I wish nothing but the best for you both January 7, 2008
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Advice People Give Me, Cooking, Dating, Fashionable Ranting, Friends, Men, Really. Bad. Habits., Sad but true, Single Girl Cliches, The Male of the Species Is Ridiculous, Weekend Updates, Women.28 comments
Saturday evening, after seeing “Juno” with my girlfriends, I decided to pick up a few things for dinner and head in for a quiet night of watching Season Three of The Office. My ankle still hurts and I’m heading out on Thursday for a whirlwind wedding weekend, so a bit of relaxation was in order. I stopped by a new gourmet market to browse and wait for food-related inspiration.
I was rolling through the aisles aimlessly, trying to decide what to cook. And this led me to a logical place – the meat counter. You see, I’ve been working hard in my post-vegetarian months to build dinners around meat instead of adding it in at the last minute.
So I’m looking at different cuts of meats – incidentally, I went with chicken breast and later made the world’s worst chicken. I’d meant to make a nice Parmesan crusted chicken breast, but oh did I crash and burn and end up with a lumpy mess. But, of course, I didn’t know that that this point.
What I did know at this point was that, gee golly, I was about to have an encounter of the uncomfortable kind. Because as I looked up from the applewood smoked pepper bacon, I spied a familiar face. One I’d only seen once in person but studied extensively via MySpace before coming to the conclusion that, yes, I was cuter than she is.
It was The Nurse’s Girlfriend, in all of her not me glory.
Whereas I looked put together – a rose-colored sweater with a cowl neck, wide-legged trouser jeans, flats, with my hair pulled back and simple makeup with glossy lips – she was not only wearing what I assume was an oversized men’s polo-style red plaid shirt and, horror of horrors, a SKORT.
Now, I know it is impolite to mock your ex’s current fling, especially when she was unfortunate enough to bear his spawn recently, but I really don’t care, because this isn’t actually about her right now. Girlfriend was wearing a denim skort. A pair of denim shorts with a faux skirt flap in the front. The definition of frumpy. And I should have just giggled and went about on my merry little way, happily not saddled with a child by a soulless liar. But at that moment, my New Year’s Resolution to find the blessings in my daily life fell from my mind and all I could think was, “He dumped me for someone who wears a skort.”
My maniacal fashion judgment gave way to the realization that she probably wasn’t alone. And I was right – The Nurse and Their Child were right behind her.
And, yep, I was there in my cute outfit, but hopelessly alone with a package of chicken breast and two baking potatoes. As I peered at him holding his baby and perusing the aisles, the blood drained from my face and I fumbled in my purse for my phone and called Southern Belle.
“Are you busy?”
“No, just painting my nails. What’s up?” she asked.
I told her I needed someone to distract me while I finished my shopping because I could not risk having to talk to the happy family.
And it turns out that I was going to need the distraction. Because they were everywhere – at the meat counter by the pork chops. In the deli section by the sliced cheeses and the prosciutto, comparing babies with another couple with an infant. At the seafood case by the scallops. In the produce section by the portabellas.
I was skillfully dodging him while carrying on my conversation and silently seething about how much I hated him for dumping me without bothering to give a reason and then occasionally dropping back into my life to flirt or suggest that we reunite for a night. And really hating myself the most for caring so much at this point and for letting him remain under my skin when I should have banished him like the poisonous rash that he is.
But as I went to replace a package of gnocchi on the pasta aisle, he was leading his brood down the same aisle and we ended up face-to-face. We made direct eye contact, he nodded and smiled to acknowledge me and I managed a weak smile and turned my cart around.
Later, as I walked to my car, I moped to Southern Belle.
“It isn’t him,” I said. “It is that he just dumped me for no reason, or at least if he had a reason he didn’t share it. And now he’s dating some woman who just doesn’t seem to be as fun as I am and he keeps popping up and making inappropriate comments to me and telling me how awful she is.”
“Yes, it would be easier if he were just gone.”
“Right. And, I’m sorry, she was wearing a skort.”
“Excuse me? His girlfriend was wearing a skort?” she asked.
“Yes, a skort. A denim skort. Like we wore in 1993. When we were 13.”
“Oh dear, I see why you’re upset,” Southern Belle said. “I don’t think there is any good reason to wear a denim skort out in public. Ever.”
“And this means I am officially the girl who got dumped for no reason so that her guy could go off and date a skort-wearer,” I said.
“The sad truth is, you’ll probably never know why he dumped you. And that’s crazy, but at least you’re not still with him,” Southern Belle said.
And she’s right. There isn’t always a tangible reason you can see for why a man dumps you. And that needs to be okay, because sometimes you’re the one the guy lusts after and the one who makes his heart pound.
And then other times you’re just not what he wants. And so, inexplicably, you get dumped for the girl in the denim skort.
The Patron Saint of Spinsters August 12, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Advice People Give Me, Being Southern, Dating, Family, Men, My family is sure I will never marry, Single Girl Cliches, Women.38 comments
“[Charming], I have a prayer for you,” said my Grandmother, a devout Catholic and fixture on her church’s prayer line.
