Kizzmet

Hyperlink to my heart?

“The social technologies that assist in dating and mating today are more than palliatives—they’ve changed the nature of the game. If the cold approach is more than you can deal with, put up a Craigslist ad, or join OkCupid, Manhunt, or Nerve. If the phone call makes you nervous, send a text message. And while you’re at it, send a text message to a half-dozen other people with everyone’s favorite late-night endearment: “where u at?” If nothing works out and you find yourself alone at home again, simply fire up XTube or YouPorn and choose from an endless variety of positions to help you reach a late-night climax.” This excerpt from NY Mag’s “The Sex Diaries - A Critical Reading of New Yorkers’ Sexual Habits & Anxieties,” while enlightening, can be followed by: therein lies the problem.

Options upon electronic options, with which to convey our need for lust and love, seem to have only isolated us further from forging meaningful and fulfilling intimate human relationships.

I wrote an article almost 7 years ago for my college newspaper about online dating. Curious, I braved the web in search of a feast upon which I could get love drunk (or even just a buzz). In my article I quipped, “If a tree falls in a forest, does anyone hear it? If you haven’t actually met a person, do they even exist.” My imagination took bits and pieces of profiles to create my perfect mate. None of the men I met in real life lived up to the elaborate personas I’d created from a few pictures and paragraphs. Shocker. Back then finding love and sex online were just taking root as socially acceptable practices, pioneered by the homosexual and tech community - I was neither, but I was brave.

Then: text messages weren’t freely added to cell phone plans. Now: texting’s unlimited. Now: they’re the preferred method of striking up conversation with a new friend, or potential lover. Back then: I spent hours on the phone with my long distance boyfriend describing our days in “if only you were here” detail. We didn’t want to miss a thing. Now: I partially blame our failed second try on a half hearted reliance on blackberry messenger. Now: I receive “wink” updates from Match.com on the daily - straight to my mobile, ever reminded that I have options. Then: online dating was just an experiment, a scary and uncool activity for socially inept weirdoes and gay people. Now: at least 15 of the 20 single women in my office seem to have online dating profiles.Then: I was a bright eyed school girl, a daughter of the information age, ready to have it all: career, family, and a wealth of options literally at my finger tips. Now: I still want it all - minus the mass texts, the imaginary online lover, and the meaningless bberry messenger exchange. Now: I’m ready to find love. Quality over quantity. Conversation over quick fix one liner. Pull the plug for long enough to smell sweet sweet reality.

I’d never disconnect completely, of course, because a world without my mobile would be bland indeed. However, it may take a dead blackberry battery to get me to practice what I preach. I’m a mass messaging mademoiselle; bare minimum: one per week. I’ve ranted about this all before, but I didn’t last more than 48 hours (and I tried) without sending a text message.

Recently, I met a guy while waiting for my friend to finish her shift at a restaurant. In a rush, he demanded: “Text me your number real quick so I have it.” Normally, I’d have written something friendly like, “Hey this is …., now you have my number.” But, instead, I threw him a curve that inevitably struck him out.

“I’ll text you, but don’t bother texting back. Call me. I’m over texting for now,” I countered, pushing send on a blank message.

Needless to say, I never got a call. One week later, around 10 PM on a Friday I received, “Where u at?”   

Read more: The Sex Diaries - A Critical Reading of New Yorkers’ Sexual Habits & Anxieties — New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/features/sexdiaries/2009/60297/#ixzz0Wamn6sdY

Fantasy Land

Perfect life. Where ARE you???

According to the time line I laid out for myself, I should be married by now. I should be practicing entertainment law, while my full-time help has dinner (tofu steak and seaweed salad) waiting for my husband and I every perfect evening. Baby number two should be on his or her way. Because at this point, Baby number one is already almost 3 years old! Can you believe it! I know! Time goes by so fast.

According to this time line, my husband and I own a cozy home in Culver City. We have dogs. We have organic tomatoes. We have dreams of buying a mini-ranch in Ojai or a cabin in Big Bear, so that our baby and a half can grow up building tree houses.

