For Julia

I have a friend that is a few years younger than me that has followed a similar path to the one I've been traveling for a while. She had a serious relationship in high school and through college when everyone else was partying and being crazy. When that ended she started dating and all that goes with it - as a newbie. She is now been doing that for a bit and starting to feel like there is no end in sight. I can completely relate and wish that I could offer her more concrete advice than 'it will happen when the time is right'....but I can't. Everyone's time table is different and I am not going to pretend to be all-knowing. (About this anyway)

What I can offer is all the great things about being single in your later twenties. Even though it wasn't a cake walk, there were things that I loved about being single for a few years, things that I am sure will be hard to let go of as I enter into a new relationship. For me, it was the period in my life where I felt like I had the most freedom to try new things, express myself, (anyone else singing Madonna here?) and focus on just being the best 'me' that I could. So without further ado.....

Great Things About Being Single After 25

1. Time. You have so much more time to do the things that you want when you exit a relationship. You have even more time if you don't think about men AT ALL for a while. I gave up men for Lent last year (true story) and it was a great experience. I gave up flirting, dating, kissing, chatting online....all of it. If you weren't overflowing with estrogen then I avoided you for forty days. All of a sudden all that time you were spending talking to your significant other/man of interest, doing things he liked to do, running his errands, meeting up with his friends and family....all that time is now yours to do anything you want with! Even if whatever you want is simply to veg out on the couch in your pjs and watch Friends reruns all day without anyone giving you a guilt trip.

2. You get to make decisions without consulting anyone. This was a ton of fun - actually my Busia gave me the best advice about what to do when I became single. She told me to take advantage of being able to be independent and to travel like crazy. I didn't go crazy, but I did travel TONS more than before I was single. I went on two cruises and saw the Caribbean, Mexico, and Honduras. I conquered my fear of heights and went parasailing in Grand Cayman and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I went to Denver, to DC, to Nashville, to Aspen...I spent more summer days than I can count in my bathing suit and a pair of shorts with a cooler and some sunscreen and no destination, just daytripping to whatever beach my Jeep ended up at....all with no one to answer to. I am unbelievably glad that I got to do all of these things. Busia - you were so right.

3. You (most likely) have more resources now than when you were younger to play around with. You don't have to enjoy yourself like a college kid following cheap draft night from bar to bar or living off the dollar menu at drive thrus. You can indulge yourself and have new experiences. If I were in a relationship and building a future with someone I would not have had half the spa days or wine trips or vacations. I didn't have to share my financial resources with anyone and there was no one to object if I went shopping on impulse or spent $40 on a bottle of wine.

4. You get the house (and more importantly, the bed) to yourself. Now, at first I didn't appreciate how fantastic this would be. At first, it just made me feel more alone. But as time goes on, it is amazing to leave the house and then come back later and find it in exactly the same condition as you left, to leave a yummy snack in the fridge and know it is still waiting there for you when you come home. It is awesome to be able to indulge my strange obsession with rearranging the furniture whenever I want without having to (pretend to) listen to someone else's opinion. It is fun to take a day off, lock the doors, close the curtains, and live all day in my ugly, comfy, ancient pajamas while eating all my meals out of an ice cream carton and shunning the shower. And now that I have had the pleasure of stretching out on my queen size mattress all by myself, I don't know how I am going to go back to sharing. (Ask Chet, he is less than fond of this habit.)

5. You get to focus on yourself. Don't underestimate this one, it was highly instrumental for me to get to the point where I am now. Not to sound like I am a saint here - but I am, by nature, a giver. If it is in my power to give you something that you need, I will. And for the people that are very close to me, such as a boyfriend or husband, that meant that if I had a choice to do something to benefit myself or them - I routinely chose them. On a regular basis I chose to not put myself first. Now, I am not whining about this or regretting the choices that I made. I am the person that I am, and I can live with all that. But once I was on my own, I didn't have to make choices like that anymore. The majority of my choices became all about my best interest. I began to take care of myself in a way that I never had....I got healthier, I kicked bad habits, I worked with causes and projects that were dear to my heart, I followed my gut and traded in a career path that has made me so much happier. I got to know myself and believe in myself in a way that has made me a better person. Like the Mastercard commercials.....priceless.

