A Workaholic’s Guide to Not Hide and Have a Happy Holiday

December 12, 2016January 22, 2024 by RJ Newellin Wellness

The holidays can be triggering for many reasons. It’s tempting to fall back into work mode, and hide there. But don’t give up!

It’s hard for me to stop working.

I’m a passionate person, and highly driven. When things go well, I’m on top of the world. When projects go badly, I triple my efforts in trying to fix them. 2016 has been a garbage year, for a lot of people. I am no exception. There’s too much to do, too much to fix, and not enough time.

Now, the holidays are here. The candles are lit, Christmas cards are arriving, lights go up on surrounding houses, carols drift by with each passing car…and I’m working. I’m typing furiously, checking boxes off of my to-do list, and fighting a heavy cold. Now is not the time for rest. My hustle is unstoppable.

Everyone around me is hunkering down in cozy sweaters and sipping egg nog with loved ones. Why are all my friends so relaxed? It’s both mystifying and enviable. I’d love to lounge around and feel merry. But the very thought of doing nothing makes me feel anxious. Why?

I guess I’m just not ready for the year to end. With so many projects up in the air, and a mountain of unfinished messes on my desk, I simply can’t stop working. My goals are huge, and I’m never going to reach them if I stop working.

It’s been this way for nearly every holiday that I can remember.

I’m scared that if I stop working, success will pass me by. I’m worried that if I don’t have achievements to show my friends and family, then I won’t be making them proud. And if I’m not making my family proud, they aren’t going to love me.

In typing this, I realize just how f*cked up that sounds.

My name is Rachel, and I’m a workaholic.

…At least, that’s what my family, friends and therapist tell me.

But how reliable can their opinions be, really? For the sake of this article, I’ve decided to turn to the real expert in my life: Google.

Searching: “Signs You Might Be A Workaholic.”

Results:

“You may be a workaholic if… you devalue self-care and personal priorities in favor of professional goals.”
“The thought of not working is more stressful than actually working.”
“You don’t take real vacations. You sneak in work wherever you can.”
“You rarely tell your bosses ‘no,’ but your friends and family rarely hear ‘yes.’”

Uh….sure, I display all of these qualities, but I think there’s a difference between ‘workaholism’ and a successful mindset. I thought passion and persistence were good things. I work hard, so I can play hard…someday.

After all, this isn’t an addiction. It’s dedication and drive!

I want everyone to see me as ambitious, busy, and on the way to something great, because that’s who I want to be. I’m terrified of sitting still, because I’m not a lazy person. I’ve got important things to do.

…That said, I should be working on my dreams, not Googling made-up diseases.

So screw you, Google. I’m fine.

“You never call yourself a workaholic.”

…Shoot.

Mental illness is no stranger to me. I’m not exactly hiding that I’ve struggled with depression, OCD and CPTSD for most of my life. I don’t need – or want – to add one more label to my long list of problems.

That said, the problem is already there. Becoming aware of it and adding a handy label doesn’t add fuel to the fire. Noticing a rainstorm is the first step to finding an umbrella.

So, I’m coming up with a plan. Perhaps there’s a way to trick my workaholic brain into seeing the impending holiday as an opportunity, instead of a drag on my momentum. I’m making this list of tips for myself to follow as the holidays unfold. I invite you all to join me!

A Workaholic’s Guide to a Happy Holiday

Week 1. Pre-Game!

In the week leading up to your holiday plans, you can maximize your productivity in a final year-end push. Tying up loose ends in this way can help to diminish your guilt and stress while you’re away.

A: Schedule your final week of work with the most intense tasks, first.

Then in the last few days of this workweek, give yourself more time in the evenings to relax. This will help you practice ‘putting it down’ and focusing on what’s important.

B: Give yourself a year-end review.

Go over your calendars, notes and milestones from the year and make a list of your biggest accomplishments. You’ll be surprised by how much you’ve done in the last 365 days.

C: Don’t plan what’s next.

Take your list of accomplishments with you for the holidays, and skim over it once a day if that makes you feel better. The holidays are a time to celebrate what’s important, and you are worth celebrating. You’ve worked hard to get here, so stop and appreciate it for a week or two. Every business needs to take a little time out for inventory, and you are no different. Celebrate what you’ve got!

Week 2. Merry Christmas!

Whatever holiday you’re celebrating, this time of year is about family and friends. If you’ve cut them out of your life, now is the time to reconnect. If being around family overwhelms you, remember to squeeze in some ‘you’ time. The holidays can be triggering for many reasons. It’s tempting to fall back into work mode, and hide there. But don’t give up! The following steps will help you make the most of this time away from work.

A: Get lost in activities.

Play scrabble, go skiing, build a snowman. Engage in a long conversation with your grandma, and ask her what life was like for her at your age. Whatever your family and friends like to do for the holidays, jump in. Putting work down is surprisingly productive for your general sense of well-being, health, and clarity of mind. Life is happening in front of you. Don’t miss it.

B: Give yourself five minutes (every other day) to scan your emails.

Don’t analyze or reply to any of them, just skim through subject lines. It’ll give your peace of mind in knowing that nothing’s caught on fire while you’re away, and lower your anxiety. That said…make sure to set a timer, so you don’t get sucked in.

C: Put down your Smartphone.

Everyone around you is taking pictures, and they’ll be there when the holidays are over. Social media can be a one-way ticket to comparison, competition, emotional triggers and conflict. Do your professional spirit a favor and unplug for the holidays. You’ll come back to your work refreshed and ready to rock, without any extra baggage.

Week 3. Have a Happy New Year.

A: Remember that list of last year’s accomplishments?

Keep it. When you’re on the plane back from your holiday travels, pull out that list and think about how far you’ve come. Add “enjoyed the holidays” to the end of that list, and decide to do even better next year. Now that the holidays are over, you can jump into goal-setting and evaluating your priorities for the new year. Enjoy the brainstorm, but don’t burn out.

B: Set aside time to examine what you missed (and didn’t miss) over the holidays, organizing emails by priority and responding in little chunks.

Pace yourself and ease back into your routine. Don’t work late. Instead, use your evenings to relax (like you did before the holidays). Implementing a healthy balance will make you even more productive in the long run.

C: Take time to review what just happened.

We can only understand the object of our addiction once it is taken away. So how were the holidays for you, really? Do your shame-based feelings suggest that a deeper healing needs to take place? Call your friends and family to check in, now that the holidays are over. Ask them what they think. Remember where your support system is, and use it. There are many ways to achieve a healthy balance in life, so figure out what’s best for you. Perhaps you can commit to reading relevant books (like Daring Greatly) and implement their teachings. Maybe therapy is a good option.

The new year is a great time to commit to your success – and a healthy mindset is key to success in all areas.

I’ll be working to follow my own advice this holiday season, and I hope you’ll join me in the journey. Are there any tips that work (or don’t) for you? Share with us in the comments below!

How Size Doesn’t Matter: Take Napoleon for Instance

December 14, 2016January 22, 2024 by Eric Lampaertin Sex

Every French man knows that like all good wines, women mature with age, in both beauty and brains.

There’s a general consensus that women love tall men, or at the very least taller than them. I am not sure what the benefits of being lanky are; my legs hurt in economy, the game limbo where people judge how low I can go is 15% harder and my career as a professional jockey is not where I’d like it to be. And yet, that hasn’t held us gargantuan men back from conquering the hearts of the opposite sex.

Conquering may be an inappropriate word, but it leads me nicely onto one of the most famous short men, Napoleon Bonaparte. Although listed as 5 feet 2 inches, those were the old French units which in the modern equivalent would make him 5’7”. (Same height as Tom Cruise. Coincidence? Yes.)

Napoleon not only wanted to conquer land for Lady Liberty of France, but also needed to conquer the heart of a potential empress to have by his side. Young Napoleon was in charge of older men who loomed over him and the only way he thought he’d have the respect of his men was by marrying a cougar. Meeeow. How’d you get this total babe? Oh you know, just invading multiple countries. No biggie.

Napoleon fell head over heels for Marie-Joseph-Rose de Meauharnais, later renamed Josephine because Napoleon didn’t like her name. We all give our lovers nicknames after all. The only problem with the relationship? She despised Napoleon. He was too much of a nerd.

Every French man knows that like all good wines, women mature with age, in both beauty and brains. (Cheese is also great the more mature it is, but not the best comparison for a lady). Josephine may have been a desirable decanter of Dom Perignon when it came to motherhood, but a Two Buck Chuck chardonnay with a crazy straw when it came to ROMANCE with Napoleon. She had no desire whatsoever to marry Napoleon, but was informed by a friend the only way for her to keep her lavish lifestyle and keep her two children safe was to marry Napoleon, whom was oblivious to her hatred for him.

They married and a few days later, it was a romantic honeymoon to Italy, without her. Alas, he had to go to work, and every day, the besotted general would write his wife love letters, while she was back home in Paris, Netflix and chilling with other men.
She made many excuses as to why she could not join him in Italy, and went as far as telling him she was pregnant and thus could not travel. She was not with child of course, which is surprising considering the amount of Parisian baguette she gobbled. She just wasn’t interested in giving the general a chance to show her he was worthy of her heart.

When the cuckolded Napoleon found out, angered by the betrayal, he decided to come back to France in a mission to cherish her. Napoleon’s attempt to win her heart lasted too briefly when she arrived and told him the reason she was no longer pregnant was due to a miscarriage. This devastated Napoleon. (I bet you didn’t know all this about the tiny man we mock).

After she cheated on him a few more times, he no longer loved her, but in a twist of fate, she now was falling in love with him. The story goes that Josephine was forever in love with Napoleon from the moment he parted ways with her. As she was dying of diphteria, her last word was ‘Napoleon’. He later re-married the Archduchess of Austria Maria-Louisa, later renamed Marie Louise because Napoleon didn’t like her name.

