More Ass Kicking

Weeks ago my girlfriend R and I were out looking for boys and ended up palling up with a group of cute guys who were all high school friends from their very small town.

I ended up talking to one of them, the epitome of what you would think of when imagining a typical small-town-all-American boy: blonde, blue-eyed, naive, etc, etc.

Pretty much immediately, I knew there was no relationship potential since he was far too one-dimensional for me. But I figured it would at least be entertaining to spend some time with him, or at least I'd get a free meal out of it.

Oh, no no no was I wrong, except for the free meal part. I also got a trip to the museum out of it, but wow, he was more boring than jury duty (and that's saying a lot considering I just slept through eight hours of jury duty this week).

There's nothing particularly interesting about him. He was working in finance until recently when he, like most other young people in finance, was laid off. He likes sports. He has a sister and a brother. His parents are pretty conservative. He once hooked up with a stripper. And honestly, these are the highlights.

And not only is he completely uninteresting, he's also an absolute moron. He bragged about going to all the bars in Manhattan in the four years he's lived here and then promptly followed up with the fact that he's never once been to a museum in his life.

Thus, I suggested we go to the Natural History Museum, which was one of my favorite museums growing up. Considering it's filled with kids on their elementary school field trips, I figured it was a good induction for him into the world of museums.

Well, to sum up the trip, as we walked into the room of prehistoric animal bones:

He said, "Look dinosaur bones!"

I said, "No...I think that's a woolly mammoth."

Him: "Are you sure? It's big. It looks like a dinosaur. And in the TV shows, any time they walk into a museum, there are dinosaur bones."

Me: "Yeah...I'm positive that's a woolly mammoth. It says so right there...on the plaque...And the dinosaur bones are in the next room...."

Him: "Oooooooh, I see!"

Fascinating, huh? I'm almost positive I saw a fourth-grader rolling his eyes, except I was too busy rolling my own.

Anyways, after this fabulous trip to the museum, I heard sporadically from All American Idiot via text, but we never made any solid plans. And even though I had really no interest in him, his flakiness somehow made him more appealing. This just goes to show how idiotic I can be and how playing hard to get really does work sometimes.

I complained to both R and my little sister E that I hadn't heard from him.

R said, "S, he's a total moron. Why do you even care?"

E said, "He is an idiot and it's better that you don't converse with the likes of him."

Both terribly observant and good points, but for some reason I was really bothered by the fact that he wasn't calling for another date. My rationale was as follows: since I am clearly so much smarter and better than him, he should be BEGGING me to spend time with him so who is he to blow me off? Who does he think he is?

So after two weeks of noncommittal random texting, I'd finally had it. He texted me that he had a "busy week" coming up and was "out of town" during the weekend, so he couldn't make any plans.

I responded with: "Look, you either aren't interested in me and/or are seeing someone already. Either way, I don't really care, but I appreciate when people are honest with me."

He wrote back immediately with a defensive, "I am talking to someone, and it's very complicated, but I don't think I haven't been honest with you. I barely know you and didn't think I owed you anything."

Yeesh. For someone who hadn't even bothered to call me in the past two weeks, he was sure using some strong language.

On one hand, he has a point. True, we were barely seeing each other and he really didn't owe me any sort of explanation. And I hadn't been updating him regularly on my whereabouts and my dating situation.

But, my new policy is that I am holding people to a higher standard and if he wasn't interested in dating me again, then he could have told me so at any point, rather than stringing me along through a series of intermittent texts. Basically, I no longer have tolerance for any hint of flakiness and will call you out on it.

And hey, R and E were right. I really do have far better uses of my time than explaining to someone that no, those are not the dinosaur bones...

Making Out in Public

I'm not a big fan of public displays of affection, especially drunken public bar make outs. In my slightly traditional mind, kissing is still a personal thing that should be shared between two people in privately, and slobbering over each other in a bar takes all the enjoyment out of it.

But I also get that when you're drunk and you come across someone who is looking really good through the beer goggles, sometimes all restraint goes out the window and you just need to get on each other right there and right then, regardless of who might be around and watching.

This is, of course, just my justification for what happened last night.

In a total, bizarre coincidence, some of Epic Fail's friends happen to live in my new apartment building, including Dirty Irish.

Last night, my friend R and I were hanging out in my apartment when the guys called and we all decided to go out together, sans Epic Fail obviously.

(Side Note on Epic Fail: After his crying on the phone, I've come to the conclusion that he is certifiably insane and entirely likely to kidnap me and make a doll that looks just like me to sleep next to every night.

In fact, when he asked me where my new apartment was, I wouldn't tell him the number in the fear that he'd be able to come find it. I even have a contingency plan if we run into each other in the elevator. I'll get off at the wrong floor and take the stairs to my actual floor, to throw him off the scent.)

