It seems like everyone I know has gone through a major relationship breakdown in the last 2 months.  2 friends in relationships each equaling about 2 years, done.  One friend, 5 year marriage, filing for divorce.  A friend of mine said what I interpreted to be really lame things. Hurtful things. 5 years of friendship, done.  Grandfather, died.

Are all expectations unnecessary?  Does holding someone to a standard set you up for disappointment?

Where’s the line between, “I’m just a flawed human being”, and taking responsibility for your actions?  This brings me back to the poem thing I wrote last week.  Everyone’s playing at something.  I feel the flawed mask is worn to excuse piss poor behavior.

I have a friend who insists I start using Match.com or another one of the pay sites, “because that’s where you’ll find a quality guy who’s not all about the ass.  Guys are just pigs unless they’re committed to a site like that.”  Wasn’t there a time when you had to pay for smut?  The gentleman was the common man on the street. He had respect.  If you wanted skeeze, and ease, you had to pay. You had to go to that part of town, that club, that store. Tables have turned so drastically, that we’re *expected* to put out without a second thought.  I’m supposed to send you dirty pictures without having been taken out, without any attempt to get to know me. It takes resistance to avoid it, and money to pay for respect. And a real date. I’m not your personal porn source.

I don’t know what to expect anymore.

Drew- He just turned 21 to my about to be 33. He’s sweet and a music major in college. I met him online and I have to admit his youth and relentless pursuit of me got me to cave. I hadn’t had sex for a while and I thought when will I ever again have opportunity to do something like this with a guy i think is super hot. So we slept together…. a LOT. I kind of freaked out after. While everyone I knew was high fiving me, I was having terror thoughts about a parent showing up at my door wondering why I’d defiled their baby. Guilt is a large factor for me. I got over it though. We fit together very well sexually. We talk and are genuine friends at this point. But in between trying to find Mr. Right, I occasionally sneak in Mr. Young.

Chazz – A mainly text friend for months now. Chazz and I met once in the beginning of summer. He met me under a street lamp across from a large sign by the beach. We talked about a lot of things. I was at ease and very cool with him. We talked about all sorts of crazy embarrassing things. He got out of jail and has been battling addiction for a long time. He said everything felt like an experiment because he’d spent so little of his life sober. I liked him. But I was also afraid of him. I can be a lot to take on in a relationship. And the idea that it is more likely then not that he would relapse at some point – worried me. So i text him and wonder what if.

Gabriel – He almost became my boyfriend. He was in love with me. He was very nervous around me. A genuine sweet guy. But his frightening devotion to his mate proved too much for me. The girl before me trapped him into a 7 year relationship where he barely left the house. With me I started to seeing really intense moments where he would get scary obsessed with things. Like Twilight. God lord did this dude LOVE Twilight. He talked about it every day. Watched one of the movies ever single day. He would send me videos of songs from the soundtrack. I first mistaked this for romantic. I could see the obsession happening with me. One day he lost his temper and started yelling these very strange things at me. And my love bubble popped. I was full of fear and could not handle someone this intense. I want someone into me, but this was too much.

Ray-Ray – This guy was one part Southern gentleman and one part ghetto. He was a little odd looking but he was willing to talk and get to know me and take it step by step. One night he texted me that his cousin took his phone. During the time his phone was stolen i’d received texts telling me he had a girlfriend. I started thinking he was a bit shady. He was never available on the weekends. Only after work Monday through Thursday. He never stayed longer then an hour when he came over. He refused to talk about dating. He told me he loved me twice and then got mad and said not like that. After a while he only wanted to come over if we were going to drink or do drugs. Needless to say, I told him I didn’t care to see him anymore.

Fagioli – a guy i worked with that flirted with me unmercilessly. Eventually dirty pics were swapped. He’s married. Nothing was ever going to happen. I now limit my interaction with him. The end.