Tall men don’t necessarily make better men. Neither do ‘bad boys’. Ladies, give the not so tall nerds a chance, they might surprise you and go above and beyond to swoon you off your feet. And if they seem to try hard like Napoleon, it might just be because they’re really besotted by you. My wife told me she wasn’t sure about getting with me because I was too weird, but luckily one of her friends convinced her to give me a chance, and now we’re happily married. Give the nerds a chance.

Is Cheating Ever OK?

December 14, 2016January 22, 2024 by Virginia Jonesin RELATIONSHIPS

Would you tell your friend if you saw their significant other on a dinner date with another?

Q: Is cheating ever OK?

At the very least, cheating means you don’t value the relationship you’re in. If you cheat once, think about what this means about your relationship with your partner- you have taken a risk that they could get hurt, they could get an STD, they could be embarrassed- so that you could have a short-term positive experience. If you continue cheating, consider ending your relationship, because you are clearly not committed or fulfilled. Instead of taking that as an excuse to cheat, be honest with your partner and stop seeing them.

If you think you’re “just the cheating kind”, consider not having relationships.

If your partner has cheated on you, it will hurt, but you should ask if they’re interested in staying with you or if they’re shopping for other partners. Try to be honest about what you expect from them. Almost everyone cheats during their lifetime- it doesn’t have to be the end of a relationship but it must be addressed.

If you accept a partner’s continued cheating even though it hurts you- this lets the partner know that you don’t value yourself and that anything goes. This is not a good place to be for your emotional health.

Cheating hurts people in a very deep, sometimes irrational way. Think about a relationship of yours that ended without infidelity, and about one that ended with it. Do you feel differently about them? Put yourself in your partner’s shoes. If you are cheating “on your way out” of a relationship- consider ending your relationship first. You and your partner will have a better experience and nicer memories of each other if infidelity doesn’t color the end of your time together.

Q: Would you tell your friend if you saw their significant other on a dinner date with another?

I would not. I would tell my friend if their significant other was sending out pictures of his dick to other people. Even then, it doesn’t change anything. Usually, it just makes my friend upset. It’s very difficult to give someone information that they don’t want, even if months later they recognize it was probably true.

Q: How do you feel about infidelity in celebrity relationships, like the rumors about Brad, Marion Cotillard, and Angelina?

If we assume that the thing that ended Brangelina was, in fact, cheating: I think that a mature relationship could have survived infidelity- so I suspect that this is not the first time, but the last that Angelina could deal with.

When infidelity is public, I think that changes things. It’s one thing to work on issues at home, see a therapist, try to communicate- it’s another when everyone on the street and everyone you see knows that your partner betrayed you and hurt you. Think about being at Ralph’s (or, let’s face it, Whole Foods or Gelson’s) and seeing people’s faces full of pity for you, when all you wanted was an organic wheatgrass juice.

That being said- I don’t think a marriage is a failure just because it ends. Because our society has changed to value the individual over the couple- everything is stacked against long marriages. You can learn a lot from marriage and grow as a person, even though that union didn’t last until death did you part.

All in all, the reason we call it cheating is that it’s a betrayal of what you have agreed on in your relationship. If you don’t want to be monogamous, don’t be. Cheating on your current partner as a trial for a potential relationship is a poor use of everyone’s trust. If all of your relationships end in infidelity, consider doing the brave thing and ending the relationship before stepping out.

What Stanley Taught Me Regardless of Our Differences

December 16, 2016January 22, 2024 by Eliza Hurwitzin RELATIONSHIPS

In a society enamored by the brash and the brazen…

When I moved to New York 4 years ago, I had just gotten a new job as a receptionist. I was excited about the change, about being in a city, and having a job that would enable me to fulfill my stand-up comedy endeavors. However, I was quickly dismayed by the long hours spent behind the computer and lack of meaningful communication. I longed for human interaction and connection. Without the ability to forgo my income security, however, I decided volunteering would be the perfect means to do this.

Aside from occasionally working at soup kitchens over the holidays and giving to Goodwill, volunteering wasn’t something I had actively committed to since high school. I missed it and decided, with ample free time, now was the perfect time as any to start again. I was unsure of exactly what to do, but through online searching, I found an organization called, DOROT, a non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating the social isolation that, unfortunately affects many members of the elderly community. DOROT seeks to do this through multiple services including, friendly visiting, meal delivery services, and help with daily tasks and errands.

I remembered how lonely my grandfather felt after my grandmother had passed away the Summer before. The loss was hard on everyone, but especially him. Though my grandmother was frail, she was the one to take care of him. It was because of her guidance that they would wake up early for their morning walk, run their daily errands, cook dinner and watch Jeopardy. She provided him with a daily routine that made him feel connected to the outside world and without her, my grandfather felt lost. Though my grandfather was in a nursing home, and surrounded by so many other senior citizens, his despondence at his seclusion was palpable. My family would have him over for dinner just about every night and would visit frequently. Those visits were so important to him. He said they brightened his day and, though my grandfather was prone to exaggerations, I don’t for one second believe this was hyperbole. I thought of this frequently when I started volunteering at DOROT.

For my volunteering I met with a senior citizen named Stanley. Stanley was like me, small, quiet and reserved. The major difference was that Stanley was 84 years and had no idea how to use a computer. So would meet with him once a week for an hour and attempted to teach him basic computer skill. I’m proud to say I helped him get a Netflix and Hulu account, but alas, could not help him master the art of the email. Perhaps, more important than offering computer help, I lent companionship and a listening ear. Stanley was frail, requiring the use of a walker and was rarely able to leave his home.

Stanley loved to tell me stories about his childhood and his beloved dog, True Heart. Whether he was looking back at a memory with fondness, or expressing regret, I loved hearing Stanley reflect on his past, because he was able to do so with more wisdom than anyone I’ve ever known. In return, Stanley loved to hear about my life, my family and was so impressed and intrigued by my ability to do stand-up comedy. He said, if he could go back in time, he would do it and he gave me such credit. Through my stories and visits, I helped Stanley feel connected to the outside world. He called me brave and would remind me to be grateful for everything I had, to take pride in my accomplishments, no matter how small. Selfishly, when I started volunteering, I thought about how much Stanley would learn from me, but in the end, I know I learned more from him.

Sadly, Stanley died last year, but my visits with him continue to inspire my path in life. Stanley helped me realize the importance of telling one’s narrative. Despite our differences, we all have something to gain simply by listening. Whenever i would leave, Stanley would say how much he appreciated me coming over and how my visits never failed to brighten his day. In a society enamored by the brash and the brazen, it’s easy to forget how powerful a tool compassion can be, but I think it’s the most important.

Finding Your Ho, Ho, Ho this Holiday, When You’re Single

December 20, 2016January 22, 2024 by Kelley Lynnin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

Happy Holidays, Fellow Single Folks!

Ho, ho, ho …. you’re alone!!! Do you ever feel like the holidays put a great, big, exclamation point on the sad fact that you currently aren’t with anyone? Does all that mistletoe, tinsel, and Christmas cheer make you feel all kinds of lonely? Yeah. Me too. Whether you are divorced, single, nursing a broken heart, or even widowed, like me – the holiday season can really do a number on your ability to feel joy. In fact, it can be downright depressing.

But it doesn’t have to be. Sure, singing Christmas carols and harmonizing by yourself, or making a gingerbread house for one, doesn’t sound like loads of fun – but there are ways that you can turn the holidays from a time of “woe is me” to a time of something special and meaningful. And perhaps even have some fun and do something a bit different in the process. Really. All it takes is thinking a bit outside the box. Here are a few ways to have a purposeful, meaningful, joyful holiday – while being single:

Get Outside:

Maybe in past years, you have done the same tired thing, over and over and over again. Perhaps its time to change it up, do something new. If you’re single, guess what? You don’t have to answer to anyone, so if you feel like spending Christmas week in a casino, seeing a Broadway show, or on a beach in Florida, who says you can’t? Sure, you’ll still be alone and single, but suddenly that doesn’t seem so awful with a coconut rum drink in your hand while floating along in a pool. Also, when you do something completely different and new with your holiday, think of all the stories you’ll have for the rest of your friends and family. They might even end up being jealous, and that’s always fun.

Start New Traditions:

So you watch “A Christmas Story” on a loop, every Christmas Eve, every single year, for your entire life. That doesn’t mean you have to keep doing that until the end of time. If you want to do that, then great. But sometimes all it takes to feel new joy is a little bit of change. If you normally have hot cocoa with marshmallows, be a rebel and switch to whipped cream! Perhaps you could even gather together with other single friends, and together, create a lovely holiday dinner or evening, complete with your own brand new traditions. The good thing about new traditions, is that they feel very personal, because YOU created them. And now, you already have something to look forward to next year!

Help Out:

It is very easy to get caught up in all the ways that your own life kind of sucks during the holidays. One good way to help take the focus off of that for awhile, is to find ways to give to other people whose lives probably suck a lot more than yours does.The Thanksgiving after my husband’s death, I volunteered at a women’s shelter serving food for the holiday. The people there were so nice and so appreciative of everything, it took my mind off my own stuff for awhile, and it also helped me to engage in something that was far outside my own life circle. I actually had fun, and ended up doing more things like that going forward.

Be a Kid, Play with Kids:

Just because you’re officially an adult, that doesn’t mean you have to be serious all the time. Children love the holidays, because they get to be kids and just have fun! Who says you can’t do the same? If you have kids in your family, play with them. Build a snowman together. Build a fort. Make Christmas cookies. Make silly videos on Instagram and make each other laugh. If there are no kids in your life (I have a niece and nephew, so it’s always fun to be silly with them), bring back the kid in YOU, and have some fun this time of year. Go sledding, or snowmobiling. If you’re in a warm climate place, take a swim or a stroll.

Whatever you decide to do this holiday season, being single isn’t the end of the world. Yes, it can be sad and it can certainly be frustrating when everyone around you seems to be part of a couple. But, if you can focus on the celebration of love in all it’s forms – the holidays will start to become much more enjoyable.

So Happy Holidays, Fellow Single Folks! Here’s a toast to you, in all your awesomeness!

