The Perils of Heartache and Magic.

I’m going to be upfront with you.

In the midst of my silly insecurities and disbelief in whatever it is that draws men to me, I am used to being in control.
Not in a hot S&M sort of way.
More in the -I’m emotionally detached and that allows me to make clear and concise choices while dating- way.

I have had a very predictable pattern with men so far, it looks a little something like this:

Guy approaches me. I evaluate if I find him interesting or not. I agree to a date. We go on a date and I ask him very deep questions about his heart and his life. He very clearly seems to ‘rise to the occasion’ and answers them mostly honestly. I listen. He looks into my eyes and tells me I’m beautiful in a way that seems like he’s trying to convince me. I say ‘thank you.’ He seems nervous sometimes even shake-y. I do what I can to calm him down and make myself seem silly so he’s not nervous. He calms down. At the end of the date he kisses me. I kiss back. He asks me if I want to see him again. I say ‘probably.’ He texts or calls me as soon as he gets home. Then texts or calls me everyday forever until I ask him to stop. Guy is confused and angry. I am also confused and angry.

What I figured out is that I was holding everything in while seemingly putting everything out.

I could ask them questions about their heart and soul and answer the same questions easily. I can connect physically without feeling connected emotionally. I can be present with someone while still deciding if I’m interested or not.

I’d assumed the entire time that we were both deciding if we were a good fit for one another. But, I’ve learned that in these circumstances, they weren’t doing that. They were just experiencing things. They were reacting to the way I made them feel when we were together. They were forming their opinion of me based on how they felt about themselves when they were around me.

In the past I’ve seen these guys as overly emotional, quickly attached, and frankly kind of creepy. But, lately I’ve been wondering if they’ve got it figured out in some way. They’re feeling. Like, REALLY feeling. For whatever brief moment they knew what it felt like to love someone and lose them. To them, for that fleeting moment ,we were going to be something magical.

Perhaps they’ll experience a lot more loss in life. A lot more pain and heart ache. But, maybe they’re also going to experience a little more magic?

-Sam

OK Cupid and First Impressions.

Alright alright, I’m on Ok Cupid. I am. It’s not something I’m particularly ashamed of, but, I don’t advocate it. Well, I did advocate it for a while. I spent my first several months on there convincing friend after friend to join too. I think it’s a fun way to meet new people and gives me lots of great stories to tell. I wanted the same awkward adventures for my friends.

None of them were as enchanted by the process as I obviously am. But, they stay on nonetheless.

After a recent decision to really think about who I go on dates with, I’ve started to realize that people on OK Cupid can be weird. Like, really weird.

I tend to approach people with little to no judgement. I watch them and listen to them and I accept that that’s who they are. (Whether I allow that in my life on a regular basis is a different story.) But, I’m o.k. with them existing as they are in their own space.

Because of that, well, it sometimes takes me a minute to realize things are strange. People may interact with me and another person would slap them in the face or ask them to stop, I just watch it unfold and leave feeling like I probably should have felt uncomfortable. But, the fact of the matter is, I rarely do.

With that in mind, I recently had a nice giggle thinking about the kinds of messages that people send to me as their first message. This is your first chance to make a good impression, the opportunity you have to really hook me in. These are the best that some of these people could come up with.

enjoy.

1. “You look like you have a nice big butt.”

2. “Damn, you got some nice beautiful voluptuous lips. Whore, you make me mad. When can I get a chance to bite on your whorry lips. Don’t F with me!!”

3. “Hey there! So after reading your profile and your answers to the questions, I think we would be a good match. I’m not looking for anything serious. More of a friends with benefits sort of thing. I have experience with things like dominating, restraints, spanking, toys, etc. I would love to explore these things with you if you are interested. Give me a shout back and let’s talk.”

4. “I think I’m in love with you sweety. You’re so passionate about life and I would be blessed to have a woman like you in my life.. I think you are the most beautiful woman that I’ve come across.”

5. “I’m married and looking to have an affair.”

6.”You so fine it blew my mind. Gurl you got that thing you know. I just had to let my feelings show. It took me a long time to make up this rhyme. So hit me up sometime… bacon.”

7. “How are you doing? I’m stopping by to say ‘hi’ and show you some love. I’m not going to say your beautiful because you know you are and I’m sure you hear it enough. I’m not blind though either. I’d love to get to know you better over coffee, lunch, or doing something active. We could at least remain friends for many many years to come. Maybe I’ll hear back from you. Stay safe and sexy.”

