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Being the “In-Between Girl” Sucks

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Today my girlfriend and I spoke for over an hour about our dating experiences and issues both good, and bad. She was upset as she complained about her ex recently committing to a new relationship, and asked me why he could so easily commit to the new woman in his life, but could never fully commit to her. I explained to her it is because she is the “In-Between Girl”. What is the in-between girl you ponder?
Let me break it down for you. As you know the girl a guy doesn’t really care about but runs to when he is lonely is known as the “back-up girl”. Then, there is the girl the guy cheats with known as the “side-chick girl”. Well, ladies and gentlemen there is a phenomenon that has been occurring for years, in which, a guy dates a girl, but does not want to fully commit to her, and does not want her to commit to anyone else, and this is the “In-Between girl”. While dating the in-between girl a man behaves as her boyfriend, but refuses to actually refer to her as his girlfriend…Sound familiar?

So, let’s say you meet a great guy online, or at a bar. You go on dates, talk on the phone, he introduces you to his friends and vice-versa. You are sleeping together and spending most of your time together, may even spend a holiday or birthday together, but he has yet to refer to you as his girlfriend, or fully commit to being in a relationship with you. Now you as a woman say to yourself, ‘Self this is okay…you’ve met his friends, he took you to dinner for your birthday, and you spend your weekends with him…you are his girlfriend, you don’t need a title.’ Really? You don’t need a title? Everyone has a title honey. Your boss is your boss, your best friend is your best friend, your mom is your mom, and your boyfriend is in fact…your boyfriend.

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Why I Don’t Really Love Valentine’s Day

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Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching and according to every single commercial, and retail store you must celebrate it. What are the exact origins of Valentine’s Day anyway? Well kids, I did my research a’la Google and honestly, there is no definitive answer. There was said to be a Bishop named St. Valentine who secretly married people (around 270 AD) when it had been banned by some dude named Claudius as he saw married men as being to weak, and therefore unable to fight as soldiers in war. Although there is no solid proof of this, and it is said that St. Valentine signed a note he wrote to his lover “From Your Valentine”.

When I was a kid I obsessed over buying the cutest Valentines from the store. Why? Because we all had that handmade card holder attached to the front of our desk at school for people to drop their Valentines Day cards and treats for us into. I would really, really, stress about how many cards or treats I would get, and who would give me one. Just think of Charlie Brown with his briefcase in class on Valentine’s Day…ummm…yeah that was me..kinda…well a lot. I put all of my hopes on this one day.

There is something about Valentine’s Day that drives women into a frenzy of emotions. There is the bitter girl, the angry girl, the ‘I don’t need a man anyway’ girl, the over emotional girl, and the ‘I’m in love with love’ girl. Which one are you? I think on some level I may have been everyone of these girls at different points in my love life. There were the high school years of pure naivety when I thought the girls who had huge flowers bouquets, candy-grams, or dates for Valentine’s were the luckiest and prettiest girls. Then came the college years when I had my string of heartbreaks and thus can care less about Valentine’s Day.

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5 Signs He’s Not Over His Ex

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Dating someone new is fun, scary, nerve-racking and mysterious all at the same time. It’s fun to be excited about a new person in your life. It’s also scary to let your guard down and be vulnerable, and I don’t know about you, but I love it when a new special someone gives me butterflies in my stomach. Well, then there is the mysterious part…Most times we are so busy enjoying the newness, butterflies, rainbows and unicorns that have suddenly appeared in our lives along with this new person, that we may not notice some other issues. One major issue I have dealt with in relationships past: Is he really over his Ex?

An ex-boyfriend of mine owned a cat. Let’s just say that besides being deathly allergic to them…I just do not like them in general. Yeah, okay, some of you may have just gotten pissed off, but hey I like dogs, don’t judge me! But I digress…So, my ex had a cat and one night my throat closed up and I could barely breathe from said cat, so he promised to vacuum and keep the cat in another room anytime I came over. While I did not like the whole ‘guy with a cat’ thing, I did really like him and I tried to deal with the cat.

One night while discussing our pasts he tells me that the cat is actually his ex-girlfriends cat that he inherited. Here’s my issue with this scenario…okay well here is my second or third issue with this scenario. Firefighter (did I forget to mention that we will be referring to him as firefighter? Sorry, we will be calling him firefighter because as you all know I don’t use names unless I have been given permission.) really, really, loved his cat. But I wanted firefighter to really, really love me, and every time I looked at that cat I saw the life he had before me with someone else.  Continue reading →

Tell Me I’m Beautiful

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 beautiful

One day my ex made a comment that stuck with me for the rest of our relationship. At the time I had gotten fired from my job because I was in school (how effed up is that?!) and had fallen into a depression, and to be completely forthcoming, I had gained a little weight. Not a lot of weight, but some and being that I am such a petite girl any weight gain will show. Needless to say I was so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself and being depressed that I had not noticed the weight gain. Then, at Thanksgiving when my aunt commented on it, it literally hit me that I had been in a negative space and needed to stop feeling that way immediately. And so I did, and the small amount of noticeable weight I had gained rapidly came off as I began to use my unemployment days to jog and do Tae-Bo.

