You just know
16 February 2009
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: dating, happy endings, love, Mr. Right, romance
I’ve been avoiding this post. Partly because I’m hesitant to admit it in writing, but mostly because I’m afraid that when I do, it will sound cliche and ordinary.
But Kitty says that I must, that after writing about all of the struggles and frustrations of dating, I owe it to myself, or at least to her, to write about something that keeps me grinning and that makes all the past struggles worth it.
I’ve always thought that ‘love at first sight’ was a bunch of bollucks. How could you possibly find yourself in love with a man you’ve never spoken to? That you made eye contact with at an opportune moment? Ridiculous, really. But I have always been a bit intrigued by the variation my mom uses.
“How did you know that Dad was the one?” I would ask her.
“When you meet the right person, you just know,” she replied. This did not quite answer my question, but it had enough romantic mystery for me to accept it.
I’ve pursued love, wondering what it was like. Created it out of nothing just to know the feeling. I’ve been dragged into love, and I’ve loved people who haven’t yet learned to love themselves.
But this is different. On our first official date, I traveled to Boston on Dec. 12 to be Jon’s date at a Christmas party. As I rode back to New York City, I replayed the weekend in my head, and the phrase ‘You just know,’ kept ringing through my thoughts.
He’s smart, funny, ambitious, compassionate, and in my mind devilishly good looking. But I could say that about a number of guys. It was something about the way we interacted, in conversation, on the dance floor, snuggled up on the couch. When I think back on that weekend, I mostly remember laughing. I was either smiling or laughing the entire weekend, and I think he was too.
I immediately came home and began a list of reasons why I love him, worried that by the time I had assured myself of actually being in love with him, I would be too caught up in the overall feeling to be able to pin it down to specifics.
And then of course, he conveniently adheres to all the qualities my mom silently requires: Catholic, from a similar type of family, parents aren’t divorced, has a college degree, has a full-time job, has career goals, has a social life.
He is a man I would want to come home to after a long day at work. A man I’d love to go out dancing with in Manhattan on a warm Saturday night. A friend I could stay up talking to all night. Someone I can take home to my friends and family, with the hope that they will love him as much as I do.
We’ve fallen in love, just as I knew we would after that weekend in December. And we’ve been in exactly the same place in the relationship every step of the way. From the moment we met each other, to our first date, to where we are now, two months later. I have to wonder if there’s something in that ‘Love at first sight’ thing after all. Not sight with your eyes, but a different sort, a sight that comes from your heart, a sudden recognition between two people who will make each other happy.
Now if only we lived in the same city… (don’t worry, we’re working on that one.)
A Woman Distracted
4 February 2009
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: feminism, love, Mr. Right, realistic, relationships, trust, work, writing
“If you don’t have anything bad to say about a relationship, you shouldn’t say anything at all.”
- George on Seinfeld
OK, so that’s only part of the reason I haven’t been updating this blog. Because who wants to read about how nervous I was to say I love you, and then overjoyed when he said it back? Or how excited I am about the Valentines Day gift that I bought him?
But aside from my lovely distraction, who unfortunately lives in Boston, I have been absorbed in other things lately, and these things I’m going to share.
1. I’m writing. Well obviously, you’re thinking. But really, I submitted an essay to Skirt! magazine and I plan to submit at least one piece each month. Essays, memoirs, short stories, who knows — You might read a novel of mine someday. It all has to start somewhere.
(http://www.skirt.com/ “Women’s online resource for opinion, poetry, fashion, resources, fun and irreverence.”)
2. I’m reading. Did you know that there are magazines out there for young women whose cover stories have nothing to do with how to please your man or how much weight Jessica Simpson has gained? Check these out ladies:
My new favorite magazines: Bust, Pink, and a couple writers mags
BUST – “For women with something to get off their chests” I picked up thismagazine thinking that it would cater to extreme fringe feminists who are on the brink of rejecting gender altogether (From an outside standpoint, I admire those women, but if this mag was targeted at them, I wouldn’t fit the audience.)
Instead, I found trendy craft and fashion ideas, a news piece on why women are paying more for health care, feature stories on Cowgirls — the first American feminists, and great reviews on newly released CDs and books. Basically, your typical women’s mag without all the stories that make you feel like crap. And do you honestly need to read another article about 69 ways to make your man gasp in bed? Although BUST does have a One-Handed Read in the back, a nice touch to complete the frank and honest publication.
PINK - “a beautiful career, a beautiful life” is a business mag for women with style. With articles on how to handle your hefty bank account when you get married, how to get the most out of your heels without killing your feet, and a feature on the similarities between online job hunting and online dating for those women who are feeling a little out of touch with their flirtatious bar-crawling days.
