Analogies

It was during my date with Mr. Wit, that a very interesting conversation transpired. It all started out relatively normal, with me blabbing on and on about school and my masters degree as if anyone really cares (I really should let the guys get a word in edgewise). I mean yea my program is really awesome and I’m learning all this fascinating and interesting information about the body and it’s really so amazing. Its beyond most people’s realm of comprehension really…oh shoot , there I go again! Anyway, after I pretty much talked his ear off, we started talking about TV shows that we watch.

Sidebar: In the past, I’ve often found myself saying I was a fan of a show the guy watched even if I had only seen like 3 episodes. No idea why I did this because it really made for an awkward few moments when he goes into the whole “oh remember when bla bla bla happened” and then I am subsequently forced to phase into the “smile and nod” mode. Anyway, I don’t do that anymore because in actuality I HATE southpark and family guy and basically any adult cartoons (newslflash guys: GROW UP!). So no, I will not pretend to like them.

Mr. Wit started to remark on how there are so many vampire shows on TV lately and how he doesn’t understand why all women are obsessed with vampires. Being that this is a topic that I am fairly proficient in, I attempted to explain it all in layman’s terms. It went a little something like this:

The reason that girls like the whole vampire topic is because each and every plot line stars a smitten vampire who lead a troubled life as a vagabond for the past 200 years and then miraculously turns almost saintlike, all for his beloved (usually portrayed as a very “girl next door” type of ordinary). What woman wouldn’t want a guy with a dark past who suddenly sees the light (vampire pun intended) all because of her? Yes, she was the one who saved him and whatever was left of his vampy soul.

Needless to say, Mr. Wit looked at me like I had sprouted fangs and demanded his blood as dipping sauce for my fries. He simply couldn’t grasp the significance of what the vampire represents in the female psyche.

I tried again with an analogy:

Bad boys: girls :: vampires: females

(For those of you who failed the analogy section of the SAT, this may be a little over your heads and for that I apologize.)

It is well known that girls are typically drawn to the “bad boy” persona.

Why you might ask?

Well it is because a woman’s secret fetish is getting that bad boy to change FOR HER. She wants to be the girl he opens up to, the girl he falls for, the one who is able to break down that bad boy exterior of his to reveal the love-deprived boy inside crying for a hug.

It is the same thing with this vampire obsession! This leather jacket wearing, blood sucking monster finds a woman and is mesmerized by her to the point where he transforms into this completely changed romantic, chivalrous, sweet man. ITS ALL FOR HER.

We women are all attention whores deep down inside. Let’s be real here,  what woman wouldn’t feel empowered and flattered by a man who is willing to sacrifice his previous lifestyle choices for her?

It was then that Mr. Wit, to some extent, understood my point. After discussing how even though the “bad boy turned good” is not really realistic due to the fact that men never change unless it comes from within themselves, he threw me another solid inquiry.

Mr. Wit: So let me understand… What you are saying is that the only reason girls like the bad boy is because she wants him to become good for HER right?

Me: Yep… pretty much.

Mr. Wit: So then why don’t they just go for the guy who is ALREADY good????

Me: Hahaha… you know nothing about women.

Mr. Wit: (confused look on his face)

Me: Where is the challenge in that ???

To sum:

Men are from Mars women are from Venus. It’s no use for a Venutian such as myself, to try and use broken Martian in order to explain the intricacies of our kind. Its a moot point.

The women out there know what I’m talking about right? If not, I suggest you get out from underneath that rock you’ve been living under and watch : Vampire Diaries, True Blood or any of the Twilight movies for proof.

Guys, watch those shows and learn some tips on how to be dark, brooding and chivalrous.

A Game of Wits

If there’s one thing I appreciate, its a guy with a sense of humor. I LOVE it all… Flirty conversations with wordplay and sarcastic exchanges…its the stuff I fantasize about.

A little wit goes a long way with me. I guess it has to do with my affinity for flirting writing.

