Hello World! I hate you again!

I am now back in familiar territory, hating myself and acknowledging that I’m destined to be alone. Don’t feel the need to console me or be positive because I’ve learned through all of this bulls**t with Jude that I’m not a positive person and never will be. I’m going to embrace my negativity and self-loathing and wear the warm blanket of discontent happily.

Sure, to “normal” people this sounds awful, but it feels wonderful and comforting to me. I’ve been this way for so long now that there’s really no desire to change. What would be the point, anyway? I tried the positive outlook and look what it got me. Nothing more than what I was getting with my negative outlook, so why do anything different?

I’m not a victim nor do I think that bad things always happen to me. I simply believe that life happens whether you’re positive or negative. I’m either going to meet someone or I’m not. I’m either going to have children or I’m not. I am really sensitive and feel a lot of empathy for people who are alone because I know what it feels like. I still want other people to be happy, even though I’m not. I don’t think the world is out to get me, nor do I hate men. Life is what it is and there are people more fortunate in the game of life than I.

I will no longer talk to Jude because there is no longer any need to. I spoke to him a few days ago and realized that he thinks I’m an awkward, stupid person. He was in Poland with a mutual friend and wanted to Skype, so I agreed. We chatted for a bit and our Polish friend mentioned that in Poland it is illegal to drink and ride your bicycle. If you get caught, your license will be taken away, and if you don’t have a license you will be unable to get one for 5 years. I jokingly asked if Poland was still Communist and Jude shook his head and said, “I KNEW you were going to say that. You went and mentioned the ‘c’ word.” To me it implied that he expected me to say something offensive and impolite, even though our Polish friend didn’t seem to think what I said was either. It pissed me off immensely and I decided after the conversation was over that I didn’t want someone like that in my life. Why would I want to subject myself to someone who said he was my friend, but disliked me so much? I beat myself up enough about my awkwardness, I don’t need someone else to help.

I’m sad and lonely sitting here in a strange city where I have few friends, but I can’t help but feel a little relieved that I can go back to being myself. I no longer have to try to talk myself out of being friends with Jude or liking my roommate. I can just ignore Jude and dislike my roommate and be happy. I don’t have to paint everything with rainbows or see everything through rose-tinted glasses. Like Tom Hansen in (500) Days of Summer, “…you can’t ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence. That’s all anything ever is. Nothing more than coincidence.”

Here’s to the next coincidence.

Please shut the door while you’re peeing!

So while I’m wandering through life, lost and unemployed, I’ve decided to help relocate to San Francisco to help a friend do some DIY around her condo. She recently had a boyfriend help her redo all of the woodwork and since he went back to his country of origin to finish school, she thought she’d recruit me to help her.

I jumped at the chance to leave Seattle and living with my aunt to relative freedom in a new city. I really don’t know Karen* all that well, we met a couple of years ago when I was visiting SF and we have kept in sporadic contact. I remember when I met her how impressed I was by her independence and resourcefulness. She was a couple of years older than me and owned a condo in a posh neighborhood of SF. She was also a Jill of All Trades and knew a little about seemingly everything. She was a graphic designer, massage therapist, artist and tutor. She was smart and funny and beautiful and I envied her individuality and free-spiritedness.

So of course when she asked me to come spend a few months in SF watching her bird while she was on holiday (for 5 weeks), then helping her organize and redecorate, I jumped at the chance. Maybe a new city would motivate me and help me on the road to full recovery from the last year or so. I was so excited!

I arrived in late March, to a few days of acquaintance and organization of caring for the parrot while she was away. I was nervous to be alone in a strange city, but I was still thrilled to be in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I’ve never cared for a bird before but figured how hard could it be? I’ve watched cats and dogs before, a bird was basically just another pet  but with wings, right? Wrong.

A parrot has a beak and talons. And is basically like a 3-yr old mean, mentally challenged child. She squawks and whistles for your attention and bites when she is agitated. She has to be played with (??) and stroked and made happy or else, this particular bird, could rip out her feathers in anger and bleed to death. Yay! Piece of cake….

The first full week I was so happy to finally be on my own that I didn’t leave the condo. I could finally wallow in my depression and stay in my pajamas all day and cry and watch rom-coms until I wanted to either leave the house or kill myself. I didn’t eat much because I needed to go grocery shopping but was too lazy and discouraged to do so. So the bird became used to me being around all of the time, so when I finally wanted to get out and start meeting people, she cried in protest. I had to bribe her with bread or apples to be able to sneak away while she ate. I also was expected to play music and/or a movie while I was gone for long periods so that she could hear people talking and not be in complete silence. And before I left I had to spend 10-15 solid minutes playing with her. This consisted of putting her on the floor and throwing a spoon that she went nuts for, or keeping her in her cage on her perch and giving her the spoon so that she could throw it at me. I would then give it back to her so she could throw it to me over and over.

