weekends were where we fell apart December 16, 2008

would you ever date a smoker if you were a non-smoker? today i found myself contemplating that question. i grew up with a dad who smoked, and i absolutely hated every second that he smoked. i’m also really sensitive to smells, and the overwhelming, pungent nature of the smell of smoke tends to overpower everything and make everything smell like smoke for days. i’m not sure i could take that.

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not that i’m dating a smoker…or even dating at all, for that matter. the most recent dude isn’t getting back with the ex, but he said that after talking to her, he needs time alone to sort some things out. i’m not sure if that was his way of telling me that he wasn’t interested anymore or what. he mentioned that i should feel free to keep in touch, if i’d like to. but my question is: does he even want to keep in touch anymore? it doesn’t really seem so. and that makes me profoundly sad. he says he’s in a weird place right now, but i’m not sure where he turned the corner and lost me. we were getting along so well in almost every single way imaginable, and then poof! no more. if there’s one thing i don’t do well with, it’s the unexplained. i will sit and think and wonder “what if” for so long. in fact, i don’t think i ever have an expiration date on those ponderings. they just keep looping, and i just keep finding myself sad or frustrated that i couldn’t find an answer.

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it truly seemed like we would have waves of good and bad, he and i. we had a string of good, and then thanksgiving weekend came and the ex came back into the picture. then we had a great week, and then the weekend came and it was question mark city. now it’s another week and i’m not so sure we’ll have another good one. the weird thing is, he went from being so open to communication to completely shutting down without warning. and i’m not sure if that’s something in him, or if it was something that resulted from his talk with his ex. in any case, i’ve been pretty much a lifeless blob since the communication breakdown. today was particularly bad, as i was going over it with a guy friend, and i nearly burst into tears at work and i was typing out my confusion to him. i guess i REALLY don’t grasp unanswered concepts very well.

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it was like trying to go through the better part of last week and the beginning of this week feeling like a balloon that had been blown up and then deflated after a week of being blown up. i don’t even know if it was something i did, or something i didn’t do…i don’t know anything. but i’ll tell you this much: it’s getting old being this debbie downer! i guess even the “big guy upstairs” had enough of my one-women pity party, as well, because he threw me a bone to make me smile.

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after class today, i was waiting for a friend who needed to talk to the professor and ended up sitting alone in the lobby of our building. this guy i had always seen around but never met was in the lobby, too, and he turned around from where he was stapling his papers and said hello. i used to have this silly, passer-by crush on him. you know, the type where you’ve never met the person, but you see them all the time and you run into them all the time and you know people who know that person? i never thought anything of it, just someone cute who seemed nice from afar. you know, a passer-by crush.

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so we get to talking, and as he’s talking, he just seems like the most genuine, easy-going person. he mentions that he’s working full time, taking six courses, and graduating from a 3 year program in two and a half years. it was then that i felt like the underachiever of the world. SIX classes on top of a 40 hour work-week? are you kidding me?? what kind of super-powered humanoid has the endurance to do that?? his area of specialty is also an area i’m interested in, and he’s graduating in may when i am. our programs do a joint graduation ceremony, so we’ll be walking together. the more he’s talking, the more i find myself wishing i wasn’t accidentally sporting the “donald trump comb-over” (hey, the weater was NOT agreeing with my bangs, okay? who’s ever heard of 25-30 mph winds in so cal, anyway??) and hoping i wasn’t sitting there grinning like an idiot.

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it was totally random and unexpected, especially after the downer of a day i’d been having thinking about the most recent guy. but i have to think that tonight’s guy was at least interested in meeting me, since he was just standing there, shooting the breeze for 10 minutes when he was clearly done with whatever it is he was doing. that, or he is just the friendliest person ever and stays and talks to people he doesn’t know all the time! i prefere to think it was the first one sometimes i wonder if i do the unintentional staring thing or something when we see each other or pass each other in the building, and that’s what finally prompted him to say hello rather than forever holding me in his head as the “creepy stare-y girl.” but i don’t think so. also, if a guy did the creepy, stare-y thing to me, i’m not so sure i’d initiate conversation, so maybe he did just want to talk to me

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he mentioned that he has a final tomorrow (as do i), so maybe i’ll run into him. i actually learned a lot about him in the short time we talked, it was kinda cool. i should have asked what time his final was, but i’m just not quick enough on my feet. besides, my friends were there and that would have been a little bit awkward trying to be slick in front of your friends who have seen you at your silliest/goofiest.

