Riddle Me This

Riddle me this: If you're going to break up with someone isn't it common decency to at least let the other person know?

My friend just experienced what I can only describe as the most cowardly break-up I've ever seen. Can you imagine lapping up the sun and sand on vacation only to realize your boyfriend is now your ex after he proceeded to delete you from BBM and Facebook. It seems a bit childish, but without a sign deleting someone from your digital life, ignoring their calls and text messages means it's over, so why couldn't you just say that? Granted, text message break-ups suck but at least you've actually said something.

(image courtesy of wallride13 on DeviantArt.com)

She Used to Be My Mini Me...

Growing up my sister and I have had our moments, between the sibling rivalry and the intense sisterly affection we’ve found ourselves stuck with each other for life. She was born when I was seven years old and as I danced in the hospital chanting “I’m going to be a big sister” I had no idea how drastically my world was about to change. I've been the guardian of her best interests since day one, starting with preventing my mother from naming her Chloe. Can you imagine one sister named Chanelle and another Chloe, like a set of French fashion design houses? My mom might have thought it poetic, but I stood firm in my resolve. I named her Channon, sticking to my mothers plan that we'd both have the same initials. We are now and forever CTS1 & CTS2.

I blame her for stealing my childhood, and she’s taken responsibility for that with a shocking level of pride and amusement. Fate dealt me the final blow when she turned 13 and measured in at an inch taller than me. It was then I became the little sis, even though she teases me that I’m now halfway to 40.

When I finally got my license and a full time job I saved up time working extra hours so that I could take days off to spend with her. We went on sister bonding trips: shopping on Queen St. in downtown Toronto, exploring the Toronto Zoo and hiking at Crawford Lake (an almost near death experience *ahem*).

Now we live in a new place, and we’re making new memories starting with shopping sprees in Georgetown to burn off the calories from the Georgetown Cupcakes we ate for breakfast earlier that morning.

We have a mantra we live by when it comes to our ‘I love you’s that goes something like: “I love you; I love you more; you couldn’t possibly; I love you before God even invented the earth; times one million googooplex; times infinity, ha!” (kudos to my calculus knowledge). She calls me the most embarrassing nickname – Chanelly Babelly McSmelly from New Dehli and despite that we’ve never been closer than we are now. For the record, I love her more!

That’s all she wrote... For Now

Egos & Eros

We all have our egos, and somewhere deep down we'd like to believe that in addition to our own worlds someone else's world revolves around us too. Friendships go awry when we take our egos and our selfishness to higher levels than our secret thoughts. For the egomaniac friends, those of us who keep our self-adoration secret are supposed to keep up to date on what's happening in their lives, every minute detail. When we don't we're considered bad friends, being charged with failure on the friendship front can sometimes sting us. It's that failure that proves that the little egomaniac inside that we thought we had hidden well enough is showing its rather ugly head. Here's the reality check though, or else they've got the stalker mentality that has been fed by twitter and facebook, or you're a celebrity, no one is following your every move, and no one checks your status updates religiously to figure out every detail of your life. At the hands of this revelation the size of your ego should shrink back to a size that is easy to mask.

That's all she wrote... For Now

Let It Be

(image courtesy of sixstring on deviantart.com)

Now that my friends and I have all either graduated or are on the brink of graduation the topic of conversation has shifted from school to 'life.' Since I moved to the US my friends in Canada that have been checking up on me have all managed to ask me about the 'American Guys.' I figured that after knowing me fairly well all these people would remember that I'd rather sit home and read a book than go out trolling for men, not to mention the fact that since I'm rather opposed to gender ideals in society the likelihood of any man accepting me for me with all my so-called 'crazy feminist beliefs' is rather slim.

I believe my friends have a bet going behind my back (not so secret) exactly how long it'll take me to get married. While some believe I'm going to get married before any of them others take me at my word and believe me when I say that marriage just isn't for me. At least not the union that society calls marriage. My friends always tell me my problem is that I won't let a man be a man, but the real question is "why do these men feel the need to be what society tells them men are?" and "why can't men let me be the woman that I am?"

That's all she wrote... For Now

The Unromantic Romantic

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I always tell people that I’m not romantic, not because I don’t believe in love or want to fall in love but because I, for some reason am caught up in the belief that I’ll never experience the incandescent bliss I’ve read about in Jane Austen novels. It’s true that real life pales in comparison to the imagination. Every self proclaimed ‘romantic’ I know has a checklist of qualities that the potential love of their lives will possess. I guess that the time and energy they spend daydreaming about and planning for their future lover makes them romantic, but to me that checklist turns love into a science, something I believe to not only be impossible but unromantic. The truth about love isn’t that you’ll fall in love with someone that fits your checklist, it’s something completely different, you can’t quantify and narrow down the exact qualities you’ll find in a person that will spontaneously create love. The best thing about love is that it’s not logical, and no matter how much you think you know what you want in a mate, the heart has a different agenda. Maybe I am a romantic, not in the classical sense of course (when have you ever known me to be conventional?); I am resigned to believe that one day, if it’s meant to be I will find love, but I’ve decided that I can’t plan my life around it, and I realize that I can’t plan it either.

That's all she wrote...For Now

Connection Theory

(image courtesy of Neesha on deviantart.com)

My best friend once told me (in her 'I've been studying this material endlessly for my midterm, so I know what I'm talking about' voice) that there are no truths, just theories that have been proven false. Maybe nothing is an exact science, if so life and love are definitely no exception.