Eventually she and I bonded and I got used to her sounds and wants and needs. I was able to leave for several hours at a time to roam about the city and finally was getting my groove. I was getting used to the place and the people and the weather (San Francisco is known for its crazy weather shifts) and finding my foot hold in this crazy world. I was figuring out what I wanted to do with my life and becoming happy again. Or so I thought. After 5 weeks of soul-searching solitude, Karen was returning from her vacation.

I was kind of excited, but also a little resentful that my freedom was coming to an end. Once she came back, I’d have to help her with housework and I wouldn’t have the place to myself anymore. I love people, but sometimes crave alone time to get my bearings. I feared this was going to end.

She has been back for 4 whole days now and I’m absolutely miserable. She’s a crazy hippie bird-lady that talks during movies, asks stupid questions and is kind of conceited. She talks all of the time about herself and is way too much of a free spirit for my sanity. She isn’t Jewish, but likes to sing Jewish songs (in fact, she’s doing it right now in the living room while I type this in my room) , pees with the door open, walks around naked, and is a bit of a neat freak.

Now, I realize that this is her house and she’s just letting me stay here because she needs help so I feel kind of guilty. I feel like I’m living with my aunt again, though this time at least I feel more free to lounge around if  I want to. I honestly don’t know why she annoys me so much, because she’ s a really good person with a big heart. Her mothering/nurturing drives me nuts though and I didn’t come here to spend every single second with her. She does give me my free time, but also mentions about 5 times a day how she is so excited to have a roommate to go to local festivals, restaurants and such with her. Why do I fight it so much? She’s just lonely and looking for companionship.

I think she is a bit of a wacko, but she’s also sweet and caring and knows who she is and isn’t afraid to be thought of as a freak (which is evidenced by her dancing in the living room and her strange choice of clothing). Maybe I’m just here to open my mind and stop being so afraid of what I don’t know.

I’m so conflicted!

*name changed

I’m With Stupid….but is that where I want to be?

Ok, enough depressing self-pity. Has anyone seen the new ad campaign for Diesel? 

Are they serious? I get where they’re trying to go, but think they’ve failed.  Telling impressionable teens, the ones that would be most attracted to these ads, to be stupid is a big mistake. Telling them to take chances and be brave and live life to the fullest is one thing, but calling that “stupid” is a huge fail.

What do you think?

Right now, I hate men (no offense to men out there)

I am trying to do the whole tell yourself you’re happy until you’re actually happy bullshit and right now it doesn’t seem to be working. I of course slipped and have been emailing and talking to Jude. However, after a recent phone conversation with him I decided that if  I want to be truly happy, I need to cut him out of my life. He doesn’t make me happy anymore. I guess that’s probably because I feel shitty about myself so whatever he says makes me feel shittier. He doesn’t intentionally make me feel shitty, he just doesn’t do anything to make me feel good either.

I don’t know if it’s the depression or what, but I can’t seem to feel good for any extended period of time. It works for an hour or two, then I’m back to feeling like a no-good loser. Jude has led me to believe that I have no friends and that no ones cares but him. I grew up not having a lot of nice things done for me, so whenever anyone does anything nice it really touches me.  He thrives on doing nice things for people and I’ve become addicted to it. Every time he writes me a sweet email or sends me something in the mail I get weepy. It makes me feel loved and wanted. Too bad it’s coming from someone who neither loves, nor wants me. Dammit!

I honestly don’t know what it’s going to take to get over this crap. It pisses me off that I’ve become addicted to this idiot and that my life seems empty without him. I wake up every morning anxious and feeling like a hopeless loser. He’s emigrating to Australia later this year so I keep imagining him with one of the girls he’s mentioned that lives there. There’s one that’s from NY city who is “spunky” and “lovely”, but she prefers Latin men according to him. This is the kind of crap I’m putting up with! I subject myself to this nonsense and drive myself crazy. I have to imagine myself on a tropical island with a mystery man to stop my thoughts from heading in the psycho direction.

It’s so funny because if I had a friend that acted this way, I’d beat her over the head with her shoe because she was acting so stupid and desperate. My only recourse is to stop writing and answering my phone. He knows he can walk all over me, so he treats me poorly because I let him. HE IS NEVER GOING TO LOVE ME LIKE I WANT HIM TO. Period. No matter what I do, or who I become. I love having him as a friend, but it’s killing me. I act confused and like I don’t know what to do, but that’s only because it’s so hard. Or is it? I mean, all I have to do is block his emails and not answer his calls. Pretty easy actually. Hmmm.

