After some consideration, I submit that almost all actions in the world can be categorized into one of three categories: those we could do, those we would do, and those we should do.  However, most of the times that I hear these words they are inevitably followed by less assertive ones.  I could do such and such when…  Or I would do so-and-so if it weren’t for…  I know I should do blah blah blah, but…  And every once and a while, you are faced with a decision in which your actions can fit any one of those three categories!  These sorts of decisions tend to be the really big and important ones with long reaching ramifications and, speaking from experience, they always involve a certain amount of frustration.  The problem with saying “I WOULD do [insert action here] IF…” is that many times we are rationalizing away our ability to make and follow through with decisions.  So, what do you do when you’ve made decisions, felt good about them, and approached the execution of your plans with confidence, only to realize that maybe the plan that was a good idea 6 months ago isn’t such a bright idea any more?  

For example, I made the decision last September that after graduation, I was going to move to England to be in the same country (to say nothing of the same continent) as my family for a change.  It felt like the right and good decision for me and for about half a year now that has been the plan.  I’ve been job and flat hunting to find a place close enough to home that I can come home for the occasional dinner but far enough away that my parents can’t randomly drop in on ME, and find a job that I will, if not love, not hate. 

But suddenly, this one decision splintered about January and my inner dialog changed from “I’m going to Europe” to “I COULD go to Europe when I graduate” and “I WOULD go to England if I could find a job.”  Most importantly, “SHOULD I go to England?”

The not so subtle shift from statement to question in the last example hit me between the eyes when it first made its rude appearance in my sub conscience.  Because, in spite of my earlier confidence, the answer now is a resounding “No,” and I can’t tell exactly how, why, and when it changed.  All I know is that I don’t want to look back at this decision-filled time in my life and think I “coulda, woulda, shoulda” done something different. 

In the end, I don’t think you’re going to get out of any major decision guilt or nostalgic free, there is always going to be a measure of regret and the tiny vague thought wondering about what would have happened if you’d done differently.  I think the goal is just to make a decision that you know, worries and problems and all, you’d probably make again if given the chance.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/worst-dating-shows-ever?GT1=7703

MSN news posted the above story which is a sad commentary on our media society…mostly because what this article says is true.  Personally, one of the most entertaining parts of the article is the picture of Brett Michael’s pink-lipped pout.  I have seen episodes of most of these shoes and the feeling I most often come away from them with, besides nausea, is  this: What is it about the camera that turns people into sluts? 

You’d think that if cameras were on you, capturing your every move you’d be more conscientous…but I forget Britney Spears and her well-documented underwear-less escapades.  Oh, and our president, I suppose, has had his fair share of candid moments.

But I digress!  My point is this, Frou Frou might have been justified in asking, “Where have all the good men gone?”  Is reality TV really the only way to find love anymore?  Are we really going to have to choose between FLAVOR FLAAAV and being a man’s Rock of Lust (with all the other adult film stars and STDs that might include)?  Perhaps we may have forgotten, but we don’t live on Wisteria Lane, most of us are still firmly planted in reality.

Believe me, I understand the need for fantasy and wishing we lived a more exciting life.  But I just want to point out, if this is the method of love and kind of life we are fantasizing about, we need to seriously resort our priorities.

Commitment is a hard thing for some people, and to make it more confusing to understand, everyone has various reasons to be nervous about it.  There is no rule of thumb when it comes to any sort of commitment.  I’ve been thinking a lot about it recently, most especially because one of my best friends is currently in the middle of a commitment crisis and I’m not sure what to do for her.  This girl (Venice) is the blonde version of me, we are almost scarily alike except for one very important respect: she’s overly emotional and I’m overly rational.  Which is why we are so glad to have the other, we balance each other out. 

Her problem is a toughie: her boyfriend of one year can’t seem to commit.  Even I, the most skittish of skittish fillies when it comes to this sort of thing, am positively baffled.  They are such a good match for each other, each has what the other person needs and they really bring out the best in each other.  Apart from that, they are just plain fun to be around.  They’re one of those couples you hate because of secret jealousy!  But here comes the kicker, and it’s an old problem: Venice wants to get married, he shows little sign of putting a ring on her finger anytime soon.  So, she’s stuck with the problem, does she stick with her commitment to him, or does she cut and run if he doesn’t make up his mind?  It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s what it boils down to.