At the bar, many shots and beers were consumed and before long, Dirty Irish was looking even better to me than he usually does.

So when he told me he was sick of manwhoring around and he wants to just settle down with a nice girl and looked at me, I kind of forgot all my hesitations about him, such as the fact that he's a manwhore and Epic Fail's friend, and Epic Fail is entirely likely to kill both of us should anything ever happen between us.

And that's when I reached over, grabbed Dirty Irish and just kissed him in the middle of the bar, right in front of all our friends as they watched, some with astonishment, and some who had been expecting it for a while.

Being slightly sound of mind, I pulled away before it went any further. The first words out of Dirty Irish's mouth were, "Don't tell Epic Fail." (I think more directed towards his friends than to me, considering I have had no contact with Epic Fail since the crying incident.)

After I got home (yes, alone), it occurred to me that my friends are probably right and I should stop acting on my drunken instincts since they don't tend to lead to the smartest decisions.

And yes, I am a jerkface. Which is probably why I find other jerkfaces attractive. That's how we jerkfaces roll.

Not Taking Your Shit

So I'm not exactly sure what has come over me. Perhaps it's the new apartment that's given me a new state of mind. Perhaps I have just reached my threshold level for assholes. Perhaps it just felt really good to tell Epic Fail off. Or perhaps I am just cranky because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Whatever the case may be, I woke up today and was determined to cut out unnecessary drama and stress. Late the other night, Client Boy aka Manwhore aka Inappropriate Texter texted me in the middle of the night, despite my repeated attempts to make it clear to him that I do not want him doing so.

Completely fed up, and deciding today was the day to deal with it, I texted him, "Do me a favor. Don't text me again. Don't ever call me again. Delete my number. Thanks."

He responded, "Sure thing, bitch." Three words, but I think they accurately conveyed his immaturity and anger towards me.

Hopefully, this all means that I finally got my message across and he is permanently out of my life.

Already, having slightly a sour taste in my mouth from this mini-ordeal, I checked my messages on Facebook and found a message from PBD. I had thought his previous messages were sketch, but this one blew them all out of the water:

"How did the move go? Did you christen your new apt yet?"

At first, I was just confused about what he meant and then it hit me what the gist of his message was. Just to confirm that I wasn't overreacting, I asked my friend J what it meant.

To which he replied, "WOW. That guy just put it out there, huh? And he's married?"

So now I was just furious that I had been right. Instead of just letting it go, in my rage, I wrote him back:

"Either you're asking me if I've named my apartment or if I've had sex in it yet. Considering the latter would be totally inappropriate, presumptuous, and none of your goddamn business, I'm going to assume it was the former. No, I haven't named my apartment."

And at that point, I assumed I'd never hear from him again.

Instead, within five minutes, he wrote back, "That was an excellently crafted response."

Did he think I was flirting wit him? I thought my rage was obvious in my e-mail, but what I forgot to take into account was that he might just be too stupid to understand my witty conveyance of indignation.

So at this point, I just gave up and deleted his e-mail and decided to just drop the whole thing and forget it.

When recapping the outcome to J, he said to me,

"Wow, I have heard you say a lot of times that you are cutting the assholes and douchebags out of your life, but you've rarely followed through. I am really impressed with you. New S is kicking some ass!"

Damn straight.

Cry Baby

Immediately after I recovered from my bout with bronchitis, my long-awaited moving day came along.

I had gone to sleep early the night prior, knowing that the movers and my mom were coming at 9AM, and I still had some packing to do before they arrived, not to mention I had a long day ahead of me. I had also left my phone on loud just in case anyone needed to reach me in the morning.

Instead at 4AM, my phone rang loudly and I picked it up automatically without seeing who it was and answered in what I can only imagine was a very groggy and angry voice, "What do you want?"

And to my utter amazement and un-amusement, it was Epic Fail. The last time I saw him was the night I accidentally kissed him, even though I had told him I just wanted to be friends only a few days earlier.

To atone for my jerkface behavior, I had kept my distance since, knowing that I didn't think clearly around alcohol and blue eyes. I figured he would eventually take the hint when I didn't respond to his texts and was always "too busy" to hang out.

Wrong, as usual, here he was calling four hours before I had to be awake for my move and the conversation went as follows:

Epic Fail: Heeeeey, what are you up to?

Me: Are you kidding me? It's 4AM and I am moving tomorrow, I mean today. I am SLEEPING.

Epic Fail: Ooooh...did I wake you?

Me: Uhhh, yeah! What do YOU think?

Epic Fail: Sorry, I just wanted to tell you that I asked my friends to help with your move.

Me: What? I hired movers...they'll be here in the morning. I hired them weeks ago. I don't need your friends' help.

Epic Fail: Ooooh, I didn't realize you'd hired movers.

Me: Yeah, I did. I don't need any help.

Epic Fail: Well, can I come by anyway?

