Gosh Darn Itchy Skin!

The last few weeks and my re-exposure to online dating have taught me something very definite--most people aren't at all comfortable in their own skin.

It's interesting to me how many conversations have been started asking "What are you looking for in a man?  Are you looking for a relationship?  What is your ideal first date?"  It seems to me this this line of questioning--these patterns of behavior--are akin to milking a cow from the front.  You might get some milk, but most likely you're just going to end up sitting face to face with a cow.  

This week, my problem with dating and (relationships in general), is that too many people just want to be with someone, anyone, just so that they don't have to be alone.  Too many people want to speed their way through a person and end up at the alter. 

Don't get me wrong, the alter sounds nice and all.  Tomorrow I turn 24 and have recently found myself going through a bit of a mid-twenties crisis.  My recently disappointed swaray into the land of love leaves me feeling more like an old maid than I ever have before.  And yet?  I'd still rather be alone  than be in a relationship that has anything less than deep love and devotion.  

I had a conversation with a guy today about how he thinks he would be a great boyfriend, but he hates and is bad at dating.  While I don't disagree with that sentiment, and I have, myself, felt it on more than one occasion, I also understand that there's a certain level of self-possession that one must have in order to be an attractive mate to another. My advice to him?  Love to be alone.  Be content to be alone There's something about a person who is confident that you should want to be with him (because he wants to be with himself) that convinces you that it's so.  

So here's what I'm working on this week and that I can only hope the men in the world are working on, too:  Be okay to be you.  Be happy about it.  Right after my break up I couldn't stand to be alone--I wanted to have people there all the time, to be occupied all the time, to be entertained and kept busy.  Now, I'm slowly equalizing again.  I'm finding my stride.  I'm re-learning to love being by myself, the stillness, the quiet, the enjoyment and freedom of doing what I want when I do.  

Being alone: Perhaps it's the easiest thing to do, but also often one of the most uncomfortable.

It's on the line.

My parents are four years apart in age.  They were married when my mom was 17 and my dad was 21.  They met while my mom was working at a drive in restaurant my dad's parents owned.  My dad stole a milkshake.  And so a romance began that has lasted them 27 years.

Fast forward out of the 80s and you'll find dating has changed a little.  While relationships aren't necessarily moving any slower these days, the way that they start is quite different.  In general, people keep to themselves--heads down, noses stuck to cell phones.  I'm just as guilty of both of these things as anyone out there.  The nice man at the grocery store tries to make small talk?  I give non-committal yet friendly responses and move on quickly.  

So what's the logical next step for dating?  That's right.  Go online.

In 1998 we were all charmed by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail.  Who doesn't love to come home after a long and stressful day in reality only to find a message from someone "I like you.  I care about you.  I want to help you."  There's something bewitching about that.  Something about getting attention from people who don't even know you that boosts the ego enough to just make your day all the better.  Your self worth is validated, even if the person validating it doesn't know you from Adam.  And, after seeing Ryan come off so good with the charming yet surprisingly down-to-earth Hanks, who wouldn't want to take the that leap of faith and end up with a lifetime of perpetual bliss with a guy like him??

According to a couple of online sources (and Match.com's most recent television commercial), one in five new, committed relationships start online.  Why is this?  

The perks: 

• It's a meet market. (Pun intended!)  Right before your eyes you can see pages and pages of available men all looking for available women.  You can filter them by height, body type, age and working and past marital status.  Now you can flirt with, wink at and talk to men without even having to go through the displeasure of actually having to bump into them and wonder about their statistics.
• You can choose to either ignore or accept some one's attention without having to actually worry that you'll come face to face with them if you decide you're just not interested.
• Like Facebook, it gives you a little glance into the person's life as they see themselves.
• You can choose to make yourself as attractive or unattractive as you want.
• You get to take them with you right on your own personal phone--it travels wherever you go. Whoever said you never know where you're going to meet someone was on to something!

