An older friend of mine once advised me that I should stick with my college boyfriend. I thought this was strange advice at the time. I had warned so many friends of mine upon high school graduation that sticking with their high school boyfriends was a terrible idea, so I figured the same would go for college.

Weren’t you supposed to explore your options? Date? Have fun in your twenties before settling down in your thirties? Now that I’ve graduated, I know exactly why she said it. Dating post-college is a major shock to the system.

I went on a date recently with a guy who I’d met at a poetry reading. I thought he might be a few years older than me and I was okay with that, but on the date it came to light that he was actually many, many years older than me, fourteen to be exact (that’s Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher territory). I figured I’d dated older men before, so I decided to give him a chance. We talked about jobs, our shared neighborhood haunts (we both lived in the East Village), and then the subject of past relationships came up and he told me about his ex. Read More »

I have never really been good at the whole dating thing. Well, maybe not dating – I rock on first dates and have been told by many a-man that I am quite the kisser — more the patience part of it. I have a tendency to get super excited, super soon. A common case of falling too hard, too fast. I sit by my phone/computer willing the boy to communicate with me in some way.

An IM?
A text?
Something.

And when it doesn’t happen, I jump into action. A cute text message here. A hilariously witty email there. I am not being crazy or stalkerish; I am just being cute. Giving him something to fall in love with.

I never really questioned my actions (even though every book on earth tells you to play hard to get) until I found myself on the receiving end of the “cuteness.” I met a guy online and began IMing with him. We had some good conversations through AIM, so when he asked me for my digits a few days later I obliged.

So, he called. And he called again. And he texted. And he sent me Facebook messages, IMs, emails, more texts. They were clearly attempts at being cute (“We are in a fight”, “Did you forget about me?”), without success. They were not funny or witty; if anything, they made him look completely pathetic. Did he have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for me to call? Didn’t he have friends, or something else to occupy his time? Read More »

When you hand in a rough draft of your final term paper, and you get good feedback- you are no doubt shocked when your grade is much lower than anticipated right?

So you go to your professor and she explains what you did wrong, where you missed the mark. And while you are frustrated, you move on because hey, it’s Thursday night and so why not get drunk now and just remember what to fix for next time?

When you finish a crossword or sudoku puzzle, you head for most important part: the answer key. Because how annoying would it be to spend two hours on a mind game and not get any sort of validation that you did it right? (A blatant waste of time, in my opinion)

And of course, when Britney Spears makes the Worst Dressed list week after week, she doesn’t have to sit and ponder as to why she’s on there. If her poor taste in fashion isn’t obvious enough (last time I checked, fedoras and printed pajama bottoms wasn’t what they meant by “mix and match”) at least there is some comedian explaining what makes her outfit so comically tragic.

In all of these cases, there is an answer to what went askew, a reasoning behind the actions.

So why is it that when you go on a date that you think went well and then hear not-a-thing… there is nothing you can do about it? Read More »