Virtual Relationships

It's a Monday and you're having a hard day due to back pain/a fight with your baby boo/making a mistake at work. Although a glass (or a bottle really) of wine would take away some of this melancholy, Beverly irritatingly reminds you that it's a slippery slope to dependence (and you do have that one uncle). You go through your list of coping skills - you're out of marijuana, you'd have to clean your tub to take a bath, it's too dark to go running - and decide to call on your friends to ease some of your pain. You pull out your phone, go through your contact list and decide who to call...and then a rainbow made of Skittles appears in your living room, with Care Bears sliding down it to hand you the key to your brand new car that Ellen bought for you because you helped an old lady cross the street.

As if people use their phones to make calls! What a novel and retro idea!

So...you pull out your phone, take a sad selfie and post it on Instagram, while updating your FB status: "My day is like a world without bacon - depressing." The responses are instantaneous. "Poking you!" "Tomorrow will be better!" "Dude - a world without bacon - you are depressed!" "I just sent you an extra life on Candy Crush, hope you feel better!" Your friends are there for you...right? Although no one has actually asked what's going on, they clearly want you to feel better...right? I mean, if you were really troubled you could pick up your phone and call one of these folks...right?

Could you? Do you even have their phone number?

One would think that when everyone has 1,283 friends according to FB, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, it seems like everyone and their mama (who's friendship request you will not accept) should be able to reach out to someone. Although it's so easy to acquire these new "friends", are you really friends? With the advent of social media and the ubiquity of cell phones, we have become increasingly unplugged and disconnected from real life, while creating these faux personae in a virtual world. What's even more unfortunate is that we've begun to mistake our virtual relationships for being real; some of us are having a hard time discerning between the two. Yes, Jane liked your picture of the butterfly and Sam co-signed on your quotation about bacon. You and Louis had a fabulous conversation that one time you met and you remember really liking Mary when you were freshmen in college. But is that enough of a foundation to call someone a friend?

The true definition of friendship - liking each other's bacon quotations.

Despite being connected through our computers, phones, tablets, pagers and two-ways, many of us still feel quite lonely. Perhaps it's due to the superficial quality of the relationships we form now. We text, we tweet, we repost, re-pin and like the latest pictures of Beyoncé's lovely ass (did you see it on the Grammy's? Dayum Gina!) but we're not really saying anything substantive to each other. We bear witness to engagements, new jobs, new babies and other accomplishments, but are we actually there, in person to celebrate with our so-called friends? No, not really. Scrolling through Instagram pictures and reading update statuses now suffices for getting to know someone or finding out what's new in their lives. We're too busy to talk on the phone or it's too hard to try to get together. (If I didn't know people as well I do, I could actually think about trying to believe that to be true. Unfortunately, I know for a fact that it's bullsh*t. One thing me and Oprah know for sure is that people do whatever the hell they want to do.)

If we continue down this path, it will become more and more difficult for us to form real relationships. How do you have an actual conversation with someone when you only know how to communicate via emoticons and hashtags? How do you stay curious about someone when you already know they've been to Hoboken and learned to play the ukulele at age 5? How do we define quality time when most of us are sitting next to each other, totally plugged into our devices and not each other? We're so busy capturing a moment that we're not even experiencing it anymore!

So, I implore you to reach out to an old friend or a new friend. Talk on the phone. Spend some time together. I have a really good idea - get a drink and have a conversation at the bar.

P.S. My for real friend in real life JS was the inspiration of this blog.

I Cannot Accept Your Friend Request



Dear Former Roommate,

I regretfully must inform you that I cannot accept your FB friend request. It's been quite some time since we've been in contact; I think you moved out almost immediately following graduation in 2005. In the past 9 years, I have thought about you possibly 6 times, not including when I tell my crazy racist roommate in New York story to new friends. I've wondered what happened to you and as quickly as you popped into my head, you disappeared. I'm not sure why you've turned up now, as I've only been on FB for about 7 years, but here we are. 

I feel some kind of way. 

Your request transported me back to our first semester living together. Prior to us moving in, we talked on the phone. I knew you were a little young, but thought it should be able to work. I'm easy to get along with and relatively clean. I was pretty sure that you thought I was white. It's okay, I'd heard that before. While I knew you'd probably be surprised to find that I was a black woman, I figured since we were going to social work school, you'd been exposed to a little bit of diversity.

