We Used to Deal...

Ever heard of this term, ever used this term before? You probably have and didn't know it, so let me inform you or refresh your memory.

I believe that this term varies for different ethnicities. White people would probably universally rephrase this term as "we dated". Even if this term does not technically mean date, even if they just screwed and hung out, they say date. When they say this is my ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, this is usually a more definitive term of the relationship. We, of the minority persuasion, if we used to "see" a particular person, or screw said person for a period time, in either our past and our present, we usually use the term: "I deal with her/We used to deal". To put it more clearly, seeing someone of the opposite sex without it ever getting to relationship status.

How in the world does this happen that you end up "dealing" with somebody? Well, it's easy really. The most common example is if you meet someone that you're only sexually attracted to, not mentally attracted to. Another reason is if you meet someone who you are both mentally and sexually attracted to, but for some reason whether it's your fault or the others' fault, you never actually end up getting together. Affairs are the most popular example of this.

Some of you would never ever settle for "dealing" with somebody. It's all or nothing for you. That's great, stay that way. For the rest of us, there are some bumps in the road. I'll take myself for example, I dealt with someone off and on for 8 years. And I dated other people in between. Nasty, huh? Well, I am guilty of the second reason listed above. We'll call it an affair. Truth be told, I made it way more complicated than it had to be because of the feelings on my end, and talked myself out of a lot of relationships in the mean time. But when the relationships didn't work out, I never really let myself heal because he was always there being my psuedo-boyfriend. I also "dealt" with those other guys to make him jealous. Not good.

I met this lady who is my hairdresser's client. She is 46 and a successful HR manager with no children. She's never had a real relationship, any man she dated only "dealt" with her. In fact, the man that she said she was in love with informed her he was in love with someone else. A drug addict in fact. He recently called 46, so she can help his new woman get a job so she can get her life back on track. He said he didn't understand why she was so upset since he was never actually her boyfriend. She was clearly devastated when she was telling this story, and her story has officially become my worst nightmare.

I've "dealt with" a lot of people in my life. This is because of a combination of commitment issues, low self-esteem, and just plain old not knowing what I want. Now that I'm in my 30's, I realize now that there's actually going to be a lot of work on my part to get what I want, hence me rebooting this blog. I'm not saying, not deal with people, dealing is fine. It gets your feet wet. But put a time limit on it, a short one. Like a month. This is not enough time to get to know somebody, true, but it is enough time for you to make a checklist to evaluate if you want to continue for another month.

Single People with Married Friends.

I made this vow with myself earlier this year, or maybe this week that I need to get out more, so I have genuinely made a concerted effort to have plans made every weekend. Plans not necessarily meaning going out to a club, but just getting out period. On tap this weekend, dinner and kareoke with my two cousins.

Now I live in Los Angeles and she lives in Orange County, so the place where we usually end up meeting is Long Beach or rather Lakewood. Ugh. For those of you who are not familiar with southern California, no matter how much you absolutely hate LA, it's still better than living in Long Beach.

I say all that to say this, Lakewood is er..well...not my speed. The night started off like this. My cousin is married, and my other one is engaged, I'm the only single one. A fact that I really didn't deem as important as much as I did last night. When single people have married friends that they go out with, you know what they do? They flirt like hell with who ever single comes by and when the single man passes them by, they pass them off to their desperate single friend. Modify that times ten when their drunk.

So we get to the restaurant, not even five minutes after we sit down, some guy comes over and starts talking to us. Not hitting on us, but he was really "entertaining". Long story short, he was basically throwing out his fishing line to see who he could catch. Very flattering.

My cousin immediately starts flirting with him, and makes sure she points me out as the single one. His eyes widened. So I had to let him down gently and take his business card in order to save face. I told her very nicely to back off when we there.

We get to kareoke. I genuinely go to this little dive bar to enjoy watching the people get drunk and make an fool out of themselves on stage. So this guy sits down right next to us and offers to buy us our drinks. At first he seemed very nice, but once again I wasn't really in the mood for getting someone's number. As the night went on my cousin got more drunk and proceeds to kick me and keeps suggesting that I get his number. The guy as the night wore on proved to be another creepy attention whore. Stalker; clingy like. Talking about marriage and kids within the first five minutes of meeting. If you are single, you can spot these things very quickly. I ended up doing something out of character and giving him my number because of my cousin's big mouth, and I genuinely felt bad that he'd been led on so much by her. I had no intention of answering the phone when he called. Mean, but I don't believe in even letting someone take me out on a date and spend money on me when I have no intention of dating them on the regular. I just think that's rude.

Anyway, my cousin and I are due for a talk. We'll see how it goes. Not mad, but this journey is hard enough on my own without someone who doesn't understad what you're going through making it more complicated.

I gave my number late late week to a guy who seemed very disappointed that I wouldn't let him come over to my house at 9:00 at night, roughly one hour after meeting him. Times are looking up.

OK Cupid.

I'm starting to think this dating blog is not such a good idea, since hmmm..., I don't know, nobody wants to talk to me?
My friend, who is usually about is lonely as I am met the current guy she's dating someone off of OK Cupid, the free dating site? Ugh. I'll try it.
I have no qualms against online dating, it's kind of the way to go now...but OK Cupid is kind of full of losers. But what do I know, right.
So I've been on here for an hour, put a picture up and everything, just to see if someone would even talk to me. OK, two hours....OK, so I'm still technically logged on. Nothing.

I went on match.com the other day and had a little better luck. I did the free trial thing and after one day got 7 emails. So when my blackberry kept blowing up of all these menses that wanted to talk to me, can't read them. One month of service. $40.

I can't justify doing that yet, I'm desperate but not quite starving, but it's been a year, and I'm trying so we'll see.