Tag: modern romance

Get Your Eggs Out of My Basket

Originally published on It’s Date Night

I’ve heard this dating advice many times over the last few years – “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

I can’t say I’ve followed this advice religiously, or at all for that matter. When I meet someone I like, I like them and only them. I’m kind of like a bug. If the men in my life are a bunch of glowing lights, I go for the shiniest one and he’s got my full attention. 

I put all my eggs in one basket you could say. His basket.

This keeps biting me in the ass. 

Another problem has arisen since that terrible mercury retrograde we went through in February. Even though nothing has panned out [clearly still single]they keep lingering. It’s like I still have a few egg shells out there that I haven’t collected.

Now they’re the bugs. Annoying ones that keep buzzing around my periphery. 

I’m partially to blame for this.  Whenever I get a brazilian wax I tend to make bad decisions. [Don’t judge me, I know I’m not the only one.] My new year’s resolution was to not sleep with any assholes. Then it came time for my next wax. 

Two days after the fact I had failed my 2015 promise to myself and brought one of them back into the mix. Self-restraint? What’s that?

Then there’s this guy I dated last year for awhile. I keep randomly hearing from him. Maybe he thinks it’s nice of him to “check in”. I know better – His check in’s are usually in between his spurts on Tinder.

And then there’s Carlton. 

There’s a common sentiment that exists within my friend circle. “Poor Carlton.”

Now, I definitely don’t like being pitied, and there’s really no reason for us to feel pity for Carlton either. He’s smart, sexy, tall, kind, etc, etc. There would have been some definite perks to dating him. My mother would have been very excited if I had brought him home for Easter this weekend. 

Except I wasn’t into him. I tried, but the elusive spark was not there. After a month of dating I realized that I had put him in the friend zone and as much as I tried to convince myself that continuing to see him was a good idea, I knew doing so wasn’t fair to him, or to myself. 

And unfortunately, he was one of those guys who just wasn’t getting the hint.  

In fact, I can’t even call it hinting. I was very straight and clear with him, multiple times.

Initial break up text: “I don’t see this going any further for me.”

Two weeks later: “No I don’t think going for wine is a good idea.”

Four weeks later: “No Carlton I don’t want to sleep with you. Yes, I realize you mean friends-with-benefits but I don’t want that either.”

Then the final straw. I was very excited when I found out that he had gone on a couple of dates with a girl I knew. When I heard from him again I asked him about it. “I heard you went on a few dates with Hannah! She’s great!” 

He must have taken my inquiry as jealousy. 

His response: “What, did you think I was going to put all my eggs in one basket with you?”

I DON’T WANT ANY OF YOUR EGGS IN MY BASKET CARL.  

Yes I actually texted him that and yes I still heard from him a few months later offering to take me for dinner. 

So here’s what I’ve learned. Sometimes we put our eggs in people’s baskets too soon. Sometimes they still have one of our eggs even when they shouldn’t. And sometimes you get eggs put into your basket that you really don’t want but if the other person won’t take it back, there’s not much you can do about it. 

Part of my spring cleaning is going to involve organizing my egg collection if you will. 

Happy Easter everyone! The hunt continues.

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Girlfriend Zone: The Grey Area

Published on It’s Date Night

“Katie, I think he thinks I’m his girlfriend.”

Like it or not, if you live with me, you’re going to become someones girlfriend. I’m sort of like Good Luck Chuck. Except if I remember correctly he had to sleep with a girl in order for her to find true love. That’s not the case here, I assure you.

Before you start lining up to be my next roommate I should put a disclaimer on this.

*These relationships don’t necessarily last. So far I’m 4 for 4, but only one past roommate is with the same guy and my current roommates situation is yet to be determined. It’s in the grey area. 

My absolute favorite and least favorite part of dating is when you don’t know where it’s going. I love it because it’s thrilling and exciting and you spend most of your time day dreaming about seeing them again/taking their pants off. 

I hate it for the same reason I love it: Like I said, you don’t know where it’s going.

A friend recently asked me, “I have a toothbrush at his place – what does this mean??”

“That you care about your oral hygiene?”

Obviously it means more than that in our girl brains. A tooth brush is not just a tooth brush. I even think something of it when my girlfriends leave toothbrushes at my apartment. It’s like our relationship has reached new heights. You are officially one of my people.

I’m gonna make the assumption that if there are oral hygiene products being left places, you are slowly but surely leaving the grey area that we all love and hate so much.

Other pieces of evidence I personally watch for: men’s hoodies, his favorite beer in my fridge, and extra lint rollers. 

Let me explain.

I am reluctant to sleep in a guys oversized university hoodie unless I think it’s going somewhere. It’s like forehead kisses. There’s something mushy and relationship-y about it.

Beer in the fridge is an obvious one. It means we have established our drinking buddy dynamic and the relationship is off to a good start.

Extra lint rollers is a big one because while I don’t really care about kitten fur on my lululemon leggings, I do care about kitten fur on his jeans. It’s sort of like how you’ll clean up your apartment when you have people coming over but if it’s just you, you’re fine to let the dust and wine bottles collect.