Never make assumptions.

That was a valuable lesson learned that lesson when I realized you had locked your bedroom door those first few days we started living together. I'm pretty sure I left petty thief off my application, but somehow you must have figured out my plan to sneak in your room and wear your clothes. Just because I'm college educated and enrolled to go to grad school doesn't mean I don't steal stuff. Especially from a roommate...who I will be living with for 2 years...who can see if I had your stuff. It couldn't be because I'm black, right? I get it, I'm a stranger! Stranger danger!

We did, for the most part get along. Although there were some differences in the way we chose to keep our spaces, it seemed like things were fine. We even hung out together sometimes. However, it all came to a head one night when a group of us (including 2 of my childhood friends who also lived in NY) went to dinner. You were being rude and when we got home, I confronted you about it. What started as a conversation about your stank attitude became a declaration of feeling excluded. Unfortunately, it was your choice of words that prohibited any possibility of future inclusion.

"Am I not cool enough or black enough or ghetto enough to hang out with you and your friends?"

Remember that time when both of my childhood friends were white?

I learned several things about you that night. 1. You were racist. (I was later informed that you told my friend that your heart sank when you saw that I was black. Did you really think she wouldn't tell me?) You were so quick to determine that your exclusion was based on race that you failed to pay attention to exactly who I was hanging out with which leads to...2. Incredibly out of touch with reality. The diversity in the group of my friends you met from home and from school truly resembled a Benetton commercial. 3. You made it clear that in our school's desperation to finish the new building meant that they were not very discerning about who they admitted into the program. 4. You were lucky that I didn't punch you in your throat.

Was this the first time I'd ever dealt with ignorance and racism? Of course not. I've only been black in America my whole life. Fortunately, up until that point, I never had to live with it in my house. Home is supposed to be a sanctuary and that first semester, my sanctuary was ruined. My stomach hurt and this sense of dread and fatigue would wash over me as I got closer, knowing that I might have to see you. I am grateful that your family lived in New Jersey and you would go home on the weekends. Sweet respite.

Eventually, I "got over it", at least enough to extend a non-ghetto olive branch. We never really discussed what happened and the level of friendliness never returned to what it once was. Once we no longer lived together, I was happy to leave you in my past, to only dust you off when I tell my crazy NY roommate stories. And now you're here in my FB friend queue (where you will reside for the rest of eternity), stirring up old memories that are surprisingly still painful.

I can only hope that over these past 9 years you've grown and had enough life experience to understand the impact of your ignorance and are different. While time may heal old wounds, mine haven't fully healed yet. With that being said, I regretfully must inform you that I cannot accept your FB friend request.

And just to be clear...you will never be cool enough, black enough or ghetto enough to be my friend.

Invested in the Outcome

The attraction was obvious. It was clear that something was going to happen between me and dude; he was so happy to see me and made it a point to get my number. We went out on dates, he brought me flowers and grits (women can be won over through their bellies too). We held hands and kissed on New Year's Eve. It was pretty intense; we were inseparable...for all of 6 weeks. Just as abruptly as it started, it ended.

I added that for dramatic flair.

In all honesty, there were subtle shifts in his behavior toward the end. I could feel it and was trying very hard to ignore it. After all these years of being single (or really in an "it's complicated" Facebook relationship status situationship), I was about to have me a gottdam, bonafide, real deal Holyfield boyfriend. And he was not going to get in the way! Unfortunately, that's not how things work. It's so weird - you can't have a boyfriend who's unwilling to be your boyfriend. When things seemed to be getting serious, he backed out, leaving me devastated and alone.

Except I wasn't really devastated. Instead, I was pissed. I felt misled; if you walk like a duck and talk like a duck, why would I think you're actually a kangaroo? Based on his behavior, I believed that we were headed toward couplehood. But more importantly, he had ruined my plans for no longer being single. I could leave Sexy Heroin alone because I had a boo to occupy that space in my heart. I would have someone to hold my hand as we walked down the street so the whole world would know that I have a boyfriend. I could tell stories that started with "Me and my boyfriend..." All of which are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship with someone.

