Confusion

As promised, I am writing another post, since work did not actually kill me today. A lot has been happening in my life lately, besides working a busy 9-5, or in my case, actually, more of a 6-6, since I commute. I did not anticipate that graduation from college would lead me into a work life with twelve hour days. So please excuse the lack of posting lately!

Lately, I’ve been dating quite a bit, as well as hanging out with the ex. She drove up to the city to visit this past weekend, and I have to admit, I had a great time. I don’t know if it was the comfort from seeing her again in this city that is still relatively new to me, or if it was because we actually do get along very well. It was probably a mixture of the two.

The more interesting part of this story was the reason I asked her to visit. I had discovered a few weeks ago that she was casually talking to a potential romantic interest, and that just about tore me apart. I remember the night I found out, I could not sleep at all, and my heart was racing so fast that I had to take medication to calm myself down. My breathing was erratic, and my heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. It’s strange how sometimes, when you let something go, you only let it go in hopes that someone else won’t pick it up. And when someone does, well, you go crazy.

This turned me onto dating many people at once. Casually, of course. I went out on two dates that week, even with people that didn’t particularly interest me. Anything to take my mind off my ex, I thought. If my ex was casually dating, I would casually date. What was silly about the whole ordeal was that I was dating to lessen my feelings of jealousy. Indeed, these people did take my mind off of my ex, but I didn’t know why I was dating them, other than to make myself feel less lonely.

I’m losing my sense of individuality. Being so incredibly focused on finding someone else to complete you, in effect, leaves you feeling incomplete. There is such great importance in being comfortable with being single, and with being an independent person. Only when you are comfortable and happy with who you are by yourself, can you be a wonderful half of a relationship. I’m happy with who I am, and I’m comfortable, but I feel like I’m starting to sacrifice my own goals and interests in order to find someone. It is at that point that you have little to offer in a relationship.

It’s incredibly easy to lose sight of your goals and individuality when you’re feeling lonely. It is incredibly easy to seek immediate gratification through the company of others when you are not ready for a new relationship. Does every great relationship have to be preceded by an excruciating period of loneliness? Does trying to preoccupy yourself while waiting for “the one” leave you ill-prepared to be in the relationship that’s actually meant to be?

The twenty-somethings are such a confusing period of life. I can only hope that I will figure things out soon, either by screwing up royally, or by finding my head somewhere along the way.

 

Ex Sex

[Disclaimer: I am in no way advocating ex-sex. In fact I consider it highly detrimental, and a huge step backward.]

Ex-sex. It’s hard to properly enunciate if you say it fast. It’s also hard to predict what will happen after an encounter of that nature. You know what people say. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it. It’s nothing but trouble. For some reason, after a couple of glasses of wine, and some reminiscing about the past, it feels as though there is no other alternative. Particularly when your ex is sitting on your lap, with her legs wrapped around you, practically pleading with you for one (or several) last times.

This is what happened this past weekend, when I drove down to south to visit my friends, and told my ex that I would drop by on the way back up to the city. As it turns out, dropping by turned into more of a night over, especially since I was tired after a long day of being in the car. And sleeping with her arms around me just seemed so appealing, especially considering the alternative – a longer drive home, in the dark, only to fall asleep, exhausted, all by my lonesome. Shame, shame, shame…I know. I am only human.

The feeling of her lips on mine again was intoxicating – perhaps even better than it was when we were together. I knew it was because of the forbidden aspect, but that didn’t prevent it from being an irresistible experience. The more she kissed me, the more I resisted, but after her arms wrapped around me along with her legs, and after I caught the scent of her delicious perfume, resistance was futile. My morals and restraint were all shot to hell. Besides, I thought, I loved her, and part of me loved her still. The soft jazz playing in the background made it near-impossible to avoid the ominous, vilified phrase: Sex with the Ex.

“What will happen if we do this?” I asked, terrified of what it could all mean.

“Nothing…I promise I won’t want a relationship out of this.”

My fears were somewhat abated. I let my defenses fall. I let it happen. It was incredible. Why is sex with the ex always so exhilarating, so passion-filled and so amazing? I’m sure we all know the answer. It’s wrong. And you think it will never happen again. All the more incentive to make it unforgettable. I felt the warmth of her body against mine, I smelled the sweet scent of her pretty hair, and I lost myself in what felt like the passion that only comes from your first love. I was deluded, no doubt, but the rush was undeniable.

