modern, serious dating is dead

This is not a rally post...

2009-12-02T14:43:00.001-08:00

In fact, it's a duplicate of a post on another blog. I felt, however, that it is fitting with both the theme of this blog, and the holiday season we're now in. One of My wifes favorite holiday tunes is the seemingly steamy-sultry seductive (I love alliterations) tune "Baby it's cold outside. Her favorite version is a particularly interesting rendition because it features two of my favorite folks.

Zooey Deschanel actress and recent M. Ward singing sidekick (of She & Him fame)

The male part is sang by the ever mysterious and always amazing Leon Redbone (I've seen him twice in concert, both times he was fan-tas-tic!)

Because both Zooey and Leon have these smooth quirky voices I've never really paid much attention to the lyrics of the song. Than as I was passing through the faculty lounge today I caught a different version of the song, and in particular a very specific line from one of the verses. I typed the female part in pinkish-red and the male part in greenis-yellow (sorta Christmas colors) so you can get the full effect of the song. It goes a little something like this...

The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there
Say, what's in this drink - No cabs to be had out there
I wish I knew how - Your eyes are like starlight
To break the spell - I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell
I ought to say no, no, no, sir - Mind if I move closer
At least I'm gonna say that I tried - What's the sense in hurting my pride?

...I don't mean to sound like a cynic but this sounds like a date rape waiting to happen. How in the world did this song become a holiday classic? I'll tell you what he put in your drink Zooey, it's rufies...

I hate the hit-parade writers for ruining this Christmas gem for me. I'll never be able to listen to it again without the image of Mr. Redbone's lecherious smile and Zooey's bright eye'd innocent face going limp from the sedative dropped in her cocoa. At least there are some songs that maintain their Christmas integrity, like "Santa Baby".

Marriage Part II

2009-02-03T20:13:00.000-08:00

Two close friends of mine married each other last weekend. We were privileged enough to attend the ceremony and the rest of the day celebrating the occasion with them. Traditions of LDS weddings state that during the luncheon the groom must get up and introduce his family as well as say something touching and heartwarming about the women he has recently married. This guy, who seems to always have the right response (be it verbal or a physical reaction) didn't disappoint. His proclamation was beautiful and sincere in accurately describing why they are perfect (and I mean PERFECT) for each other. As tears of joy welled up in his eyes, I actually had a moment where I choked up (which hasn't happened since I saw E.T. in 1983).

I was touched, I was proud, it was wonderful. It was in the midst of this beautiful proclamation of love that my wife leaned over and whispered ever so tenderly in my ear...

"YOU DIDN'T CRY AT OUR WEDDING".

Congratulations Kids.

Happy Skanksgining!

2008-11-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

Since the declaration of the untimely death of this blog, I have felt encouraged to write and entry. Seeing how nobody is reading this blog at the moment I am somewhat compelled to write a more sentimental entry. Given that it is THANKSgiving I wanted to list some of the things that I am thankful for learning from both this blog and from my time during modern, serious dating.

From the blog.

1. I am thankful I learned that no matter how you feel about that significant other that you are dating you should never, never, never comment about it on the blog. In spring 2007 I wrote an article about another who I had been recreationally kissing with. I made an open criticism about my teammate and it came back to haunt me in the form of text message informing me to F#$@ off.

That same season I made a another comment about how I had gone on a second date with another girl (yes I was a man-whore) and had totally dropped the ball. She found the entry less than a day after I wrote it. Luckily she had a good sense of humor and found it somewhat endearing. She went on to marry me and spend over $200 on decorative pillows, I still love her.

These two episodes have different endings but have emphatically taught me that you must always, always, ALWAYS keep your criticisms about dating to yourself!

2. I am thankful for Natalie's entry a few years back about the third party consultant. I can't explain this any better than she could, but it was so true to life that I decided to wait two weeks after I was dating Dr. Girlfriend to pray if I should marry her.

3. Finally I am thankful that this blog has sparked so many discussions between Madame Spouse (the former Dr. Girlfriend) and I about her dating life. Because she has had some amazing experiences with in her dating life that have provided me with hours upon hours of gleeful entertainment as she regales me with story after story of the dudes she used to date (all the time knowing she married the biggest doofess of all.)

2008-10-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

being practically 31 and still single, you can imagine that i have had my share of dating experiences. regardless of the age, the guy, where you are in life, etc., i think one major constant in the process is that you are going to go to your friends for advice, support and encouragement.

i'm sure most of the contributers to this blog (and likely the readers too) have had some crazy experiences while out in the dating world, and it's likely that you immediately go to your friends to tell them about it, vent about things, ask for advice, look for comfort, etc. i think it's great. even if i don't always take the advice of my friends (and they don't always take mine), what would i do without it? i love having people in my life that i can share all of these crazy happenings with. i think that's one big reason we even have friends in our lives...to share life with!

people who live in or have ever lived in the dating universe are going to have a lot of common experiences. but the great thing is that we also have different experiences and can therefore try to learn from each other.

anyway, my point in all this is that i have gotten some great advice from my friends over the years. some of it i have taken and some i haven't, but i either way, i have loved getting it. but i must say, my favorite bit of advice i've gotten from a friend this year was this:

i know he's probably harmless and he's a good friend of several of your/our friends, but i get a VERY weird, almost dangerous vibe from him. and not in, like, a sexy way. do you? i don't know... it seems like you could be exchanging harmless texts with him one day... and then next day, he's standing outside your front door naked and bloodied, holding a sign that says "NONE SHALL COME BEFORE THEE." And that sign is on fire.

duckberg

2008-10-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

first dates are the toughest, generally speaking. and the toughest thing about first dates is having things to talk about.

i heard that making a list of questions to ask your date is a good idea. just write down a series of questions on a piece of paper or notecard. it's preferable if you pull out the actual list of questions while on the date. this lets your date know that you're taking this date seriously (which is different than wanting to seriously date).

the only real question is what questions do you include on the list?

for instance, i realized the population bottleneck crisis is threatening the survival of most of the world. and i'm not just talking about humans, but significant amounts of animal, plant and microbial life too. so i have strong feelings against having biological children. i'm totally for adoption (even though some people i know try to say that adoption isn't realistic in any situation ever), but would be against fathering biological children in most circumstances. so, should i include in my first date questionnaire a question about feelings regarding the ethical problems in having biological children?

also, i would suggest that each first date should have it's own list of questions.

Every breath you take...

2008-09-24T08:41:00.001-07:00

just yesterday i was asking brian if he thought the dating blog was dead and he said i dont think its dead and i said but it might be and then my friend tanya submitted a guest post. maybe its a sign. either way i always enjoy a nice post that reminds me of how much fun dating can be.

During my short stretch in Provo a boy who lived in SLC told me that every girl in Provo thinks she has a stalker… He said that secretly the girls exaggerate harmless crushes because they lack excitement in their lives and want to think someone would be crazy enough to be obsessed with them… I said I felt left out because I never experienced what every other girl in Provo had… I wanted a stalker of my very own… I asked him if he would stalk me just to be nice. He said no… rude.

But… I kind of felt stalked recently… or not really… maybe??? Who knows? I don't know why I felt so left out back in P town… Being stalked to the extent that SLC boy said every girl in P-town is stalked is not that exciting… it is not flattering… it is just nothing… it is just sitting at a party and looking up to see someone giving me an empty subjective stare… the kind of stare that penetrates the crowd and window between… the stare that you only catch if you look up right in the moment when because of the way other peoples reflections on the window allow you to see the stalker instead of your own reflection… p.s. when I say words like you I mean me…

I actually doubt it really constitutes as stalking… more like plain old school staring… but the stare is totally a stalker stare… like I said… empty and objectifying… weird and sad… I guess it was something enough for me to write this… but the truth is… I have thought about it… and not because of any of the normal reasons … not that I know what exactly a normal reason for giving attention to a stalker is…it is because I feel sorry for my stalker… that's all…

I guess for the record he isn't a very thorough stalker… he will probably never read this… look in my windows or leave me breathy phone messages…none of the exciting stalker stuff…I think he is kind of a lazy opportunist stalker… ho-hum… just that empty stare… but... again… can it really be stalking if the only time I am the recipient of this stare is when there is nothing better to stalker stare at…

I guess I still long for my own personal P-town stalker… let me know if you or anyone you know is interested…

in the air

2008-09-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

we have another MSDID engagement to announce!

oh wait sorry this picture is the one i wanted.

congrats L & L!

daily transaction report

2008-08-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

i have a suspicion that natali stole the privatizing marriage idea from me.

(i misspelled suspicion and privatizing, but thanks to spellcheck, no one will ever know unless they read my parenthetical remarks. i also just misspelled parenthetical and may be using the word wrong.)

i say stole because i'm always talking about how stupid it is that the state would need to sanction marriage.

but stole isnt the right word because ideas exist independent of people. maybe. it's complicated. ideas are more like viruses that infect people and cultures and institutions. but whatever.

here's what i've been thinking about lately:
why not extend this privatization to dating?

(i misspelled privatization again.)

here's how it works:
anytime you start dating, or possibly even talking to, anyone, work out a contract. something like we agree to date for three months, split the charges on any and all dates, limit our physical contact to such and such, spend this much time together, ect. then, at the end of the contract period you can either renew the contract, create a more "serious" contract (or a contract reflecting more serious dating) or breakup. that way if it's not really working out you only have to stay in it til the end of the contract. you can also work out penalties for failing to live up to the terms of the contract. and if you can't work out a dating contract with your potential partner, you probably shouldnt be dating anyway.

bobby is getting bloated

2008-08-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

my ward crush announced his engagement today to this girl in our ward. i guess i will stop praying they will break up now. my please make the blond adrien brody look a like in my ward break up with his girlfriend prayers were getting a little pathetic anyway.

which brings me to proposition 8. i personally am against it. mostly because i am for gay marriage and against referendums. it seems like there is mob/bully mentality behind them. and no one has been able to explain why we elect representatives but still allow the entire electorate vote on specific issues. i wish i had paid more attention in school. or i wish our government made more sense. one of those two things.

moving on the answer of course is privatization of marriage. the idea is explained in detail HERE. basically, all marriages would be contracts not requiring state sanction (so we dont even have to go into the civil rights/morality argument which im sure no one enjoys). everyone would tailor their marriage contracts to suit their needs. the contract would describe expectations and how assets are treated. it would make divorce a less traumatic experience. religions could still sanction marriages as they saw fit. and this wouldnt just benefit gays but women and children who are often the victims of no fault divorce and poor marriage (exit) planning. it would also put singles and married people on equal footing. privatization. think about it.

oh yeah and the cute photographer is married too.

baby seems we never ever agree, you like the movies and i like t.v.

2008-08-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

a new study shows that women on birth control might not be attracted to the best people for them.
Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are involved in immune response and other functions, and the best mates are those that have different MHC smells than you. The new study reveals, however, that when women are on the pill they prefer guys with matching MHC odors.
it goes on to say that the pill causes a woman to be pregnant, hormonally, thus basically putting her in a "post-mating" state.

gaaa--freaking--rate! not only am i 30 and dropping off the deceased members of what's left of my egg family monthly, now i can't even sniff out the right man because i want shorter, lighter periods, and better skin!?

in all seriousness, we all learned from paula and the cool cat years ago that opposites attract, so we shouldn't be too surprised to learn that. i guess we are now left to decide which is more important to us: a satisfying relationship with less wandering eyes and offspring who are more fit, or better skin, less monthly emotional imbalance and milder cramps (oh. and pregnancy. sometimes i forget people are having sex).

i'm leaning towards the latter, but i'll get back to you.

i'm stickin with you

2008-08-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

so my friend skrittle is getting married. for a while, fight and i have been thinking about pursuing a career in wedding planning. we've got a lot of great ideas. here's the idea we pitched to skrittle and his soon-to-be-wife (an idea they immediately shot down):

typical wedding set up. friends of the bride on one side, friends of the groom on the other. the wedding music plays and the bride walks down the aisle just like normal. but wait. where is the minister? he's not there. who's going to perform the ceremony? this is a disaster. then a video screen appears. it's the minister on his scooter (the minister is our friend poland jones who is authorized to legally marry people). "i better hurry. i'm going to be late," he says. he's weaving in and out of traffic. then he crashes. he digs himself out of the rubble and start running. "i cant be late for this wedding!" then someone starts shooting at him. the bullets are wizzing by. he's finally shot. there's blood everywhere. the video fades to black. then, all of the sudden, the minister jumps out from behind a curtain. "i barely made it. this must mean it's really true love." applause breaks out. the ceremony is performed. a total success. a wedding none will ever forget.

my moon, no man

2008-08-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

this is a guest post from my frances. she is cool.

a week or so ago, elliot and i took a nighttime walk along the flat streets and struck up a conversation about the moon. elliot, you see, is a little freaked out by the moon, because the presence of the moon in our sky means the sun is shining somewhere else in the world where we can't see it, but we believe that it exists there nonetheless.

the only time i am freaked out by the moon, i told him, is when i can see the moon and the sun at the same time, in the same sky. there is something about that phenomenon that feels distinctly not right to me, i said. like the sun and the moon don't belong together or something.

elliot pounced. obviously, he said, you have some sort of subconscious angst related to gender relation, as the sun and moon are strong symbols of the masculine and feminine, respectively. uh-oh.

him: maybe you have a subconscious adherence to traditional gender roles, and you think men and women don't belong in the same sphere.
me: not likely.
him: no. not likely at all.

pause.

him: maybe you don't want to exist in the same sphere as men. you want to rule the sphere on your own.
me: more likely.
him: yeah, yeah.

pause.

me: or maybe i just don't quite understand how men and women can exist in the same sphere, happily and balanced. it is not that i don't believe it can be done. i see it done, and done well, around me all the time. but i still don't quite get it.
him: yeah, yeah.

it is this last assessment, i believe, that is the truth. or, at least, my truth.

now first, let me be very clear in saying that in no way does any of this mean that i am opposed to women and men coexisting. i am, in fact, very staunchly in favor. maybe my general confusion about the workings of male-female relationships stems from the fact that i can barely make it to a second date, let alone a lifetime commitment. but i do think there is something magical, mysterious and miraculous about two people deciding to spend forever together, something that cannot be understood from the outside.

i mention all of this because i leave in a few hours for portland, where sallee will become a mathews and enter forever the marriage vortex. again, not a bad thing. a good thing, in fact. a wonderful, happy, appropriate, joyful thing for which i am glad. but again, i just don't get it.

intellectually, of course, i understand. i have heard all the stories, the experiences, the processes. you ask questions and you get answers. you have concerns and they get addressed, or become less important. you think. you talk. you try. you pray. and then. you know. or rather, you know enough to take the next step. to make the choice.

emotionally though, spiritually even, it is still difficult (for me, at least) to understand how one might know. you just know? and that's it? because there has been at least one time in my life when i thought i knew something about this sort of thing and it turned out that i was, in fact, wrong. or, maybe more accurately, i came to know something different from what i thought i knew. and it was painful and hard.

it is also hard, i have come to believe, to watch people do things you don't understand, even when those things are very, very good. and it is, probably selfishly so, especially hard when those things involve a change in someone's life that changes your life, too. but, after my own thinking, trying and praying, i have learned this one, very important thing. i don't need to understand how it works for someone else. i don't need to understand how it works for someone else in order to rejoice when they rejoice, and i don't need to understand how it works for someone else in order to believe that it will work out someday for me, too. and, most importantly, the way that it works out for me is going to be just as strange and mysterious and difficult to understand for everyone else outside of my sphere, my sky.

and so i feel, at last, at peace. a little sad, of course. the bittersweet kind of happysad that always accompanies an occasion, and a revelation, of this sort. but, i am also most pleased to offer my joy and congratulations to the soon-to-be mr. and mrs. mathews. may your sky always be full of beauty, balance and love.

mountin time

2008-07-26T15:55:00.001-07:00

today when i was melting in lay out park (a park where i go to lay out) i looked down at my towel i remembered how much i liked it. i got it in italy. its always kind of embarrassing saying things like i got it in italy. here is a story about what i didnt get in italy.

in my grad program there was a really really good looking guy. i threw in the extra really because he deserves it. he was pretty nice too. so back in the day i was doing an externship in london and i found out he was going to be in italy doing an externship at the exact same time i was planning on vacationing there. and so i did perhaps the third bravest thing i have ever done and emailed him to see if he wanted to hang out in florence. he emailed me back a fairly enthusiastic yes and his phone number and i was supposed to call him as soon as i got there.

so for the next two weeks i had my friend give me my odds of hooking up with this guy in florence (i like statistics) and how italy seemed (from every chick flick ive ever seen) the perfect back drop for such a thing to happen.

anyway i got to italy and called him and his roommate said that he was in zurich and i was pretty confused by this answer and said is that in italy? the roommate said no its in switzerland. so i hung up and cursed his name because i packed so many clothes because i wanted to make sure i had lots of options to increase my odds of getting kissed. i hauled around half my wardrobe for a week during the hottest summer in italian history (not true). anyway its a great towel.

i hear brian is pregnant...

2008-07-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

hey speaking of marriage i wanted to congratulate the blog contributors who recently got married! jefe and dr. girlfriend got married last month and reno and dave last weekend.

incidentally this is what falling in love looks like.

and this is what the elbow of a really cute photographer looks like.

it's a free country; you can post whatever you want

2008-06-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

at least that's what i heard. so i'm going to do it: i'm going to post whatever i want.
starting with this conversation i overheard:

(ps, i made up all the names to hide identities)
(pss, i think this is actually a poem; you can tell because of the elizabeth barrett browning reference)

browning: man, i think you're the one who wants to marry him
natasha: haha, i dont
b: i wasnt calling you man either
n: actually, there are probably enough things about him why any reasonable
person might not want to marry him
but
they have been dating on and off for like 4 years
at this point i say just go for it
because you obviously arent breaking up
b: or not get married
and just keep dating
since marriages dont matter,
right?
n: no,
marriages matter, but they are just dating and its a mess
b: marriages dont matter; they could move in together
i mean, i guess if they want to be married in the temple, then marriage makes sense
n: i think a fair statement is marriages dont matter to you
but
for 95% of the population they still kind of matter
b: that's way too high of a percentage
n: im not sure
seems like everyone is doing it
or does it at least once
but
even if people dont do it
doesnt mean it doesnt matter to them
b: even if people do get married, it doesnt mean that marriage matters to them
n: that's such a stupid thing to say, idiot
because for some reason they got married
so maybe it mattered to whoever they married so therefore it mattered to them
b: maybe they felt pressured into it
or they were trying to scam them
or they just did it for the money
or they got pregnant
so maybe it matters
but not in the same way you're trying to state that it matters
and it really hurts my feelings when you call me an idiot
n: what about if i called you retarded instead? because you seriously are most of the time
i didnt state the reasons behind it mattering
i just said it did
and you said it didnt
most poeple get married
thats all i was saying
b: not most people
you gotta remember that there's an entire world outside of the us
n: whatever
you dont want to get married, i get it
but i dont think you can make this argument that it doesnt matter
and that everyone hates their marriages
b: well,
i'm not
i'm saying that it doesn't matter in a way
like
there are other valid ways to establish a committed relationship
marriage is one of the ways
but it comes with it's own set of assumptions that can cause problems
n: so perhaps you could just say you dont want to get married
and you dont think you need to
because it causes problems
b: but my entire point is is that mary and my cousin look a like dont need to get married either
but they can if they want to
n: whatever
you are impossible sometimes
b: whatever

2008-06-14T12:00:00.001-07:00

associations. a song. a restaurant. a piece of art. a smell. a place. even a simple word. they can all remind us of a person. associations can come with any person--boyfriends, girlfriends, family, friends, or even a time-period in general. but since this is the dating blog, i'll focus on things we associate with people we've dated.

associations are tricky. they can be one of the best things about relationships and one of the worst depending on the situation.

you are dating someone. you really care about them a lot. you do fun things together. you like each other. you go places together. maybe you need each other. you laugh a lot together. you are great friends. you have mind-blowing makeouts. you invest significant time in each other. obviously you'll have things you associate with each other, or with the times you spent together.

so things end. and it's pretty sad. but it's amicable. the wound is still tender, but you remember them and the experience with fondness.

you hear a song that reminds you of them. you get a knot in your stomach, and goosebumps on your arms. *sigh* (good sigh). you think of that person. and you smile.

you eat at a restaurant that was your favorite for the first time with someone other than them. you get a knot in your stomach, and goosebumps on your arms. *sigh*. you think of that person, and you smile.

you smell their cologne or perfume on a random passerby and are immediately transported back to a moment of cuddling in bed watching a movie, or an especially memorable makeout. or maybe just hugging them in general. you get a knot in your stomach, and goosebumps on your arms. *sigh*. you think of that person. you smile (and let's be honest, you tear up).

but then let's say a few months later you find out something about them that completely changes the way you view them or your entire relationship in general. suddenly those exact same associations are like poison (or a sledgehammer in your face.)

you hear a song that reminds you of the other. you feel like you've been punched in the stomach. you get shivers down your spine. *sigh* (the "i'm about to break down sigh). you think of that person. and skip to the next song.

you eat at a restaurant that was your favorite for the first time with someone other than them. you feel like you've been...oh COME ON! we all know you're not going to that restaurant for a while.

you smell their cologne or perfume on a random passerby and are immediately transported back to a moment of cuddling in bed watching a movie, or an especially memorable makeout. or maybe just hugging them in general. you feel like you've been punched in the stomach. you get shivers down your spine. *sigh*. you think of that person. you throw up in your mouth (or maybe you burst into tears in the middle of the isle at walmart).

the good news is that we have the ability to brain wash ourselves! after the mourning period, when you are finally ready to let them go and move on to something or someone else, you can condition yourself to associate things differently. sure, it might be a little rough starting out, but if you listen to those songs enough, you'll start to associate them with the present, not the past. if you go to that restaurant enough, you'll have new memories there.

hell no! you are not taking away my favorite songs!

hell no! you aren't keeping me from one of my favorite restaurants!

i'm not wonder woman people. i can't help you with the perfume/cologne thing.

im taking this moment to tell you im not traditional

2008-06-06T19:14:00.001-07:00

i recently remembered i hadnt really broken up with someone i dated last year which sparked this IM conversation:

me: did we ever break up?
boy: oh wait i dont know if we did...
me: its over. and i cheated on you.
boy: i forgive you.

and that is the best break up i have ever had.

