Monday Madness

Agatha was once very young, silly and sometimes a little cruel. Fitzy was overeager and not picking up on Agatha's signals. He was one of those guys that thought there was a direct correlation between bratty disinterest and attraction. A prime example of one of their interactions goes as follows:

Fitzy (after a long night of failed romantic attempts) "Do you want to go for a drive"

long pause, then Agatha responds "I guess, but only if you don't talk"

My point with this Monday Madness is that we all say really stupid things. This Agatha is really a great girl but to that Fritz she was not her best self. If you date long enough it is inevitable that you will probably be someones:
"most embarrassing"
"most attractive"
"most fun"
"needy"
"most emotional"
"most aggressive"
and/or
"crazy" ...

ex-girlfriend. Whether we realize it, or not, our exes have a lot of labels for us and I am sure not all of them are flattering. If you can be honest and admit mistakes it is kinda funny to think of all the ridiculous things we've done or said.

Monday Madness

We are going to start something new for our Mondays, it's Monday Madness. Dating is a funny little thing. People say the silliest things to you when your single, or when you are on dates, or during break-ups, and let's be honest we say some pretty ridiculous things ourselves. It is so fun to come home and have a good laugh with your friends and family about whatever embarrassing tidbit fell out of your mouth during a date. So, with that in mind, let's share. Every Monday I will post one funny dating experience or quote either from my own life, from my friends, from my family, or from you. So feel free to email me your great stories.

There are only a few rules:

1. It has to be something that actually happened to you. No urban legends, none of these my friend's, sister's, little brother once... So to absolutely rule that out only stories that directly happened to you. In turn I will only tell you things that either happened to me or that happened to the person that told me the story.
2. All stories must actually be lighthearted and not something you are really angry or bitter about, but pretending to have a sense of humor because that's a more charming emotion than the others I mentioned. We are looking for genuinely funny or stupid things you have accidentally said or had said to you. Not something mean-spirited.
3. Sorry, it's my blog so I pick. I pick the order of stories and I pick which ones I repeat. Some stories, while great, are too hard to tell in writing or are not succinct enough for our purposes. So please don't get your feelings hurt.
4. I will tell all stories from the third person. All women will be called Agatha (because I love that name. But, I am never in a million years going to find a man that will want to name a daughter Agatha). All the men will be called Fitzwilliam (because I am in a literary mood and he is a great example of sometimes saying the wrong, yet hilarious, thing).


1. Monday Madness: The Final Countdown


It was high school and Agatha and Fitzwilliam were out on a date. While the couple they were doubling with was outside the car scraping the ice off the car Agatha and Fitzwilliam were sitting nervously in the backseat. Agatha was starting to feel a little cocky, she could see the moment of a first kiss approaching and she was clearly more confident than her counterpart. Her confidence grew as he grew more uncomfortable. He was so nervous it was charming. All of the sudden Fitzwilliam says out loud "three, two, one" and then leaps across the car to kiss Agatha. Agatha is not sure what she was more surprised by; attack kiss or the countdown, but either way it was a kiss she would never forget.

If You've Ever Used The Bathroom at Little America Hotel, You Know What I Mean

Last night I was sitting with some old roommates giggling, catching-up, and reminiscing. We talked about an old friend who, when just a freshman in college, had once said “ My biggest fear is that I fall in love with someone for their personality and when I send out wedding announcements no one will think that he is attractive enough”. We laughed and laughed over this silly comment. We had thought it was funny at the time, but years later it is even better. As I laughed with two of my old friends (both married for years) there was a part of that old quote that didn’t sit well. Of course it is ridiculous and hilarious to think about being that vain and preoccupied with others. However, there is a part of what she is said that I can relate to, and the older I get (while remaining single) I only relate more.

Don’t you sometimes want things to appear exactly how they are? When you know in your heart you are doing well and you are happy, you want to look it. When you have adorable, wonderful children you can sometimes obsess over dirty faces and messy hair. Thinking, “come on kids, please look as delightful as you are. People cannot possibly know how proud I am of you when you look like a ragamuffin.” Or you notice a zit/cold sore before a big day and think to yourself “never mind, I guess I am not leaving the house today. This isn’t the me that I want people to have experiences with.”  Or you want a nice car because you are doing well in your job and you work hard. You think it would be so nice if everyone else could tell, just by looking at you, how hard you really do work. I could give endless examples and it doesn’t matter how fantastically confident you are, you will have a moment or two like these in your life; you will have times when you feel sad that the cover of you book doesn’t represent the beauty of the story found within. Thinking to yourself “please everyone trust me, we (or I) have a really great story. It is full of ups and downs, twist and turns, and a few cliff hangers. Sure sometimes it can start to drag a bit, but it only drags in a good way like an old Victorian novel. You will laugh, cry, and be discouraged, be heartbroken, be happy. But overall it truly is a feel good story worth knowing. Just trust me, I love it.”

