Stress, I do not like you...

I understand you are a necessary part of life - we need a fight or flight response.  The problem is when you mix fight or flight with estrogen you get a bizarre and well NLLL'up cocktail.  So for example this week as I started my Hebrew Intensive Course in which I will cover a year's worth of work in 24 days, a task for which the word stress does not convey the degree of onslaught, I get my worst period in over a year.  An almost equivalent to my non-IUD light period.  Which is to say basically my uterus is exerting itself big time and with that comes all the emotions.  Those emotions are what you may ask - well tears, yes lots of those but also a serious case of lust.  I don't know if lust is the right word for it.  Actually it's not the right word for it because I don't want necessarily want someone, I'm just craving that adrenaline rush, that first good kiss or any good kiss but definitely the first goods ones are normally the best.  It's weird, I don't know why that's what I want, maybe it's to offset the emotions.  Regardless it's not going to happen any time soon that's for sure.

I mentioned a little while back about a "date" I had with a classmate to run.  And before you wonder why you've heard so little of all this was primarily because I didn't think of it as a date until I stood in the freezing drizzle wondering why the hell my stomach was doing gymnastics.  And I swore to myself as we walked to our respective buses that I would not date him, he was going to stay here and I was going to do a PhD program - solved any problems.*  Since then he and I have been trying to run together more often, and there have been definite moments where I think he likes me but I just cannot for the life of me distinguish whether it's like like or friend like.  And for a long time it didn't matter to me.  And now, I'm questioning that.  He's sweet.  And this is where I could go on about both sides of the coin.  But at the end of the day I think the program we're in seems to push people together so they're close enough to be dating, you start looking out for each other in deliberate ways, trying to shuffle our burdens towards some kind of mutual distribution (burdens being life ones, not homework just in case you're wondering though most people will help others).  But maybe because of that there is little to no incentive to actually take any plunges.  You know that person likely does not have a life elsewhere, I mean they spend most of their waking and some of their not waking hours with you or classmates, so why date them, why complicate things?  What if I want to complicate things? 

Decisions I cannot make until August 10th... which is probably a good thing.

*Now that a PhD isn't happening this has become a fragile insistence - damn it!

Biggish Update

First and foremost I celebrated my entrance into a new decade last Friday and it was A-MAZ-ING, full of awesome people, wonderful music and well it was just enough to make this girl spend most of the night after it was all over in joyous tears about how awesome things are.  So overwhelming.

I figured I should start with the good stuff first - after that amazingness, I must confess it sort of goes downhill - quit online dating and I'm really glad about that, it will come when it comes, not closed to options including online but right now is not the right time for the emotional part. 

However,

It is the time for my ovaries to really get into the who they want to procreate mode. I really feel like it is not fair to have a body part that can excrete hormones trying to dictate what the rest of me is going to do, when quite frankly I cannot do a damn thing about it.  Sure I want a baby but not without the support of a partner.  The reason that I bring this up, I was sitting in the atrium this week at school trying to read and the baby er man that my dad had been cooing over in the Fall walked in with the 2 year old he takes care of.  If my ovaries could have chased in him down they would have.  He was so cute. But he's SO young and I just cannot.  I know there are plenty who can, I however, cannot.

The musical soundtrack to my birthday, see I told you it was A-MAZ-ING:

Things that make you go hmmm

Have you ever heard of GOOGLE?

I am sure you have, but I seriously question the men on this site.  So this site I'm on is one of those where free is an option but a severely restricted option - so basically they're forcing the women to pay to weed through and fend off the weird ones, or the smart men actually use Google and figure out that my user name is the name of one of my other blogs, Twitter handle and if you smack hotmail.com on the end of it you get one of my email accounts.  I picked that username on purpose because of this issue, saves me the money and is like the basic thinking level hurdle.  Seems like it's tripping up EVERYONE.  If you're wondering when I did this 5 years ago, within hours my MySpace account had messages from men I'd checked out (they can see your views on this site in question).

