Archive for October, 2012

Once you hit your 30’s, dating for any lengthy period of time and then breaking up takes even more of a toll on you then it did when you were an angst-ridden teenager. When you’re in high school or college, one year felt like an eternity and a break-up was “literally” the end of the world, when of course in retrospect it was barely a drop in life’s bucket. But when you’re 30+ years old, a one year relationship truly does feel like an eternity… especially when it ends in heartbreak. You’ve spent one year (or more) at “prime” marrying-age with a partner who didn’t end up being who you thought he or she was. Or the relationship didn’t end up going in the direction you hoped when you entered into it. Most people start dating with a more serious mindset in their 30’s because they’re no longer looking for someone to fool around with, but to spend the rest of their lives with. After you dedicate your time, energy, hopes and dreams to that person — and it ends — you’re upset that it wasn’t “the one” and even more upset that you “wasted” your time.

It’s definitely tougher to absorb the shock of a break-up after 30, but you must try to see it as a learning opportunity otherwise you will go sink into a depression which will make dating that much more difficult. Take some time to think about the person you were before this last relationship and how much better of a person you are now. Whether it’s because you are more compassionate or more patient, whether it’s because your former partner taught you a new skill or motivated you in your career, or whether it’s because you now know that green eyes and flat abs are not as important as morals and values, you are better than you were before. You are. With age comes wisdom. And if you don’t feel like you learned anything about yourself during the course of the relationship then try to learn something about yourself during the course of the break-up. And be double-thankful that you are out of that relationship because if that partner wasn’t making you become a better person then you didn’t need to be with him or her anyways.

I don’t think I will ever be comfortable. I have moments of comfort. Lying in bed after a long day of work. Lying in bed after a long day of lying in bed. Lying in bed between different times that I’m lying in bed.

It’s not in my nature to be comfortable. I know too much. I know what it’s like to be miserable, and I know that no matter how happy I may feel, misery is close by. I think I’ve found a medium between the two. I say that now, but in an hour I may be curled up in the corner of my room. I probably won’t, though, because I wrote the previous sentence an hour ago, and I’m still sitting at my desk, and I don’t actually have nervous breakdowns in corners. I think that’s the medium I’ve found. Fearing the worst, and accepting the ordinary.

But would you rather break down from anxiety or be anxious about breaking down? I’ve chosen the former over the past few years, and it’s been for the better. Anxious people are a lot more successful than people that act on that anxiety. I think, for example, that Woody Allen’s career path has had much more of an upward trajectory than that of Howard Hughes. I don’t think that either men have ever felt comfortable, but for whatever combination of reasons, one was fortunate enough to just worry about his worrying rather than acting on it.

My blog posts have veered way too far from topics related to dating. On the same token, they really haven’t at all. It took me a very long time to condition myself to act properly while out with a woman. Now, of course, this did not exist within the vacuum of a series of horrible dates. It was a culmination of my weight loss, heightened self-cognition, life-changing events, and other factors that gradually helped me change the way I conduct myself around others. My personality is the same, and I still generally say the same things, which are mostly awful things. However, the way that I say them, as well as my calmer demeanor and attentiveness to my surroundings, which allow me to act appropriately in different situations, have really helped me find someone great. Two years ago, if a woman asked what I did that day, I would reply quickly and loudly with some self-deprecating diatribe that probably sounded like a monologue from Gilmore Girls if Lorelai hated herself and had severe weight issues that she was not aware of. Today, I would simply say, ‘I woke up, went to work, and then came here.’ It’s a lot more boring, but it doesn’t radiate self-hatred and leaves no room for immediate rejection.

1. Mila’s New Title

Esquire magazine has just named their pick for the “Sexiest Woman Alive” and the title goes to actress Mila Kunis. The 29-year-old hookup actress (and voice of Meg on Family Guy) has already earned comparable beauty accolades. Last year, GQ named her “Knockout of the Year” and Men’s Health proclaimed her one of the “100 Hottest Women of All Time.”

In an interview with Esquire, she talks about fleeing her native Ukraine with her family in 1991, when she was just 8, to escape rampant anti-Semitism — though she thinks the story was “made into something bigger than it needs to be.”

“My parents should sit down and talk about it,” she says. “They’re the ones who went through hell and back, who gave everything up. I didn’t do anything. I was eight years old, and I tagged along.”

2. Lena Dunham Inks New Deal

The bidding war is over and the big winner of Lena Dunham’s next project will be Random House. The book publisher has acquired the 26-year-old actress and writer’s new essay collection, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s Learned, for more than $3.5 million, The New York Times reports.

Dunham, whose mother is hookup, is the 26-year-old filmmaker and creator of the HBO show Girls. Random House describes the book as “in the tradition of Helen Gurley Brown, David Sedaris, and Nora Ephron,” with “frank and funny advice on everything from sex to eating to traveling the world.”

3. Gwyneth Turns Forty

Gwyneth Paltrow is proving that forty is the new thirty. The actress, whose father was hookup, celebrated her fortieth birthday over the weekend with a quiet, but star-studded party at the Upper East Side Italian eatery Elio in NYC Friday night.

