Pre V-day Complaint

My Stupid Mouth

Why do I never learn?  I know my family is crazy psycho about the fact that I'm single, but I still torture myself by giving them small details of my love life that they blow way out of proportion.

Let me rewind to this morning.

My day started off pretty normal: breakfast at the local diner, shopping trip with my mom, a facebook message from the guy I met last night.  YES. You heard me right. He facebook messaged me, which really isn't a big deal but when you get this kind of news when you're with your mother and you let it slip it becomes a HUGE deal.  Omg....a facebook message? Wow? What'd he say? He must like you.  Is he cute? Pull up a picture.  I'm not exaggerating.  Sometimes I hate my big, stupid mouth.  I tried to brush off the message while bolting into forever 21 and browsing the leather jackets. " Hey Mom, do you like this one?" while in my head thinking "please let her forget about the stupid thing I just mentioned."

Anyways, she brought it up again and basically harassed me until I showed her his picture.  Then like the mature adult I am, I said "I don't want a relationship anyway.  We'll just be friends no matter if I think he's cute or not."  I channeled me 16 year old self and said the thing that I knew would piss off my mom the most.  She can't understand why I'm not crying myself to sleep every night about the fact that I'm still single.

Sorry mom, I have a life.

The story gets better though. After I made that oh so mature comment, we tuned into some prime time talk shows including Ellen.  Fun fact: I freaking love Ellen.  I think she's perfect in every way and she is honestly my favorite talk show host at the moment (I emphasize at the moment because Katie Couric's new show is pretty amazing).  I was rambling on about Ellen, saying anything to get her mind off the god forsaken facebook messages.  Do you want to know what she does?  Makes a comment about Ellen being a lesbian.  The next words out of her mouth were "I wonder what it would be like to have a lesbian daughter......" and stares directly at me.  I just laughed and said YEP you're right. I'm a lesbian.  NO! Just because I am single, in grad school, pursuing a career, traveling, haven't found the right one, am a bitter bitch about love does NOT mean I like girls.  It means that I am SINGLE for better or for worse, for richer for pooer, for sex & the city and ice cream sundaes and whatever other single vows there are out in the world.

This isn't the first lesbian hint I've gotten from my mom.  Everytime I take a picture with a GIRL friend she raises an eyebrow.  Cool.

  My escape came just in time though; I had plans to meet up with some friends at the bar.  While at the bar the facebook messaging continued and surprisingly, he got my number and asked me out on a date. Just like that! I was pretty excited until I looked down at my phone to see a group message from my mom, sister, and my mimi.  These group texts always piss me off not only because I look down at my phone and have 47 messages in 5 minutes but because it takes anyone 20 minutes to get any sort of point across.  The message was from my sister at first, sending us pictures of my nephews and catching up on the day, which I actually enjoyed reading about.  THEN my mother does the unthinkable (looking back at the progression of the day, I don't know why I'm so surprised).  She announced via the group text that I met a guy and we were facebook messaging....oh and he's really cute yay!

Seriouslyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

I've graduated from high school, college, about to get my masters degree, won various awards, partook in community service, and my mom's proudest moment is when I meet a guy that is cute.

I'm keeping this date under wraps and telling my mom that he moved to Canada.

C 

When you're looking or when you least expect it?

These past couple of months have been the epitome of unventful when it comes to dating.  There are a lot of reasons that run through my head when I think of why I haven't been on a date in six months. Yes, I said six months.  Gasp all you want.  I've already gotten horrified looks from my friends who are about to tie the knot or serisouly committed.

The reasons could be as follows:

I'm really busy and have been traveling a lot lately?
It hasn't been meant to work out yet?
The one is still out there?
I'm learning to be more indpendent?

Typing out those half ass reasons make me feel like a joke. I can't even go on with these reasons. I sound like one big cliche.  Reading back over them they sound a lot more like excuses than anything else.

Don't get me wrong, I want to fall in love and have the fairy tale ending, but more importantly I want some excitement.   A lot of first dates, horror stories, great sex, bad kissers, freakshows, dick pics....SOMETHING.....ANYTHING to relieve the boredom.  I've been sharing my frustrations of boredom with a lot of my friends lately and I always seem to get the same response.  "C, when you least expect it, you'll find him.  It's good that you aren't looking right now.  You need this time for yourself."

I'm pretty sure I've written about this before so forgive me if I sound like a broken record but can we really STOP looking altogether and expect love to show up on our doorstep? Or do we have to actively seek a relationship. Pairing our first name with the last name of every elidgable bachelor we meet?

