The Holy Grail of Pick Up Lines

When they say 'men are from Mars, women are from Venus,' they're not kidding. Women like to receive compliments. Guys seem more intrigued when you insult them.

Case in point - I recently met a really cute guy at a bar. But he was wearing a hideous shirt. I'm not so shallow that the shirt would turn me off from him, but I did see it as a conversation starter. Unbeknownst to me, I was about to discover the holy grail of pick up lines.

The conversation started as a compliment: "You're way too hot....."

And ended with a slap in the face: "..... to be wearing a shirt that ugly. Seriously. Its atrocious."

And then I walked away.

The guy was so confused. Yet intrigued.... because he followed me halfway around the club to finish that conversation.

Hmm. Interesting. Must test this theory more.

Test subject #2. Different night, different bar. This time it was his name that was the subject of ridicule (cruel, I know, but I was trying to prove a theory, so really it was all done in the name of science). He was a hot Italian, with a name that was not hot, and so not Italian. It was a travesty.

"You're way too hot to have a name that ugly." Ouch. Not only did I insult the guy, I also insulted his parents. The outcome? He asked for my number.

What...????? Does this sh*t actually work!???!! I've heard the cliche, 'slap them and they'll never leave you', but I didn't know it was actually true!

Men may not literally be from Mars, and women may not literally be from Venus. But our communication styles certainly are =p

Keeping a Lid on the Crazy

Shows I've been favoring lately include Intervention, Obsessed, and Hoarders.

I get to see just how crazy other people can be, and it reminds me that while many times I feel as if I'm only one step away from crazy... in fact, I'm a lot further away than I think ;-)

Say Something....Anything!

I was having a conversation recently with one of my guy friends and realized something... girls aren't the only ones who get tongue-tied when it comes to making conversation with a hottie.

Needless to say, this was a shock to me.

I always assumed all guys were calm, cool and collected. I thought girls were the only ones who got nervous when trying to formulate the perfect, witty comment.

So let me get this straight - girls are too nervous to approach a guy, and guys are too nervous to approach a girl. How the hell is anyone ever supposed to meet someone?!??

My advice regarding this ridiculous self-imposed silence? Say something! Anything! You'd be amazed where just a few friendly words can take you.

Baggage Limits

As I sit here at the airport, awaiting yet another fun-filled adventure, I am reminded of why airlines place restrictions on baggage. Not just the kind you check in, but also the kind you get to carry aboard. "Your bag must fit these size limits in order to be taken on board".

Wouldn't it be great if these kinds of limitations could be applied to people and their emotional baggage?? "I'm sorry, I can't date you - I see you need a cart to lug around all your baggage and frankly I don't have that kind of room in my life to accommodate you."

If you think about the reasons why there are size limitations, it makes perfect sense. You're sharing space with many people and everyone must fit comfortably. There are also safety reasons - baggage can't be sticking out into the aisle or someone may trip over it and hurt themselves. Being limited to a reasonable sized carry-on is for the good of everyone.

As I dash off to catch my flight, I'll leave you with this thought...

I understand people have baggage (the emotional kind). Everyone has been cheated on at some point or has crossed paths with someone so manipulative that even they didn't know when they were telling the truth or lying. And that damages us a little bit each time something like that happens to us, so that eventually, we're all lugging around our own variety of baggage.

But just because you've accumulated baggage, doesn't mean you can't drop it off somewhere. Is it really necessary to hold onto that angst that you get when you hear a song that reminds you of your ex? No, its not. Is it necessary to obsess about the night you accidentally had a drunken make-out session with your boss... from 5 jobs ago ??? No, its not. Think how much more agile you could be if you weren't burdened by all this baggage. Juggling multiple pieces of large, unwieldy baggage is draining.

So give yourself permission to downsize. Yes, we all bear scars of relationships past, but if you strip away all the pain, anxiety and anger, you're left with the lesson you learned from that experience. And that lesson helped make you a stronger person. If you gather up all those nuggets of wisdom, you'll find they all fit neatly in a small carry-on sized bag.

While you can never completely get rid of your baggage, you can opt for a carry-on, rather than the jumbo-sized suitcase with wheels.