“What kind of prayer?” I asked, with a cautious tone I reserve for moments when I think I’m about to hear something I’d rather not, perfected over years of awkwardness at Sunday dinners.
“Well, I met this woman who worked at Wal-Mart.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, now fully convinced that this gem of advice was probably about to me wildly out of line with my life.
“And she’d had two husbands, and she asked me if I was Catholic,” my Grandmother said.
By this point, wild scenarios of how this conversation even started raced through my mind. I could picture my Grandmother asking the woman working the cash register for advice for marrying off her hopelessly single granddaughter who, “Just works all of the time, you know?”
“And the woman at Wal-Mart gave you a prayer?”
“Yes,” my Grandmother said. “She asked if I knew of the prayer to St. Anne.”
“St. Anne?” I asked. I am familiar with praying to St. Anthony when you’ve lost something or praying to St. Jude, the patron Saint of Lost Causes – and yes, I feared that my Grandmother was about to suggest a prayer to St. Jude. I was fully unaware of a Matchmaker Saint, though I’m sure that if one such saint did exist, my Grandmother would know about it.
“Yes, St. Anne. The prayer goes ‘St. Anne, St. Anne, find me a man.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but for once in a life full of sarcastic comebacks and witty quips, no words came.
“But the woman at Wal-Mart, she said she changed the words around a little because she’d been divorced twice,” my Grandmother said. “So she prays, ‘St. Anne, St. Anne, find me the right man.’”
My Grandmother was so proud of herself for finding a way to appeal to a higher power to intervene in my dating life. And the rest of my family teasingly sang, “St. Anne, St. Anne, find [Charming] a man!” for the rest of the afternoon.
Mama I’m a Big Girl Now August 6, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Advice People Give Me, Being Southern, Family, Friends, Life, Random Musings on Life, Single Girl Cliches, Why I Write, Women.40 comments
My mother, who is quite intuitive, has noticed my high level of stress lately. And when I say that she is intuitive, I mean that she noticed that I was talking quickly and loudly and angrily and overreacting and near tears at one point. My tell is that my bubbly personality which brims with a hint of cynicism morphs to frantic pessimism when I am worn down. I’d been puppysitting for my parents this week and I stopped by to see them when they returned from vacation and pick up piles of laundry I’d washed while they were gone. And I was generally being disagreeable – I’m not too proud to say that when I am extremely tired, and I mean sleep-deprived tired, and grumpy, I act like a three-year-old who hasn’t had her nap. I was griping about not wanting to get dolled up and be sociable for someone’s birthday, not because she isn’t great, but because I was feeling less than friendly. Finally, my mom, quite awesomely, said, “[Charming], just put on a sundress, pull your hair off of your face and knot it back – it looks so pretty like that – and slap on some dangly earrings – you have many pairs – and go drink a margarita and relax. It will make you feel better.”
And then she invited me for lunch on Sunday.
Sunday afternoon came and we were sitting in the kitchen with the shade down because it was so hot, drinking iced tea like the Southern Ladies we are, when she broached the subject in a way that she knew would appeal to my intellectual side.
“I read this article about this young woman who become dependent on her technology and work,” my mom said. “And it was about how sometimes young people are too goal-orientated and they stress themselves out by working so much.”
I raised one freshly waxed eyebrow and gave her a sideways look.
“There’s nothing wrong with being goal oriented,” I said. “You work hard now, do the late hours now so that later you don’t have to.”
“Being goal oriented is fine, but sometimes, you can be TOO goal oriented.”
“And what did this young woman do to fix this problem of hers?” I asked, skeptically.
My mom rattled off a list of things – disconnecting from technology for the weekend, therapy, getting new hobbies. And I listened with a wary ear. Was my mom telling me to go to therapy? Had I crossed the line and moved from busy and stressed to hopelessly cynical and depressed?
Or was I simply reading too much into an innocent conversation? My mom is always comparing my generation’s work habits to hers. We really are two different animals, as she was on her second child by the time she was my age. Maybe she just thought of me while reading the article.
I think a lot about my approach to life – everything is very much set by future plans and future goals. Focus on my career now so that later I can focus on a family. Have fun now because I’ve given myself permission to not stress about coupling and baby making until I am 30. (I actually made that official by announcing it to Southern Belle at dinner on Saturday night. I told her that at 30 I would get scared if I wasn’t nearing Coupledom because I really wanted to start having children by 35, clearly restating my earlier goal of freaking out when I turned 25 because I wanted to start to have children when I was 30. She just politely rolled her eyes.)
The goal setting, I think, allows me to prolong things and put them in the future, because as Miss Scarlett O’Hara said, “After all … tomorrow is another day.” But how much of this is just a coping mechanism that keeps me from dealing with the problems of today? If I can’t get pass the things holding me back – an unbalanced life, for one – will I ever get to see my grand plans and schemes come to be?
