Vegas March 2011

Something is Surfacing

There are many things surfacing in my life right now that are really positive and moving me forward. I recently attended my friend Bennett's dinner party that examined how individuals can really make 2011 their best year yet for growth and development. Many people at the dinner party would stand up and state their intentions for 2011 to the group and the group would offer input into how they could meet their goals.

My biggest goal for 2011 is to love myself completely and unconditionally. I have found that even through my years of commitment to my growth as a woman and attempts at complete self love without fear or anxiety interfering with this love, I still struggle to know this for myself. I have many things to be confident about. I have a great career that I absolutely love. My grandfather before he passed had said to me what a blessing that is and how fortunate I am to love what I do for a living. I've always considered that to be a no brainer since a majority of our adult lives is spent at work. I have a positive outlook on life and have the ability to overcome many difficult obstacles. I am very communicative and love to support the people I love in my life. I have fantastic friends and family who I am completely dedicated to. I am happy, bubbly, and very energetic. When I'm in a relationship, I'm committed and I'm a great partner on all levels. I'm beautiful but the beauty goes beyond the face and body. I consider myself to be an intelligent human being who strives to continue learning. I am also a spiritual person which is something I am typically private about but does impact my ability to stay positive and encourage the people I interact with to be better people. I am artist and sold two paintings in the last year. There are many good things about me that would say I shouldn't have any problem with loving myself.

The struggle for self love exists because of rooted historical issues. I know what these issues are and I continue to work through them in various outlets. I have learned great coping methods in handling these situations and how to interact with these people when needed. I have established healthy boundaries and discovered that I don't need to repeat any relationship that I was a witness to growing up. I can have healthy relationships with men. Even as I write this, I know I am still working through this and I value the process and the journey I am undertaking. I am a work in progress, but I guess so is everyone else.

After Bennett's dinner party, I started to date some quality people. Even if the relationships do or do not work in any of these instances, I have discovered that I too can love myself and through this love attract individuals that love me in ways that I deserve to be loved. The love doesn't have to be romantically based or relationship based. This love is like a constant flow of energy that just continues to flow through me and everyone I make contact with. After coming from a place of sadness and self-loathing, I'm learning to love myself in all my forms, good or not so good. I may not be perfect but I'm great at being me which is a worthwhile person to love. So as I love myself and re-discover these feelings again, I know that there is someone out there who will be very fortunate to share this love and this woman when I'm ready. Until then I will continue to love me, to make peace with myself, and know I am an amazing woman.

The Compulsive Liar

I continued to look at other potential guys on Match.com and started to date a computer techy guy whom when I first started emailing, was 35 years old. We went through 4 cycles of responding and receiving emails before our first date. We appeared to like the same kind of bands like Travis and Andrew Bird. Things appeared to be going well via email.

Our first date consisted of drinks at Cesars in Oakland, dinner at one of my favorite Italian places on Piedmont Avenue and drinks at my local tiki bar where we shared our first kiss. Things looked good, he appeared to be a musician on the side as part of a Weezers cover band. He asked if I liked Weezer and I explained my corky story of my friend Sean and I listening to the songs over and over again to know all the lyrics when the blue album came out. Our initial connection was fun and flirty for the most part.

After two weeks of dating, we started talking about our ages and I said "Well you are only 35 years old, it's not like you are ancient." He looks at me with a serious look and says "Carolyn, I'm 41 years old." I demand him to pull out his driver's license to confirm and sure enough, he's 41. He tries to pretend that he told me on our first date, pretending like he didn't lie about it. I assure him that I would have remembered that conversation, I have an excellent memory. I ask him why he lied and he says that girls like me won't even consider him because of his age. I explain that this is not true, that honesty is the best policy. To lie about something as silly as your age and be comfortable with that, makes me wonder what other things are you comfortable with lying about?

Later I went through my emails from him from Match.com and find that after each email where he started with 35 years old, he would bump up his age by two years on his profile. By the time, he finished his last email, he was at his age of 41 years old.

