You would think the older women get we would feel get more comfortable in our own skin and stop comparing ourselves to other women. But we have to try to out dress, out cook, out accessorize, out decorate, and out pretty each other. It’s exhausting! And expensive! Perhaps I’m being too cynical. I’m certain most women have genuine friendships. I know I do. But some of us specialize in being frenemies.
Continue Reading Add comment September 10, 2009
teressia
Tags: frenemy, friends, friendship, relationships
The thin line between love and hate
It sucks to be stupid. I would know because I did the dumbest thing I’ve done in a really long time last week.
I have long thought, and I know I’m not the only one who thinks this, that guys have a weird sixth sense about women who’ve love them (or liked them, or whatever) and they can tell when we’re picking up the pieces and getting on with our lives without them.
I went through a purging kind of mood last week where I decided I had a lot of emotional junk I’d been holding onto for too long, and I decided I needed to forgive people who had hurt me, let go of the past, and move forward. I actually reprogrammed my Heartbreaker’s number back into my phone. And what do you know? The very next night he texted me. How did he know that I’d forgiven him? How did he know that I had decided I was up to the challenge of being just friends with him again? It had to be his damn sixth sense. (A side note about this sixth sense: I know it’s real. Just ask my friend, Gregarious Girl, because she’s going through something similar.)
So, apparently with me to forgive is also to forget, because within a matter of minutes I found myself walking through his front door again. It was the same, but different, because I was a little more cautious. I had resolved that it would be different. But I forgot how easily I am sucked into his games. I swear I floated home on a cloud of happiness. I really, really liked this guy.
Even on the way home I wondered when I would hear from him again. Would this time really be different, or would he freak out and decide he had made a huge mistake even hanging out with me again? Imagine my surprise when he e-mailed me the next day. Color me shocked! I only had to wait hourrs, not days, to hear from him.
This made me think even more that this time was going to different. He must’ve really missed hanging out with me. It was a fabulous day! All my patience was paying off. And then the bomb fell. The e-mail I had become too familiar with popped up in my inbox again. “It was fun, but you’re a really good friend and I would never want to ruin that.”
Oh. My. God. Seriously? I should’ve known. The signs were there again. I should say I have no one to blame but myself, but I would like to assign a little bit of the blame to him. I mean, come on. He knows I am putty in his hands and he abuses that power he has over me. I know this is a rambling peice-of-crap post, all I’m saying is it turns out guys are big jerks who use us to prop up their sad egos. One minute you think you could possibly love them, then you see what they really are, and you kind of hate them. The most frustrating thing is how quickly I can be talked back into crossing the line back to love again.
2 comments August 17, 2009
teressia
Tags: dating, love, relationships, single life
Guys: they’re just like us!
I’m not very proud to admit this, but I went through a phase a few years ago during which I purchased a lot of celebrity gossip magazines. One especially guilty pleasure was USWeekly. It’s pure trash! But they do have the fun “Who Wore It Better” feature, so it seems like it’s not just a celebrity gossip magazine, but also a fashion mag.
One of the regular spreads that I can’t stop myself from purusing should I find an USWeekly in my hands (a very, very rare occasion these days, I swear!) is the layout called “Stars: They’re Just Like Us!” It shows pictures of celebrities doing everyday things like ordering a sandwich at a deli, pushing their kids in a stroller while shopping, or talking on the phone at Starbucks. Then you think “Hey, I order sandwiches! I talk on my phone at Starbucks! I’m just like Kirsten Dunst!”
I’m starting to think that, just like Jennifer Aniston and I share a lot of similarities (we both wear flip flops with jeans and lighter lip gloss in the summer), men and women share a lot of similarities. A few weeks ago Manfriend sent me an e-mail at work,so I knew something was up because we’re not really at-work-e-mailers. He had totally morphed into a chick — “Do you want to hang out sometime soon? I’m a mess.” The poor guy was in a tailspin over a really confusing girl.
He filled me in on the details later that week. He was kind of a wreck, and as much as it sucked to see my friend looking like a whipped puppy, I have to confess I was a little…well, giddy. Not because he was sad, but because there, right in front of me in living color, was a man who was sad over a woman. I had begun to think this was something that never happened. I thought all men were unfeeling, selfish snakes that, if touched at all, should be held cautiously by the head and kept at a distance so they wouldn’t bite.
