Category: dating

Endings

My life is a shitshow, so what better time to restart this habit.

My father had a stroke at the beginning of February.  About a month ago he passed away. And because life knows how to pile it on, in that time my relationship of the last almost three years fell apart, so I’m single again.

Backing up, for a second, because this wasn’t supposed to be that year. I just started a new job in January, two weeks before my dad’s stroke.  Two endings and a beginning.

The other day, someone asked me if I’d gone back to work yet. And I was flabbergasted. Whose life did this person think I was living? That is not how it works in my reality. I haven’t taken a single day off since my father passed. In all the time since the stroke, I’ve only taken two days, the week it first happened. It never occurred to me to not go to work. I have to work. Is this a thing that people do? Just stop everything when someone dies? I get the requisite bereavement leave my company offers in this case, five days. I am saving those to help my mom move out of her house later this month, because that’s our reality. While my father was alive, they had a decent income, but they were paycheck-to-paycheck like most of America. They didn’t have any savings. Just steady pension and retirement checks. And the second that he passed, most of the income went with him. My mom is boned, and there isn’t any time for either of us to fall apart.

It sounds luxurious, to be honest. So decadent, to stop working because my father died. To fall apart for even a moment feels like something reserved for the upper-crust of socioeconomic strata. How elegant. Does the fainting couch come standard with that plan? And the on-call doctor with a bottle of valium.

So I power through, like I’ve always done. I go to work. I’ve flown back and forth to my mom’s house every two to three weeks, slowly slipping into debt that hopefully, someday I can get out from under. And if I’m honest, I’ve drunk more than is probably necessary. I haven’t even remotely begun to grieve. First things first, and someone has to keep it together.

I hope I keep writing. I have a lot of material right now, honestly. This I have to say about how hard it is to find out information about services and housing available to an elderly, low-income parent. That there should be a number like 1-800-MYPARENTSAREOLD. There’s all the lessons my parents have taught me of the “what not to do” variety. About the importance of a durable power of attorney, and the fact that you’re never too young to make sure you have one for your parents.  About wills, lawyers, real estate, estate liquidators, medicaid, medicare, hospice, and the VA. Maybe I’ll write about some of that, or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll write about being single again, suddenly, and what it’s like to be a single woman in her 40s in the age of Tinder, or maybe I’ll go nowhere near that crap. Hopefully I’ll find whatever humor there may be in this situation.

I’ve been through so much. I’ll get through this. Want to come along for the ride?

An Open Letter to the Guy Not Looking for a Relationship

Dear Guy Not Looking for a Relationship,

It seems that, for whatever reason, you and I keep finding one another; it’s happened at least 4 times in the last year. I am beginning to think that I have somehow stumbled on a secret pheromone that only you can smell, or something. Perhaps it’s that I’ve been single for so, so long. Despite what you may think, though, I am not desperate. It’d be nice if it was someone else’s turn to take out the trash every once in awhile, but fortunately I’m in a financial position that I can pay a housecleaner, and she does it once every other week.

Regardless of how you keep landing on my doorstep, I think that you need to know something. Though I’m not desperate, I am also not not looking for a relationship. If that double negative has confused you, allow me to clarify, I’m not the one for you. I don’t want to continuously reside in the somewhere in-between, kinda, sorta, halfway, partly girlfriend space. It’s not particularly fun for me. Which doesn’t mean that I will expect you to make a commitment to me right off the bat, but if you know at the beginning that you’re not down, well then I offer the following suggestions to avoid any awkward situations.   Continue reading “An Open Letter to the Guy Not Looking for a Relationship”

CSGL – I Can’t Be Gay For You

Buckle up, kiddos, ’cause this is going to be a whopper of a post.

So, I’m not regularly dating.  I am, however, irregularly dating.

I mean, I still have a profile up on a dating site, but since it’s not really breaking my heart to be single, I’m not fully invested in the whole process, am sort of half  doing it to be doing something, and it’s not going so well.  More than anything there have just been a lot of awkward exchanges, and some red flags a’waving.   But I digress . . .

I’ve met a couple of people here and there that I’ve been hanging out with.   It’s all very much just about as serious as Sponge Bob, at this point.   Yep, “still” (grr) single.  Still crazy.

So, last night I was hanging out with a guy friend, and the topic of threesomes came up.  I said that I wasn’t interested in having a threesome with a guy and another girl.  This lead him to say that he didn’t think that he and I could ever be compatible, because I’m too closed minded, since I wouldn’t consider a threesome.   I’m not closed minded.  I’m straight.

(It should be noted that I had not been considering having sex with him, so this is kind of a moot point.)

