Meeting Other Humans is Hard

It's so hard to meet someone.

We've all heard that phrase time and time again. I often wonder where people find their special person. I feel like half my friends met their significant others on dating apps    the others either met them in school or in a bar. None of those options have turned out well for me.

My boyfriends in college didn't work out. Clearly.

I've tried the online dating thing. That's four months of my life I will never get back and years of therapy I will never be reimbursed for.

And the guys in bars? Meh. I'd rather not. I'm a different person when I'm inebriated, and I don't feel like starting something new on the basis of a lie.

Speaking of lie...

Another reason I don't want to meet a guy in a bar? They are fucking idiots.

So I went out tonight, for a girls night. It was actually really fun. There was live music and we were definitely dancing like no one was watching. So I meet this guy, and he's younger than me but really cute and knows how to shag dance so I go with it. He called it swing dancing by the way. He was under the impression that shagging meant what it did in the UK and thought I was propositioning hm within the first few minutes of meeting him. Maybe that's where everything went wrong.

So we dance and flirt and it's fun. I feel like it's been so long since I flirted with someone. I introduce myself, and he introduces himself. His name is Stephen, and he's from Georgia. A nice Southern boy! It's been so long since I met one of those around here! Everything is fine and dandy. We continue talking, and then I leave to talk to my other friend. I come back and the boys are whispering. I ask my friend who is standing there what'g going on, and she informs me that Stephen thinks I lied about my name.

Um, what.

Why would I lie about my name yet keep talking to him? Also, why I would lie and say my name is Marshall?

So, I ask him about it. He said that he doesn't know me (fair) and that girls also lie about their names (also, fair). I admitted that both these things were true, yet that most girls who lie about their names don't keep hanging out with that person.

However, he still didn't believe me, and asked to see my ID.

I was baffled. Like, why would I still lie about my name, and why would someone try so hard to prove me wrong. At this point, both he and his friend thought I was lying. Apparently, when I introduced myself I smiled and looked away and this seemed sketchy to them.

I was so perplexed and so annoyed, and I wanted to prove them wrong so I showed them my ID. They honestly studied it for a straight minute. Then, after all that, Stephen tried to tell me my middle name was my first name. I quickly disproved his theory.

After all this awkwardness, he gave me a half ass, fake sincere apology. That I partially accepted.

During all of this, my friend is still flirting with his friend and who am I to rain on her parade. They asked us to go to another bar, and I could tell my other friends wanted to go so I agreed. Once we are at the other bar, I'm talking to Stephen's friend. I'm not flirting with him, but I'm bored and talking to him about murder mystery shows because why not. And then Stephen walks up and asks "what my deal is." I'm confused and asked him what he means. He rambles on about how he is a "straight forward guy." I told him I didn't have a "deal" and was just out with my friends for fun.

If you can't tell, the conversation isn't going smoothly and I'm turing into the ice cold bitch everyone thinks I am. He finally accepts that I'm just out for a girls' night, and I don't have an ulterior motive.

Then, when I don't think the conversation with this bozo can get any worse, he tilts the neck of his beer bottle near my neck and goes, "you didn't do a very good job of covering up that hickie."

Well, first of all, you fucktard. it's a birthmark. You insensitive fuck.

When I tell him it's a birthmark, he once again accuses me of lying.

Is it just me, or has maybe this guy been burned in the past?

I turn to my friends and ask them what the mark on my chest is. ML calls it a "rashy thing" and MS says "she's had it since I've known her."

So once again he gives me a half ass apology that I partially accept but not really because he's a giant fuck, and I can't wait to never talk to him again.The night doesn't last much longer after, and for that I am grateful.

However, now once I'm home, I'm kind of sad. How am I expected to meet someone? Guys in bars think I'm lying about my name and flaunting a hickie? I'm out of college, and dating apps aren't my thing.

I'm not looking to date someone now, but maybe sometime in the far off future? I don't know.

Finding someone is hard.

And that's all I know.

That Time I Fell in Love

I fell in love once, and it wasn't with a boy. No, it wasn't a boy that made the butterflies erupt in my stomach or my eyes sparkle with excitement. It wasn't a boy that made the thought of leaving feel like a rock plummeting in the pit of my stomach. No, it wasn't a boy at all.

It was a place. And it was amazing.

It was NYC.

Now, I've been to Paris. I've been to DC. I've been to New Orleans, to Oahu, to the Greek islands, but no place has even come close to NYC.

And that may sound stupid to you. I've been to all of these beautiful and dreamy places, but it's NYC that enchanted me in the end. But it's true. There are no words for NYC. I can try and name a few, but I know I won't even begin to scratch the surface.

Bustling.

Magical.

Thrilling.

Iconic.

Alive.

I know some people say it's too smelly, or too crowded, or too expensive, or overrated, but I didn't get that vibe.

I thought it was almost peaceful--weird as that may be. While I was there, I could finally feel. Nothing was weighing on my mind. I felt alive, and it was the most amazing feeling.

I loved everything about it. The tall buildings, the eccentric people, the shining lights in the middle of the night. The electricity of the city was truly breathtaking.

I've known what it was like to fall in love with places I've never been, but now I know what's it like to fall in love with a place I have been, and I believe it's almost worst. Now, when I'm not in the heart of the city, soaking it all in, and I'm in my small town apartment, the nostalgia hits me like a physical ache. The longing to go back is so fierce I find myself dreaming of a day when I can call myself a local and am no longer a wishful tourist.

One day I will live in this amazing city. You just wait and see.

Write Away

I want to start writing again.

Not blogging. That's different. I like this, though. I like publishing posts and not constantly checking back to see if anyone had commented or liked it. That was stressful, and it wasn't me. But I like randomly sitting down, hashing out some feels, and hitting publish. I know next to no one is reading it, and that's fine. I almost like it that way.

But back to writing. I need to start again. There was a time that I used to be almost decent. I was an English major in college, and took a couple of Creative Writing classes. Those were always my favorite. I'm not a great test taker, so sometimes school was a bit difficult for me. But I could always write.

In recent years, I've gotten away from it. My muse kept drifting off to places where I couldn't quite reach it. Every time I sat down to write, I just kept staring at a blank page. I had the most horrendous case of writer's block imaginable. It's so frustrating not being able to do something you love.

I always wanted a career in writing. The end goal has always been to have a published novel, but over the years I thought I might want to work in publishing. But then that never happened. I ended up in industry after industry, each of which further and further away from everything I thought I ever wanted. I took jobs just to have a job. I had bills to pay. If I wanted to move out, I needed rent money. I had things I wanted to buy and places I wanted to go. Turned out that chasing my dream wasn't very profitable. I've never had a career, just jobs. Most of which, jobs I couldn't stand.

But I've always been a bit of a dreamer. In school, people would say I had my head in the clouds. It wasn't ever meant as as compliment, but I still took it that way. The dreamers of the world are the people that make life so colorful. There's nothing wrong with dreams. Sometimes dreams are the only things that keep people going. So since I've always been a bit of a dreamer, I've never been able to forget writing. It's always in the back of my mind. Little stories come alive in my head, and I feel the urge to get them down so I don't forget them. Usually at really inopportune moments like in the middle of a meeting or at 3AM.

So I've decided I'm going to make the conscious effort to write more because if I stop writing altogether then I'm just giving up on a dream, and then I will have no one to blame but myself for never making it happen. And how bad would that suck to know that you possibly could have made it, but you didn't because you just called it quits.

I'm thinking it would suck pretty badly.