interest and power. we’ve forgotten why we’re fighting.

we’ve been walking sideways, waiting for the cold days. finding strength in numbers, on the ocean floor.

lean mean thirteen.

it’s friday night, and i’m at home. alone. and was loving it. until 20/20 came on with a segment of true honest to goodness crazy old cat ladies. then i started to fall victim to thinking about what i am supposed to be doing because it’s friday. then i turned on music and shut out the ’supposed’ to thoughts.

i’m happy where i am. in bed, with laptop, tv on mute (for company reasons only), indie folk playing, alone, in my studio apartment in sf. the only thing that would make this better, ok, well i guess THAT was the wrong way to start that sentence, as a zillion things entered my head. try again: the one not so ok thing with this moment is my upstairs neighbors that are ruining my life with their hardwood floors, no rugs, three dogs, wooden shoes, constant vacuuming, unnecessarily loud conversations, and 95 people living in a 14×15 ft room. phew, got that out of me.

either way, i’m ok. with life. and right now. in fact, i’m good. and thinking about love.

a girlfriend of mine had a date this week, that she thought went really well. and was waiting for him to text, or call, or contact. and i suggested that maybe she text him. and she said that she’s always the one to contact, and this time she wasn’t going to. and i was right there with her. for quite a while that was me. and we are very similar. so i told her i got it. and then she retweeted something on twitter in response to me, that really really got me thinking. she said @stephdub RT Dating Tip: He who calls more has the most interest and the least control. I can’t say it enough…let HIM call YOU!

and i had some weird sort of view of myself, from what seemed like years ago, but in reality, i don’t know when this girl left. but that tweet made me realize it was for real. my immediate response was enlightening.

you see, i realized that it seems like, in dating, in big cities, as successful smart attractive intelligent people, we have forgotten the real purpose of dating. well, at least what i think a lot of us want the purpose to be. to meet someone with whom we connect.

it has turned into such a game. a game of power, and control, and winning. but that has really just manifested from loneliness, and missed connections, and longing. i want it. i want that someone that i connect with, to be here, with me in sf. she wants it too, to be with her. and so on.

we get so wrapped up work, and life, and success, and winning, that we forget to stress the importance, and allowance of opening up, and making ourselves available for connection. i say we as in society, not her, nor me, individually. we place so much pride and value on success and power, and the way to get that is through rationale and strategy. we have completely devalued, and thereby, disallowed any sort of emotions and feelings, in space where feeling are what are supposed to be leading the way. winning the game.

maybe it’s all this feeling i’ve been letting myself do. maybe it’s a recent reconnection that reminded of its value. maybe it’s seeing someone i care about go through the exact same thing that i am. maybe its longing. maybe its hope. maybe its trust. maybe it desperation. but i want to remember now, the purpose of dating. to meet someone. to connect. to laugh. to share. to support. to enjoy. to embrace.

let’s get back there. together. maybe, yea?

we’re thinking with our brains, we’re living in our veins, we’re swimming in our skin, grinning through our pain. here we go.

tiger tamer. arms.

adult life spring break destination: austin, tx.

the balance between starting fresh and remembering where we came from

trying to be a good girl, and give em what they want

so, i’ve mentioned before that i have been writing a blog for years now. well, i was reading a dear friend’s blog the other day and was instantly reminded of something i wrote. and in my mind it was so present that i was sure that it was already on stephdub.com. so, i scoured my archives and came up blank. which led me to my myspace blog posts. after perusing the many years of posts, experiences, emotions and ramblings i finally found exactly what i was looking for. a post i had written about the balance of wanting to forget your dating past and start over with new people, and remembering all that has gotten you to where you are right now, presently.

the most shocking thing about this post is how present it was in my brian (like i had written it in the last 6 months) and how long ago i actually wrote it. in honor of my personal growth, experiences and roller coaster ride through life i have decided to post it in it’s entirety, with no rewrites. so here it is, word for word, in all it’s messy glory.