We see my parents once every 2 months. Our Friday evening jaunts up to the Bay Area are welcome getaways from the smog lined streets of Los Angeles. We listen to NPR, and occasionally rock out, while our dogs and child are nestled safely in the back seat, peering out the windows of our Land Rover. Ocean rolls alongside as we make our way up the 101. We’re together. Happy. Healthy. Rich in the things that matter. Still young. Still in love with possibility.

This is just one version of my perfect life.

There’s also the one in which I’m a best selling novelist, paid to dream up sizzling summer reads. There’s the one wherein I’m a famous blogger, traveling all over the world to write about love, life, and adventure. There’s the adventure show spin off, where I host my own show based on that blog. There’s the movie deal. The development deal. The active wear line.

There’s also a simpler “perfect life”, but just as appealing, I ASSURE YOU… in this one I’m married to a very wealthy man, who made his fortune in some dorky field like programming and appreciates my quirky, sometimes flippant nature. He supports my blogging, my horseback riding, my animal rescue… as long as I’m running our household smoothly. And being the best Mom I can possibly be, of course.

I’m almost 29. My perfect life hasn’t shown up yet. And I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will.

Being single: A Choice?

 Imagine being surround by beautiful, smart, and sexy single women all day. From the tall German retired model, who’s now a 6 figure earning partner, to the petite early forties blond, to the curvaceous salsa dancing Latina, to the willowy yoga instructor, to the rustic outdoorsy Tomboy, to the brainy hipster; they’re everywhere here. HERE being the sunshine drenched office suites of my current employer.  HERE being what seems to be a haven for some of the West Coast’s most intriguing, inspiring, and interesting SINGLE women. 

A New York Times study of census data from 2005 claims that 51 percent of American women now live alone without a spouse, and most of them by choice. The report, which appeared in the paper January 16, 2005 claims the number of single women has increased from 49 percent just five years ago and from only 35 percent in 1950.

Several factors, including women waiting longer to marry, staying single, getting divorced and living alone longer after their spouses pass away, led to the increase, the paper reported. The New York Times paints this picture: it’s all in the women’s hands; that they waived away, with the flit of a manicured nail, coupledom and children and love for freedom and self made fortune or even just plain solitude.

But is it really HER choice? Or are quality men just extremely hard to find?

“[Combined] with the fact that married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape a range of social and workplace policies, including the ways the government and employers distribute benefits,” The Times article concludes.

With few examples of thriving and healthy heterosexual relationships in my work environment, the place where I spend most of my time, I’m wondering if I should reframe my perspective on how life is best lived. However, how do I reshape a ideology that has been formed by 28 years of social conditioning, media exposure, and what feels like an instinctual need? This need, one that tells me that the most meaningful thing I’ll do in life is share mine with a male partner, is one not easily quieted or satisfied.

The Times article referenced “workplace policies” changing. At one point, before I was hired on full time by my current employer, this haven for single woman of all shapes and sizes, I was considering registering as a domestic partner with my roommate, just to get health insurance. While this policy was not created with only women in mind, it is clear that it was devised to give those who choose not to or CANNOT marry, a gay couple for example, options with which to protect their loved ones. Being single, then at 27, and considering forming a “domestic partnership” with my roommate, just to cash in on her benefits, was downright depressing.

I WANT a fun loving, fit, sexy, and well educated husband. My singledom seems more complicated then just a “choice.” With potential mates everywhere, I, like the other woman out there, don’t want to settle.

Fit? Fun loving? Sexy? Perhaps. But educated? Ladies, we might have to lower our standards.

According to a 2005 USA Today article posted on their website: “There are more men than women ages 18-24 in the USA — 15 million vs. 14.2 million, according to a Census Bureau estimate last year. But nationally, the male/female ratio on campus today is 43/57, a reversal from the late 1960s and well beyond the nearly even splits of the mid-1970s.”

The article also explains that, “Not only do national statistics forecast a continued decline in the percentage of males on college campuses, but the drops are seen in all races, income groups and fields of study, says policy analyst Thomas Mortenson, publisher of the influential Postsecondary Education Opportunity newsletter in Oskaloosa, Iowa.”