We spent the remainder of the night cuddling just the way we used to – her arms around me tight, holding me from behind. I felt so safe. I sighed and leaned into her warmth. I woke in the morning to kisses. I could get used to this, I thought. But I still knew that this was something that would never last. Why the body and emotions will sometimes never align with the mind is something I will never be able to understand fully. I spent the remainder of the drive up north listening to emotional love songs, thinking of her. My emotions ran amok, while my mind calmly told me that I should simmer down, since I knew we were incompatible.

“Sex with an ex can be depressing,” Samantha Jones, of Sex and the City muses, “if it’s good, you don’t have it anymore. If it’s bad, you just had sex with an ex.”

How true she was. And now, I am discovering the consequences of sex with the ex. My entire drive was spent glancing at cute texts filled with sweet nothings from the ex. Now she is a larger part of my life than she really should be. Now I feel more for her than I really should feel. Now my life is that much less open to the woman of my dreams, should she walk into my life.

Emotions are complex. Ideas about always following your heart are fueled by idealistic romantic comedies, books and poetry that wish that the world were perfect. In a perfect world, we could all follow our hearts and live happily ever after. In the real world, it seems that a combination of logic and emotion must mix to create the perfect elixir for finding lasting love.

“Why won’t you just follow your heart for ONCE?!” My ex once exclaimed.

“I do,” I answered. But look what happens when you follow JUST your heart and completely ignore your head.

Not all love works out in the end. Even if it were the most pure, real, and strongest of loves. As John Mayer’s song Split Screen Sadness goes, “All you need is love is a lie, cause we had a love but we still said goodbye, now we’re tired, battered fighters.”

Love may not always last forever, and it does not always end in wedded bliss. There are a myriad of reasons why a love affair can end. But what I think we can be thankful for, in the very end, is the fact that love happened.

 

Taking the Plunge

Romance...

Why is it that every time you go out with someone you really like to watch a movie, you always end up seeing a movie with the rough caliber of Jeepers Creepers 2, Gigli and From Justin to Kelly? I’ve never understood it, but every movie I have ever watched with a potential romantic interest has ended up being a violent snore-fest. Either that or it made me want to shoot myself in the eye. And the whole time while you’re watching the movie, the only thing you can concentrate on is your physical proximity to your very sexy, warm and snuggly partner.

It’s a pity that so many movies, TV shows and even commercials make fun of the cliched yawn, stretch your arm, and put your arm around your partner routine. I was watching Get Smart the other night with a girl I liked, and if it wouldn’t have been so cookie-cutter to put my arm around her, I would have. Instead, I spent the majority of the movie struggling to get closer to her. Every inch I made towards her seat seemed to take an eternity. After the first fourth of the movie was over, our arms were finally in contact. At last. The next excruciating three fourths of the movie was spent over-analyzing her every movement, from the way she crossed her legs, to her giggles and leans, to the way she positioned her arms around her body. I think I was about to have a hernia. My blood pressure was doubling every half hour from the effort involved with analyzing, leaning, sighing, touching, and laughing at the appropriate times to achieve maximum closeness.

It’s painful when you’re unsure if your advances will be rejected, and when you fear rejection so deeply. It’s harder yet when you know that her reaction will probably either make or break your night out. After about an hour and a half of painful deliberating (and ignoring the awful movie), I finally decided to take a deep breath and just rest my head upon her shoulder lightly. I leaned back in my seat, snuggled up a bit closer, and quickly lay my head down into the side of her neck before I could think any more about it. To my surprise and delight, she actually leaned back into me, sighing happily. The relief! I was able to spend the rest of the movie finally at peace. Somehow the characters seemed funnier. The whole movie seemed brighter, and more romantic. She laughed more. I laughed more. The truth is, the movie wasn’t any funnier that it was before.

I felt the back of the seat digging into my side, but it didn’t matter. I liked being close to her. And she liked being close to me. And that was all I needed. Sometimes, a movie at a theater is only as good as her hand in yours, her whispers in your ear, or her head on your shoulder. We spent the rest of the night walking about town, holding hands, holding each other, and smiling inside and out. I held her in my arms as we waited for her bus to arrive. I kissed her softly goodbye. I felt butterflies. The bus left. She called me. More butterflies.