So, is everyone with me so far? We can all agree to sometimes feeling discouraged that our life doesn’t always come with the matching cover for everyone to see.  Now, let me tell you my awful secret. The longer I am single the more I feel the pressure to make sure my cover matches my relationship. In reality I don’t care one fig if anyone else finds my future spouse attractive, interesting, successful, or impressive. In my heart of hearts, I KNOW that all that matters is how I feel. However, I sometimes cringe at the idea of someone seeing us, meeting us, or hearing of us and thinking any one or any combination of the following:

                               “Oh good. Glad she found someone that would take her.”

                 “Man she seems to have settled”

              “Oh it looks like he settled a bit"

 “Well, she finally found someone, I mean I would never marry him (or him).  But I am so glad they found each other.”

                      “She (or he) must have said yes to the first person that would take her (or him)”

I can think of all kinds of patronizing and unkind things that people could say. I know people can make very unkind and uneducated judgments about someone else and their relationship. I know it because I have heard it, seen it, and even occasionally said it. Part of me dreads the day when I will face the final judgment or commentary on my single worth. I recoil to think that people will taint my love with thoughts that I was single because I did something wrong, that somehow I have caused this. Or that I am single because I am far from loveable. However, I this fear is ridiculous for the following reasons:

1.       It is a waste of time to worry about potential, future hurt feelings.

2.       I really don’t care how much anyone else likes me or likes my future husband as long as we like each other.

3.       People that know and love me, they KNOW and LOVE me.

4.     Most people are kind at heart and want good things for other people. Most people don't want to unkindly judge. 

As we were leaving the restaurant I slipped into the bathroom. If I know that I am going to be at Little America I do everything in my power to make sure that I will need to use the bathroom. You might be wondering why, or you might just be wondering why I am talking about it, but it is the BEST bathroom ever. It has luxurious, warm light and mirrors everywhere. The first room is carpeted and has vanity tables lining the wall with a lamps on each. If you walk a little further you come to marble floors and the walls are wallpapered with a beautiful, feminine, pink textured paper or they are partially marble. In addition it is one of those wonderful bathrooms where you don’t have to touch very many things. The toilets automaticly flush, the sinks have sensors… you know the drill. It always adds to the luxury to not have to touch anything in a public bathroom even though in this little slice of heaven it would be my pleasure.  Even the soap is very aptly named Elegante! (see below I am not making this up. The soap does have an exclamation point on it.)

Now you are probably wondering less about the exclamation point and more about my point. It is this: Very few people care about that bathroom other than me. I am sure the hotel does not consider their bathrooms to be their showcase piece. They probably prefer their beautiful lobby, their restaurants, or their ideal downtown location, but for me it’s all about the bathrooms. Other people have been to the hotel and probably not used the lobby bathrooms or maybe they have but weren’t quite as taken with them as I. Some people probably just think of them as functional (which they are) and maybe think they are a bit nicer than others, but nothing to write home about. But for me, the bathroom at Little America is the one. In the end the thing that separates the one from every other one is not how he/she looks or how many other people find value in him/her, it’s all about how you feel. It doesn’t matter if someone else would or does find your relationship mundane. True love feels right, feels fancy, and feels special to you.  I know that because I have been to the Little America Bathroom and when I am there I 
feel elegante! 


-Not Desperate in SLC
Applicable song:
Lets Hear It for the Boy- Deniece Williams

Funky Town

Today I had an off day. Isn’t it funny, nope that is not the right word, predictable that the adversary piles extra pain on the minute you feel a bit unsteady. How quickly an off moment brings back years of off moments or a hick-up in a day feels like a face plant. How when you stack all the mistakes, misfortunes, mishaps, and miscommunications from past relationships on top of one another it can be hard not to have a distorted view of reality. Am I the only one that starts to feel a restrictive amount of negative the moment one unfortunate thing happens? I lovingly refer to this mood as a funk. The problem with a funk is that, aside from it being funky, this pile of my past can get so high that I start to feel claustrophobic. I don’t have an inordinate amount of past but when you have been dating for more than ten years you will inevitably be left with a pile of unsuccessful moments. I am ok with the fact that these moments exists, I experienced them and worked through them at the time. But, I start to feel overwhelmed when it is all piled in front of my face.

Why? Why is it in a pile? Why do I let things from the past (things that I have already understood, overcome, and moved beyond) come back to haunt me? So what if boyfriend x said something that hurt my feelings? So what if once I lost me in someone’s shadow? So what if I have had relationships that ended messy, or ended quickly, or ended yucky? So what if there are moments that I would rather not relive?

