From my Facebook page looking in, I seem like I pretty much have it together.
I have a job that I really love, I signed with an agent this year to turn my blog into a book, I live in one of the trendiest neighborhoods in New York City, and I’m lucky that I’m a good enough saver that I make it overseas a couple times a year for a vacation.
I’ve been pretty d*mn successful (knock on wood) so far in my 20s, but the one thing I’ve yet to master is dating.
I’ve been online dating basically since I realized it was an option. For an article for the school newspaper my sophomore year in college, I tried to sign up for eHarmony, but I wasn’t old enough (ya gotta be 21), and so it called me “unmatchable.” After crying to my mom (and um, reading the fine print), I held off on signing up again until I moved to New York.
When I arrived in the city, I signed up for Plenty of Fish, and though I did have a little luck (met a millionaire for the first time!), I was still a little too young for the market; it was easier for me to hit up a bar in midtown to meet a dude over a romantic Bud Light than to fiddle with all those search filters. I ended up meeting my ex when I fell down in front of him on a bus (go figure), and after that relationship ended, I was determined to get over him stat, so I signed up for everything.
I’ve been thinking about London lately.
About how easy it was to get around the city, even with it’s hushed voices and last-calls at 1 a.m., instead of 4. I’ve been thinking about how the men were such gentleman, wishing me a good day and commenting on how ‘quite lovely, quite everything, quite was’ in their darling accents that stupidly remind me of Hugh Grant. I’ve been thinking about how even though I tried to have an afternoon delight in Kensington at lunchtime with a tall, handsome character I met in Shoreditch the night before – he refrained. I’ve been considering the echoes in my head from all the women who complained – over their cigarettes and their pimms – that the men are far too serious, that they want relationships too soon, that they just bore of them ‘quite quickly, I’m afraid.’ I’ve been thinking that maybe, a British man might be what I’ve been looking for, after all.
I’ve been thinking about Paris lately.
Mr. Possibility and I broke up in one of those super-dramatic ways that you’d expect to see in cheesy romantic comedies that we all love to hate. Short summary: He couldn’t give me what I wanted emotionally, and even though I probably loved him more than any of my past boyfriends combined, I knew that settling for a half-hearted love would never be enough for me in the long run.
So after handing him his key back at a sushi restaurant while ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’ played in the background, I stepped out into the rain, hailed a cab uptown and cried my eyes out. I wish I was kidding.
A week later, he was whispering he loved me in my ear while going at it from behind so hard I orgasmed twice.
I try my best not to cringe when my friends and family give me advice about finding love. I know more often than not, they’re just trying to be encouraging and keep me from becoming a bitter cat lady reading romance novels alone in New York City (gulp)—but sometimes, it can be a little irritating to hear what someone else thinks about my dating life.
Or even worse—when my friends make offhand comments that I’m sure they mean well by (but irk me more than anything else). To name a few: “You know, maybe you should go out more,” “You maybe should go out less, no one meets people at bars these days,” “Have you tried online dating? My friend’s brother’s cousin met her husband that way,” “Maybe it’s because you online date, those guys are just strange. Why are they online anyway?”
Ugh. But…
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