My New Year’s Resolution: Real Human Connection

January 3, 2017January 22, 2024 by Jennifer Ashley Greenein RELATIONSHIPS

It’s so much more rewarding to say hello and share a laugh with someone than to beat your last level of Candy Crush.

You know when you’re talking with someone and you zone out for 30 seconds and come back only because you’ve realized she’s stopped talking and you have to say something to acknowledge that you’ve been listening (which you haven’t) and now your only option is to nod, say “mm hm” and pray that you didn’t just call your friend fat or tell her to quit her job or get a divorce? Yeah. That’s the worst. It’s called not being present, and we could all use a lot of work on this, especially in this day and age where people snapchat while they’re on a date.

I live in NYC. I take the subway daily. Often, I look around and observe my fellow commuters, hoping to make eye contact with, or smile at, someone. What I’ve noticed more and more in recent years, is how rarely people actually look up when they’re on the train. It seems people would rather focus their attention on their phones than interact with another human being. I find this incredibly unfortunate, as human connection is such a basic need in life. It’s so much more rewarding to say hello and share a laugh with someone than to beat your last level of Candy Crush.

I’m not sure when it became such an endeavor to engage with other people. I want to say it was around the time that smart phones surfaced, but I know they’re not entirely to blame. Truth be told I think not being present is a bigger issue. It’s a choice that we actively make to disconnect in our daily lives. We are all so very busy. We pile more and more “stuff” on our plates because we think we need to fill every minute of the day with something. We don’t. Constantly multitasking, we’ve convinced ourselves that there’s just not enough time. There is. We text while we drive, email while we walk, and scroll Facebook while we eat. The problem with multitasking is that, as with most things, the more we practice it, the easier it becomes.

What would be the worst thing that would happen if we didn’t look at a text message while in the company of a friend? Or check for new emails at a red light or while working out? The text/email would still be there right? It might go unanswered for an hour, but for that hour we would have been in the moment and enjoyed time with a friend, driven safely, or had a great workout! We might have connected with another person, and fulfilled the basic need of human connection that smartphones simply can’t replace.

Have you ever been on a date with someone who checked his/her phone several times during your conversation? Have you been on a date with someone who didn’t? Who would you prefer to date? When we refrain from looking at our phones, we send a message to the person we’re with, that his/her time is more valuable than our screens, and that’s a pretty great feeling. The guy who chooses to make his date feel more important than his incoming email, will 9 times out of 10 get a second date, and that’s the goal, right?

I once read that you should put your phone down for an hour a day. Whether you silence it or turn it off is up to you, but you can’t touch it for an hour. I also suggest leaving your phone in your purse (or pocket) when you’re having dinner with a friend. Whatever you do, just remember that you never know whose day you might be making by simply saying hello. It’s the safe choice to avoid eye contact and go into zombie mode playing Sudoku. The alternative is so much more rewarding. As with everything else we practice, if we really work on staying in the moment, it’ll become second nature, and we’ll be able to truly connect with people and possibly form a lasting connection; and at the very least, we’ll know just how to respond to our friend when her story ends.

Real Life Dating vs. “The Bachelor”: Two Different Journeys

January 6, 2017January 22, 2024 by Kelley Lynnin RELATIONSHIPS

So, as we approach a new year of 2017, and season #847 (I lost track long ago) of The Bachelor, which began this week with 30 women competing for the love of a mop-haired dude named Nick who mumbles and has a lisp – I thought it might be fun to do a humorous but accurate comparison of reality-show life in the dating world, vs. real life in the dating world. Hey, I’m a 45 year old widow who just moved back in with her parents because I can no longer afford life as an adult in NYC. What else do I have to do right now, besides create comparison articles that give me another excuse to lightly mock the hilarity that is The Bachelor? Answer: Nothing. So here we go ….

Meeting for the First Time:

The Bachelor	In real life
On The Bachelor, a first meeting with your new guy starts off by pulling up to a literal mansion, in a limousine, followed by 29 other women who are also meeting your guy/their guy for the first time. You get about 20 seconds or less to make your first impression and say hello – and on this week’s premiere episode, we saw everything from girls feeding Nick maple syrup from their fingers, to a girl dressed up in a dolphin costume. (although everyone on the show insisted she looked more like a shark, but whatever.) Also, if you really impress your new man, you just might receive a “first-impression rose” from him. But, there’s only a 1 in 30 chance of that happening, so the competition is fierce. You also have to worry about what all the other girls are doing, wearing, how they are behaving in comparison to you. In this week’s premiere, more than 15 of the 30 women showed up in red dresses. This was a major cause of trauma and stress for them, and caused them to drink more wine. (what doesn’t on this show?) Also, when meeting your new man, and sharing a moment with him outside laughing or kissing, there is a very good chance that you will be interrupted mid-conversation, by one of the other 29 wine-swilling, red-dress wearing, determined ladies. Just trying to complete a conversation with your new love interest, in reality-tv land, is a huge challenge. Lastly, the first night you meet, might also be your last. If he doesn’t find you appealing enough, he will send you packing on night number one. Harsh.	In real life, a first meeting with your new guy might be the result of friends hooking you up, or of taking a chance on one of the many dating sites offered to us regular folk who don’t go on television to meet our future partners. If you live in a major city, your date probably doesn’t have a car, and you might not want him knowing where you live anyway, in case he’s a serial killer. So it’s really best to meet in the city and just jump on the subway. If you live in the burbs, I still think most people when meeting for the first time, probably meet at said date location. Again, he might be a serial killer. If you really impress your new guy on your date, he may or may not buy you dinner. Where this dinner takes place is another fun mystery! It could be The Ritz, or it could be McDonald’s. Or he could be really cheap and take you for coffee. Either way, there’s no guarantee that he will buy your dinner, (or coffee) as sometimes you meet ungentlemanly dudes who slide the bill over to your side of the table after dinner, and say with a smirk: “Time to settle up.” (not that that’s happened to me personally or anything).If you make a good impression, you may or may not get a goodnight kiss, or sometimes you may mutually decide to go much further, and turn it into a goodnight “hookup.” Then it may get all kinds of awkward the next week, when he never calls you back or texts you even, after exchanging bodily fluids and drinking way too much wine. So, the first night you meet, might also be the last night you ever hear from him again. Or, he might turn out to be a serial killer. Harsh.

The Bachelor

In real life

On The Bachelor, a first meeting with your new guy starts off by pulling up to a literal mansion, in a limousine, followed by 29 other women who are also meeting your guy/their guy for the first time. You get about 20 seconds or less to make your first impression and say hello – and on this week’s premiere episode, we saw everything from girls feeding Nick maple syrup from their fingers, to a girl dressed up in a dolphin costume. (although everyone on the show insisted she looked more like a shark, but whatever.) Also, if you really impress your new man, you just might receive a “first-impression rose” from him. But, there’s only a 1 in 30 chance of that happening, so the competition is fierce. You also have to worry about what all the other girls are doing, wearing, how they are behaving in comparison to you. In this week’s premiere, more than 15 of the 30 women showed up in red dresses. This was a major cause of trauma and stress for them, and caused them to drink more wine. (what doesn’t on this show?) Also, when meeting your new man, and sharing a moment with him outside laughing or kissing, there is a very good chance that you will be interrupted mid-conversation, by one of the other 29 wine-swilling, red-dress wearing, determined ladies. Just trying to complete a conversation with your new love interest, in reality-tv land, is a huge challenge. Lastly, the first night you meet, might also be your last. If he doesn’t find you appealing enough, he will send you packing on night number one. Harsh.

In real life, a first meeting with your new guy might be the result of friends hooking you up, or of taking a chance on one of the many dating sites offered to us regular folk who don’t go on television to meet our future partners. If you live in a major city, your date probably doesn’t have a car, and you might not want him knowing where you live anyway, in case he’s a serial killer. So it’s really best to meet in the city and just jump on the subway. If you live in the burbs, I still think most people when meeting for the first time, probably meet at said date location. Again, he might be a serial killer. If you really impress your new guy on your date, he may or may not buy you dinner. Where this dinner takes place is another fun mystery! It could be The Ritz, or it could be McDonald’s. Or he could be really cheap and take you for coffee. Either way, there’s no guarantee that he will buy your dinner, (or coffee) as sometimes you meet ungentlemanly dudes who slide the bill over to your side of the table after dinner, and say with a smirk: “Time to settle up.” (not that that’s happened to me personally or anything).If you make a good impression, you may or may not get a goodnight kiss, or sometimes you may mutually decide to go much further, and turn it into a goodnight “hookup.” Then it may get all kinds of awkward the next week, when he never calls you back or texts you even, after exchanging bodily fluids and drinking way too much wine. So, the first night you meet, might also be the last night you ever hear from him again. Or, he might turn out to be a serial killer. Harsh.