The down side:

• Other people can also make themselves as attractive or un (though why an un I couldn't guess!) as they want and you have no way to prove or disprove them.
• You've never actually met the person you're talking to. For all you know the guy who's chatting you up is nothing like how he's portraying himself to be.
• When chatting online, there becomes a distinctive social line that's blurred.  In the last two days I have been approached for phone sex and an attempt was made by a 48 year old man (the same age as my father, by the way...)  to chat me up saying he'd like to get to know me a little bit better. 
• You can spend hours talking to someone only to meet them for the first time and find that you have absolutely no chemistry with them.
• Most of the people I've met in my own age group are just looking for a hook up.
• You're put face to face with other's poor grammar choices.

So, here's what I'm faced with right now: Is online dating an effective way to meet someone?  I've known several people who have met their spouses online.  For many, it seems like a great alternative to traditional dating.  But how much can you really know about someone from speaking to them online?  What am I sacrificing from not just meeting people around me the traditional way? At what point does shameless flirting online desensitize you to being charming and flirtatious in real life?

Man wanted: Now taking applicants

As a single girl I pride myself on being able to do things for myself.  I can change my own tires, fluids and lights; I can build my own furniture and program my own tv; I can move heavy stuff and hold my own against the ornery, rude and nasty people of the world.  One thing I cannot do, however, is reach high places.

I'm short.  My driver's license says 5'5" but that's on a good day when I've gotten a full night of sleep and plenty of fluids.  When standing on my high kitchen chairs I maybe reach six and a half feet...add heels and I get to about 6'10"--8-ish with my arms raised...but here's my problem:

...my ceiling is 10' high....

So what do I do??  The floor of my 10'x10' cell is currently covered with bins and coolers.  Having such a small room, it's imperative that I keep things at least semi-orderly...but for the LIFE of me I can't even get those darn bins up!  And to make it worse:

my closet is very much already full.  

Typically, I'm a fairly resourceful individual.  After the chair and the heels and the pillows stacked on top of the heels didn't work.  My next thought was to post an ad on Craigslist.  I thought it could read :  "Looking for a man to raise me up--a top shelf man who knows how to stretch. Text only, please."  But then I realized that would only end poorly. My next thought was to ask the roommates...but let's be honest, they're the same height as I am and not as strong. My final thought was to get my 6' tall best friend over here to tip it up for me.But the thing is like 50 lbs and the last thing I need is for her to fall off the chair and break her back right as her final semesters of school are starting.  

Likely, the boxes will sit on my floor until I find a place for them...but this is my question for you, dear reader [s(hopefully plural!)] what things have you encountered that you've needed a man to do for you?  I'm all for girl power and feminism, but what things are you just physically or mentally unable to handle on your own that a man/your man/some man that you know has had to help you with?  What, exactly, are men useful for? 

Just Friends

One of the hardest things about a breakup is the aftermath.  After the crying and the tears and the mourning is over, when reality has sunk deep into your soul that this actually, really, truly is how things are one must still wake up every morning with one truth:  He's still out there.  The awful thing about a break up is that, even though you're no longer "together" you're still in each other's lives.  There's the separation of the belongings "Do you want these plates?  Or should I keep them?"  There's the forced conversations and texts and questions from casual acquaintances who haven't yet heard asking the inevitable "So!  How are you and your man doing these days??"  Not to mention the innumerable texts, tweets and Facebook updates all reminding you that he is still out there and he is moving on with his life as happy as can be.

And then there's the other thing.  There's the staying friends thing.

I'm not going to lie, I hate staying friends with an ex after we break up.  I would rather he just fall off the face of the earth and I never have to see, think of or hear from the guy again.  Usually, though, I'm the one doing the breaking, so it's an easy desire to have.  In this case, though, I'm the one who got broken.  In this case, he's the one who suggested we still be friends.  In this case, I'm just enough in love with him still to be willing to go for it.

Let me tell you this little secret, dear darling reader--being friends freaking sucks.  There's no way around it, really.  For all the above mentioned reasons, it's hard to still have someone who you're crazy about close in your life and not be a major part of theirs.  It's hard to see the updates on Facebook of flirtatious or fun things happening in that person's life.  It's hard to know that you're only allowed to see that person with prior planning and scheduling so that you won't overlap with the other girls/friends he has around.  Also, it sucks to know that you're no longer the cause of that person's happiness.