One time my cat threw up on a guys pants that had been laying on the floor beside my bed. This, and the fact that I didn’t own a lint roller at the time, were very clear indicators that the relationship was doomed.

Things are changing in my world. I have extra lint rollers laying around and I’m sleeping in a men’s hoodie.

Here’s what I’m realizing. The grey area is either one of two things; amazing, or torture. If it feels good, you don’t listen to any dating rules or the plethora of advice that we’re bombarded with all of the time.

But if it feels like torture you’ll start clinging to the rules, steps, and advice you think will land you what you really want. [To get your butt out of that grey area.]

“Follow these 12 rules and you’ll find lasting happiness.”

“7 steps to nailing the relationship you want.”

“Don’t do x,y and z or you’ll come across as bat shit crazy.”

“But do a, b and c and he’ll fall madly in love with you.”

Usually all of these recipes for success and happiness just cloud my brain and my own intuition. Which, as the universe keeps reminding me over and over and over again, never fails me. I just ignore it sometimes. 

Mistakes

If the grey area feels sticky and stressful and hard, it’s probably because it’s not right, and you probably already know it.

Whereas if the grey area feels fun and light and easy, you can’t really fuck up and you don’t mind sitting in it. If it’s right, it’s just gonna work. You can be completely uncool and he’s still going to leave his toothbrush at your place, give you a hoodie to sleep in, and think your drunk sloppy self is adorable. Remember this?

He can kiss you on the forehead and you won’t freak out because you both know there really isn’t much of a grey area to begin with. 

What I’ve suspected all along might actually be true. There are no rules and there is no recipe.

Boston Pizza

Written February 2015

Apparently Mercury is in retrograde. I don’t really know what that means but based on my research (my friends + google) weird shit happens and your intuition is heightened.

So I had an upcoming date that I was really excited for. Re: my last blog post. Via text and FaceTime I hit it off with this guy. I know – you can’t really say you’ve hit it off with someone you haven’t met, but in the land of Tinder FaceTiming felt like a big step. Not to mention we had been talking for three weeks and nothing he had said sent any red flags up for me. I had a good feeling about him. He said he had a good feeling about me.

[Lesson: Don’t believe anything anyone says to you]

Because of his work and my impromptu girls trip to Phoenix/Vegas [blog coming soon] we couldn’t get together until this weekend.

Date night rolls around.

For no logical reason I had some serious anxiety late in the afternoon. My intuition, thanks to Mercury I guess, was screaming at me. I just had a bad feeling. My heart was pounding and I felt exactly how I felt when I realized that I had been stood up last spring by camping guy.

Negative energy. Bad vibes. Impending doom.

I texted a couple of my friends and told them about my bad feeling. Obviously they all told me I was being irrational.

“You’re being crazy.”

“He’s been so excited to meet you this whole time – tonight is going to be great! Relax.”

“He is NOT going to stand you up. That’s already happened to you – twice. You can’t have that bad of luck.”

Etc, etc.

I get a text from him around 6:00pm.

“Finally got back into town. Drinking at Boston Pizza tho lol”

First of all what’s with the ‘lol’? Nothing about that is funny. It’s actually quite sad. I should have told him to fuck off right then and there but I’m too nice, so I played along for awhile.

He tells me, “We can still go on our date but I might be a little tipsy. I’ll need to cab it.”

[again, fuck you]

I asked if he still wanted to get dinner.

Silence.

Then I gave him a chance to stop bullshitting me. “I was really looking forward to tonight, but if you don’t want to go you can just say so.”

Silence.

Everyone I’ve told this story to has had the same reaction: Who gets drunk at Boston Pizza????

And also, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I will not even attempt to understand or ask why. All I know is that this was the last straw. Everything I said in my last blog post I take back. Don’t download Tinder – ever. I am no longer a supporter of online dating or dating at all for that matter. (We all know this isn’t true. I love love. I just need to let myself be angry about this for a day or so)

So I went out for dinner with my friends instead. Things started looking up when I saw that double mojitios were on special.

A couple hours later while dancing around my friends penthouse to yes, Taylor Swift, a charm on my necklace fell off, unbeknownst to me. This necklace was a birthday gift from a couple of years ago. The charm that fell off said: believe in love.

I must have been in the washroom or maybe just in my own world because I missed my friends finding it on the floor, reading it, pondering whether to give it back to me, and then coming to the conclusion to throw it off the balcony.

That’s a metaphor if I’ve ever seen one.

Klara admitted to me in the morning that it was she who chucked the charm into oblivion.

She felt bad. I laughed. It was too perfect.

I’m not sure if it was before or after the destruction of the love charm when I sent my Tinder flake one last message: “I hope Boston Pizza treated you well. And I hope next time you try and convince some girl what a gentleman you are you remember what a coward you were in this situation. Thanks for wasting my time.” Followed my two emojis: a passive aggressive thumbs up and a pizza slice. [Jill’s brilliant idea].

