Scratch That

If you're quick on the posts you might have noticed that one has just disappeared.

Why?

Well there are a lot of reasons and none of them have to do with the name related to them and more so as I'm listening to Bruno Mars and tweeting - you know all the important things you should be doing when you have a paper to write.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I'm single.

I've actually only been officially dating someone for one in my whole life. One in the almost two decades when it apparently counts that you have someone in your life.

The funny thing is I have lots of people in my life that I love and that love me. If anything all these years of digging around in the shit of my life has fertilized that amazing gift - amazing people. They fuel me, they wrap their arms around me, they cry and laugh with me. And they do it every day of the year, not just on the one day that roses reflect a fraction of the worth of relationship - sexual or otherwise.

So while I could ruminate over the desire for a good snogging - heck we're all there at some point, or multiple occasions in the 365 days of the year, not just a specific day. But in the end, like I've said before about relationships - the good ones, the good ones are the ones that fuel you - they're the ones that make you feel like you're dancing on rainbows or whatever happy is to you. To me, I imagine it will be equal to the day I find a gluten free doughnut that tastes like a real doughnut. Fatty dough fried in more fat and topped with sugar you are my idea of brain explosion, knicker dropping kind of love. Yes I have weird standards, but considering that gluten free baking is still a little meh, that's my Everest.

My point?

Tomorrow if you want that snog or you just want to kick the boy you just found out is dating a classmate because your friend found out in a very accidental and awkward way remember this too shall pass and while we're speaking of passing things I'll hand you the chocolate or the wine - your choice because I love you and heck that's got to count for something, even just a little something.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpaxonreyes/5442938096/

Pride or Practicality?

I would like to think that I am not prideful, but let's be serious I'm as prideful as I am vain - which is a lot at times, though I would love to think that both my extreme occasional vanity and my prideful moments are well, practical too.

My vanity aside for the moment - we need to discuss my pride.  Now I relinquished it momentarily this summer to let RB know I liked him during a delusional moment brought on by too much library dust.  But fear not I have quickly reclaimed it, such that I when faced with the man of the all the set up antics today, I felt that I almost by necessity had to ignore him.  I could not bring myself to acknowledge him primarily because a part of me was so damn furious.  There across from me sat an attractive man in his 30's and he can hold a conversation of relative intelligence but is also such a bloody tool.  It is not okay that he did not respond.  Sure I'm not going to go all boil his cat crazy and give him a piece of my mind but I could not bring myself to do anything that might be construed as flirting.  Was this prideful, sure but I'm of the opinion if you put the toy down after examining it and finding it wanton you don't pick it up again, regardless of whether anyone is watching.

On a slightly different note but also boy related, Belgium Boy is back in town for the year, which I have to say makes me happier than I think it should but at the same time, I have no desire to have to break my own heart if anything were to happen, we're on two different life tracks.  So I will be a good girl, no flirting where you don't want a response.

So on the note of pride:

Balance

Balance is something I've never been good at. Really, and truly I almost always fail at it - falling under or over a target.

X and I have been struggling with this, more so I have been struggling with it. Feeling like I can't find the right speed for anything - the physical, the emotional, the relational. I know there is no perfect, no right moment for anything - or "right" speed. Some people find themselves in relationships going the speed of light towards marriage and babies and are at complete peace - and no I'm not referencing Katie and Tom and that shitastic thing. But I think we all know those people. And others, they take a long time to even say I love you, never mind settle. I keep trying to remind myself that we all have a speed, and you can like in driving slow down. You cannot necessarily retrace your steps but you can try to work through them again.

I've been asked if he's the one. I don't know - I am beginning to realize just how much my relationship with CEF scarred and scared me in the whole serious dating business. AB was well AB and most of my big indiscretions there came via alcohol - except thankfully or not thankfully when it came to us having sex. Funny enough the fooling around was done while various stages of intoxicated, the sex, completely sober. Hmmm. Well enough unpacking of that. Back to CEF - X is not the same - but the fear is still there... guess life itself is going to have to work through that fear with me.