How to Land a One-Night Stand

2008-05-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on the topic of best dating websites. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

If you’re in the position where you’re not looking to settle down for a long-term relationship and just want to have some fun then you’re looking to score tonight. This is much easier said then done. You can have a game plan before you go out for the night, but when push comes to shove most of us flake out. Confidence is the obvious key, but this isn’t something you acquire overnight. Here are five tips for the rest of us to consider the next time we need to get some:

1. Avoid the bar scene. Going out to bars is just like going to a meat market. It’s a ton of guys looking at the same three girls. Your odds are horrible. Weddings are excellent places to pick up a one-night stand. There’s something about seeing two people exchanging vows and expressing how in love they are that gets us all going. Combine that with an open bar and you’ve got a great mix. You’re going to be around girls that you don’t know and in a setting you’ve probably never been in before.

2. Keep an eye out for the signals. It’s easy to spot the girls that are out with the same thing on their mind. They’re going to be the ones on the dance floor laughing all night long. They’re looking around to see who makes eye contact. They’re at the bar getting crazy drinks. These uninhibited souls are your best chance to make a connection

3. Follow her lead. The girl that will go home with you tonight is going to take charge. Ditch your lame pickup lines. Stick with something as simple as just introducing yourself. She’ll judge you from your looks if it’s a one-night stand. This doesn’t mean you don’t stand a chance if you’re not Brad Pitt. Just a good smile and a confident look will get you far.

4. Be up front about your expectations. This doesn’t mean you have to state your sexual intentions, but make it clear you’re not looking for a serious girlfriend. If you don’t make this apparent, then she may start falling for you before you even get back to your place.

5. You’re in when you’re out. You’ll know you have it locked up when she agrees to go to another bar, preferably a smaller, darker locale. Once you’ve left the loud, annoying, singles bar you’re in a spot where you can make your move. Lean in for the first kiss once you’ve ordered the round. Your chances are good that she’ll kiss back and then it’s just a matter of how far away your place is.

a cop shot some boys and girls

2008-05-16T11:48:00.001-07:00

i've never been so nervous writing a blog before in my life.
umm,
someones i know gave a book -- a certain dating book -- to someone else i know for his birthday.
i have sufficiently hid everyone's identity.
but that's not why i wrote that i'm nervous earlier. i mean, i really am nervous. still nervous even after hiding the identities of certain people that i know.
none of this stuff is important to the story. except the nervousness. but that's only important because it's supposed to be an excuse for how the story is written.
ok.
so the book is called something like mars and venus on a date. it's a sequel to the highly successful best seller in over forty languages men are from mars, women are from venus. a bestseller in over forty languages. that's something else. that means this guy has figured out dating.
i didn't google that best seller in over forty languages bit. i read it in the first chapter of mars and venus on a date. the forty languages may be wrong: but honestly, the first ten pages of venus and mars on a date are a commercial for men are from mars, women are from venus the book and seminars. and then the next five pages are simply different strategies for getting your significant other to read either this book or men are from mars, women are from venus or, preferably, both. specifically, it's advice for women to get their boyfriends, husbands or potential boyfriends/husbands to read these books. for whatever reason, men are less likely to read these books or attend the previously mentioned seminars. this is, according to the author, because men need to know that the books and seminars are "man friendly," whatever that means. so after multiple pages of advice on how to get the man in your life to read these books -- guilt, peer pressure, ect -- the author (i'm not gonna try to find his name) tells us that these same techniques can work equally as well for men trying to get the women in their lives' to read these books. and i thought the entire premise of the books were that men and women are different. and you can draw your own conclusions on why half of the first chapter is about how women can get men to purchase and read these books.
i don't necessarily disagree with the premise of this book. men and women are different. i mean, we're all human, but men and women have different organs, different hormones, different chemical reactions which may lead to different brain development, different socialization process and so on and so on. there seems to be biological differences between sexes in the same species all over the world. like there are these fish in the bottom of the ocean. the female is like a normal sized fish. the male is maybe 1/5 her size. when they mate, the male attaches himself to the female for life. all he does is stay attached and sends sperm, or this fish's equivalent, into the female while receiving nutrients from the food the female eats. this in a pretty far out example, but the point is that males and females within a species follow somewhat different evolutionary trajectories. they're different. but not so different that mating becomes impossible. that doesn't make any sense.
mars and venus on a date, however, isn't talking about these biological or neurological differences in human females and males. this book is interested in making money off of lonely people by exploiting their loneliness and isolation. and most of us are lonely some of the time. and that's my problem with this book. it promises that true love is just around the corner if you simply shell out that cash for this book and this seminar and this dating service when their ideal of true love or happy ever after (a phrase used at least five times in the first chapter) is totally unrealistic. in other words, this books reinforces unrealistic expectations about love and dating and relationships that creates anxiety about our own relationships (or lack there off) and then preys on this insecurity by offering solutions for a price.
that's offensive to me.
so i stopped reading the book. but here's something else i learned: if you're a girl on a date (or possibly a boy on a date with another boy) and your date opens the car door for you, you're not supposed to reach over and unlock the door for him if you want him to still be interested in you. that doesn't make any sense, even after reading the five pages the authors spends to explain why it matters.
i dont know why i was so nervous when i began this post.

Love???

2008-05-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

this is an anonymous guest post submitted by someone's friend. i think it might be about drugs. maybe its about being in love on drugs. or loving drugs. you be the judge.

I think we all fear it. that's part of the package actually. it wouldn't be worth as much if we didn't fear it. here's are my thoughts on why. sometimes, love is intoxicating. Sometimes it winds around inside you, filling up every vacant space you have until it actually becomes the only thing keeping you from breaking into a million tiny pieces. it gets into your veins and does things to you that no drug in the world could ever mimic. It makes things taste and feel and smell different. but then sometimes love takes. It takes and takes and takes until you are weak and pale and starving to death. Sometimes it makes you want to scream obscenities into that great black hole of a sky, scream until you run out of both words and breath. it ruins. it creates. it satisfies. it persuades. it ignores. it defines. and sometimes i think it steals things from you when you are not looking. I find it is always changing, shifting constantly from one shape to another so that you don't always recognize it when it's there. and then sometimes, softly and secretly and in the middle of the night, it disappears completely, vanishing without even so much as a goodbye note taped to the bathroom mirror. sometimes love wrestles you to the ground and sometimes it carries you through the most devastating storms. i think it is flawed and imperfect and entirely too powerful. sometimes love makes me angry. and trapped. sometimes it hurts. sometimes the hurt is good. sometimes it is the hero and sometimes the villain and sometimes it is only an innocent bystander. it is often unrequited and sometimes incomplete. there are times when it aches. times when the ache is so deep you can't find it until you sit absolutely still in a dark room. i think love is beautifully irrational, and painfully tender, and sometimes when it catches you with your walls down…completely and perfectly liberating.

yes i am cocky enough to think everyone wants me

2008-05-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

the parents were in town and brought their dog along. one morning, the dad and i were out walking around my complex with our dogs. now when you live in an apartment complex with a creature that needs to excrete every 2-3 hours, you start seeing the same people with similar creatures on a similar schedule. one of the people i would regularly see was this sleezy looking guy with a big lab and some sort of tiny weenie dog that you’re probably not even allowed to pet because you would crush his skull (which reminds me of this gem of a video). anyway, we’d always chat for a second while our dogs sniffed each other (gently as to not crush any skulls) – he’d talk about how he and his wife and new baby were moving out of the complex.

the day my dad was in town was the day this guy was moving out. i saw him on our walk and he started chatting with me. my dad was off a little way with his dog, so didn’t seem like he was really associated with me. i asked the guy if they needed any help and he responded, “not unless you want a sexual date?” i think i didn’t talk for a good half a minute or so trying to process what he said. finally, i asked – “what??” and he said it again “do you want a sexual date?” oh my gosh – i was so embarrassed. my dad was standing right there. how awful was this? “no thanks” i said and booked it home, not even waiting for my dad. when my dad came in, this was our conversation

me: i’m so sorry you had to hear that. some people are just scum bags.

dad: hear what?

me: oh… you didn’t hear what that guy asked me??

dad: wait… what do you think he asked you?

me: um….

dad: cause i heard something “sexual” the first time, but when he repeated it, he was just asking you if you wanted a sectional

me: oh… well my answer would have been the same

all in the family

2008-04-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

i am going to present a scenario. please tell me if this is either normal/psycho/slightly creepy/promising/other....

i have a crush. i think it is a good thing. this does not happen very often. i have had this crush for about approximately 6 years. when i first developed the crush, this person was approximately 14 years old. hmm weird i know but hear me out. i really have not met anyone like him before. he is kind, sensitive, musical, outgoing, creative, and a leader. we have a strong connection. he is now 20. i am slightly older by almost a decade. (decades are over rated) oh and i guess the one element that people consider to be a big deal is that he is my cousin. my first cousin. when i meet guys, i think "oh he is lame. i would rather be hanging out with my cousin." i just found out he put a picture of us on his my space profile and i was happy. i was happy you guys. i am a weirdo. and so that is why i will be moving to kentucky.

i h8 u

2008-04-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

my sister just got broken up with via text message.

modern technology is one of my favorite things. when people ask what other era i would want to live in, i never have an answer because why in the world would i want to live sans google and youtube?

but modern technology also provides a lousy copout for break ups. i wonder sometimes if people back in the day were stronger because they had to muster up the courage to breakup with someone face-to-face since that was their only option. well that and courier pigeon i guess. then i wonder if maybe people weren’t stronger at all and maybe that’s why more people got married back then because they didn’t have the guts to break up face-to-face but didn’t have any other means to breakup (except courier pigeon but those can get pricey) so they just sucked it up and got married instead.

the point is, technological breakups suck. via text, via email, via voicemail. i have a friend whose boyfriend of at least half a year called her parents’ house phone, knowing nobody ever answers it, and broke up with her over their answering machine. her parents. she doesn’t even live with them. can you imagine getting that call from your dad? “uh, honey… your boyfriend thinks you’re too chubby so you’re broken up now.”

and that’s the other thing – over technology, you can say a lot more. no more of these gentle “it’s me not you” lines. now, people can really say what they mean. like “u smell like chkn fngrs. r u mad?”

another relationship copout is that you prayed about it and god told you it’s not right

sorry i'm late; some bikers tried to steal my jacket

2008-04-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

i overheard this at the bus stop:

somebody: you know what i like about rubber soul? there's a different song for wherever you are in a relationship.
somebody else: you mean with a girl.
somebody: or a boy, but you have to change all the shes to hes. but baby you can drive my car is already gender neutral.

[for those of you that dont know or possibly forgot, rubber soul is a record by the beatles]

that sounds about right. i mean there is a song about daydream dating, a song about when your partner doesn't answer your phone calls, a song about being emotionally drained by a bad relationship, a song about communication problems, a song about how extreme jealously leads to violence and more. plus all the songs are super catchy.

this got me thinking about movies that maybe have more resonance based on your relationship status and i remembered my favorite movie about getting older and still being single: marty. feeling like you'll never meet anyone right for you? watch marty. is your mom always pressuring you to get married, but then whenever you start dating someone she doesn't think they're good enough for you? watch marty. do your friends not like who you're dating? watch marty. do you like movies that are good? watch marty. it's good.

but what about those of you already in a relationship, is there a movie you could be watching with your partner? a movie that you get on an emotional level regardless of where you are at in the relationship? i'd recommend scenes from a marriage. but you might break up after you watch it.

i'm also looking for your recommendations. (the you in the previous sentence refers to you reading this, unless that you is me because i already gave my suggestions.)

a kinder, gentler vampirism

2008-04-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

today i saw my friend cicada in the target parking lot. i had just barely answered my mom's phone call in an attempt to try and fulfill my better daughter goal which includes sometimes answering their calls. the conversation had gotten this far:

mom: please come visit so we can see you.
me: i just want to go home.
mom: please.
me: no thanks.
mom: pleassssse.
me: oh gotta go i see cicada.

at which point cicada pointed out there was bird shit in my hair. gross. cicada then asked if i was trying to send her brother love messages in my post title...and maybe this one. anyway i said no. maybe. no. he doesnt read it right? because this one could make things awkward between us. but whatever. i like him he can get over it.

last time he was in town we were in a coffee shop discussing the word "love" and saying it in relationships. he doesnt like saying the word. i probably have a higher comfort level than most but i dont really throw it around. i find myself in the minority in that i believe strongly that 1) it shouldnt matter if the other person says/or feels it back and 2) a boy shouldnt have to say it first. i have never quite understood why either of those things mattered. because if you love someone it doesnt change things if they love you back or not. love seems like one of those emotions that isnt contingent on what someone else feels. and who says it first shouldnt be dictated by gender. i have a suspicion that people started encouraging women to wait until men said the word because men should be in control of the relationship and the direction that it takes while women take a more submissive, passive role. but i dont know.

anyway. this was sort of how the conversation went.

richie: who really likes saying i love you.
me: but it doesnt really matter right. if you feel it you should say it.
richie: i just dont like saying it.
me: but its always nice to hear. or its generally nice to hear.
richie: i dont even think i know what love means.
me: whatever. you just need to get comfortable with the word. lets practice. tell me you love me.
richie: (longish pause) nat thats just really weird.
me: its fine just say it. come on. say it.
richie: (sipping his coffee nervously and squirming) no.

my love therapy totally failed. and how long was that bird shit in my hair? can i get a disease from that? i washed my hair 6 times using every brand of shampoo i have twice.

my husband would never send me stuff this good

2008-04-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

maybe i'm just still single, because if i change my status to "in a relationship" or heaven forbid "married" i might miss out on getting emails like the following.

Subject: hi
Message: Friends are a promise made in the heart.. Silent.. Unwritten.. Unbreakable by distance... Unchangeable by time. It's lovely to have u as one!

Subject:
Message: Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl whispered to her mother, "why is the bride dressed in white?" "Because white is the color of happiness," her mother explained. "And today is the happiest day in her life." The child thought about this for a moment. "So why is the groom wearing black?"

Subject:
Message: I would like to be a new friend. Would u like to date with me, let me know.ready or not?

and my favorite...

Subject: 4 U
Message: My my where have you been all my existence? I can not believe that someone so profound has not come to the very embrace of my heart. I can not believe that someone so lovely has been so distant and not within the grasp of my caress. Can one know more about the marvelous you or does one have to engage classes to learn about someone so outstanding

why would i risk missing out on this? linkup, your plan to link me up has failed. backfired really.

if your guess is as good as mine

2008-04-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. Psalms 40:1

i like prayers. i wonder though if it is necessary to pray no less than 8 times in any given mormon church meeting. as far as i can tell nothing happens between sacrament and sunday school to warrant a prayer. unnecessary and recycled prayers seem to trivialize the experience. although, i am never quite sure what the experience should be like.

i actually quite like to pray. i like to thank God for things i suspect he has done for me or tell Him funny things about my day or complain about celibacy, etc. but i rarely pray for advice or guidance. and i think i know why. i dont like the concept of what i have heard called the "changing answer." i have heard of this concept most often linked to dating and marriage relationships more than anything else. the changing answer is a pretty self explanatory theory. people start to date and pray about each other and one (or both) of the people feels really good about it and then things go south and they dont know what to do because they felt like they received an answer to go forward. now they arent sure what to do because last time they prayed they felt good about it but now the relationship is terrible. if they are confused and ask someone about it people (leaders, bishops, etc) often say that answers change. or other scenario is that people date and pray about it, feel good, get married and three years later one of the spouses says something like this "i dont love you anymore," "turns out i am gay," or "here is the deal. i dont want to be married and i never really did."

now i understand that life circumstances change. people fall out of love. they develop mental illnesses or substance abuse problems that make relationships impossible. irreconcilable difference arise. abuse. etc. i dont mind that. thats just life. but is the point of praying and recieving answers so that we can have some sort of assurance or guarantee that what we are doing is going to work out? isnt that why we pray because we dont know so we thought we should ask someone that does? arent we asking because God knows who we are dating will eventually leave us (with three kids and a mortgage)? can God give us bad advice? there is always the chance i (or any of us) dont understand answers. but if that is the case what is the point in asking?

i dont know. but i dont like to ask God for guidance because if it turns out to be bad than i wont have any hard feelings against Him. thats why i keep boys out of our conversations all together. but dont worry i have plenty of others things to talk about. i tend to ramble. obviously.

bff to sister wife to bff

2008-03-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend natali and I had a rollercoaster romance. We met and fell in love with our husband and shortly after all became disappointed with each other and fell out of love and broke up. It was a whirlwind to say the least.

Natali had a gift certificate to Ruby River from work. $50. Since we had spent much of the day together decorating cookies and making easter baskets, we thought we might as well make it a marathon date and go to dinner as well. Natali’s (work’s) treat. Sounds good to me. Little did we know we were about to fall in love….

You wouldn’t have thought it at first. Our waiter (mark) was cute enough. I don’t know about natali, but it wasn’t love at first sight for me. However, when mark opened his mouth and emitted an Aussie accent, we were both smitten. The feelings were mutual. It was my first polygamous relationship and I was in heaven. I started calling natali “sister wife”. It felt natural. She did the gay thing and dropped the “sister” when addressing me. Also natural.

We were debating on an appetizer. Because who doesn’t get them when a gift card is involved? We asked our new Aussie boyfriend Mark what his favorite appetizer was. He said it was the smoked trout and began describing it’s every goodness. Sourdough bread, cream cheese, capers, red onions…MTB!! That’s exactly what we were thinking about getting! that’s exactly what we were thinking about getting! we told mark. We were ready to take this relationship to the next level.