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and yes, this all seems so random, but it brings me back to the beginning of my post. he smokes. and not that he’s even interested in me and not like i know him enough to be interested, either, but it makes me think about whether or not that would be a deal-breaker for me. i don’t think very many things are deal-breakers for me, to be honest, but smoking is one i’ve never actually had to decide on, so i don’t know what i’d choose. my mom isn’t a smoker, but my dad is. and they have one of the happiest marriages i know of.

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i saw that as a sign that the big guy upstairs wanted me to smile, since he helped me meet someone i’ve never met, but always wanted to. and it worked

limbo December 8, 2008

it seems i will never truly find my footing in the dating world. i heard back from the guy, but it is still a big, fat question mark. he and his ex are supposed to talk some time this week to figure out what is going on. he and i have been talking almost every day since he told me about her, and it’s been really good. but there is still the chance that he and his ex will decide to work things out. it’s definitely not fun, being in this “wait and see” stage. he did clear some things up and gave me some hope, though. he mentioned that he’s definitely guarded with her, and he heard that she cheated on him when they were together, so he needs to find out for sure before he can move on.

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but i know how it goes with exes. you can’t help but WANT to forgive, sometimes, just because of the history you have with them. for some people, history is good enough to overshadow all the bad. i’ve expressed all these concerns with him, since i feel there is no need to be dishonest at this point. all i’ve got going for me is that i am honest, and that he genuinely seems interested, at least. he said to me: “I don’t know what it is about you. at the risk of scaring you off…i’m super attracted to you.” so, either he really is interested, or he’s really good at faking it and is just trying to gather a crowd of admirers. the weird thing is, i also find myself super attracted to him, even though i’m usually pretty guarded. i mean, i fall fast, but i don’t usually fall hard quickly. ugh, it’s all so confusing!

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isn’t it funny, the way attraction works? sometimes it’s just something beyond your force or control. there may be people you’d give the world to, but they don’t feel a damn thing for you. and then there are those who want something with you, and you never see it happening. with him, i finally felt like there was a mutual, reciprocal attraction for once….and then the ex stepped back into the picture. gah! it’s so frustrating.

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oh yeah, did i mention his ex got breast enhancements after they broke up? yeeeeah. i don’t know if my “winning personality” is a match for a giant set of (fake) double Ds. i hate girls who get boob jobs. i knew a girl who got them at my old job and she was the most fake woman ever. i think it speaks volumes about a girl’s character if she needs a set of fake boobs to feel good about herself (excluding cancer patients).

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more when i hear how their talk went….keep your fingers crossed for me!

Generation Y – A Gamophobic Society? December 5, 2008

this morning as i was getting ready to leave for work, my thoughts wandered over to two of my friends who were both in serious relationships for a long amount of time. both of them, i thought, were on the marriage path. in fact, one of them was actually engaged to her guy. the other friend moved to another country to be with his girl. i just figured that since he made such a big gesture, marriage was a hop, skip, and a jump away.

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then i heard that both of them were suddenly, unexpectedly single. apparently each one wasn’t quite ready for marriage and their significant others couldn’t take it any more. i understand that if one partner is working towards marriage and the other isn’t that it can usually be the thing that breaks couples up. however, these two cases were so completely mind-boggling!

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my girlfriend and her guy were engaged. here is the email she wrote to me and several other friends, explaining the whole sordid deal. brace yourself, it’s a doozy….

