Author: Tristan (Page 2 of 17)

Sustainable Relationships

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We need to stop treating our potential significant others so carefully, formulaically, differently.

Ya know that crude you, you show to your best friend? Or that goofy side to your family? Or that weird crazy side to your cat or dog?

THAT is what you should be showing to someone you want to get to know. The small moments of you. The moments that when you add them all up over time, make who you are unique and personable. Choosing the perfect text, or trying to come up with the best jokes, or getting your outfit just right has zero context in the grand scheme of the time it takes to get to know someone. It is sterile and boring.

Time, this crazy little thing we all have to endure, is the only way to really know someone, so why waste it? One day at a time you learn who someone is, and if you are enjoying today, you should look forward to tomorrow as well, and then when you have a day you don’t enjoy, you ask: Why? And if the “why” is more important than the time spent, you know it won’t work, but if the “why” was just a bump in the road of getting to know another human’s complexities, you go to the next day more informed and stronger together.

I mean sure there is a level of “lovey” or “puppy dog” personality that goes with a new relationship but that should be in addition to you. Not a subtraction.

Why do we need to facade for x amount a “societal determined acceptable standard” days or months or even years or titles; “Well you aren’t my boyfriend” “Well you are a stranger” “Well all we have done is texted”. No shit, we are meeting in a new inorganic yet oddly similar to real life way of meeting with online dating: “See cute person, say hello”. We are missing the 3D aspects of it and the sensations of real life, yes, always tempted by the next swipe, but it is still very similar if you take it to the core of what it is.

My wish is that people would treat me like we’ve known each other for years, even if we just exchanged a “hello”, but with a strong enough sense of self to be careful and protective of their own experiences, sharing with me as we go so I can know what you experienced the last X amount of years of your life. I am not asking you to be flapping in the wind vulnerable, I expect you to be somewhat guarded, but also open to yourself and others, so it isn’t a struggle but a dance getting to know one another.

But what I find is people are just less communicative. Less themselves. Less goofy. Less real. More closed off. More guarded.

Do you call your friends on the phone? Or FaceTime them silly shit? Why can’t the potential significant other you just met see that. It’s always a game. But it isn’t a fun game for one party. Time doesn’t go slower the more you hide. So stop wasting it. Open yourself up to rejection. If you swiped the face you thought was pretty, awesome! Nothing wrong with that, but the face only gets the conversation started, because if the conversation sucks, the face means nothing. So start a conversation! A real conversation.

Instead of embracing it as the main form of dating now, we are wasting our time making excuses about how it is horrible and inorganic. We use it as a social experiment for an ego boost or we blame our failures on it because of it.We make up personas. And instead of choosing how it works and how we use it, we just make it an uncomfortable place to be.

We are wasting our time. We are wasting others time. We aren’t ourselves and therefore we aren’t truly allowing others in. What happens if the other person likes this fictitious version of you? I’ve been in that relationship, it sucks when the other person finally decides to change for themselves and you realize you have no idea who they are and that it really isn’t someone you liked to begin with.

Who has time to make so many rules to who they can and can’t be. Just be one human. Yourself. And let it be what it will be. The truth. And if that means someone may not like you it means they wouldn’t have liked you even if you were fake, because eventually we are all just in our rocking chairs yelling at the kids to get off our lawn.

Don’t even get me started about the stigma of going to the bathroom on a first date… (everyone poops)

But speaking of that first date, what about just the first text? People do everything they can to avoid interaction these days that is beyond an emoji. Hiding behind the guise of “If we knew each other, it would be different”. Ironically(for multitudes of reasons including how do you get to know someone if they don’t let you get to know them), when you disconnect from them because you know, personally, you dislike that approach, all of a sudden they try to reach out to you in every form of contact available(all social media), just to tell you what a mistake you made, and how they are different when you get to know them.

Well STOP that. Be YOU before I get to know you. And perhaps I won’t feel the constant need to move away from the small talk and 2 – 3 day waits for 1 line sentences about the weather. I need more than banter. I need more than knowing you like hiking or sarcasm. I need the in between. That is what makes you and that is what invigorates me to want to share my time, my life, and maybe, if we get there over time, my love with you.

Midlife Hair Crisis

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I was born into a family with no brothers. I have 5 sisters actually. Most of my close friends are women. So when this summer I was blessed with the dormant gene in my family that no one has experienced in my lifetime that causes male pattern baldness, I started to, for lack of a better term, freak the fuck out. And there was really no support system since no one had been through it and I felt very alone.

And I am not talking oh man this sucks moments, I am talking moments of depression which I have never had. How could this happen to me? Am I sick? My DNA test said I wouldn’t have this! There must be something wrong with me…

I cut out multiple different food and tried multiple different changes in my life to see if perhaps I was sick. Now this was compacted by multiple deaths this summer and life changing moments in which my life spiraled. So I didn’t really know how hard it was hitting me until I got the rest of it into order. I got back into shape, I healed from the hurt, I started to manage my childhood anxieties. And yet there it was, plain as day, my hair, thinning and receding in the front of my head and thinning in a wonderful patchiness in the back.

Still I couldn’t accept it. I held onto hope that I truly was sick and there was a cure for this. I am the guy with the crazy haircuts. The hair cuts that would get my family up in arms at all the family gatherings. The haircuts that would get the mixed “You hipster” comments on Facebook.

I boltstered enough strength to ask my friends publicly on facebook how I might look with a shaved head. The answers varied obviously but someone finally said, “I too have this!” and another, and then another. Girlfriends of guys going through it too also messaged me and said my reactions were not any different than what they were seeing. This gave me comfort. I thought I was nuts for having such a strong reaction to something so simple as hair. But then again after reading up about it all, hair loss for men has actually been compared to postpartum depression for women.

Hair is societally related to signs of youth, virility, power, social status, and sexuality. So even if I am not full on bald yet, seeing the signs of the inevitable at 35 was enough to spiral me out. I searched the internet for men with shaved heads and who looked good and who didn’t. I watched video after video of men talking about their experiences with it. Even watch grown men in tears about the idea.

Some of my male friends on facebook suggested rogaine and other drugs that work. However the catch with these drugs is you have to always take them. And it isn’t just maintanance it becomes a lifestyle for what? Hair? It seemed crazy to me, that I would invest that much time and money into something like this. I am not that vein, but at the same time I decided to try it.

Enter Rogaine. Well turns out, Rogaine and Anxiety do not mix. The chemicals are basically enemies and I ended up with some pretty shit side effects. So I washed that shit out of my hair and said no, I can’t do this twice a day for the rest of my life (because when you stop your hair just goes back to where it was or wasn’t)

Finally, I had an appointment with a doctor. He took only a second to confirm what I feared, “You are showing exact signs of male pattern baldness”, “No your dad didn’t have to have it too”, “Do not take propecia you can literally lose sexual function permanently”(I trust this doctor and if he warns against that, I listen) “If you would like to talk more about it we can set aside a time to go over all the information”. I didn’t quite understand why he offered that until I looked at how hard I was taking it. Completely out of my control, subjected to my first of a few recent encounters with mortality, it was hitting me hard.

I was relieved to hear a diagnosis though, and it gave me the strength to try my hand at a shaved head. I wasn’t in peak shape yet, so shaving my head during a bit of a chubby phase was prolly not the best idea, but I did it anyway. And hey, turns out I have a nice head under the hair! However, I looked in the mirror and no longer saw me. I saw an old man. I posted a photo and one person as a joke said “Oh look it’s homer simpson” I was devastated. All i could see was the men I grew up watching on TV that played the dad. Had I lost my youth? I am not married, I do not have a girlfriend, so I can’t trust that the person I love loves me as me and won’t judge my book cover before getting to know the contents. I did end up dating one person after I shaved it and they had no issues with it at all, in fact they liked playing with it. But what caught me off guard was when they said in response to “I miss my long hair”: “I dunno, I never saw you like that”.

That hit hard, this person would never know that person. It was like my hair being shaved had killed off a person I had been for 35 years and I couldn’t share crazy hair Tristan with them. They didn’t see the extreme change, they just saw me, Tristan, 35, today. Not the juxtaposition I saw in the mirror.

Even months later, as I have accepted it more and more, and all I want to do is shave it, I can’t get myself to do it again. I recently, because I am still not “just ok” with it all, did a poll on instagram to see what people preferred, my grown hair even with thinning spots or shaved. 90% voted grown out hair, even with the thinning spot, citing youth as main reason.(even though I think that actually makes me look older) But the general jist was I look younger with hair.

And I don’t disagree. But to me shaving it off means more than a statement, or balding, it is a way to wash my head clean of this constant reminder, however small it may be, or even if it is only visible to me, that it is happening I feel the need to embrace it to move forward with it. To empower myself to not have these shitty feelings which are uniformly the same with many men who have had long hair most of their lives. The one thing I totally missed when I shaved it was getting a haircut. I loved sitting in the chair and having that clean cut.

So again I sit here, my hair semi grown back after a summer of shaved, debating if I want to have that spot on the back of my scalp show up in photos as lighter than the rest of my head and see the front of my heads hair wispy and unable to grow the same lengths as the surrounding hair everyday in the mirror, or just take off a few years of “Youth” but giving me more strength mentally. To be totally honest I mostly wear a hat when I know I need to be seen from that angle now.

Society is a piece of shit. We are not accepting of the process of aging. Shit I am not even that old yet, I just happen to get this right at this moment in my life. We are the only creatures to understand everyone gets older, yet we cling to “youth” in the strangest ways. Ways that make you uncomfortable to even have the conversation about. Only accepting age if it defies the odds or is a meme. Uncontrollable things like hair are held on pedestals.

While I have time to decide my hairs ultimate fate, I sit here uncomfortable, but still trying to make peace with it. For those of you who like me didn’t have a support system, know you aren’t crazy, your freak out is normal, and you are still awesome. And no I am not the Rock or Jason Statham 🙂 So stop with that shit. We all have to go through this our own ways. But we are all going through it more alike than we know. And I am glad to know I am not alone after the experiences so far. I just hope I can be strong enough to decide what is best for me, regardless of anyone else’s opinion. Because that is the sexiest look for a person, self confidence.

Even sharing this is tough, because I have to admit it is real.

Anxiety and Dating

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In a world where anxiety is overused as “I have so much to do today, I have so much anxiety”

When you are trying to explain to someone how you have clinical anxiety, such as ptsd anxiety, it can be a real challenge. Let alone if you are prescribed medication for the anxiety. (The medication which just makes you not have anxiety, no feeling weird, acting different, just something to bring the cortisol levels to normal.)

But in relationships or when dating, especially new ones, it is hard to get this information to your partner. They might not understand what it means, they may feel like they might have to walk on egg shells with you or think perhaps you just have too much work to do and are feeling “stress”. So you try to explain it, and it just gets messy, as if you are explaining some crazy disease that they can catch and forces you to be no fun ever.