Shortly thereafter he brought it out to us and we dove right in. yum! BFAM (BF Aussie Mark) was right, this IS good! Did that last bite taste kind of like mold? Nahhh. Nat and I ate two full pieces of smoked trout on sourdough bread before we noticed the mold. There was kind of a lot. Actually, nat at 2.5 pieces. Two before we found the mold and .5 after. What can she say, it was good trout.

Um…excuse me, Aussie Mark? Um…there’s mold on this bread…Aussie Mark was shocked and embarrassed. He began to withdraw. He sent other people to deliver our food and when he came to bring us new waters he couldn’t even look us in the eye. But BFAM, we aren’t mad! Sure, we want to puke and we can’t stop laughing (and weezing if you’re natali), but we’re not mad! Please, give us another chance. But he couldn’t. He felt too much shame in recommending something so emphatically and making us eat mold. I guess I can’t blame him. I mean, he made us eat mold!

What a love affair.

im not saying its an eternal truth he is a good lover

2008-03-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

bexy and i hung out with some friends from ours from out of town (greg, nate and rob). because we are all mormon and single and over 24 the conversation naturally turned to relationships (failed), marriage, mormonism and refractory periods. greg said something that i have been thinking about lately--how day to day relationships are. before, in what i would like to call my younger, idealist years in which i thought people felt the same way about someone forever and that baggy plaid shirts were flattering on me i dont think i would have understood the day to day relationship concept without some sort of chart or visual aid. and once i understood it i wouldnt have believed it.

the problems in long term relationships (from what people tell me who are divorced and what i noticed on tv) is that people change and expectations arent met. change can be very scary. and sometimes when people change their partners get nervous and break up. change makes people very jumpy. unmet expectations are also boner killers. things rarely turn out how you expect it seems. this is what got me thinking about the day to day relationship. it seems like the most successful relationships, the ones that last (well), ironically are the ones that people view on a day to day basis. once you realize that people change and relationships change and circumstances change, the easier it is to cope with change overall and expectations are significantly reduced to a healthy level. and that makes it easier to stay in a relationship.

while i was writing this post i was watching witches of eastwick. its actually kind of an interesting movie about gender roles and drug use. my favorite part is when jack nicholson is seducing michelle pheiffer and michelle pheiffer is like are you going to seduce me? because i get pregnant really easily.

blog writer blog, i mean block

2008-03-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

Natali: we all are

blog writer blog

block

is what i meant to say

me: i like the first better

in fact, i no longer even believe it

what about you, what are your dating blog ideas

Natali: i have nothing

me: but we're supposed to be brainstorming

12:40 PM i think you want the dating blog to fail

Natali: i know i am trying

what!

haha

i really dont have any ideas

i wish i did

12:41 PM in fact i hate everything i have written on it

for the last three months

jefe and brooke might write about how they got engaged

which i thought was fun

12:42 PM me: i have an idea

what about if i posted parts of this chat

including the last line

12:43 PM (and possibly the last one, but this one seems like a stretch)

so the post is about how we have no interesting thoughts on dating

Natali: oh thats a good idea

me: we're onto post-dating

Natali: my friend just sent me this article

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-hymowitz_27edi.ART0.State.Edition1.378ca5b.html

10 minutes

12:54 PM Natali: i just finished it. it was hella long

12:58 PM me: i'm not even half way through

i keep getting distracted by work

Natali: i was about to say i am such a faster reader

but you had that handy "work" excuse

me: i'm sure you're a fast work

1:00 PM reader

1:02 PM fast reader

Natali: fast work...is that sexual

me: it could be

1:04 PM Natali: my apartment is a mess and i dont like it one bit

1:07 PM me: i finished it

but i'm going to go to lunch

maybe we should respond to the essay as dating posts

i'll tell you after we've sealed the deal

2008-03-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

so, i was thinking about how random (and by that i mean miraculous) it is when two people fall in love and want to be together forever. i mean, there are a lot of pretty cool people out there, right? but that obviously isn’t going to guarantee any kind of match. i’m sure we all have male and female friends that we think are both awesome that dislike each other.

so anyway, i was thinking about the millions of dumb little things that drive people crazy. things that you’d probably accept if you found out about them AFTER you fell in love, but since you noticed them right off the bat, you never went out/hung out with that person again. OR…these same things that drive one person crazy might actually come across as endearing to someone else. at least i’m banking on that option.

here are things about me that probably fall into that category:

1. i bite my nails when i’m stressed/anxious/scared (i practically had to have my fingers surgically reattached after no country for old men)
2. i chew gum non-stop (i have an oral fixation). also i blow bubbles constantly
3. i make loud shivery noises when i first go out into the cold
4. i really love barry manilow
5. i’m pretty up-to-date on celebrity gossip. i’m kind of embarrassed about this one, actually.
6. i will describe the entire episode of “i shouldn’t be alive” to you, even if you might not want to hear about it.
7. sometimes i watch telemundo because i think the shows are funny. sure, hispanic game shows can’t rival japanese, but come on! have you seen their soap operas?
8. i will try to get you to eat korean food. in provo.
9. i talk really loudly when i get excited/mad/passionate about something
10. really loudly

there are plenty of things about other people that annoy me, but i won’t list those here.

one time in church, during a talk about dating, they (the teacher) mentioned trying to focus only on the good things about the person. or something like that. wait, maybe it was testimony meeting. was it a dating lesson? i don’t remember. usually when there are “dating lessons” in church i roll my eyes and wonder why i go to church ever (crap, could this be why i’m not married?). clearly, though, this thought has stuck with me and i’ve tried to be more open-minded about the giant plethora of idiots i’ve dated.

it reminds me of satan in the book of job

2008-03-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

no one has posted for awhile so i thought maybe i would give it a whirl. i am stuck at home with some sort of hacking cough so i might as well blog while i am trying to trick my friends into bringing me a slurpee (i like the following flavors: coke, mountain dew, mango tango tea, and anything with crystal lite).

today i think i had a date with my neighbor. i was outside sunning myself and trying not to wheeze (which took considerable effort) when a man standing outside on the sidewalk commented on the weather. i agreed it was nice. then he said something else about the weather. and i said something else about the weather. it went on like this for awhile. i wanted him to go away which made me think it was a date after all. then he came up and sat by me and started asking if lived by myself and other probing questions. normally, this is were i slip a ring onto my fourth finger but i wasnt wearing one. so we sat and chatted for what seemed like a really time but that might have just been the cold medication. anyway, i wasnt interested in my neighbor so i told him i had to go do laundry which was a lie but it seemed like i have to go take a nap was mean. but i didnt think we would go out again so i wasnt super worried.

also happy birthday ck! i hope you dont have the black lung.

i better learn to like purple

2008-02-18T12:21:00.001-08:00

in case you’re on the market for a new main squeeze (i wish people would just get over themselves and still use the phrase “main squeeze”). this’ll tell you which celebrity is your perfect match. it also gives you an address, phone number and email so you can reach said match (i’m lying)

love machine

i always wondered if i might have a subconscious crush on prince. i guess this confirms it.

prince
yes, he's short, he's freaky, and for years his name was a crazy unpronounceable symbol. still, your celebrity love match is one "sexy m.f." however, there's more to this talented pop royalty than meets the eye. he's a workaholic, a nightclub owner, a multi-instrumentalist (if you know what we mean). and he's not afraid to speak his mind (not just anyone would go around with "slave" written across his cheek). maybe he has "daddy" issues, but here's a guy not afraid to show his sensitive side. it's not just the doves that cry. ultimately, we hope you like purple because there's going to be a lot of it in your life.

dating through the holidays

2008-02-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

once a boy gave me a bed after our first date. i needed a bed so i took it. but then he started texting me everyday to find out what i was doing and who i was with. so naturally i kept the bed and stopped talking to him.

anyway sometimes i feel bad for boys when they ask me out. i think there was a time period of 8 months were i was pretty good at dating. but that was short lived. everything before that was an annoyance everything after awkward.

the first time a boy asked me out i didnt understand and i asked if my best friend could come. i think the last time a boy asked me out i said no. i have been doing this for 13 years and i think i am more confused about the process than i was at 16. but once a boy gave me a bed so i guess i cant complain.

if you have been in striper world too long...

2008-02-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

i wouldnt mind starting a dating service. i like to set people up. like just the other day i emailed my friend on facebook and said you should meet my other friend on facebook and you know LOVE EACH OTHER. but sadly no one has ever paid me to do it. so far this has only been voluntary and unsolicited and mildly annoying. anyway sometimes i accidentally watch the millionaire matchmaker. like right now.

patty is really good at setting people up. she is in love with love. but she only works with millionaires because she understands their love best. so i guess that niche has already been taken.

these are just some things i learned and/or were said in just one episode:
1)red heads just arent the freshest produce on the aisle.
2) you shouldnt sign people up if they are drunk
3) he is an ass guy an ass guy! (i believe patty said this after some guy said he wasnt in to double d boobs. way to decode guy speak patty).
4) activities i enjoy...steamy hot showers (the next time someone asks me what i like to do you can bet your bottom dollar steamy hot showers will come out of my mouth between hiking and crossword puzzles).
5) she had two girls who went to harvard and two who did strip aerobics. totally diversified population.
6) she is not the most comfortable around a pole.

i sort of blame the writers strike for the last 28 minutes of my life.

well why don't you just sit there holding hands and try figuring it out

2008-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

here's what i like about twin peaks: it's a soap opera. actually there are numerous reasons i think twin peaks is easily the best television show ever, but the soap opera aspect seems applicable to the dating blog.

as a soap opera, twin peaks has more than it's fair share of tangled relationships. audrey is in love with agent cooper while cooper is still (emotionally) mourning the death of his past love whose death he was responsible for while james and donna's relationship begins to blossom after laura's death until laura's cousin maddie (who looks exactly like laura with dark hair) comes to town and james starts to fall for her until she's murdered so donna starts hanging out with harold until he commits suicide while bobby, who was also with laura before she was murdered, starts living with shelley when her abusive husband leo ends up in a coma. there's also the question of who's the father of lucy's unborn child, hank or dick? then you have big ed and norma's relationship which remains secret since both are trapped in loveless marriages with big ed's wife nadine having a strange kind of amnesia where she thinks she's 18 and in high school while norma is stuck with hank since he's a controlling, vindictive ex-con. and nadine, since she thinks she's 18 and goes to high school, starts dating mike who was with donna before laura was murdered. and that's only a fraction of the characters. in fact, even this chart doesn't document half the relationships in the show.

what you have is a giant web of loves, betrayals, seductions, friendships and misunderstandings that link every member of the community with every other member.

twin peaks isn't simply and exaggeration of real life, like the soap opera genre generally, but an exaggeration of the soap opera genre. but with this double exaggeration, there's something that still resonates. think of your friends, acquaintances and exes; then think about how they all know each other, dated each other, known friends of friends who dated, hold grudges against and so on. it's just like twin peaks, except not as many murders and your friends aren't near as funny. that's not a dis on your (my) friends; it's just impossible to be as funny as twin peaks. so quit wasting your netflix on boring tv and watch something that really has relations to your own life. or not. twin peaks may not be for everybody.

cross pollinating

2008-01-30T09:32:00.000-08:00

you know how sometimes you just wake up knowing it’s going to be a weird day? that was me today. i came into work to an email from my boss talking about how he’s wearing green underwear. and then i got an email from my rep at our ad agency. let’s say her name is lucy lee. our account director (aka her boss) is named bobby joe.

so her email comes from a different email address, AND a different domain name (ie – not sent from the ad agency) and her name is noted as lucy joe. so let me do the math for you. boss is married to employee. secretly. she's using her maiden name at her job and her married name places where she isn't sleeping with her boss. sorta explains why their work performance has really gone downhill lately – i guess their meetings aren’t that professionally productive. and all this time i thought he was gay.

makes me feel less bad about dating the boss of one of our partnering companies.

Commence Indignation

2008-01-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

so i have been trying to get my friend cicada to guest blog for sometime. i think she said she would for sometime. at this point i am just going to take posts from her blog and guest post for her. i am not sure if that is illegal but i got permission from cicada and polly so i figure i am covered. anyway i think this post is probably about beer and breaking up.

I have a friend. We'll call her Polly.

Polly is one of my favorite people. She is kind, smart, pretty, friendly, fun, and dresses well. Really, it's a winning combination. If I were a guy, I'd date her.

Apparently not all guys think the way I think guys should think.

When I asked Polly about the guy she's been dating over the past month or so, she told me that they broke things off this weekend. I asked why. She said that he came over to visit her one evening and asked her where she thought things were going. She thought this was going to be a "good talk." Then he said that he had some concerns about her.

1) She's vain.

First of all, Polly is not what I would call a vain person. She is certainly pretty, and she does a great job of staying in shape and wearing fantastic clothes. But she's very down-to-earth. When she shared his first point with me, she said, "I only shop sales!!" She also pointed out that this conversation took place while she was wearing shorts and a sweatshirt. She also said that on their first date, when he was talking about what he valued in women, he mentioned that his wife had to be beautiful. I don't think that you can be more beautiful and down-to-earth than Polly. This guy is crazy. (And I'm glad that the craziness came out this early so that they could break things off!)

2) She has a low standard for the company she keeps.

Polly is the only active LDS member of her family. A lot of her friends aren't members of the church. One thing that has always impressed me about Polly is her ability to accept people as they are. I think that it's admirable that she doesn't pass judgment on others just because they make different choices than she does. She doesn't let their actions influence her, either. She honors her beliefs. She also wants to date good members of the church and marry someone who has the same beliefs and lifestyle that she does. That sounds pretty grounded to me. This guy indicated that she should not allow anyone to practice anything that is not in line with her beliefs in front of her, and gave the example that if he is in a bar, he expects everyone to refrain from swearing and expects the bartender to not offer him any alcoholic beverage because the bartender needs to respect his beliefs.

I may add here that this guy is a beer delivery man. So while he's judging Polly for associating with people who drink, he's stocking the city with alcohol.

3) She works too much.

Polly works a full time job. She also does some freelance reporting on the side. In addition to that, she teaches a dance class and does volunteer work. To me, that all looks impressive. It shows an ability to manage time well (and since she's so happy all the time, you know that she's got some good balance in her life). To him, this kind of work ethic, initiative, and income is too much. And I guess in this point I must concede. I totally understand how a beer deliverer would be threatened by her accomplishments and success.

After bringing up all these issues, Polly said that she'd be willing to go 50-50 with him and try to reach a compromise (that may be Polly's only mistake in this whole thing because in my opinion, she should have kicked him out on the curb after he brought up his three concerns). He told her, "Your faults are my mountains and I will die on those mountains before I will ever compromise."

We can only hope that he finds some mountains to die on.

we made each other plenty happy

2008-01-21T22:14:00.000-08:00

this movie may be offensive (it couples sexual innuendo with mormon art, architecture, etc.) so please watch (or dont watch) accordingly.

i tried to count the phallic and sexual symbols in this film but i lost count. followed by if this is turning into a music/dating blog clay pointed out the music in this short film is pretty sexy. i dont know if he was being sarcastic. (he said he wasnt). anyway this film might be offensive. but thats not why i posted it. its actually the ending to a long string of movies/tv programs i saw this weekend. they all had sex (and sexuality) themes. the movies, in order of how i viewed them goes as follows:

In Gods County
A tv program on sex trade in the US
Born in the wrong body
High Fidelity
LDS Homosexuality Pt. 1
then Mormon Erotica

the first movie was about sex abuse trade of girls and women in a religious (mormon fundamentalist) community portraying the problems that arise in an isolated/patriarchal/ polygamous society. oh and how the first thing you do when you leave mormonism is to drink coffee. the second program was about the sex trade and how girls/women from foreign countries are brought to the US and forced into becoming strippers/prostitutes. the third program i watched was about three different transgendered individuals, their struggle with their sexual identity, and their ultimate sex change operations. the fourth, high fidelity, is about a thirty something man's unsatisfying relationships with women and his inability to commit. the fifth was about a mormon who realized he was gay, decided to remain faithful to the church, but no longer felt his homosexual feelings were a sin (i recommend watching the whole thing. if you feel like a good cry. he builds this huge house for the family he realizes he will never have). the six and last show...well you saw it. its about the conflicting sexual attitudes in a conservative religious community.

sex is a tricky thing. i mean i dont think the actual act but everything surrounding it seems complicated. from all the media i viewed this weekend sexual identity appears to be equally complicated. i cant decide if religion further complicates or clarifies the matter. in a way it does both. obviously religion can be used to facilitate sexual abuse and that is universally frowned upon. but less obvious is the negative attitudes regarding sex that arise (maybe encouraged?) because of religion. i think i understand the origin of the problem. its hard to have a message of abstinence and the sacredness of sex but also talk about sex openly and positively. its hard to have a message of traditional families are the key to salvation but its ok to be gay. hell its even harder to say that gender is eternal but you were born gay (or the wrong gender). its hard to say something is God given and natural but should ONLY be expressed if you are married. its hard to say women should be pure and chaste but are actually sexual beings with sexual impulses and capable of having orgasms (multiple). its hard to say sex is primarily for having kids (so we encourage the kind that results in babies) but its important to have sex to express love (and nothing says i care like giving a bj).

i dont know how to make to sex more positive in religion while still emphasizing its significance. because it is. significant. i dont know how religion can be more accepting of sexual identity and give people the dignity of sexual identification and labeling. i dont know how to promote positive feelings about sex while encouraging celibacy until you are married. i dont know how to say you are an adult but its somehow a bad idea to have an adult (sexually speaking) relationship. i dont know how to explain that sex should be in a healthy, committed relationship because you do form emotional attachments and having sex because you need to be accepted or are having self esteem problems or because you are really sad or any of the other many bad reasons to have sex should definitely be avoided.

these are some of the questions i dont have answers to. but i do think i figured out that "petting" (as used in chastity talks and in the strength of youth pamphlet) is just a hand job.

A laundry list of problems doesn't make you interesting

2008-01-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

Increasingly, I have no idea what this blog is about. In fact, I have no idea what it was ever supposed to be about. The most consistant thing I have found is the lack of capital letters. Which just racks my mind even more, because nobody anywhere I Internet these days uses capital letters. It has gotten to where a capital letter on my computer screen is a refreshing thing, which is a really pathetic thing to be refreshed about.

To start, I no longer understand the title, "Modern, Serious Dating is Dead". At first, I liked the ring it had. It seemed like it was one of those f__k yous we always like to give to our parents and the way their generation was. But, it really isn't that. If it was, then we would have called it, "Old-Timer Serious Dating is Dead (so f__k you, Mom and/or Dad)". But, that doesn't have the ring to it that Modern, Serious Dating is Dead has, does it? To answer my own question, no, it does not.

See, I have a hard time with stuff when I can't break it down and make it make sense. For example, after ten years of trying to figure out why the phrase "and how" means what is does, I finally gave up and started using it. How can modern serious dating be dead, when we are in the modern? Dead stuff is past-tense. Maybe it could be "Modern: Serious Dating is Dead".

I have a simple mind and sometimes it is troubled by ridiculous things.

Now, if the title had nothing to do with anything, then I would be at total peace with everything. I can embrace things that don't make sense if they aren't supposed to make sense. But, this title has something to do with things. I don't want the title be changed, because I still like it, I just want to come to terms with it. This is a me problem, and I know that.

I am also having a hard time finding my place on this blog because I have been seriously dating a babe for going on 11 months now. It seems like the only thing most common on this blog than incorrectly uncapitalized letters is weird dating stories. If I had any weird stories to share, I couldn't share it here because my woman reads this blog more than I do. In fact, talk of any sort about our serious dating would be awkward. I wonder if all I have to offer is mushy stuff about me and my woman. I don't want to do that, though. Besides, that's Jefe's job.

I guess I could offer up my services to answer any questions since people in relationships are so great at dispensing advice. It's something I could definitely do. You ask me a question, I post you an answer. You wouldn't be that enlightened, though, because I don't really know what I am talking about. Remember my first post on here? It was about how much I like boobs. That's about all I got when it comes to dating. I can make stuff up, though. On the ldslinkup, I started a thread about online scoring chicks. It didn't really go anywhere, though.