So where are our men going? And is their disappearance from higher education part of the reason woman “choose” to go it alone temporarily or postpone marriage all together? After all, it seems a common theme in relationship rhetoric that people of similar backgrounds educationally and socio-economically tend to marry. Perhaps the lack of educated men makes it more difficult for women to find suitable partners. A contributor to the USA Today piece, in referring to men in the education system, said: “If we create a generation of men who aren’t getting an education, that’s bad for women.”

It’s hard to picture the ex-model partner I mentioned above strolling down the aisle with a high school dropout construction worker. Opposites can attract, but the differences are usually minor. Preferring sushi to Mexican or sailing to skiing, may be arguments wherein two can agree to disagree, but it may be difficult to make a love work with one who prefers beer drinking and tailgating to international travel and wine tasting. But, I stereotype. Women and men don’t fit so easily into such boxes, education, or lack thereof aside. In my opinion, the nuances of romance and love are more complex then a “choice.”

If I asked the single women partners in my firm if they are happy to be alone I wonder what they’d say. Would they answer honestly? As evolved as women are, the drive to procreate, to love and be loved, can’t possibly have been decided away as simply as the NY Times article proports. Because for me, life is better shared with a romantic partner. So if I DO indeed have a choice, I choose LOVE. 

Sex without Alcohol?

I’ve been single now for 17 months after 2 years in back to back relationships.

I have experienced 17 months of dating, drinking, and drunk dating. I’ve tried the sobering process of match.com. I’ve met men in bars and at restaurants, on runs and horseback rides and while roller blading. There’ve been weekend getaways and happy hour and coffee and study breaks. Studs, duds, and loud thuds (i’m not kidding I fell off the bed a few months ago. It was vodka induced).

Out of all those dates and encounters, I’ve only locked lips or more in the situations in which alcohol was involved. I truly cannot think of a time wherein I was stone cold sober during a randy romp. Can’t count morning sex if you’re hungover. Sowy.

I’ve wanted to write about this for awhile, the rational me who thinks wait and see, versus the animalistic drunk me who goes for it. Instead, my lovely and brilliant friend AV Flox beat me to the punch.

Read her post here:

http://www.blogher.com/drunk-you-alcohol-disinhibits-what-cost

Track me if you can…

K saw him first. We were planning our next move, compass and map in hand, when suddenly, after wiping sweat from her brow, she froze. The fear in her eyes was like that of a trapped animal; Perhaps what shelter volunteers see in the eyes of a newly confined dog. The desperation in her voice clear, terrifyingly vibrant, a humanless snarl alerting me to danger.

Instinct drove us into the the nearest bush. I lay flat on my stomach, unfazed by a bed of rocks and pine needles. My heart pumping, palms sweating, body shaking. K’s frantic breath hot in my ear: “Do you think he sees us?” To which I hissed, “Shhh.” All you have in a situation like that is silence and patience.

It was 2 hours into the chase. With 34 to go, he and the Sidekick passed by, unaware that his Los Angeleno prey trembled in the thicket just yards away. What happens next is best saved for June 2010, when our show debuts.

The remaning details of my Mantracker experience stand together as a life changing masterpiece I’ll hang forever on my heart. The crew, the chase, the challenge, the isolation from traffic and Tinseltown…. For Mantracker, I was simply a part of Episode 1, Season 5, but for me it marked the beginning of a movement.

Once you’ve had a shot of that kind of adrenaline, how can you go back? The blissful ignorance of an ordinary life framed by picket fence dreams, is so easily replaced by the realization  that a whole wide world of adventure awaits (insert montage of quickly moving images: waterfalls, rapids, mountain peaks, snow storms, helicopter drop offs atop blustery bluffs, crowded Egyptian market places).

So, I’m taking my manicured madness into the wild. AND you should take yours to www.mantracker.ca ! Fill out an application to see if you can out grit, out witt and out run a professional Mantracker!

It just might change your life.

