Men have ESP

Over the past three years I have become convinced of something. Some people will be skeptical. Others will directly say I’m full of it, but, ladies, read this and think about how many times in your life this has happened to you. I’ll start with a little story about myself.

In the past year, specifically in the nine months of my junior year of college, my life has been filled with a parade of men (See my Parade of Men post, if you’re missing the reference. Although according to one of my best friends, my taste has vastly improved over this amount of time but that’s beside the point.) Because of the fact that there had indeed been a parade of men, I felt compelled to instigate a “man fast”, if you will, starting as soon as I left school for summer vacation.

True, my options were going to take a drastic decline in numbers anyway due to this temporary change in location.

However, I had just finished declaring my resolution to my roommates and not five minutes later I got a text from the one guy who could tempt me to break it. This seemed like evidence enough for me if I hadn’t already been convinced of this one fact:

Men have ESP.

There has got to be some sixth sense, some mechanism in their brain, a metaphorical light bulb that instantaneously turns on or an alarm that blares to life to let them know: we’ve been thinking of you randomly; your name came up in conversation for the first time in a year; we’re moving on and found someone else; or, in my case, I’m taking a vacation, a three month hiatus from men. This is the exact moment a man will call, text, pass you on the street, Facebook inbox, or email us. In other words, they’ll break the silence you’ve had between you for however many months or year it has been since you last spoke.

I’m not the only one who thinks this or believes it to be true. My roommate Nicki and I have discussed this at length numerous times. In fact, one time we were talking about it and our conversation had transferred over to the man of the hour. We were discussing how frustrating it was that he had yet to make a move when (beep beep!) her phone rang for a text just received. Yup, you guessed it – the man of the hour.

Others have been converted into believers as well. Let me tell you about the weekend of and week after the 4^th of July…

In the span of seven days, not one, not two but three of my closest friends, plus me, had the silence broken by the ex that broke our hearts. This seems rather peculiar to me since we were all in separate cities and time zones from one another and the length of silence ranged anywhere from nine months to 4 years. Here are their stories:

Friend 1: received a text asking how she was doing. It had been nine months and she was just starting to date another guy.

Friend 2: had a run-in at the local country club where she and her arch-nemesis (and also her ex’s new girlfriend) belong. He was with the new girlfriend. Needless to say, the fireworks weren’t just in the sky that 4^th of July. The air crackled with palpable tension. They hadn’t seen each other or talked in nearly four years. Friend 2 was also “talking to” someone new.

Friend 3: received a text, a phone call, a friend request and an inbox on Facebook. Talk about persistence! He really wanted to get ahold of her in spite of the fact that they hadn’t seen each other or spoken in two and a half years and he’d had a girlfriend for the roughly same amount of time.  Friend 3 was doing it big in LA – something said ex never thought she’d actually do.

And then there’s me: Now it’s been a year and a half since my last run-in with the ex. I’d successfully cut him out of my life and avoided running into him for that long – quite a feat since we live five minutes from each other. But my time was up. I was driving home from the movie theater with my parents in the car when I hear my mom say, “Uh oh.”

“What?” I ask, thinking she’s going to be sick from the Mexican food we’d eaten before the movie. No such luck.

“I think I just saw {ex},” she says with hesitation in her voice as if she were worried what my reaction would be.

The series of questions and answers that ensued after this statement left me with a feeling of dread and anticipation because I knew it was him. I was simultaneously attempting to convince my mother and myself that it was his little brother. That is, until I saw his headlights in my rearview mirror. There was no denying it. It was him. That one move gave him away. You see, we live five minutes apart but from the direction we were both coming from there is a better, quicker way for him to go home. What I’m saying is, he added time to his trip, went out of his way just to drive by me. Which he did. He passed me on the right, followed by his older brother and then cut in front of me in my lane where he sped down the street.

Was this enough though? Of course not.

He was nearly to his turn when I saw his break lights illuminating the night sky of the considerable distance between us. I knew what he was doing. He was waiting for me to pass by him so he could catch a glimpse of me (as I’d be on his right, now). And that’s exactly what he did. He waited…for three cars of oncoming traffic to pass him between which he had ample time to turn, mind you, for me to pass.

Typical.

I’d just been thinking about him on the way home because of a high school couple I’d seen walking out of the movie to the boy’s truck. Whatever, a memory of us popped in my head and I’d been in absent-minded contemplation when my mom first spotted him.

Chance? Fate? ESP? I’d let this one fall between chance and ESP due to the fact that I, upon arriving home five minutes later, received a text from my best guy friend, “Hey guess who I just saw tonight?” You know it! My ex. These two in the same room can’t help but remind them of our sordid past as, well, they hate each other.

