Silence

This week was the first week of school with kids.  As such, I came home every night, wondering how it was possible to be as exhausted as I was, and I woke up every morning with dark bags still hanging beneath my eyes.  I have spent 10-11 hours at school pretty much every day, and while I recognize that there are teachers and administrators who spend even more time at school or working at home each day, I still don't like it.  I don't like it because I think it's bullshit to spend almost half of my waking hours on work.  And I don't like it because this week, a significant chunk of that time was spent on tasks that were mentally arduous only in the sense that it was hard to keep my grey matter from dripping out of my ears.  Paperwork.  It is the bane of my existence.  I spent more than four hours this week accepting and sorting and submitting paperwork.  Probably another four just labeling things.  There's got to be a better way.

On the bright side, I felt less stressed Friday than I did the first day.  Monday, man, that was a different story.  I thought I was going to have a mini breakdown.  "Near tears" is probably the best way to put it, but maybe "about to tear my hair out" is better.  Between internet connectivity issues, slow-working students, schedule confusion, and the interruptions that define classroom life, I had had it.

But then, sometime during that first day and into the evening when I saw my therapist and into the next morning when I walked back into that school building, I began to feel better.  And for that, I have two things to thank:

Patience and Silence.

Somehow, after seven full years of teaching, it has finally occurred to me to just wait for silence.  And somehow, after seven full years of trying everything under the sun to get kids to stop talking while I'm talking, my classroom is quieter than it has ever been.  And it's not quiet because the kids are scared.  It's quiet because I've trained them that I will wait until they stop and listen.

I want to cry for the joy of it all.

The idea came from a blog post some teacher put up on facebook before the year began.  I read it, dismissed all the ideas I'd already tried and the ones that just don't fit my personality, and honed in on this one in particular.  I took a pink post-it from my supplies, grabbed a sharpie, and wrote

USE SILENCE

on it, before posting it on my computer dock.  Because it seems to me that my classroom--like so much of the world--is filled with unnecessary chatter.

I say this knowing that I am, perhaps, the greatest perpetrator of all.

Every morning, around 9am, I walk my students down to the bathroom.  As per school rules, and general human consideration, I ask them to be silent in the hallway and stairwell, so as not to disturb the other classes going on in the area.  However, it wasn't until last year that I realized that I was doing a lot of talking in the hallway and stairwell myself during these trips.  I would ask someone to do this, remind someone of that, make a joke to one student (and then shush them when they tried to respond in kind), warn another to be quiet, and general blah-blah-blah my way down to the bathroom and back up.  No wonder they had such a hard time keeping sound in.  I was telling them how important it was to zip it, and my flap was wide open!  So I stopped.  I only spoke in my classroom to remind them of expectations and then again in the bathroom area to request a quiet, straight line before leaving.  I parsed my words.  I used hand signals as much as possible.  And they were quiet.

Well, let's be real, they're children.  But they were pretty close.

This year, I've coupled the silence with firm consequences.  You talk, you move to the end of the line.  I was pretty sure I was going to have a couple of boys crying on their first day with me, but nothing says "I expect you to follow the rules" like cracking down when you don't.

Warnings are for people who don't already know the rules.  If I've told you the rules, consider that your warning.

Part of me is very uncomfortable with the silence.  My classroom in years past has always been a place where sound reigns.  Children speak and move and laugh, and the sound of silence was something saved for moments when the classroom was empty.  But it was hectic and rushed, and as the year went on, I would always find myself getting shorter and shorter with them for talking over me and being too loud.  For doing something I never really trained them not to do.

In my mind, this silence is a gift to my students.  To the ones who love noise, and to the ones who can't stand it.  It is small moments of meditation throughout the day.  It is tiny specks of time in which their ears can clear, and their mind can reset.

The pastor at my church thinks about silence in much the same way.  While he is all for socializing and building community and getting mass done as quickly as possible (our songs tend to be pretty peppy just based on speed alone), he is really conscious about building in short spurts of silence throughout the liturgy.  Last time I cantored (sang) at my church, the choir director told me to count to thirty before getting up after each reading.  At first, the silence felt awkward (Do the people in the congregation think I forgot that it's my turn?), but I've come to love it.  A little space for introspection.  A little space for savoring.

