In the absence of men...

“Did you ever think that maybe we’re the white knights? And we’re the ones who have to save ourselves?” 

~ Carrie, SATC Season 3, “Where There’s Smoke…”

Today K.T. and I were having a dinner date followed by some frozen yogurt. Of course the conversation was filled with ranting about The Good Person of Setzuan, decoding signals from a possible K.T. love interest, and dishing about our loves lives and the love lives of our friends. 

We began talking about love in the general sense, I began talking about my parents and how they have given me and unrealistic expectation when it comes to love. They are perfect. They are still in love with each other after 21 years. They have the kind of relationship where you still see the sparkle in their eyes when they look at each other. They go on dinner dates and don't invite my sister and I, they have Saturday morning shopping dates, they write love letters to each other via a video game called Animal Crossing, they put up with whatever crap the others throws out...

They are soulmates... simply put. 

And to think it almost didn't happen. My mom was engaged to another man before she met my father. I guess you just know when the person isn't right for you. At least my momma did. And if my momma can know... why can't I?

So, with this hope, I continue my search. Missing electron, where are you?

My mind has been so occupied lately with this search for my soulmate, the quest to find the right man to fulfill my life. I want to replicate what my parents have. I want to find that person that I will spend decades with, the rest of my life with. I told K.T. about how I spent my freshman year single, trying to discover who I was as a person. I was entering a new environment, I needed to discover myself and become secure with who I was. So no love interest freshman year... only a few hook-ups at the beginning of the year (it's freshman year, hook ups are a necessary part of the experience).  But they don't really count... Then summer came and Spring happened. 

Spring, as he will be known via this blog, was a boy I had majorly flirted with the summer prior to my freshman year, but he wasn't ready for a relationship. Finally, last summer we decided to give it a try and while the relationship was laced with fighting, we really connected and it turned out to be something really fantastic. We decided to break up at the end of summer citing the fact that Spring was starting his freshman year of college and that we were going to different schools in different states. While it was a bit of a tough split, it was the right choice. At the time a long distance relationship didn't seem to be appropriate. Especially for a freshman in college without a lot of previous dating experience. Spring was my first serious relationship in two years and was an awesome way to reacquaint my self with the serious dating game. 

After this comeback to the serious dating scene, I felt I had discovered and learned about enough of myself to put the search for a relationship with depth and substance into full throttle. I followed Spring with Seuss (his name was Seuss and he wanted to be a doctor... it was the only funny thing about him...), who was followed by Neck, who was followed by Peter (the holder of the title of Longest/Most Serious Relationship in the History of Me), then D, and now...

As this next summer closes in, I can't help but reflect back on the past year... and I've realized I dated quite a bit. And have learned quite a bit. I broke a lot of hearts, maybe even had my heart broken... You would think that maybe after all these different experiences in my dating life, I would emerge more secure and sure of myself...

As K.T. and I selected our different kinds of frozen yogurt and topped them with fruit, cookie pieces, and cheese cake, I mentioned how even after all this dating, I feel more unsure of myself than ever. At this point in my life, I am facing a lot of choices concerning my future and significant other, I've hit a road block and feel the need to make those decisions. You'd think I would follow my parents example (they didn't meet and get serious until late 20s/early 30s) and realize I have a little bit more time to make up my mind on things. The problem is these decisions keep pounding down my door, and love and all that comes with it seem to be wildly screaming at me to make up my mind and hurry up...

And as I waxed poetic my feelings of discovering what I want in my significant other and how each relationship has moved me closer to that Holy Grail, K.T. said something that really struck me... She said, "Maybe you shouldn't be figuring what you want in a boy, but spend sometime figuring out yourself."

I've been constantly preaching the 'love thyself' mantra over the past month, but suddenly, I realized it: You can't limit self-discovery to one year and then think you're completely figured out. Through this year's dating escapades, I've discovered what I'm like within a relationship, what I'm like with a boy and how to handle being with another person, the discovery of companionship... and forgot how to discover things about my greatest companion: myself. 

And so I'm going to do something drastic. Something dramatic and a bit ridiculous... but possibly necessary. During Setzuan rehearsals, several members of the cast and I crafted this idea:

 I'm going to give up boys for a month (or at least to the end of the year).

