Figuring It All Out

At 22, I thought that my big Quarterlife-Crisis change would be starting to navigate the big, scary Real World, B.S in hand. Instead, the economy solved that issues for me by making me generally unemployable (who ever got a Liberal Arts degree, anyway?) and only a few months freshly out of college, my big life change ended up being a drastic switch from The Single Life to The Coupled Life. Between the two of us, self-imposed loners with a sarcastic, highbrow bend and a serious commitment to Netflix and alienating ourselves from decent society, we managed to take two fairly boring lives, combine them, and make one chock-full-o'-nuts life together. Hence why I have been fairly MIA for the last few months. Hence why I now have friends IRL. Hence why tonight, while he's gone from the nest and I am too mindlessly bored to continue watching yet another Katherine Heigl movie, I've decided to let you know that I remain alive, just a little bit less single than I used to be, and a little bit more grown-up.

All kidding aside, what have I learned about relationships in the past few months cannot be neatly summed up in a single blog post, or in any number of blog posts, for that matter. (Believe me-- I have tried. And tried and tried and tried. My Drafts box is both imposing and impressive now.) Our relationship, like most others, is too complex and nuanced to break it down into categories and subcategories: What I Think About Him, What He Thinks Of Me, When An Acceptable Amount Of Time Is In Which To Say "I Love You," And Who Said It First (neither of those actually happened to be good societal standard norms, but fuck it), How We Met Each Other's Families, The Fact That All My Friends For Once Agree I Have Met A Suitable Man And Would Probably Take Him Over Me Were We To Split, Our First Mini-Getaways As A Couple And How To Survive A Vacation With Your Partner When Your Forget Your Blowdryer, What To Say When You're Caught Red-Handed, How To Breathe And Just Let Shit Roll Off Your Back, What Happens When The Past Sometimes Doesn't Stay In The Past, How Cooking For Two Requires More Math Than You're Bound To Remember From High School Calc Than Cooking For One Does, and The Proper Way To Wake A Snoring, Blanket-Stealing Man Up.

Instead, I've gone back to my pre-schooling basics to make this relationship work where others before have failed. We share things: My car. His house. The grocery list. A full-size bed (built for cuddling when you're respectively 5'3 and 6'3,) and one blanket-- well, he has a tendency to get all Oldest Child about it and steal it, so I've resorted to His and Hers duvets. Colds-- he just got over one; kindly has passed it onto me. We compromise: He, a full-bore Mac Man, has learned to navigate around my PC. I've given up eating quite as much red meat as I used to to better suit his vegetarian diet and our shared meals. He's getting used to having to repeat questions. I'm slowly getting used to actually listening to the answers. The other day, I caught him kiss my cat on the head, not sneer and verbally demean him per usual. It touched me in a very special place. (No, not that special place.) Basically, as I am dying to tell all of my ex-professors, the things I learned in hallowed campus classrooms were NOT, in fact, the lessons that have helped me survive life after college; it was the lessons my parents taught me pre-K and everything else I picked up from dating in dorms, renting as a roommate, and romancing the reluctant and recalcitrant rascals of my previous Single Life that have got me where I am today: Happy, well-adjusted, cohabitating, and in love.

...And yes, still funemployed. But writing pro bono for a few publications, and one newly-created nationally-syndicated women's magazine! (I guess some of those publishing and entrepreneurship classes did come in useful, after all.)

Long story short, I spent 4 years of my life and nearly a cool $100K to learn that to make it in life, you have to be funny enough to ensnare a man's attention, quirky enough to keep it, well-versed enough in the kitchen to feed him once you've got him, persevering enough to play hausfrau for him, relaxed enough to drink beers with his buddies, feminine enough to keep his blood boiling even after a few months in, well-read enough to read the labels on his shirts before laundering them, and educated enough from your previous Single Life to be able to introduce him to new things, places, and experiences.

He, in return, has got to love you enough to find all of this amusing and endearing.

In other words, stay in school, because that's where all the good men are.

XOXO

Attack Of The Pod People.

My childhood best friend is getting married shortly (a June wedding; classic, of course). Despite the fact that we've been largely out of touch for the past few years, my family and I were still invited. My dad bowed out-- weddings aren't exactly his thing-- but my S.O gamely agreed to be my date, anyhow. What startled me the most about these upcoming nuptials wasn't the fact that I actually have a date to a wedding; it wasn't that my childhood best friend, one year older than I, was getting married; it was, rather, the fact that I remember sneaking downstairs for midnight snacks with her in 5th grade, laying on the carpet on our backs in front of the drink cart in my parent's dining room, and planning out her wedding. That's when it hit me as I read her wedding invitation and RSVP card--

We're not playing little-girl games anymore.

And it shows. Lately, I've been feeling a sort of shift in myself and my desires in relationships that I thought was imperceptible to everyone but myself, until in the eyes of my first college roommate, I finally saw reflected a very different vision than the college freshman who used to slink back into our cramped dorm room ashamedly at 2 AM from her forays in the RA’s room, sex hair rampant. I was poised. I was graduating. I was in a functional, happy, mature relationship that was defined by the both of us in accordance of what we wanted, what we needed, and what we were looking for from each other. I was—Jesus Christ—in love. What shocked me most was when she commented after I told her that my current relationship was making me realize how much the past, less-serious relationships I had been in irked me in their undefined, let's-just-see-where-this-takes-us-before-one-or-both-of-us-abruptly-jump-ship, laissez-faire attitudes, "I've seen how you've struggled and been hurt, even when you said you didn't want anything that was serious, because I knew you'd figure it out for yourself, one day."

Me? Actually be one of those girls her likes her relationships done defined with a side of seriousness, going in a positive, delineated fashion? Mais, non!

Mais, oui! As we stood on the corner of Church Street and Main last night, my S.O referred to me in passing to his friend as "my girlfriend." And that's when I realized-- I haven't had a guy call me his "girlfriend" since I was a junior in high school, and that's also the same guy who ended up proposing to me. Since then, I've been "my friend," "the girl I'm seeing," "the girl I'm sleeping with," or just plain "Carissa," but never the "girlfriend." Until now, when I've met the family and keep my pear-and-sugar exfoliating scrub in his shower and have brought him back to my hometown. It makes me wonder if all of this-- the meeting of the families, the mature partnership and cohabitation, the giving of solid, concrete titles, the endeavoring to actually, I don't know, BE TOGETHER-- was what was missing in the rest of my relationships, and thus, why they all ended up failing. While watching an episode of SATC yesterday, it brought up the question: If men and women are like cabs, cruising around with our lights off while we pick up and discard all sorts of people until we finally decide the time is right-- post-college, post-nearly a decade of dating debacles, post-living abroad, and now, pre-friend-in-the-same-age-group's weddings-- are our lights now suddenly on?

While pop culture knowledge may say that I should now be desperately plotting how to wrangle a man into my marriage bed now that my friends are starting to say their "I do"s, I say "I don't"; I may not be on the fast-track to engagement or marriage (the only thing I like about engagements is the ring, because I adore diamonds, and the only reason I'd really like to get married is to put my Star Wars-themed wedding plans into action; both of which don't quite seem like good enough reasons to do either), but there are some disturbing signs pointing to the fact that I may, quite possibly, be one of those "pod people" types who is actually happy inside of her relationship, just the way it is. You know, those couples who are always together, just happen to end up wearing matching outfits, and constantly use the word "we" all the time? You know, pod people. "We" people. "'We' went here," "'We' did that," people. But then I rolled over this morning, and suddenly realized the novel "Chasing Harry Winston" by Lauren Weisberger was on top of my reading pile, while "The Bridesmaids" was on my Movies-To-See List, and my mother and I had recently debated the choice of my childhood best friend having her reception at The Legion and the S.O and I had ended up in front of the engagement display, comparing tastes, while on a trip to Periwinkles to find him a watch. I started getting suspicious. Maybe I was getting antsy. Meanwhile, in the formulation and brainstorming process of writing this post and getting into the "wedding" frame of mind, I've been trolling countless big-name jeweler sites, ring-watching. (If you don't think it's not a competitive sport for women, guess again.) And until I found this ring on Harry Winston's site, which isn't even an engagement ring, I was rather lackadaisical about the whole thing. Still no real drive to hear wedding bells. Still entirely loathe to put together a guest list (my own personal nightmare). And then, I saw the ring. Imagined what it could look like with a diamond crowning it, instead of a sapphire. Thought about how I could rope my father, a jeweler, into designing and making something similar. And I suddenly got it. The itch. The diamond fever. I realized that every relationship before now was wrong because we weren't on the same page. They were all in the casual lane while secretly, unbeknownst to even myself, I was in the "Skyscraper ring on my left ring finger" lane. I started wondering where I could find decent flower arrangements and a hot pink Gerber daisy bouquet. Then, I caught myself. I almost, unknowingly, without being on guard, let myself slip into the "we" people zone again. The diamond almost got me. While I may be the sort of girl who has rediscovered that she cherishes being called "the girlfriend," I'm still not the sort of girl who thinks picking place settings and napkin fabrics out is a good use of my time, when I could be, I don't know, catching up on all the new episodes of Sons of Anarchy or creating a new, catchy acronym for inappropriate relationships (P.I.W.B: Professor I Would Bang, anyone?). So, while I may be discovering, through my relationships, through my friends, and through myself, what sort of pod person I really am, I'm also still not overly tuned into my biological clock or life plan. It was all the ring. The fucking ring. Weddings. They're still on my "highly skeptical; treat as you would a leper patient" list.