So Julia, while I know that this does not make you feel better about being single at this point in your life while the rest of the world seems to be pairing up and procreating.....you have an opportunity to have experiences that maybe would have been closed to you if you weren't single now. Instead of dwelling on all the things you are missing because you are on your own, look at all the amazing things you can do and fill this time with 'you' stuff. Enjoy yourself, pamper yourself, treat yourself like a princess or a diva or whatever makes you happiest. And if you are looking for a travel friend for some time this summer...I am sure Chet will be happy to share me for a girl trip or two! :)

Get Married? Again? Maybe....

I just started reading this book called "Committed" and it is the follow up book to "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. To begin with, if you haven't read the first one, go get it. It is a very touching, amusing, readable story of this woman's attempt to find herself after divorce. I promise, it's good. The first word of the book is 'eat' - how could it not be good? Any woman that starts her journey of self exploration with carbs is a friend of mine! Anyway....she just published this next one, and it is all about her study of the institution and application of marriage. She and her boyfriend, through circumstances they can't change, are getting married even though both are highly against the idea of remarriage because of their own previous divorce horrors. This story is her struggle to make peace with that.

This is the one issue that I have never worried about at any point in the aftermath of my divorce. I know that many people do, of course, and I completely empathize with that distrust of something that has caused you so much pain. In my case though, I don't blame marriage for all misery....I blame Brad. And to some extent, myself, for picking a partner so badly. (Although mostly Brad) The problem I had was the person I picked, not the circumstances. Nothing in our marriage vows caused our problems, the institution of marriage didn't whisper in Brad's ear that he should go boink a trashy waitress. No, marriage was not the problem. Brad was just not someone that could withstand life standing next to me - and I blame myself for not seeing that, for thinking that I loved him enough for everything to work out. Love may make the world go round....but love alone does not make a marriage work. Hard work, faith, shared values, patience, common goals, commitment, toe curling sex, and a little bit of love....those things make marriage work. And I picked a boy that couldn't see those things through.

So instead of questioning the institution of marriage, now I just question my judgement. I am not afraid of remarrying, I am afraid of picking badly again. What if it is me that is broken? What if I do this all over again just to find out that I am back in a relationship with a man that doesn't value me and my beliefs and my dreams? I love writing this blog but I do not want to be sitting here in three years writing about why two divorces suck worse than just one. I want to be sitting here sharing stories of how phenomenal my life is once I picked the right man, sharing my success stories.

My dating choices seem to reflect this inner struggle. I would date a rocker boy that loved to show me a good time, but that didn't know if he wanted kids and was estranged from his parents. Instead of seeing this as a sign to get out, I saw it as a challenge. Hmmm....how can I reunite him with his mom and expose him to kids so he sees that he really does like them but has just been repressing it for years??? (yes, I know I'm a fruitcake) Post divorce I was so afraid of being alone that I let many bad choices linger far longer than necessary. And, of course, immediately following that bad choice I would swamped with guilt and rage at my own personal stupidity - so I'd go hunt for a nice guy. You know, the guy your mom will love that is responsible and happy to sit for hours and hold your hand. That guy. They are out there. So I would find a nice guy and try to atone for my preoccupation with the previous bad boy by being everything this nice guy needed. Except...I would get antsy. If he was a fanatic about keeping his car clean, I would drop stuff on the floor to see if he'd yell at me. If he wanted to hold hands and watch a movie quietly, I'd whisper dirty stuff in his ear to see if he'd be shocked. I am just not cut out to appreciate a straight up nice guy. I need him to be a little bent.