Recently I got off all anxiety medication to see how I did without it after 15 years with a doctor’s help. Well turns out, I truly need it. So I am now back on it but a different dose because it added up and got pretty bad for a month or two. So as I actively work on balancing out my brain again, proactively doing things to be a better human, I feel judged.

I feel judged when my erection at 35 doesn’t fully meet expectations occasionally.

I feel judged when I have to take my medication.

I feel judged because I know how much I need and having to take a little more because of mitigating circumstances at this very moment is rough because I don’t like taking drugs in general.

And heaven forbid you get sexual and the drug counteracts your bodies natural ability to perform as well, they think you don’t like them. WHAT?! Why can’t you listen to my words and hear my reactions. Why must this damn dick of mine that can’t stay hard for 4 hours straight be the gauge for sexual pleasure and attraction?

I’ve even looked into viagra, because I didn’t want to disappoint someone who didn’t understand how this shit works. Suddenly this person who I was enjoying my night with, had reversed their insecurities about my openness of actually liking them enough to stick my dick inside them to making me feel as though, an involuntary reaction due to my own self care, was my fault. Which doesn’t help performance, when you are feeling judged harder now. (hehe harder) Now mind you it is rare when it happens but when you are on a higher dose of medication it can happen. And you just feel like crap because you are enjoying the moment, loving the feelings, but your body is just reacting to a medicine. Something you have had to come to grips with, but sometimes when dating, the other person just doesn’t get it.

I often feel as though explaining to someone that I have anxiety is explaining to someone I am missing a limb or I am broken. The understanding of true anxiety and not the generalized form synonymous with stress is not something people really understand. And if they do understand it, and they too suffer from it, they think, hmmm perhaps we can’t work together because I need someone who can take care of me and since he has it, he is incapable.

There are so many misconceptions and stigmas and projections when you tell someone you have anxiety and take medication for it, it is baffling.

For me I know this: I experimented with doctor supervision what I could and couldn’t do with my brain chemistry and now I am taking the active role to make sure I am a functioning human of society. This should be commendable. This should be something I am proud of. And if there was no one else around, I would be. But those judgement moments make it all kinda hard.

Snowday

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Memories came flashing back today of snow days as a child. The rush when the phone would ring in early in the morning hours. Waiting to hear if you mom would walk to your room to say “Snow day” or “Delayed opening”. One of these was awesome, one of these was dreaded haha.

Then I thought about it more and realized, holy crap, a snowday meant I would sleep a little bit longer, but ultimately, I would put on my snow pants and wrap up to go outside and eat snow mounds and build snowmen with my friends, or make forts and try to catch a slick snow sliding wave.

What it didn’t mean: logging onto anything, looking at a smart anything, checking social anything, taking a selfie of any sort.

This then reminded me of the first time I did get a cell phone and how it was used: To call someone to plan where and when to meet.

Which then reminded me of when I actually got my first phone that texted, and how I hated it for anything more than “see you at 2 here”

Which then reminded me of when I first got social media and just didn’t get it. Why would anyone want a “status update” while I took a shit?

To this day, I still hate texting, I still hate social media updates, and I still miss waking up without it all, just worrying if it will be a delayed opening versus a full on snow day.

You make me too comfortable…

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“I feel like we have been dating for years and I am so comfortable with you!”

But instead of going with the flow of life, I am going to project my own insecurities I have with commitment on your ability to just be someone who adapts to situations, enjoys calm, talks to new people as if they have been friends for years, and just take it a minute at a time.

Oddly enough the minute at a time makes people very comfortable or whatever other synonym.

“I feel so comfortable around you”

“It feels like we have known each other for much longer”

“This doesn’t feel like a first date” (whatever that means)

“You are so easy to talk to”

You get the point.

But while you think in your mind, cool I am not making this person freak out, it is actually making them freak out.

What you thought was a first drink and dinner has now turned into thanksgiving dinner with the entire family meeting them for the first time.

What you thought was a good night kiss, was actually a passionate kiss to wake the princess from her deep sleep.(fuck you Disney)

What you thought was a reaction from the kiss and night of fun that landed in your bedroom is actually Valentine’s day sex. (Pointless, but if you forget….. I digress)

What you thought was normal sit in the kitchen and drink coffee to wake up before you have to poop, was actually a discussion about moving in together.

So when they leave and you are sitting at home feeling as though that was a nice date. She was cool. Can’t wait to get to know her more so I see if we work out in the long run. Ya know, day to day experiences two people must have. I’ve spoken how time is the only real truth to love. They are freaking out, talking to their friends, replaying it all thinking about how you made them too comfortable and blaming it on “crazy girl mind”, while also completely cutting you out of the conversation. Maybe being hard on themselves because they slept with you? Maybe for “telling you too much”. I dunno. But def not just reminiscing on a good night.

And this is my short and simple explanation of why asshole guys finish first. Because those of us who don’t play games, don’t hide ourselves from person to person, and just enjoy the moments, make others too comfortable. Where is the excitement in that? I dunno maybe if we woulda had a second date we could have jumped out of a plane to find out, ha. Can’t have adventure without experience, can’t have experience without time. Can be comfortable with yourself enough to be comfortable with others without needing to look too far into it.

The more we “like” the less we see.

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“Cool photo you took!”

And with that I double click it, and scroll to the next, thinking to myself, I’ll see it again later cause Instagram stores my likes, but guess what, I never do. So I spend less time properly absorbing what is in-front of me, and more time, scrolling to the next.

The average user spends less than 3 seconds per image on Instagram, that includes time to click like.

We are archiving the things we are seeing these days and putting them into meaningless “lists”, never to be seen again. Kinda like that time you shot the fireworks on your phone’s camera and later in the year were like:

“FUCK YEAH I AM SO GLAD I SHOT THESE FIREWORKS ON MY SHITTY ASS CAMERA WITH A HORRIBLE MIC, I AM WATCHING THIS AGAIN!”.

But if it wasn’t bad enough that we endlessly scroll through each “firework” of our social media lives now we create “Pods” and “Bots” to do the scrolling for us. We automate the scrolling and liking process because we want to grow our “influence” faster.

But what are you influencing when 99% of the instagram nobody is doing the exact same thing. You are converting a society that created Beethoven’s Symphony, put men in space, into the digital simulated “drones” that Elon Musk believes we are living in. And even if we are not in a simulation, powering our alter simulations lives, we have pretty much become so many steps disconnected from actually connecting with one another that the idea of others botting us as we bot them to grow our “influence” doesn’t seem to matter.

Why doesn’t anyone understand that the like or “Awesome!” comment on their photo means absolutely nothing if no one is actually there to mean it? Or to spend the time walking between photos or places or people and interating with them like you might in a museum, or intimate party, or exotic vacation. Without documenting it, just looking at it, seeing it. Soaking it in for more than the 3 seconds allocated for an archival process never to be looked at again.

Barney Bailey could sell you fire in water, but this is far worse and you all, myself included, bought in. Because we know, or we hope, that perhaps if I bot longer than subject 2917271 bots that I will grow .1% more followers and likes and “engagements” to be recognized for a brand deal that actually pays me for all this time I am spending.

Engagements.. Haha how do we even quantify this anymore. I comment on your photo, hoping you comment on my photo, hoping that will drive me into the algorithm of “seen posts” and someone else will comment on the photo, but they are commenting on the most popular photo in hopes that someone else will comment on their… DO YOU SEE THE ENDLESS FUCKING LOOP OF ABSOLUTE NOTHING?

We have created a system in which nothing, not a damn interaction, not the “color scheme” of your page, your content, your “engagement”, matters. Not even brands who endorse “influencers” understand this shit fully, and to be honest, if I were you and you have paid endorsements, ride it the fuck out hard until it eventually either implodes or our new currency in life becomes likes. Like cryptocurrency mining, but like and “engagement” mining. We are already putting enough energy and “effort” into these kinds of actions that we could most likely have randomly typed Shakespeare faster than the monkeys if the likes were random keystrokes.

But this is the world right now. Never seeing, only archiving, with no intent of looking back. Wondering why they feel empty, alone, and stuck without a sense of permanence in the world. We created this world.

We fuel this world.

Wake the fuck up and fight for your right to be human again and not an automated system.

We define how technology defines us, not the other way around. But if you keep clicking “like” in hopes for your “like” or because “well I will look at it later”, the cycle continues and those who benefit from it, will encourage you to continue feeding the system that makes them money.

We have more choices than we think when we decide what defines as in society, online, commercially. We have the power to stop using a product, stop putting money into things that hurt us or we dislike, and we have the power to change a lot, by smacking those in the wallet who would try to have only their own interests in mind to stop it from happening.

So let’s challenge ourselves in 2019 to be present more and utilize technology to make us better not… automated.

The “Romantic Spark” is Burning Your Chances

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“I’m sorry I just didn’t feel the Romantic Spark”

This is what I was told just recently after asking if I could call someone I swiped on from an online dating site. I thought, let’s see if we can hold a conversation before we meet so make sure we don’t waste time at an awkward dinner or coffee meeting. If anything I wonder why more people don’t want to do this! It is a great way to weed out the weirdos! But that aside, we talked for about 20 minutes as she got ready to go to a class and was running around her house getting dressed and seemed kinda stressed. No biggie, nothing big was being talked about, it was just a general, “Hello, I am real, you are real, nice to hear your voice with inflection!”

The next day I texted to see if they wanted to grab a coffee and I got the response above.

I sat there for a moment, kinda dumbfounded. Is this how quickly people expect to find romance? To feel the “connection” to another human being that is multi faceted? Someone you never met, never smelled, never looked into their eyes? Never shared physical space with?

I was talking to my trainer about it this morning and I said, it is kind of like if someone came in for a session, worked out hard, and at the end of the session looked in the mirror and told him, “Yeah, I don’t see any results, this isn’t working.”

What the fuck has happened to us as human beings? Are we that addicted to the dopamine of the instant “click”, the “excitement of new people that if we don’t have the nearly 1 in a million experience of “love at first sight” (yes I was on the pilot for that show), that knowing we can keep swiping until we get our fix for it, we can just toss away the idea of anything that remotely resembles “getting to know someone” and “learning to love them for who they are, what they believe in, how we get along, and in person interactions experiences we have together”?

Shit if you want fireworks that badly at the first meeting, if you have iMessage I can send them right away!

Now there is the one obvious answer to all of this which is that people are just not strong enough to tell you the truth as to why they are not interested in you. So they make up a reason that they feel is the least intrusive. But seriously, in this case it’s OK to tell the truth. It is OK to answer a text with an unpopular answer. It is OK to tell someone what is on your mind. It is OK to be uncomfortable doing it as well! (I have talked about how we really need to start “getting hurt” again) So stop with the “I didn’t feel a romantic click” lines after texting someone for 10 seconds and just say “I don’t think we are compatible for X reason”. 99/100 times it will give everyone closure.