They say if you love someone then you let them go.  Well I say that's bull.  What should you do if you love someone?  You fight for them.  You hold them close.  You shield them.  You do whatever you can to make them happy.  But you don't, under any circumstances, let that person go out of your life.

And so what is my elucidation of the day?  Part of me, the part that's feeling a little bitter and neglected wants to say the lesson is to not love or to not stay friends with those who you used to love.  But no.  That's not realistic. And anyone with a dreamer's heart will know that the only true happiness for a romantic is in that love, and is in that hope, and is in that dream that some day things will be better.  And so the lesson is instead, despite the heartbreak and the hurt, the disappointment and the feelings of inadequacy and emptiness, to love, to fight, to stand strong in your love. Even if the person you think should love you back--the person you're fighting for--doesn't and won't ever return those feelings, some day, someone will deserve that kind of fierceness.  Some day, someone will love you back just as strong.

You can't keep your grasp tight if you aren't willing to exercise it.  And so I flex my love, even though it hurts.  Even though, like a muscle tearing, I feel sore for days after.  I flex because I know, some day, that love muscle will build up and I'll be stronger.  Some day, that'll be enough.

The single girl has been gone for a while. She fell in love. She found a man she wanted to spend the rest of forever with. But now she's back. She's working in Utah. She's figuring life out. But while I'm figuring it all out, I'll probably carry you with me because now, more than ever, I'm searching for a happiness that thus far has only slipped out of my grasp.

Proper Worship

Today I find myself inordinately frustrated with the people attending my friend's ward. Typically I find myself quite proud of the conduct of those with whom I share my beliefs. With only a few small, negligible exceptions I feel the vast majority of the LDS population acts with some level of propriety. Certainly, in most cases, that propriety is at least seen to in church functions and settings where the members are worried, if not of disturbing others, then at least what their fellow church goers will think should there be some sort of a disruption in the gentle facade of quiet and reverence.

Such facade does not seem to be the stumbling block of the ward I am currently attending. Where normally parents would quietly excuse their presence from the room if their children act out or becomes disruptive, such does not seem to be the social protocol of this group. Screaming and yelling children are accompanied by only slightly quieter screaming and yelling parents.

So here comes the question: what is the appropriate course of action? For myself, I find myself so distracted by the noise and commotion around me that I resort to blogging about my experience, having given up minutes ago all hope of feeling the spirit. But, just because I am unable (or perhaps unwilling?) to feel the spirit through the noise of it all, does that give me the right to begrudge the parents of said noisy children their chance to stay in the room and feel the spirit also? I, obviously, don't have children of my own, but I do have two sisters who are children and I cannot imagine my mother or father EVER letting us make that amount of noise in the chapel no matter how much they were personally in need of some spiritual enlightenment.

So again, what is appropriate? Do I, as a single working girl, need to continue to exercise outward patience for a situation that I have no personal part in, or should I have the expectation of being in an atmosphere when at church of being able to feel the spirit?  (Spot the fallacies in that statement! :P)  And, also, when I do someday (assumptive) find myself in that situation, will I have the right to let my children scream and carry on so that I, too, can attempt to feel the spirit?

My Revelation

Today has been a ridiculously long day.  It's been full of smiles and tears, hellos and goodbyes and miles and miles of driving.  There are so many thousands of things that I could write about my experience today driving through and changing in the world...but the only one I want to write is my greatest thought and epiphany of the evening. 

I'm sure that a lot of people have discovered this thought already as I am positive my personal revelations are not new.  I often wonder if one can, truly, have an original thought--or if all the good ones or any worth having have already been acknowledged somewhere else, some time else, by someone else.  To whomever first thought this one and sent its rays out into the universe, thank you.  You are, without a doubt, correct in my mind.

Today, I realized that demanding perfection of others does not make them perfect, or even desiring them to be so.  Demanding perfection in others only makes them seek to hide their imperfections from you, so as to still win your love under false pretenses and facades that crumble with poor maintenance.

I know, it's a "duh" statement.  Tonight, however, it hit me with a clarity that it hasn't before.  To an extent, my self love and what I view as general acceptance of other viewpoints, has been a measure of this statement...but tonight it feels personal.  Tonight I believe it.