A Year in Review

So, it's been while.  So long in fact, I had wondered if I would even remember how to do this.  Good news though, it would seem I haven't slipped into premature senility just yet.

So, a fair bit has happened since we last met. I finally got out of that horrid workplace. So, I'm now in a totally new job, which has brought along with it more than a few challenges.  Not sure that I've found my niche, but for the moment, as I find my feet, I am grateful to be in a workplace that values me.

My body and I continue to be at odds. Some days we stand eye-to-eye 'till one of us cracks, but then other days I'm waving the white flag from the floor.  So, it's still a bit of a juggling act, and lot of mind-fuckery.

It's almost a year since I joined the world of online dating, and... well... the thing is - nothing has happened. Which makes this little fun fact, a little disconcerting...

Every. Day? In The World vs. StrangeBird, the score  is 1 to nil. Or is that 3 000 000 to 1. That's a lot of fucking zero's. The Supremes said "you can't hurry love", but Jesu - must I wait until I'm a pensioner?

Other news that has adversely affected me:

Joe Manganiello got engaged dammit. And...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt got married!  I would've taken a hyphenated name for you Joseph?! 

And I found out these two pieces of news in the same week.  It's been rough.

Still, we gotta keep moving. Until next time, "take a card, take a seat"...

to me

In the dark of night, as the rain lightly sprinkles on the tin roof above, I want to talk to him.  But he's stopped listening.  I told him it was my favourite sound, and now it's spoiled.  Each pit-pat, pit-pat thuds my sodden hopes and reminds me of the void.  I hate boys.

Except Chet Faker.  I love Chet Faker.

Do I wanna know?

Yes, I do.

evolution is hard

This year the universe has been screaming at me to change; I'm trying you fucker is what I usually scream back in the dead of night. After I've read my latest self-help book, completed a guided meditation and over-thought my actions of the day (not necessarily in that order, that would definitely defeat the purpose of said activities).

Seriously, change is on the menu, as is being a better human.  But it's not easy work. Evolution is not easy, despite what the bible says. Dear God, please don't send me to hell for that comment.

At work, I am positively surrounded by self-obsessed assholes - and it takes every bit of my self control some days, not to outwardly mock their tone and narcissistic verbal diarrhoea.  You know I'm doing it in my head right, and sometimes it sort of just slips out...

Anyway, being around these kinds of people, aside from shitting me off, also reminds me about the kind of person I don't want to be.  Not in a self righteous kind of way, more just in the vein of I don't want to be a jerk.  The thing that erks me about these variety of humans, is the way they treat their underlings, because you know that totally speaks volumes about someones true character. Talk is cheap. You could be the richest, smartest, most beautiful person in all the land, but if you don't show respect to the people around you - I'm gonna think you're a turd.

So, this journey of bettering myself (for want of a better term) has led me to reading some interesting things. I came across this lovely quote the other night and it fitted perfectly with how I've been feeling.

"When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them." - Martin Buber

I realised this is what I'm searching for.  This is what I'm trying to reap, sow and cultivate in my own life and I love it.  I want to be a conductor of this type of energy - whether you believe it comes from God, or some other source, it doesn't matter.

This also provides direction for 'The Dating Experiment'.  To some guys I'm obviously a set of breasts and a hoo-ha, which is not ok.  So really, it's great when they out themselves that way inclined, because I can quickly avoid them, and move on.

Imagine my surprise, when over the weekend some really cool guy contacts me via this dating website.  I'm talking out of this world calibre of conversation. I don't even know where he lives, but it doesn't matter, because he wants to know about me, he wants to know what I think - he's incredibly interesting, and dare I say, too good to be true?  What scares me most of all, that I can write to him as me, carefully selecting and constructing the things I want to say, because I know he appreciates it.  I don't know where it will lead, but I hope we continue to write to one another, and maybe, at the very least I'll have a friend in him.  It's just so exciting to find one of 'my people'... it's serendipitous.

Being surrounded by assholes, makes the discovery of someone authentic even more sweeter.

secret sickness

They say that you're only as sick as your secrets.  I have a few in my closet - but there is just one making me really unwell right now.

And it is this:

I've never been anybody's girlfriend.

30 years on this Earth, and romantically, on my own that whole time.

I have literally been waiting my whole life to find someone to break through.

Try to imagine how much shame I feel just admitting that, and know I only do this, because here I am StrangeBird. And here I'm free to admit that I'm a mess, that I'm insecure and completely mortified. I get to leave this computer and this persona behind, but I always carry this secret with me - down the street, at work, around the dinner table, as I lay in the dark trying to get to sleep, and nobody knows how much it's stripping me, of self worth, hope, humor. It's a bit of a joke, except there's no punchline.

And this, this is why online dating is so completely mind-fucking to me. It was such a big decision to sign up - to think about chatting with people, talking about myself, 'selling' me, meeting up with someone in real life? Not liking them? Or worse, liking them? I have had to confront almost every fear about myself that I possess with this ridiculous ritual.