november 14th, 2006.  (wow that is over two years ago):

so there are times where you believe it is right. that this time it’s going to happen. this is the one. this is the new start. you’re ready to start fresh. but that is the exact mindset that hinders everything about starting fresh. we cannot just stop who we are, and what we do, and most importantly what we’ve done. we can only build on top of everything we think we want to rid ourselves of. there is no such thing as starting over. there is only moving forward. moving forward and working harder to make it happen. working harder to make the life you want. there are people that will be there the whole way, reminding you that everything you have done is you. and you are perfect for everything you’ve done. you are here now. this moment and therefore everything you’ve done makes you what and who you are now. but how in the world are you supposed to meet someone and let them into the parts of you that have been building up for your entire existence before they arrived. how does anyone ever find that someone. you, and what you are, become a business pitch to every new person you encounter. the elevator business pitch. limited time. get their attention. tell them why your last twenty three years should interest them. you make your pitch and you wait for the job offer. the part where you actually have to work at letting them see what you are made of. all the while trying to understand what has built up in them. but what if you say, ‘hey i want to work for you. i want to work for what is underneath those layers of laughs and jokes, careers and facades and get deep into the layers inside you.’ and they consider your pitch and decided on a candidate that they feel is better suited for their needs. why the hell would anyone want to ever start relationships voluntarily… friendship. romance. its work. and like at the job that pays you, its sucks to be the one always working. putting in more that the people around you. getting by just the same as them. but that extra work. thats what builds the layers. and thats the work that makes not starting over worth it. one day all this work will pay off. one day someone will buy that business pitch and that day will be the beginning of everything new. until then. learn to pitch. be rejected. over and over. get better at knowing what you want. learn. build your knowledge base. experience.

don’t know if i’m wide awake or dreaming, but all i ever need is… everything…

the crush factor

do try it once and then you know. it’s your move. settle for less again. again.

i was thinking about the concept of crushing. you know, having a crush on someone. and, though i understand some of the psychological benefits of getting a crush on someone, i realllllly can’t get past some of the icky effects of having said crush.
so, we have all these chemicals in our brian that make us blissfully sheltered from the harsh realities of life. they allow us to ‘be happy’ and see things positively. actually, they say that, simply put, clinically depressed people see the world with more of an accurate lens. these chemicals don’t allow them to float through life thinking that there are good things where others do. now, those of us that are not depressed, or are taking supplemental chemicals for it, see things as generally good. people as generally good. life as generally good.

so, back to a crush. why is it that crushes seem to ALLOW us to blatantly ignore anything real that is not one hundred percent positive. it seems that when we crush, our crushee can do no wrong. we get dressed with the anticipation of the first time our eyes meet that night. we arrange our schedules to allow for the maximum amount of possible hang out time. maybe we see them and get butterflies. we talk to them about all the things we have in common. and sooner or later this crush becomes the next persn we want to date. and efforts move forward in that direction.

but. these feel good chemicals that incite all the previously mentioned behaviors sometimes do us a total disservice. they allow us to spiral into wanting to date someone, without ACTUALLY knowing the whole story about them. we only know the good things. s/he is cute. funny. charming. intelligent. and that is all we need to know to swoon.

so, there was this boy. and he was cute, and we had so much in common. we knew some of the same groups of people. we had similar interests. interesting conversations. and i had a full blown crush. now this crush, thank goodness, didn’t last because of one awkward dating situation or another and i was able to get a more accurate view of who this guy was. and from that awkward moment on, everything he did and said kind of annoyed me. so i immediately started beating myself up for ever crushing on such a stupid boy. and become mad about the crush induced things i did. thinking, ‘why couldn’t i have seen all these things before so i didn’t waste my time on that boy.’  (so i don’t feel the need to berate myself for NOT seeing those things.)
not to get all academic geek on you, but i get the evolutionary psychology perspective on why the tendency to ‘crush’ is a positive thing that helps us survive. relationships are hard work. and we would not actively get into them if we had a realistic vision of all the good AND bad things about a person. it’s the same as the concept of romantic love. our brains trick us into falling for someone, so that once we get into a relationship and this romance fades we are already too deep in to abandon ship. and as cognitive dissonance theory suggests, we as humans would much rather change our beliefs than our behavior when the two don’t match up. so, our brains give us a nice chemical cocktail of happy love juice so that we fall (crush) for someone that we don’t know too much about. we act like we’ve fallen (see previous list of ‘crush’ like behaviors) and then when that cocktail wears off we are in a relationship and have to deal with the hard, honest, and real parts of that relationship. and the only way to rationalize what, in retrospect, we see as something we maybe would not have gotten into (actively) if we knew these things earlier is to change our belief about the not so positive things that we are feeling. because we can’t change the behavior (it’s already done!). so we then enter round two of happy juice lies and tricks our brian plays on us to induce all those ‘crush’ like feelings again cause we were happy then. and we change our beliefs about the things we may not like, to thinking positively about them. and the cycle continues.

