Remember, Every Night is Ladies' Night

It was about 2 weeks ago that I declared to a complete stranger and a friend
"I hate ladies' nights."

This was not a good way to respond to an extended invitation to go out with some women later that week, yet there it was.

I'm not sure how this conversation went precisely, because memories are a tricky thing, but I can try to recreate what I believe truly happened.

Looks. 

Silence.

Me, instead of back peddling, charging forward.  

"I've been thinking about it and I don't know if I am going to find and meet a man, but I know where I am definitely not going to find him.

He isn't: 
1.) in my house (and if he is there, he's a creepy stalker) 
2.) at my parents' home or
3.) at a girls' night."


I think there was some feedback at this point, but the truth in my logic was finally finding words and I didn't stop.

I went on to explain that I keep getting invited to girls' nights by my women who are primarily married and dating. They want to hang out with all women. They get excited about these times, while I fight off mounting feelings of frustration or even anxiety when invited to one. For me, every night is ladies night. It's called going home.

When I unlock my apartment door I might as well yell inside "Welcome to ladies' night. WOOOOOO!!!"

Or really upon entering any establishment:

"Helloooo coffee shop. This lady has arrived, so the drinks are on me!"

Not sure how to respond to a "Let's do a girls' night!" I may respond with sound effects. Sound effects are highly open to interpretation and aren't exactly lies.

"Ohhhh"
"Eeeee" 
"MMMM"

What do those mean? It's up to the listener to decide.

What I am doing in that moment is doing mental math. I'm tallying up all the hours I will be surrounded in the land of women and all the money I spend in that world. And I am freaking out. "Nooooo. How am I going to ever find someone if I am spending all I have in this insular bubble?? I'm not. I'm just not! Men don't like to  go to wine painting parties. And I don't either!! I can't afford this." 

Meanwhile what I really want to do, if  not be with a significant other of my own, is hang out with BOTH sexes. Provide the opportunity to meet someone. To not sit around and hear about husbands and boyfriends or kids when they aren't around. I'd much rather be around all of them and get to know them.

Is this too honest for you?

With my wits about me I realize that it is nice to be invited to things. And I also see that possibly women who are requesting these events are striving to strike up balance in their lives. Possibly they are feeling an inequity in how their time and money is being spent. So much time around their spouse/ boyfriend/ kids is time not spent around other women.

So if that is sound, then logically it holds that the feelings that I am experiencing are equally valid and true. I have an over abundance of "girl time" with myself and 80-90% of my free time activities are spent with women and it's too much. I need something in the middle.

So, if you invite me to anything girly in the coming future, thank you. I'm grateful. But can we make it a Co-Ed night? Dinner party, poker, laser tag, dancing, bowling, movie, whatever??
Bring men, women, and children and we'll have a good time.

Top 3 Flirting Flummoxes of 2014

Tomorrow is July.
See?

To keep myself on track of my New Year's Resolutions/ Adoptions I'm checking in.
If you want to read the original post, click away.

In reference to the list I wrote for myself to accomplish this year, how is it going?
Am I writing more?  Yes.
Am I telling the truth more...that's a hard thing to measure, but am I expressing true things about myself to others?  Yes, in writing.
It's nice how they all can flow together and cross-promote themselves.
I'm not sure what cross-promote really means, but I think this is close enough.

But flirting?
If there is a learning curve in process, I am wondering has it started to curl yet?
Or to ellipsis?
Or to meniscus?
I love turning Science nouns into verbs and misusing them.  It's a completely Englishy thing to do.

Perhaps it's like the curvature of the earth and thwarts the understanding of the human eye.  I'm going with that, and I'm not completely discouraged about my "progress."
(First, you should know, I do despair from time to time.  And I have been the recipient of grace of friends and family who will come over and just hold me, if I am a sobbing mess.  I get messy and I ugly cry about singleness and dating and rejection.  I think it's important for people to know that.  Life isn't just puppies and kitties; hard happens, and it's important to be loved then. That is a true help.)

Another reason I am not completely discouraged is that I am funny, and I don't really tire of self-deprecating humor.  I hope you've also noticed that self-deprecating humor does not mean making light of my insecurities.  Nor does it entail laughing at my vulnerability.
Those aren't funny, that is a cry for help, and I don't want your help.
I want to give you 3.5 opportunities to laugh.

If a friend shared these with me, guy or girl, if properly executed, I would roll with laughter with them.
I want that for you.

