Day 247-Toast to the End of the Tunnel

Happy, happy, happy hour! And I'm in desperate need of one this week.This is a friendly mixer, nonetheless, which means come one, come all for $4 drafts-and bring your cute friend ;)

I'll be scoping out the scene per my usual OTMITM norm, but I'm also conducting market research on the NYC dating scene. Because no matter what these singles tell ya, there's only one reason for a mixer, in my opinion. So how is Half Pint on a Thursday night in the Village? I'm set to find out...

"So, WHAT'S your status, your HONEST reason for being here tonight and what are you planning to be for Halloween?"

Girl 1-Single; To get out of the house and mingle with friends; Waldo

Girl 2-Single; Meet more firiends and see what guys will be like-cute or old? Costume tbd.

Girl 3-Single; Meet boys, totally. German beer maiden.

Girl 4-Married; To party and meet a cool married girl. Lumberjack.

Girl 5-Single. Connect w/ friends in alumnae group. Doesn't know costume yet.

Now the guys...all of which worked in finance, go figure.

Guy 1-married; free drinks, but then they weren't free...Waldo

Guy2-single; to meet nice girls and an excuse to leave work early; Frank Sinatra

Guy3-married; to get out; Edward dildo-hands

Guy4-married to a dog (I told them I was writing first responses!); 1-excuse to go out 2-an opportunity to have a new experience 3-interested in creating a new peer group; 80's rock star

Guy5-single; looking for female friends/to meet a nice girl; someone who has been dead for a long time (ok...)

Guy 7-in a relationship; being a wingman; geek, not a nerd

Finished up with Guy 7 and for the upteenth time, I explained the blog. Unlike, his easygoing counterparts, Guy 7 basically said, "I think that's selfish and immature." EXCUSE ME?!?!? LET ME BETTER EXPLAIN MYSELF....

Yes, I know....but I had my heart broken by someone who was those things.

"But all guys aren't like that."

Yes, I know...but this isn't about other guys. it's about me.

"You just need to be confident and move on."

Yes, I know...that's the point. I'm working on that.

And on it dissolved into a cloudy haze of Bud Light-fueled comments which received a bunch of fiery retorts. Now, this was a guy who had four years on me and a girlfriend, just to clarify. Not someone who was hitting on me or being flirty. He was deadly serious. And in a strange, weird way, he helped. It was my first ANTI-OTMITM encounter, and while I listened to his complaints I held strong. Once I was able to hold off my friends from launching their own counterattacks, I was able to have a frank conversation with the guy.

Along the way, I was enlightened (according to him) on the importance of a girl wanting her guy (sexually) and the importance of a guy making himself desirable-and I was always told it was the other way around?!?!? Not to mention, couples should have the same social routine-homebody and 4am party animals do not a marriage make. And even better, he had previously dated his current girlfriend seven years prior only to dump her when she didn't like him watching Family Guy. With a little wisdom of another long-term relationship in between, they had re-connected based on the fact that he's over the stupid stuff that kept them apart before. He grew up and discovered that some things were more important--being able to enjoy a person when you're in the same room for 12 hours a day, the fact that they will be a good parent, commitment.

I was just polling people on a whim--and because it's a funny conversation starter--but all in all, it led me to meet someone who saw the light at the end of the tunnel, at least farther than I could see. Cheers indeed!

I'm Off the Market & In the Moment!

Day 251-AND....I'm Back

I'm officially no longer hibernating. Last night marked the first time in awhile where I have rallied on a Saturday to go out. Now, I've certainly been social in the form of happy hours and dinners with friends this past month, but I've been crashing on the weekends being productive yet, socially lame. It was how I was feeling in the moment so I went with it and could have again this weekend except for I was starting to lurk dangerously near the boring category. So I ventured out to meet friends at the West Village spot Village Tavern, which come Saturday, is filled with tons of goodlooking males reveling in college football.



