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Buckets o beer January 22, 2005

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Backstory, Dating, Friends, Life, Men.
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Thursday night was fun — I went to a favorite bar of mine for a night of low-priced beer for law students. (One of my dear friends and regular drinking partners is in law school. This works out well — I’m currently screening applicants for the position of “my friend from med school” and “my friend the publishing maven.” Always thinking about the future.)

My friend is kind of “seeing” a fellow law student who happens to be quite well connected in our mid-sized Southern city. (Side note — “seeing” is one of the many euphemisms us chicks use because we must label things, even when it’s probably too early to do so. “Seeing” means you’ve been on at least one formal date and informally spent time with a guy. “Dating” means you’ve been on several dates, but aren’t yet using a possessive term, such as — gasp! — “boyfriend.” This causes much unneeded confusion and stress.)

Back to the boy — he’s attractive and charming and very smart, the kind of guy who can go from discussing various aspects of pending current events to telling you a stupid, yet funny, joke with ease. Great for discourse. And cute. And has good taste in music. And drives a nice car. Of course my friend thinks she’s not good enough for him. “Out of my league,” she told me when he left to use the restroom. (Mind you, the boy clearly digs her, is flirting like a madman and casually finding reasons to touch her. The latter is, in my mind, one of the most telltale signs that someone’s interested. Maybe that’s just me.) I’m more than a little bit jealous of this great guy, but she’s a good friend and well deserving of a good man. (Also, it’s too early to be terribly jealous. He’s got plenty of time to screw it up.)

So we had fun. Buckets of beer for six bucks. We smoked too many cigarettes, almost always the sign of a good night.

Unfortunately, none of our other good friends came, which made me the extra girl. I don’t mind being the extra girl on really fun nights, but it tends to make me feel like I must perform. When you’re the extra girl hanging out with one or more couples, you’re constantly aware that at any moment the others may decide that they could just ditch you and have special happy adult alone time.

Luckily, I’m quite accustomed to being the odd girl out in these situations. It’s a role I probably fill too well. I pull out funny stories and jokes, and act goofy and funny. Secretly, I sort of hope that this not-quite-over-the-top jester role will net me something useful, like an introduction to a nice male friend of one of the couples involved. Not so on most occasions, although I do have quite a reputation of being the fun-loving gal pal who gets along with her friends’ lust objects, which I guess isn’t bad. Also, I get a lot of free drinks this way.

And free drinks ain’t ever bad.

David Brooks can bite me January 20, 2005

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Men, Random Musings on Life, Single Girl Cliches, Women.
2 comments

I just came across this column by David Brooks in the Jan. 15 New York Times. (Rather, I came across this takedown of the column and decided to go read the real thing in all of its wonderfulness.)

Mr. Brooks leans on a Gallup poll that says 70 percent of women older than 40 who don’t have children regret that decision. As I can’t find the poll online, I wonder if they asked how many women aged 18 to 24 who do have kids if they regret having them so early?

It isn’t surprising that childless women older than 40 would say they regret this decision or circumstance. It is pretty much impossible to say that you don’t want kids without sending people into a state of shock and panic. First they are shocked — “How can you not want to experience the wonderful gift of life?” Then, they get huffy and question your femininity — “Most women want to experience motherhood.” Finally, they condescend you in an effort to reassure themselves — “You will change your mind when you meet the right man and get married and see how wonderful family life is.”

Of course women who don’t have kids are going to express regret about it. Our society places such a premium on child-bearing and rearing, continually telling women that they should want children and that their lives aren’t complete without them. After 40 or more years of being bombarded with the message of “PROCREATE OR YOU ARE LETTING DOWN GOD, GEORGE BUSH AND YOUR FAMILY,” I imagine more than a few women told Gallup they regretted not having kids just because that’s the socially acceptable thing to say.

According to Mr. Brooks, who does not possess a uterus, it would make more sense for women to leave high school, possibly go to college and find a man, get knocked up a few times and stay home until the kids are raised. THEN, after laboring for years to raise the little anklebiters while hubby’s out earning the money and playing with the adults, the mom can go back to school or into the workforce, when she’s in her late 30s or early 40s. (The sad thing, in Brooks’ twisted mind, he’s a visionary.) Also, he wants to give stay-at-home moms a tax credit. (Side note: I’m not against acknowledging the hard work put in by stay-at-home parents. I just think this all should be a choice, rather than something women and men are pressured in to doing.)

Nevermind that many families need both incomes to make ends meet. Nevermind that many of the very families where the mother stays at home with the kids do it only because they can afford to, which in many cases makes Mr. Brooks’ tax credit more help for upper-middle-class-to-already-rich families, who theoretically have more means to pay for future educational opportunities.