In Lieu of Writing - Exam Season

I love her music, it's brilliant, she has lines like "no right minds can be wrong so many times...." This song has a haunting quality that somehow isn't depressing - this song was done by SYTYD - and yes that interpretation is painful and dark.  But anyways - I like her and I love what she did with the video, and also quite frankly the fact that I can easily sing along to it doesn't hurt:

Chemistry

Chemistry is a funny thing - you think you have it and you don't or you don't expect it and it shows up in the weirdest places.

Chemistry used to baffle me - not the science - that I was completely down with.  When I look back at the men in my life I find that interpersonal chemistry is nothing like the science.  You cannot combine two elements which you know should react and think you'll get a reaction - Sodium and Water do not a reaction make when it is people we are talking about and inert gases are apparently no longer stable.

I remember this clearly after my date with MW - he said quite plainly - he didn't feel a spark.  If I had been honest nor did I.  But the suggestion that a spark was more important than getting to know me hurt.  I've come to realize that is not what he meant at all.

I had no chemistry with CEF - one more freaking thing that was wrong, so very wrong with that relationship.  But moving on.  I had sexual chemistry with BI to the likes I don't know if there will be again - but we were not by any means meant to be.  I didn't have chemistry with OM, BV or a whole lot of the others until AB.  That threw me for a loop. I remember standing at Miss 60's party and wanting to pinch myself - wondering what was going on - there was something about him - something I hadn't known in my life.  Oddly I had that this past week and it reminded me that as much as I have had my stuck moments with AB - that there are others out there that will make me feel like it just fits, like it is someone who I could talk with for hours etc.  Which is why I just keep plodding on, chemistry can happen in surprising places, maybe it is like inorganic chemistry - you just have to keep mixing until you discover something new and beautiful - like a cobalt compound (cobalt chromium blue).

PU's and Dating

My PU, as he's referred to around here, and I have an improving relationship but it's not conventional because I never was a "conventional daughter." I was the take care of my brother, make dinner, do homework, serious child.  I didn't like boys (in my PU's opinion - but I did think boys were cool just so we are straight on that) and boys as far as I believed would never like me.  I never went on a date in high school, kissed a boy (had to wait until 2nd year of university and I really should have waited longer) and I went to grad/prom alone. 

I have no issue with this being my teenage story because the guys I went to school with were my friends - in the end I preferred being their friends and still being their friends, like BI.  Given that arrangement I think my parents got lulled into the perception that their daughter was either asexual or like a Disney Princess who being single her whole like miraculously stumbles upon a man of good moral character and breeding and in 10 to 30 minutes accepts a marriage proposal and it's all said and done.  Yet neither is the case - and they've had their struggles with that.  Some in part was my "fault."

Dr. A (My Mr. Big) was the first man I brought home in any respect - he was 15 years my senior and we weren't formally dating.  My parents didn't quite know what to do with themselves.  Thankfully for them he skipped town with a coworker.*  After that it was CEF who was thrown at them more or less - a hey so I'm getting married, here is my fiance and that's the end of that.  Well that policy was stupid, flawed and in the end caused so much strife that it was the final straw in my parent's marriage - August 08 was fun times all around our home.

So... after months and months of therapy etc - see previous posts for all the therapy reasons - my DrBrain says you need to start dating.  WHAT?!! I don't date.  I do the Disney princess and fall into a perfect relationship.  Apparently that is not how things work.  So I started with OM.  My PU didn't know about OM, and why did he need to - OM was a bust**.  Then came AB and simultaneously BV and then AL, BB.  AB in the end was the only one he ever knew about. ***

So what is the point in this sharing moment.  Well my PU doesn't know how to deal with the knowledge their were others, other than AB AND that there will be more in the future and I have FB and Dr. C to thank for all this.  No Dr. C and I are not or ever have discussed that topic of dating - but the presence of a man has left my dad scratching his head.  I guess to him I'm his little girl and little girls don't talk to boys.

Note:

*I hold no malice to either - they are perfect for each other, though for their reputations/friendships sake they could have done it differently if they had wanted to.

