For the entirety of my dating career, I have run into the same issue over and over again; I would meet a great guy, become completely smitten with him, spend every second I could in his arms...and then become sick of him and/or dump him in under six months. For years I thought something was wrong with me because I couldn't stay in a long-term, committed relationship without feeling like gnawing off the hand my man was holding (though I often did stay in said relationships out of guilt, creating a miserable situation for both parties involved). I became a serial dater of the worst kind and as a result, lost a lot of important guys in my life and acquired nicknames including, but not limited to, succubus, Jezebel, Eve, siren, hussy, harlot, man-eater and, of course, the usual bitch, slut and whore.
After releasing the most recent of my victims, I made myself a promise to not even go near the idea of a monogamous relationship for a good while. I became a self-proclaimed swinger, giving myself the right to have no-strings attached hook-ups with any guy I pleased, and to casually date as many different types of men as possible.
The first of my hook-ups was a guy who had become a friendly acquaintance at school, and someone whom I knew wanted me; Kyle. He was an odd duck, but an extremely good-looking, intelligent, and polite odd duck, so I gave it a shot and found him to be quite the man-candy. Aside from hooking up, I just plain liked spending time with Kyle as a person. While I did stick to my promise and dated other guys, Kyle was probably always the favorite. Knowing I wanted to be a free woman, Kyle respected that, but after several months it became clear that we were pretty smitten with each other. Of course, I knew this meant it was all downhill from there.
Much to my surprise, it wasn't. We didn't really start hanging out more, which at first I was a little upset about. However, I found that instead of losing interest in him, my interest grew. Every time I saw him I was happy and excited, and what was more, I still actually wanted to have sex with him. I was absolutely perplexed by the situation until one night when I stayed in to have a "me" night. As I lied in bed writing, my mind drifted off across all of my past relationships and I finally realized what was different. For the first time in a relationship, I was allowed to have a "me" night. I could also still hang out with my friends almost every night. The reason I wasn't getting sick of Kyle is because he gave me the space and time to be Caitlin.
We never see each other more than two or three times a week, which can get a little tough, but for the most part, it just makes me more excited for the days when I do get to see him. I can't say for certain that I will never get sick of him, but I can say that this is hands down the happiest I have ever been with another person because I still get the chance to be my own person.
I think that when relationships first start out, a lot of people tend to binge on all the happy,romantic things they are feeling and ignore the fact that they are still two separate people. They do everything together, and end up sacrificing many of the people and things in their lives which made them happy as an individual, eventually leading to feelings of suffocation and resentment. This can especially apply to people who are living together and sharing one bedroom. Having to sleep in the same bed every night can become monotonous and even irritating depending on the other person's sleeping habits. So why not have two separate rooms and have "sleepovers" a couple of times a week? Just as every person is different, so is every relationship and what may work for the "Leave it to Beaver", All-American, perfect couple, may not work for you. So even if a married couple sleeping in separate beds seems weird, it could be what makes all the difference.
I used to always think that if I didn't want to spend all or most of my time with my significant other, there was something wrong with me, because it wasn't what I saw in the movies or the media. But, the truth is, as much as we may love another person, one of the most important ways to a happy relationship is to have time and space for ourselves, so we can keep being the people our significant others fell for in the first place.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Why Brangelina is the Scariest Thing to Happen to Long Island Since the Amityville Horror
It began at around 9 a.m. on April 19th, 2009 when I got a text from my friend that read "OMG! Brad and Angelina were at the Oyster Bay Stop and Shop! That's right near you, did you see them?!"
No, I had not see them, nor did I have any interest in seeing them. I'm not really the type to go nutso over celebrities of any sort and I certainly don't understand the fascination with the Paris Hiltons and Brangelinas of the world. Apparently the rest of the world, or at least the rest of Long Island, doesn't feel the same. Starting with that fateful trip to Stop and Shop, it suddenly seemed as if all of Long Island had Brangelina Fever.