It reminded me of an exchange I had with another fella some time back.  I was trying to encourage him to stop with the endless flirting, and, you know, actually take me Out, instead of just talking about it.   Well, he had suddenly changed his tune, and let me know that now he had decided to only take out “ladies who like other ladies.”

What exactly am I supposed to do with this?   I guess whatever floats your boat, but what about actually floats my boat?  I also just don’t understand why this would be such a shock to anyone.   I mean, why would anyone assume that I would be into women when I’m so obviously into men, and haven’t shown any signs of being into women.   I guess it’s wrong to assume anything about anyone’s preference, but it’s equally wrong to assume that I can just turn gay all of a sudden.

It’s a huge double standard.  These same guys, they would never dream of having a threesome with me and another guy.   It would never even occur to them, and there’s not a lot of precedent for it in media, either.  While there are so many examples in pop culture of the portrayal that women’s sexuality is fluid, men’s is in most cases portrayed to be rigid.   For women, there are a gajillion porns, Girls Gone Wild, Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl, etc, where at any moment a woman who identifies as being straight could become attracted to other women.  Because it’s not enough that we face pressure to be beautiful, youthful, smart, and malleable in a hundred other ways, now we have to be bisexual, too.   Or at least be willing to have sex with someone we’re not the least bit attracted to in order to be attractive to the ones we are.

Pardon my French, but FUCK THAT SEXIST SHIT!

Message to the dudes of the world . . . .I can’t help it if I’m hetero.   Oh darn!  I actually am attracted to humans that have body shapes and appearances similar to yours.   What a bloody tragedy.   And this idea that I should have sex with someone I didn’t want just to prove something to you or that it means that I am closed, narrow, or small minded is fucking insulting.

I’m straight.  Get used to it.

Just sayin’.

And a side note to any bisexual women and/or women who do want to have threesomes with another woman, go get your get, and I just want to be clear that I got no problem with you.  In other words, I ain’t mad atcha.

CSGL – Holding Out

The other day, someone actually asked me why I was single. Now, there’s a plenitude of reasons why I’m single, but mostly it’s just timing. I haven’t been in the right place at the right time with the right guy.

So, I know it’s been awhile.   Just to quickly summarize, still in the bay area, still working, still 30-ish, still have the coolest cat in the world, still a Giants fan.   And yes, still single.   If your counting, it’s been three years.

The other day, someone actually asked me why I was single.   Now, there’s a plenitude of reasons why I’m single, but mostly it’s just timing.  I haven’t been in the right place at the right time with the right guy.   So here I am.   Friday night, on my couch, with my cat, just got done watching the ball game, and no intention of being elsewhere or doing otherwise.   Anyway, back to the question.  Why am I single?     Because I’m holding out for Awesome.   That’s what I said.   And you know what?  It’s true!

So this is what holding out for Awesome looks like.    And in about 15 minutes, it’s also going to look like me taking a bubble bath.   Of course, Awesome isn’t going to find me in the bathroom.  (That would be really fucking weird.)  So, I’ve got to go out sometimes.  I’ve got to put myself out there.

So, I gave a guy my number.   I don’t know if he’s Awesome or Not Awesome.   If he doesn’t call me, he’s definitely Not Awesome.   And I bought two tickets to the Giants’ game on the 11th, and I’m going to see if I can find a date.

And if that doesn’t work, well at least I’ll still get to be at a ballgame.   Hopefully watching the Giants cream the Dodgers.  Unlike tonight.   No throwing balls away or kicking them when you should be picking them up and throwing them to first.

But did you see that rocket the kid launched into center field tonight?  That was a thing of beauty.  Gotta love a rookie.   Brandon Belt might be my new hero.

Just sayin’.

CSGL – Ruins

A couple of weeks ago, I added a post dated entry into my Google Calendar, an all day event set it to repeat yearly, and set to send me an email to remind me.   No, it wasn’t someone’s birthday or anniversary.    It’s not a holiday.  It’s not a reminder to change the battery in my smoke detector.  It’s not a note to take my cat to the vet.   No, friends, my new event literally is called “The Day I Met the Next Guy Who’s Going to Ruin My Life.”

See, ’cause the thing is, I’ve been thinking about this idea of a ruined life.   “He ruined my life.”   Yeah, I’ve said it.  Meant it, too.   My life’s been ruined a few times.   Not always, but more than once, by some dude.   Something happens, and the whole thing gets turned upside down and rattled around, my stuff goes flying, my plans get thrown out the window, and every idea about what I thought was real or who I thought I was gets shitcanned.   Some guy who three months ago swore up and down that he just never could cope with living without me suddenly does a 180 and dumps my ass.    A bandmate sexually harasses me.   I move for the five millionth time.   I lose someone I love.