In choosing silence as this year's pedagogical theme, I hope to find myself more relaxed at the end of each day.  I hope to find my students less anxious and rushing from place to place.  I hope to find that things in my classroom actually happen faster because we're taking these mini-brain-breaks every so often, seemingly without noticing.

So far, my blood pressure has stayed pretty low, despite the fact that we lost a week and a half of school, that spotty internet has thwarted many of my classroom activities, and that I've spent way too much time working since the academic year began.

Now if I could just get myself to start meditating in the evenings, I might be able to get a little zen in my home life, too.

Forgetting Something

School starts on Monday, but I'm already exhausted.  Last night, after watching a movie and putzing around the house for a couple of hours, I finally laid down on the couch at 8pm and gave up.  Two hours later, I woke, only to brush my teeth and wash my face before lying back down again, this time in my bed.

It is now 8:23am.  I woke up about ten minutes ago.

For those who have talked to me recently, you may know that that's an incredible relief.  For the last week or two, I've gone to bed at a reasonable time, woke up at least once an hour throughout the night, and finally rose to the sound of my alarm in the morning, bleary-eyed.

"You look beat," one of the custodians at school said to me the other day.
"Thanks?"

At first, I thought maybe something was off about my sleep routine or setup.  Maybe I was looking at my phone or computer too much before bed.  Maybe it was too warm in the room.  Maybe too cold.  Maybe there was too much light coming in.  Maybe the outside sounds were waking me up.  Maybe the mattress needed to be turned.  Maybe the clutter was subconsciously interfering with my sleep.

So on Tuesday, I cleared my bed, washed the sheets, turned down the AC, put up a blackout curtain, downloaded a white noise app, reduced my pre-bedtime screen time, turned the mattress, and did everything I could think of to make the space more sleep-friendly.

And then I woke up every hour that night and rose that morning to the sound of my alarm, as though I'd never gone to sleep at all.

At this point, I abandoned my focus on feng shui and honed in on the one thing that was probably to blame:

STRESS.

To be clear, I don't feel that stressed.  I don't feel as relaxed as I did this summer, but I also don't feel as though the world is collapsing in around me.

On the other hand, it wouldn't be the first time I'd been haplessly unaware of my own anxiety.  Remember that time I had my toenail removed (gross, sorry), and they turned my toe into a pin cushion with an anesthetic needle?  Halfway in, I was surprised by how well I was taking it, breathing and everything.  And then when the doctor was finished, I looked at my toe, said "I don't feel so good," and proceeded to pass out.

In my defense, there is a lot to be maybe-stressed about at work.  Since August, my start time as a teacher has changed twice, and the start time for kids has changed twice as well.  When I first went back, we were told that we had four days (not school days, just straight up days) to get our rooms in order before the kids came.  They didn't have to be perfect, but the kids were coming.  Then there was an issue with the construction, and students' return date got pushed back a week.  So I spent a week prepping and prepping and prepping, to the point that I have my classroom in order, my first week planned and copied, and paperwork done that I wouldn't have had time to even think about yet.  There's never been enough time in the past.

So, instead of the normal gotta get it done stress, I'm stuck probing my subconscious: what am I missing?  I know I'm forgetting something, but what is it?

If I were wise and easy-going and good at dissociating my self-image from my career, I would slough it off and allow myself to be okay with the possibility of being underprepared for something--it's inevitable, to a certain extent.  Instead, I harp and harp and harp.

The night before I returned to work, I had a series of nightmares, all of which involved someone trying to break into my house in some way or another.  In one, my bedroom door was locked, and the intruder couldn't get in.  I could hear him outside my bedroom, so I looked under the door to check it out.  There, I saw stocking feet and the hem of nice, khaki-colored slacks appearing from above, as though the intruder had been climbing the door and was coming back down.

Why is a well-dressed businessman breaking into my house and scaling my walls?  I already had a guess as to what it could mean, but I looked up the dream interpretation of it online, anyway.  Here's what I found:

To dream of a break in, especially if it’s your own home, signifies a sense of loss of identity or an invasion of some part of your being. Do you feel like there’s an invasion of privacy or an invasion on your self-assuredness in your real life? Do you feel like you’re losing control of your space or, for that matter, of your fate? Alternatively, a dream about a break-in could potentially be hinting at some aspects of your personality or your life that you’re in denial about. A house, in a dream, signifies the innermost part of yourself.