A couple of weeks later, we are having appetizers at my local pub when a subject comes up of lying again but about things such as how many partners have you slept with. He gets really defensive and says that lying to your partner about things like that is necessary to avoid hurting the other person. He then explains that if he ever cheats on a girl that he is with, that he would never tell her because what's the point in hurting the person with that information? Then he tells me his number is in the ballpark of 60-80 people and that he can't keep track of all the girls.

The next day, I call him and end it right here. Someone who feels so comfortable lying about things concerns me, even with my history aside.

The Persian

Continuing to see if Match.com could provide better options, I met a guy whom I like to call the "Persian." The Persian began emailing me and before I knew it, we had planned our first date to have dinner in the city. The night before, he calls me and asks that instead of going to dinner, would I be interested in wine tasting in Napa Valley with him and a couple of friends. I'm pretty flexible for the most part and said sure. He plans to pick me up at 11:30.

At 11:45, he is at my apartment and appears to have thick, dark framed glasses. I have to admit that I am a sucker for boys with glasses. Whenever the girls and I get together to go dancing, I'm always eyeing the one with glasses. Although recently I have come to realize that there are geeks and nerds with thick framed glasses and there are those who are pretending to fake the nerdiness, in hopes of meeting girls like me. He appeared to be one of those.

I jump in the car and there are two other people in the car, a guy friend of his from Duke University and lady friend of theirs who they met from work. The lady friend asks, "Is this where you live?" and I say yes. The guys poke fun at her, saying why would you ask that question, and she says "Well, she could of come from another guy's apartment from a one-night stand." Shocked, I say "I'm much more classier than that." The car roars with laughter and continues to dart jokes at her.

The date continues with her snarky humor and me poking back at her and before I know it, she wants to call me her best friend. The Persian who is driving, is getting a kick out of this and keeps eyeing me from the rear view mirror. We make it to our first winery, a place that the lady friend recommended and has "connections". We walked in and she manages to negotiate some discounted tasting tickets and a tour of the cellar but not because of her "connections". As the Persian and I trail behind the tour, him and I share a first kiss in the cave. Both of us feel a buzz feeling and I don't think it was the wine. We eventually catch up with the tour and decided to head back to the city for dinner and for the Persian to grab his keys to his new apartment in the Russian Hill District of San Francisco. 

We decide to go to this wonderful sushi place with the two friends and after we were finished, the guys were becoming tired of their lady friend who was becoming slightly jealous of the boys and their easy spending on dinner and wine tasting. We drop her off in the Mission but she refuses to show them where she lives, so I imagine we dropped her off a couple of blocks from her home.

Then we continued our night with dancing in the city at this place in SoHo district. For the most part, the Persian and I had very good chemistry. We decide to meet up the next day at his place for dinner and his brothers come over with their girlfriends. Overall, it was a great couple of dates, despite the corky lady friend.

The following weekend, we went to this fun event called Brazil at the Madrone Hotel. I wore my little red dress with my funky retro heels. We make our way over to the place with another friend of his and we were also meeting a couple there, later on. The boys decide to order bottle service which I'm not a fan of but at this point, I am not about to argue with them. Their choice, not mine. We start to drink and the couple stops by.  The Persian and I start dancing but I do notice that his friend is getting annoyed that he is alone. The Persian tries to perk up his friend by walking around the club to find other potential girls. The Persian had been drinking too much and I begin to wonder that he is getting too flirty with the other girls at the club. I look over from across the room to see his arm is around one girl at one point and then he was dancing with another later on. When he comes back and I explain I don't feel comfortable with his flirtation with other girls, he argues that he is being a good wingman to his other buddy who was solo that night. I explain that his buddy can take care of himself. He gets testy with me, claiming I'm a jealous type. I don't consider myself a jealous type but given the dynamics of being on my own with him and his friends, I was feeling uncomfortable watching the guy I'm dating flaunt himself all over the club with other girls. As we are heading over to the bar for water, we run into my friend Bennett in passing. The Persian gets extremely heated and jealous. He keeps bringing up Bennett throughout the night as an excuse for his flirtation with other girls. I become extremely annoyed and walk away at certain times so I don't smack him.

