…Seven years later they fell in love.

That’s the tl;dr version.

Here’s the long version:

Wyview 2007: Freshman year. Young, impressionable 18-year-olds meeting for the first time as they lived just around the corner from each other. Jeff spent most of his time rock climbing and Lauren spent most of her time trying to impress people with her baking (lack of) skills and eating cup-o-noodles. Not the time for love to blossom.

Jeff went on a mission to Argentina. Lauren went on a mission to Italy. 3.5 years passed.

Add a few more years of life experience and some awkward Facebook exchanges and then…

Then a week of me being super stressed because I knew it was coming and was trying so hard not to ruin the surprise that I was breaking out in hives (we’re talking literal hives–all over my body) for two days. Romantic, right?

We exchanged Christmas gifts and he got me a dope Feral hat and watch (pictured below) but no ring…

My friend Alessandra told me she needed someone for a photo project so I agreed. I was suspicious along the way but by the time I got there, even though Jeff was acting super weird when he dropped me off, I was lulled into a false sense of security and complained to Alessandra that I just really wanted him to propose. And somehow she kept a straight face because after that he did…He and some of my wonderful friends snuck up on the photo shoot…

And Alessandra, with her camera already out, captured it:

THEN there was the Christmas party that night that I thought I was planning but wasn’t. It turns out when I showed up it was a SURPRISE engagement party for us. Completely with all kinds of engagement puns to go with the desserts. I’m glad that my friends/fiance are so uncomfortable keeping secrets from me because that means they don’t do it often. And I guess I can’t say I wasn’t surprised because look at that face…

I love Jeff because we are always smiling and laughing together (as pictured above). He thinks I’m super hot even in oversized sweatpants and I love that he is kind of guy who will carry my purse in public (actually I think that might be more embarrassing for me than it is for him–I should rethink that). It’s been a long time coming and a short time coming all at the same time but mostly it’s all worked out fine by me.

Basically being engaged feels like this:

It’s Tuesday, but let’s pretend for a second that it’s Music Video Monday because I want to talk about this little Christmas gem from the Killers… When I first watched this I was like, why is this so sad? Why is everyone bullying him? Why are you making me cry for Christmas, Brandon Flowers? Also, how come I can’t squeeze a piece of coal in my hands and turn it into a–what is that, 100 ct–diamond? Then by the time it gets the end, if you’re paying attention, you can realize that it is a happy story after-all. It’s a story about the real meaning of Christmas. Christ came to turn our sadness, our misfortune, and our sins into something better. Even if we make mistakes, even if the other toys make fun of us. He can heal us. Merry Christmas.

In honor of National Cat Day (since I’m not particularly attached to any feline) I’m going to talk about something that bugs me…Cat-calling.

Seen this shared a few times and just wanted to add my own feelings. So here are my feelings: it sucks. People on the internet have been like, “Oh, people are just being nice and giving compliments.” I don’t feel good when a stranger tells me I’m hot. I feel insecure. Funny how that works, but it’s true. And anyone can tell the difference between getting hit on and sincere flattery. It’s not that hard to tell.

Once upon a time I was upset when a coworker told me I “had to smile at him now” because he had done something I had needed him to do for my department. My boss didn’t get it and I don’t really blame him because how could he? He’s probably never been told to smile by someone twice is size. He probably doesn’t know all the connotations that goes with those kinds of statements. No matter how well-intended something might be (and usually it’s not) I’m tired of other people feeling like my outward appearance is what is worth commenting on. You don’t get to tell me what to do with my body and I don’t have to smile just so my face is nicer for you to look at.

This rant…

So, yeah, you can tell yourself to just ignore them but you can’t really ignore the anxiety of being called out and feeling like you have to respond or worrying about the consequences of not responding. It’s hard to not be afraid when you’re constantly hearing stories of abuse, kidnapping, rape, and violence. When most of the world is afraid of you going out on the streets alone. We are trained to be afraid and it’s because we have reason to be. One in three women have been abused. One out of every three women.

It’s hard for me to get over the fact that some people will never take me seriously because I am a woman. That even my position or age or experience doesn’t matter. It’s hard to know how to dress or talk or act while knowing it won’t make much of a difference. It’s hard because people don’t realize how bad it is. I would love to just ignore it as people suggest, but it affects my daily life and the lives of people I know even more and that bugs me.

I’m not sure how we teach people to be nice and decent humans who can interact without being aggressive but it’d be nice to try and figure that out. Men to women, women to women, women to men, men to men…Why can’t we just treat each other like equals? We are so much more than the bodies we are in.

And I’ll close with this video because it points out just how ridiculous it all is:

Did you hear about the girl who got stuck in a chimney trying to break into the house of the guy who dumped her?

