one. step. at. a. time.

attempting to discover… where to begin. you’re weighed down, you’re full of something… you’re underneath it all.

lucky number seven.

this week has been interesting. you’ve clearly seen how, um, introspective i’ve been, just through my writing. i guess that’s what vacation/traveling does for me. when i go to nola, it’s like…times a million. and i’ve mentioned that i’m at this odd moment of life, where i feel more in line with who i am, and who i am supposed to be than ever. and i’ve had almost ‘looking on from above’ experiences of breaking relational patterns that are not good for me. and i’m in a such a moment of life where everything is perfect. and messy. and raw. and uncertain.

and all i’m trying to do is make it. one step at a time. actually, what i’m trying to do is be ok with only going one step at a time. you see, my writing, my reading, my studying- it all adds up to me putting this immense amount of pressure on myself to implement the things i know about relationships into my own life. it’s like “the shoemaker’s children have no shoes” syndrome. but the opposite. i figure that because i’ve identified a relational pattern, or schema, without the help of a therapist, then i must figure out how to get over that pattern…instantly.

and sometimes, like i’ve said, i get to the point where i know why i am there, and what got me there, but not really what to do about it. and more importantly, i know what i need to do moving forward in relationships… but what about the ones i already have? the ones that were created with the not so healthy relationship patterns? how i do say to those people, “oh, you just filled an unhealthy need in my life that i have realized is unhealthy, and i can’t and don’t want to do this anymore,” when they are not in any place to realize that i probably filled the same pattern for them?

well, either way, i’ve been very introspective this week. in a very ok with lots and lots of alone, figure it out, time. for example, i’m writing this day’s, saturday’s, blog post at 11 pm. because today i did exactly what i needed. i spent a lot of quality time with a few select people that i knew would get it. because, as i begin to figure it all out… i realize that some of the people in my life don’t quite get it. get that i want to figure it out. or that there is more.

and this week i was able to pull myself away from the situation, life, and mostly, others‘ relational issue projection and just be ok. with me. myself.

this month is probably boring some of you. a blog post a day about steph finding herself in a much less analytical, much less rational and theoretical way. it’s much more… messy. and i’m trying to just be ok with that. so you should too. one day, you’ll be able to say, remember when she was a mess, writing a blog a day about new agey nonsense trying to find herself? look at her now.

hoping a better place is all i need, with moments of innocence and mystery. oh it’s the little things you miss, like waking up, all alone. it’s the little things you miss, when you’re underneath it all…and all your friends seem like enemies when you’re broken down and empty…

waiting. city and colour.

embracing feelings, not trying to manage them.

roll, up your sleeves for winter, and i can wait till summer, when you’re warmer. roll, up your sleeves we’re heading for winter i know, the nights will get colder. and i’ll make my bed, make sure i’m all fed and asleep, and wake when we’re older.

day 4.

and i have tons to say. i think #nablopomo is like therapy or something. or making me feel blabby. or less of a need to be relevant. oh well.

so, i’m bad with feelings. i think that’s where i left off yesterday. i’m good at getting to the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ about feelings. but always want a ‘but then what?’ and i think the thing about feelings is that there isn’t always a ‘then.’ because that is a rational and systematic brain to thing to assume. i assume there is a then. if a then b = c. but i think think you’re supposed to just have them. and that’s it…?

another thing i’m bad at…no, scratch that. i was bad at… for the last few years of my adult life i’ve been realllllyyy working on boundaries. and being in control of how others’ actions make me feel. and how and what i do to react to keep my expectations in check. but unfortunately, as with all new self awareness findings that i want to work on about myself, i usually go to the opposite extreme, in the beginning to deal.

so in a very unlike me way, in an attempt to keep my boundaries, i have prematurely shut down towards people that i think would ultimately become in a position to hurt, disappoint, or get too close to me. ie: i could see myself not getting what i need from the relationship.

and mostly, since my dating life has been oh so not interesting lately, this has been with friendships. because i constantly had to learn the hard way that, after communicating my needs or wants in a relationship (friendship too) if they refuse, or can’t give it to me, it does NOT mean that i just don’t get it. but it DOES mean that i’ll have to be the one to make the change in the relationship so i that am not continually hurt/disappointed.

well, in an attempt to manage my own expectations and disappointments i think i forgot about about the fact that the other person may actually come through, or be able to, or want to give back.

and recently, i was a little taken aback by someones reciprocity. in the best way ever, obviously.

and i am using this as an opportunity to learn how to balance the expectation and disappointment game. instead of just shutting down and reverting back to, “whatever, it is what it is. play it too cool, steph.”

i’m just embracing the feelings. and not trying to manage them. but i sure am weary of this fine line i ride between feeling and receiving back, and setting myself up for spiraling emotions that only i am to blame for.

i’m watching you, feelings, emotions and stuff. i’ve got my eye on you.

stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm,  stay calm, stay calm. stay calm. stay calm. keep warm, keep warm, keep warm.

