January 2014 – A Series of Very Bad Decisions

More guilt

Last week, I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends, stemming from a separate conversation with someone else. One of my friends told me a few people had been saying horrible things to her about her posting text and OKCupid messages on her Instagram, basically saying, “no wonder you’re single.” I found that to be a bit harsh and incredibly rude. She posts these things with comments in an attempt to keep a sense of humor about dating in general.

Dating in your 30’s is not the same as dating in your 20’s. It seems like there is a lot more at stake, for the girl, if she wants to have kids, and feels the clock is a-tickin’.

When you wind up stuck in the three-date curse or sitting in a parking garage crying or getting ridiculous texts, etc, sometimes all you can do is try to laugh it off. I bet these people, who said such horrible things to my friend, are all Taylor Swift fans. Well, every single one of her fucking songs are about dating gone awry, yet she is famous, makes a gajillion dollars a year and has won every award imaginable. And I mean, Jagged Little Pill, hello? While I still wholeheartedly refuse to believe that album was about Uncle Joey, it became the breakup anthem for a while and launched Alanis Morissette into uncharted waters. And while she has not actually spoken up about who inspired the song “You Outta Know”, she still wrote it, so we know it was about someone and came from a very dark place.

Anyway. I find comments like that, “no wonder you’re single,” to not only be hurtful, but are also more than likely coming from a very hypocritical place. And all these people were single until they weren’t.

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But it did get me thinking a lot. Is that what people think about me? No wonder I’m single because of this blog and book (the book that’s like, 500 words at this point after I lost it all when my laptop shit the bed)? Mr. Titspervert once told me I should not feel guilty about writing about him, and that was a comment I appreciated, especially because it was unsolicited.

So, I asked one of my guy friends what he thought. He said I shouldn’t feel guilty, but at the same time need to think about how I’d feel if these guys were writing about me. That kind of sent me to a bad place. I leave out really personal and identifying details, but it was pointed out to me that I should not act like I am doing them a favor for leaving out details. Then I was all, “wait a minute, like four people read my blog, who actually cares?” I try to make this a mostly humorous take on dating disasters and keep it lighthearted. Maybe did a bad job of that recently in regards to B3.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about came up on Facebook. My friend Amy moved to Boston recently and just started dating someone. She has been posting cute little updates about their dates, but nothing overly personal or even remotely out of line. Then I log in earlier in the week to see her status as the following (and yes, I asked her if I could use it):

So I’ve been getting a lot of flack offline for “over sharing” on Facebook this past week regarding my dating life. Here’s what I have to say about it. A) this person is not on Facebook. B) I have selflessly liked all your wedding/baby/whatever posts for years. C) If you have a problem with what I share on here, unfriend me. D) I haven’t dated anyone in SIX YEARS. Every time I post a dating update I deserve resounding applause. For all the above reasons. I’m done with your complaints. Shut it and attempt to be happy for me. Love and thanks 🙂

First thing’s first: pause for reaction:

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Second of all, she makes an interesting point, in that why is it okay for us to post things about relationships becoming permanent (engaged, married, etc) but not about being excited about the early stages? Not even kidding, I was planning on posting the first pic taken of B3 and I (there wasn’t one) and just posting it with the caption “Suddenly I See” or something like that because I was g-o-n-e but such a picture does not exist and then we were Facebook friends briefly and I kept all comments about my dating life completely absent because I wanted to be mindful of his feelings and I do hate when people over share in an uncomfortable way on Facebook or when couples fight on Facebook. But that’s not what Amy was doing at all. And it was great to see her school everyone, because she has a very valid point.

Should I feel bad about making fun of myself for some bad decisions I’ve made? No. And I really do try to make it more about me than them, not in a selfish way, but so it doesn’t come across that I will write about every single person that I date. That is not the goal at all. The original intent was to focus on 2007-2013, my years in Chicago, and the incredibly stupid yet hilarious things that happened. When I moved to California, I was not expecting to date or meet anyone for a while, it just happened, and I see myself repeating a bad pattern with B3, which is how I ended up writing about him. It’s more for me to work things out through writing, rather than to be hurtful to them or overshare-y or anything like that, yet I sit here trying to justify a very personal decision as if anyone even cares. Does anyone even care? Am I thinking too much?

There is no right answer here because obviously some people are not going to like what I write, but I’m not going to stop doing it.

Something I actually had to say earlier

I was on the phone with one of my friends telling her about a very weird message that I got from John Doe over Words With Friends chat or whatever. Her first question of course was, “why are you even playing with him?” And my response of course was, “because I’m bored.”

However – back to the weird message. He had just beaten me, so I started a rematch game, which is normal. And I get, “are you a quitter in real life, too?”

First of all –

Second of all – per usual, I have no idea what he’s talking about, which was essentially what I wrote back, and Katie (rightfully) said to me, “Way to stand up for yourself.” And while, she’s right, what I then had to say, which sounded so ridiculous was, “I wasn’t going to tell him off over WWF chat!” Because really, the response to that would exceed many, many character limits.

I mean, I lost my job and moved my entire life half way across the country where I knew zero people. But yeah, sounds like a quitter to me. Jerkstore.

Dating is actually the worst, for real, no take backs, no triple stamping a double stamp

Dating. It sucks. It’s a social land mine of broken hearts, bad sex, bad dates, bad kisses and then SOMETIMES you get a really good person that makes you all

but then it ends in ultimate gut-wrenching rejection that makes you want to do nothing but this:

Most of the time, we try to keep a sense of humor about it. Numerous times, I sat with my friends in bars making t-charts to weighs the pros/cons of the current object of my affection.

