July 28, 2008
Personal
No Comments
I was making fun of my boyfriend because for the past two weeks all he has talked about is the stupid apps coming out on the iPhone App Store and how there are twenty tip calculators or pay-bible apps and nothing new or cool is getting to the store.
He retorted with “Oh, yeah who was right about coating the chicken breasts with Dorito crumbs and baking them?”
“You were right, it was pretty good, I never said it wouldn’t be I just told you not to do it with the NEW YORK STRIP STEAKS we had the other night… and anyway what the heck does that have to do with you complaining about the App Store?”
… “Nothing, I was using that purely as a redirection tactic.”
Redirection tactics. THEY ONLY WORK IF YOU DO IT SUBTLY.
July 28, 2008
Uncategorized
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I don’t know if this is true or if it’s a literary or pop culture reference that I’m totally missing or if it’s just made up… but I thought it was a pretty beautiful story. Thanks for sharing, anonymous e-mailer.
Hi Laurgasms,
I really don’t know what to do, so maybe you can offer an opinion. Offend me, please do, because my skin is much thicker than many give me credit for. I have seen enough to be indifferent to everything and that is part of my problem. Once upon a time, there was this girl. She was sweet and always happy and overall a wonderful person. Red hair, green eyes, and a smile that went on forever. I first met her in pre-school and we first became friends in grade three. She was my only friend, as most of the other kids were either apathetic or cruel. I wasn’t a superstar, I was average and that seemed enough for her.
We became friends in grade three when we all wrote little short stories. I ripped off the plot to Superman, simplifying it and drawing pictures on every page. She introduced herself to me by walking up, saying hi, and telling me that she really liked the pictures I drew.
Two years or so later, I was out in the forest near the school, when a couple of kids assaulted me. Two held me down while a third and fourth nailed a wooden plank into my leg. Why? I don’t know. I had no friends, even pushing her away a little out of fear that she was just like the others. But that day I became hooked forever. Somehow she found me, helped take out the nails, and bandaged my wound. She said: “sometimes even Lois can help her superman.” I was just slightly past that “eeww girls” phase and right in that “girls are like anyone else” phase, right before the teenage “omg boobies” phase.
We were friends for a while, but parted ways. We lived a block away but that\’s right where the school line was. She went to one school and I went to another. This kids, is where the story changes pace a little. You see, someone saw her that day that she saved me. Someone thought it was funny that we were friends. It was one thing to be a loser like me, it was another thing entirely to want to be around a loser like me.
You’ve heard some of the rhymes… He and She sitting in a Tree, childish among others. I have heard some pretty shitty things in my life, but I never heard what they called her. I don’t know what they did or what I could have done to help, but by the second year of high-school she was dead. Suicide, they say, fancy page in the yearbook and all that shit. Her parents were great people and completely devastated. I remember hearing someone ask “why did someone write ‘goodbye, Lois’ on the register” at her funeral.
I learned later what happened. They tormented her with shit, saying how much I hated her and how much of a loose cunt she was. All the lovely language that young adolescents learn. I have spent nearly 15 years in isolation, barely making any contact with the outside world. I have my reasons, I have my dreams and ambitions, but I hold them close. Since then, I have never felt like I belonged anywhere. I am lonely, yes, but I have an entire universe that I share, in secret, with her. It’s ours, together, and although I once contemplated suicide, I don\’t really anymore.
There is no question coming, because I have nothing to ask of you or anyone else. I once thought it was something that I had to get over, find a cure for, or let go. I can’t do any of those things, it is an indelible part of me, something that will never change and never go away. And yet I seem to have lost all but the tiniest fragment of emotion, and that little fragment left I can’t understand or control. The more people that know, the better, because I can’t keep this secret anymore. And, so, I will live alone and happy with my memories.
Goodbye, Lois.