If you have a dream about a break-in, ask yourself this: What in your life is making you uncomfortable at the moment? Is it your job, your relationship, something to do with your kids, something about another family member? Now, for the tough part: Pin down what exactly it is that makes you uncomfortable or that invades your space and figure out how to resolve the issue.

So I thought about it, and decided that what makes me really uncomfortable is the suggestion that teaching has somehow become an intruder in my life.  Loss of identity?  Invasion of some part of my being?

I will admit, for the first time in a while, going back to work was particularly painful.  Mourning the freedom and relaxation of summer is normal, but this felt different.  Yes, I was excited to see my work friends.  Yes, I was excited to get back into a routine.  But the actual act of teaching?  Eh, I'm not there yet.  I have a feeling it'll kick in on Monday when the kids come in, and I get back into my groove.  I hope so, anyway.  The paperwork and BS has never been my favorite part, so maybe the pre-student feelings aren't all that surprising.  It's always been about the kids.

Still, it might be time to start considering alternative career paths.

On top of the stress of returning, I've also added to my shoulders the responsibility of being team leader, the hardest part of which is the uncertainty of what the job actually entails.  I'm not very good about reading my emails carefully or remembering lots of things at once (or walking with gum in my mouth, to be honest), so the idea that the fate of my team rests on me is pretty tough.  And as I said, I'm not really sure what's required of me.  To my knowledge, no leadership meetings have been scheduled.  No directives have been given.  My only saving grace is my team, a group of wonderfully competent and contributing members who are willing to share the load and responsibility for getting things done.  Also, perhaps just as important, they are my friends.

All this to say, the last couple of weeks have been a struggle on top of a struggle.  Sadness and stress.  Maybe there's consonance with those two words for a reason.

Similar to my stress ignorance, I'd mistakenly thought that I'd finally kicked the heavy sadness.  You know, moved on and whatever.  Sure, my dating life was falling off, but I was okay with it.  It was a choice.  I was giving myself time.  I needed time.

And then I watched a romantic comedy about a guy who lets a girl go and then immediately regrets it, and I found myself sobbing at the happiest moment in the movie (not happy crying, mind you), and I knew that I needed even more time than I'd thought.

I finally let down the guy I'd had a drink with the weekend before work started (we'll call him Mickey because he had a surprisingly good Mickey Mouse impression).  We'd been texting back and forth for a week or so--him with excitement, me barely responding--and with the waterworks, I knew I had to let him down easy.  I thought maybe he'd get bored and move on already, but it seemed honesty was required to give my phone some peace.

Me: Mickey, I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to bow out for a while.  I was in a relationship not that long ago, and I got on Tinder because it had been weeks and I thought I was over it.  But then I unexpectedly broke into tears during a romantic comedy Saturday night, so I'm going to guess that I'm not actually over it.  And I'm pretty bad at the whole Fake It Till You Make It thing.  So, I don't want to waste your time or lead you on or anything like that.  I think I need some more time on my own before I'm ready to start dating again.  You are really wonderful, and I really enjoyed our drink last weekend, and as such, I think you deserve to spend time with someone whose heart is in it.  Please forgive me.

Maybe a little over-dramatic, but it did the trick.

Him: That kind of sucks.  I was actually looking forward to seeing you again.  Ha, it's no big deal, no need to be sorry.  You can't help how you feel.  If you change your mind, let me know, even if you want to hang out as a distraction.  Ha.

And then there was one.

Actually, technically, it's probably not even fair to say that one man remains in my dating sphere.  He should probably only count as half, since we've never met.  He invited me to get a snowball with him last Sunday afternoon, and then texted me that he was sick.  I wished him well, and then when he didn't text for a few days, I wrote him off, assuming that he wasn't actually sick, but instead, trying to get out of it.  I mean, who gets sick in August?  But then, out of the blue, he texted me on Thursday, asking how my week was going.  So I said "Okay," and then came out with it:

Me: I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty convinced that you made up an illness because you had second thoughts about this snowball.

Him: I don't have second thoughts, Rebekah.

Well, shit.

I had nothing to say in response.  Had the comment been made in person, I think I would've just stared at him awkwardly for a few seconds, jaw ajar, just like they do in cartoons.  Needless to say, it was a bold statement, and I was not a little uncomfortable with my slow response and lack of witty retort.  Minutes later, I finally just texted him something dumb like Haha, wow.  Because what to do you say to that?