#1
If you haven't read Why am I Still Single? The Answer, let me recap it in 3 run-on sentences.
In a coffee shop, I noticed a man standing behind me using my keen sense of smell.  His cologne wafted over to my nose, but it was faint enough for me to think he was far away (This is largely because men have seen too many Axe commercials and shellac themselves with cologne, which is unfortunate and abusive to noses everywhere.) Upon seeing him VERY near to me in my peripheral vision, I jumped, and I explained the jump by saying I smelled him before I saw him. Admittedly, the other version is better than this synopsis.

#2
I struck up a conversation near some restrooms with a handsome man around February or March while waiting for some friends to come out.  They were taking awhile, and he was leaning on a wall or rail, which is a universally good sign (Source: While You Were Sleeping where Bill Pullman still doesn't convince me that he is a romantic lead.  He makes a much better President/fighter pilot. Source: Independence Day.)
I had the very conscious thought, "Now's an opportunity to flirt,'"as if I were running a SWOT analysis on this scenario.  In a way, I was.

So I said...

"Do you watch Dr. Who?"

I didn't pretend to be interested in hockey, or flip my hair. I went straight for what is possibly the longest running nerdy show out there.
Additionally, I do not watch the show, so where on earth did I think this was going?
He did not watch the show, nor did I. That killed all conversation.


#3 explained in 2 parts 
About 2 months ago now, I started registering the physical proximity from men as a potential attack.

Some foundational information:

If there were a definitive Flirting for Dummies book out there, it would mention the importance of Proxemics.  
I have attached a definition for you to reference, it's a real thing and I know because I took a class on it.
It's highly important in communication and possibly even more so in flirting.  It's also why bars have loud music, so you have an excuse to lean in.  It also hastens alcohol intake.  Yeah.  That's a thing.   Note: This study is not something you site as a way to try to flirt.  I've tried siting research studies while flirting.  Don't do it; it has never worked the way I intended.

These incidents occurred, days apart.

Part 1
Well, in about April, I was walking past a congenial fellow. He raised up his arm in high five greeting fashion and said, "Hey you're here!"
What did I do?

I ducked and protected my face.

I saw the arm raising, doubled over, and protected my head. I wish this was on video or in 3-4 time-lapse photos that I would animate here.
I'm not implying this would have been flirting, had I not felt threatened.  Rather, I think what I do see happening here is the opposite of flirting.

Dropping to the ground is the opposite of flirting.

I know because this is my standard response to being tickled. Tickling is a flirting tactic that I undo by always dropping to the ground. It is horrifying to all interested parties, creating very disinterested parties, rapidly.


Part 2
About 2 days later...
In another environment, with a male friend and a male acquaintance, I was trying to exit and go home.  My guy friend desired me to stick around and go to a dinner party that a girl was hostessing.  I had not been invited to this dinner party, so I was trying to slink away, graciously declining.

I tried to explain my point of view without going into:

1) the higher math that is head counting,
2) the scarcity of food ratio,
3) seating and chair challenges,
4) the secrets of single girls, and
5) etiquette.

This proved difficult.

Having been a hostess myself, here is what I knew, but didn't explain:

DO NOT CRASH A DINNER PARTY.  
I know it's 2014, but there are manners and feelings to consider.  Mine have been not considered when I hostess and it stinks. I don't want to do that to someone else.
Particularly if it is happening in 15 minutes.
Especially if YOU were invited, but it wasn't a plus one sort of thing.
You have no idea the wrath that an uninvited girl showing up to a dinner party with a man can bring. If you have read any Jane Austen novel, use this as a guide.
Dinner parties are an excuse for a single girl to have single men over and seduce them with food.  If the hostess isn't into you, someone at the gathering invariably is.
Now, knowing this, did I want to be "that rude girl," eating chicken, and straddling a table leg because there was no place planned for me?
No, not really.

Still not finding the ability to explain my reticence clearly, the persuasions continued.
The male acquaintance said, "Oh I'll keep her here while you call to see if it's ok for her to come to dinner."
He advanced to distract me, and I...

turned around and assumed a somewhat crouched position that made my butt stick out, balled my hands into fists, and possibly closed my eyes.

If this were a 7th grade basketball game, I would call it boxing out, but it wasn't.