Oh, wait. I just thought of something. Double dating. Me and Lisa are in pretty high demand in the double-dating department. Or, at least people keep telling us that they want to "double" with us. Maybe they are lying. We have only done it a few times, and I think we're pretty good at it. Last time, I tried to get really nervous about it so that it would seem like a bigger deal than it was, but it turned out to be pretty fun and really easy. All it is is hanging out, which I mastered like three years ago. So, this topic is a bust. I, as a dating blogger am a bust.

What the earth do you want from me?

Jewelry, supply closets, and racking men

2008-01-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

we have yet another guest poster. this post was submitted by ck's sister meghan from denver, colorado. i think this is a great post about what the holidays can do to relationships, dating co-workers and adultery. enjoy.

You know you’re in trouble when your co-worker tells you he has a surprise for you but he can’t bring it into work because it’s only for you and he can’t do it over the lunch break ‘cause it’ll take longer than thirty minutes….Needless to say when my co-worker who will remain anonymous (that makes it seem like I’m nice, but in reality he’s the only male that works in my office) told me this I seriously contemplated slashing my own car tires just to have an excuse to not drive over to his apartment. But tires are expensive so instead I followed him to his apartment and clutched my mace as I entered his humble abode.

Let me back up a little bit. This is the same co-worker that knows I’m in a long distance relationship (we have both decided that we’re not exclusive at the moment. I just have to throw that in there so that when you read the next paragraph you won’t think I’m a hussy.) This is also the boy who took me to the world series game. If you don’t put out after getting taken to the world series, chances are you’re never going to. But does that make people give up? Oh no, it makes them buy you insanely huge Christmas bags that you can crawl into and have a tea party in with your three favorite dolls. Inside the bag of insane proportions were about fifteen individually wrapped presents – all of them being very goofy and funny and dripping with “our inside jokes” amazing how a joke can be so inside that you don’t even realize it exists. After we chuckled and I did an awkward shuffle towards the door…he pulled out my “real present.” It was a white gold gorgeous sapphire necklace, the dumb thing really is easily valued over $200. (I googled it) And what did I get from my actual boyfriend in a different state?? I’d rather not talk about it...though that’s just say it was easily valued at $0.

So now rumors are soaring at work ‘cause my nameless co-worker had to tell everyone what he got me for Christmas and now I keep having to drop my dumb “I can’t get you anything for Christmas” boyfriend’s name every five seconds. Well here comes my next story to help add to the awkwardness. So we’ve been remodeling our office and apparently in order to remodel an office you need a hammer, lots of paint, and extremely hot construction workers. The head construction worker is what we call blessed in the look department. Every single woman in my office would get giggly and drooly whenever he walked in – everyone except me of course ‘cause I was too busy being a smart a*& to him. So we began this little sarcastic flirt whatever you want to call it thing.

Well one day they were measuring how close to put the cabinets and in order to figure it out they needed to know how big the mirrors were that go in between the cabinets. (if you saw the office, that sentence really would make sense.) The mirrors were in our upstairs storage closest and I was the lucky one chosen to show the hot worker where they were so he could measure them. So we ventured upstairs, walked into the storage closest, he closed the door and threw me up against the wall and a make out session began. I mean what else is one to do when you’re in a storage closest alone together?? (I got kissed in a storage closest at my brother’s wedding while I was trying to find a broom, yea that was awkward. And I kissed my boss in the toys r us attic thing. Wow I am a hussy. So moral of this rant is never ever go into a storage closet. Nothing moral will ever emerge) . When there was a break in the kissing he pulled back and where an insanely sweet romantic I-don’t-know-you-but-you’re-hot comment should have been instead there was a “I’m a married man….” Yea loads of remorse streaming off that comment (note the sarcasm). Amazing how quickly a person can become the ugliest person you’ve ever laid eyes on. So after a few choice words I stormed back downstairs. You would think that that would stop him right? Oh no, next day he asked me if I wanted to meet him in the downstairs bathroom in five minutes. I told him to go to hell but I don’t think that was wise of me ‘cause if he actually listens to me I’ll end up running into him there. I’ve kissed a married man! Cursed lips!!!! Bla ewww bla.

the beauty of speed

2008-01-12T16:02:00.000-08:00

judith butler argues that gender is a performance. there are all these attitudes, acts, gestures and behaviors that a body adopts to appear normal. there is a broad set of acts that culturally constitute normal maleness and another set for normal femaleness. what counts is our ability to perform these roles correctly. these acts, however, are only "expressions of the political structures of a certain culture at a certain phase in its history" even though they are represented (culturally, religiously and/or scientifically) as normal and inevitable. failure to correctly perform gender roles can lead to isolation, harassment, violence, rape and even death. yet we all fail, at times, in our gender(ed) performances. could this be a kind of natural resistance to the artificiality of gender?

if our notions of gender are artificial productions of institutions that need individual subjects to perform these roles correctly as a strategy of (self)regulation and institutional power retention, what are we to do? expose gender as a fake through subversion.

i've been thinking a lot about love songs lately. or rather, i've been thinking about love songs that challenge the conventions of the love song. and since this blog appears to now temporarily function as a music/dating (or a dating-music) blog, i'll use it to ramble on about some unfocused thoughts on love songs.

but first i want to undermine (in my own way) good taste. ask any of my friends or family and they'll tell you that i don't believe (1) in any kind of transcendent aesthetics (meaning that i don't think any piece of art, and i include nearly everything in my definition of art, is objectively good or bad) and (2) we don't choose what we like but rather like the music we like for a million reasons we're usually not even conscious of from status-markers to identification with certain sub-cultures to nostalgic triggers.

back to love songs.

i have an idea to make a modern, serious dating is dead mix-tape. (i actually mean a mix cd or ipod playlist but i think we all understand that mix-tapes rarely are tapes now-a-days.) it would be full of the kind of love songs i respond to: odd, disjointed, full of strange metaphors for love and sex, sarcastic, hopeless while hopeful and noisy. i'm work-shopping it now and will be happy to distribute this future mix-tape to any readers and/or contributors of this blog. but i am sure that most of you will hate it.

two songs that i know will make the cut: "collide" by beat happening and "some candy talking" by the jesus and mary chain.

above is beat happening probably playing a show in someone's house. but don't let their home-made, minimal, nerdy and naive appearance fool you; they're dead serious. their music might be low-fi, fey and child-like (in the best possible way) but their lyrics are dark and complex dripping with sex and violence. "collide," for instance, is about sex and nothing else. collide becomes a euphemism for sex that's repeated over and over and over throughout the song broken up by snippets of even sexier lyrics like "you're lying there," or "take off your shirt" or "you earthquake all over me." but you never realize just how much sex is the song because the music is so simple and sweet.

and that's the jesus and mary chain. as you can see, they're all about haircuts. a lot of people think "some candy talking" is about heroin, but if it is, it's probably the second best love song about heroin (the first being the velvet underground's "heroin"). but love and drugs seem related anyway. i like it because it's all feedback and white noise with this pretty melody talking about liking the way she's walking and talking.

he has good taste

2008-01-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

proud to call you family

2008-01-07T20:14:00.000-08:00

i always feel like i have to sell my dad on my boyfriends. i don't. he's always way more supportive than my mom. but i still feel like i do. which is why when i announced to him that i'm officially in a relationship i started describing all of the guy's good qualities. then i told him how mom approves and so does my bishop and my sister. he stopped me and said

dad - you don't need to convince me. i know he's a great guy.
me - yeah. and even if you didn't, everybody else does and if you can't beat em join em, right?
dad - exactly. it reminds me of one of my favorite sayings
me - which is?
dad - a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.
me - .......
.........................
....what does that even mean?
dad - i have no idea. it's a funny saying though, huh?

remains of the saint

2008-01-04T21:36:00.000-08:00

bishop: do you have problems paying your tithing?
me: no. bishop how many times do i have to tell you i only want to drink coffee and mess around with boys.
bishop: oh boy.
me: seriously.
bishop: i hate being a bishop.
me: i bet (that last part is made up but i think its true).

Bishop: Are you dating?
Me: No.
Bishop: Are you trying?
Me: No.
Bishop: Do you want to try?
Me: No.
Bishop: Should we talk about something else?
Me: Yes.

bishop: its fine to kiss boys.
me: ummm yeah. i sort of just end up doing all that stuff we just went over.
bishop: try a nice kiss goodnight (no tongue).
me: bishop i'm not going to make it.
bishop: you might... (i made this part up too)(technically he was much more optimistic).

Bishop: how do you feel about the things you've done?
Me: bad.
Bishop: Are you ever going to do them again?
Me: hesitate.
Me: hesitate.
Me: hesitate.
Me: um...
Me: (inside my head): no promises.

Someone told me theres a girl out there, With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair

2008-01-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

i believe that everyone comes into my life for a reason. i've mostly always felt that way. work friends, real friends, people i date... with people i date especially. i'm not talking one date. i'm talking about people i "date". no matter how short-lived it was, or how badly it ended, i truly believe there was a reason we came together. maybe i had something to learn from them, or something to teach them, etc.

i've thought about his a lot, and God doesn't put people in my life to date in order for me to find an eternal companion. no, he puts people into my life to date to introduce me to new awesome music. true, i've done quite a bit of the introducing myself, but let's take a look at several important people in my life who have made an impact on my music library. if it wasn't an introduction to the band, i surely fell in love with the band because of my introduction to the person. their names have been left out to protect me. fine, them too.

1. the southern baptist skater boy who was several years older than me and scared the crap out of my parents: 8th grade. he introduced me to the smiths and OMD. he introduced me to lots more, but these two have stuck with me big time. as a side note, he's also the reason i was into skaters and skaters only for like 10 years. oh, and he's the first boy who made me cry myself to sleep.

2. the first: 11th grade - freshman in college. he introduced me to the eagles, journey, and tears for fears to name a few. i still love all those bands. mostly. also, "the first" isn't referring to sex.

3. the bfffs: screamy music, taking back sunday and mcr, frou frou, rilo kiley, the sounds. but mostly the honorary title. say what you will, i love it all. lately he's been into pat benetar and clapton. i don't know what that means. he also effed me up pretty badly. was it worth the music? maybe not. was it worth everything else? probably.

4. the british boyfriend: gave me, in addition to jose gonzales, lots of british music before it was released in the u.s. of a. the kooks, arctic monkeys, nizlopi. i still think of him when i hear going to california by zeppelin.

5. the latest: what can i say, i hit the jackpot. wilco, radiohead, kings of leon, feist, my morning jacket, wilco, spoon, kings of convenience, sufjan, blonde redhead, radiohead, lcd soundsystem, devotchka, amongst others. some of my favorite music in life thus far was introduced to me through this one. but you know what one of the best things i got from this one was? my twin

i only keep dating to keep the music alive.

Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me

love is going on

2007-12-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

so today i went to costco on my lunch break. there were a lot of cheese samples. there was also some kid that becky i knew back in the day (probably six or seven years ago in provo). he approached me with a baby and said:

some kid: what was your name again?
natali: natali
some kid: oh thats right.
natali: how are you? i see you had a baby. thats great.
some kid: i didnt have a baby. i was a part of the process but my wife actually had the baby.
natali: in my head (i just remembered how much i didnt/dont like you. i know men cant bear children. well i think i read somewhere a man had a baby once. but obviously it was a science/social experiment and not naturally occurring. why would you make such a lame joke? perhaps you just want people to really think about your sex life/acts/penis. that is probably the real motive behind that comment because humor cannot be it).
natali: anywayyyyyy.... she is a cute baby (she wasnt).

i had a flash back to six (maybe seven) years ago when he tried to date our whole apartment. he was always kissing becky on the check. he pretended it was because she was latin (she isnt)(he knew). he was just hoping she would forget how annoying he was and let him kiss her mouth. she didnt forget. then there was our other roommate (haley) who was actually interested in him. they cuddled sometimes but it never got too far. they had been cuddling the night before this very conversation:

some kid: so natali can i take you to dinner sometime?
natali: (no. what a relief i have a built in excuse) arent you interested in my roommate haley? in fact didnt you cuddle with her until 3:34 a.m. last night?
some kid: sure. but i am interested in you too.
natali: yes well about that.....
some kid: cant i read the natali and haley books at the same time?
natali: um no. you have to finish one first. we arent a library you know. you read one and return it then you can start on the second one. and even then unless you just sort of skimmed the first one its frowned upon. (i really dont know why i have to explain this to you. everyone knows this. i will probably run into you in six or seven years at costco and you will make some lame ass joke about how your wife actually had a baby and not you).

and i did.

some people's ex-boyfriends

2007-12-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

remember this guy? he was ruthless when it came to asking me out on dates. any chance he got – even if i was sitting there with my youngin boyfriend at the time. so, i got word that this guy just called the youngin (mind you, we broke up back in august when he went back to school) and asked, “do you mind if i ask ck out?” to which the youngin thought a) would’ve been nice if you asked my permission back when we were actually dating and b) where the hell did you get your dating etiquette? but instead he said “fine by me.” which i secretly hate him for

those love songs sung so suddenly

2007-12-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

in a comment from the previous post, i parenthetically remarked that dating involves more than simply the assessing and acquiring of potential mates. i may be wrong about that. in some sense, everything we do is motivated by the possibility of sex (or motivated by the consequences of sex as in the raising of children). i mean, it's all in our genes, right? but maybe that's a bit reductionist.

what was my point?

have you ever been on a date where both of you knew, pretty much the minute the date starts, that there was no possibility of sex between the two of you either that night or ever?

(is this a fairly normal occurrence on blind dates? if so, i think it's because who you're attracted to is a complicated matter, one you have a difficult time articulating to yourself. so how are your friends and family going to choose someone you'll like?)

one time i was set up on a blind-date by my friend jenny. she set me up with someone in her institute class. here's how the pre-date phone call went:

her: hello?
me: hello?
her: who is this?
me: brian. who's this?
her: sarah.
brian: hi sarah. your classmate, jenny, said i should call you.
sarah: oh yes. she thought we should hang out sometime, so i wanted to ask you: would you like to come with me to this cinco de mayo party on friday?
brian: sure.

during this part of the phone conversation, we hammered out the details of the date and i received directions to her friend's house where we'd meet before the cinco de mayo party. i wrote the directions to her house on my hand in magic marker. here's the end of the phone conversation:

sarah:how do you know jenny?
brian: i met her through work.
sarah: she is so great; she has the strongest testimony.
brian: i wonder why she's never bore it to me.
sarah: should we start to get to know each other now or wait until the date?
brian: we could start now. [long pause.] what's your favorite beatles' record?
sarah: sgt. peppers.

i forgot what else we talked about. as i hung up the phone, i do remember thinking we probably weren't going to hit it off. i think she felt the same way.

so the next day i'm driving around some neighborhood in sugarhouse checking street names and house numbers against the information i have markered on my hand. i finally arrive at what i think is the house. i check the number on the house: 628. i check the number on my hand: 628. right then a cadillac pulls into the driveway of 628. someone's grandparents get out of the car. i don't want to walk up to the door with these grandparents so i pretend to be looking for something in the back seat of my car. but grandpa's got a walker and i don't know how long i can reasonably fumble through these papers in my back seat without drawing attention to myself. i should just get out now, i think to myself. out of the date? probably, but instead i get out of the car and walk to the door. i'm half way up the driveway when the grandparents are let in.

the lady at the door: hello. you must be brian. sarah's inside.

so then i'm introduced around. there's sarah, sarah's friend, sarah's friend's parents, sarah's friend's grandparents, sarah's friend's younger brother, sarah's friend's boyfriend, another friend of sarah's and that girl's boyfriend. we still had 25 minutes until the enchiladas would be finished cooking. then sarah's friend's younger brother's prom date showed up. then everyone went out back to take room date photos leaving grandpa and i in the living room. we were watching a basketball game. i think it was a playoff game between the kings and the lakers back when kobe was just a kid. then grandpa fell asleep. with everyone still in the backyard and looking to be back there for a while, i knew what i had to do. i got up, walked out the front door, jumped in my car and drove off.

sweep it under the rug and hope for the best

2007-11-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

i saw lake of fire last week at the tower. it's a complicated documentary about abortion. it's visually interesting (or at least unsettling), approaches the issue of abortion from all sorts of perspectives, focuses on the reasons for the politicization of the issue and challenges your position on abortion regardless of what that position is. fight, my roommate, asked if it would be a good first-date movie. we decided it would be as long as he pretended he didn't know the movie was about abortion.

what do any of you think?

imagine you where asked out for a first date and the guy is like, "i heard about this documentary that supposed to be really good. i'm not sure what it's about but my roommate said it's definitely worth seeing." then you go to the movie and it turns out to be about abortion. then after the movie is over, the guy's like, "i was just kidding about not knowing what the movie was about, but i thought it would be a good icebreaker for our conversation after the movie." would you want to go on another date with this guy?

(p.s. the movie shows two abortions but the guy is charming and funny.)

settling to settle down

2007-11-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

i've been thinking a lot about settling lately. not in the sense that i'm thinking about doing it. just the concept.

i've found that the older i've gotten and the more i've gotten to know myself and determine the things in life that are important to me, my "deal breakers" have changed. or disappeared. something that was a deal breaker for me 5 years ago is something i don't even think about anymore.

but here's the thing....where is the line drawn between losing deal breakers and settling? if we are in a relationship with someone, and there are red flags and deal breakers, do we just tell ourselves that things aren't deal breakers because we are in love and it hurts too bad to think about things ending? maybe everyone who settles has just convinced themselves that they have matured, or become more open-minded or accepting and that their deal breakers have changed, when in reality they still care deeply about those things but assume that in the long run it will work itself out. and then i just think in the long run you discover that they didn't work themselves out and those things were important to you and now you are unhappy. or not necessarily unhappy but unfulfilled.

that's what i am starting to think anyway.

i am not going to say i dont believe in evolution just so i can be friends with robyn

2007-11-08T17:11:00.000-08:00

i generally encourage relationships. generally. there are always the unhealthy ones i frown upon. but relationships end right. well some end. the majority end. so i guess i am wondering the morality behind actively trying to break up a couple. is it wrong to facilitate the process? is it more wrong when you want to date the person you are trying to break up. it seems wrong. but it doesnt stop me from doing it on the occasion.

such an occasion arose last weekend when my friend came into town. his family hates his girlfriend. as do i. but really only because they are dating and not because i have ever met her or know any personality traits that are worthy of my dislike. so his brother in an attempt to get rid of the (non)offending gf once and for all asked me to seduce his brother. i said creepy and sure. however, my seduction skills were promptly called into question. i am awkward and unsmooth and uncomfortable with touch(ing)(people i havent touched before)(regardless if i like them). i blame it on being skinny. skinny people have a harder time with smooth movements and coordination and circulation. anyway i said i would attempt a seduction, even if it was uncomfortable--for the greater good.

actually the conversation went like this:

friend: we hate my brother's gf
natali: seriously how are they still (living) together.
friend: maybe you could seduce him and they would break up
natali: i am not against this idea
friend: too bad you really shitty at seducing
natali: jerkface. how would you know?
friend: you are really awkward
natali: true but if i put my mind to it i think i get push past it get the job done
friend: we are screwed
natali: well maybe just your brother (get it screwed?)

so said brother and i hung out all weekend and i tried to sabatoge his relationship. he is interviewing for a job in utah but his gf doesnt want to move here. i told him he would love salt lake. i said the word fun a lot. i have no business using that word so freely. i also planted lots of seeds of doubt surrounding his current relationship. so there was that. and then on the 38th time of saying he should just move to slc he told me what was the point i would just get married the second he moved here. that is probably when i promised i would not get married. lie. i probably will. i actually thought i would right before he moved here. that is just the kind of timing i see myself having.

as for the actual seduction i mostly just gave him a prolonged hug. and told him i might have cancer (sexy i know) and he said if i DID he would come back to see me. i thought that was really nice. so maybe i will fake cancer. which i already know to be immoral so i wont debate it.

michael scott and soy sauce

2007-10-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

i had this dream last night where i was at a wedding reception and somebody asked me to make a sauce for the cake. they told me to mix whey and soy sauce to make it…so, i was rummaging through the kitchen looking for soy and whey. it was a big kitchen. there were lots of drawers and cupboards. who has whey at their house? who knows what whey is? needless to say, i couldn’t find any of the ingredients. and it was hot. so i took my jacket off and kept rummaging. all of a sudden, steve carrel sat down at the kitchen table and started talking to me. we were just shooting the breeze for awhile and the whole time i kept thinking “why doesn’t he help me look for these ingredients? why is he just sitting here talking to me.” and then i looked down and noticed that i didn’t have a shirt on under my jacket so i was standing there in my bra. and i thought “ohhh – that explains it.”

why is this on the dating blog? eh, i don’t know. it was a wedding reception.

serious case of the aches

2007-10-18T16:25:00.001-07:00

i have been thinking about how best to approach work shopping dating. somehow i am going to compile the posts and comments and come up with something that is...complied. then i will give it to people for christmas presents.

the way i see it is that every post already fits into some category. but i would like to hone it a bit. i think what i would like to do is solicit posts regarding a general area of dating one at a time so that we have more direction and focus. that being said i really want the contributors to write whatever they hell they want. most of you are on inactive status anyway. so i am just pressuring you to write.

oh so here is the topic that is open for debate/discussion/definition/etc:

What constitutes predating/initial dating/casual dating/attraction and or chemistry?