I don't know the answer. All I'm certain of is that timing is everything.  Timing and attitude.  I can look back on a lot of my failed relationships and know that the timing was not right.  I wasn't ready. They weren't ready.  Someone wasn't willing to give up or give certain things that now would be negociable.  Attitude is also important.  I think positivity is key and believing in positive and healthy relationships will help me find that person.  It's just finding motivation to keep a positive attitude when the timing isn't right.

Now I'm rambling.

Trying to get back in the game,

C

Safe......but sorry

I will be the first one to admit that being in your 20s is pretty challenging.

Ok....who am I kidding?  IT SUCKS!  Well...most of the time.  There are a few advantages for sure.  We are young, beautiful, wild, free, and quite frankly can be as selfish as we want.  The coolest thing about being in your 20s is the space and time to think about yourself, your growth, and your development.  I know I'm getting a little psychologist on all of your asses right now, but it's true.  This is the one chance we have at finding out who we are,  what we want, but most importantly what we NEED.

I've been taking a lot of time to think about ME.  Just me myself and I.  Not the me who who is tied to any relationships and the issues that came out of them, but just plain old me.  I basically pyschoanalyzed the shit out of myself and this is what I found........

I have played it safe in relationships. Every single one of them.  If I look back on my ex boyfriends and guys that I have pursued in the past, they all have one common theme.  They didn't challenge me.  Challenge might be a bad word.  They didn't INSPIRE me, MOTIVATE me, PUSH me.  They all were challengING, pushed me AWAY but they just didn't bring out the best in me.

My parents, family members, and friends have always told me the same sh-peel over and over again. They have kept telling me that I need someone motivated with big dreams.  I've heard this so many times that I just go to the point where I would nod my head and agree because deep down I knew this was what I needed to but I wasn't quite sure what that meant.

All the men I've dated in the past have been "safe" or at least I thought they were when I entered into the relationship.  There are differences in all of them but they all have this one common "safe" theme.  For example, my most recent ex. (ps. it's been over a month since we stopped talking!!)  was content with his place in life.  I vividly remember him calling me out one night about my motivation for beginning our relationship.  He told me that I started dating him because I thought he was a safe bet.  He was absolutely right. When we first started dating, he was infatuated with me, hung on my every word, revolved his life around me, blah blah blah.  Turns out though, he wasn't a safe choice.  He had a little of issues that he took out on me and ended up emotionally and mentally wearing me down.   My safety net backfired in my face.

I'm passionate about helping people.  Looking back, I've chosen to date guys that I needed to help but who weren't going to challenge me in any way. My self esteem level has never been high enough to go after those extremely motivated men who are leaders, have passions, goals, care about life.  Those guys have always intimadated me so I've played it safe.....and ended up sorry.

This realization has inspired me to dig deep and figure out what's been missing in my past. I've come up with two main things:

INSPIRATION-- It's just like the Fabulous song "We're a force when we're together. Baby I'm good all by myself but baby you make me better"  I really can't sum it up any better than that.  I want to be inspired by someone so I can strive to be a better person everyday and I want to do the same for them.

 PASSION--I'm not talking about hot sex, even though that's pretty essential too. I need someone who passionate about LIFE.  Passionate about what they do, their family, their friends.  I want someone who is genuinely happy to be alive and that can share my enthusiasm and positivity about the world.

Maybe these things seem like common sense.  Maybe they should be common sense, and for a long time I thought they were, but up until now those things were just words and not a reality.  I know that there are people in the world that are like this....like me. Now it's my job to set the bar high.

No more playing on the safe side,

C

"I'm too busy"

I just read an article about the "hook up culture" in today's society, especially on college campuses and among us "twenty-somethings."  This article struck a chord in me that I can't explain--everything in this article I saw reflected in myself.  The main thing that stuck out to me was the fact that women in their 20s always say they are "too busy."  Too busy doing their independent thing to go out on a date with a dude.....to commit to more than a one night stand. 

I use this excuse all the time.

I'm too busy with school, my job, hanging out with my friends, the gym, meetings, my volunteer roles, work out classes, cleaning, going to the grocery store.  You name it and I have probably used it as an excuse to not get involved with someone 

Why as 20-something women do we feel so threatened by a relationship?  Here is what I mean by this:  as women in our 20's we are PETRIFIED that some man is going to get in the way of our independence, our freedom, our friendships, our career goals.  I think we are all scared that being in a relationship will make us weak.  This is only my first guess though.  I think the other thing is that we are scared of being hurt...which also goes along with scared of being dependent. 


I totally contradict myself about this all the time.  I know how bad I want a relationship and someone to share my life with but when the opportunity comes, I RUN....no SPRINT the other way.  I've gotten so used to being on my own that being attached to someone is even more terrifying than being lonely.

It all comes down to BALANCE.  Why does it always have to be one or the other?  You can have a career, friends, goals, family, and a significant other. I think it really is possible to have the best of ALL worlds.