I think girls get a bad rap for this one because lots would choose the latter, but I think they forget that the most deeply rooted instinct is for self-preservation and that’s a habit I understand deeply and personally.  But it does raise an interesting point, when should you put your commitment to someone else aside and remember your commitment to yourself?  Where do you cross the line from being self-preserving to being selfish?

I saw a couple of other things today that made me think even more about commitment.  The first was on the bus today, an extremely pregnant lady got on board after finishing her cigarette.  My surprise at this quickly morphed into a sort of anger that she would be doing something that would harm her child.  Addiction is a sort of commitment, and I saw that she had chosen it over her commitment to her baby.  The other thing was a man who came into the office today.  Apart from being overweight with too close, piggy eyes, massive glasses, and the worst combover I’ve ever seen, he was the most anal retentive man I’ve ever come across in my life…and my father’s in politics!  He was in a rage because some documents he wanted processed relied on current financial information, and the statements he had given us were from over two years ago.  I tried to explain the situation to him, but he was outrageously nasty to me and unbearably rude to the office at large (sidenote: I hate bullying worse than anything, it makes me see red in a way nothing else can.  I didn’t mind him snapping at me so much, but when he turned it on the secretaries who weren’t even working on his case, I wanted to heave a stapler at him!).  He refused to listen to my explanation of the nature of the law that requires current documents, he refused to accept our apologies for his inconvience, but what’s worse was that he refused to take the two seconds it would take to print out a current statement from the Internet to resolve the whole thing.  He just stood there growling at us all, ranting about the nature of the federal laws, the university, and us personally.  He was more commited to being angry than finding a resolution.  People like that offend me, there’s no dealing with them.

But these expiriences together have made me think about why commitment is such a tricky beast.  My own feelings about commitment have been undergoing a slow but steady process of change over the past year.  I’ll be the first to admit that for years the idea of commitment to anything made me practically break out in hives.  But this knee-jerk fear reaction has slowly been replaced by, well, something else that I haven’t quite pegged yet, but it’s certainly not paranoia.  The trouble is, I have a lifetime of bad habits to overcome: such as flinching whenever anyone mentions Plans or The Future, or overcoming the low level nausea that comes with thinking about the various types of relationships I have in my life.  My friend Bear summed our common plight up the best, “We’ve got the military brat problem: we’re really good at snapping defenses against people up and not good at lowering them back down again.  They have to be taken apart from the outside, without our knowledge or we’ll just reinforce!”  Bear’s an incredibly perceptive girl.  Commitment, for me is a muscle I’d like to strengthen but I’m not used to flexing.  I’m awfully bad at it, but in my defense it’s out of ignorance not intention! 

I think people are so afraid of it because with commitment comes consequences, I know I live in mortal fear of doing the same kind of damage that I have seen done to others and myself.  It’s in our nature to be afraid of consequences because what if the consequences of our choices result in something bad or unbearable?  The thing is, I’ve learned that life, as frustrating and hard as it can be from time to time, is almost never unbearable.  This knowledge makes fear of commitment seem irrational in some ways, but it remains in spite of logic because even if life is bearable, we don’t like to think it could spin off our well-plotted course and plan.  A girl who commits her feelings to a man who is uncertain of his own risks a terrible heartbreak, a woman who commits to her own desires over the guardianship of her baby risks that child’s health and her own happiness, a man who commits to his own opinions and grievances to the exclusions of others risks permanent and irrevocable friendlessness.  I think what most of us need to do is commit to something (a person, a plan, a hairdo, a diet, whatever), strap ourselves to it and see where the ride takes us.  True, we may not end up where we want or even where we thought we would end up, but any sort of movement has got to be better than sitting idle for the rest of our lives!  I know, I know…easier said than done.

We’ve been told it since we were kids, don’t lie, always tell the truth, the truth will set you free.  Blah blah blah.  I can’t disagree with the moral argument, but let the record stand that The Truth is also a number of unpleasant things including (but not limited to) inconvenient, baffling, and painful.  But if you’ve spent any time at all thinking about ethics and have a noisy conscience (as I am blessed to have), you teach yourself to believe that these inconveniences, these baffling and painful circumstances that The Truth exposes you to are Good and Right and Character Building Experiences.  Which may help you sleep at night, but at the end of the day, does not keep those circumstances from less inconvenient, baffling, and painful! 