8. “I believe that I… am in love.”

I guess you’ve gotta hand it to them for putting it all out there in the beginning. I like to keep my bacon rhymes  and invitations for lasting friendships to myself until at least the third or fourth date.

Do you have any funny first messages? Share ’em in the comments below!

-her

Setting Your Hand on Fire and Other Ways to Impress Guys.

I’ve spent a lot of years in my life doing things to impress guys. Maybe I dressed up a little extra one day or put on lipstick for a change. Maybe I did those things. Perhaps that’s the sort of thing I should be doing. But, I’ve found a way that is all my own. It’s called, being incredibly weird to them.

I think all women dream of being the girl that a guy fantasizes about. The kind of girl that is effortless and her own form of perfection. The kind whose hair blows just right in the wind and you’re not sure if she’s ever fucked anyone, but, you’re 99% sure she’s great at it. We want to be the girl that a guy gets nervous to be around or feels a little unsure of himself in response to her.

I’ve not quite instilled those feelings in a man just yet.

There was this one time I had a campground ‘boyfriend.’

Our families spent a summer together at the same campground. Everyday we played games together and every night I stared at his face and looked away when he looked back at me. Once I tried to impress him, so, I lit my hand on fire. Yes, you read that correctly. I sprayed bug repellent on my hand and lit it on fire. It was actually really impressive. The first time. After that I decided to go again. I sprayed a little too much on and lit my actual hand on fire. Spending the next two days with my hand on ice wasn’t exactly the sex-pot effect I was hoping to have in the situation.

It’s an accumulation of events like this which have basically proved that I’m either destined to be alone forever or I’m going to have to change my approach.

I tried skateboarding in a skirt once. I fell off, the skateboard went flying, and the skateboard got ran over by a car.
I gift wrapped a dead squirrel for a group of guys once as a practical joke.
My one long-term relationship started because I tackled him on the quad during class change. Pretty romantic.

You’re seeing the pattern here? I guess one wake up call for me happened my last year of college. There was this guy who had just transferred to our school. He was gorgeous and we got along fine. After a flag football game one day, I found out it was his birthday. In an attempt to be sweet and give him the gift of adventure for his birthday, I decided to take him to my favorite spot on campus. This may have involved the tiniest bit of breaking and entering. To my surprise, the dude was terrified of getting arrested. Through much coaxing and support I eventually got him up to the roof of my favorite building. Once we were up there, I looked into his eyes and realized, he thought I was crazy. I’m pretty sure he thought, this girl is not only going to get me arrested, but, she may be planning to rape my drugged body and throw it off the building.

That was the beginning of me seeing these moments a little more clearly. It was in that moment that I realized what flirting really was. A toss of your hair, batting your eyelashes,  laughing at jokes, and maybe a little hand graze. I’d been focusing more on beating them in tennis or challenging them to bike races.

Once, my mother walked in on me sitting in our living room with a group of guys, all wearing sweats with our hands down our pants, watching basketball on television.
She had a nice chat with me about acting like a lady and if I wanted a guy to notice me, I needed to behave like a girl.

I’d like to say I’ve evolved. I’d like to say that my ability to wear dresses and my natural need for eye batting has reduced that side of my personality. But, if you add a shot of tequila to that mix and swap out a solid british comedy for the basketball game, that may or may not have been my night last night.

-her

 

 

 

How to Avoid Dating and See the World!

I was an early starter and an early retire-er in the world of dating. My first boyfriend was a pair of handsome young fellas in my kindergarten class. Yes, a pair of them;  I was a 5 year-old hustler. Go ahead, be jealous. With one boyfriend to rub my shoulders while we waited in line for things and the other to open my milk in the cafeteria, I had it all figured out.

My next boyfriend was the boy who took me under the bushes on the playground in first grade. We sat there, gazing into each others eyes, and he asked me if I wanted to french kiss. Obviously, I said, ‘yes,’ and that was both the very beautiful beginning and end of that relationship. {Also, if you must know, french kissing for a first grader doesn’t include tongue. Just open mouths moving robotically from side to side. Pa-retty steamy.}

Following that, I decided that boys were scary. It didn’t occur for any reason I can pinpoint, there was never a gentleman that was particularly harmful to me. I never even had my heart broken to be honest. I suppose the day arrived early for me when I realized broken hearts were a reality.