but here’s the thing. what we REALLY need is not a happycrush cocktail of illusions when we meet someone, but a realistic person preview. like a realistic job preview. we need to know what we are getting ourselves into. i mean, what if that awkward dating moment had not snapped me out of my crush and i started dating a guy that thinks he is way more important than he actually is?! THEN i’d be in trouble. so my request to you, brain- i want to see accurately and clearly, and if it takes a few times before accurate and clear equals actual things in common, intelligent conversation, mutual attraction, and so forth then so be it. i’ll deal with meeting some not so great guys, just don’t trick me into falling for them. please! thank you.

like a breath. take in restraint like a breath. my lungs are so numb from holding back. eh, from holding back.

we get it, you don’t know what you’re doing….

try, try, try just a little bit harder. so I can love, love, love him, i tell myself.

this post is very much inspired by a craigslist missed connection that i read last week (oh yea, and the events of my and friends’ dating lives lately.)

basically the CL missed connection was to all the hipster boys of the mission neighborhood in san francisco, from a hipster girl.
word for word she says “Dearest hipster boys, 
We get it. You were a loser in high school. And now (*sigh*), gangliness, improper hygiene, and the-I-got-dressed-in-the-dark-look is hot (dare I even say sexy?) and you have absolutely no idea what to do. Yes, women exist, and you must (no matter how cool your guitar is), interact with them at some point.
The good news is we forgive you, but please (we’re begging), take note: saying hello to a girl in a bar is one thing, staring at her blankly all night and looking down at any eye contact while huddled with your friends (bros?) talking fixed gears and shades of fluorescence is an entirely different one. Repeat slowly: hell-o. We don’t bite and almost definitely want to talk to you just as much as you want to talk to us. And oh yea, shave your goddamn beards (cough* defense mechanism *cough). (thank god Faralito is better than sex.) 
Much love, Hipster Girls”

so first things first. i do not endorse the beard comment. if you know me at all you know that i love me some burly facial hair. BUT this girl has the most amazing point. on which i would really like to elaborate.

and i am really not picking on you boys… well maybe today i kind of am (and am apologizing for the heteronormative perspective of this post). here’s the deal. and i’m not just talking to hipster boys. though i believe that the people i am writing to and about were not necessarily the jocks in high school (because they only made up what, 25% of high school population anyways?!). i live in SF, i have a community of pure tech, art, web 2.0, music and even academic geeks as my friends. and, duh, i’m one of them. so if you do not fit into the above categories then sorry, disregard this post (not really, you need to hear this).
we, as girls, get it. boys are dumb at dating. sorry, but i have heard this more from boys than girls, so i know it is true. you’re shy, you were a dork in high school, you didn’t go to keggers in college, you played (still do) too many video games, you were a late bloomer, your best friend always got the girls, you don’t think you’re attractive, you really think that glasses hide your thoughts, or that they make you look cool and mysterious, you were in a long relationship that never allowed you date around. you were a band geek. you. have. no. idea. what. you. are. doing. WE GET IT.

but where the hell do you think WE learn from? from dealing with all of you dating incompetent boys. more accurately, from TRYING THINGS OUT. and learning from what works and doesn’t work. see, we are forced to have this attitude cause we are girls and girls apparently have this gene in us that makes us love all things relationships. but that’s not really the case. i, personally, am an academic geek that loves communication theory applied to relationships. other girls, they learn about dating from ACTAULLY DOING IT. with you boys. who by no means make it easy on us.

