Hot diggity dog!
Once a month, I go to my therapist and we talk about how people judge me about my weight and how I feel about that.
And after I leave there, I go next door to the best hotdog place in the world and get a hotdog and onion rings.
Then the next day, I get back to my fruit smoothies and breakfast burritos.
Why am I telling you this?
I am not exactly sure. Not only is not any of your damn business, but I would think that these mundane details of my life would bore people. I also know from losing an hour of my life and a $59 copay that it's OK to eat whatever you want and it's not doing you any favors to be terrified of food.
I don't know why I am bitching about this except that every freaking month I go and have a great hour at therapy and then it's always less than hour when I get back to real life and someone undoes everything I was just feeling great about. Every. Single. Time.
I'm not sure what the point of bitching about it is except that this is my blog and I'm allowed to bitch about whatever I want. Nothing's ever going to change so there's no point in saying anything. Even when I recently did have a weight-related incident that was so inappropriate that I felt the urge to say something to my boss, it didn't change the overwhelmingly negative attitude of all the fat-haters in this office. Basically it was just chalked up to some people are mean girls and they aren't going to change.
While I was enjoying my smoothie (no, seriously, it was quite good), I read my little Overeaters Anonymous daily meditation. I wish I could say that it has given me some sort of inner peace, but it hasn't. I'm going to just wrap up with this and cry for a little bit.
Life would probably be awesome if people didn't try their damnedest to get me down at every corner.
The Friend Zone
First off, I have been making an effort to disconnect more
often. Sometimes I shut my phone off or leave it behind. Very rarely do I have
the ringer on. And, just because we can do everything with our phones doesn’t
mean we should. But, let me just tell you: It flips people out. If you don’t
answer a text, email or facebook message in about 14 seconds, you will never
hear the end of it. So close to stalking, folks are. I’m just hoping I’ve never
been like that. Ninety-nine percent of life is not happening on the Internet.
It really isn’t.
Now that I’m done with that rant, let’s concentrate on
today’s slightly related topic in the adventures of online dating: The Friend
Zone.
As someone who’s always been at least a little pudgy, I’m
intimately acquainted with The Friend Zone. I have lived there with almost
every male friend I’ve ever had. A few times it’s been blurred; sometimes with
good consequences and sometimes not. But for the most part, that’s where I live
while everyone else goes off and has babies and such. I’m 37 years old, so that
ship has sailed. I’m OK with that, especially when I see my friends who have
issues with their spouses and I’m over here doing my own thing. However, any
conversation on The Friend Zone would be incomplete if I didn’t bemoan its
existence just a little for that reason alone.
While I’ve lived in The Friend Zone for most of the last 25
years, I’ve recently had occasion to be on the other side of this place. Let me
share these little scenarios with you.
The first trip to The Friend Zone was with a guy I’d gone a
few dates with. I’m not positive he would’ve stayed there, but he decided it
wasn’t worth chancing it and moved on to bigger and better things. I liked him
spending time with him and I thought maybe things could develop with him, but
he felt like he was in The Friend Zone and basically told me off and then I’m
pretty sure he blocked me. Oh well, his loss. I heard a long time ago that the
only way to see if a man is truly interested is to make him work for it, and
honestly that’s probably the best advice I’ve ever received. My last real
boyfriend had to go several dates without a goodnight kiss, mostly because if
things get physical too early it usually spells disaster. And I wanted to see
exactly what his motives were because I thought he might be around for a while.
So, really I’m not fretting over that situation, although I think that folks
would do better to have a conversation with the actual other person involved
rather than with whoever lives inside their brain when deciding that things
were hopeless in a relationship. However, if he’s that insecure then I will
probably be OK without him.
The second trip to The Friend Zone has been a much longer
journey. I think by now we all know that I love the show Catfish because it’s
everything that’s wrong with the world, yet I believe Nev really does want to
help the people on the show. Even though most of them are utterly helpless, but
I don’t want to get off track here. The whole fact that Manti Teo could spend
four years in an imaginary relationship (with a dude) completely and totally
validates my decision to not ever pursue a long-distance relationship with a
person from the Internet. This is mostly because I don’t have the time or the
energy to chase someone around the country (and this completely and totally is
the opposite of making a man work for it) and I am just not getting burned.
Until I meet someone, they are just words on a computer or a phone, not even a
real person at all. I will be friends with someone who lives a million miles
away and just wants to text, but I truly and honestly believe it’s impossible
to “fall in love” with someone with the help of AT&T and I just won’t let
my brain go there.
So with all that intro, it’s easy to understand why this guy
in question is in The Friend Zone. I think he lives in Virginia. The last time
I was doing online dating, he contacted me and I told him: “I don’t do
long-distance relationships. Not happening.” And he told me he just wanted to
be friends. So, I guess he actually put
himself in The Friend Zone, although that’s the best he was ever going to get
from me.