That text message proved to be nothing in comparison to the barrage of Brangelina-related questions, comments, and incidents I had hurled at me over the next few weeks. The magazine racks quickly became packed with tabloids featuring Brad and Angelina in Oyster Bay, Long Island on the cover and contained riveting stories and photos of Brad and Angelina's OB house, Brad and Angelina at Stop and Shop in OB, Brad and Angelina at CVS in OB, Brad and Angelina out for a family stroll in OB. Think about this for a second; a magazine was taking terrible Kodak disposable camera pictures of completely average people doing completely average things and making millions off of it because these very average people just so happen to be famous. Well, as a Long Islander I thought that most of Long Island would be brought to their senses by the fact that if these things were taking place in their normal, everyday home-sweet-homes, it couldn't really be that big of deal. Naturally, I was wrong. The tabloids flew off the racks throughout Long Island, including where I, and Brangelina live, Oyster Bay. After the magazines alerted absolutely everyone who saw them that the world's biggest celebrities were in town, the topic became unavoidable. At least three times a day I would be asked by random people who I never really talked to if I had seen Brangelina, what were Brad and Angelina like, what did the Jolie-Pitt household like to do on weekends, had I ever partied with Brangelina? There were internet articles popping up everywhere claiming that Oyster Bay was causing some sort of a split between the two because Angelina was involved with Oyster Bay men and that Oyster Bay mothers who usually "schlepped" around in sweatpants were now glamming themselves up for Brad Pitt (this is absolutely insane by the way, because Oyster Bay is the land of MILFs, Botox parties and mansions starting at no less than one million. If things around here got anymore "glammed up", we'd be in Bel Aire).
One day as I walked through town with my friend, venting about the pandemonium that had apparently hit our town, we noticed that there was some sort of filming process on what I later found out was the set for a TV show, which neither Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie were cast in.
"Wonder if Brad and Angelina are there," I joked.
Before we knew it, the entire area was surrounded by hopefuls attempting to get a look at the acclaimed couple. People literally left shops and restaurants just to get a look. Mothers called friends and family on their cell phones to lure them into town to play "Where's Brangelina?" As we walked on, my friend and I were approached by a man in a convertible talking excitedly on his iPhone. As he turned a corner at a good 40 mph, he screeched to a halt at the curb, asked "Have you seen Brad and Angelina?!" and drove off in frenzy as we told him we had not. A week later I was informed that a high school acquaintance had tipped off People, or OK, or one of those typical tabloids, providing it with information about Brad and Angelina in exchange for a lousy $2000. How low can you go Long Island?
It's not the fact that people getting excited over celebrities that is bothersome. I understand; they're beautiful people who many aspire to be like. What bothers me is that people allow their entire realities to become twisted by the presence of over-publicized, yet perfectly average people. Such is the case with Long Island, hence the storm of text messages, trashy magazine articles, sell-outs and crowds of Brangelina-obsessed zombies. For whatever reason, indirect contact with these two beings has turned Long Island into Bedlam.
I can't say whether or not the mayhem is intensified by Long Island culture; maybe it's the affluence that makes many Long Islanders feel entitled to schmoozing with the "beautiful people", or maybe it's our close proximity to the most well-known city in the world that makes us feel like it is somehow in our destinies to brush shoulders with fame. Honestly, though, it would probably be the same anywhere else as it is here, maybe even worse. It's just a wonder to me how a glimpse of the beautiful people has made my home seem so ugly.
No, I had not see them, nor did I have any interest in seeing them. I'm not really the type to go nutso over celebrities of any sort and I certainly don't understand the fascination with the Paris Hiltons and Brangelinas of the world. Apparently the rest of the world, or at least the rest of Long Island, doesn't feel the same. Starting with that fateful trip to Stop and Shop, it suddenly seemed as if all of Long Island had Brangelina Fever.
