Does it make me a bad person if...

During and after a break up, I think most adults try to move on with some (at least outward appearance of) maturity, grace and integrity. They try not to let things get too ugly, try to take the high road, be the bigger person, remain civil. Some even try to be friends. Not me.

When I feel like I've been wronged in a relationship and its aftermath, I get petty. And childish. I resort to name-calling. I actually say out loud everything mean and hurtful thing that I've been thinking. Every midnight confession, dirty little secret, insecurity, secret fear and weird quirk that the ex has allowed me to be privy to over the course of the relationship, I throw in their face. I twist the knife. I say I told you so. I go for the jugular. I burn bridges. I figure, what have I got to lose? I mean, besides my dignity, which by this point is probably long gone anyway...

There is a word, a most beautiful German word that has no English equivalent and that perfectly describes my feelings toward a few exes of mine. Schadenfreude.

So imagine my inner delight when my (very materialistic) ex recently posted on Facebook pictures of a tree that fell on his brand-spanking-new Subaru during a wind storm. Basically destroyed the roof. I smiled a little on the inside. Ok, I smiled a lot. The thought of missing out on the chance to revel in rare instances like this has basically kept me from unfriending him.

I do not think it makes me a bad person to secretly delight in the misfortune of someone who ripped my heart out and then stomped on it. Repeatedly. (This break-up was so bad, I moved across the country rather than deal with it and him in our tiny town.) However, kinda, (sorta) thinking (for a split second) that it was (maybe just) a little bit of a shame that he wasn't actually INSIDE the car when the tree fell? Jury is still out on that one...

Here's how I know God hates me

So I used to have this... let's call him a boyfriend for the sake of argument, who I dated at the end of college. We will call him college boyfriend. I was a senior, weeks away from graduating and he still had a few years left. We had already been friends for years. He was younger than me, shorter than me, smarter than me and I love, love, loved him. I could have been happy with him forever.

But alas, it wasn't meant to be. I moved home and so we lived 2,000 miles away. We still talked and emailed and visited each other here and there for about a year after I graduated, but we never really discussed any specifics, like whether we were actually together or not.* In the end, the distance got the best of us and whatever we had died. Fast forward five years and I have moved to the city where he lives. Unfortunately, he now has a girlfriend.**

So one day a few weeks ago, I notice on Facebook (Facebook: ever the crusher of dreams, the informer of exes loves lives.) that he and the gf are engaged. Engaged! The horror! I send off a few texts lamenting this fact to friends who knew us as a couple, looking for some consolation, or at least assurance and validation that despite not being engaged myself, I'm still a good person, (or at least cooler/better looking than the fiancee.) I was bummed, but it was nothing a little whiskey and a good cry couldn't fix. I go into work the next day feeling much better about the situation. I'm practically over it.

So I'm on my lunch break, reading a magazine on the outdoor 10th-floor balcony of my building when I hear a voice. HIS voice. And I don't mean Jesus. I turned and there he was. What was he doing in my building?! I started sweating. At first I didn't think it was a big deal because people tour my building all the time. I figured he was on one and would soon be leaving. But then I noticed he was sitting down to eat his lunch with a bunch of similarly aged and attired people. I think maybe I can wait him out. But I've got work to do and I'm beginning to get sunburned. I start to search for escape routes, but he's sitting right in front of the only door back inside. Convenient. There's no way I can slip past him without being spotted. There's no avoiding it. I'm going to have to say hi and make awkward small talk.

So I go over and try to act all surprised to see him and pretend like I haven't been fidgeting and panicking for the last 10 minutes. I'm literally shaking. The engagement is the elephant in the room and cannot be ignored. "Congratulations," I say, hoping he will want out of this awkward exchange as quickly as I do. No such luck. He starts gushing all about how he proposed on vacation and how he ordered the nice bottle of wine and then he compared the feeling to skydiving. I had had enough. If he didn't shut up soon, I was going to sky dive myself right off that 10th-floor balcony. I mumbled something about how we should catch up sometime and ran away.

Turns out he's an intern in my building all summer. It's a good thing I like eating lunch at my desk. All I'm saying is when the whole (main) reason it didn't work out for us was because of the distance, and now we spend eight hours a day separated by just two floors, that is not irony or a coincidence. That is the universe shitting on me.

*So the year after college graduation was a pretty bad one for me. I was underemployed, bored, depressed, lonely and living with my parents. I needed something and someone to do. So I kind of started dating this other guy, let's call him K, while the college bf and I were still-together-but-not-really-together. I didn't even like K. No one liked K. He was a douche. Like I said, I was bored. So when the college bf was coming to town, I stopped returning K's phone calls and started blowing him off. This, apparently, was suspect to him.