i am not placing full blame of the game on you, but this stuff doesn’t come any more naturally to us than it does to you. we just try. you don’t think that we think ‘having the talk’ is the most awkward thing ever?! we do. but we also know that if WE don’t initiate it, you never will. you don’t think that seeing you at the bar after you have been in our bed the weekend before is awkward? you don’t think that we would like to avoid all contact with you until that awkwardness goes away, too? you don’t think that it is weird that you are our ex’s best friend, or that we work together? sure. we. do. but we man up and plow through the awkwardness of dating cause we like you. and you’re cute. and socially awkward (read: retarded). and clueless on all things dating. and the number one rule of dating (the only rule we seem to know instinctually) is that dating is a game of equaling the playing field of vulnerability at all costs. so, you feel awkward cause you never learned in your thirty years of life how to talk to a girl you think is interesting. we get this, and therefore we make the SECOND move, talk to you, to put OURself out there and therefore we are now both vulnerable. you get it? we automatically give you the first round of vulnerability without actually knowing anything about your dating or cool status past. and if you do make the first move and approach us, therefore making yourself the one in a vulnerable position, i promise you this, we are DYING to level the playing field of vulnerability by putting ourselves back out there, too. this is the natural flow of dating. sharing things, learning things. working through things together.
so, we get it. you have no idea what you are doing. but, neither do we. we just try. and yes, it may make things uber uncomfortable, and we may look like the dumb girls in the process. but at least we are trying. whether or not my lady counterparts are as aggressive as i am in the combatting of awkwardness by walking up to it and shaking its hand or not, we are ALL ready to move past uncomfortable and awkward dating situations.

so can you JOIN us? instead of retreating behind your champagne of beers, thick framed glasses, american apparel hoodies, and guitars, step away from these disguisers of uncertainty and be an active part of the dating game with us. be awkward. and try new things… please?

try yeah, try yeah, hey, hey, hey, try yeah, oh try whoa! whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, oh anybody, oh anybody, oh anybody.

when it rains, it pours

heart and show stopper, break it off proper

so i have been meaning to write this post for a while. but i’m glad i didn’t. i like to mull things over (read: analyze them to death) until i’m certain of my thoughts. and i think i’ve sufficiently figured this one out.

a while back my boys were both going through a ‘when it rains it pours’ phase. and i was not (ha.) and saying that phrase repeatedly to me was their way of sympathizing (uh?). like, ‘oh steph it’s the way the universe works.’ like that’s all there is to it. and i began analyzing this concept. and after having a kind of when it rains it pours day earlier this week it now seems so obvious to me why this happens. i feel like a dummy (who says that?) for not seeing straight through it before now.
i have decided that the phrase ‘when it rains, it pours’ is the noun form of the verb ‘playing it cool.’

playing it cool works. it does for a million reasons. the most simple explanation is to apply the scarcity cognitive heuristic to dating and instantly understand why playing it cool works. we place more value on something we may not even be sure we want because of the possibility that we may not be able to have it when we want it. to play it cool is essentially to make yourself less available, thereby making yourself more valuable. (pure academic geek right there).

so. when you are playing it cool you become more valuable to cute boys or girls. and new cute boys and girls see this and want some of your valuable goods (haha i love my mood today). and if you are then interested in said additional cute boy or girl you begin to pursue them as well. and then, your time (availability) is divided even more. INCREASING its value! and therefore desirability! and boom! the cycle continues! creating the ‘when it rains, it pours’ effect.

the next thing you know you are veritable cute boy/girl dating magnet.
ha. i do believe i have learned my lesson. my crazy brain just needs to put my ridiculous dating life into academic terms and the world makes sense again. woot.

maneuver well, i tell girls that can’t tell
that say since i don’t look like maxwell
they think i can’t mack well

begging and choosing and dating…?

why don’t i just give in, have a drink and shake some hands?

beggars can’t be choosers. we’ve all heard it, said it, and probably felt it at some time. but i have a tendency to hold myself to this ‘philosophy’ when in a healthy world i’m probably not being fair to myself.
so i am going to my hardest to rationalize to my psyche and to the world why the phrase- beggars can’t be choosers- is NOT appropriate in the dating world.

it seems as though the longer when we ‘long’ for something and don’t get it the  closer and closer we get to begging for it. but, when it comes to a someone to date, or be romantically interested in we cannot let our brain fill in the gap with the rest of the phrase (we can’t choose).

it’s my personal philosophy that we cannot help who we like, or who we are attracted to. it’s just in us. it seems like it is still one of the most instinctual things about us. or maybe not. maybe with the paradigm shift from economic partnerships to ‘love’ based partnerships we created this ‘instinctual’ attraction button. (anyway, i digress). i subscribe to the idea that connection, attraction, and ‘it’ is just there for some people and not for others. it’s not personal who we find attractive, or ‘romantically funny’ (rather that platonically) or whatever. it just is. i like you. or i liiiiiiikkeeeee you. its one of those intangible things that separates the two. and therefore, it just is what it is.

