Tag Archives: Relationships

by - 3 Comments

I Want to Date That Man

I want to date a man that’s employed.

And not just at some job that gives him some paycheck for some amount that pays some bills he has to meet every month. I want him to love what he does, considering he’ll spend far more time at the office than he will with me for the next 40 years. All of the fancy titles and all of the fancy things can’t compare to being paid to do what you love every single day and feeling that sense of satisfaction that your purpose in life is being met. I want a guy who has a passion outside of me, something that fulfills him that he achieves and aims for, something that drives him to be a better man, a better person. I want a guy with a salary that allows him to travel and explore, believe and endure, follow his dreams and his whims, wherever they go, and hopefully, with me in tow.

I want to date a man that’s interested in interesting things.

I don’t have to like what he likes or do what he does but I sure do want to learn why it makes him happy. He doesn’t have to read what I want to read or laugh at the same point in the same movie that we both love. No, I don’t want a man that’s just like me, or just like anyone. I want someone who is his own person, with his own thoughts and his own certain set of certain somethings that make him not only intriguing, but incredible. I don’t want to be the center of his world or the only thing he thinks of, I just want him to give me a piece of his mind, along with most of his heart.

I want to date a man that wants to crawl into bed with me after a very, very long day in the city.

On those dreary, cold and grueling days where stress was high and traffic was thick, when subways didn’t arrive on time or come at all, when rain came without a weatherman to blame. I want a man who wants my key on his keychain and who gives me one in return, a guy that doesn’t need to announce his arrival because he’s always welcome in my apartment on that block on the Upper West Side. I want to meet a man who wants strings attached, who wants to learn all of the little things and the big things that make me into the me that’s me. I want to date a man who doesn’t have time for the games or the interest to play in between the lines and instead, wants a place to rest. A place to bury roots and watch them grow. With someone he loves. With the someone that’s me.

I want to date a man that’s easy to be around.

In this big city with all of it’s frustrations and fascinations, there has to be a man that doesn’t show up drunk on the first date. Or one that cries. Or one that doesn’t mysteriously disappear after the third date. Or the fifth. A guy that doesn’t place himself before everyone, ensuring his needs are met before he considers anyone. I want to date a man who opens doors in stores, who gives up his seat on the subway, who says his p’s and q’s and can hold a conversation with my dad over beer and fishing poles. I want a guy that wants to hit the East Village for drinks and dancing on Saturday, with sloppy kissing in between spots, and wake up on Sunday to read The Times and drink coffee in Central Park. I want an easy, loving feeling that’s so damn hard to find in this anything-but-easy city.

I want to date a man… who wants to date me.

It’s the simplest truth that I often forget: what I’m most looking for is a little thing called chemistry. I like him, he likes me, we meet, we kiss, we date – and that’s it. That’s all it really takes – one moment, one (or three) drinks, one secluded embrace under a street lamp in the West Village, one tiny little brush of hands, one shared smile and all of that hard work, all of those annoying, delirious experiences, seem distant and unimportant. While so many other things do matter and should matter when finding your match, the most important qualification is finding someone who you can be on the same page with, time and time again, no matter how many twists and turns your life takes.

It’s not too much to ask to date a man you love that loves you just as much back. It’s asking too little to settle for anything less than that man.

This Valentine’s Day, write a self-love letter to yourself and it’ll be published (anonymous or not) on Confessions of a Love Addict! And you enter yourself to win a prize! Learn more here. Submit here. 

by - 5 Comments

Again.

My first winter in New York was my favorite one. I was a few months past 22 and a few years away from being slightly hardened by the city. Then – while I was writing the inaugural posts of this blog – I was captivated by every first that I experienced:

My first time seeing snow in the city. The first time I realized I was falling in love in New York. The first time I went home for the holidays, feeling much more grown-up then I actually was. The first time it really, truly felt like Christmas and magic unfolded all around me.