 Cut to about a month or so later when my scrawny ex-boyfriend then decided to become obsessed with gaining weight and looking perfect. I stood in the bedroom and in answer to me talking about him working out he says, “I need to whip your body into shape.” Wow…just typing that sentence literally puts me back into that bedroom standing in shock as he sauntered past me as though what he said was completely okay. And the worse aspect of it is that to him it was. There had been a huge shift in our relationship at that point, and I began to notice how he seemed jealous of certain elements of my life.
At the time I enrolled full-time into school, found a part-time job, began building my body back to its petite state, and spent time studying, working and hanging with my family. And instead of being happy for me in turning my negative situation of being fired, going on unemployment and struggling to pay rent (oh and yes he made three times as much as I did, and made me use my unemployment checks to pay half of the rent!) into positives, and being productive, he became angry, defensive and jealous. He would constantly put me down and make hateful comments about my appearance, or the fact that I went to school etc…I was excelling in my life and he could not handle it.

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Am I Too Independent?

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The other day while literally staring off into space I think I had a epiphany…Really am I being that dramatic in the opening line of this post? Yes, I am. Here’s the thing…I was thinking back to all of my relationships past and the one recurring theme, or should I say issue that has been brought up with me is that I am too independent. This was very prevalent in my last relationship I was in. And thinking back my independence has distanced men from me my entire life. When I was younger my dad wished I were more dependent all the time. As an adult he told me that my independence actually bothered him as he had constantly complained to my mom that he wished I would come to him, or them when I had a problem.

I had my first real boyfriend at age 18 during my Senior year of high school and he had serious issues with my independence. I distinctly remember him getting mad at me because I wouldn’t let him wash my car for me, and wanted to do it myself. Sounds really trivial right? Why wouldn’t I just let him do it? Maybe because it was MY car and I worked my butt off getting good grades, and not getting in trouble so my parents would even get it for me. Maybe because I felt that the car was MY responsibility and I should be the one to take care of it. And maybe I just wanted him to know that I could take care of my car, and myself, and felt a need to prove it to him for some reason.

As a kid I was bullied and tormented by my classmates and even some teachers. I never once told my parents. It started in the first grade and unlike any other kid who would share what was going on with their parents, I felt that I needed to deal with my problems myself and not burden my parents, or have my parents “save” me. But where this feeling came from I have no idea. As I got older and as the bullying, gossip and my classmates torture became worse, I closed up even more. I only went to my parents once, because I got in trouble at school for finally fighting back, and they were called. I felt showing them and anyone else that I could not handle my own situations myself showed weakness, and I never want to be weak.  Continue reading →

Listening to Your Friends Can Keep You Single

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If I read one more tweet about how relationships are supposed to be easy, or how if a man really loves you he’ll never make you cry, or that arguing leads to the demise of a relationship I am going to lose it! Seriously who the hell came up with these naive and dare I say idiotic rules for relationships? I know who did…your friends, and their friends, and their friends, and so on. Yes, that’s right listening to our friends-or strangers who we call friends on Twitter or Facebook-can literally lead to you being dumped, cheated on, forgotten about, or avoided by the one you adore

Think about this…how often do we look to others for advice or direction on what to do in our relationships? How many times have you called up your girlfriends to tell them what your boyfriend did? And ladies we are not the only guilty parties in the bad advice pyramid scheme…Men are just as bad! And yes I referred to bad relationship advice as a pyramid scheme, because to me, it is!

Here is how the pyramid developed: There was this one man or woman who decided they had all the answers, so they went to their friends and told them all of the “answers” to life, which evolved into those answer loving recipients to continue spreading out the answers to life all over town, which eventually ended up being told to your mom or dad, who told them to your big brother or sister, who told them to you, and you tell them to your friends. See…see how easy it is to ride down the slippery pyramid scheme slope?

I am just as guilty of this as well. I remember going to someone for advice on every little aspect of my relationship with the Baseball Player. He and I fell for each other quick and hard. And instead of admitting that to one another, I discussed us with my advice giver, and he discussed us with his best friend who I’ll refer to as The Weasel. Oh yeah I said it…he was a weasel. Anyway the weasel had just gone through a bad break-up and the Baseball Player and I were doing so well that he had a typical case of jealousy and did everything in his power to tear us apart.  Continue reading →

My Live-In boyfriend Dumped Me Over Text

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Relationships are hard. Relationships are amazing. Relationships are work. Relationships are beautiful. And relationships can be brutal. There seems to always be one person in the relationship who holds the “relationship cards” if you will. Meaning that they give less emotionally which in turn leaves them holding your emotional cards in their hands. Because you keep giving and giving to supply the emotional need(s) you are not getting from them. In my last relationship three years ago I dated a guy I’ll refer to as D…short for Douchebag.