With pizza from lunch making me strong, I had no problem keeping up with the beer drinkers last night, and the fact, that my old crush was across the room didn't help to alleviate my thirst either. We'd had a little bit of interest in each other the first year moving to NYC, but the timing was never right. I was unavailable in a new relationship when he was interested. He was busy playing the field by the time I was able to act on my interest. We'd see each other every few months or so with radio silence in between. I get that this is not the stuff of great romances, but it was always a crush I went back to, and as his interest lessened, mine heightened and got quite a bit desperate since I hadn't met anyone new. Last time I saw him, I pretty much made a fool of myself with a late night text, which was fortunately, ignored by him. Also, fortunately, he doesn't hold it against me, as far as I know. But, embarrased by my behavior, I dwelled on that rejection for TOO long and the experience with him naturally, was one of the of the catalysts for OTMITM.



I was prepared to see him and was ready to prove that I wasn't that girl who had a momentary lapse in reason last time we were together, but was instead, fun and lowkey like I really can be with my judgment isn't clouded by alcohol and desperation. Yet, I wasn't prepared to see the girlfriend who was perfectly lovely. We left soon after, but the little encounter got me thinking and six beers in I found myself surrounded by all of these happy couples, who I very much love, at a midnight crossroad: Do I want to continue to be happy drunk or will I be the depressed "woe is me-he didn't choose me" drunk?

Thank goodness, I was able to pull myself up from my bootstraps this time and rally. No need to embarass myself a SECOND time. A teacher of mine once said that at an end of a relationship (or a potential one), an intelligent person 1-recognizes that the bad feelings mainly come from a hurt ego and 2-knows when to move on. So onward and forward I go!

I'm Off the Market & In the Moment!

Day 256-It's A Little Bit Funny

Sometimes, life is just a little bit funny. As you may have noticed, or not, I've been a little slow to post lately. "Tis the busiest time of the year at work so I've been a bit slack as I up my consumption of sugar and caffeine to get tasks accomplished and send everything else to the backburner. But here I am again, letting you know what's going on in my sideways world

examining life and love.

Despite a much-needed and restful weekend, partly spent in the Hudson Valley hiking and wine-tasting with girlfriends, I have been feeling a bit disgruntled with Cupid lately. It just seems that it's much too difficult for human beings to fall in love these days. I meet a lot of peope. I connect with a few. I date fewer. But not only are we constantly in conflict with each other for various and sundry reasons, but we're also often struggling against ourselves.

Now I know that it's the diversity in life that makes it so darn interesting, but seriously, all that Spark talk last week started stressing me out a bit. If the spark doesn't come by but so often, am I going to be sitting around waiting for this person to take his sweet time in showing up?

HOLD UP. Red flagging myself here-"sitting around" and "waiting for this person" is clearly not "In the Moment" behavior. Rather than self-edit with my delete key, I decided to leave this scary thought in so you might believe how easily old conditioning returns...



Ok, back to case in point. These days, it seems as if love is harder to find than ever, especially when you're looking for someone who not only returns your sentiments equally but also, has the ever-elusive quality of being "ready" for a relationship.

I vented these feelings to my friend K today via email then went about my business because like I mentioned, 'tis the busiest time of the year.

When I finally graced my doorway at 8pm after concluding all writing I've been doing instead of blogging, I checked in with my new bestfriend Bberry and saw I got an audition call for Thursday. Immediately, my mind was back on the career track, far away from the detour of Cupid bashing I'd taken earlier in the day.

I may be searching for sign, but we're all searching for something, and this was my signal to stop complaining and stay the course: to focus on the moment, rather than worry about the future. Not to mention, why waste time focusing on Cupid when I'm Off the Market anyway?

Then I got further reinforcement from K in response to my venting:"It is the one thing in your life that you have no control over. You are like me and are very driven and like to choose your own future. This is why it is so frustrating when you have to wait for someone else to get their act together."

It's a little bit funny how well my friends and the universe know me, and both parties are thankfully, keeping me in check.

I'm Off the Market & In the Moment!

Day 270-STOOD UP

September is usually a crazy time at work-but wait, it's now October and equally as frantic. I'm barely getting by and hardly keeping up with everything that has to be done. And blogging? I’ve been told by E that my inner flame is dimming (aka posts haven’t been as spicy or enlightening lately).

