Lost time

I've been feeling really old lately... and a little unsure of the direction my life is headed. I guess I always assumed by my late 20s I'd have things figured out a bit more but really I'm just about as lost as I was fresh out of college.

My best friend growing up got married a few weeks ago and the experience really shook me up. Partially because I'm nowhere near getting married myself (not that I ever really thought I'd marry before 30 but I did always think I'd at least have some contenders by this time) and also because it pointed out just how many years have gone by without me really noticing. You move away and you start to lose touch with people, that's just how it is. But how did I manage to go years without being friends with the once closest friend I had? How had it been 3 years since I'd even seen her? How was it that our friendship, once such a solid and important part of who I was, become completely forgotten, as if it never even existed. Here I was at the wedding of someone I really didn't know wondering how I had allowed so many years to simply pass by.

Of course I'm totally to blame in many ways. I've never been good at keeping in touch with people so it was easy to let this friend slide off my radar unintentionally. But it was also more than that because the truth was I had spent most of these years of lost communication angry.

When I moved to New York I struggled for some time. I had a horrible job in film (which I thought was exciting but really was just demoralizing) that left me totally insecure and uncontrollably anxious. It was during this phase in my life that my once best friend decided to cut me off. "We have nothing in common anymore," she told me one day and just stopped speaking to me. Sometime later we became friendly again but it was never the same. I could never forgive her for dropping me when I needed the stable people in my life the most.

My resentment never really went away and when I showed up last month for her wedding I suddenly realized I'd been holding on to this grudge now for 5 years. Of course I wasn't part of the wedding (shocked as old friends and family members were, recalling the 10 years of inseparable friendship), I didn't even know the bride anymore. I knew who she was growing up, but everything I knew was ancient history. And that was a strange feeling.

I never felt so old.

Or lost.

boundaries

I have this friend... who will hopefully never read this blog.

And let's try that again.

So, I have this friend. And I hopelessly want to be with him in a not just friend sorta way. But how does one even take that kinda step?

We met a few years ago, hit it off and he asked me to drinks. My friend who was with me when we met was already referring to him as my soulmate and I was pretty excited for the date. Except that apparently it wasn't really a date. While out on our non-date I was told that he actually had a girlfriend but he really wanted to hang out with me so he asked me out anyway. Ouch.

My first thought was how much I wanted to do the always popular in movies (and oh so fun looking) martini in the face move. My next was to suck it up and just be his friend.

Years later I am still just his friend, despite the fact that we're both currently single. And I'm having a really hard time figuring out whether I can ever cross that line.

Which sucks.

Sad...

And now I just realized that the last post was the first one I've written in 2010. Bad bad bad me!! I need to get back on track stat!

End of an Era

Once upon a time I was in love. That kind of naive, life can never be the same without each other, kind of love that you can only really have once and only really feel when you're too young to know better.

I was 20 when I fell in love for the first (and only) time in my life. And at 28 I'm finally trying to cut the ties of that moment and move on.

I've held on to Ryan as a back up for myself for a lot of years despite the fact that I knew perfectly well that I was no longer in love with him after I returned from my visit to South Africa. I just didn't want to let go, didn't want to admit that I had been waiting for a person that no longer existed.

When it comes to dating I'm hopeless. Either I am completely uninterested immediately or I am overly interested to the point where I build things up too quickly and ruin it all. I just can't figure out the transition from casual to relationship considering the one serious relationship I have ever been in happened pretty immediately. We met and that was it, love at first site kinda nonsense (ok, maybe we weren't really in love immediately but we were an insta-couple).

Anyway, despite the 7 years of being broken up and the already mentioned fact that I know I'm not in love with him, I've still let myself keep Ryan on this strange pedestal. Until recently.

He did something that I've never been able to do, found himself in love with someone new. Someone who is also long distance but he's willing to wait around. Someone who isn't me.

After feeling my heart speed up to panic mode everytime I signed onto my stupid Facebook account, terrified to have to face another stupid "i miss her so much" or "this is such a new feeling for me" or even "the best people are worth waiting for," I finally just unfriended him. No more contact, no more heartache.

I always thought it was amazing how Ryan and I could stay in touch across the world via the internet and even text messages. Things were so difficult when we had our long distance relationship, trying to keep up with the phone booths and phone cards, scheduling exact times to be available at a certain number. And now, we could chat anytime. Catch up whenever we wanted.

Which is exactly what was holding me back.

How did I expect to move on when my once love of my life was still very much in my life?

So I cut him off. And I'm really hoping this makes all the difference.

Book club for the dating pathetic (part 1)

We were discussing starting a book club when Sara first made the suggestion. Initially it was meant as a joke. "My book will be He's Just Not That Into You," she declared. "You bitches need all the help you can get."

I laughed, of course, but then the brilliance of the idea started sinking in soon after. A book club devoted solely to self-help, a monthly meeting where we tell each other exactly what we're doing wrong. And maybe take some action.

Ilaria and I got started last night with a book called The Four Man Plan: A Romantic Science by Cindy Lu. Its one of those books that showed up on my desk during my book publicist days, even though it wasn't a Harper Collins title, just one of those ones publicists sent to other publicists in an effort to build buzz. Even though I could use all the help I could get in the dating department I never gave the book much thought.

Last night I pulled it off the shelf on a whim, why not give it a glance? I figured it just advocated dating multiple guys at once (which in the most basic terms, it does) but on further inspection its actually pretty fucking awesome.