July 14, 2008
Advice
4 Comments
I think the “Friend Zone” is stupid. It’s an excuse that a lot of women give to guys so they don’t have to give real excuses for why they don’t want to date them. “You are too good of a friend!” means that I really cannot possibly see myself enjoying sex with you. Guys love using it to make them feel like they didn’t do anything wrong. “Man, I totally got Friend Zone’d” means “I have no fucking clue why this girl will not let me bone her but I’ll call it this so that at LEAST it looks like I’m friends with girls, and it means that it’s not because I’m a jerk or she’s not attracted to me or I don’t have enough of a spine to stand up for myself.” How do you escape “The Friend Zone”? You find out what’s really wrong.
recently i started hanging out with this girl.
i met her while out wearing a fake mustache and she introduced herself by asking if i gave out mustache rides.
that night we made out a little, but that’s about it.
we call and talk or at least text message every day and hang out every couple days. i’ve introduced her to most my friends and me to hers, but always as a friend.
recently she said something along the lines of it taking her knowing someone for a couple months before she’s willing to become boyfriend/girlfriend, and to take things farther.
since then, she’s asked me to come over and watch movies and snuggle, and also if i wanted to look for a new place with her. when ever we hang out, she usually hangs all over me and constantly gives me hugs. i’ve tried giving her small kisses (mostly because i’m a huge fgt and fear rejection) and she gives little pecks back, but we haven’t gone back into full make out mode again.
did i get friend zoned already?
hugs and kisses, -guy incognito
Friend zoned? Probably not. A victim of those stupid rules that girls develop because they think they will be less likely to be hurt? More than likely.
Within minutes of meeting a new guy, girls are analyzing. His fingernails are dirty. He has a Mercedes keychain. He’s friends with Brittany, she’s a whore, he has probably slept with her. Whether or not we realize it, we are making assumptions about someone based on their appearance or their demeanor or any other random factoid we can collect. The same intuition that makes those assumptions REALIZES that we are making assumptions and must also prepare us for pain, whether we are right or wrong.
Stupid rules like that are a defense mechanism. Something has happened to this girl in the past or to someone she knows or she has just dreamed up some possibly painful situation out of thin air to make her think that over-analyzing and putting a timer on relationships will help make things work better in the end. Without the details I probably would have said “She’s just not that into you”, but the fact that she seems more than happy to receive the benefits of a budding relationship without the title make me think otherwise. I would recommend finding out WHY she has a self-proclaimed history of taking a long time to “take things further”… the answer to that might answer a lot more questions. If she has trust issues and is taking them out on you, you have to work pretty quickly to tackle that. You don’t deserve to take the blame for things that have gone wrong in the past. Submitting you to all of these “tests” might still not keep her from getting hurt, and it might even completely turn you off to her. These “tests” are not her, they are her avoiding getting hurt. You want to get to know her, see through the “tests”, and help her realize that they are more of a deterrent to a relationship than they are helpful. Keep making the moves, she’ll bite, and if she keeps leading you on like she sounds like she is, you can either keep it up and bend over and let her rape you with whatever rules she feels like she needs throughout the rest of your pre-relationship, relationship, marriage, whatever… or you can make her see the error of putting a good and well-meaning guy through meaningless drivel.
Short history on me, I’ve pretty much always ended up being a “friend” in regard to girls I’ve been interested in. Never really had a meaningful relationship, just some random hook ups. I realize that in the past I’ve become “that guy” essentially due to a complete lack of confidence in myself and no belief that girl X would want to be with me. Live and learn.
That brings me to my current situation. I am not perfect by any means but I am confident enough in myself and around the ladies that I don’t feel there are any limitations on me meeting/picking up/dating women aside from general incompatibility. That being said, I am crazy about a girl that I have been friends with for about 1.5 to 2 years now. In those ~2 years I have made great personal strides as far as being confident in myself etc., but it seems that all that is wasted because I’m so interested in this one girl .. problem being I don’t really have an interest in other girls aside from general flirting and having a good time when say, we’re out in a bar or something similar.