That was all in a seven day period! Since then, in the past month, things have quieted for Friends 1 and 2. They have resumed their silence as if nothing had ever broken it. Friend 3 actually talked to her ex and caught up in a friendly manner. And I? I have not seemed to shake this guy.

He was behind me one morning on my way to work after I’d already passed his dad by my neighborhood. He drove to my house one night and was sitting outside until my mom, thinking it was my cousin dropping me off, opened the front door to let me in. He sped off and I came home only moments later. He was at the gas station when I went to fill up my tank and, although this was the first time we had occupied the same space in person and not while driving, we didn’t speak or acknowledge one another. We both knew the other was there yet neither of us was ready for the inevitable face to face conversation. We played our usual game and left without a word.

Finally, after years of observation, my beliefs were as close to being confirmed as it gets (apart from all the other evidence).

Men have ESP.

I was talking to my male cousin (the one who was dropping me off that night actually) and I asked him what that drive-by meant. It has been a year and a half and he’s had a new girlfriend for a year (I’d recently been told he made a big show about it on Facebook). So why was he popping up everywhere and driving by my house?

And my cousin answered, “Because we have ESP!” Ha-ha just kidding. But it was close. He said, “There is still a part of him that doesn’t want to let go…He wants the best of both worlds.”

“I was afraid of that,” I responded.

And then the kicker, “Ya…it is in a guy’s DNA to miss you and wonder what it would be like to still be with you and yet not have the balls to do anything about it.”

Genius! Proof!

Men have ESP. I’m convinced.

What's Next?

How many times in our lives do or will we ask ourselves or be asked, “What’s next?”  

The answer… Only about every time we reach a new milestone or achieve a goal. There’s something in our human nature that drives us to achieve and then as soon as we find success turn around to ask “What’s next?”

When we ask ourselves this question, we are naturally given the luxury of time and solitude to muse and brood over this question. We give ourselves as much time and space to figure out our next step, to form a plan, to discover just what it is that we want and/or need.

However, when someone else asks us this question, there is a wholly different reaction that occurs within us. For instance, there is a certain pressure that loads this question. The need to have some spectacular answer becomes great…as does the feeling of inadequacy when we don’t have that magnificent plan to share. The temptation to make something up on the spot - just to have an answer -to give our interrogator something to oooh and aaah over grows bigger within us with each passing second.

At times, we can’t help but exaggerate and embellish our lives so that we don’t feel as if everyone else is accomplishing more with their lives while we sit watching the grass grow. Other times, we are at a loss as to what to say. Really, the odds are that only a very miniscule portion of those we come into contact with actually have lives as fabulous as they claim. As for the rest, well, we’re just posers – at least for a time until we really do something fabulous to tell the world.

After answering this question numerous times in the past six months due to my quickly approaching graduation, my reaction has changed over time and continues to do so. Now when someone asks me, “What’s next?” A keen sense of panic takes hold of my chest and constricts until I finally come up with an answer. Only then does Panic loosen its hold on me, but does not completely release me.

The spectacular answer I’d really like to give is this, “I DON’T KNOW!!” My magnificent plan is this; I don’t have one because I’m not there yet. Whatever answer I give and whatever plan I formulate today is going to change six days, six weeks, six months from now. And we all know the famous saying about “The Best Laid Plans…” and it’s true. Have you ever had a plan that has worked out every step of the way exactly the way you’d thought? Odds are the answer is no.

So the next time someone asks me, “What’s next?” My answer is going to be this: “I’ll let you know when I get there. Right not, I’m just enjoying the ride.”

We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

I’ve had several related conversations in the past week or so unbeknownst to the various people who partook in them. The crux of these conversations was the fear of a new relationship turning into one we’ve had before – one that left us hurt and betrayed.

This fear is very nearly palpable. It has left such a bitterly acidic taste in our mouth that we cannot possibly forget it. Nor can we fully wash it away.

It is the distinct flavor of pain after ignoring the warning signs, those big red flags that yell for us to, “Get out now!! Run for your life!!!” You know the ones we should have acknowledged and heeded that remain in the back of our minds as we enter a new relationship. Only now, we look for these red flags like hawks searching for mice in a tall-grassed field – hardly seen from a normal vantage point but if there, they will be found. The so-called “cracks” in the foundation of whatever fledgling relationship we are entering are found with a magnifying glass powerful enough to see even the most minute faults.

What we can’t see is that we are the problem in this new scenario. We are the hawks and the mice, the magnifying glass and the cracks. We are our own worst enemy and we don’t even know it.