“Roll up your sleeves”- We Were Promised Jetpacks

when life shoves brown paint down your throat you can choose to paint a pile of poop… or a teddy bear. or you start with poop and turn it into a teddy bear.

either way, this has been a month for the record books. basically, my daily mantra has been: “the universe knows what it’s doing steph, trust it, give in to it, and let it play out. also, trust yourself, and your intuition to guide you as to how it will play out.”

this weekend, i dove head first back into writing on stephdub.com. with datenight demanding much of my attention, i had left stephdub to thrive off of one very controversial and comment gathering post. i felt inspired and in touch with stephdub the writer. so i wrote, and posted on a saturday evening. when i knew that no one would be around to read it.

sunday morning i went to log into my site analytics to see how many un-noone’s did read the post, and my page was giving me this crazy weird error. so i sent a nonchalant email with a screen shot inquiring about the error.

i leave, have a wonderful and craft packed sunday and come home to watch bored to death and reply to a comment on my post that came in the night before.

at which point i see a 403 error on stephdub.com. and then i see someone tweet about not being able to access stephdub.com.

so i text @gerardramos, try not to worry, and go to bed.

at 10:38am i receive this text: ***king hard drive’s crashed. they are working on getting the data and restoring.
i respond: oh nooooo, i’m sorry, is that as terrible as i think it is? (thinking, well if they are restoring the data, this is one hell of a nightmare that will blow over for me, but be a royal pain in the ass for g.)

at 1:51pm his response: it’s way worse than you think :(

at 2:58pm my blackberry buzzes with an email titled “complete failure.”

i open it to find, among a few others, these paragraphs:
Over the weekend the server was hit with an attack.  One by one, the services were brought down and eventually all data was corrupted.  When the backups ran over night, they were corrupted as well and both hard drives crashed to an un-recoverable state.

The company will not send me the drives because of security issues and they do not have data recovery services internally. They did what they could, but there is nothing left. 

apparently, this is a similar thing that happened to ma.gnolia a few months ago. the recovery process… well, what recovery process?

it’s time to scavenge what’s in google’s cache and dive back into getting stephdub back up and running. a.sap.

and as i read that email i was oddly calm. and said ok, universe… i trust you.

you see, october has handed me doozy after doozy. and i have thrown my hands up, embracing this crazy crooked path with all of the love and trust i have in me.

it started, actually, in september. g and i were spending a sunday afternoon, post brunch, chatting about dating, business, success and progress as i prepared for datenight radio. we reflected on how stephdub.com had been going strong for a year and a half, and how far it, well, i’d come.

when he convinced me that fateful day in May 2008, to make all of my writing public, and start stephdub.com i had just quit my job, moved across the country, and was sleeping on a couch in a dear friend’s bedroom. how was i going to start a site? well, thanks to a good friend all i had to do was register stephdub.com, play in photoshop one sunday afternoon drive down the coast to create a “logo,” and have him set up my wordpress account and host it on his server.

and there i was, a year and a half later, with a radio show, a content filled blog, and a paying job discussing that it was maybe time to ‘revamp’ stephdub.com. time to incorporate datenight and my podcasts with shades of perspective and my writing. but where to begin? i still only had a couple hundred dollars to actually spend on any sort of upgrading… in what area do i spend it?
an actual logo or printable image for stephdub/shades of perspective/datenight?
some sort of site design?

and even when i made that decision, who will do the work? see you all, my designer friends in SF. you’re too badass for me. i can’t afford you. and i respect friendships too much to ask for favors…and i know your work is worth way more than i have to spend.

either way life was good. the weekend after this was my birthday party, and g’s birthday party. i was excited to party hardy and then get back on the exciting track to success with datenight and stephdub.com.

and then it started. without going into too much detail, i had to make a very difficult decision. one that created a battle between my rational, pragmatic self and my intuition. i wrestled with what to do for a while, ultimately choosing intuition and signs i would love to have ignored and…

i quit my radio show. i am no longer a dj at pirate cat radio.

like i said, there were many factors that went into this decision, but it was the right one. since, however, it was such a challenging decision, i didn’t really tell anyone. i needed to sit with it. i needed to process it and own it.