Keep it on your heart candy…

I love you: Words not to be uttered one drunken night a week after meeting someone. Sure, there are excuses… I was drunk, very drunk, day drinking, night drinking drunk. Sure I was stoned, or on LSD, or huffing nitrous. I was twisted up in passion like Dorothy’s house in OZ. I was struck by some rare form of non lethal Ebola from which the mouth oozes sweat nothings. My dog made me do it. Little lollie pop kids made me do it. Excuses, excuses! Silly, lame, excuses - ones completely lost on the victim of such assaultive, powerful words. You can say you love pizza or ponies or pie, but GOD HELP YOU, should you utter, “I love you” too soon to an actual person.

It’s happened to me, but the words were disguised. It’s not just the “I love you” that can send your suitor or suitee running like Britney from the Paparazzi. Anything akin to “we were meant to be” or “lets do this” uttered at anytime from day 1 to day 30 (just to be safe) is just TOO MUCH. Maybe if you’re one in a pair of barely legals, you can break some rules, but anyone 21 and up should take this advice and shut it (which makes it even more difficult since alcohol will very likely be flowing faster than fresh money to Ford).

After all, there’s so much else to talk about: global warming, Obama, celebrity gossip, and if you’re really daring, the, gasp, sorry excuse for today’s economy, double gasp. Because letting an emotionally driven, romantic dipped arrow fly too soon can literally kill any chance of a second or third date, let alone a trip to the family’s cabin next summer. Being on the receiving end of the arrow, on a first date for example, can be darn right INSULTING.

How can you allude to the notion that “we’re meant to be” when you don’t even know their middle name, or favorite color, or childhood fantasy? How can you love someone when you don’t know how they take their coffee or if they even LIKE coffee? While it’s easy to answer, “Well kizzmet smarty pants, that’s EASY, you CAN’T love someone that quickly!” Try holding your tongue next time YOU are realllllly feeeeeling it!

As mentioned it’s happened to me. A tall, handsome, and VERY funny man (yes, it crossed my mind that he may have been joking) who I met on the world wide web of dating sites, reached across the table of our first date (and around the emptied bottle of wine), grabbed my hand and said, “You are the woman of my dreams and I’d like to start naming our future children.” Ok, so he didn’t say THAT exactly, but he alluded to it in a very real way that totally turned me OFF. “But you don’t even KNOW me…” I blurted. To which he replied, “But I feel like I do and you’re just like me…” blah, blah, and BLAH. There’s no faster way to disgust a person than by imposing your idea of them on them. I felt like saying, “So you like me, because I remind you of yourself? Now that’s HOT.” Um, NOT (Yes, I was raised in the 90’s).

After consulting various male friends for their perspective on my date’s forthright marriage proposal, all of them took up for him! While they admitted he had probably messed up beyond repair, it was simply because he was really feeling it and was excited that he had found what he THOUGHT he was looking for. “Too bad,” I replied to them all, for I was already over it.

Men AND women, like a challenge. We women like to win you over with our sultry looks and come hither eyes, just as much as with our warm hearts and vivacious personalities. We like to think you’re falling for US, not some first date, first week, first impression that really, in the 365 days that equate to one year, means very little.

So, you’d think, months later, I’d have learned from my match.com date gone wrong. But when I met HIM, this time I was feeling it - electricity. I swore I was so high on life I couldn’t even say his name without smiling a wide that would’ve qualified me to be The Cheshire Cat’s understudy. Wow did I FEEL it. He made me laugh. He made me feel safe. He was cool, but sensitive. He was sexy times ten squared plus infinity. I swore this was it and unfortunately felt the need to tell him so ONE WEEK after meeting him. I said it. “I love you” escaped my lips ever so drunkenly, but ever so earnestly. It didn’t go that bad, but it certainly didn’t go well. I pawned it off on passion and vodka infused pineapple juice.

The weeks that followed were scared by that admission. I felt the need to show him that OF COURSE I didn’t LOVE him, in fact, quite the opposite… I had soooo many OTHER options. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I was doing this while I was doing it. And looking back I think my insecure behavior as a result of my drunken blithering was more harmful than the actual words. Sigh.