XOXO

Live, Single Girls!

After my third friend in a row was recently dumped by her long-time partner in lovin' crime, it started to put my ladies in the Burlington area in a bit of a panic. First, TGIS had gone MIA, then, one friend's 9+ month f-buddy called it quits on her while citing the need to emotionally distance himself before moving to Beantown, and to top it all off, one of the longest-running couples I knew decided it was time to part ways, effectively rendering everyone's general mood as if it were the end of Scrub's era again. At the beginning of the winter, everyone was shacking up. Now as the season is almost turning to summer, it seems as if they’re all shedding us ladies like winter coats and beards. It’s bizarre, but it’s biological.

When I came home a few weeks ago late at night/early that morning from a successful date #2, I realized then that I haven't been without at LEAST the prospect of a man for the last two years. I went from a summer fling to a feel-it-out situation, to breaking the feel-it-out situation when I slept with someone else who I then started an on-again, off-again relationship with for about a year, then finally ended up facing the music, the relationship's downfalls, and the lack of my desires being unfulfilled when I met and started hanging out with someone else, and just kept going from there. So much for being a "Single Girl." But it's not my fault-- there are men EVERYWHERE. The key to finding them, it seems, is to apparently not be looking for them.

While I may have achieved success (more or less,) in the really odd way of just continuing to date via the ex's friend pool-- not by choice; Vermont is just that small-- the lesson that I've learned here is that "the end" does not really start the sentence "the end of the rest of your romantic life." When I finally reached the conclusion on my own thanks to lack of any communication or response from him that my relationship with TGIS had run its course, I cheered myself up by doing two things-- remembering that he himself had been a random stranger I'd met while intoxicated at a party (true life,) and didn't remember until he popped up out of the blue and started talking to me on Facebook, ergo, that you NEVER know who'll you'll meet or click with, and secondly, taking my bed back by sleeping in the direct middle of it so it didn't feel quite so big and empty and pathetic and lonely anymore. (Wait, are we talking about me or my bed, now? Hmm.) Partially thanks to that, and partially thanks to probably my Zoloft prescription, it was the least painful break-up I've ever had, even though the relationship in itself was probably the most involved and serious to date.

And then I was asked out again out of the blue. I wasn't expecting it. It wasn't like I was planning on being a sex-kitten man-magnet right out of the emotional gate again. I actually intended to take some time off, be single, and re-evaluate myself and my life. But instead, I'm content to just feel things out, meet new people, and take things slow for now. Nothing, after all, is written in stone. Other, of course, than monuments, historical road signs, and castle dedications.

The other night, as the beau and I picked up the ingredients to make a late Sunday night dinner dressed in a motley assortment of "wow, laundry day needs to come soon" clothing, I looked across the self-check-out station at another young couple. He was in Timbz and sweats; she in jeggings, flip-flops, and an off-the-shoulder t-shirt that could have been identical to mine. She and I were bagging what was obviously going to be dinner for the night as the guys swiped it across the scanners, and suddenly, it hit me-- this isn't that weird; this is what people my age do. We date. We get in and out of relationships. We find out what we're looking for in a partner, and we adjust our thinking accordingly. So, while I may eternally feel like that Single Girl, what I really am is a Normal Girl, one who goes on dates, gets into relationships, still deals with her ex's drama, and more than anything else, is actively and eternally curious about learning what the words "love" and "relationship" really mean.

XOXO

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This is also a massive apology for the lack of posts in the past month-ish. Between my thesis, finals, Senior Week, graduation, family, my new relationship, finding a new apartment, and traveling, I've been more than a little tied up. However, I HAVE still been taking notes and writing, so be prepared for a slew of posts flooding your RSS feed. Starting...now. Thanks for all your continued support and kinds words in my Comments box; I can't tell you how appreciated they were and how much they meant to me!

Of Villages and Revelations.

Just like any child, it takes a village to make a good blog, or a harem of girl friends to teach a girl about love. Which is why when a friend of mine told me she had a potential post for my blog, I jumped at the chance to include it. That, and the fact it was a proverbial jumping, as it is currently so hot on the Eastern Seaboard that jumping, or any physical exertion other than holding a popsicle to my mouth and rotating on the couch in front of the fan to keep from sticking to the leather permanently, is out of the question. "How're you coping with the heat?" the same friend asked as we discussed the details of this post.

"By not wearing any pants."

When it comes down to it, this confession made me remember a revelation I recently had about the fact that for girls, our friends are our therapists, our confessors, our love-gurus, and our personal bouncers. This makes me wonder how guys do it, because I know I would not be, A.) As sane, or B.) As knowledgeable, if my friends didn't share with me what they've found out for themselves. Which is why I think that the outside perspective in the post below is so valuable to you, dear readers-- so you know it's not just me, and it's not just you...it's everyone, on the daily, thinking about relationships and how they work or don't work or how the change and shape you.

Enjoy! And the author and I would love feedback on what you think!

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Some realizations are of such importance, it's selfish not to share. Since this blog is about so many things, but the core of the posts are related to relationships, the ebbs and flows of complex human connections, I felt that this would be a good contribution to this collection of insights.

The epiphany in a sentence: You don't have to replace someone in your heart who is irreplaceable, in fact, it's OKAY not to. This realization is mostly due to my current boyfriend, who constantly amazes me with his understanding and patience.

I recently lost a family member to whom I was very close. To put this in context, I have this important person who came into my life when I was 14, and has been with me through a lot of tough times: the night my good friend's dad died on prom night, when I thought my mom was having a heart attack while I was away on a school trip and unable to be by her side, and when an elderly family member fell down a flight of stairs sustaining head injuries. These events all took place in the course of one week, and he was always there for me telling me everything would be alright. He joined the Marines my senior year of high school, and that changed him. We didn't see each other much at all. When my grandfather suddenly died he was the person I emailed, and although he was in Iraq at the time, he answered within 12 hours with the reassuring words, "Feel better babe, everything will be okay," and that he wished he could be there for me, "but it's kind of hard when I'm eight time zones away." This person also happens to be my first love, the one man I haven't been able to put out of my heart or replace. I have dated other people, but when we would begin talking again, I felt myself unable to resist, although he had hurt me many, many times after which I began to tell myself, "I told you so," knowing the end result. But he is the only person I want to talk to when something bad happens, and I think that we all have this one person in our lives. The person we go to and won't feel better without hearing, "It will be okay," directly from them.

On a particularly hard night after my family member's death, I called my boyfriend in a not-so-great-place emotionally. We've been dating for almost a year, and were friends for 2 years beforehand, so he knows all about my history with this guy. In tears, I explained to my boyfriend that although I felt terrible about it, I just wanted to talk to my ex about how I was feeling, and how I wasn't dealing with the sadness particularly well. I was honest with him, and instead of my boyfriend being angry with me he told me, "It's okay if you care about him, even if you love him, too. I understand, and I love you." Amazing how someone can be so selfless and understanding. (Trust me, he's a keeper).

So yesterday, my ex and I spent a few hours running errands together. It was the first time we'd seen each other in over a year and a half, and the time before that had been even longer. Needless to say, it's a rarity to see each other in person and usually he will avoid it. We talked, each enjoyed the others' company, and although we hinted at memories, we weren't heavily nostalgic. He's not in the Marines anymore. We're both a little older, a little wiser. It was quite the feeling and later on, after he left, he texted me saying, "I had a really good time," and I agreed. There are no romantic expectations on either side, but to say we are "just friends" wouldn't do our history justice. It's deeper than that, which is why I suddenly realized that I can never replace him, and I don't have to try anymore.

For those who have the "never-ending relationship" which carries on forever, those who have that one person from the past who is hard to forget, there is hopes that one day you will share the feeling of completeness which I've experienced with the realization that to love someone else doesn't require replacing those who formerly occupied your heart, but rather to add to it.

XOXO

Men By The Numbers

I know I just wrote a post on which I professed that people are not just "numbers", but it got me thinking about my numbers-- not just the number of partners I've had, but the more esoteric things about my relationships. How many of them do I still talk to? How many could I still recognize just by their voice? How much do they know about me? How much time did we spend together? What sort of time was it-- just time for sex, or are they people I spent afternoons or nights or meals or awkward moments with?

I got down to it and compiled some numbers. In an over-arching, long-term hope for things, I'd love to know other people's numbers like this, so we could all start compiling a database of what is normal, what's quirky, what's sweet, what's not, and what real relationships sex lives in the 21st century are really like, dispelling urban myths, and talking openly and honestly. How awesome would that be? And so, I give you...

Men By The Numbers:

Only 1 man knows how I brush my teeth.

Only 2 know where I'm ticklish. (If they remember.)

Only 5 men know how I share (or don't share) a bed. Only 3 of those men actually know what I look like when I'm asleep. Of those 3, only 1 has spent hours around me while I haven't been wearing glasses. And a fun fact: the average number of sexual partners for heterosexual men is 7; for heterosexual women, it's 4. I like being above average.