Despite his apparent lack of regret, he has yet to ask me out again, and I foresee this conversation going one of two ways: (1) He gets bored and stops texting, (2) I get bored and write a long, drawn out note about my current situation that doesn't actually reflect the fact that I'm just not that into him.  I mean, in this particular case, I'm fairly intrigued.  But intrigue only lasts so long.

And so, I will begin the school year in the way that I have begun almost every school year in the past: single and nervous.

But as sad as that sounds, I'm making a conscious effort to look on the bright side of things these days (as it doesn't come naturally when I'm stressed), to see things for the blessings that they are.

For example, Sunday evening, I got into my car after volleyball training and drove a quarter of a mile before horrendous metal-grinding sounds started near the front passenger side.  I was stranded in an ever-darkening neighborhood in a fairly distant suburb in sweaty clothing, waiting for a tow truck to show up and take me back to my neck of the woods.  The next day, the auto shop we dropped it off at called to say that they looked over the whole car and drove it around for a while, and they didn't hear a thing.  Apparently, it had fixed itself.

That whole venture cost me about a hundred bucks.  And multiple hours of time.  But I keep trying to tell myself: it could've been so much worse.  I could've been stuck without a book in the car.  It could have been the first day of school the next day.  I could be dishing out thousands of dollars right now.  Instead, I got away with a $110 check and a quality hour of reading on a non-school night.

The worst part of the whole thing was that just before the sounds started, I was listening to something on the radio about Katrina.  And thinking about how I learned to drive my car (stick shift) in the wasteland that was Gentilly in 2006.  And then thinking about how that means that I've had my car for almost nine years.  And then thinking about how well it still drives.

I should've gotten wood interior, so I'd have something to knock on.

This morning, I woke up content: I'd just gotten twelve hours of solid sleep, and I had no plans for the day other than volleyball with my friends.  I had no boyfriend to consider, no relationship troubles to grapple with.  In that moment, I was happy to be single.  Sure, I'm nervous it'll last, or that I'll end up finding the right guy past my childbearing years, but as I opened my eyes and checked the clock, I surprised myself by how grateful I was to be on my own.  To make my own choices, to use my time however I want.  This is the bright side of being single, right?  Also, the flirting with three guys at once in a bar when you're a couple of Makers deep, knowing your friends will drive you home (thanks, last Saturday night).  But mostly the independence.

And so, I embark on the day, well-rested and ready for a little romp in the sun.  Something to get my blood pumping.  Something to ease my mind.  Something to start the day right.

Any Day Now

The date Friday didn't go so great.  Not to say that it wasn't enjoyable.  It was.  It was just enjoyable in the way that spending time with your brother is enjoyable.  We got drinks to-go and walked up and down Magazine street, talking about comedians and psychology.  Lots of laughs, unstilted conversation, no chemistry.

I went on another date this past Monday with a different guy.  He was tall and in pretty good shape.  He made me laugh.  He knew about interesting things, and we had no trouble talking.  But as lovely as he was, and as much as he liked me, and as good of a time as I had, I just couldn't get into it.  We still text, but I have to force myself to participate.

Tonight, I "broke up" with a Tinder pen pal, a guy that I've been talking to over text for the better part of the last week.  He's clever.  And funny.  Ambitious.  All things that I like.  But I found myself annoyed by him, by small and significant things alike.  The arguments he made ("it's hard to get ahead as a white male") and the words he chose to use (jokingly calling me "sweetheart" once) and the frequent use of the abbreviation "lol" (he can't possibly laugh out loud that much).  Upon his semi-serious suggestion that we wouldn't like each other in person anyway, I told him that we should probably just stop talking and save ourselves the effort, then.  Hours of conversation, and not the slightest hesitation at getting him out of my hair.  If I didn't like him, why'd I invest at all?

I suppose all of this points to the grand likelihood that I'm just not ready to date again, not yet.

It's kind of a shame.  After J and I broke up, jumping back into dating was fun and exciting.  I was ready to meet new people and find someone that I really liked.

These days, I just miss B, and I take it out on all the guys I meet.

It's not fair, really.  To anybody.  But that's the way it is.

On the bright side, I returned to work this week, and as such, I have renewed purpose and things to keep me busy.  And wonderful colleagues that make working a significantly more palatable experience.