I guess I’m afraid that I need him in my life. Why? Because though I have friends to talk to, I enjoy talking to him the most. We have the  best discussions about the coolest things. At least we used to. Now everything is clouded by my feelings for him. Which is the part I don’t understand. I mean, he really isn’t that great of a catch. I’ve met other charming men since him, so I know good-looking, fascinating men abound on this planet. And I stay away from them! And it’s not the fact that he’s not American. I’m always meeting foreigners, so they don’t really elicit a thrill from me.

Everyone tells me I just need to meet someone new, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Though I’ve been told I seem much more self-confident, I feel that I carry a stench of desperation on me. I just want to meet someone so bad so that I can f*cking move on already! That’s another reason I need to stop talking to him, because if he meets someone, like I assume he already has, then I’ll have to hear about it and the idea of that makes me sick. Obviously.

God help me.

Heart Like a Hole

I just finished reading two books, “The Alchemist”, and a book recommended by a friend that I really didn’t think I’d need, “The Language of Letting Go.” One is fiction, the other is a cringe-worthy self-help book, but both taught me something about myself.

So this whole Jude business has me pretty bummed and even though I’m well on the road to recovery, I feel like I’m losing more than just a friend. I had finally met someone, or so I thought, that understood me and helped me to become a better person. The more I think about it though, the more I realize that he is just one of those guys that understand women like me and makes us feel understood. It was all a game to make me feel like I was special, but it left me wondering what the point of that is. I mean, why do you want to make women fall in love with you unless you feel pretty low about yourself and you need that to make yourself feel good? I used to think it would be cool to have men falling madly in love with me all of the time, but after thoughtful consideration I grasped the notion that would be pretty annoying. It would mean I’d have my choice of any man I wanted, but I’d rather not have such a large pool to choose from honestly. It’s kind of like having too many desserts to choose from: just offer me cake, ice cream or pie and I know which one makes me the happiest. Offer me 7 different kinds of cake, 8 different ice cream flavors and 4 different pies and I’m spoilt for choice and get confused.

I’ve discovered a lot about myself in the last year and I finally think I’m happy where I am. At least that’s what I tell myself several times a day. Fake it ’til you make it is my new motto. Or according to “The Language of Letting Go,” pretend as if. Pretend as if you’re the happiest person around and  that you’re ok with things that are out of your control, and pretty soon you’ll believe it and won’t have to pretend anymore. After all, a person can’t complete you, you have to be complete already if you’re ever going to achieve happiness in a relationship. If you’re unhappy now, what makes you think that a relationship can make you happy? You might gain superficial happiness at first, but after a while you’d feel the same emptiness that you felt without that other person.

“The Alchemist” deals with following your life’s path and listening to your heart. It might be too religious for some, myself included, but seeing as I have a pretty firm belief system that can’t be shaken, I feel comfortable with my personal interpretation of the story. I recommend it highly to anyone searching for the meaning of life. Or at least the meaning of whatever you’re looking for the meaning of. I think a lot of people are lost out there and just need something to ground them and make them feel whole. Whether that be religion, love, family or career I think this book might help.

I think self-help books can sometimes be more detrimental than helpful, but if you read them as a guide rather than as gospel I think sometimes they can shed light on common problems. Or they might just create more problems and ruin your life. Just keep your reading of them to a minimum and I think you’ll be safe. 😉

Your Cheatin’ Heart

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of publicity men are getting in entertainment news these days: Tiger Woods, Jesse James, Jim Carey, John Edwards, etc. and what it means to society. Are men cheating more, or is the media just highlighting it more? And do women cheat as much, or is it just men? And why do people cheat in the first place?

My heart broke when I heard that Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock. After seeing her on so many awards  shows and in so many interviews praising their love and his support of her it was a very tough blow. Why did he cheat? Was it too hard for him to accept such praise? Did he feel like a failure, so he figured he may as well act like one? I’ve heard of men that have never been appreciated before to such a degree find it hard to be put up on a pedestal. I remember dating a guy several years ago that thought I was beautiful and practically worshiped me. It was really hard to take because I didn’t feel that I deserved such praise. We ended up breaking up because it was just too much pressure. Is this what Jesse, Tiger, and others went through?

I’ve brought these questions up to a lot of people I know and have gotten various responses. One male friend says that men cheat because they have pressures, like women, to live up to an ideal. Men are taught that if they want to get a “quality” woman and keep her  they have to be good-looking and/or charming, rich and successful.  They’re also trained to always want the next bigger, better thing.  This is true of most of western society and why we’re such a disposable population. Do you have the newest cell phone? Laptop? Tablet PC? Etc? This is why that metaphor exists that when men dump their wife and mother of their 3 children for their much younger secretary, they’re trading up or getting the new model.