Some days, I can approach it with curiosity, and sometimes with humor.  But lately it just leaves me with an overwhelming sense of shit-ness.

I must be the problem... The almost-meet-up guy is now ignoring me, even after I wrote a vulnerable explanation and apology for being confusing.  At first it made me sad and bitter, but now it just kind of shits me off.  That even behind the protection of a computer screen, he hasn't got the balls to say the real reason why he lied about being "busy", or the guts to simply say "I don't want to talk to you anymore".

Seriously dude - WHAT. THE. FUCK?

Of course, he would have no idea that I angst-ed over troubling him for almost an entire weekend.  That I kicked myself for thinking too much, for panicking and knee-jerking.

Depending upon my level of confidence and ignited-wog-passion - I bounce from feeling violently rejected, angry, all the way to sunny indifference.  His loss, right?

I don't know what's so wrong with me?  I know I'm not perfect.  I'm not terribly pretty, I have curves in the wrong places, a mind-field of internal dialogue and edges.  Rough, obtrusive bumps on the exterior of my complicated package.  But I know, I know, inside there are parts that are pure gold. But nobody seems to want to scratch beneath the surface to see that.

Is it just a waiting game?  Is it timing? Do I just need for the right species of butterfly to flap its wings in the town of Shitsville, at a certain point of planetary alignment? Can I really be such an unusual case, that my time, place, person have to match up just so?

I don't know.  I prayed not to be lonely forever, and the next morning on the music lottery of my iPod, Bon Jovi told me it was my life, that it was now or never and then Shania Twain immediately followed by telling me that the thing about love is that there ain't no particular way. (Yes, I have these songs on my iPod... seems to be the post for hideous secrets).

You can listen to a song dozens of times, and never really 'hear' it. Maybe people are the same that way.

not OK

I did it.  I haven't heard anything.  I might have blown my chance, but I've done the best I can without looking like (more of) a complete nut.

But I have been struggling.  As I so often do, I have taken this non-contact rather personally, a hint that there are any number of things 'wrong' with me. And then all those old thoughts, that I'll be alone, forever. Forever, forever....

It's only in the mistake that I have learnt I need to let go.  Let go of my expectations, let go of my fears and put them away.  Otherwise, things (opportunities, people) bust through my secure door and leave rather promptly out the nearest window. But it's hard, it is so hard after being closed up for so very long - I think I'm rusted in this defensive position.

"Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith" - Margaret Shepard

somebody stop me

I have this terrible itch.  This itch to contact non-date dude again.  To try and talk myself out of seeming crazy.  Is that a bad idea?  I can't tell anymore. I wonder what the general success rate of that argument is.

I can't help but think, if I'd just shut up - if I'd just not made a big deal of what was essentially, two adults meeting at the same table for a hot beverage - then perhaps I wouldn't have spent the bulk of the weekend feeling like a stupid shit.  Seriously, it wasn't a marriage proposal?! Perspective StangeBird!!

I can't help but think.
That's it - I think way too much. And then, when I act on the thinking - it's catastrophic.

I've written up a mock of what I might message him with.  But, I'm being a good girl - I'm letting it settle and seeing if it's a good idea in the morning. I'm convinced it's a good idea.

I'm also already convinced I'll send it.

Sometimes the thinking only works one-way.

the big dump

This is my 'Sliding Doors' moment; with my freshly reinstated full front fringe, I am blond Gwyneth Paltrow. In an alternative universe, I would, at this moment, have been fifteen minutes into my first 'date', with someone I met through this online dating business.  Except, and in the fashion that only I seem to be able to achieve, I managed to talk myself out of a coffee date, and remove myself from a potential suitors sea of female fish friends. Fuuuuucck.

I don't know what happened...

That's not true - it was me, all me.  I over-thought things, and then tried to make them 'better' - but what I ended up doing was making things confusing.

We'd been chatting via email for a week or so, when he asked if I'd like to grab a coffee.  I put it off for that week, and so, when the chatting recommenced, as the previous decliner, I thought it was my duty to do the asking this time.  It was affirmative, it was set - he had no idea what I look like, but that was a minor detail. Until it wasn't.

Maybe I was testing... does it bother you to not know what I look like? It was neither 'yay' or 'nay', but it was suggested we might exchange pictures, so - we swapped numbers.  He said he would text... and he didn't.  And I waited.  The sun set and rose once again, and I still hadn't heard from him. And with all this extra thinking time I had, I thought about the way I had presented myself.  I thought about the expectations a dude might come to have of me - and I freaked.  So, I went and altered my profile - to reflect more of the truth - that I didn't know what I want, that anything started would have to be in the view of friendship initially. And then, I broke the bitter silence and sent him a text.  I explained that I couldn't promise anything, that I needed to start with friends - and that if he still wanted to meet, then great - but if he didn't, then ok.

Seemingly, there is nothing less attractive to a man than a woman who:
a) doesn't know what she wants, and
b) possibly will make you wait a very long time before you get to sleep with her.
Well done me, for meeting both sets of criteria with one ugly action.