It's been exhausting, though.  After two months of laying on my living room floor reading books, my body is having trouble adjusting to 8-10 hour work days.    I came home yesterday completely beat, to the point that I nearly fell into bed and gave up on the night.  I worked ten hours today, mostly walking around and moving things, and the feeling is approximately the same as I sit here and type.  I was supposed to get a snowball with a guy tonight, but it fell through, and it's probably for the best (see prior note about current bitchiness toward men).

Somehow, despite the short time before school officially begins (approx. 4 days), I have been surprisingly calm.  I mean, there's stress.  Don't get me wrong.  There's always stress.  But considering the fact that we changed discipline plans yesterday, and that I walked into my room this morning to find everything in one large heap against a wall, I'd say that I'm doing alright.  I've still got a crazy large amount to do, but my classroom setup is nearly finished, and I've got a general plan for the first week of school.  Maybe the eighth year of teaching is when I finally know what I'm doing?  Maybe I won't have to work on Saturday?

Don't worry, I'm not getting my hopes up.


Sorry to keep the post short tonight, but the bed is calling my name, and I need a few minutes to relax away from a computer screen before I attempt to relinquish consciousness.  Tomorrow brings plenty of things to do, a night of fun with co-workers, and the prospect of a couple of days that nearly resemble a weekend.  Bring it on.

Where It All Started

A year and a half ago (exactly actually, in February 2014), I gave up on the men I'd been meeting at kickball, volleyball, improv, church group (you get the idea), and I signed up for an online dating site...with grand hesitation and a not-insignificant dose of shame.  I recognize that, in theory, there's nothing to be ashamed about, but I'd always assumed that online dating was a last-ditch effort, and I wasn't quite sure I was ready to admit to myself that I was at last-ditch.  Or to admit to the rest of the world that I was there.  I'm still a little hesitant about it.

Technically, I signed up for two sites: Match and EHarmony.  I didn't really know much about either of them, but I'd seen advertisements and knew people who used them.  Signing up for both turned out to be an intricate and studied affair.  What information do I divulge?  What do I wait to share later?  What the hell am I supposed to write in that tiny "in your own words" box?  (Why am I paying to be so confused?)

EHarmony turned out to be a bust.  It was far too directed for my taste.  You got something like three matches a day.  Or maybe a week?  I can't remember.  And then you could send them questions, and they'd send you questions, and on and on until you could finally actually talk to each other.  (Well, via email.)

But I don't think I ever emailed a single person on EHarmony.  Most of the men were not attractive to me.  The others were far too conservative/liberal for me.  The others didn't reply to my questions.  I still see some of these people on the street during Mardi Gras and festivals, and it's SUPER weird.  I usually pretend to be highly engaged in something on my phone, just in case they recognize me, too.  No matter that phones don't actually work during Mardi Gras.

Match.com is a different story.  While you also get periodic matches, email is the first step.  You also have the possibility of doing your own search of men in the area.  I don't know how to describe the self-search to you...it's like one day you're stuck in a drought, and then the next day there's a flood.  At first, you're so incredibly excited that there's rain.  You won't have a dirt patch for a yard anymore!  Long luxurious showers are in your future!  But then it keeps raining and raining and raining, and now you have a mud pit for a yard, and the government says you should still keep your showers to five minutes.

The punch line of that metaphor is that while there were lots and lots of men signed up for match, it didn't amount to much.  There were very few men interested in talking to me and vice versa.  It turns out that dating websites like these bring out the most judgmental and picky in you.

Oh no, he's in the "security" business...

He works part-time?  At the age of 32?

Star Trek quote?  No thanks.

Anyway, the point is, within all of this hubbub, I found myself having trouble initiating and sustaining email conversations, and then translating them into real-life interaction.  I think I went on a total of something like 3 first dates despite being on Match for multiple months, and of those dates, only one led to a second date.

At the time, I was writing a small blog about it.  The blog only ended up having a few posts despite the four months it went on, but as I said, I was kind of shy about my online dating ventures, so I only shared it with a small group of friends.  There's something to be said for having a larger audience, though, so please know that the old blog post that I'm going to share with you here has been slightly edited.  Because my writing in that old blog was pretty bleh, and I'm not big on sharing things I'm not proud of with people I don't know extraordinarily well.  Well, in terms of quality of writing.  You know what I mean.

This particular post is from March 2014, after I'd been on Match for about a month, and it's about the plight of the Match-subscriber's inbox.  Enjoy.