So, while I admit to being a bit wary of remarriage, it is really just my own judgement that scares me. But I have to believe that as I get older, I get smarter about my choices and clearer about what I want out of life. Having a failed marriage just lets me see all the things that are important to have in place for another one. It's like I get an extra study guide on what not to do. I have to have a bit more faith in 31 year old me, than in 25 year old me. 31 year old me knows to say no to the bad boy and to say no to the nice guy. I'm holding out for the man that wants to visit my parents house for an afternoon - and still waits to catch me in the hallway to make out for a few minutes while no one is looking. When the nice guy with the wicked streak asks me - I won't be afraid to consider saying yes.

The Night Emily Tried To Be A Sailor .....and other short stories.

I am not a practical woman. Ask my sister Emily. Her and I are barely a year apart in age and sometimes I think that God put all the possible personality traits and qualities into a big ball and cut it in half. Emily got one side, and I got the other. We are polar opposites. You would think this would mean that we couldn't stand each other, but by some miracle we actually find each other amusing more often than annoying. Her analytical nature makes me giggle when she is trying to find her way through any kind of emotional situation and she rolls her eyes every time I try and explain that I made some decision because 'it felt right.' If Emily would have been the one to get divorced, she would have done it much better than me. She would have prepared for any eventual outcome and had a safety net in place. And when it fell apart, she would have stood up and walked away and got on with her life. Even though I handled it exactly the opposite, she stood by me and tried to steer me in as practical a direction as she possibly could. When that failed, she just joined me in my emotional roller coaster - even though it was way out of her comfort zone - but her company as I lived it up all summer was invaluable. Very few people will not only let you make your own bad decisions, but will join in, even though they know it is the wrong path to take - just so you don't need to go wrong alone. She is priceless. (LOVE YOU!!) In this process, we made a few really great memories that we will never, ever share with our children and that my mom (mom, if you are reading...stop!) should probably not see.

My favorite drinking story of all time with Emily is the night we met Brandon. Brandon is one of my best guy friends and we met him at the bar through mutual friends. Specifically, a mutual friend that we are going to call....Lucky. Lucky was a friend of my ex-husbands that I knew - that, frankly, I was trying to seduce as revenge on my cheating rat bastard ex husband. (Yes, I am aware this was not the best idea in retrospect...but at the time, remember I was making decisions on emotion and Jack Daniels) So Lucky and I, and Brandon and Emily, plus a motley crew of their other friends were dancing it up at the bar a little before last call when Emily got sick. In the middle of the bar. Now, I know it is my job to take care of her, but at the time I was annoyed because how was I going to continue my planned seduction of Lucky with a pukey sister in tow? Solution: Brandon. He offered to take Emily back to my house while I went with the other four guys to Taco Bell. Looking back it is funny, and a little frightening, that I handed my house keys and my incapacitated sister off to a stranger so I could go to a restaurant where I don't even eat anything on the menu and blow in Lucky's ear. (Yes, I am anti-taco) Thankfully Brandon was a stand up guy. During the drive home, Emily apparently had to throw up so Brandon pulled over to a curb and Emily proceeded to open her truck door to lean out - which sounds smart ...EXCEPT...she was still buckled in and she fell out, hanging in mid-air, suspending upside down by her belt. Brandon had to put the truck in park, run around to the passenger side, and lift her back in the truck. So funny! Eventually, I did come home and found Emily sprawled out on the sofa with her head in Brandon's lap and a puke bowl on the floor next to them. They stayed that exact same way all night - except for the time when Emily got up to pee....but walked to my microwave and opened it thinking she was in the bathroom....ahhhh Emily...so funny. Brandon has been an adopted part of our family ever since and Emily has learned to correctly unbuckle her seat belt.