I have made the repairs to heart, soul, self, and spirit that needed to be made and moved forward. So why on a random, meaningless day in July do I find myself buried under memories that I have already gotten over?  I will tell you why. To quote The Killers “God gives us hope, but we still fear what we don’t know. The mind is poison.” I will tell you what I don’t know. I don’t know what it feels like to be in a completely successful dating relationship. I don’t know what it feels like to have a romantic relationship that doesn’t end in take backs, misunderstanding, awkward encounters, embarrassment, and frustration. That is just the nature of the break-up beast. Dating is highly emotional (meaning feelings are involved) so when it ends that is also emotional (again feelings are involved).

So how can we get out from under a funk? One fool proof technique is to start remembering all the good from the past. Even the worst situations have positives. I am not talking about good moments in a relationship, although there are plenty; I am talking about the good that is learned. I have learned things that have gotten me over heartaches, headaches, and identity crises. I have learned about friendship, fun, and sadness. I have learned countless things, but most of all I have learned that each dating experience is better than the last. So there is no point dragging out the dirt from former failures. I am not stuck under my past but rather standing on top of it; lifted up by a pile of experiences both positive and negative. Each experience adds a bit more height and, when I don’t allow myself to be pushed down into an unnecessary funk, I actually have a pretty remarkable view. 

-Not Desperate in SLC

Applicable songs:

The Killers- A Dustland Fairytale

John Mayer- The Heart of Life

Internal Clock

Sometimes my roommate and I will re-plan our lives based on our current time frame.

"So if I met someone tomorrow and we dated for X months and then we were engage for X months then I could have a fall wedding, oh I love a good fall wedding, and then we could be married exactly X months/years before we had our first kid and then we could space the next 3 to 6 kids out by 2 years and I would be... wait how old would I be at then end of that whole process? But I wanted to be done having kids by 35. How can I make that happen?" Ok. Let's rework this imaginary life with a man I am not yet dating like I have control over all of these things that I have no control over.

Have any of you done that? I am willing to admit it; I have, more than once. If you haven't then that's super, but I am a detail oriented girl I always plan in details. Before I moved into an apartment I once drew the floor plan (as close to scale as i could) and then took my pencil and "moved in". I drew furniture. Arranged and rearrange my new apartment when I actually got there the move in was seamless. I set everything up the way I had planed, went and bought the things I planned to buy. My new apartment looked just the I way imagined it, I felt peace, power, and the ultimate control. I had created the exact existence I had wanted, everything went as planned.

However, that was only an apartment and deciding where to put a couch is a lot different from deciding when to fall in love. I can't draw a man on a piece of paper and rearrange his qualities and features until I am satisfied. Then pay a deposit and move into a new relationship at the first of the month. So maybe sometimes we don't get to feel power, probably we never have the ultimate power, but we absolutely can find peace.

Peace can be ours if we want it and seek it. I am not going to get more into my testimony of the peace that comes through a relationship with Christ and an understanding of His atonement and His teachings. But know that I do have a testimony. That it is a knowledge born through experience, through seeking an understanding, and through faith when both my experience and knowledge are insufficient. I know that peace comes through Him because I have found it and felt it repeatedly. I cannot speak lightly of this because I do not feel lightly about it, peace is so important.

But let me say that although my life does not always play out according to the detailed drawing I have created in my mind, my life does always work for my good. I look back on years that I have remained in my single state and I am so grateful for it. I have learned so much about myself, I have had experiences that I wouldn't have had otherwise, and i have gotten to form stronger relationships with family and friends. Most importantly though, I have learned much about peace and how to give up the desire for control and power and replace it for the desire to do my Father in Heaven's will.

- Not Desperate in SLC
applicable links:
The ultimate peace can only be found in Jesus Christ. If you want to know more about this topic, as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, do any or all of the following things: 
go here
or read this
or pray for your own testimony of peace and your own understanding of how to find it.

applicable songs:
Where Can I Turn For Peace
Be Still My Soul

World Spins Madly On

I read this yesterday and thought about all of us:

"In happiness there is more energy to expend. With misery, there is first a holding back in hesitancy and then a falling back in despair." (The Enoch Letters, Maxwell, pg 44)

I absolutely agree; energy is wasted with unhappiness. Just think how much more sleep you need when you are sad. As a single person pretty much all of our time is discretionary time, meaning we get to pick how to spend it. Some of you might take issue with this, might want to argue all the things that you have to do. I don't doubt that there are plenty of things that you need to do in a day. We all have obligations and responsibilities; some work, school, church, family, or even social. However, we really do get to choose what we do. School or work, exercise or lounge, read or go to the movies, I could go on. The point is we pick how to use our time and we pick if we waste our energy feeling sad about the few things that aren't discretionary. There are always going to be things we can't change, can't control, and can't choose but that doesn't mean that we can't change, can't control, can't choose our attitude about it.

