Tag: dating

Ugh

We enter into the scene at Hannah’s gym, just after she has finished attending the midday workout class… Hannah has received multiple messages from her girlfriend named Devon, regarding Hannah’s being signed up for another dating app while she was in class, because the one Devon used last night to find someone for Hannah to date wasn’t going so well…

Reading the confirmation code messages, followed by the explanation messages from Devon, Hannah is stunned, and can’t tell if she is excited or totally bothered by this new information just given to her, like a post-workout shake… Brandon walks in just as Hannah exclaims with understanding…

Hannah: Ugh!

Brandon: 🤨

Hannah: Devon is signing me up on all these dating apps…

Brandon: 😂

Hannah: Ugh…

Brandon: Well, I guess…. that’s… what friends… are for…🤔

Hannah: 🤦🏼‍♂️

…….

Brandon: There’s actually a new CrossFit dating app. I just read about it yesterday on Instagram.

…………..

Hannah tells Devon about conversation… Devon’s only and immediate response is, “Ooo I’m gonna find it”…

… cue another face palm for the afternoon for Hannah …🤦🏼‍♂️

Great day, huh?😂

It really was great, though… 🙂

And, despite the fact that I really am not pro-digital dating and dating applications, I’ve enjoyed considering the possible futures with all these different people – I only cross so many people a day who are eligible for such analysis, and so this is kind of an over flux of brain exercises in the form of picturing a possible future with various good-looking guys.

So, yeah, I am enjoying it a bit… but I’m also not caring too much, and am letting her handle things, you know? 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Weird Dreams

I had a dream last night in which I attended an odd sort of reunion for my elementary school.

There were really only about ten people in attendance, and it took place at my elementary school.

However, I haven’t actually been inside my elementary school since it was torn down and rebuilt years and years ago, so, I was a little lost in finding the right room at the reunion… I even came across a room for another reunion first and said hi to a kid I knew from middle school and who didn’t go to my elementary school, but that didn’t stop my brain’s having him be attending his own reunion in that particular classroom at my elementary school…

My mom had dropped me off, and given me a kiss and wished me a good time, and I was slightly nervous but also oddly comfortable – I haven’t seen these people in almost fifteen years, but that didn’t seem to matter (or, perhaps, it helped)…

In the actual hangout, we were all sitting at some tables at one point, talking as a group, when the guy next to me makes an executive decision, and full-on kisses the guy next to him on the mouth.

Immediately following, he declares that ‘well, now he knows’ what that’s like, at which point I notice distinctly who the two of them are: tall Kevin W. kissed little Ryan S.

(Mind you, this is how they were as kids, and so my brain decided to mature them while maintaining the relative heights.)

And no one had a problem with it.

One guy made a comment jokingly, kind of in remembrance of something stupid he would have said back in the day, but, now that none of us cares about homosexuality, he wouldn’t have even thought of being uncomfortable or if making a stupid comment… actually, that was why Kevin kissed Ryan – because we were talking about how we and thins had changed and that homosexuality wasn’t something anyone teased about or was uncomfortable about… if a guy kissed a guy, gay or not, we wouldn’t care…

And so then Kevin kissed Ryan, even though neither of them is it was gay, and our point was proven that none of us minded, and Kevin and Ryan got to see what kissing one another was like.

And then it all shifted and there was somehow a pool and people and we were participating in a swimming party for our reunion gathering… my mom dropped something off to me at some point – perhaps it was a swimsuit…. – and I’m not remembering much else in enough detail to describe now, so I’ll leave it at that.

It was a fun gathering and idea, and an even more fun dream – I kind of wish we could do a real one (and I wouldn’t mind if Kevin decided to kiss Ryan at this one, too!)… it would be nice to see everyone again and to see how our lives led us forward… I think I would like that very much. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Crazy Brain

Do you ever just go nuts in your mind, imagining the ideal desired future of some situation, even though you’ve only just begun?

I met a guy today (who is gorgeous, by the way).

The little girl in me is totally starstruck in love.

