Being gross: There's an app for that

So I’ll admit it, because as many jokes as we make, no one else wants to. I have a Tinder account. I also have a Lets Date, which I actually started back in January. And while the two apps are functionally the same thing, turns out in the aggregate, people men are nicer on Lets Date than on Tinder. Lets Date people genuinely want to date. They’re interested in who you are as a person, they want to know your likes and dislikes, and they want to buy you dinner. Tinder people are only concerned about your likes and dislikes insofar as they pertain to sexual fetishes, and they most they’re interested in springing for is a drink. Possibly with a roofie. So once Let’s Date had dried up and I had effectively gotten bored with everyone in the Denver area willing to buy me dinner (there was one person it would have genuinely been nice to spend time with, but he lived in Nebraska which might as well have been Pluto), I signed up on Tinder for shits and giggles, and then made my discovery that EVERYONE ON TINDER IS GROSS. Basically it’s the straight person’s Grindr, and if you don’t know what that is, I highly suggest you google it. I’m still using it, though, because it’s fun to be shallow and judge people based on a snapshot and yes I know I’m going to Hell or whatever the ambivalent agnostic’s equivalent is. Maybe it’s reincarnation in Nebraska. Also, I have complied a list of things that will get people’s attention on this shallow app and what will promptly end the conversation.

Girls:

Getting liked:

Being petite (or appearing small)

Being white

Being slightly nerdy

Smiling

Boobs

Evidence of a pulse

Bone structure

Getting blocked:

Accidentally typing “heh” instead of “hey”

A large vocabulary

Being an actual nerd

Talking about your senior thesis

Talking about Marxism, Burkean Rhetoric, Fordism, etc

Talking about literally anything other than sex after the first 24 hours of contact

Guys:

Getting liked:

Having your stars line up

Shirtless pictures

Sunglasses

A dog

Being some kind of athlete

Being employed

Brooding

Smiling

Evidence of a pulse

Getting blocked:

Using “describe your sexual fantasies” as an opener

Using “So are you into Star Wars role playing?” as an opener

Using “We should have a baby and name it Alex” as an opener

Using “I have a boner” as an opener

Demanding naked pics

Not understanding and not pretending to care about Marxism, Burkean Rhetoric, Fordism, etc

Calling yourself “a less murdery Patrick Bateman”

Of course, these are just personal observations. But I don’t think I would recommend Tinder to anyone. Unless your dream guy is “a less murdery Patrick Bateman.”

A functional list of shitty things that I have to deal with

Hey, do you remember how I started this blog to be funny and now I mostly just use it as therapy? Good times... Anyhow, I haven't updated lately, though the last two posts probably make it look like I've been dedicating a lot of time to my exboyfriends. Which isn't the case because school and a shockingly full social life more or less keep me occupied 90% of the time. Also, if I've been dedicating a lot of emotional and mental energy to anything, it's been my post grad plans. I've decided I'm going to move back to Prague to teach English. And as exciting as a thing that is on paper, every day I come up with another stupid reason to be pants-shittingly terrified. So I'm starting a running list here of shitty things that are going to happen and there's no point worrying about them until they actually happen. And they might be a little funny.

1) Problem: All my cooking at home centers around cheese, and the only flavor of cheese I ever found in Prague the first time around was "styrofoam."
How I could avoid it: Pack a second bag only full of cheese. Or learn to make my own.
How I can deal with it like an adult: Learn to cook less dairy-centric food.

2) Problem: I don't speak Czech and I'm not going to have a staff of four locals on call at all times to deal with my petty shit like doctors, taxes, and rent.
How I could avoid it: Marry a local who speaks Czech. Added bonus of making a visa easier to get.
How I can deal with it like an adult: Learn enough Czech while I'm there to survive and practice my "I'm stupid, please pity me" smile.