Some of my female friends think that men are just learning to behave poorly because women let them. Most women have a fear that a man can leave them for the “newer model” at any time, so they put up with bad behavior to not be alone. To some people it’s better to have someone than to have no one and be deemed an “old maid” by society. Women in India, Nepal and most Asian nations are treated as inferior and are only worth the dowry their family pays to marry them off. Men in these nations beat and emotionally and verbally abuse their wives because the general public believes this is just “how it is.” Young girls are sold into sexual slavery and treated as animals because they have no value without a man. This is the extreme end of the spectrum, but a valuable argument I think in the psychology behind why women act as they do, even in  the western world.

Or is it more of a god complex? Where famous, powerful men feel that they’re untouchable and can do whatever they want? Tiger cheated multiple times because he liked the attention and thought he couldn’t get caught and nothing bad was going to happen to him. Or maybe it was just his way of mourning his father and being rebellious about the fact that he didn’t have much of a childhood. Or maybe he is just addicted to sex and Elin wasn’t enough for him. I tend NOT to believe in sex addiction, however.  Not as the sole reason for a behavior anyway. One might be able to be addicted to sex, but it’s more of the feeling one has during the act than the act itself. A man or woman becomes addicted to the feeling of being wanted physically or feeling “loved” or needed in any way.

As a woman in my mid-thirties who is afraid of marriage, these stories don’t make me feel any closer to wanting to visit the altar. My dad cheated on my mom because, in my opinion, she didn’t let him feel “manly”  enough in the relationship. According to an article by James Williams I read on the blog Discovery News, Psychologist Jill Weber says that,  “In my experience, what I’ve seen in my practice, is that [men] want to feel like they matter. They want to feel like they can, sort of, influence their mates and their mate’s decisions or their wife’s decisions.”  My mom is an aggressive, angry woman and I’m sure this attitude took its toll on my father’s masculinity.  While I am in therapy to fix my issues, I am my mother’s daughter and am afraid, in a way, that any man I marry will cheat. It has been my biggest fear in every single relationship and it of course has been the reason for the demise of those same relationships.

Another question all of this raises is whether women cheat as often as men? When was the last time you read about a woman being addicted to sex? Or cheating on her husband with multiple partners? Or getting pregnant by another man? I am not excusing women and saying these things don’t happen, just wondering if they happen as much and why or why not?

As a woman, I often feel the pressures the media puts on us to look and be a certain way. Women in magazines often have perfect bodies, hair, teeth, skin and clothes. Women in film and on TV are more often than not flawlessly beautiful with size 8 shoe and size 6 dress (if not smaller). We are taught that we can only attract a “quality” man if we are pretty, thin with big boobs, successful (but not more successful than him, we wouldn’t want him to feel unnecessary), and fun. It also helps if you have small features and are little in comparison to him.

Although I’m somewhat attractive, smart, funny, loving and would be a good mother, I am 5’8″, a size 10, have size 11 shoe, adult acne and can be described sometimes as socially awkward. I love meeting new people, but often get nervous and say some pretty odd things. I know this about myself, and accept it, but realize it doesn’t always go over so well with the Brad Pitts and Donald Trumps of the world.

The DiscoveryNews article I mentioned earlier also addresses a point made by Biological Anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher that it’s an innate desire in animals to cheat. Only 3% of mammals, humans included, pair up to rare their young. And after a study of over 40 cultures of these couples that are married and “pairing up”, 56% of men and 34% of women stated that they were overall happy with their marriage and partner, yet still cheated. So what is the reason, if not an unhappy situation, for cheating, biologically?

Dr. Fisher believes that the brain has 3 systems for mating and reproduction,  sex drive, romantic love and  attachment and these systems aren’t always well-connected. Meaning that you can feel romantic love for one person, extreme attachment for another person, and really want to have sex with yet a different person. This doesn’t usually happen, though and most times people feel all three of these for the same person. This is what explains, according to Dr. Fisher, why you can be in love with more than one person at a time. However, because of our large cerebral cortex, we are able to overcome this biology to marry and not cheat. Therefore, although it is a natural desire to cheat, our brain enables us to consider the ramifications of our actions and choose whether to cheat or not.

So are my fears justified? Or is the media just trying to make us think that a lot of men are snakes and ignoring the women that behave the same way? Are we a society doomed to infidelity and insecurity? Or is there a way to overcome this and change the way men and women think and behave? Can we overcome and dominate the biological desire to be promiscuous?

Dr. Helen Fisher

How to Keep Him from Cheating

Smart Men Less Likely to Cheat Than Dumb Ones