Suddenly the dude's status had changed from "looking to date, but nothing serious" to "looking for someone special".  And they say women are confusing. Now that I had made my intentions clearer, his life had quickly become void of any time for himself, and our 'date' was 'on hold'.

I don't harbor any bad feelings.  Actually I feel a bit shit about the whole thing.  I don't know whether I made myself seem like too much hard work, or maybe he Facebook stalked me, and decided I was too fat/ugly/old to liaise with any longer.  All I know is that I just have this horrible taste of disappointment in my mouth, rounded off by the gritty sensation of self sabotage.

Perhaps I'll come to laugh about the whole saga very soon.  But, right now all I want to do is sob loudly, while watching the following:

After the mornings dumping, my ipod delivered another well timed, musical message.  And I realised that if Sarah Blasko felt like this too, then maybe it's ok for me.  This is exactly how I feel.

snap out of it

My mind had been rubbish since the pact was enacted - thinking so much about men, what they want, what they don't want, who I had to be to fit that badly constructed 'doll' I'd imagined in my mind.  And then, I realised, I just don't care.

And then I listened to this song, and the world made sense once again....

single, seeking cat

I feel that there is a special level of humiliation one unlocks when they embark on the world of online dating. I have been there people, and it is not pretty.

Weeks ago, a friend suggested we try putting up profiles on an online dating site - her, to declare to the world and her ex (who keeps sniffing around) that she is officially moving on... and me, well, to imply I'm at least in the general 'moving' direction.

When I nodded enthusiastically and verbally agreed all those weeks ago - the reality seemed so very far away. But, I have been unable to put it off any longer - she declared it must happen NOW, and after a large gulp, I said "OK".

We met at a cafe after work - not sure why... it sort of felt like we were doing something naughty, and we worked on her profile first.  Debating how to answer certain questions, writing her spiel and picking a photo.  Ninety minutes passed, one chocolate muffin was hastily consumed [read: slaughtered and/or harmed] and I finally said - I'll write mine at home and email it to you.

So, I did. I wrote some God-awful thing about how great I am - using terrible puns and mixed metaphors about fruit and other airy shite.  Talking about oneself is not very easy, selling myself seemed unnatural.  In fact, the whole process felt, I don't know - against Gods plan.  That idea I had in my head, of randomly bumping into someone lovely, reaching for the same library book, peeking at handsome strangers through extravagant fish tanks, a' la Luhrmann's 1996 "Romeo & Juliet" was dying - it was on life support.

oh Leo, I love you

I had some conditions.  No real names.  Absolutely no photo.  In my head, I had made a bargain that if anyone contacted me, and got to the next stage of approval, then they might receive a photo.

My friend is a student and an eternal tightass from way back - so she was only interested in using this dodgy free site.  You know the kind, the sort of site you might expect to contract some unidentified form of hepatitis if you touched the keyboard too much.

When I did my pre-sign up checks (oh yeah, I've savvy like that. I ain't no fool!) I searched through the talent and wasn't terribly impressed.  Bad spellers, illiterates, guys proclaiming to have giant 'wangs' or "looking for a good time"... I felt ill.

But, I kept my promise, and up my profile went.  That was of course, after I completed a series of ridiculous questions that were supposed to indicate my personality and traits, and therefore assist the site in finding me my perfect match.  Most of the questions were relatively normal, the intent transparent.. but then came a bunch of questions about the internet:

• My friends think I spend too much time on the internet.
• I'm a different person on the internet.
• When I'm not on the internet, I'm thinking about being on the internet.
• I love the internet, I want to have weird sex with my modem and have wireless babies.

I. Shit. You. Not.  Ok, well, the last one I paraphrased - but the rest are completely legit!  Honestly, would a true weirdo read these questions and seriously select 'Strongly Agree'.  They may as well have had a tick-box to indicate freakish tendencies and left it at that.

As I looked over some of the profiles, my mind raced.  Statistically some of these men could be murderers, I thought! Most of them look like creeps, posers, some look like my Dad (!!), some look 'ok' but how would I really know!?  I calmed myself with the knowledge that I would take the process slowly, that I would choose to get to know any potential dates via email's, well before any face-to-face action. I grieved silently for my dignity before switching off the computer for the night.

The next morning, I'd been awake for approximately four minutes when my anxieties began to simmer over my cereal bowl. I clung desperately to my metal spoon as I realised: I might have to actually meet these men someday! Oh, the horror!  I was ready to give up, log-in and delete my profile.  Just go and buy the cat now and forget about this online rubbish I thought to myself.  I'm not sure what it was, but I managed to calm down - perhaps it was my strict morning schedule before work that snapped me from this heightened state of shitting myself.

Jokes aside, I'm still uneasy.  Sometimes in my head, I'll plan to drive myself to any dates, tell myself to choose public, well trafficked locations and never, ever let him buy the drinks - and then, I take a breath and try to remind myself that I have reasonable intuition and should be able to sniff out a creep.  I have had to say goodbye to all of my preconceived ideas about how girls are meant to meet boys.  And I can't help but feel a little sad for that.