I thought “Wow, guys are just like us! We’re not so different after all.” I keep thinking part of the problem with men and women trying to relate to each other and figure each other out is the “us” vs. “them” way of thinking. I mean, are gender differences really that big, or would we benefit if we could just learn to relate to each other as people first, then men and women second? I don’t know. I can’t decide. Every time I think of a man as a person first, then as a man, he does something that makes me think “That’s such a guy thing to do!”
There are some things that are probably always going to be different about us. Men are probably never going to go to the bathroom in groups during a night out. Women are probably never going to sit on the couch watching football all day with the remote control in one hand and the other hand down our pants. I’m just saying maybe we have more in common what we think. Perhaps, and this is just a theory in the very early stages, but perhaps, men aren’t the enemy after all.
Add comment July 22, 2009
teressia
Tags: celebrities, friends, relationships, single life, USWeekly
Knocking on heaven’s door
I sat at lunch and listened to my friend describe her aunt’s penchant for buying fabulous, impractical things. She has a lot of nice china and crystal, she said, because I guess she thought she was going to get married, but she never did.
I knew exactly what that implied and tried not to let the look of recognition show on my face. Single but hopeful women sometimes live our lives in a holding pattern. We don’t think our life will really start until we get married, and we’re so hopeful that will happen that we make a hobby out of planning for it. Some of us preplan the wedding by picking out all the stuff we love in bridal magazines and taking mental notes at every wedding we attend, some of us buy the dress and stash it in the back of the closet, and I guess some of us deck the house out like we think it should be for a couple, buying stuff we think will impress our future mother-in-law.
The risk we holding-pattern women run is that we make all the preparations for a happily ever after that never comes. I thought about what my friend had said about her aunt for the rest of the day. Which is worse, I wondered? Holding on to hope and then being disappointed when your dream never comes to fruition, or giving up hope for fear of disappointment, and becoming a hard, jaded person?
Recently I became so convinced that all my chances are gone and that I needed to let my hope die, that I really felt like something in my life had died. Hope was replaced by empty, and I have to admit that feels pretty crappy. Then I thought, what comes after death? I believe heaven comes after death; and I think heaven is good. So, if a part of my life has died, the part that believed in happily ever after, doesn’t it seem like something good, something heavenly, will follow? How? I don’t know.
The truth is I don’t know how I feel right now. I don’t know if I’m ready to hope again because hoping means risk. I don’t know if I want to risk being completely disappointed and hurt again. For the most part, I do feel empty and have written off the hope of love, but every now and then a glimmer of hope shows up. It’s an annoying little part of my personality that I can’t seem to completely kill off.
Part of me wants to believe that it really is darkest before the dawn, and that something heavenly is just around the corner. There’s still a part of me that wants to buy the dress and have it ready in the back of the closet “just in case.” But mostly I just want to believe again, and this time I want to believe with all I have. Not just say I believe while telling myself it might not happen, so don’t count on it because you’ll just be disappointed when it doesn’t. I’m reviving my hope.
Add comment June 15, 2009
teressia
Tags: disappointment, love, relationships, single
Chick, flicked
I’ve noticed that lately I spend more time with guy friends than with girl friends. I’m not one of those girls, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. Everyone knew one of those girls in high school, or maybe in college, who didn’t have a single girl friend to hang out with. Those girls always said “I just get along better with guys. Girls are too catty.” This was secret, girl speak for “I have a trashy, whorelike quality, so girls don’t really like me. Because I sleep with guys they like or used to date.” Those girls always had a story steeped in drama that went something like this: “My friend, Christine, (well, she used to be my friend) totally stabbed me in the back because her boyfriend, Jeff, liked me. And I didn’t even do anything to get Jeff to like me. We were just friends, and even if he did like me, I didn’t like him back. We were just in the same math class. So, she started telling everyone that I’m a slut.”
Anyway, I’m not one of those girls. I have girl friends, I just don’t see them as much as I see my guy friends. I attribute this to the fact that they don’t have as many real responsibilities. No guy has ever said “I would meet you for a beer after work, but the house isn’t going to clean itself.” Or “I wish I could meet you for a movie but I have got to get to all this laundry that’s been piling up.” No, single guys don’t make that stuff a priority. And married guys don’t do that stuff. Their wives do.
