I Run in Heels

I'm 29 & single, and I'm okay with that

My brother and his girlfriend of 2 years were recently in Oklahoma visiting my parents. While Ali appreciated the family-centric culture of our hometown, she commented on the emphasis on getting married young. People remarked on her "patience" at not receiving a ring by this point in the relationship. At our high school's homecoming, the queen candidates all expressed future goals along the lines of finding the man of their dreams and getting married. And many of my brother's friends are married in their early 20's or hoping to be soon.

The positive side of this is that family is given such high value in that community, but as someone who's 29 and single, I have also seen the great benefits of having time to grow and develop on your own. I am not writing this to knock people who marry young. I know plenty of couples who married right out of high school, during college, or soon after, that have had long-lasting, successful marriages. But I do want to encourage people who have chosen a different route or find themselves going a different direction.

I've had a myriad of experiences in the last several years that I wouldn't have had if I'd been married. And I'm not sitting at home, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for someone to come and "complete" me. It's very empowering to find your first job or place to live, to set up a retirement account, to travel on your own, and to do these and many other things without the safety net of a spouse. So while you may have days of something-less-than-enthusiasm over your single state, I'm going to suggest you do something radical...embrace it. 

So say "table for one" with confidence.

Go to that movie you've been dying to see...by yourself.

Buy something you've been eyeing and don't worry about having to tell anyone about it! :)

Flirt!

Spend a day/week/month experiencing a new neighborhood/city/country on your own.

The possibilities are limitless...just make the most of this time of life!

Crush City

Searching for the Yeti recently reposted a couple of blog entries about different types of crushes from The Gigglepuss on her blog. That Happened People! added his own crush categories to the list.

And now I submit mine...

(1) "Pass the Peace" crush: Have you ever been in a church service where the pastor has you stand up and greet people around you? It's sometimes called "passing the peace" and you're supposed to tell the other person "Peace be with you," and they respond "And also with you." This crush refers to those times when you turn around in your pew only to find "Mr. Where Have You Been All My Life" or "Miss I'd Marry You in Vegas Tomorrow" waiting to shake your hand. And you find yourself responding a little too enthusiastically: "And also with you!"

(2) Maintenance Person: Cliched but true. All of a sudden there's nothing more fascinating to you than learning all about your Dish Network subscription or the cause of most clogged drains.

(3) Celebrity Backburner Crush (A combination of two from Gigglepuss): This is a crush on a celebrity that you've had on the backburner since you were a teenager. And even though that star may be long past his/her prime, you'll always see them as that starring role in the movie you watched over and over again.

(4) Genre-bending crush: He's hip hop and you're all about country. You've got season tickets to the opera and she tears it up at a weekly karaoke night. They're so different...that it just might work. 

(5) Literary crush: This is for all of the girls (mostly teenagers) who've been gushing to me about the "Twilight" book series and a certain vampire named Edward Cullen. Or for a broader audience, this is for the ladies still crossing their fingers that Mr. Darcy might exist. It's the crush on a fictional character. For my male readers, I'm not sure of the equivalent...crush on a female in a video game series?

I am 29 and single. Deal with it Facebook.

Here is a sampling from recent ads on the side of my screen on Facebook. Each statement's a separate ad, but I put them into categories:

Desperate dot com: A "loveless" summer? Did he stop calling? Feeling lonely?

Answering the unanswerables: Why men run from love. Why do men dump women? Is he your soulmate?

Meet and greet's: Meet elite singles. Meet black singles. Meet mature singles only. Meet single men. Monthly singles events.

Taking it to the next level: Myfuturespouse.com.  One love, one ring.

Ouch: 29 and alone again? Are you 29 and still single?

Don't I know you from somewhere?

You might be detecting a theme in the recent slew of postings on this blog. With the upcoming holiday, I thought it would be only fitting to share some of my misadventures with the opposite sex. Here's another gem for you. I was grocery-shopping in the suburbs of Chicago, and since I'm an Oklahoma girl at heart I was smiling at people as I made my way through the produce section. An odd man returned my smile somewhere around the apples and oranges. I hate to say it, but it's one of those times where you immediately wish you could take back the smile, because you know the other person is reading way too much into it.

A couple of minutes later I see him headed toward me purposefully at the front of the store, so I yanked my cart down an aisle to avoid him. The guy's not taking the hint and the next thing I know he's hovering behind me in the center aisle. He starts telling me how he moved out from Ohio for chiropractic school and how he's always at the Caribou Coffee across the street and would I want to join him for coffee sometime? I said something along the lines of how I admired his boldness, politely refused his request, and thought that would be the end of it.