Honesty has been the most baffling for me in relationships, be they with my friends, my family, my romantic interests, or at work, because so often what is important to us can’t be described adequately to another person.  Just because something is The Truth for me, doesn’t mean it can translate easily to someone else.  I regularly have to tell the people who come into my office for help that I can’t do the things they want me to, or need someone to do.  You’d think practice would make it easier, but I never get used to the look of bafflement. 

Dealing with my family has largely been painful because, for various reasons, The Truth is the one thing we can’t tell one another.  The Truth, with my family circumstances has historically led to horrendous blow ups, disowning, and long, exquisitely torturous family reunions.  No one seems to be able to grow up and call one another on our BS (myself included).  I stood up to my mother for the first real time in my life last year, and as a result, I didn’t go home for Christmas because the truth of the matter was that The Truth hurt too much.

But as baffling as bafflement is, and as painful as pain can be, it is my personal opinion that inconvenience is the worst part of truth telling.  For example, I went out with the IRS Victim again tonight for the last time (although he didn’t know that until the end of the night).  He’s been awfully sweet to me, almost to the point of making me seriously annoyed, and has been actively pursuing me which is a nice change from most of the boys I know…but The Truth is that I wasn’t feeling any sort of connection with him and hadn’t even after the first date.  I said I’d go out with him again, initially thinking that he deserved it for being so nice, but The Truth was I wasn’t looking forward to it. 

I had to tell him, it wasn’t fair to him to let him go on.  This logical and rational decision was easily made and not at all painful to contemplate, but the execution was horribly inconvenient!  Going out with him tonight made me feel rotten, trying to be nice and fun without leading him on was a headache of logistical planning, and telling him firmly (if rather incoherently and in-eloquently) at the door that, no I was not going to go out with him this weekend, was worse to me than my horrific response to his asking me out in the first place.  I was miserable.  His whole face just sort of dropped and he got this look in his eyes that made me look like I’d just skinned a puppy in front of him.
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said, “the truth is that I like you as a person, but not enough for anything more.  I’m also dating other people right now and there’s real potential with some that I’m pursuing, it wouldn’t be fair to you to say ‘yes’ when my answer wants to be ‘no.'”
“Oh.”  There was a long silence as he looked at me before he murmured, “Well, thanks for telling me the truth.”

Yeah.  The Truth, in all its inconvenient glory.  I did the right thing, I was honest…and I still feel like a wench.

Why is it, I wonder, that the laws of the universe have decreed that no one you like is allowed to like you?  Or, more importantly, why is that the people who decide to fancy you are always completely unfanciable themselves?  I am one of the last of my age group of friends to remain single (note, I am 21) and most of my smugly hooked up friends have started trying to set me up on blind dates, or recommend a plethora of friends and cousins and classmates.  These aren’t so bad, I’m lucky to have escaped any truly awful blind dating disasters and the worst that has ever happened is that we just weren’t attracted to each other. 

 But there is another category, and a far more dangerous one!  These are the men who are impervious to hints, bricks, and restraining orders.  These specimens are generally surrounded by a fog of misplaced arrogance that makes rejection and projectiles bounce off of them harmlessly, and blinds them to their own social blunders.  The worst of these blunders, in my humble, professional opinion, is the backhanded compliment: when a man tries to impress you and ends up insulting you.  Whatever MTV’s dating shows may tell you (Mystery has a lot to answer for, in my opinion, and personally, I thought several of his techniques could have gone through a few more rough drafts before being inflicted on the viewing masses) trying to insult a girl is NOT the quickest way to her heart.  A friend of mine stopped me on campus the other day, a guy I haven’t seen in a couple of years, and when I was reintroduced to him, he did a double take and exclaimed, “Wow!  You turned out pretty!”  I felt my head tilt slowly to the side in confusion.  I knew he was trying to compliment me…but when he asked me for my number a few minutes later I simply didn’t want to give it to him because I still was reeling from the backhanded compliment.

Any thoughts?  Why is it so easy to attract people you don’t want and damn near impossible to attract the one you do?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/105585?GT1=10755

 However, we’ve yet to see any petite supermodels…  One of my deepest, darkest hidden peeves is the fact that I share my Slovakian heritage with Karolina Kurkova…but obviously none of her chromosomes!

Know what I hate?  Money.  Oh, how I hate it. 