I will take a temporary vow of celibacy. Instead of diving deep into the dating game which has this past year become the focus point of my life, I am going to retreat to last year when I spent the time figuring out myself. Instead of a whole year, I will spend a month remembering what it was like to be me, without boys, without The Game, without the desperate search to find a soulmate. I will be with my friends, with my theatre, and with myself. 

I think its a good choice. A chance to refresh, to cleanse the palate in order to fully enjoy the next course in this meal of life.

My goal is to the end of the school year. That's three weeks. And should I need more time I will expand the vow to a month. For a month, boys will not be the object of affection, but instead be platonic friends... no sexual interest, no flirting, no potential boyfriends, no nothing. 

Why am I giving up boys again? ...It feels like the right thing to do. It's to do some soul searching. Some single soul searching. 

Everyone in the show doubts that I'll be successful. And I admit, I'm a little insecure with my will power to avoid boys as sexual beings. In order to help the process become a success, several of my friends and cast members (shout outs to Lindsey, Healy, K.T., Alex, Amy, and Kyle), decided to put together a list of rules to keep me in check.

The rules are as follows:

1) No phone sex or internet sex

2) No touching... If it's sexual in nature at all, inappropriate. Any body parts above the knee and below the shoulders are completely off limits. 

3) No face touching.

4) No winking. 

5) No hair touching, no petting, no caressing

6) No spooning, no cuddling

7) No overtly sexual flirting, or any innuendo that has the potential of moving from innuendo into reality.

8) No sexy text messages... or romantic text messages... 

9) Statuses on facebook cannot contain the words: love, sex, boy, resist, heart, body, destiny, missing you, want (in a sexual/romantic sense), touch, kiss, crush, bump 'n' grind, do me

10) No eye sex... or eye gasms... or eye jobs... 

11) No sleep overs... because sleep overs lead the breakage of rules 2-9

12) No asking boys on dates, or saying yes to any boys who ask.

13) No saying the phrase 'possible love of my life' concerning a potential boyfriend (This is a rule that should be established in my everyday life)

14) No sex. No fooling around (anything concerning blowing, fingers, and things that cannot be mentioned in public places without making people blush)

15) NO KISSING. This will be the make or break of this experiment. I love kissing. 

And so my boy-less three weeks begins. And maybe with the subtraction of this distraction, my quest for the best will calm itself down. I'll be able to see clearly once my world and single-self have been restored to their proper state. 

Or maybe this is a ploy. My friend Chris mentioned that he thinks I'm simply trying to trick fate... I'm knocking on the door of some romantic/teen movie cliche where I give up boys and suddenly the man of my dreams enters my life... I would be totally okay with that.

Whatever happens, whatever my subconscious thought process is... I'm going to give it a good try. Sure, I'm probably going to fail, but at least for a few moments, I'll be able to set boys aside and remember what it was like to be strong, independent, and single... and proud of it. To not need a boy, and instead depend entirely and completely on myself... for a second forget my unrealistic expectations, and my parents story, and my current boy drama... and remember what it's like to be me. 

And so, Day One of my Abstinence of Boys... begins...

Wish me luck!

It's all child's play

“Boys frustrate me. I hate all their indirect messages, I hate game playing. Do you like me or don't you? Just tell me so I can get over you.”

~ Kirsten Dunst

In our production of Good Person of Setzuan, there's a little child actor, her name is Aliyah. She is adorable. I tend to have conversations about how jealous I am of the attention she gets (I hate not being that star... and this five year old gives me stiff competition). I must admit I'm not the best to interact with children. While I'm sure eventually the paternal instinct kicks in and I will want to take care of children, but right now I'm just sarcastic. Aliyah was showing us the three-step turns she learned in dance class, I retorted with, "Oh yeah, three step turns? Watch me do a time step, followed by a double axel and a hitch kick..." Aliyah didn't understand. Let's just say that I won this dance battle. 

Another time, one of the other actors was pretending to be an alien with Aliyah. I responded with a faux scream pretending to be attacked by the aliens. Once the alien duo had moved on, I turned to K.T. and, half joking/half serious, asked, "Did I do that right? She's not an alien, she's a little girl. I don't understand children..."