_________________________________________________

Unrequited Email

I’m not a great flirt.  I tend to over-think situations and people, and my fight or flight response tends to result in flight on most occasions.

“You mean, guys don’t just try to come up and kiss you?” a friend of mine asked once, after an interesting New Year’s Eve party across the lake.

No, in fact, they don’t.  I would imagine that most women probably don’t have that problem.  I can’t help but notice, though, that even with a healthy dose of alcohol, how often my flirting goes unrecognized.

I was reading a Thought Catalog article online this morning called “Six Things Every Extrovert Secretly Has To Deal With,” a response to all the “being an introvert is hard” articles that have circulated the world wide web over the last few months.  The first thing on this woman’s list was “People will often assume that you’re flirting.”

Except that they don’t.  At least not in my case.

I don’t think anyone has ever had a normal conversation with me and thought, “I think she’s flirting with me!” when I wasn’t.  Sometimes I myself question if I’m actually flirting.  When I offered the guy at the Mardi Gras parade a few Cheetos, did he get that I was trying to talk to him?

This lack of smooth-tongued charm unfortunately shows up in my online dating emails, too.  When I first joined, I signed up for two different websites, so I could compare them and then get a refund on whichever one I liked least.  One of the things I liked/was overwhelmed by about match was the expanse of profiles to read and choose from.  One of the things I liked about eHarmony was the fact that there was a standard question-response procedure that you followed before actually freestyling it via email.  In other words, I could delay exposing my ineptitude at flirtatious banter for at least a week.

I use the term freestyle because I feel very much the same way starting a Match email as I would standing on a stage with a microphone in my hand, trying to come up with rhyming lines that make sense.

Hey, my name is such-and-such.

Do you prefer to pay or go Dutch?

Yeah, it’s that bad.

Some people have a knack for these kind of emails.  I received one a couple of weeks ago that I was so impressed with, I used it as a model to write an email to someone else.

“Hi, 

I am not entirely sure what the first step is because this is my first day on match, but I wanted to say hello and introduce myself, and maybe ask a few questions like: What's your name? What made you become a teacher and what do you teach? And what do you like most about New Orleans? 

Aside from the fact that you were on the first page of my first search, I really like your smile (that's definitely something I really appreciate), and I am a native North Carolinian so the Wright brothers reference was noted and appreciated. 

Hope you had a good weekend!”

Of course, I never got a response to the email I sent out based on this one, so maybe it wasn't so great after all.

If you’re wondering what the Wright brothers reference was, there’s a spot on a match.com profile where you’re supposed to write a quick something with less than 140 characters that sums up who you are or what you’re looking for.  You’re not allowed to leave it blank, or it just says “hi,” which mine did for a while until I tried to find something that made me sound less boring and lazy.  I sat in front of my computer for a long time, brainstorming, writing and deleting, trying desperately to think of something witty I could put into the box that would express my personality clearly and accurately.

After about 20 minutes of nothing, I finally thought I’d go the funny route and use a pick up line.  I googled “clean pick up lines” and scrolled through to find something I thought was just the right balance of cheesy and clever.  I settled on:

“Did you invent the airplane?  Because you seem Wright for me.”

I eventually took down the pick up line because I realized that (a) it makes me sound pathetic and (b) it’s really not that funny.  Instead, I replaced it with something I actually believe in that doesn’t leave me feeling embarrassed or unsatisfied:

“Most things are better shared.”

I imagine this was the inspiration for the email I received last night.  The email in its entirety said:

“happiness is the only thing that doubles when it is shared 0_O”

While I appreciated the sweet notion of sharing happiness, I’m not sure what this guy was trying to accomplish by sending it.  I mean, what am I supposed to say to that?

My reaction was probably the opposite of what he was intending.  I immediately felt challenged to come up with as many things that multiply when shared as I could: candle light, tax deductions, awkward silence.  See, not just happiness.

This is probably why I’m single.

So, I've compiled for you a list of things that I believe to be better shared.  It is not in any way comprehensive, but simply a small representation of myself and the things I like to share.

TELEVISION

There are only two things I will consistently watch on television by myself: Saints games and Hallmark movies.  Everything else loses my interest at some point.  Even my favorite show of all time, The Office.  They all end up unwatched because TV just loses its flavor when I’m on my own.

