Burn Notice

A few years ago I heard a story about a woman who unwittingly gave a sexually transmitted disease to one of her partners. She worked in a call center and when the guy got tested and found out about the disease, he embarked on a campaign to humiliate her. He called the 1-800 number dozens of times and when a representative answered he'd say, "Hey, do you know Amy? Does Amy work there? She burned me." The office was small, about thirty people all in the same room so everyone knew Amy and pretty soon everyone knew she had "burned" someone. The guy continued to call all day long, even after Amy went home, mortified and in tears.

I tell this story because it shows that we are only as good as our reactions to shitty situations. Sometimes you get burned and you want to lash out, but if you go about it the wrong way you'll lose all your credibility with people who under other circumstances would have totally been on your side. So no matter how upset you are and how slighted you feel, you can't make a hundred phone calls. You can't mount a campaign to make someone else's life a living hell, just because. We all get burned. Slap some salve on that thing and move on.

We Know We're Crazy*

The first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem. We ladies sometimes do crazy stuff that we (hopefully) know is crazy, but we do it anyway. Perhaps because you all drive us to it, perhaps because we just can’t help ourselves. So how about a little group therapy. 

We know we’re in the wrong when we:

• Get rid of your stuff. When my now-ex and I moved in together, I was fascinated by his “stuff.” Maybe due to the fact that our belongings meshed really well and we have similar taste, but whatever the reason, I loved it and never wanted to pare it down. Women seem to have this compulsive need to find the one thing men love the most (comic book collections, the comfy t-shirt, porn) and annihilate it. Don’t ask me why. If it isn’t yours, leave it be!
• Fill in our own blanks. The blame for this one is definitely spread equally between genders. Men, you tend to give us information on a ‘need to know’ basis. Just the talking points. We want the whole story and if you don’t include each and every minor detail, we’ll convince ourselves that you have something to hide. We’ll write our own story, complete with the wildest ending imaginable. We’re creative like that, so do us (and yourself) a favor and just tell us the whole story.
• Snoop. I’m guilty of snooping, but never unprompted snooping. One time I was using my (MY) laptop and discovered that an ex had visited a dating website specifically geared towards casual hook-ups. I did some more digging and saw that there was a fresh new profile he was still signed into! So I made some fun, informative changes to that profile. See how you make us do crazy things? That one was totally not my fault because I mean, c’mon. If you’re dumb enough to use my computer to find, “Local sluts who want to f&*$” then you deserve what you get.
• Tell you what you want to hear. “I don’t want kids, either.” “You’re the best I’ve ever had.” “Size doesn’t matter.” OK so some of these are little white lies that probably won’t hurt anybody but when it comes to the big issues, we need to stick up for ourselves a bit more. The real answers are, “I'm not sure if I want kids. I think you’ll make a great dad but don’t want to scare you away by saying it.” “You’re very good at taking care of business, but there’s room for improvement,” and, “Size only matters when it’s small. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

*Case in point. God, I wish I didn't have such a great example of me being crazy to share, but...yesterday I called my ex to say hi and the call was sent to voicemail. Not immediate voicemail, but the "ring ring ring voicemail," that lets you know the person has CHOSEN to send you to voicemail. Today I texted him, "Are you pissed at me for some reason?" No response. So I call again. Voicemail. Call again. Voicemail. Third call (affectionately know as the "You're truly crazy" call) he picks up and now he is kind of pissed...he was taking a nap.

I'm crazy.

Dates and Figs

I realized this morning that I'm probably going to be alone forever. Not because I want to be. The thought terrifies me. But rather because I hate dating, and especially first dates. A friend recently mentioned a local restaurant that he'd had several good first dates at, and it sent chills up my spine. Not just a good first date, but a bunch of them. My worst nightmare.

Honestly, I've only gone on three "first dates" in my entire life. I'm 29-goddamn-years old and I've only been on three first dates. I'm talking about real dates, here, where someone picks you up and takes you somewhere. I've "hung out" with guys and that leads to a relationship, but as for serious first dates, only three...and the last one was four years ago. I truly thought it would be the last one because I never anticipated a break up but shit happens. And now I'm afraid it's all over for me.

The idea of signing up with a dating website, chatting with random guys, meeting up for coffee...I'd rather lay down in an intersection. I'm not being overly dramatic about this, it's just not me. I'm sure people will say, "Oh, get out of your comfort zone. Try something new!" You're all nuts, I say. Pure torture. Some people enjoy playing the field, but I guess I'm happy on the sidelines. We have Gatorade, here.