Let's pray by the time that I get married and am at the stage in my life where children become the next step, I'll actually be ready to relate, have the patience, and want to interact with them.

I swear that once upon a time I played pretend. I was an imaginative kid, and I mean after all, I still want to play pretend... I'm an actor. Maybe, over time I've fallen out of fondness for fantasy, and fallen into a different kind of game. 

Aliyah said something that really struck me the other day. I know... I was inspired by a five year olds thoughts... who am I? Anyway, a bunch of the cast was standing around, being our normal, sassy selves, when someone started jokingly teasing another person. Aliyah, in her little girl cuteness exclaimed, "If you tease people they won't be your friends."

Lindsey and I turned to each other and laughed. We started saying things along the lines of, "I tease everyone and I have plenty of friends" and "Listen, little girl, we've got to get some shit to set straight about the world..." Of course, we said none of this too her face and were saying all these things in pure jest, but the thought stuck with me, and I couldn't help but wonder... Is there any way to even make friends, find a lover, flirt with a crush, attract someone... without teasing? A majority of my flirting process when I really like someone involves heavy sarcasm and immense amounts of teasing. I like to be teased by someone I'm interested in. It keeps me on my toes. Nothing too extreme, or that crosses over to being mean, but flirting and teasing seem to go hand in hand now-a-days. It's all about The Game.

Oh, The Game. The infamous relationship game... We all know it, we all play it. Some better than others.

And then I tried to reminisce about what it was like before The Game. Before we had to sit around late at night with our girlfriends debating whether that text message was an actual flirt or just the boy being polite. Before we stressed over the boy not texting us back, turning over and over in our heads the possibilities: Is he at work? Did he not get the text message? Does he just hate me? Before flirtation became just a more acceptable form of manipulation...

I reminisced... and came up with nothing. I honestly cannot think of a time when the game was a part of my life. In kindergarten, I was already a game player. I would bring my stuffed Toy Story Woody doll to class in order to impress, I would show off my new light up Power Ranger sneakers. I wanted everyone who I was interested in to know that I had good taste and even better toys. Throughout elementary school, I was infamous for giving girls kisses on the cheeks and then ignoring them the next day. I had to give them a taste and keep them wanting more. I've always been playing The Game. And probably always will be.

And as a scoured across these thoughts I wondered: Are relationships nothing more than a game of chess?Are we simply moving our pieces strategically across a board of love and life in order to conquer the other side and eventually find our own checkmate? 

I'm a professional at this game. If this was a chess tournament, I would always make it to the final rounds. Someone the other day told me, "You make boys fall in love with you." And it's true. I know how to play the relationship game, I know how to make boys want me head over heels. I don't substitute actual love, compassion, and sparks in order to play the game to the fullest, though. The Game is not a substitute for love, but instead a necessary component, it's a stepping stone to enter a relationship. It's a stepping stone to keeping a relationship alive. I find a lot of couples become comfortable after awhile. They forget how to push the others buttons, turn them on and off, they forget the excitement that came with the initial Game. They become boring. They forget how to play. They forget how to Check their opponent. They become complacent and allow the small, problematic pawn to cross the board and become catastrophic Queen, determined to tear the board, or the relationship, apart.  

I think a man who can play the game is a man who can handle complicated. And trust me, I'm complicated. The Game is a way of testing the water, seeing if the man is willing to play. You want someone who is able to learn your rules, and play with you when you get serious along the way. They should know when your angry, what makes you happy, what pushes your buttons, when you need to be comforted, when you need to be called out... and if they can't figure out the way you flirt, they can't possibly be able to figure out the important things. If you don't know how to play Chess or have an interest in learning, why would you make an investment and buy the board? 

The Game is instinctively programmed into our bodies.  When your little and you like someone, you instinct is to pick on them. You don't want them to know your real feelings, but you want them to notice you. When your an adult and you like someone, you flirt with someone through teasing and sarcasm, but know your limits. You don't want them to think you're coming off strong, but you want them to notice you. 

Why is it so hard for us to just say how we feel? And why when people set the game aside, and actually do say how they feel, it comes off as coming off too strong or being desperate?  