Only 1 ex and my closest guy friends know what my living space looks like. I tend to be overly mysterious and protective about it.

Only 1 man other than my father has ever cooked for me. Only 2 men I'd been seeing have ever paid for my food. Only 4 have offered. None know how I like my eggs. Only 1 knows how I take my coffee.

I've only had to supply the condom once. ...But I've had to make a point of it twice. 2 guys asked if I was on birth control. Good guys!

4 times I've bought men clothing only to have it crash and burn soon thereafter. Lesson? No more buying men clothing.

Number of times I've been in love: 3. Out of those times, 1 ended after a bloody and prolonged death, 1 will be eternal, and 1 fell out-of-love with pragmatism and change. Number of times I have said those three words out-loud: Never.

Number of times I've been proposed to: 2. Number of proposals I accepted: None.

Number of relationships I've had since I started dating at the age of 16: 9. Practice makes perfect.

Number of those 9 relationships that lasted over a month: 2. 1: Abysmal and too apathetic to end it sooner. The other: A hell of a learning experience. Number of relationships that lasted over 6 months: None.

Number of times a man has surprised me: Once.

Number of men who have up and died on me: 1.

Number of times I've been left: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. TOO MANY TO COUNT. Number of times I've been the dumper: 2. Most commonly heard excuse: "I think we need to take a break." "Breaks" never happen, FYI. "Breaks" never un-break. Breaks are The End.

Most commonly-cited reason for me ending things with a guy: "I know about her." Number of times I've been cheated on: 3. 1 actually admitted it to me-- thank you. Number of times I picked the other woman out of the crowd: All 3 times. It's an odd and sad gift. Number of men I've cheated on: 2.

Number of exes I've stayed in close contact with: 2.

Most common denominator among the men I've been with: Dark hair.

Favorite type of the opposite sex: Dark hair, dark skin, light eyes. Did you know? People with blue or green eyes are more biologically attracted to other blue or green eyed people because the chances of their offspring being born with brown eyes is a great indicator of either A.) A stray recessive gene, or B.) Unfaithfulness. It's natural pre-natal planning.

Most common letter of first name of men I've dated: A tie between Rs and As.

What I notice first in the opposite sex: Height. Hands. Arms. Eyes. Facial structure. Hairline. Smile.

Who made the first move: Always them. It's a girl's job to make sure that her interest is known. It's a man's job to act on it from there.

What I will remember automatically about every man I've been with until I die: The way they smell, and the sound of their voice. Other odd things I'll remember: Body language quirks, laughs, and bad habits.

Pet-peeves about men I've repeatedly ground my teeth about: Snoring. When asked "How are you," having them answer, but not ask how I am in return. Leaving without saying goodbye. Holding utensils like a barbarian. Breaking plans.

What I appreciate most in a guy: Intellect, and the ability to both dish it out and take it. Bickering is sexay.

I have never believed a man other than my father when told I'm beautiful. ...Though I am susceptible to compliments about my character.

Most commonly-dated ethnicity: Italian. Number of men I was with while in Italy: 0. Irony.

The Good: 4 men have inspired me to write. The Bad: 2 yielded pretty weak stuff. The Best: 2 gave me the roots of the best poetry I've ever written, and 1 gave me looooooots of blog fodder. So you have him to thank.

I've been with more men over 5'10" than under. I've been with 4 over 6 feet in height. I like 'em tall.

I also like them older, though I have been with 2 younger.

4 were musicians. 3 were party-happy. 6 were artistic. 1 was another writer. 1 was a lay-about. 3 had criminal records. At one time, my bio line could have read, "If you have blue eyes, a criminal record, and a weed problem, you'll love me!" 3 of them fit that exact description. Surprisingly, only 1 of those 3 makes my list of Top 2 Disappointments. The other member of that list just confounds me.

The longest I've ever been able to stay interested in 1 man: Over 6 months. Once. The shortest I stayed with 1 man: 2 weeks.

Of those men, I still think of 1 every. single. day.

And the person who may know me best: 1 of those men. What he still doesn't know: Volumes more.

XOXO

"Something More," Said The Clock.

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what makes a perfectly functional and happy person decide to throw their lot in with another person and want to be in a relationship. Not being a big fan of relationships or the institution of commitment myself, I was recently horrified to hear the first audible "tick" of what I previously thought was my busted biological clock. Maybe it's the fact that a close friend with whom I played wing-woman for has now reached past the 1 year anniversary with said boyfriend I did the winging maneuvers for and are vacationing and cohabitating together, or the fact that I'm watching people I grew up with planning for their long-term serious relationships, weddings, and even babies, or maybe it's just the fact that I have done the "I'm so not serious about you I'm going to do everything to prove to you I think this is a lark and self-sabotage this whole state of affairs" thing for the past 5 years, and now with a landmark birthday approaching I'm realizing I should be acting as old as I'm getting and I'm ready to give it a rest for awhile. Whatever the reason, the ending thought remains the same: Scary.

I think as graduates of first grade, we can all agree on the fact that 1 + 1= 2. So why, then, do proponents of love and the Hallmark company seem so hell-bent on convincing us that two people in a relationship are one entity?

I've found myself wondering where my extremely colorful past fits in with my new desires. What about all of a woman's past relationships? Are they now halves? What happens after the union, no matter what sort it was, how serious or how tenuous it was, is gone? How can anyone be expected to deal with so much continuous disappointment? Are we trying to be martyrs, or can we just not get out of our own way? As long as there are women, there will always be women who fall for the wrong guy. Women with a predilection for the Bad Boys. Women who have convinced themselves that if she just loses that last 5 pounds, if she never says "no", if she can change her inner desires to be less demanding and more like him, he will somehow realize that she is perfect, just perfect, for him. These are also the same women who often end up finding just the sort of man who is not perfect for them. (Guilty as charged.) Usually, if anything, I'm over-confident. Most of the time, I am pretty sure I could rule the world single-handed if all the nation's leaders suddenly all came down with a deadly infectious disease at a U.N meeting and keeled over. But for some reason, when it comes to men, all bets are off. Maybe it's because women really have no idea, past a good steak and a blowjob, what men really want. Maybe, if they talked about it, like women have a tendency to do (myself not included here, as I would usually rather extract my own wisdom teeth sans Percocet than talk about my feelings), we could all be a lot more clear and a lot less confused and apt to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on someone, just to realize that they are never going to change. At least, not for us.

Which brings us to why men like some women and not others. Frankly, I cannot understand what anyone sees in me. And I am not being self-depreciating here. At times, I want a divorce from myself. I have altogether too many flaws and personality quirks to be consider either easy to live with, enjoyable, or sane. When I see a guy look at me like he adores me, I want to shake him and ask, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? DO YOU ENJOY BEING RUN RAGGED? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I DO!" Because no matter how crazy women can get at men and relationships and love and how delusional we can make ourselves, there is that-- that ONE MOMENT-- where you watch him watching you, and you are hit over the head with it like a two-by-four that he likes you. Not, "I think you're entertaining" likes you. Not, "I'm imagining you naked right now" likes you. But that often sought-after and rarely found moment where the guard goes completely down behind his eyes and you catch that look and instead of what most men would assume, you do not go "There is the answer to all my dreams and desires!" but instead think, "OH. SHIT. That's real."

While I may make a good friend and a fun time, I really cannot see what would make me captivating to a member of the opposite sex. Maybe this is a great example of why love and infatuation are random and women need to stop comparing themselves to other women and asking "Why her, and not me?" Maybe there is no reason. There are other people out there, other women and other men, who are not going to demand a single thing from you, but in the long run, are they really the sort of person you want to be with? Shouldn't you want to be with someone who wants you to be the best you possible? I'm apt to believe this, especially when faced the with realization that despite all my bullshit, there are people out there with a soft-spot for me a mile wide. That would be the only explanation. But the problem with a connection like that with someone else is despite all of your warning signs and pros and cons lists, you're loathe to let them go. It's not, believe me, that you are so unlovable that you will never find someone else who will look at you that way again or make you feel the same. It's just that nothing will ever be exactly like that connection, and that connection may just be the one that you need, questions, hard work, disappointment, and all.

I'm getting old enough to realize that despite my parent's fairy tale, love is not easy. Loving someone, in fact, is one of the hardest things in the world, because loving who they really are, and not who you'd like them to be, requires a nearly Gandhi sense of acceptance. And there are times-- when the trash is spewing forth from the garbage can because it hasn't been taken out in over two weeks, when he forgets meeting with you for the second time in a week, when their tongue is in someone else's mouth-- that love and acceptance seem damn near impossible. And that's the hardest part-- keeping that love despite all of someone's faults. I'm tempted to say that we fall for who we do because they're difficult. It's said that nothing worth having is even gotten easily, and I think we'd become more quickly bored if it were so easy and simple. And when we get bored is when we hop onto the next slowly passing train, or person.