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“I’ll try to spare you details but a little over two months ago my EX-fiance and I decided to postpone our wedding, which was supposed to occur in July 2008. Apparently this was a huge blow to Jeff’s (name changed) ego and his faith in our relationship became strained. It didn’t really seem to be a problem until about 2 weeks ago when I started having trouble reaching Jeff on his phone. One night I drove all around trying to see if I could find him because I was worried about him. I didn’t hear back from him until the next afternoon when he said something about being with coworkers and leaving his phone in his car. Then I didn’t hear from him for the rest of that night even though I tried to reach him to invite him to some events. His later explanation for this was something about his car charger and phone battery not working, although I poked some holes in this reasoning because I pointed out that when I called, the phone did not go straight to voicemail, which is what usually happens when phone batteries die. Anyway I was sick the following week and Jeff did not want to “risk getting sick” so we did not really see each other or talk much until last Thursday, when Jeff asked if he could stop by my place. He was here for about 15 minutes. This consisted of him taking the key to his house off my keychain and saying how he had been really hurt by our postponing the wedding and that he felt like things were really hard for us since our schedules often didn’t work out. He then reminded me that he was going to be working on a work assignment in the desert for 3 months starting in January, and that he felt he would like to “cut ties” before he goes, and that he wanted to be free. I didn’t really know what to say – this was all out of left field, although I had been having thoughts that our relationship wasn’t doing so great.

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Ok so then before leaving last Thursday Jeff told me he was going on a business trip out “into the desert” this past weekend and that he’d be gone starting Friday and wouldn’t really have cell phone reception on the military base. Therefore I didn’t really bother trying to reach him. I didn’t hear from him until this Tuesday afternoon, when he called me at work to get my credit card info so he could cancel our gym membership, and he told me he was separating our checking account too and that he was “happy with his life”. I probed him about this, wondering if he meant we really did break up and that he was sticking to it so I asked if he was “happy with… the new turn it had taken?” He said yes. So I decided we really were breaking up and started getting used to the idea of just being friends with him. By yesterday (Wed.) I had accepted that maybe it was for the best – some people just aren’t meant to be together. and we had different goals – he wanted to settle down and get married, and I wasn’t *quite* ready for that yet. Anyways he called me again at work yesterday and asked if we could meet up and talk after work. I figured we were finally going to have a serious talk about “taking a break” for a while, so naturally I agreed.

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Jeff seemed really happy when I got to his house. We chatted like good friends, and he said he was sorry that our relationship didn’t work out but that he was available to talk whenever I needed someone and that I could call him if I needed an “escort” or somewhere to keep my dogs. I started to feel better about the idea that we could have a good transition from a romantic to a friendly relationship, and I told him I thought we would make good friends and I would support him finding somebody else who made him happy. ANYWAY, long story short, Jeff’s phone rang when I was about done moving my boxes from his garage into my car. I was still forcing a bright mood at this time. He said his friend was coming, and he gave directions to his house. Then this girl pulled up and it was this Chinese girl I had met a few weeks ago when I stopped by his house to get help with a flat tire. I was friendly to her and then Jeff went to introduce us – and here comes the bombshell. He said “Sherry (name changed), meet MRS. SMITH (name changed)”. Jeff’s last name is Smith (name changed). He then went on, in the same excited attitude, to tell me about how they were in the same internship program at work and that they had gotten to know each other better starting ONE week ago and realized they both had similar stories about their romantic situations. THEN he told me that they went to Las Vegas with some other coworkers last weekend and GOT MARRIED!!!!! They both had wedding bands on to prove it. Apparently she’s met his family (who thinks she’s only a girlfriend still), and they showed her his baby pictures. Obviously I was in disbelief, but by this time I was playing the “platonic friend” role to a T. I told them how excited I was for them, and that I was glad he found somebody who makes him happy. He joyfully stated that she made him “really, really happy”. He then suggested that I talk to her sometime because I could share with her some info about him since I knew him better than she did. I said, sure, send me her contact info. Then we talked about how she was going to move into his house and watch over his room while he was away on his business travels, and then after that they would live there together, since of course, that’s what married people do. He told me their “official wedding day” when they get re-married in the Catholic Church is going to be Christmas Eve of next year and that I was invited if I wanted to go – I said of course. He invited me to stay for dinner – I felt like saying I’d rather eat razor blades but politely declined and took off.