That text message proved to be nothing in comparison to the barrage of Brangelina-related questions, comments, and incidents I had hurled at me over the next few weeks. The magazine racks quickly became packed with tabloids featuring Brad and Angelina in Oyster Bay, Long Island on the cover and contained riveting stories and photos of Brad and Angelina's OB house, Brad and Angelina at Stop and Shop in OB, Brad and Angelina at CVS in OB, Brad and Angelina out for a family stroll in OB. Think about this for a second; a magazine was taking terrible Kodak disposable camera pictures of completely average people doing completely average things and making millions off of it because these very average people just so happen to be famous. Well, as a Long Islander I thought that most of Long Island would be brought to their senses by the fact that if these things were taking place in their normal, everyday home-sweet-homes, it couldn't really be that big of deal. Naturally, I was wrong. The tabloids flew off the racks throughout Long Island, including where I, and Brangelina live, Oyster Bay. After the magazines alerted absolutely everyone who saw them that the world's biggest celebrities were in town, the topic became unavoidable. At least three times a day I would be asked by random people who I never really talked to if I had seen Brangelina, what were Brad and Angelina like, what did the Jolie-Pitt household like to do on weekends, had I ever partied with Brangelina? There were internet articles popping up everywhere claiming that Oyster Bay was causing some sort of a split between the two because Angelina was involved with Oyster Bay men and that Oyster Bay mothers who usually "schlepped" around in sweatpants were now glamming themselves up for Brad Pitt (this is absolutely insane by the way, because Oyster Bay is the land of MILFs, Botox parties and mansions starting at no less than one million. If things around here got anymore "glammed up", we'd be in Bel Aire).
One day as I walked through town with my friend, venting about the pandemonium that had apparently hit our town, we noticed that there was some sort of filming process on what I later found out was the set for a TV show, which neither Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie were cast in.
"Wonder if Brad and Angelina are there," I joked.
Before we knew it, the entire area was surrounded by hopefuls attempting to get a look at the acclaimed couple. People literally left shops and restaurants just to get a look. Mothers called friends and family on their cell phones to lure them into town to play "Where's Brangelina?" As we walked on, my friend and I were approached by a man in a convertible talking excitedly on his iPhone. As he turned a corner at a good 40 mph, he screeched to a halt at the curb, asked "Have you seen Brad and Angelina?!" and drove off in frenzy as we told him we had not. A week later I was informed that a high school acquaintance had tipped off People, or OK, or one of those typical tabloids, providing it with information about Brad and Angelina in exchange for a lousy $2000. How low can you go Long Island?
It's not the fact that people getting excited over celebrities that is bothersome. I understand; they're beautiful people who many aspire to be like. What bothers me is that people allow their entire realities to become twisted by the presence of over-publicized, yet perfectly average people. Such is the case with Long Island, hence the storm of text messages, trashy magazine articles, sell-outs and crowds of Brangelina-obsessed zombies. For whatever reason, indirect contact with these two beings has turned Long Island into Bedlam.
I can't say whether or not the mayhem is intensified by Long Island culture; maybe it's the affluence that makes many Long Islanders feel entitled to schmoozing with the "beautiful people", or maybe it's our close proximity to the most well-known city in the world that makes us feel like it is somehow in our destinies to brush shoulders with fame. Honestly, though, it would probably be the same anywhere else as it is here, maybe even worse. It's just a wonder to me how a glimpse of the beautiful people has made my home seem so ugly.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Swine Flu: Why This Little Piggy Can't Make Me Cry
If you know me, you probably know that I am a hypochondriac. I think I have every disease known to man... all the time. I attribute this to my loving but neurotic grandmother, may she rest in peace, who habitually thought everyone around her was dying...all the time. If we had dirt on our hands, we immediately were plagued with some mystery illness that would surely kill us if we didn't go to the doctor within the next 24 hour period. As a pseudo neo-hippie, I believe in free love and enjoy being out in nature more than anything, but as i get older I notice it has become increasingly harder to do so without my grandmother's Brooklyn, New York, Jewish accent screaming, "ya gonna catch ya death; ya gonna need a tetanus shot!" The bottom line is that disease scares the living Hell out of me for no rational reason beyond the fact that dead or alive my grandmother has proven herself to be the archetypical Jewish mother.