3) Problem: My ex is going to find out I'm back in the city eventually, and not only is there no foreseeable happy ending to that, I don't want him thinking I moved back in a desperate attempt to win him back.
How I could avoid it: Hide my presence from all our mutual friends, his coworkers, and constantly wear a mask/burqa any place I might run into him.
How I can deal with it like an adult: This one I've mostly figured out already. I don't hate this guy, I really don't. But he served his purpose, and now I'm much happier without him in my life than I ever was with him. Also, every time my brain imagines running into him, I repeat this: "Get coffee with you? That sounds about as much fun as a auto-hysterectomy. And I know English is your second language, so let me explain: I would rather sit in the bathtub and pull my own uterus out than be your friend."Of course, by the time I see him, if I see him, I might not feel that way. Or I might just not see him at all. Basically what I'm saying is, this one I mostly just have to stop thinking about.

4) Problem: I wasn't planning on staying in Prague for very long, I was going to go to Seoul. But now North Korea's being all uppity.

How I could avoid it: Have my grandfather call in a drone strike on Kim Jong Un. He knows people.

How I can deal with it like an adult: Find somewhere else to move. Because Prague is cool, but I'd be an idiot if I didn't go other places when I had the chance.

5) Problem: It's really hard to keep your friendships the same on the other end of the globe.

How I could avoid it: Kidnap all the people I like and bring them with me. In a couple cases, against their own will.

How I can deal with it like an adult: Accept that relationships change, and the people who really genuinely care about me will put in the effort to stay in my life. The only thing I really can do is to find time for them, even if it means waking up at 4 am to skype.

6) Problem: I'm going to teach English, and not only do I speak quickly with big words and a slight lisp, I am not a patient person.

How I could avoid it: I think this one could also be solved by marrying a local, as long as she/he's wealthy enough that I can be a kept woman.

How I can deal with it like an adult: Practice speaking slower and with smaller words, and make a conscious effort to not be sarcastic when my energy and patience run thin.

7) Problem: Everyone else in my life is moving on and turning into adults with houses, careers, and families. I feel like I'm kicking the can down the road.

How I could avoid it: Get a desk job instead, become the Don Draper of whatever industry I enter, alcoholism and philandering included.

How I can deal with it like an adult: Pretend (acknowledge?) that everyone else is just as confused and scared as I am. And while I'm jealous of their picket fences, they'll be jealous of how unattached I am.

8) Problem: There is not a big culinary range in Prague. Don't get me wrong, I love me the hell out of svichkova and goulash, but bye bye ethnic food of any type.

How I could avoid it: Abduct Gordon Ramsay. Keep him chained to my kitchen sink.

How I can deal with it like an adult: Make ethnic friends who can cook it themselves, find all the back alley restaurants that might serve what I want, and learn to cook it myself.

9) Problem: Netflix and Hulu don't work in Prague.

How I could avoid it: Buy Netflix and Hulu. Make them work in Prague.

How I can deal with it like an adult: Pirate all my shows. Learn to do with out.

An open letter to someone who made waves in my life

I wrote this to someone who- fuck it, you read the title. I liked it so much cause I'm in love with my own writing and because it could go to any number of people, that I decided to post it here with a little faith that it'll end up where it need to go.

---

Hey. 

I just wanted to say a couple things. And I hope this isn't long or long winded. And I hope my timing doesn't suck. Like, I hope I'm not sending this on the day you also find out your dog has cancer or your book ends badly and you see this and are like "Oh christ, why now?" Also, I'm rambling a little because I think I'm nervous. I'm debating, while I write this intro that is defeating my own wish that this not be long or long winded, if I should tell you anything about what's happened in my life since you-know-when.

I don't think I will.

If your curiosity overcomes you and you need to know, ask M---. He's been here the whole time, but I also trust him to be heterosexual enough to shrug and be like "I dunno, dude, a lot." Because I need to tell you this one big thing, but I don't want to talk to you. I don't want you in my life. We were bad for each other. Really, really bad. Abusively bad, and that is not an accusation I make lightly. So the same way alcoholics don't have even just one glass, I don't want to have even just one conversation. I don't want to reopen that door, not even a little.