SO. when my rational brain is creeping closer and closer to ‘beggar’ status with finding someone (the one?) to date… it unconsciously and rationally reacts in a ‘can’t be chooser’ way. for example- this week i was at a big concert (baracknrollsf.com) and per usual, a few gimlets in, i began to cut a rug in the the front of the huge venue. (apparently i “cut a few rugs”) so when i was finished and sweaty (by no means glistening) and this boy came over to chat me up i was shocked. as i wiped the rug cutting sweat from my brow he explained that he loved my dancing, my style, blah blah and would love to hang out sometime. now. this boy seemed cool. but the second he started talking to me i knew i wasn’t attracted to him. but when he asked me for my number i found myself giving it to him. and making plans…?!? (what?!) my inner voice was SCREAMING “you’re not interested” but it seemed as though my rational brain had plans of its own- being deprived of all romantical male attention for so long and all. so i gave my number to a boy who had a ‘fro twice the size of mine, and that i could be fine with never seeing again.

now. i am SURE that all of your rational brains are kicking in and saying “steph! you don’t even know him. he could totally be great but you’re never going to know cause you wrote him off as not interested.” and lecturing me on not being open minded. when really it is the classic “beggars can’t be choosers” phrase that you want to scream at me.

but you know what. screw that. love, relationships, dating, attraction- if we don’t demand what we want in these categories there is no way in hell that someone else will demand them for us (ex: you’re all probably thinking that i should have given that guy a shot). so as hard and irrational as it will be, next time a guy asks for my number (hahahahahahaha!) and i am not interested, i am not going to give it to him. i’m going to ignore the ‘can’t be choosers’ voiceS in my head and spare us both the awkward no call back later.

we can’t help who we are and are not attracted to. and we all hope to find that one that we are hopelessly attracted to in all aspects and have them feel the same way. but until that comes i’m not going to ‘try others on for size’ when everything in me say i’m not interested. be it rational or irrational. because, in all honesty, i’m not even a beggar. i just live in a society that makes me question myself, and self worth every moment of life, and that promotes the “beggars can’t be choosers and you’re looking pretty close to a beggar cause you’re single” mentality.

that is all.

you traded in your cross 
for a chance to dance with stars 
now nothing is sacred

textual romance.

the way you keep your distance is keeping my interest so i’ll keep it persistent

so we all know my weird obsession with communication theory, and using said theories to rationalize my emotions that spiral while riding the dating roller coaster. but it seems, as i’ve said before, that we are constantly entering muddy territory when it comes to the way we communicate in romantic relationships these days. and it’s been postulated that email and technology is creating a whole new range of miscommunications in the workplace. but what about technology in the romanticalplace?
for once i’m not going to talk about social media. i’m gonna go simple this time and ask… what is texting doing to our relationships?? i have had a few specific conversations lately with people who have intensely fallen for someone via text. um, myself included. and keep weighing the pros and cons of this little piece of mobile technological advancement and again, it seems that there is this weird catch 22 about texting in the beginning stages of dating… or even getting to know someone non romantically.

so, my cynical mood lately means i’ll start with a con. i mean, honestly, texting is an outright loop hole in accountability. it’s cheating. it’s easy. there are no voices involved. there are no pre phone call jitters. and texts can be flat out scripted. you can ask your friends if a text is “cute and clever” prior to sending. they can tell you that you sound desperate, or passive aggressive, or perfectly flirty, or appropriately vulnerable. and as i am writing this i realize. this is exactly WHY it seems that so many people i know ‘fall’ over text. because it IS scripted. you can make sure to ‘write’ exactly what you hope to be. rather than saying what comes out right then. text relationships are built on showing our ideal self. we try to be the most witty, the most nonchalant, the most cute, the most interesting, open, amazing person we can be. because we have time to plan. to scheme. to think about what we want to say, and how we want to say it. and so do they. so i suppose it makes sense that so many people i know have really felt connected to another romantically strictly via text conversations.