Me: No, I'd prefer you didn't. There will be a lot of people around what with the movers and my mom, and I don't need any extra bodies around.

Epic Fail: Soooo you don't want me to meet your mom?

Me: Well, frankly, no. But that's not the issue. I just don't need any extra stress while I'm moving.

Epic Fail: So you think I'm stressful?

(SIDE NOTE: This would've been a really great time to just tell him I had to go to sleep and hang up the phone. In hindsight, this was the action I should have taken.)

Me: Yes, right now, I think you're stressful.

Epic Fail: Well, I just wanted to tell you that I really like you, and you've been kind of out of touch lately, so I wanted to know what's going on in your head.

Me: I already told you that I think we should just be friends.

Epic Fail: But I thought you might like me...I REALLY like you.

Me: You've only known me for a month. You don't KNOW me well enough to really like me.

Epic Fail: I think I do.

(SIDE NOTE: Ok now just a reminder that at this point it's like 4:15AM and I have to be up in a few hours, and I am just thoroughly fed up.)

Me: No, I don't think you do, because if you did you'd know that I have been talking to other guys and I am not interested in dating you, especially not exclusively.

Silence.

Epic Fail (wobbly voice): Wow, S, that really hurt me.

Me: Oh, Jesus, are you crying?

Epic Fail (totally crying): No....I'm just really hurt....What am I supposed to do now? Just wait around for you?

Me: Absolutely not. Go live your life!

Epic Fail: I wish you'd told me that two months ago.

Me: Once again, I did not know you two months ago.

Epic Fail (weepy): Well, I wish you'd told me that...

Me: Ok, fine, I'm sorry I didn't find you two months ago even though I didn't even know you yet and tell you that you should live your life. I apologize.

Epic Fail (weepier): This is a lot for me to think about. I need to talk to you later.

Click.

Yep, he hung up on me.

Relieved, I just went to sleep.

And sure enough, the next day, he texted me to see how my move had gone and how I was doing and tell me he had been really drunk when he had called me and he was sorry.

For the record, I love that he apologized to me even though I was the one that was a total (justified) asshole. And I think he's just pretending he doesn't remember that we talked because the entire thing was just embarrassing to him, being the one who cried like a little baby.

I'm just going to assume he does recall the conversation, and is acting like he doesn't to save face, and consider this the formal end of our non-relationship. Good riddance.

F You, Cupid

I think it's almost absurdly appropriate that I am ringing in Valentine's Day wondering if I am going to die in my sleep because I am ridiculously sick for the third time this month.

First I had the stomach flu. Then while I was getting over that and enjoying my ability to eat food again, I was immediately hit with strep throat. I decided that since the internet said it was ok, drinking while taking antibiotics was perfectly acceptable. (Granted, it hasn't been one of my best ideas.)

And that brings us to today and why I cannot breathe out of my nose and my entire body feels arthritic. Although I maintain that the drinking while finishing my antibiotics had little if nothing to do with it.

When I was complaining to R about my poorly-functioning immune system, we had the following conversation:

Me: MAYBE the drinking and going out til dawn has played a small part.

R: Maybe.

Me: But I ask you, why do I seem to get every bug in existence? What is up with my immune defenses?

R: How many guys exactly have you made out with in the past month?

Me: Hold on, I need to check my calendar. Give me a sec.

R: S, if you have to count, that should be your answer right there.

Touche, R, touche.

So apparently, my punishment is being bed-ridden on the one day of the year you can guarantee that desperate single people are out and about on the prowl in the city on the one year it happens to fall on a Saturday. It seems like some sort of cruel trick the universe is playing on me.

Although, this is probably good news for all the overly cutesy couples out there that I would inevitably throw something at should I encounter them in a restaurant or bar. (What? It's only happened once before...)

I will now proceed to curl up with my tissues, cough syrup, and reruns of Gilmore Girls.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Art of the Manwhore

The other day I was having a conversation with a guy I know who has bragged to me about sleeping with over a hundred girls in just over two and a half decades on earth.

And I jokingly referred to him as a manwhore to which he got incredibly upset and said that he shouldn't be labeled a manwhore because "girls are so slutty that they jump into bed with him and it's really their fault for being so easy in the first place." Then after I got over being offended by his comment, I decided that is the single lamest excuse of all time.

I had gotten a similar excuse from Dirty Irish a few weeks ago. He somewhat acknowledges that he is a manwhore and explained to me that girls can't get mad at him, because they know what he is when they get involved with him, but then they do it anyway. So it's really just their own faults when they sleep with him and he doesn't ever call.

So this seems to be the rationale of the manwhore: It's not my fault that all these girls sleep with me. They are sluts but simultaneously smart enough to know the consequences of their actions, so really it's the girls' faults that I am such a dirty manwhore.

What a total crock of shit.