"A human's desire to mate, the pair up, to be part of a couple, will never change. But the way we go about it, how badly we need it, what we are willing to sacrifice for it, most definitely does" (Liz Tuccillo, intro to her novel, "How To Be Single"). That's the problem: what two people want is rarely the same thing. How people manage to "work it out" is beyond me. I used to be a status-quo girl. Most days, I still am. I'm content to share a bed, share some time, share a few meals, and otherwise, be on my own. I don't demand much, time- and commitment-wise. A friend of mine who just got out of a three-year relationship asked me how I do it, how I maintain my life when trying to juggle it with someone else's. The real answer to this, and the answer that is not quite the most flattering in the world in regards to the whole "selflessness" item, is that even when I'm in a relationship, my mentality is still that of a Single Girl. I can't separate the Independent Me from the Someone's Girl Me. I've lived far too much of my life being my own girl that I don't think I can, or would, ever want to lose that part of me.

I'll admit, some of it may also be the fact that I do not have a stellar retention rate, either for keeping relationships, keeping an interest in one man, or actually doing things By The Book: dating, commitment, relationship, a satisfactory amount of time, clean break-up. I tend to operate outside of the lines of public dating decency. That's just the way my stripes run. I am tempted to say, "It's not long long you were with someone that matters; it's the effort you put in," but then again, I have also never stayed with one person any longer than six months. As Tuccillo writes, "I have dates, I have flings, I have "situations." But I don't have men, one after another, whom I cart around as my boyfriend, and then break up with for some reason or another and say later to my friends "What was I thinking?"" (Tuccillo, 197).

But the more I see of the world and of other people, the girl who used to be content to sit on your sofa and order in starts to wonder, "Is there more than this?"

I'm tempted to say that there has to be. I'm tempted to say that despite people's fundamental differences, there is something that is akin to the look in someone's eye that makes them willing to stretch who they are and what they can do for someone else. I'm tempted to say that, because if I don't, I'm pretty much admitting defeat right here and right now. I'm also tempted to say it because we cannot live with all of our bullshit intact for the rest of our lives. We're all pretty ridiculous people who start out one way, and gradually change because of our love for someone else that is not ourselves. That is the only way we're ever going to get better than we are this very second. One day, there is going to be a guy who will look at me and say, "I'm not trying to clip your wings, so just fucking stand still with me for awhile more than a month or 6 months. It's not so horrible. If you keep trying to run, I'm just going to let you go." And if I care about him as much as I should, that will be the day that I should get smart enough to slow my roll and start thinking about someone other than just myself. And if I don't, or if you don't, then we really are all just helpless fools when it comes to love. So best of luck.

XOXO

The Aftermath of Sicilia: Sunburn and S&M

Hindsight and nerve endings being 20/20, this, to the left, may not have been the best choice.

Rubbing lotion in tiny, gentle baby circles on my chest with my fingertips hurts like a bitch that sends me gasping for air.

It's worse than sadomasochism.

There's a pretty good chance that when I get home, I'll be peeling most awe-inspiringly. Like, the sort of awe that you get when you see a burn victim on the streets panhandling for change, compared as to the sort of awe that you get when you see a really great piece of art or drink a perfectly made Cosmopolitan, 1 part Triple Sec, 1 part cranberry juice, and 2 parts premium vodka.

Said Cosmopolitan costs 10 Euro. Said sunburn was absolutely free after round-trip airfare and a hitched bus ride.

Even if you can peel the skin off the back of my thighs and shoulders and write on it like Hannibal's own parchment, will you still love me when I get home?

XOXO

Commitmentstein: A Monster Of Our Own Making.

I am a commitmaphobe. Now, don’t get me wrong—there are some things I have absolutely no problem committing to: a cell phone service provider, a certain brand of mascara, riding boot, motor oil, or restaurant. But at heart, I’m the sort of person who once they agree to do something, spends a pretty good amount of time re-thinking my decision to commit, even if it’s just spending a weekend somewhere or agreeing to meet someone in a specific place at a specific time. Christ, I can’t even commit to how I feel about Phish Food versus Chubby Hubby. I have a nearly chronic grass-may-be-greener questioning nature. As it has been pointed out by one of the people who knows me best—and I mean capital ME; not just the person I project to the world, but the devious, conniving, self-serving, helplessly human ME—I am not happy unless I have something to endlessly worry and puzzle over as I try to decide whether it’s worth it or not, and what it means for ME. Commitment, therefore, is not one of my strong suits.

This, I think, is one of the overwhelming factors in why I am a pathological One Month Girl. One month always seemed to be the perfect amount of time in which to meet someone, convince them I’m great, have them convince me they’re great, and then watch everything fall apart when both parties realize that everyone is, in fact, human. As I say, it usually only takes me one month to get sick and tired of you, or one month for you to see into all my crap and decide it’s not worth your time.

Being such a self-proclaimed commitmaphobe with enough past history, blunders, and failed relationships to substantiate that claim, I recently picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s newly-published novel “Committed.” Gilbert, of “Eat, Pray, Love” fame (another book I absolutely adore and brought with me to Italy,) is another self-styled commitmaphobe—only in her case, it stems from a bad divorce. She also believes that most commitmaphobes suffer from the same fear of lasting-decision-making. In the second chapter of “Committed,” titled “Marriage and Expectation,” she writes,

“The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice…Equally disquieting are the times when we do make a choice, only to later feel as though we have murdered some other aspect of our being by settling on one single concrete option” (Committed, 45).

About the only thing that you could get me to be committed to without being fully thrilled about it would be a mental health facility. And then I don’t think I’d have a choice. As Gilbert writes, “It doesn’t take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstances to do the one thing that you have always specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity” (Committed, 20).

So why all the resistance to committing? Why are people so loath to hitch their trudging life-pioneer’s wagon to another person’s? Because we are people, and we are fallible. Because we have so many options that the next wagon, the one going faster, with the nicer oxen (or ass) always seems like a better one to take a chance on. Because there is temptation, and laziness, and sheer bull-headed stubbornness in the desire to be a singular individual. Because trying to be with someone else is like bashing your head repeatedly against a brick wall. An attractive brick wall, but bashing your head full-force against it all the same and getting those rectangular lines stamped all over your forehead and now broken nose, nonetheless.

Differences between the genders explain the break of commitment phenomenon quite nicely. Women have a tendency to over-examine, overanalyze, and overhype situations they are in until they don’t even resemble what is going on in reality, and not on the inside of their heads. Men are also guilty of this, maybe to a lesser degree, but they seem to go about it differently, exhibiting more of a “me against the world” fantasy, in which they feel as though they have to constantly avoid being “trapped” in a situation or relationship when in most cases, no one is deliberately trying to tie them down—instead, just a little bit of reliability is being asked of them, instead. A huge imposition, right?

But maybe Gilbert substantiates this idea. She writes, “When it comes to questions of intimacy, I want many things from my man, and I want them all simultaneously” (Committed, 48). That is an almost inhuman amount to expect from someone, and yet, when I look around, it’s the norm that I see, and, in fact, the norm that I expect. The problem is that women get used to depending on something from a man—be it phone calls, someone to make the first pot of coffee in the morning, or someone who always says the right things—and when that expectation is not filled, it feels like the world crashes down around us, rendering us disoriented and moody. “Why didn’t he call? Why didn’t he leave me my two cups of coffee that he knows I need in the morning? Why did he ask me how my day was and then tell me what a dickhead my boss is for making my job a living hell?” And so on, and so on—“Why didn’t he say goodbye? Why wasn’t he on time? Why didn’t he pick up the drycleaning? And it all ends up spiraling into, OH MY GOD, WHAT’S WRONG?!”

Maybe we just shouldn’t expect so much. I know—it’s completely counter-intuitive to everything we’ve been taught, but we were also taught that going to the doctor’s isn’t going to hurt, the Easter Bunny exists, and every Disney princess has a happy ending, ever after (and look at the divorce rates in the U.S). We all know where that got us. What if we could suddenly stop being so disappointed in our partners and relationships and ourselves? What if we could stop being so afraid to commit, because that scary bar could be lowered, and we could do it ourselves?

This is not to say that we should not expect things of people. Surely, there are some things that you should be able to expect from the people in your life, nonnegotiable. You should be able to expect someone who looks out for your best interests, as well as theirs. You should be able to count on someone to treat you with respect and decency. You should be able to expect someone to be there when you say “This is important and I need you.” You should be able to feel confident and comfortable in your relationships the majority of the time.

The only further advice to not expect so much and burn yourself out that I can give you is to be sure not to sacrifice all your time and effort in the name of not expecting so much. Although you may be able to give 112% right now, if your partner is only willing to give 20, don't bend yourself in half to make up for all of their lost effort. You'll drive yourself even more crazy. They'll stop trying to work because they'll (rightly) assume that you'll do all the work for them. It'll piss you off. You'll start to resent them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a mental and emotional health time-out and just letting a relationship lie where it is if it's stalling at the moment. Both of you should still be there when you return from getting your air. And if not—who really wants to be with someone who would leave when things get a little stressed, anyway?

Pure science can prove that not expecting everything from someone is healthier in the long run. Psychologist Carl Jung believed that the first six months of any relationship is pure projection of your desires upon the other person, which explains why at about month five every. little. thing they do start to inexplicably annoy you to distraction and unhappiness. You are, in fact, finding out that they are a real, imperfect person. A person who has their own emotions and moods and problems that don’t involve you. Goethe once said, “When two people are really happy about one another, one can generally assume they are mistaken.” Why? Because we see what we want in our partners. This is not a bad thing; in fact, this is what assures that the human race continues. But perhaps we need to start seeing less of what we want, and more of what is really possible for two people.