and i mean. i guess this isn’t bad. some people are shy. and texting allows these people to maybe say things they normally wouldn’t to someone’s face or through the phone lines/waves. because they can plan what they want to say they actually say it rather than letting shyness overcome them. it allows people to overcome time zones and scheduling conflicts. and it allows little bits of unexpected communication to come through. but does it allow people to be cowardly when a phone conversation is in fact appropriate? and now a days, with picture texts we don’t even need to verbalize what we are doing to someone, we just need to send a photo. a picture says a thousand words right?

but don’t words, spoken words, still serve a purpose when getting to know someone. isn’t the point of having a vulnerable conversation ‘verbally’ because you are connecting over the mere fact that you are opening up and putting yourself out there as well as the subject you are actually talking about?

so i’m torn on how i feel about texting and dating. in some cases it allows you to get to know someone in a less vulnerable way, encouraging you to open up more with out such consequences. get to know someone that is possible unavailable to see physically, or talk to on the phone. get to know someone when you may have been too shy to otherwise.

but it also allows you to create this fantastical relationship with the person on the other end of texting. because you can script what you want to say. you can wait before replying. you can ask other’s opinions. and to me… this seems dangerously unfortunate. because it’s obvious why texting has become a tried and true method of getting to know someone. there is less rejection. there is less vulnerability. there is more romance. there is more ability to be the person we hope to be (not just reacting to our environment).

and the rules of texting are really unclear. you can say you mistexted something if you feel embarrassed that you said it. you can claim to have never received a text if you want to avoid the subject. you can reply when ever you want, minutes or hours later. or never. and never touch the subject of the unanswered text, because god knows the person looking for an answer is not going to bring it up out of shear embarrassment of no response. smiley faces and exclamation points carry immense amount of weight, and less can be more or a very bad sign.
and i will most certainly not even begin to speak about drunk texting.
so my attempt to analyze the pros and cons of texting in dating has, yet again, turned into a clusterfuck of positive and negative uses of communication technology creating the ever eloquent and romantic catch 22 of information sharing enroute to connection. sigh.

though i may not know the right things to say
i’ll get it out to you one day
i’m shy that way

feeling old and behind in the dating game

so. i am 25. which may seem like nothing to many, seeing as many of the people in my life have seen and bid farewell to 25 years ago. but it is weird. twenty five and single. and hopelessly clinging to the idea of ‘the one.’ with no actual prospects, and no idea how to take my own advice about finding the one.

i was never one of those girls that planned out at what age she would get married, or have kids. in fact, whenever i tried to think of anything after college my mind was black. i have no idea in what city i will be married. what my home will look like. what he will look like. where we will raise our children. where we will honeymoon. what our ‘how we met story’ will sound like. or, really anything.

but in my desperation to believe that there will be someone that fits the unimaginable picture i have been noticing some sad (?) behavior on my part. i tend to obsess over these little things about boys that i meet and add these little things to the image in my head of my perfect mate. but these things are oddly normal. and i wonder- why do i place such ’should be expected’ things on a pedestal? why isn’t the image of my perfect mate comprised of huge values and characteristics?

for example. why do get overwhelmed with love and emotion when i see a man wearing a wedding ring. and my first though is “oh, thank god, he believes. he believes in commitment, and relationships, and love.” i mean, fifty percent of people are married. why is THAT my first thought. or meeting a guy who has gone to couples therapy. why is my first though “oh i love that he gets it, and wants to make it work.” or the guy carrying the bouquet of flowers on the train during rush hour. or the guy in a band belting out about the one that broke his heart.  why to i long so deeply for these little silly things. things that one should expect from a partner. at least should believe she deserves.

maybe its because i have dated emotionally unexpressive people. leading me to live breathe and die for any small sign of affection. or maybe because i fall for the unavailable people in my life. or maybe because i am not used to admitting, to myself or anyone else, that i have emotional needs. maybe it is because i haven’t seriously dated anyone in geezus two and a half years. but whatever the reasoning, i can’t even imagine what it is like to date someone who gets it. who lets himself fall. i don’t even know if i remember what it’s like to be in a relationship. and i know that i haven’t really experienced what it is like to be with someone that wants people to know that we are together, and that could not imagine being with anyone other than me. a guy that expresses feelings. HAS feelings. embraces feelings. BELIEVES IN LOVE.