Scratch that: I’m really rather fond of it, what I hate is not having as much of it as I’d like.  I pay my own way for school, housing, food, work, and fun.  Between Christmas and my tax refund, I subsist from hand to mouth–and this year has been exceptionally unkind especially in recent months.  I swear a little piece of me dies inside at the beginning of every semester when I write a big check with a lot of zeros.  Which isn’t to say I’m a Scrooge, I just like to make sure that I stay in the black.  To that end I buy cheap when I need to and quality when I can, budget smart, save often, and work hard.

But that doesn’t mean my dreams and ambitions are equally easy to budget.  In my head I’m a future corporate badass who can afford more shoes and a hard attitude.  My life is, of course, is not nearly as cool as my fantasies and I have trouble syncing them with my Western college town reality.  I can’t wait to get my degree and get a job.  With an actual salary.  And dental benefits. 

In the meantime I have work to do and a living to scratch out.  Which makes my lusting after every handbag I’ve seen so far in Cashmere Mafiathat much more acute…

Like so many jaded people these days, I don’t put much faith in resolutions made at this time of year.  Most of my friends swear to give up alcohol, sleeping with strangers, or (the more conservative ones) swear to give up self flagellation and start enjoying life more.  History demonstrates that all that really happens is that my outrageous and my conservative friends seems to switch places: the crazy ones pound themselves into guilty messes the night of Dec. 31 trying desperately to behave and the quiet ones put on something tight and red (even some of the men) and spend the night trying desperately to prove how fun-loving they are.  However, these fits of virtue/vice don’t usually last too long; give or take three weeks, things slide back to normal.

But in the spirit of the season, I admit that I do try and resolve to do something positive in my life.  I don’t ever manage to come up with a bullet point list, in true type-A fashion I tend to come up with plans or programs.  But this year, I’m at a loss.

2007 was a strange year.  Still economically sound, personally stable (at least in public), and privately confused, it hasn’t been a bad year so much as a hard one.  Between work, school, men, life, my first sticky steps into the soggy marsh of love, and a catastrophic family meltdown I’ve been…busy.  But I did come to one stunning realization recently: I’m not good at making myself happy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a happy person.  I love my fun, I enjoy life, and I love living it, but when it comes to making decisions strictly for my benefit I fall short.  This surprises some people as I tend to be a decisive (a.k.a. bossy and stubborn) person, not given over to bouts dithering or dallying.  As such, I spent a lot of time in ‘07 being called in by many friends to assist in various emergencies (including, but not limited to: getting dumped, dumping someone, getting over someone, being a designated driver–which was an expirience not having my American license–mediating a potential divorce, breaking into several flats when someone got locked out, support for a relative with cancer, and the usual gossip duty with my girlfriends).  I’m not complaining!  Most of the above, except the obvious, were loads of fun!  I will bend over backwards to make those I love happy…

…but I have little expirience, I’ve discovered, in going out of my way to make myself happy! 

So, in 2008 I have resolved to be happy.  Not content, not merely cheerful.  I am going to be obnoxiously, mind-bogglingly, intoxitcatingly happy!  So, watch this space…

Timing, I have come to learn, really is everthing.  Looking back on the past year especially, I’ve been kind of shocked at how everthing in my life, good, bad, and ugly, boils down to timing: the men I dated, the men I didn’t date, the job that landed practically in my lap, the amazing condo Kiri and I found together.  I can’t take to much credit of any of it, it was all a case of being at the right place at the right time.  Don’t get me wrong, preparation is vital and hard work is essential, but timing is what morphs them into golden opportunities.  There is nothing like the feeling of the gods smiling down on you and the universe conspiring for your good, when the right moment comes along and you are able to reach out and grab hold of it and ride it for all it’s worth. 

But…what happens when the timing isn’t right?  What happens when you want a different job, a different guy, a different plan and for some reason things just don’t work out the way you so desperately want them to?  What then?

Contrary to chick-flicks, all known Victorian literature, and most of the annoyingly hopeless romantics I know, what happens then is that life goes on, in all its inconvienient glory.  What is important, if often difficult to remember is that just because we are sometimes out of sync with what we want doesn’t mean that we will always be.  It just means that the gods are smiling on some other (probably equally deserving) being in need of a little good timing.  And eventually their attention will come shift back to us.  Probably at the very moment when we most need it.  It’s all about the timing.