“People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of that.’? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it’s always going to be pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you” (Committed, 129-130).

How many people can say that they really know their partner after just a month or two? The longer it lasts, and the longer you stay together and learn more about each other, (which is the goal of every relationship, after all—to actually BE TOGETHER,) the greater that chances that you will have to deal with depression and disappointment and unhappiness and quarrels and disagreements and periods of time where you feel alone, even when you’re together, because you are sure—no, CONVINCED—that this is not the same person that you started out with. But it is. They’re going to make you mad, and you’re going to piss them off. After a certain amount of time, you can just see the forest from the trees now, or the flaws from the perfect smile or the charming mannerisms. The sad news is, so can they. And this is where the idea of two people committing to each other comes in, not, as some might assume, at the beginning of a relationship. No, the real commitment is when you can finally sit back, eyeball the big, hairy monsters that your former sweetheart-turned-pariah has been hiding, and say to them, “Ok, I see your self-absorption and tendency toward melancholy, and I raise you my need to be the center of attention, the way that I make everything a much bigger and more frantic deal than it needs to be, and the annoying way I mutter in my sleep. Can you handle that?” And if they say yes, and you say yes to them, then—THEN—my friend, you are in the commitment business. Not when you first get together. Not when you first decide to split time between two residences and share meals and bathrooms and life details. Not when you ask if you are in a “committed relationship.” Real commitment can only happen with time, and a firm grip on the personal reality between two people.

This form of commitment, not to an ideal or a relationship, instead focuses on commitment to a person. A commitment to on the daily accept their “most tiresome, irritating faults.” Gilbert explains, as she comes to grips with the idea of living with just one, flawed man for the rest of her life, “What I am talking about is learning to accommodate your life as generously as possible around a basically decent human being who can sometimes be an unmitigated pain in the ass” (Committed, 132). Because that is what you are doing—you’re welcoming a pain in the ass into your life. You’re telling them that you are committed to being their co-ass. That you like their ass-ish-ness. That you might even, in fact, find it endearing and lovable and value it, quirks and all. And really, once you learn not to expect the moon from someone, and instead take what they can give you, flaws and all, what more could you ask for from them? Nothing. And right about then, you can start to learn to be content. Content, and committed.

But how does this make a commitmaphobe feel better and more like committing to another person, let alone a situation, isn’t the end of the world? Commitment isn’t going to ruin your life. It doesn’t have designs on sapping all of your hopes and dreams and aspirations and tying you down in one place to one person, ‘till death please-come-quickly-and-take-one-of-you apart. Instead, it has the desire to give you a cohort in crime, who, like your parents, will love you inexplicably, no matter what you do or who you are. It gives you a solid constant when the rest of your life is changing so fast it makes your head spin. It gives you someone who always knows what you need to hear, whether it’s a “You are amazing and can totally do this,” or a “Get your ass in gear and stop fucking around.” The goal is to render you not quite so alone and afraid of what someone wants from you. And so, I close with the words that made this one commitmaphobe feel a little more lenient in dealing with the thought of letting other people into her life and dealing with the repercussions. Because sometimes, just sometimes, the only thing that you realize you’re missing to make yourself, your desires, and your life whole, is another person who can handle your shit, too.

“In the end, it seems to me that forgiveness may be the only realistic antidote we are offered in love, to combat the inescapable disappointments of intimacy” (Committed, 133). The trick is not to ask for or expect someone to be something that they're not; instead, sync up who both of your are and what you both want or need. I'm not the sort of girl who you buy Valentine’s Day flowers for. I don’t want to be the girl who you feel like you have to take out for dinners and dress up for, because I don’t really do dates without feeling massively awkward. I'm just the kind of girl you can tell when you hear a good show is coming into town. I want to be the girl who you call when you’re heading home at night. I want to be the only girl who is expected to walk out of your bedroom. Those are my expectations. I'm sure you all have your own. They're pretty pared-down. When it comes down to it, we're all pretty simple. So don't ask for too much. Do not expect too much. Don’t be too harsh, or too judgmental, or too quick to act or make up your mind about something and rule it out. The only way you are ever going to get out of any relationship alive and satisfied is if you first relax your own ideas and expectations enough to let someone else just be the “themselves” that you love, for whatever twisted reasons. And that is pretty phenomenal. More phenomenal than scary, I’d even say.

XOXO

An Open Letter To Men:

Two easy ways to instantly make any conversation better and win us over: 1.) Ask how we are. 2.) Say goodbye when you have to go.

And the Number One way to instantly make a conversation better and win us over: Initiate it.

Some things will always take precedence over you in our lives. We're sorry; we love you, but our own sanity, dignity, ambitions, family, closest friends, and important work functions may trump you at times. We will try to understand when yours do the same to us.

Operate under the assumption that if you're doing it, we know about it. Women's intuition is not for naught.

We worry. A lot. And we have 15 different scenarios as to why you seem distant. We know when to reassure you, so please reassure us when something's not wrong.

...Conversely, we know "I'm fine" doesn't always really mean "I'm fine."

Most of you have heavy-sensory loaded hot-spots somewhere between your ears, jawline, and neck that lead straight to below the belt. You may not know where they are. But we do.

We also enjoy a kick-ass action movie, extra-buttery popcorn, and a huge Slushie. So please tell us when a good one comes out. Bonus points for a hot leading man.

Watching a Girl's Gone Wild commercial with you is one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing moments of our life. Because we know they're fake. But we're not sure if you do. And if ours don't look like that, we don't want you to be let down.

...However, do not instantly assume we don't watch porn as well. 1 in every 3 visitors to an erotic website is a woman.

Body hair is what makes a man. Lack thereof is what makes a woman. Stop fucking apologizing for having it. However, just as we do up-keep, you can, too, and we will think even more highly of it.

Although we're pretty sure you DO notice when we gain five pounds, thank you for pretending that you don't.

Our women's magazines are not coasters. Our beds are not the kitchen table. And our shower is not a toilet. Please respect all accordingly.

There are some nights that we don't particularly want to have to change, do our hair, and move to wherever it is to see you. So when we say, "No, really-- go out to the bar with the guys," what we really mean is, "I want to catch up on Sex and the City re-runs, and I'm tired and didn't shave today." This is not us trying to get rid of you-- this is us just knowing that you need time with your boys as much as we need time to be by ourselves.

We can drive perfectly well. In fact, we are pretty sure we can drive better than you do. In any case, we're intelligent enough to be charming when we ask for directions, so we get the short-cuts.

Your parents terrify us.

And if we wanted to be with your friend, we would be with your friend, and not with you. So don't worry about it. We're with you.

We do not understand your all-in-one body wash/shampoo/whatever else it is it says it will do. And we would rather take a straight water shower than be stranded at your place and have to use it.

So...

If we leave a toothbrush or a small travel container of shampoo or body wash at your place, we are not trying to "mark our territory." We are trying to remain sanitary, because we're pretty sure you enjoy it when we smell good.

We love the fact you are always, ALWAYS warmer than we are. Just like we love the fact that you still let us tuck our very cold toes behind your very warm and sensitive knees. So thank you.
A few of your shirts may go mysteriously "missing," but just think of us wearing them to bed naked, and I'm sure you'll miss them a lot less.

If we offer to give you a massage, you can be pretty sure that what we mean is, "Let me touch you until sex seems like a good idea."

You do not get truly great head until you give good head.

Most of us do know how to hammer a nail, change a tire, and open a pickle jar. But offering to help is always a nice gesture.

And we love it when you act all manly. You know what I mean, taking charge of a situation when we're unsure or hesitant (and yes, this applies to sex, too), puffing out your chest, or just yelling at the TV screen when playing video games.

Our closest girlfriends will always know the real reason we're mad at you, or what we want for our birthday, or when the anniversary is, even when you don't. So it would be beneficial to make good friends with one of them, so that you can always ask for a clue when you need one.

And yes, you should assume that your worst fears are confirmed and we talk about you when we're together; that they are a little skeptical about you even if we are not; and that they are also informed as to how endowed you are. Rest assured, this does not mean we pick on you or judge you-- it's just like how you trade final scores of your favorite football teams with your buddies. They need to know who's good on the field, too.

They way you talk about your ex-girlfriends tells us a lot about the way you talk about us when we're not around.

Not all of our biological clocks tick. So stop worrying we just want you for is marriage and babies. Just like how not all of us always want to cuddle.

There will always be other women who will want to tell you how attractive you are, how smart, how brave, how strong, how amazing, how charming. We may not tell you every day, but by being with you, we are proving the fact DAILY that we KNOW and appreciate how attractive, smart, brave, strong, amazing and charming you are. We wouldn't be with you if we didn't think you were. And we really do think you are, so please don't fall for other flattery so quickly.

We think chicken wings are a perfectly acceptable dinner, too.

If we really like you, we're willing to do most anything for you. Don't abuse this. It's the quickest way to turn like to loathe. And we really like to like you. Because yes, men are pretty great.

Anything I left out? Anything else you want to know about how or what women really think? Anything you need translated or what to clear up on your side for us? Now is your time to ask. I'm feeling extremely candid and sharing.