What makes this story one of my favorites is that I ran into the same guy across town three weeks later. I was walking along the sidewalk and recognized him too late to zip across the street. He comes up to me and launches into the exact same story (chiropractic school, move from Ohio, how hard it is to meet people, etc.) except in this scenario he always hung out at the Starbuck's across the street from where we were. It was way too funny to call him out, so I just stood there in disbelief. If you're going to use a canned approach, at least try to vary up who you use it on!

Romance in Pasadena?

Pasadena is known for many things...the Rose Bowl, the Rose Parade, that little old lady who drove real fast and real hard. What you may not know about Pasadena is that it is also home to some world-class cat-callers. They whistle, they honk, they yell, they wave, they almost run into poles on their bikes. And they also love to act like they need directions. My friend Julia has a funny story about this up on her blog at http://juliacamille.blogspot.com/. My most outrageous encounter took place last fall while walking to class. A guy on a motorcycle pulled into the parking lot next to me and started asking if I knew where a good place to party was. It's 1:00 in the afternoon on a week day, so he's getting started a little early. Trying to end the conversation quickly, I directed him to Colorado. "Is that a street?" he asked. Just one of the main streets in the whole city, but maybe he's not from around here? And then he mumbled something under his breath, and I made the mistake of asking him to repeat it. "If I gave you $100, would you flash me?" he said a little louder. Tempting, but no. What in the heck?

I love Seinfeld's bit on this type of approach from men:
"...Women know what men want. Men know what men want. What do we want? We want women, that’s it! It’s the only thing we know for sure, it really is: we want women. How do we get them? Oh, we don’t know ’bout that, we don’t know. The next step after that we have no idea. This is why you see men honking car-horns, yelling from construction sites. These are the best ideas we’ve had so far. The car-horn-honk, is that a beauty? Have you seen men doing this? What is this? The man is in the car, the woman walks by the front of the car, he honks. This man is out of ideas. The amazing thing is, that we still get women, don’t we. Men, I mean, men are with women. You see men with women. How are men getting women, many people wonder. Let me tell you a little bit about our organization. Wherever women are, we have a man working on the situation right now. Now, he may not be our best man, OK, we have a lot of areas to cover, but someone from our staff is on the scene. That’s why, I think, men get frustrated, when we see women reading articles, like: “Where to meet men?”. We’re here, we are everywhere. We’re honking our horns to serve you better."

Another Valentine's tale

One Valentine's Day, I received a huge bouquet of flowers at work. My sister and I had sent a couple of relatives flowers earlier in the week, and I thought, "Well, isn't that sweet. She sent me some too!" Uh...no. The card was signed "Roy." I didn't know any Roy's. Uh-oh. It said something to this effect: "Dear Lynndsey, I have seen you around and I think you are pretty and nice....I was wondering if you would go to dinner with me."  This actually sounds much more eloquent than it was. You would think that getting a surprise bouquet of flowers from a "secret admirer" would be exciting. And you would be wrong. More like unnerving.

A blackout in our office that day added to the drama. As my coworkers wandered around somewhat darkened halls they were more than happy to help track down Mr. Mystery. My boss called his number, got voice mail, and had me call back to see if I recognized his voice. Of course, he picked up that time, prompting me to quickly slam the phone shut. After a few days of worrying if some wacko was going to come up behind me and whisper, "So, did you like the flowers?", I called him again. Our conversation went something like this:

Lindsey (trying hard to sound low-key) "So, where do you know me from?"
Roy: "From work." (Way to be vague, Roy, way to be vague).
Lindsey (still trying to act casual): "Oh, do you work at the college?"
Roy: "No." (Okay buddy, give me something to go on, 'cause right now you're very much in stalker territory).
Lindsey: "Where do you work?" (Spit it out, Roy).

It turns out he worked for the transmission place I had frequented the previous month. I tend to have a way with cars...a way of sending them straight to the mechanic. It shouldn't surprise me that my mechanic would be sending me flowers. I might as well give them my bank account number and say go at it. We chatted a bit more, but he lost his nerve when my roommate's mom happened to be over and answered the phone the next time he called. The one that got away...