So now, I’m here writing this blog instead of making Valentine’s Day plans and getting to know someone who made my heart jump double dutch barefoot on a hot playground (maybe I should see if Mr. Match.com isn’t busy come Feb. 14). AND I’ve chosen to ignore that very annoying anecdote “If it’s meant to be it will be,” because if it’s “meant to be” you better keep your mouth shut and let it do just that.

The best action is NO action.

I wish things were as clear cut as they appear to be in that bestseller, soon to be released movie “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Then, she’d know that if you didn’t reply to her 4 page email dripping with heart juice,  wherein she explained the ins and outs of the affair from her perspective, that you’re just not that into her. Or if you didn’t reply to her text. Or her call. Your nonreply shouting the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Silence is the PERFECT expression of scorn.”  Said differently: NOT INTO YOU.

Because if you liked her (or wanted to keep fucking her) you’d at least be able to conjure some 2 line text explaining ”You’re great baby, but don’t confuse lust with love.” Right? Throw a bitch a bone.  Give a girl just enough hope and she’ll ride that hope so hard you’ll both cum.  Cept’ by saying and doing nothing, you might actually be leaving MORE to the female imagination. By NOT replying, NOT emailing, NOT calling, you let her wonder, “What happened?” SO that she can spell out whatever tag line she’s after to personify the essense of your brand of shallow, on YOUR terms, relationship. Let her think you’re scared. 6’4 inches of sexy you curled up in the fetal position because you’re too frightened to let her know you care. Too afraid of the rejection. Sob.

Tell her what you’re really thinking, see aforementioned text above, and she’ll be over it. Why keep fucking him when I KNOW he’s just not that into me? Spell it out, and the chances are good that she WON’T keep fucking you. Keep it to yourself and let your actions give her a hint (mixed messages are the key here), and she’ll always come back for more (fucking that is).

The No Action approach might not always work however. If the stars are aligned in such a way as to blink “RELATIONSHIP NEEDED NOW.” You might be better off sending the good morning text. Making the good night call. Planning dates in advance and all that shit (insert TRUST YOUR INSTINCT here). IF a committed relationship with her is what YOUseek.

BUT for the confident, sexy, savvy woman with a full social life and as many options as there are solar systems… I suggest a few months (at least) of this approach. Text sporadically. Be unpredictable. Evade serious “relationship” conversations. Take her on a date one night. Let a week pass. Then booty call her.

And in doing this YOU protect YOURSELF. You don’t put anything on the line. You don’t foolishly make yourself too available. Leave yourself open to rejection by investing words your actions can’t cash. Because at this point your probably don’t know what YOU want anyway. Only her (maybe EVENTUALLY)? Or her AND a little taste of someone else’s starlet dust ALL in the same week.

See, this girl wants to work for it. Not in the way a guy must (paying for dates etc.). SHE wants to tame the bad boy. This girl wants/likes to analyze. Likes cracking the code. Likes Figuring you out. Likes wondering. Discussing. Mulling things over with her girlfriends over sushi. Likes thinking she’s chipping away at a complicated beast with her playful texts, her irresistible kisses, and her 11 PM visits wherein she plays with you into the wee hours of the morning. She likes thinking that she can win you over. Make it too easy, too soon and she’s bored. In a world where a catalog of men exist on any number of dating sites, wherein adventure is just a click away, be that accessible and she’ll already be on someone else’s page, comparing YOU’s like you’re 2 different planets on the discovery channel.

Where adventure leads…

Words follow. Big words. Small words. Words that confuse, excite, describe. Here I will let those words frame my escapades. My trips. Trials. Tangential moments wherein I’m buzzed on some  silly (OR smart) tid bit of life. An idea. A boy (sigh). A ?.

I’d like this FIRST post on Kizzmet to explode like the sky on a mushroom trip. I’d like this FIRST post to be a little peep show. Expose a little thigh. A little of the love at first sight magic that follows me everywhere. Because if you can’t tell, I’m a believer.