Dating Is Like a Vegas Buffet

A Vegas buffet is all about sampling as many different types of food as possible, and then going back to stock up on those dishes you liked the best. Essentially, a buffet is an economical way to figure out exactly what type of food you want to eat and then getting as much of that food as you possibly can eat. Similarly, dating allows you to "try" many different types of guys (black, white, asian, hippie, metro, techno geek, etc). And when you find the type you like, you go back for more (AKA marriage).

Like anything in life, there is a distinct strategy to getting your money's worth at the buffet. There are low end dishes (salad with iceburg lettuce) and high end dishes (juicy prime rib). When you first step up to the buffet, you're usually met with the salad section first. But you don't want to fill up on the salad because all that does is take up space that could otherwise be used for the good expensive meat. So you take just a few bites, enough to give you an idea of what that particular salad variation tastes like.

This accomplishes two things - first, it takes up very little room so the majority of your plate can be dedicated to more succulent dishes. Second, it keeps you from filling up on something that you really don't want.

Similarly filling-yet-useless, is the bread you get at a restaurant before you've even placed your order. You end up eating half the basket not because you actually want the bread or think it's tasty. You eat it because it happens to be right there in front of you. By the time your actual meal arrives, you're already so full that you can't enjoy it.

Boys are like bread. When you're in a dating dryspell (i.e. hungry for dinner), its more than tempting to date the most readily available person (i.e. eat the entire basket of bread).

Don't do it!

Not only is this not going to be satisfying (bread vs succulent steak), its also going to prevent you from getting to the person that you should be dating (too full on bread to enjoy your expensive dinner). You'll be so preoccupied trying fit a square peg into a round hole (trying to make it work with the wrong guy) that you'll miss out on meeting the guy you should be with.

Never sacrifice what you want most for what's in front of you right now. In other words, don't fill up on the bread because there's a tasty piece of meat waiting for you, if you only have the patience to wait for it to get to the table ;-)

When All Else Fails…Getaway

Sometimes simply the physical act of putting yourself in a different place, can help change your mindset and help resolve problems. Or at least that’s the way it always seems in the movies.

Girl is having major life drama, packs an overnight bag and spends the next few weeks at a distant relative’s house. Said relative just happens to live in a) a posh neighborhood with fabulously wealthy neighbors who happen to have a son who is single and falls madly in love with Visiting Girl, or b) a beachfront bungalow with fabulously wealthy neighbors who happen to have a son who is single and falls madly in love with Visiting Girl.

It seems to me the common factor in both these scenarios is having fabulously wealthy neighbors who have a son that is conveniently of appropriate age and single status for our heroine. Perhaps that’s the secret to finding romance – have fabulously wealthy neighbors who can hook you up big time.

But what about the rest of us living in middle income neighborhoods (AKA, reality) ?

If you’re not lucky enough to have mysterious relatives with convenient neighbor situations, then I say its time to flex your networking muscles. Remember all those friends you’ve made up till now? That funny girl you met on the first day of your first job out of college, or the quirky but harmless guy you met while backpacking through Europe, or better yet, that friend you’ve known since kindergarten who knows you better than you know yourself.

Dust off that phone book and start reconnecting! Or, if you take the modern approach – email, SMS, tweet, poke and rekindle that connection.

But by no means am I advocating for mooching off of friends you haven’t spoken to in years… I’m just saying you have more resources (friends) to keep you afloat during tough times than you realize. And I have to say, I’d be lost without my awesome network of friends.

Not only do they keep me sane, but they provide perspective when I’ve lost mine, and inspiration when all I see is a dead end. THANK YOU. You know who you are ;-)

As for getting away from my day to day problems by visiting a friend in a distant land… I’m currently waiting to board a flight to Chicago.

Adventure awaits!

Control.... It Ain't Just a Janet Jackson Song

When life throws you a curveball and you feel completely helpless, its important to not dwell on those things you can't control. Rather, focus on the things you can control. As logical as this sounds, its far too easy to say 'Woe is me' instead of 'Go me!' (ok - cheezy, I know...but I'm trying to make a point here)

I've noticed people who go through life events they clearly have no control over (sudden job loss, relationship meltdown), tend to do one of two things: They either hold onto the grief and anguish until it consumes them, or they assert a level of control over some other area of their life. Silly as it sounds, having control in at least one area of your life makes it that much easier to deal with those things you don't have control over. My guess here is that by controlling some aspect of your life, you are able to avoid feeling completely powerless.