Example below for Brad, my cruise boyfriend who turned out to live in the same metro-area as I did at the time but afterward was uninterested in continuing our Caribbean fling:

Pros: Adventurous, is a man giant (not entirely true but I do like ’em tall), private spooning, frequents Indiana casinos, is insanely sexual.

*There are other pros I am leaving out for reasons of which I am unwilling to elaborate.

Cons: Lives in suburban HELL, smokes, is really way to old for me, possibly died after amazingness of the cruise, is an old WOMAN (video poker obsession)

See? Casual, funny, whatever. Sure, maybe we wrote that ten Old Styles in after a Cubs game, but it ultimately doesn’t matter.

But lately. Lately it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep a sense of humor about anything. My friend Susan just got dicked over by yet another OKCupid guy. When I was home for Christmas, I saw her the day she was having her first date with this dude. They went for coffee, it went well, and he asked her to come over and hang out at his place for New Years eve.

Things went great, he was in constant communication, told her he couldn’t wait to see her again, and then. Then, today she gets this:

When I saw this text, my immediate reaction was

d57cd97d56194590083281da05e88a5a

Why. Why do they do this? This is as bad as Bachelor #1 rejecting me but telling me I was so amazing he was going to set me up with someone else. Could you BE any more patronizing? And I would ask the same of this Ben character. Is there some rule among guys we don’t know about where they are obligated to talk to us for approximately four days after we give up the goods or get close to it or entertain the notion enough to keep them wanting more except NO – they fucking disappear? Or they lie about having cancer (true story). Or they tell you they don’t want to hear about you being upset and then ask you if you are still upset.

If you don’t want to date – DO NOT JOIN A DATING WEB SITE. Why is this concept lost on so many people? Chicks do it too (I’m sure), so this is not specific to guys, but since I don’t date chicks, this current rant is directed at Bachelor’s 1,3, and this Ben dude.

In B3’s defense, he isn’t on any dating sites (that I know of) and told me he sucks at dating, but he is giving me just enough to think he cares because I am sure that his hope is that in a moment of weakness, I will crack and ask him to do stuff. But I know he doesn’t care- as the song goes

Okay, so anyway, new rule: if you are not looking to date, and just want to store up for your inner sexual camel, go trolling bars or Craigslist. Got it? Good, thanks.

In search of: a magic wand

guilt

noun

1. the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law; culpability: He admitted his guilt.

2. a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.

3. conduct involving the commission of such crimes, wrongs, etc.: to live a life of guilt.

B3 texted me this morning to ask me if I was happy about Jay Cutler signing a seven year extension with the Bears. And I ignored him, because after his last declaration of, “I’ll screw you as long as I don’t have to care about your feelings,” I was feeling less than inclined to respond.

But here’s the thing: I am drowning in my own guilt because I agreed to the last part of his last pre-Cutler text – the part where he didn’t want to hear about me being upset. I wrote “ok.” As in, “okay, you don’t have to hear about it,” not as in, “sure, I’m up for hanging out and doing x-rated things and falling deeper into this rabbit hole so sure, now let’s talk about Jay Cutty. Awesome.”

I feel guilty for responding to one text while not responding to another.

It would be ideal if someone had given me a magic wand for Christmas that I could use to abracadabra away all of my feelings and just not give a shit anymore.

I just said yesterday that this would be the year of no guilt in terms of demanding more/better, and here I am, already failing. Hence the need for the magic wand.

In other news, I completely deleted my OK Cupid profile. I have only been logging in to read the ridiculous messages I was getting and am currently so turned off by the concept of dating right now that having a profile serves no purpose.

It’s a shame, too, because

Reva out.

Debbie Downer returns

2014. It’s another new year. One of the reasons I HATE New Years as a holiday is because every Dec 31st I look back on the year and say, “Yep, failed at love again.” Now, don’t get me wrong – this is not me saying my life is necessarily incomplete, this is me saying that I consistently fail at the same thing over and over. I realize there is about a month long gap that fails to elaborate on more of the B3 nonsense and it’s no longer relevant anyway because I can’t see him ever again. He sees me as a pair of boobs that he really likes instead of a person with feelings. This is no exaggeration. I essentially got a text that boiled down to: I’m here if you want to do x-rated things but I don’t want to hear about you being upset. Hey buddy, you can take those x-rated thoughts and shove it!

Yesterday, I told my therapist that I felt guilty for deleting B3 as a Facebook friend (BURN) and he said guilt is something you should only feel if you’ve done something wrong. I can’t sit there and go through his pictures and remember all the good stuff, and I am not going to let him get glimpses into my life since he obviously doesn’t care to be in it in any real way. And I know FB can be very superficial at times but at others it is handy for sharing life events, etc.

Not once, but TWICE in 2013 did I get the “you’re amazing but…” speech, which I fucking hate, because if I were really so amazing, there would be no BUT. I see your bullshit, and raise you an evil glare.

This needs to be the year that I don’t feel guilt: for standing up for myself or for demanding more, or better (i.e. being treated as a priority rather than an option or last resort); for letting go – of anger, of sadness, of things that don’t belong in my head, for keeping the past where it belongs, and for truly believing that this is B3’s loss and not mine. Good luck finding another chick who loves sports and hates shopping and is as refined as I am.