This one is heading in the right direction, but it’s small. And by that I mean thin. The story ideas are huge — my fav was the highlight on the 13 women who are leading countries right now. And despite the stories on shoes, the suggested designer bags for laptops and the pink font everywhere, PINK keeps a business voice. It’s a nice blend of serious talk with a fun attitude.
3. I’m planning. I’ve got a file cabinet now and I’m trying to decide what should go in it besides my W-2 form. If I keep reading and writing, I might be able to actually put it to use. So, off I go to write something brilliant. I’ve got to be fast tonight because that boy I mentioned will call in about an hour…
p.s. I’m not sharing him
10 January 2009 
A Not-So-Impossible Meet-Cute
Where to meet a quality guy?
Go to a bookstore, magazines tell us.
Start paying attention to the guys you interact with on a daily basis, chick flicks seem to scream at us.
You’ll never find a good man at a bar, self-help books criticize. Hang out at a local coffee shop.
But you know what’s funny? Every decent guy I’ve dated doesn’t drink coffee. Unfortunate for me as I drink more coffee than water, but I figure there’s water in coffee, so it can’t be that bad, right?
My point is, how often do you walk into a bookstore, coffee shop, grocery store, and get an invitation to dinner? That’s a rhetorical question. This does not happen.
Kitty’s a natural at good-man hunting. She sees potential at her parents’ Christmas parties, at the dentists office, in her neighbor’s former piano students. So when she spent the day at the local coffeeshop yesterday, she was perfectly aware of the cute guy who had been there for a few hours.
Kitty’s flaw? She never makes the first move. And as I pointed out earlier, guys at these places are rarely there to find a girl. So she was content to admire from afar and enjoy her book until closing time.
Then the unthinkable happened. As if straight from the script of a Meg Ryan movie, just as Kitty was packing up to go — her book was doggy eared and closed, she was putting on her coat — the cute guy walked into the room, sat down on the coach next to her and said, “Hey, what’s up?”
If this were a Meg Ryan movie, Kitty would have sat back down, they would have chatted until the owners kicked them out, he would have walked her home, asked her out to dinner, who knows.
But most of us (Kitty included) have discovered that life is not a chick flick, and great quality men in coffee shops do not introduce themselves with the intention of asking us out.
In this real-life scenario, Kitty was so thrown by the opening to fairytale land, so restricted by her rational thoughts of how she had to leave because the shop was closing, that she replied, “Oh hi, I was just leaving.” And she left. And then she tortured herself the rest of the night over what would have happened if she had stayed.
Don’t be fooled. Romance still exists. And while it may be rare to have a perfect stranger sit down and talk to a girl in a coffee shop, it could happen. You better believe it, or you might just ignore its existence when it’s right in front of you.
Defending the year that’s gone by
22 gets a bad rap.
I realized this quite a while ago, but hadn’t gotten around to writing it. But seeing as I’m about to turn 23 and leave my 22-year-old self behind, here’s my parting farewell to my 22nd year.
Those who have passed the age of 22 frown upon those who posses it.
You’ve Got Mail’s Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan):
“Those stupid 22-year-old girls with no last name. ‘Hi, I’m Kimberley.’ ‘Hi, I’m Janice.’ What’s wrong with them? Don’t they know you’re supposed to have a last name? It’s like they’re a whole generation of cocktail waitresses.”
The Poet offering advice to poor little clueless me:
“Trust me. Your relationships are going to get a lot more complicated. A lot more complicated.”
He said it in such a knowing tone, as if he were warning me.
Sex and the City’s Charlotte to her replacement at the art gallery:
“You’re 22! What do you know about life? I mean, art?”
A friend, on my dating blog compared to those of women in their 30s:
“And you apparently have so much to write about at 22.”
As if single 22-year-olds have no dating affairs to recount. Where do you think 30-year-olds got their experience?
People look upon us with a mixture of pity and disgust, fear and excitement. They disapprove even while knowing that they were there once. We have reputations for being easy, naive and senseless. We’ve been called perky and ruthless.
It’s true that we are the freshmen of the real world. Many of us have just escaped college and have a salary and a life of our own for the first time. I’m sure that with all this change comes a few bad decisions.
But it also comes with a lot of fear and a lot to overcome. We’ve been leaping for a while, but this is our first big flight from the nest; hearing snide remarks about 22-year-olds is not really helping us.
Life at 22 isn’t actually glamorous and care free. We’re lonely and we’re poor, and all that glamorous stuff just fills the void until we find our place.
So to quote one more Hollywood character on looking back at those of us in our early twenties:
Have a little compassion. Ladies, the only thing worse than being single and in your thirties in this city, is being single and in your twenties.
-Carrie Bradshaw.
