Where, in God’s name, do people meet people?
Coffee shops. Entertainment has suggested that you go to a coffee shop alone, whip out a book, and get approached by your soul mate. That’s how Summer met her husband and broke Tom’s heart in (500) Days of Summer. Hell, Landon Pigg wrote a song called “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop.” They make it seem so plausible. But then you go to the coffee shop, and the people sitting alone have their headphones in or are typing away furiously as their computers, and suddenly plausibility is going down the tubes with coffee dregs.
Bookstores. He picks up Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and you say that you love Chuck Klosterman and the chapter on Billy Joel is musical truth. He takes you to the nearby coffee shop where you never meet anyone and you talk for another two hours about life, love and the pursuit of living and loving. Maybe he gets Billy Joel tickets for your second official date, I don’t know, it’s a scenario. But then you go to the bookstore, and the only people who are shopping alone are obvious loners. They haven’t combed their hair in a while and there are questions on whether they’re capable of speech.
Cooking classes. I don’t have the money for that.
Steak houses. Rich men? Check. Young men? No check. When I get desperate enough to want an old dude or hot enough to be a trophy wife, we’ll revisit the steak house.
Bars. Now there’s a question mark. There is no doubt that people meet people in bars. The question mark comes when you factor in finding something semi-permanent with someone.
I have found reasonable success in bars of late - at least more success than I had in the past. But the guys that I met only seemed interested in that stereotypical “one thing.” Is it possible to meet someone in a bar that might want to see you when you’re both sober? It seems like such a crap shoot when you meet someone in the throes of alcohol.
But in actuality, isn’t it all a crap shoot? The guy in the coffee shop could be coming off of a stint in prison. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs could be an integral part of the bookstore man’s morning routine. The old dudes at the steak house could still be married with wives and children in Greenwich.
So really, what’s so bad about meeting someone at a bar? If it’s all a crap shoot, then maybe my alcohol-induced reservations don’t exactly hold up. Reasonable risk taking. That’s what I’m looking to do now. And if that doesn’t work I’ll roll the dice with the old guys.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The Trader Joe’s Theorem
I never met a check out guy at Trader Joe’s I didn’t like.
What’s more, I never met a check out guy at Trader Joe’s that didn’t like me.
The food service industry and I are interlinked. You know how people get nervous sometimes that the waiter spit in their food? I’ve never had that issue. I can get a waiter on my side faster than you can say tiramisu. The guy making your sandwich? I’ve probably made him laugh once or twice. And I’ve traded smiles and quips with all the Joe’s ringing up my hummus and tortilla chips.
Just last night, I went to Trader Joe’s and when I approached the check out guy, he was looking glum. He barely raised his “Register 8” paddle so I knew where to walk. I told him he could be a little more excited to see me, and suddenly he started to perk up. He told me he ate from a food truck named something like “Go Gorilla Food” and was now regretting his decision based on some grumblings in his stomach. I told him I question his life decision to eat from anywhere that has “gorilla” in the title. He instantly agreed with me. By the end of our conversation he was a changed man. It’s amazing what a food truck that possibly uses gorilla meat can do to bring people together.
The kicker was when I said I was sorry that he didn’t feel well. His answer? “Well you have definitely taken away most of the pain with this conversation.”
That’s just a great statement. There’s no weak part of that sentence. Now what do I do with that? Why do I have such success with men that handle food for a living and not men that don’t?
That may have been a double negative, but you catch my drift. Was that man an opportunity? Should I have given him my number? Or is there something that I should be learning in those conversations to take with me when I meet someone in a bar or in a different social situation?
You know what? For once I’m going to answer my own question. I think it’s the latter. I think for some reason I feel comfortable with Trader Joe and not the Regular Joe I meet in a bar or otherwise. I don’t know why, but the why isn’t really important. The important thing is figuring out how to translate that comfort to other situations.
Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe the important thing is to start slipping those check out guys my number. Hey, I did it once before to a waiter ... and that didn’t end well.
But more on that later.
What’s more, I never met a check out guy at Trader Joe’s that didn’t like me.
The food service industry and I are interlinked. You know how people get nervous sometimes that the waiter spit in their food? I’ve never had that issue. I can get a waiter on my side faster than you can say tiramisu. The guy making your sandwich? I’ve probably made him laugh once or twice. And I’ve traded smiles and quips with all the Joe’s ringing up my hummus and tortilla chips.