P.S. You're probably wondering, "Where do the figs come in?" I recently got an ice cream machine and am going to make fig sorbet, because my friend Richie made it for me and it was the most delicious thing I've ever tasted. And that's the end of that story.

Please stop being so nice to me!

When a relationship falls apart, the pieces can go in one of a few ways. You can rage at one another, throwing around words like, “hate,” and never wanting to see eachother again. OR you can do what we’re doing, which is to be sad…heartbroken…devastated…but not necessarily angry.

Sure there was plenty of fighting towards the end and there have been moments here and there where our tensions have come to a head, but we made a promise to one another to try to keep it civil. Luckily it’s been better than civil. We’ve been able to mourn together for something that’s gone and isn’t coming back. We still love eachother but it didn't work. Sharing that sadness is healing, for some reason.

Since everything comes back to either Seinfeld or Sex & the City, do you remember the (gut-wrenching) episode where Aiden moves out? During that final conversation – his bags packed – he fixes Carrie's toilet and tells her he wants her to keep the engagement ring. She says something along the lines of, “Please stop being so nice to me.” 

While I appreciate the kindness that we can show to each other, even now, part of me wants to say that. Please stop being so nice to me.

My now-ex (*sob*) has been something of a prince. He’s leaving behind a lot of his belongings that we shared, to make things easier on me, and he’s been a lifesaver dealing with our landlady. She can be an intimidating personality and after a recent incident, he said, “No one’s going to push you around. No one’s going to bully you.” 25% of me wanted to melt, while the other 75% steeled itself. I tried to remind myself that there were times when I felt pushed around and bullied by him; that we made this decision together for a reason and that it was still the right decision. All the niceties, it feels like too little too late. It is too little too late.

Frigid

The bone-chilling cold we experience this time of year is contagious, it seems. I’m afraid I’ve caught some of its bitterness. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that my personal life has been on such shaky, unsure ground. When I’m secure in love and life, the temperature could drop below zero and I’d still be warm and rosy as a radiator; happy to be inside cooking soup for my sweetie and catching up on my reading. But at the moment I feel like all my goodwill and inspiration and empathy have seized up like a frozen stream. There’s no desire to cook or write or sing. No motivation to show love to anyone or anything. I feel like love, in general, is kind of a lost cause.  

This mid-winter funk is usually only shaken by spending some time focusing on myself, so that’s just what I’m going to do. For the past four years I’ve put myself second (at most) and the results are pretty evident. My time-tested steps for breaking out of a minor depression are:

1. Exercise – There’s no better mood elevator in the world than a good old fashioned work out. If you can’t get a work out the old fashioned way (*wink wink*) then you had better lace up those sneakers and get a’walkin’ (or a’runnin’ or a’yoga’n’ or whatever workout you can stand.)

2. Forced creativity – It might sound like an oxymoron, but it works for me. Sometimes my best creations come when I’ve set some parameters for myself, whether it’s to sit down and write a story or a song or just to do some vocal warm-ups and improvisation. It’s like a self-assignment and you always get full marks. (ha.)

3. Eat more fruits and vegetables - No, I’m not really trying to diet but the vitamins and nutrients in fruits and veggies always make me feel better, inside and out. A salad and an apple is as good as an anti-depressant, in my book. Well, OK, maybe not as good, but a great natural alternative. If after a week of veg-loading I’m still feeling peckish, I’ll invest in some St. John’s Wort and melatonin.

Jealous Much? At All?

Back in the day I remember saying silly things, like, "Oh, I never get jealous." I said that to a guy I was seeing and he responded, without missing a beat, "That means you've never been head-over-heels about someone." I waved it off, thinking that he couldn't possibly be right. I mean, I was head-over-heels about him, right?

Wrong.

When I did finally meet someone who made me crazy, ecstatic, furious and head-over-heels, all at once, I felt those pangs of jealousy creeping in. It was something I'd never really expected. Every female he came into contact with, friend, ex or otherwise earned a sideways glance from me. Who the heck was she? And why was she calling him? And how often did they talk? And why hadn't I heard stories about her?

Over time I settled down a lot and realized that he loved me and was devoted to me. That's all well and good, but I also realized that he wasn't a jealous person. Not even a little bit. I could tell him I had plans to fly to Johnny Depp's private island for the weekend and act as his personal masseuse and his response would be, "OK, babe. Have a good time. Oh, while you're there could you see if he has any Hunter S. Thompson stuff lying around. Cool. Thanks." The only thing that's more off-putting than a jealous rage is...the absence of a jealous rage. I have to admit that it bugged me. He didn't feel threatened by anyone. It was mystifying.