All those things suck.  They’re unpleasant at best, and down right traumatic at worst.  It’s the kind of shit that makes your life feel like a real struggle.   It’s tiring, and it’s stressful.   You second guess yourself, and you wonder what you did wrong five million times over.   “Why doesn’t he love me anymore?”   “Why did she have to go?”   And then the what-ifs set in, and that’s when it really gets miserable.    And if you’re me, that’s the point where you spend the next three months (who am I kidding, try two years) on the couch watching whatever the hell comes on TV, just so you don’t have to listen to what’s in your head.

But this is the part where I’m gonna fuck with your mind, because I have to say, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have your life ruined.   Sometimes the life you have ought to be ruined, the plans ought to be thrown out the window, and that idea you have about what was what deserves to be shitcanned.   Because that ex, well, he was kind of a dick, and I kind of dodged a bullet when he dumped me.  That old studio apartment, it was kind of scary when the hookers were hanging out on just the other side of a thin piece of glass.    And that job?    I sure as shit couldn’t stay at that job one more minute.

And that’s when you get up off the couch, and you do something different.   You get a better job.  You join a cooler band.   You plant a rose bush.   You meet a new guy who’s ten times hotter than your ex.

So, yeah, I met this guy.   Right now we’re just friends.    A whole lot of talking going on, and not hardly any action.   And who knows what the hell is going to happen.  It could never be anymore than what it is right now.   In fact, I’m going to go on record and say that it is highly fucking likely that he and I will never be more than friends who flirt.   Or maybe meeting him really will be the thing that ruins this life I’ve been living, one way or another, for better or worse, and I might have to start all over again.

But with or without this dude or any dude, life has a way of changing.   Things don’t stay the same.   They’re not meant to.  You’re meant to get dropped on your head every once in a while.   It’s just the way things go, and this shit, this shit right here, it builds character.   It’s made me into the scrappy little smartass you see before you.   And I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

And he seriously is way way way hotter than my ex.

Just sayin’.

CSGL – More thoughts on Online Dating

OK – so I’m trying the online dating thing, again.  Why?  Well, two reasons, really.   No, scratch that – three reasons.   #1 – why the hell not.  #2 – Sitting around moaning about a guy who already has a girl isn’t getting me anywhere and #3 – more than one person recommended I give it another shot, just, you know, Not Craig’s List.    I’m also window shopping for kittens on the internet….. and honestly, those two things are virtually the same activity, except that the kittens have the common sense to avoid the following blunders:

  • “partner in crime” …. Don’t.  Ok?  Just….don’t.
  • People that say that they like all types of music, as in, “I like everything.  Really!” are just afraid of commitment
  • ooohhhh….you have a motorcycle.   Um, NEXT!
  • Why are you posing with a panther in your profile pic?  And also, why did it take me so long to figure out what it was?  (Is that a dog?  Is that a bear?  Wait, it’s a panther, isn’t it?  wow)
  • I get it.  You’re really into making the sexy with the women.   What else are you into, horn-dog?
  • You have more than one photo of yourself in zombie/skull make-up on your dating profile….. You have more than one photo of yourself in zombie/skull make-up on your dating profile ……
  • Punctuation is your friend.
  • Why are there so many pictures of guys on top of rocks on these profiles?   I guess every guy who goes on online dating is a rock climber.   I wonder what the cause and effect is with that?   Which came first – personality test or thrill seeking outdoors-manship?
  • You sent me a poem…a poem you wrote originally for some other broad.   And it’s not even good.   Ugh.

Shoot me.   Seriously.   In the head.

Just sayin’.

CSGL – The Movie

You know how there’s that party game, where you have to try to try to figure out who should play you in a movie?

Well, apparently they already made the story of my life into a movie, and I’m played by Dane Cook.  (You’re probably a little confused, but don’t worry, it’ll make sense in a minute.)

The other morning, I was on Instant Messager with Kayphore, as usual.   Blah, blah, blah, I didn’t sleep again, blah, blah, still sick, blah.  Same shit, different day, you know.   And then I told her about a certain realization that I have come to lately.   I am the perfect setup girl.  She didn’t quite understand what I meant at first, so I explained.

You see, if you date me or even if you just sleep with me, within a year you will be madly in love . . . just, you know, not with me.   At least the last three dudes I tangoed with are all, according to them, happy as freaking clams with some broad that they hooked up with within a year of dumping me.    One of them even had a baby with his new lady.  And there’s a chance that some guy that I only ever got to look at may be currently heading in the same direction, but it’s a little too early to tell in his case.  So, dating me sets you up to fall in love with someone else.  How convenient!