I’m wondering exactly what kind of a job a 37-year-old woman with no work experience would be offered, even after graduate school? Say a woman starts popping out kids at 22. Many of her male counterparts, say, go to Law School (which works well for him, considering his wife is at home with the kids and the cooking and the laundry. Sweet deal.) at age 22 and finish by age 25. In this scenario, our mother would finish Law School at 40 and attempt to enter the workforce, where she’ll compete with her contemporaries who have 15 years of experience in the legal field to her years of diaper changing and nose wiping. You tell me who a law firm’s going to hire. (Because, oh yeah, the majority of the firms partners are men, who didn’t quite get the memo about the David Brooks motherhood-to-work program.)

Attitudes like these are what make being single a real pain in the ass, no matter how charming you are. You’re constantly fending off dumbasses who think you should be barefoot and pregnant for (at least) the second time by the age of 25. It’s tough enough to find someone to settle down with, provided that’s what you want to do, without the Bobos of the world shaming us for not being baby machines.

Shorter: I’ve got my own biological clock tick-tick-ticking the background and I certainly don’t need David Brooks running my life.

Some backstory January 19, 2005

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Backstory, Bio, Blog, Dating, Friends, General Clumsiness and Related Stupidity, Men, Random Musings on Life, Really. Bad. Habits., Single Girl Cliches.
7 comments

The past few years of dating have been interesting — I spent most of them either genuinely not wanting to be attached or lying and saying I didn’t want to be attached. There were also a few moments (or days or weeks or months) when I actually did admit to myself and others that I did want to be in a relationship, but those times were few and far between.

Oh yes, I was in love. I fell hard into that kind of consuming love that takes over your body and makes you act like a fourth-grader on smack. At first I thought it was lust (and at first it probably was), but what started as lust and curiosity became true affection. I couldn’t control it, but it ruled my life. I spent months attempting to ignore it and never actually called it love until much later, but I am certain that is what it was.

How great to be young and in love, right? The lightness in your heart, the bounce in your step, the churning in your stomach; it’s simply too much.

The problem with my love was typical and tragic. I was (and probably am in some small way) in love with someone who didn’t (and doesn’t) love me. At all. I used to kid myself and say that he loved me in his own way, but I’ve moved past denial and onto truth.

Call him B. He was a close friend of a girlfriend of mine. One night she and my then-roommate ditched us at a bar for a few hours. B and I got along swimmingly. We talked for hours. He actually listened to me when I talked. I flirted and he flirted back. We shared a few pitchers of beer. Meeting B was crazy. I physically felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of me. At the time, I was one of those college girls who frequent the same seedy bar three times a week, partying and hooking up with different boys all of the time. So, when I told a friend about B, she immediately assumed I wanted a hook up, and was a bit taken aback when I said I wanted to get to know him better.

A few weeks went by and we saw each other in group situations. I almost always orchestrated him getting an invite out with my group of friends. I did this so that I was prepared to see him. I wanted to look, smell and feel my best whenever he was around. No amount of preparation helped. As soon as he walked into a room where I was, I would start to sweat and my stomach would flip and churn and I would stumble on my heels and words. I was smitten.

Long story short, we made out a few times. I decided that I was going to go after him, and then I was told that he had a (largely fictionalized) girlfriend. (I call her “largely fictionalized” because he overstated their relationship many times. Sometimes, I think he genuinely thought the were dating. Other times, I think he just didn’t want to deal with me.)

Didn’t want to deal with me? That’s right. We became good friends — we could stay up for hours talking. We flirted all of the time. All. Of. The. Time. People constantly thought we were dating. I’m not the hottest girl in the world, but I’m not leper either. To this day, I don’t know why B didn’t just give me a chance. I’m not sure he does either.

B has these pretty stupid rules about who he won’t date. He won’t date anyone from his work, which is a common and reasonable rule. He also won’t date one of his friends, which is also common. Here’s where the rules get stupid — all he does is work and go out with the same people, either coworkers or good friends. He isn’t out trolling for new women. My friend who introduced us used to always joke that someone would have to throw herself on the hood of his truck to get him to notice her. I follow that joke up with, “Doesn’t work. I tried that at least three times.” Rimshot!

Thus, my love became tragic and drama-filled. We’d go out, get drunk and flirt. Then I’d get all attached and mushy and he’d realize what was going on and blow me off. Then I’d get mad, and then upset. Sometimes I’d argue with him. Sometimes I’d ignore him. Almost all of the time I cried — a few times in front of him, though most of the time I made it home, or at least waited until he was gone before I turned on the waterworks.

