Year Two January 18, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Blog.31 comments
Today is the second anniversay (blogiversary?) of Charming, but single. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this started out as a way to kill some time. I never intended for it to last this long, but here I am penning this second-year post.
After two cosmos, obviously.
I enjoy it. I have no idea what the future holds for this blog and how long I’ll keep it up. But having my own little corner of the ‘sphere to wax poetic about myself and men and anything else that tickles my fancy is something I love. Cherish is a silly word. But sometimes I think that it fits.
What have a learned in two years of blogging? More than you’ll ever know. It is alternately thrilling and gut wrenching to chronicle these moments from my life. Sometimes writing makes me erupt in deep belly laughs. Other times I feel tears running down my flushed cheeks.
I’ve had more than 146,000 visitors in the two years I’ve blogged, which amazes me. It really does. I am nervous that more than 800 people now read Charming, but single each day. But it warms my heart to see so many people come back to read my tales. Even when I am sappy. Even when I am sad. Even when I am cranky.
I don’t know where you people keep coming from. Only 21,000 people read in the first year of the blog, so you have to be coming from somewhere. This is my 322nd post. I don’t write every day, but I write enough. I’ve had 3755 comments. Jesus. Do you people do anything at work? (Totally joking. Y’all rock.) That’s about 2800 comments in a year. Am I really that interesting? (Don’t answer that.)
I am far from perfect and anything but wise. I make the same mistakes over and over again and yes, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don’t do my dishes each night and I never really make my bed. I screen my calls and forget to iron and I’m constantly stumbling in my three-inch heels.
But I’m happy. Happier than I’ve ever been, if you can believe that. I’d love to be in love. One day, my friends. He won’t know what hit him.
Here’s to hope and eternal optimism. To writing. To dating. To those who got away and the ones I’d wish would never come back.
Cheers –
Charming
P.S. I’ll post a wrap-up post of my favorites, the most popular and the most significant this weekend. Just like last year.
To do: Be a girl January 17, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Life.22 comments
Because I anticipate that Man Detox 2007 (three days strong!) will certainly be a smashing success this upcoming weekend, my head has been swimming with fantastically relaxing ways in which I plan to rid myself of the crankiness that’s resulted from months of settling for so-so interactions with the male of the species.
My ever-growing list of activities involves a typical regimen of hair, skin and nail care. I have this fantastic new exfoliating scrub that I want to use on my feet. I might touch up the color of my hair. I need a manicure.
I also plan to aimlessly wander the aisles of a bookstore selecting some things to read – perhaps Straight Up and Dirty by Stephanie Klein next? (So far this year I’ve read BreakUp Babe, which is a great book by a blogger I love that you should really go read, especially if you enjoy reading this “genre” of blogs, as she tells her story with a combination of blog posts and narrative, and The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing, which was okay, but not quite what I expected it to be.)
Also, trips to gym (2 planned) with newly created “Girl Power” workout playlist. Healthy food, tea instead of coffee at my Sunday power writing session, salad bar from Fantastic Fancy Grocery Store and one glass of wine on Friday night.
Possibly shopping because I need more BADgal Lash. (I’d strayed from this mascara with a Clinique product, but my lashes are begging for me to go back to Benefit.) Also, I might break down and buy the Lauren by Hobo International because I’ve been obsessed with it for too long now.
Also, football. Because, HELLO. One game until the Super Bowl. Go Saints!
Cheesy and predictable? Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There are songs about all of them, Part 3 January 16, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Friends, Random Musings on Life, There are songs about all of them.12 comments
Note: This post was not supposed to be about this song. But now it is. Read part the first and part the second.
Dating does things to us. It makes us doubt ourselves, but it can also give us an inordinate amount of self confidence, almost to the point where our egos swell and we think we are perhaps the hottest piece this side of the Mississippi (regardless of which side of the River we actually live on).
Such is the case with “Break Your Heart,” by the Barenaked Ladies – as an aside, you should go see them live in concert, because they are fantastic and I enjoyed their set both times I saw them, and really I think seeing them live adds something to the experience.
During my senior year of high school, “Break Your Heart” was one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums, “Rock Spectacle.” (I’d argue that the “Rock Spectacle” version is the best. And really, you should buy the whole CD – the whole thing isn’t on iTunes and if memory serves me right, you can’t copy this CD to your computer in hopes of using it in iTunes, because of the security they placed on the CD. Bastards.)