During this same summer of sinning, Emily and I hung out with this group of guys that we knew back in high school. Some nights after the bar closed we would go back to their house and continue our merriment. There was the normal amount of drunken behavior in regards to Emily and I being the only females in the party and the men decided to try and trick us into doing things we didn't want to do (think like a drunk 26 year old male and I am sure you'll get the picture. If not, you need to move onto another blog because you shouldn't be reading this type of nonsense) Their trick was to get us to play chess. Now, to be fair, I am sure that most girls at the bar are not proficient chess players...so the guys really thought they had a good thing going here when Emily and I laughed and accepted. I think we played three or four games total and trounced them every time, despite the influence of alcohol. I have a mental picture in my head that will never go away of Emily playing them on the couch with all four of them huddled around trying to jointly debate their next move, while I just lay sprawled on the floor, completely trusting in Emily's ability to thwart them. They were amazed that I put this power in her hands for this particular game and didn't want to put my two cents in, while they all were taking like ten minutes for a single move because they couldn't decide on a strategy. What they didn't know was that my dad is a fantastic chess player - and he started teaching us to play chess as soon as we were able to reason. I think both of us probably had the fundamentals of chess down before we could even read. Both Emily and I could play chess almost automatically, it was that familiar to us. I think sometimes men assume that if you are out partying at the bar that you are automatically an airhead. These guys completely underestimated our brain power, and there was nothing Emily and I liked better than getting one up on men that tried to pigeon hole us as bar girls. We win.

One more! During the summer, after the bars close down there is usually a lady or two selling flowers, trying to pressure the guys into buying them and giving them to someone. Em and I were making our way to the back parking lot of a bar where we were meeting our ride home - one of my friends who was a bouncer. So as we are walking, we get intercepted by a trio of guys and one of them gives Emily a flower and starts to hit on her. Typically I am pretty patient with this kind of thing - it is the bar after all - but, for reasons I don't remember, this night I was just annoyed with them. I vaguely recall thinking this guy was using really corny, awful pickup lines and that Emily was just drunk enough to be buying it. So I started walking her to the parking lot...strange trio of men followed, still chatting up Emily...and we made our way to my friend's truck. I jumped up on the hood of the truck, ignoring them all until Emily called out my name and they all came walking up to me. This is what she wanted: These guys had invited us to come out on their boat with them. Drunk. At 2 in the morning. With total strangers. In the water. This was a no brainer, even for me with a few drinks swirling through my system. But Emily was insistent and continued to try and persuade me with the most non compelling arguments like "oh but it is so hot out, it will feel great on the water" and "think of what a great story we can tell tomorrow about being out on the boat at night" Yeah, great story to hear when our bodies wash ashore! Luckily, right about them my friend the bouncer came out and intimidated them, sending them scurrying on their way. I was grateful. But Emily pouted in the back seat all the way home.

We continued in this vein over a summer and pretty much until the snow flew that year, doing things that I am not proud of, but that I forgive myself for. When the whiskey haze had cleared and I looked over, there was Emily..clutching an empty bottle of Captain, burning all the incriminating photos. I had survived the first six months. Emily hopped off my crazy train and went back to her normal, practical ways. I reluctantly got off my crazy train and continued on with my emotional ways. And for the most part, it has served us well.

Is Dating Dead?

So this past Monday ABC aired a tv show called 'Conveyor Belt of Love'. I didn't actually watch it that night because I was shunning tv in favor of curling up on the couch with a good book. But I was told by several people that it was amusing in an OMG kind of way....so I looked it up online yesterday. The premise of the show is that a handful of girls get to sit on stools as a conveyor belt rotates men around every 60 seconds. The girls get to pick the one they want and then they go out on dates. My life was not enriched by this show, but I was mildly amused for the forty or so minutes it was on my screen.

Here is why it made my blog: One of the girls was explaining her criteria for a man in her little opening monologue and she wanted a man who understood what a date was, an actual planned out date with an activity and a definite start time. And I found myself nodding along as she talked about these men in vicinity of the 30 year mark that had no concept of dinner and a movie, or even the meaning of the term 'planning'. (Quick disclaimer before I get yelled at: If you are a 30-ish year old man that calls women up to ask them out (texting does not count)for a specific time and a specific activity and does not expect that date to automatically end in bed just because you paid for dessert....then you are exempt from this blog.) She was so frustrated by men that seemed to think that 'hooking up' and 'dating' were one and the same. I completely empathize with her. Here are the common ways that I get asked out.