 

I'm currently in the situation and I can't tell you the answer. D confronted me about why I didn't want to be in a relationship. He asked if I was afraid to commit because I'm still dealing with my break-up. To which, I responded, yeah, I'm not ready to serious yet. To which he followed up with, "I just don't want it to awkward when I kiss you or hold you." And suddenly, my red flag flew. We aren't even boyfriends? We're not in a committed relationship, why is he thinking about those sort of things or talking to me about them? I could understand had we decided to be exclusive and in an official relationship, this would actually be an extremely important. Suddenly everything was out in the open. He wanted something serious. The game was over. He put it out in the open that he wanted a legitimate relationship with holding, kissing, and commitment. I couldn't respond, and he followed up with asking if he should back-off a bit. 

I don't know why, but, for me at least, I am entirely turned off when everything is put on the table. At least early on in the relationship. There has to be a sense of discovery, a sense of exploration. I'm having a hard time coming to any sort of conclusion about the situation, and how I feel about it. For me, there is an eventual time when those questions must be asked, but pushing that time forward becomes weird and awkward. It's not natural. 

What I have learned is mystery in a relationship comes naturally, it doesn't need to be forced.  A person can never know another person completely, nor can a person know themselves completely, thus mystery is inevitable. Discovering and learning about another person is natural. In our modern world where so much is on the line and speed is key, we sometimes speed through the natural process. We get too excited and try to learn too much, or force another person to reveal too much about themselves instead of waiting for the natural occurrence. And then to restore the excitement and mystery, we sometimes start hiding how we feel about things, we force the mystery. 

D and I didn't talk for a day and then slowly got back into our texting routine. When I hung out with him last night, I started realizing that there was no excitement, I wasn't flirting, teasing, or trying to figure him out. I stopped playing. And I'm not sure if I even want to try and play again with him. I wasn't having any fun. 

The Game has been disrupted. I can reset the pieces and pretend that certain moves haven't been made, or forfeit the game and move on to the next. I could use my talent at The Game to try and reset, but no matter what the game maybe... I don't think I enjoy playing it with D and I don't know if I ever have... I would just be lying to D and to myself...

The question arises, when does playing The Game cross the line and become a lie? When does honesty fail to be a part of the strategy. I asked Lindsey what she thought about the game. She automatically responded, "I don't play the game. I'd rather have it all out on the table. I want them to be honest... I had a relationship in which we were playing the game, mostly him, and at one point we just put it out all on the table, and it was the best part of the relationship." I believe there is a huge difference from honesty and playing The Game. I think people confuse the idea of being honest, with the idea of being too forward. There must be mystery to the relationship, but there must be honesty. I must admit, personally, I have been so caught up in playing The Game, trying to make the other person happy, that I forgot about honesty. I forgot about saying how I actually felt, and instead used The Game to make the other person happy. If they're happy... so am I...

Am I just trying to save D's feelings? The Game isn't fun, and I feel like I'm lying. I'm teasing D into thinking that eventually there will be a chance for a relationship, a relationship he is obviously pining for. I'm giving up honesty, and continuing a Game simply to make this boy happy. 

I think that's the sign when The Game truly has gone too far. When you stop being honest, and stop having fun. I think having fun is the core base of anything. At the end of the day, in a relationship, you may fight and you may have extremely hard times, there may be obstacles like rooks and knights in your way, deterring you from your goal, but if you still see the person your with and think about how much fun you have with them and how happy you are and will be... it's worth it. The Game is worth it. The relationship is worth it. It is all worth it. 

And as I look back... on The Game. On honesty. On the fun... I realize that... the D thing isn't going to work out. I can't keep pretending I'm having fun, I can't continue playing The Game when it's already gone too long. 

Especially since I may have already started another game... a game that I've been wanting to play for some time now... 

God, I wish I was in kindergarten again... and I could just kiss the girls and run away....

Aliyah during rehearsal was pretending to have a wedding. She told Chris, a boy in the cast, and Lindsey that they were going to get married because Chris is a grown up boy and Lindsey was a grown up girl...

Oh Aliyah... If only it was that simple....