Anyway, Best Friend Ever and I both loved the song “Break Your Heart.” And I don’t know how many times we listened to it – a lot, I think I wore my copy out – but we had this little ritual that I never did with anyone else. We’d be sitting in her parents’ powder blue Ford Taurus station wagon and we’d blast the CD, turning it up as loud as possible at about two and a half minutes in.
See, at three minutes into the song, there is this fantastic surge of emotion and sound – I don’t know technical signing terms because I couldn’t carry a tune in a paper sack.
It starts low.
“You arrogant man …” we’d sing softly. “What do you think that I am?”
We’d look at each other and take a deep breath. Because it builds.
And then at the top of our lungs, as loud as we could, we’d sing “My heart will be FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE … JUST STOP WASTING MY TIME! OH NO! I know that you will be okay and that I’ve got what I want, and that’s rid of you …”
And we’d pause.
“Goodbye!”
And some nights we’d collapse into laughter and others we’d immediately go back to the middle of the song and do it all over again. It was just what we needed sometimes. Our fun little game. Our secret way to let out whatever stress it is that teenagers feel about Homecoming dances and whatnot. (Only not so secret now, since, you know, I just told all of y’all.)
Of course, at age 16 we only thought we knew heartbreak and sadness. We had no idea of the true pain, and conversely, true joy, that life had in store for us. I wish I could shake 16-year-old me and say, “Look at you! You are beautiful! You have clear skin and sure you don’t have washboard abs, but Jesus Christ, stop tying flannels and sweatshirts around your waist, throw away those smelly Converse One Stars, brush your hair out of your face and pluck those eyebrows. Because YOU are missing it all, young lady.”
“Break Your Heart” is basically a sad song about how sometimes we stay in relationships too long because we don’t want to hurt the other person. We are conceited and think that the other person will be crushed without us.
I don’t consider myself a heartbreaker by any means. But dating does weird things to us and it causes us to believe that we’re going to hurt someone more than we will, so we string them along for no reason. (Like the guy I dated freshman year in high school, who when I finally told him, “I don’t want to hang out with you anymore” turned around and asked me to Homecoming sophomore year. And I was mean and wouldn’t go with him and told everyone I’d rather not go if I had to go with him and then NO ONE else asked me and so I sat at home and moped about it and my parents wanted us all to go to dinner and I made them take us to restaurant about a half hour out of town so that we wouldn’t run into people eating before the dance. And they did, because they rock. And also, the restaurant has some of the best fried catfish ever. Ever.)
Good times.
Anyway, if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of this treatment you know it hurts. Not only because you’re hurt for being dumped. But because the person dumping you was so bold to think that you would just die without them. And the truth is that if they’d just TOLD you, you wouldn’t have been so invested in the relationship and you wouldn’t end up feeling like a pile of dung.
Really, the song just reminds me of being young and melodramatic. And it makes me miss simpler times and that damn blue station wagon that we once crammed like 12 girls in to go to a football game or something.
Ah, yes. Memories.
Sadness turns to rage (sort of) January 16, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Men, Tales of Online Dating.19 comments
Sunday night was a bit of a wake-up call. First, I curled up under the blankets and wondered if I should cry or punch a hole in the wall. I’m unsure was to why hearing that an ex had impregnated the next woman he’d dated after me made me so mad – I think it was all of the groveling and the “you have beautiful eyes” and the “you truly do not know how much I’ve missed you.”
By Monday morning my sadness and confusion has pretty much become anger. I convened my girlfriends for coffee and gossip. They had predictable reactions – what a jerk for telling you, what a moron for not being more careful, what a loser for acting like he missed you. Also, a lot of, “Whatever you do, don’t ever ever ever see him again ever.”
I’m not angry because he got someone else pregnant. I’m angry because he’d acted as if I’d be around to hang out in a few months, once he was passed all of this baby unpleasantness, or whatever. (Unpleasantness was my word, not his.) As if I’d forget how he treated me, forget how I felt unwanted.
At first I thought The Nurse was 100 percent right when he said I didn’t act like I wanted a relationship. But the more I really think about it, the more I think that is partially just him making excuses for his actions. We talked about if he was dating other people and I told him I wasn’t. I had to all but beg him to take me out. He claims I only wanted to see him after I’d been out at bars, but I inquired a lot about what he was doing at other times – he was working or studying or had other plans.
He pushed me away. And I stood for it. And I shouldn’t have. All of those times when the voice in the back of my head said, “Tell him. Teeeeell hiiiiiim,” I should have listened.