It also seems like this lack of being aware that your user name can be Googled and you can be investigated has also not factored in to what they may or may not want to hide.  I found someone not super close by but close enough, same country, same area-ish with just a body of water and a ferry between us.  Not crazy but not ideal. Then again if he's batshit, which is sort of my default assumption (yes I'm horrible), it means that I don't have to worry about running into him, which is actually becoming a major source of anxiety for me right now.  Deal with one psycho ex and you're ruined for life it seems.   Anyway, so I Googled said man/boy and he's on a bazillion dating sites.  This should likely not be a red flag, hell you throw the net wide, but it's a definite hmmmm.  Even more so, OkCupid's site show in the personality test contradictions to what he has written about himself.  Granted they aren't necessarily accurate, but the disconnect is also a little disconcerting.  You state yourself as one way and the personality test sees you another, either way you aren't so self aware. 

So I'm over thinking all this - it is definitely pushing my boundaries and comfort zones in ways I didn't expect it too and it's becoming a little difficult to not feel anxious, worrying about safety and etc.  But I might just email this one, you know push the envelope a little further...  We'll see.  I am still kind of stuck in the if he's interested enough he'll get his shit together place.  One plus to this boy, he's got tats, to which I know Ms. J is reaching out from wherever she is and trying to smack me. *duck*

Change of Plans

I think I might need a change in my dating profile description because as much as I had and still have no intention of turning it into an essay I still feel like I'm getting too many old men, cowboys and service men.  I can come off as an elitist a lot of the time when I speak my mind on "paper" and that is often not far.  In talking to JS last night I was trying to explain this tension I have in that while I respect that trade workers not only work hard but that they make good money, I know likely intellectually they're not on par.  If I was 20 and just wanted to have fun and snog a few cute boys that would be fine.  However, that is not the case now, and no amount of amazing snogging and other is going to keep a marriage alive.  Especially not a marriage to me, who yes as a woman who has a libido now, is also fully aware there will comes days or months where I might be the size of a house carrying spawn and I want to know I can related and depend on someone.  To talk through things - because I am a talker - that is how I process.

So anyway that's the plan for the moment to give this whole on-line thing the good ole grad school try.

Life is Weird

I think we all know that, but I mean some days I seriously wonder about things, like how we can wander around so close to amazing things happening and then tumble into them.  I would love to tell you all about the amazing day I had, unfortunately no work has come out of it, and there might be some in the future, but it was a good connection day.  Good, good stuff - no men stuff in that good, good stuff - yay me, doing healthy stuff for me stuff.

And then this evening as I groan about the status of things on-line while chatting with X, I felt like reviewing our little Blog Boy listing and thinking about who is where and who should be crossed off for other purposes and I paused at DB's name.  It's always been one I've struggled with, primarily because he's been in many ways the mythological man in my life who has in the past represented all the things I wanted, or thought I wanted.  I haven't had that feeling for a long time, basically since I started therapy and realized that I needed to fall in love organically, none of this make a list shit.  But that doesn't mean that DB of make a list shit fame doesn't in some small way haunt me in rare moments like this.  So what do you do when someone haunts you and is well not actually dead.  You Google them of course!  And according to the brilliance of Google it turns out DB and I are practically neighbours!  How after living in this neighbourhood going on 6 years have he and I one never run into each other in the only freaking grocery store for like miles and miles (doesn't this always happen in the movies) and two weird.   Even weirder is he's like two blocks away from this good connection I just made.  I kind of feel like I'm being prepared to exorcise this haunt.  I do not feel like I've been prepared enough other than to not freak out when the time comes to do the deed and release it all. Cryptic and weird - yes.  But I think that's what happens when said person was the entirely unattainable hot older brother of a shitty friendship that you really only held onto for said older brother.  It's all NLLL, but yes we are talking about me and men so that's not so surprising now is it.

And if you're wondering if I'm going to start running past his house, goodness no, quite the opposite.

Again unrelated music - but it's awesome, so there.

