A change in direction
31 August 2008
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: breakups, Bridget Jones, crying, kiss, letting go, love, relationships
I broke up with Tom. Yes, it was a terrible conversation. (what did you expect?) He wished me good luck with life (since clearly we would never speak again) and he added that if I was actually waiting for that happy-ending fairy tale, well, good luck with that too. (*sigh*)
I discovered last night that there is hardly any inspiration in poetry or television for women who have broken the hearts of completely devoted boyfriends. Please let me know if you have discovered otherwise. In the meantime, I recommend Bridget Jones. Helen Fielding is absolutely brilliant. She made me laugh last night when I was searching for a way not to cry.
Either I have had way too much experience with breaking up relationships or I just know by now that it’s worse if I drag it out, and that everyone deserves to know that their lover no longer loves them the moment that their lover realizes it.
I anticipate the voice of this blog to change a bit. I’m now a single female writer in New York City, (a position way too close to Carrie Bradshaw for my comfort zone). My situation is less personal and more universal, whether I want it to be or not. The situations I describe will be those of my own but also those of my closest friends, of women whose stories chanced my way even when they didn’t realize it.
p.s. Kissing is still great. I recommend a daily portion if you can manage it without have to give it all away. It will make you smile. 
Dating Rules?
17 March 2007 
Dating Rules
Rule #1: Chuck the rules. As Bridget Jones said:
“Whole dating world is like hideous game of bluff and double bluff with men and women firing at each other from opposite lines of sandbags. Is as if there is a set of rules that you are supposed to be sticking to, but no one knows what they are so everyone just makes up their own.”
Classic Bridget. Love it.
Basically, we set all these silly limits for ourselves, often refusing to do what, under normal circumstances, we would do without a second thought because–God forbid–we don’t want to break the rules. Really though, if it feels right don’t worry about the bloody rules; kiss someone on the first date if you want to, call someone before 24 hours has passed, date a friend’s ex, because frankly all is fair in love and war. (Cliche, I know, but oh so true!)
Sure you will get hurt, and I’m not saying you won’t make a total ass out of yourself because you called a girl too soon and suddenly she became much less interested. But if the chase is all she was after, is that really a bad thing? If someone likes you, they’ll likely be glad (or not care) that you broke the “rules,” and if that someone doesn’t, the only thing you’re doing is putting off the inevitable. All these so-called-rules do is delay the exposure of your true self, and if someone doesn’t like who you are, well I would think you would want to know that so you don’t waste any more time on him/her.
In short, the only thing you should follow in dating is your gut feeling. The dating realm is a strange one in which a strong, keen instinct is your best defense, not unlike playing poker with a bunch of people who’ve never played before and thus are completely unreadable. (Although I recommend being a bit more honest than you be would be during poker).
The logic behind not dating…
3 January 2007 
Perhaps an apology/explanation is in order. I realize that I sound a bit bitter, maybe too harsh on men, in some of my posts. The thing is, I’m not sure it’s all their fault, so I’m going to try to see all of this “emotional fuckwittage” (as dear Bridget would say) from a more unbiased point of view.
Dating is hard. The middle ground, that casual place between hookups and a serious, committed relationship that seems to be headed toward that dreaded m-word (yes, marriage scares me…a lot), is difficult to find and once found is difficult to maintain. For who’s to stop a few casual dates from turning into several less-casual dates and then proceeding to relationship status? The only way to stop it is to reject the next offer, which is hard whether you like the person or not. Much easier to just avoid phonecalls, etc. Or just avoid the date in the first place…
So I see that maybe it’s not the date itself that is the problem but the snowball that it starts. The future is scary. And I don’t have an answer to this problem. Relationships can drastically change a future. It’s as if commitment to a relationship has to take precedence over every other commitment: to your career, your dreams, your friends, school. It shouldn’t, but eventually it always seems to.
What I’m trying to say here is that I understand why guys don’t want to date…I empathize really. But I’m not happy with me not dating. Targeting a new boy every weekend only to realize the next day that I’m not really interested gets quite old after awhile. Surely guys can understand that; maybe they are even unhappy themselves with this non-dating culture in college. So I do the only thing I can think to do: express my opinion and hope that maybe I’ll be able to find that middle ground where I won’t let this commitment thing get out of hand and will still be able to keep my dignity.