Yes, I’m aware! No excuse other than my brain cells and budget are stretched a little thin right now. But nothing will bring back a little spice better than being angry at someone. After rushing from work uptown to a downtown cd launch party at Le Poisson Rouge tonight, I cabbed it back uptown to meet my acting partner for a quick and dirty late night rehearsal. Told ya acting was like dating…

And I got stood up!

We were supposed to meet at 8:30pm and I waited for 30 minutes for a no-show. Also, I haven’t received a followup call or text to explain his absence though I called and texted to make sure he was ok.

My gut reaction was to feel like crap (not to mention feeling uber-frustrated that I spent $10 to make it uptown in time and missed the rest of my party). Why is this happening to me and why am I reacting as if this was personal?

Getting over that, I wondered if something bad happened to him which brought on guilt for feeling earlier frustrations. On the hopeful end of the spectrum, he had a late night screening for his movie so maybe he was called in early. Or maybe his new director called him away for a separate rehearsal. Or maybe I just got our days and times mixed up even though we texted about this at 6pm this evening?

THEN, I got mad at myself that I was immediately letting him off the hook-why do I always explain away guys’ inconsiderate behavior? And why am I getting angry at myself instead of the source? The excuses go on and on, but there is no excuse. I’m running around town like a madwoman trying to make appointments left and right, and he can’t so much as send a TEXT?

I’ve never been stood up before, which is more a symptom of my serial monogamist nature than being lucky, but this feeling is close enough to home for me, even if we’re not dating. I depend on this guy and that’s enough to count.

What's really funny is that only hours before at Le Poisson Rouge, I had been talking about missing my dating life. But after tonight, I’m now looking forward to nine more months of not having to deal with crap like this.

I’m Off the Market & In the Moment!

Day 271-An Actor's View

I pulled out the tights and boots this morning-cool weather has officially arrived in NYC and with it, another month down for Off the Market & In the Moment. Somehow nine months to go sounds much more manageable than 10. Regardless, I have to say October started off to a slow start socially. I spent the majority of the weekend inside hibernating since payday isn't until Tuesday. Other than a trip out to hit up the post office, Salvation Army and Wendy's, I lounged around being absolutely lazy and read The Girl Who Played with Fire. I would have done the same on Sunday but thankfully, paying for an acting class is a sure to get me outdoors.

So what did I learn in class this week? Apparently, there are no men left. According to my acting teacher, the men in today's world are either married, gay or assholes. Not surprising, the majority of females in my classroom nodded in agreement which I found to be both reassuring (at least it's not just me who thinks this from time to time) and a little sad if this is indeed our reality.

On the other end of the spectrum, my class apparently has a high rate for students meeting/dating/getting married-though wonder what it means that I've taken not one but four classes without so much as a date?

This is also the same class where we conducted a divorce survey (changing scenes allows for a lot of chat time, and our teacher uses us to conduct his latest sociology polls). Want to know why the divorce rate is so high? Apparently, HB Studio's Scene Study & Technique students have all the answers which I intended to numerate here but have fortunately blocked out most of them in an effort to stay pleasantly positive. But they were something along the lines of too many options, blah, blah, blah.

Even when I'm in a class where you spend three hours playing, I'm forced to think about relationships. How to relate to my partner, how to relate through actions, how to relate to my objective-and now we're analyzing each other's real-life relationships on the side. Performing a "woe is me, my heart is broken" monologue is sure to land you questions about your last love. Though I love it because I get to explore human nature and analyze in a good way-our teacher practically doubles as a therapist as any good director should-it is still hard to take in some of the discussion that have come out of class lately.

I don't want to believe that marriage is on a downfall, divorce is inevitable or there are no good guys left. When I started this blog, I saw the bit of Cinderella-syndrome I had as a bad thing. Now, I think it's really important to hold on as hard as I can to some of the faith that is instilled in us as kids. It keeps me afloat and personally, I just prefer to live my life with a side of comedy, whether I'm on stage or off.

I'm Off the Market & In the Moment!