This girl and I, we have a pretty cool relationship in that we have talked several times about why we are not dating right now. Without getting to into it, essentially she doesn’t want to lose what we have as friends (we are very close friends, as in talking on the phone daily, usually for 1+ hours). And I think it’s that worth mentioning that from the get go, from the time we went from acquaintances to friends she has known I’ve been interested in more than that; but the first time we went out together we talked about it and I told her that I’d rather have her in my life as a friend as opposed to nothing at all because she won’t date me. I don’t want to lose that friendship either – its very important to me – and i realize taking our relationship to another level involves a big risk; but I think it would work very well. She is essentially afraid of the, “what if it didn’t?”
-strider
I used to think I had a Friend Zone. There were people that I could have never even dreamed of dating because I thought they were too much like brothers and I could never see them in that light. One of those people was my best friend Ben. One day Ben and I made out. It was pretty weird. Was he stuck in the Friend Zone? No, probably not. If either or both of us wanted us to happen, we probably could have worked through it. But neither of us wanted to put forth the effort. If I found out that he was really interested, I would probably have to re-think my view. He is an amazing guy and although I might feel a little weird about changing those boundaries, I don’t think I could come up with a valid reason for not dating him. He is not in my Friend Zone because I am open minded and would not risk the possibility of a happy relationship with a great guy just because it felt weird at first. The only thing I can come up with is that it might be weird if he wanted to date me but I was on the fence about dating him and then it ended up not being everything I thought it would be and I had to be the one to awkwardly break up with him. It’s a risk that I think is outweighed by the benefits, especially if the relationship starts off with both people being on the same page. If we both understand that we might get hurt, we CAN come out of it learning something new AND still being good friends.
That said… she needs to figure out if you are worth the effort, and you both need to accept the risk you are taking. You might end up not being friends at the end of it. You might cheat on her and she might realize you are not the person she thought you were. She might end up obnoxious or controlling or kind of psychotic. But any of these things can happen whether or not you date. If you find out she’s obnoxious or controlling or kind of psychotic, you probably won’t want to remain friends with her even if you’ve never dated her.
If I am comfortable in myself and what I have to offer in a relationship, I should have no problem taking the risk in breaking the stupid “friend zone” barrier. I might not be what you are looking for, but I’m pretty fucking awesome. If I’m not right for you, that’s cool… I still think you are fun to hang out with and we can still be friends in our search for what is right. If you’re not right for me, no hard feelings! If you are not who you say you are, if you are hiding something, if you lie to me… well, I don’t know if I want to be friends with you because I don’t really trust you, but I’m glad I found out now instead of torturing myself wondering “what if”.
I hate the Friends Zone. If everyone fell in love with their best friend, maybe people would actually communicate with their partners. Maybe people would be fully vested in their relationships instead of half-assing them. Maybe people would not be afraid to stand up for themselves or to fight or to argue. Maybe people would be happier. Or, maybe the glass is empty. Maybe everyone would realize how shitty people are, even their friends. Or… maybe you should grow a pear.
July 2, 2008
Personal
2 Comments
Spanning years and continents… lives ruined, bloodshed, epic.
I have been really busy. Really, really, really busy. I’m only not busy today because my e-mail has been down for two whole days so I can’t get much done. Oh and also I celebrated my awesome birthday and took an awesome trip to awesome Tampa where I took a billion pictures of awesome aminals and got insanely sick after drinking an interesting shot called Liquid Cocaine.
When people ask me how my boyfriend and I met, I usually just chuckle and say “It’s a cool story involving us almost being related” and leave it at that. But today, you get the epic tale.
