i h8 u

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 have a thing for energy consumption

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?

Revenge

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

its not you its me

on saturday night i thought maybe becky and i had the same linkup boyfriend. how does that even happen? its pretty easy you are just emailing the same boy. anyway, becky was a little more serious with its not you its me than i was from the beginning. i should have known someone with a screen name that says its not you its me could not be capable of a long, loving, or committed e relationship. anyway, i called INUIM on trying to email me and my best friend at the SAME time. he admitted this:

I guess I might as well just come right out and say it.

I want to hold both of your hands. At the same time. Preferably on some kind of ferris wheel or roller coaster.

Forever and ever.

anyway, i thought wow. maybe me becky could successful date the same boy at once. this is novel. i love ferris wheels. and becky loves roller coasters. really he might just be the boy for us. but then i got this email entitled good news and bad news:

It looks like Bexy and I are probably going to get married, so you and I will have to just be really passionate friends.

I'm sorry I couldn't tell you in person.

so it was over just like that. and i am sad i never thought of bexy before. i suggested sea foam green as their wedding color to show i have no hard feelings.

its over

so you know when you have a mini crush on someone you hung out with a couple months ago and so you want to get to know them better and so you are excited when they called to hang out last night but you think they know about your mini crush or you friend told them about it and it gets blown way out of proportion in their head because they think they suddenly have all this hand and start putting on this whole act of being too cool and standoffish so instead of talking to you they text someone all night and more or less ignore you and its awkward because you talked this guy up as being really fun and cool to your best friend and she is like yeah is it weird that he is acting like we arent in the room i am pretty sure we should have watched the queen like we planned.

has that ever happened to anyone else? anyway, when it happens to me i like to leave and say good night i had fun (but without any sincerity behind it) and get in my car and delete their number.

goodbye my lover

i was dating a boy one time and then we broke up (i'm starting to wonder if there are other options that actually replace breaking up??) only he didn't want to break up and he wasn't afraid to let me know that. it's flattering to feel wanted even after you stomp on somebody's heart, but it's not flattering to be told that every time he hears the song "goodbye my lover" by james blunt, he thinks of me. aside from the lyrics being at best like an amateur stand-up comedy skit (i'd be the father of your child?? wow...) james blunt is so whiny! if anybody ever expressed their love for me in that tone, i would either a) laugh without meaning to or b) start calling them randy parker.

this love confession happened awhile ago, but my sister informed me that somebody she knew started crying just the other day when this song came on the radio because it reminded her of her old boyfriend...i'm really concerned with how we're starting to define post-relationships

jr jr part II

so maybe there is a chance i went to FHE for the first time in 3 years. mostly its because it was roller skating and heidi was going. i like roller skating.

anyway, so i was skating around the side by myself looking to see if heidi was around by the food. as i was skating i saw the 21 year. he saw me. and then he got up and skated away quickly. i think i had a flash back to junior high. not because this happened to me in junior high but because i think if a boy is going to skate away from you it should probably happen when you are 14. so he spent the whole night avoiding me. jr jr broke up with me.

i actually panicked that maybe he read this blog. there is no way right?right??

it just didnt feel right

here are some reasons to break up:

1) irreconsible differences (that one can be used in legal proceedings)
2) they make you horribly unhappy
3) you dont like their personality
4) lost that lovin feeling
5) kissing their roommate
6) etc.

this list is not all inclusive. i mean we all have different reasons. but i dont really like when people bring in third parties, like the Holy Ghost (if you are dating someone else thats a fair third party to bring up) instead of stating the real reasons you want to break up.

anyway, it just didnt feel right when i prayed about it, pondered about it in the temple, or when i read the description of my spouse in my patriarchal blessing just doesnt fly with me. its just too easy. no one can counter the Holy Ghost. how do you respond to that? because we all know there are real reasons you are breaking up (see list 1-6) but you are bringing up the personal revelation to avoid telling the person you are dating you arent really that attracted to them.

i would actually rather hear i dont know why we are breaking up which is the second lamest thing to say to someone. i only got "it just didnt feel right" once. it was with a guy i went out with like six times and i was like wait...did you PRAY about us? weird. i dont feel right about you praying about us. he is married. to some girl he felt right about. way to follow that spiritual prompting.

(ps i would like to add i did not intend for this post to be offensive or disrespectful in anyway. i am a believer in personal revelation and promptings. i think its offensive when people dont want to date you anymore and tell you God doesnt want you to date anymore. but thats just me)

the order of dating

in dating there are orders to things. for example you go out, hold hands, kiss, date exclusively and then break up (i hear there are other options besides breaking up but i am not familiar with those). and i have never been good at the order. i usually kiss before i hold hands. i usually go out on the first date after both of those things etc etc but the one that is truly problematic is when i break up...

i tend to break up with a boy awhile after we actually stop seeing each other. sometimes a very long while. in fact it takes me months or even years after dating. this has happened a couple of times (becky says it happens most of the time)(becky would know).

i am not sure why. this could be me or maybe i am attracted to boys who are missing the gene and/or socialization skills that make them think they should break up with someone around the same time they are dating the said person (me).

i kind of find this amusing because its such a strange conversation. you are talking about facts and feelings that at one point you actually cared about at a time when you are caring less (less to not at all). the responses are hard to come up with but i have managed to do it on several occasions. one of the trickiest parts i think is that portion of the conversation where part of you kind of wants to answer like the girl who is just breaking up with someone (old self) and part of you is the girl who has moved on (new self). conversations go like this:

Boy (there are several you can insert here): natali, what happened with us?

(and this is where i panic crap what is going on? please say we arent breaking up. blast we are...i cant believe i havent kissed this guy in several months to years and i am expected to have this conversation... the conversation goes as follows)

Old Self: obviously, you were a selfish bastard
New Self: i dont know i dont really remember, i bet we were in different places.

Boy: I am really sorry about what happened.

Old Self: you are sorry because you were mean and hurtful. so yeah i guess you should be really sorry. and you should probably come with dating warning labels including "emotionally unavailable but likes to kiss" (i have only used that once but its my favorite dating warning label).
New Self: hey dont worry about it, it just wasnt meant to be (or whatever for all you destiny oriented people(i am for the record not one of those destiny oriented people))

Boy: I wish it could have been different....

Old self: well, maybe not talking to me then for six months was not the best idea. . .
New self: (AND I ALWAYS USE THIS (well there is one situation in which i dont...its described below), as far as i can tell its the one thing that really gets to the ex bf). "yeah. the thing is i dont. i dont really care about how we ended so long as we DID end. i dont regret it not working out. honestly though, i think you are a great guy....so even though it didnt end ideally, we are probably just lucky that it ended. "

that is usually the end of the belated breakup. mostly its because they realize they sort of got dumped and they werent planning on that. what they were hoping for comes next...

WARNING if you say that last thing you are NOT going to get is kissed. in case maybe you wanted some post breakup action. that last line will not get you any. lines that will however include....

"there are some things i miss"
or
"at least you were a pretty good kisser"
or
just kiss them. i like that one the most. and hey you deserve it....you just broke up after all.