Breaking up with your girlfriend's boyfriend.

2007-10-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

I don't think blog entries need introduction but I think that this one might need some explanation. You see my girlfriend and I recently had an amazing modern, serious dating experience which we collectively felt needs to be told to the world. It's been a while since I have written an entry so I felt, as did she, that this was the perfect opportunity to write a blog about a recent experience that we hope helps you, the collective readers of this blog, to make good dating choices.

So I'll start out...My gf and I have been happily dating for about four months (and argumentatively for one month). During this time of courtship my gf told me that she had this admirer from across the ocean, I won't say where (England), who was writing her consistently. I figured that was ok, after all, it wasn't like the guy was an exotic European like Spanish, Italian or Austrian...(Think Shwarzanegger). Let's face it, English and sexy don't go together, David Bowie had to start cross dressing just to be considered sexy. How big of threat could he be? He lived a continent away, he was on the loosing end of a two-hundred year-old butt kicking that we celebrate annually by blowing crap up.

Then in August his emails started becoming more and more frequent...I'll let my gf explain.

Dr. Girlfriend
So let me give you some background on how this relationship blossomed into his obsession with me. I have some British friends who had a friend over from England. They told me that he was bored and that he needed to go out with some American girls. I was sort of dateless and let's face it desperate at the time so I agreed to go out with him. I picked him up (he can't drive in America) and we had an amazingly romantic night at the Sizzler and the pictures (British for movies.) It wasn't the best date of my life but it wasn't the worst either. So he wanted to go out again and I being still dateless agreed to go. At the end of the date he kissed me on both sides of my face and asked for my email address I gave it to him thinking that if I ever went to Britland I would have at least one person to show me around. So keep in mind this was a total of 2 dates. TWO DATES!

Jefe
Let me interject here a few things before we continue. English guys are pervy, I can just see this lechorous old fart (did she mention that he's a decade older than she is?) licking his wind cracked lips with a smarmy grin shuddering as he says "blimey mate, I sure would like to get me hands on some good American tail." Also, ladies if you go to a guys hometown who you think is kind of creepy the last thing you want them to do is be your tour guide. Trust me, you will be better chasing around the fat, white tennis shoe wearing tour groups, at least you won't end up on the ass end of London wondering if this was the last alley some of Jack the Ripper's victims saw.

Dr. Girlfriend
Anyways the email started out friendly but then they got more and more frantic. This is the one I received that set Jefe off. I will paste some of the best parts here..
"Well before I retire I need to ask you if you received my last 4 e-mail's I
sent you,I'm presuming you did,but I didn't hear any replies back from you.
Anyway I sent you one on the 6th august and mentioned that I was more than
likely coming over for thanksgiving,so I was really hoping to meet up with
you again and see if we get on as well as we did before,also so I can book
ticket's and make plan's with you.By the way where are the photo's of the
red dress your mom brought you,you promised me you would send me some. Hope this reaches you and the other one's I sent you did also. love and miss you lot's."

That's straight from the email.

Jefe
I wouldn't say it set me off, but I certainly felt like this was a problem, kind of like the little pest who keeps threatening you, even when his big bully body guard friend is gone. The thing that bothered me was that my girl friend hadn't told him we were dating, and she assured me he looked like this...

Now I'm no Tom Jones, but I certainly can out shoot that guy in a pretty-pretty contest. Still I felt that it was only respectful that my girl friend told this guy that she was involved with me.

Dr. Girlfriend
So Jefe decides to send him an ever so friendly to let him down easy. This is basically how it went. met a boy, he lives in Salt Lake, he's a school teacher, he loves
the gospel and we've been seeing each other for about five months, he
met my family at the end of July and they love him, as do I. That's
why I haven't written you in so long, it's been a busy summer, when I
haven't been working or planning parties, I've been with him.

I'm sorry I haven't written you sooner about this, I think you're a
wonderful friend, and I really would like to see you again if you come
to America, but I would feel better if your plans didn't totally
revolve around me.

There are many women who would be lucky to have you, it's just the
distance between us was so far and life moves so quickly, I wish you
well, and hope for the best for you.

I think that makes it pretty clear. Don't you? Well here is the response I got. The title of the email was best "if i don't see you" and then what followed was this.

just need to know and ask you this one question in one of the e-mails you
sent me when I got back ,you asked when I was coming back over and what my
plans were for the summer.If I had come back in may or june would there of
been
any chance of us getting together and something happening between us?
I just thought we got on really well and was hoping to carry on where we
left off from february.I only ask because of the e-mail you sent me today,it
sounds like if it wasn't the distance between us that you mentioned,there
would of been something there between us-answer yes or let me know if I'm
reading it right.
Anyway I only ask because I had a friend who I was helping out staying with
me,he's getting married in 2 wks to a sister missionary who served in my
ward.She finished her mission and they kept in touch by phone when she got
back,it's been a long process for them but they've sorted the visa's out
from both sides and now she's over her till they both go back.
Anyway I'll go now but boy's find it harder to deal with than girl's,it may
sound daft what I've asked but I'm devastated and will have to see how I
feel when I come over.

Jefe
"WHAT?" I said out loud when I read this. I'm not known for my alpha-male prowess when it comes to girls, admittedly I'm kind of an emo-ult (emotionaly+adult = emo-ult) when it comes to girls. Even I knew that this was ridiculous. Which really reminded me of what I said earlier about Jack the Ripper, I'm still wondering where in White Chapel this chap resides!

You see, the first letter I really wanted to let him down easy. When I read this second letter I realized that this guy was actually making a play for my girlfriend! I decided that if this limey snaggletooth wanted to have a chivalrous fight for the heart of my gf, then the gloves were coming off. This time I sent him (yes me, my gf didn't really want to have anything to do with writing him back) a very poignant letter that was going to impress upon him the idea that not only were his electronic advances on her unwanted and inappropriate, but that it was borderline electronic assault!

Dr. Girlfriend
So this is the email that Jefe sent (with my approval of course) I would like to be honest too. My boyfriend and I love each other alot. Things are pretty serious between us.

To be honest I think your absolutely wonderful and I had a nice time
with you but I didn't feel anything more than friendship between us.
It is this reason that I wrote to you to begin with. I think you are a
great guy, I know that somewhere there is a girl waiting for you,
dying to meet you who will appreciate you for all of the good
qualities you possess.

I thought Jefe did a great job of being as direct as possible this time. I just hoped it would finally get through to this guy that despite all of the fantasies in his head about us being eternal companions stuck on seperate continents would be obliterated. So after that email I got no response. I told my british girlfriend about it the whole thing and she said he usually took things like this way to far and pretty hard. She said she hoped he wasn't sucidal. I began to worry, I didn't really want to be responsible for something like that. So a month passed and I still didn't hear from him until one day I got this email...

hi there it's me writing to thank you for the e-mail,I'm glad your'e
so
happy and you were honest with me(even though it does hurt)I'm still hoping
to come over for thanksgiving and stay with the friends I stayed with last
time. Well I'll get going now but I'll see how I feel when I come over and if you
want to see us again.

So I have to say I am glad he didn't commit suicide over our internet break up but you got say this guy doesn't back down easy.

Jefe
First of all, what's up with the usage of plural nouns to describe himself. If I say "us" in meaning "me" wouldn't you assume that A) I am schizophrenic with multiple personalities. B) I'm Karl Malone or C) The fleshy facilitator of the spirits known as legion? I know it's petty to be so persnickety about such details, but you can see how exasperated I am at this point! This guy is relentless. I thought that after he hadn't emailed my gf for a month that things were over, unfortunaetly this guy thinks that no matter what him and my gf are destined to be together.

So, what's the reason for all this. Well, I like to think of it as a small morality play. First, for all of you who are chasing tirelessly after that lad or lassie that you think is the one and she isn't returning your phone calls, or he isn't taking you out on honest to goodness dates, they arne't in to you. If your most intimate conversations occur through text message, if your most meaningful means of communication is email, it's not working. If you went out on two dates and you feel like it's meant to be, then it's time you put your heart and your head back in the oven of maturity, because you were taken out a little early, and your still a wee bit soft in the middle.

Second, if you have a stocker, if they be at home or abroad try being honest. You help no one by indulging people's hopes. Your not being kind, your being cruel in a very socially exceptable way, which really isn't exceptabel at all. The hard thing is that sometimes that person your unintentionally (or intentionally) stringing along will do some pretty amazing things to keep you interested, like invite you to stay with them in their exotic home country (England?) They may offer to buy you tickets to see Arcade Fire, or buy you huge teddies. The truth is that as the mentally healthy one, you need to take a stand and kind of push people through their misguided feelings and guide them in the right direction. Trust me, there is someone just as crazy as them (or you) that will love them for who they are, rotten teeth and all.

he built himself a world and put people on it

2007-10-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

i was at my niece's birthday party a week or so ago when my dad told me about how he read that people are attracted to each other because of pheromones. specifically, he said, we respond to pheromones secreted by people with different immune systems than us. this makes sense since the offspring would have a more more complex immune system which would lead to a higher chance of survival. this bit of information from my dad surprised me because we have very different views on the evolutionary history of humans -- he believes god plays a big part in it while i barely believe in god. but whatever. the point of this retelling is you (and i mean i) would be surprised how many people believe that biological processes not controlled by our conscious self largely determine our social interactions.

lewis thomas talked about this stuff all the time. i think because he was an entomologist and saw humans sharing many of the characteristics of other social species like ants and bees. the example of his that comes to mind is how his researcher friend would measure his beard trimmings of periods of time he was out in the wild doing research where he didn't see any females versus the periods of time he lived in the city (and saw females and interacted with females all the time). he grew substantially more facial hair when he was around women.

twice in my life, i've created arbitrary checklists for girls i would be interested in. it's a stupid thing to do, but it was supposed to be a joke about people who prefer blonds over brunettes or whatever other superficial way we construct our dream baby. (i mean baby in a gender-inspecific, pet name kind of way, but mostly i used dream baby because i like the roy obirson song by the same name.) but the joke really didn't work because i didn't realize i was (and am) an idiot.

the first time i was 22 and had just got out of provo. my checklist: (1) didn't own a cellphone and (2) listened to the pixies. the first girl i liked after creating the checklist owned and regularly operated a cellphone and barely knew who the pixies were. the second checklist came a year later: (1) live within 15 minutes of me, (2) own a car since i hate to drive and (3) play(ed) soccer. the next girl i liked, while living close and owning a car, didn't like soccer.

so much for my checklists. but i'm ok with having no control over who i'm attracted to. i let my genes handle that.

(p.s. i used to think the pixies were cool and while i still like doolittle, the jesus and mary chain are way cooler.)

Strung Along No More...

2007-10-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

i meant to do some sort of introduction for guest posters but of course but i forgot at the time and then remembered today when i asked brian about it. he suggested doing some sort of italic introduction at the beginning of any guest post. that is what this is. the author tends to like bold pure colors... greens and blues.... sometimes rust and burgundy... i believe this post was inspired (and correct me if i am wrong) by my post on what is or isnt a relationship/dating and the ever changing definitions/situations.

How is this for a dating story… or um… I don't know what to call it since I was never really given permission to define the drama… but according to the criteria…
1. Held hands
2. Kissed
3. Kissed more
4. Stopped kissing
5. Still held hands
6. Invited to move into boys house when girl needed a place to stay
7. Most holding of the hands and cuddling stopped
8. Emotional intimacy and occasional hand holding and cuddling

In girls mind: more than just friends
Boy’s introduction: housemate

In the beginning:
Boy pursues... but then he just really doesn't… Girl interested and then not… girl deletes boys number… boy calls several times… he is pursuing again… girl interested again… girl spends most of summer with boy… because of lame circumstances girl ends up living in boys house temporarily… he offered… a month later boy meets another girl at a party… original girl is at the same party… boy starts dating the other girl… this is confusing… girl original doesn't understand… two days prior boy shared very intimate conversation… cried… and boy and girl cuddled… boy told girl how much he cares about girl… and that these things take time…and everything he likes about her… boy is totally sincere… (Girl being of the salt of the earth kind of girl recognizes sincerity)…

Okay… so two days after totally intense conversation boy goes on date with new girl… of course old girl knows about this because she lives in his house and can read him like a book… boy calls meeting up with the another girl just something to do… boy insists that he has feelings for girl original… talks about how he will miss her when she is gone… girl is not convinced… girl tells him so… girl and boy talk about it for several hours… next day boy hugs girl … smiles… flirts…at this point girl doesn't trust boy and will not be lured in by his ways… and of course that night boy goes out with new girl again and tells third roommate that she is "a woman I am seeing"… boy is a liar to girl original…
Girl number one loses respect for boy… she is finished

But wait… why does it infuriate the girl when boy brings new girl over… if girl really is finished why would she be so enraged??? Girl so close to telling girl in front of boy that she is “only something to occupy time”… but girl leaves for yoga instead.

Girl is angry…

In yoga girl imagines a little three inch version of herself totally enraged… girl holds the little angry self in her hand and watches her… it was kind of weird and cool in a very cosmic sort of way…

Later in conversation a friend tells girl she has no right to be angry because she knew what she was getting into… girl realizes it is true… girl was seeking a relationship with a boy who is too broken to have one… it is not girls fault… it is not boys fault… it just is…girl is looking for clarity and the ability to honestly see the truth in the situation… to understand what it is girl was looking for in boy and how she would and will never get it…

Even with this newfound clarity that will continue to clarify…

Girl original ate love brownies made by new girl…it is the least new girl could do for original girl… thanks for the brownies… they were really good… good luck new girl… and it will probably not be as fun as you think it will be.

Girl original is now doing yoga everyday… sweating the boy out of her system…replacing him with an open-heart… clear mind… and connected spirit…not to mention a smoking body…

i am dealing with it on a date to date basis

2007-09-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

i think brians idea for everyone to workshop (post) modern dating theory is a good one. although to a degree it has already been accomplished. dating standards, ideas norms, mores and values can be extrapolated from the previous posts but one must make a lot of assumptions and read between the lines (not unlike dating) in order to come to any conclusions. i think it would be interesting for everyone* to write about the different stages (i think brian did a great job of outlining those) and the problems in each stage and in general.

anyway i thought i would discuss predating. or my ideas on predating. situations i include in the predate are people you want to date, people you are actually dating (initial stages) or maybe even that guy at the bonfire on saturday who wants to ask you out when all you want to do is talk about autism and fire safety.** my analysis of the predate also has a great deal to do with gender roles. it seems like traditional gender roles are emphasized during the predating stage.

perhaps my disdain for dating derives from my disdain for gender roles and i am afraid if i participate in formal dating it would be endorsing traditional gender roles. a traditional date consists of a man calling a women and the following activities occur (if he wants to get kissed goodnight (on the third date)): picks her up at her house (maybe meets her parents, seeks fathers approval), opens her car door and any door she may encounter through out the night, pays for the food and and the movie (i do like movies), and then takes her home and walks her to the door. during the night the man may discuss his ambitions and education and his ability to provide and the women will discuss her family and hobbies.

the whole activity is designed because men have traditionally shown respect to women through a series of meaningless or close to meaningless acts (such as walking on the side closest to the road). furthermore providing for a women used to be paramount to any marriage relationship (so the boy pays). meanwhile these actives encourage the woman to take a more passive role to the date (perhaps so they can showcase their supportive role to their potential spouses ambition and ability to defer to his reasoning).

my problem with the whole system if i dont feel respected when someone opens my door. i feel respected when someone listens to my opinions and values my ideas. i dont care about earning potential or a man providing for me i just want someone who is there for me. i can be supportive of someones goals/careers but in return i want someone to be supportive of mine. i think the perfect first date is when two people go out and their conversation isnt marred by expectations and their actions arent dictated by the their chromosome alignment. if dating was like that i would do more of it.

*we are open to people writing guest posts if you would like to submit one please email me (contact info on my profile) and we will consider it.

**the guy kept trying to ask me out and i kept not letting him. finally the smoke from the fire started blowing our way and i had to move away from him and he asked if i telepathically asked the fire to do that so i could escape and i said i didnt think so....but am i telepathic? with fires? this could open a lot of doors.

what will future anthropologists say about our love?