As evidenced by the lack of devastation, in hindsight, it seemed clear that although he was a good guy, he wasn't the right one for me. If I had taken my time to get to know him (hello 90-day probationary period), I may have discovered that rather than being shocked by it. I was overly invested in the outcome; I wanted to have a boyfriend, period. And while it wasn't a conscious, any-guy-will-do decision, I let my objective get in the way of my objectivity, prohibiting me from making a thoughtful choice. It has been a hard lesson learned; it's just now truly sunken in.

This does not only apply to dating; there are many arenas in our life where this may occur. How many times have you applied for a job, imagining the life you'll have once you get that much better paycheck, only to never even receive an interview? (Or you get to the 4th interview after interviewing with 20,348 future coworkers over the span of 2 months, only to learn that they gave it to someone else? I'm not bitter...anymore.) How often do we make decisions based on what we think will happen instead of doing something for the sake of the experience?

It's hard to change that kind of thinking. I think most of us would like a crystal ball that shows us what will happen in the future so we may sleep a little easier at night. We all want to be safe and to know that things will work out the way we want them to. Unfortunately, life is not like that; we have all kinds of experiences, positive and negative, that there's no way we could have planned. Some of them we would have avoided at all costs! However, those are the experiences that shape who we are and who we become.

Besides, do you really want a crystal ball? Those things get dirty so quickly and they are a pain in the ass to keep clean!

Merry New Year!



Most people view the beginning of a new year as the time to finally make those changes they've been talking about. 15 minutes in and they've already reverted back to their old behavior, stating that they'll wait until the first Monday of the new year to stop biting their nails/eating 2 desserts/buying shoes/exercise more/etc. And then you look up and the new year is already the old year and nothing has actually changed. Well, maybe you have a little extra junk in your trunk from that 2 desserts habit, but is that what you were really going for? Probably not.

I may be talking from experience but I will neither confirm nor deny it.

A couple of years ago, I decided to give up on the whole resolutions thing. Although I am in full support of people making necessary changes in their lives that promote growth and well-being, I also believe it should be on an as-needed basis. If it's April 24th and you need to lose 50lbs, it's probably best to start immediately instead of waiting for the new year. (Or even the next Monday.) We get in the habit of procrastinating change because we really don't want to, but know we need to. "I'll stop eating Oreos for breakfast on Monday/the first of the month/right after my birthday/January 1." When that day rolls around, have you stopped adding milk to crushed Oreos and calling it cereal? Or have you pushed it to the next time?

No judgment, I know all about that life. (Thank god I can't really eat Oreos anymore. It was just recently announced that Oreos may be as addictive as crack! Which is probably why you are eating them for breakfast...and lunch...and dinner.)

In graduate school, I paid a lot of money to learn fancy terms such as countertransference and cognitive dissonance. I also learned something called reframing, which means, to basically sum it up, to take some sh*t you're doing/feeling/thinking/experiencing and look at it through a different, hopefully more positive lens. (I spent a lot of money to learn something I already knew. I want a refund!) Por ejemplo, instead of focusing on how you have to quit the Oreo game, you focus your attention on what you can eat instead. Hello, bacon!

So this year, I've decided to reframe how I look at some of the changes I want (need) to make. I'm not quitting shopping, I'm saving money for traveling/new hobbies/retirement. It's simple, but it's not easy (stupid Groupon emails). We are conditioned to focus on the negative; it's our default. Maybe making a conscious decision to focus on the positive is a change to make for the new year. Or today. Look at it as practicing for next Wednesday.

Dating Success?

As many of you know, my dating woes have provided many an entertaining story. Often, these experiences have led to my bah-humbug attitude towards dating. It's frustrating, it's difficult, it sucks donkey d - okay, okay, you get the picture. My overall take away from dating has been that I hate it and would rather end up alone in a house filled with young, hot cabana boys. (You probably thought I was going to say cats, but 1. I'm allergic, 2. it's such a cliché and 3. they will eat your face off if you die in your sleep.)

After going on a brief dating hiatus for the 2034th time, I started to realize that maybe it's my attitude toward dating that made it feel so exhausting and disappointing. Even though I'm not that chick who is any kind of thirsty for a husband, I am still looking for someone who might could possibly maybe someday be the man I call my partner in crime. Or significant other. Or long-term baby boo. While there is nothing wrong with that, it makes each date seem much more weighted. Although there's no biological clock ticking over here (I am most definitely ambivalent about having children), it feels like there's an urgency to getting settled down. But Moooooom, everyone else is doing it!