The Living Environment:

THE BACHELOR	IN REAL LIFE
On The Bachelor, your new love interest lives in a mansion, paid for by a television network. There are lots of cocktail parties and pool parties at this mansion, and there are always lots and lots of other girls at these parties too. YOU also live in a different mansion, or sometimes in various beautiful hotels, whenever your man decides to travel somewhere “amazing”on this “journey” that the network also pays for. You do not live by yourself though. You live with all the other women who are also desperately competing for your man’s love. There are lots of roses given out at random times, and also, during a “ceremony” where multiple girls receive roses. If you get one, you get to stay longer in the mansion or hotel. The living environment you will be in is extremely emotional. You will be living with loads of women, and these women are hormonal, have periods, and have been cut off from the internet and television while on this reality show.	In real life, your new love interest hopefully lives on his own, in a house or an apartment that he rents or owns himself. This is not a guarantee, however. You may be dating a guy who lives with his mommy, or who is “separated” from his wife, but in reality, he’s “never going to leave her.” Your alcohol situation is up to you in real life, so the amount of wine you choose to drink is optional. If you receive roses or other flowers from your man, it is because he really likes you, and you should thank him. You will not be living with multiple women, unless you live in NYC – then you may live in a 2 bedroom apartment with 21 people. If you go on a date with your new man, at least you know that at the end of that date, you won’t be asked to leave your own home. Its pretty much guaranteed that as awful as your date is, you will still be allowed to return home when it has ended. No sad rejection limo necessary. In fact, no limo at all.
The producers also supply them with endless amounts of wine and other alcoholic beverages. They drink wine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Whenever food appears, nobody eats it. They only drink more wine, and they drink it out of the hugest wine glasses you have ever seen in your life. Your roommates will walk around sometimes in bikini tops, towels, mini-skirts, and sometimes they will make innuendo comments about not wearing underwear. There is a lot of crying. Endless amounts of sobbing coming from all of these women, and you may find yourself sobbing too, should your new man not be paying enough attention to you on a particular day, or should you find yourself out of wine for an hour or more. In between dates, you will spend a lot of time at the mansion, gossiping about other people’s dates with Nick, and making assumptions and probably crying. There is also a lot of sitting around and staring longingly out various windows, like in those commercials for depression medication.
Your roommates will also do a lot of the same, because apparently nobody on this show works, or they have fake jobs that allow them to take 3 months off to film this ridiculous show. You will be rooming with a lot of dental hygenists (there are a minimum of 3 in each season – I think its in the contract), spokesmodels, “dolphin-enthusiasts”, small business owners, and other made up careers that don’t actually exist. There will be a lot of sitting around in hot tubs, holding your giant glass of wine. You may go on a date one night, and come back to find your suitcases sitting out by the front door of the mansion. This means that Nick has sent you home, and you have to go ride in the sad rejection limo.

THE BACHELOR

IN REAL LIFE

On The Bachelor, your new love interest lives in a mansion, paid for by a television network. There are lots of cocktail parties and pool parties at this mansion, and there are always lots and lots of other girls at these parties too. YOU also live in a different mansion, or sometimes in various beautiful hotels, whenever your man decides to travel somewhere “amazing”on this “journey” that the network also pays for. You do not live by yourself though. You live with all the other women who are also desperately competing for your man’s love. There are lots of roses given out at random times, and also, during a “ceremony” where multiple girls receive roses. If you get one, you get to stay longer in the mansion or hotel.

The living environment you will be in is extremely emotional. You will be living with loads of women, and these women are hormonal, have periods, and have been cut off from the internet and television while on this reality show.

In real life, your new love interest hopefully lives on his own, in a house or an apartment that he rents or owns himself. This is not a guarantee, however. You may be dating a guy who lives with his mommy, or who is “separated” from his wife, but in reality, he’s “never going to leave her.” Your alcohol situation is up to you in real life, so the amount of wine you choose to drink is optional. If you receive roses or other flowers from your man, it is because he really likes you, and you should thank him. You will not be living with multiple women, unless you live in NYC – then you may live in a 2 bedroom apartment with 21 people. If you go on a date with your new man, at least you know that at the end of that date, you won’t be asked to leave your own home. Its pretty much guaranteed that as awful as your date is, you will still be allowed to return home when it has ended. No sad rejection limo necessary. In fact, no limo at all.

The producers also supply them with endless amounts of wine and other alcoholic beverages. They drink wine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Whenever food appears, nobody eats it. They only drink more wine, and they drink it out of the hugest wine glasses you have ever seen in your life. Your roommates will walk around sometimes in bikini tops, towels, mini-skirts, and sometimes they will make innuendo comments about not wearing underwear. There is a lot of crying. Endless amounts of sobbing coming from all of these women, and you may find yourself sobbing too, should your new man not be paying enough attention to you on a particular day, or should you find yourself out of wine for an hour or more. In between dates, you will spend a lot of time at the mansion, gossiping about other people’s dates with Nick, and making assumptions and probably crying. There is also a lot of sitting around and staring longingly out various windows, like in those commercials for depression medication.

Your roommates will also do a lot of the same, because apparently nobody on this show works, or they have fake jobs that allow them to take 3 months off to film this ridiculous show. You will be rooming with a lot of dental hygenists (there are a minimum of 3 in each season – I think its in the contract), spokesmodels, “dolphin-enthusiasts”, small business owners, and other made up careers that don’t actually exist. There will be a lot of sitting around in hot tubs, holding your giant glass of wine. You may go on a date one night, and come back to find your suitcases sitting out by the front door of the mansion. This means that Nick has sent you home, and you have to go ride in the sad rejection limo.

The Dates:

The Bachelor	In real life
On The Bachelor, you should be prepared emotionally and physically for some pretty bizarre dates. You will or will not be chosen for the honor to go out on a date with your new guy, via a “Date Card” that is send via host Chris Harrison. Should you be chosen for a date, you may be lucky and receive a “one on one” date with your man, where you actually get to be alone together for a few hours, or you may be selected as one of a dozen or so others, to participate in a “group date”, which sounds like an orgy but it’s not. Group dates often involve silly activities such as pretending to be comedians and telling jokes about your man onstage, playing a sport of some kind to compete for more time with your man, or other silly-ass things. You will have to find a way to stand out in the crowd on this group date, like maybe pretending to fall ill or faking an injury during the sport playing, so that said man-meat will come running to your rescue. Your man, and other women on the show, may use words to describe the date or to describe anything at all, like “journey”, ‘amazing,” or “terrified.” Please know that in the world of this reality-show, everything is always amazing, and everyone is always terrified. Terrified of getting their heart broken, terrified of rejection, terrified that they won’t get the rose tonight. Terrified, terrified, terrified. If you are lucky enough to get a one-on-one date with your new man, who, in this case is a mumbling fool named Nick who says stuff like: “I don’t know how to sit sideways on a couch” – you will be in store for an incredibly cheesy, manufactured romance-filled day. It may start out with a picnic on a beach or in a park. You may be taken on a helicopter ride over some exotic island somewhere (this show looooves helicopter rides almost as much as they love the word “journey”), or you may be asked to jump off a cliff or skydive or some other risky thing, with your new man, to show that you can trust each other and take chances together. Because everyone knows if you can skydive together and not die, that means you are compatible for marriage and for life. Your date may include dinner, which nobody in the history of the show ever eats. You will drink wine, because not a day goes by without wine drinking. Cameras will follow you everywhere, and you may or may not receive a rose on your date. If you do not receive a rose, you may be asked to get into the rejection limo and go home, because your new guy doesn’t see a future with you. Sorry. If things go well, your date may end with a “private performance” outside somewhere, by some random country artist that is supposedly famous but that nobody has ever heard of. You may make out during this dance, because you get so lost in the moment of thinking that any of this is real in any way, shape, or form. You may tell the cameras that you felt so special and that this was one of the best nights of your life. Then, the very next night, Nick will go out with someone else, and it will probably involve a helicopter or picnic or rock climbing, and you will be sad and jealous. Enter more wine. If you should be one of the lucky ladies to make the top three choices for Nick’s heart this season, your last date with him will be an ‘overnight date”, that comes with the option of staying in the “fantasy suite”, where they turn off the cameras so the two of you can sleep together. If you are the third girl of the three women on dates, you should be aware that this man-whore has probably just got done sleeping with another chick, and then another chick before that – just hours before you sleep with him. In the morning, you will enjoy breakfast with your new man served in bed, and then you will leave promptly so he can get ready for his next date soon. Nothing like feeling special!	In real life, you should be prepared for some pretty bizarre dates. You never know what you’re getting into on the dating sites, or through friends, or out at singles bars. Once you are dating your person for awhile, and have gone on some dates together, you will probably decide to see each other exclusively, and so you will not be competing with a bunch of other women. Yay! You may decide to stay home one night as a date, and rent a movie together and cuddle. No cameras will be following you on your date, so you can do as you please. You can keep getting to know each other, and let yourself be adaptable to different things happening on your dates. Explore new places and conversations. You may get lost in the moments, and there may be intimacy. Enjoy it. When you date someone, whether its two times or for 7 months, try to think of it as getting to know someone new. Making a new connection. If you look at it that way, then no connection will ever feel pointless or like a waste of time. In real life dating and in life, every connection serves a purpose. As for intimacy, I prefer the real life way to the reality show one. Both parties involved in the relationship shall decide if and when the time is right for intimacy. You will not receive a creepy invitation from TV host Chris Harrison, inviting you to stay overnight and supplying you with a key. Instead, you and your partner will make these decisions together, like adults. Real life sex is very complicated and messy, and not as seamless as they make it look on TV. Sometimes you might be having your period. Or the condom doesn’t work right. Or he can’t perform right with the condom. Or you aren’t sure if this guy is really worth you starting up a whole new birth control plan (its a huuuuuge pain in the as, and expensive!) for. Or one of you just isn’t in the mood. Or one or both of you has children, so you have to figure out WHERE to do it and when the kids won’t be around. And then after you have sex, a whole new set of emotions emerges. Things become closer. More intimate. In real life relationships, there are no producers or cameras or manipulating tactics going on. Its all up to the two of you, and where you want to go next.

The Bachelor

In real life

On The Bachelor, you should be prepared emotionally and physically for some pretty bizarre dates. You will or will not be chosen for the honor to go out on a date with your new guy, via a “Date Card” that is send via host Chris Harrison. Should you be chosen for a date, you may be lucky and receive a “one on one” date with your man, where you actually get to be alone together for a few hours, or you may be selected as one of a dozen or so others, to participate in a “group date”, which sounds like an orgy but it’s not. Group dates often involve silly activities such as pretending to be comedians and telling jokes about your man onstage, playing a sport of some kind to compete for more time with your man, or other silly-ass things. You will have to find a way to stand out in the crowd on this group date, like maybe pretending to fall ill or faking an injury during the sport playing, so that said man-meat will come running to your rescue. Your man, and other women on the show, may use words to describe the date or to describe anything at all, like “journey”, ‘amazing,” or “terrified.” Please know that in the world of this reality-show, everything is always amazing, and everyone is always terrified. Terrified of getting their heart broken, terrified of rejection, terrified that they won’t get the rose tonight. Terrified, terrified, terrified.