It’s amazing how much you can be rewarded once you let your guard down and put your pride to rest. There’s always the chance of being shot down, of being rejected, or of finding that your love is unrequited. But there’s also that chance that you’ll feel her hand in yours, that you’ll feel her light kiss on your lips, and that you’ll have one of the happiest nights of your life.

Those who risk nothing, gain nothing. Those who risk it all, have the opportunity to gain more than they could have ever imagined. And that, I think, is a risk worth taking.

 

The Girlfriend Voice

Everyone has a girlfriend voice. It’s the voice you use when you’re talking to your significant other, and you want to sound beautiful, sultry and sweet. It’s the voice you use when you’re talking to your lover before the two of you drift off into a lovely sleep. I don’t know about you, but when I’m talking and joking with my best friend, I sound like an guffawing 26 year old man. Yes, I even switch genders. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but the undeniable truth is that I would never use the voice I use with my best friend to speak with a significant other.

In all the times that I have heard people using their girlfriend voices, I have noticed three major defining characteristics:

1. The pitch rises a couple of octaves.

2. The volume gets turned down quite a few notches.

3. The voice used bears a striking similarity to the voice one would use to speak with a small cat.

If the phone call is made from a bed, two additional defining characteristics emerge:

1. Vowels are drawn out for longer periods of time, speech is slower.

2. Seductive, sultry breathy quality skyrockets.

At this point, the man or woman on the receiving end is rendered helpless. Take me, baby.

I don’t know what it is about the girlfriend voice. Maybe the softness in the voice creates a sense of intimacy. It feels special to be talked to in a soft, sweet and soothing voice, especially when the woman in question speaks to everyone else like she’s a frat boy at a football game. The girlfriend voice says, “You’re special to me.” “You make me feel soft inside.” And that’s enough to send the butterflies inside me into a delightful frenzy – fluttering in a dance that rushes in waves from my head to my toes.

 

The Ex Factor

I broke up with my ex-girlfriend about a month ago. Since then, she has not stopped contacting me. Little texts throughout the week, asking about how I’m doing, or informing of the random things she’s been doing flood my phone sporadically.

I knew she wasn’t the one for me about a few months before I broke up with her. Something just wasn’t cutting it. We couldn’t really connect on an intellectual level, and our lives seemed to be on completely different pages. Not just different pages – sometimes, it seemed like we were in different books. I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew I had to put an end to the relationship before it got too far…before we were in too deep, so deep, that there was no way out.

Since the break-up, I’ve been lonely. I’ve been lonely, but I know that I’ve done the right thing. I am completely available and open to the woman of my dreams, should she come along some day. Then there are those moments of weakness. Those moments where a sweet text from a past love will show up in your phone, and where you’ll feel like you want the familiar comfort of a loving friend. It’s hard to stay lonely to keep yourself open to new love when your past love keeps knocking at the door, telling you that she’ll comfort you – no questions asked, with arms wide open.

I’m going to stay strong. I’m going to wait for what I’ve always wanted. I’m not going to settle.

“Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.” – Carrie, Sex and the City.

 

The Perfect Scent

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I went shopping downtown to search for our new signature scents. After all, we had been using our older scents for a while, and while they did smell good, we wanted something new. Using the same scent is comfortable and safe, but after a while, you don’t notice the smell anymore. It’s a new season – time to throw on some new eau du parfum!

As we browsed through Sephora, we went through a myriad of different scents. Florals, orientals, musky scents, bright scents, fruity scents…the options were endless. Each scent had its pluses, but also its minuses. Some scents came on too strong, while some scents faded quickly. Some scents were simple and pleasant, while others smelled simple at first, but as time passed, faded into complex and beautiful aromas you never knew existed after the initial spray. It became apparent that choosing a great scent that complemented our personalities and selves was going to be a trying process.

Finding the perfect scent that brings out the best in you and fits your personality and style is a lot like finding the perfect partner. There are so many scents to choose from, and sometimes you get so lost in the search that you actually numb out your sense of smell and can’t tell the difference between perfumes. There is a risk that comes with trying too many scents (numb nose, anyone?), and there is also a risk with trying only one and settling because “it smells okay enough.”