The next day over the phone, he tries to blame me for the entire night. I will admit to feeling sensitive but I don't think I was wrong in feeling the way I did. A man should know not to leave his lady like that especially on the first couple of weeks of dating. If you're interested in a girl, you make it clear with your actions. His actions demonstrated a lack of awareness and attentiveness to the woman he was supposed to be with. His buddy was the excuse to flirt with other girls, which is just an excuse. The next week the Persian would call to make plans but explain just how "busy" he was. I continued to ignore him because I was frustrated. Finally after dinner one night, he admits to dating different girls after the Brazil event. I break it off because I was already feeling like this wasn't right, that the dating wasn't going anywhere. 

We continued to try and see if this could work even after the break up, but there were other things that got in the way of us working. The Persian didn't own a car (the car for the wine tasting was his brothers) and refused to take public transportation to my apartment. I always had to drive over there for anything if I wanted to see him. He didn't have a job and had plenty of free time on his hands, which concerned me that he was spending money so freely. He was living off the packaged deal that his last job offered him before firing him. He had no interest to start working. He did not get along with any of his ex-girlfriends which I found to be strange. I have some ex-boyfriends that I consider to be good friends. He never appeared to be interested in my personal hobbies or qualities. It just felt off.  It ended when I realized when there was no point in trying. The minute I stopped calling him, he never called me. I knew at that point that I was just not that into him.

Law School Professor

After the Match.com excursion, I decided that meeting people in person was better than the online mystery. Throughout the year, I did date some people that I prefer not to name off in order to protect their identity. Their relationships fit my life at that time and I am not about to disclose how it was because it would take away a sense of meaningfulness to the relationships.

A year later, I found myself polishing off my Match.com profile, where I met my good friend Bennett. He had emailed me saying how he was interested in me. I emailed back but didn't hear back from him for a month. When I got his email, he seemed to be dating many girls, given the context of the email, so I slightly ignored him. Then I ran into him walking down Lakeshore avenue for my traditional Sunday afternoon coffee. He looked at me and both of us recognized each other from our profiles. We immediately became instant friends. He has become my mentor for opposite sex advise and opinions on corky boys and I have appreciated his hour long calls of hatching out the female and male perspectives. 

As I re-entered Match.com, one guy in particular started to email me before Christmas that caught my eye. He was a law school professor for a local university and appeared to be very passionate about his work and life. We met for coffee on a very rainy day in Berkeley and both of us had hit it off and decided for a second date that weekend. I took Bart to his home in the city where we shared an umbrella in the rain to a tea and dumpling restaurant. As he was giving me a tour of the house, we shared a passionate kiss in the hallway. We sat by the fireplace for three hours, talking politics and personal stories, while sneaking kisses in-between witty banter. I remember leaving his home, late at night. After our second date, he then offered to pick me up from the airport when I came back from Austin. He brought me muffins and bananas after my flight and we spent the day at his home, watching old movies, ordering take out and cuddling near the fireplace. Not bad for romantic dates. 

New Years Eve was drawing near and for whatever reason, I always get very nervous around my birthday. I am not a planner of my own events and I would rather plan someone's birthday rather than my own. Plus, a friend of mine was in town to help celebrate my birthday. As I am trying to coordinate with everyone, I find out that the law school professor is sick and won't be able to meet with me for drinks. This is fine with me, given that we just met and I can't really expect him to do too much for my birthday. On my actual birthday, he attempted to come out with us for dinner but was very sick and quiet. I understood completely.

After a couple of days, I received word from him via email that after having a conversation with his friend, Violet (whom I later found out was Violet Blue, SF Chronicle sex columnist and blogger, a woman I admire) he decided that we were both not in the same place in our lives. He offered to explain it further over the phone once he felt better, but at that point it felt unnecessary.  While I enjoyed our time together, I always kept questioning things and I never felt completely comfortable with him, like I was waiting for him to leave.  Maybe it has something to do with my previous relationships but at that point in my life, I had a hard time believing that I deserved something that good. He wasn't perfect, he had his own issues with trust and I felt like he avoided specific topics because he was just as scared as I was. For me, I felt like I was flawed and not ready for something serious.