ICE CREAM

I don’t eat ice cream by myself.  I’m not even sure I like ice cream that much.  But it tastes pretty good with others around.

CROSSWORD PUZZLES

I have tried for years to get into the habit and skill of doing a daily crossword puzzle, but I only ever end up doing them on Sunday with my mom.  (Also, I'm not good enough to complete them on my own.)

COMPUTER OR VIDEO GAMES

I should preface this particular entry to the list with the confession that I am terrible at video and computer games.  Even when playing with other people, I have a tendency to forget which character in the game I am, and then accidentally run off the side of a floating island because I thought I was the girl in pink not the green giant.  Still, that's more fun to me than playing Oregon Trail by myself.

ROAD TRIPS

As I’ve said before, I really like traveling alone.  And in the case of road trips, that works out well because like my father, I tend to drive until I run out of gas, at which point I use the restroom and grab a snack and then drive some more.

Driving with someone, though, especially someone you’re close with, means someone to play car games and sing at the top of your lungs with.  Time passes more quickly when there’s someone else there.

ALCOHOL

Why get a Daiquiri for ten bucks when you can get an ICEE for only two?  Because there’s someone else next to you who will also walk a little less straight and talk a little too loud when they finish it.

TAXES

Like I said before, the IRS rewards you for being married.  Maybe I should include that on my profile.  It is almost April, after all.

Despite all of the musings the email prompted, Mr Happiness-doubles is still unlikely to get a response.  Mostly because I’m not interested in a 47 year old man in Mississippi, but also because even if I was interested, I wouldn’t know how to respond.  Um, yes, thank you?

Feeling a little put out by the email situation, I decided to try my wares in real time for a change, at a Mardi Gras parade near my house this past weekend.  There were multiple men nearby that I noticed or that took notice of me, so I gave them my best flirt.

GUY #1: 'You Didn’t Look Like This When I Lived Here'

He lives out of town but he used to live in New Orleans and be part of our friend group.  He apologized more than once for not recognizing me.  “You look different, though” he says.  I still can't figure out whether or not to take this as a compliment.

This particular brand of man is excellent at persistence, but not so good at knowing what should and should not be shared.  The first time I met him, at a party a few years ago, I showed some interest.  That is, until he told me that he set fire to his room once when he threw away a lit joint.

At the parade, he laid it on thick, and I was having a hard time finding a civil escape route from the conversation.  I eventually claimed to need to call someone (which was true) and stepped away to do so.  Post-call, I stepped back into a different part of the crowd, avoided eye contact, and immediately struck up a conversation with someone else.

GUY #2: I Have No Gay-dar

He offered to lift up his shirt when the floats passed, so I could get beads without losing any dignity.  We would make a great team, he says.  I thought, Surely this is what flirting is.  Then my gay friend started chatting him up and comparing notes on gay bars in the Quarter.  I give up.

GUYS #3 and 4: Looking to Get Some

They showed up in our area when the parade started.  I’m pretty sure one of them started the conversation with me, but they were at least moderately attractive, and at this point, I was just hoping to get attention from someone who was straight and didn’t set fires while stoned.  We talked for a while about work, college, and our neighborhood.  At one point, Guy #3 caught a Saints hat, which I professed jealousy over.  He put it sideways on my head and Guy #4 pulled out a strand of hair from my forehead to hang outside the cap.  “There,” he said, “now you look like a 90s kid.”  We discussed being born in 1985 and how that was the best year (but really, was it?).  At the end of the parade, they asked me if I was planning on going downtown later.

“Nope, I’m planning to go to bed after this.”

This is definitely why I'm single.

I don’t like not returning attention given to me.  It actually makes me feel really uncomfortable to put up a wall when someone’s talking to me or leave all of those emails in my match.com inbox unanswered.  Not so much because I have trouble saying no.  I just know that it really sucks to put yourself out there and get rejected, or worse, get ignored.

Aziz Ansari talks about this on a Jimmy Fallon Late Night clip I saw recently when trying out “YouTubing” the other day (not my thing).

“Aziz:

[Technology] I think has changed everything.  Like, take your most basic problem as a single person, right.  You like someone, they don’t like you back.  Or the reverse, someone likes you, you don’t like them back.  At one point, that’d be kind of an awkward situation.  You’d have a conversation.  It’s weird, you know.  Now what do you do?  Someone likes you, you don’t like them back, you just pretend to be busy...forever.  Why risk hurting someone’s feeling when you can create an alternative reality where scheduling is the problem?