Even though at the time I was actually rather miserable at my job and fighting off stomach-worry-pains over Mr. P and his fleeting fidelity, and even though I barely made any money post-taxes, there was a gentle happiness that I almost always felt. Because I was still new, because the city still had it’s freshness about it, because I knew there was still so much to accomplish and so much to achieve, so much to enjoy and so much to learn – I didn’t think too far ahead. I didn’t miss anything in my past and I though I wondered what was next, I knew I had time to make mistakes. I still had time to figure it all out and come up with an escape route or an alternative direction if I needed it. I had picked New York and yes, it had picked me right back, but I hadn’t conquered it yet. It didn’t belong to me – I was still it’s visitor, waiting to be accepted, waiting to feel like I was at home.

Three years later, Manhattan is my address. It’s where I’m registered to vote. It’s where my dentist and my dermatologist are. My home is lived in and worn, my dog leaves her paw tracks wherever she goes. My most frequently called friends live no more than a few blocks or subway rides away, and I have memories in almost every neighborhood on the island. I can get from point-A to point-B without a map (most of the time) and I have areas that I almost flat-out refuse to go to (looking at you Murray Hill). I am settled and I feel extremely comfortable on these streets, at my grocery store, at the coffee shop where the barista knows my order and invites me to her birthday party. And this winter, I saw all the sights, yet again – from the shops at Union to the skaters at Rockefeller – and though it wasn’t the same simple happiness I used to feel, it was still something.

Something older, maybe. Something jaded, just a bit. Something… new.

There has been so much change, and yet so very little change this year for me. Though I’ve loved my job, I’ve been aching for new challenges. Though I love my city, I’ve wondered what’s next and what else is out there for me to explore. Though I love my friends, we’re all on different pages and listening to different songs, trying to figure out our own quarter-life crisis without belittling each other’s. Though I love the warmth of the Upper West Side, I long for the excitement (but not the pricetag) of downtown. Though I love most of what I’ve created and discovered here, I’ve felt so incredibly bored most of 2013 that everything felt common, uninteresting, redundant.. and just so not like how it used to.

But I think that just means – finally! – I’ve arrived in New York. It’s actually my home now. My life is firmly cemented here. My roots have started to spread. Because after all of that hard work of moving here, applying wildly for a job, looking widely for a man, smiling pretty and joining clubs to find friends, locating an apartment and saving money since March of 2010…

…I get to do it all over again. And again.

And I’ve been fighting it. Hard. Because it was so much work to build friendships, to meet Mr. Possibility, to get my first job and my second one, to explore a new part of town, to find new groups and new clubs and new things to try. But I was happier when I was open. When I put myself out there and I challenged myself to do something different. When I wasn’t afraid of failure, when I wasn’t terrified that I was running out of time.

Because that is what time is: always circular, always moving, always changing. That’s the part everyone forgets to tell you: your 20s are for learning the good, hard-working skills that you’ll use the rest of your life.

You learn how to make friends so you can enrich the friendships you have, and make new ones as the old ones fall and grow apart. You learn how to find a job so you know how to hire new people, how to keep your current one and how to make a move when the time is right. You learn how to date so you know what you like and what you don’t, with the hope that someone will one day fit your bill. You learn how to cook, manage your money, manage your time, manage your expectations and everything else, so you never forget your independence.

You don’t just learn things once – you keep learning again and again so you can keep growing.

And so, even though this winter isn’t my first and won’t be my last in New York, it’s the first one in my new cycle. My new beginning in the city I fell in love with so long ago. It’s time to go back to where it all began, so I can remember how to move forward. It’s time to find that drive that made me do everything I could to get a step ahead or at least a toe into some door. It’s time to find that energy that was rich and powerful. It’s time to find that softness again that made me see the good in people, and especially in men. Especially in my friends. Especially in me. It’s time to find that beauty in the process, not in the destination.

It’s time to walk away from everything that fell apart, so I can start building an even better tomorrow… again.

by - 7 Comments

The Best of the Worst Pick Up Lines From 2013

It’s true -I’m a little hard on men.