2007-09-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

i've been taking notes for this post for a week now. instead of gaining some focus about what and how to write i've got pages of ramblings in my notebook. i'm afraid this post my be all over the place and boring. but whatever. you gotta write something.

this post is inspired by natali's post about her friend who got email-dumped months after hanging out with some guy. (i thought email-dumped was a funny thing to write, but obviously that's not what happened since she was already engaged to someone else and that guy was hurt about something and decided to take it out on her.) but the questions i see growing out of this incident (and out of many of the stories related on this blog) is what are the different types of dating, where are the lines of demarcation between different types of dating and what gestures are appropriate within which types of dating?
(on a side note: how come when you save drafts it reduces all your double-spaces after periods to a single-space? i know it's not a big deal, but i really like the look of double-spaces between sentences)

i actually wrote like twenty different questions related to understanding, identifying and negotiating different types of dating, but i'm not going to list them since they're sort of repetitive. they all have to do with the problem of changing feelings within (somewhat) fixed relationship categories, the pressure of fitting personal dating experiences into idealized cultural/historical dating norms including nostalgic dating models that prove ineffectual in the information age (maybe because digital communication changes dating relationships) and the relative fluidity of gender roles which challenge older dating models.

but you get it, right? or maybe not. maybe this is my difficulty with dating: articulating feelings.

so i think our blog (rather than me alone cause i don't know what i'm talking about) could and should workshop this. we'll collectively develop a loose theory on post-modern (mormon) dating. i like the very generic classifications of pre-dating, dating and post-dating. maybe something of a continium like pre-dating -> dating ->post-dating where each category blends into the next (with sometimes post- blending into to pre- in the case of dating someone for a second time). it'll be difficult, but i think we can do it. we'll need to seriously challenge our current notions of dating and get rid of actions and attitude that don't hold to the scrutiny. i mean, if you want to.

i need help

2007-09-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

25 and-a-half years ago (happy half-birthday to me yesterday), i laid in the hospital nursery batting my little eyes and crying an inherent flirty cry to the little boy babies around me. (this is actually a lie – i was in an incubator with jaundice for two weeks..) the point is, we’re all born with the natural ability to flirt. some of us lose it between about first and second grade when pinning your love interest and spitting in his/her face all of a sudden seemed like the best way to show your affection. others lose it later in life when they never grow out of spitting on their dates. anyway, i’d like to think i’ve kept a fair amount of my flirting ability over the course of my life. i can’t tromp the best of them, but i recently grew out of my spitting phase, so i guess i’m about average. i can hold my own – we’ll say that.

and then, enter the internet (boo! hiss!) i’m yet to get into the whole internet dating thing – not for any particular reason – i’m not anti or anything, i just haven’t delved into it. but i do know this – online flirting is definitely not included in the inherent-flirting package. we weren’t born knowing how to online flirt. and that’s recently become painfully obvious.

see this random boy (if you want to know his name, ask me. there’s a good chance you might know him – crazy small mormon utah internet-savvy world. then you can just hook us up in person) wrote me on the ldslinkup saying something brilliant like “hey what’s up.” i’ve gotten messages like this before, but this time, the boy seemed not only fairly normal, but also fairly attractive and fairly my type. so i wrote back something equally as brilliant like “hi you’re hot.” we exchanged a few emails in a very short period of time (like hours) and then he gave me his beloved email address, so i immediately (per the norm) emailed him…and then nothing…so, i wrote back to him on the linkup just making sure he got my email because how silly if we stopped talking due to msn thinking i was spam-a-lotting. he wrote back immediately “yeah i got it. sorry, i’m busy with school now. i’ll email you soon.” perfect. how heavenly. but then nothing for awhile. and then he found me on facebook.com and asked me to be his friend. and i immediately responded yes and then wrote something flirty(?) on his wall. and then, he removed me from his friend list…and i haven’t heard from him since… (p.s. i think my pictures look normal, but i might be wrong)

so here’s my question. what the hell am i to do? it occurred to me that i’m probably seeming way too excited to talk to him given my immediate responses and should play harder to get, but he’s cute and i WAS excited to talk to him and it was only like 2 sentences at a time so i feel like that doesn’t even count. plus, how do you play hard to get over the internet? but now he hates me. and i can’t write him again and tell him not to hate me because then that’s just sad. so what is normal online flirting protocol? what should i do next? i’m probably supposed to marry him but because i’m not wired to online flirt, my destiny is kissing me goodbye (only without the kiss, which is too bad…unless he’s a bad kisser…how am i even to know?)

sorry i have a thing for energy consumption

2007-09-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

the past two days i came to a couple of realizations. first is that i hate basil more that i knew. my office kind of smells like basil. the second is that breakups can happen at any time regardless of your current relationship status. in fact it bears little relation to your previous relationship status. you never know when you will breakup. i think i always knew this but it really hit home after THIS happened to my friend. you should read THIS. its pretty good. just because you are engaged it doesnt mean some guy you went out with 7 and 1/2 times eight months ago wont send you and email with a belated clarification that you were never dating and you were just hooking up. and that his new girlfriend is a model. and although he didnt mention how big his new girlfriends breasts are you can only assume large and perky. he will probably clarify that later.

i admit its hard to know if you dating. but there are classic signs. holding hands, calling each other tiger/kitten/muffin and going to movies with each other more than other people. so if its hard to know if you are dating its equally tricky (perhaps more) to know if you should break up. the world is kind of complicated and undoing relationships proves a challenge. but its a skill that you should really try and develop because most of the people you date arent going to be in your life in two months (weeks). i am not quite sure what the best approach is to breaking up. i did get best breakup ever nomination once so i feel like i have some insight into the matter. i think you should ONLY break up with someone you havent kissed/touched/dated in three weeks (or however long) and no one has said anything about it (because the phase out was appropriate) if you dont like them and you are feeling kind of spiteful. otherwise i think you dont need to break up.

why does my office smell like basil?

i sort of liked pukey yellow

2007-08-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

i apologize for all the changes in color that the dating blog is undergoing. perhaps i cant decide what direction i want it to go and this is reflected in my changing colors. or perhaps some people blog in different colors and its impossible to read in the new backgrounds. i think i have found an appropriate background so that post posts can be easily viewed.

Quite The Vixen

2007-08-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

A 37 year-old accountant named T Ceccarelli. It’s truly shocking how many assumptions I made in the twenty-four hours between the time I learned the basics about my blind date and the time he showed up at my door in a Cosby sweater.

He’s 37 years old. Ten years between us. That’s not so much. I mean, after the brief Old Man Daddy phase I went through in college, this is insignificant. He’s probably sane and stable with interesting life observations. That’s what 37 is like, right?

He’s an accountant. I’m usually attracted to more artistic (cough:gay:cough) types, so the thought of spending the evening with a nerdy numbers guy is less than appealing. But then again, nerdy is smart and smart is hot. What could be hotter than an intelligence so profound, it impedes social functioning? I can’t think of anything. Well, maybe one of those tricep tattoos. Those are nice.

Ceccarelli. Can I safely assume he’s Italian, then? I think so. Yes. He’s all Italian and dark and handsome and aged (pronounced with two syllables). Who cares if he’s an accountant? Turns out, I wouldn’t even have a chance to think about his job. I’d be too busy trying to remember the chant for disapparation.

From the moment I met T, he took my breath away. By which I mean, I could barely breathe when I saw a man other than my grandpa wearing tasseled loafers and no socks. I know what you’re thinking. “How could you tell he wasn’t wearing socks?” I’m glad you asked. I can only assume he was a few inches shorter in 1992, when he purchased the Silver Tabs. Or maybe thirteen years of vigorous machine washing and tumble drying did it… but whatever the case, he was wearing tiny pants. So just to recap: colorful novelty sweater (mock turtleneck, natch), miniature pleated jeans, tasseled loafers and just the tiniest sliver of delicate man-ankle.

The date went as most blind dates do (or maybe just mine):

1. Dinner
2. Awkward discussion of what to do next
3. Awkward drive home
4. Awkward negotiation of physical contact
5. Dry heaving, audible shuddering, fitful sleep

Dinner was mostly unremarkable, save for the part where T gave me a compliment. I think.

T: So, you mentioned you’ve been working out and getting healthier…

Reno: Yeah.

He slowly, creepily examines the portion of me visible above the table and says,

T: Well, I don’t see any need for that.

Apparently, my upper half looks healthy. Mission accomplished. I decide to stop working out. I’m also going to start drinking whole milk instead of 2%.

Just in case you’re wondering, I ordered an Asian salad and put back about fourteen diet cokes. T had chicken pot pie and a can of Ensure. No, he didn’t. That was mean.

The part of the date between dinner ending and the drive home is fuzzy. I remember walking through the entrance to the casino (it’s not just a clever screen name – I’m really from Reno), where we planned to see some stand-up comedy. I remember thinking, as I looked around frantically, “Gah, I hope none of my friends are here tonight.” Or worse.

The part I remember very well is this: T asked me (as he reached for my hand) if he could hold my hand. His was plump and damp (two words, incidentally, I hope are never used to describe me). I had no choice. He hand-hold raped me. I know I didn’t really fight it, but I didn’t say yes. I think I managed something like, “Mmrghg. You’re funny.”

Consistent with the night’s theme, the stand-up was sub-par. I spent most of the time curled up in my seat with my knees tucked under my chin, murmuring better punchlines. Looking back on it now, the show was probably the highlight of the night for me. It was the only time I felt like I didn’t have to look at or touch or think about my be-tasseled date. Except for the moment when the comic pointed the two of us out, as a couple, and made some un-funny comment about relationships. I wanted to scream, “I’m not with him! We’re not in a relationship! He hand-hold raped me! He doesn’t even look Italian!” But I didn’t. I just hugged my knees tighter (not an easy feat, by the way; I’m bottom-heavy) and began planning my escape.

It was on the drive home when I started feeling guilty for how shallow I had been all night. Is fashionable clothing really that important to me? Does a guy really need to play the guitar and be 26 years old to win my affections? Am I just a mean, judgmental bitch? I hadn’t even bothered to ask him what his interests are… or what his favorite movie is. I decided at that moment to give T a chance to redeem himself. An opportunity to wow me with his knowledge of music, movies, books… anything. The rest of the drive back to my house went something like this:

Reno: So, what is the best book you’ve read this year?
T: Ummm. I’ve really just been reading the Wall Street Journal lately.
Reno: Really? Is it pretty interesting?
T: I guess.
Reno: What was the last book you read?
T: I don’t know. It was probably fifteen years ago.
Reno: Oh, right around the time you bought those pants?*

Silence. Freeway whizzing by. Silence.

Reno: If you had to listen to one song for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
T: Hmm. That’s a tough one. Hmm. Have you ever seen Free Willy 2?
Reno: Umm.
T: The theme song is awesome. Seriously. I think the cassette is under your seat.
Reno: Umm.
T: Yeah, that’s probably what I’d choose. Although it’s tough because I also really love “In The Air Tonight.”
Reno: By Phil Collins?
T: Exactly.

Silence. More freeway. Silence.

Reno (for some reason, I kept going): Favorite movie?
T: Oh, that’s easy. Bad Boys 2.
Reno: Would you mind punching me in the face?

We turned the corner, heading toward to my house.

The plan was simple: when the car stops, get out. Just open the door, extract yourself from the vehicle and walk away. The car stopped. I fumbled around looking for my purse. Had it slipped between the seats? While I was searching around the floor of the car, T was carefully removing his eyeglasses. By the time I had recovered my handbag, he had placed them gingerly on the dash. Oh, dread. Oh, dear. As I reached for the door handle and attempted to leave, T went in for the kill. And it really was like a kill. I certainly felt dead inside.

Approximately thirteen hours later, T backed off. With the tiny oval imprints of his bifocals (I mean glasses) still visible on the bridge of his nose, T looked deeply into my (mostly dead) eyes and said goodnight. My response: “Mmrghg. You’re funny.”

I scrambled out of the Ford Bronco, waved back at T, entered my living room and promptly commenced item #5 (see above). I think I was washing my hands for the tenth (and second-to-last) time when he sent a text:

“I had a gr8 time tonite. Your quite the vixen.”

I still hope he doesn’t mean the reindeer.

I was surprised when he called a few days later, asking if I’d like to go clothes shopping with him sometime. I wondered what I had done/said to clue him into my horror. Was my disgust that obvious? And if he knew all along I was horrified… how was he able to go through with the kiss of death? These are questions to which I will never know the answer. I told T I wasn’t interested in shopping. I knew there was nothing he could buy at the mall that would make me forget about our evening together. He was going to have to let me go. He seemed to understand. He had seen it happen before. In Free Willy 2.

i am ugly thats why its weird

2007-08-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

the inherent problems with my dating blog are as follows:

1) people you dated/liked/broke up with/went to 2rd base with/crushed on/maybe stalked/etc read the blog

2) number one makes it so you cant be honest or there is retaliation/hurt feelings/potential break ups/you are no longer allowed to get to 2rd base/etc

anyway. i am probably going to start a secret dating blog. good luck finding it.

my modern, serious online date is dead

2007-08-09T11:42:00.001-07:00

i've been emailing a guy for 2 months. i met him on one of today's top critically acclaimed dating websites. this saturday we are meeting for the first time. aside from planning what i will wear, i also plan to bring pepper spray and perhaps a tazer.

i have only had one other online-turn face to face-date. you may recall my recollection in a march 9 entry of "all things code." he thought when you touch someone's hair, it means "please, don't hesitate to go down my pants." that date went really well.

so yeah..i'm a little nervous. although we have been emailing since june, that really means nothing. we have even had a few phone convos. but you can be anyone on the internet. (or so our friend brad paisley says..and country songs are always true) what if this guy (who says he's 5'10") is actually 5'3"? what if he really doesn't play tennis like he says and then we'll have absolutely nothing to talk about? what if he takes me to mcdonalds and gives me a $3 limit? (but maybe i will get to go down the slide) what if i want to chow down like the chic in this picture?

i actually prefer looking into people's eyes as opposed to hearing their vocal chords or reading their typos. i am just nervous. i may sweat. and i may kill him with pepper spray, but we'll probably end up making out

our christmas lists

together.

it's all maxwell's fault with his bitter poetry

2007-07-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

the pick-up lines employed today at bars, gyms, college campuses and grocery stores are usually generic, obvious, unfunny and sexist. i blame popular movies, tv and strip-malls since all have a financial interest in an homogenized american culture of love and romance.

but when you'er at a social event and want to talk to someone new like that girl wearing that black, summer dress (because you think it's funny to have a summer dress be black) or that cute, dark-haired boy with jeans rolled up into capris and you're shy, sometimes you need a line to break the ice. too bad all the pick-up lines you've ever heard in your life are stupid and couldn't possibly give that boy or girl a hint of your dynamic personality. so, we need to reinvent the pick-up line.

here's some ideas i've been work-shopping with a couple friends (i, or my friends, have yet to use any of these lines in real life, so i'm looking for both new ideas as well as constructive criticism on the pick-up lines we've already developed):

you start, "hi, what's your name?" and they answer and ask you for your name and you say, "joe campbell, i mean camel." then they ask something like "you're name is joe camel like the cigarette cartoon?" and you say, "no, i just needed an opening. boy it sure is hot outside, but it's nice here with you."

you ask, "what would you say is your favorite . . . (long pause) . . . favorite color in the rainbow? i think mine's blue."

you make eye-contact and then hold your hand up to your ear with your pinky and thumb extended and mouth "call me" even though they have no idea what your number is.

if you're with a friend, you whisper to your friend "recite them lyrics, dude." then your friend extends one arm and says "oh babes for who we've traveled through time," and then you extend an arm and say "will you come back to san diemas with us? we'll have a really good time." (actually you quote bill and ted's directly but i can't think of their exact pick-up line.)

if you're at the gallivan center for their thursday night concert series you ask, "man, is this just a boombox playing? cause it sounds great."

what not to do

2007-07-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

let's pretend you're a guy who likes a girl and you think to yourself "hmm..what charming things can i do to win over the heart of this young lass?" here is a list of things that might not work that great:

1. tell all your mutual friends that you like her and that she likes you...before even going on a date or talking for more than 3 minutes (especially if 2.8 of those minutes consist of talking about why mit romney should be the next president)

2. ask her to take you to the airport during rush hour traffic an hour before you need to be there, talk about mit romney on the entire drive, and then leave your phone AND wallet in her car. then have your mom - yes, your mom - call her phone once she's almost home. this was the conversation "hi, this is nate's mother. he told me he left his phone in your car. would you mind meeting him back where you dropped him off to give him his phone?" um...is that wierd? it's a total ambush meet the parents.

3. ask her out on a date and then when she can't go, ask her sister out on the same date...

4. realize and acknowledge that she's actually dating someone else - and then ask her out on a date the next day

5. call the boy she's dating and ask him if he wants to go out on a double date - you, the boy she's dating, her and her sister

6. call again the next weekend to ask her on a date

7. when she explains that she can't because she's going on a date with the guy she's actually dating, invite yourself along

no one has ever invited me to the grand canyon

2007-07-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

i really liked this picture of my friend shane. i didnt ask his permission to use it in this post but i know he hates (the idea) of blogs so there is a very low risk of him ever finding out. my mother just notified me that my little brother has been talking to a girl for twenty minutes and asked if i had ever talked to a boy for that long. i replied yes at least a hundred times. she was pretty impressed.

sometimes i think about kierkegaard and his ideas about human love being selfish. it kind of is. i mean if you fall in love it seems by definition you stop thinking/caring/and/or/noticing that other people exist and have feelings (or eyes for those who touch excessively). i wonder if it is possible to somehow pull yourself out of your relationship long enough to notice others. i really only notice how self absorbed a relationship makes me when i am not dating and i am just a spectator to other relationships. so maybe falling in love is nice but not so nice for those around you. if you are the type that talks about your relationship excessively and/or stops hanging out with your friends and/or you dont wait until others have safely left the room to get to second base and/or you talk about how much you like your signifcant other's hair/eyes/ass to every person you come into contact with then perhaps you should sit back and think wait...i should change that.

kierkegaard thinks you can do it and so do i.

for the record i really like it when people hold hands. i think its the nicest form of affection there is. way better than kissing and/or pet names.

why do you hate me i thought we were friends

2007-07-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

being single is so busy. people try to make you think that when you're single everything is carefree and you can just sit back, relax, and not worry about anything but yourself and once you get hitched and start having kids, that's when life gets hectic....WRONG. being single is one million times more busy than being married. and here's why: you are expected to be social. go on dates, go to parties, leave your house, etc. married people like to be social now and then...get together with other couples for game night or a movie, go to dinner with the singles, etc. but they aren't under any social obligation to be so. single people are. if you aren't social it's "no wonder you're still single", or if you don't have plans on at least one weekend night you have problems. not only that, but you are expected to keep in touch with everyone you've ever known. your friends who dropped off the face of the earth and stopped talking to you when they got boyfriends/girlfriends suddenly want to talk all the time and meet for lunch on a regular basis once they are married.

the difference in the busyness factor is especially pronounced in comparison with people who married young. my little sister got married at age 20. how many roommates did she have that she is expected to keep in touch with? zero. how many exes does she have that she is "still friends" with? none. the longer you're single, the more people you accumulate that you have to keep up with. not that i don't want to keep in touch with old friends and former roommates, but i have basically been living on my own since i was 19, so that means that i've had (if i'm doing the math right) A HUNDRED MILLION roommates. i used to think i could set aside a certain day (say sundays) to call people that i've been neglecting. but then i realized i'd be on back to back calls for at least ten straight hours. when would i have time to nap? or watch movies? or read a book? this is why i've been unintentionally boycotting this epidemic. and when i'm not listening to voicemails of "where have you been?" or reading emails that say "i thought we were friends, why do you hate me?" i am mostly at peace with it.

i picked up this dream in catholic school

2007-06-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

so although i am currently not dating it hasnt stopped me from trying to set other people up. it works for some people. i personally take credit for two happy couples and one unhappy couple (sorry about that). so today i thought i should set up "stacey" and "steven". i dont know why. i just thought i am sick of work is there anything else to do? (i usually check out ebay or go get a coke). but not today. so what happened is i texted stacey and said hey do you want to get set up with my friend and she said yeah and i texted steven and said do you want to get set up and he said yeah. so i gave steven stacey's number and i washed my hands of the whole thing and left it to fate/hormones. but then stacey decided that she had been set up on a lot of bad blind dates and just wanted to meet steve before they ate dinner together. you know a predate (code for i want to see if he is cute). so her master plan was he could come by her house with me and we could hang out. i said....hmm yeah let me ask steven. so then she said maybe he could fix my computer. and i said... yeah let me ask. so i told steven and he said he would go (he also said ouch she doesnt trust you AT ALL) but i said i thought about it and i didnt want to go watch him fix her computer and talk about their interests and mutual friends (me). i know all about their interests and me. its sounds both boring and uncomfortable. i think i would feel just as awkward watching people try and date and if i am going to go through that then maybe i will just date myself. not date myself like take myself out but go on dates myself.

anyway a lot of people are weighing in and said i should go with steven. but i have been watching a lot of top chef lately and i dont think i have time.

mind the (age) gap

2007-06-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

so here’s my question. what is the perfect age gap? let’s pretend (i’m maybe not really pretending) that i’m kind-of sort-of crushing on a 22-year old. um…yeah…22 year old. remember my comment to jefe about how luke skywalker isn’t eligible because he isn’t established? yeah, the youngen (as i call him) hasn’t even declared an undergraduate major yet. and he doesn’t have a car…hmm…anyway, we went out saturday afternoon – our “going out” usually consists of playing frisbee and eating at sonic because he’s a poor college kid but wants to be a gentleman so won’t let me treat.

then saturday night, i went out with the president of this company – i didn’t dare ask how old he was, and he clearly wasn’t TOO old, but based on the fact that he’s started and successfully sold 3 companies so far, owns an amazing house and a dog that’s bigger than i am (not relevant, but still true), i’m guessing he was late 30s (don’t quote me though – i have a horrible sense of age). he did know how to wine and dine me though. very different than the youngen.

i’ve never dated someone younger than me before – and the youngen is even younger than my baby sister…we have fun though, even though i feel like i’m robbing the cradle a bit. on the other hand, mr. president is a lot of fun, but is maybe too established for me. there’s something to be said about struggling through financial life a little bit together and living on cardboard couches for awhile right? so i wanted to ask all of you dating-advice pros – what’s your perfect age gap? do you date your exact age or is there a variance of a few (a lot?) years?

here are the pros and cons i came up with for both:

younger guy/older girl pros –

- girls live longer than guys so we’ll die around the same time

- girls reach their sexual peak in life later than guys do, so maybe we’ll hit it at the same time. bow chica bow wow

younger guy/older girl cons –

- i don’t want to pay for my honey’s schooling…is that selfish?