A short while after meeting him, my brain had already imagined and visualized a scenario in which this guy and I date and become super close and a wonderful couple, eventually semi living together, and, after months into it all, he meets my family, and my various family members have various reactions to him, as well as to the fact that I not only have been dating someone for so long but also that this guy is the guy I’ve been dating (because he’s not so typical of what others in my family have dated or married)… and, it was at about this point, I realized how nuts this situation was, and I just started laughing…

I met him about two hours ago, and I was just now contemplating – albeit passively – how my family would take the news of my dating him and, then, of our plans to marry… now, another few hours later, even though I chastened my brain a bit earlier, I have already considered the idea of how he and I might manage our wedding (wedding or not, and what style of what, and why), how we would live and where, and casual details of our physical relationship….

I know almost nothing about him, but clearly my brain does not care.

Is this a typical thing people do/have happen?

It is for me, anyway… I’ve come to see it as a double-benefit situation:

First, I get the fun and practice of dreaming up scenarios in life, as well as the chance to have everything go exactly as I would love for to to go – dreams come true.

Second, I get to test the idea of a future with someone, and have a general sense of whether I could see a future with that person.

I don’t expect my brain’s scenarios actually to play out in real life as they do in my head, and so I’m never angry whenever they don’t happen (though I am ever so slightly bummed, of course), and I take things as they come…, but it feels to me like my being able to envision a future with someone is a good sign – if I couldn’t imagine a future together, well, then maybe it’s a hard no for me, right?

That’s kind of how I see it, anyway… maybe my brain does it to help take care of me, to make sure I pursue the good paths and not the bad ones, giving me exciting possibilities in my mind, whenever I’ve found a good match for whatever the circumstances…

Either that or I’m just a little bit totally nuts… you know… 😛

P.S. A mere minutes after posting this, he and I now have a baby girl, and she is gorgeous, and he is absolutely adorable with her…

P.P.S. The funniest part to me is how I genuinely do think about other things, but they somehow all feed into another new thought about the future I could have with this guy… just now, I was thinking about the show we saw tonight, and then the summer camp where my brother loved working, and all the campers and kids there, and then the idea of how I would feel pregnant, if I ever one day would do it, and then I suddenly had an image of this guy holding what was clearly our baby girl… I mean, where did he even come from??… uninvited, he still shows up, and our future together progresses… 🤦🏼‍♂️😂

Post-a-day 2019

Trustworthiness

I think it is important that we either always remain alert or always remain fully willing and able to become acutely alert at any moment in life.

Sometimes, situations are perfectly fine and safe to a point, and then w ended to be alert and wary – “Proceed with caution,” our mind must tell us.

But how often are we unwilling to become alert in a situation?

If things have been fine for so long, do we become somewhat ‘immune’ to any concern that may arise, due to the fact that nothing bad has happened so far?

Do we forget that anything can change, despite something’s having been the same for as long as we can remember?

I think this is a common situation that females can run into in relationships with males… he has been reliable and totally safe so far, so long as I have known him…, and so I miss seeing those spots where he suddenly is pushing limits, and I don’t notice things fully until something really big has happened in a way I had never hoped for things to happen… possibly something very bad… Do we give the benefit of the doubt for too long sometimes?… Do we feel guilty for turning our senses on full alert, and so force ourselves to ignore them, convince ourselves that the warning bells aren’t really there, but are just in our minds?

I think it ultimately is important for us, if not to be always on alert, always to be willing to be on full alert, and in any situation.

And I don’t mean merely females, here – I mean all people.

Do you know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019

Now That is one attractive man…

People always talk about their type, like in dating.

I’ve never really had a definitive type of my own, though I’ve tried really hard to find it.

However, I’ve discovered a pattern as I’ve thought it through this past year and a half.

The more I travel and learn about other cultures, the more diverse my likes become, not just in things but in people and in partners, too.

The only commonality, it seems, is that they are all human and they all have great teeth… otherwise, the differences abound. 🙂

So, I guess a lot more of our taste in partners than I’d ever expected really does have to do with nurture, and not just nature.

Post-a-day 2018

Middle School Men

I used to fake a friend’s name in middle school.  I did.  To clarify, I faked his name in writing.  I didn’t know how it was spelled, and I never worked up a way to find out (and to remember) how to write it.