If you are lucky enough to get a one-on-one date with your new man, who, in this case is a mumbling fool named Nick who says stuff like: “I don’t know how to sit sideways on a couch” – you will be in store for an incredibly cheesy, manufactured romance-filled day. It may start out with a picnic on a beach or in a park. You may be taken on a helicopter ride over some exotic island somewhere (this show looooves helicopter rides almost as much as they love the word “journey”), or you may be asked to jump off a cliff or skydive or some other risky thing, with your new man, to show that you can trust each other and take chances together. Because everyone knows if you can skydive together and not die, that means you are compatible for marriage and for life. Your date may include dinner, which nobody in the history of the show ever eats. You will drink wine, because not a day goes by without wine drinking. Cameras will follow you everywhere, and you may or may not receive a rose on your date. If you do not receive a rose, you may be asked to get into the rejection limo and go home, because your new guy doesn’t see a future with you. Sorry. If things go well, your date may end with a “private performance” outside somewhere, by some random country artist that is supposedly famous but that nobody has ever heard of. You may make out during this dance, because you get so lost in the moment of thinking that any of this is real in any way, shape, or form. You may tell the cameras that you felt so special and that this was one of the best nights of your life. Then, the very next night, Nick will go out with someone else, and it will probably involve a helicopter or picnic or rock climbing, and you will be sad and jealous. Enter more wine. If you should be one of the lucky ladies to make the top three choices for Nick’s heart this season, your last date with him will be an ‘overnight date”, that comes with the option of staying in the “fantasy suite”, where they turn off the cameras so the two of you can sleep together. If you are the third girl of the three women on dates, you should be aware that this man-whore has probably just got done sleeping with another chick, and then another chick before that – just hours before you sleep with him. In the morning, you will enjoy breakfast with your new man served in bed, and then you will leave promptly so he can get ready for his next date soon. Nothing like feeling special!

In real life, you should be prepared for some pretty bizarre dates. You never know what you’re getting into on the dating sites, or through friends, or out at singles bars. Once you are dating your person for awhile, and have gone on some dates together, you will probably decide to see each other exclusively, and so you will not be competing with a bunch of other women. Yay! You may decide to stay home one night as a date, and rent a movie together and cuddle. No cameras will be following you on your date, so you can do as you please. You can keep getting to know each other, and let yourself be adaptable to different things happening on your dates. Explore new places and conversations. You may get lost in the moments, and there may be intimacy. Enjoy it. When you date someone, whether its two times or for 7 months, try to think of it as getting to know someone new. Making a new connection. If you look at it that way, then no connection will ever feel pointless or like a waste of time. In real life dating and in life, every connection serves a purpose. As for intimacy, I prefer the real life way to the reality show one. Both parties involved in the relationship shall decide if and when the time is right for intimacy. You will not receive a creepy invitation from TV host Chris Harrison, inviting you to stay overnight and supplying you with a key. Instead, you and your partner will make these decisions together, like adults. Real life sex is very complicated and messy, and not as seamless as they make it look on TV. Sometimes you might be having your period. Or the condom doesn’t work right. Or he can’t perform right with the condom. Or you aren’t sure if this guy is really worth you starting up a whole new birth control plan (its a huuuuuge pain in the as, and expensive!) for. Or one of you just isn’t in the mood. Or one or both of you has children, so you have to figure out WHERE to do it and when the kids won’t be around. And then after you have sex, a whole new set of emotions emerges. Things become closer. More intimate. In real life relationships, there are no producers or cameras or manipulating tactics going on. Its all up to the two of you, and where you want to go next.

The Proposal:

The Bachelor	In real life
On The Bachelor, should you survive the creepy and tacky “Overnight Date”, and make it into the top two choices for the best wife, you will then have to wait around anxiously, wondering if you are the one that Nick will propose to, or if your love story will end with a sad limo ride to the airport and nothing to show for it. Your man will meet some key members of your family, on television, in a contrived visit where they all get to know him in the course of an hour or two. You will meet his family as well, and they will all pretend as if this is all a perfectly normal way to meet the person you choose to spend your life with. Your man will be visited by a man representing an expensive jewelry store, and he will choose engagement rings, not only for you, but also for the other woman who may become his wife if you don’t. You will get up on the morning of your proposal/non-proposal, and you will stare longingly out at some gorgeous ocean or misty skyline, as you sip your coffee in your silk bathrobe and cameras film you pondering life’s events. Eventually, a limo will pick you up, you will be all dressed up in an elegant gown, and you will walk down a ridiculously long and complicated path to get to your future fiance or your future ex-boyfriend jerk who dumped you on national television. He will take your hands in his, he will review your entire few weeks relationship so the TV audience has a nice build up, and then he will keep us in suspense just a bit longer before either letting you go, or proposing.	In real life, a marriage proposal can happen anytime, in a number of ways, places, circumstances. Real life families are messy and dysfunctional, and their involvement will depend on your relationship with them. A proposal can be planned or spontaneous, and can happen in so many different ways. My husband proposed to me the Sunday before Christmas, in NYC, underneath the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. It was magical, and meaningful for us, because I’ve always been a christmas freak. A friend of mine proposed to his now wife while they were sitting on the couch together watching a movie. He just decided in that moment that he wanted to be with her like that every day, so he turned to her and said casually: “Would you do me the honor of being my wife?” She said yes, and they went out ring shopping the next morning after breakfast. Every kind of proposal in real life is beautiful to me, because it is so real and it is two people deciding to blend their lives together. There are no cameras or pomp and circumstance (unless you want that), like on a TV show, but to the two people involved, it’s the biggest and most important thing in the world. And it should be. Love IS the biggest thing in the world, and it always will be.
If you are proposed to, you should know that literally 5 minutes earlier, he just dumped the other chick. You should also know that as soon as just a few hours ago, he wasn’t even sure which of you he was going to choose TO BE HIS WIFE. Again, way to make someone feel special! If you are proposed to, sweeping music will play under you as you kiss and he picks you up and spins you in the air and you laugh and laugh. Three months later, you will be all over People magazine, there will be some weird cheating scandal, and you will break up.

The Bachelor

In real life

On The Bachelor, should you survive the creepy and tacky “Overnight Date”, and make it into the top two choices for the best wife, you will then have to wait around anxiously, wondering if you are the one that Nick will propose to, or if your love story will end with a sad limo ride to the airport and nothing to show for it. Your man will meet some key members of your family, on television, in a contrived visit where they all get to know him in the course of an hour or two. You will meet his family as well, and they will all pretend as if this is all a perfectly normal way to meet the person you choose to spend your life with. Your man will be visited by a man representing an expensive jewelry store, and he will choose engagement rings, not only for you, but also for the other woman who may become his wife if you don’t. You will get up on the morning of your proposal/non-proposal, and you will stare longingly out at some gorgeous ocean or misty skyline, as you sip your coffee in your silk bathrobe and cameras film you pondering life’s events. Eventually, a limo will pick you up, you will be all dressed up in an elegant gown, and you will walk down a ridiculously long and complicated path to get to your future fiance or your future ex-boyfriend jerk who dumped you on national television. He will take your hands in his, he will review your entire few weeks relationship so the TV audience has a nice build up, and then he will keep us in suspense just a bit longer before either letting you go, or proposing.

In real life, a marriage proposal can happen anytime, in a number of ways, places, circumstances. Real life families are messy and dysfunctional, and their involvement will depend on your relationship with them. A proposal can be planned or spontaneous, and can happen in so many different ways. My husband proposed to me the Sunday before Christmas, in NYC, underneath the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. It was magical, and meaningful for us, because I’ve always been a christmas freak. A friend of mine proposed to his now wife while they were sitting on the couch together watching a movie. He just decided in that moment that he wanted to be with her like that every day, so he turned to her and said casually: “Would you do me the honor of being my wife?” She said yes, and they went out ring shopping the next morning after breakfast. Every kind of proposal in real life is beautiful to me, because it is so real and it is two people deciding to blend their lives together. There are no cameras or pomp and circumstance (unless you want that), like on a TV show, but to the two people involved, it’s the biggest and most important thing in the world. And it should be. Love IS the biggest thing in the world, and it always will be.

If you are proposed to, you should know that literally 5 minutes earlier, he just dumped the other chick. You should also know that as soon as just a few hours ago, he wasn’t even sure which of you he was going to choose TO BE HIS WIFE. Again, way to make someone feel special! If you are proposed to, sweeping music will play under you as you kiss and he picks you up and spins you in the air and you laugh and laugh. Three months later, you will be all over People magazine, there will be some weird cheating scandal, and you will break up.

So, after this humorous look at reality-TV dating and love versus real-life dating and love, what do you think? Which sounds better to you? For me, I think I will stick with real life. I don’t really like wine enough to stand around drinking vads of it on the daily, I cant see living in a giant house with 29 other women, and there’s no way in hell I’m going skydiving to prove my love for someone. Even though there is a lot of risk in real-life dating of getting your heart broken, or getting rejected – life is all about risks, and taking a chance could often lead you to the most wonderful, beautiful thing in the world. Everything beautiful starts with somebody making that first move, and then it just grows from there. I think that most of the audience for The Bachelor is young women. At least from what I have seen, a lot of women watch the show. I don’t think they watch it because they WANT what they see on the show. I think they watch it because it’s a form of escape, its a form of fantasy, and it’s a form of silly, meaningless fun. This might seem like a strange comparison, but I think that a lot of women watch The Bachelor for similar reasons that men watch porn. We KNOW none of it is real, we know its all fake and manipulated and that most of the couples that get engaged on the show end up breaking up later anyway – but watching it is a turn-on anyway. It brings to life that image of the knight in shining armor, coming to rescue us. More importantly, we see ourselves as that final girl that was chosen. Out of all those women, he chose HER. We see ourselves as HER, and then we think about the relationships we have in our own lives, and consider how lucky we truly are – because that person, my person, chose me. Out of everyone in the universe they could have chosen, they chose me.

Limos and roses and exotic islands and hot tubs aside, give me real-life romance and love any day of the week. Fantasy is fun and a nice escape to look at, when you don’t feel like thinking about anything. But real life, true, intense, beautiful, all-encompassing love??? That’s hot!!! And I don’t even have to rush out of the Fantasy Suite the morning after, so they can prep it for the next girl.