And yet somehow, with the threat of Swine Flu all around, (the sheep wearing dentists masks, this persistent cough , and my frequent trips into the City), I just can't get myself to be worried about the Pig. I'll admit, I was sent into a momentary panic a week or so ago by an unusually high fever, but I awoke the next morning feeling like a new woman and haven't given it a second thought since. I'm just not worried about the swine flu. So naturally, this worries me. Why should a hypochondriac such as myself, who is finally faced with an actual disease, unconcerned with it? Call it a hunch, but I'm going to say that, for starters, it's called Swine Flu. All I see are images of the three little pigs or Pumba from The Lion King. Not very threatening. Now The Black Death, that's a keeper in terms of disease names. The Black Death does not sound like something you want to mess with. Neither does Scarlet Fever or Flesh Eating Bacteria. These are all things I would instinctually try and avoid based on the name. But Swine Flu sounds like a bored seventeen year old's senior prank, and quite frankly, in a time where I can't really count on finding a job when I get out of school or ever being able to retire, you tell me how much thought I should really be putting into how to avoid what sounds sort of like an overpriced, pork-based dish served at a fancy restaurant somewhere around Broadway. Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Mad Cow Disease. Doctors are getting lazy with their disease names, I'm getting bored with the over-exposure of them, and the rampant publication of Swine Flu fluff seems to be a blatant avoidance of the only real American issues, because let's face it, the amount of suicides resulting from job loss and economic failure probably trump any number of Swine-related fatalities. So I guess that's my answer; I'm not worried about Swine Flu because there are a lot of other things for me and my generation to be worried about. The wasted youth epidemic that is sweeping my generation of the nation is a lot more of a threat than a drop of pig snot could ever be. We were told to go to college, work hard then get a job. But we can't even though a lot of us actually want to. But the papers won't put that on the cover because it doesn't sell as well and it doesn't send people rushing to purchase over-priced and unnecessary medications. I’m not scared of the Swine Flu because I’m more scared of where this country is headed and what it means for my future. I’m not scared of the Swine Flu because if I get it and it’s as bad as they say it is, then hey, at least I won’t have to worry about paying off student loans or trying to save the endangered retirement fund.
That’s all folks.
And yet somehow, with the threat of Swine Flu all around, (the sheep wearing dentists masks, this persistent cough , and my frequent trips into the City), I just can't get myself to be worried about the Pig. I'll admit, I was sent into a momentary panic a week or so ago by an unusually high fever, but I awoke the next morning feeling like a new woman and haven't given it a second thought since. I'm just not worried about the swine flu. So naturally, this worries me. Why should a hypochondriac such as myself, who is finally faced with an actual disease, unconcerned with it? Call it a hunch, but I'm going to say that, for starters, it's called Swine Flu. All I see are images of the three little pigs or Pumba from The Lion King. Not very threatening. Now The Black Death, that's a keeper in terms of disease names. The Black Death does not sound like something you want to mess with. Neither does Scarlet Fever or Flesh Eating Bacteria. These are all things I would instinctually try and avoid based on the name. But Swine Flu sounds like a bored seventeen year old's senior prank, and quite frankly, in a time where I can't really count on finding a job when I get out of school or ever being able to retire, you tell me how much thought I should really be putting into how to avoid what sounds sort of like an overpriced, pork-based dish served at a fancy restaurant somewhere around Broadway. Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Mad Cow Disease. Doctors are getting lazy with their disease names, I'm getting bored with the over-exposure of them, and the rampant publication of Swine Flu fluff seems to be a blatant avoidance of the only real American issues, because let's face it, the amount of suicides resulting from job loss and economic failure probably trump any number of Swine-related fatalities. So I guess that's my answer; I'm not worried about Swine Flu because there are a lot of other things for me and my generation to be worried about. The wasted youth epidemic that is sweeping my generation of the nation is a lot more of a threat than a drop of pig snot could ever be. We were told to go to college, work hard then get a job. But we can't even though a lot of us actually want to. But the papers won't put that on the cover because it doesn't sell as well and it doesn't send people rushing to purchase over-priced and unnecessary medications. I’m not scared of the Swine Flu because I’m more scared of where this country is headed and what it means for my future. I’m not scared of the Swine Flu because if I get it and it’s as bad as they say it is, then hey, at least I won’t have to worry about paying off student loans or trying to save the endangered retirement fund.
That’s all folks.
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