Hi Everyone!
As you probably noticed, I decided to revamp my sight.
I will still be writing about life, dating and my (sometimes misguided) attempts at starting over and I hope you will continue to enjoy the content.
And, of course, Castro will still be around to share his wisdom (whether I want it or not).
Thanks so much for following and sharing your thoughts!
We all want to be beautiful.
We spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on makeup, hair products, wrinkle cream, laser, lipo, plastic surgery and pretty much everything short of a full-on face transplant.
And for what?
We’ve been told that the beautiful people are privileged. They get better opportunities and careers. They are popular– superficially, at least. They are essentially kissed by the gods and have their every whim handed to them on a silver platter. In short, life is just all around easier for those who are physically “superior.”
But is that necessarily true?
Or is beauty a blessing AND a curse?
For one, it’s harder to make friends. Typically, when a woman is beautiful, other women will assume that she is vapid or bitchy. And even if she’s not, they won’t exactly welcome her into their fold because let’s face it… they don’t want the competition. Even beautiful women view other beautiful women as a threat. Especially if they’re single.
When it comes to men, sure, beautiful women get attention. But it’s often for the wrong reasons. It can be difficult to know why a man is actually interested. Then there’s what Castro calls the Limpy Gazelle Method.
If Castro is out with his friends at a bar and they see a group of women, he will NEVER approach the prettiest girl. Instead, he’ll go after one of her less attractive friends, AKA the Limpy Gazelle. For one, they’re easier game. The most beautiful girl may say no. But if you approach one of her friends, they will be doubly flattered because you chose her over the leader of the pack.
So is being beautiful all is cracked up to be? Or does it come with its own set of problems? Or are you thinking, cry me a river pretty girl?
When it really gets down to it…
Would you rather be a lonely leader?
Or a loved, albeit limpy gazelle?
Over coffee with Castro yesterday morning, we were discussing a recent breakup-gone-wrong.
He’d only gone out with the girl once, but after the date he texted her to let her know there wouldn’t be another one.
For the following week, she called him ten times a day. Finally, he blocked her number under the logic that she was certifiably psycho.
And I can’t really blame him.
Although, it got me thinking…
Guys throw that term around– a lot.
“She asked me what I had for dinner… she’s psycho!”
“She friended my mom on facebook… she’s psycho!”
“She baked me my favorite cookies… she’s psycho!”
“She read all my text messages… she’s psycho!”
“She left her toothbrush in my bathroom… she’s psycho!”
Hopefully you can see from the above examples that sometimes the girl really is psycho and sometimes… the guys is just plain paranoid.
So what exactly is the definition, anyway?
According to Dictionary.com, a psycho is a crazy or mentally unstable person.
So fellas, if a girl sends out a wedding invitation after one date… she’s psycho. But if you’ve been dating for six months and she finally asks you what’s your deal- are you official or not… she’s not mentally unstable, she’s just sick of your non-committal crap.
The moral of this rant? Don’t be the boy who called psycho. Save it for the girl who might show up at your house with a cleaver claiming, if she can’t have you, no one can!
FATAL ATTRACTION- Sometimes restraining orders ARE a good idea
So, a few weeks ago I compared our “just in case” guy to a pair of granny panties.
This week, I have a new comparison.
Ready for it?
Here ya go…
Sometimes we treat our friends like our favorite pair of shoes.
You know the ones.
In my case, it’s a pair of black high heels. Not only because they are cute and go with everything, but they are unbelievably comfortable. I could probably run a marathon in them. They are always my go-to dancing shoes.
You’d think that because I love them so much, I’d take extra special care of them. I’d avoid puddles, not tug on the strap or scuff the bottoms, maybe even give them a good cleaning every once in a while.
Yeah… not so much.
Instead, I take them for granted. I think they’ll always be here to get me through a funeral or a particularly exhausting girls night. And afterwards, I take them off and throw them in the closet with all of my others shoes, only to pull them out again when I need them for something.
Sadly, we can often treat our friends like our go-to shoes. We use and abuse them, never quite taking care of them the way we should. We think, hey, they’re always going to be here for me.
The problem is, even the best pair of heels will snap under too much pressure.
So my advice? Take care of what you love. Treat them right and don’t take them for granted. Maybe even pamper them once in a while.
After all, what’s a girl without her favorite pair of shoes?
Clearly they need a little lovin’
My friend and I have this mantra…
We saw it emblazoned across a coffee mug, which, ironically had a chip along the brim, and we’ve been quoting it none stop ever since.
Ready for it?
The mantra is…. IT IS WHAT IT IS.
I’m sure you’ve heard it before. I’m sure I’VE heard it before. But somewhere along the way, I forgot about it and the mug reminded me. Now I’m beginning to see that it applies to almost every situation.
I spent two hours meticulously baking an apple pie, but it looked more like apple crumble… oh well! It is what it is!
“Girls night” at a classy club turned into a bar brawl in a redneck hole-in-the-wall… oh well! It is what it is!
The guy you dated for two weeks (and took care of when he was sick) decided to go back to his psycho (his words, not yours) ex…. oh well! It is what it is!
See, you get it.
Lately I’ve been quoting it as often as I breathe and then it hit me…
The mantra isn’t finished yet!
So I tweaked it.
Now the saying is…
IT IS WHAT IT IS, SO MAKE THE BEST OF IT!
Apple crumble still tastes awesome. Especially when you add vanilla ice cream.
Watching a redneck bar brawl is so entertaining it should be a reality TV show (actually, it probably already is one).
The guy was a total baby when he was sick, who cried when he ran out of Saltine crackers for his chicken soup (and made you run to two different stores in order to find the low sodium ones). Psycho ex can have him!
Watch, now that I’ve reminded you, you’re probably going to think of it every time something happens to you during the following week.