Seen – Ugh. The worst of all. I was so so into him. This guy just did it for me. I made the mistake of falling too fast here. His eyes made me all swoony. He liked things in a way very similar to me. We seemed to be on the same level in every respect. Our first date was 12 hours long. It was truly the best date I’d ever had. But I think about it now… and I see a lot of things that might have been blinded by falling in love.
Seen turned out to know The Ex. They are friends. Seen seemed fascinated by the rise and fall of The Ex’s and my relationship. He asked lots of questions and brought it up a lot, almost obsessively. I would have moments where I’d wonder is he into me, or into the Ex? He would talk about another mutual friend of ours in such a loved way that it felt quasi-homo-erotic. Like I am sure this sounds like fuck him he’s gay! NOT the case. sooooo not the case. In fact at some point he told me a story where during a drunken night at a party he showed yet another mutual friend of ours his dick – completely unprompted. So… does not help this case. Some serious bi-sexuality.
At the same, I mean that, bi. Because he was clearly into younger college aged girls. his last girlfriend had been an 18 year old junkie. He worked at a college and lived next to a University. That made me feel very self conscious. i was he second oldest person he’d dated… he’s 3 YEARS older then me!
So by date 5 I started getting weird mixed signals from him. Like maybe he wasn’t feeling like I was feeling. So in a moment of fear – I threw it all out on the table and said I dig you a lot, I think this that and the other about you. I think you should just go for it and trying being with me. That if he felt the same he should tell me and if not, we should stop seeing each other. Apparently this was too much for him. I looked crazy. I felt uncomfortable. I liked him so much it was fucking my life up.
After this I found out he’d been seeing other chicks the entire time anyways. this really surprised me. I mean we never said we were mutually exclusive. But we were spending so much time together that it felt like how could he being seeing someone else too? Or a bunch of someone else’s.
JOKE WAS ON ME! He had lots of skinny young bitches after him. I was just some stupid newly single crazy bitch. I had let him borrow a movie and he MAILED it back to me. Our last conversation was so bad and uncomfortable. Ugh, it was just a total mess. I was horrified with myself for losing my cool. I was horrified with him for not wanting me back.

Lastly comes The Reader. That mother fucker I have loved for a lifetime and we never ever can get it together. Our biggest issue always seemed to be around him never being able to sleep with me. For over a decade I have waited for this man to make love to me just once. So when he finds out I’m seeing Seen he panics. He starts calling, texting, and even coming around again. He tells me he loves me. he doesn’t want me with some other dude. This comes on the tale of me finding out Seen is seeing other chicks. Like THAT NIGHT.
The Reader makes promises he can never keep. He makes strides and is closer to keeping them. But when he fucks up, he fucks up real good.
He makes the mistake one night, of telling me that after we broke up he wanted revenge on me. I was distraught when we broke up. I’d spent a year with him in a strained sexless relationship. I felt like I was ugly and horrible. So i slept with the first guy who gave me a shot, his friend Greep. His revenge – he slept with my enemy of the time. My best friend’s other best friend and the girl Greep liked – Age. He told me this and I exploded. PROOF that it wasn’t that he was too damaged for sex. Just sex with me was a problem.
Heart goes shatter.

Dating… it’s not my thing.
Since Seen and then the Reader, I am just done. I will be Miss Singleton USA. I might as well by cats and a fanny pack, some nice elastic waist pants, and call it a life. DONE. I can only handle so much foul fuckery before I just move on.

I am trying to be Career Girl these days. My focus is to get out of debt and get a car. I don’t ever want to have to depend on some man. Matters of the heart just aren’t for everyone. Right now, the best thing I can do is just bring myself up.

#1 Your girlfriend complains about her day, you try to fix it, then she complains that you don’t listen. Easy fix. Wait until the end of the story, regardless of how detailed she gets about how the annoying woman who sits next to her at work breathes audibly, eats audibly and contributes nothing in meetings, not to mention, has ZERO fashion sense. Half the issue with this scenario is that men often cut in on the rant with a possible solution.  That would be great, IF your girlfriend were looking for a solution. She isn’t. She just wants to vent. So, sit back and quietly listen, nodding at the appropriate times (whether you are actually listening or planning your Fantasy Football picks in your head is not my problem – and I don’t judge), and when the story comes to it’s inevitable finale, say, “I’m sorry you had a rough day,” or “Is there anything I can do?” You won’t actually be doing anything, but you will get credit for the offer. You have now allowed her to tire herself out and you aren’t in trouble for “being a man.” Win-win.

#2 Obnoxiously, repeatedly requesting kinky pics from your girl/some girl/someone you’re pretty sure is a girl, via text. Easier fix. Wait. If your girlfriend is the type of girl who is ever going to send you a pic of herself (holding her phone, which is half covering her face) while she models her “days of the week” choneys/newest Victoria Secret set/nothing at all, she will do it on her own timeline without your request – which is what makes it worth it for her – it’s supposed to be a surprise. If you ask for it, you’re now the creepy guy and she can safely bet she’s not the first or only person you’ve asked and she will not likely be the last.  If, instead, your girlfriend is not the type to put low-grade porn out there into the universe, you asking her will likely get you dumped or ignored or your name will be changed to Perve#7 in her phone.  Just wait…if it happens, it happens and it won’t have anything to do with your input. If it happens within week #1 of knowing her, change her to Perve#7 in your phone and use protection.

*And for Pete’s sake, DO NOT try to start the process with your own contribution.