The basis of guy/manwhore rationale seems to be that if a girl is willing to sleep with you, you absolutely have to sleep with her. The idea that you should turn her down and maybe not sleep with her somehow does not occur to guys.

This explains why guys seem so proud on the few occasions when they do turn girls down for sex. Apparently it goes against their entire nature and should be considered some incredible moral triumph.

Seriously. Crock of shit.

I guess what guys don't realize is we girls walk out into the world every day and are confronted with countless opportunities for sex. Walking into a bar is a veritable invitation to be propositioned nonstop. And we manage to somehow not drop our pants at every guy that says, "Hey, how you doin?"

I know some people are tempted to blame this on natural human instincts, that the man is meant to spread his seed and the woman is supposed to stay home and care for the nest. I hate this kind of cop-out reasoning because it absolves one's actions and mistakes by blaming them on "human nature," when the fact is we are capable of rational thought and exist in some sort of moral society with repurcussions of which we are usually well aware.

I have utterly no problems with manwhores. I have friends, male and female, who are sexually promiscuous, and I don't judge them in any way for it. What I have a problem with, however, is not taking responsibilty for your actions, and blaming them on someone else.

Own it. Live it. You go, manwhore!

Sketch Much?

So a while ago, over a year ago now, I met PBD (Pretty But Dumb) at my workplace. To sum up our brief (nonexistent) relationship, I asked him out to drinks and he turned me down because he had a girlfriend, but suggested that we become "just friends" before promptly sending me a slew of inappropriate flirty e-mails, at which point I blew him off.

At this point, I figured it was the last I'd ever hear from PBD again. But lo and behold, yesterday I got a friend request from him on Facebook.

I absentmindedly accepted the friend request, vaguely remembering his name, but didn't think much of it. Then today he sent me a message via Facebook saying, "Hey, it's been a while. How are you doing? What are you up to these days?"

Yes, it was a friendly message, but considering we aren't and weren't ever friends, I found it to be slightly odd. Then it occurred to me that maybe he had broken up with his girlfriend and he was reaching out to me because he's single and looking for some rebound booty.

So I clicked through to his profile to try to confirm my hypothesis and what do I find out? Oh, he's definitely not single, he doesn't even have a girlfriend anymore, he is MARRIED. That's right, his status visibly points to being married to a woman who has taken his last name, wedding and honeymoon photos are posted all over his profile, and people have heaped congratulations upon his wall.

From what I can gather, he's only been married for a short while and would still be considered a newlywed. So what in the world is he doing facebook friending and messaging a random single girl that he used to e-mail flirt with a year ago?

In discussing it with my friend J, at first he tried to justify that it was a harmless message and then suggested the possibility that maybe the new wife is into it and they're looking for some sort of threesome. (Boys...)

"He's recently married," I told J.

"Well he's almost guaranteed to soon be recently divorced," J replied.

I have to assume that's a fair assessment. If only a few months into his marriage he has resorted to cyber-stalking and messaging single gals while his wife isn't around, I'm probably not going to bet on them making it to their silver anniversary.

Starting Over

So I'm in the midst of all my moving preparations, which includes changing my address and typing it into about a dozen different forms. And while I was doing this, it occurred to me how appealing it would be to completely disappear and start over.

I have kept the same cell phone number since college mostly out of laziness, but also because I always wanted people from my past to have the ability to reach me. But recently I asked myself how many of these people I really do want to ever have contact with again.

Months ago, my ex-boyfriend texted me out of nowhere after seven months of silence. I had deleted his phone number, so I didn't even recognize it at first, and then it hit me who it was. The text was absurdly casual: "Hey it's been a while, how are you doing?" and filled me with nothing but anger and annoyance.

Knowing him very well after our three years together, I knew with absolute certainty that the only reason he could be reaching out to me after all this time was he needed or wanted something from me, be it the clothing he had accidentally left behind in my apartment and I had already disposed of long ago, or a favor of some sort. Thus, my knee-jerk reaction was to text back, "Whatever it is that you want from me, the answer is no. Fuck you and leave me alone." (Pardon my french.)

But then I decided that would be the crazy, bitter, immature reaction. And I certainly wasn't any of those things. So I just deleted the message and ignored it. Let him wonder about whether I had gotten it, or I had changed my number, or if I simply didn't care anymore.

Then, after a string of inappropriate texts, I started contemplating the cell phone number change anew.

The thing is I think I cling to my old cell phone number like a security blanket. I've had the same number for over nine years now, and I'm very attached to it; it's the number I handed out to friends and boyfriends over the years.

And on top of that, it's this bizarre psychological thing where I subconsciously hope that all those guys who never called will suddenly spring out of the woodworks and explain where they've been all this time. Highly unlikely, I know, but I'm still holding out hope that any day now they'll come around and call like they said they would.