It’s like an annoying song that you can’t get out of your head.
Like, this is the song that never ends… it goes on and on my friends….
There. Now you have two things stuck in your head.
Oh well! It is what it is…
So make the best of it.
It’s 10am.
Your heart and your mind are sitting down for a cup of coffee.
They’re discussing what to do about this new guy you’re seeing.
Your mind thinks something is off and you should end the budding relationship.
Your heart thinks you should just give it time and see where it goes.
After a cappuccino, they still haven’t arrived at an agreement.
They order a latte.
The mind argues that she’s seen it before and you’re headed for a broken heart.
The heart retorts that without following her, you’ll always wonder what if.
The debate continues.
They’re getting no where close to a solution and you’re more confused than ever.
Both want what’s best for you, but both insist they know best.
What do you do?
Do you follow your heart or your mind?
Or will they ever see eye to eye?
So far… it doesn’t seem likely.
Sorry Everyone!
I haven’t been posting very often lately.
I’ve been going through some “stuff” and have been in a funk.
Take this morning for example:
I woke up, earlier than I wanted and couldn’t fall back asleep (even though it was going to be one of those day that you wish you could sleep away).
Then I saw it… a shiny tin of gourmet cookies… and I thought, why not?
So I made myself a pot of coffee and ate the whole thing… about six delicious cookies in all… while I watched pointless TV on my laptop.
And you know what? I felt a tiny bit better.
Enough to even work on my novel for a few hours.
Now I’m contemplating going to the gym. For endorphins and… well, I did just eat a whole tin of cookies.
So, I guess the moral is this:
Sometimes it’s okay to eat cookies for breakfast.
Just make sure to brush the crumbs out of bed afterwards.
And don’t tell your mother.
You don’t want the lecture.
Remember when, as a child, your parents told you not to touch the stove because it was hot?
But you did it anyway?
And then the heat scorched your finger and you immediately pulled back your hand?
That was your good ol’ pain receptors saving you from a third degree burn!
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had emotional pain receptors?
Imagine you’re in some club and a cute guy is chatting you up. He asks for your number and as you’re exchanging digits, your fingers touch and you have that same reaction that you did as a child when you touched the stove…
You’d quickly pull pack your hand and save yourself the wound.
Sigh. Yeah, that’d be nice.
But even without emotional pain receptors, we will often see signs (like when the stove is red, etc.) and ignore them.
The guy will be overly crude or suggestive. Even disrespectful. He’ll appear to be working the room, not really caring who’s phone number he gets. He’ll tell you he’s “not looking for something serious right now.” Or worse, that he’s IN something serious right now with someone else. He may even be wearing a shirt that advertises his douchebaggery like this one,
So my advice is, if you see the signs, don’t touch!
Trust me, he’s not worth the burn.
You know how we all have that one pair of granny panties?
The really horrendous, oversized, sometimes ratty pair… you know the one I’m talking about.
We never voluntarily wear them, but we keep them in the back of our underwear drawer in case all of our cute, lacy ones catch on fire, get sucked into a tornado or we forget to do laundry that week.
Well, sometimes we treat men like that pair of backup briefs.
They aren’t our favorite black thong or even the cute cotton boy shorts, but we still want them around… just in case.
We feel better knowing that they’re tucked away (or wadded up with the moth balls) so that if push comes to shove (and the Borrows steal all your delicates to make stylish parachutes) you won’t be left going commando.
But here’s the thing… going commando isn’t so bad once in awhile. In fact, doctors recommend it (go ahead, ask ’em).
Plus, if you’ve ever BEEN the backup, you know it sucks.
So, if you have an “in case of emergency” guy, cut him loose.
Even granny panties deserve their day. (Wash day? Okay, the metaphor kind of falls apart here, but you get what I’m saying….)
See… even GRANNY PANTIES can look good… sort of
I love this song.
It’s one of the few that tells a breakup story from both sides.
Because breakups are rarely one sided.
It also reminds me of a conversation that Castro and I were having last week about whether or not you should be friends with an ex.
Or if they should just become “somebody that you used to know.”
The topic is a tough one because an ex is someone that you’ve shared most (if not all) of yourself with. They know you. You’ve created memories together, sometimes going through pivotal life moments together. It’s hard to imagine that someone you were once so close to has now become a distant memory… a part of your past that slips farther away with time.
On the other hand, sometimes an ex should be a part of your past. Not to diminish what you had together, but because keeping the past in the present can make it harder to go forward into the future. You can be tempted to hold on to memories, emotions and even the people themselves… to the detriment of any future relationships.
Castro is of the opinion that if you’re two mature adults, you should stay friends. He believes that the bond you created shouldn’t be broken, it should just be altered. I didn’t used to believe that this was possible. I thought that if you could remain friends with someone after being in love, then you must not have loved them enough.
Now I’m beginning to think I had it all wrong. And that possibly, if you loved them enough, you would keep them a part of your life, no matter what the capacity or extent.
Of course, IF this is true, I believe there are necessary rules to follow…
1. Whether or not you stay friends, give yourself a period of no contact. If you keep in touch, you’ll never get over your old feelings. You have to snuff out the romantic love before you can truly become friends. Then ease back in slowly, setting boundaries until you’re both sure that there aren’t residual feelings.
2. Don’t let your friendship get in the way of a new relationship. Not everyone gets it. Don’t just expect your new man to be cool with it. Make sure he knows that he’s your priority. Then arrange for the guys to meet. It’ll be awkward at first, but your new guy needs to know that you’re old guy isn’t a threat.
I think for me, I could never become “besties” with an ex, but I could keep in touch. At least enough to make sure they’re still alive and well. That is, only if our breakup was amicable. If you screwed me over, then you can forget about being friends… even on facebook.
What are you thoughts?
The Do-Over Girl 