So, a couple of weeks ago I started worrying about what it says about me if I spend more time with men than with women. I started wondering why I have more male friends than female friends. I think it’s because guys see me as one of them. This is cool for me because I get lots of insight into the male mind. This is not cool for me because it means I am officially no longer a threat to any woman on this planet. Don’t worry that I’ll take your man because he doesn’t even notice I’m a woman. I might as well change my name to Mike and start wearing sports team T-shirts everywhere. My “buddies” (that’s what guys call their other guy friends) wouldn’t even notice, because, hey, I’m just one of the guys. How am I supposed to use all this valuable insight into the male mind that I’ve gained if there are no men in my life to be insightful about?
I don’t know where I went wrong. I am the type of girl who never leaves the house without wearing lipstick, who matches my shoes to my top, and makes smelling good a priority. I’m not a beauty queen, but I’m not one of those people you see in the store and think “Is that a man or a woman?” I’m clearly a girl. So, why do guys think I’m one of them?
The only thing I can think of is that since I’m single, and I don’t have a lot of real responsibilities, I haven’t really grown up yet. This makes me kind of like a lot of guys. I rarely cook; in fact, I still eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner a couple of times a month. I blow off household chores until the next day if I have a chance to meet a friend for a drink instead. I put off buying nice furniture until I have a reason to do so. And I’m ashamed to admit this one, but I have been known to pull a pair of jeans out of the hamper, smell them, shake them out, and wear them again in a bind. I mean, I’ve done this in the last month. I know, it’s gross and I’m not proud of it, but when do I have time to do laundry? I had to meet my buddies at the bar to watch the game last night.
In reviewing the last paragraph, I’ve realized that I may in fact be a guy between 23 and 27 years old. No wonder my guy friends think I’m one of them. I now know why they pulled me out of the “chick” category and flicked me into the “dude” category. Hmmm, while I’m here I’ll try to get some more insight for you girls and pass it along as I can. Stay tuned!
Add comment May 18, 2009
teressia
Tags: friends, relationships, single
Single is a dirty word
First of all, I want to say that most of the time I don’t mind being single. I really do think of it as freedom. But I do hope that marriage happens for me someday. I know that being married isn’t a silver bullet that will solve all my problems. In fact, it will probably create a whole bunch of new ones. So in the mean time, I have to enjoy the heck out of being single because when my single status is gone, it’s gone; and I’ll probably miss it. That being said, I hate the word single.
The word single always makes me think of Kraft Singles cheese. Individually wrapped. Safely sealed away by themselves. No hope of ever touching anything but the plastic in which they are encased. Lonely.
Sorry, but that’s not my life. I’m free, baby. Independent. Liberated from the chains of someone else’s agenda. Free-spirited.
I’m campaigning for a new word to replace single when talking about someone who is unmarried. I’m pushing for independent. It’s strong, it’s free, it’s a choice to be happy while unattached. When you think about the Independent political party, don’t you think the Independents are strong, introspective people, liberated from the label of being either left or right? So why can’t singles be independents; liberated from the label of being lonely and looking for love in all the wrong places?
Today we’re all about convenience. At the grocery store you can buy just about anything in single servings, individually wrapped and ready to go wherever you want to take them. People love the individually wrapped, single servings! And those single servings are more expensive that the traditional bulk servings. Translation: they have a higher value. So why can’t we take this concept farther and apply that kind of value to single–I mean independent–people?
People who are individually wrapped and served up without attachment are now to be called independent. I declare it to be so!
And the label could spread to things other than people, too. One dollar bills shall no longer be called singles. Strippers are no longer slipped singles; waitresses no longer have to justify why they have fifty singles after a shift. (“I swear, I’m not a stripper. I wait tables!”) They now rack up a bunch of independents.
Hotel rooms that have one bed: now independent rooms.
One song released from a CD: still a single. It would just sound stupid to call it an independent, and confusing given there are independent record labels. Hey, it won’t work for everything, but I think it will work for this independent girl. I have to go get ready for the company Christmas party now. I’ll be in the back at the independent’s table.
Add comment May 18, 2009
teressia
Tags: independent, single
It’s definitely, maybe a matter of timing
I watched the movie “Definitely, Maybe” a couple of weeks ago. The main character is a guy named Will. He’s telling his daughter the story of how he met her mom, but the story includes other women in his life, so she has to guess which one is her mom. Stick with me. It gets better.
Whether I liked the movie or not (it was okay) isn’t the point. The thing that stuck with me the most is something Will’s friend, April, said to him when he was going to propose to his college girlfriend. She said that finding the right one is about timing — when you’re ready to commit to someone and get married the person you’re meant to be with “becomes” the one. (Pardon the scare quotes; I’m just really into them lately.) So, she thinks it’s not about finding the right person but instead it’s about getting to the place in your life where you’re ready to commit to a long-term relationship. Then, the next person you’re with becomes the one.