*Facepalm*

I am at the point where I fear for my nose and my frontal lobe for the amount of *head desk* moments this on-line dating has resulted in.  I don't want to flog this issue but I just wish, and it's really a small wish, that the selection of men wouldn't be so, well depressing.  Between the ones looking for a servant or a mother to those who just seem royally "questionable," I am kind of afraid.  Honestly I'm kind of glad that for the last five years I've stepped away from the on-line dating world and also carved out a place of relative anonymity on-line.  I try to ensure anything I do on line is not linked to anything thing else, I do this primarily because of CEF but I also do it so times like this I can vent and not be worried that some tech savy boy has hunted me down.  Yes I even tweet separately.  Sure this kills some of my on-line clout, or almost all of it, but if I had to chose in the end I'd rather be obscure and honest than completely out of this altogether.

I am only going to give this website another week and then I'm out of there.  It doesn't seem to be worth my time.

A Few Laughs and It Seems to be Over

So I finally revealed to a few friends that I signed up for online dating, one of those being X, and all of them were thrilled.  Funny because I am sure not.  I have sifted through the profiles and maybe, just maybe there are like 2 maybe 3 possibilities.  They haven't contacted me and to be honest I'm not so sad about that.  The whole thing has just become one big *facepalm* and reminded me that I truly believe that the better option is face to face, those random encounters.  Maybe we need to start some kind of pay it forward date set up trend.  I know I have great guys who are not great for me - but alas.  Here we are, with really no options other than expand the next to long-long distance which I HATE.  Missed X bitterly when we weren't together and it's no way to really have a relationship.

So there we are the dating pool is dry once again.  I need a drink.

*Le Sigh*

Within the first 24 hours of being on the dating site it seems the only men attracted to me were one, nothing that I indicated I was looking for and two men who should know that I am not what they want.

But then again that's not why they are on a dating site, because who cares why I'm there.  They do not see it as a dating site, a site to find a partner for life, not truly, no they're shopping for a NLLL uterus.  This uterus shopping business always brings up in me a combination of blood boiling mad and pity for them.  I feel like sitting down these dear 50 something year old men and asking what they think we have in common.  I am not looking for a daddy, sugar or otherwise, I have a father.  While I might be wrong, I still consider myself young and because I still consider myself young I still see myself travelling, moving places like NYC to finish my schooling and or do specialized training or Portland and settle down in an eclectic neighbourhood, pursue the art of feeding and loving people.  I do not see myself fitting into someone's manufactured, cookie cutter void and getting on with the life they want.  Maybe I'm ageist.  I find that slightly ironic given my education in gerontology.  But I think there is a difference between wanting to help all people including their families embrace aging and marrying someone smack in the middle of that process.

Sorry I'm venting but this whole process is creeping me out a lot.  Maybe because for the last 5 years I have deliberately changed myself to be one a more private person on the Internet.  WHAT? Contradiction.  One this is anonymous, two this has very little connection to the flesh and blood person I am, in that while I am wholly honest, I'm also as much as possible deliberately vague, and now I'm on a dating site with a little generic blurb about myself and pictures and I feel like a piece of meat and it is well, violating.  I didn't think I would feel violated but I do, oddly. Hmmm.  We're going to have to come back to that issue.

So Tempted

I am so ridiculously tempted to drop this online thing.  Why? So soon?  Well I realized today as I hoovered down my lunch in my usual 10 minute speed break from the library, when do I have time to date?  Really?  When do I have time? Realistically it is not fair to get to know someone and then tell them that my standing date with the library will actually take eternal precedence.   Nevermind, I have to weed out the jealous ones because my new program is 80% male (though about 90% of those are married).  So I can just see it now, hey new BF I am going to be spending this weekend in the library with my fellow Hebrew language peeps, feel free to stop by at say 2 when my bladder demands I get out of my cubicle or about 9 when I stumble home ravenous and beyond exhausted.  Take your pick!  But then again, as X knows, this is what the rest of my life is going to look like in some aspect or another - crazy long emotionally draining (but worth it) hours.

I am giving this process to the end of the week and then I'm out of there.  Reasonable?  Seems like that to me because this whole thing is making the boy two cubicles behind me actually look attractive and he's normally a bombastic ass.

Maybe, just Maybe

I might be too Bitchy McBitcherson for my own good.

I was scanning old posts, trying to figure out where I have been in the last few years and get a little perspective.  Well it seems that while I'm actually a lot funnier and quirkier than this blog demonstrates most days I definitely do not mince words when it comes to menfolk, and that is actually very true to life. The following gems, though almost two years old now definitely still represent how I feel, though my BCBG stilettos have been shelved until they can be re-heeled.