During my sophomore year in high school, I ate lunch every day at the same table in the cafeteria with my best friend Sarah and two of my best boy friends Flipper and Benjy and whoever else decided to join us that day. A consistent source of entertainment for all of us was jokes that Flipper or Ben would tell us about “posts” made on “The Shack”. I had no idea what they were talking about. I Google’d “The Shack” to find out where they were getting this stuff, to absolutely no avail. They also talked about their friend hawkeye, who was getting his G.E.D. so he didn’t have to go to school and he sat home playing video games all day and posting on “The Shack”. He sounded like a huge fucking dork. At some point, I figured out the location of “The Shack” and I joined the community and slowly started posting there under my new nickname that came to me out of a moment of either genius or insanity. I noticed hawkeye pretty quickly; he posted a lot, and I recognized his name from the lunch table boys. Soon after I started posting, we decided that we should meet, so we arranged a “Shackmeet” for the day after Christmas 2002. Ben and Flipper’s younger sister and Phil (hawkeye) came to pick me up in his red Ford Probe (which was cramped but a pretty awesome car) and we hung out for a few hours. I remember thinking he was cool and fun and surprisingly not fat and ugly for someone who spent his days in a recliner. I spent my New Years that year counting down to midnight in a room with Ben, Flipper, and Phil (all single) and posted later on the shack about feeling a bit disappointed at not getting a kiss. Phil responded quickly and promised to make it up to me. We went on a date a few days later and he did.
We dated for about three or four months, and it was pretty good. He was my first ever boyfriend, so my mom was a little obnoxious about restricting my time with him for not really any good reasons. We talked a lot. He made me pretty happy. I started bringing him to hang out with my other friends. He started to like my other friends.
One day, Flipper and my friend Sheila and myself skipped school (listen, it was Physics, we had a substitute teacher for more than half of the semester who could barely speak a lick of English, we rarely went to the class and I’m pretty positive we all passed) and went to a local McDonalds. It was 50’s style and had a jukebox and we randomly started dancing to one of the songs that was playing. A woman told us that we should stop by her swing dancing studio in a nearby town, so we took her card and all decided that sounded like a fantastic idea.
The first time everyone went, I had a previous commitment to go to a show in Boca Raton. The second time everyone went, I had a previous commitment to go to a show in Stuart. The third time everyone went, I got upset that everyone already knew how to do everything and I didn’t so I didn’t bother going. I was a stupid 16 year old girl and I should have sucked it up and just went. Meanwhile, those same insecurities caused me to fear for my relationship; Sheila was pretty much the epitome of an interesting person, not to mention beautiful, and I could sense Phil’s infatuation. He told me time and time again that he didn’t feel that way for her and that he was with me and not her, but honestly, he liked her and there wasn’t really much he could do to hide it from me, and it made me even more upset when he would lie about it. To this day, I have no idea if it would have just gone away if I didn’t have insecurities about it, but I still say that my insecurities were pretty well-founded considering the situation.
Anyway, rambling about insecurities, right. He dumped me and kind of used those as the excuse, but the real excuse was that I had introduced him to all of these pretty girls and he wanted to see what other ones were like. Pretty soon after he broke up with me (as in, like, two weeks soon… my 16 year old soul was completely crushed), he started dating Megan.
He dated Megan for three years. So much for seeing what other girls were like!
In those three years, I did some bad things. I learned a lot of lessons. I slept with my friend’s ex-boyfriend. I dated someone a lot older than me. I made out with one of my best friends at an 18-wheel tractor trailer game at a bowling alley. I started going swing dancing, and got pretty damn good at it. In my freshman year of college, I finally seemed to be settling down and I started dating Bob, a long-time friend… and Megan’s brother. Megan and I got pretty close, probably out of convenience more than anything, but I’d say she became one of my best female friends. It was a little weird for me to see Phil with another girl and I kind of turned Phil into two different people: the boy I dated, and the boy who dated Megan. I was happy, though, and I was happy that they were happy.
Bob ended up joining the military. I was supportive, but scared. He proposed probably about a week before he left for basic training. I was a wreck when he was in basic; I cried almost every day, wrote him almost every day. I didn’t really know who to lean on because I didn’t think anyone really understood how shitty it was to not even be able to contact someone you love. People started to annoy me. When we left to go visit him for his graduation, Megan was complaining to me about missing Phil less than 24 hours after being away from him. She later told me, and was right, that just because I had to go through worse doesn’t mean that her pain didn’t mean anything. But to have the audacity to say it to me when I hadn’t seen my boyfriend for over three months really showed me something. I wasn’t sure what, but it has stuck out in my mind as a turning point.