- guys age slower than girls so i’ll look really old compared to him

older guy/younger girl pros –

- he’s done with school
- there's something to be said about a guy who can take care of you

older guy/younger girl cons –

- refer to the opposite of the “younger guy/older girl pros” list

Galactic Know How

2007-06-15T01:35:00.000-07:00

Men are from Mars and Woman are from Venus...Get it? Thanks Dr. Grey, for stating the obvious and for your bunk relationship advice. Didn't you get divorced? Your relationship suggestions are as helpful as a wooden stump on the one legged man in ass kicking contest.

If you've ever watch Star Wars with a girl that actually gets in to it (I only know three girls who seem to like it, Becky, who though I've only met once am very happy to know of her. K-tron, who I never see anymore, and Buffy Lloyd, one of my best friends ex-girl friends (and my first adult person type crush.) Any way, if you've ever watched Star Wars with a girl that actually gets in to it (Episodes 4-6) the opinion on who is cooler (among the rebellion squad) hands down all the girls love Han Solo.

Reasons Why:

1- It's really Harrison Ford I know, girls love him

2- More importantly, Solo has "tude" (That's space lingo for attitude,if you didn't know.) For instance, the famous line in The Empire Strikes Back when Lea says

Lea: I love you

Han confidently replies...

Solo: I know

and then in front of the Dark Lord of the Empire and the Galaxies most notorious bounty hunter Han lays one on her.

It's not that Han Solo is the big hearted bad boy, though that's exactly who he is, it's that Solo has confidence. Han doesn't need the force because he has a good blaster by his side. Enlightenment gets in the way of his fulfillment. Girls like confidence, they don't want a soul searcher, they want a man of action.

So, in using Star Wars reasoning, here are ten reasons why Han is more appealing to woman than Luke Skywalker.
1-He is sexy

2-Big Hearted Bad Boy

3-Oodles of Self Confidence

4-Argumentative (Han stands up for himself)

5-He's kind of a loner Dotty, a rebel

6-Has a big huge pet

7-His own vehicle (It made the kessel run in 15 parsecs)

8-He made the first move (he kisses Lea more than once)

9-A little thing like the heads of the Tyrannical Empire and Notorious Bounty hunters don't get in the way of him showing a little love to his main squeeze

10-Winning Smile (just check out Star Wars when he gets his medal from Lea

This leaves us with le homme (I think that's french for man, or home boy) opinion. Most guys tap into the SkyWalker thing.

Reasons Why:
1-This is because Luke becomes a metaphor for the everyman

2-It's the classic, "you mean I gotta grow up now" story, the anti-Peter Pan if you will. SkyWalker is the emerging man, he is finding his power within, learning to harness it

3-He training his mind and body while finding a connection with the force (could be religion, chi, or just controlling your appetite, or Internet addiction). Luke is on the pathway to enlightenment. He is dealing with his daddy issues while striving himself to become a men.

Guys like SkyWalker (minus the whining) because he's more than a bad ass who has a weird crush on his twin sister. Guys like Luke because he wants to be more than the football player, head crushing jock. He knows he's a good pilot, as good as Han, well almost, and it could get him plenty of galactic tail. But he is looking for something deeper more meaningful, he is trying to find his inner power.

Now it sounds like I am trying to sell the idea of Luke over Han. I'm not, I like them both, I think guys need to somehow possess both character traits. What I am saying is this. Guys, well let me back track, most guys who aren't assholes are looking for something great within themselves. Girls want the guy who already knows what they got and aren't afraid to show it, strut it if you will (that solves the anomaly of Mick Jagger, no one struts like him and he can still get a ton o chicks, and by the way, I didn't mosey into this blog looking for a fight, but The Stones, OVERRATED, in my opinion.)

So here are the top ten reasons why guys like and relate to Luke

1-Soul Searcher (much like guys)

2-Has a lightsaber (best weapon ever)

3-Has the power to use the Jedi Mind Trick (which on weak minded sorority girls works just as well as Han's bad boy attitude.)

4-With the force and do one handed stands

5-Has Darth Vader as a father (kind of goes back to school yard days where kids are trying to work out their own machismo by stating whose dad can beat up whose dad. When your dad is the intergalactic bad ass sith lord you pretty much win that argument before it even begins)

6-See's dead people (mentors who help guide his life)

7-Can move objects through mere thought

8-Is best friends with Han, so gets to meet all the babes but gets the luxury of being a little more reliable than Han. While Han is moving from girl to girl, the true blue keepers see him for who he is, a nice well rounded boy. Not really though, most girls just want to be with Han

9-Is going to be the Jedi to reestablish the order, so he's ahead of the curve of a booming industry

10-When he becomes a man, when he finally gets that whole Jedi thing down, he is gonna be the galaxies nice guy that you don't want to mess with. Like his father he will be the intergalactic bad ass of all time

So there you have it. Guys, if you want girls to like you more than you better start mixing a little Solo into your Skywalker game. Girls, if you want a guy that's going to treat you right and be good to you for a long time you better learn to love and admire the Skywalker traits.

A reminder: Just because Han has his act together doesn't mean Luke won't. He is just figuring things out. When he finally becomes a full fledged Jedi, like his father, he is going to be one hell of a catch, so get off my back Grandma, I'll get married when I'm ready!

two hours later

2007-06-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

i had a date last night too. except i canceled; at the last minute. well, actually i knew i was going to cancel all day, but didn't let my date know until the last minute. it sounds mean, but i had my reasons.

here's how it went down:
(i'm working at a drive-up coffee shop. a black car pulls up to the window. in the car are two girls in their mid-twenties.)
me: so i have good news and bad. actually i have good news that attempts to make up for the bad news. the bad news is that i can't go to the bbq tonight because is have to go to this dinner for my grandma's birthday.
the girl who is driving: that's not bad news. that's good news, for your grandma.
me: well, i don't know. i mean my grandma's like 85 and going blind. but the good news is that i made you guys a mix cd.
the girl who is driving: that more than makes up for you not coming to the bbq. so, are these like your favorite songs or something?
me: i don't know about that. it's just a bunch of stuff i've been into lately. except i left out any hip-hop because i'm always nervous about hip-hop songs in the middle of rock-based mixes. i was feel like i'm trying too hard to look diverse.

some people said that mixes send the wrong signals, like if i'm willing to invest this much time picking out songs for you, then i must like you a lot. but i disagree. this mix was awesome. i would have been happy to give that mix to almost anybody.

but last night i did have a mild panic attack about giving out that mix. not because i'm worried she'll think i like her more than i actually do, but because that mix might have been too awesome. by too awesome, i mean that it's full of really weird and crazy songs.

whats the deal with you and ned

2007-06-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

today i got really nervous that dating will never work for me. i always had my suspicions but now i am feeling like its turning into evidence and soon will be a scientific doctrine. one theory being thrown out there on a regular basis by mom, church leaders, dating books (i have read like 3 and skimmed 7), Dr. Phil, etc. is that you date to get to know people and then you end up in a relationship. i actually really like relationships. i dont require a boyfriend but i prefer having one. because if you have a boyfriend you dont have to date AND there is always someone to watch tv with. nothing makes me happier than those two things. and its nice to have someone to talk to and you dont have to keep explaining who the people are in your stories. oh and cuddling. i like cuddling. (but i think(know) i am hard to cuddle with. so squirmy. if you plan on cuddling with me i am just going to apologize in advance). where was i? oh yes dating. it doesnt work (for me). because i dont get it. i never felt comfortable with dating. i dont get the door opening stuff. i dont understand the paying thing. i dont like answering questions about myself. i dont like talking about my job/interests/family with people i dont know. i hate almost all dating activities EXCEPT for movies and bowling and i dont like bowling on dates. i am really awkward and self conscious most of the time. so, i really dont like dating and i dont understand how it helps me get to know anyone besides myself and how awkward i can really get. and whats more is i dont even remember the last time i had a boyfriend as a direct result of dating. so maybe all those people are wrong about it (fingers crossed).

anyway i have a date tonight. i think i might only blog on days i date.

i'm like a light bulb..everyone gets a turn

2007-06-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

my friend said this to me the other day. is that a good thing? remember sticky notes and smelly markers? well they are getting married next weekend. i will then receive roommate number 67. i told my dad once that i have lived with over 50 women. he replied, "i wish i could say that." kinda creepy.

even though my dad wants to live with myriads of women, he is single. my mom is single too. (well she's techinically married to her 4th husband but those are minor details) wisdom comes with age right? therefore, i have acquired some very useful dating tips and information from my older single parental units and wanted to share with my blog family. please enjoy.

1. when you see an over weight single woman, lovingly refer to her as a "wide load"

2. invite your date over to play a little scrabble, then give them a cup of water as a treat

3. go to free community events and hit on homeless men. marry one of them if you so desire

4. date UPS drivers

5. invite your ex and his/her new partner over for christmas dinner

Transitional boy/girl

2007-06-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

One of the co conspirators and I had a brief and vague conversation about the importance of a transitional person.

Who is "Transitional Person" you ask? Well let me give you a superhero scenario. Bruce Banner A.K.A. The Incredible Hulk gets mad when someone or something really pisses him off, eventually escalating to a point of anger that he can't control, turning him into the Incredible Hulk. But in order for an average height white dude to turn into a giant green monster there has to be a stage of growth. For Bruce Banner it's that moment that his body begins to pump itself full of gamma radiated adrenaline tearing his clothing to shreds (except for his purple pair of fashionably functional pants which never seem to rip above the calves, therefore allowing him to destroy buildings and vehicles and a very comfortably and with a sense of style). The transitional stage is between the identities, he's not Bruce Banner and he's not the Hulk, he's just that weird guy in the corner who is tearing his clothes apart.

(Oh, by the way just so this isn't gender biased, here is a picture of SheHulk too. This anger thing goes both ways.)

Now relate it to people. In between long or short term relationships there seems to be a moment of transition from dependence to independent. Just like the Hulk sometimes in the process of transition, innocent people get hurt.

The Hulk has no self control once he gets to the point of transition. It's a point of no return for him, he can no longer be Bruce Banner, he has to see himself through The Hulking Out process. Sometimes I think people feel the same way after they have permanently put the kibosh on a relationship, they are knowingly changing, though it's painful and it sometimes they aren't ready for it, but like The Hulk in the midst of the transitional phase, it is only temporary and at some point the giant will emerge and like The Hulk, when the transitional phase is over it will be nothing but sheer destruction.

Sometimes the transitional person says they don't mind being transitional person without knowing (consciously at least) what they are getting themselves in to. This presents itself in such scenarios as..."Yeah it's OK if we only make out." Or, "of course this is just for fun, I know this is nothing serious." But the truth is that if you find yourself as the person thinking "thank goodness, because all I want is a good make out and then a good nights sleep." That other person is more than likely saying to themselves, and excuse me for mixing metaphors... "hooked em', now all I have to do is reel them in!"

This now becomes a situation where two people are lying to each other about what the other person wants.

So because of this very brief conversation about the transitional person I have come to the simple conclusion that, transitional person doesn't deserves to have their feelings stomped upon and rampaged all over.

Like Bruce Banner, if you feel yourself turning from one phase of relationship break up to the next and you are looking for that special "transitional" someone, you may want to think twice about what you say or do...You could end up looking like the monster who destroyed someones heart.

temporary marriages

2007-06-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

so in iran they have temporary marriages. enough of this eternity or death till we part i think temporary might be the way to go. the time limit can be from one hour to a century so its pretty flexible and you can perform the ceremony yourself in private to its inexpensive and convenient. its a great alternative to living in sin. your marriage could last as long as this cake (which in my case could be awhile since i dont really like sugar...)

overlapping spheres

2007-06-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

so this weekend i have a date with a guy "CN" from my hometown who my dad has been trying to set me up with since february. my dad works with CN's mom. they talk about it all the time (if they talk about it as much as my dad talks about with me) and are hopeful that we could probably love each other forever. so CN called and asked me out and he said he would buy me a fancy steak dinner. and i said sizzler? and he said of course. and then he said in park city. and i said there is a sizzler in park city? i should google it because i think he was KIDDING about sizzler. what a tease.

anyway i had sort of a dating dilemma. it was when i should first dash all my dad's hopes and/or make his sad. sooner or later. normally i wouldnt tell my dad i had a date/boyfriend at all but i knew it was a matter of time before this got back to him. he would probably find out at the grocery store. thats where he gets all the good gossip. about me. anyway i had to decide if i make him sad by not telling him and having him find out from a third party that i went out with CN or do i disappoint him by telling him later (after he has clearly found out and been praying for it for some time) that its not going to happen.

i choose sooner. it was rough. my dad got all smiley and was like i KNOW you are going out with CN because his mom told me last week. there is a chance my dad knew he was going to ask before i actually was asked. anyway, CN is going to be here any minute so i had better go...who knows if he takes me to sizzler it could be love after all.

ambush dating

2007-06-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

i’m pretty sure everybody has fallen victim to the ambush date. you innocently agree to hang out with a guy and his friends in an honest attempt to be social and then you show up and BAM, there are no friends…just the guy. i’m not sure why guys do this – am i really that mean of a person that they think i won’t go out with them if they ask me? are they really that insecure? do they hope that if they don’t actually ask me out on a date that they won’t have to hold the door open for me? anyway, i thought i was getting myself into this trap this past week, but luckily, friends were actually involved – whew – saved.

here’s one good example, though. a guy found out we worked fairly close together and told me he was getting a group of people-who-work-close-together together for lunch one day, so i dumbly (and innocently, in an attempt to be social) give him my number. he calls and coordinates the entire thing – “yeah – we’re all meeting up at such and such at this time, blah blah blah.” and then, not more than half an hour before the lunch was scheduled, he calls me and leaves a message “all of the people who were coming have backed out so it may just be you and me.” now, i’d maybe buy this story if “all the people who were coming” included 2 or 3 people because it’s legit for a few people to have things come up. but when the list of lunch buddies was said to be over a dozen people, you start wondering.

anyway, i knew right then what was going on and 2 options crossed my mind. the first is to not show up, but that's hard to do when you like the restaurant and you've been planning on this for a week…so i chose option number two and called all my friends in the area to see if they could come…unfortunately, since it was so close to the time (i’m sure this was on purpose), none of them could make it, or they’d already eaten. i sucked it up, made myself look as homely as possible to help deter any attraction and arrived a few minutes late. he was already there...with a flower...he took my coat AND paid for my lunch. it was a total date and i never even agreed to it. and that, my friends, is an ambush date.

Guidelines (?)

2007-05-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

So I was going over the the Strength for Youth guidelines set forth by my Church. This was one of the bullet points.

• Abstain from premarital sex, petting, necking, sex perversion, masturbation, and preoccupation with sex in thought, speech, and action.

Now I can get behind that, except I have a few questions.

What is petting? I mean I know what "heavy petting"is but, can someone explain what regular petting is? I'm not tryint to be irreverent or silly, but you know, I pet dogs and cats, is petting the same as patting, is it stroking the back, what is it?

What is necking? I mean do people even "neck" anymore? Is necking when you rub necks, or is it when you kiss necks? I am so lost.

i always wanted to be an actress

2007-05-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

so, i hung out with this guy several months ago who happens to work at the same company as me. i won't go into the sordid details, but the evening did not go well. at all. like...at all. luckily we don't work in the same area of the building so i've only run into him a couple of times since the incident. the first time i did--which was about a month after we had hung out, he mentioned that he was really disappointed that he hadn't heard from me. oh...wait...was he THERE that night? maybe a new personality had surfaced since i last saw him (no, seriously). anyway, i mentioned i was dating someone so he wouldn't get any ideas (plus, i kind of was). i have probably run into him a total of 3, maybe 4 times since then.

so yesterday i was walking down the hall and there he was. i was opening up a door to go into a different area of the building and he stopped me for some (really lame [as always]) small talk. he asked if i was going home soon and i told him i wouldn't be leaving until about 6:30pm. then this happened:

"6:30, huh? wow, that's kind of late. should we go into one of these closets here?" and then he SMACKED MY ASS!

barf.

it was a scene from one of those cheesy sexual harrasment videos that you watch and think "people don't DO that stuff in real life". boy were WE wrong!

Mixed CD Etiquette

2007-05-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

So few weeks ago I went to dinner with a few friends. I won't name them, but trust me, all three of them are attractive, above reproach and always have my back. Needless to say, I trust these people, with EVERYTHING.

So it was shocking when I went on a rant about how mixed CDs is more a thing you do in high school than when you are...Um, older, they completely disagreed with me. Since then I issued a mixed CD competition to see how thematically people construct a good mixed CD.

In doing this one of the loves of my life, who also happens to be my roommate and I had a discussion on what makes a good mixed CD, how does it say "I like you enough to give you this CD of compiled artists so when we break up you will always have something to remember the reasons why."

So this is a little list of things not to do that we came up with on our way to church (it might have been basketball) one day.

1- Try to avoid the obvious, for instance, stay away from Coldplay, or in Natali's case James Blunt.
2- Finding songs with that special someones name in it is good if you can find good songs. For instance, I have found that the Name Caroline is in a ton of songs by both big name and obscure artists (My favorite being Sweet Caroline). However, the name Aubrey doesn't seem to be popular among song writers.

Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond is a great song, however if you are dating a girl named Roseanna, it's probably better that you don't use the song by Toto, because, you know, it's lame.

3- Try to avoid using to obscure of song. I know that we're all proud of knowing artists and groups that perhaps our significant others don't know, but just because I enjoy The Rachel's doesn't mean their music is listenable to other people. Your mixed CD which is supposed to be an expression of intense like at the very least will not an opportunity to show that person that you would rather force yourself to listen to poorly composed contemporary elevator music rather than watch the news.

4- No matter what anyone says, Sexual Healing is not good on a mix. No offense to my man Marvin Gaye, but it's just not ever a good idea.

5- If you want to break up with someone don't make a break up CD, it sends mixed signals.