** PU knows now, stupid FB, I had at the long discussion about the Olympics had to spill how OM and I knew each other
*** He has never met AB oddly enough

Photo : http://www.flickr.com/photos/focus_in_mind/2328162855/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Sigh

I figure I should be happy - I have avoided my school reunion, but I'm not.  I feel like I need to be there to represent for all the educated single peeps out there - funny thing is I think I'm like one of maybe 5 of those in my class and the others are doctors.  You can get away with being single and a doctor because you've spent hundreds of thousand on your education, you have a title and you do very little sleeping amongst other amazing skills.  Now me - debt (check), title (no check), very little sleeping - opposite check - I do lots and lots of sleeping - everywhere I can - but that is not the point.  The point is I do not have multiple spawn, I do not have arm candy and I do not have a whole lot else either.  Does this mean I'm somehow less of person - NO, BUT to my classmates it means something is wrong with me - like for these ultra conservative folk - I go for the other team, I have leprosy, or something along those lines... you think I jest, oh I don't... so while I should be happy to avoid the where is your ____ (husband, house, title, child) - it just makes me sad that we are so stuck on those things when there are so many more things that define our lives.

Word of the Day

In honor of TOITB's fear that he's too geeky - which I believe is actually the wrong term - though it's been a while since BI gave me the definitions... I digress, the point? Brains are a wonderful thing. Sure they can make the dating world a complicated place when you get all giggly over first editions, anniversary editions and retro science fiction amongst many things that make this young lady smile.

Anyways, the word of the day: cuckold - there is a somewhat definition below. One of the lovely words provided by years and years of medieval literature class.

Sad Beautiful Music

So because I'm of two minds, or maybe because I did love the boy for some unknown horribly complex reason, a feeling I swear some days I want to drink away, I still think of him often. This song reminds me of that/this feeling, but it's also just plain beautiful.

Rings...

A new male entered our work place this week – alarms went off, a code lipstick was issued and in general chaos ensued. In a building of 96% females and 50% of those are single, fresh meat does not go unnoticed, especially when they have an Aussie accent...

But before we go putting him in the memory shoes of my Mr. Big and in doing so replacing that memory with a better option, and one that isn’t 15 years my senior either, I need to convey some terrible news.

He has an extra toe.

Actually he’s married.

No wedding ring.

He’s married, but does not wear a wedding ring. This is one of my pet peeves. As a single woman living in a city where it is more common to be in a common law relationship, it’s already hard to figure out who’s free to look at and who’s not. Further still I don’t understand the no ring concept. If you have allergies there are a variety of options, if it’s cost, there are even more options – the cheapest custom rings on Etsy are below $100 or slightly more expensive.

Now I am comfortable with being labelled a traditionalist – I support marriage, and I have no intention of being shacked up before I am married. Note I don’t care which humans get married to each other, if you are willing to commit for life to the person go for it. I feel that if you man or woman choose to not wear a ring when you are married you are saying two things, one I’m not proud that I am married, and two I am free to be treated as a single person, you can flirt with me, you can look at me and you can try and woo me or whatever you want to etc.

So am I alone in this? Would you wear a ring and why or why not?

And I leave you with this is gem, the truth of Beyonce...

Part 3 of 3

So as the house attempted to return to normal yesterday morning, BR replaced me in the bathroom - she had added tequila to the Merlot - and I moped the floor and the watched a full day of football. I came to realize that AB hadn't texted, hadn't really at all since I returned from Philadelphia. Something happened during that trip that I can't put my finger on, or really want to, to be honest. He's moody, he says he misses me, wants to see me, but seems to do everything to avoid that. So I might want him, I might miss him, and I might even truly love him, but those don't matter, because I know that the longer I sit here, the more it all just sours my life. So I overruled all those things and began the eternal sunshine treatment. It won't be that hard to stop the texting, but the missing him part well hell that might just feel like hell. In the end I've have enough of his silence, whether it is due to his distance in all this or somepassive aggressive moody stance, regardless I'm leaving all of this behind me.

Sure I have a shit load of stuff that has found it's way to his place over the last 6 plus months, but I can contact his roommates or really anyone else to procure all that for me whenever I feel like that, to be honest part of me wants to see him cave, find out if there is a soul in him somewhere... So there we have it, the inevitable. It still makes me sad that it would end this way. That we'd be great friends and so on and so forth and then end up here in silence. Figures.

PS. Feels a whole hell of a lot like Twilight, and yes I know I should be smacked for again referencing myself to the quality literature of Meyers, kind of makes me Team Edward after all this. Hearts are fickle things.