Mind you there are the crazies, but they don’t define the majority of us.

So please, just be honest. Shit I have gone on a date where I told the person when I met them in person, “I am sorry you don’t look like your photos and I feel a bit deceived, so I am going to head out, but thank you for coming to meet me regardless. Good luck!”

But to me I think it is a deeper problem. An addiction to the feeling of “new romance” the addiction to the massive exposure to so many people and the excitement of puppy love, that what is happening is people are no longer aware of how to actually build a foundation for a relationship. How love comes in time. How you can grow your love based on experiences and interactions together. How love doesn’t always have a set path or reason. How it isn’t a rush to the finish but a step at a time, enjoying the moments you get to spend with another human and allow them into your life, and to share yours with them. The love that comes from truly “falling in love” not pretending we are legos and “clicking” it all together.

So again, I am taken aback by the way we as a society are assimilating to what these dating sites tell us to do. How we should feel. How we should interact. Taking out more and more of the personalizations and adding more emojis, quick responses, canned responses, and cheesy “List your fav color for match percentages”. These dating sites have a business model. And if you actually form a long lasting relationship, guess which site doesn’t get paid? Think about that for a second. Now take those extra seconds and give people a chance with the extra time. Don’t take excitement and enthusiasm as bad signs, but use them to grow. Stop swiping just for a minute, figure out if we can create some moments together, and inspire each other! Then let that go wherever it may go, even if it ends up not working. One must be open to conversation and not afraid of debate as if it is confrontation. Opening yourself up for rejection to see if you truly understand the complexities of another person.

Hardest part though is this all starts with you. So yes perhaps there was another reason that text was sent, but from my experience, it is no longer the logical answer, but the illogical endorphin rush needed to make the tedious task of swiping and telling your favorite color over and over entertaining and feeling worthwhile, but at the expense of true connections.

The Truth

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It’s OK to tell the truth. It is OK to answer a text with an unpopular answer. It is OK to tell someone what is on your mind. It is OK to be uncomfortable doing it as well! So stop with the “I didn’t feel a romantic click” lines after texting someone for 10 seconds and just say “I don’t think we are physically compatible” or whatever the case may be. 99/100 times it will give everyone closure.

Mind you there are the crazies, but they don’t define the majority of us.

So please, just be honest. Shit I have gone on a date where I told the person when I met them in person, “I am sorry you don’t look like your photos and I feel a bit deceived, so I am going to head out, but thank you for coming to meet me regardless. Good luck!”

My space, your comfort.

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As someone with anxiety I understand the importance of comfort in a new space or environment. So I try to make my space as welcoming with as many of life’s comforts as possible. You should see my bathroom: Fans for sound, smelly things to cover the scent of smelly things, shower stuff, candles, extra toilet paper(the soft kind!), you name it!

Not only that the lighting is warm and inviting. The chairs are comfy, the sheets are soft, the temperature is appropriate, the bed is softer than a baby butt!

I want you to go in my fridge and grab food or snacks if you need them. I show you where everything is so you feel at home. Because I know when I am at someone else’s place I often miss the comforts what one may call a “safety blanket” i.e. my home.

So while I end up doing all of this to make you comfortable in my space, when I start to be taken advantage of in my own space, be it plans changing, being disrespectful of the space, there is a certain time where I need to look to myself and go, OK, I have worked X hard to make sure they are comfortable, are they doing the same for me? Often I realize, people are just not as respectful of the comfort level difference between being in your own space and being in your own space with someone else.

So when someone starts to make you feel uncomfortable in your own space by ignoring the effort you go to to make sure they are comfortable that is when things become shitty. Changing plans last minute, when you may have had to re-arranging your own life to make things work is one example. Finishing work early, working late hours so you can spend more time with them, only to have them tell you “I am going to wing it” last minute kinda fucks with your head and your efforts applied to making them comfortable and maximizing time together. Complaining about the cold when maybe they smoke and you ask them not to hotbox your house and do it out the window since they will get arrested on the street. Not cleaning up after themselves especially if for you keeping a clean home is important(and perhaps not your forte) but even more so if you clean specifically harder for when someone comes over. I mean how hard is it to not leave the next day without washing your glass or leaving your tea cup on the window sill or in the sink?

It seems small and neurotic when typed out loud. But it is about respecting the fact that someone is comfortable enough with you and excited enough to invite you into their space for an extended period of time, regardless of how it changes the space for them(we are not talking one night stands here). So unless we are at the point where we are both watching weekend long binges of netflix in our underwear with chinese food boxes on our naked bodies, a little courtesy goes a long way.

Comfort goes both ways, and I guess I just really need someone who is conscious not only of the effort that someone makes to accommodate their needs but does the same in return.

I’ll tell you when it suits me…

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I’ll tell you when it suits me…

I have run into this so many times more than I wish I did:

You do something that upsets someone or is triggering.(something I have gotten very good at telling someone when it happens to me right there in the moment, as of course we all have our own pasts that people are not aware of when they are just getting to know us and are inevitably going to stumble onto) They brush it off as a mistake. (which in all reality, it probably was). Then you do it again with something else. Still, no one tells you. Rinse repeat for however many times or days until they decide to fire.

So in your world all is well. But then eventually the explosion comes. The “I’ve noticed troubling behavior and patterns in the last few weeks/months that has to do with X Y Z” XYZ being things you have probably no memory of because out of context and not in that moment you tend to not retain the things that didn’t bother you. But because they said nothing and it bothered them, it is crystal clear in their mind putting both parties in an uncomfortable situation.

I met someone once who asked me: “Do you want to discuss issues, like right as they happen?” to which I said yes. They nodded and sunk inside a bit. Why is this type of communication so scary? Why is the idea that words are just that words, things that can be changed, explained, or apologized for depending on the situation? Are people that stubborn that we force our sig others to hold onto all of these “moments” as ammunition for the ultimate fight or way out? When in reality, both people are assuming one another was saying one thing but meaning the other. And in a world of texts, this can increase ten fold. But the last thing we think to do is call each other or meet in person to have the “semi uncomfortable” in the beginning conversation with inflections about what just happened. Instead we “need time to reflect” and then both people get to do the following:

1. Wait longer to hear back from the person about what I have written while the longer I wait the more I grow frustrated, defensive, and forgetful of what exactly I am waiting for.

2. Harp on an idea of an idea, until it burns in as fact and fruition.

3. Combine the two and end up with a conclusion based off miscommunications to save feelings never meant to be hurt in the first place, leaving even the idea of a discussion dead in the water.

I am tired of being ambushed with “I need time to think” moments. I am happy to give you space to gather thoughts and such, especially because I use written word to try to succinctly express thoughts, so often I will give a little context if it is misunderstood and let someone re read. But when that re-reading goes on too long and becomes harping and dwelling and combining the past things not relative to said conversation, I might as well have gone to war giving you an entire year to build your military, and I just bring a spoon.

And the ultimate goal here for me is to not fight or to even have an argument it is to communicate properly in a world filled with so many ways to mis-communicate. So because I am a nice guy, I am more than happy to let you have time to decompress from an argument or conversation, but understand eventually I am going to forget why we were arguing in the first place, and while that may mean that the argument was pointless in the first place, if you come back guns loaded, this is gonna end messy.

A conversation is just that a conversation, things can be said and then changed. People are very stuck in “OMG YOU SAID WHAT!” instead of expressing why they disagree and giving you an opposite opinion without yelling.

That is the beauty of conversation you are free to correct and fuck up things. We are not perfect, we will never be perfect, so give us a chance to iron out those imperfections through conversation and with the possibility we may not ultimately agree but we can still be humane with one another and not cut the cord because of the simple fact that we disagree.

Mindful Explanations: The Art of Communicating Boundaries and Triggers

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One of the things I had to learn in life that has been instrumental in building me as a human being has been the ability to tell people when something bothers me at the time of it bothering me. Often times I find myself or others will hold in these things until they boil over which never ends well for anyone. Being able to say “Hey, I know you had no ill intent with your comment, but it bothered me and here are the reasons why. Perhaps in the future you could be mindful that this has history with me and while I do not feel you need to censor yourself around me, when it comes to this specific thing, it would be great if you could approach it will care”

This sometimes backfires. I often get told:

“Well how can I be myself around you?”

“Now I have to censor my way of speaking?”

“I am an honest person and will always tell you what i am thinking”

To the last one, I love honesty, and I would never want someone to feel hindered in their ability to talk to me honestly, but I think there is a difference between honesty and understanding another person’s life experiences and feelings due to them. Being courteous of how you phrase something so not to trigger a bad experience or past moment is important. However I have always found those boundaries are hard to explain and even harder to express in the moment.

But, with work, I have gotten pretty good at it. And, let me tell you, it has helped me so much in my relationships. First if the person is open to hearing why the thing they said may have made me uncomfortable that is a great start. Second if they broach it in a different way the next time it may come up, allowing them to still be open and honest, but not invasive on my own personal “space” it is truly a magical moment. To be aware of how what you say can affect others is so important, especially in the age of inflectionaless texts.

So, while I am not some poor snowflake that will crumble, there are things from my experiences in life that will make my brain go “EEEEKKK” and can affect my entire mood. But if someone is aware of those, and I make a conscious effort to inform them, as they will have no way of knowing as we get to know each other, I feel like we can grow together, being mindful of each others triggers and past experiences that are not specific to one another but can still make one another uncomfortable. So that freedom to speak up at the moment is so important to me and it is important that others do it with me too. I cannot dodge every mine laid down in the field by past experiences, relationships, etc. Eventually I will hit one. And as unintentional as it may be, as I have no intention to cause harm or discomfort, letting me know, or I letting you know when you hit one, can help two people really move forward in the communication that truly builds a relationship, friendship, or amicable human interaction.

We all have some baggage. We all have bad experiences. But we also don’t know these things when we are new to one another. Exploration is part of getting to know someone, so if both people approach it with this attitude, I find those “oops” moments to be something less of a “FUCK THIS IS NEVER GOING TO WORK” and more of a “My bad, learned, noted, will broach differently next time”. This isn’t censorship, this is compassion and understanding of a fellow human.

So please feel free to step on all my mines. Just know I have learned over time, to let you know at the time of explosion, what just happened, why it happened, what it makes me feel like, and how I would prefer we approach it in the future. And if you have a suggestion of your own as well, please feel free to chime in and I will do the same for you! Afterall, even though with all the left and right swipes of people we can bring in and out of our lives, we are both getting to know one another for the first time uniquely.