and this past weekend, i started telling a few close friends.

i also threw myself back into writing. and started planning on continuing datenight, in simply podcast form.

and then this.

i lose stephdub.com.
it is a message, universe? well i hear it loud and clear: “step up, steph. keep pushing.”

so here i am thinking… i have a clean slate. and a little bit of money, and a long ass october almost behind me.
what do i do next? well, i decided to put it out there to you… the interwebs, the twitterverse…. my friends.
i see this as the perfect opportunity to rebrand stephdub. or, well, create a brand.

and i’m asking for your help.

with my refusal to risk affecting important friendships by asking any specific friends for help or favors i will put my request right here, for anyone to accept, or adjust, process or deny.

i would like to start fresh with stephdub.com and datenight: i have limited (and i mean limited) funding (like a few hundred dollars) and want to put it towards any or all of the following things:
new site desgin
wordpress theme
logo/s
image/branding (instead of logo)

so- do you have a little free time and want to gain good karma by just donating your badass talent to the stephdub fund? are you a college student, or intern (or know one) that needs a final project? do you have any designers hanging out in your back pocket ;)? are you unemployed, getting paid by the government and want to build your portfolio but you just need a project to do it with? do you love hearts and the color black and like to doodle/sketch while on break from your high paying clients?

if you think you are any of the above, or you know someone that would categorize themselves as any of the above i swear this will be easy and fun and gain you major props by the universe.
if not. that’s cool. cause i’ll totally figure this shit out.

but a very successful saleslady friend of mine always says, “if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”

all my love,

<3 stephdub

i don’t know what the hell i want. ok?

you, you used to have all the answers. and you, you still have them, too.

so. here it is. the not so ‘unjudgmental’ part of steph that i usually try to hide at all costs. if i had to chose one thing in life that i have almost zero patience for i think it would have to be indecision. we all know my obsession with personal accountability (and the fact that it is so difficult to actually enact, and find in others), and i think my annoyance with indecisive people stems from my push for, and expectation of personal accountability. essentially, it’s this simple: make a decision, and own it. period.

decide what you are going to do/say/be and own that decision. but i know, it’s not that easy. we live in society that makes us question ourselves m o m e n t  a f t e r  m o m e n t. so what type of people does this society breed? indecisive, wishy washy, too ‘nice,’ unaccountable, finger pointers. now i know that there is a ton more that goes into making these people than the society we live in, mainly our upbringing, so i’ll go ahead and say that somewhere in MY upbringing i attributed value to the ability to make a decision and act on it. maybe it’s because i’m a virgo. i think things through, i plan, i am pragmatic to the core.  or maybe it is because i have so many fire signs in my astrology chart (energy, action, spark). either way, all of these things lead me to place immense value on the ability to think something through enough to know/act/do/or be.

and i understand that some people don’t place so much value on such things. however, i do. and i see the inability to make a decision as a weakness. i know, there it is, sorry. judgment. my nemesis. however, i say this all knowing that it is an extreme and in everyday life i curtail that massive judgment with self awareness and perspective to act in a normal manner. i’m just trying to give you an understanding of my core instincts. indecision = weakness.

and recently, i had a revelation that ignited a great amount of cognitive dissonance in this analytical brain of mine. so i ignored it. and didn’t tell anyone. not on the radio, not my friends, not here. i what i realized about myself, my life, my needs right now just didn’t fit with one of my core beliefs. so it couldn’t be true. so i ignored some more.

and then, as things most often do with me, it just came out. t he words were spoken.  it was there. the truth. and i had no idea how to process it.

you see, the revelation that i was so willing and desperate to ignore was this: i have no idea what i want.

what’s the big deal with not knowing what i want, you ask? i’ll tell you. let me lay it out there in a nice and rational psychoanalytical fashion. i value knowing, decision, and action. and the ability to do. and to use those characteristics, one must first know what they are knowing, deciding or doing. and therefore, when i have no idea what the ‘what’ actually is, then i am left with zero ability to decide how to do. thereby leaving me paralyzed with inaction. thus, i am a weak person.

make sense? if not, i’ll use this example instead of theory: i, personally, feel strong and confident in life when i act. i have a goal and i make it happen. the ability to create a rational plan to make something i want happen is what brings me true joy. and challenge, hell, challenge just invigorates me more. because i have to reevaluate the plan, and apply more thought and reason to the situation to meet the goal. you see, in my brain, not meeting the goal is not an option. every situation can be analyzed enough to figure it out, and make it happen. i am sure that it is this mentality that helped me get through grad school successfully while working full time, and unsuccessfully deal with a breakup that was due to circumstances out of my control.