It’s embarrassing to think about how crazy I was back then. It’s amazing B and I are still friends. I actually don’t know why we hang out together — we have very little in common. Since I’ve known him, I’ve felt a connection with B that I can’t explain. I won’t even try to explain it. It is what it is.

I know he had felt it too. I used to think that he’d come to his senses and get his shit together and decide that he was a fool and that he did actually love me.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

(An old therapist of mine, after listening to me spew about B, said that she wished the movie “When Harry Met Sally” was never made. “It’s not going to happen, S,” she said. “He’s not going to suddenly realize after all of these years that he loves you.” She is entirely right about B. However, I still love “When Harry Met Sally.”)

That brings us to now. I could vent about B for pages, but I’ve covered the highs and lows. I am at a place in my life where I can accept that he doesn’t love me and that we’re not going to be together. This is HUGE. It’s taken at least two years to get here. I still relapse sometimes, but I do it quietly and in private.

I don’t think you ever stop loving some people. I think your love for them changes and fades a bit, but at your core, there are some people you will just always love. That’s how I feel about B. As much as my love for him was one-sided, it was love and it was great at times. We did and still do have fun together. The fact that I was in love with him has been put away, but it lingers just under the surface. We’re both aware of it. I joke about it sometimes, because self-deprecation is at times an excellent tension-cutter. (Other times it is just awkward.) He maintains an even-temperedness about me at all times. Me, I fake it really well. (He scorned me, you know. I’m not crazy. I harbor both love and hate of him in my heart.) But I get the impression that B’s never faking it, which drives me insane.

So, you can imagine my surprise when B got a little huffy about T, a guy I’ve hooked up with and would like to date, if he’d ever call my ass. Before I left a New Year’s party with T, B and I talked about him. B noted that, “I have more hair than he does” and “I hope I age better than he has.” B isn’t normally catty in that way, so I interpreted his comments as jealousy (regardless of his actual motivation) and made a huge spectacle of hanging (and making) out with T at the bar, before the two of us left together.

This was not very mature of me, but it sure was fun.

Those particulars January 19, 2005

Posted by charmingbutsingle in Being Southern, Bio, Blog, Dating, Men, Random Musings on Life, Single Girl Cliches, Why I Write.
4 comments

If anyone’s reading this — and I doubt anyone is — he or she will probably want to know some of those particulars they talk about to aspiring reporters. The who, what, whys and whatnots. I could just start right in the middle of all of it, but context is a brilliant thing.

I am a woman, 25 years of age, who lives in a medium-sized, terribly boring town in the South. Call me S. I don’t feel the need to elaborate other than those scant details. I’m not going to be saying or feeling anything throngs of women (and men) haven’t said or felt before. So, I figured, “Why bother elaborating with a full biography? I’ll be anonymous and proud of it!”

I am unattached, hence the title of the blog. I also think I’m a little bit charming, also per the blog title. I wasn’t trying to pat myself on the back by calling myself “charming.” A blog’s gotta have a title, and so “Charming, but single” it is. (The title is also a nod to the way people describe single people — “She’s single, but she’s really bright!” or “She’s so charming and put together, no one can figure out why she’s not dating someone.” When people note that you are unattached, they often quickly follow that statement with a quick mention of a positive character trait, as if they must balance the horrible negativity of saying the S-word. It often comes out sounding like a backhanded compliment, which is often the (unconscious?) aim of the speaker.)

No, I do not believe that you must be dating someone to be happy. If that were so, I’d probably NEVER smile.

This, however, brings me to the why.

Everyone around me is obsessed with pairing up. To be blunt, there’s a lot of pressure out there to jump on the marriage train and get your ticket punched, for better or for worse. ( I’m supposed to, at this point in the narrative, assert that I am in no way husband hunting. And I’m not.) I am, however, a bit fixated on relationships and dating and the stigmas attached to both the single and the committed.

Thus, I’m writing this journal. I love to write. I constantly have thoughts rumbling around in my brain, begging to be digested. This journal will provide me a place to do that. (To complete the metaphor, I guess the blog is the stomach and insightful posts are nutritious food for thought, while self-indulgent, whiny, bitchy or otherwise flawed posts are simply the leftover crap.)

I’ll try not to crib too much from Sex and the City — but I make no promises. The only chick lit I’ve ever read is Bridget Jones. I can’t promise I won’t be shrill and self-deprecating, as Bridget is. In fact, I can pretty much assure you that I will, at times, be a bit psycho. Consider the blog lifelike in that respect.