In the Clutch of the Crazies

Yeah, they're back. The crazies are getting me. And blue is blue but this has got to stop. I've toyed with the idea of seeing someone but the last thing I need is more drugs and further expense to add to the stress of working a bagillion (bajillion?) hours and not bringing home the bacon. Speaking of bacon, the crazies are making me fat, like, um, this fit yesterday, what can't I get it zipped, fat.

So the new thing is going to be how to not let the crazies get to me. Plan isn't a simple, somehow I have to become happy. And how does one become happy?

I think Martin Page and Francois Lelord seem to know how. But they're French so maybe it's a French thing, this happiness and contentment. Or maybe it's a man thing. But I'm leaning toward French. And maybe it's not a thing at all, because I'm reading these books and the characters find that after the search everywhere only to realize that what they had before was quite alright. So is what I have quite alright?

I guess I have to go through a great journey, across the globe, I must meet people who are happy and sleep with many, many happy men what want nothing other than a roll in the hay and nuzzling. Wait, that sounds French, or fictional. Too many books. But I do think the journey part of the idea holds water.

So the journey thing, you say I should go? Who pays? I'm still looking into the whole sugar daddy thing, the boss man tells me that all this fellow needs is $8 million in the bank and I can live on a slim four hundred thousand in interest every year. Which I think, maybe I could handle. Maybe, if I watched my electric bills and lived on rice and beans for two meals a day. I think I could do it.

Oh, right, but I can't because it was a thing that The Today Show exploited for ratings in the last week or so. This is a warning to The Today Show: Stop stepping on my toes, until I'm good enough to work for a living I need this. Thank you.

Then again, maybe my outed plan can still work, rich old men don't get up to watch The Today Show, they read the newspaper!

So anyhow, if anything a few weekends away, a few dates (take the freaking hint!), that could be the band-aid on the bullet wound for a bit. A real job would be super fantastic. A place to live. More French books?

Here's to the search for happiness!

I've Been Doing Something Wrong

It is safe to say that I have never had a boyfriend. I've dated plenty but I've never been bound to someone by labels. In some ways this is good (so I've been told) and other ways not so good. We're all quite aware of my stunted social skills but there has yet to be a scientific study that proves correlation, let alone causation, when it comes to stunted social skills and lack o' boyfriends.

It hasn't even bugged me until lately. And the fact that it's bugging me now, is bugging me. So let us examine this a little deeper shall we.

I have a sister who is a serial monogamist, or something like it, basically she traps boys in to hanging on for a long time, then breaks up with them, says super nasty things about the girls they date next and then pretends they are friends again. This seems like a fairly typical scenario, I've seen some chick-flicks so I would know. But what is so intriguing about her whole set up is this whole gift thing. Almost without fail any serious ex-boyfriend starts giving her expensive gifts about a year or so after they break up. Like a TV. And that's after they've broken up!

So, issue number 1: Gifts. I want gifts, and not selfish I want things things, and not a TV, but gifts like, "Oh yeah I saw this trinket and thought of you!" gifts.

Also there is a rash of engagements and weddings. I would like one of those. And I am well aware that not all cultures require a boyfriend prior to engagement, in fact, I can think of a few that discourage such behavior but alas I am not a part of any of these cultures. And don't give me that "but people are waiting longer to get married" stuff. I know they are. I only know one or two people who were married before they were 20, though both my grandmothers and my mother were married before they were 20, so yeah waiting until you're 23 is like so waiting!

Issue 2: I'm being left in the dust.

I'm not really in a place socially or economically to have a boyfriend, so yeah throwing a wedding won't be happening anytime soon either. I live with my mother. I live with my mother 10 miles from the nearest town. I live with my mom 10 miles from the nearest town which is yet another 10 miles from anything to do. All that and I have two jobs and very little money.

Issue 3: I am a socially unattractive boomerang living in the boondocks. It weighs on me to type that sentence.

All issues aside, I'm lacking in confidence at the moment, and by moment I mean the last say seven years have lent their hands to this undermining feeling of inadequacy. I need a coach. And a therapist. And new shoes (this being the most pressing of the three, of course).

A little help?

Want to get a Drink? Otherwise known as The Dating Boomerang

Living with one's mother and working two jobs isn't really great for the social life and all. So how does a boomerang date?

It's an experiment I've actually decided to try.

A few months ago my mother decided to try her hand at online dating. She so enjoyed the attention that she suggested I try it. I used her match.com profile to see who happened to be trying the online thing in my area. I found tons of "eligible" bachelors in my age group, a bit of research showed that all of the folks on the internet are one of two things: Creepers and Gingers*.

It didn't take long for my mom to tire of her experience and offered up the end of her subscription to me. I took a look again. Still creepers and gingers, only this time I saw a familiar face. It was the brother of a guy I hung out with in high school and later dated briefly in college, newly divorced and looking. That sealed it. The internet is not for me.

My friends offered to set me up with someone, I agreed, but said blind date has yet to occur. I've been promised to meet this fellow no later than my fiends' wedding. And I look forward to meeting him and all but I am slowly ageing every day.

I go to the gym as a means of meeting people. I also do it for health and fitness reasons, which in someways makes the meeting people thing harder.

Everyone has suggestions. Everyone has solutions to the dating thing. And now I'm interested in a guy. And thats normal and all but everyone has suggestions ideas of how to make this work, not that it isn't working itself out. This guy and I, sort of. It's tricky but then again people my age don't really date well so tricky is ok. My favorite advice, other than I need to get over myself, was from my younger sister. She said, "Don't be too serious. You're still young." It is ironic advice. But good advice nonetheless.

Trial one (?) of this experiment is a go.

*Sorry Ginger friends, not a fan. I have enough sunburn in my life as it is.

Friends and Circles in the Newspaper

I was reading an article in a newspaper that had a diagram of friendships and their influences based on iPhone and Android technology. The circles in the diagram showed that your closest friends don't have as much influence over you as the people you spend your time with. The circles got me thinking. And before you go and get worried that I've fallen into the hands of the crazies again cool it, I am writing this on a reflective note, I am neither angry nor sad.

But I was thinking. My close friends are not really in the vicinity any longer. Some of them never really were, we met in other places and in some cases our friendships are better for it. But my closest friends and I we're so spread that months and years pass without seeing each other. That upsets me a little but not as much as the fact that my close friends that live within ten miles of my mother's house don't have a better track record.

The lack of connection comes as no shock. As a generation of boomerangs we work too hard and drink too much spend the rest of the time we're not commuting and boozing working on finding real jobs in places far, far away. We are a generation of lost boys. We are aging. We can feel it, in our bones and in secret we talk about how it feels to be older. And after laughing it off we go home and cry about feeling old.

My friends and I, we avoid each other because as Logan said the other night "we always have the best plans" but we are mice and men if we are anything.

So I will plan some more. Maybe do a bit of traveling this summer but where I don't know.