I can't remember what exactly transpired (since my eyes were shut), but offering up my backside and holding my arms up like a T-Rex got some attention.  I explained I thought he was about to grab me and hold me down.  (This is how you get a girl to attend a dinner party without RSVPing, right?)

To which he looked appalled and said, "No, I'm all sweaty."
He also had a soccer ball.

Men: No girl on earth has ever wanted to be grabbed by a sweaty man.  Ever.
Oh wait. Have you even seen the World Cup?**

At any rate, I was not grabbed.  Further, I was allowed to go home, eat my cold pizza, and wonder about why my reflexes had taken a turn toward being easily victimized.

Now.
For my 4th Flirting Flop/Fizzle, I believe I need a different post.  I will have it to you BEFORE July 4th.
I love timely writing pieces, but there's just something about equating flirting with Independence of America that is just wrong.  I like puns, but not enough to cast freedoms I have as a joke.



**Regarding the World Cup:
**If you haven't seen it, let me break it down:
It's like the Miss Universe pageant, except each country sends and entire team of their most swarthy countrymen.  They run around for a month in front of cameras.
Hands off, Mr. Universes, don't touch me.  Don't you know you're sweaty?


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Why am I Still Single? The Answer.

Why are you still single?
A bold question if ever there was one.

You would be surprised how very many times I have been asked this.  I believed and assumed (until writing this) that the question was born from a person's deep courage that (unfortunately) overflowed into words. But since finishing writing this post (on paper), I have circled back and concluded that maybe it isn't a surplus of courage but a deficit of tact.
Whatever attribute that is present or absent when asking something so personal, my response is fairly standard.  I reel.
I can't manage to say, "Oh that's private" or "How dare you."   Instead, I typically am so taken aback and startled that I generally give an honest, though halting, answer, not because my audience deserves to know, but because the only thing that comes to the surface is the truth.
But, if I weren't taken aback this is the sort of real-life moment I could relate as my answer.

Why?
Because I am a grown woman who leaves work after a hard day to go buy a chocolate chip cookie and coffee.  But I can't simply buy a cookie and coffee.  Life makes it much more complex than a simple money for goods transaction.

While in line, a person managed to sidle up behind me in my blind spot and stand questionably close- so close that his musky cologne wafted over alerting me.  The scent said "There is a man nearby," so I can only assume the cologne was doing it's job announcing an aura of male-ness.
As I stepped  up in line to order a chocolate chip cookie, I caught sight of him in the corner of my eye and it caused me to jump a little. (He was in fact standing that close.  Had he been a ninja, I would be dead.)
And this is how I recovered after jumping.

Me: Oh!  I'm sorry.
I looked at the man and noticed he is very attractive.  This observation typically ends all chances of a coherent conversation.

Me: I smelled you before I saw you there.

Let that sentence that I really said out-loud hover in the air and 
sink in. 

A feeling of horror passed over my body.  Yes, I said what I heard myself say.

Him: (weak smile) Ah ha.

I stepped forward and started to order.

Me to the barista: I'd like a chocolate chip cookie.

I noticed now that the barista is also attractive and realized how juvenile I sounded at this very moment in time.

Me turning to the smelly man: But that's a good thing.  I mean, it's a good smell.

Me turning to the barista: And I'd like a cup of coffee

Barista: What size would you like? 12 oz.... 14 oz?

Me: Of cookie?

Barista: (silence)
Me: Oh.  I'd like a 12 oz coffee and a 16 oz cookie (joking).

I paid.
I apologized to the man behind me a second or third time.
I gave the barista another "help me" and "did that really happen?" look.
Barista said telepathically: Yes, that really did happen. Walk away now.

I and slink away to find a seat.


Yes world, I say whatever comes to mind instead of mindfully flirting.
I eat cookies after work and lick the chocolate from my fingers in public.
I attempt to be complimentary but instead tell men they smell and forget to tack on the oh-so-important word "good" until it is essentially too late.

You may find that adorable.  That's fine.  It is a true representation of my daily life.  I can say my personality and ability to stumble over words when ruffled gives me plenty of reasons to laugh.  It's good that I am able to laugh at myself while keeping my dignity.

But if you are asking me why I am still single, then that, the above story, is now "The Answer."
I'm going to rehearse it so it comes out smoothly.

Thank you so much for taking such a keen interest in my life, but really, stop asking.
The people who need to know why, know already.  And if you have to ask instead of me telling you voluntarily, then you aren't on my emotional life VIP list.