Just last night, I went to Trader Joe’s and when I approached the check out guy, he was looking glum. He barely raised his “Register 8” paddle so I knew where to walk. I told him he could be a little more excited to see me, and suddenly he started to perk up. He told me he ate from a food truck named something like “Go Gorilla Food” and was now regretting his decision based on some grumblings in his stomach. I told him I question his life decision to eat from anywhere that has “gorilla” in the title. He instantly agreed with me. By the end of our conversation he was a changed man. It’s amazing what a food truck that possibly uses gorilla meat can do to bring people together.
The kicker was when I said I was sorry that he didn’t feel well. His answer? “Well you have definitely taken away most of the pain with this conversation.”
That’s just a great statement. There’s no weak part of that sentence. Now what do I do with that? Why do I have such success with men that handle food for a living and not men that don’t?
That may have been a double negative, but you catch my drift. Was that man an opportunity? Should I have given him my number? Or is there something that I should be learning in those conversations to take with me when I meet someone in a bar or in a different social situation?
You know what? For once I’m going to answer my own question. I think it’s the latter. I think for some reason I feel comfortable with Trader Joe and not the Regular Joe I meet in a bar or otherwise. I don’t know why, but the why isn’t really important. The important thing is figuring out how to translate that comfort to other situations.
Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe the important thing is to start slipping those check out guys my number. Hey, I did it once before to a waiter ... and that didn’t end well.
But more on that later.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The friend, the myth, the legend
There are a lot of things the movies inaccurately portray. Pocahontas and John Smith’s relationship. The ability to walk away from an exploding building without flinching. Being able to blow up an asteroid with a bomb. But I’m not interested in those things. They have no bearing on my life. I doubt America will be colonized by any good looking aliens. God help me if I had anything to do with that exploding building. And God help the world if I’m the one that has to figure out how to destroy an asteroid.
What I am interested in is the common portrait of two best friends that get together. I saw it tonight in the new movie Friends with Kids, in which Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt’s characters are completely platonic, decide to have a kid, and then contend with ensuing feelings. SPOILER ALERT: They get together in the end. Years and years of friendship, tons and tons of claims of zero attraction, and the two still end up together.
Does this actually happen?
I used to think it did. My brother and his wife have always contended that the key to the success of their relationship is that they’re best friends first and husband and wife second. But does that mean you should be best friends before the relationship?
I don’t think so. At least not anymore. When you meet someone, you know whether you’re attracted to them - if not instantly, then by the time you leave your first meeting with them. If there is no mutual attraction, it’s hard to get past that. That feeling of lust, however fleeting it can be, is still an integral part of the relationship process. Great conversation is awesome, a free drink or meal is wondrous, but at the end of the day it doesn’t go that far. If he doesn’t want to get in your pants, it probably isn’t going to happen. I know, the theory isn’t worthy of a modern-day fairy tale, but that doesn’t mean it’s without merit.
When you really think about it, to think that two people would be in love but do nothing about it is to think that they’re masochistic. You go through this life hoping to find someone that gets it in the same way you do. So you find that person, and what, you keep looking? It makes me wonder. When people say they married their best friend, were they in love first and fore most, then learned to depend on each other? Or maybe they were always best friends and settled, thinking it really wouldn’t get any better than that?
For my part, I’ve decided that I’m done trying to turn friendships into something else. I will devour fiction that tells me I’ll end up with the guy who’s been by my side the whole time, but I am done chasing just that - fiction. I want to find someone who has no questions when they meet me. He knows, unequivocally, that he wants to wine me, dine me and bed me.
After a few wines and a few dines, of course. I might be throwing out the story book when it comes to models of romance, but I still have standards.
What I am interested in is the common portrait of two best friends that get together. I saw it tonight in the new movie Friends with Kids, in which Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt’s characters are completely platonic, decide to have a kid, and then contend with ensuing feelings. SPOILER ALERT: They get together in the end. Years and years of friendship, tons and tons of claims of zero attraction, and the two still end up together.
Does this actually happen?
I used to think it did. My brother and his wife have always contended that the key to the success of their relationship is that they’re best friends first and husband and wife second. But does that mean you should be best friends before the relationship?