Pizza emoji. Take that asshole.

Other strange occurrences since Mercury has been in retrograde include me hearing about a strangely high number of break ups and a very unexpected blast from the past.

Guess who texted me last night?

No, not “Come over” guy though it’s been a week so I should be expecting a text soon.

Camping guy – the first guy to ever stand me up. He picked a bad time to ask me what was new.

Cut it out Mercury. The irony is that I’m sitting on my bed writing this wearing an oversized t-shirt that says “Love Is In The Air”

No. No it is not.

How To Never Get Laid And/Or Find A Girlfriend

Published on It’s Date Night

Brought to you by my friends Steven and Ty

Valentines weekend had the potential to turn into a successful double date getaway to Banff. My girlfriend and I decided to drive to the mountains last minute and meet one of her coworkers and his friend visiting from Ontario.

It was going to be a standard Banff Saturday night; Grizzly House, hotel pre-drinks, Aurora, Dancing Sasquatch, McDonald’s.

And possibly even Valentines Day brunch at the Banff Springs in the morning.

But alas, the boys failed miserably at whatever it was they were trying to achieve. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say their goal was sex…based on this hotel room conversation at 3:00 am:

“Ty why are you pouting?”

“I’m fine.”

“No Tyler – you’re obviously upset about something. Do you regret not getting McDonalds?”

Slouched over in bed he tells me, “I’m not mad that you didn’t have sex with me; I’m just mad that nobody did.”

There I was, consoling a thirty one year old male who I may or may not have mistakenly made out with 5 hours prior because nobody wanted to have sex with him.

Another Valentines Day for the books.

I felt sorry for the guys. Not because they didn’t get laid, but because they seemingly had no clue as to why their behavior produced those results. Or rather, no results.

But I can definitely tell you what happened.

For reference, a backhanded compliment is an insult disguised as a compliment. Usually a person will recognize when they’ve delivered one of these by accident. Both parties will have a chuckle as one person says, “I didn’t mean it like that!”

Or sometimes a guy will give a girl a backhanded compliment on purpose to get her attention and undermine her self confidence. Neil Strauss, author of The Game, calls this “negging”. It’s like the adult version of teasing the girl you had a crush on in elementary school. For example, one guy I was seeing for a little while told me, “You’re a 6.5/7.” He explained his completely superficial 7 point rating system that included legs, hair, eyes, breasts, etc, etc. Not a bad rating [that’s the compliment part] but he obviously got my attention with the 0.5 point loss.

“You lose half a point because you kind of sound like a little mouse.” [There’s the insult meant to shock me, cut me down a little, and then cause me to want his approval. It’s a mean little trick.]

Ya – he was a dick. But that was a perfect example of negging. He knew what he was doing.

Steven and Ty did not know what they were doing. Zero game. And zero apologies for their accidental insults.

One way to not get laid? Unintentional backhanded compliments followed by no recognition makes you look both inconsiderate and unintelligent. And this is what Steven and Ty did. All. Night. Long.

Examples:

When we arrived in Banff we met the guys at Earls for double mojitos.

Steven to Julia: “You look better with glasses on.”

Ty to Julia: “You’re prettier than I remember.”

They sure know how to make a girl feel beautiful.

Then we all went to the Grizzly House for fondue where I’m sure we disturbed the couples around us with our completely inappropriate conversation topics.

Ty to Katie: “You have big boobs but you’re trying to hide them in that dress. Can I see?”

No.

“I just want to see what you bring to the table.”

Are you kidding me? This guy is 31 years old.

Later on in Aurora we were all on the dance floor. Incase you’ve never been to this night club let me give you some context: It’s very dark in there.

Ty to Katie: “You look amazing in this lighting”

It’s DARK in here Ty. Was that supposed to make me feel pretty??

By the time we arrived at Dancing Sasquatch Julia and I were almost ready to call it a night [probably because we felt ugly]. Things turned around when we met a bachelor party inside. Our “valentines dates” pouted in the corner until we decided it was time for chicken mcnuggets and cheese burgers.

Julia met an attractive Australian outside of McDonald’s and made out with him (obviously). The whole way home the guys whined and bitched about “Australians” and how “You girls could go home with anyone you wanted” followed by “Can we cuddle when we get back?”

YA. RIGHT.

Don’t get me wrong. These two were hilarious and really fun to spend a Saturday night with in Banff. [Ok, mostly they were just fun to make fun of] But never in my wildest dreams would I date either of them.

I’m not sure what was worse; the backhanded compliments, the fact that they didn’t recognize how insulting they were being, or the pouting.

Needless to say we skipped out on Valentines Brunch. Julia and I put on our glasses and went to Starbucks by ourselves where the lighting was dark and moody so I’m sure we looked amazing.

What’s the greatest/worst back handed compliment you’ve ever received? I’d love to hear. If anything, you might make Steven and Ty not look so bad.

Best of luck to them both.