"Personally for me a man who can't initiate is destined to be skinned alive not only on this blog but also by me. Maybe I am jaded, just too many man children running around - you have to test them with a little flame or hook to see what they're made of, or maybe it's like X says, relationships are a dance, an equal give and take partnership, if it's lopsided you fall and someone get's smooshed/crushed in the process. In the end their weakness will result in them finding their way to the bottom side of my soft gray BCBG stiletto pumps."

And last but not least a comment in regards to this post by TOITB:

"We (women) are insane - I think you (X) know that and well the men I have come to know personally definitely push the stupid category (AB, DirectoryBoy, OM and the list goes on). In the end it is about finding someone you think is a tolerable amount of insane, and for me that means I need to find someone that doesn't make me want to self lobotomize myself with a plastic knife. So romantic isn't it?"

Well as we can tell the dating world is going swimmingly and once again I am enjoying the space in my bed and the freedom to go to Starbucks without caring that I don't have any eyeliner on. 

Feel Free to Smack Me Anytime Now

First it should come as no surprise to you that I'm now going to be posting more often over the next few weeks because I have papers to do.  Oddly posting though procrastination seems to be the mental equivalent of going for the run to calm my nerves, it gets some of the ants out of me.

So on that note, today's post and the reason you can smack me.

This online business has made me realize I like being single.  For the love of all things pink and sparkly where are all the good ones for me?  I am not saying that online dating is full of duds, I means I know there are duds, but they are everywhere.  Which as an aside is rather unfortunately because if they could all be relegated to the interwebs maybe life would be more peaceful.  But this is not my point.  I know I'm unique, and I mean that in all the positive and not so positive aspects of that word.  I really cannot date Americans - though yes if you are counting CEF, X and the majority of my currently peer selection fall into this category.  I don't have a problem with Americans, I have a slight issues with their lack of health care and their bloody backwards ideas about marriage, birth control and war, especially war, being that I am a pacifist.  So you add that plus the graduate degree I'm pursuing which is extremely polarizing in the religious community I am apart of and fishing in for my "future someone," then tack on the dysfunctional body and even more complicated and dysfunctional past, especially the lack there of my v-card.  Which taking another aside was lost not by my choice initially and then it was freely given to AB and X.  I don't have any qualms with that part of my life, with those choices, but I have come across men who believe that I beyond damaged goods for those choices, that I've passed myself around.  Which quite frankly is a completely sordid load of NLLL in my opinion.   So whatever, the point is not to say I'm broken and a mess.  I guess, the issue is the same as it was 5 years ago.  People, including myself, are too damn complicated to be online dating.

So basically I've come to the opinion not only is it a load of NLLL, but that X is still the best one out there.  Yes yes and this is where I have to also say and how exactly do I and X maintain a relationship? We cannot and such is this whole bloody crock.  I still love a man who is wholly unattainable.

Even worse I cannot even claim the following for my actions:

Oh well.  Back to the books.

What Have I Done?!!!

I have signed up for an online dating site, 5 years after I shut down my last account.  I must admit that while a lot has happened in my life in the last 5 years, it seems that not a lot has happened in the online dating world.  I am still over educated and fishing around in a pool of men who seem to seriously undervalue the importance of a capitalized "I."  It will be good for laughs with JS and my roommate, but I seriously doubt that anything will come of it. But I will let you know.

So in light of this whole profile business I must post this which seems to be the story of my life these days.  Not me sleeping around, but I've sort of, shall we say marginally, come to accept that I am going to be the "slut" of the school.  Personally I hate the word, I wouldn't use it on anyone, but it seem in my very conservative school that because I'm a woman with breasts who does occasionally have cleavage or my shoulders bar that I'm scandalous.  Even further to that scandal I'm a feminist who uses birth control which according to a very interesting but ultimately sad  conversation with DirectoryBoy, who if you remember is a medical doctor, birth control is only for promiscuous women.  Yes you heard me.  I guess I haven't been using mine to its full potential.

Primarily because I love this site: http://editorrealtalk.tumblr.com/