Fear has taken over our lives to the point where we look for and dissect and analyze every weakness, every similarity, ever word, look and motion that could lead us to the same end as before – intense pain and a keen sense of betrayal.

So why do we do this? To avoid the pitfalls and mistakes of our past.

And what do we end up with? Intense pain and a keen sense that we brought this on ourselves.

And the fact of it is: we did.

We let the pain of our past manifest into a life-crippling fear that hinders and eventually breaks all relationships we “attempt” to have – that is, if we let it.

So I ask you this: why do we let the pain and mistakes of past relationships effect the growth and development of new ones?

With this in mind here are my thoughts on the steps we need to take in order to avoid these pitfalls…

We have to realize:

1.   This is a new relationship.
2.  He/she is not our ex.
3. We are different now than we were then because of experiences we’ve had, the pain and joy we’ve felt, and the lessons we’ve learned.

All we can do is this: follow our hearts, listen to good advice, and trust our instincts. We have to trust that we learned from our mistakes but won’t let them stand in our way of finding happiness. Most importantly and, perhaps with the most difficulty, we have to trust someone just a little even though and especially because doing so gives them the opportunity to break our hearts…or make us happier than we’ve ever been.

Disney Bad Boys

"How do you expect kids to listen to their parents when Tarzan lives half naked, Cinderella comes home at midnight, Pinocchio lies all the time, Aladdin is the king of thieves, Batman drives at 200 mph, Sleeping Beauty is lazy, and Snow White lives with 7 guys? We shouldn't be surprised when kids misbehave; they get it from their storybooks."

I saw this posted on Facebook by a cousin of mine and it sparked a stream of thoughts in my mind as soon as I was done laughing at how true this creative tidbit of logic was.

Recently, I watched Walt Disney’s Tangled and it was about 15 minutes into the movie or rather the first scene involving Flynn Rider that I had a revelation.

(Here, I will pause my revelation for a slight digression.)

As the initial quote of this post indicates, we (those of us who grew up watching everything Disney) have been socialized in a certain way by these movies. With the exception of Batman, these are all films made by Walt Disney Studios. I grew up watching them and many more like them in a routine of something like one a day, in rotation. And as it strongly suggests, I’m sure I learned many lessons, morals and values by watching Disney’s classic and latest creations. (For example, I learned the word idiot from 101 Dalmatians- something my parents were thrilled about.) So upon reading my cousin’s status, the wheels that had been turning as I revisited a few of my favorite Disney movies over the past couple years gained momentum.

(And here is where my digression meets my revelation…)

Disney is just one (albeit a very large contributor) to my bad boy-forbidden love complex. It is not that I actively seek out trouble-making, law-bending, heart-breaking bad boys. I swear! It just so happens that they aren’t very few or far between – at least when I’m around, that is.

Bad boys with a heart of gold. The misunderstood guys who only seem bad. The men who get caught up in bad situations because they choose to stick loyally by their friends who do actively seek out trouble but can’t handle the heat alone. The rebels without a cause.

These are the men I expect and hope for when I meet a "bad boy"…. I am always wrong.

I’ve seen them all, all except the ones listed above. Every one has ended the same way. There was no seemingly divine revelation where everyone who warned me I’d get hurt sees what I see and realizes he really is a nice, good guy. There was no turn-around where the guy leaves his wild, reckless, misunderstood ways behind (or mostly behind ;-) )  for the love of an honest woman a.k.a. me. Nope! Those who warned me were right, the guy stayed the same or likely got worse, and I got hurt and/or was left alone.

But as Flynn Rider – a thieving riff-raff hooligan – races across the screen, my heart rate picks up, my excitement builds and my crush on Flynn Rider begins and grows like so many men before him (although the majority of these men have thankfully been made of flesh rather than animated sketches). From that point on, my heart is his. I root for him. My attachment for him only growing as bad guys chase him, as he reluctantly helps the pretty blond with such long hair and just as hesitantly falls in love, as he reveals his sensitive, vulnerable side and his past.

This is the sequence of events I’ve grown up, for the most part, expecting only to find: if a guy seems like or is labeled a “bad boy,” it is not conducive to them later being discovered as a “bad boy with a heart of gold.” They are most likely going to stay a bad boy and will most likely break my heart just a little.

I keep thinking I’m meeting a Flynn Rider, an Aladdin, a Tramp, a Pinocchio, or a Peter Pan and finding out the hard way that that is not the case…Thanks, Walt.

Mama Bear

Love and protect.

These are, for me, the two most basic instincts when it comes to family and friends. For many people, the intensity with which I do both is…misunderstood, at best. But for those who experience it first hand, it is a completely different story.