D and I met at a time where I just began to exert my feminism and independence with confidence in my life. I had just moved into my first apartment-by myself-and returned to school. I felt amazing, beautiful, smart and accomplished. I also had absolutely no desire to be in a relationship or need to meet someone new, and I meet this D a few weeks later. Yes, weeks…four weeks to be exact.

I was not attracted to him physically, but after our first phone conversation, which can I just add, lasted four hours…I figured saying yes to him asking me out would not hurt. He told me he was part French and could help me with my French as I was studying the language in hopes of taking a backpacking trip there. He also liked the same type of music I liked, and was eager to explore LA, and try foods from all of the restaurants I told him I loved. 
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Let’s Talk About Sex: What Women Want

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Let’s Talk About Sex: You know that moment when you’re making out, touching, kissing, and that amazing feeling of warmth travels through your entire body? This is it…the moment you know you are going to have sex, and you cannot wait to pull out all of your best moves on us right fellas? And we want these moves because we have thought about this moment with you since the day we met you. Oh yes women think about sex just as much as you do and we know within the first ten, hell I’m being nice, more like 5 minutes whether or not we are going to ever have sex with you. So you’ve clearly made it past the first ten minutes, or ten dates and now here it is, the moment we both have wanted since we first met…and then…this happens:

We are minutes into our pre-sex make out session and touching each other all over, and this is usually a clear signal for you to touch us in our most intimate spot. Women love this, we love to be caressed and teased, which turns us on and makes us want you even more then we already do.

So…why the hell do you get down there and start banging the hell out of our vagina like we are your PlayStation’s remote controller? This is not Madden 13 and you are not Peyton Manning dude. Calm the hell down and stop touching us with the force you use to control your favorite video game character. And I am not exaggerating here when I say some of you need to truly learn the Art of Touch. As one of my girls put in: “He fingers you like, well, like a man, so you don’t like it (or him when he does it). Boo.” (Thanks Skye) Think of our vagina and especially our clitoris as a soft kitten, a baby kitten that needs to be touched, caressed and shown care.

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Why I Choose to Live My Life Childfree for Now

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 Kids are amazing…the way they see the world, the way they learn, their smiles and laughter melt my heart. I have spent years teaching and babysitting kids, but yet the desire to have one of my own has never surfaced in my psyche. As a young girl we are taught through fairytale stories, television shows, movies etc. that you grow up, get married, and become a mom. Many women feel the essence of becoming a woman is being able to give birth to a child. And, some of us for now or forever, choose to live our lives childfree.

I like shoes, I like to buy them, wear them, and match them up with my moods and outfits. I love to travel, eat out, and get up and go whenever I want. I love to spend my money how I please, spend time with my family and friends, and I love kids, but…here is the kicker…I do not want to have any. I am 32yrs old and have no inkling whatsoever to have a baby. The funny thing is people either do not believe me, tell me I just haven’t found the right person, or think I do not like kids.
Having a child is-from what I’ve seen, and been told-an amazing, painful, exhilarating, loving, heartfelt and challenging moment in a woman’s life that she will literally never forget. Well you know what moments I will never forget? The time I was in Nordstroms and bought my first pair of James Frye boots on sale for $300! Now most people would say I was crazy to compare my shoe buying experiences to having a child, but that moment is a moment I will never forget. And that moment makes me happy.

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For a While, I Was a Side Chick

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Okay here it is the biggest dating mistake I have ever made: I cheated…well I helped someone cheat, I mean…alright I dated a guy who had a girlfriend. I know what you’re thinking, that I am horrible and I have to say at the time I thought I was special, different, and that he and I would ride off into the sunset together. I was naive thinking that I was who he really wanted to be with and that when the time was right-for him-he would break things off with her and we would live happily ever after. Ridiculous I know and while I am not at all proud of what I did the experience taught me so much about myself.

In this toxic situation I allowed myself to get into I realized one day that I completely put all of his needs before mine. I honestly believed he cared about me, and dare I say loved me, even if he hadn’t realized it yet. See, right there that’s the mistake I and most women make. We think we are going to change him as though we are a magical entity that will all of a sudden change his entire mindset because he has experienced us. That was a huge mistake and taught me that no matter what you cannot change a man, or believe a man will magically fall in love with you because YOU want him to.

Another mistake I made is believing that he and I had a special connection or friendship that I invested my emotions in. When I did that I allowed things to be said and done that I would not have put up with in any normal dating circumstance.