It’s not that I need a giant gesture or the perfect everything to be interested, but a clever — appropriate — message online or on an app goes a long way. Or dare I say it – in person? The easiest way for a man to steal my attention is to be sincere, say something intelligent and be a gentleman. More often than not, I’m reminded that these three things rarely coexist together – and when they do, you find one hell of a person worth going out with.

This year hasn’t been the best for dating, but it has been rather entertaining in terms of terrible, awful, no good dates — and even worse pick-up attempts. In the spirit of a New Year to come, I say let’s go out with the bad so we can bring in the great in 2014. From my experiences to yours, let’s get a final laugh at these sorry guys and move onto… the men!

My Worst Ones…
Wrong Bar, Wrong Time
While standing at a classy, expensive, upscale lounge, a well-dressed man came up to me and smiled. I smiled back, thinking he might be a good connection. He looked me up and down (blatantly) and then said, “I think we should just go ahead and fuck somewhere, let’s skip the introductions.” To which, I replied, “Hmm. I’ll pass” and ordered another glass of wine.

Ew. No Eye Contact
While staring directly at me for several minutes, sweating, he mutters: “I want to go there.” I promptly run away.

No Hot Chocolate For You
“How you doing so lonely and complaining of being cold?I am NAME and I wonder if you are ready to share a cup of hot chocolate with me….I promise I will not bite lol so don t e afraid to answer back.”

Noah is a 45-Year-Old Man in Florida Trying to Pick Up a 25-Year-Old in NYC
Message one:
“Hey, something about your profile caught my eye. I think it was the fact that you seem like you might be more three-dimensional than your photos, which appears to be a rare quality among the attractive women on this site…

Anyways, I’d like to learn more about you. I noticed you also enjoy travel, so tell me… if someone offered you an all-expense-paid trip to anywhere in the world leaving tomorrow, where would you head?

Noah”

Message two:
I realize that you’re probably in the middle of writing me a long, detailed response, but I just wanted to let you know, you don’t have to take that much time with me. You can just copy and paste one of the following:

1. Yes Noah you’re very hot, and unfortunately your email got lost in the sea of jackasses, but I would love to get together with you.

2. You’re very hot but you’re not my type, and good luck with your search.

3. I don’t think any of this is funny, and I take myself way too seriously, and I actually have to go now cause I have a therapy appointment… but yes you are very hot.

Wait, What?
“Quite shocking modesty and overwhelming eloquence apparently indicative of a fascinatingly eclectic persona… And what did you dream last Sunday by the way?”

At The End Of Our Date…
…that was going well (in my opinion), he asks: “So my place isn’t far from here, I’d really like to have sex with you.” I blankly stare back and him and say something like, “Um, I don’t think so, but thanks for the drinks.” He shrugs his shoulders and go, “Oh well, I have a date tomorrow night, too.”

Not a Chance For a Friend
After having a mediocre date with a guy, he texted me the next morning to ask me for another date. I politely respond (instead of ignoring) that I actually saw more of a friendship connection and his response: “I definitely have enough friends, but I thought you’d make a good sexual partner. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

Your Worst Ones…

Did He Really Just Say Breast Milk?
“I can see you breastfeeding my kids one day.” Fortunately, I was quick enough to come back with, “Um, I think my milk just dried up.” – Jess

Cheesy Baseball
A former baseball player came in and said “I know you can fix broken bones but do you have anything to fix a broken heart?” –Courtney, an athletic trainer

No Sir.
I was 19 years old and waiting for my flight in the Salt Lake City airport. A 40-ish year old guy sits down next to me and says, “Hi. My name is Dave. I have 6 children, am recently divorced & looking for a new wife. Are you dating anyone?” – Angela

Glove Size?
“Do you know what they say about penis length? You know that it is directly related to glove size. Check out my gloves? So what are you doing tonight?” I WISH I WERE KIDDING. –Ryn

Sexual Misconception
“I know you’re sexually attracted to me, and that’s okay because we’re human and it’s natural.” –Allison

Christmas Misfortune
“No lie, heard this from a super drunk guy who approached my group of friends one night: “I bet you taste like a candy cane on Christmas morning.” – Jennifer

