Don't Call Me Your Girlfriend

Boyfriend Remote Control by m-c via Flickr

Is it now the norm to assume you are dating someone after hanging out for a few weeks?

I'm wanting the answer, in this situation, to be no. This is absolutely ridiculous....right? Just cause you are hanging out with someone for a little while, doesn't mean that you are officially boyfriend/girlfriend, I mean, there's supposed to be a awkward conversation before this takes change takes place. One of those, soooo what are we? talks. 

The problem is, that if you are the one not wanting to be official, the simple fact of bringing this topic of conversation up, even if only to say that you do not want to be dating anyone and are not comfortable with the idea of being exclusive, automatically makes things more serious. 

Instead of taking this route, I have been taking the much more mature (ha!) path of simple hint dropping. Such as: getting drunk and dancing to songs about being a single girl, talking to other boys, and emphatically denying to anyone and everyone that I am dating. As long as I say I'm single, then I'm single. So....I'm single goddammit.

And it's not my fault if someone misunderstands and thinks that I am just saying that I don't want a boyfriend just to be cute and funny and hard to get, thereby tricking them into wanting to date me, which apparently is every girl's only desire. 

Yes, in case you are wondering, this is what I am sitting here trying to convince myself of right now...while pretending to study...while Brad is sulking in the cubical next to me... after following me to the library...because I refuse to kiss him in public. 

This Weekend's EXcapades

My Plan Before Seeing Jeffrey (my ex who I still talk to...yeah, one of those situations) For The First Time in 6 Months:

• Lose 10 lbs. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I know. But why do we always think that if only we could just lose a little weight we'd look smoking hot and drive him crazy??
• Get dressed up and go out with my friends. Instead of driving right over to his house as soon as we were both in town
• Talk to every other boy besides him. Not in an obvious way, but just in an 'I'm sorry, I'd love to talk, but this other hot guy is just so funny I can't break myself away from him right now.'  aka "see how many other guys want me??"
• NOT call him or make any effort to see him. Wait for him to keep trying and trying to see me.
• Not hook up with him. Maybe tease him a little, but then get up and walk out, or tell him that we're not dating so I can't do anything with him. 

What Actually Happened:

• Got anxious and ate everything I could get my hands on for the past two weeks, resulting in feeling bloated and hardly fitting into any of my jeans. 
• Got dressed up and went out with my other friends. Got drunk and hung out with lots of guys....but he didn't show up so all I did was put on a show.
• Ignored his text messages....until about 5 drinks in....then I sent him about 50 saying how much I wanted to meet up with him and tackkle the shet outta of hmi. 
• Ignored him the next day to try to salvage my pride.
• Woke up naked in his bed the morning after that. Doing everything BUT have sex is totally the same as not hooking up at alllllll....right?
• Hung out with him all day Saturday and blew off one of my guy friends because I couldn't drag myself away. 
• Made plans for him to come visit me after I go back home....which I somehow have to get out of if I'd like to avoid a potentially masterfuck of a mess with the boys I hang out near me. 
• Told him I loved him
• NEVER mentioned how I am happier now that we are broken up....never mentioned the fact that we are, in fact, actually, seriously, and honestly broken up....never tried to talk about anything serious....

Soooooooo.....my plans didn't really work out the way that I wanted them to, but when do they ever turn out the way you imagine they will in these situations?? Seems there's some people who just have that hold on you. The funny thing about seeing Jeffrey this time though was that I spent a lot of time, when I was with him, trying not to hear that tiny voice inside my head that said very matter of factly that I am over him and don't feel the same way. I guess it's about time my feelings for him changed. 

It's funny how sometimes our heart is stage behind. When things got bad and he didn't treat me well, all I could think of was how great he had been before. It was like I didn't believe he was turning into an asshole because I still saw him as a great guy. Now he's great again, but all I can think of is how much he hurt me before. I don't believe any of the nice things he does or says because I still see him as the asshole. 

So I still havn't broken the hold yet, but I think maybe it's a start, and for the sake of trying to be on my own side I'm going to cut myself some slack and go back to my life of staying busy and avoiding any type of serious relationship, knowing that even if he doesn't know it I've got the upper hand back in a strange sort of way. 

Abbreviated November Recap

WOW November, where did you go. I am furiously trying to stay in denial that another month is flying by and that winter is coming. Just to recap, I have only kissed three different boys this past month, received two horribly sappy, overly dramatic emails from Andy, added one more boy to the list and dropped one completely. I haven't fallen on any runways lately, but I did gain 5 pounds as a result of trying to lose 5 pounds before a meeting with the Agents. Awesome. 