He continued to occasionally look at my profile and email me saying that I had a nice profile picture. I was willing to leave it alone, given that he wasn't interested in me.  I found that despite myself, it was a success that I allowed myself to open up to him even if it didn't work out. While I feel completely comfortable opening up with friends who are like family, feeling comfortable opening up to a guy that I am romantically involved with will take some time. It's about finding the right guy to experience that with and finding that it is mutual for both people. I also realize I don't want to get caught up in the romantic idealistic moments which I recognize I have a tendency to do, disguising love for this image of love that is captivating in movies and songs. A romantic setting, a great kiss, and good conversation might appear to create this image of possible relationship material but it should go deeper than that. 

Owls Together

So I just finished my most recent painting "Owls Together." This one was inspired by my dear friend Bonnie. I really enjoy painting child-like animals and things so I might start a collection of child friendly paintings just for fun :)

Don't let the Crazy out in the beginning :)

After two months of flirting with boys at bars and receiving some wanted and unwanted attention, I decided to try my luck at the dating website, Match.com. I felt that paying for a dating membership would eliminate some of the odd balls. I was beginning to realize that some of the guys (not all of them) that  I was interested in were not of the quality standards that I was looking for. This began my experience with Match.com.

My first date from Match.com involved meeting at a coffee place in my neighborhood. It was a beautiful day outside so we sat at one of the tables that lines up on the side of the coffee house. He appeared to have his head on his shoulders, male, 39 years old, finishing his masters degree in Family and Marriage counseling at a local university. I enjoyed talking with him about my experiences as a behavioral therapist and he entertained me with his internship, working at a school during the Fall semester. His goal once he finished school was to teach men about intimacy and having group counseling for men. I felt like both of us shared an interest in self growth and becoming better people. He also seemed to enjoy mediation which was something I was working on.

The second date occurred about a week later, starting with dinner at this extremely organic, hippie restaurant where I felt like I was eating cardboard. As you can tell, this was his choice but I wasn't about to hold that against him ;) We decided to go back to my place for boardgames and some tea. As we entered my home, I took off my shoes because my carpet was fairly new and I didn't want to get it dirty. As we played boardgames at my coffee table, I didn't notice anything particular about him but I got the impression that he did want to kiss me but lost the nerve. We hugged goodbye and that night I received an email from him that started like this:

"Dear Carolyn, It was great to see you tonight. I look forward to our next date on Tuesday night. I will bring the wine. By the way, I really wanted to caress your feet..."

Ignoring the last part of his email, I started to respond with "I look forward to meeting with you." As I was responding to his email, he IM'ed me, saying hello. The conversation started off normal with how was your day, great, thanks. Then it turned ugly pretty quickly. He asked "What did you think of my email?" and I continued to ignore the last part of the email with, dinner sounds great on Tuesday night, I look forward to seeing you. Then he pressed on, asking "What did you think about the last part of my email?" Surprised (to say the least) I responded with "If it was the right time and place, then yes, that might work, but given that we haven't even kissed yet I would say that the timing was off." He responded with "Oh, you're turning me on!" As though that wasn't creepy enough and his response seeming like he may have been confused about what I just said, he then asked "Carolyn, do you consider yourself to be aggressive?"

Ready to run for the hills, I responded with "Assertive yes, Aggressive no." As though he couldn't be any more creepier than a chester molester, he pushed my envelope with "be aggressive next time".

At this point, I deleted my original email and began to rewrite my email to say, "Thanks for the last two dates but I don't think we are a match. I wish you the best of luck in finding what you are looking for. Sincerely, Carolyn" Click, send.

Ten minutes later I received an email that read in capitals "WAS IT THE FOOT FETISH PART?"

I ignored it, given that I had said what I needed to say. There was nothing more I could do to make it more clear that I was all finished was his type of flirtation and games. A couple days later, I receive yet another email at 11 o'clock at night saying, he would really like to kiss me and wondered if we could have a make out session right now. I ignored that email as well, refusing to participate in this conversation. Two days later, another email pops up from him, saying one word: Sorry.

A month passes and ANOTHER email pops up from him, titled "Games" and reading "Wanna play again?"

I responded with "Please don't contact me, don't call me or don't email me. Carolyn"

As though this story couldn't get any creepier, I received an email from him a YEAR later, saying happy one year anniversary and that he wished me the best. Thanks but no thanks, Mr. Foot Fetish but I don't find creepiness to be attractive. The end.