Us Weekly reports the guest list included Beyonce, Kristen Wiig and Cameron Diaz. Other famous Jews in attendance were Jake Gyllenhaal, Chelsea Handler and the The Beastie Boys’ Mike D.

Paltrow officially turned 40 on September 27. “I was really worried about it, leading up to the day, but now I feel really happy and content with my life,” the Academy Award winner shared. “I’m excited to move into the next phase. It’s much more exciting than I thought it would be.”

Sure, everyone wants both, but if you can’t have both which would you prefer – spice or nice? What I’ve discovered is that you want your spouse to be a good person, a nice person. Do you need to be drooling over your spouse in 25 years? No, you need to be with a spouse who will be wiping your drool in 50 years instead. If there’s still physical and sexual attraction when you’re old and wrinkled then that’s absolutely amazing! But more often than not, looks fade. You need to have created a connection that is deeper than skin. When you’re fighting and not getting along and life gets in the way, you need to have something that will bind you together. Spice isn’t the ingredient you’ll need.

Technology often makes you sound like a complete idiot. It’s not always your fault, but people don’t always read our emails or text messages as we intended them to. Add to that stupid spelling errors and auto correct mistakes and suddenly we appear uneducated. Between your 100hookup profile, emails and text messages there are a lot of opportunities for your keyboard to cock-block your well-intended advances. Don’t skimp on characters when you’re still dating as people don’t yet know that you actually can spell (ie. How u doin’?). Even if you don’t have any typos you still should be careful about using sarcasm or even flirtation in your messages, until the receiver knows your personality. Don’t assume the receiver will read your message the same way you anticipated. Lesson: reread your profile, emails and texts before sending to make sure that it is painfully obvious what you are trying to say. Later you can let your fat thumbs and silly moods come across in your communications.

This happens to be my last post on JBlog. I have loved sharing the best of my dating stories, even the ones that make me cringe and want to move far, far away from NYC. But I’ve decided to take a break from online dating for the moment. And since my 100hookup subscription ends on October 15th, I have determined I have two solid options for how to use my last two weeks here. I could spend my time looking at profiles of guys I have previously seen, talked to, or maybe even dated. (Dude, do you seriously not remember the look I gave you when you ordered your second virgin Shirley Temple of the night?) Or I could offer up a date with myself and see who rises to the opportunity. Truthfully, the latter sounded like the more fun option…but don’t worry, I won’t blog about it (yet).

So if after reading the last 3 months of my dating stories, you have yet to find yourself running for the hills, battening down the hatches, or wondering what kind of guy would ever want to keep me around – this is your chance to ask me out. I should lay out some ground rules so I don’t find myself instantly regretting this offer. You must be: male, age 25-30(ish) and living in NYC. You must be kind, fun, silly, smart, and know better than to order a Shirley Temple without knowing that I will immediately text my friends about it. If that all of the above sounds like you, feel free to email me at [email protected] and tell me why you think we should go out.

To all of you on 100hookup, I wish you only the best of luck in your dating endeavors. May you always find humor in your dates, the good, the bad, and the hilarious. And whatever you do, don’t let the schmucks get you down.

xx

I can’t watch the presidential debate tonight because Comcast has an ‘outage’. If you have never heard of Comcast, please remain in your cave of ignorant bliss. If you have never heard of an ‘outage’, then you have probably also never heard of Comcast, and should still stay in your cave.

I was debating about whether or not to write a post about a debate that I can’t watch, while Comcast was simultaneously debating with itself how angry it can make its customers before the customers debate whether or not to either sign up for AT&T instead or have a classic first world panic attack because they can’t watch their television for one evening in their air-conditioned homes, while on full stomachs. I wanted to write about the debate while watching it even though I don’t really care much about politics anymore. I understand caring about issues, but ‘politics’ and ‘issues’ are two completely separate things, and are not affected by each other. Policy change is such a slow, tedious process, that no matter who gets elected, the same changes will eventually happen over a long period of time due to the changing nature of society itself, not one person in power for four years. No matter who gets elected, people will still hate minorities, I will still have to get up every morning at 6 am, and we will all still eventually die.

I stopped caring about politics when I stopped caring about people who care about politics. They’re mostly self-serving. That’s not to say I’m not. I love serving myself. I do so many things for myself. However, while around others, I pretend to be selfless. Oprah once said that there’s a thin line between being nice and a pushover. That was the moment I realized that I wasn’t actually nice. That was also the moment I realized that I spend every afternoon sitting by myself watching Oprah.

So now I can’t write about the debate, which is okay, because I don’t care at all. Romney said something, and then Obama argued with that thing, and then the moderator said he was over his time limit, but then Obama kept talking, anyway. Then Romney started talking, and the moderator said it wasn’t his turn, but then Romney argued that it’s only fair because Obama went over his time limit. Then news people analyzed how angry Romney was the whole time because his brow was furrowed for like five seconds. Also, they noticed that Obama seemed way too arrogant because he referred to Romney as ‘My Opponent’ instead of ‘Mitt Romney’. Then it all became irrelevant when the world ended in three months.