Another shot from entrapment call. Chimney flue was lubricated with dish soap prior to hoisting patient pic.twitter.com/KtkX1bVdmV

— Capt Mike Lindbery (@VCFD_PIO) October 19, 2014

So the chimney entrance didn’t work so well for her, but it got me thinking. What else can we learn from Santa Clause that can be used in relationships?

1. See Them When They’re Sleeping and When They’re Awake

If Twilight has taught us anything (which it hasn’t) it’s that girls love it when their boyfriend sneaks into their window and watches them sleep.

2. Ask for a List of Demands

Might as well tell the person you’re dating to write down exactly what it is they want from you. It’s your best chance at delivering.

3. Bribery

It’s the truest form of motivation.

4. Don’t Worry About Your Weight 

People love Santa despite his addiction to cookies and milk. Why should you change who you are for someone else? Keep in mind that a big reason people don’t care about his weight probably has to do with the fact he’s always bringing presents (see #3). #SugarDaddy

5. If You’re a Guy, Grow a Beard

It’s the manly thing to do.

But don’t use the chimney.

Use the door unless you actually have magical powers. You don’t want to end up covered in soot and dish soap.

I’ve basically been working since 8am this morning and all day I just wanted to make a playlist to Scotland for the UK. So here it is, from my tired brain.

Rihanna – Stay

Sam Smith – Stay with Me

Erasure – Always 

Katy Perry – The One That Got Away 

Please Don’t Leave Me – P!nk  

Low Millions – Eleanor 

Baby, Come Back – Player 

.

.

And then when Scotland finally leaves they’ll be all…

And Scotland will be all…

And then when the UK comes to terms with it, they’ll be all…

…try, try again.

When you’re little and you touch a hot stove and get burned everyone says, “Well, now you know you weren’t supposed to touch that.”

But when you’re grown up and you get your heart broken people don’t say, “Well, now you know you shouldn’t love.” They tell you, “there are more fish in the sea.” or “You just need to put yourself out there more.”

If you can’t shoot a basketball you just choose another sport to play, but if you miss the shot on relationship after relationship you have to just keep trying. If I failed at anything else in my life as much as I’ve “failed” at dating, I would’ve given up long ago. But there is no other sport to play. Until arranged marriages catch on around here you’re on your own and dating is the only thing you have. There’s no way out.

“No way out, no way out, no way out.”

If you want to get married someday, you don’t get to give up. No one is going to come find you watching Netflix and demand you marry them. 

Study Finds All-Consuming Self-Pity Best Way to Win Back Ex-Partner 

You don’t get to use the logic that you learned as a child to avoid things that hurt you. In my experience, it doesn’t matter how a relationship ends, it always hurts. You’re going to get hurt. I want so desperately to just give up and be jaded and bitter every time it doesn’t work out. I want to say that I’ll never love again, that it’s too hard, hurts too much, that it’s not worth it. But, I’m a serial lover and I watch a lot of romantic comedies and something in me believes it will work sometime.

People like to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Maybe that’s why dating makes us crazy–it doesn’t work until it does. The facts are simple: some people find their soulmate in the first person they date and some of us have to date a lot or wait a long time to even find someone to date.

When you fail a math test, you know you have to study more next time. If you want to win a race you have to train harder. You can’t really date harder, you just have to keep trying and keep looking until you find someone who wants you as much as you want them. If you try too hard people just think you’re desperate and that’s a huge turn-off. ha. 

You don’t get to control it. Isn’t it interesting that it takes two people to start a relationship and only one person to end it? You might think you’re in control, but you’re not. 

So why bother at all if it just seems like it’s all luck? Because you have to. 

You have to go into every relationship whole-heartedly, you have to believe it could work each time or your condemning it from the start. It’s a lot of investing and it really sucks sometimes. I admire people who can love freely and without restraint. I’m sometimes that kind of person, but not always. 

You can get better at relationships and become a better person. Dating, and the vulnerability that comes with having an intimate relationship with someone, teaches us all kinds of useful things about ourselves and about relationships but the practice only helps so much.

I keep thinking “I’ve paid my dues” because I’ve dated a lot. That it putting myself out there again and again should have yield lasting results, but I’ve been forced to learn that that’s not how it works.

It’s like inventing something. Some things are created on accident and some after years of trial and error. So don’t buy that cat quite yet…

Anyone want to argue this and tell me I’m just doing it all wrong? Let me know in the comments. 

image via quickmeme.com

I just read a New Yorker article about how the Emmys were awful because they were so awkward. That article was wrong.

Bart: TV sucks.
Homer: I know you’re upset right now, so I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.

Look past the fact that this is sexist (or stop here and go write your own blog about how TV is sexist because it’s that too) and think about the meaning behind Seth’s opening monologue from the Emmys. 