And also, if you and I talk, it ruins my fantasy. Not that you'll get hit by a bus. I want to believe that you are happy. I want to think that you have friends, and that you do things that fulfill you, and that you've learned to stick up for yourself when someone is being mean, and that you've learned to forgive people for the stupid things they say. I want to believe that whoever is sharing your life right now makes you happy, that she (or he) looks at you with eyes full of wonder, and never wants to let go of you, and more than anything else makes you feel wonderful about yourself. Not validated because she (or he) loves you, not in a way that your life's meaning is couched in her (or him). I just hope that they love you enough that you wake up every day knowing that you are worth loving. And I know this sounds like an "Ermahgerd ah misssssssh yerh" kind of thing and it's not. Because I don't want to talk to you, remember? But here's the thing I wanted to say: I'm sorry for the way I made you feel. I'm sorry I dug my heels in over stupid shit all the time, I'm sorry I didn't pay attention to you, but most of all I'm sorry I spent so much time being angry at you when all you did was demand something better than the abuse I was dishing out. You get a lot of crap in your life. "You" here being the abstract pronoun standing in for everyone, because crap is not something that discriminates. And without going into details about how, I moved on.

I hope you did too.

I hope you have an adventure. I hope you learn to love yourself unconditionally and still admit when you've been wrong. I hope your heart becomes durable enough to let everyone in and not break when you let them back out. I hope you bury your toes in the sand of a foreign beach. I hope you learn a new language. I hope you nap in the December sunshine with your arms around someone beautiful. I hope you see something big enough to make you feel insignificant. I hope you make something wonderful enough to be proud of. I hope you love yourself, because no one is going to love you always unless you do, too. And I hope that you never think of me because I don't need you to. But if you slip, and we all slip, I want you to think of me happy, because I am, and I want that for you, too.

-C

Top Ten Responses when an Ex emails you

So I woke up yesterday morning to an email from a certain ex that more or less said, “Hey, I know I said I wasn’t going to talk to you until you broke the silence first, but I was clearly thinking of you and I hope you’re doing well.” These are the top responses rattling around in my head, and since I’m sick of  thinking about this and Blogger tracks my hits so I’ll know if he sees this (cue lighting crack and crazed laughter) I’m going to post this to get it out there and then proceed to go back to writing things I actually care about.

1)   The I Have More Willpower Than You  What part of “Have a nice life” means “email me in two weeks”? Hmm?

2)  The Blithely Diplomatic  I’m really flattered you’ve been thinking of me, and honestly, I’ve missed you too. But I can’t be friends with you because I can’t watch you be with someone else. That’s not a friendship if I can’t be happy for you, that’s me pining silently. And I really hope you don’t want to hear about the stable of men interested in buying me coffee (thank you internet dating). When the idea of you locking lips with someone less intelligent, less beautiful, and less funny than me stops dropping a knot in my stomach, I’ll call you. Probably. Maybe. No promises. More likely I’ll run into you and fuck it, I got nothing better going on so lets grab coffee.

3)  The I Won the Break Up  I’m doing fantastically, actually. Since I cut your sorry ass loose, I’ve been able to eat real meals, I’ve been baking, I’ve gone on a couple dates, I read a whole book, I shaved the side of my head again, I got three more piercings down the side of my ear, I’ve been baking like crazy, I threw a party, and I have been too busy to think about you.

4)  The Please Pull Your Head Out of Your Ass and Think About This  IF YOU WERE GOING TO EMAIL ME SO SOON, WHY THE HELL DID WE BREAK OFF CONTACT?! Could you please, just once in your life, put a little thought into something you did? And I don’t mean the “I’ve been humming and hawing over this for a couple days and I just really need to tell you how I feel even though it makes no god damn sense.” I mean, for once in your life, could you please be a decisive person? I told you pretty explicitly that the only words I wanted to hear from you were, “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean it.” Say that, say it if you mean it, and if 100% of you is not in that sentiment, leave me alone. Please.

5)  The Oh Please  Oh go whine to your new girlfriend. You’ve got to have one by now, you’re you.

6)  The Can We Just Please Move On?  I don’t wish you any ill will. I don’t spend my time wishing you’ll get hit by a bus, I don’t hope you’re losing sleep over what a dumbass thing you did, I don’t stay up at night wondering what you’re doing. But I don’t want to talk to you. I want to close this chapter in my life, and the only reason I told that person to say hi to you was to be polite. It wasn’t a coded message that I wanted you to email me, I just didn’t want to explain to them what happened and I was being polite. Despite so much of what you say, I really genuinely think you are the least introspective person I have met and because of that you really don’t think about how I’m feeling, and I would appreciate it if you could think about what effect your actions are going to have on me first. I’m flattered, I really am, but when I’m ready to talk to you, I’ll talk to you.