Everyone has that friend whom you think of as “just a friend.” They accompany you out, you grab a bite to eat, you laugh, you’re there for each other, but for some reason you just don’t look at each other as anything more than a friend. You have the same values, are both single and are both looking. You get along fabulously, you enjoy each other’s company and you sometimes feel a little jealous when your friend introduces you to their latest date.

Have you ever attempted a romance with this friend? Have you ever looked at this friend with anything more than amiable feelings? Everyone has this vision of who they think they want, but when you have this amazing friendship with someone you trust then why not at least even consider the idea for a fleeting second? He or she may not have the exact physical attributes that you believe you want, but oftentimes attraction grows out of connection. If there isn’t any chemistry, then ignore this notion and don’t risk the friendship.

But if you can possibly see something really spectacular coming out of the relationship then make a few suggestive gestures. Touch his or her arm when you laugh, make eye contact and smile, linger a bit longer when you hug hello and goodbye, and see if any of it is reciprocated. Then, before it goes any further, talk about it. It could be the biggest risk you ever took resulting in the biggest reward.

Birthdays were just the best up to the year 2003. Then Facebook got invented. Birthdays then became something else. Something dark. Each year gets progressively worse. On my first Facebook birthday, I got maybe ten posts, or whatever ‘posts’ were back in like 2004, wishing me a ‘Happy Birthday’. People that I didn’t even realize existed, much less liked me, were suddenly very much invested in the campaign for me to have a great day.

Each year, as Facebook grew, and Facebook birthday notification systems became increasingly more self-aware, I would get more posts. However, all good things must end, and eventually I plateaued at about fifty. I initially thought that this was a lot, until I started noticing other people’s posts during their birthdays. I would have been perfectly okay with other people receiving more posts. However, people receiving more posts than me were terrible. Childhood bullies, people who unironically wear visors, ex-girlfriends, etc. Maybe people post on these assholes’ walls because they’re scared they’ll get murdered if they don’t. Either way, this made my birthday somewhat of a bummer. Also, I never post on other people’s walls on their birthdays, which not only makes me undeserving of any birthday praise, but also a hypocritical ass like my other friends who get so much more birthday love.

Now, I realize that birthday notifications don’t mean anything. Sure, a few good friends will post on your wall, and that’s great. However, the majority of your birthday posts are from people you haven’t seen in twenty years who write the same thing on every one of their friends’ walls during every one of their birthdays. I realize that writing this post is going to cost me like 30 Facebook birthday notifications next year. I also realize that it won’t at all because nobody reads this, and if people do, it’s damn sure not people I haven’t seen for the vast majority of my life. To all of my Facebook friends who have a birthday on October 2, Happy Birthday!

1. Amanda Bynes Pleads Not Guilty

Amanda Bynes may not have been present during a court hearing in southern California for her two hit-and-run charges last Thursday, but her lawyer pleaded not guilty on her behalf. The court hearing stems from two separate incidents on April 10 and Aug. 4. However, an L.A. Superior Court judge said the hookup actress will need to show up for her next court date on October 19.

Bynes is reportedly in New York right now. According to the LA Times, she said she would rather be in the Big Apple than Los Angeles because she’s tired of being followed by the paparazzi in Tinseltown. Bynes, who is 26 years old, also faces a DUI charge and two counts of driving with a suspended license.

2. Gene Simmons Passes On His Musical Abilities to Daughter Sophie

Gene Simmons’ daughter Sophie may be following in her famous father’s footsteps. The 19-year-old took to The X Factor stage in San Francisco last week, wowing two out of the four judges.

The young singer gave a humble rendition of Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love,” a performance that left judges L.A. Reid and Demi Lovato wanting more, but seemed to impress Britney Spears and Simon Cowell. Despite the mixed reviews, Sophie was allowed to stay in for another round.

While Sophie was happy to move forward on the show, other contestants were not so excited by the idea. One contestant argued that Sophie wouldn’t have made the cut if not for her famous hookup rocker father.

3. Green Light for Greenberg

hookup-American baseball player Adam Greenberg has signed a one-day contract with the Miami Marlins, and will play tomorrow against the NY Mets after being out of the game for more than seven years.

Greenberg’s debut appearance in the majors was on July 9, 2005. At that time he played for the Chicago Cubs (and actually played against the Marlins)! He only faced one single pitch though and never played again because a 92 MPH fastball hit him in the head – and changed his life forever – during his only MLB plate appearance. Greenberg has struggled with bouts of vertigo, vision issues, and post-concussion syndrome ever since.

Now 31, Greenberg is getting an opportunity to stand in the batter’s box again from the team who knocked him out of it seven years before. The Miami Marlins received approval from MLB to give Greenberg a plate appearance tomorrow during Miami’s home game against the New York Mets.