Next time.....I'll make time,

C

"Love when you are ready, not when you're lonely"

When I saw the quote that I used for the title of this blog, "love when you are ready, not when you're lonely," a light bulb went off in my head.  I was scrolling through pinterest (solid Saturday night of a single girl) & the quote just hit me like a ton of bricks.  The two phrases separately could have had enough of an impact, but together. Whoa.

Let's start with the second part of this quote....."not when you're lonely."  I realized that a lot of people, me included, jump into relationships that don't feel right because of loneliness.  It's not a hard thing to do.  Being in a relationship provides security; it's a comforting feeling to have someone to share your life with: the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

However, being lonely is not the right reason to jump into something.  We are all in love with being in love. I can fully admit to that.  I want it SO BAD--so bad that sometimes I end up forcing myself to make a relationship work with someone who is not right for me at all.  When I say sometimes, I am referring to this one time......aka my most recent ex boyfriend.  The last post that I wrote was about him, and I swore that I was done.  That was in June.  It's now September 3, and we just cut things off completely a week ago. 

I realized why I kept going back to him....comfort & loneliness were at the top of the list. 

 ...............BUT it turns out, I was more lonely when we were communicating than I was when I was by myself.  Deep down, I knew it wasn't going to work, so I felt even more empty trying to force something instead of just being happy with my life minus a significant other. 

This really ties into my favorite part of the quote "love when you're ready...."

My friend "E" and I had a heart to heart today while taking a walk about how our 20s are a time of transition.  We have friends settling down, getting married, moving to different cities, and our friendships and things we have become comfortable with our entire lives have shifted.  Yes, relationships are a very important part of life, but the most important relationship you can have is with yourself.  I can look at facebook all day long and get depressed about high school aquaintances that are getting engaged (the new "look who just got engaged side bar doesn't help that.....cool Mark Zuckenberg)  BUT in the end I need to be happy with my life, myself, and the choices that I have made and continue to make in order for me to be happy. 

At the end of the day, that's how you know you are ready for love. .....when you are okay, actually more than okay being by yourself.  When you are happy with your choices, your friendships, your education, your career, when you can look in the mirror, and be confident about who you are as a human being, when you are confident that you want to share your life with someone--someone you genuinely want there because they make you a better person, not because they make it easier to sleep at night, that's when you know you are ready for love.....
 

Working on being ready,

C

Selfish Guys Finish Last

Unfortunately over the past few months, I have been communicating with my ex.

If you need a refresher about our F-ed up relationship, read this previous blog: Click Here

I know it's a horrible idea to talk to him, yet I continue to do it anyway.  I don't know if it's boredom or if I'm still holding out that I can be the one to "change" him.  That after all we've been through he will wake up one day and become a different person, the person I need him to be in order to be happy.

Well, that's not going to happen.  I know this deep down in my heart, but I just havene't been strong enough to cut off ties.  Every time I do, a few months after the fact he reaches out and professes his love and I am sucked back in.

He also lives in the mid west, about 23 hours away from me.  I have not seen him in a year, so it's not like I can get sex out of this relationship.  It honestly has no benefits.

Besides all of the horrific things he has done to me in the past, today I realized the ultimate reason that we will never work out I drove past his old house today and got sentimental thinking about the summer we had together 3 years ago and how amazing it was.  I texted him how I felt in a very sweet way and told him that I hope we can spend a summer together again somehow. (I know, I know. I'm a stupid girl). 

His response to this sweet text: "How will that happen?"

Me: I don't know...I just thought that was what you wanted.

Him:  Only if you move here.


I didn't respond.  Quite honestly, I don't even know how to  begin to respond to that.  He is the most selfish person I have ever met and there is no way that I will ever come first in his life.  There will always be something or someone that he will put before me.  If there was a legitimate reason that he needed to stay in the area he is living in now, like a great job for instance, I would consider making the move.  He is making 10 dollars an hour doing part time work for his dad's company.  I'm sorry, but this does not consitutute as a good enough reason for me to move halfway across the country to a state that does not have that many jobs in my field of interest.  I am a year away from getting my masters and getting a good job, but that doesn't matter to him.

At this point, I know that this is my fault because I know how he is and I am still subjecting myself to talking to him.  I also know that I need to stop and I feel fully confident that I am going to.  There just comes a point where there's only so much you can take.  When I think about the way he treats me, I am hurt, but I can't even bring myself to cry about it.  That's when you know you have put up with too much.

In the end though, I can honestly say I know what I do need and want out of a relationship.  I know the signs of a selfish person and know that I need someone who is wiling to compromise with me.

Honestly, I don't think that's too much to ask for.

Over it,

C