We spent nearly two hours scouring the shelves for the perfect scents to complement our personalities. After all, quality perfumes are often expensive. If you wanted to find the best scent for you, you had to go through many bad scents to finally find that special one. You had to be careful, because if you made your decision hastily and purchased the first perfume you thought smelled decent, you would probably go home and find out that you made the wrong decision. And for that decision, you would have paid dearly. Choosing your scent, like choosing your partner, was to be done carefully.

Marc Jacobs Daisy. Burberry London. Burberry Brit. Armani Code. Dior Poison (that one was a mistake!). So many scents. So many seemed to fit. I liked Burberry Brit and Armani Code. I also liked Kenzo. What was I to do? I liked them all for different reasons, and all of them seemed like they would have been good choices – ones that I would not have regretted. Was I supposed to be actively searching so hard for a perfume, I wondered? Or should I have just waited to run into a page in a magazine that happened to smell nice? Do you have to search for your soul-mate by sorting through masses of people? Or do you wait until you run into the man or woman of your dreams spontaneously? I wondered if my search for a perfume, like my search for my soul-mate, was supposed to be the product of many painful dates with many different scents.

I knew what I wanted. I wanted a perfume that smelled great initially, but then also surprised you by fading into the most complex, beautiful aromas with tantalizing and exhilarating notes that you never would have expected. I wanted a scent that would not remind me of any other scent – one that was truly one of a kind.

After several more aggravated spritzes of random perfumes, my friend and I left the store, feeling a little upset with our fruitless search. We left the store, discussing all the time we had wasted. “I’ll never find my signature perfume.” “It’s too difficult.” “Maybe we should just stop looking and we’ll just come across one that we like someday.” Someday. As we drove home, I kept catching whiffs of the Armani Code I had spritzed on the neck of my shirt.

Mmmm. I sighed. It smelled delicious. I went about the house, putting down my bags and began to wash the dishes. The magical, seductive scent of vanilla and hints of sandalwood teased my senses. I ignored it. I walked over to my computer and began to check my emails. A musky, beautiful, lightly spiced scent begged for my attention. I breathed it in and sighed. I went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, I felt like I could still smell Armani all over me. It wasn’t there, but I couldn’t stop thinking about its delicious, mysterious, subtle aroma. It made me feel comfortable, and it felt like home. Then it hit me. The perfect perfume for you is the one that you try, that you perhaps walk away from, but that you still cannot manage to get out of your head. The perfect perfume is the perfume that lingers and stays on your mind, even when it’s not there. It’s the scent that captures your heart for the rest of your life.

I had to purchase it. I went back the next day, grabbed the bottle, and have never looked back. I’ve been in love ever since.

 

How Does a Quality Person Find Love?

Here I sit, in my room, listening to the lovely sounds of Norah Jones. Her music is calming, and incredibly romantic. The music coming from my ipod streams into my room, instilling a sense of calm, comfort, and peace in my heart. It’s amazing how music can alter your consciousness and your mood.

Tell me how you’ve been, tell what you’ve seen, tell me that you’d like to see me too…
‘Cause my heart is full of no blood, my cup is full of no love, couldn’t take another sip even if I wanted. But it’s not too late, not too late for love…

Norah’s voice sultrily streams out of my speakers, soothing me, telling me that I can find a love that’s as beautiful as the one I’ve always dreamed about. Something about her music tells me that everything is going to be alright. The calm of the melody tells me that there is somebody out there who wants a love like the one I want. There is someone out there, listening to the same soothing song, dreaming about a love that is yet to come.

I know that I will find love someday. I know that I am worthy of love. I just need to find the woman of my dreams, and I need to be the woman of her dreams, too. Part of me muses at the idea that sitting in my warmly lit room at midnight, listening to soothing jazz, and dreaming about a love to come won’t get me any closer to my dreams. But the larger part of me loves dreaming. The larger part of me, the hopeless romantic, is swooning and swaying to the melody of my perfect love.