After basic and tech training, Bob was stationed in England. I visited him for our anniversary, and it was nice but it was probably when I started to really recognize the strain although at the time I didn’t really want to. I came down with an infection and managed to feel physically miserable for most of the time I was there, but most of what I remember was just enjoying being with him because it had been another three months of not seeing him since his graduation. The main issues I had with him were all pretty much revolved around the same thing. I thought that when he left to join the military, he would grow up. At the beginning, I thought that would involve him doing a lot more for himself and not relying on his mom to cook his meals or wash and fold his clothes. Basically, I was just wanting for him to disengage from the teat and do things for himself. He did. But what I didn’t realize that I wanted from him was for him to do all of those things and to also grow up emotionally. In so many ways, he was a kid. He was spending money frivolously. He smoked, which back then was just a huge fight between us but today would be an absolute deal breaker for me. He was still messy. He was selfish… not necessarily on purpose, but his first thought wasn’t really to think of other people. But most importantly, he didn’t make me feel secure. I felt like I had to uproot my entire life and dedicate myself to being a military wife in order to carry on a relationship with him. It was partially selfish. I can admit that fully. I wanted to have a life, and I didn’t want it to revolve around him.
I broke up with him in February. Phil broke up with Megan in February.
We both sort of leaned on each other. We talked about the problems we had been having in our relationships, and realized how similar we were in a lot of ways. We pretty quickly realized that there was still something there. When we were open and honest with our exes and told them about our feelings, we got a lot of suspicion. But we were open and honest. We dated for a few weeks, and Phil yet again felt that he wanted to date other people. Sow his wild oats, if you will. He was afraid that if he dated me again, he would never date anyone else.
I knew in every fiber of my being that he was making a mistake. I can’t explain how, and I might sound like a crazy woman when I say it, but I just knew. While we were broken up, I was still with him. We spent almost every evening hanging out and we still did other coupley things. Only he was allowed to go on dates with other girls (and make out with his roommates ex on top of a washing machine while I was asleep in his bed) without any guilt. I was an absolute wreck. I think back through my life and this is probably the third most horrible I’ve ever felt… it’s up there.
I don’t know how it happened, but something sparked in his brain, and he asked me out again. We’ve been dating since 04/05/06 and I think we’re probably more in love today than we were even at the beginning. We’ve managed to turn our absolutely backwards ass story into a healthy and thriving loving relationship. We argue, but we’re rational. He makes me think about the things I do or the things that I feel. A lot of people know not to take other people at face value, but I don’t think people realize that they take THEMSELVES at face value. Instead of thinking “he made me upset and I am upset and that is the bottom line because he did something that made me upset”, I try to figure out why I’m REALLY upset and use that to get to the root of issues. That’s how I approach a lot of the situations I am giving advice on. There’s usually a lot more under the surface than just “HEY, why won’t my boyfriend spend time with me!” I do it this way because after a lot of trial and error, I’ve found something that not only works, but makes SENSE. It doesn’t just work because we ignore problems. It doesn’t just work because. It works because we apply logic to emotion. The two concepts are not as unique as we all try to make them. They’re completely intertwined, and realizing that has lead me to be very comfortable in who I’ve become and in the relationship I’ve cultivated.
I might have just given away the entire point to my blog. I might have just bored everyone to tears. I should be updating again before the end of the week with some insight on the FRIEND ZONE and my first product review (once I manage to test it again… it’s for science, I swear) but today I was feeling a bit too introspective for something like that.
Need more questions for when I update frequently!
helpmewithmygirlproblems@laurgasms.com
OH! P.S.! The domain http://www.helpmewithmygirlproblems.com now points to my site! Awesome, huh? THANKS, ELECTROLY, LOVELOVELOVE.