So one night while the college bf and I are canoodling on the couch at like midnight, the phone rings and it's K. He had apparently driven to my house, peeked in the windows, seen the canoodling, flipped his shit and was now screaming at me on the phone, calling me every name in the book and vowing revenge. (Now, keep in mind, we lived in a very rural area. Cars do not sketchily park on the sides of the roads and their occupants do not prowl around houses at midnight and play peeping tom without someone alerting the residents of the house, most of all the family dog. This was how I figured out our old dog was going deaf. That fucker. Thanks for nothing, fleabag. You've got like one job and you can't even do it right.) I ran to the door and locked it. The only thing that prevented K from busting down the door and getting his revenge was the fact that my 60-year-old parents were asleep upstairs. I had never been so happy to be living with my parents in my entire life.

This little incident more than likely contributed to the demise of both relationships. I was a jerk. Lesson learned: Get a new dog when yours starts going deaf.

**I met his gf a few times at parties and such. I wasn't impressed. At this one party last year, the college bf and his girlfriend were talking about how they had done this 10k race that morning. It's a very well-known and popular race and apparently you have to submit a previous 10k time for them to seed you correctly. You have to prove you have done a 10k in less than an hour and a half.

Well, as usual, I had had a few drinks and since I was pretty sure I, or any person in reasonable health could WALK a 10k in less than an hour and a half without breaking a sweat, (I have gone a 52-minute 10k in a triathlon for chrissakes and I'm no runner) I (loudly) proclaimed that it was insulting to have to prove it to the race directors and if they wanted proof, well here was my proof: I am not 300 pounds nor am I 80 years old. I sat back and waited for the laughs. Turns out the gf clocked in at 1:21 for a 10k.

Ok, I'm an asshole. And she probably wasn't impressed with me either. But, seriously, how do you marry someone who takes 1:21 to do a 10k? That's just embarrassing.

Jennifer Aniston vs. The Oprah

This week the long-running Oprah Winfrey show came to an end. She's on to bigger and better. Many news stories and celebrity "news" stories this week chronicled her success, her rise to fame and riches by overcoming the poverty and abuse of her early years. She's a philanthropist who has done charity work with girls and schools in Africa. Her book club endorsement can make or break an author. She created trends. She gave audience members cars. She has her own magazine and soon-to-be cable network channel. She spawned Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. She ushered in an era of copy cat talk shows and hosts that wanted to follow in her footsteps. She's a media mogul. Earlier this year, Forbes put her net worth at $2.7 billion. Yes, folks, that's a b. She's bigger than Jesus. I like to refer to her as "The Oprah."

And THIS is exactly just how wildly (unattainably) rich, famous, successful and influential women have to be before people, the media and the tabloids will shut the fuck up and stop obsessing about when is she gonna get on the marriage and kiddies train already. Sorry, Jennifer Aniston, you're just not there yet. There is absolutely no hope for the rest of us...

Wedding Season or A Small Pony

It's almost Memorial Day. Summer is upon us. And you know what that means? Wedding season. And I love a good wedding. The dressing up, the drinking, the dancing, the groping randoms on the gold course... love is in the air. I can only hope that this wedding season is as fun as last year's.

I was in a good friend from childhood's wedding last year and found myself the only single girl in the wedding party. Actually, that's not true. There was another single girl, a cousin of the bride, and when I tried to do a little female bonding and jokingly commiserate about our relationship statuses, she told me her boyfriend had recently died of cancer. She wins. I'm an asshole.

Regardless, single is not a good place to be at a wedding, especially when the male half of the wedding party are in relationships/unfuckable. First, I tried hitting on the photographers. I spotted a wedding ring on one. He was out. So I asked the other one what he was into. He said, "Jesus." I said, haha, no, really. He said, "Jesus." Ok, strike two.

So imagine how fortunate I felt when I saw one of our mutual friends, a super cute and sweet guy I knew that I used to work with, E. I hadn't known he was coming to the wedding. The last I knew he had a girlfriend, but I quietly asked around and they apparently broke up. He was flying solo that night and in need of a rebound. That was all I needed to hear.

Several drinks and some dancing later, we are making out behind a tree on the golf course adjacent to the pavilion where the reception was. At the time, I thought we were being really stealthy, but he told me later that there were hoots and applause from some of the guests as we ran out.