Part of finding the love of your life is being found by the love of your life. Sometimes it almost feels like the stars have to align for something that amazing and powerful to happen. Maybe she’s sitting in her bed right now too, wondering if she’ll ever find the woman for her. Maybe she’s holding onto her pillow at night, dreaming of the day when that pillow will be replaced with the woman of her dreams. And sometimes, perhaps she cries at night, wondering if she’ll ever find love. I hope I find her. I hope she keeps holding on to those romantic dreams. I hope I keep holding onto my romantic dreams. And I hope one day, maybe, that the cosmos will shift, that the stars will circle, and that two bright, lonely stars in the sky will find their place next to one another.

And then we will sleep, never lonely, forever ours.

 

Love. Why is it So Elusive?

I watched a movie a while back called “Les Poupees Russes,” and it was absolutely amazing. The movie includes some very interesting quotes about dating and love. Some of my favorites: My thoughts are in italics.

Wendy: I know most girls they get weak on their knees for what’s beautiful, you know, that’s all they see, that’s all they want. But I’m not like that. I don’t just see what’s beautiful. I fall for the other stuff. I love what’s not perfect. It’s just how I am.

Is love supposed to be beautiful? Maybe love is meant to be imperfect. Maybe love is meant to be painful, and slightly harsh. Maybe the boring relationships are the relationships that never experience fights and turmoil. Maybe part of the beauty of love and relationships is the pain that you experience. Why is it that the most challenging relationships are the ones you fall for the hardest, and the most stable relationships are the ones with which you get bored? Why are the best foods in life unhealthy? Why is asparagus (quite possibly the nastiest vegetable on the planet), so healthy? Does love function in this paradigm as well?
Wendy: Maybe the day to day dirt is part of love.

Xavier: What’s all this shit about love? How do we get so nuts? The time we waste! When you’re alone, you cry, “Will I find her?” When you’re not- “Does she love me as much as I love her?” “Can we love more than one person in a lifetime?” “Why do we split up? All these fucking questions! You can’t say we’re uninformed. We read love stories, fairy tales, novels. We watch movies. Love, love, love…!”

Xavier: If I think about all the girls I’ve known or slept with or just desired, they’re like a bunch of Russian dolls. We spend our lives playing the game dying to know who’ll be the last, the teeny-tiny one hidden inside all the others. You can’t just get to her right away. You have to follow the progression. You have to open them one by one wondering, “Is she the last?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately, and how hard it is to find. Some relationships come easily, while other relationships have you practically bending over backwards just to get a kiss on the cheek. I wonder about the quality of these relationships. Is it really true that the relationships you find most challenging, are the most worthwhile? Why is it that the most effortless relationships often turn out to be the relationships that don’t leave you breathless like the other ones? I once came across a quote that stated, “Nothing worth having in this world comes easy.” I wonder if this statement is true when it comes to relationships.

People often say that their most successful relationships have come to them by chance. Those relationships came out of nowhere, when those people were done with searching for a relationship, and done with the pain that came with trying to search for the one. Those relationships came when they stopped the search, began to focus on themselves, and bettering their own lives. This dynamic is reflected in a scene I once saw in a movie, where a woman was describing her search for the perfect relationship.

She discussed searching in a field for ladybugs, spending hours to no avail. Finally, after nearly a day of searching, she was so tired that she fell asleep in the fields. When she woke up, there were ladybugs all over her.

Are we supposed to leave something as important as our love lives to the tides of fate? Is fate the only thing that will ever bring us together? Is it even possible to find someone who will make you feel complete? I often think about my past relationships and can clearly see why none of them have worked out. As someone who is still somewhat of a romantic idealist, I dream about the day when I will meet the perfect woman – the day when I will finally know why none of my past relationships have worked out. But sometimes, I also wonder if that day will ever happen. Does “true, one-and-only, soul-mate love” really exist? Or is it just a tale fabricated by all-too-beautiful movies and the random trashy romance novel?

I can see why many people in modern relationships today choose to “blend,” as one character in the movie, “Kissing Jessica Stein” so eloquently put it. Her theory was that it is impossible to find just one lover to fit all your needs, and that you need to find multiple lovers to satisfy all your needs. One for when you’re bored, one for when you’re horny, one for when you’re hungry, and maybe one for when you’re sick.

But still, something deep down in my heart, though slightly crushed by my increasing cynicism, is still waiting for the one I’ve been waiting for. The one who can make me the luckiest girl in the world.