#3 Your girlfriend thinks she’s fat; being the stand-up guy you are, you disagree…over and over and over…to no avail. Easiest fix.  Wait it out. Next time she walks in front of the tv and asks if the jeans she wore in high school prior to puberty make her butt look big, do NOT respond. Don’t say a word, make a face, raise an eyebrow.  Continue staring ahead as if nothing has happened.  Better still, get up and leave the room. There is NOTHING you can say that will make this obnoxious, self-important habit go away – so say nothing.  If you disagree, she won’t trust you (because you are clearly lying) and she will continue to ask you in the future regardless of the size, fit, purpose of what she is wearing. Next thing you know, she’ll be asking if “these sheets make my neck look fat.”  Do not condemn yourself to a life of ridiculousness. If you agree that maybe she could stand to venture into the Women’s department, you are the least supportive, most superficial pig and you are obviously just using her to get to her best friend – shame on you. Wait it out and she will answer the question for herself and either change into something that doesn’t restrict the flow of blood to her limbs or get over her need for your feedback, remembering that there was a time when she was single and dressed herself.

Patience is a virtue – practice some and you will be rewarded.  If that doesn’t work, there’s always being single.

See, I’d been holding off because there was a fair amount of cool shit about the 14th. It was official Celebrate-New-Job-And-The-Fact-That-It’s-Been-WAAAAAY-Too-Long-Since-I’ve-Had-Good-Tapas Night. Well, I’m pretty sure that’s a national holiday in at least 17 countries. First here’s the look:

That’s also when I realized how dirty my lens was. (Just kidding, I didn’t realize how dirty my lens was until I uploaded the photos 3 or 4 days later. There may be more dirty pics on their way. Also, I now have good cause to use the tag ‘dirty pics’ and I’m going to get 400 million views this time.) I love this look. I pull it off a little more successfully with a different shirt underneath with not QUITE such a scooped neckline because then you see more dark shirt above. It’s one I discovered by accident while online shopping because someone was selling this long-sleeve lace shirt and I thought it had a dark strip of fabric around the collar and then I wasn’t totally sure what was going on with the sleeves. So on the website you could click through to see the shirt in all the other colors it came in but only the one was modeled, the rest just showed a picture of a long-sleeve lace shirt against a white background and I feel like it took forever for my silly little brain to figure out why this one color of shirt has all this interesting shade and texture going on and all the others just looked like a lace shirt! to my credit, the site I was looking at did NOT mention something like “Buy undershirt separate on this page, blah blah blah” or something like that. They just slipped it in there on their model and kept it secret. Sneaky bastards.

But I digress. Or at least I’m talking too long when I really just wanted to post photos, scarf down some chili and go. Here’s the boots for the night. They are cheap, yet sassy:

This was supposed to be a close up to show makeup, but it got all overexposed somehow so I shall show it just to give a close-up of the necklace. It’s basically a prism on a string which I thought was awesome:

Here’s a real close-up on the makeup:

It was inspired by a favorite old, old Saturday Night Live sketch of me and my parent., I believe it was ‘Miss South Side New Jersey’ or something like that on their weekend update giving beauty tips where our favorite was “Be sure you wear a whole lotta blue eyeshadow. Cuz ya’ know, enough blue eyeshadow will make ANYONE’S eyes look blue!”

And the final one to show off my hair doing what it does best. That is, growing:

I’m working on it…

So after Job/Tapas Night (I’m paraphrasing this time) there was much sangria had by all, and much beer had to follow since there were many fun dive-y bars near where we had dinner and then much mildly hung over video game playing the next day. Therefor I weren’t lookin’ all too purty and not wanting to show too much. But I made a promise to The Online! It’s recycled clothes day and just boring jeans and t-shirt, but here’s the 15th:

Because of the total lack of excitement in this one I took the liberty of playing around with some settings and filters and stuff and the new photo editing program I got. It’s like for the people who can’t afford Photoshop…. or anything close to it. Because if you’ve seen recent prices of just about anything bearing the Adobe moniker, I think you know there’s a LOT of people who can’t afford Photoshop. But I can basically afford “free.” So I’ve made due with what I can. This photo was just a little playing with levels and filters to see what it can do without going all crazypants.

Ahhh… what the hell, I’ll tack the 16th on there too. That’s because what with the getting used to working again and running around and putting up with freezing cold and forgetting what a pain the arse the trains can be when they don’t run like they’re supposed to, I totally forgot about this until 11 in the p.m. when I was in my pajamas and ready for bed. So I wasn’t about to throw clothes for the day back on or anything soooooo…… there. That’s what you get. Don’t say I never gave ya’ nothin’!

I was in high school and the person who was interested in me at the time thought it would be appropriate to engage in some heated conversation with a follow up of a photo of his boy bits.