7)   The Knock Yourself Out, Buddy You’re welcome to email me. In fact, go fucking nuts. But I don’t have to email you back. Or open them. Or acknowledge you exist.

8) The Oh, We're Ignoring Anything Happened Now? Oh yeah, I'm doing great! Have you seen the new concept art for Injustice: Gods Among Us? Go check it out and by the way, I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU FOR A REASON.

9)  The That's Not Good Enough  Seriously, you still can’t be bothered to call me?

10) The You Lied and That Doesn't Go Away  Until I get an explanation for how you could tell me I’m the most perfect woman you’ve ever met and in the same breath tell me you don’t love me, I have nothing to say to you. Really, have a nice life.

We’ll see how long this stays up. In the morning I might realize that this is not taking the high road and take it down. Or I might leave it up because I refuse to communicate with him, but if I’m going to get emails from him, I’m going to want to respond somewhere.

Well this ain't gonna last

For those of you who followed along, you know that last year I worked two jobs plus a full load of school, which included trying (in vain) to learn Russian. Plus, it’s hard to enjoy life when the stick up your ass makes sitting painful. Funny side story: last May, towards the end of the school year, I was out with two of my male roommates enjoying a beer at a bar across the street from the business school, and a gentleman I had tried and failed to *ahem* “woo” ran into us. He liked both these roommates, and didn’t really have a knack for pattern recognition, so he joined us. As it just so happened, one of those roommates and I had drunkenly almost *ahem* “wooed” each other on occasion (why would I have a regular relationship when shitting where I eat is just so much more interesting?). Lips were a little looser and Lord of the Failed Wooing asked my roommate, “Really? Was it hard with that stick up her ass?” and they laughed and high fived and I glowered into my drink. Now, in hindsight, I find that joke really funny because, yes, I was too uptight, and yes that’s probably at least part of the reason I spent a year falling flat on my face. Anyway, back to this blog post. This year, I am only taking three classes in my native language, I am not working at all, and the stick-extraction is going nicely. Doc says I can probably sit within the next six months. So, because I know so many of you are not living this fantastic life, you can live vicariously through me. This is what my day looks like:

8 am: wake up naturally, check my phone, laugh and go back to bed.

10 am: wake up again, check my phone for text messages I inevitably ignore, and go back to bed again.

Noon: Wake up, grab my computer, and check Facebook, and Cracked, and Buzzfeed, and watch some TV

1 pm: Get out of bed and move immediately into the bathroom, where I take a nice hot shower. Or a nice cold shower, because it’s a total crap shoot in this building. Unless my roommate is home when I get out of bed, in which case I feel guilty because now she’s doing the two jobs and a full course load thing. If she’s there, I’ll actually go to the gym.

2 pm-5 pm: This varies. Some days I watch Friends reruns, other days I go back to my folks’ place and mooch my little brother’s brand new PC, cuddle their dogs, and eat their food.

6 pm: Make dinner. Or order dinner out. See, I dropped 13 pounds when I was abroad cause of all the walking, and another 8 pounds the month I got back because like I said, why do a regular relationship. So healthy eating right now? Not gonna be a priority until my pants fit again.

7 pm- 9 pm: More TV and/or Diablo, chat with friends or actually hang out with them in person. We’ve got a great apartment, every other night someone’s usually here. When I’m allowed to drink again (doc says no booze till I gain a pant size. Currently floating at emmaciated and staunchly refusing to by new pants because I don’t like looking like Skeletor) we'll go back out, which was becoming pleasantly habitual to sip a beer and socialize somewhere. Or if no one’s here, experimenting with different baking recipes.

10 pm: My minimal homework, most of which is essay writing, which I excel at. But you knew that cause you read this.

11 pm – 1am: More TV/video games/baking before going to bed.

2 am: I’ll usually fall asleep reading while texting various entities.