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I’m really good at pretending to be okay, as I’ve been hearing a lot recently. Jeff got a kick out of telling me how even their coworkers who had witnessed the ceremony didn’t even believe it was for real. It is for real. What’s rather unbelievable is how both of them seemed so clueless to the fact that I was faking to be genuinely happy for them and supportive – I mean, how could I be? I AM human…

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Well, that’s the story. The killer is that Jeff never really told me we weren’t going to be together anymore before he got married. And he lied about where he went last weekend. And now he thinks I’m totally cool with everything. Do I even know this person? I didn’t think he was an unfaithful person. Anyway I’m sorry this is such a convoluted tale. I wanted you to hear it from me and not from rumors. I am relieved that I did not feel pressured to marry before I felt ready. Mostly I am just in shock. I really appreciate the support, but do not pity me. I’m not “falling apart” – I will move on soon and if I laugh it is because you all make me happy and bring joy into my life. Also, I do not prefer to talk over the phone, so please write me back if you want or you can just feel indignation on my behalf – that will be good enough.

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Maybe someday I will be able to sleep normally again…”

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my heart ached after reading this. literally. i felt like i would completely melt into a puddle and like i would need to lie in bed for 2 weeks with the covers pulled tight over my head after reading this. the man she loved, the man she had a relationship with, just up and MARRIED someone else without even telling my friend they were officially over. who does that?!? true, she wasn’t completely ready to marry, but they had set a date! that showed commitment to SOMETHING! this happened a while ago, but it still shocks me every time i think about it. and he was ex-military, which makes me even MORE hesitant to date anyone who was ex-military!

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my guy friend’s story is kind of the same, except he moved to a whole ‘nother country to be with this girl. they were together three years, and then she got mad when he didn’t propose. they were on vacation in some other country when she asked him when he was going to propose. he said he wasn’t ready, and after they got back from vacation, she dumped him. he was devastated, of course, but tried to keep her as a friend. like the other story, he couldn’t reach her for a few days and when he finally did get a hold of her to talk, she was already re-married. She had re-married three days after they got back from their vacation!!!!!!! THREE DAYS!!!!! and both of these friends had it happen in a similar time period, too. what an odd little coincidence.

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i mean, how do you go from LOVING someone and wanting to spend your life with them to marrying someone completely different in a matter of days or weeks?? it scares me, too, because you really never know about other people. you can put yourself out there, and feel like your significant other is on the same page as you the whole time, when, really, they’re not.

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but it also makes me think – is the Y generation gamophobic? Are we afraid of marriage because we feel the need to establish ourselves, grow up, be independent before we commit…or are we really just afraid of marriage itself? i know it scares the heck out of me! i definitely am NOT ready for marriage, but i’ve got a whole laundry list of reasons as to why i’m not ready. i mean, i’m not even IN a relationship; of course i wouldn’t be ready for marriage! these two friends were in serious relationships for pretty long, but what made them “not ready”?

time December 2, 2008

remember when you were a kid and time seemed to last soooo long.  a day, an hour, heck, even sitting still for 10 minutes seemed like an eternity.  now that i’m all “growed up,” it seems that time has given me the proverbial middle finger.  i blink and the day is gone.  i never did gracefully grasp the fact that time is now on crack and operating at triple speed.  now, i have even more reason to be at odds with time.  or, rather, my latest beef with time has to do with timing.  it is NEVER the right time for me.

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the last three guys i started to date all mentioned something about timing.  the first one said that if he had met me at a different time, we would have dated and probably dated quite a while, but he just wasn’t in the place to date just for the sake of dating.  he was on the marriage track (in general, not with me), and i wasn’t.