(Just to make it sound slightly less psychotic and superficial, I also worry that if I changed my number, the perfect agent or job might try to call me, and then they would be unable to get a hold of me, and then there go my dreams right out the window. The fact that they could still e-mail me doesn't appease me at all.)

Considering this isn't the healthiest fantasy to cling to, I should probably just get over myself and do the damn thing.

HJNTIY: The Movie

Now most anyone that knows me knows that I'm obsessed with the book He's Just Not That Into You, mostly because it changed the way I think about guys, and taught me to stop obsessing and/or making excuses for why they don't call.

So obviously I have been excited about the movie adaptation since it was announced. The fact that it was filmed in Baltimore, my old college stomping grounds, was just icing on the cake. And the fact that it features the man candy that is known as Bradley Cooper didn't hurt either.

The movie was an entirely entertaining two hours of kinda-sorta-not-really-romantic-comedy, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone, considering it was two nonstop hours of "why won't he call me why won't he sleep with me why doesn't he want to marry me" whining. However, in the same vein of the book, it raised a lot of questions in my mind.

First of all, as was also pointed out in the NY Times movie review, and in following with my last blogpost, the girls are far too hot for these crappy loser guys. Seriously? The Mac guy from the Apple commercials who's participated in other such gems as Jeepers Creepers, Waiting, and GalaxyQuest? And that doofus from Entourage? They're worthy of the attentions of Ginnifer Goodwin and Scarlett Johansson? What, was Kevin from The Office not available due to scheduling conflicts?

Not to mention that this was a total chick flick targeted towards young women. The entire audience in the theater I was in consisted of 97% women, 2% gay guys, and 1% guys dragged by their girlfriends. Which leads me to wonder if the Ken Kwapis was trying to send out some subliminal message that girls need to settle for the loser in order to be happy...

Second of all, in some odd way, I did find the book empowering to single women. Its basic message is that a girl should wait for a guy to treat her the way she should be treated, that it's never ok to settle for a guy who doesn't call when he says he will, who lies, who cheats, who doesn't absolutely adore her. And it's not only ok to be single until he comes along, but it's absolutely imperative.

But in total romantic comedy fashion, the movie highlights how sad and pathetic it is when a gal is single. Even when she escapes a bad relationship, you still feel kind of bad for her that she has to start all over again.

I did appreciate, though, how the movie pointed out that when a guy is mean to a girl, she's conditioned from youth to think that he likes her, and this probably explains the attraction to assholes and the ability to put up with some truly jackass behavior. When I was in second grade, this one boy used to kick me every day at recess on the playground until he sent me a note in red crayon that read: "I like you. Do you like me? Circle yes or no."

(So succinct, I love it.)

And from then on, I assumed any boy who kicked me secretly had a thing for me and was just waiting for the day he could profess his love. Which is ridiculous because when girls are little and they have a crush on a boy, they giggle when he's around and write their names in little hearts on their notebooks, which let's be honest, isn't THAT different from adulthood.

All in all, the movie kind of depressed me, which seemed to be the general sentiment from people leaving the theater. But hey, I got to stare at Bradley Cooper with his shirt off, and that is NEVER a waste of time.

Case and point, this photo:

Hot Girls, Douchey Guys

So I've recently encountered a rampant epidemic: really hot, smart, awesome girls who are settling for average to unattractive toolish guys.

I first noticed it when I was out with my girlfriend A. She is absolutely gorgeous so I'm totally used to guys coming up to us and hitting on her. But what is odd is instead of giving the weird/ugly ones the brush-off the way most people do is that she actually expresses interest and ends up talking to these guys for the rest of the night, leading most people to wonder how a guy like him ended up with a girl like her.

After that, I started noticing that all around New York there are these amazingly beautiful girls paired up with guys that just make you scratch your head as to how that came about. I recently met a beautiful girl who is successful and hilarious and for some reason is dating this loser guy I knew in high school whose main accomplishment since seems to be that he's bloated. (Sorry, was that mean?)

So I guess the main question is: why????

And I've come up with two possible explanations:

1) What I like to call "The Anti-Asshole Effect": In general, a lot of hot guys tend to be assholes who treat girls like shit. And as appealingly attractive as that is at first, it can start to wear on a girl after he's cheated on her a couple times. And after dating a string of assholes, a girl just wants to be with someone who will treat her well regardless of her usual dating requirements.

One of my girlfriends from college dated a bunch of assholes who treated her horribly and eventually started dating one of our guy friends, an incredibly sweet, funny guy, but slightly on the pudgy side. They got married a little over a year ago and every single speech his friends and family gave was about how they couldn't believe he was marrying such a hot girl. It was really funny, but also kind of sad.

Now, I am aware of this phenomenon firsthand. After dating more than my fair share of assholes, I have definitely gotten to the point where all I want is a guy who will treat me well, even if it means I will have to sacrifice something else. And that is how I ended up dating some heinously unappealing losers...