I know it sounds like I don’t do anything, and that’s because I don’t and it is marvelous. I also know there’s never going to be another period in my life when I can float through with this little stress. And god knows I have been stressed up to my eyeballs since graduating high school. So I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to keep sleeping in until noon and spending weekends cooking for my friends and getting coffee with charming nut-cases and being young and pretty and irresponsible because I haven’t done that yet and everyone ought to if they can get away with it.

My life as a fictional character

Here we are again, friends. Cheaper than therapy, but less helpful. So I’ve been listening to this song a lot – Harbour Lights by A Silent Film (they’re British, thus the spelling). It’s not a super complicated song, it basically has one premise: a prolonged metaphor between a rock and a stepping stone. “You were my rock, never a stepping stone… She said I’ll be your rock when the water comes, don’t waste your life on the stepping stones.” Presumably the song is about someone specific, but there’s a pretty easy application of the metaphor to pedestrian, non-British listeners. I feel like the last couple of months I have run into a lot of people splashing around looking for their rock and getting caught on the stepping stones. It’s my blog, so I don’t mind airing my dirty laundry, but I’ll leave my friends mostly out of it. There’s a lot of you fuckers, though. I don’t know, maybe this isn’t a new development, but I’ve watched a lot of people who have been okay with casual dating shift into wanting something more solid – we’ll call them rocks for the sake of the extended metaphor.

There are, however, two cases that I can bring up because they’re 50% mine. Those of you who know me (and why would you be reading this if you didn’t know me) or those of you who’ve been following along are probably aware that the last six months have been important for me romantically. Emotionally, whatever. I had this one guy in my life for four years, and I spent an extra year being a little too hung up on him, and that sad experiment came crashing down around my ears middle of June. Clever readers probably also noticed (because I made no fucking secret of it) that I started dating a Czech gentleman in September. It was crazy, it was intense, it was tumultuous, but it served the very important purpose of putting me back on my feet, emotionally. When someone’s known you since you were 14, been your best friend since 16, boyfriend since 17, and then doesn’t have fucking thing to lose, they can do a lot of damage to your infrastructure. And apparently the best way to get the support beams back up to code is to outsource the labor to a foreign contractor. I mean, I’m over simplifying it, some other pretty important shit happened, but no matter what happens, that’s a pretty big take away for me. Yet one of the things I’ve been hearing since June from a couple different people (and not just these two males, mind you) is the general impression that I can’t be “real.”

Alright, there are some logical things behind that which I won't stick on the internet. Suffice it to say, I understand their logic.

Reality of the circumstances aside, I want to talk about why I keep being told I can’t be “real.” I might be nitpicking the rhetoric a little here, but isn’t there a pretty broad choice of words these people could be using to describe my apparent undatability? Can’t be “long-term,” can’t be “there for me,” can’t be “the mother of my children,” I could go on. No, I keep hearing iterations of I can’t be “real.” Seriously, all the permutations of this one I think I’ve heard. “I’m looking for the real thing.” “I want someone real in my life.” “He wants the real person he’s supposed to be with.” Blah blah blah. Does that strike anyone else as a weird term? I mean, I’m real. If you hit me with a car, do I not need to be taken to a hospital (that’s Shakespeare, fyi)? I’m flesh and blood and mucus and bone marrow and white blood cells and whatever the hell else makes up a human body. I’ve got a brain floating around in my skull that doesn’t like to let me sleep at normal hours and is a little chemically imbalanced which makes me prone to mood swings, but also has a good grasp on abstract thinking and can turn a phrase quite nicely. I am no more remarkable than any other human on this planet in that I am made up of the exact same stuff as everyone else, and by that same fucking logic, I am just as real as everyone else.

In case you can’t tell, I am real sick of being told I can’t be "real."