“I love television. And not just the high-end cinematic stuff we’re honoring tonight, but the low-rent cable series I stream onto a four-inch screen when I’m on the bike at Equinox. She doesn’t play hard to get. She doesn’t demand your full attention. Television has always been the booty-call friend of entertainment. You don’t ever have to ask TV, “You up?” TV’s always up. She’ll happily entertain you while you cook dinner or wrap your Christmas presents. She’s not like that high-maintenance diva, Movies, who wants you to put on pants and drive over to her house and buy forty dollars’ worth of soda. So I’m sticking with TV. Let’s give it up for TV, everyone!”

Now, to put that in positive terms, television is there for you when you need it. Week after week we invite the characters into our homes. We spend years with them. Yes, they abandon us for holidays and the summer but they come into our homes and touch our lives. We get more than 90-minutes, we get more than a trilogy. We get weeks and weeks of getting to know characters, watching them struggle, watching them find love and watching them grow closer to their friends and families. 

Sometimes the dang network will take them away too soon, but sometimes the relationship will span years. 

I don’t often cry at movies (nope, not even Fault in Our Stars) but I lose all composure when it comes to a series finale–or even a season finale if it’s The Mindy Project. The last episode of Friends ruined the song “Good Riddance” for me and I didn’t even think I was attached to that show. I was not-quite nine years old when Seinfeld finished and I don’t remember the episode but I remember that I felt sad watching it end. I can’t handle these finales…to the point where I still haven’t watched the last episode of 30 Rock because I know it’s going to hurt too much. I heard it’s really good, but I can’t. Maybe if someone holds my hand through the whole thing? 

Years. We have known these characters longer than we’ve known some of our real friends. We watched Jim and Pam and Michael and Dwight for eight years. Through the good episodes and the bad we watched on. We watched Rory and Lorelei date all kinds of guys and reference all kinds of pop culture. Even when the writing gets horrible we remain loyal. We’re total suckers for it and we know it, but television gives us so much we can excuse it’s flaws because of all the good it’s given us.

I didn’t get into Lost or Breaking Bad but the rest of the world could not shut up about those shows. They blew people’s minds and changed the way we look at stories and at the world around us. Don’t even get me started about the time I tried to have a birthday the same day as the Lost finale…

The Simpsons were brought into the world the same year I was. I can literally say (and the internet loves when people say things literally) that I grew up on them. I’ve been the same age as Maggie, Lisa, and Bart and I look forward to the day the Simpsons outlive me. We’d gather to watch the new episode as a family every Sunday night and when I was in middle school I’d sit by my friend Hilary on the bus and we’d talk about the episode. No one else’s parents let them watch it but ours knew better. In every episode there were stories, songs, and quotes that won’t be forgotten.

“The answer to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle, they’re on TV!” – Homer Simpson

So, yes, I love television and I loved the awkward awards show that acknowledged it. Television stars/writers/directors/networks aren’t afraid to make fun of themselves. They give the British actors awards even though they know they won’t show up. Television knows that sometimes it outstays its welcome and sometimes its jokes aren’t funny but it keeps coming back and we keep letting it in. Television is not the booty-call, it’s your best friend. Just admit it already. You love TV even when it’s bad.

“The only man a girl can depend on is her daddy.” This quote is from Grease, but it’s something my dad likes to remind me repeatedly.

The other day someone asked me about my dad and started talking and couldn’t stop talking about how great he is. Because, he’s really great. He’s kind and funny and has pretty much perfect perspective on life.

.He taught me how to fish when I was five-years-old and then hid the fish I caught from me because I was so scared of it.
.He taught me how to shoot a gun.
.He taught me that there’s more to life than making money (even though he’s an accountant).
.He made us weird Japanese food that ended up some of my favorite dishes and made me super cultured.
.He took us on camping trips and taught me how to make a toilet out of a stump.
.Including the father-daughter campouts where we’d shovel gravel. For some reason shoveling gravel ranks among my fondest memories.
.He watched old movies with us that I thought were cool because he liked them and now I think they’re cool because they are.
.I used to watch basketball with him all the time because it meant I could eat some of his popcorn. I’d fall asleep with my head on his stomach listening to sounds his stomach made.
.He didn’t get rid of my dog even though it barked at him all the time.
.He has a new (fish) family but he still has room in his heart for us too.

A friend of mine, who says he’s a marriage and relationship therapist but I’m starting to think it might be a front to get people to tell him all their secrets, was telling me that research shows that the relationship that has the most connections with someone’s emotional well-being is the relationship between a father and a daughter.

I realize how blessed I am to have a loving, present father because it’s something that is becoming more and more rare.

My friend Babetta always says that her “daddy issue” is that her dad is too great and she’s not sure anyone else will compare. I’m on vacation with both of them right now and it’s probably true.

If you want to watch a good movie about a good dad go watch About Time. 

In closing, I leave you with the advice my dad always told me when I left the house, “Be good. Have fun. Drink Sprite.”