Men - Who Needs Them?

Apparently me.

Or rather, I need to become skilled in all those little areas one doesn't concern themselves with growing up. Either way, something has to give.

Two years ago after I ended a nasty relationship, I decided that I am better off alone. I have stated, quite vehemently at times, that I have absolutely no desire to ever be married or in a relationship for that matter. The fact that I don't have a desire to have kids makes this an easy decision. I've grown accustomed to the looks when people hear this - after all, it goes against nature, right? Isn't the role of women to grow up, get married, and repopulate the Earth? Wake up people; it's 2011. There are more than enough children out there wanting to be adopted and more than enough people who are having kids (mind you, some of these people shouldn't be) that I don't think my personal choice will really have a large impact on our future. I've heard all too many times: "You just haven't found the right guy" or "Just give it time". No, not for me. The idea of spending my life with one person is enough to drive me mad. I was known as the one date wonder in college - you expect me to last 50+ years? Ha.

Now, I was carrying on in my independent life quite successfully. I have made some friends in my new town. Well, I thought one was a friend until it became obvious he was trying to date me. I put the kibosh on that one. Apparently he thought my view was a challenge. So imagine my surprise when I found myself in situations without a clue what to do and wishing I had a guy in my life....

1) My car died - twice. And not your normal car died and you just asked the stranger next to you to jumpstart it. Died as in violently shook and keeled over. If I was back home, simple solution - call my dad or brother. 500 miles away makes this slightly more difficult. Solution - call your insurance company and have it towed and hope to find rides to and from work.

2) The automatic garage door no longer opens. No big deal since we don't park our cars in there anyway (oh gosh, that would have been a nightmare). Wait, that's where our massive trashcans are ... and full. No big deal, it manually opens .... until you try and it doesn't. I don't even know where to start in fixing that - I honestly stared at it for awhile hoping it would magically fix itself. It didn't. I had to drag our massive trashcan through the house to take it to the curb. No bueno.

3) My DVR has suddenly stopped working. It worked last night. It does not work today. I know that there's a customer service number or some junk like that but it's the weekend and they always give you a crappy time frame of when they'll be at your house requiring you to take the entire day off of work. That doesn't work for me. I don't get days off.

And there have been other situations which aren't on the level of these - more of annoyances like car registration and oil changes and mowing the grass. Those I can just suck up and do myself. But these three are not fun for a single gal. I am working very hard on trying to fight the typical gender roles but I can recognize that the male gender tends to have an uncanny knack for figuring these things out (the car problems I know will be hit or miss). My solutions have been to just stare at the problem and then walk away but that isn't actually fixing it.

I wonder if there's a How To Be a Guy class offered anywhere?

Random Bits

I have absolutely no motivation to be working on my research project right now so why not blog ...

This past weekend, I got a phone call from I ..... at 2am. I actually happened to be awake because J and K had just gotten home and they didn't have a key. He was crying/sobbing so hard on the phone. What he said is not important. I tried to be as supportive as possible but I hadn't heard from him in a while or seen him in over a month. He has some issues he needs to work through and I feel bad for him and can't even imagine what he must be feeling or going through. He's proof that even if you've made it to this country and succeeded, it doesn't mean that you've put everything behind you. And as selfish as it might sound, I can't get involved. I'm leaving in a month anyway. I wish him the best and hope he finds what he's looking for.

Growing up, I can only remember my parents arguing once over who was taking my sister to the dentist. All of us kids cried and waited in the bathroom for it to end. I was terrified that my parents were going to get a divorce. After all, they had never argued before. What I realize now is that my parents have an absolutely wonderful marriage. They are truly each other's best friend and are more in love with each other after 35 years of marriage than they were on their wedding day. This is the kind of marriage I want to have. I can remember in past relationships when there were arguments I just thought it was all part of being involved with someone. This isn't right. I don't know where I got that idea but am glad to have grown to realize that no one deserves that in a relationship. I know that there's a great guy out there that is just for me and we won't spend our lifetime together fighting.

I know this was random but it's been on my mind. Hopefully I've now gotten this out of my system.

New Beginnings!

I arrived in Catonsville late this afternoon. 18.5 hours and 1200 miles. This is the longest solo roadtrip that I've now done twice except this time it was freezing outside! I had some snow along the way too and am now crossing my fingers that I don't get sick.

Riding alone in a car on New Year's Day provides an ample amount of time to sort out one's feelings and thoughts. I had several in depth conversations with myself along with some awesome singalong song time. One of the biggest conversations that I was finally able to sort my feelings out on has to do with marriage. I even talked with my friend Ashley about this briefly. She had made a comment in a blog awhile ago along similar lines but equated hers to shopping for cars. Anyway ....

One of the biggest things that I find myself thinking about is the state of marriage in our country. All too often, I meet people who have gotten married recently and I ask them how married life is and I hear way too many times that nothing is different than before. All that's changed for them is that there is a piece of paper. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not passing judgment on anyone about their choices. I'm simply stating that I don't want this to be me. When I get married and someone asks me how it is I want to tell them that it's amazing and wonderful and more than I could have imagined it to be. This is why I refuse to live with a guy before marriage and I'm not going to engage in certain activities. I want my marriage to be sacred. I don't believe in divorce (except of course in situations such as abuse ..) and I never want to be another statistic. I have a tattoo for my grandparents that symbolizes their 50+ year marriage that was wonderful and strong and full of love. That's the kind of union that I want to have. I want to be that marriage that everyone wishes they could have.

Obviously this is a conversation that I will have with who I date. And in my head in the car it was much more eloquent but I wasn't about to write the level of detail and explanations that I had in my head in this post. All of that isn't really for the world to know ... like I said I want my relationships to be sacred and special.

Speaking of relationships ... I spoke with I last night. I get all giddy when I get a text message because I hope it's from him. It was a short conversation since he was on break at work and I had just checked into a place for the night. But at the end, he said how do they say? sweet? sweet dreams? :-) Yes, they say sweet dreams. I am so looking forward to seeing him. I have a ton of things to get done tomorrow but I secretly hope he offers to run errands with me. Fancy date, I know but we're still in the getting to know you stage. I don't need formal structure all the time. And what I'm liking about this right now is that it's a very personal private thing. Only five people know about him - my sister, the woman I live with, and three friends. It's not that I want it to be a secret, I just want to give it the best shot without the pressures from everyone about where it's going or what's going on. My sister already said something that I would have heard from a lot more people if more people knew. Other than her, my friends and Kathleen seem excited for me :-) You might be wondering why I'm writing all of this up here if it's so private? First of all, hardly anyone knows I have this blog and two, I haven't really talked about him or said his name so you have no idea who he is. It's still private :-P

But enough for now, I need to learn to be succint in my posts. No one reads the long ones!
Night!