Interestingly, control can come in many forms. For example - control can be simply completing the laundry. You completed the laundry, ironed everything, and put it all away. Completion!

Control can also take the form of moderating your diet. Its not like anyone is holding a gun to your head telling you to eat that second piece of cake. You control how many calories you consume, as well as how hard you work at the gym to burn it all off.

For me, that is my favorite way of dealing with the things in my life over which I have zero control - I hit the gym. With a vengeance. While this is a great and healthy way to deal with an otherwise potentially unhealthy situation, the problem with this approach is that I'm only in really good shape when I'm totally stressed out. When life swings back into balance and all is right with the world, my gym routine falls off the map and back comes all that fat I worked so hard to ditch.

Sometimes, ya can't win for trying =p

The Power of Choice

When things in life don't turn out the way you expected - that charming guy you were dating turns out to be an a**hole, the stellar job you longed for ends up bleeding your soul dry, or the dream home you bought winds up being a money pit - it can feel like you are helpless. Like you're the unwilling participant in a drama that you never wanted to be cast in. Stuck in an endlessly looping nightmare. A freefall downward spiral.....without a parachute.

When this happens, its easy to let the anxiety overwhelm you. And even easier to just crawl under the covers until the sh*t storm blows over. Especially when it feels like you don't have control over anything.

But even when it feels like you don't have the power to change the course of things, you can change things by simply choosing to.

Guy you're dating dumps you? You can choose to let it crush you...Or you can choose to learn from the situation, become a stronger woman, and move confidently forward.

Job sucking the life out of you? You can choose to become a bitter, angry worker...Or you can find a new element of your job that will once again inspire passion for your work. You can even choose to realize that the current job may not be right for you, and boldly decide to search elsewhere for a satisfying job.

Any downturn can easly be seen as a problem, a bad situation, or a disaster. Its not easy to see it as an opportunity to challenge yourself, to learn something new, to acquire some new wisdom, and use that knowledge and experience to become a better, stronger person.

This is the power of choice. And that is a power that each of us possess, and no one can take that away from us.

So go ahead and wallow in your chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream when life throws a monkey wrench in things. Give yourself permission to grieve, to feel the pain - this is what reminds us we're alive.

But then choose to move forward. The lessons you've learned today will make you that much more capable to handle the next monkey wrench that life will toss at you. And when that happens, you'll know that you can handle it - because you already have.

Left In the Deep End Without My Floaties

Why does it seem that everyone around me knows exactly what's going on...and yet somehow, I am completely clueless?

This is particularly troublesome when I'm at work and I hear a string of acronyms fly out of one coworker's mouth, only to be answered by an equally convoluted stream of acronyms coming from another coworker. Huh?? Seriously, is it just me, or is everyone else on a completely different page? Heck, sometimes it doesn't even seem like we're in the same chapter!

Like Moths to a Flame...I Attract the Weird Guys

I am a smart, strong woman. I have my own opinions, I am self-sufficient, I own my own home.

So why the heck is it that a majority of the guys I end up dating are bat-sh*t crazy? I'd like to think I'm capable of sussing out a normal personality from the crowd, but time and again the Weird Guy ends up fooling me into thinking he's just a normal guy. And then the weirdness begins...

Take the 'So-Called Foreigner'. First, he tried to convince me his English was not so great because he was from Germany. He clearly had an American accent (as in zero German accent). And when I probed, discovered he had in fact grown up in New York and only recently spent 3 years in Germany. A far cry from being a legitimate foreigner.

The night didn't get better from there. He seemed threatened by my knowledge of how to make a sake bomb. Despite having known him for all of 2 hours, he was convinced that I wanted him to be my personal trainer at the gym. Huh?? I don't even know you!

However, my ever-optimistic attitude led me to think the night could still turn out well. Nope. Upon going in for the goodnight kiss, he seemed to think it was entirely appropriately to utter, "I just want to pound you."

WTF?!???!!