Would Rather Be Lost
“Hey girls. Are you lost? I have a compass.” Said to my roommate and me shortly after moving to NYC while looking at a map, trying to find a bar that we had visited before and she wanted to return to for her birthday. Sadly… I dated that guy. His pickup lines didn’t get any better. Neither did he. Live and learn. – Whitney

Not Romantic At All
“You’re a writer? How interesting because my favorite genre is romance, and I’m looking to romance you, pretty.” Vomit. –Gigi

He Said What?
“Heyyo, how you doing? You know that if you were the gas in my butt, I would never fart for fear of losing you, cause you’re the shit.” –Danielle

Just Look at the Ring, Bud
“So, are you and your husband serious, or no?” –Nikki

Go Away Fratty
I was dancing and singing along to “I Knew You Were Trouble” with a friend at an NYU bar, when two guys managed to swoop in between us, effectively ending our dance party. “I know why you’re singing this,” one of them told me. He was cute in a preppy way, but my TSwift jams are NOT to be interrupted. “Why?” I said. “Cause you knew I was trouble when I walked in.” Dude, your shirt is from Vineyard Vines! I didn’t know frat guys were edgy now. –Carina

by - 13 Comments

Walks Through the East Village

There’s that underground jazz lounge where the first champagne cocktail is free for blue-eyed girls with bright smiles. It’s where that older Polish man with a boa gave me and my friend A a feather to wear in our hair. My friend A, who is now married, living just a handful of blocks and subway stops away from me. It’s where I became hypnotized the first time by live music – watching the pianist dance across the keys, the saxophonist breathe and move deeply and creatively calculated. It’s where I sat in a Forever 21 dress at 19 years old, pretending I was old enough to split a bottle of wine with a man I didn’t really know, but was paying. It’s where I went when I wanted to feel classier and older than what I really was, where I wasn’t the girl from North Carolina who interned at Cosmo, but I was just a woman. A woman who somehow lived in New York fucking City.

There’s that hookah bar on St. Mark’s that never carded me. I wasn’t sure if I liked hookah all of the times I went and took smaller breaths than everyone else, but I knew I liked the sugary-sweet sangria, long before I knew what good alcohol tasted like. That’s the place where there are couches in the corner, cushions on the floor, where you can sit Indian-style or extend your legs long, far across to the other side of the table. That’s where I took my friends when they visited, to show them a new-something they didn’t know about, something terribly urban (though later I realized it’s not). That’s the place where just a few days ago, I brought a guy from Williamsburg to that very corner and though I didn’t know him, my red wine haze told me to kiss him. Right there, on the first date, with hookah saturating my hair and my breath. The breath that was making his glasses and the cold window behind us steam up.

There’s that movie theater on the east side that’s a hop, skip, Metro card and jump from Brooklyn. It’s where I saw that movie with a name and plot I forget, with Mr. Possibility, summers ago. It’s where we bickered between Sprite and Diet Coke and then snuggled through the movie, his hand on my thigh, my head on his shoulder, sitting awkwardly so we could touch, even though it’s uncomfortable and definitely unromantic. There’s the cheap Thai place a few doors down where we went once the credits started rolling, where we sat in that booth in the back, with polyester seats and fluorescent lighting. It’s where we talked about the future like it was our promise, where he leaned over to me while I was tactfully slurping a noodle I could barely hold with chopstick, and kissed my forehead. It’s where he said he wanted to always take care of me. It’s where maybe somewhere, deep down in his butchered heart, he thought he could mean it.

There’s that frat-tastic bar on Third Avenue that I absolutely hated going to. But I went the night after my birthday, with a terrible cold, barely able to speak and I waited for him. His sister and brother-in-law kept me company, bought me hot tea, tried to ease my worry. M showed up when he didn’t. Until two hours later. That’s where the man I thought I could love forever made me doubt if forever existed, for the first time. That’s where my then-highly-intoxicated boyfriend decided to go home alone instead of going home to work something out with me. That’s the street where I slammed that cab door shut and he didn’t look back. Around that corner, that’s where M promised me that he was just my first New York love, not my last. There’s where I walked myself home, bitterly sober and instantly lonely, wondering if I’d ever believe her.

