The Dating Game

I've never been good at dating.

I'm really bad at it actually.

Which is kind of weird because I make my living being good at talking to people.  

But, I digress.

I've never been that girl who would go out with a man simply to get a free meal or experience.

I value and respect people too much.

I would estimate that for my age (31)(holy crapballs) I've dated quite a bit less than the rest of the population.

Probably because I don't enjoy doing things I'm bad at.

You know how most men and women are on their best behavior when they first go out with someone? 

Always putting their best foot forward and not letting anything negative about themselves slip until at least a couple months down the road when the other party likes the good things so much they'll tend to overlook the bad things?

Yeahhhhhhhh.....I hate that.

So I tend to let some negative things about myself drop on the first date.

Is it the smartest thing?  

If I wanted a fake relationship and free food, probably not.

But like I said, I value and respect people too much.

Along making my living being good at talking to people, part of my job is to read people.  I can pick up on verbal and non-verbal cues that a lot of people can't, and for that reason I see things and sense things that might not otherwise be detected by someone else.

That being said, if I can tell the other party isn't on board, or I'm not on board I won't continue just for the sake of continuing.  Again, value and respect.

But, I do have some pretty funny dating stories.

And I figured since my blog is all about being single I should take this opportunity to share some of them with y'all.

So, every Friday I'm going to share one with you.  Because what would the title of this blog mean unless I threw something like this in the mix?!  And what kind of person would I be if I didn't find the humor in these situations? (A boring one is the right answer.)

So, I'll be back next Friday with my first story!  Don't forget to buckle your seat belts.

GROWN UPS

A while back I posted on my Facebook about how I was having a moment of silence for my youth because I heard TLC on the oldies station.  I may or may not have wept a little bit when I was typing that sentence.  Also?  The other day I was talking to this teenager who didn't know who NSYNC was.  And I explained to her that NSYNC was how Justin Timberlake got his start and she actually ARGUED with me that I wasn't right about this.  And I was all "LISTEN LITTLE GIRL....MUCH OF WHAT I KNOW ABOUT LIFE I LEARNED FROM NSYNC AND FROM JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE AND HIS JHERI CURL AND DENIM SUITS THAT MATCHED WITH BRITNEY SPEARS AND I LEARNED EVERY MOVE TO EVERY SONG AND I WAS GOING TO MARRY LANCE BASS SO I WILL THANK YOU TO STOP TALKING ABOUT NSYNC LIKE THEY WERE A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION."  #truestory

Anyway.

This got me thinking about what else in my life really makes me feel like a grown up.

Besides the fact that I pay my own bills, yada yada yada.......

1. Buying stamps - I don't know why, but for some reason the fact that I have to purchase my own stamps makes me feel like a legitimate grown up.   Maybe because when I was little I used to always go to the post office with my mom and she would buy stamps and I thought "I'm going to get to do this when I get older."

2. Having work email, setting automatic replies on work email, going on business trips - these are obviously things children don't do (unless you're a Kardashian child, probably, I feel fairly certain North came out of the womb with at least a Blackberry and gold plated microphone) but every single time I've done this I've had this feeling that I'm super grown up.  It's kind of the adult version of your AIM "away status."

3. Getting oil changes/replacing tires on my car - it may be the fact that this always involves a large transfer of money from my bank account to someone else's but this is a highly grownup act, in my opinion.

4.  Liking the news - I just love me some Lester Holt on the NBC Nightly News.  (I did love me some Brian Williams until he was a lying liar lieface, but I digress.)  I remember watching the news with my grandparents when I was little and wondering how they made it through this god-forsaken 30 minutes without dying of boredom. Now, I actually appreciate a good impartial announcement of current events. (So long as they're accurate.  Side eye to you, Brian Williams.)

Now, look, I know I'm 31 and I shouldn't have any trouble feeling like a grown up.  But am I the only one who looks around sometimes and wonders who it's 2015 and where all the years went and why children I babysat are getting married and having babies and aren't still 5 years old begging me to just watch Freaky Friday one more time?

I can't be.

What little things make you feel grown up?

Is Anyone Out There?

Oh heeeeeyyyyyyy.

Excuse me while I dust off the cobwebs of this part of the internet that for 5 minutes a little while was my blog.  I'm nothing if not committed.

Since I last posted, I've started a new "job".  I put that in quotations because nothing has ever felt less like a job in my life.  It's the "job" that I always dreamed of having but never knew I would actually get.  It's amazing and I'm so thankful and grateful and every happy emotion I could use to describe it that I have it.  My boss and the people I work with are like never before.

Largely the last year has been hard, though.  I'm not going to go into detail about why because I'm just not there yet, but it's been a difficult little while for my family.  

It hit me the other day that I used to write and writing always made me feel better.  Then it dawned on me that (hello!) maybe I should start again.

So it's back, the blog is back, I'm back.

And you should come back.  

Tomorrow precisely because I'll be posting (at least) every Monday.

See you soon!