Am I The One?

There's one thing I think almost every girl wonders, and maybe every person wonders.

Is there anyone in this great wide universe who thinks they're the one who got away?

It's kind of the ultimate fantasy. The idea that there's someone out there who imagines you as their ideal partner, a never-forgotten opportunity, a missing soulmate. It's the ego boost of it, the thought that you're special, you're different, you've remained perfect in the memory of someone lost in yours. Who doesn't want that?

I'm not sure I hold that place in anyone's heart, honestly. For awhile, yes, I think I did, but not now, and I'm so fine with that. I don't want to be that person's one.

But I'd like to be someone's one.

Then again, I don't have my own. There's no one in my past that I miss desperately, that I wish things could have worked out with, or with who I dream of a second chance. I mean, sure, I may occasionally let my thoughts drift to the Ginger but that's only because he was the last man I had feelings for, and my palate has yet to be cleansed.

Someone cleanse my palate, please? Mama needs some romance.

I'd like to be someone's one.

Well, temporarily. And then I'll break their little heart, and they'll think of me always.

Dating Thoughts From the Deep

Okay, so...I think I know when I'll be ready to date.

That's a secret.

I know, I know, why am I keeping secrets? It's mean! Secrets secrets are no fun, blahblahblah, but you know...it's just safer that way, in case things don't end up quite the way I expect them to and I have to backtrack.

I do hate to have to admit a mistake, you know.

Let's just say, it coincides with a certain weight loss goal but the goal itself is not the catalyst, and I expect to it around summertime, which will coincidentally coincide with teacher training. So I'll have, funny enough, a built in excuse to not have enough free time to get tempted into one of those insta-bonds that never really mean anything in my view because they're usually two people just desperate to connect.

It's funny, I'm a romantic that doesn't quite believe in love at first sight.

Sure, I love the concept, eyes connecting, that frisson of energy, a flash of a vision of your future with this person that you don't know. But in reality, it actually makes me uncomfortable. Love should be based on more than first glance to me, you know? Love is knowledge of smile and values and history and laughter and kindness. Personality. That's connection.

Eh, what do I know. I haven't banged that many dudes.

God, I'm deep.

The Trap

I finally, FINALLY, took my car in this morning to get fixed up after my accident in August. Yeah. AUGUST. First people were refusing to give statements, then everyone was fighting over whose fault it was, but it was never MY fault, and I gave my statement, so I just waited patiently for my check, and now I get my damn car fixed.

So, I take Miss Marilyn to the auto body shop today, and get picked up by a cutie from the car rental company. As we're driving to get my loaner, we're chatting, and seriously within five or six sentences he just had to awkwardly drop in, "my wife blahblahblah..." Either to let me know, or remind himself, that he is married.

What, did it seem like I was trying to trap him with my insistence on being oh so nice?

It amuses me how guys assume any time you're remotely polite, you're flirting. I mean, I would have flirted, had the opportunity presented itself, but I had yet to flirt, and he had to go and shoehorn his wife into the convo, in a totally inorganic way, just to point out he had one.

Silly boys. It's like once they're taken, they think every vagina is a trap, a honey trap, built to entice, lure, tempt, taunt. Was it absolutely necessary to mention the wife? Could we not have had a nice, pleasant conversation, and parted amicably, without him having to mention his marriage license?

Apparently not.

I don't really have a point, except he was a well-trained husband.

What Men Want

A few weeks ago while hanging out with my college roomie, we discussed a common observation amongst ladies of a certain age. Our age, that is.

The two of us are, quite proudly, slaves to the feminine ideal. I myself have spent hundreds, probably more like thousands of dollars over the course of the past decade or so making myself pretty for my preferred sex. I'm guessing lots of girls are in my same boat. We buy makeup and hair products and tight skinny jeans, we cram our feet into high heeled shoes that lengthen our legs and kill our toes, and shove our breasts into constricting bras that lift and smoosh and are designed to attract the penis-having kind.

But you know when guys go the craziest? You know when it was my high school boyfriend decided he fell in love with me (at least, according to him)? You know when my roomie's long-term boyfriend says she looked the hottest she's ever looked, and had to attack her right then and there?

I was fresh out of the shower, in cutoff sweats and a wife beater, and she was in borrowed drawstring pants four sizes too big.

Seriously, what the fuck?

Apparently, what men want is not heels and curls and face paint, it's wet hair and baggy pajamas and zero fucks given.