Who says that???? I mean... really! I was so completely shocked that someone had just said that to me that I didn't even know what to say. I just stood in stunned silence for a moment. Then common sense kicked in and I suggested it would be best to end the night. His comeback to that? He accused me of being asexual.

Again....WTF?!???!!

Looking back on that incident, I just shake my head and wonder why, like moths to a flame, I attract the weird guys. Am I the only woman that this kind of thing happens to? I refuse to believe I'm the only woman out there with the magical power of being able to attract the crazies. Quite frankly, its a talent I could do without.

Is it really so much to ask for a normal, educated, gainfully employed man who has integrity and is respectful? Its not like I'm asking to win the lottery.... or maybe I am. The odds seem to be about the same.

Actually, I think the odds of winning the lottery may be slightly more favorable. That's not terribly encouraging...

GGGOOOOOOOAAAAALLLL!!!!!!!

Ok, ok - not a soccer goal.... Life goals.

When I graduated college, I didn't want to believe that was the end of the fun. I refused to accept that from that day on, I'd be working. Just....working. Until I died. Or retired. Whichever came first. Not an uplifting thought, especially coming off of four years of partying my a** off.

So I made a deal with myself. I'd set goals. Clearly, everyone should have goals. But these goals would be set in roughly 5 year increments. I figured that was a reasonable time frame by which to accomplish important things. This definitely made the idea of 'working for the rest of my life' seem more tolerable.

When I went about setting my first round of goals, the sky was the limit! Fresh out of college, the world was my oyster. I had grand plans of snagging a prestigious job, with a healthy expense account, and moving to the Big City in a fancy apartment all to myself.

Sounded like a great start, right? I thought it was - until the economy tanked. The ensuing dot com crash wiped out any chance of snagging one of those highly coveted jobs at a snazzy start up that was oozing VC funding. Dot com parties turned into Pink Slip parties.

Needless to say, the lack of job availability put a serious damper on my '5 year goal' plan. Time to improvise. I decided to start small. I wasn't happy with the roommate situation...roommates that I called 'mom' and 'dad.' First goal - "move out of my parent's house before I'm 27." Very reasonable. The next step was a little more bold - "buy a house before I'm 30." One easy goal, one stretch goal. Great!

Then I started thinking of the 'pushing the boundaries' goals. These were goals I wanted to accomplish before settling down and getting married. More importantly, they were goals that really challenged me to grow as a person and step outside my comfort zone: Live in a foreign country. Become fluent in a foreign language. Take a vacation by myself. These may be difficult to reach but I knew these were things I had to accomplish before my 30s.

Fast forward 5 years... Progress on my goals? Check, check and check! What a sense of accomplishment! But then the reality hit - what the hell am I going to do about the next 5 years?? Everything amazing and seemingly out of my reach, had already been accomplished.

My reward for reaching these goals? No idea what the next set of goals should be. No direction. No guidance. All I could think was, What now????

And just like that, I felt just as confused and clueless as I did fresh out of college.

*Sigh*

Dedication Or Lack of Motivation?

You love your job. You're a hard worker. You stay in the same job for 5+ years because you enjoy your work so much. Some may call this dedication. But I wonder.... is it really dedication, or just lack of motivation? Moving on to a new job could be a good thing. Better perks and better pay. So why are you still in the same job?

I recently discussed this with a colleague who had just left a job he loved. While he was sad to have left a position he liked, he was excited and happy for his new job. He told me that being content in your job isn't always a good thing. It can keep you from seeking out a new job which could potentially make you infinitely more happy (and potentially more wealthy).

Interestingly, I feel like this same line of thinking can be applied to relationships. You think you're happy and so you stay. Then something forces a break up, far sooner than what you had in mind (Break up?? We're never going to break up!). This sends you into the downward spiral of insecurity, self doubt and the inconsolable sadness that comes from realizing that things will never be the same again. It feels like the world is going to end.

But what you don't realize is that maybe you weren't as happy as you thought. You stayed in that situation for so long that you actually lowered your standards and compromised your true feelings in order to maintain the status quo. Sacrificing a little happiness is better than being alone, right? And if you hadn't been forced out of that situation, you'd still be in it. Still compromising. Still not entirely happy, but just happy enough to stay.