After making out against a tree for somewhere between five minutes and an hour, (vodka tends to make you lose all sense of time) I became paranoid that our absence would be noted. I insist we go back inside and act nonchalant.

So I'm busy acting nonchalant when the groom comes over to me (our absence was most definitely noted) and says something to the effect of "You should tap that. E is hung like a small pony." Now I'm just confused. Is that good or bad? Because I thought the expression was "hung like a horse." Can you elaborate? I ask. "E has a really big dick," the groom tells me, winking and nudging like we are in cahoots. The seed has been planted. I HAVE to see for myself.

So I find E, suggest another make-out session and creep not-so-stealthily away again. (It's hard to be sneaky when you're wearing heels and stumbling.) So we are making out and I move my hand a little further south... Wow. Holy crap. The groom wasn't kidding. This thing is huge. This guy won the anatomical lottery. He belongs in Ripley's Believe It or Not. Or at least pornos. Feeling isn't enough, especially through the clothes. This, I have got to SEE with my own EYES.

So I start unzipping his pants. I'm so focused on getting the confounding layers of clothing, zippers, buttons and belts to cooperate with my super dexterous drunk hands so I can get a glimpse of this thing, just to see if it's real, that I don't realize what HIS hands have been up to. The top half of my strapless dress is now down around my waist, yet the bottom is also hiked up to my waist, so the dress effectively covers NOTHING but my waist. It's basically a cummerbund at this point.

It's at this exact, very opportune moment that a fellow guest decides now would be an appropriate time to pull a golf cart around to pick up grandma from the reception and drive her to the parking lot. For a brief second we were illuminated, squinting and frozen in the headlights. Guess we should have picked a bigger (or further) tree. Almost busted. That was a close call. We convince ourselves that they probably didn't see anything, but I'm still freaked out. I decide these antics have gone a bit too far. (I like to keep it classy at weddings.) So we pull ourselves together and go back inside.

Unfortunately, I never did get to find out if that thing was the real deal. You see, there were no hotels to stay at, as the wedding was in the middle of nowhere. He couldn't come to my house because I was staying with my parents and I had a painfully early flight out the next morning. He lived 30 minutes away so I couldn't go to his house. My parents are old. I was being considerate. The embarrassment of me stumbling in at 6 a.m. still in my bridesmaid dress could very well have done us all in. So we parted ways. Sigh.

A few weeks later, my friend the bride asked if E and I had had sex on the golf course the night of the wedding because a cousin or friend or aunt or grandma or someone, I don't remember who, had told her they had seen two naked people. I said, no of course not. We just made out. Which was (mostly) the truth.

So, no, cousin/aunt/friend/grandma/whoever sabotaged the imminent verification that I had indeed just discovered God's gift to women with those perfectly ill-timed golf cart headlights, I WISH we had been having sex. The fact that we DIDN'T have sex may turn out to be the biggest regret of my life. You have quite the imagination, but no, nothing quite that cool happened on the golf course. And I have you to thank.

This is what it's supposed to look like

So for all you women out there trying to wade through and make sense of the confusing does-he-like-me-are-we-dating-or-just-friends quagmire, I have your answer.

Here's what it's supposed to look like: So I met this guy on Match.com and on the third email he quit beating around the bush and asked me out. (Note to internet daters: I do not need another excuse to dick around and waste time online. This website is to facilitate meeting people in REAL LIFE. I don't need cyber boyfriends. So either ask me the fuck out already or stop emailing me twice a day with your ridiculous small talk and emoticons. Thank you.) We went out for tacos and margaritas. Everything went swimmingly (as far as I was concerned), we had great conversation, had a lot in common and I didn't get too drunk, confess wildly inappropriate stories for a first date or do anything else to horribly embarrass myself.

As he WALKED ME TO MY CAR, (get ready, this part is key) BEFORE THE DATE WAS OFFICIALLY OVER, he ASKED IF I WANTED TO HANG OUT AGAIN. I said yes. Then we hugged and he said he would call me. He texted two days later and said he would be busy studying for finals for the next few days but that he had fun with me and wanted to hang out again.

I texted him after his finals to ask how they went and he IMMEDIATELY CALLED ME and asked what I was doing that night. We ended up meeting for drinks that very night. Then, he walked me to my car again and KISSED ME GOODNIGHT. (As an aside: what the kiss symbolized was way more important than the actual kiss. The actual kiss was clumsy because he was wearing a hat and I was wearing spectacles so we had to maneuver around facial obstacles. Also, it was raining, we were standing in the middle of the road and almost got hit by a car. But that's not the point. The kiss moves our relationship from two strangers, who met on the internets, hanging out in a bar, to hey, I might be romantically interested and might think about dating you.) Translation: I think you are cool/attractive enough to want to hang out with again and the thought of maybe possibly getting naked with you sometime in the near future does not make me recoil in horror.