Is it the vulnerability that's appealing? Seeing a woman at her most undone, like she's in bed? Or is it just that guys really do prefer a more natural look, if "natural" means "no effort"?

I don't know. I don't get it.

I'm still gonna paint myself up, though. 'Cause that saying is true, girls really do dress up for girls, not for guys. And I dress up for me, because it makes me feel better about myself.

But seriously, I know if I really want to snag me a husband, I just need to go out looking like crap.

Wait. I do that anyway.

On The Radar

I got into a fascinating discussion with a friend the other day that almost became a "girltalk texts" post. But I realized I had more thoughts to share, as I usually do, and thus: a ramble.

Our thesis is this: men have a radar for clingy just like women have a radar for creepy.

Get it? Doesn't that make a whole lot of sense?

As a lady myself I can say from experience, with most guys, it's obvious right off the bat.

There's a vibe you get, a gut feeling; there's a shiftiness in their posture or an instability in their gaze that signals immediately, without question, "I am creepy." Sometimes they're perfectly nice otherwise. They may have a big kind heart, the best of intentions, no dead squirrels posed above their bed, no stack of over the top fetish porn lovingly cataloged by size of breast, who knows.  But you can just tell, from the slightly uneasy feeling you get in your core when they look at you a little too intently....creeper.

Usually, we can sense this creepiness immediately. I myself can pick out a creep just based on a photograph, so finely tuned is my radar. But then there's the other kind. The stealth breed. The ones that seem normal, at first. Maybe they've practiced. Maybe they're just a sociopath. But their creepiness doesn't emerge for awhile, it's suppressed through the first date, maybe the second, and is only unleashed once you actually start to like the dude. And then, BAM. Creepy. An affinity for stuffed animals arranged alphabetically by their Christian name, an entirely too close relationship with his mother, suppressed rage at his elementary school teacher who humiliated him. Very disturbing.

Obviously, my lack of dick limits my insight into the male side of this discussion, but I'll give it a go.

If women are most turned off by that slight "off" vibe that signals a guy is not trustworthy, then guys are similarly turned off by the vibe that a girl is desperate. We all have that girl friend who is gorgeous and smart and funny, and yet can't seem to get past the first or second date. Why? 'Cause every guy senses that your friend, as wonderful as she may be, wants herself a damn boyfriend, and she does. Not. Care. WHO.

Ways dudes pick up on this desperation:

*A text immediately after the date ends. Doesn't matter the content, but if a guy has three texts from someone on his phone before he even gets home from the date, his radar will be pinging.

*Making future plans before you've even ordered dessert.

*Giving him a nickname.

*Talking about all the failed dates you've been on this month.

*Talking about your friends' husbands ad infinitum.

*Proposing.

Most guys will run screaming in the other direction at the slightest hint of clingy. Doesn't matter how hot the clinger is, most men get that signal on their radar and they immediately flee, just like I flee from a creeper. 

And there you have it. Our thesis.

Do you agree?

Cry me a riverrr.

I am becoming far more sensitive in my old age.

I mean, I've always been a delicate flower. Yell at me and I break down, it's just my natural reaction, which can be awkward at work let me tell you. I do tend to cry a LOT. Especially if there is any note of criticism in my father's voice---I am such a daddy's girl that way.

Anyway, that's not the sensitivity I'm talking about though. I mean specifically, I didn't used to cry at fictional situations. Movies, TV, books, I was an impenetrable fortress of emotion. NO TEARS. I remember "Pay It Forward" made me sob, and the fifth season finale of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" totally tore out my heart....basically, deaths only. Other than that, I have never been easily swayed by the machinations of writers or directors. You cannot tug at my heartstrings. I WILL NOT BE MOVED.

Recently, though, I find myself tearing up at, well...everything. A manipulative commercial. A terribly cheesy TV show. Musical movies. Blind kittens. Lonely old people. Disease. War. Broken hearts. Weddings. Spilled milk.

What is wrong with me?

*cries*

Maybe, as I approach that quarter century mark, I'm actually starting to give a shit about other people? Maybe I'm developing empathy, or sympathy, or whatever? MAYBE I'M NO LONGER A ROBOT?

I don't know.

But I really need to stop crying in public.

More, More, More

I continue to be introspective. Who needs a therapist?

I have realized that I am very hard to satisfy. I always want more.

