The Ex-Ex problem

I am a fabulous ex-girlfriend, just ask the multitude of men I have dated. Most, although admittedly not all (there were a few years where I just brought havoc and chaos), would tell you that I am easy to talk to, fun to hang out with and overall one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. I don't hang up on drunk dials, I will talk you through horrible painful break ups and I will spend every minute I am with you making sure that you are comfortable, content and totally having a blast. I am a party in 6 inch heels who goes out of her way to make sure your current girlfriend doesn't see her as a threat.

I have the ex girlfriend thing down pat and I have had years of practice. There really isn't much room for improvement in that area. Where I suffer tremendously is in the current girlfriend category. I am a horrible girlfriend. I don't know what it is, but put me in a room full of strangers and I can light up every single conversation. I am brash and brazen and brimming with confidence. Put me in a relationship, I pretty much become a neurotic shell of my former self. I am insecure and clingy and god knows that I am bitchy, moody and take everything as a personal slight. My exes tell me on a regular basis, and I quote, "I wish you were this cool when we were going out."

And herein lies the problem. I met someone 4 months ago and I fell hard. I have, over the past four months put up with his incessant need to break up with me daily, his inability to commit to anything that even looks remotely like a relationship, his refusal to introduce me to friends or family, and his utter lack of anything even close to compassion when I make a mistake or need a shoulder to cry on. He is, in short, every asshole guy I have worked years to stay away from. And to his credit, he doesn't mean to be, he's just not that into me. He's told me. On a number of occasions. In absolutely no uncertain terms. And yet, I continue to try to make things work, only to find myself repeatedly and utterly destroyed.

So this morning, as I was leaving his place to make the hour drive back to North Platte for work, I decided to end it. I didn't even do it in a classy way. I did it by text message. No explanation, no attempt to convince him otherwise, just boom, bang and it's done. In my defense, this is one text break up to literally 10 or more from him. I feel liberated and happy. But give me an hour I will feel like shit.

And this is the part I don't get. When I was in my twenties I had so much confidence, so much belief in myself that I never dated anyone who was a prick. Ok, I dated obnoxious guys that my friends didn't like, but they were always incredibly nice to me, which lets face it, was really the standard I was looking for, because friends will be your friends no matter how much of a douche your boyfriend is. But overall, they were nice guys. And there was no way I would have stayed with them if they weren't.

So why is that now, in my 30's, I am willing to sacrifice all those things that I found so important in my twenties? Why am I substituting financial security and education for someone who truly makes me laugh and tells me I'm beautiful? Why do I spend all of this energy on relationships with emotionally unavailable men when there are so many other men I come into contact with who would walk through fire before they ever hurt me? Well, quite frankly, I blame alcohol. And Katherine Heigel. I don't know yet how she's at fault, but she seems to be at fault for a lot of things these days, and she is every stupid and insipid romantic comedy out there, so I think I am on to something here. Oh wait did I say onto something? I think I meant on something....

The weirdness of life

Today I decided to take a different tack with my Rhapsody account. Instead of searching in vain for one or two songs I could be bothered to listen to and instead decided to focus on an entire genre. It started with Frank Sinatra and before I knew it, I had progressed from Frankie to Dean-o and I write this I am sort of swooning to a combo Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong duet album. I can actually see myself in one of those old A line dresses from the 1940's with my finger waved hair and delicate little white gloves as I swayed to the music on the front veranda of my southern home.

I don't know what it is about music, but I have always loved the smooth era of jazz, big band and velvet ballads. If you toss aside the race issues, crushing poverty, extreme levels of domestic violence and the overall boring lives of women, I could totally see myself living in the forties.

I don't know why that is, I consider myself to be quite the feminist but there is something about those simpler times that reminds me that in today's constant immediate communication, we have lost some of our mystique, some of the romance that a relationship used to entail, and instead we settle for this belief that marriage or long term relationships must be about drama and difficulty, something to get over.

I will tell you what I want, if I ever get married. I want someone who dances in the living room with me, serves me mint juleps in the winter, reminds me that he thinks I'm beautiful, and now and then greets me with the old fashioned, "Honey I'm home." However, I think I will only ever get that from movies, because let's be honest, if my husband actually did that, I would probably hit him with my feminist frying pan. But a girl can dream right?

This blog is about neither.

I started blogging about two years ago on my Myspace page, mostly as an opportunity to update friends and family on the major changes and advances in my life and career. It quickly devolved into long winded rants and missives about my life as a twosome, a onesome, a lonesome and a generally frustrated human being. What started out as a blog that maybe two or three people read, soon began to be read by more and more friends. I would try to mix it up, put in interesting tidbits about my job, or talk about my love life. I would sometimes go months without writing anything and others I would write two or three times a day (mostly when the bosses were on vacation).

I quickly realized that Facebook is the new Myspace, and to be honest I don't have the patience to learn how to post notes on Facebook. Actually, it doesn't even have anything to do with patience, it has everything to do with just being lazy and uninspired.

About a week ago, my on again, off again and I decided we were finally off. Actually to say we decided it, well, that is the understatement of the century. He decided and I just shrugged thinking he would be back. He always came back. But not so much this time.

And that's part of the reason why I started this blog in the first place. Not just because I still like writing and having people read my nonsensical rants about all the things I encounter on a day to day basis, but also because what better accessories could you name for the spinster? And while my friends would work very hard to convince me that I am not a spinster, and not going to be one, I have to admit, I am starting to have my doubts. So whether you are a friend who is reading my blog out of pity or a random stranger who accidentally stumbled here after googling bizarre anime porn, welcome.