Post-adolescent peer pressure is real, yo.

This self-imposed, imagined urgency has shaped my perspective on dating. Instead of approaching each date with a truly open mind, I have had a secret agenda - Operation Get Booed Up! It's not about having a good time or getting to know this guy, it's been about trying to forge a relationship right quick. Time is money people! (I know that has nothing to do with dating, but it feels hella urgent, right?) When things didn't work out, it was another failure to write about in my blog diary.

However, upon reflecting on several past dating experiences (dating = more than one or two dates, seeing someone over a period of time), I realized that they weren't failures, they were successes. The whole point of dating is figuring out if this person is the right one for you. Sometimes you know right away (before the first date is even over) and sometimes it may take a while to figure it out. Too often, we receive the message that you've dated successfully when it ends up in marriage or a long-term relationship. Isn't realizing that this is NOT the right person for you before you marry them the real success? After all, the divorce rate is about 50% in this country.

Since redefining some of my dating experiences as successes, it has changed my approach and belief about dating. Most importantly, it's changed my view about men. It's very easy to hold on to a negativistic view on my fellow man; it's the perfect excuse to lay up under some cabana boy (young, hot cabana boy). Yet, when I really think about some of the guys I've dated, they've steadily improved over the years. I've dated some pretty and smart guys who have been respectful and treated me well. In taking the time to get to know them, I saw that they just weren't the right guy for me. Does that mean it was a dating unsuccess? Nope. Through these experiences, I've learned a lot about myself and what is truly important to me in a relationship.

(It's bacon.)



ATDD

You're having dinner/brunch/croutons with a bunch of friends. You're laughing it up, talking about the poor schmuck who keeps calling you even though you had one date 5 months ago that ended with their temper tantrum. Suddenly, you hear a doorbell/bird whistle/wind chime. That's when it happens; everyone stops hanging out with each other because FB/email/the cloud alerted them that there's a sale on unicorn hair and rainbow catchers. Or they want to let the whole world know they're having the best time eating scones with people that they're no longer interacting with.

Rude. Or at least it would be if you weren't as equally preoccupied with finding out if it's the best rainbow catchers on sale or the knock-offs.

These days, I find myself in a love-hate relationship with technology (as I type on my laptop, hoping to send this out on the interwebs). What makes it awesome is that you can do everything with it. What makes it terrible is that you can do everything with it. I've become so dependent on my phone - not just for communicating, but for waking me up in the morning, helping me get from point A to point B, keeping track of my money and constantly entertaining me. I keep my appointments in there, I make my Target list (a must unless you want to spend $80 every freakin' time you go to buy toilet paper and coffee filters) and take pictures. Sometimes, I even make phone calls!

This is the reason I hate it as well. It can't be good to be completely dependent on objects that are designed to break down at some point in the not-so-distant future.

This is a problem I'm struggling with. I think others are struggling with it too, but may not see it as a problem. After all, many of us like to live in denial. No matter how hard I try, I can't ignore my growing concern about this and how it's affecting us as a community, a country, a world. Although there's no official diagnosis for this condition, I've come up with my own term. I believe we're heading down a path in which this will be included in the next DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). I call it ATDD - Acute Technology Distraction Disorder.

Look around you. How many people are on some kind of electronic gizmo as we speak? Exactly. Everyone! I know more and more people are writing about how to co-exist with our gadgets and relationships, but it's become quite noticeable that the gadgets are winning. The other night, I found myself looking up something on my tablet, while talking on the phone and watching television. Can I tell you what I was watching/looking up/talking about? Nope. And I've got an excellent memory.

The proliferation of easy and constant access to technology is altering our humanness and our ability to relate to one another. The minute I'm not being engaged by another human, I'm on the phone, playing a game or texting, looking random stuff up on the Google. I don't make eye contact with people and I'm not welcoming anyone to approach me. I am essentially sending a signal that I am not interested in other humans...unless we're communicating through space.

Hmm, is this part of the reason I'm single? Oops.

It's also frustrating to be on the other side of that. Do you have that friend who is constantly on their phone, texting others, updating their statuses, checking their email or playing a game...while y'all are supposed to be hanging out? Yeah, me too. Sometimes I am that friend. I feel like a jerk when I do it, but it's become a compulsion to check whenever I get a notification.