You know what DOESN'T say that? Fleeing my apartment like it's on fire with barely a goodbye and a one-armed hug with a bike between you. Also, rationing sex doesn't say that (more on that later.)

Then, he TEXTED ME THE NEXT DAY and said he had fun again. He said he wanted to hang out again and that he would call me soon.

Now, I have no reason to believe this will end in anything less than a spectacular implosion like so many other dating scenarios that have become the fodder for this blog. And I'm not even sure yet if I really like him. But I don't even care. Even if I never hear from him again, I will be OVERJOYED that this has at least gotten as far as it has and that this guy seems to GET all of the little social cues and nuances of dating and what you are SUPPOSED to do if you might like someone. He's playing by the rules. He's predictable. He makes sense. He does not leave me scratching my head and cursing the confusing boy behavior. I know where I stand after only two dates.

And THAT is what it's supposed to look like. Write that down.

Jose Cuervo, You Are A Friend Of Mine ...

I realized something today.

The difference between my emotional IQ now, at the age of 29, and 22 year-old me is merely that I am now fully cognizant of how delusional I am. This is a revolting development really. The painful part of going crazy is the part where you feel yourself slipping away, or so I'm told. Once you are crazy I hear it's pretty cool. Velcro shoes and crazy straws for everyone!

I am currently in New York, interviewing, visiting friends, and most importantly making poor decisions in my love life. My bad relationship choices are now officially bi-coastal. The realization that I really hadn't evolved much with age washed over me last night as I caught myself in a bold faced lie. A lie that many many many women have told before and many many many more will tell in the future. I looked directly into the big brown puppy eyes of the phone sexer and said "I'm not looking for a relationship either! Just fun is great for me!"

This phrase went through the rube Goldberg device that resides in the part of my brain where emotional/relationship intelligence is supposed to be stored and popped out the standard reasoning for this lie, "He says that, but look how he's looking at me. he'll change his mind. just give it time" I just can't seem to resist the emotionally unavailable. I feel like Odysseus trying to resist the Sirens song. I'm pretty sure I cannot do it alone. I am going to need someone to tie me to a metaphorical mast or whatever so I stop crashing my vagina into all these dead end men.

A few observations about why I might find these men so appealing that I have sorted out in my musings today.

First, for whatever reason, they all seem to be excellent in bed. My ex and the phone sexer are about as self-centered as they come. They orbit themselves. Yet, I have never come across two more INCREDIBLY giving men in the bedroom. Truly, what they do should be studied and comprehensive pamphlets should be handed out to descent kind-hearted men everywhere. In my personal research, the good guys just don't throw you around the surfaces of the apartment like that as often. I suppose I could ask that of the nice guy, but that seems awkward. "Umm, I was just thinking, how about you throw me up against the window of your high rise and pull my hair in front of god and all of Wall St, you know, for a change...of pace" SEE! It just doesn't sound as classy when you have to spell it all out. I prefer to have my castle stormed.

Number Two: I think there is a good bit of Groucho Marx in me. I don't want to be a part of any relationship that would willingly have me as a component. If I have to beat you into submission, then I can be reasonable sure that you have seen my crazy parts. Like the part of me that likes to wake up ultra early after a long night and eat 16 Eggo waffles in bed while discussing current events, for example. I figure, a rational person should pump the breaks a time or seven when they witness my neurosis in all its glory. If you can't wait to be a part of it? Well I find you suspect.

Number Three: My mother. Enough said there. I can't pin point it exactly, but I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that she is at least partially responsible for this. When in doubt, assume it's something your mother did.

That's it for now. I am going downtown and have some tequila. That feels like the right thing to do. I can't wait until I am full crazy, like Britney circa the head shaving. In relationships, as in fast food calorie count, ignorance is truly better. Sigh.

I got mansplained

Ok so I signed up for online dating. And by I signed up, I mean that drunk me let sober me be talked into it by one of my friends. But I'm on there nonetheless, proclaiming for the world wide web that I am single and ready to mingle. I had second thoughts when the first person to message me was a 35-year-old divorced Catholic with two kids, a place in suburbia and tons of shirtless photos of his tattooed chest. If this is the kind of person who thinks I would date them, Match.com had best review the way it calculates its compatibility algorithms...