If we hold onto to too many of our past experiences and judge others upon them without speaking up, just looking at them as “oh man they are about to step on that moment in my life, they must be just like the last person who placed it” the other person has no chance in hell to ever navigate the “minefield” of “experiences”. So please help me navigate and I will you so that even if we do happen to stumble, we know and can grow as humans, as two people together, and become stronger because of it.

So as important as it is to be mindful of others and how they feel. Being able to express your own comforts and discomforts is equally important.

Something I truly believe in is this: I am not your ex, but if you go into the relationship assuming I very likely could be, I stand no chance to be a unique person that grows with you as an individual. It is like gambling at that point and the house holds all the cards. This also lets you know a lot about how open a person is to actually meeting someone new or if they need to do some self healing exploration first.

Without a little definition even these words have no meaning.

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I always find it interesting when people read what I write and there is the possibility that we could date that they immediately assume a few things:

– I have 1000 checks on my list that need fulfilling. False. In my writing I spell out that I don’t care about checklists and the best thing is when you can throw away expectations.

All of these thoughts are milliseconds of thought put into words in that moment. And those moments change. They evolve. Of course we all have our wants, but the true way to find it is not by listing it but by allowing someone else unabated into your life and living it.

Then you learn all new things you like or dislike and you can decide love one another, be friends, or part ways.

There is no need for black and white in a term such as love since it is so undefined. It isn’t even known if we are supposed to be monogamous as human beings. We created that check on the list a long time ago. Could be right could be wrong. There are checks that only time can tell.

The surface level list is important, I see it is a moral compass. A level of things we have learned through experience to need, beyond a measure of a doubt to be happy not only with a partner but with ourselves. Beyond that we just don’t know until we interact with one another, smell one another, hear one another’s voices, and live life with one another over time.

– I know exactly what I want and will fall in love easily. FALSE.

There is too much too fast if you try to consume it all assuming you know who I am, how I think, how I was feeling during writing each article, and have zero context of who I am as a person and how those writings came to be. It is too much too fast.

Unless I find someone who approaches a relationship like me and pretty much social media blackouts the other person or waits to pass judgement on memories created rather than memories past, this journal of sorts can make me come across very ready to settle down and someone who knows what he wants.

I don’t know. I am stumbling just like everyone else. I just like to take the moments of clarity and write about them. But if you take the timeline some things here I wrote when I was 14, hahaha try settling down with that version me!

While I may be very open with my mind, I am not easy in love. I value my relationships with people strongly. And to get past the 50 million layers of exterior extroverted intensity is a trip. Not a hard one for the right people but it isn’t some magical “I am magically in love with you” thing. You will be well aware how I feel.

Time is so overlooked these days. Everyone wants everything right away. But how about stories that just can’t be told in a sitting, or meetings that will reveal smells and habits. You cannot speed up every aspect of life and often times if you try you just fail harder.

So I continue to write un-definable statements hoping that someone else understands the definition and but understanding the application can change depending on the situation.

Sarcasm and Sunsets: #mycomicreleifisonvacation

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There is a big difference between “pissed off” and a rant made for myself with the intent of another reading it. I don’t know if I am just an old man now and my writing because I wrote it over the last decade is aging poorly, but people seem to think when I write I am angry… and in the day and age of overly enthusiastic yoga masters that live at the beach and other exotic locations, doing nothing but smiling, perhaps the Instagram generation would see anything with a strong opinion as angry.

Over inflection to allow for comedic relief and enjoyment from the reader is all over my work. Just like in real life, my use of sarcasm and sardonic humor. Not dissimilar to telling a fable over a fire. There is no angst or anger in my writing. I am usually laughing out loud during the writing sessions depending on the topic.

But on the other hand it doesn’t surprise me at all that it would be read differently specially in the social climate of ~~2018 – 2020~~ today. Where people have forgotten debate is OK. And it isn’t always yelling. And sometimes things are not black and white. I am someone who jokes and laughs at about everything. I have a tattoo that says “and go the fools among” on my arm for a reason. I prefer to see the world that way rather than just wallowing in self pity over the crap I cannot change.

Modern dating is fantastic if people knew how to use it properly. But alas, 98% of the population prefers to follow the road traveled to get to Point B from A. So finding someone who uses it in a unique way is often hard to find. And before you get upset that I am putting people into a bubble of generic, scroll through profiles, count the words: “sarcasm, travel, family, friends, and iPhone” Everyone is a fucking professional rock climber, with 1 million frequent flier miles, with stock in lulu lemon and sunsets.(even this sentence would sound jaded, so why don’t you read it like a stand up comedian going on a hilarious rant, because obviously I am awesome like that)

Tell me something I don’t know already, and I get interested. Tell me your day wasn’t “Good, thanks” or that more than “nothing much” is up and you have my attention. So while yes I do think bringing a flower to a date is quite nice, I do not believe we have to go back in time to get he most out of the world in front of us. But we do need to embrace things out of our comfort zone to allow these apps to work and integrate the benefits of traditional methods for a beautiful hybrid.

Let’s play dating telephone, without the phone.

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Question: What’s more dangerous these days then the lack of inflection in a text?

Anwer: A friend reading that text out of context without the inflection and being asked to “interpret” it.

This has been going on way before texting existed but before you could scroll back up through a conversation you had with someone else, you had to remember the experience and then explain it in your words. Most of the time this one factor “in your words” needing you to explain how you interpreted the situation would give a friend the ability to go, “Ok this is your crazy showing” or go “Nope that shit is fucked and you need to get a restraining order”.

But not today. Today we get judged based off our ability to drop a stand up routine straight out of the gate. “Make me laugh and love sarcasm!” Do I look like Eddie Murphy? I mean he is one sexy bitch, but let me at least get your name first before I entertain you for free. What happened to “be yourself” you may ask? Well no one wants “yourself” because that may include having a shitty day and wanting to talk about it. Not to say everyone hates it, some people understand interaction and compassion and don’t feel like you are bringing them down by being in the moment. But for the majority that want an adventure and sarcasm, good luck saying anything other than George Carlin’s greatest hits as an intro.

Also don’t share. They don’t want you to have walls, they want you to be this open book, but the minute you share something with them, be it a piece of writing that is in context to the conversation, a photo, or a past story, they immediately go: “Well fuck, now he thinks I am that person, I am not that person, fuck, am I that person, why do I need to explain myself to this person I don’t know, fuck I need to show this to a friend!”

Now you are done. The minute it is in their head and they don’t bring it up right away to you to clarify it’s over before it even had a chance to start. The friend will obviously side with them over you the random creeper on an “online dating” platform. Because, it is never them who is the problem, it is always the other person. They have their shit together. They are open. They have a Myers briggs profile. They know their astrological sign. And so without you knowing, they are taking your text, the one line or two or ten that they selected and letting it fester in their brain, picking it apart to the point where logic is no longer even in the equation, mixed with a second or third opinion of someone else who has no idea who you are. Then they wait, they formulate, they speculate. This is where the game of telephone with their own psychi starts.

You basically now killed their first born with your charming Eddie Murphy stand up one liner. Somewhere in between the first text and the few hours you were excitedly waiting for them to be done with their evening so you could continue talking and (the key part) “GETTING TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER”, they have started their textual breakup for a relationship that never got started. A textual spew that is created for one reason and one reason alone, to make them feel less insecure about themselves. To give them the upper hand in a situation where no one needed the upper hand. To lull themselves into false sense of approval. “OK, he is going to get defensive when I say the following, and when that happens, me and my friends will have been right”. What they are missing is the fact that we probably have known each other for less than a 24 hour period and when you throw a wall of text at me saying “You are X Y AND Z” of course I am going to try to defend myself. I mean honestly at this point I should just turn off texting, but alas I am not that strong. So, I, as calmly as I can via text, try to figure out what is happening, why it is happening, when I said all these things I am being accused of saying, even though I am 99% sure I didn’t, and where they got expounded so out of proportion. Problem is it is impossible, I cannot make out where it is derived from anymore. But I already know the outcome here regardless of even if I was to deliver a speech that rivaled that of Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men definitively proving my “innocence”.

So in under 24 hours we are about to have our first fight. We have skipped the line, did not pass go, and when directly to jail. Guilty unable to prove innocence just waiting until someone hits the block button.

And it is always the same shit:

“I have to prove myself”(talked about this with stop caring)

“I feel judged”(you feeling judged is not on me, that is something you are holding onto)

“You are so defensive, why would you be like that”(cause you are yelling at me for shit I don’t even understand at this point)

“You said people do this horrible stuff, I AM NOT THAT PERSON” (yes people, not you… I was giving you the benefit of the oh fuck it, you just kinda proved my point)

“You need a therapist”(ok.. After these interactions I don’t disagree.)

“I am just the innocent bystander here”(who literally just made up an entire fake scenario you needed to spew at me instead of just moving on, so you felt vindicated from a story you made up)

“See you are still being defensive.” (you are still texting me bullshit, having counterpoints is not being defensive, back in my day this was called debate, conversation, or interaction. But we did it with voices and face to face, try it sometime, you may be surprised at how the other person may not be yelling at you and may actually be calm, collected, and a bit surprised.)

“You are judging me for things I haven’t done” (nope, I am talking about my past openly, you are applying it to yourself out of context for some reason, actually the reason is probably you holding onto something from YOUR past, the same thing you said: you wish I would not apply my own past to you.)

“My friends were right” (hahahaha)

The problem is I could continue this. It only goes on and on. But it is based in a baseless world of inflection-less words. Words people don’t seem to understand can be changed or clarified these days if more context is needed. But nope, let’s form the worst case scenarios and just go bat shit crazy on someone else.

I run across this enough and I wonder, hmm, perhaps I am the crazy one. But then I take a step back and realize, nope I just avoided a seriously fucked up scenario with a person who will fester ideas and not tell me until they are sure they have a winning Trump card. Problem is, there was never a contest or argument to be won. So, maybe I share too soon, but if it allows me to weed out these types of people who can only see one dimensionally in a very 3 dimensional world, I guess I can endure the frustration and angst a little bit more.

This is one of those cases by the way where I suggest the usage of the block button. And we all know how I feel about that.

We need to start getting hurt again.

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We are breeding a generation of pampered “feelings”. We are breeding a generation protected by the “block” button. We are breeding a generation of “ghosts”. We don’t understand what it is like to plan how you are going to meet a person face to face to let them know that things just aren’t working out.(because we used to believe a phone call, not a text, was too informal and rude) A ritual that used to take time, consideration, and thought. An uncomfortable situation, but one that ultimately gave closure be it with tears, screams, or a kiss on the cheek. You will remember this moment and grow from it. You won’t remember the person you erased from your life.

But why take the time to consider someone else’s feelings when we have been taught by every app, every program, every avenue of our life, that we can just “mute” the other person and focus on ourselves.