Got myself into a fun little pickle last weekend when two of the boys I am crushing on ended up at the same bar at the same time. When you find yourself in such a situation, the best possible solution is probably NOT to drink too much, however, this is also the least likely thing to happen, so you can guess the number of drinks I had....or at least try to guess. I'm not sure the answer tho, so all you need to know is that it was enough to decide that the best thing to do would be to meet another boy and talk to him instead of either of the two boys that came to see me. A great solution. Boy #3 turned out to be pretty cute (when I looked him up on Facebook the next morning so that I could remember what he looked like) Fun night. 

In an attempt to top off my performance, I vowed NOT to drink on Thanksgiving eve so that I wouldn't be hungover at my grandparents house in front of my entire family. Vowing not to drink is pretty much the most surefire way to wind up wasted off my ass by the end of the night. In this case, I had to call my mother to pick me up as I was wandering around a neighborhood at 2am, trying to walk the 7 miles back to my grandparents house. Needless to say, I spent the day trying not to throw up on my grandparents fancy new carpet while I laid on the couch in front of my family and pretended like my back was hurting so I couldn't get up and walk around. So much for not being hungover. At least it's a way not to overeat on Thanksgiving....not one I would recommend though. 

To summarize, I have been awesome at being a mature adult lately, am going to get in trouble with the Agents when they take measurements this week, and have not done much to help the bags growing under my eyes, or to convince my family that I have my life together......but at least I've been having fun. 

Out Shit Showed by Rito

Whenever I worry about my drinking habits or think that my life is in shambles, I spend a few days with my friend, Rito (short for Burrito, the explanation to which involves a Taco Bell, a lot of liqueur and not enough time in this post to explain) and then I feel much better about myself. 

I went back to my college to meet some friends this weekend. Going back to places has always been weird for me. I have found that in my life I spend a lot of time exhausting one place, using every piece of myself up until I have no other option but to run from it as fast and as far away as possible. When I leave a place, I'm done with it. I put that part of my life away and I don't feel any need to go back. I forget about that person. In college, I was shy, insecure and spent a lot of time depressed without anyone knowing. I studied hard, I won a lot of awards, and I spent my Friday nights in one of three places: the gym, the library, or in bed with my boyfriend watching a movie. 

If I got attention from boys in college, I was either oblivious to it or bluntly honest that I was in a relationship and not interested in getting to know anyone new. Now, however, I strangely think that I should be friends with everyone. Give me a few drinks and I find a way to be the center of attention, and I usually get myself in trouble by the end of the night, and wake up in the morning feeling nauseous with a mixture of happiness and shame. 

Rito, however, is a one woman circus of a shit show. I have seen her get blackout drunk and try to beat up a tree, pee in a boy's bed that she was trying to hook up with and puke in a washing machine and then do her laundry in it the next morning without noticing, all in the same weekend. Putting aside the more serious implications of the fact that she has some deep rooted issues and doesn't feel the slightest bit ashamed or embarrassed no matter how blackout she gets or who's bed she lands in on her downward spiral, I fucking love this girl. 

She totally out shit showed me this weekend and I am grateful for it in a humorous but slightly selfish way.

• I got asked to please calm down at the football game because I was waving my white pompom in the faces of everyone around me. I was not in my assigned seat and I did not know any of these people. BUT RITO missed the bleachers as she was jumping up and down chanting, and winded up sprawled out on her back across three rows of people. 
• I spent the next ten minutes trying to convince the security guard that neither of us had been drinking, when he tried to kick her out of the game, BUT RITO looked up at him from where she was lying across some stranger's lap and said, "Nope, I'm wasted!" She then turned and waved at everyone as she was escorted from the game while I stayed back long enough to get the boy's number that was sitting next to me. 
• I tried to sneak into a tailgate on the walk home and pretend that I knew an entire crowd of people because they had steak (yes, steak) and I was starving. BUT RITO apparently waited outside the popular ice cream joint on campus and told people she was there to hold their ice cream cones for them while they found a seat. Someone was actually stupid enough to hand it to her, and she tried to turn and sprint away with it but was caught because she tripped and fell in a bush. She swears that she didn't actually eat any ice cream, but she had a giant chocolate stain on her sweatshirt and sticky shit in her hair that I hope to God was ice cream. 
• I got cornered by an obnoxious boy at the bar after the game who's pickup line was to tell me how rich he was, leading to me tell him that I wasn't fucking impressed and I would appreciate if he left me alone (after he introduced me to his hot friend who I was trying to talk to anyway.) BUT RITO made out with the kid in the back corner of the bar so that he would buy her blueberry flavored beer. 
• I flirted back with one of my good friend's boyfriend and secretly held his hand while we were on the dance floor, BUT RITO got kicked out of the bar for dry humping a speaker and then got back in line and tried to pretend like she was a different person so she could get back in. 
• I called Jeffrey (my ex) on my way home from the bar, and embarrassingly admitted that all I ever do is think about him and that I know we are going to end up together somehow, BUT RITO called her ex-boyfriend 37 times. Yes, 37. Left him 5 voicemails and two barely legible text messages expressing her hatred for him. 
• I woke up with a headache and a sore throat to the sound of Rito puking in a cardboard box in the hallway of our old house. 