Anywho, I was relaying all of this to Kayphore, and she says that it sounds like a crappy movie that she didn’t see.   I responded that it did sound like the kind of thing that could be turned into some kind of banal romantic comedy, and she replied that it was really already an actual movie.   A couple of minutes later, after what I assume was some sort of scouring of the inernet, she came up with it.

Good Luck Chuck starring Dane Cook!

From Netflix:

Every time unlucky-in-love Chuck (Dane Cook) breaks up with a girlfriend, that girl ends up engaged to her next boyfriend. Women are soon knocking on Chuck’s door, hoping that after enduring a few dates with him, they’ll meet Mr. Right, a gamble that works out better for the ladies than it does for Chuck. But when he meets klutzy penguin trainer Cam (Jessica Alba), Chuck realizes that he has to stop being a way station on the path to love.

So, of course it’s in my queue now.   And it’s probably going to be horribly bad.  But it’s like an opportunity to watch yourself in a train wreck.

I guess the question is, who’s better looking . . . Dane Cook or Moi?

cookdane

– Or –

idance

And if you want to be madly in love sometime in the next year, you know, call me . . .

Just sayin’

Crazy Single Girl Life – Un-Flirting

For those of you following my goings on (Hi Mom!), you may have read some comments on my previous post, and been curious.

Yes, there was an . . . . Incident.    

There’s this guy my friends and I all know, and he is cute, and he is off the market.   He’s also a flirt.   And in this tongue in cheek, campy performance, he was fake canoodling with two of my friends and myself at a bar the other night.   He was literally standing in the middle of us, and giving us each bedroom eyes in turn.  Only they weren’t bedroom eyes; they were “Bedroom Eyes” wherein those quotes represent air quotes, so, you know, he was REALLY serious.    SYKE!

And in the spirit of the over the topness, I did graze his crotch with my elbow.   Or, as they say, his penis with my weenis.  

So, yeah, I guess one could say that I was effectively flirting with him . . . but in the way that I usually reserve for flirting with gay guys, to be honest.

 I still maintain that I suck at flirting.

Crazy Single Girl Life – Flirting

So, I’ve been a single girl living this Crazy Single Girl Life for almost a year now.  That’s a year of going where I want to go, doing what I want to do, out all night, caffeinating all day, seat of my pants, why the hell did I do that, because I could that’s why existence.   I have to say, there’s been a bump or two along the way.   However, it has been an adventure and definitely the ride of a lifetime.  I can’t really complain. 

Except one thing.   There’s this skill that hasn’t really come back to me yet, after the two and a half years of Serious Relationship Existence, I somehow forgot how to flirt.   

OK, so I’m not completely incapable or anything.  It’s just that I’m so well out of practice that I’m just not very good at it.  It’s like I’m in Junior High again.   

Half the time, no one knows I’m flirting.  My best friends see me interacting with attractive men, and afterward, I’ll ask, “was I being totally obnoxious and obvious.”  They then ask me what I’m talking about, tell me that the thought that I was flirting didn’t even occur to them, and that they’re sure the guy didn’t get it.   And I think they’re probably right.    

The other half the time, it’s awkwardness to the nth degree.   I kiss a guy on his cheek and Run.  (Oh Yeah.  I did that.  Recently.)  Or I’m just incapable of completing a sentence while turning Bright Crimson and swallowing half of my words.   

And the thing is, I used to be pretty damn good at this.  I’m not kidding.   And I was so good, and so natural, that I didn’t even know I was doing it.    I remember there was one time I was with Mama Bear and we were at a restaurant.   A very nice looking server was waiting on us.  As soon as he took our order and walked away, she turned to me and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen someone bat their eyelashes before!”   I didn’t even know I was doing it.  

Today, I’d have to put serious effort into that, and I’d probably be such a spazz about it, that someone would ask me if I had something stuck in my eye or if I was having a stroke!

I had no idea that this was a skill that could be lost, that this muscle would atrophy.   

So, of course I’m not going to be unsingle any time soon, because people either don’t realize that I’m hitting on them or I’m scaring the crap out of them by acting weird.  However, when and if the day ever comes when I find myself in a LTR (Long Term Relationship) again, I refuse to cease flirting.  I will not let myself go again.  Oh no.  I will be a lean, mean, flirting machine.   And, in other words, the worst GF ever.  

In the meantime, all the practice is fun, if not amusing in a sad and pathetic sort of way.