When I say a generation, I don’t just mean “millenials” or “Gen Z”, I mean everyone who is adopting online dating into their life. It is easier this way. It is convenient. Because honestly, no one likes being hurt, so if you show us a way to avoid it we will. It is part of human nature. We forget that our lack of pain, often brings it to others. But we are sheltering it so much, that instead of touching the hot pot and learning not to do it again, we “ghost” the stove.

Example: You are talking to someone, something during said conversation triggers you in one way or another, you say nothing. You wait until the conversation is over, and start frantically searching for the “block button” before they realize they even made a mistake or slipped up on a sentence that could have had different meaning. There are no second chances, there is just the rush to purge. Because immediately after the purge you don’t have to feel bad, have a moment of self reflection or healing. You just swipe right and start talking to the next person, waiting for them to trigger you and the process repeats.

I have talked about this “ready to purge” state in depth before on another podcast. But I believe we need to look further than the consequence of our society and look at the process of resolving it. Receiving a little heartache or prepping human consideration in how you deliver the bad news to another is one of the missing ingredients. How can you grow, when you have all these apps and online portals holding your hand with the “block button” at the ready?

There is no more growing from our experiences, only pushing them down into a repressed memory state, called the block list. We have taken the human connection out of the human connection and it is hurting us as a species. The amount of times you could totally avoid the “weird text I got from my friends friend”, by just giving the other person the humane benefit of an explanation. But why should you do that? Facebook, instagram, okcupid, tinder, they all just have the block button. Why should I do anything above and beyond what society is shoving down my throat as the norm? Well I guess here in lies the rub. You don’t have to, but you should. You should start getting hurt again. You should be open to “hurting” as well. Because ultimately it will make you stronger, kinder, more compassionate, and less of an automated process in a system designed to keep you entwined. 99 out of 100 times someone will be happier to “move on” if you are honest with them, then waking up to “this person doesn’t exist”. It leaves a feeling of emptiness and a pit in the other person’s stomach, wondering if the app broke or if they did something terrible or if they just weren’t good enough. Logical, no, but illogical thoughts in illogical moments brought on by these apps are logical.

You think Tinder’s business model benefits from you finding love? Do you think Hinge really wants to be the “dating app you delete”. No, it benefits from you coming back. Why else would it have a 6 month or 12 month subscription up front?! Think about that for a second.

So perhaps instead of using these tools that these apps present to us in such a disconnected from human feeling and emotion, we should start using the apps the way we want. When they then stop working in the way we expect, we stop using them all together, forcing them to work for us and not the other way around. This is a business, we speak with our wallets. Stop paying to be manipulated, and claim your right to start getting hurt again, because what you may learn is, when you open yourself up to being “hurt”, inadvertently you decrease it. Not that you won’t feel the heart ache or pit in your stomach, but you allow yourself the mindspace to heal and grow from the hurt, getting you out there sooner to meet the person you are meant to be with. Not hiding from all the people you are afraid they might be.

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Through my many experiences and even with my jaded sense of humanity, I still try to see the beauty of a moment.

Lost In Txtlation

Please stop caring!

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I meet so many people who are under the assumption that I want them to “impress me” when I meet them. That I want them to be the ultimate version of themselves that is unsustainable for any elongated period of time. To be this person who will make me love them.

Only one problem, if I do fall in love with that person, when you stop caring, who the hell am I left with?

See, this is a major issue for me. I have written how “Love is not enough”. And this feeds directly into that. I myself am the same with my family as I am with my bosses as I am with my friends as I am with a first date. I don’t know how to be different. I only know how to give my all of who I am today, tomorrow, etc. I feel like it would be exhausting to create an alter ego to please you. If you don’t like who I am here and now, that is OK. I am happy to feel it out and go our separate ways if it isn’t meant to be.

But that is not what I encounter 99% of the time. 99% of the time I finally get to know the real person after I have told them “this isn’t going to work” because all of a sudden, a veil of “expectations” has been lifted from their shoulders and they make inappropriate jokes, use my bathroom, and tell me things they would tell their best friends. Isn’t the whole point of finding a partner to find a best friend you can have sex with? Share with? Experience everyday with?

From experience you may assume that is not the case, and it is about tricking the other person to put a ring on it, then letting it all loose and what then… yelling SURPRISE!

When I ask you what you want for dinner this isn’t code for “Figure out what he likes and pick that”. When I ask you how you are today, this isn’t code for “Great!” just to make the facade of happiness. See the problem on my end, and I have explained a little bit of it via “Give my Brain a Breather”, is that once I feel as though I can see the expressions and feel the connection, I often don’t look for the “facade”. The veil of “I will totally clean his dishes cause I want him to like me more”. To me I am thinking, wow how nice she is, and what a kind gesture that I can expect in the future. Not “well that was nice since we just met, but god if she does that after we fall in love, this shit is over!”. So when I end things in a relationship because I feel as though something is wrong, or too perfect, it often is because it was. And then this new person I meet is one hundred times more interesting. But at this point it is way too late to forget all the past experiences and meet them with a clean slate.

So please, please, please, please, stop caring! Stop treating me like anyone other than a best friend. Let me into the parts of you that might scare you. Who cares if we don’t work out, at least we gave it an honest try, with an honest version of ourselves, and didn’t waste time trying to please one another off of assumptions and half baked ideals created in our own minds. Because my problem is, because I don’t do it, I often don’t look for it in you, thus missing it completely and being caught way off guard when I get to meet this “real” you. The you I thought I could fall in love with.

Sex and Txts, an “OOMT” chapter

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This is part of the ongoing series called “OOMT”

SETUP: I met this girl, had our first date, which went phenomenal! We walked around the city, ran in a fountain because it was super hot out, laid in a park together, pee’d behind a building together(always a good sign of a keeper). I mean we are talking no inhibitions, amazing conversation, and some amazing kissing. So of course we are gonna have date two! Shit date 2 and 3 and 4 were also fantastic. We even facetimed a bunch of times in between. The connection felt great! No sex involved at this point and everything seemed great with texts throughout the days and just good communication.

So we decide to spend a weekend together. Like a whole weekend, overnight bag and all. She comes over and I make her dinner. While we are sitting in the kitchen and I am cooking, I had just watched a video about Elon Musk’s theory that we are all living in a simulation, so wanting to talk about it I start to explain what I saw in case she hadn’t seen it(I am considerate when it comes to subjects that people may not have background to) and when I am about half way through my explanation of what it was she stops me mid way and says “I don’t know what that is, who Elon Musk is, I feel like you are just making me feel stupid”. I was like whoa… wtf. So we got quiet and I continued making dinner since obviously conversation was dead at this point. See this should have been my OOMT moment where I realized it was all going to go to shit, but alas, I figured maybe she just had a bad day and was hangry.

We ate and discussed the fact that she totally snapped at me trying to have a conversation to which I was told her ex “constantly made me feel stupid”. So I was like hmm rock and hard place here… how do I bring up conversation about things she might not know and not make her go have PTSD. Oh well another time.

Anyway rest of the night went well. Went to the roof, had some wine, it was nice.

So now the rest of the weekend is a blur because I was completely dehydrated and malnutritioned since the rest of the weekend was spent sexing. Yup, pure unadulterated sex, grab a glass of water, sex again. Sounds pretty fantastic right? Well, there is this one thing on my end, I am a little difficult to figure out. And by figure out I mean make me orgasm lol. You daft fucks. I definitely don’t fit into the “30 second guy” role. Shit I spend so much time trying to please the girl I am with, I often forget to even think about myself. You can read more about that here if you want. But back to the story at hand. During said coitus, I also have a bit of a difficult time explaining what I want someone to do, pretty much because all the blood from my brain is now in my pee pee. So while I can answer yes or no questions pretty well, I cannot recite the Gettysburg address.

I make sure to let my partner know this as well!

This is where things can often fall apart with someone who, I should have caught onto earlier, has self confidence issues. See for me, if I cannot figure out a girl sexually, I have done research over time and will continue to do it to make sure I understand what they like. But you have to be really confident in your sexuality and abilities for this.If you doubt yourself, having someone not able to orgasm without a little bit of effort and knowledge beyond, put it in your hole, when most guys are 1 2 squirters, usually ends up with “I give up”, followed by silence, followed by “do you not find me attractive?”, followed by me playing therapist versus enjoying the moment, once again staring at my ceiling going, “ahhh fuck me”, in every definition of the phrase.

Believe it or not we haven’t gotten to the OOMT yet. We continued through the weekend with this weird but satisfying sex regardless. And she told me while we were laying for a break once that she would like me to tell her more about what I like at some point when I had more blood in my brain and not my dick. I was like sure! That was awesome. I appreciated that acknowledgment that “during” is not always the best time to get in depth on this shit.

Anyway, sextravaganza weekend ends and she heads home.

Later that day, I decide to ask her via text if I can send her an article I read once that I saved which I believe explains what I like really well, so the next time she might have a little more insight. I also followed it with the obvious, “had a wonderful time” “everything felt great” “you had asked me to talk to you more about it” yadda yadda.

A few hours passes, which was a little bit weird considering how she usually texted me back within 15 minutes or less. So I text her something about something else happening that I thought she would get a kick out of at this point, since I figure she is busy and will see these when she is free.

OOMT: Well what I didn’t know was that few hours was used over analysing me ASKING if I could send this article(not actually sending it) and becoming super insecure and pissed about it. Not talking to me and expressing her thoughts, but literally festering everything inside her for what would be one of the most vindictive ways to respond to a text you dislike I have experienced to date.

PING, I get a Video Text, not of her but of her friends making fun of me for EVERYTHING we had been talking about that weekend, even if it had NOTHING to do with the part that bothered her(me asking if she would be ok with me sending an article, not even sending it), having a board game night for my birthday, me wanting to have an intellectual conversation about Elon musk the night before, sexual shit we were talking about… this was her response instead of just saying “hey this bothered me”.

It was so middle school “talk to your girlfriends before actually talking to the person who it matters with first” ya know the person who you just fucked for 48 hours straight, spent a week or more getting to know prior, and then taking it an extra step and make a video with your friends bashing me and calling me a douchebag, while she laughs in the background. Friends who would now always see me as some creep due to a distorted concept of context.

That shit hurt. I opened my home to her. I opened my life to her. I shared. And it was a sucker punch from someone not being considerate of another human. It was someone literally just someone so insecure and closed off with themselves they had to lash out through talking to other people about personal conversations and then using that insulting video to try to get me to apologize for something I didn’t even know was an issue. Apparently taking out on me past relationship baggage(that we all suffer from, some just choose to see everyone as an individual). When I responded with “Well I guess this is over, I am sorry I upset you”. She wrote back, why can’t you just apologize?! Apparently she was expecting me not to say “well this is over” and move on but to apologize for something I didn’t actually know was a problem yet.