I'm not sure how she survives living in NYC, but somehow she does. As we said goodbye, I welcomed the long drive home so that I could reflect on my immature behavior and give myself a mighty dose of self-loathing capped off with a promise to get my shit together and stop thinking it's ok to flirt with other people's boyfriends just because they flirt with me.....but Rito put on her oversized sunglasses as she told me that she was glad she took it easy this weekend and only blacked out one night instead of three in a row because hopefully she wouldn't be hungover on Monday morning when she taught her pre-school kids how to draw turkeys by tracing their hand. 

Locked Myself in A Stairwell For A While

Showed up early for my fit modeling job this morning. I was so proud of myself. I even had time to stop for coffee before making small talk with the doorman and heading up to the 13^th floor thinking about what a great impression I was going to make with this new client. Then…I locked myself in the stairwell.

The last thing I remember thinking as I pushed through the door on the 13^th floor to head to the 12^th floor and meet with the woman who would take me to my dressing room was that she would probably be even more impressed with me because I had taken the stairs instead of the elevator. Obviously, this would prove that I was a serious athlete, and seeing as I was working for a huge athletic company, I was totally going to earn even more cool points. I love how my dorky mind works.

So toting my small rolling suitcase full of shoes and assorted bras and leggings that I am required to bring to every job, I skipped down the flight of stairs only to find the door at the 12 floor locked. Shit. I lugged the suitcase back up to the 13^th floor. Also locked. Double shit. Lugged it back to the 12^th, maybe I was just being stupid and it would open this time. No luck. Down to the 11^th floor. Locked. 10^th floor. Locked. Shit. Shit. Shit. At this point, I pull out my cell phone to see if I have a number for the woman I’m supposed to meet with to tell her what has happened. No cell phone service in the stair well. Fuck.

I’m starting to sweat now, of course, and I’m preparing myself for the reality that I’m going to have to lug my bag down 13 flights of stairs and hope that the bottom floor is open so that I can take the elevator back up to the 12^th floor. I climb back up to the 13^th floor for a last stitch effort and begin knocking on the door. No one hears me. I go down to the 12^th floor and start banging this time. I hear a voice. Obnoxiously, I start yelling “excuse me” and THANK GOD someone opens the door.

“Are you Ally?” the girl asks.

“Yep, just locked myself in the stairwell, sorry.”

“It’s ok.” The girl says, laughing as I follow her through the hall and toward the dressing room. “We were all wondering what happened to you when you didn’t get off the elevator.”

“Yeah, I thought it would be quicker to take the stairs,” I said, “Silly me!”

Way to make a SUPER impression on your first day with a new client Ally.

Needless to say, I actually enjoyed working for them and think that I was able to salvage the experience. They seemed to like me, even walked me to the elevator so I didn’t get stuck when I left; and they liked the fact that I looked like an actual athlete instead of a toothpick. It’s funny that I now think of that as an insult when it used to be a compliment to me. They meant it as a compliment, but all I can hear is that I am fat. Such a fucked up business. When The Agents say that I look athletic, they mean that I look too big. Same goes for commercial, curvy, busty, healthy, strong…..all of which I used to think were positive qualities but have now been conditioned to feel embarrassed about. 

Oh Brad, You're On The Bubble

It's happening. I'm getting sick of Brad. I don't know how or why or when it started but I can feel myself pulling away. Maybe it's because we have been spending too much time together. Maybe it's because he told me about a conversation he had with his best friend about his feelings for me. Maybe it's because he called me the other day to ask what my plans for New Years Eve were. (My response to which was that it was too far ahead to know if I'd be around) Whatever the reason, I can feel myself getting frustrated with things he does that only a few weeks ago were things I loved about him. I can feel the restlessness eating away at me from the inside. I can feel my resistance each time he asks me to do something growing. 

Maybe I just need a few days to have time to myself and figure things out. I love being single and I am probably just freaking out because he is starting to make it feel like we're in a relationship. I hate relationships. When you're in a relationship you have to break up. It's so much easier to just stay single. I was in a relationship for so fucking long and I know that I need time to be on my own so that I can figure out what I want and who I am without a boy in my life. Is this too much to ask?

I don't want to lose him and I don't want to fuck things up because I know he's an awesome guy. He's so much of the things I want, and yet I still find a reason (for no reason at all) to feel like something is missing and to keep myself from falling. As much as I am probably being a pussy here and just afraid of getting hurt again, I feel like I need to trust my gut and continue to give myself time.