1. This first one is a three step process. Step One. "let's meet up for a drink" Step Two. "of course you can have another, why not? You are a big girl, let me get it for you" Step Three. "let's go back to my place and watch a movie". I will admit to falling for this once...and getting labeled a tease for really wanting to watch a movie. Needless to say I haven't gone out with him again. Say what you mean boys. And trying to get a girl drunk enough to not think straight doesn't make you a player - it makes you a sleaze.

2. Via myspace/facebook/yahoo IM...."OMG u r soooo hottt...I was just looking for a friend of mine(uh huh) and saw ur profile. I am sure u have a bf but if u dont my # is xxx-xxxx. call me and i will show you a good time." Seriously. Here is what you were really doing - searching for single girls in your zip code in your age range, and then sending them all that same message and assuming we will all believe it and be flattered. Not true. Especially when it is in text language and you add multiple t's in 'hot' like you are promoting porn.

3. Through a friend of a friend...."my boyfriend's friend's brother likes you so we should all go out together in a big group and hang out" Really? Does this remind anyone else of mall rat teenagers? Isn't that how you learn to date when you are like fifteen? I might admit to being flattered by the attention BUT I am not going to take you seriously if you can't even pick up the phone and call me on your own.

4. Drunken attempts in a bar at the end of the night. Enough said.

Too many men say that they don't understand women. We are not that difficult guys. Really. Someone sent me an online forward that said, "Woman are NOT complicated. Just tell us we are beautiful and give us chocolate." That made me laugh, and while true, I think the answer is even easier. Make the effort. That's all. And it applies to everything to do with dating. I am impressed and appreciative if I can tell that a guy is making an effort. Whether it is planning a date, paying a compliment that is personal and not just a go-to line, actually listening to the answers we give to your questions....women can tell if you are genuinely putting forth the effort because you are specifically interested in us - or if you are just going through the motions and if it works out, then great...if not, oh well. Whether it is a first date or a fifth date, I want to know that you are there because you really wanted to be there, with me...not that you had a Thursday night free and I was the girl that was available. Of course this is only my opinion, and while I think that most girls will agree, I am sure that there are women out there that like the game and the chase day in and day out - I am just saying that I am not one of them.

At the end of the day, I have an old fashioned soul. I like the different roles of men and women - I don't agree with the theory of thought that says men and women should be the same and that I should do anything a man can do. I don't want to do anything a man can do. I love dating a man that understands this and that makes me feel female. This does not mean I need a man to pay for everything or treat me like I am incapable of making a decision about my own dinner. It just means that I appreciate the differences and enjoy things like having the door held for me. It doesn't offend me in the least. Thus why I am impressed by a man that takes the time to set up an actual night out. I like the anticipation of a good date. I like holding hands in a dark movie theater. I like good night kisses on the porch. I think that when you forgo all the steps like these that you lose the romance of an early relationship. I don't want to look back on how I met the love of my life and remember that we met at a dive bar while he was drunkenly celebrating his buddy's birthday and that his friend bet him he couldn't get me to second base before the night was over. I want more.

Quick Friday Funny Story....

So my BFF Jen (the real one) is always on the lookout for good, upstanding, nice men with good shoulders for me. Today she came over to pick up her son, who was shopping with me, and started telling me all about this great guy that she knows. He has a son that goes to her school and he's a great dad...super sweet guy who got a raw deal....and so forth. Of course my answer was - size up his shoulders and then let me know if you think he'd pass and then we'll go from there.

That isn't the funny part of the story.

The funny part is then she told me his name. And he is someone I already know. Small, small world. For the sake of amusement we are going to call him Henry. And the funniest thing is that I would never have described him the way she did because I already had preconceived ideas of him. Of course, these are opinions that I formed twelve years ago in high school - since that is the last time I've seen or talked to him. I am sure they are no longer valid - I am definitely not the girl I was in high school, so it stands to reason that he isn't either. He is also someone I would never have thought about dating. Not because he's awful or ugly or mean.....it just never crossed my mind that we would have anything in common. He is just someone I knew vaguely from forever ago that found me on Facebook. Funny how all things circle around again.