Love.

Family and friends experience my love in a variety of ways and on just as many, if not more, levels of intensity. My immediate family and closest friends are very much the same to me, as you can see from the previous post; my friends are my family. So from here the ripples spread, becoming wider and broader than those tight inner ones.

For starters, I am a very affectionate person. People seem to sense this even if they have met me only moments before. I say this because I have spent years of my life watching those around me and how they interact with one another, how they interact with me and, perhaps most importantly, how these interactions differ. My observations have led to this conclusion: people – men, women, young and old – are more likely to invade my personal space by touching me in some way (usually my butt or my hair) than they are to do so to nearly anyone else in my vicinity. Even the most reserved, seemingly untouchable people will do so to both my and others’ astonishment. But let me return to my main point in this side of my argument. If I like you, I touch you. I hug you. I hold your hand. I touch your arm. I play with your hair. I cuddle you. I kiss you. Male or female. Young or old.

It is a compulsion I cannot control and, for that matter, don’t want to. I have an innate need and desire to show you how I feel about you. It is these subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) gestures that give me away. Most of the time I do not even know that I do it; it just comes to me naturally and so, before my mind realizes my brain or heart’s intentions, I have already in some small or large way invaded your personal space.

This is just one of many ways I show my love and affection to those I care about the most. The others are, for the most part, non-verbal although I’m not shy about telling you I love you I feel it.

Closely following this love is the deeply instinctive need to…

Protect.

From danger. From pain. From others, yourself, and sometimes even…me. I will protect you.

This is the aspect of my personality which is most misunderstood. I am perceived as being bossy, bitchy or a straight up battleax. All these may be true but, in this sense, you can bet your bottom dollar that those more, let’s say, edgy aspects of my personality will only come out of a place of love, care and concern. You will never find someone else who will protect or defend you with such ferocity.

It is this point which is the whole purpose for this post.

When I see you – someone I’ve grown to love and, therefore, protect in my own way – backed into a corner, I will fight for you. I will fight to give you the space you deserve. I will fight to bring you peace. And the good Lord better look out for the poor pathetic schmuck who thought they could bully or manipulate you.

It is these people who have experienced the edge of my personality and been cut by the words I use to slice them into tiny, diced pieces. It is these people who if you met them on the street and asked what they thought of me would say, “She’s a *#@&*?!* #%!&*.” You catch my drift.

It is this small but elite group who have earned some sharp words, much embarrassment, and (after I’ve finished) a satisfying sense of shame. Some of them have been people I once loved. Although, this love was more out of a sense of obligation, more love by association or familial status than anything else. However, when someone such as these routinely hurts, bullies, manipulates or cuts down someone, whom I truly and deeply love out of no sense of obligation whatsoever regardless of association or familial status, the love and respect I had for them initially begins to diminish.

I may give this person or group a one-time free pass given that everyone has bad days. But after the first time becomes a second time and a third and so on, I begin to document in my mind every tear I’ve watched fall, every conversation I’ve had, every reassurance I’ve given to lift my loved one up again. I do this like a hunter stockpiling ammunition for the day he goes looking for prey, except my prey isn’t a perfectly random and innocent deer. I know exactly who I am looking for and why, exactly where to find them and when to strike. The love and respect I may or may not have had for this person at a previous time has no place here. It does not emotionally cripple me or impart a sympathy card to be played on this person’s behalf. I become a primitive being, a predator with a simple purpose – the kill.

Now, I don’t mean a literal kill. There is no loaded shot gun hidden in my trunk. I am not some crazy running around half-cocked with bloody vengeance on my mind. I am a primitive creature with a sophisticated mind. I know my purpose. I know my prey. I know my method and moment and place of attack. I go for the jugular. In the moment this manipulative bully thinks they’ve won once again, I strike. Quick, but not painless. No, there will be enough witnesses present so when that satisfying sense of shame sets in it is seen by others. Verbally. No amount of physical blows could hit as hard or last as long as the verbal blows I can throw. I do this with a certain amount of care and precision as I don’t want to say something I will later regret. I do so, so that my words will have that much more impact because they’ll know I mean every single syllable.

Love and protect.

These two basic instincts are intricately intertwined within me. They are shown in very different ways but come from the same place, my heart. I love and I protect so fiercely that I can only describe it as going “all Mama Bear” on someone.

For those of you who’ve been on the receiving end of my love and protection, odds are it is still flowing and will stay that way forever. I love you and always will.

For those who’ve been my prey…you probably should’ve known better or paid attention to my body language when you came around. Mama Bear will always find you and will always win.