And before you tell me I’m over reacting, it’s not just in the context of relationships (though that pisses me off the most). I had a make-up artist tell me I have “unreal bone structure” in New York City this summer. In fact, I’m often told I look like an elf or a fairy or a gnome (thanks, asshole) or some other fantasy creature. I’m frequently told that the stories I tell about things that happen to me “don’t sound real.” I did a little digging into that, and the answer I got that satisfies me is that I tell stories in such a literary fashion (established characters, plot arcs, well established TV sitcom tropes) that subconsciously people think they sound too manufactured or some such nonsense to believe I really could end up on a stranger’s lawn at 3 AM in a Long Island hamlet about to hook up with a friend of a friend. I hear it all the time. I can’t be real because I like video games and comic books, and I understand them on an intellectual level and am also a girl. I can’t be real because my parents are still together and I have a good relationship with my family. I can’t be real because I bake pretty well, but can’t change the oil on my car without something catching fire. I can’t be real because I’m too funny, too intellectual, too witty, too honest with strangers in bars, too closed off with people I know, too pretty, too nerdy, and also too serious, too arrogant, too old for my age. I am apparently such an extreme combination of traits that I could only exist in a book, where I would apparently be a fairy or an elf or a gnome biting people’s ankles. And it didn’t used to bug me, because I thought it was funny, and on an instinctual level I knew it meant I would never be hard up for conversation. But now that I’ve heard it in a context that seems to imply I am going to die alone because I can’t be a real fixture in someone else’s life, it’s starting to piss me off.

So fine. This is me steering into the skid. I like my unreal traits. I might have unreal bone structure, but it’s beautiful bone structure – you could cut marble on my cheekbones. My stories might sound larger than life, but they are funny and well-told and by the end I have whole rooms of people focused on me. I like all these things about me that make me unreal, and I am not going to stop even though it apparently means I can’t be someone’s rock. I’ll be my own damn rock, in addition to the gnome underneath biting ankles. 

Being home

I might be putting the cart before the horse here, but I’m not going to do a summary of my study abroad experience. At least not until I readjust to being home a little bit. But people keep asking me what its like being home, so I figured I’d describe it while it’s still.. you know, weird.

First, Colorado is beautiful… in the mountains. Where I am fortunately enough to (kind of) live. Don’t get me wrong, the foothills where my folks live is pretty when everything isn’t yellow and dead. And it’s so open! Try to imagine the contrast of going from a densely packed and colorful urban environment where you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting another human being, to a wide open mostly yellow landscape where the only other people around are your family members and neighbors, whom you can easily avoid. Then, apartments in Prague are about the size of my living room, and the sheer size of my house is kind of overwhelming. So much so, actually, that once I got back I kind of hid in my room. I wonder if Prague turned me agoraphobic, because seriously, the intense amount of space is freaking me out. And other things in the house, which is really the only place I’ve been so far, are kind of messing with me, too. For instance, I can’t just smack the light switch, I have to actively switch it. There’s too much water in toilets, and the handles are on the actual toilet instead of the wall behind it.

The next big thing that’s messing with me is how expensive the food is, and how flippantly my family will just order it. Tonight for dinner we got Noodles, and it was because cooking was inconvenient. We filled out an order online, everyone made a thousand customizations to their food (no mushrooms, extra spicy, etc), then my mom drove 10 minutes there and back to get it with my grandpa. The closest to that I got in Prague was walking a block down the street, picking up a big bowl of pho and going back. I can’t really imagine what going to the grocery store is going to be like.

I sound like I’m complaining (and I kind of am), but I will admit there are things I missed. My dogs, for one. Also, the fat one recently was diagnosed with a thyroid problem and put on pills (something I called over the summer, thank you very much) so she’s now more cuddly and interested in what I’m doing. Attentive service from waiters I missed, because they have to kiss ass for your tip or they don’t eat. Part of that is also massive drinks and free refills (the altitude is dehydrating me something fierce). And as much as I bitch, I missed my family. In three months my sister had to have grown three inches, my brother finally has a license and a car, my dad is sporting a pedo-stache that makes him look like he offers candy to kids on their way home from school, and my mom painted the house banana yellow. But nothing’s changed. My brother still curls his hands up against his chest when he’s annoyed by something we’re doing. My sister still bends over backwards for attention. And the only conversation I have with my father is affectionate antagonism (see: pedo-stache). Although he did ask this morning when I was in the basement doodling how I was adjusting, which was nice. Of course, my mom is still my mom, equal parts caregiver and smartass. She simultaneous made me tea and told me to grow a set, then gave me a sleeping pill and told me to shut my damn brain off and sleep.

I’d still rather be in Prague. But if I can’t be there, it’s good to be home.