One of the guys who messaged me soon after seemed cool enough. We had things in common, he looked really cute in his pics and he was a doctor. I do not see dollar signs when a guy is a doctor, I just figured it meant he was really smart and probably a good person. But I began to get red flags from this guy almost immediately. Douchey red flags.

He asked if I wanted to meet up so I gave him my number so he could call me expressly for that purpose. Instead, he begins texting me really stupid, inane, boring small talk while I'm busy at work. How's your day? Whatcha doing? I'm in Chicago, etc. (Here's the thing: If I have never met you, it's safe to say I do not care what you are up to and do not want to expend the time and brain power on coming up with funny/cute/coy responses to your texts while I'm on deadline. When we've met in real life and I see if you are indeed as hot as your pics suggest, then maybe I will engage in witty repartee. But not before.) I responded to his texts, but curtly.

Three days and 20 texts later, he finally decides on a place and time to meet up. I say, ok, great, see you tomorrow night. The next day he texts me to make sure we are still on. Uh... yeah. We just agreed on this 12 hours ago, remember? Then half an hour before we are supposed to meet he texts and says for me text him when I get to the place so we can walk in together. Hmm... I thought it was understood that when meeting someone, anyone, even friends, the first person to get there generally goes into the establishment, gets a drink or a table or whatever and waits for the other person. But I play along and text him when I get there, then I stand around awkwardly outside a trendy, hip bar while he keeps me waiting for 10 minutes. His douchbaggery thus far has sufficiently turned me off to the point that I no longer even want to meet him, but I silence the voice in my head that is screaming at me to run away while I still can.

Things went downhill from there. Five minutes in I knew I had made a mistake. The "date" consisted of me getting mansplained. For one hour. All men mansplain at one time or another and all women have been mansplained. Boyfriends do it, dads do it, strangers do it. Here's what it looks like: the man stands up taller and puffs out his chest so he can literally talk down to you, his body language suggests he knows waaaay more about whatever topic you are discussing than you do. He's an expert in fact. He sticks his chin in the air. Sometimes he closes his eyes while speaking, dismissing your thoughts and opinions while seething with condescension, all in a tone of voice that says, sit down, silly little girl, let me handle this, you don't want to hurt yourself by thinking complicated thoughts. When guys try to manage your expectations, it's a form of mansplaining.

He lectured to me, talked at me, talked over me, telling me how the world works. For one solid hour.

Here were his major points: Boulder is full of communists who hate dogs, doctors and journalists are a lot alike because they are both dying professions, (couldn't really make the leap on that one) the universal health care bill is bad because (sick) people will be getting something for free, because people are dumb and don't know any better they will go to physicians assistants and nurse practitioners instead of doctors, the city is not friendly to businesses and sets business owners up for failure, he lived in boston, hated it, he lived in the carribean, hated it, he doesn't have all the numbers on the economics of it, but he's SURE composting is bad, people who don't go to college deserve to make $15 an hour (this part was really funny to me, because I would sell my soul for $15 an hour. And although a few of those years were a little fuzzy due to all the 40s we drank, I'm pretty sure I actually went to, and graduated from, college. If he thinks $15 an hour is what people who don't go to college make, he is pretty out of touch with reality. Or at least my reality) Oh and because of some reason, blah, blah, I'd stopped listening, his income goes down by five percent every year. Oh yeah, ouch. I feel for you, doctor.

And here's the kicker: He does surgeries to implant some kind of spinal cord stimulator into people who have chronic pain. (Although he likes this kind of surgery, it's not worth it to him because he has to drive to a different hospital and doesn't get paid enough for it. You can see he went into medicine for all the right reasons.) Then he mentioned that a woman once asked him if he was able to implant one that would allow her to have orgasms whenever she wanted. He said yes, he was able to, but no, he didn't do it.

He would ask me questions about myself and then interrupt me to mansplain how I was wrong or interject his opinion on something he was clueless about. It was especially comical when he started mansplaining all about the journalism industry and how it works and what's wrong with it. He just kept talking. And talking. It was like he paid someone (me) by buying them one drink to sit there and listen to his lectures. And I'm pretty sure his hatred of me was equal, judging by his chilly good-bye as he sent me packing, although I can't figure out why since I barely got one word in the entire time and dutifully nodded my head and pretended to listen...

But here's the best part: As we were leaving he actually said, as if he had some kind of ESP: "You aren't one of those people who writes about their dates and how full of themselves they are, are you?"

No, of course not. You mean people do that?