There’s just something very sexy about a guy who knows how to talk the talk without sounding like a walking cheesy pickup line. As Miss Anxiety once referred to it, “brain chemistry”, is a very powerful tool that very few men possess…

I bring this up because I once had the pleasure of exchanging a few witty text messages with a guy who I did end up going on a very different kind of first date with. He was extremely good at wordplay and therefore a worthy opponent in a “game” that I typically excel at.

After a day or so of texting, I decided to see how well he handled a potentially awkward comment.

Behold: (He is green, I am white)

 

I can be pretty evil sometimes no? Ah, but it’s all in good fun.

As I waited for that to sink in I laughed to myself curious about what his reply might be. Would he cancel the date? Laugh it off? Call my bluff?

 

Well played my friend….

I immediately burst out laughing because COME ON that stuff’s funny!

Now honestly if I wasn’t into him because of his sense of humor I probably would have been really put off by that kind of suggestive remark.

Anyway the short and short of it is that laughter makes the heart grow fonder… or is that absence? Either way I ended up going out with him and it turned out that he was the one who needed a paper bag over his head. Not that I am shallow or anything, but he really didn’t have the authority to deem Jennifer Aniston as sub par looks wise.

I was willing to go out with him again (solely based on his sense of humor) but he said that he felt I was someone he would have as a best friend and not as a girl friend. Interesting because I was under the impression that the two went hand in hand. It was probably due to an interesting discussion that transpired over dinner, the contents of which will be discussed in a future blog post.

Better for me because I always find it very taxing to wait for his winning personality to progressively make me attracted to him. Its always better when the two qualities are there from the get-go.

To sum:

Wit and humor are a potent combination for a man. If you can handle yourself at a battle of wits with yours truly, you earn major points in my book. And it is well known that points always get you places…

Qualifications

It was at the recent and incessant urging, pronounced nudging [nuh 'jing], of my mother that I made the four block trek to visit with a community renowned matchmaker. Despite the weeks I spent mentally preparing myself for this unavoidably awkward encounter, it was still not even remotely enough to help me deal with what can only be described as a parade of eeek/yeeeshhh/did you really say that?/tug on you collar kind of awkward moments…

As if the idea of meeting with a complete stranger isn’t uncomfortable enough, why not meet with this complete stranger who’s speciality in life, who’s PROFESSION, is to set people up on dates with complete strangers?

Ah… the infamous irony does not escape me.

Sign me up!

Anyway, after speaking to this woman on the phone alone, I knew I was in for something potentially blog worthy. Feel free to thank me later.

At long last we set up a time to meet at her house. The instant she answered the door, The Matchmaker shrieked in a high pitched voice that I was pretty sure only dogs could hear..

The Matchmaker : “OH my GAWDDDD you are stunning!!!”

Which she then followed up with “I don’t understand HOW you are still single!”

As you may recall, I don’t exactly do well with compliments. The latter statement kind of nullified the former compliment, so I guess it was an acceptable way to compliment a person (me) who usually leaves the self deprecating responses to herself. This type of backhanded remark she gave delivered was an interesting, and slightly offensive, compliment that The Matchmaker probably gave in order to provide the situation with some much needed comic relief.

Or at least thats what I told myself in order to:

a) Make myself feel better

b) Give this woman the benefit of the doubt that she isn’t ACTUALLY that dense to make that kind of comment

c) The answer is really B

We spoke for a few minutes about what I was up to in life, how I am pursuing my masters degree, and what I was looking for in a man. It was then that she dropped yet another genius comment out of her face hole.

The Matchmaker: Oh wow!!! Well…ummm… I don’t know what to tell you. You are overqualified.

Oh…

I didn’t realize that one could be overqualified for a husband.

My bad.

This is awkward…. I guess I’ll be leaving now…

SERIOUSLY?!!?! As if I wasn’t already convinced of the fact that there is an ever dwindling pool of men out there to begin with (I won’t even limit it to normal men because that is down to about the size of a teardrop of a crying ant).

So essentially this woman is telling me that in addition to the fact that the ratio of normal guys to girls is .00000000034: 1, ASIDE from and in addition to that, apparently I am also overqualified.