XOXO

Ghosts: Night of the Living Undead Relationship

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, when I was a freshman in college, new to smoking and growing my hair out, I danced around mutual attraction with a senior for 7 months. Toward the end of the year, playing indoor soccer in the hallway of the dorm, he knocked me over and gave me a massive bump on the head. A week later, I was in his bed. We swapped music, laughs, bodily fluids, and he told me adventures from abroad as bedtime stories. He was the first guy I fell in love with. I’ve loved other people since, but I will always have a somewhat softer spot for him, just like the tender and swollen flesh on the top of my head that he caressed after he picked me back up.

To this day, we’re still more-or-less in touch. If he comes back into town, he calls. We’ve met for coffee dates and spent a few evenings together. Usually, I’m busy and/or seeing other people, but if I can, I’ll make time to catch up with him. After the summer that he graduated and some hard feelings, I’ve gotten to the point where it’s not hard to pick up the phone or send him a message to contact him anymore.

It’s always a fine line between surprise and the inevitable when I hear his ringtone go off, usually right in time with the seasons. I can say to him, “Sorry—I already have a date tonight,” and he’ll respond with an “Ok, what about tomorrow night?” Unfortunately, at some points in the past, I was ambivalent about the person I was currently seeing as a full-time adventure, and so I said “yes” to his part-time adventure. Not one of my proudest moments. It’s not exactly fair, but it’s one of the complications of life.

In the past few months, he and I have finally progressed from the weird holding pattern we were in. He figured out that although I will always find his big blue eyes and puffy lips tempting, I’m not quite the same girl I was 3 years ago. And I’ve figured out that although the girl I am now has no problem moving past the past and keeping up with him, I’m also moving past him.

It’s always hard to see him. “No” is a word that I struggle with sometimes. As I once said to one of my roommates after coming home from coffee with him, “He was supposed to be fat and balding and unhappy, not tan and fit and cute.” But that’s how past relationships work—you’ll never quite get rid of them. They will always be people you look at and think, “I spent a month/2 nights/6 months thinking you were the best thing on Earth, and I know what you look like naked.” It’s a hard act to juggle. He came to Florence first. He was the one who first planted the seed in my mind, and I’ve been following his ghost all over Italy. It’s in the same places we visit and in the same photos I take that were hanging on his room’s walls. It’s something that I look for, almost unknowingly, when I’m out and about. My breath still catches when I think I see him. Ghosts haunt. Not all of us have exorcists on call. And like Casper, not all ghosts are unfriendly. But ghosts do hinder you—other people don’t want to come and play in your little fright-fest. It's not fair to ask other people to put up with your undead companions. So I have since been learning how to say “No.”

I made my choice (moments of weakness notwithstanding,) a few months ago and decided to keep on growing up and moving on. You can’t keep your future open if you’re still keeping your past on speed-dial as a crutch. We’ve more-or-less both moved on, but are still both past and present. In the past, he was my lover. In the present, he’s someone who I have no qualms asking for advice, or sharing coffee, a few beers, or laughs with again. We all have skeletons in our closets. The true test of character is how you deal with them and bury them again when the Bad Voodoo man comes to call and you know zombies aren’t exactly great playmates.

XOXO

Repeat Mistakes

I’m getting to that age where it’s perfectly acceptable to sit around with my girl friends and discuss marriage. And that’s scary. I would like to freeze time right here, please.

Earlier tonight, five of us were sitting around the dining room table in our apartment discussing the fact that now that we’re in our twenties, the search for the Eternal Happy Ending, or, at least, a 2-point Engagement Ring and Iron-Clad Pre-Nup, is on. Though some of us aren’t actively looking, or some of us, in fact, aren’t looking for that storybook ending at all, we all could agree on one thing: Being with men is getting scary. It’s a total Goldilocks syndrome for your twenties: you’re scared out of your wits if you’re perfectly happy with them and see it ending all rosy and blissful, but you’re also scared shitless if it doesn’t seem like you’re getting anywhere with them.

“It’s so weird to think that the next person we’re with could be our potential future husband.”

“But I feel like every guy I date is just getting farther and farther away from who I would want to marry.”

“That’s why I like Sex and the City. Carrie didn’t get married until she was sure he was The One.”

“That’s the inherent flaw,” I interjected, having been over this thought a few times before. “Making the same mistakes over and over again isn’t called ‘failure’. It’s called ‘dating’.”

Two weeks ago, I downloaded the episode of SATC in which Carrie first says “I love you” to Mr. Big. When he doesn’t return the statement, she proclaims to the Ladies Who Brunch crew that unless he antes up within a week, she’ll have to end their relationship. When I watched it, I was initially floored. How could a woman end a relationship right after she admits to something like that? Isn’t that kind of the equivalent to Indian-giving or saying, “Oops, just kidding”? Isn’t that a bit quick to retract all those big emotions?

I get it now. You can say what you want and what you feel, but there are some things that you have to do because in the end, keeping yourself and your dignity is worth even more than anyone else is to you.

Maybe it’s because I’m an only child. Maybe it’s because I’m not good at sharing my feelings, or, in fact—sharing. Maybe it’s because I’ve been screwed over one too many times. But during my two day hike in Cinque Terra, I did a lot of thinking, because other than focusing on screaming calf muscles or the fact that my smoking has finally caught up with my respitory system, I had a lot of time to mull it over, and over, and over again. There’s nothing quite like being alone in nature with your thoughts. Coming back to Florence and civilization clinched it for me.

I’ve always been preoccupied with looking out for Number One first, something that I lost sight of in Italy, of all places. It’s not selfishness—it’s self-health-ness. My eternal problem is that I give and I give and I give and forgive and forgive and forgive, until the point where I’m not happy with myself, my lot in life, or what a push-over I’ve become. I am willing to do a lot for other people. But I’m done with the competing to prove it. The only thing I am not willing to do is sacrifice myself, or that maybe-unpromised Happy Ending in whatever form. I am young, and I am alive, and I am in Italy—quite possibly the Land of Love. If there is nothing else to love, there is always the sights and the sounds and the smells and the newness of living here for three months, which is not something I’m ever going to be able to get back. While there will always be some things you can work at, there are others that are fleeting and fresh and will never appear again. So it shouldn’t be squandered under dark clouds of doubt and regret and indecision and unhappiness. I’m not going to keep counting down the days until I leave. I am going to live instead for the Now and the Here and the Why Not? And if you want to squander, you can live however you wish.

If I can get out relatively unscathed, with my dignity still attached, then I’ll keep moving on and making my mistakes. As Passion Pit says in their song “Little Secrets” (on heavy repeat on my iPod), “Let this be our little secret; no one needs to know how I’m feeling.” There is no feeling quite like finally making up your mind. I feel lighter and more content with life than I have in months.

So maybe your twenties aren’t for being afraid of what’s ahead. Maybe your twenties are for wild abandon and enjoyment; late nights; new things; drinking and smoking too much; discovering yourself and new places; making up your mind, and brief moments of clarity and maturity. Maybe, as Carrie discovered, there is time later to go back and mend bridges if want be.

XOXO

Love In The Time Of Negitivity

In addition to being a shoe addict (5 pairs in Italia and counting), I am also a hopeless Love junkie. I love a lot of things. There is no real happy-medium for me-- I either love it, or I hate it. Ambiguity is not really my thing. I try to hide it underneath the beer talk and the football game scores, but no matter how hard I try, sometimes it’s just obvious. My roommate Raquel had me pegged by the second night we spent in the Hotel Baglione in Florence. “You’re so into the idea of Love,” she said to me.

Maybe it’s because I can’t understand it. I have never said it. I have never had it said to me. I’ve felt it, but I’ve remained silent, which, in hindsight, was probably the best thing. Just like Carrie in SATC, I’m looking for crazy, outrageous, inconvenient Love. Love that leaves no room for anything else—no doubts, no fears, just firm knowledge.

I listened to one of my roommates one night as she stood in the hallway outside my door, crying. “Love is a fairytale,” she said. “It doesn’t exist.” As I listened to her, I felt my heartbeat shudder a bit. Not because of the fact that she was obviously upset, but because of the fact that she didn’t believe. It pains me, deep down, when people profess that they don’t believe in Love. What, then, do you really have to live for? ‘What does that mean for me?’ I remember thinking. ‘That’s sad and all that she doesn’t have faith for herself, in herself, but what does it mean for me that there are other people out there who don’t believe in Love like I believe?’

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a young teenage girl traveled down to Florida with her family. While she was there, she met a dashing young yacht captain on the docks one night. They went out to dinner the very night they met, and by the time they kissed goodnight and the room spun as she saw fireworks, she was sure that she wanted to be with that man forever. Fate intervened. They both happened to be from New Jersey. He quit his job on the yacht after the last trip, moved back to New Jersey, and two years later, they were married, two days after she graduated high school. About another seventeen years later, pretty much unplanned, they had a child. 35 years later, they are still together, still very much in love. These people are my parents.

This is not to say it is always perfect. As the child of the union, I can tell you—there are fights and disagreements and disappointments. As my mother explained to me, it’s not so much of a constant state of Love—it’s more of an “I will always love you, but I don’t always have to like you.” It is not a ‘happily-ever-after’ fairytale all of the time. Sometimes, it is shoveling the snow off the deck and balancing the familial checkbook and swapping cars to get oil changed. Sometimes, it is planning your life around someone else’s and deferring to their hopes and dreams and aspirations because you love someone enough to know that they need to take a chance and that your own hopes and dreams and aspirations can be put on hold for a moment in order to support theirs. Sometimes, it is putting up with the mundane and the tedious and the frustrating. But, other times, it’s just—it. A sure feeling. Love. Bliss. As easy to love someone else as it is to breathe.