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the second one had started seeing someone the same time he started seeing me, which i was completely fine with.  timing (the little bitch), though, was not on my side for this one, either.   apparently they progressed a lot faster than he and i did, and they decided to be exclusive, which left me in the dust.  i remember when he told me in person, and i felt like all the blood drained from my face and my mouth spontaneously went dry.  i couldn’t look him in the eye for the fear that he’d see the sheer disappointment, and it took all that i had in  me to tell him that it was decent of him to tell me in person.  it WAS decent of him to tell me in person, but that didn’t change the fact that it hurt or that it was happening all over again. i’ve learned that they have since split, which is a little odd since they JUST started really dating.

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and now the most recent case of timing screwing me over.  i recently started talking to a guy who i really thought had potential.  we sent emails back and forth all day long, and they weren’t just quick little one- or two-liners.  we’re talking lengthy emails with page after page of details, questions, and flirty but tasteful banter.  phone conversations were equally fun, and i began thinking what fun it would be to go out with this guy.  and then thanksgiving happened.  apparently he ran into his ex-girlfriend who he really loved, and they’re “seeing what happens.”  i guess the only reason they broke up was because they both were moving, and now they’re both back in the same city.  how luuuuuuuuuuucky for me.  when he told me, i literally felt my heart stop for a few seconds.  i couldn’t believe it was happening to me again. i just sat there, numb and unresponsive for about 10 minutes.

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i remain friends with all these guys, but i wonder if it’s bad to do so?  will i be cast into the friend zone forever once i get there, never to enter back into the realm of “possible dating partner”?  i’m still in disbelief that yet another time, timing has given me the big, fat shaft.  i guess it’s back to the search for me…

second date and random musings October 29, 2008

so, the second date is set ! We’re meeting for dinner on Saturday. i gotta say, I am consistently impressed by his choices.

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i may be new to this whole dating thing, but so far i’m loving dating!

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on a totally different note, i was watching a reality show tonight (i won’t say which one, as it is possibly one of THE most shameful ones to admit to liking!), and i thought about what it takes to be on a reality show. they’d probably cast me because of my love for disclosing. doesn’t matter if you want to hear it or not, cause when i feel like sharing, i’m gonna share.

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and then there’s the crying. in times of persistent stress, i tend to get a little over-sensitive. things that normally wouldn’t ruffle me seem like huge, massive insults or frustrations. and seeing as how most of these reality shows are so manipulative, catty, and stressful, i’d be crying. all. the. time. like that one guy on project runway who cried during every judges’ panel? that’d be me. and lord knows when i watch these shows and see them crying, i’m quick to judge. and producers love getting that strong love-or-hate reaction from the audience. it’s like production gold when you have someone mouthy, manipulative, and someone whose floodgates are permanently triggered by the slightest breeze. add a sad, sob story of a past, and voila! instant reality show genius!

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anyway, more updates to come after the second date, obvs. since our first date was relatively short, i kinda wonder if this date will be a bit longer…

awkward encounter #2 October 27, 2008

Sooo, in this post, i mention how great i am at getting into, and perpetuating, awkward moments. today, that little diddy replayed itself in my life, but with different lead characters.

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i was in the supermarket (WHYYYYY do these awkward moments always happen in the market?) after a double duty day of 8 hours of work and 3 hours of class, so i was a little in beta (aka low-functioning) mode. i was picking up avocados and squeezing them to see which ones were ripe when i heard a familiar, slightly nasal voice call out to someone nearby. i look up and almost dropped my avocado. it was my friend, too blond nick!

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too blond nick was this guy i met in my first year of undergrad. he and i lived on the same floor first year, and then during the rest of undergrad, i always managed to run into him over and over. after graduation, though, it was like he fell off the face of the earth. i literally had been thinking about him lately like CRAZY, and my curiosity heightened even more when i met a friend of his (who i never met in college) who was still in contact with him and let me know that too blond nick was still in town!

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i did everything i could think to resurrect him from the dead; facebooked, texted, emailed, but it was literally like he disappeared. but today, i literally ran into him over the avocados and it was so crazy! in any normal situation, i woulda hugged the fella and gone on chatting and chatting for as long as my breath was still going…but his wife was looming in the distance, shooting off some mean “back up off my man, bitch!” vibes.