Completely related sidebar: Did anyone see the episode of
Catfish where basically this guy met a girl and she tried to tell him that she
was Catfishing him and he just heard what he wanted because he was so desperate
to be in his imaginary relationship with some texts on a screen? (I’m a cynic;
sue me.)
So, back to the guy who I think lives in Virginia and I’m
not even 100% sure of his name because a) he’s from the Internet and could be
lying and b) I don’t add anyone to my phone book until they are worth keeping.
I only know who he is at all when he texts me because he is the only person
with that area code. True story.
He’s decided he has feelings for me. I told him that was
unfortunate because I don’t do long-distance (or people whose names I don’t
know, but I left that part out). He calls me love, which annoys me because
there’s no way he loves me and I hate pet names. He tells me what he wants to
do to me, and I ignore him. It’s so healthy. I reiterated last night that I
have always been completely and totally forthright with the fact that I have
zero feelings for him (I’m not even sure he’s actually in The Friend Zone
because at this point he is just fucking creepy, if we’re being honest) and
nothing is ever going to happen with us. However, he keeps telling me he’s
coming to visit me and blah blah blah. Seriously, it’s so pathetic that I don’t
even know what to say anymore.
My roommate says that I’m too harsh about long-distance
relationships with strangers from the Internet. Considering all the bullshit
that I’ve put up with from strangers from the Internet who didn’t want to do
me, and the fact that the only long-distance relationship I ever had was really
just a relationship with the nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office at the
end of the day, it’s just not ever happening. If Mark Wahlberg sent me a
Facebook message right now and asked me to sext with him and be his imaginary
online girlfriend, I still wouldn’t do it. Mark Wahlberg. That’s how serious I
am about this. And what happens if you like a person from the internet? Fake
skype sex? It’s not like anyone’s just going to pack up his life and drop
everything to come be with someone from the internet. Right?
What do you think? Is it possible to feel love for someone
you’ve never met? Is it possible to have a relationship with words on a screen?
Do you know anyone who’s actually packed up his or her entire life and moved
who-knows-where for love with someone they met online? Or is it just that
people are so starved for contact with another person that they’ll do whatever
it takes to have that? And, mostly, why would anyone who’s relatively
attractive (or is a huge college football star, for example) just not go out
and find someone in real life?
I just don’t get it, so if you have the answers, please feel
free to explain.
Song of the day: “Online” by Brad Paisley
Panic at the Disco
OK, I am not really in a disco, but I am in full-fledged freak-out mode.
I have exactly 63 days, or nine weeks, to get ready for this Disney race. I bought $200 running shoes. My training runs aren't horrendous, but they're not as fast as they need to be. I still have nine weeks to work on them. As one of my friends points out, total couch potatoes (which I'm not) can start Couch to 5K and be running 3 miles no problem in nine weeks. I kept a faster pace in Detroit (although that was 1,700 years ago). However, I have complete and total dread about the "balloon ladies" and the sweeper buses that are part of the Run Disney experience.
I plan to get to the race as early as possible so that I can get at the front of my corral because the pace time doesn't start until the last person crosses the starting line. I plan to run every single day between now and October 5. I know my adrenaline will kick in. I know there will be people behind me. I know there are other big girls who will be out on that course.
I have done this before, and I can do it now, but I am still pretty sure that the next 63 days will be nothing but pure terror, and not the good kind on my favorite ride that inspired that race.
My family is going to be there. I do not want to completely and totally embarrass myself in front of my family. The medals for the race are cool as shit. I do not want to not get my medal. I do not want to run every day for the next 63 days, fly all the way to freaking Orlando and spend an assload of money to run through Disney World and have to go on a bus to the finish line, where I may or may not get a medal that I may or may not deserve.
I just need to hustle. I need to hustle just like I did with FINALLY cleaning my room on the 15 month anniversary of moving into my house. I hadn't ever unpacked; I just had piles of shit everywhere, and a bet with my roommate that I couldn't get it in order by the end of July meant that I got two hours of sleep last night but my room looks amazing. All I need to do is put up all the art, find a nightstand and reupholster the chair that I have for in there, and it will be perfect.
Much like the last few days have been totally crazy cleaning my room because I never have time, I need to make time over the next 63 crazy days to get ready for this race. Actually from reading last year's feedback, I am going to start running every night outside in the Tennessee heat because I really need to be prepared mentally and physically for the climate in Florida at the beginning of October. I also need to train on hills, so I'm ready for the overpasses on Osceola Parkway.
I know I am being overly ambitious, but I think I will be OK. I am really grumpy because I wanted to do a 10K and not 10 miles, and they didn't add one at Disney until after I was already committed to this race. After this I'll be doing a half somewhere, and then at some point I will conquer 8 Tuff Miles on St. John.
I know I can do this. I just need to freak out a little.
Maybe a good freak out will make me work harder. Cheerleaders would help too, if you're interested.