Why was I allowing myself to be used in the name of “friendship”? And more importantly why did I convince myself that this “friendship” was making me happy? I easily allowed myself to be manipulated and since he was so good at it I convinced myself that this was not manipulation, and that this situation would actually change for the better. This was me in fact settling. 
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My Date with the Jokester Part II

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 I tried….I really did, but Mr. I think I’m a comedian, lost me, and it only took one date and a few text conversations later to do so. So how in fact did Mr. Comedian lose me in just one date? Here’s how:
     1) Showing up a half hour late and not calling or texting to tell me: Mr. Comedian is the first guy since high school to show up so late for a date, but here’s the difference. In high school cell phones were just gaining popularity-well for my generation anyway-and we still used pagers. Now in 2012 the age of the cell phone, there is literally NO excuse for not calling or at least texting a woman to tell her you’ll be late for a date…especially your first one!

     2) Using the date as a one-man show performance: Mr. Comedian did exactly that! Placing the spotlight completely on himself in a very obnoxious way by turning every topic, or situation into a joke. As I said in my earlier post I love to laugh and be with a man who is funny, but when everything is a joke, or being made fun of how do I know when to ever take you seriously? And can we just turn it down a tad bit on the first date please?

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My Date with the Jokester

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My date thinks he’s a comedian. At least that’s how he acted. I felt as though I was his personal audience of one, and I did not know how to react to the perpetual spotlight he seemed to have carried around with him, along with his mic of course. The thing is we have had many phone and-of course in this day and age-text conversations and while he throws in jokes here and there, they are actually funny. What can I say he gives good phone! 

When we were out I expected to get to know the real him…no I actually hoped to get to the root of him, you know the meat, the insides, and see what was underneath the joking exterior layer he has presented to me since I met him over two months ago.

With this expectation in mind I agreed to our first date Friday night. We went the usual route and had dinner at my favorite Italian eatery (Al Fornaio) if you have not tried it, I suggest you do so immediately, but I digress. And followed dinner with a PinkBerry run and a movie. Pretty normal date activity, but there was something off, something that I could not quite understand about my date. He showed up late and did not call or text to say he’d be late.  


Honestly, I was not ready at our decided time, so I did not mind him being late, but it would have been nice if he would have acknowledged he was late, and at least apologized for it. Instead he made a joke about it. That was Joke #1. When he saw me he stated something to the effect like, “Oh I didn’t know this date was so formal…look at you all fancy!” That was Joke #2. Here’s my question…why not just say, “You look great.” Instead of making it into some weird self conscious thing? 

In the car on the way to the restaurant he continued with the jokes about helicopters and jogging suits and any other random thing he could think of interjecting into the conversation…we’ll just label those Jokes #4-#10 for the sake of this post. At the restaurant he seemed to have let his spotlight dim a bit, which I was very happy about, and we had conversation about all the regular first date subjects you tackle.
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Feels Like the First Time

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 Chemistry is an essential ingredient in all relationships, but if you do not have sexual chemistry can the relationship last? Whenever you meet someone new, there are a lot of firsts that you have with that person. The first date, the first all night conversation, the first kiss, etc…
Which brings me to an awkward moment many of us have had; The first time you have sex with someone new. Here’s the thing, first time sex can be so amazing, but it can also take a very weird and not so amazing turn. Mistakes can be made that either make you run away, or make you want to improve every other time from that point on!

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Let’s Wait a While

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Sex is a huge factor in most relationships, and most times we end up having sex with people we are not in relationships with. While I am in no way passing judgment on those who do I am explaining why I have taken that option off of my table. There is something to be said for two adults who actually take the time to get to know each other without the complications of sex clouding their judgment.

 

Often (women especially) have sex with a man in the very early stages of dating, whether that be the first or third date, and wonder why one month later he has disappeared…or moved onto someone else. It’s not about making him wait, or testing him to see how patient he will be. It is about getting to know someone for who they truly are and deciding this person is who you want to be in an exclusive relationship with.
There are plenty of women and men who can separate emotion from sex, and to get caught up in the rush of endorphins and clouded judgments that make you believe they’re the one when in fact they are not. I am not one of those people. I dated someone a few months ago for about a month and he wanted to take things to the next level.  I explained that I was not ready as he was dating other people and, felt it was not safe, nor a good idea at the time.
Cut to one week later when he disappears and three weeks later texts me with a pathetic excuse for his absence. Had I slept with him my heart would have been broken, and I would have felt like a fool. Luckily he did not get that piece of my emotion, heart, and soul because I chose to not give it away too soon. Now into my thirties, I have finally figured out what I want and it’s not a fling, but a committed relationship, and until I truly get to know someone and vice versa, there are lots of diners that I will allow to sit at my table, but only that special one will have dessert.

Twitter: @AwkwardGirlLA