If I have a cupcake, I want two. Or four. Or nine. If I buy a dress, I want shoes. If I drink a Diet Coke, I need a refill. If I start watching a TV show, I need to watch six episodes. If I lose two pounds, I wish I had lost three. If my night is amazing, I never want it to end. If I'm drunk, I want to be drunker, if I'm high, higher, happy, happier, sad, sadder. I can never get enough.

I think this is why I let myself get sucked into these weeks of depression. If I'm going to be sad and self-destructive, I might as well go all out and be as terrible as I can possibly be. I can't just mess up once, I have to fuck up so royally, create such a clusterfuck of awful that it's nearly impossible to pull myself back up.

And it's hard for me to be in the moment. I'm always thinking towards the next thing, what's coming up, what do I have to do or change or be. Even in moments of pure entertainment or pure relaxation, I find my mind moving towards what comes later, even if it's not something I look forward to.

The future is always in the back of my mind.

There could always be more.

I don't know why I'm like this. It manifests itself it good ways, sure, but in so many negative ones too. I need to find out why I'm so hard to please, why I'm always sure that more is better, that more will make me happier. I know it won't. I know that consciously. But it doesn't really help.

These are just my thoughts. I'm going to chew on them a bit.

Tasty.

Mantras and Motivation

Motivation is a funny thing.

It comes, it goes, it finds its roots in the strangest of sources, it's killed by the oddest of things, it fights an endless fight against doubt and fear and laziness. Some days it feels like you have an unlimited stockpile of it (for when the zombies come), and some days it's all you can do to drag your butt out of bed and trudge a few blocks, muttering curses the whole way.

I'd love to have a bottle of it on my bedside table. Just a shot and I'm infused with the desire to sweat and move and ache and breathe. Two parts energy, one part optimism, one part commitment, sprinkled with a little self-love.

But, there is no such thing. I have to find other ways to restore my motivation when it's fading. And on those days when being fat sounds preferable to getting my butt off the couch, or making a healthy dinner seems impossible compared to going through a drive-thru, I have a few mantras I say to myself. They don't always work, but they do always give me a little perspective.


*"You can do anything for a day." (Or an hour, or twenty minutes...if I tell myself in the grand scheme of life, whatever it is I'm resisting is pretty insignificant, I can usually suck it up.)

*"There will always be cake." (Or pasta, or ice cream. Whatever delicious food is tempting me, I try to remember that there will always be more. I could have it tomorrow, or next week, it does not have to be now. The world will not run out of cake. And if it does, I will no longer live in this world.)

*"You'll feel so much better after." (This one is hard, if anyone else says this to me I turn into a raging bitch, "HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'LL FEEL?!". But reminding myself that I get to be smug and ride high on adrenaline if I work out usually gets me on my feet.)

*"Nothing will change if you don't change." (If I don't consistently make better choices, I will still be at the place in my life and my body that I don't want to be. If I don't want to commit to a healthy decision, I think about how I used to feel, and that I'll feel that way again if I don't keep it up.)

*"Just do it." (Nike knows what's up. Though, they really should have ended their slogan with, "and stop bitching already".)

On Flaws

The beginning of my dating profile lists, in a surely very amusing way, what I consider to be a few of my flaws. Like the fact that I'm just obnoxiously fucking loud, no matter how quiet I try to be. Or the fact that I have never watched a few of the comedic television staples for the male gender --- Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or South Park. Or the fact that I am lazy. And spacey. Surface flaws.

A few days ago I got a message on OKC that I didn't have a chance to look at for at least a day. By the time I went to view it, the sender had deactivated their profile. The message was simply:

"Flaws are merely unrecognized perfection."

First of all, aww. Second of all, if this is the case, I am splendidly, gloriously perfect. Because I am simply riddled with flaws, stitched together with good intentions, to loosely quote Augusten Burroughs. The silly list in my profile is just the tip of the iceberg, I am miles from perfect, oceans away, big fat cliche metaphors, et cetera. Maybe I take a rather harsh view of myself but honestly, there are things I would fix, if only I could, to be the perfect version of me, and perfect for someone else.

I struggled a lot over the past few years with a few of these flaws, things I cannot change or help, things that weren't my fault and it's not fair and blahblahblah. Things that keep me from having the freedom I'd like to have. Things that make me keep people at arm's length. It's taken awhile to get to the point where I can accept myself for all my broken pieces, and maybe mystery online dater man is right --- maybe those pieces truly fit together perfectly.

"The way to love someone is to lightly run your finger over that person's soul 

until you find a crack, and then gently pour your love into that crack." - Keith Miller