She then proceeded to tell me “I am glad I see how you deal with personal intimate matters” when she was the one who literally sent me a video of her friends pulling apart every intimate thing we had talked about and even non intimate things like a board game night, as if I was some nerdy kid in middle school getting railed on for not wearing the cool kid shoes. Don’t get me wrong I am glad this happened as soon as it did, but man that was a sucker punch that left a mark for the time being.

Just sitting there with a pit in my stomach that someone could literally get so worked up and so nasty so quickly. You just never know who anyone is. And the insecurity of hers projected to me as if I was some fucking asshole and this was a first date, someone who she didn’t text on a regular basis, and didn’t just fuck their brains out for 48 hours, during which she was saying how much she liked me and thought I was a great guy. She just flipped her shit on me in seconds.

She literally said “I made the video so you could feel how embarrassed I felt” to which I said, “my text to you was PRIVATE. Yet the video you sent me was NOT, it was your friends ripping apart everything we had talked about over the past few days even if it had nothing to do with the part that made you feel embarrassed while you laughed in the background.”

And yes I know there are always two sides to every story. But I promise one thing: I was honest at every step. And she held a lot in apparently that I didn’t even realize. It just felt shitty to be bombarded by a personal conversation made so public for no apparent reason other than “ I want you to feel embarrassed”.

Obviously I am happy I know who she really is now. But for fucks sake, why does it need to be a sucker punch every, single, time.

I was later told via text I was asking her to articulate things too soon, but considering I never asked for anything romantic or relationship related to be articulated I can only assume this is in reference to conversation topics I brought up about world events. To which she said “scared” her. Odd choice of words for articulating thoughts. As well she told me she would get nervous on FaceTime when we used it because she hadn’t done it before (for talking only) but in reality this meant she felt things were moving too fast. Even though it was never articulated to be such. And she just spent 48 hours boning me… It is an obvious bad match, but it still amazes me how different the entire situation was seen from her end. And how little I was informed of her view until she decided to shame me to her friends for things I enjoyed in life, as if every moment we spent together was all bad. People who hold in everything that bothers them and then lash out at a later date when it adds up and boils over for them are scary to me because, it just shows how little information you are actually getting in the everyday interactions as opposed to what’s really in their head. I always thought the point of time and getting to know someone was to be able to assess them on the interactions you have not hold it all as ammo for a later date, while not taking into consideration context of every interaction up till then and what you learned in the time you knew them. Instead it is like they stopped getting to know you when they found the first issue, and just starting loading the gun. Then looking back on prior people who shot them to justify their inevitable murder by projecting past relationships all over the place. I hope she gets time to heal for whoever she meets next. It really does suck to have to be treated as if you are already walking in the mistakes of others. Because after sending a video like that and then she repeatedly said “I am the bigger person to say I apologize for it” is like punching you in the balls first then saying oh “my bad” now say sorry for the thing you did that you didn’t know you did because I can’t articulate it.

AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT I GOT THIS MESSAGE A WEEK LATER:

You have got to be kidding me. “I meant no ill intent” hahahahahhaahha. And if she liked me so much.. oh never mind you all get it by now. Apparently you need to block friends of friends now after shit goes down.

The real question is, if someone likes you so much, why let their friend “roast” you in the first place 😛

And then 2 weeks later she wished me a happy birthday over text. I must have REALLY “embarrassed” her for her to want to contact me again instead of moving on, on my birthday, even though I said goodbye after that crap she pulled. Block time me thinks. Reminds me of the old high school ex that calls you and txts you every year until college is over on important days.

Oh well best birthday gift ever: confirmation my text was not actually that bad. This does show she has a very kind side mixed with her neurotic side. It’s just too bad her neurotic side is so damn conniving.

And now I tangent for a moment:

I have done a lot of self reflection on relationships as you know from my writing and I think the missed wire here was she actually was communicating , in her own way, things to me, but in my world and way of seeing the world I wasn’t getting the message because it was so diluted and indirect that I just saw it as comments not statements. It is becoming very clear that her insecurities were very much hidden but to her very obvious because of the insecurities. A vicious cycle for a very open person to run into. This is similar to my ideas of Observation VS Analysis.

I desperately need someone in my life who understands that a question doesn’t only consist of cause and effect, but causes and effects. When I am told, asked, or see something I immediately in what can only be described as a subconscious millisecond, think of every possible scenario for what I am experiencing. It might be far fetched, stupid, the wrong choice, and the right ones, but the key here is that without even trying, I have just broken down a billion scenarios in the blink of an eye, and therefore when I answer or ask, I expect the person in the conversation with me to be able to continue forward having already ruled out the, what I would call “obvious”. No I am not blowing my own horn of self righteousness here, I am being honest, there are so many people who literally don’t think past the surface. Through experience and meeting different people you learn this.

An “OOMT” Chapter: Cats and 18 minute girl

/ Tristan / 0 Comments

This is part of the ongoing series called “OOMT

Setup: I post specifically on my profile “I have cats” I only have one left but I keep it as multiple because my cats are little whores and just wanna be all up in your shit. So obviously if you are allergic to cats, the part where it says “I have cats, DON’T BE ALLERGIC TO CATS” is probably where you should move on. But alas… we have “18 minute girl”.

18MG comes over to my place after a few dates and we are sitting in my living room having some wine. My cat smelling a new human and being the whore she is decides to go full on head butt mode, ya know the adorable cute thing dogs do when they want your attention? The same dogs that this girl wrote about loving in her profile (cause I read)… And I am like woohooo my cat approves of her!

OOMT: Oh but no, she irrationally starts to freak out, like little whiny noises, her eyes start darting around the room, and she takes all of her limbs and puts them on top of my chair to be off the floor away from the cat as much as possible. My tiny little adorable cat that seconds before was laying on my lap being adorable. I am like, “‘”are you ok?” To which I get, “I am allergic to cats!” and I am like oh, well didn’t you read my profile? I told ya I had cats even in our conversations I talked about them. To which she says, “Yes but I didn’t think I would come over much.” ….. right… I am not sure what to do but before I can do anything she literally shreaks as my cat tries to get on her lap. I immediately grab my cat away and ask what is wrong? Are you seriously allergic, is that why you just screamed? Should we leave? Now I am concerned for her. She says, “Cat’s scare the shit out of me.” Oh boy, now I am more intrigued than anything.

Rubbing my cat on my lap like Dr. Claw from an episode of Inspector Gadget, I am sitting there wondering how the hell someone can be scared of a cat. I inquire more and get some half assed story of a cat that licked her while she was sleeping as a kid or some innocent thing that scarred her for life… So I am observant, I noticed that she hasn’t itched or worried about the cat hair from the chair she sat in since we got there and inquire more about her “allergies”. To which she sticks to being allergic but backs it up with, well I sneeze from hair sometimes. Not, actual “allergies” but the way she said it was literally like saying, sometimes I yawn therefore I must have a narcolepsy.

So I now get a chance to ask if I should put her in the other room so she isn’t scared anymore… she kinda nods. As I am closing the door, and am asking her how she thought we would be able to have a relationship if she knew I had a cat and she was “allergic”/scared shitless of them(besides the fact that she didn’t think she would come over that much… to which obviously I sarcastically responded with, well what happens if we got serious and we moved in together.. eventually you would live with my cat), the following words ring out from her mouth and I will never forget them.

“But if we got to that point, I figured you could just give the cat to the vet.” My jaw drops. I let her continue as I am not sure if I heard properly. I think I mutter something like, “but, uhm.. they would put my cat down, why the vet, why not adoption etc” maybe this was all flying through my head and not out loud I forget. She continues “I mean so what, it’s a cat. It’s not like it is a dog.”

My brain arranges itself very quickly and I immediately respond “I have known my cat for 18 years and you have been in my house for 18 minutes, who the fuck do you think is going to win here? Are you fucking kidding me? You have to be fucking with me right now.”

She dead panned, dead faced, in all seriousness, looks me in the eyes and says, “No. I am not a cat.”

And thus ends the adventure with and why she shall always remain in my mind, 18 minute girl.

Oh and one more thing… The catch to online dating.

/ Tristan / 0 Comments

Online dating has a major catch. I call it the “Oh and one more thing”. This will probably be the name of my book or the next stand up comedy routine. These are the things you will not find out about a person until you are

A: About to centimeters away from their vagina. (before sex)

B: They are laying on you naked afterwards. (after sex)

C: You just won’t find out until you have had at least a month of dates. (lots of sex)

It doesn’t matter how many correspondents you have enjoyed with the person, how many texts have been exchanged, how many facetime calls you have done. These are the things where you are sitting there thinking, “Oh, this is nice, I wonder what she is doing tomorrow….” Then bam, they start saying, “OH AND ONE MORE THING”.

Now before I get into the heavy ones, let’s talk about the normal things you can expect to experience on online dating before even getting to the OOMT’s. (Yes that is the abbreviation I have created for it)

First you have the normal “white lies”.

Profile: I am 20, see my amazing awesome modeling pictures?

Reality: I was 20, 20 years ago, when I posted those pictures, 20 years before that.

This can break off into I am “athletic, skinny, fit, etc”

The weirdest part about this one is, do you think I am going to like you more or less if you told me your actual age? Because you tell me when we meet. So why are we bullshitting and setting up the meeting on a lie?

Now you have the subtle ones:

Profile: I like traveling, people who are sarcastic, long walks on the beach, love dogs, have a kid, and kitty cats.

Or it is a little more subtle…

Profile: Photo on their profile of them at a Gwar concert doing shots and in the background is a tiny child holding up a sign that says Mom and an arrow pointing at them.

And lastly before we get into the “OOMT” ones expect many people to have these following reasons for being on online dating:

I wanted an ego boost.

I just broke up with an ex, in no way am I ready to date, but I signed up because I didn’t know what else to do.

Feels inadequate for some reason.

Friend made them do it.

Wants to fuck.

One thing you will never have to worry about finding out later:

“I am a vegan”

Usually followed by, “but this doesn’t mean you have to be one and I can eat anywhere.” Which is a blatant lie, unless of course you don’t eat pizza, hamburgers, or are a Vegan as well. But don’t worry they will make sure to hold that Vegan status up in the air like Rafiki did to Simba over the cliff.

Ok, now here are the OOMT’s I have encountered in my time with Online Dating:

Setup: We had a beautiful day of talking, laying in the park, having dinner, maybe some drinks, and we go back to her place fall asleep together without having sex. Wake up the next day, go sunbathing on their rooftop, walk around NYC for a little and head back to get take out. So what do you think would happen next after such a nice two day excurtion, if you guessed sex, you are correct.