Getting Unstuck for 2017. Here’s How…

January 17, 2017January 22, 2024 by Eliza Hurwitzin LOVE

How My Self Esteem and Motivation are Growing With My Lunges

I’m never one to make New Year’s resolutions. Sure, I set little goals for myself, but goal-setting is something I try to remain consistent about throughout the year. This year, however, was different. I’ve been feeling stuck lately in terms of my writing. I haven’t felt inspired and have been severely lacking motivation. This lack of motivation was bleeding into all aspects of my life. I was unhappy, dissatisfied and felt a little lost. I knew I had to make a change. But I discovered that the best way for me to change my sense of self and writing abilities, wasn’t by putting pen to paper, it was through working out.

I’ve always been athletic and enjoyed exercising to some extent. I did gymnastics as a kid and was a cross country runner throughout high school and continue to run today, though not as consistently. Just like my writing, however, I’ve felt stuck in a rut with my workouts, unmotivated and bored. So when my gym was offering a promotion for a personal trainer, I decided to take a risk and go for it. Getting a personal trainer was always something I’ve wanted to do. I just never had the courage, or reason to do it. The promotional deal was just the push I needed to finally try it.

My first workout was a total wakeup call. I did sprints, burpees, squats with weights, a ton of core work in which I threw a giant medicine ball back and forth and a bunch of other things that I never thought I was capable of doing. I was sweaty, smelled awful and was exhausted, but above all else, I felt motivated again. I felt confident in myself and my abilities. I felt like I could push myself further than I had before. I could work harder and I could truly achieve any and every goal I set for myself.

Although I know my workout sessions have just begun, I continue to see and feel this major shift within myself. And, surprisingly, the biggest change hasn’t been in my physical strength, or appearance, though I’m pretty sure yesterday I could make out an outline of a single abdominal muscle in the mirror, it is my mentality, spirit and drive. The fear of writers block has been holding me back, which is something I’m slightly ashamed to admit. It’s been a daily struggle for me to get any form of writing out. Before i began to challenge myself physically, I worried about writing an article, essay or even a journal entry and writing something that I wasn’t proud of, or worse being rejected by others. But when I start my day by bench pressing (80 pounds!) I have faith that I can push myself to write at least 500 words, regardless of the outcome. I’ve learned that it’s more about the journey and less about the end goal.

I’m not advocating for everyone to get a personal trainer. Some people just don’t like exercising and that is totally fine. But I do believe that challenging yourself in some way is so important to your mental and spiritual health. Perhaps challenge yourself by delving into cooking, take a foray into a class or hobby you’ve always wanted to explore. It is only then that are able to stretch, learn, and grow. I know I’ve learned a lot about myself in my workout process. I didn’t know I sweat so much, smelled so bad, or was capable of doing a single pull-up. But, perhaps most importantly, I didn’t know how low my confidence had been until I started taking the necessary steps (and lunges) to build it.

True Love Lessons with Sierra

January 20, 2017January 22, 2024 by Sierra Mercierin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

Are you struggling to find LOVE?

Watch as Sierra Mercier:

Shares her wedding (The First Winner of ‘the Knot’ Dream Wedding).
Discusses tips on how to be successful in finding LOVE.
Shares the ‘True LOVE Lessons’.

How to Annoy People in Love on Valentine’s Day: Top 10 List

February 3, 2017January 22, 2024 by Kelley Lynnin DATING ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS

Inspired by “I left the grocery store a few days before Valentine’s Day, in tears.”

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, life can be rough. Sometimes a routine trip to the grocery store can feel like an attack on every emotion. Aisles filled with red and pink everything. Plastic, tacky heart decorations and large teddy bears holding cheap chocolates permeating the shelves. Love and Hallmark wafting in the air: Rows of cards with messages like: “Marriage Means Growing Old Together.”, “I Want to Grow Old With You.” The final straw is: “We Will Be Together Forever.”

A couple years ago, I left the grocery store a few days before Valentine’s Day, in tears. When I got to the register, there was a couple in their 70’s or 80’s in front of me paying for their things. The husband was lightly teasing the wife; they were bantering and joking around. It was very sweet, and I was so jealous of them and their time together. As he put all the heavy items onto the counter for her, she looked at me lovingly and said: “My husband is so good at that! He always makes sure I don’t have to use my muscles.” She laughed warmly, meaning no harm. I smiled with my lips, and cried my way right out of the store and back into my car. She looked at me with confusion as they left the store, leaning on one another, literally.

That night, I remember going home and just crying for a really long time. After awhile, you kind of grow tired of crying, and you want to start taking action. So, this year, as we come up on about a week and a half before Valentine’s Day, I have decided to make a wish list of all the things I would LOVE to do on that day, but cannot, because I would surely be arrested.

Here are my Top 10 Ways to Annoy Those in Love on Valentine’s Day: (this is just for fun, and no people in love were harmed in the making of this Top 10 list. Thank you.

Candy-Policing:

Go into Walgreen’s, CVS, and other drugstores that sell cheap, stale candy like “Whitmann’s Sampler” – and wait for men to pick it up to purchase. Each time a guy picks up a box, look at him and say: “Really? This is what you’re going with? Seriously? If I were you, I wouldn’t even bother with the red tacky heart shaped balloon on a stick. Now you’re just being insulting.”

Call Out the Cheapskates:

Stand at a bus terminal, or the grocery store, or gas station, where men go to buy last-minute flowers. Stand in front of the display and yell out in a sales-pitchy voice: “Get your discounted, non-personal, I don’t give a shit about you at all, flower arrangements right here! These flowers are guaranteed to live for your entire car ride home – up to 10 miles. Tell your girl to ignore the weird, musty smell coming from inside the bouquet. We don’t know what it is either. Please don’t ask. She can water these, but it won’t help. These flowers WILL die, suddenly and without warning. Just like my husband!”

Party of One:

Go to a restaurant, put name on reservations list with the last name “Widow”, so they have to call out: “Widow – Party of One. Widow – Party of One???” Get a table in the center, alone, and wait for all the couples to show up together, celebrating Valentine’s Day. Once the place is filled with happy couples; start loudly talking and giggling to yourself, as if there is another person there with you. Act extra giddy. Laugh loudly, pull out a rose from under the table, present it to yourself, and say: “Oh baby! You SHOULDN’T have! For meeeee?” Bat eyelashes. Unbutton top two buttons on blouse, look across the table and say: “Oooh! Here? Right now? You naughty, naughty boy!” Then get up, holding hands with imaginary lover, and exit, leaving them all completely confused and stunned.

Depressing Hearts:

Start your own line of ” Anti – Valentines Day Conversation Hearts”, and replace all the normal ones in stores with them. They would have messages like: “Everyone Will Die”, “Love Ends When One of You Dies”, “I Am Completely Alone”, “This Heart Was Made With Real Tears”, “Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m Dead!”, “Will You Be My Valentine … Cat?”, “Be Mine – Until I Die Unexpectedly”, “All We Are Is Dust In the Wind”, “You Might Choke on this Candy Heart and Die”, “There’s a Good Chance One of Us Will Get Sick Someday”, “Nobody is Promised Tomorrow” “Text Me! No Wait – Never Mind. My phone Is Disconnected Cuz I’m Dead.” Okay, most of these most likely wouldn’t fit onto a tiny little candy heart, but this is a fantasy, so let’s just pretend it does.

Romantic-Tragedy:

Get a hold of every romantic comedy ever made in the history of time, go through and at the very beginning, add a shot of yourself saying into the camera: “SPOILER ALERT! None of this matters! Everybody Dies!” This way, each rom-com will now end the same exact way. With death.

Hallmark Moment:

Go through every card aisle of every Hallmark store on earth with magic marker, and put sad faces and giant penis drawings on all of the Valentine’s Day cards. Hide behind display and laugh.

Chocolate-Covered Poop:

Pre-chew all of the Valentine’s Day chocolates, then put them back into their little wrappers. Replace identification signs like “Vanilla Cream” and “Rasberry Filling” with signs that say things like: “This tastes like Ass”, or, “Unidentifiable Orange Disaster”, or, “Smells of Poop.” Laugh loudly at the thought of candy victim eating this nasty chocolate later on.

I Love You, Mommy:

Be the person in charge of the messages that get attached to all of the flower deliveries. Mix them all up so they go to inappropriate people. Send a dozen roses with the message: “I can’t wait to be alone with you tonight. You make me so hot!” to some dude’s mom, from her son. Creepy.

Wedding Crasher:

Crash a wedding. Wait for the priest to say: “If anyone here does not approve of this marriage, speak now or forever hold your piece…” (Okay. Nobody actually says that in weddings. Ever. I have never once heard it in my entire life and I’ve been to a lot of weddings. But again … this is a fantasy, so let’s pretend.) When he says that, yell from the back of the church: “I DO NOT CONDONE THIS UNION!!!” Then drop your pants and blast the Benny Hill theme song over the loudspeakers. When it ends, leave slowly and awkwardly; sans pants.

Widow Card:

Bring spouse’s death certificate all over the place, and keep presenting it at stores as if it’s a gift card or discount card for items purchased. “Excuse me, do you offer a Widow Discount? I have this death certificate …. ” “Yes, it’s Valentine’s Day, and my husband died. I’d like to buy myself some flowers and chocolates. What is your policy on Widow Discounts? Here is the death certificate … ” “Can I just get HALF of a banana split? I have nobody to split it with, since my husband is dead and all. Please give me the Widow Price. Here’s the certificate…” Watch store clerks and others go insane with bafflement.

As much joy as all of these fun examples would bring to my life, I will mot likely not have the courage to do such silly things, and perhaps instead, sit home and stare longingly at the wall. I will remember years past and try to re-capture what it felt like, to be loved by the best man I ever knew. I will think about the future, and about the feelings I now have for someone else, and how those feelings will hopefully be reciprocated in the way that I want them to be soon. I will think about how my husband would want me to find some joy in life, and also how he would find this Top Ten List pretty hilarious. I will think about how incredibly lucky I was, that he chose me, and that I know what that kind of love feels like, and then I will try really hard to not be too sad, and to know that love grows more love, and that there will be more love in my life, because I loved and still love him, forever.