I don’t think so. At least not anymore. When you meet someone, you know whether you’re attracted to them - if not instantly, then by the time you leave your first meeting with them. If there is no mutual attraction, it’s hard to get past that. That feeling of lust, however fleeting it can be, is still an integral part of the relationship process. Great conversation is awesome, a free drink or meal is wondrous, but at the end of the day it doesn’t go that far. If he doesn’t want to get in your pants, it probably isn’t going to happen. I know, the theory isn’t worthy of a modern-day fairy tale, but that doesn’t mean it’s without merit.
When you really think about it, to think that two people would be in love but do nothing about it is to think that they’re masochistic. You go through this life hoping to find someone that gets it in the same way you do. So you find that person, and what, you keep looking? It makes me wonder. When people say they married their best friend, were they in love first and fore most, then learned to depend on each other? Or maybe they were always best friends and settled, thinking it really wouldn’t get any better than that?
For my part, I’ve decided that I’m done trying to turn friendships into something else. I will devour fiction that tells me I’ll end up with the guy who’s been by my side the whole time, but I am done chasing just that - fiction. I want to find someone who has no questions when they meet me. He knows, unequivocally, that he wants to wine me, dine me and bed me.
After a few wines and a few dines, of course. I might be throwing out the story book when it comes to models of romance, but I still have standards.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Coming Clean
My last blog post was ... angry? Sure. Negative? Yes. Honest? Absolutely. Had there been a trend of all three of those things in recent writings? I suppose. People have called me out on it, and I appreciate their support and concern and all the rest of those lovely things things.
But here’s the thing: there’s a difference between being honest and being completely truthful. I’m honest about my feelings and what I’m going through when I write, but I’m not always completely truthful with the specifics. Thoughts are exaggerated for entertainment value. Self-deprecation is taken to the max in the name of a joke.
For example, in my last post I wrote about having the expectation of ending up alone in ten, fifteen, twenty years. Do I actually think I’m going to be alone? No. At the very least I’m sure I’d have a boyfriend or an ex or a ton of friends. But I am afraid of dying alone. I am afraid of never knowing what real love feels like. And that’s being honest.
And being honest about my trials in the dating world also means writing what I feel. In the past month or two, I have been in a funk. I will freely admit it. Sometimes I’m more hopeful than others. Sometimes things happen and I’m angry. And all of these things come out in my writing. I can’t censor that. And I’m not sure I want to.
Do I wish I was more confident? Yes, I do. I’m working on it. I’m working on self-deprecating humor actually being a mask for feeling really good about myself. I am trying not to be so hard on myself. But just like someone tries not to eat sweets everyday, sometimes you slip up.
I’ve taken a few weeks off to think about my approach. To think about the idea that people could be concerned about my mindset based on my writing. I can’t promise that everything I write will be positive from now on. That isn’t real life. Sometimes crappy things happen and you’ll know when you read it.
But what I can promise is that I will try. I will try to change my attitude toward one filled with a molecule more hope. Because that’s being honest. I’m attempting to change my attitude - to stop looking quite so hard, to have the confidence to meet new people, and to feel better about what I bring to the table.
But here’s the thing: there’s a difference between being honest and being completely truthful. I’m honest about my feelings and what I’m going through when I write, but I’m not always completely truthful with the specifics. Thoughts are exaggerated for entertainment value. Self-deprecation is taken to the max in the name of a joke.
For example, in my last post I wrote about having the expectation of ending up alone in ten, fifteen, twenty years. Do I actually think I’m going to be alone? No. At the very least I’m sure I’d have a boyfriend or an ex or a ton of friends. But I am afraid of dying alone. I am afraid of never knowing what real love feels like. And that’s being honest.
And being honest about my trials in the dating world also means writing what I feel. In the past month or two, I have been in a funk. I will freely admit it. Sometimes I’m more hopeful than others. Sometimes things happen and I’m angry. And all of these things come out in my writing. I can’t censor that. And I’m not sure I want to.
Do I wish I was more confident? Yes, I do. I’m working on it. I’m working on self-deprecating humor actually being a mask for feeling really good about myself. I am trying not to be so hard on myself. But just like someone tries not to eat sweets everyday, sometimes you slip up.
I’ve taken a few weeks off to think about my approach. To think about the idea that people could be concerned about my mindset based on my writing. I can’t promise that everything I write will be positive from now on. That isn’t real life. Sometimes crappy things happen and you’ll know when you read it.
But what I can promise is that I will try. I will try to change my attitude toward one filled with a molecule more hope. Because that’s being honest. I’m attempting to change my attitude - to stop looking quite so hard, to have the confidence to meet new people, and to feel better about what I bring to the table.
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