Dodgeball

Dating online is like picking a team for dodge ball. You know you want to be picked by the captain of the good team, but how do you know if your team is going to meet your expectations. How does the team captain know if you or the girl next to you is going to be the better match? I just don’t know.

What website do you pick? Do you go with the one with the most commercials? I mean they all have a lot of commercials showing success rates. Am I really ready to be in my own lovers commercial? Look at me, I’ve been single for 15 minutes & we are engaged, bought a house & will have 2.5 kids in 3 years.

I don’t think I’m ready to pay for love. Can I afford it, YES I can. But I just want a taste of what is out there, not devour the whole thing. I don’t even know what to do yet. What are the rules of dating?

I sat down & thought to myself what I would want in that perfect someone.
I tried to go beyond tall, dark, handsome & hilarious. I used a writing guide as my guide into “putting what I wanted out there into the universe”.

Here’s my first draft. This is what I think is going to be good for me.

Someone who is:
Loyal + Strong willed-but not pushy + Loves to cook + Showers me with positive feedback + Has a great job + Loves my amazing family & my friends + Has their own amazing family & friends + Loves to laugh & joke around + is intelligent + enjoys the outdoors + is drug free + Totally blows my mind + is taller than 5”11 + Is the life of the party + Wonderful appreciation of music + Sings + Loves my dog + Can be deep when appropriate + Gives me the right amount of attention + Appreciates the little things + Has a 401k & health insurance + Witty + Charming + Hypnotic laugh + Likes hometown sports + Not a gamer + Gives & expects respect + loves to take mini vacations + Wants to settle down in the next few years + Wants a home & a family + Is adventurous + Great kisser + Personal style + Ok dancer + Loves to travel + Sweeps me off my feet + Amazing in bed + Peace maker + Hand holder + Good story teller + Makes good money + Wants a lake house + Is clean + Likes to read + Semi-religious + SOCIAL drinker + Likes to entertain friends + Enjoys a night out on the town or going to a sporting event + GETS ME.

Yeah, that’s a LOT to ask for, I know. But it doesn’t hurt to “put it out there” right?
Dodge ball anyone?

123 GO!

I would eventually have to move on to someone new. Find someone who didn’t know all of my stories, and all of my friends. Someone who I would have to remind that I don’t drink milk & therefore never buy it. It takes so long to get to know someone again, and then to have this new person get to know you is a scary thought.

In some ways, it’s a fresh start. They don’t know all of your bad habits, and deep dark secrets. But in other ways, it’s exhausting. When do you take the step from hi it’s nice to meet you, to how would you like your bombshell delivered?

So this new me wanted to entertain the idea of thinking about putting herself out there. But what was I going to find?

I had expected at least a few of my friends to have a few quality singles they could set me up with. But like myself, most of my friends didn’t have any single friends. At least any single friends of quality, and of like mind with in an hour driving distance.

So on one drunken evening, my best friend took matters into her own hands. She grabbed a computer & took a look around the virtual dating pool. I looked intensely, and we had a few good laughs. But I didn’t rush home & set up my own account.

I was so busy, making myself busy that I didn’t have time to write a bunch of little thoughts & funny catch phrases to make someone take a look at more than one of my photos. What in the hell can you put down to try to lure a potential suitor who once I held the attention of, held my attention.

So I looked at other profiles & kept mine as a work in progress. Finding qualities I really did have on other people’s pages & made them my own. I put up real photos of myself. Not ones from 6 years ago, to be honest I have an advantage over most people in that I look much better today than I did 6 years ago.

I don’t even know what my “type” is. It’s been so long that I have been in the dating game that I don’t even know whom I find attractive anymore. I, myself, am not the same person that I was 10 years ago, 6 years ago, 3 years ago, yesterday. I’m ever evolving.

Will my taste in a mate evolve too?

Just Me

I think I need to get to the point where I am taking my own advice. The advice I would have given to me, had I been someone else going through this. I know that what I am going through couldn’t be that bad, it’s not life ending. It’s really a blessing… right?

So I decided to go for it. To start letting myself feel my feelings. Which is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I was feeling how I thought I should act in front of family, friends, and even myself. I kept reminding myself to just FEEL MY FEELINGS.

Time to sit still & feel.

It’s hard to imagine what you can think of & how you can feel when you are left alone with your own thoughts. When you don’t have someone at your side, cheering you on. When you don’t have someone telling you that it will be ok. You know it will be ok, at least you think you do.

I cried, I screamed, I laughed and then I sobbed.

Then I realized what was really terrifying. I didn’t know how to be just me. How to just make myself happy. I didn’t know how to be just a single person. I have spent most of my almost 30 years trying to make everyone else happy, and trying to act how I thought I was supposed to act.

How exactly am I supposed to act now?

When I became just me, a single person, it didn’t make sense. I was so used to being a part of a pair. It was like my half was missing. Not that the other half made me whole, but for so long it engrossed my being. It changed me. Now I had to change again.

Super Fan

For the past few years, I have had a dirty little secret. I’d like to refer to this secret as my very own Super Fan. Someone who thought I could do no wrong. A man who thought I was the most beautiful creature he had ever set his eyes on. I was his very own goddess. He had no trouble letting me know either.

Anytime I needed to be pumped up, I would contact the Super Fan and get my dose of his positive reinforcement. Like most men who don’t get everything that they want from you, our talks could only last so long before he turned them in a dirty direction. Our relationship was inappropriate at best.