Anyone wanna get a nice widow girl some flowers?

It’s Not the Climax Date on the Calendar That Matters

February 13, 2017January 22, 2024 by Lisa Lauretain RELATIONSHIPS

This plan couldn’t be beat…until it was.

I’ve never cared much about Christmas, or Thanksgiving. I don’t go “home for the holidays.” I haven’t given Valentine’s Day a second thought since I was a teenager.

Precious Days

I’m not completely devoid of sentiment. I do have a couple of special days a year that I celebrate “religiously.” Halloween and New Year’s Eve have always had great significance to me. Halloween because it’s when everyone acts the way they wish they could the rest of the year, and New Year’s Eve because it’s symbolic of a new beginning, a wiping of the slate, a celebration of accomplishments from the year before and an acknowledgement of goals and dreams about what’s to come. Those are precious days to me and as such, I try to spend them doing special things with people who I find invaluable to my life.

This year, I spent Halloween with a friend rather than my partner, because my partner was out of town for a couple of months. When he’d announced his plans to be gone over my favorite holiday, I was slightly heartbroken, but understood. It was for the trip of a lifetime and I wasn’t going to let a one-day, city-wide costume party get in the way of that for him. It just meant to both of us that New Year’s Eve would be even more special.

Unforgettable Date with Mom

His mom was in town on over the holiday weeks, so on New Year’s Eve Day we went to a small island off the coast of Southern California and did some cave kayaking. It was amazing. I saw wild foxes, seals, dolphins and some whales; truly an unforgettable day. That night, however, was for us and his mom understood that, so she said we should take it for ourselves and do something special.

Epic Climax Date Plans

When he had asked me what I wanted to do, being the overly amorous gal that I am, I told him my only real goal for the night was for us to be climaxing during the countdown, and for a full release at “Happy New Year!” He agreed that would be an epic New Year’s plan. All that was left was location.

We’d originally intended to go camping, somewhere not too far, like Joshua Tree. However, the weather had other plans, deciding that torrential downpours followed by sub-zero temperatures would be a better way to spend New Years. So J Tree was out, however, there were closer places we could go. We explored all of our options, and as wet and cold as it was going to be, it seemed like the best plan would be to just stick to a hike somewhere close. We would get to the top of a mountain, screw each other’s brains out until the countdown was over, and then head home.

Dehydration…a Kicker

This plan couldn’t be beat…until it was. My partner, who avoided drinking water during our all-day kayaking trip because he didn’t want to pee in his wet suit, was extremely dehydrated. We took in a bunch of fluids and made some macaroni and cheese. Did I mention he’s lactose intolerant? Just a little bit, but apparently something like that is greatly exacerbated by a weakened system due to dehydration. Needless to say, he started to not feel very well.

Should I Stay or Should I Go

We took a quick nap before our hike and I woke up ready to go! He woke up…slightly less excited. I couldn’t tell at that point whether he just didn’t feel like going out or he was really ill. So I said I could go on my own. This was in no way meant out of spite or passive aggression, and he knew that. I simply wanted to be outside at midnight and I don’t like dragging people along when they don’t want to be there. He insisted on coming with me. He just kept saying, “I wanna be with you.”

What I should have said was, “okay, let’s stay here then.” But I still didn’t fully realize just how bad it was, until we got to the mountain. We got out of the car with our backpack filled with Trader Joe’s fireworks chocolate, sparkling apple cider, and a blanket. He wasn’t looking great, so I asked him if we should go back. “NO! I want it to be special.” Just minutes into the hike it became apparent to me just how ill he was. We were stopping every few minutes for him to collect himself. This was certainly going to be a special night. But not the type of special either of us had intended.

The Mountain at Midnight

We made it up to the mountain and during the midnight count down he was off in the bushes taking care of some nasty business while I toasted myself for my achievement of keeping cool and not being too grossed out. We headed back down the mountain and I drove us home. By this time more than ever I felt terrible for making him come with me and being so insistent on this being a special night.

Best Laid Plans Became a Care Package

I took care of him the rest of the night and the entire next day. While I nursed him back to health I realized something. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older now and don’t party anymore, or if it’s because I’ve finally found someone who I’m calm and comfortable with, but it didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t ideal. This night was actually the opposite of ideal. It was kind of the worst. I watched disgusting things happen to the person I was supposed to be doing altogether other kinds of disgusting things with. But despite this, I was glad to have spent the night with him. I was happy to have been able to take care of him and I was glad he was around. This leads me to ask the ever important question: what happened to me?!

Another Day for a “Special” Date

We made a deal to do a countdown later on this year, which we’ve set a date for. We’ll recreate New Year’s Eve well past its actual date, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’ll be together, and that we were together.

So this Valentine’s day, I urge you, dear reader, to treat it like any other day: special. Special not because it’s February 14, but because of the company you’re with and the moments you share. Even if those moments turn out gross.

I’m Taking Valentine’s Back: A Curable Romantic

February 14, 2017January 22, 2024 by Virginia Jonesin LOVE

I have had an awful superstition about Valentine’s day. You?

Growing up, I loved Valentine’s day. I really did. I loved writing little cards for my friends, doling out the extra big cards to the kids I REALLY was nuts about, making little candy bags, decorating a shoebox mailbox to within an inch of its life.

I loved it as an adult, getting dressed up and going out with someone special. I would make handmade cards for my friends at work and was generally a Valentine’s weirdo. I loved Valentine’s day for both platonic and romantic love. I loved having an excuse for telling people I cared about them.

One year, I got up at five in the morning and drove to a white-tiled tunnel in Portland. It would get grimy from car exhaust and you could write in it. I wrote KENNY BE MINE with a yellow sponge mop, knowing that the same Kenny would drive past it on the way to work and wonder if it was for him. As it turns out, most of his office knew and teased him mercilessly. But I loved doing it.

A few years later, I got asked out on a first date on Valentine’s day. It was such a preposterously bad idea I agreed to it, like wearing a jumpsuit to a wedding. We went out for drinks and I said, I heard you were still married, and he said yeah, but she doesn’t live here anymore. At the time, I gave this a pass, but today I’d say if you ask a person if they’re married and they say yes, you shouldn’t continue to see them.

We got serious very quickly and were married a year later.

Ten years later, he asked me for a divorce on Valentine’s day, because he was seeing a friend of mine and he wanted her to live in the house where I lived and he thought it might get crowded. I felt really blindsided. I knew we weren’t the best marriage ever, but I thought we were functional. I had hoped it would improve, but now it wouldn’t.

So, I moved out to Los Angeles, and got a stupid haircut, and did all the stuff divorced women are supposed to do. Dated people who were too young for me. Lived in a fancy apartment full of other divorced ladies. Got many pedicures, bought myself flowers. A year later on Valentine’s day, I was in Bangkok, Thailand, and my friend wrote me an email and said, hey, how you doin’, and I said, not that bad, and she said, are your text messages turned off, and I said yeah, it’s too expensive here, and she said Oh! Well, we’ll talk when you get home. So, when I landed at LAX, I finally turned on my text messages and my phone started going off like a slot machine bring barrring barrring barrring and for a second I thought, am I famous for something? So, I have all these messages because everyone wants to tell me that my husband got married on Valentine’s day, to the girl he left me for, on the radio, so that pretty much everyone I knew heard it. True to form, he had married her in about a year. Just likes being married, I guess.

This is his third marriage, and I wish the third wife the best of luck, because, you know, he cheated on the first two! But probably they don’t need luck, because according to his facebook posts, their love is special.

One of the first things I learned when I got divorced, is that they’re all sad. Even your friend who bitched about her husband constantly is sad when he’s not her husband anymore, because it’s a wish that didn’t come true, and a promise they couldn’t keep- so, when someone tells you they’re getting a divorce, please keep in mind that the correct response is never- that’s great!

Another of the gifts of being divorced is that it makes everything else seem not so bad. It’s like bombing onstage in comedy, once you’ve truly tried to share your worldview with a roomful of people who want no part of it, once you’ve been talking onstage to just sheer, thick, unadulterated silence, and you survive that, you know you can survive a lot of things. So, every traffic ticket or lost credit card I’ve had since then, I have real perspective on, like, well, I didn’t just get unceremoniously dumped! It could absolutely be worse. It always can.

For several years, I have had an awful superstition about Valentine’s day, and have panicked and ended relationships around then, and have regarded with suspicion it like you might give a wary eye to the corner where you had a bad car accident- it doesn’t mean it will happen again, but now you know that it could.

It’s been six years now, and my Valentine’s day breakup doesn’t strike me as tragic anymore, it’s just annoying, more like a papercut or a stubbed toe rather than a stabbing feeling in one’s chest. It’s not Valentine’s day’s fault. It’s just a dumb little holiday that the Romans started when they noticed that the weather was a little warmer and all the animals around them were doing it. I can still love my friends. I can still share feelings with a partner. So, this is the year I’m taking it back. I’m going to make dumb little cards and make romantic plans. But I’m not going out to dinner. That’s for suckers.

My Complex Life and Lessons Around Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2017January 22, 2024 by Kelley Lynnin LOVE, RELATIONSHIPS

I wish you were more romantic. I wanted to feel special today, and you forgot.

On Superbowl Sunday in the year 2005, my then “boyfriend”, soon to be fiance and then husband, drove a Penske moving truck with his cat in his lap and his life in boxes, from Florida to New Jersey, to begin a new life with me. We had been through a 7-year long-distance relationship together, and after saving lots of money and doing lots of planning, the love of my life decided to finally make his move and leave his friends, family, and job as an EMT in Florida.

Ten days later, it was Valentine’s Day. Our first one as a couple, living together. Don was still unpacking his 50,000 boxes and thousands of various random items, life was chaotic, and we were both still getting used to the idea of being each other’s new “roommates.”