The reality that relationships can harm you wasn’t hidden from my young eyes and in response to that, I learned my own ways of preventing an outcome for my life that I feared. That response was to live in a space that didn’t even acknowledge the possibility of romance. I chose to keep my crushes to myself and to approach every interaction with the opposite sex without any expectations of romance. It didn’t help that I believed myself to be unattractive in a way that I can’t even comprehend at this age.

Reading through my old journals, the insecurity in my appearance was debilitating. So much so that I intentionally friend-zoned myself starting in the 2nd grade. Interacting with guys in a way that I interact with my brothers was an easy place for me to fall. It felt natural and easy and that felt good. Though, my insecurities have faded and my self-worth has grown; I maintained that behavior for the rest of my life.

When I hit the eighth grade I discovered youth group at my church. I became an active participator and a rule-following baptist. As if there weren’t enough regulations in the baptist church already, I began to create more rules for myself. Things that I believed would make me a better person and more worthy of God’s love. One of those things was a decision to not date until I was married.

You read that correctly. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s girlfriend until I knew I would be their wife. That kept me single throughout my high school career. I didn’t date, but, that didn’t prevent my first blow job and my second blow job or my third blow job. It also didn’t prevent several inappropriate interactions with men in their twenties. While my mouth may have been penetrated I was still a boyfriend virgin.

I left for college without any intention of that changing; and for three years it didn’t. I made quick friends with guys who remain some of my nearest and dearest to this day. Crushes came and went as I did everything I could to convince myself that I never held feelings for any of them. It took one afternoon of reflection to realize at one point or another I had feelings for all of them. But, my approach worked, I didn’t date them.

As my religious views began to loosen and my sense of independence took hold of me, I stuck with the friend-zone role in the same way but with different intentions. No longer looking for my future husband I was embracing my independence and feeding my inner feminist. Following college I set my priorities on traveling the world. Spending as much time exploring as I possibly could. This was perfection for me and everything I’d ever wanted. I bounced around from city to city and country to country. I met amazing people along the way and managed to grow a business in the mean time. This lifestyle was delightful and I wouldn’t change those experiences for anything. However, it doesn’t make it easy to date. I’d always figured my boyfriend would come from a long-established friendship. That we’d be best friends and one day we would realize we couldn’t imagine our lives without each other.

Turns out, you have to live in one place for a while to establish that relationship. Also, it’s not often that friends fall in love. I’m pretty sure that’s just a thing that happens on TV.

I settled down in Asheville not too long ago and I started reaching out into the dating world. It’s been interesting to see how my experiences reflect the habits I started in elementary school. The inability to maintain eye contact with boys I have crushes on and the automatic assumption that guys don’t see me as a woman.  No matter how many men I interact with sexually, I still feel like the twelve year-old girl who wore her brothers hand-me-downs and preferred an afternoon of exploring an abandoned barn to wearing padded bras and lipstick.

-her

Starting Fresh

Him:
Sam and I met in college.  From our first week in school we found ourselves friends.  By the end of freshman year we had built a core group that felt deeper than family.  Between our drunken adventures, late night talks, and inside jokes it often felt like we were living in a movie cliché.  We could be a bit click-ish at times, but we couldn’t help it; we were so content and engrossed in our friendship that we could afford to be picky.  College eventually ended and we dispersed; Sam navigated the globe, while I navigated a series of codependent relationships.  But even as we sprinkled ourselves throughout the south and explored separate lives, we were all still best friends.  There was always time for each other, and every time we were together our conversation picked up right where it had left off.  But as we moved into our late twenties we shifted further apart.  One by one our friends broke off and got married until it was just Sam and I (perhaps as a way to complete our cliché friendship).

I’m not sure whether we had been in denial or if the moment just snuck up on us, but it finally slapped us in the face this October.  We found ourselves at Donnie’s wedding, alone at our table and drunk at 8:30pm; our friends had all chosen sobriety and family over wine and dancing.  It was almost as humiliating as it was depressing.  Were we so far removed from Sarah’s wedding two springs ago?  She was the first to go; we’d stayed up all night dancing, celebrating, and reliving our favorite stories.  It felt like old times, but little did we know that this was the first crack in the rock of our friendship.  A rock that continued to erode for the last few years until Sam and I awoke to find ourselves alone and untethered as the impending tide of our 30’s approached to wash us out to sea.