Singleness...

As of late I've been realizing that what I'm looking for has slowly changed over the years... as a whole I know it hasn't in the sense that I haven't gone from looking for Type C to Type M or something like that(I know that is a little muddled), specifically I've always known a Type A would likely cause me grief and I vice versa. An AB clone without the AB issues would in many ways be good, but as I realized at our staff Christmas party I have something possibly as restrictive as my dabblings with veganism to consider, running. The husband of one of my staff bemoaned his inability to keep up with his marathoning and explicitly said that is something I MUST consider. Really?

Let's review this shall we? I have a had a year of mediocre at best dates and one whatever you want to call it "relationship." One was a marathoner now a die hard skier (OM) and the others not overly athletic aside from biking everywhere. Will I run for the rest of my life? I sure hope so. Now I'm aware it isn't a deal breaker, all the women I know who are runners are married, but on the other hand all are vocal about their frustrations that their pursuit isn't always honored... not my place on that issue. Here's my issue - I like distances - marathon distances and strongly looking at ultra's, and those are time consuming. Not just the races, but the training long runs. A 20 miler on a Saturday morning is easily 3hrs, 4 if breakfast is factored in...and most evenings there are 10-15 mile runs... So did I just pick my future? Marathoning and sporatic veganism over someone in my bed and life?

Just look - it isn't that bad a choice is it?

Struggling

I would like to say amidst all this dating* that I've managed to come to some grand epiphany other than the one that shouldn't get repeated again - I have an issue with that one. The last two dates, correction all but BV have shared too much, and BV couldn't hold a conversation. Look fellas, I know I'm a talker, I work my brain - my feelings and all that out, out loud or in print - which is close enough, and I somehow, just barely have figured out the whole self censor business. Yes I've developed a challenging situation with the NLLL, but I know that the following can cause silence and really awkward situations:

1. Ex's - especially details - like cheating on or by, the dysfunctional nature or any of that, really, seriously - I'm not going to tell you CEF is anymore that CEF - I don't think you need to know that if he ever contacts me that I will without hesitation file a restraining order and while we were at it maybe change my name, move and everything else I considered at one time...

2. Your emotional struggles - goodness we've all had them - trust me, we have, I however think Dr Brain is the better person for my emotional venting, or Ms. J when I've got some booze in me, it's not really first date material.

3. Your job hate - lord only knows how many shitty days I have here, however I'm here in the end because gasp I want to be, crazy shit I know. You don't like the job I don't care what it is get a job you like. I can respect you more for having a shitty paying job or career that fulfills you, than I can do the other - the other is TOXIC, and not in a sort of hot way like the song, Bimbo Spears auto tuned/lip sync'd her way through.

You can tell me the following:

1. Travel - where you've been, where you would like to go and why - ex. I would like to go to India and visit an ashram, or I would like to see Japan because well despite my loathe of Memoirs of a Geisha, the cherry blossoms looked amazing, like well maybe too romantic to go alone, but I would go anyways...

2. What you do to occupy your time - I will shame you by saying I'm a health masochist - I think the best way to spend a Saturday morning is a 13 mile run, followed by a nap/cuddle if I get that luxury or something like that... not that I would offer you a cuddle, but whatever, moving on.

3. Fun - crazy things you've done recently - like I went to a film fest recently... etc

4. If you want to be transparent - tell me about your future goals - BB wants to live in a city I would rather be shot before I would move to for a million reasons - I am high maintenance, and this city is all sorts of wrong, all wrong, very wrong, and it's actually once of the major cities in this fine country. Kids? You know I would like 2 or maybe 4 - let's start with 2, yes my uterus is alive like the hills in the Sound of Music, but I'm not looking for just your contribution, I'm looking for a partner... so yes that would mean I would like you to make an honest woman out of me and marry me before they come along and all that.

But that's it... maybe I should put it at you this way, all this unneeded sharing is equivalent to me saying the following to AB for example, and note in addition to being too much info, it's all hugely unfair to dump on someone, regardless of the situation:

1. I want to get married and I think you're a really really good match - I should be shot for saying that, because while it may be accurate it's not to be said, oh no no no in the words of our fair Ducky

2. I have a ring picked out and L (CW) could get you a good deal, don't worry I've liked the setting for years...

3. The above two imply I want to have your children (which at the moment strikes me as a very odd statement...) and I am okay with the names you've already indicated you like.