Just like a reluctant fledgling needs to be pushed out of the nest and forced to spread its wings and fly, we too need to be pushed out of our comfort zone. What at first seems cruel or harsh, actually ends up being the best thing that could have possibly happened to us.

Think about it....How many times have you broken up with someone, swearing you'd never be happy again, only to find someone new who turns out to be 150 times better? This is the uplifting outcome that you must keep in mind while you're wallowing in your chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

There are other fish in the sea - and most of the time, they're much better than what you just threw back.

Déjà vu...

I like to think of life like a video game - you have to successfully avoid various pitfalls on this level in order to pass to the next level. Each time something trips you up and you have to go back to the start, you have a better idea of the dangers that lie ahead when moving through that same level again. Hopefully, on this second go-around, you'll remember where you made a mistake last time and be able successfully avoid it this time. Ultimately, you'll be able to avoid all the pitfalls on that level and move on to the next level. Very similar to how one repeats the same mistakes in life, until they finally figure out a different way to handle a particular issue or situation and they're able to move past that roadblock.

Take dating, for example. How many times have you found yourself saying, 'Wait a minute....I've dated this guy before.' Not literally, of course, but figuratively. Maybe it stemmed from the high school obsession with 'The Bad Boy.' Every guy you've dated since high school bares some vague resemblance to the original 'Bad Boy' you fell for as a naive freshman.

Personally, I've found myself cycling through various versions of the same guy from different times in my life. There was the cute but insanely jealous guy from high school. Somehow, I found myself dating the same guy-type in my mid-twenties. The difference? I was far more aware of when things needed to end with the mid-twenties guy and was able to pull the plug on that relationship far quicker than I did the first time I encountered this guy-type my sophomore year of high school.

Okay, so there was some lesson learned there. A nugget of wisdom that I was able to glean from that first disaster so that I could avoid as big a disaster when I got older. But then why do I find myself still making mistakes in my 30s? Shouldn't I have learned enough life lessons from my teens and 20s to be able to avoid those same bad decisions?

I've made the mistake of falling for the smart-yet-vaguely-self-centered guy. So why did I fall for him again? I know how things ended with the first guy that fit this description, yet I still had hope that the second guy that fit this description might be different.... Nope. Ended in pretty much the same way. The only lesson I could apply from the first disaster was how best to handle the pain of heart ache.

When your heart breaks, its okay. Life goes on. Cliche as it sounds, you really will end up a stronger person. Despite the pain, I can now, in my 30s, see that heart ache is more an opportunity to improve my life in some positive way rather than seeing it as an end to the world as I know it. That constitutes as personal growth of some sort, right?

But until my heart finally catches up to what my brain has already realized, I'll just have to rely on my pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream to get me through.

Where to begin?

With so many jumbled thoughts swirling around my head, its a challenge deciding which ones to pluck out of the chaos and jot down, and which of those need a bit more time before they're fully baked. I suppose I can start at the beginning. Seems logical enough, right?

I am a young woman, in my early 30s...and rapidly approaching an early mid-life crisis. I have daily worries of winding up old and alone with my cats (and I don't even have cats!).

The crazy thing is that every one of my female friends, also in their 30s, is also experiencing (or has experienced) the exact same utter bewilderment of looking in the mirrror and saying 'How the heck did I end up here??'

We were all so bold and confident as we charged through our 20s, certain that life would only continue to get better as we hit 30. But instead, we find ourselves asking - What the heck happened to that cavalier self-esteem, I-can-conquer-the-world enthusiasm that I had so easily possessed in my 20s? When the hell did the simple decision of 'What color should I paint my kitchen?' have the power to bring me to tears? I love my job, so why does it take me 2 hours to get out of bed in the morning??

In one form or another, we're each facing our own early mid-life crisis.

Based on casual conversations with my friends, I have the sneaking suspicion we're not the only ones experiencing this 'phenomenon.' And if that's the case..... we shouldn't be hitting up the 'red wine therapy' alone.

Perhaps by sharing my experiences, other women out there can take some comfort in knowing they're not the only ones who are feeling this way. I'm hoping these (somewhat) daily blog posts will provide some laughter, some levity, maybe even some insights.

In any case, if you're a woman in your 30s and wondering why you suddenly seem to be digressing rather than progressing.... then this blog is for you.

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