Here's the general idea, each 4MPlanner (as the author refers to all women following her theory) fills up a slot card of 16 spaces, each with a different man or giving the men who progress the rights of multiple squares and chucking out those that don't (there are of course rules set up for who moves on and who gets removed but that's later). The whole process is approached as a science with Einstein quotes guiding the way. The real brilliance of it though is that the author is hilarious, like seriously funny, as opposed to the dowdy psychologists that doles out ridiculously unpractical advice filling lesser self-help tombs.

First we were prompted to make a list of all our personal dating deal-breakers. My list:
1-Men shorter than me (I'm a tall girl and its a self conscious point)
2-Men in finance (gross)
3-Men older than 35
4-Menwho use drugs regularly (including the pot smokers)
5-Unattractive men
6-Overly muscular men
7-Fat men
8-Bald men
9-Men who are obsessed with making money
10-Men who live in New Jersey/ Staten Island/ Bushwick/ Queens (I'm not big on the outer boroughs other than most of Brooklyn)
11-Anyone allergic to dogs (Zozie is way too important)
12-Bad kissers
13-Men who have strange Muppet voices (this is a weird tick I have and usually other people don't even notice these apparent weird voices but I do)
14-Men who stay out late partying alllll the time

This all seems pretty reasonable to me. But Lu then instructs that we are absolutely not allowed to turn down ANY man who falls into this list. None. Make no exceptions. Blah. I guess short old guys with money need love too or whatever...

Next we have to compile a list of our expectations in a man, whether shallow or not. Here's what I end up with:
1-Sexy
2-Artistic
3-Well-read (if a man tells me he's not that into reading, I'm quickly not that into him)
4-Interested in all things ME
5-Gives me lost of attention (without being annoyingly clingy, there's a fine line)
6-Incredibly intelligent but in a worldly way not the numbers way (yawn)
7-AWESOME kisser (I've liked men that are only so-so but really, what's the point in keeping those around too long)
8-Great sense of humor (I'm my mother's child, not funny is equal to no fun)
9-"Gets" me
10-Appreciates the Counting Crows (this one is a little picky but I could never spend a lifetime with someone who can't understand my ridiculous love for this band, its just a straight up fact)
11-Must LOVE Zozie (she's here to stay, they are can be replaced)
12-Close to their family (but not so close that my family won't always come first)

Is that so much to ask for?

Apparently while following this little plan though I am to focus on only the 3 she gives me and to ignore my other criteria, which again is just me being picky (boo). I must only expect a man to be HONEST, LOVING and WILLING. At this point Ilaria and I are at least a bit intrigued. Then we're dealt a blow in "A Powwow with Your Hoo-ha." That's right, the vagina is not to be the boss, she is not to make decisions, she gets no real say until much, much later in the dating game. Damn, this is going to be a tough one.

(This post will be continued later as I am taking the books advice and off on a date)

22

I've been listening to Lily Allen a lot lately, mostly cause I think she's so damn funny. And this one song kinda struck me in one of those totally self-obsessed "she is so talking about me" sort of ways except in regards to this song, that fact is totally depressing.

Anyway, here's the lyrics, I may add a youtube post to the video later but the video is even more horrifyingly depressing I may not be able to bring myself to do it...

When she was 22 the future looked bright
But she's nearly 30 now and she's out every night
I see that look in her face she's got that look in her eye
She's thinking how did I get here and wondering why

It's sad but it's true how society says
Her life is already over
There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say
Til the man of her dreams comes along picks her up and puts her over his shoulder
It seems so unlikely in this day and age

She's got an alright job but it's not a career
Wherever she thinks about it, it brings her to tears
Cause all she wants is a boyfriend
She gets one-night stands
She's thinking how did I get here
I'm doing all that I can

It's sad but it's true how society says
Her life is already over
There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say
Til the man of her dreams comes along picks her up and puts her over his shoulder
It seems so unlikely in this day and age

It's sad but it's true how society says
Her life is already over
There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say
Til the man of her dreams comes along picks her up and puts her over his shoulder
It seems so unlikely in this day and age

Bubbles

Our small room in London had a bunk bed but we never really used the top. Instead we slept each hot summer night crammed together on the single mattress of the bottom.

For the most part the top bunk was used only as a tossing ground, strewn with dirty laundry and a blow up plastic chair with a Guinness label which one of our flatmates had drunkenly blown 50 quid to win. Only one time do I recall actually climbing up to lie on the top bunk, both of us, side by side, staring silently towards the ceiling.

In my memory of the moment there are always bubbles. And I really don't know why when obviously in reality there were none. But when I close my eyes and picture the moment, the room is always filled with the brightly colored bubbles, bouncing gently over our heads. A million unsaid words, hanging in the air, waiting to burst.

Pop! "I will miss you."

Pop! "I don't want this to end."

Pop! "Don't leave me."

Pop! "Please."

Pop! "Please."

Pop! "I love you."

Instead I say only, "I can't handle long distance again. When I leave here we should just admit its over."

And that's it. I didn't look at him, not wanting to let loose the other words, the ones I mean, that continued to hang in the air silently.

There is a party before I leave and his friend pulls me aside for a word.

"He'll come to America if you really want him to," he tells me.

"No, he'll never come," I sigh. "He says he will but I know him too well, it will never happen."

"You just need to tell him you want him there, he just needs to know how you feel."

But I never did release those words. And he has still never come.