I used to think that this sort of perfect fairytale ending was not achievable for me, based merely on the fact that if my parents were so lucky, how could I ever be doubly lucky as well? Between Disney, the rigors of our societal traditional roles on young women, and growing up around two people so obviously in love, I started to feel jaded. Once, I told a guy I was dating this fear—that because my parents got this, that I never would. He looked at me from the passenger seat as I drove, horrified. “Why would you ever think that way?” he asked me. “Why don’t you think about how that’s what you’re supposed to find, instead?” Even if the relationship was caput, the advice was sound. After all, as a long-time family friend told me, “It wasn’t always a fairytale, after all. The first few years were downright nasty.” As it can be. Love isn’t just a fairytale, as my roommate was finding out. It’s fickle, and it’s difficult, and yes, it will make your cry sometimes. It’s not for the faint of heart, or for those who don’t like getting back up again, dusting themselves off, gluing the pieces of their heart back together, and trying again. It’s not for those who can’t speak their mind, or don’t know yet what they want. It’s not for those who don’t believe they want to find it.

The more I see of this world, the more sure I become that there’s some sort of equation to love. The amount of effort you put into finding it, cultivating it, and maintaining it is directly proportional to the amount you get from it. As my own mother, she of the 35 year+ relationship says, relationships aren’t two people each putting in 50%. A real relationship is two people both putting in 100% of their effort, while at the same time, not feeling like it’s an effort. As I have found, sometimes it even requires 110, or 115.5%, without even realizing it, just because that’s what you want to put into it. There is no Golden Rule to love and relationships. You just need to know that you are doing everything possible to find it, make it work, or to move it forward in order to know that you should be getting something out of it.

If you are a Disciple of Love, does it make you one of the chosen few more apt to find it? If you really believe in it, can you make it come true? If you are a true romantic, no matter how closeted, does that make you more entitled to your own Happy Ending? Are there really any promises?

I have met Romantics off all different shapes and sizes—the Single Girls who are doing their damnedest just searching high and low for Love. The guy who wants both the physical and mental connection. The military couple who doesn’t let distance, jobs, and danger get in their way of always, always thinking about a ‘tomorrow.’ And those eternal ponderers, always questioning if Love is really for them while just hoping to get an answer back from the great void that is the rest of the world’s dating population. Patience. Perseverance. A perverse sense of humor. If not today, then maybe tomorrow. The one thing that all these people have in common is the fact that just like my parents, they believed that they were supposed to find Love; that Love was something that they are entitled to, if not owed. There is no settling; there is no giving up. And when it comes down to it, that’s exactly what you have to remember—you are, in fact, Loveable. Guaranteed, there is someone out there who will find your quirks and idiosyncrasies—the way your voice register drops when you’re asking for a favor, how everything laid on a flat surface has to be diagonal, how your peas and your carrots must never touch—helplessly loveable. There will be someone who will care for you enough to forgive most every mistake you can make. There will be someone who can think of nothing better to do than just sit and breathe with you; just stand still with you. The trick is being patient, waiting, and keeping an open heart of your own. Don’t miss that knock. And once you find it, don’t let it go so easily. All good things are worth working for—and not just 50%. Give it 110%.

XOXO

Il Giorno Degli Ragazzi

A Writer's Love Story:

I met the new love of my life yesterday when I wandered into a cartoleria shop. I picked out a funky embossed journal that looks like alligator hide with tints of bronze and teal while he gave me piccola lessons in Italian, told me where he could be found in San Lorenzo, and asked me about where I was from and what I was doing in Florence. Because of my evidently writerly lot in life, words, using them (most of the time) properly, and good communication are of the utmost importance to me. For this fact, I am loathe to engage in any sort of Italian-heavy conversation that may render me with a fish-inspired “O” shaped mouth and puzzled eyebrows. But he spoke little English, and I was willing to absolutely mangle all of the few words and phrases in Italian I do know for him.

His name is Antonio (of course), and he makes handmade leather journals, which is an impossibly perfect fit for someone who goes through journals like tissues. I think it’s perfectly poetic—the leather journal man and the writer.

Though it may have just been a journal-needing incensed crush on a vendor, seduced by the intoxicating smell of leather permeating the air and my senses, it brought up a valid moral to this tiny, unserious love story: You should want to push your boundaries for someone, potentially make a fool of yourself, and not be afraid of it. Be better. Try.

***

Short Skirt, and A Leather Jacket:

I have discovered the beauty of people falling in love with you. I have also discovered that my naturally blonde hair and big blue eyes get me even further here than at home. (Dear Mom and Dad: Thanks for having those dominant genes and getting together. It's getting me far in life. Or, at least, discounts.)

So I may or may not have used someone else’s feelings and my fleeting yet called-upon considerable charm at my disposal to buy a leather jacket today for a price that was nearly robbery.

“You have boyfriend?” the store owner asked me, as he pounded calculator buttons to show me what he was willing to give me the coat for.

“Si.” (It is always easier to say yes.) The number on the calculator stayed low. I handed him the cash.

“And if you want change boys, then you come back, si?”

Moral of this buttery, smooth, silk-lined encounter? Be generous in love. Not just Love love, but in any sort of love: platonic, familial, beast-ly, co-workery, child-friendly, waiterly, etc.

***

Young, Foolish Love:

Two twenty-something...
...(all of Italy seems to consist of twenty-something, attractive men. It is a Single Girl’s Paradise, if you’re in the market for that sort of thing. If you are down on your man luck and feel as if you have wined, dined, rejected and been rejected your way through your entire dating pool, I cordially invite you to Italy and will guarantee you a handsome, semi-sane, well-dressed, disgustingly romantic date by the end of your third week here,)...
...men are rough-housing in the middle of the San Lorenzo market. One jumps on another’s back, and the packhorse stumbles toward me, a hand outstretched. “She is my girlfriend, come to save me,” he says with a roguish grin. Love should be just a little bit outrageous, and not too serious about itself.

***

The Hottie Barista (little to no English, adorable crush, amazing jeans,) at the corner bar has started giving me discounts. Thank god, because his cappuccinos heavy on the whipped cream and sugar are pretty much the only thing keeping me alive right now.

Italy is a million and one (and I have finally discovered the adjective for them--) beautiful men. I like them as long as I can get away from them.

Story of my life.

Conversely, however, I am learning a lot from them.

XOXO

Of Men, Women, And Italian Escapades: Part 1

Of Men and Women:
Battle of the Sexes:

For me, literature and love are similar. One can take the lessons of one and apply it to the other. When I am single, I turn to novels as companions and comforts, often while in bed. (Where is a better place to read, I ask you?) In my Fiction class last Wednesday, my professor was discussing how critics lose their ability to enjoy novels once they make them their occupation. “They forget what it means to become a passionate reader. They lose the sensuality of every word.”

We then compared and contrasted the views of two writers from the same time period: the ever-fresh Virginia Woolf, and Ezra Pound, who I will admit, is one of my favorite literary “manly men.”

Virginia Woolf champions the self, as I am struggling with in Florence. She sees literature as if it were the language of a lover, and instructs readers to take from it what they will, like in any relationship: “The only advice, indeed, that once person can give another…is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. …After all, what laws can be laid down? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. …Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions—there we have none. …An influence is created which tells upon them even if it never finds its way into print.”

Ezra Pound’s monologue could be applied almost word-for-word with men’s thoughts on lovers: “Until the reader knows the first two categories he will never be able ‘to see the wood for the trees’. He may know what he ‘likes’. He may be a complete ‘book-lover’…but he will never be able to sort out what he knows or to estimate the value of one in relation to others, and he will be more confused and even less able to make up his mind about [a new one].”

Pound’s observation in regards to Virginia’s showcases what I think is the classic battle between the sexes: women always assume we’ll know when something is right and real, where as men have to cancel out all their options until they’re left with the last one standing. It doesn’t bode well for romance.

XOXO

Lessons In And Out Of Foreign Classrooms

Love is an eternal theme. Everyone wants it. If you told me today that I would never find love, today is the day that I would stop eating and start smoking every waking hour until I died. The idea of love and of being in love is so all-encompassing that we find we still question it as much, I believe, as they did centuries ago, from the age of the great philosophers who raised the intelligent questions, to the Renaissance, to the Romantic era, to today. Still, we find ourselves questioning—what is love? How do we know, either what it is, or when you find it?

It is often said that women tend to be more preoccupied with these questions and concepts then men, but men are, after all, still human. In a study-abroad program predominantly populated by young women (90% female, to 10% male participants), I was amused and interested to see that my Renaissance Theory of Love class has four men in it, a tremendously large and concentrated number for our small classes (they make up a third of that particular class). It makes me wonder—to what extent are men preoccupied with these questions?

The mere fact that so many signed up and showed up for a class such as this points to the fact that we are quick, as the female population, to assume that men aren’t as interested in these ideas as we are, when in fact, we know jack shit about how they really feel. I would feel safe in hypothesizing that although women are the ones doing the actual talking and external and internal agonizing and gossiping about it, men are just as invested in the subject as we are. After all, it takes two to make a pair, doesn’t it? And if we go back to that central idea what “everyone wants it,” that “everyone” includes men, too.