Pollyanna meets Midland St.

To say that I was unprepared for dating after Brad would be a gross understatement. Every unscrupulous man in the bar that was worth his salt had me pegged as an easy target the minute I stepped into the building. Maybe the minute I stepped out of my car actually. The root of my dating hilarity is all because of this. Half my dating after divorce stories wouldn't even be funny if I were a typical jaded barhopper instead of the starry eyed optimist that I was - and let's be honest - mostly still am.

Here's the background. To begin with, I was the oldest child of an extremely protective household. Other kids in high school had curfews - I didn't go out. I didn't party, I didn't drink, I didn't date. That does sound like my parents locked me in a dungeon, but in reality I was just cocooned from many things that other kids experienced in high school. (Thanks Mom by the way. I DO appreciate it now that I am older and fully intend to torment my own children in exactly the same way one day) BUT....this did not make me a very informed dating diva.

Act Two: I meet Brad my senior year. We fall in passionate teenage love. You know, the kind where you think if you don't see each other every day you will literally die. Simply stop breathing if you can't breathe the same pocket of air. Every teenage cliche? Completely true. We were so silly sometimes. I remember standing in front of my parents house next to his dad's truck one night when he dropped me home. We were crying (oh yeah...brad too...he was a weeper at one point before he went AWOL ) and we were crying because - get this - basketball season was starting. Yup. Because with his practices, we wouldn't be able to see each other every single night and we were worried as to how we would ever make it through. Well, we did survive basketball. Just not waitresses and hormones.(that was slightly snide but it made me giggle a little so I'm leaving it in) So Act Two ends with me falling in love with my first real boyfriend right out of high school.

Fast forward five years and we are dodging rice hand in hand as we run to the limo. Actually, you can't throw rice at weddings anymore, did you know that? Apparently it's bad for the environment. (Isn't it a plant? How can this even be really? ) I just used that first line to paint a typical wedding picture so you knew where I was going. In reality we walked pretty slowly to the stretch expedition that Brad insisted on having because he wanted to use his cane. (yup, cane...complete with top hat AND white gloves....see what a good wife I was?) Anyway...way off tangent here. The point of this is that I married my highschool sweetheart and pretty much avoided the entire dating circuit and barhopping initiations. When everyone else my age was figuring out where their limits were and how to step over them, I was setting up my 401K and making mortgage payments. (Although to be fair, Brad was in charge of that since I am pretty much awful when it comes to managing my money)
Add into this mix the fact that I am, at heart, the kind of person that wants to believe the best about everyone - and you can imagine the experiences that I had when I finally took my first steps on the dating scene. But you don't have to! Because I am going to tell you most of them eventually! Lucky you!

The person that had to have enjoyed these first few weeks the most must have been my sister, Emily. It really must have been somewhat like watching a toddler play in traffic when we first started going out. A toddler that was slugging on Jack, of course, because that's how Polish toddlers roll. I remember my first inkling that this may not be the spot for placing unearned trust. Emily and I had been dancing at Westtown in Bay City - and we had met a handful of men towards the end of the night. Last call came around and these guys kept talking about after parties and I was all for it. Because at this point in time, my only goal was to put off going to sleep until I just fell over exhausted so I could mark one more day off my calender. So I offered up my house and started talking about playing cards....now, I meant play cards. Euchre, smear, go fish... They thought I meant "play cards", so there was understandably some confusion when we all ended up back at my house and the night didn't end the way that they had imagined. To this day I still am not sure if Emily was aware of the misconception all along and just enjoying my Pollyanna outlook and the guys reactions. Needless to say, I learned fairly quickly to be extremely specific in my conversations from that point on.

I would like to say that this was the first and last time that I was naive and trusting of the wrong people, but then I wouldn't have more stories to share later, would I? While my outlook did get me into situations that could have turned out better, that is part of who I am. I wouldn't change it if I could. The difference now is that I acknowledge that there is a way a situation could go bad - but the Pollyanna in me is still rooting for the happier ending.