i’m a virgo, i like order and rationale, and perfection, and systems, and process, and logic. at my core, it’s where i’m most comfortable.

so, when i am faced with a situation like the one i just revealed to you (that i have no idea what i want in my dating life), i am a complete mess. i feel exposed and vulnerable, out of control and lost.

how am i supposed to create a logical plan, and rationalize my emotions when i don’t know what i’m planning for, or how i even feel?

after coming to this terrible conclusion i tried to just be with this moment in life. allow myself to just not know. tell myself that it doesn’t make me weak, it doesn’t make me less anything. it just is.

but that was hard. because, believe it or not, dating is something that people, in general, are pretty decisive about. “i’m not dating.” “i’m ready to settle down.” “i’m ready to meet someone.” “i want nothing to do with it, it takes too much time.” “i just want to make out.” “i’m heartbroken and can’t even think about dating.” “i’m in no place to date.”  (now, people’s relationship craziness that lead them to whatever decision they’ve made about their dating life is a whole nother story.)

so there i was, stephdub, the relationship writer with a radio show about dating, having no i dea what i wanted. unable to make a decision about something that everyone can make a decision about.

i decided to sit with this anxiety provoking uncertainty and hand the doozy of situation over to the universe.

and about a week and a half later i remembered that the universe doesn’t respond to idleness. so i made a list.

lists are organized, thought provoked entities. they fit with my m.o. well. i figured if i could make a list of my wants and don’t wants in dating, then i would have enough data to categorize the items and determine where i am in my dating life. hmp. here it goes:

don’t wants:

* something serious. i’m trying to focus on some big goals i’ve set for myself, and absolutely cannot get distracted by love and stuff.
* to go on dates with people i don’t know. it’s awkward, and basically i hate traditional dating (for me).
* to do internet dating sites
* to sleep around
* too  much responsibility to someone else

do wants:

* flirting fun
* physical attraction
* physical attention
* a ‘fun’ buddy. someone to do fun things with. while holding hands. maybe. once in a while. but not too regularly.
* someone that gets me, enough
* to do the ‘fun for now’ thing, knowing that it won’t be long term

there are the lists so far. in what category do those juicy nuggets of information put me?

i guess in the “just want to have fun and go to bars and parties and maybe have you there to smooch and laugh with, but you have to be attractive and somewhat intellectually interesting to me or i’ll get annoyed and/or bored and it will become stressful and defeat the purpose. oh, and you don’t want something serious either, but you’re not just trying to sleep with me and move on.” yea.

alas, SF boy for right now… where are you?

watch things on the vcr, with me and talk about big love… but you, you just know. you just do.

there are two categories…

it takes more than ****ing someone you don’t know to keep warm

i don’t know when it was, but sometime over the past three and a half years i came to understand how guys categorize women. and as many men surely will agree, this is no revelatory understanding. why not? because there are two categories. that’s it.

the girl the guy wants to sleep with.

and the girl the guy wants to date (the extreme of this being the girl the guy wants to marry).

and, somewhere throughout my wild wild days of bachelorettehood (ha.) i realized that the line between the two is not, in fact, any where near blurred. it is crystal clear. and most girls cannot even toe this line without it actually violently shoving them into one category that much more. which ever line they may have been toeing.

n. the girl guys want to sleep with- the hot girl that guy cannot stop thinking about, while at the bar, or the next day at work. she is fun and flirty and interesting. and he has a good time with her. but he cannot stop thinking about her not because of those things, but because he is consumed with thoughts of physical attraction and ultimately wants, maybe needs, to bang her.

n. the girl the guy wants to date- the hot girl that sparks connection and commitment in him. the one he can see himself settling down with. the one with which he mentally, emotionally, AND physically connects, and wants no one else connecting.

ok, so what is the difference? well in the totally weird world we date in, guys are often looking for one or the other. and in their brain, the two cannot be one in the same. therefore, upon meeting or seeing or flirting, a guy does all he can to gather qualitative data, code that data, and categorize that lady. and sometimes girl does some obvious things to place herself in one or the other, but sometimes not.

and as i’ve gathered. guys usually have an idea of that category of girl they are seeking at any point in their life. so they start weening through the masses of potential lady loves labeling and identifying each that sparks some sort of interest, assigning them to the collection which they belong.

annnddd let me clarify. these two categories are equal in status. i am by no means saying that being the girl the guy wants to date is more or less desirable than the one he wants to sleep with. because, let’s face it, we’re adults, and our needs and wants change throughout time.

they each serve many purposes and functions, fulfilling needs for both parties.