What the heck is this? A job? What does that even mean!? Overqualified???

I mean I knew that being in a relationship/getting married would be hard work (pun intended) but I didn’t think they meant in the literal sense.

As I held back my fit of giggles/rage I kept thinking about what she meant by overqualified. I thought of myself as some kind of sad law school graduate who applies for a job at a fast food restaurant because there aren’t any other available means of employment? Does she expect me to settle?

Before I had time to contemplate the methods to her madness, The Matchmaker explained that I am too pretty, too tall and too smart and that unfortunately all of the men she knew were either

a) Short and educated

OR

b) Tall and dumb

Ohh my! How can I possibly decide between two such tempting choices!?

The look on my face spoke volumes. It was a mixture of hatred and frustration combined with a blatant stare that conveyed the message that I was would sooner shoot myself in the foot rather than listen to one more minute of her mindless prattle.

Essentially The Matchmaker suggested that I either dumb myself down OR shrink down a few inches (preferably both in order to further increase my potentials). She even remarked that I should probably be prepared to throw out my high heels because my height is a deterrent to those unfortunate vertically challenged individuals.

Yes it is...

She then sat in front of me and proceeded to scroll through her Blackberry for someone… ANYONE to date this poor overqualified singleton. She would sigh to herself as she scrolled away saying “Nope, too short, uneducated, short, short…etc.” Every few moments she would throw out a name of a guy who she thought would qualify…

And ironically, it just so happened that I dated ALL of the ones she suggested (I hang my head in shame):

The Count…..check (please!!!!!)

Mr. Know it all…check (please!!!!!!!)

Lovely. What do they do? Recycle the same guys over and over again? The only thing those 2 had in common was that they were tall (ish). I mean it does give them a big advantage in my book because one of my biggest “tall girl problems” is….

But once they opened their mouths it was all extremely steeply downhill.

Finally The Matchmaker managed to pull a name that I didn’t know out of her hat. “AHA! He is so nice! I met him one time at Starbucks and he really was very nice. I don’t know anything about his family though and I also don’t know any girls who have dated him. So, I’m not sure if he will take you to a nice fancy restaurant or just for coffee.”

Oh… because thats what’s important. Fancy dinners.

I wanted to explode at her for being so presumptuous and assuming that I was that materialistic and for trying to stick me with some guy who she knows nothing about. You’re a matchmaker- do some research before setting me up with a potential axe murderer. K thanks!

That whole afternoon was a disaster. Aside from dispelling any hope that I had of getting set up with someone remotely next to normal. It just showed how UNDERQUALIFIED she was to be setting me up.

To sum:

I think it is completely unfair that guys have such a broad selection of attractive, smart and kind people while we have to sift through the scraps of vertically and intellectually challenged men/men-children. I, for one, refuse to settle and exasperatingly demand an answer to my age old inquiry…

WHERE ARE THE NORMALTONS HIDING????????????????????????????

Awkward compliments

In general, I don’t do well with compliments. I don’t know what it is but sometimes they just make me uncomfortable and self conscious. For whatever reason, whenever anybody gives me a compliment, my knee-jerk response is to deflect it with some kind of self deprecating remark. Call it fishing for compliments or anything else, I guess in the back of my mind what I’m doing is testing you, the complimenter. Will your compliment still hold water after I reveal something ugly about myself?

Examples:

Scenario 1

Complimenter: Wow that dress looks so great on you

Me: Uchh I’m so sick of it, I think I’ve worn it about 100 times.

Scenario 2

Complimenter: Your makeup came out gorgeous!

Me: Yea but my eyebrows are SOOO weird no?

Complimenter: Umm no. What does that even mean?

Scenario 3

Complimenter: You look so beautiful

Me: But I didn’t even get dressed up!!!

Complimenter: I like the relaxed “at home look”

Me: Uch I’m gross

Complimenter: Why can’t you just accept the compliment and say thank you???

