you can go with this, or you can go with that…

Hello, friend…

It’s been a hot minute since I last wrote (and I am making a mental note that I should not say “hot minute” ever again) but life has been busy & full. As hard as days can be, when I think back to what’s happened in the past two weeks alone?! I’m rich! Well, metaphorically speaking.

• We have a new member of the family!! My niece Elle! And she is calm and happy and has already been to brunch so we have her started off on the right foot.
• I have made my Chatelaine debut!! Read my piece here… https://www.chatelaine.com/living/real-life-stories/burned-out-quit/
• I am off to Montreal and NYC for stand up this weekend!
• My dad celebated his birthday and we feasted over yummy lobster
• Landed a sweet little writing assistant gig for next week!!

 

That’s not bad, not bad at all. AND YET… romantically… life is shit. When I am going to get this balance right?? When?? I keep getting notes from a guy who says he’s down with meeting me (mental note… do not say “he’s down” again) for cuddles but then gives no more info. It’s like, okay great! I’ll just let that float around and fly away… ugh. And also, he just wants to meet up and hug me? And then another guy saw no problem in my going to Oakville (I live in Toronto, it’s a bit of a hike) AT 1AM FOR OUR FIRST MEETING. No! NO!! Noooooo!!! Are you kidding me?? The distance isn’t a huge deal breaker, but the time. Of night. For a first meeting. Uh, no.

I’m just going to assume going to your house AFTER midnight in a city I don’t live in, something bad will happen.

ANYWAY.

I hate dating, I do. It’s like going on a continuous loop of job interviews for jobs you don’t really want but you need the money so you’ll suck it up for a bit. The truth is, I’d love to try things again with the last guy I was in a solid relationship with but I’m afraid to bring it up. I assume he’ll say no. One should never assume, but I’m doing it anyway.

I know I try too hard when it comes to dating, I know I do. I don’t know what I’m doing in the first place, but I definitely try too hard. I’m quirky, but I’m 41 and it’s WAY too late to change that about me. But I could absolutely try to tone things down in the over-achiever department.

ANYWAY. (mental note… you say that word too often, you’ve already said it twice in this blog and in caps.)

That’s life though, right? You take the good (new niece!), you take the bad (Oakville at 1am!)… you take them both and there you have the facts of life.

xo.

uber and the single girl

Hello, friend…

On a good day it’s hard enough being a single gal in Toronto. Either I get crap on online dating sites or get questioned by friends I haven’t seen in a while why I haven’t met anyone yet. It’s not for a lack of trying, maybe sometimes I try too hard, but nonetheless I’m single and YOU can figure out how to deal with it. I’d absolutely LOVE to be in love and find a great guy to put down roots with, but for now, it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. And deep down, I really hate this, but… it’s okay. It is what it is.

But what I had to deal with going to work today (Friday, as I start writing this) just was NOT cool. It was my first really REALLY bad experience with Uber.

Got picked up at the assigned meeting place, and quickly found my driver to be chatty and kind of quirky. And then he asked me if I was married. Now, this isn’t the worst question in the world but it can be a dicey one if asked by your taxi driver. I proceed to tell him that I’m not, I’m single and he proceeded to tell me that I must be so lonely and sad because there was no man to love me. Because my life can’t possibly mean anything if there was no one in it.

are you screaming at your laptop yet?

I tried to keep my calm as my blood pressure was boiling over, and told him that I’m trying but I have really bad luck when it comes to finding love. And he starts going on about how “that’s not right” and MY PERSONAL FAVE…. “you must be doing something wrong, you need to do something different because you’re doing something wrong”. As much as I wanted to scream at him to fuck the fuck off, I calmly asked him to stop talking about this as he was upsetting me. And then told him that I have a really awesome life, and I’d love someone to join in on the fun but for now all was okay. To which he replied “yeah, right”.

I was then informed of how much he missed his wife when she went away for two days and how easily he got her pregnant. I got out earlier than my scheduled stop as I was about to cry and/or punch this man in the face.

As I said, on a good day it’s hard enough being single in this city.

Uber heard from me today, you can trust me on that.

I’d like to think that if I need someone to drive me from Point A to Point B, I’m not going to get too much if ANY flack for my (lack of a) love life.

I’m off to bed now. Tomorrow morning I’m taking myself to breakfast, thankyouverymuch.

xo.

 

**UPDATE: Uber Customer Service has been incredibly kind and refunded the trip/lecture. I will give them credit for agreeing that I should never have experienced what I did today.

h is for honesty.

Hello, friend…

As I sit here on this Wednesday night with a mud mask on my face I am a) trying not to move my face too much and b) thinking a bit about a conversation had today. My friend is in town from out West and we met up for a catch-up. And while we sipped on some of the most potent coffees we’d had in a while, we talked about our love lives.

He had re-connected with someone recently, who showed an interest in seeing him sometime and then poof! Stopped responding once he set up a date. Either she had something else come up, or perhaps she suddenly became stuck underneath something heavy and could not reach a telephone. But it’s a common occurrence for those of us in the (dating) field. The R.M.I.A. : the romantic missing in action.

It happens now and then to all of us. I think. (Well, that’s at least how I take comfort in it.) Conversation begins, goes well, a time and place is suggested for a meeting spot and then Poof! They’re gone. It’s like we’ve suddenly asked the wrong question. We picked the wrong door number or something. And the truth is, as my friend and I agreed upon today, is that this person simply lost interest. It became work. They met someone else. Whatever. It’s always something.

So… why not just be honest and admit to that? Why is that some people think not returning calls or text messages is the more grown up way to behave? In the words of Charlie Brown… good grief.

Sure, there are certain times where honesty is NOT the better policy. Like the time you finally sleep with cute guy you’ve been seeing and the sex lasts 30 seconds? Not the time to be honest. Nope. Smile and sigh. Smile. And. Sigh.

But as often as I have rolled my eyes at the “I need to break this off to focus on my music” or “I’m taking a break from dating” (um, you just asked me out for a coffee… but okay. whatever.) As often as I have heard that, I sort of  appreciate the effort made to come up with something. It all goes back to just not being that into me, I get it!  But why is it so hard for us to just say that… why do we make it sound like dating person X requires copious amounts of work and study. I’m not a mid-term for crying out loud.

I guess we can blame that first person to opt out of a date due to their need to wash their hair. Though perhaps they had some sort of freakish scalp issue… (shrugs)

xo.