When I met the Super Fan, we had a direct connection, a connection that took us to being able to have a full-blown emotional affair with out anyone being the wiser. All day, all night, we were constantly connected via email & text messages. He knew more about my emotions than even I did some days.

When I was at my worst in my self-hating & in my darkest corner, Super Fan always seemed to find me. He would drag me out of my cloud of doubt & show me how shiny that I really could be.

In no way was he someone who I would have picked to be so emotionally engrossed with. I think I actually made fun of him the first time I met him to a coworker. His voice was cartoonish, his hair was unsightly, he was dressed in a suit that didn’t fit him. He wasn’t by any way someone who I would every look twice at on the street.

But then, somehow it turned around. It was amazing. It was the biggest rush I had felt in years. Yes, once, we let it go too far. I felt horrible the whole time it was going on, but I didn’t stop it. I didn’t know how to stop it. Then soon after, it was over. Distance got the best of us, and I had my sights elsewhere. I had to get the heck out of where I was at that moment, and indulging the Super Fan wasn’t going to hold me back.

Even today, I get a rush when my super fan gets in contact with me. No one has ever made me feel like such a sexy, desirable woman. I don’t know if anyone ever could. He’s the first person that I think of when I am feeling down, and whom I look to when I need a boost. Super fan, never –ever lets me down. It’s easy with him though, because he & I will never, ever be. That’s not what I want from him, though I’m sure he’d love for me to let him take it too far once more.
There was a minute when I wanted to be his one & only. Not only the object of his desires, but his number one lady. Looking back, I’m glad I never forced that.

I don’t know how he does it, but even today he still contacts me when I need him the most. We won’t talk for months, and then out of the blue-there he is.

I think everyone needs a Super Fan. I love mine & hope that in someway he is always in my life. Even if we both get married & have tons of kids, separately of course!

Back on the wagon

I think the hardest part about breaking up is moving on. Physically & mentally, and not just for you-for your friends & family too. Just when you stop having the nightmare for one restful night, someone from out of no where brings up your ex. Then there you are again, back on the wagon - feeling like a complete failure. Losing sleep because all you can think about is that person, & in my case think about how that person screwed you over.

I don't in any way want my ex back. But I can't seem to get over how I was screwed over. I have this never ending fantasy sequence where I am telling them off over & over in my head. Screaming out everything I wanted to say, adding in lies about how wonderful my life is now. Going off about what a real loser their new sig other is, and maybe that my exes teeth look really yellow-even if they don't.

Sure Your friends or family didn't mean to bring up your ex, but they had to. You know something looked, smelled, gestured, reminded them of that person! They have no idea how the thought of this person still haunts you. How when you go home at night all you can do to turn off your brain is sing the National Anthem & I'm a little tea pot over & over again. But they just have to know, because they broke up with this person too - this being especially true with your family & closest friends.

Have you talked to them? Did you hear about this one thing? O-M-G You have to see this hilarious picture of them with their new love!

Nope I haven't. Thanks for bringing it up now, because that's all I am going to think about for a week. Awesome! I didn't need sleep anyways. Everyone tells me how cute I am when I'm cranky!

Then you notice when you're the only single girl in town, that you get invited out to less. It's a couple's thing and well, you're just the sad girl with no date. Your phone rings less because everyone is so busy in love, or they are busy working on their time lines. Tick Tock!! Better hold on tight to your varying levels of happy & better hit that next milestone soon. We're not getting any younger...

I guess I used to be that busy too?

So you find new ways to use your time. New faces to visit & new adventures to go on. You try not to give yourself the time to sit at home, alone & be bitter. It's so much nicer to be happy.

Bridge on Fire

I got burned. Badly burned. A 5.5 year relationship sucked the life out of my soul. It felt like someone had left me naked & broken down on in a ditch. I didn't know how to get back up. I felt alone.
I was living, for the first time in my life, alone. I lived in my DREAM town. The town where I have always wanted to live in since I was a little lady. I had always thought I would have gotten here differently, maybe gone to the big 10 school & not just worked near it. But I'm here...now what?

At the beginning of my revolution all of my girlfriends were in relationships in varying levels of happiness. They all looked at me wide eyed in shock when I told them I ended my relationship. But I did it, and I think I am inspiring people to not stay somewhere where they aren't loved. I wonder if they look at me now & see how I'm doing & wonder if they can do it too. I'm sure I'm the poster child for almost 30 & single among my friends.

I actually did it, I left my relationship & that last bridge we had standing between us, I lit that thing on FIRE and ran like hell in the other direction. I adopted a new dog (since my last one was lost in the tangles of the mess between us). I tried to adapt to this new girl who was staring back at me in the mirror.

I took my dark brown hair & started the highlighting process. I stopped straightening my hair & let it be in it's natural beauty state. I bought new clothes. If I had worn glasses, I would have gotten contacts.

I don't want to say this was easy. I didn't just wake up one day & yearn for a change. Once my wheels were set in motion, there was no stopping me...even though I was desperately looking to slam on the breaks.

Could I function on my own? Hell, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep all I could really seem to do was cry & complain. I do want to thank my very best friends & my parents for helping me through this not pretty phase. I did a lot of thinking, and I did a lot of walking with my shiny new rescue dog, listening to ONLY the angry songs on my Ipod. I couldn't handle the love song yet.

Would I ever be able to handle love songs again?