Take some time think about where you could tighten your belt, budget your emotions so that you can better distribute your time. I promise when you kick out the unnecessary, unproductive thoughts and feelings that waste so much time and energy you will be surprised how more you have. Don't waste what you've got feeling sad about what you don't have. You have more then you know and the more you focus on what you have the more you will learn about who you are and what you really have the resources to accomplish.

The world spins madly on, don't let your self be hesitant or kicked back in despair. Move on, move forward, and as my mom would say, find your happy face.

-Not Desperate in SLC

Applicable songs:---  (I am linking for the sake of the music, not the video. Sometimes I can't find the actual music video so I just use what I can find.)

World Spins Madly On: The Weepies
The Heart of Life: John Mayer
Joyful Girl: Ani Difranco

Where Does The Good Go?

I was reading something I wrote a while ago and was surprised to realize that I am relearning this same lesson again right now.  

“Without going into detail I will just say that time after time potential romancers have come in and out of the picture in the most surprising ways. I take disappointment after disappointment and usually just kept on going. But I have started to take a little more notice; the single stuff has started to get to me. It can be hard to not see patterns in dating as a reflection on me. After all, I am always the common denominator in my dating life, and it is not a huge reach to think that something could be my fault. I can get to feeling a little worn-down and determined to not repeat the same patterns. 

I think this must be a common single girl pitfall. We get so accustomed to bracing ourselves for disappointment that we don't know how to not see disappointment everywhere. I will illustrate what I mean. 

There is a new man in my life. We will call him "the beacon of hope and light to women everywhere" (because that is what he is). This dude is great; the stuff dreams are made of. By some unknown change of events the last couple of weeks he has been paying attention to me. I disregarded his attention at first but once it hit the point where I could no longer pretend I was imaging it, I immediately started to sabotage. Not full out sabotage, just little mental and emotional blocks started to go up everywhere. 

  

You might wonder why I would do this and you would be right to wonder. It can feel like good and interested guys are an elusive almost theoretical creature for single women. We believe they exist because we have heard rumors of them and we have friends that have managed to marry one. However, sometimes it seems like finding a nice, attractive, righteous, and interested guy is as likely as being asked out by the loch ness monster. (It just doesn't really happen. Please don't see this as a slam on men, it's not. Most of them are having an equally hard time finding what they are looking for in us.)

The point is that this creature has eluded me for so many years that when I saw one in my life, I panicked. After a great weekend with a great guy I have spent the week beyond miserable, thinking incessantly of every potential negative outcome, keeping myself braced for the inevitable hit of disappointment and feeling constantly sick to my stomach. Today I even poured scalding hot soup on my hand because I was too distracted to remember the golden rule "never tip over a cup with scalding hot soup". 

This has got to stop. I have two options. I either never allow men like "the beacon of hope and light to women everywhere" into my life or I remember things that I already know and stop acting like a lunatic.
 

Here is what I already know: 

I have a lot to offer and I like myself.

I am a joyful girl. 

I am fun and happy and should not, nor do I want to, be a big downer.

I know that this life is one of happiness and goodness beyond our imagination if we allow it and look for it. 

I know that I have been disappointed in the past and will be disappointed again; I know that is ok.

I know that bracing for disappointment doesn't make it easier to take when it comes and it ruins the process.

I know that I have no control over others or what they think, feel, and do.

I know most events in life are not a reflection on me, and are especially not some commentary on what I am worth.

I know that I have a lot of great people in my life that are cheering for me and love me.

I know that I am brave and I can do hard things.

I know that I have control over me.

Most importantly I know that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and always looks out for me. He has never left me or led me down the wrong path and I am always safe with Him. I have been disappointed before. However, I would never go back and change any of it because, in the end, I was always just fine and I will still be just fine. I know that it may not be this guy, but there is a guy who will be my beacon of hope and light and I am not in such a hurry to find him that I should ruin opportunities with him or others by being a pessimist.”

I dated that guy for a while and then, like so many others things, it ended and ended badly. I started to see myself drift right back to where I had been previously; disappointed, discouraged, and deflated. There is a really big flaw in that kind of living though. It’s not really livable. 

Even now as I try to be open to different guys I still have to fight the instinct. I have to brace myself for what can seem like the inevitable. But even at its worst the disappointment isn’t impossible and I learn something every time. The best part about disappointment is it draws me closer to my Father in Heaven and after all is said and done I end with one more dose of strength, knowledge, power, and an even stronger testimony of the Atonement. 

So to every disappointment that will come; I don't know what you will be or when you will hit, but I am waiting here totally vulnerable and unprepared because there are worse things than being unprepared for disappointment, and one of them is being prepared for it.

-Not Desperate in SLC

applicable songs for this post:
Where Does the Good Go? - Tegan and Sara
True Love Will Find You in the End- Mates of State
Hit Me With Your Best Shot- Pat Benatar
Silver Lining- Rilo Kiley
Another Heartbreak- BNL
Happy Ending- Mika