I’ve always been the hopeless romantic-type and have leaned towards thinking we each have one true love waiting for us out there somewhere. But then you have to wonder what happens if one of you marries the wrong person. Then the other half of the soul mate couple has to wander around looking for their soul mate and not really having a chance.
So, I thought, maybe April is right. Maybe it’s less about finding the right person and more about landing in the right circumstances with a person that could be right. Then that person becomes exactly right because everything else is exactly right.
I’ve always said I don’t want to be with someone who can live with me; I want to be with someone who can’t live without me. April’s idea takes that line of thinking and smooshes it like a mean kid smooshes a one legged grasshopper. Turns out my future husband might not really think “I can’t live without her. I have to make it legally binding and forever.” When the time comes he might actually be thinking “She’ll do. I’m tired of looking.”
So I choose to believe this: true love is more important in finding the right one than circumstances. If you meet the right one but you aren’t ready, when you realize they’re the one, don’t you get ready? Isn’t realizing they’re the one part of the process of getting ready? Maybe they’re in your life but you don’t realize they’re the one for a long time because you’re not ready to see that yet. That’s what happened to Will and April.
Then, you get to the place you need to be to be ready, and WHAM! You look at them and think “I can’t live without him.” I could make a solid case for this based on “When Harry Met Sally” but that’s for another day.
Add comment May 18, 2009
teressia
Tags: definitely, maybe, true love, when happy met sally
Know when to run
They say Texas hold ‘em is the game it takes 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. I play Texas hold ‘em the same way I play relationships and I’m not good at either.
In hold ‘em, (which I only learned to play because I liked a guy that played) I’m always chasing something — a straight, a flush, a full house. I get so distracted chasing the perfect hand that might come my way that I completely forget about the other key element: paying attention to what the other players might be holding and chasing. Over and over again I’ve been told the key to winning at hold ‘em is to pay attention to what the other players might have (and to learn their tells) and yet every time I sit down at the table I forget that because I get tunnel vision and focus only on what I want to get. It’s my downfall in poker, and it’s been my downfall in love.
All my heartbreaks are my own fault. When I’m interested in a guy, I get tunnel vision. I forget to pay attention to his tells and to think about what he might be holding and chasing. I get lost in what I want and the next thing I know I’m alone and wondering how I missed the signs.
I knew I was in trouble the last time my latest Heartbreaker called me to come to his house to hang out with him. The kind of trouble you get into when you bet big on pocket aces only to realize two rounds of betting later that they don’t even compare to the straight the other guy is probably holding, and you wonder why you weren’t paying more attention to what was on the table.
At that point, though, I thought I had a pretty good hand. But I was chasing a happy ending that wasn’t in the cards. I mean, it seemed like there were a couple of good cards on the table, and I was looking at a couple of good cards in my hand. All these cards should’ve made a a winning hand. I should’ve run then.
After I got to his house that night, he said “Well, I was bored so I thought I’d see what you were up to…” Oops. We both knew he shouldn’t have said it before he even finished saying it — in fact, he couldn’t quite finish it because he knew he shouldn’t say it. How could I have missed his tells before this? I knew he only called me on the weeknights, and he only wanted to hang out at his place. How could I have missed the obvious here? He was saving the best part of himself for someone better. When Friday and Saturday came, I was stuck in the Keno room, waiting for him to show up while he was at the high roller table with a blond in a low-cut wrap dress.
I’ve read “he’s just not that into you,” and I know Greg would say I was wasting the pretty on this guy. It was a classic, rookie mistake. I should’ve known better because I’m no rookie.
What it comes down to is that I am not good at gambling — with cards or my heart — because I don’t know when to walk away. And yet, like any good loser, I flirt with the idea of sitting down at the table again. I feel like if I ever get brave enough to try again, I will have learned enough to walk away a winner. I guess when you take a seat at the high stakes table you know you might lose everything, but you gamble anyway on the chance of getting the thrill of winning. I gambled with this guy and lost, and then swore I would never gamble again. Still, I might be back to the table later, but deal me out for a few hands in the mean time.
3 comments May 14, 2009
teressia
Tags: love, relationships, single, texas hold 'em
The sixth sense
Heartbreakers have a sixth sense. They know when you’re almost on your feet again and they pop back into your life to see if they can make you backslide. They’re crafty that way.