Me: I DON’T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really don’t know why I do this! I have to just learn to say thank you and be done with it. In due time I will learn. It’s not easy I tell ya and it makes me think about that scene from Mean Girls when Regina George compliments pre-coke head Lindsay Lohan:

Regina: You’re like, really pretty

LL: Thanks

Regina: So you agree? You think you’re really pretty?

Its almost as though it is EXPECTED for her to disagree! WHYYYY IS THIS? I’ve thought about it a lot and am still at a loss for an answer. I think I’m getting better at it though! Now my strategy is not to deflect the compliment, but rather to accept it and add some kind of joke.

Complimenter: You smell really good

Me: Thanks, I showered for a change

All in unison: Hahahaha

I guess I just don’t like calling attention to myself and need to make light of the situation or else my cheeks will turn every shade of red possible. Some people wear their hearts on their sleeve, I wear all my emotions on my face.

Anyway, lets get to the main crux of the issue. Essentially, the above were relatively normal compliments and I couldn’t even deal with them. So, if you will, IMAGINE what my reaction is to those compliments that are SOOO awkward in nature that you just want to pretend they never happened.

“La LA LA La I’m not hearing this”

The reason I bring this up is because I received such a compliment mere moments ago (via text message obviously because I don’t think ANYONE in their right mind would ever say something so awkward out loud or in front of people). It was simply SO incredibly uncomfortable to read that I just had to ignore it completely which, thankfully, is fairly easy in the technological world; just change the subject.

Now I know you are all wondering what this unfortunate subject of my blog said that made me cringe so severely that I even made an audible “uccchhh.”

Well, I’ll tell you.

He said… wow I really am holding back the vomit right now.

” You’re imbedded in my mind, your face is a national treasure”

(Mind you, I met the guy ONCE and also National Treasure was a terrible movie so I was kind of offended. Definitely not Nicholas Cage’s best work)

Ummmmmmm… yea….do people really say these kinds of things and expect it to work?

Did I miss something?

Am I supposed to be swooning? Because I’m really not… AT all.

And why not an INternational treasure? Is my beauty limited to American soil?

To sum:

Guys- When offering elegant compliments and flatteries to females, do try to make them sound natural. Attempt to give them as unstudied an air as possible (Prof BH- points if you pick up on this quote). Otherwise, you just freak us out K thanks!

Girls (including me)- ACCEPT the damn compliment! I know I’m not the only one who does this deflecting/compliment thwarting! Be confident, say YEA I look DAMNNNN good!! Then allow him to treat you like the INternational treasure that you are.

Questions, I’ve got some questions…

There comes a time (or 12) in every girl’s life when she feels a little down on her luck. It is then that reinforcements are recruited in the form of what is known as a “pity party” or in my/The Shoe Whore’s words… a “betch sessh.”

Betch Sessh: noun ['bech sesh]

1. A gathering of betches where the topic of discussion is of a general betchy, and sometimes self pitying, nature. Usually accompanied by the intake of extremely high calorie food.

Last night was no exception. As the Shoe Whore and I downed mass quantities of oily food derivatives in a highly attractive manner, we betched about …drumroll please… guys.

Well obviously!

With the summers end comes introspection and reflection. Did we accomplish what we set out to do? Did we meet any normal guys??

After conducting extensive interviews among my inner circle of friends, to the latter came a unanimous “NO”. So now comes the most predictable of questions…

Where are all of the Normaltons hiding?

Thorough research has yielded the following results regarding this age old question:

According to The Hopeless Romantic, an expert in the field of all things cheesy, the reasoning behind the disappearance if the Normaltons is due to a process called “molding”. Starting at a very young age, boys are taught to fear strong and intelligent women in order to protect their masculine pride and ego. Because of this, many men seek girlfriends and wives that are significantly younger than them in an attempt to “mold” them into what they want. Thus leaving the strong, intelligent and independent women in the dark. “God forbid these men should have to deal with real women! The horror! (insert BBM covering the eyes face).”