I was telling my girlfriend L about my theory and she told me that recently she met a guy who was balding and her initial reaction was, "Awwww he's definitely not an asshole, he must be a nice guy."

2) Female insecurity. After getting fucked over by one too many assholes, it isn't entirely unheard of that a girl tends to start feeling bad about herself. And plus, girls are already racked with insecurity to begin with, so it's not that hard for a girl to fall into total self-doubt.

After reaching these depths, it's entirely likely that a girl would date a less attractive or appealing guy because subconsciously she thinks he would never leave her or cheat on her because she's too good for him to begin with. And in some weird way, this would feed her ego and make her feel more secure in the relationship.

In the end, I guess whatever the rationale is, people do end up settling. And it does end up working out for some people when there's real love and affection there.

Movin Out

I'm moving six blocks away in two weeks, so I spent the entirety of today packing up my apartment and sorting through all my things.

I have lived in my current apartment for three years and two things have become abundantly clear to me: you can accumulate a LOT of stuff in three years and you can own too many shoes.

I think it's natural human instinct to become introspective when you're sorting through your belongings. And I suppose it's natural that packing all of your things away into boxes and moving out of a home can make you feel sad.

I spent a lot of my life packing boxes and leaving homes. I think the longest stretch I ever went without moving my entire life was five years in New Jersey when I was eight to twelve. Otherwise, almost every year involved the endless ritual of packing, unpacking, acclamating myself to a new environment, etc, etc. Just the thought of it now makes me exhausted. It probably wouldn't take a psychiatrist to figure out that this is why I am filled with stress and dread at just the thought of having to move apartments.

There's of course another downside: it also forces you to confront the things that you had hidden away to deal with at another time.

I shared this apartment with a boyfriend years ago, and spent a great deal of time making sure that nothing he had ever touched or owned was on the premise any longer. Most memorably was the day I went to the diamond district to pawn all the jewelry he had ever bought me, including that diamond ring.

But I guess I couldn't anticipate everything. Because of course now, little things are springing out of the woodworks, such as the envelope that was buried under a bunch of papers I hadn't looked at in quite a while that read: "RAN OUT TO GET COFFEE. PS - YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AND I LOVE YOU."

And then there was the baby picture of him that I had stashed in the back of my bookshelf. After I found it, I just stared at it dumbly for about 30 seconds, first trying to figure out what it was and then trying to figure out what to do with it. And I'm not going to lie; my first instinct was to scan it and post it online (it's a particularly embarrassingly naked baby photo). My second instinct was to rip it up and toss it. And then my third instinct, the one I finally went with, was just to put it along with my other old photos from college, from before digital cameras were ubiquitous and people had to get photos developed to be actually be able to see them.

My rationale is that the first two instincts would have been childish and immature and imply that I still harbor bitterness or something, not that I don't (just a little). But this just seemed like the grown-up, mature thing to do. And you never know, someday I might want that photo. Like if he runs for public office or something.

At the end of the day, I can only assume that I am going to keep finding little things like that, or coming across the small memories that I've done my best to stash away. The best thing I know how to do is not freak out, not get mad, and just sigh and move on.

Losing Control

I learned something important about myself recently:

When it comes to a cute guy with pretty eyes, I totally lose all rationality.

This should have come as no surprise to me. History and literature is riddled with stories of women who lost their heads when it came to a pretty guy with sweet words. My personal favorite has to be Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Or Ariel. As in Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid (Don't even get me started on that. She has to leave her entire world behind, her family, her friends, her sidekick Flounder, just to be his wife?!?! I'd like to see him make some comparable sacrifices. WTF!)

Not to mention I have plenty of friends, both male and female, who lose all rational thought when around attractive members of the opposite sex. I find it pretty amusing to watch from afar, but of course, part of the fun is to be removed from it.

Well, not so much.

Straight up: there is nothing, NOTHING, about Epic Fail that suggests any long-term potential, and therefore that I should waste any of my time on him.

I am fully aware of this, which is precisely why last week I had a heart-to-heart with him and told him that we would be better off as "just friends," otherwise known as the kiss of death. I could tell he was hurt, but understanding all the same, and I vowed to really follow through on this friendship promise.

Which is why a few nights later, I stopped by the bar where he was hanging out with his friends to meet them for a few drinks. I was pretty relieved to find that there was little weirdness between us, and friendship was a distinct possibility.

That is, of course, until I had one too many drinks and I found myself gazing into his pretty blue eyes wondering what it was exactly about him that had made me disregard him to begin with. And in my drunken haze, I absolutely couldn't recall any of his (many) faults.

So, before I regained my senses, I leaned over and kissed him. The poor confused boy just looked at me with his blue eyes and said, "S, what are you doing to me? You told me that you just wanted to be friends!"

To which I stammered, "Oooooh yeah....."