If anyone needs to add to or make amendments to the list feel free.

addendum to baseball theory

2007-05-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

so i realized that my theory in my last post and my following arguments were unclear but at the time was too lazy to do anything about it. i will now clarify. the reason why women should have three guys on base is to somehow make them feel that there are at least three guys out there who would want to date them for who they are. it gives them the confidence that they are worth dating as a person even with all the strange and unrealistic views women in the church have forced upon them. men on the other hand should actually try to get to know the person they are dating instead of looking to see if another women fits into their what a mormon girl should look like criteria better. its an attempt to somehow normalize dating in a small, religious community. the idea is that people will start dating people and not ideas. that is the connection. i hope that helps.

the baseball theory of dating

2007-05-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

awhile back i came up with the baseball theory of dating. it was in response to dating and being mormon and dating mormons. here is how it goes. girls should have three guys on base at all times. that means unless you have a boyfriend do your best not to get to involved in any one guy (avoid hyperfocusing). boys should have one up to bat at a time. that means if you are a guy you should try dating one girl until you decide you dont like her and then then next girl gets up to bat (try focusing). its an attempt to somehow normalize dating habits and practices in an otherwise abnormal dating environment. and that in summary is the baseball theory on dating. and now for my reasoning.

last sunday in church the speaker was a 22 year old returned missionary lamenting his dating problems. he didnt know which girl was the right girl for him. he went on to say he had been dating a girl seriously and prayed about about her his wife. but he didnt feel great so he broke it off. he then proceeded to say he thinks he escaped an eternity of misery by following this prompting. but added, she was a great girl. which sums up how i feel when i date mormon guys. you are always on audition. are you in fact the one? but even though you are great there is that certain indescribable characteristic that they cant articulate but you glaringly lack. and what if you arent the one and they accidentally marry you and great they are in misery for eternity (all your fault). i feel like boys are always wondering if i measure up to every stereotype of womanhood and have every quality of motherness and will i always be skinny even after having six kids but most importantly am i the one or is there another girl out there i might like a little more.

i dont really blame mormon guys. its not their fault. this is the problem in any small religious group that places a lot of emphasis on marriage and marrying the right person and marrying within the religion and marrying a stalwart member within the religion and marrying for forever to boot. but it puts me in a pickle. i really like realness and honesty and acceptance and appreciation in relationships. and i find that more outside of mormondon, not exclusively outside but mostly. i think ck once told me that her best boyfriends were either 1)converts 2)inactives or 3) nonmembers. ahem is all have to say to that.

this post is not in anyway supposed to be about how mormon boys are not dateable. they are. i have dated a lot in my day and i have generally enjoyed the experience. i am just trying to highlight a problem i think comes from dating within a small religious group. i am just suggesting that dating would be easier if you werent limited to 2% of the population. but even without the numbers there do seem to be some serious problems with how dating is approached in our subculture and strange expectations and views on the matter. and maybe my baseball theory will fix it. i doubt it. play ball.

gimme gimme gimme

2007-05-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

does anyone other than me find jon bon jovi insanely hot? people always look at me funny when i disclose my crush. i don’t understand how you can find sean connery attractive (which he isn’t…and never was) and not be at least a little turned on when jonny wears those tight pants. am i alone in this?

even though you never put ribbons in my bowl cut, i'm not gay

2007-05-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

dear mom,

i had a lot of fun at our mother's day bbq, so thanks for being a mom and making it all possible. i know each time we have a family dinner, or any family gathering really, you secretly hope that i will show up with a boy on my arm and a ring on the way (maybe you'd even be okay with a bun in the oven at this point).

mom, i know i'm 6 months away from probably being socially considered a lost cause marriage material-wise, so me bringing a boy home might help ease your anxiety. and i know i've brought home one or two boyfriends in the past. but i think you should know that my policy is now to never bring home boys. ever. i've actually had this policy for a few years now, you just didn't know it. i just don't like to get your hopes up only to have them dashed. and i don't think we need anymore ex-boyfriend nicknames like "the weasel" (which you forgot you actually originally came up with as "the ferret" [oh well, they might be in the same family in the animal kingdom...]).

i just wanted to reassure you since, if i don't come to family dinners alone, i usually bring friends. friends that are girls. i hope this doesn't double your disappointment, mom. rest assured, i am not a lesbian. good thing, because you didn't even think it was funny when dwight made that joke about me being a lesbian due to the way you fixed my hair as a child (it was)

love always,

becky.

2007-05-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's the moment you've been waiting for all night. All the tells are there, constant eye contact, the giggling over really lame and rather obvious jokes, the batting eyes. Sitting shoulder to shoulder and the constant whispering throughout the movie about how bad this line was or how funny that gesture is. There is a tingling in your finger tips, there are swirly knots in your Buddha belly, the air is heavy with anticipation and a fresh scent that clears your senses, it feels like a first kiss is on the horizon.

As you drive her home you put in your favorite Stars CD. You're not sixteen anymore you realize that girls like to kiss guys too, it's not something that needs to be advertised, you don't have to propagate it or wrap it up with a bow in order to make it seem appealing. You can tell that she's attracted to you, but somewhere deep inside the inner high schooler still feels like he needs to set a mood and that you still need to make an effort.

You are taking the long way to her apartment now for a few reasons, first being that you enjoy her company, you aren't sure you want this night to end so soon. Second you're nervous, despite your best effort she is different than the last few girls you've dated. It's been a while since you've spent time with someone that made you feel like this. Third your unsure, she is so cool, if you move too quickly do you risk losing interest? She might loose interest in you?

At this moment the voice of Tyler Durden (whos sounds an awful lot like Brad Pitt) is having a conversation with you. "Your putting way too much thought into this! go with the flow you shit h__d." Damn him, Damn Chuck Palahniuk for writing Fight Club and suggesting that there is an inner antagonist that is their to challenge you at your weakest moments. Damn Tyler Durden for being so much cooler than me.

The paradox here is that if things were to work out, you'll find yourself taking the direct route at 20 miles over the speed limit just to get to her house quicker. But for now your stalling, you hope she doesn't know it.

You're at her house now you walk her to the door, you can feel your lips twitching, you just hope she doesn't notice them. You're talking but both of your bodies are saying kiss, Kiss, KIss, KISs, KISS! Tyler Durden is screaming in your ear "Come on man KISS her!" You think of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, you think of Hershey's, you think of everything but what you should be thinking about. Your hands are sweating, they haven't done that in months, years even when getting close to a girl, you're fidgety, you're having a hard time focusing.

You're now ready to make an attempt, you draw in closer, but you realize the conversation isn't at a point where you can really do this...You ask "Can I kiss you goodnight?" You can't believe you just asked that question! What are you 14? Everything you've ever learned in all your time dating says "Kiss me knucklehead" and yet you have to ask her?

Tyler Durden is furious with you, he starts making crude comments of how you may have been born without testicles. I hate when Tyler talks down to me. Tyler threatens to kick my ass as soon as we're out of this situation. The good thing about Tyler is that even though I know he's there, I know I'm not schizophrenic, so there will be no way he can beat the shit out of me tonight while I'm sleeping. All he can do is attack my character, but that's all he needs to do right now.

You lean in, your lips touched sooner than expected, your wondering what to do, you forget to enjoy this moment, you forget to let her kiss you back, you forget every instinct. Tyler Durden is now screaming in your ear yet again, "You can't handle this you fruity little bitch". The time passes too quickly, the moments ending, the kiss is over, the time has passed too soon and you're back to looking at each other again. You don't take note that she's smiling, or that her eyes are still meeting yours intently, you force a smile, "Can I call you soon?"

WHAT! Tyler Durden's fists are balling up, "Don't ask! What's wrong with you?" you try not to wince at your own awkwardness. She is still smiling "Yes, for sure." You kiss good night, this time the kiss is even shorter then the previous, you pivot and step off the porch, jump into your Honda Civic and you point your car in the direction of home.

You contemplate the night, you take a heavy breath and say to yourself "well, plenty of fish in the sea." You eject the Stars CD and put in your He is Legend CD to clear your mind. Tyler Durden smacks you on the skull, you deserve it, you acted like you had never even seen a woman before. You try to make an excuse, "She was really rad though!" Tyler isn't buying it, he begins to go into a rant "Next time..."

But he is cut off by the vibrating of a text message that you've just received. You pick it up.

"I had a really great time, make it home safe."

Maybe there is a second chance after all. Kiss my ass Tyler Durden.

DISCLAIMER: The use of the Fight Club's Character Tyler Durden because he is a cultural icon well known for his machismo and self confidence. I am in no way of two personalities, nor do I hold fight clubs in the basement of an italian resteraunt (even if I did the first three rules of fight club is that you do not talk about fight club, it's stated threee times to be emphatic) though that would make me and/or anyone a more interesting person.

you talk, and talk's so cheap

2007-05-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

here is something i think has probably become a problem with the increasing normalcy of using the internet to meet and potentially date people. but it's not even just the internet. it's technology in general. texting, im, etc. it's that men are all talk. were they always, or have they just become so? maybe girls are too. probably. but whatevs, i'm a woman, so i'm going to use the experiences with men as examples...

i have a close friend who hooked up with this guy over new years weekend. he was visiting from out of town, they made out, he left town. she never expected to hear from him again. not only did she not expect to, she didn't care if she did one way or another...it was just a hookup with a total stranger, right? WRONG. as of the next day he was texting her, talking about the "connection" they had and how badly he wanted to see her again. this went on for months. MONTHS. they talked on the phone several times....had really great conversations, texted all the time, etc. he'd ask her constantly when she was coming out to visit, or even better, when she was moving back to CA so they could see each other all the time. a few times over the several months she wouldn't hear from him for a two-week span or so, and she'd always write him off. she wasn't letting herself get emotionally attached. then she'd hear from him again and he'd talk about how much he missed her, how badly he wanted to see her....some of their conversations were quite deep and serious. he'd talk about how he was afraid he wasn't the "good mormon guy" she wanted, and how he wanted to be better for her....blah blah blah. sounds like someone's making plans for the future. at this point she is emotionally attached. how could she not be? he's said too much and made too many promises.

so the time finally arrives. she goes out CA for a visit. not to visit him specifically, but he was probably her main priority there and she was so excited to see him. so excited to see if these months of build-up could lead to something amazing. the day she got to town he texted her and asked where she was and she told him she was there. then nothing. that night when he still hadn't made plans with her she texted him and told him she was only in town for a few days and he had better take advantage of the time. he told her he knew she had things she wanted to do while she was there and didn't know how he fit into that so he was just waiting to hear from her. huh? what happened to mr. confident "get your butt out here now, i can't wait to see you"? anyway, they made plans to go out the next night.

the next day she went shopping with some girlfriends and he called to see what she was doing. she told him she was shopping and he said "maybe i'll join you". then same sentence decided "nah, it's cold and i'm tired, just call me when you're done". two minutes later he texted her and suggested they get together around 10 or 11 that night and she could go out with him and his buddies. wtf. she was pissed. she told him she thought they had plans, just the two of them. she wanted to go to dinner and just spend time together. he says "sure, babe, whatever you want". she finishes up with shopping and calls him. no answer. leaves a message. and he never....calls....back.....ever. she never heard from him again. ever. asshole.

my point is, what the hell? why does a guy put so much effort into keeping in contact with a girl---a complete stranger--who lives in a different state and who he had no "obligation" to ever see or speak to again, if this is how he's going to behave? is he all talk? did he mean those things, but was then too big of a pussy to follow through? or did he not mean any of them and just liked the attention he got in return?

it's so easy to say things to someone when they are on the other end of the computer. or cingular. do we get carried away? get caught up in situations? in conversations with words that we don't mean, but that feel good to say? if you're going to tell me how amazing i am, and how much you love talking to me, and how great we could possibly be together, and how, dammit, you hate the distance between us, then son of a bitch, when we are in the same state, make an effort to see me, and get to know me in person, and see if it's all real, and if you want to be with me after all.

date me?

2007-05-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

i got this in the mail today. yes thats right its an invitation for my ten year high school reunion. i am not for one minute going to pretend i am ok going not being married. anyway, its cool though. as long as i have a date. so i was wondering if anyone thought going to my ten year reunion would be fun. maybe fun is the wrong word. substitute the word bearable for fun. the perks are you get to go to springville high school and i can show you around. except for the boys locker room. mr. bird made it very clear i am not allowed in there. sooooo anyone in? we can pretend we are engaged. (kidding) (am i?).

things were sure easier back in the good ol' days

2007-05-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

i bet adam always told eve she was the only woman in the world for him.

and eve never had to deal with adam's relatives.

(the good ol' days in the title refer to the garden of eden.)

First Kisses

2007-05-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

First Kisses are almost always fun, or at least in my life they are fun. Mostly because they involve brown men. My very first First Kiss involved an African boy (and by boy I mean man) that I met on the island of Zanzibar. Doesn’t that sound romantic? It gets better. He took me to the other side of the island on the back of his motorcycle to a lovely white sand beach and taught me all about spices and where they came from. As it turned out, he was a bit spicy himself. We ended up making out in the back seat of a pastor’s car in Singita, Tanzania while Pastor Mafwimbo unloaded my backpack from the trunk. Sadly, I had to end the kiss pretty quickly when I realized around fifty Tanzanians gathered at the train station were curiously starring at us, my friend (standing next to the pastor) and I being the only wzungu (white people) to visit the city in months. I’m sure the pastor figured it out later.

Another fun First Kiss for me involved my cute translator Abdul (name has been changed) in the desert dunes of Southern Algeria where I was conducting research for my masters program. (Don’t judge me, I’m pretty sure it didn’t affect the outcomes of my study.) It was also memorable because that night after seeing the most beautiful stars ever, it started raining. Did you know it rains in the Sahara?

The 2nd best kisser (my current boyfriend is #1) I ever kissed was Moroccan. Let me tell you, those Moroccans have SKILLS. Our First Kiss was on the banks of the Potomac in Georgetown after a delicious meal at a riverfront restaurant.

And finally, my most recent and (cross your fingers) FINAL First Kiss was with a Samoan boy here in DC, in a haunted bus. Yes, a haunted bus. After walking me through a scary haunted forest last Halloween and me clinging to his arm all night for protection from the crazy monsters, this Samoan got brave and gave me a good smooch. As with my first First Kiss I had to end this one after less than a minute upon remembering the bus was stocked with teenagers ready to reach out and grab us as we walked through the rest of the haunted bus pathways.

Bonuses of brown boyz: brown boyz let you know they’re interested so there’s less guesswork. Some of you girls may protest that that takes away from the mystery and fun of hooking up, but I disagree. Wouldn’t you rather just know they’re interested and let them kiss you? Which brings me to my second bonus—brown boyz put out. Third, as in my case, marrying a brown boy (which I will be doing this fall) can give your children the everlasting gift of guilt-free brown skin. My children will always be tan! I am going to always remind them to be grateful to me.

The benefits to white boys? Sadly, I cannot think of any. I’ve only kissed two ever and they were very, very wussy. I have dated a number of white boyz and many of them were super nice, but they just didn’t turn me on really. I apologize if you are a white boy reading this. I’m pretty sure none of the white boyz I have dated actually know about this blog.

Revenge

2007-05-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

I have a friend (we’ll call him james (I couldn’t for the life of me remember what jim was short for the other day. I kept thinking jimothy) who’s gone out with a girl (we’ll call her lady) a couple of times and decided she wasn’t the girl for him. She, however, was convinced that she was meant to be his cuddle muffin (well, either that or she just didn’t want to face the rejection).

They went out to ice cream and he broke the news about not wanting to have her babies. This upset her – so much that when he left for a second, she actually poured nail polish remover into his ice cream! Now in her defense, you would think one would notice that their ice cream tastes a little bit like rubbing alcohol, but james likes ice cream – you can’t blame the guy – so he finished it off and then took her home…and then took himself to the emergency room an hour later on account of he had been poisoned (doesn’t this sound like a csi episode??). luckily, he lived to tell the story. Unluckily, he’ll probably have traces of nail polish remover in his body forever and if medical breakthroughs someday show that lining your stomach with nail polish is the answer for living forever, I don’t think he’ll make it

men are overrated...

2007-05-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

...so i've learned since getting a puppy. this is milo and he is far less complicated than any man i've ever been with - he cuddles when i want to cuddle, insists on sleeping in my bed every night and gets really sad without hiding his feelings when i leave. also, he nibbles my ear regularly and tugs on my hair when i do situps - as if he's telling me "you don't need to work out, you look great just the way you are." he even watched the whole 2-hour special of grey's anatomy last night (can you believe mcdreamy might cheat on meridyth??). tell me what guy would do that?

the one downside is that he sometimes pees on the floor, but the more i think about it, the more i think that's not much different than guys. way to go milo

dating is a complicated process

2007-05-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

people ask me for dating advice all the time. but sometimes i get stumped on what to do. here are some scenarios that left me scratching my head.

1) recently my friend started dating a guy who only will kiss her in public. they have NEVER kissed if it wasnt in a car parked somewhere in PUBLIC. if this is provo thats pretty standard because there is no where to make out there. but she is wondering. is he an exhibitionist and if so should she care?

2) i have another friend who took out a girl and she refuses to tell him what kind of music she likes. and that drives him crazy. he basically had to wrestle her to the ground in order to make a play for her cd case but she manages to foil him everytime. he really feels like music compatibility is important. what should he do?

3) i have yet ANOTHER friend (i was recently told i was pretty popular) who went out with a guy and he kissed her. but then next time they hung out he said no kissing. but then they hung out again and the kissing was on. and then the next time no kissing. she is a bit on a kissing roller coaster. and she tends to get motion sick. but maybe he likes her. but maybe he doesnt? what should she do?

4) oh and dont forget the girl who is dating the guy who keeps talking about killing her and where he will hide the body. nah that one is a no brainer. he sounds like a keeper.

those are my the most interesting dating problems i have come across lately. i would like some feedback that i will forward on.

would you rather

2007-04-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

okay, here’s a little game of first date hypotheticals inspired by the book would you rather.

would you rather:

1. your date thinks he/she is a broadway star (not the good kind…is there such a thing?) who sings everything to you and full on dances at least three times during the course of your date (true story actually)

2. your date takes you to a random high school football game (as a reminder, you’ve probably graduated high school by now) and to dinner at 7-11 on account of its "vegetarian friendly" options (this one maybe really happened to me)

3. your date creates a written “date itinerary” for you that ends with “make-out like a banshee to james blunt” (a bit of an exaggeration, james blunt wasn’t really involved but it’s a real story nonetheless)

4. your date throws up on your front porch right as he/she picks you up (and this one’s real too)

5. your date takes you swing dancing but drops you on your head six times trying to do a flip and then instead of making sure you’re okay, gets mad at you for screwing the move up (and this one…)

now remember, these are all first date hypotheticals, meaning you don’t know the person at all..choose wisely. if you want my expert advice, i think the broadway singer is the only one that hasn’t somehow permanently damaged me

i learned this today on the linkup

2007-04-29T22:03:00.000-07:00

Men and women with stronger jawlines are more passionate.

It's true. An angular, pronounced jawline is built by higher levels of testosterone in both men and women. And those with higher concentrations of testosterone tend to have higher drives... and more fantasies. Yeah, baby!

how f___ing romantic

2007-04-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

i just remembered the best example of the over-the-top displays of love i mentioned in my last blog: the magnetic field's 69 love songs. they take love songs to such absurd heights that they somehow regain some meaningful sentiment. the album contemporizes love songs full of cycicism, detachment and irony showing how sincere, honest love songs are probably an impossibility. but at the same time, you can't help wishing you could sing these exact songs to your lover.

bar party

2007-04-23T20:41:00.000-07:00

as i watch the bachelor, one of the most real and honest portrayals of love and finding "the one," i thought it was time to post another blog. i have a date tomorrow night. it is not with an officer/gentleman but it is with a man. he recently took the bar exam. in conjunction with this, i told him we should have a "bar party." this event would include checking out the one and only bar in st. george, playing on the monkey bars, eating granola bars, and maybe him washing my feet with a bar of soap. (i think we can all agree that i am most certainly a nerd) but hey, cutie bar man asked for my phone number and suggested we go for an "ice cream bar" tomorrow. i hope he lets me have two. (the bachelor guy...andy, only gives his dates wine and if they do get dessert, they have to share it with him)

your ex lover is dead

2007-04-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

last night i dreamt that my ex boyfriend who incidentally looks a lot like Jesus fell off a building and i was sad i really was and i went over and it looked like maybe he just broke his leg and i thought huh thats ok and opened up my diet coke.

6'2" for me, for you

2007-04-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

here's why 6'2" is (should be considered) the perfect height for a man:

1. unless you're basically legally a midget, he won't be too tall for you.
2. unless you are an amazon woman, he will be at least 2 inches taller than you.
3. any girl can wear heels with her 6'2" boyfriend. short girls can wear anything from flats to 6" heels, and tall girls can also wear flats or heels. hell, even a 6'2" girl (if there are any) can at least wear flats. and 6' girls can still wear heels! heels 6' girl!

other heights just don't work (you [i] could probably make a good argument for 6'3"). 6'4" or 6'5"? way too tall for any girl between 5'1" and 5'8". you can still wear tall heels but it won't even put a dent in that span. also, making out is only comfortable in certain positions, and why limit yourself to certain positions?

i don't think i even need to bring up the reasons why shorter guys aren't universally the perfect height. but i will. flats your only option? no thanks! shorter than me? i don't want you to have to look up to kiss me. don't worry, there is nothing wrong with lesser than tall guys. they have girls to date. they are just not universally the perfect height.

in summary, every girl has a range of heights that she can work with (or a different height she might prefer [or example, my EC is probably approximately 6ft and some change]), but i am saying that 6'2" is the height that any girl could work with. universally, the perfect height.