OOMT: So I am about a hair length away from consummating this wonderful extended date as she leans into my ear and whispers, “Oh by the way, I have herpes”. To which my penis retracts into my throat and I am not sure what to do as I am suspended only by my now wobbling muscles. I get up, sit on the side of the bed, I ask “uhm, can you explain this more to me…” and they say “most guys don’t mind”. Yup. The infamous, get him to think with his dick so he doesn’t make an educated decision on whether or not he wants to engage in this. While this is one of those situations where I am not upset with the person because an STD sucks and I am not sure when the best time is to tell someone, I definitely know it isn’t when you are about a centimeter away from her vagina.

Setup: Meet at the bar, sit down for drinks, they say they are hungry and begin to order an extraordinary amount of food. Which at first seems awesome, because they are comfortable eating infront of you and just being comfortable.. However…

OOMT: After the order is placed they say, “I am just looking for a friend right now” the catch, and usually not verbally said, “that will buy me dinner”.

Setup: You meet a very nice person. You get along extremely well. Shit you even have a connection that feels out of this world good. You can see in her eyes she likes you back, the conversation is fantastic, everything is just going well. Around the second or third date you go to kiss her.

OOMT: She pulls away and says, “I currently live with my ex boyfriend because it makes sense monetarily, I just broke up with a guy who broke my heart, but we still text regularly, and I am just not emotionally available for someone in my life right now.” SO WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING ON A DATING SITE?! You can break this one into a two parter as well, where you meet someone and they say they live with their ex and it is over, but if they find out about you, they will flip the fuck out and ruin the others life. To which they will hold you accountable for it and daemonize you regardless of the time you spent together.

Setup: You have had a few dates and are at the point where they come over to have sex. You begin to kiss and get naked and start sexing…

OOMT: They have a traumatic past with rape and submission to the point where all of a sudden this person is pushing at you, squirming, and saying no very loudly. You jump off because you are now scared shitless that you hurt them, read the signs wrong, or did something wrong. You ask if they are OK, they say yes, sorry, and to keep going, so you try one more time and are met with the exact same reaction. You get up, take your condom, immediately flush it down the toilet because at this point you don’t know what the fuck is happening, come back into the room, they are smoking a cigarette at the window. You sit down next to them and ask, what just happened? Are you OK? They look at you with a confused look on their face and say, “What? I thought you were done.” To which you then explain what just happened and they say, no that didn’t happen. You ask them kindly to leave, they then tell you about their rape fantasy due to past trauma which they basically were blacking out not remembering the moment for the time being. At this point you let them sober up and walk them to their car, not sure what the hell to think and trying to figure out how to change your address.

Setup: You meet someone who you believe is kind and you would like to spend more time with. You end up spending a good amount of your time getting to know them and growing your connection. Then…

OOMT: You find out they are self medicating for severe bipolar disorder and don’t believe in doctors to help because they have their shit together. On top of that they are only a vegan because it allows them to foster their eating disorder. Ultimately leading to them sitting in your bathtub telling you they are afraid of your moving boxes and threatening to kill themselves, so when you call the cops, you are shocked when confronted by someone with a badge how all of a sudden they are coherent and no longer afraid of your moving boxes, leading you to only one logical next move… ask the police to stay while she gathers her stuff and leaves.

Setup: You fall madly in love with someone who says they used to have a problem with drugs but they fixed it. Knowing little about addiction of this magnitude you take them on face value.

OOMT: Eventually they look up what an overdose of vicodin is and take triple the dose before coming over to your house where you have to hold them in the shower, call a hotline, and almost call a hospital. In my case this eventually lead to me learning a lot more about addiction, how she was an EMT but could only function if she took morphine, eventually helping her check into rehab, and realizing I was no longer able to be a part of her life because she needed to change so much that I didn’t even really know her anymore. All while being cheated on with her ex drug dealer boyfriend and so many other wonderful moments. Honestly though this one was one of the most amazing moments for me because I learned a lot about the subject and people in general.

Setup: You have gone on a few dates with someone and everything has been pretty great. You ask her to dinner again and she accepts. You meet at her place and suggest a few places. She says OK to your first choice of Thai food.

OOMT: As you walk into the restaurant she loudly says, this place smells like they eat cats here. She is overtly rude to the waiter for no reason, she coffs at the two languages on the menu and emotes loudly via huffs and puffs about how everything sounds horrible and she hates these people’s food. You realize, holy shit, this girl is racist. You ask if she wants to leave as you are secretly apologizing to the staff around you while she isn’t looking and she insists that you should stay since you are already there. Her food comes, probably with a side of spit, takes one bite and goes, “wow this is really good”.

Setup: You are on your 3rd or 4th week of dating and you go to a restaurant. The check comes, you ask her if she wouldn’t mind splitting it after carrying the bill for the previous dates.

OOMT: Her face goes blank, she slaps her card on the table, she stops talking to you for remainder of the dinner. As you are walking her home, you try to figure out what the hell just happened and finally get out of her, “I have never had to split a dinner with any of my previous dates or boyfriends, I don’t know how to react to this. It’s fine… it’s fine… ” But it is not fine. Now let me be clear sure I could pay for all the dinners, but I want a partner in everything in my life, not just the romance, but the mental parts, the financial parts, the partnership of life. I don’t see it as a disconnect from chivalry but a realistic approach to a sustainable relationship.

Money has always been something I have loved and hated, had lots of it, had very little of it. So to me it is just something you work on together, and when it is assumed immediately that as the guy you are supposed to support everything it is a turn off to what i see as an unbalanced relationship this day and age.

Setup: You go over to a girl you have been seeing for a bit’s house to watch a movie. She gives you her laptop to pick a netflix movie while she freshens up. As you are browsing Netflix you see the other open tabs on her laptop.

OOMT: Tab 1: “Sugar Daddie.com” Tab 2: “Whats Your Price.org” Tab 3: “Miss Travel.net”

And then you combine everything you just experienced into one:

Setup: You meet someone, everything is going really well, you have great chemistry, conversation, interactions. You have some really great sex. As she lays on you afterwards and you are in your happy place thinking, this she be nice to continue to get to know more about and the awkward parts are out of the way, she says

OOMT: “Oh by the way, I have a sugar daddy. I fuck him 1 or 2 times a week and he pays for everything for me, bills, expenses, etc. I don’t plan on stopping.” Then on top of that she says, “I don’t really want a relationship and don’t see you as someone I would marry because you won’t financially support me and you want an equal relationship monetarily, but I think we would make great partners until that time comes when I want that.” Meanwhile you are butt ass naked, her on top of you, unable to move because you don’t know how to react to everything you were just hit with, and stay quiet for majority of the evening before she leaves. Now thinking, why would I want to share my life with you for an extended period of time, knowing I am not the person you are looking for, thus wasting my time, just for some sex?

Do I want to spend time getting to know you, knowing I am not your money maker? Do I want to share my experiences and life with you knowing I will eventually have to retell it to the person I actually want to end up with afterwards?

Setup: You meet someone, you have a wonderful time. You date quite a few times. You obviously have sex at some point. Eventually it doesn’t work out and you end it.

OOMT: You get a text at 1am saying “I am pregnant”. Now this from a person who if they broke their nail would send you 50 texts throughout the day about said nail, you have a feeling this is some fucked up vindictive way to get back at you for ending the relationship. But you sit there for weeks with a pit in your stomach wondering if they will call or say more or if you should just wait it out. Wanting to do the right thing regardless, you are stuck feeling the worst you will ever feel. Spoiler: it was a vindictive lie.

Setup: You have a fantastic conversation via text and email before meeting. You find their textul wit and intelligence fascinating and you are looking forward to meeting in person.

OOMT: This one get’s it’s own story:http://lostintxtlation.tumblr.com/post/64058433964/eyes-to-brain-fuck-my-okcupid-date

So these are just some of the “Oh and one more thing” moments I have experienced. I am never prepared for them. I never see them coming and I consider myself a pretty intuitive person. But unfortunately online dating has become this place where people use it as the last bastion of internet anonymity. Thinking that if they either play off your hormones or “relationship status” they can drop things on you that are absolutely relationship changing tidbits of information. So whether they made the profile for an ego boost, a low sense of self confidence, believing online dating is a place where they can be what their profile says they are, or the infamous OOMT, you are stuck looking at your ceiling, uncomfortable and questioning why the fuck you are still on these apps. And since most dating is done through apps these days, if you will actually find someone who uses the app for the same reasons you do: because it is a wonderful way to meet people if you don’t feel like frequenting a bar that smells like piss and regret every night, it could be quite pleasant. For now though, I continue to stare at my ceiling in disbelief.

Ready to purge, the modern form of dating.

/ Tristan / 0 Comments

It seems like today we are just itching to purge people from our lives. We have forgotten what it is to disagree with others, what it was like to not have a swipe at our finger tips when we felt down or alone or loss. We forgot what it was like to debate, let alone get things wrong when we can just “google it”. But can you google the wrong inflection, a lapse of judgement, a misguided thought? No, but you can work together with someone to let them know how it makes you feel and see how they react from there…

But why have a confrontation when you can literally just hit “block friend”, “hide comments”, “block number”, “remove follower” from the new world, the online world.

I cannot dodge every mine laid down in the field by past experiences, relationships, etc. Eventually I will hit one. And as unintentional as it may be, as I have no intention to cause harm or discomfort, letting me know, or I letting you know when you hit one, can help two people really move forward in the communication that truly builds a relationship, friendship, or amicable human interaction.

If we just purge someone right when we feel they are about to step on that mine, they must be just like the last person who placed it, the other person has no chance in hell to ever navigate the “minefield” of “experiences”. I talk more about this in my Mindful Explanations Podcast Entry. Technically we are all just navigating each other’s mine fields. If I do step on one(which is inevitable), I want them to let me know what it was and I will learn from it and employ empathy to make sure future steps are softer.

Black Mirror is a TV Series that rides the edge of what could go terribly wrong with technology, yet it is not so far from the truth. Maybe we can’t block faces, and voices from right infront of us and we still have to deal with arguments and fights with people we love, but before we love, before we give the breadth to love, we are so damn eager to purge anything that isn’t exactly what we want at that very moment, no room for improvement, learning, growth, explanation, debate… anything less than instant gratification to our metaphorical lists of Do’s and Don’t, a click of a few keys and we have erased the barely a memory person from our life. And we swipe right again, saying “This time will be different”… “This time I won’t make the same mistakes”… “This time, I will find love”.

My question is how do you intent to change or find love when you never gave a memory enough time to learn from, an interaction enough time to grow, or a possible romantic encounter the life to have it’s ups and downs. You were so ready to purge you didn’t realize you were blocking your own ability to grow at the same time.