I feel like I’ve lost my way with men. That said, I think I’m going on a man detox for now. I’ve lost my way. I’m settling for less than I deserve and want. I’ve got to get back on track so I don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
He Dropped A Bomb On Me – A Baby January 14, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Men, Tales of Online Dating.30 comments
Note: This is long. But after you read it, you’ll understand why. I promise.
So, I happened to be online last night. Unable to sleep and bored by my Grey’s Anatomy DVDs, I logged online to kill some time until my eyelids became heavy.
The Nurse sent me an IM – which was kind of nuts since he pretty much dropped off of the face of the earth. And he starts in with how he’s starting his official nursing job tomorrow and why am I up so late on a Sunday, etc.
I talked to him, but to say that I wasn’t at least a touch confused would be an understatement. Why now? After ignoring numerous drunken text messages from me and seeing me in public and not speaking to me? Crazy.
We exchanged pleasantries and he said that he figured I’d never want to speak to him again and that he was a jerk and that he was sorry. And we had one of those talks that you can have after you’ve really gotten all of the hurt out, when you can be honest and while it still stings, it doesn’t crush you.
Then he dropped the bomb.
“I made a mistake. And now I’m going to be a dad.”
I blinked when I saw those words.
“It wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen, but oh well.”
I blinked again.
“You were wonderful. You are wonderful.”
“What?”
“The woman you saw me with is pregnant.”
And I remembered. The grocery store. About six weeks after he’d dropped me. He was with a woman. I’d assumed she was his mother because she looked older.
She was his girlfriend. His now-pregnant 29-year-old girlfriend.
He went on to tell me that’d he’d really missed me. But he’d made a mistake.
“I do miss those eyes, though.”
“Eyes?” I said.
“You have pretty eyes. I miss those eyes.”
“That’s cute,” I said. “But forgive me if I don’t believe it.”
“Oh if only you knew.”
“I made an ass out of myself,” I said. “I don’t normally chase.”
“You didn’t make an ass out of yourself. I was a prick. But you do have a nice booty.”
We kept talking. I don’t know why.
“I wanted to call,” he said. “Maybe if I had …”
“What would you have said?”
“That’s the tough part.”
“I really liked you. You didn’t seem into having a relationship.”
“I wasn’t, it just happened.”
“With who? With me? You call that a relationship?” I asked.
“No, with Her. It just happened.”
He went on to tell me that he wasn’t planning on staying with Her. He was going to have the child and be in its life, but he wouldn’t be with Her if he hadn’t gotten her pregnant.
“I wanted to be with someone. Like an adult. Not just drinking in bars,” I said. “I guess I didn’t articulate that well.”
“You only seemed to text message after drinking at bars.”
“I thought that was what you wanted. You were busy with school and I was trying to not be a big demand on your time.”
He is right. I didn’t ask for what I wanted – I was too scared of being hurt to put myself out there and say, “[Nurse] I want a relationship. I expect a relationship.” I was so worried that he’d deny me this and that he’d think I was nuts.
Hearing that he didn’t understand what I’d wanted from him didn’t make me feel much better. I wanted to be able to blame him for everything that went wrong. But I was part of the problem. And I knew that.
We talked about me having my tonsils out. About how he felt bad because he knew I was sick and having surgery and he didn’t call. Still. About how She hates vegetables and thinks instant potatoes are better than homemade garlic mashed potatoes and how he’s watching her diet to watch out for the baby because she’d turn it into a fast food junkie.
“I don’t eat mashed potatoes anymore. Or popsicles,” I said, noting that I’d eaten a lot of both after my surgery.
“I might have to make you real mashed potatoes with the skins on. Maybe in a year if you’re not in love with someone else.” he said.
“Hah.”
“What was that ‘Hah’ for? Like you wouldn’t ever be in the same room with me?”
“Just Hah.”
“Won’t commit one way or the other, huh?”
“I’ve got to look out for myself. Can’t go around getting hurt again.”
All of this was a bit much for me. Part of me wanted to cry because I finally knew the truth. And because I wondered what would have happened if I’d forced the issue of us dating. Or if he had called. If either one of us had done what we’d really wanted to do in our hearts.
He said it was time for him to go to sleep – something I knew I wouldn’t do for hours after this conversation.
“Good night. Remember that you are beautiful and you deserve a decent guy.”
“I never doubted that,” I said.
This was a lie, but in this situation, I think you just have to fake it until you make it.