I distanced myself to talk to (MAYBE flirt with) Dirty Irish Boy when he spilled the bombshell on me that Epic Fail had been upset when I ended things and had confessed to his friends he thought I was "marriage potential."

I thought this seemed like a good time to make my graceful exit from the bar, so I went to say good-bye to Epic Fail and his last words to me were, "I feel like you're messing with my head."

As I climbed into a cab, first I felt freaked out that he had even mentioned the word marriage after only knowing me for a short while, and then I felt even worse about the fact that I was totally messing with his head, despite my best intentions.

So now I know that alcohol and blue eyes do not mix. And in the words of my wonderful sister, I am "SUCH a jerkface."

Well said, E, well said.

Breaking Out of the Friend Zone

My friend L once said it best when he described the friend zone as a "maximum security prison with no chance of parole."

But after a great deal of consideration, I've decided that assessment isn't entirely accurate. There are ways for a guy to break out of the friend zone, even in some cases where he thinks he's firmly entrenched.

My most recent boyfriend started out as a friend in the firmest sense of the word. We hung out platonically constantly, made fun of each other, asked each other advice about the opposite sex, had little inside jokes about each other, and I trusted him entirely. I remember one Sunday night he even coached me through a phone call with a guy that I liked, sitting in the background and giving me thumbs up signs.

I won't bore you with the details, but one day, things started to change and for some unfathomable reason to me at the time, I began to see him in a new light. And one day it hit me that I had feelings for him. Shortly after we began dating.

Months later, we were discussing how this had happened and he told me it had been his plan all along, and has aptly coined it "The Roundabout."

The Roundabout entails befriending a girl, getting into her inner circle, and planting the seeds of being together until one day she suddenly breaks down and wants to date you.

I was obviously skeptical, and laughed at him, but he swore up and down that this was the case, and it had obviously worked on me since we were together, and really I couldn't argue that this wasn't the case.

With some more thorough examination, I had to admit that his argument had some solid points. Normally, if I know a guy is interested in me, or I am interested in him, I tend to be more guarded, which isn't the case with guys who are my good friends. Since I considered him a good friend, I totally let my guard down and was totally at ease hanging out late, watching movies together, going out drinking, and talking about my life/thoughts/dreams.

Then once he had access to all this information and part of me, he just had to be there and show me he was a good guy that was all the things I was looking for in a boyfriend. And over time, it morphed from platonic affection to a real crush.

Basically, he got close enough to me to make me take my defenses down, and then kept getting under my skin, like that itch you can't scratch, until I just gave up. It's really quite a brilliant tactic.

I would normally argue that once a girl and guy are that close as friends, and are advising each other on their love lives, that crossing the friendship boundary would be impossible, but I guess I'm proof that this isn't always the case.

Small World

So if there's one thing I've figured out in my five years of living in Manhattan it's that this city is damn small and you are destined to keep running into people over and over again, ESPECIALLY the ones that you want nothing to do with, but every once in a while that really hot guy that you had a thing for like a year ago.

Every time I think that I'm never going to see someone again and he or she is totally out of my life, bam! the very next night I will inevitably run into them at a bar. And proceed to have very awkward small talk and pretend that we actually want to talk to each other.

The thing is, even with the seemingly endless number of bars and restaurants, New York is a very physically small city with a damn lot of of people crammed into it all going to the same bars and restaurants. So you are bound to run into the same people over and over again, especially if you frequent the same places.

Case and point, last night a friend and I were watching the Superbowl at a bar and while I was standing in line for the girls' room, the girl next to me looked at me and said my name.

Now there is nothing quite as terrifying as being somewhere and hearing someone you don't recognize say your full name. I instantly began racking my brain to figure out who she was - girl I knew from college? girl whose boyfriend I had dated? girl I had befriended at a bar and promptly forgotten about?

Turns out it was none of the above; she was girl whose older brother I had dated very seriously five years ago, girl whose older brother had totally broken my heart and I recently found out is engaged.

Suffice it to say the conversation was very awkward and I returned to my table looking like I had just seen a ghost, which isn't entirely inaccurate.

As if that wasn't enough, my friends and I proceeded to go to another bar thirty blocks away. I was standing to the side when I thought I recognized a group of guys that I had hung out with a few times. And in the middle of the group was a guy that I had dated two months ago but had pulled a disappearing act never to be heard from again.

I, of course, couldn't resist the urge to go say hi to all of them and play it cool. He was genuinely shocked to see me, which allowed me to revel in his confusion before I made my exit to go hide out in my apartment, where I wasn't likely to have any more uncomfortable run-ins.

I feel like there isn't a day that goes by that I don't run into someone I went to high school or college with, or worked with, or met through a friend of a friend. Anonymity in a city like this is virtually impossible.