I could even get worse, but I won't because I think you get the point...

Names

Have you ever found yourself writing someone off because of their name. Now I realize I now sound shallow and yes we might have found one good reason why I'm single, but actually I'm not that picky... Sure I've been noted as saying someone with the same last name would be wonderful, it would save me from having all my towels, stationary, pillowcases and bedding re-monogrammed. I have to say it was funny when discussing a person of the past with TBF(Tattooed Best Friend)she insisted he be dropped not for his doucheyness but rather his name... I think there's a reason she's still a best friend. Anyways I found myself writing out another name today and having the urge to recall the joys of elementary school by writing out my name with his last name, surrounding it with bubbly hearts and flowers, now we could chalk that up to the mocha light frappe I just downed in record speed since I have the heat on full in my office... or I've officially lost my brain and I need to be intervened with before someone (me) makes an ass of themselves... though that would just be a regular occurrence, so I don't know if I need an intervention for this one specific case or my non-endearing behavior in general, because it is apparently doing me no good, it's all not good...

Regardless please tell me this need has overcome one of you dear readers in the last decade...

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/perpetualbliss/2986747719/

Good Girls Don't

Do lots of things I'm sure I've been known to do, which is maybe why I like the bad boys when it has come to dating. My policy has been if they're tattooed, pierced, have a little bit of a potty mouth and play an instrument, then I'm all over it like a bridezilla at a Kleinfeld sample sale... in recent months I've learned that while that may be what I'm attracted to since I'm not a purely good girl, and you don't get the bad boys that you can change - a la Beauty and the Beast, and vice versa, good guys it seems are looking for something a little, perhaps wilder. I was thinking about that as I wrote out for like the millionth time that an individual I know is a "genuinely nice guy" and blah blah blah, so why not this said genuinely nice guy? Because well I know I'm not even registering on his radar, that is if guys have that... so be that person out of left field saying hey you seem like a really great guy wanna go to _____, seems so completely wrong... am I wrong for believing that?

Ever Had A, I Wish...

you would just kiss me moment? I think I've had a few and one unfortunately came when it was least going to happen given the copious amount of products involved... we'll leave it at that on that one, but really, I am trying to figure out why I've felt like that in two situations in the last 8 months (give you all a nice large ballpark to wonder in so that no one feels left out). Of course the argument is and I can hear it off out there from a certain individual that I shouldn't complain about it, and I should do something about it, sure... that's easy for you to say. I get squirrelly about the whole asking out business, I'm not going to lean forward and slightly to one side to get rejected... because hey maybe my wiring and signals and all that is off. I was thinking about one such case, and trying to in my lovely female Gemini way to over think, analyse it, and no it didn't help that I got the oh but he really looks like he likes you by the way he was looking at you (no that was someone drinking and a certain blue dress) - that was that - nothing more and just nothing.... so we can be glad that I didn't do anything about that... beyond that we also can say I would have most definitely regretted the other case too, but not the for rejection that would have occurred, oh no because it would have been a waste of my precious hormones... just because they seem to be in abundance doesn't mean that I'm all over giving them out whenever the mood strikes.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/osvaldo_zoom/3559716056

Put Down The Fork

....because you know that what ails you is not going to be better and likely possibly worse if you think that a slice of birthday cake at 10am is going to make the whole he's really not into you thing, really sink in, the really part, like really, for sure, eh, you know, you REALLY know he's not ever going to call, ever remember your birthday, your favorite flower (peony), your favorite colour (pink), your favorite author (Rushdie), favorite movie... (we need to leave somethings off the interwebs)...and so on and so forth. I think I really realized this week that it all is in the was, this all was, a definite for sure, we just box the remnant emotions, pack up those straggling memories, and wishes and trade the shelved red stilettos for that box, and put it up on the shelf with the ex-fiance, the other ex's and know that they can keep each other company up there. In the end it is what it is and nothing I could have or not said would have changed that when it came down to all of it in the end, to OM I occupied the position that many women do until we're moved over into the next category (get to know her), I was just my exterior, and maybe a small amount of interior, just enough to minimize the guilt of "befriending" a woman so you could stare at her boobs and hug her a little to long in the hopes of feeling something... because in the end even in his own words I was little more than the fantasy he had formed and while I guess I should be happy about it, given that we apparently value that aspect of imagination, I just find it frustrating...