But I don’t think that’s coming from a bad place or anything.  I think you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.  I don’t know what the answer is.  The other option is just to like be honest with people.  Like, I talked to a girl, and she was like, ‘Oh, I’m just honest with people.’  I was like, ‘Alright, I’m a guy asking you out to dinner, you don’t want to go, what would you say?’  She said, ‘I would say, “I’m not interested in getting dinner with you.”’  And on one hand, that’s no games, you know where you stand.  But could you imagine actually getting a text like that?

Hey, you want to get dinner sometime?

I’m not interested in getting dinner with you.

Damn, what are you, a demon?  That’s the meanest, cruelest thing anyone’s ever said.  Why don’t you pretend to be busy, you piece of sh**?  I’m just a fellow human being.

Silence is another option.  Silence, I think, might be the meanest one.  I don’t do silence ‘cause, I don’t know, we’ve all been silenced before in some fashion.  That’s the worst one, especially when you’re really excited about someone.  You’re like, ‘Oh man, this is on.  They felt that, I felt that.  This is done.’  Send the first text all confident.  ‘It’s done, forget about it.  It’s done.’  Three hours later, no response.  ‘F****************ck!  I put too many exclamation points in the text!  What was I thinking?  Noooooooo!’  And then three hours earlier, you were looking up vacation packages on Orbitz.”

I love this segment.  My problem is, compassionate or not, I can’t pull the “I’m busy” card because I’m on an online dating site.  And people can see the last time I logged in.

On the flip side, silence is what I have received in response to every single initiating email I’ve sent on match.  I should temper that statement with the admission that I have only actually sent out four or five emails, and that I sent two of those today.

Today's Email 1:

“I think the thing I appreciated most about your profile was your honesty about getting onto match.  I was (am) pretty hesitant myself, and it’s nice to know I’m not the only one unsure about the whole venture.  I meet a lot of really great people on a regular basis who turn out to be great friends but not great romantic potential.  When did dating get to be so hard?

You seem like a fun and fairly down to Earth kind of guy, which is a lot harder to think than you might think.  What’s one thing you wish you could do, but can’t?

ps. Personally, I wish I could do a split.  Or juggle abnormally-shaped objects, like Martini glasses (wouldn’t that be an awesome party trick?).  Or break dance.”

Yep...I wrote “harder to think than you might think."  What is wrong with me?  Maybe if I’d actually proofread my email instead of wondering whether using words like “abnormal” and “venture” would put him off or impress him, I might have a better shot at a response.

Today's Email 2:

“Hi,

It’s nice to find people who are also interested in trying new things and meeting new people.  Summer travel is usually my outlet for exploring new places and making new connections across the globe, but it’s amazing the new people and places I find right here in New Orleans.

If you don’t mind me asking, what’s one place in the world you’ve really loved visiting (here in the States or abroad)?”

And it’s at these moments when Aziz’s message resonates most deeply with me.  There aren’t a lot of guys that I find attractive on this website.  There aren’t a lot of people that I don’t immediately count out for whatever reason.  So, when I find someone stunning handsome, stable, and interesting (like bachelor #2), I find myself desperately trying not to get my hopes up that he’ll respond positively.  Because he might not.  Because chances are that every other girl on this website is emailing him, and they’ve probably figured out how to sound both intelligent and exciting in a brief email, unlike me.  Because I still can’t find a way to make my profile sound remotely as interesting as I am.

Yesterday, someone asked me, “You play the piano, too?  You're really pretty, why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

If I knew the answer to that one, this would be a totally different kind of blog.

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I really wish that I could find the email that I received at one point, in which the man wrote that he wanted us to be like that John Legend song, "All of Me."  The man was seventy.  And that is a terrible song.

I apologize for the length of this post--a little longer than I usually give--but I like reading over it and thinking about the differences between myself then and now.  I'm a lot more confident now.  I'm a lot more willing to initiate now.  I'm slightly better at flirting now.  I like to think that my writing has gotten better, too.  Practice makes perfect and all that.

Also, perhaps with the aid of a far more palatable dating app, I'm a lot better about getting responses. For example, I have a date on Friday.  I'm not putting a lot of stock into it (okay, I'm lying, he's really attractive), but I'm looking forward to getting back into the game.  I'll let you know how it goes.