I'm sure that's not a terrible thing for a lot of people, and some people enjoy it, but I chose New York because I wanted to blend in and walk down the street without worrying that I would bump into anyone I know. I went to a small college where everyone knew everyone else's business and it made me claustrophobic and drove me absolutely crazy. The last thing I wanted was to enter another environment similar to that one.

On a total side note, how creepy does that Disney It's a Small World ride look in pictures? Apparently when I was little and my parents took me to Disneyland Anaheim, I was obsessed with the ride and dragged them on it over and over again, like some sort of horrible It's a Small World torture. Just the thought of it makes my head hurt.

Side note to my side note: I was too scared to go on any of the other rides, so my parents and uncle would have to take turns going on the rides while one of them would stay with me. After a particular ride, my parents came out to find a crowd of people at the entrance and wondered what the fuss was about. And in the middle of it was three-year-old me putting on a show, dancing and singing around, thinking I was some sort of park entertainment.

My parents were so embarrassed they claim they considered leaving me there. It's nice to know that even at the age of three I was already a total attention hog. Apparently, some things never change.

Ambien Blackout Madness

So I've always been very nocturnal, which means that I suffer from chronic insomnia. After trying everything from meditating and yoga to herbal teas, I just caved and asked my doctor for something to help me sleep at night, and he introduced me to my good friend Ambien.

I had heard the warnings of people who sleepwalk and sleepdrive and sleepeat and laughed, and now I wondered if I could fall into one of those categories. Luckily I don't own a car, so there would be no driving while sleeping for me.

But what did end up happening to me was probably even funnier. The thing is it's not like you're a total zombie, knocked out, when you decide to get up and do these things. You take an Ambien, and in about 15 minutes you start to feel drowsy, but then all of a sudden you have all these awesome ideas/urges of things you want to do right NOW, so you get up and do them.

And they never, ever make sense.

- One time, in the middle of the night, I was hit with the urge to wrote a letter to a friend I had been meaning to write to. The next day I woke up to a page of incoherency that even I couldn't decipher.

- One night, in a fit of anger after I found out that my ex-boyfriend had been a lying, cheating scumbag, I attacked the stuffed frog he had given me for Christmas, and then proceeded to take pictures and send them out to my friends.

The next morning I woke up with no recollection of this and actually screamed when I saw the fuzzy carcass of the frog in my garbage can. The knife had been put away properly but my camera was still out, with all the photos I had taken sent out.

I braced myself for the e-mails of, "S, are you ok? Should we be checking you into the mental institution?", but instead C wrote, "That poor, poor inanimate object. Ha! I'm glad you're feeling better. Love you!"

So I suppose disaster averted on that one.

- One day I was picking up my dry cleaning when a cute guy walked in. Very cute. He was just picking up a shirt and repeated his address and name loudly enough for me to hear and then had to run off. But with this limited information I figured I could at least sit outside his building until he needed to leave. That's not stalking, right?

Fast forward to my nighttime Ambien fix and all of a sudden I have a fabulous idea. I'll write him a NOTE!! Like totally fifth grade. I found some blue stationary and wrote on it, "Dear Joe, We met the other day at the dry cleaner's and I was wondering if you would like to go get coffee sometime. Here's my number." So the note was taken down to his building, and asked to be put in his mailbox.

Fast forward not even a day and he calls. He was only in town for day because he lives in San Diego and the building was his parents' apartment. His mother found the note and asked if she should send it to him, and he said to just read it to him, so his mother heard the entire contents of my note as well. He said it was super sweet, and he'd definitely try to look me up when he was in NY next.

- The worst Ambien Fail I've ever had consisted of J-Boy who I was dating over a year ago, right when I had just started taking the Ambien so I was totally unawares of its varying side effects. We were on the phone late one night and I took my Ambien, and told him i was taking it, and at some point during the conversation, I just blacked out. Apparently I was still talking, making statements, conversing, but I have absolutely zero recollection of this conversation that apparently went oh for hours.

So the next day when I spoke to J-Boy, he kept saying things like, "you know, what you said last night about that," and I'd go "uhhhhhhhhhh" and it kept going like that for a while until I had to be like, "Look J-Boy I'm really sorry but I took an Ambien and totally passed out last night so I have no idea what we talked about.

He got really silent and told me that apparently we'd had a very serious conversation about where things were going with us and and how I was going to meet his family and that we were definitely on the same track fo be exclusive and together in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.

So I panicked for about 10 minutes but then did the only thing I could do. I apologized profusely for having blacked out while he was unbearing his soul and making plans for us, but told him that I, sober, non-drugged up, S didn't really feel ready to be having those kinds of conversations and setting up time to meet his family because it was a little too soon.

Needless to say, that relationship crumbled very quickly after that incident.

And created the need for my first rule: no human interaction after I have taken an Ambien. Very quickly followed by: no interaction with my cell phone once I have taken an Ambien.