I need to start thinking and investigating how men approach the concepts of love. I’m exceedingly excited to see where in this class the similarities and differences in thinking lie.

In Plato’s “Symposium,” he discusses, through dialogue (a clever trick to contrast conflicting or agreeing arguments), how three philosophers of his time approached the idea of Love. Phaedrus, apparently an eternal optimist, points out that Love tends to bring out the best in people. He argues (in more words) that if someone is close to their lover or the object of their love and affection, they tend to feel as if they must act to a higher standard because of the proximity of someone whom they want to impress.

I think we can all agree this tends to true. Acting deplorably is usually the quickest way to turn someone off and drive them away, whereas we try to be as charming and winning and generally lovable as we can be, at least in the beginning stages of any relationship, platonic or otherwise. However, when distance is introduced between two people, static between who we really are and who we are trying to be often occurs. There are two popular contrasting phrases about this—“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” and “Out of sight; out of mind.”

I am hesitant to jump onboard of either of these. Thousands of miles away from everything and everyone I know, I am fearful of the change that one of these phrases suggests, and skeptical of the other, seemingly too romantic, one. If the idea that being near to someone means that you try your hardest to inspire to someone else’s expectations and desires while still remaining true to yourself, but as soon as distance or other blocks are introduced, you return to your base instincts and engage in all sorts of less desirable and different behavior, what does this mean for the hopes or desires of both parties? What does it mean, in essence, for your relationship with the other person?

I have seen and lived this idea in action, both on the offended and offending sides. It’s not pretty, but it’s human. People are people. We are not infallible; we all make mistakes. We all give in to temptation and what is easy and settle for something at one point or another. I realize this. It’s natural. It’s millions of years of evolution and survival of the fittest. It’s something we should have figured out by now and reached some sort of conclusion on.

This being said, I still struggle with the idea. Having been there, I can only tell you this for logic—though I may not have followed through in physical action every time does not make me any less guilty. In my mind, I had already committed the crime. In my weakness and loneliness and sheer boredom, I was willing to do the same in that same situation. Is it the same? Is that how you justified it? Can you justify it? Can we ever justify what we do by who we are, or who we are by what we do, or is there someone, like a companion or lover or friend, we have to hold ourselves accountable to? Do we need someone to strive for, or should we be able to do it on our own, for ourselves and for the idea of being someone better? Though I am supposedly in Italy to figure out who I really am in the first place and how to relate myself and my desires and emotions to others, I shy at this idea of having to justify myself to anyone else. I remember, clearly, vividly, going back to that specific moment, considering carefully my two options, wondering if I would have to explain myself. Wondering if I would have to confess; if I could be able to confess. In a world where we are so used to only thinking about ourselves, I realized my shortcomings at this moment in which I realized that I wanted to be accountable only to myself, the gentlest audience, and not anyone else who I might want to be better for. From this, I realized I am weaker than you may be. I realized that where I was willing to sweep my indisgressions under the carpet and ignore them and pretend they did not exist, that I was as normal and flawed as I really am, it is the bigger person who acknowledges these causalities and faces them and explains them.

As we explored this idea in class, I realized that though I should only be worrying about me right now, in this strange city full of strange strangers, grappling with the strangeness that is getting to know the me inside of me, instead, I am worried about other people.

Normally confident, Italy has already chipped away at one hastily-plastered over façade of mine, and I find myself facing the first challenge to grapple with: I am not as sure of anything as I think I am.

In the same dialogue, Plato introduces through Aristophanes an old myth—once, there were three genders: male, female, and man-woman. These creatures were made of two distinct people, joined together at the back—four arms, four legs upon which they walked upright, one head on one neck with two symmetrical faces, separate sex organs, but all similar characteristics. These creatures were, as people tend to be, rather power-hungry, and because of their extreme strength and joint cunning, the gods grew worried that they would try to overthrow them, as the giants and Titans did. So after much consideration, Zeus came up with what seemed to him to be a reasonable solution: to cleave them in two, down the middle, severing their strength and capabilities by half. If they were still too much to handle after this, he was prepared to again sever them, rendering them to hopping beings with one leg and one arm.

The gods were shocked to find that after the cleaving, the formerly joined pairs clung together, and refused to eat or sleep or do anything of use, so grieved they were to be separated from each other, until one of them or both of them eventually died. If one of a pair died, the other would then go wandering, searching for a like half—if the creature had been originally man/man, they searched for another man. Women/women halves searched for another woman, and man/woman survivors searched for their other opposite gender half until they found that lost half that they then joined with, as closely as they could without being one entity anymore—two people, retaining their autonomy and independence, while still being part of a fully-functional couple. The ideal relationship.

Not only does this myth quite neatly sum up the idea that no matter what shape or form it comes in (heterosexual or homosexual or anything in between), Love is the same idea, it also brings us another popular phrase, explained. Your “other half.” The idea that someone, somewhere, will fit you as surely as if you were split down the middle from the same original form and sent on your separate ways until you find one another. That, I believe, is what Love really is. As a friend of mine once said, it is finding someone “who fills a part of you you never knew was empty before.”

“What’s it like to find someone who you can be comfortable with?” another friend of mine once asked.

“It’s using their same toothpaste and smoking their cigarettes,” I told her before even stopping to think about formulating an answer that actually makes sense. “It’s how one person can say to you, ‘We need to do this,’ and when you ask why, they give you 15 different answers, and not a single one makes sense, but when the right person says ‘We need to do this,’ and you ask them why, they give you one answer, and that’s the answer that makes sense to you, too. It’s finding someone who says out-loud to you what that little voice in your head is always telling you, but you don’t actually believe until you hear them say it.”

And that, also, it what makes us human, and makes up for out inherent weaknesses—the idea that we can, and would want to, somehow actually change and become a more solid person, for someone other than ourself.

---

I’m finding my Pairing Food and Wine class to be an allegory for life: To be good at tasting, you have to have to have done lots of other eating and drinking and smelling and exploring. It’s important to have lived a full and diverse life before you try to put any of it to practical use. You must be wildly impractical and experimental and daring before you can start to build any sort of solid foundation that you would stake any sort of basis on. You must, through trial and error, find what works, and what does not. You must have someone first show you clearly what you are looking for or working to find, and then you must go after it with nearly suicidal tenacity until you find that you can realize it for yourself, by yourself. As my professor in this class, Giancarlo Russo, said, “Drinking is to do without thinking. To truly taste, you need to concentrate fully for at least one or two minutes on nothing else.”

This is what I am doing in Italy. I am eating and drinking and smelling and exploring, and concentrating fully on myself for three months. Like the wine we drink in that class, I am aging. I am tasting, and learning to trust my instincts and speak my mind, even if I am afraid that I am confusing the smell of white berries for that of pineapple, like I am finding the subtle nuances that I never knew existed within myself in the hopes that by the time I return to what it is I do know, I will know more about myself and where and how I fit in, or how I want or need to fit.

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The lines between reality and fiction are easily blended, especially for a writer. The fine point between the two was raised in my first Women in 20th Century Fiction class, and how we define “reality.”

It’s a tricky little question. One is tempted to say that reality is the action and experiences that one goes through in daily life; the world we live in. However, reality is different for every single person. You may share the same experience with someone, but the reality of the situation is interpreted differently by all involved. The interpretation tends to become the reality for someone, itself, which, I can tell you, is a Gemini’s curse. To a greater or lesser extent, we all tend to believe what we want out of a situation, and rely heavily on that belief to guide our thoughts or actions in regards to it. Reality, then, becomes the extents of what we think is possible.

Without the concept of “reality” like a rigid framework or cage around us, so much more would be possible—you would not have the previous concept or opinion that something is not “feasible”—that it is up to you to bend and stretch the frame of reality for yourself and see what you can actually accomplish if you don’t worry about where other people have failed before and staked the signpost of “impossible—it can’t or shouldn’t be done.” No one is an exception or a rule—we are all blissfully individual and unique, with different strengths, talents, fortes, and ambitions. Someone with less perseverance may have not been able to accomplish something, but if you have more fortitude, tenacity, cunning craftiness, or just sheer bull-headed stubbornness, you may blow away all previous expectations. As my professor said, “Words change the meaning of the world.” Your own definition of reality may shatter someone else’s.

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“Sex” and the “College Girl”:

Interesting:
Oxford Dictionary’s definition of “sex”: “Condition of being male or female; gender. // Sexual intercourse.”

As you may have noted by now, the title of this blog is “Sex and the College Girl.” Not only is this a titillating marketing mechanism, as I’m sure some of you characters who stumbled your way here typing like-minded words into a search engine in aims of finding something quite different, but it also is almost stupidly apparent in its meaning of what the purpose of this blog is. On one hand, yes, I am a college girl, and yes, I do occasionally discuss sex and similar themes. But the other point to this blog is that I am exploring topics from the point of view of a specific gender—the condition of being a female college student and how my gender and station in life affects the situations I find myself in or explore. It’s an interesting little double-edged sword—cerebral one minute, smutty the next. I love the duality of it.

XOXO