so here i am, at twenty five. feeling SO FAR BEHIND in the dating game. how am i supposed to imagine a life of marriage and babies and love and commitment when i can’t even imagine having a boyfriend. someone who wants to see me as much as i want to see him. and can and will tell me that.

twenty five. in a new city. with a million friends. and no dates. no mutual connections. and no idea how or where to even begin.

would you meet me in the windy city
when i come down from the sky

friends, and their dates

clearly we like our friends. we like them for being who they are. that’s what friendship is. appreciating our friends for everything they are, positives, areas of opportunity (hello corporate america) differences from ourselves and everything in between. this is why our friends usually last though the roller coaster ride that is the twenty/thirty something dating life. we look to them to give their rational opinion of the people we date, and often really listen to what they have to say. and if we are lucky, the people we date, become friends of our friends. they fit in, and our protectors accept them and life is good.

but before we get to the point where a significant other makes it through to ‘friend’ status, we usually put our core group through quite a bit of shenanigans with all the people we date. and i wonder, do we expect too much of our friends and their support and effort through OUR navigation of the dating process? well, ok, i expect a lot of my friends in general. so maybe i’ll rephrase. why is it that we are so quick to put our friends- our support system- in unfair, confusing and difficult positions while we are dating?

let me explain. we start seeing someone, and usually we see them one on one for a while (while we get to know each other) and then comes the friend introduction. this is usually a very important step in the dating game. we introduce this person to our friends for a multitude of reasons. 1. we are excited about this new suitor and want our friends to know the person that we think is so great. 2. we want our friends’ opinions- because, honestly, they do a much better job of staying rational about judgement on who is good for us and who is not once we get emotionally involved with a datee. 3. we want our datee to know our friends (our support system, our family) because our friends DO mean so much to us, and we love them for all they are. 4. but ultimately, we want our friends to make our datee feel as loved, welcomed, awesome, and supported as they make us feel.

and that is a lot to ask of our friends. friendships are hard. sometimes even more so than romantic relationships. they take energy and effort and emotional work. so to ask our friends to just accept a new friend into the group because we ’said so’ (in our emotionally and ‘carnally’ influenced state) is a large request. and often, because our friends want us to be happy, they oblige. and usually, the beginning of this friendship with the datee is not easy. it takes work. effort to get to know the datee, what their interests are, what their background is, etc. basically, the friends must play the dating game on a non romantic level to get to know everything there is to know about this new person. (and we all know how HARD dating is with someone we are ROMANTICALLY interested in)

so, as friends, we put in all this work and effort because we love our friend. and they deserve to be happy. and we want to do anything we can to increase their chances of being happy (read: entertaining the revolving door of datees that comes through). and during this process we usually don’t get to see our friend without the datee, cause that is how the early stages of dating are. and we go with this because we would rather see our friend than not, even if it means that we have to see their datee too, and put in work and effort.

so here comes the unfair part. we expect our friends to put in all this effort to get to know, and hang out with the people we are dating. and then we break up, or change how we feel about the datee, and expect our friends to just break up with them too. and this is understandable, at certain levels. but, obviously, this gets really tricky when the datee is around for any particular amount of time. because we get used to having them around. we have put in the effort to create a friendship, and then are expected to just ditch all the efforts because the emotional/carnal needs/desires/feelings of our beloved friend have changed.

it just seems like a lot. and i feel like it is unfair. now, don’t get me wrong. i have no IDEA how this could go any differently. and i love my friends, and usually have no terrible judgement on who they date (and if i do, its rational and i tell them), but stepping back and looking at the situation rationally gives me this weird ‘oh my gosh why is it like this’ feeling.

dating is hard. friendships are hard. because anything worth anything takes effort. but it seems like we expect our friends put SO much effort into OUR dating lives- all while they are trying to navigate through their own dating lives. and i mean. they do this to us too. but, i just feel like there has to be an easier way! why all this effort?!

i guess it all comes down to the fact that we love the people in our lives, and because of the nature of love, we put them through hell, and expect them to do the same. what is WITH our crazy human brains?!

i remember back then thinking: easy comes but doesn’t stay, what comes easy never stays