i guess throughout my dating hits and misses i just really didn’t get how common, ultimate, and consistent this categorization was. and my over analytical self has finally begun to understand how complex this makes dating.

you see, there are two tricky things about this process in which men engage. first, it is all done without the girls’ participation, or knowledge. secondly, and even more confusingly, the men’s behavior towards women of each category is strikingly similar. and the more libations involved, the more the differences in behavior tend to fade.

now i’ve gone through periods of, unconsciously, being each of these girls. meeting the boy at the bar that i connect with, and have genuine conversation with, and really want to get to know better. and also seeing a boy that i’m very attracted to and yea (which my astrologer has kindly pointed out is something i need to indulge in more. umm?).

but what i hadn’t before considered was which girl THEY saw me as. i could have felt the want to date  connection with a guy that placed me in category of ’sleep with.’ and since, like i said before, the behavior for both categories looks eerily similar, i probably thought he felt the same way i did. when in fact, he was doing and saying whatever necessary to sleep with me. and i fell for it, enough. i didn’t fall for it all the way to the bedroom, which is why, despite the connection i THOUGHT we had, he didn’t call. you see, we were playing two different games.

now that i’ve spelled out one of many possible scenarios, you can use your imagination to fill in all of the other instances where disappointment could come from aiming for two separate goals.

after this monumental revelation, i made a major altercation in my dating life. i realized that i never again wanted to be the girl the guy wants to sleep with. well, when i say it like that… that’s not true. i just decided that from here on out i want to be an active participant in the process of determining which category i fall into. and that is, at this point (and probably from here on out, contrary to my astrologer’s advice) the date category.

and i think that much of what you may have read, or personally know about me fits the image i’m trying to create.

it’s just where i am in my life.

but also where i am, physically, is san francisco. and this is where launch into my analysis of dating in SF.

the best way to describe (at this moment, cause i can probably have a zillion thoughts on the subject) the heterosexual dating scene of san francisco is within the terms of my previously outlined theory.

it seems like the man boys in the city by the bay ‘date’ the “girls guys want to have sex with.” and of course i use the term date as defined by the situation. because, as i’ve articulated previously, i think that in general America has a pretty standard definition of dating. and sf is the anthesis of that already loose (yes, i went there) definition.

what am i saying? in my year and a half in this city it seems like most (because i’ll have the others crawling out of the woodwork now arguing) guys i’ve met want to have regular sex, with limited commitment, or responsibilities, with girls. and call that dating.

well, let me clarify. some of them don’t call it dating. they call it acceptable, and expected. while clearly stating that they DON’T want to be dating anyone. the others call regular sex, with limited courting dating.

and as a girl who has decided that she wants to be regarded as the girl guys want to date, i am finding myself mighty fed up with the ‘dating’ scene in sf.

because, really, it’s a sleep around scene. now i hope you know that i hate making generalizations, and there are definitely guys out there that want connection and commitment and to actually date. hell, i’m friends with a gazillion of them. but it seems like even THOSE guys kill time trying to find the ‘girl they want to date’ by fooling around, in all senses of the word, with the girls they want to sleep with.

and because i process emotions by rationalizing them to death, my frustrations have got me pondering WHY we, the smart, sexy, fine women of san francisco put up with this. i mean, obviously we have to. it seems that somewhere, in the guiding rules that attract intelligent, successful, ambitious men to this city, lies the unspoken rule that men dictate the definition of and bounds around dating.

and these dating defining men, being some of the most intelligent, successful, and ambitious men in the country, get away with acting like grown children that happen to make a lot of money.

and i’ve come up with three rational reasons as to why we allow it to continue.

first- strong, intelligent, successful men are not the only ones drawn to fog city. independent and ambitious women are as well. and honestly, they are looking for the same thing. for dating to mean sleeping around, with limited strings attached. because successful and ambitious, for a man OR a woman means that you can’t possibly have a relationship AND be successful, duh.

second- many of the fine young women drawn to the culture of innovation SF is known for are much in the same place as i once was. that place of not realizing that maybe he is saying and doing all of those things, just to sleep with you. and fall for it. time and time again. because in other parts of the country there are rules. and they have not yet realized that SF plays by its own rules.

and third. maybe, just maybe, these strong successful, intelligent, beautiful, ambitious, fun loving women know about these new fandangled rules, and hate them. and have become so mentally, physically, and emotionally attention deprived from not subscribing to one of the only two categories that they give in and say, fuck it. (i mean… um… i’m… um… guessing).

you won’t find love in a, won’t find love in a hole.