I ran into my heartbreaker the other night. I just needed to get two things at the store: cough syrup and Coke. I wasn’t feeling too great, and I just needed those two things, so I wanted to make a super quick trip to the store. Although I didn’t feel like it at all, I made myself put on makeup, and thank goodness I did, because who did I run into? Him.
Not only can a heartbreaker tell when it is an opportune time to reappear, they also know how to be really casual about it and seem simultaneously like they’re totally fine without you in their world but that they’ve also kind of noticed you’re not there and think maybe you should come back to visit sometime. Do you know what I mean? They find that one thing you need them for and make it a point to ask you if you still need them for it. He said “Hey, did you get your brakes fixed yet? You should go see my guy. Tell him I sent you. Or I could try to fix them for you if you want.” Do you see how crafty that was? With one chance encounter, and seemingly no preparation whatsoever, he tells you “I remember what you have going on in your life and what we talked about last time I saw you.”
I guess, technically, this is called friendship. But when it’s coming from a guy who removed your heart from your chest, squeezed it to see if it would burst, then left it laying in a bloody, beat up mess on the floor, it’s called crafty sixth-sense-ism and it sucks.
I understand that this is partially my fault; I may have said I still wanted to be his friend and that it would be fine, but I really didn’t mean it. In fact, I kind of hate his guts right now and I might always hate him. I hate how he so suavely disposed of me and thought that saying “I’m sorry, I would never want to hurt your feelings” would make it all okay. How many chicks has he said that to? Enough to know that it usually works.
When I saw him with her tonight, it felt like someone punched me in the stomach, of course, but I couldn’t even shed a single tear. Sure, a couple of tears tried to well up in my eyes, but they couldn’t even get big enough to fall. I’m dried up.
I have no desire to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he, and the crappy way he treated me, is the straw that broke the camel’s back, though. So, Mr. Heartbreaker, I’m here to tell you that you have met your match. Hit me with your best shot because I have been through exponentially worse heartbreaks than this little blip on the radar that I’m going through with you and even though there may be a few tough moments along the way, I will be just fine.
Add comment May 3, 2009
teressia
Tags: break-ups, heartbreaker, love, relationships, single
Free at last
I’m going to a wedding tomorrow and I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I have never been less excited to go to a wedding. Not for the usual reason, which is that usually I’m jealous that someone else is getting married. This time it’s because I just don’t really care about love anymore.
I’ve been benched because I’m on the “emotionally injured reserve list.” The old me would be, like, “C’mon, put me back in coach. I just need another chance. I can do it!” But the current me is, like, “Eh. I’m okay sitting in the dugout eating sunflower seeds, drinking a Coke, and watching the rest of you do the work.”
I remember back in my 20s I wanted to be married more than anything I could imagine. I felt like I had an enormous amount of love to give and I just needed someone who wanted to be loved to come along so I could give it away. In my 30s I was starting to focus on my career so I was less desperate to get married but I still wanted it really badly (until a few days ago). It never happened and now I think the love has dried up and disappeared. It’s sad, really, because I should’ve given all that love away to my family and friends and anyone who needed it, but I was hoarding it away, telling myself “Someday, I’ll have someone to love and I’ll do all kinds of spectacular things to show him and everyone else how much I love him.”
I do the same thing with food. When I have food that I really like, I leave a portion of it in the refrigerator “for later.” I save it until I have a really good reason to eat it, like if I have something to celebrate I can say “Oh, this calls for that last piece of lasagna.” But then if nothing great happens all week I forget about the lasagna, and then a few weeks later I find it shoved to the back of a shelf, becoming liquefied, and smelling a little off. Last week I found a baggie with three semi-hard cinnamon bears in my desk at work that apparently I was saving for a rainy day. What was I thinking? What good were three cinnamon bears ever going to do me? I bit all the heads off and tossed the bodies in the trash.
So, I kind of did the same thing with my love. All I have left is the equivalent of three, hard cinnamon bears. The weird thing is I really feel at peace with it. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I don’t have to try anymore. The pressure is off and I no longer wonder “When is it going to happen for me?” I’m oddly devoid of emotion. Maybe it’s because I’m finally living for today instead of wishing I had something else. I should thank my heartbreaker for liberating me more than I could ever liberate myself. For the first time in a really long time, I’m finally free!
Add comment May 1, 2009
teressia
Tags: love, relationships, single
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