Hello, my name is Nicole and I'm addicted to technology.

I'm working on it. As I've been typing, I've received several notifications of some kind, but I'm not getting out of my chair until I've finished writing.  But wait...what if it's an emergency? What if DSW is doing a flash sale and I miss it because I don't check my email RIGHT NOW?! I'll miss out on an opportunity to indulge my other addictions (shoes and shopping)! Oh no, my world is coming to an end!

Dramatic, yes. Accurate thought process, yes. Terrible, fa sho. But I know you understand. Please, please, please try to deny that you are addicted to technology...as you read this on your tablet while you wait for your friend to come back from the bathroom. Does your heart start to beat faster when you think you may have lost/forgotten your phone? Do you constantly check it to see if you have email/status updates/texts? What would happen if you did lose your phone? Would you know how to get back to your house? 

So, as we head into 2014, I've decided to make a commitment to trying harder. I'm keeping my phone in my bag when I'm out with friends. I will only play games when I'm alone. I will limit the phone calls I answer (which is not really an issue, because who actually talks on the phone these days?). I will not use my tablet, phone and television at the same time. I will not succumb to peer pressure when everyone else pulls out their phones because I'm going to become the nag who asks you to do the same when you're in my presence.

Damn, what did I just sign up for? Hold on, I'm going to ask the Google.

The 90-Day Rule

In the book and subsequent movie, "Think Like A Man, Act Like a Lady,"* one of the more controversial assertions was that a lady should wait 90 days before having sex with her male partner. Most folks who have had sex before (and like it) tend to moan and groan. "That's too long!" and "We're adults, we know what we're doing," and "It's just sex, why do we have to be so serious about it?" There was also a sexist undertone to it; if you are a woman who enjoys having sex on day 8 instead of waiting until day 90, you will not keep the man you want. He will think less of you and will not consider you to be wifey material. There are so many inherently wrong issues about this train of thought...but that's not my focus this time.

I think I might could possibly think about considering agreeing with the 90-day waiting period.

Hear me out before you start flinging drawls and condoms my way!

The sexist sentiment behind it - that a man does not value a woman who sleeps with him early on or that the end goal for women should be marriage - I do not agree with any of that bullsh*t. However, I'm beginning to think there's something else in waiting to get naked with someone. Could it be that my inner-horny 15-year old boy (Seamus) needs to calm down and actually get to know someone first before getting it in? 

This isn't a new concept; I have several friends who have claimed this is actually a good thing. I was quick to discount their experiences** (what do they know, they're only in healthy, successful relationships) because now that we're adults, we don't have to wait if we don't want to. We can have sex with whomever we want, whenever we want. Not to say that it's a good idea; we can also have ice cream and sardines for breakfast and stay out all night drinking Schlitz Malt Liquor (I don't recommend doing either of these, by the way). After some serous reflection on my choices, good and less good, I think I've finally come to understand what the waiting is about - it's building the relationship, creating intimacy without using sex as the foundation.  

See, even though I believe strongly that sex can create a false sense of intimacy, I haven't all the way committed to behaving as if I believe that. I'm It's so easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment. Before you know it, you're knocking boots with someone who's last name you just barely learned. Nothing's wrong with that FROM WHAT I'VE HEARD, but it's also very easy to confuse all those feel-good hormones with a genuine connection. Depending on what you're looking for, that may very well end up being a disaster in the making.

3 months may seem arbitrary, yet in thinking about my dating experiences as well as the experiences of others, from my unscientific, totally-limited-to-people-I-know perspective, it seems that is a pretty good amount of time to get to know someone. Of course, you continuously learn new things about your boo as time goes on, but those first 3 months give you a pretty solid idea of who you're dealing with. You may not learn about their beanie baby collection right away, but you won't be to surprised when you do. Most importantly, you figure out if they are someone you can/want to deal with. When you get caught up in the sex haze, your judgment can get cloudy and you may stick around longer than you need to.

This is not to discredit all the happy couples that whored it up slept together sooner than later; obviously, there's no scientific data that correlates how early you have sexy times to the longevity of a relationship. Everyone has to figure out what works for them and I'm gonna see about these here 90 days. Seamus will just have to keep it in his pants.

*Please do not assume that I like Steve Harvey based on my referencing his book and movie. He is a clown.

**It was really Seamus. He's such a knucklehead.