People always say the key to every good relationship is communication, and whether or not we're socially or genetically programmed to be this way I've come to realize something about most men and women. As much as I hate to generalize most of the women I know believe that the first step to connecting with someone is talking (them to death) and most men I know are more inclined to communicate through sex, and prefer to talk via the pillow. I can't count the number of times I've heard the 'you can't sleep with him until you know his middle name, birth date, favorite color, (insert alleged personality defining characteristic here),' a rule that once fulfilled never seemed to actually save any of the relationships I know from the 'crash & burn' disaster that was ahead.

What I'm really talking about are the dating rules: the theories about how to get what you want from love and life - if you missed my memo earlier: we'll never be able to prove these theories true.

Ever wonder what's wrong with these expectations? Why don't we just say what we mean and do what we want? If we were more open about what we wanted from the other person wouldn't we be better off? Relationships are complicated enough, why do we add this dishonesty into the mix?

One of my favorite quotes is: "Once the wheel of love is set in motion there are no rules and no order," which is what a relationship really is... For all the theories people have thrown out about love, just like science, all we've done is dispell and develop a bunch of fallacies. Life happens, and whether or not she sleeps with him on the first or second date, or he opens the door for her and picks up the check aren't in reality what makes or breaks a connection.

That's all she wrote...For Now

All You've Got to do is Say...No

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Sometimes as much as you want to say yes, you know the answer should be no. Temptation always seems to mount when you're in a relationship. That guy you'd wondered "what if" about for an eternity finally decides he's ready to show you exactly what you've been missing (oo and it's a lot). If you're strong, you say no and you deny yourself that exquisite pleasurable experience. If you've got the backbone of a snail, you succumb, let yourself fold into the passionate throws and the next day (granted you have the capacity to feel shame) you stare at the tattered shreds of your morality that have all gone to hell.

Whether the night in question is worth it is up for debate. If you said no and wake to find the other side of the bed empty, your mind may wander and linger on all sorts of dark places. While you contemplate what could have been you can take solace in knowing you did the right thing (even if your body is aching for the caresses of the lover you denied). As for those of you that said yes, you should now do the right thing and say goodbye to your relationship, or else yours is one of the 0.001% that can survive infidelity (make no mistake, you are most likely not the exception).

That's all she wrote...For Now

Putting it in Ink

(image courtesy of roddh on flickr)

Yesterday one of by BFF's got his first tattoo - rumor on the street is that I'm next (but I highly doubt it). It's on that list of my 'what if's' that I don't plan to follow through on. I'm the kind of person who writes in my moleskine not on my skin, but if I were to get one I'd get the Jamaican national hummingbird perched on a Ginger Lily or Bird of Paradise plant on my right pelvic bone (not that I've put any thought into it). I also watched two girls get their tongues pierced (yikes!). I've got the standard two ears pierced and nothing else, as much as my friends would like me to join the club, tattoo's and piercings won't be on the docket this decade or the next.

That's all she wrote...For Now

The Double D

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Don't get me wrong, I love partying with my friends and I can usually do it sober (& by sober I mean no alcohol but 2 to 3 cans of Red Bull flowing through my body) but being the designated driver sometimes for lack of a better phrase - sucks out loud! I got roped into going to a soca fete last night and coaxed into being the cursed double D. I usually don't mind for the most part, but as I looked around at my circle, everyone and I mean EVERYONE else had a Heineken in hand and I have to admit I was a bit jealous!

I love to dance, music unleashes this kind of unparalleled high causing my hips to gyrate (& me to belt out one song after another with more feeling than is ever actually called for) - but when I hit my soca music quota for the night my vibe hit a serious lull. A lull that could have definitely been cured by a bit of liquid inspiration, lesson to self: soca fete≠ designated driver.

That's all she wrote...For Now

As I Am

He called me a free spirit and I thought "What? Wait! Hmmm, maybe I am." I've always prized the fact that I like going against the grain. Being different is pretty much the point of me being alive, as my roommate who thinks that it's pointless to challenge society has discovered after our many diatribes. For one of the first times in a relationship I feel like I haven't been misjudged, or judged at all for that matter (&& I like it). We're always trying to figure out the trick to making a relationship work, for me I've always felt a bit uneasy around people in general when I know I'm not completely accepted, an unease that's magnified tenfold in relationships. I gave him the usual disclaimer "I'm a feminist, a klutz, and extremely unconventional, not to mention the fact that I can be a huge B****" and the conversation didn't end there, to my surprise as a matter of fact it's been going on 2 weeks of non stop talking. We'll see how I manage to mess this up, maybe it'll be that I feel stifled so easily that I can't stay in one place too long. I'm always waiting for the bottom to drop out, probably because it always does. He said I need to stop being so pessimistic but I'm a realist on the road to cynicism so we'll have to see how that goes too.

Maybe all we really need in relationships is for someone to take us as we are.

That's all she wrote...For Now

Friends & The Fast Lane

Ever feel like cutting each and every person out of your life and not completely understanding why? Maybe for a split second or a few hours I lost my faith and trust in my friends. I don’t know exactly what it was that came over me, but in one fell swoop I decided that since I’m moving in three months putting up with betrayal and lies and being sceptical of everyone in my life wouldn’t be a good way to spend my last days. I lashed out about the concept of facebook friends, considering that maybe no one is really friends with anyone anymore. I wanted a clean slate, to escape the tyranny of others I call my friends, to start over; maybe I’ve wanted it for a long time and been too afraid of what it’s like to have no friends. The last straw was gossip from the mouths of friends, which my best friend promptly proceeded to highlight was seriously ironic because my favourite TV show is Gossip Girl, a statement that broke the ice (making both of us burst into a fit of giggles) and making it evident how stupid I was being. It’s easier to push people away than to lose them with no control over the terms and situation. Call me a control freak, but lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve lost my mind, life happens, there’s nothing we can do about it, we’re just along for the ride and I'm about to hit the fast lane when I move to NYC.

That's all she wrote...For Now