Professor B.H concurred with The Hopeless Romantic and has even coined her own theory on the matter. “The Fresh Hot Pizza Theory is very applicable to the current times. Nowadays, nobody who enters a pizzeria wants the older colder pizza slices that have been sitting out. Instead, they wait for the nice hot fresh slices to come out of the oven.” In her thesis entitled “Relationships and Pizza”, Professor BH discusses the similarities between the two seemingly unrelated topics.

At a recent panel discussion, she posed the following question to a riveted audience “Why would a man want an older woman, when if they simply wait a bit longer, they can have a fresh young one?” Unfortunately the only downside to hot pizza is the possibility of burning the roof of your mouth. Otherwise, there were not many upsides to cold pizza.

In a world where even bad pizza is still pretty good, I find myself wondering…what’s a cold pizza to do?

Join a dating site? Even Big Blue Eyes claimed she “isn’t THAT desperate.”

In a moment of exasperation, The Hopeless Romantic exclaimed that she “Hasn’t had a date since February, with the exception of Matthew Mconaughey.” As an avid watcher of romantic comedies, this surprised no one. Women all over New York are throwing up their arms in defeat. Even the Shoe Whore was frustrated enough to comment  saying that finding a guy is just too hard! “Honestly, just give me an arranged marriage! Or better yet, I’ll visit a sperm bank and be done with it.”

As a New Yorker with standards I heartily agree with all of these women. I even admit to eyeing couples around NYC and am comforted when I see an unattractive woman with a wedding ring. As ridiculous as that may sound, I find myself secretly excited thinking well, if she can find someone, there is still hope!

I don’t even need to leave my house to find that out though. All I have to do is check my newsfeed on Facebook to see who is newly married or engaged. The best part is how the nerdiest girls and the most awkward guys in high school proudly display their coupley profile pictures; the epitome of wedded bliss.

The Hopeless Romantic, in a completely unromantic and surprisingly betchy manner, simply could not take it anymore. “It really isn’t fair.” After a recent betch sessh, she said the following about the marriage of a very big nerd from our graduating class “she is having sex, and I’m sitting here with a tub of ice cream, as if my ass really needed it.”

 To sum:

There is still more research that must be done on this topic. With more and more women going on to graduate school and pursuing careers, men will just need to understand that this is not a threat to their egos/masculinity and act accordingly. Cold pizzas UNITE!!!!

Everybody move your body

Except me of course…

Have you ever been strolling through the park and seen adorable couples jogging side by side with HUGE smiles plastered on their faces? Laughing together as the sweat happily pours out of their pores.

OH JOY!!!!!!!

These people.

They make me look bad.

Why, you might ask?

Well, anyone who is anyone who knows me, knows that I’m not what most people would call athletic. I’m not overweight or anything, and people are usually very surprised to discover that I don’t play basketball or volleyball. I distinctly recall my mother putting me in a basketball league when I was about 8 or 9. She said I spent the whole time fixing my hair. What can I say? I’m a girly girl. My dear mother also claimed that when I wasn’t fixing my hair, I was running away from the ball. To this, I laugh a hearty, full bodied laugh. “Hahahahaha”

Me? Run? That must be some kind of joke…

You see, ladies and gentleman…. The sad truth is, I can’t run. No, seriously, I just can’t. It doesn’t work for me. Watching me run has been compared to: a penguin attempting to run across slippery ice, waddling, other bird-like euphemisms, and Pheobe from Friends.

 

 

So, whenever I am subjected to people who CAN run, I am instantly jealous of them, and not for the reasons you are probably assuming.

No, I’m not jealous because their bodies are releasing pleasure inducing endorphins or that their are increasing their cardio output which leads to longevity and a healthier lifestyle. Nope, my jealousy stems from a more sinister place…

If for some reason, I needed to run away from say, a rapist/murderer/approaching tidal wave/outbreak of the plague/ terror attack/ex-boyfriend/mutated apes on a bridge (No really, I think about these things!!!)… It would be a lost cause, unless of course the rapist/murderer’s plans are foiled due to an uproarious laughing fit from watching me try to flee.

To sum:

Today is the day people! I will move my body !!!! From this bed, to the kitchen for my morning cup of coffee.

Hey, gotta start somewhere