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and so it was awkward. like, BIG time awkward. it was like seeing a long-lost sibling and not being able to hug them. and we both stood there, me with my avocados in hand and him with a loaf of bread, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot while his wife laser-eyed me from a near distance. and the conversation that i wanted to have; the one where i updated him on my life, on how i had met some people recently who he knew, of how i hadn’t had wahoos since that time he and i went, could never happen while his wife stood awkwardly by.

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so i guess it was more tragic than awkward…but let me tell you, in the moment, it FELT extremely awkward.

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dating in the 21st century October 22, 2008

my big thing about dating in the 21st century is that you can find out so much about people now before ever even meeting them. and along with that comes the judgments, opinions, and pre-conceived notions. now, i understand that if you post anything online, even if it is “private” or “confidential,” it never really is. but is the age of information becoming TOO informative? now you can find out virtually ANYTHING about a person online, and i’m not sure i like that. i’m not a very secretive person, but do i want others who might date me to judge me based on something i wrote when i was 21 and in a tizzy over something (and perhaps not so eloquent in expressing my anger)?

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it’s weird to jump back into dating, when i’ve taken a hiatus for so long. i’ve never really been a “dater,” i’m quite horrible at it. there’s so much pressure, so much uncertainty, so many expectations. it’s like once night hits, the rules for dating are 200x more important! i’m much more of an “afternoon out” kind of girl, where we can hang out in the park, take a walk, have some coffee, and just talk. a “date” date has so much pressure attached that it’s not even fun anymore.

i’d date him… October 19, 2008

okay, so i know i tagged this as dating, even though it’s so clearly NOT about dating…but heck, if a guy slapped on a diaper, strung a guitar across his chest, and crooned about making things “berrar,” i’d date him!

….maybe.  as long as he didn’t really NEED the diaper, that is

dolphins at play October 18, 2008

so yesterday my friend taylor sends me a chat that says “check your email, i sent you a video i took at work today.”  i jokingly ask “is it of my future husband?” (taylor always falls victim to it has the privilege of listening to my dating woes, so i figured i might as well toss it in there ) it wasn’t, but what he sent was almost as good!

check it out!

i wish my job was 1/8 as cool as his…

“I Have a Girlfriend” October 17, 2008

From Sex and the City:

Charlotte: He should’ve mentioned her earlier.
Samantha: But not too early. I hate it when men do that. “I have a girlfriend.” Calm down, I just asked if that seat was taken!

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I’ve never really had the case where a man will randomly spout out that they have a girlfriend, but i did come across a strange encounter the other day. it was so weird that i had to put it out there. during one of the many interviews i’ve been conducting in the past two weeks, this guy kept tossing out the fact that he had a girlfriend.

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now don’t get me wrong: once or twice would have been fine, especially if in those instances, she had something to do with the question that was being asked. but he just kept referring to his girlfriend OVER and OVERRRR during the interview at random moments, so much so that i had to take a step back (mentally) and wonder if i was sending him some kind of weird, screaming message that i was interested without even knowing it. i totally wasn’t doing anything much besides sitting there like a sleep-deprived zombie (hey, it was 8am in the morning and i had a late class the night before!!), but couldn’t help wondering if he thought i was interested because of the way he was acting. maybe he mistook my zombified stare for a look of longing and adoration?

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and it wasn’t like it was just me who was in the interview! there was another man interviewing with me, as well, so i was doing a lot of casual observing and note-taking, but not a lot of talking. after the interview, the other interviewer said “he’s a smooth card, eh?” and then i REALLY began to wonder if i was subconsciously drooling and not even realizing it…but then he mentioned the fact that the guy brought up his girlfriend A LOT, and how it was kind of unnecessary…and i felt a little better about it all. it wasn’t just me who thought the gf talk was a little excessive. and besides, who brings up their girlfriend (mulllltiple times) in an INTERVIEW?? Isn’t the whole point of an interview to sell yourself?

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maybe i’m just a hater because i don’t have some guy out there randomly bringing me up (excessively) during interviews