Valentines Day memories

I am not one of those single women who wear black on Valentine's Day and bemoan the lack of romance in their lives. I actually enjoy Valentine's Day, with or without a date/boyfriend. In elementary school, I couldn't wait to bring in my Valentines box decorated to the hilt and, of course, I gave special consideration to who would get what card. A "Be Mine" or "I'm Stuck on You" could never go to anyone with potential. That was way too forward. I might as well give them a big smooch on the playground for all the subtlety those cards conveyed. No, the perfect card had to be funny and nonchalant, with just a hint of feelings but one that could easily be construed as "just friends." It was a delicate balancing act.

A more recent memorable Valentines Day took place in college. I walked out of the dorm about 10 yards behind a guy I didn't know and stayed behind him for quite some time (on my way to the library). When he finally turned around, I blurted out, "I'm stalking you." (Always a good opener...). In a great accent, he responded: "I gotta be careful. I'm from New Yawk." We chatted for a few more minutes, and the next time we ran into each other he asked me to dinner...on Valentine's Day. No pressure. Sadly, I thought he said 7; he thought he said 5. Yes, I stood him up on Valentine's Day. When we rescheduled, he showed up in a white tank top, jeans, and more than one gold chain, explaining that all his other shirts were "in the laundry."  And there was no date #3.

Funny snippets from this week

#1: I got picked up in the drive-thru line. Mr. Friendly Cashier first asked to see my ID (so he could "make sure it was me") as he charged my debit card. "You look a lot younger than you are!" he exclaimed. "You look 21, not 28." I thanked him, and he went on: "I'm going to take a wild guess and say you graduated in 1997." Mm-hmm. "Me too! But I was born in '78. Where'd you go to high school?" Oklahoma. "What brings you out to California?" Grad school. "Where do you go?" Fuller Seminary. "Oh, do you want to be a minister? I want to be a youth pastor." No, I'm studying to do cross-cultural work."  And on from there... This all took place while I was paying for and receiving my food. Pretty funny.

#2: My professor taught us how to speed read for his class, and I was explaining to my sister the painful irony of trying to speed read a book you actually enjoy. I was rushing to finish our latest reading assignment and write a book review before class in about 15-20 minutes. Typically, I'd just read the 1st sentence of each paragraph, but I found myself so captured by the first sentences that I'd continue reading. "There's no time!" I thought frantically, trying to move on before another sentence gripped me. I felt my eyes sliding down to the next paragraph, the agony of the unread word ripping into my heart. Okay, maybe nothing quite so melodramatic. But when you're racing the clock, it's just pretty frustrating to be skimming through paragraphs that should be highlighted, underlined, and reread, if you know what I mean. They were that good.

#3: Last night I was in the same room as the Spice Girls, Leeza Gibbons, Joey Lawrence, Ian Ziering, Jane Seymour, Marie Osmond, and Donnie Osmond. My aunt, cousin, and I got priority tickets to the Dancing with the Stars finale. It was amazing! We were seated in the 4th row behind the judges.

Thanks Mom

Last week, my roommate received a letter from her stepmom, along with a picture of a man she didn't recognize. On the back of the photo, it said: "Potential prospect?" and detailed some of his finer qualities. I had a similar experience my senior year in a phone call with my mom. She exclaimed excitedly: "Hey Linds, I think I met your mate!...I met him at the Cowboy Hall of Fame..." One friend's mom met a young man on an airplane who she thought was so great that she gave him my friend's contact information. But am I writing this post to rant and rave about mothers? Actually, no. I think moms are pretty fabulous. My first post on this blog was about my mother driving cross-country with me in a cramped car for 24 straight hours. Now that's love.

The joys of internet dating

I tried online dating one summer and encountered quite an interesting array of people. Here are a few excerpts from the profiles of guys I was matched w/ (italics mine):

"I prefer parking at the far end of parking lots, taking the stairs, and carrying  my luggage and my groceries just for the joy of physical activity. I feel disdain for elevators, escalators, moving walkways, luggage with wheels, shopping carts, and other vices of laziness.

 "I leave a pretty distinct impression as it is...Only the most skilled and motivated divers make it to the bottom of this ocean...Isn't attraction incredible? Imagine relaxing into strong arms holding you, feeling safe and appreciated and intimate, knowing it's totally right. I'm looking too. Am emotionally literate and willing to take risks. If this speaks to you, we should talk."

The most important thing he's looking for in a person is: "SIMILARITY...I've always held that people who feel that 'opposites attract' aren't satisfied with themselves and thus want to make up for their 'shortcomings' ...That's not me-I'm completely satisfied w/ myself."

One thing only his best friends know: "...I'm as lazy as the day is long...what I'm working towards is a life of leisure..."