Traditionally, I always wrote people’s names clearly.  Sure, my handwriting was sloppy and small and almost always in cursive.  However, I took the time to write people’s names, oftentimes in print, and much better than my standard note-taking, squinty script.  So, when it came to this one friend’s name, I faked a sloppiness that was not my own.

See, regularly, when he wrote his own name, he connected the last two letters together somewhat, making it unclear as to whether it was a hurried -an or -on at the end of his name.  It was a somewhat irregular name, and so I had no basis for comparison.  Plus, the pronunciation didn’t help – there were plenty of foreign-like names that had an -an sound like a US English -on.  (Take Han Solo for example.)  To top it off, the first note he gave me, whenever he signed his name, I couldn’t tell which way his name was spelled.  And, since I saw it that way first, that was what stuck.

I had heard how people spelled his name wrong all the time, and I had seen it spelled by others both ways.  I was not about to make that same mistake.  Therefore, I just threw in a stab of – and I say stab casually, but it truly was painful for me – sloppiness whenever I wrote his name in particular, and no one ever had to find out.

(Until now, of course, but that is beside the point.  These sorts of things mattered among young people learning to become friends in middle school.)

It was kind of funny, really, remembering all of this tonight.  It all came to me, because of something similar about slightly illegible writing, but, because it was from middle school, I ended up with the song “sk8r boi” by Avril Lavigne in my head (a middle school hit).  As I thought about the song, I happened to notice how my middle school was somewhat the reverse of the “sk8r boi” scenario.  The nerd-esque boy in the ever-present UT jacket that seemed to conceal any shirt he ever wore – oops… I digress – now, he seemed to want me (and everyone knew it).  I semi-wanted him, but I declined because he was not the cool kid, so to speak; he didn’t have the skater boy edge to go along with his book brains.  (I didn’t actually like the skater boys at my school either, but my brothers roller skated and skate boarded a little, and their general coolness was my standard for what was needed in a desirable guy [and still is], in addition to brains.)

I somewhat cared about what all my friends thought about him, but that totally wasn’t my reasoning.  I just didn’t actually have a crush on the guy.  We were classmates, and I had a blast going back and forth in contest with him over having the highest grade in class (math class for sure, I remember).  But he didn’t have what I desired – he was just a half package, so to speak, not the whole thing.  Come to think of it, that’s how I’ve felt about most any guy I’ve known.  Perhaps that’s part of why I’ve never really been in any kind of dating relationship – I’m only looking for the whole package.  Anything less is fine for a friend or acquaintance, but not for dating.

huh… not quite where I expected this thought line to go tonight… 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Rules of attraction?

I just the other day had a conversation with a friend about physical attraction, specifically that I felt it was important to have physical attraction in a dating+ relationship to a certain degree, at least as an initial tug for interest in a person, whereas she felt it was not a necessity, but something more of a bonus, because a person could be attractive by other means, and therefore didn’t need any original physical attraction present.

The whole purpose was to get me to go dance with a guy she thought was cute, but whom I didn’t find cute, but we really got into discussion on it, finding that we agreed on all other aspects but the necessity of at least a spark of initial physical attraction.

And now, mere days later, I cross a situation quite similar to what we were discussing: A guy I did not initially find physically attractive, but whom – after seeing the person within him and how he acted – I now find attractive.

Granted, he’s only a character in a film, but it really has me thinking…

I felt as though there was actually something that sparked my interest the first time I saw him, though I would not have said that he was specifically handsome or my type or anything… just that I was intrigued…, and was that enough of what I had meant about initial physical attraction to have it turn into something more?

Or would I have felt the same way, even if I hadn’t had that initial little spark of interested physical attraction?

Just has me wondering…

Post-a-day 2018

Marriage is what brings us together today

I had dinner with a friend last night, and we were talking about how we both still had to send in our rsvp for a friend’s upcoming wedding.  We discussed briefly what we each would do for our own wedding invitations, and I made a comment about how crazy it would be in the first place, if she were to receive an invitation to my own wedding.  ‘You, too, eh?’ was something like her response.  A conversation ensued about my views for myself on marriage.