/ Tristan / 0 Comments

Interesting… So I am more of a “DO SOMETHING” don’t “SAY SOMETHING” but “say a little something to fuel the ego” lol

I’m not your bodyguard, I am your boyfriend….

/ Tristan / 0 Comments

I am tired of this paradigm of “I want to feel protected by my man”. Now don’t be fooled by this sentence, it doesn’t mean I do not believe you shouldn’t protect someone and your partner should not feel protected!

If the guy was raised with any morals or compass for good, of course he is going to fight for you and “protect you”. It is an instinct. It is the difference between standing on the road side of your girlfriend when holding hands while walking down the sidewalk versus not. It is something built into the core of our beings, we fight for the things we love. But being Chivalrous and Caring is just gestures it isn’t a partnership. It isn’t an equality.

Just because I make you feel safe, doesn’t mean you make me feel loved. If anything you wanting to just lay in my arms feeling safe has a strong ability to make me feel empty.

Why can’t more people want to share the passion of a relationship and grow with one another? Why can’t the entire relationship be dominant. Why do we have to fulfill roles? One is submissive one is the other. Fuck that shit, if I pull your hair, pull mine right back. Show some initiative in a relationship so I know I am not just dating my cat. I can get all this from a furry friend with way less effort.

The reason I want a human is to be inspired, to help inspire, to become partners in crime in this world that needs to be stolen day by day. I genuinely need someone who has a high level of creativity and ingenuity. Having my back intellectually and enginerically(yes I have created this word, it means being able to assess a situation and solve it together, usually relating to building Ikea furniture). We should be able to survive the zombie apocalypse together. My partner has to be on my zombie apocalypse team because she belongs there not because of love! I may mention a bit of this in my Podcast Stronger Together, is not being weaker alone.

Stop hiding behind your “I don’t want to get my heart broken” and your “I open up when I know you better” ‘s let it hang out and fly free. The worst that happens is you realize sooner and faster if you are meant to be and you can dive into the meat of things. You can achieve love.

But if your idea of love is me being some sort of prince charming, you are cruelly mistaken. Prince charming is a rebound for a girl who just got gaslit by a wicked spell. When the Prince “saves” the woman, the woman is swept off her feet, falling for him and only him. Sooner or later the Princess learns an important lesson, Prince Charming can’t actually save her from herself. Either she realizes she needs an understanding of herself first or she will end up falling into, once upon a time again, a deep sleep in which she must once again be awoken by “Prince Charming”. Not such a charming cycle is it?

I don’t want to be your rebound. I will happily carry you over puddles and open your door and kiss your forehead, but if I have no inspiration to continue doing it after you open up to me… perhaps this is the reason many women think men just put up a front when they first meet. Because at the end of the day it just isn’t inspiring anymore to do the chivalry if we are not getting an equal relationship.

Mind you, I am not oblivious to the fact that, most guys are dicks, societally influenced to be alpha. “I need that Masculine Energy” which has often been portrayed by men to men as a very toxic view and is often a very polarizing view of a man coming from a woman. Forcing them into a position that limits their possibilities. However, in a conversation recently someone in the same sentence made an interesting observation, “I want someone I can lean on, someone I can confide in, to feel safe and comfortable. I like feeling the protection of a man, and I don’t mean guns and muscles or anything like that… but it’s just like… There is a masculine energy that a guy can give off that makes me, I don’t know, feel safe and maybe…” And this is where the revelation was from this particular person that I 100% agree with, “maybe that feeling just comes from feeling loved, heard, and seen. The things I have not had from a partner in a really long time.” And here is lies the crux. So many men are treating other women like crap. Half of the online dating discussions I have are on “bad dates” and “red flag lists”. So, I agree, there is such a thing as masculine energy, but I think over many failed relationships and strange judgement projected by other men, it get’s put in a strange pandora’s box of sorts, that cannot be opened without causing harm to true masculinity: The feeling of love, partnership, and feeling safe to be yourself, together. Nothing is more masculine than a man who can be OK with ugly crying “I love you” to their partner because they just can’t hold it in anymore and need to share.

So here I am, 5 sisters, separated parents, abusive mother, absent father, it has caused me to have a dire need to want someone to tackle the world with, together. I need a partnership and that feeling of safety just as much as my partner, who is likely not going to be masculine! I want to be better than what I grew up with, I want to create new and healthy traditions, together. I want to create our own memories and for us to be stronger together than we would alone. Never wondering if “Am I sacrificing my career choices and ambitions for this relationship”, “am I sacrificing my self”, because the work done together in the relationship is what is actually driving us both to become better at it all. Plus, I really want you on my zombie apocalypse team!

The REAL Reason Girls Love The Dad Bod, Explained By A Woman, rebuked by a man.

/ Tristan / 0 Comments

http://brobible.com/life/article/girls-love-the-dad-bod/

So basically what I am gathering from this article is because of social stigmas of guys who spend time working to be healthy, they are douches, and those who don’t prioritize it are all the following:
More caring
Less judgmental
Weirder
Not self concious
Not going to try to motivate you to do the same.

So in turn what this equates to is:
The girl is insecure and doesn’t want someone else who might not be.
The girl has decided she doesn’t want to be fit so therefore a guy who is, is obviously a douche.

But what it actually equates to for the guy is:
I am not happy with my body
I am self concious
I am probably lazy
I am not good at goals
I am either a couch potatoe or work aholic

Why do I say these things? Cause I spent 3 years unhappy with my body. And feeling like shit. Anxiety and self demoralising. But when I reclaimed my body I felt invigorated, more apt to go out, more comfortable doing all the fun life can throw at me. Did it change who I am? ABSOLUTELY. Did it change my heart? Nope. Have I seen first hand that having a 6 pack versus a stomach can literally mean meeting less people, YES. 100% and that sucks.

So ultimately what girls and guys should be attracted to is the person they want that motivates the things they are motivated to be. Not just judge. Just find someone who makes you feel like the better version of yourself. Not project.

Also the dedication it takes to really get into really intense physical shape, is a very good indicator of how a person can push themselves and have self control over their mind and body.

Relationships Post Swipe

/ Tristan / 0 Comments

The thing I am missing the most with this swipe to date world is the actual feeling of anticipation or joy after bolstering the courage to talk to someone in a real life encounter. The most amazing feeling is when you actually click with said person. You know you are physically attracted them, they smell good, their voice is nice to hear, so there is no worrying about fake profiles, old pictures, browsing their social media, it is about being in that moment, heart pumping, trying to form words, and stumbling on them. The most amazing part is when you stumble all over every word but they help pick you up and continue it.

It takes no courage to swipe or like. You can do it on the toilet, “Mommy how did you and daddy meet…” It takes near zero effort to fill out a profile, although reading anyone’s online dating profile these days you might think the opposite as they make it clear that writing more than 140 characters is a slog. Also, apparently everyone just likes sarcasm and travel. Or worse, they write “I want someone to like me the way I like them… i.e. a relationship..” But let’s set aside my gripes with online dating: the mindset you need to adapt to be successful, and the fact that I don’t actually think people are truly ready for it yet, accepting it as an inorganic way of meeting, where if you embrace it for what it is, could truly be used properly.

I am here to talk about a feeling. A feeling I haven’t had since highschool and sporadically since. The feeling of “Wow, I just talked to her” and “Wow, she was beautiful and she gave me her number.” Or that amazing feeling when she texts you before you text her just saying her day was good, no prompt, no socially awkward expectations, no pre-defined etiquette, just two people who saw one another, made eye contact, heard each other’s voices, smelled each other, and didn’t run screaming in the opposite direction. Two people who are genuinely excited for the next time they get to dive in deeper with one another.

I honestly think because of the way online dating is haphazardly thrown together and embraced, those who go out of there way to talk to someone in person and make that contact, have a leg up. I also believe people who embrace the inorganic nature of online dating as organic, also have a leg up. But not many people do it. An example of how things have changed, not many if any bring a flower to a first date anymore, being viewed as overly romantic or invasive. Regardless this gesture still brings a smile to many women’s faces, because it is a gesture that by all means shows you put effort and thought into the date. Even if it was the norm at one point. It shows you went that little extra step out of your way to make the evening or day better. Maybe the day will turn to complete shit, but at least you got out there, gave it your all and decided to embrace it for whatever it could turn into. You only get that first moment once. You embraced the fear of heartbreak. Because in the end, other than the fact that a relationship should just be two friends comfortable with each other in whatever environment they are, before you form that bond you have to be willing to let it all hang out and accept the hurt that comes with starting over.

I have started over so many times, I have created my own therapy sessions of reflection, my past, childhood, stories, and more. I have told my story. And then I have told it again. I have learned from my own words, reactions to my words, and so much more.

But what I miss out on these days, is that magic of day to day. That highschool romance, waiting for the final bell to ring, running home to pick up the phone and talk for hours. The lack of needing to scan their social media for proof of life because you already saw it. The ability to think back to the day instead of look to their past. Cherishing a snap taken on your phone of a kiss. These are the things I have missed lately.

There is something in actually setting up that first meeting in person that gives the possible relationship feet. It allows our minds to wander and fantasize on that cute moment where we did trip on our words. It give us the knowledge that we both consciously made the effort to take the next step of a date. I miss all that comes with that too. The walks to nowhere talking, the trips to the park laying out trying to find that comfortable place to lay on one another without going too fast, that lack of fear of reaching out via a second medium too soon via a text or call.

I suppose I just miss the feeling that I wasn’t competing for the best opener or to fulfill some generic statement on a profile to be “sarcastic” and knowing that when you get someone to talk to you in person you have made a connection, big or small, and it is almost guaranteed you will at least get to enjoy the first date. And if there are dates after that, it is built on those dates, not on a self summary or likes and dislikes on a page. You aren’t scanning their photos over and over you are remembering their face. Your own history. I would rather sing a song like Maria on my way home after a date and think of the moments just passed than go home and play it off Spotify while stalking their social media.

That is a powerful feeling. One I miss.

But here we are, trying to make the inorganic, organic, and I hope, one day, I will meet someone who can embrace it for its convenience but also make me feel like I had to work up the courage to say “Hello” on the street, to which in turn they said “Hello” back.

P.S. Anyone who doesn’t post photos on online dating is doing it wrong. If I were to treat online dating like real life, I hate to say it, but I would approach you if there was an attraction. While sure, there could be a skillset or something in real life that made you more attractive to me than a picture, but I still saw your face, your body, your clothes, and such. I made the snap judgement and acted on it. But that is for another piece of writing.

Author: Tristan (Page 2 of 17)

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Please stop caring!

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Oh and one more thing… The catch to online dating.

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I’m not your bodyguard, I am your boyfriend….

The REAL Reason Girls Love The Dad Bod, Explained By A Woman, rebuked by a man.

Relationships Post Swipe

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