There’s that bookstore where I curled up with a latte and my computer, writing about love and hoping for it. There’s where I sat for a few hours on late Saturday afternoon in the most brutal days of winter, reading through a book I didn’t intend to buy (but did). There’s the travel section where I met M for a day of shopping in the West Village for my birthday, and ended up bringing home an 8-pound puppy on a Sunday night. There’s the magazine section where I looked eagerly for the tiny engagement magazine I had a print piece in when I first moved to the city, where Mr. Possibility stood at the end of the aisle, smiling at me. There’s where he whispered in my ear as we looked at my bylined spread: “I would know you apart from anyone, just by the way you move so beautifully.” There’s where I listened to Adele while avoiding the self-help section, a year later, wondering if I needed a book about getting over someone or if I could just write the book myself.

There’s the park on Avenue A that I found so terrifying, hidden behind small rooftops and appearing out of nowhere in between the graffiti buildings along the east side. There’s where I stumbled in too-tall high heels in the cold with a friend, trying to hail a cab at 3 a.m. after a night of flirting and boozing, smearing lipstick and turning heads I didn’t care to see again. There’s where I wanted to sit down so badly, just to give some relief to my tired legs, but I didn’t, even more afraid of what lurked on the Manhattan streets I was still getting used to. There’s the address where, three years later, I fell in love with a new part of town while dog sitting for a friend who just signed a lease. There’s where the park felt so different and so much more welcoming, a place for coffee and running, a place that wasn’t so haunted, after all.

There’s just one small part of my home. Just one neighborhood in all of the eccentric zip codes of this island. Just a cluster of streets before Houston, where East Village turns into the Lower East Side, where Stuyvesant Town becomes Union Square. There’s just a few memories, a few local, dates and weekends at local pubs and restaurants, bookstores and theaters, I’ve Google mapped and others I don’t need to look up to find. There’s my walks through the East Village for the past few weeks, remembering the adventures, the love, the disappointment, the fever, the dreaming I’ve experienced in the short time I’ve been able to live where the 7-year-old me always knew I would.

And there’s the older me, the quarter-life-crisis-ing me, reminding myself that if so much can happen in just under four years, so many more beautiful, surprising things are surely still to come.

by - 18 Comments

Don’t Give Up On Me, New York

Like any love affair that builds your hope while simultaneously drowning your dreams, New York City and I have recently hit a rough spot in our long-term relationship.

We’ve been serious for nearly four years now, though we’ve wildly flirted and dated off-and-on for more than a decade. It’s always had this magical, mystical aura about it, always so comfortable and yet, so unattainable, nearly close enough to capture, but far enough to feel more illusionary than realistic. Many of my memories of Manhattan, even while living and paying taxes here, have felt warm and distant, something that I know happened to me but still unbelievable, too. In ways that I could never describe in words that make any sense to anyone but to me, this city and the way it’s moved me, pushed me, challenged me and disappointed me has changed my opinions and my beliefs. I’ve loved and hated New York, every day, all day, each and every single fast-paced, sleepless second I’ve called it home.

Until this year. Until this difficult, stationary year, I felt different. Somehow, this city has felt so tainted, so tawdry, so not a place I want to live.

And I’ve not wanted to write it here, in these pages and pages of love letters not only to the men I’ve met (and loved and hated, as well), or to the friends that have made me grow into a better person with every Gchat and champagne-induced confession in the darkness of a crowded, loud bar, but to the Big Apple itself. Himself? Herself? Whatever it might be to you or to me – it’s been a place I’ve loved so fiercely it’s always felt like a part of me. A piece I’ve carried with me since I was a gap-toothed 7-year-old staring at the Statue of Liberty in total awe, in complete fascination that someone, someone like me, could live underneath her beauty.

But the ugly truth I haven’t wanted to admit has been so true: I’ve been bored in 2013.