It has been a recent discovery for me – meaning just in the past year or so – that I cannot quite see myself ever being able to marry.  To me, anyway, there is a sanctity to marriage that includes the line ‘no matter what’.  I do my best to say what I mean and to mean what I say in life.  And I do my best to correct what I have said, when I discover afterward that I have erred.  I believe that I could not honestly say and mean that I would be willing to commit to remaining in and working for a relationship no matter what.

To put an extreme example to this, I have read Jane Eyre.  (Have you?)  For those who haven’t read it, but intend to read it, and don’t want anything given away, ignore these next two sentences, and pick up at the bold font.  Essentially, Jane Eyre falls in love with the ward of the girl she is tutoring, and she wants to marry him, but then finds out that he can’t actually marry, because his mentally insane wife lives in his attic (or something very close to that).  So, she leaves him and is in shame for having loved a married man, the crazy wife eventually burns down the mansion and dies (I think in the fire she sets on the house), and Jane and her love are reunited years and years later, when he is old and blind (or, again, something to that effect) and legally single again.  Not that you needed so much detail, but it’s a ridiculous story, and there is no part I would be willing to play in it.  ‘No matter what’ includes ‘your spouse has gone mentally insane and tries to kill you’.  And I know that this is an extreme example, but it is merely an example.  There are a multitude of situations in which I would not want to find myself, if I couldn’t let a relationship go.  I know, too, that they are all incredibly unlikely.  But they are possible, and I would be lying if I agreed to staying together and loving one another no matter what.

This isn’t to say, of course, that I would be unwilling to share my life with someone.  I am definitely willing, should that someone come along.  I just cannot honestly say that I could ever marry that person.

Now, that is my recent discovery – one that really surprised me, when I discovered it – about marriage and myself.  As dinner was ready just as I finished explaining it to my friend last night, our conversation topic turned in the direction of food.  And so, recalling today that we hadn’t ever gotten to the ‘you, too?’ comment that began my non-marriage-details reveal, I sent the friend a message about it.  The following was exchanged between me and the friend, revealing her thoughts on her own possibility of marriage.

……………………..

H: Also, we never finished a certain conversation. I seem to recall that you had visions of yourself not ever getting married, but we never went into details on it

Friend: Definitely a conversation to be continued!
I think I’d like to find someone that I’d think about marrying. But my life is pretty great when I pull my head out of work and enjoy it! I don’t agree that there should be pressure to find someone to share your life with to make you complete. Also, I’m realistic about what it would take for me to get to that point with someone (a lot). I don’t trust new people that deeply very easily. And I don’t date a lot. But there ARE things I’d like to be better at fitting work around: horses, fitness, my dog, friend time, trips I want to take. So I’m focussing on that. If the guy thing happens, it happens. Sometimes I get a little down about it, but usually I just try to focus on all the good things and don’t worry to much about it 😁

H: Oh, my goodness.
Yes.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s perfection in words.
(Minus the missing o near the end)

……………………………..

And so, there you have two modern-day female views on marriage for themselves.  I hadn’t considered the topic in quite the words she used, but similar ideas have definitely arisen for me.  Yes, I want to share my life with another/others who are close to me.  No, it ultimately does not have to be a spouse.  I just don’t like living alone in the first place – I want loving people around me, supporting me and being supported by me in everyday life.  I want to share the joys and successes and failures of my own life with someone, and vice versa.  But it doesn’t have to be someone with whom I have romantic ties.  That’s part of why I loved so much how my friend listed the things she loves and on which she wants to put more focus in her life.  I believe that, when we do the things we want to do, and we go the places we want to go, we find the people we want in our lives.  (I even said something almost exactly to that effect in a video I did for a class in college, talking about one of my study abroad semesters.)  And so that is my goal in my daily life. Sure, I would love to find that someone perfect.  But doing the things I love to do, and going where I love to go, and spending my life with people I love and who love me… that’s the most important goal for me in my daily life right now.

Post-a-day 2018