single men from the comfort of my living room. And yes, OKCupid gives me lots of helpful tools like "quivers," "winks," and "quick matches." But at the end of the day, it doesn't give me what I really need: A good pick up line.

Yes, even in online dating the pick up line matters.

You can agonize over your profile picture for months and tweak your self-summary until your laptop battery goes dead, but the key to nabbing a date with your dream guy  is in your opening line.


It has to be clever and smart. But not too long or pretentious. Referencing his profile is a nice touch. But then again, the likelihood that he remembers the details of what he wrote in it is low.

I've spent hours crafting two line messages, which makes for an even greater let down  when I log in the following day to see that my man of choice has looked at my profile and decided not to respond.

But wait...all is not lost! There's a note in my inbox from someone else.  I eagerly open up the message.He writes:

"hi cutie, how are you."



Sunday, March 6, 2011

Crazy Emails You Receive When You're Single

Subject line: Need to go speed-dating with Sara* in Jersey
Body:  She need to have a baby she has less then a year to do this [sic]



*Name has been changed so as to save this singleton from any further indignities

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Low

It's 9:47 on Saturday night, and I am home alone.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't been sitting on my couch all night, although, truthfully, I'd probably be in a better state right now if I had.

In my efforts to put myself out there for March Madness, I went to a birthday party of someone who I barely knew. I had actually been really excited about it. I didn't expect that a date would manifest itself this evening, but I thought it would be a chance to meet new people and expand my networks since i'm still new to this city.

The party was in a small space, so with 30 people in the room it felt packed.I couldn't move without bumping into someone or standing in the middle of a conversation. And yet, I felt so totally and abysmally alone.

It was as if I spent the whole evening on the wrong side of bullet-proof glass. I was able to look into their world and hear their voices, but there was an impenetrable barrier between them and me.

During my walk home, I was surprisingly not sad about being single. I was sad because at that moment I desperately  wanted to stop by someone's house and see a familiar face, but there's no one near here who I could do that with. I was sad because at 9 on a Saturday night, I couldn't think of anyone who would pick up their phone if I called. I was sad because the greatest tragedy about growing older is that it's hard to make new connections and even harder to maintain old ones.

Tonight I didn't feel as if I was missing a boyfriend. I  was missing all of the amazing and talented women who I have ever had the privilege of calling my friends.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Please Don't Sing Me Love Songs

It has been said, by more than one person, that maybe my (lack of) dating problem has something to do with my expectations being too high.

I'll admit it. My expectations are high. But is it really so crazy that I want to date people who I actually like?

Yes, my must-haves include smarts, humor, drive, and a face that I'd want to make out with. But there's also a lot I'm willing  to compromise on. For instance, I don't care if a guy is romantic.

No, really. I don't get fussed about flowers. I don't need bling for my birthday. And I certainly don't expect him to sing me love songs.

On second thought...I definitely don't want him to sing me love songs. In the best cases, they are sweet. In most cases, they are creepy.You only have to look as far as Bruno Mars to know that.


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

March Madness

Today is the first day of March, and I have made the decision that I'm going to go into it like a Lion.

Not only am I determined to break my dating dry spell.
I am going to challenge myself to go on at least TWO dates with TWO different people this month.

To some of you, I know that doesn't seem like a whole lot. But remember, for the last half year, I've been acting like a lamb.

Wish me luck!

Monday, February 28, 2011

Larger Than Life Crushes


Yesterday, I fell in love.

I don't know his real name, and well, we've never spoken, but these are just minor details. From the moment, I started reading about him in this week's New York Times Magazine, I knew that he was the guy for me.

He's 28 and brilliant. He does most of his work under the cloak of darkness. Landing in a slum or shantytown , he installs his supersized photographs and disappears before his presence is ever known. The fact that he goes by his initials and will only be photographed while wearing sunglasses and a hat just adds to the mystery.

Have I mentioned that this man is no stranger to danger?

Finishing up the article, I sighed to myself. How come I never meet men like JR? Artistic, brazen, sexy, socially-conscious lovers of travel.

The answer is clear. Maybe I do. Let's be honest, if I met JR five years ago, before the fame and the larger than life Times profile, I would have never gone for him. Between his Williamsburg-style clothing and his mile-long rap sheet, I would have been halfway out the door before he could say "street art."

Oops.

Well, at least I can still appreciate work created by the One Who Got Away.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Possible/Not possible

I've noticed that singletons around my age like to lump every invite, event or outing into one of two categories: possible to meet someone or not possible to meet someone.

For example:
30th birthday parties, weddings, pub crawls, gallery openings, fitness centers. Possible.

1st birthday parties, bridal showers, afternoon tea, elementary school plays, nail salons. Not possible.

And these categories matter. They dictate clothing choices, make-up choices, and whether or not note cards of clever remarks and charming anecdotes needs to be prepared.

The problem comes in when you have had as long of a dry spell as I have. Suddenly more and more things fall into the possible category. Supermarket (Possible!). Laundromat (Possible!). Public bus (Definitely possible!). Recently I had second thoughts about wearing my sweats to take out the garbage (hey, you have no idea who you can pass by on the way to the dumpster...).

Which brings me to tonight, when I found myself shimmying into a short black dress and sliding on knee-high boots for a charity event at a suburban women's club.You see, I'm a glass-is-half-full type of girl, and I thought some mother would drag her son, some sister her brother, some businesswoman her colleague. And, more importantly, the type of guy who would allow himself to be dragged to such an event would be the sensitive yet secure type that would be perfect for me. Right?

Wrong. Fast forward three hours. I'm sitting in what feels like an old high school gym-cum-auditorium as a gaggle of 50-somethings convulse on the dance floor and sing along to a greying cover band's version of _Brown-Eyed Girl_.

I scan the room before reaching for my third dessert of the night.

Yup. Not possible.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Enemy of love

This is not my first blog.
Not my first entry.
Not my first over share. 

But yet, this is still a big first for me.

I told myself that I would never write about love.
Not about dating.
Not about sex.
Not about first kisses or flirtatious glances.

It's not because I hate love (although sometimes it feels like we're enemies).  It's because I never thought anyone would be interested in my love life. I'm barely interested in my love life.

But today I reached a turning point. I realized that I was tired - tired of watching movies or reading articles  that showed a single life that did not in anyway speak to the one I'm living. Sure, I get  how it stinks for the Sex & The City gals to go on dates with a parade of unworthy guys. But given that the only man who has touched me in the last six months is my yoga teacher,I know for a fact that there are far worse fates.

So here I am. Starting today. Prepared to tell the honest, ugly, sometimes hilarious, sometimes humiliating truth about looking for (and occasionally dodging) love.