My relationship with New York became stale. The same grocery store, the same deli. The same walk to Dunkin Donuts on the weekends where they know my order (and my dog), the same Starbucks by my work where I don’t have to say a word and have my unsweetened-grande-iced-coffee-in-a-venti cup waiting for me. The same address, the same hours at the dog park, the same bars and the same restaurants with the same meal I always order, and always love. The same loop around Central Park, the same Burger and Beer at Toast on Wednesdays for $5. The same commute, the same inverted pyramid, the same blog, the same, the same, the same, the same.

And with the routine, I’ve taken my love affair for granted. I’ve cursed it for boring me, for not giving me those things that I wanted to shake up the same-ole’, same-ole’. For not granting my every last single wish, though it’s given me more and then some. I’ve been angry that while my friends are getting married or moving in together or getting big, beautiful apartments or big, beautiful trips, or big, beautiful paychecks, I’m sitting pretty in the exact same place I was two years ago. Though I often count my blessings (for I have many, I know), I’ve found myself wondering when the next grand thing will arrive. When something — anything — will change. When New York would step up to the plate, answer my demands, give me something new to tackle, some new Mr. to love again, some new reasonably-priced apartment in a new part of town. Because if something didn’t give, if the city didn’t try again, if it didn’t woe or entice me, then I’d have no choice but to call it quits.

To pack my bags and move overseas. Or to a new city. To tell New York that it just wasn’t quite what I wanted, that I needed more, that it wasn’t meeting my needs, emotional and physical, magical and practical. That something just felt off and wrong, that the streets that once glittered with possibility, now seemed stained with the bitter boredom of convention. That because it wasn’t getting me laid or filling my heart with that love I so badly ached for, it would have to let me go. That it was totally New York and definitely not me.

But as the summer faded into fall, I felt a weight lift away, just as I was Googling ways to spend a year in Europe away from everything and everyone I worked so hard to find. I felt myself lingering more on the sidewalks, admiring what was around me, seeing the beauty that I forgot about all year long.

And I realized that it isn’t New York. It’s me.

It’s not New York’s job to keep me satisfied and happy. It’s not supposed to always give me everything I want or I wouldn’t see them for the treasures they are when I finally reach that goal, that job, that man, that warmth. That if I want change in my life, I can’t expect it to just take the train in to Grand Central and sweep me away into a whole new chapter that I haven’t written, that’s not available for eager, reading eyes, yet. Change happens so gradually, so painfully slow sometimes it can be hard to see just how much has changed already.

Like how 2013 brought me a cancer-scared with my dad, but it also made me call him way more than I used to. Or how I went from running three miles last year to my first half-marathon in October. Or how after too many tears and far too much wasted time, I peacefully slammed the door shut on Mr. Possibility, once and for all. Or how I didn’t travel as much as I would have liked, but I did book my first trip to Paris and Rome for April 2014. Or how I might not have moved apartments, but I spent a blissful 10 days in the East Village, realizing I could love another neighborhood just as much as I love the UWS. Or how I might not have met the man I’ll marry (or at least I don’t think so), but my friendships have never been stronger, more loving or more open.

Being in love and being in a relationship with anyone or even a city isn’t always easy. It comes with complications and ups-and-downs, times when you want nothing more than to scream at the top of your lungs out of mere frustration. Or times when you stop in the middle of the park after the end of a perfect run, and feel the crisp Autumn leaves fall around you, wedging themselves in your hair, and you feel at home again, after many, many months of distance. Relationships never turn out just how we picture them in our heads, when we describe them in bright colors and vivid plot lines, but they do in fact, turn into something.

Something better. Something hard and often bittersweet, but more than anything, something completely worth it. If you can just hold on, just believe, just know that after a big fight, a mild separation, you can let go of your anger (and fear), and crawl into bed or look out at the city keepin’ on below you and fall in love again. Over and over, always. To the Brooklyn Bridge to the top of the park, and back.

I know the best is yet to come, little love of mine, Manhattan. Even if it doesn’t always feel that way. Just don’t give up on me New York, my darling, and I won’t give up on you. Promise.