I’ve always found this as peculiar behavior; do boys honestly think that’s attractive? Do they realize that because of the shrinking size of technology, it makes it appear as though what they’re packing isn’t at all impressive?

What’s worse is that it’s not at all uncommon for guys to request such provocative photos from attractive women. I suppose I’ve never seen the appeal of having something just out of your reach as a constant reminder in your phone.

I personally was always the one with the deathly fear of sending any nude pictures of myself. I’ve always been technologically savvy and therefore was constantly reminded of the risks.

What if I ended up on some site that charges money and I never get my cut?

What if I planned on selling my virginity and all of a sudden the property value went down because someone’s already seen the floor plan?

What if someone tries to kidnap me and sell me overseas into sex slavery?

You know, the typical fears most people have, right?

But I won’t lie and say that I’m completely innocent – sending racy pictures has almost become a specialty of mine, and I’ve done so without even being nude. Imagine that?

That way, if someone saw it that I never planned on seeing it, I could easily play it off as just sending an innocent picture, and that I couldn’t help that it turned them on. It’s the perfect plan.

But you always read about the people who sent nude pics to their boyfriend, their boyfriend then showed it to their friends, and then  the girl ends up killing herself. Not that suicide is anything but serious, but I honestly never understood the line of thinking either of these people had.

My first thought is, wow that girl was really dumb enough to not only take in a shit boyfriend but to send him things he didn’t deserve? He’s a teenager, he’s not going to appreciate the human body he’s just gonna gawk at it. Why would you even bother? Are you that cheap?

Secondly, as a boyfriend why would you even share that with your friends? You’re pretty much saying that your girlfriend is a cheap slut, and even if she was why share the wealth with the guys? Make them work for it dude, and don’t get mad later when she sleeps with one of your friends because you decided to be a douchebag.

But being seen by others that I don’t know wasn’t my only fear when it came to nude pictures; I was scared of sexting. I’m still scared of texting the wrong people now without sexual connotation.

I have all sorts of numbers in my phone – ex boyfriends, new dating potentials, stalkers, employers, coworkers, professors, etc. I’m the type of person that can’t delete information unless it’s absolutely bad for me to have it; if I had deleted my ex’s number from this past year I would have cursed his ass out every day and never would have gotten over it.

It’s my biggest fear to drunk dial or even text something stupid to the wrong person. It’s why whenever I party you notice my phone is either locked in my bedroom or locked in my car under a bunch of shit.

In general it just doesn’t seem like a good idea to provide concrete evidence that you’re a whore to the general public. And if all of this doesn’t make you uncomfortable with it yet, please note that your phone company does have people screening your text messages. And I bet you that the person who reads your failed attempt at being a phone slut is laughing at you and your parents for even paying your phone bill.

Lesson: stop embarrassing your family, have sex in real life.

I’ve done some pretty kinky things in my life when it comes to sex, I’ll admit. If you name it I’ve probably done it, or at least thought about it. Except for that masochistic shit, not into that. But the one thing I refuse to do ever is video tape it. That’s even worse than a photo!

I don’t think I have the personality for a sex video. I’d be too concerned with things that are irrelevant.

“How does my hair look?”
“Is the oven on? Shit I think it is…”
“So this is all I’m getting, huh?”

Welcome to my sex life.

Anyway, I find it difficult enough to just take pictures. People have said I’m very photogenic, but I’m picky as hell when it comes to photos. I think people underestimate how difficult it is to take a picture of yourself.

You think the outcome will look like this:

When you really end up looking like this:

(As a sidenote that is my actual picture. Which one am I talking about? You’ll never know, now will you?)

I suppose sex addicts would get frustrated with me because I would make them wait hours on end before I approved of a photo for them to masturbate to. Imagine how long it would take to film a video?? In the end I suppose I’m just too damn lazy to have tech-sex. I suppose I’ll stick to regular sex, since it comparatively takes far less effort.

But for those of you that do enjoy the occasional grinding of the gadgets I think Apple should just go ahead and make an app for you. It’ll be better than Facetime, name it Cocktime. Maybe put in a “like/dislike” feature for instant feedback, a tips section from Cosmo? I’m sure we can find a 10 year old Chinese kid to create the app for us, they already made half the store anyway.

Speaking of something not at all relevant to China, I want you to do the following and let the hilarity ensue:

DO THIS OR DIE BY MY HANDS AND THE HANDS OF GOOGLE (PERHAPS)

1. Go to translate.google.com
2. English -> French
3. Type in ”Take a dirty picture for me” without the quotes
4. Copy the result and change it from French -> English
5. Paste what you copied and translate it back.
6. Commence laughter.

I love playing with languages. <3

This is the second time I’ve bumped into his porn stash. Last time, I let the poor child be. This time, I may say something. I don’t know. Cast your vote.