But this weekend, after having a tense couple of days (we're still working through things, having decided to keep living together for the time being) during which I angrily told him that I would go elsewhere to find a satisfying relationship if he was not able to provide it, something finally got under his skin. A painfully old friend of mine called on Saturday to talk about a project he's working on. He was looking for advice. Now, I've known this guy since we were bitty babies. We went to nursery school together. He poses no threat, and I barely ever talk to him unless we run into one another in the neighborhood. It really rubbed my boyfriend the wrong way and later on, without my knowledge, he called this friend and asked him to steer clear. My friend assured him that there was absolutely nothing going on, as I did when my boyfriend let me know he had done it. It was certainly an unnecessary move on his part (and now I have to call this guy and apologize, which annoys me) but I have to say that I wasn't really mad.*

I was almost...reassured.

*I'm even less mad now that my boyfriend told me that he never actually called this guy, but was just messing with me. Sigh...

Keep the Change

I once read somewhere that...

Men get married hoping the woman will never change, 

and women get married hoping the man will change completely. 

That's very true, don't you think? I know in my current relationship that a frequent gripe from my better half is, "You've changed." Hell yea, I've changed, and I hope I change some more.

Change is pretty much the only thing you can be sure of in life. People will change right before your eyes if you're paying close enough attention. When you aren't evolving then you stagnate and nobody likes the smell of stagnation, especially curled up in bed next to them. Relationships change, and if they don't, they die. I never want to look back at my life or my relationships and realize that I've been in the same place, fighting the same battles and making the same mistakes for years on end.

If we get back to the quote, though, does it suggest that women are committed to evolution, while men favor stagnation? Maybe it's not entirely that black and white, but it sure seems like it sometimes. I think men find a cute, young, wide-eyed thing and want to put it under glass and keep it just so. Women want a fixer-upper that can continually be taken to the next level.  But the reality is that you're both going to change, together and independent of each other. And that's not a bad thing.

The struggles come when your evolution or lack thereof makes your significant other feel uncomfortable or unsupported. To be perfectly honest, in my personal life, we've been feeling a lot of this tension lately and I'm not sure what the end result will be. I'm looking forward to a lot of things that maybe my boyfriend isn't quite ready for but as long as we're honest with ourselves and each other, things will work out the way that they're supposed to. We'll evolve and survive or stagnate and die, but no matter what, I'm rooting for change.

Lovefool

In anticipation of the three year anniversary of my boyfriend's and my first date, I thought it would be fun to read the tidbits of recorded history from that time. In other words, the gushingly girly emails I wrote to my friends. Oh my god, was it not fun.

I read and read and by the end of the narrative was depressed, and pitied the heroine for being so lovesick and foolish. She was head-over-heels. She was making emotional mix CDs at a rate never before seen. She was hanging on every text, call, and glance from him. She was, quite frankly, a little bit pathetic. When I finished reading, it took me a moment to snap back into reality and realize, "That awful creature was me." *barf*

It took even longer to remember that I had ultimately gotten what I'd wanted so badly years ago. There's not much comfort to be taken in that, though, because that lame girl is still in there somewhere, just waiting to pop out. When she does I'm going to remind her that one CD is plenty.

Update: Just did a little research into what kind of gifts are traditional for a three year anniversary and apparently it is the 'Leather Anniversary.' So, what does that mean? Like, shoes? Or whips and ball gags and things? Fair enough...

Blank

This is a bit of a shameless plug for the book I'm reading right now, but if you want to gain some insight into the long-term potential of your relationship (or insight into a lot of things, really) you should pick up Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It delves into the instant judgments we're capable of making and how those gut reactions can sometimes be more accurate than judgments made after months of study.

In the first chapter, Gladwell recounts an experiment performed to determine if the success of a marriage can be predicted. They filmed couples discussing their marital issues and analyzed the emotions they displayed. Turns out the designers of the study were able to guess with about 90% accuracy whether the relationships were doomed or not, just based on the ratio of negative interactions to positive. Is that not amazing?

Apparently the number one indicator of a relationship that isn't going to last is the presence of contempt during those conversations. Feeling contempt from the person you love doesn't just affect your heart, but it can lead to more frequent illnesses (!) and less happiness in all areas of life. To me, this makes so much sense. If my boyfriend is upset with me; if we get to the point that we're being mean or calling names, it guts me and makes it nearly impossible to focus on anything other than those negative emotions.

So if you're approaching the point in a conversation or conflict where contempt may enter the equation, step back. They say, "Sticks and stones," and all that, but unkind words from your SO can physically hurt you. And, at the very least, they point toward a predictably grim future for you, as a couple.