Hmmm, cake...

ADD, Procrastination and Boxes of Financial Records to Go

Being the pseudo boss has no perks, none at all and well I have yet to kick my procrastination habit, eek. So what then - this:

Dear OM,

You seem like a nice guy, but the more I think about it, as over analyzing is what I do best, actually second best to my procrastination skillz (I feel like saying it C - grammar check me later). Well you know what? I would like to go on a date date with you like a REAL date not a breakfast waffle date, the kind where I panic for a week and I can't find something to wear and buy something only to not wear it, where I can't seem to put my eye liner on straight, I have to have J talk me off the ceiling and nothing stays in my GI tract for more than a nano-second. I want to see you just as nervous as me as we stumble over our conversation for the first 30 minutes until my martini kicks in and you crack some kind of lame ass but endearing joke. We have a good meal and then do something fun like go for a walk and talk - I know I'm a cheap date - or see a movie (non rom-com)- you might be interested in finding something that causes me to panic and grab your arm/game where I am more concerned about Louie/go do something lame and messy - like paint pottery. We end the night with anything but a lame handshake or one of those teenage boy kind of hugs, you know the kind where they are going for the most amount of space in between. I'm not asking you to pucker up or anything like that - to be honest, it's too much stress and hype. Your only three goals should be these: be yourself (honest), engage in conversation and make sure I don't utter these words or think them - I can't believe I shaved my legs for this/bought something for you or even cared what you thought... if you enter this territory you've blown it, shot it all to hell and that's it - unless I really LOVE the shoes I'm wearing and you notice them, then maybe... anyways let me know what you think? You up for it?

Thanks, J

Back on the Horse or the Bar Stool?

JJ and I are both stuck, we've been on the horse before, we've also been on bar stools before and neither it seems have been good times. So now that we are racing towards an age we won't mention, with very little in the way of prospects we're trying to figure out if we have gotten something fundamental wrong in this whole process. We know what we want and we know that is more than likely not in one of the downtown restaurants, but maybe we don't need them. Hear me out, maybe we just need to get the game out of the rust factory it's in, get a free drink, a wink and smile and get the ole hottie mobile in gear. Who cares if they never call, never really looked at your face and just memorized your rack, maybe that's all we need for that brief fleeting moment to pursue that which we really want. In JJ's case a blind date with a hottie MD she spent one fleeting night in conversation with a party years ago, and me? A friendship with a boy who knows to keep his hands to himself and his honesty consistent would be fabulous right now - give the whole fact that I got bucked from the horse and royally smack my head, I think I've got to walk the horse a while before I try the jump.

Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/grimjaw/322726896/

The Skinny on Singleness

I like let's say 98% of women in North America (those over saturated with magazine/Hollywood culture) don't like something about their bodies. While I will say I work out, I am actually attempting to run a 1/2 marathon in April and a full in October, but great scott I SO don't, nor will I ever look like Jessica Biel or one of those tarts for a million different reasons. But anyways - the issue is for me, one that I continually have to re-examine is - does it matter. My size that is, is average good enough? I try and talk myself down off the panic stairclimber with this - what the hell happens when I can't train, have babies or something else happens and I gain weight and either look like me at this exact moment (pre-extensive running) or heavier. I mean we say his love won't change and yadda yadda - but really?

Then again what do we average girls do? Do we settle for the boy with the beer gut 'cause he's the only one who finds us foxy or keep holding on to the belief that our male counterparts are not so brainwashed by all the airbrushing in the latest Maxim to realize that a really woman, with curves, flaws, but really awesome hair and a kick asparagus recipe for ____ (I've got more than one recipe to fit that blank) is a far better catch than the girl with the 8 pack they've been leering at...

All that being said I prefer to step away from all this relational angst because I can - and go with what my roomie said - what the hell would I do with a man - good point, right now I can't do anything with one, other than make my life unnecessarily complicated.

Photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/ooyanioo/2237200757/