When Valentine’s Day came, the hopeless-romantic girl part of me took over, and I guess I expected my man to do something epic. I was picturing beautiful hand-written poetry or cards, gorgeous floral bouquets, a romantic gourmet dinner made by him (even though the man couldn’t boil water, literally), spontaneous slow-dancing in our living room, chocolate-covered strawberries (my favorite) being fed to me as we gazed into each other’s eyes; the works. I don’t know why, really. Maybe all the years of this Hallmark, commercial holiday had finally gotten to me. Maybe the pressures of society and seeing endless girls getting roses at the office and none for me, played on my heart. Maybe I was so depressed and sad in past Valentine’s Days, because I pretty much never had a Valentine, that I was convinced THIS was my year to finally reap the rewards of true love and romance.

I don’t know what made me expect and picture those things, but those things were not what I got. The spontaneous dancing never happened, and the flowers never came. Instead, my guy parked himself down on the worn-out couch, let out a big sigh, and exclaimed: “Damn. I’m exhausted.” I proceeded to run into the bathroom and cry.

“How could you forget Valentine’s Day?’,I selfishly wailed to him through the door. “I wish you were more romantic. I wanted to feel special today, and you forgot.” I continued to cry for way longer than was necessary, and then I made him feel really bad and really guilty for forgetting, on our first Valentine’s Day together. Now, looking back on this moment that I am NOT proud of, this would have been the perfect opportunity for my beloved, to grab his 500 million boxes and his cat, and run screaming away from me as fast as he possibly could, and into the arms of a normal woman, who is sane. It also would have been the perfect time for him to call me out on being a total whiny bitch about nothing. But he didn’t. That is not who he was. Ever. Instead, this dear man said very sincerely and genuinely and with a bit of a smirk: “Oh boy. I think I’m in trouble here. I’m sorry, sweetie. I just moved in and I was so tired from the move, it just slipped my mind. I promise I’ll do better next year. I won’t forget. I’m sorry.”

Later that year, we got engaged, and in 2006, we got married. Him forgetting Valentine’s Day became an ongoing joke with us throughout our almost 5 years together, and each year from then on, he would get me 2 cards instead of one, 2 bags of candy instead of one, and 2 bouquets of roses instead of one – all to make up for the “one” he forgot the first time around. When we laughed about it, which was often, I would ask him why he didn’t pack up his shit and leave me right then and there, to save himself from a life of living with an unappreciative girly-bitch. He laughed it off and said: “I will admit to getting a bit peeved when you said I’m not romantic. All I could think was: ‘Not romantic? I just packed up my entire LIFE and moved to freakin’ NEW JERSEY, for you!!! Who moves to New Jersey? This place sucks! You don’t get more romantic than THAT, woman!” This theme became such an inside joke for us in our time together, that he repeated that question as part of his self-written wedding vows to me. “My love for you sometimes defies all logic. After all, who moves to New Jersey? On purpose?” Our friends and family roared with laughter.

Now, today, five and a half years after my husband’s sudden death, it is Valentine’s. I can’t help but think about all the many ways in which I have changed since losing him, and all the many things I wish like hell I could tell him I’m sorry for. Before I knew my husband, I spent way too many years being upset and sad that I didn’t have anyone on Valentine’s Day. And then I DID have someone on Valentine’s Day, FINALLY! Not only did I have someone, I had someone who changed his life for me, changed where he was living for me, took a risk on love for me. And I didn’t appreciate it. Not that first year. I was too focused on my perception of what Valentine’s Day meant, and what I should be “getting” as a result of it. The whole time, the greatest gift of my life, was sitting right there on my couch, exhausted from just moving his entire life – for me. For us. From that day forward, the entire idea of Valentine’s Day, and love itself, changed for me. I started caring less about why he didn’t spontaneously get me flowers, and started seeing all the incredible things this man did for me every single day – things that matter. Now, I’m not going to bullshit anyone here. I am STILL a hopeless romantic. I love flowers, I love spontaneous dancing in the living room, and I’m still waiting for my gourmet romantic dinner – made with love from a person who cares about me. I still get giddy and silly-happy from all of those things.

But now, I appreciate those things with a fire I can’t quite explain. When the person I have feelings for sent me roses on my birthday this past fall, I couldn’t stop smiling. I also must have thanked him 17 times, minimum. It just never feels like enough times to say thank you or show my appreciation, because I can’t ever thank my husband again for all he did for me, and that breaks my heart.

I believe, truly, that one of the ways in which the people we love who have died, stay with us, is when we take on some of their best character traits. My husband was kind, big-hearted, and appreciative and aware of doing the small things that were actually big things. I have now become this way, and I am truly thankful whenever someone does something nice for me, especially when it is unexpected. He gave that gift to me, and that piece of him has stayed inside me, literally. My husband was not “romantic” in the way that most people would define that word. He was not the type of guy that would pick up flowers for no reason, or make me dinner. (Again, he was the worst cook in the universe, and he would often joke that if anything ever happened to him on the job and he didn’t come home, he promised he would send me my own personal chef.) But looking back now, the things that my husband did on a daily basis, were absolutely beyond incredible. Everyday that I’m alive, I wish I could thank him for doing these things. I wish I could tell him how much I appreciated all of it. I am honestly not sure if I told him that enough. It feels like I didn’t, and I hate that. All I can do now, is see what’s in front of me going forward, and recognize the kinds of things someone does for you, when you are their priority. When your happiness, is their priority.

This Valentine’s Day, I would love it so much if I were to get some flowers, and I would once again appreciate them on a whole new level. I would love some chocolate-covered strawberries or a thoughtful little card, letting me know I am being thought of by someone important to me. But even more than that, I will be looking for those little things that are actually the big things – and I will feel lucky to know love like that, and to have had love like that. I miss my husband every single day of my life, and this time of year it feels more raw, because we were jut starting our life together, and now that is a life that cannot be. I cannot ever tell him that I saw and I felt all the little, big things he did for me. But I can tell you. On this upcoming Valentine’s Day, I would like to list just a few of those unromantic, romantic things, that my beautiful husband did for me, every single day.

Maybe if I tell you all, he will somehow know, that he has forever changed my definition of romance, love, and Valentine’s Day, and that I am grateful for it. Thank you.

1. Always handed me the keys to his car with a full tank of gas, and the oil checked, so that Id be safe.
2. Often left himself with NO money in his wallet before work, so that he could give his last $10 to me.
3. Reminded me that I was beautiful, often, and meant it.
4. Helped me to the bathroom, and waited on me hand and foot for a whole week, when I threw out my back.
5. Held my hair and washed my face off with a washcloth when I was puking my guts out from a bad reaction to Percacet.
6. The way he looked at me when I was performing or speaking onstage, like he was in awe of me.
7. He asked for my dad’s permission to marry me.
8. The way he would do things he didn’t want to do (like taking 8 weeks of ballroom dancing lessons so we could do a Foxtrot at our wedding reception), just to make me happy.
9. The way he made me feel safe from everything scary in the world.
10. Holding my hand and explaining things in a calm voice to me, when I would freak out on airplanes.
11. I trusted him with my life. He would have taken a bullet for me, or given his life for me. No doubt.
12. Held my hand until I was asleep, and then longer.
13. He moved his life from Florida to New Jersey, one week before Valentine’s Day, because that’s what it was going to take to be with me.

I love you, sweet husband. Thank you for changing the way I see everything.

Ladies, Why You Have to Spell it Out for Us Men

March 13, 2017January 22, 2024 by Eric Lampaertin LOVE

Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen, seemed to have an almost supernatural way with women. He was a divisive figure, what with his mystical influence over Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra, but also with his womanizing of Mother Russia. He resembled an evil creature akin from a Tim Burton movie, and yet, managed to charm any beautiful devushka that came in contact with him, including the tsarina, as if he had access to their brains.

Thankfully, men don’t have this uncanny ability to control the minds of women. Other than Rasputin and Professor Xavier, us men struggle to read women’s thoughts, let alone control them. The majority of arguments I have with my wife is because I haven’t done something she wished I did. And herein lies the problem, wish. Perhaps you’ve said this to your husband, or you’ve heard your girlfriend surprise you with it; “I wish you…”

Women seem to have this natural ability to sense what their other half wants or needs. They just know, call it intuition, but women know. A lady doesn’t have to wish for her sister to do something. They just know. How do you do it? I once saw a pentagram of five women having separate conversations and being able to understand and respond to each other. All at the same time! I trembled as I witnessed this quintuple communion. I can’t even understand my own thoughts. How are you multitasking conversations? Maybe that’s why you ladies were mistaken for witches and burned at the stake. You freaks us men out with your supernatural powers.

Most men don’t have this ability to just know when their lady partners need them or want something. We need to be asked. And that’s where a lot of arguments seem to seed. Women expect men to have this intuition and we simply don’t, which understandably frustrates you because it seems like we don’t care about you. My wife has often become angry and betrayed by my actions, because I simply didn’t know. To me, she inexplicably gets angry at something I didn’t know about which therefore seems a little irrational. To her, I am insensitive idiot for not being attentive when she needs me. As George Carlin once said, “Women are crazy, men are stupid, and the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.”

To you lovely ladies, we seem stupid, and to be honest, we often are. So maybe, if we’re as stupid as you say we are, try and not be so angry at us. And instead teach us, show us, spell it out for us. We’ll slowly learn, very slowly; I must emphasize how slow this process will be. But we will learn. I adore my wife. She is everything to me. I try my best to be a good husband. But some days, she looks at me like a brain damaged ape who’s looking at a Jackson Pollock painting.

Please, ladies, don’t expect us to read your mind. We are not Rasputin. Both in his telepathic ability to read and with his, it is rumored, his 13 inch penis.

The Strange Romances of “Dancing With the Stars”

March 17, 2017January 22, 2024 by Kelley Lynnin RELATIONSHIPS

In the world of television and reality-TV, it is expected that one would find many examples of contestants finding romance or chemistry whilst in the midst of filming.

After all, shows such as “The Bachelor” are created so that people can find love. But what about a show like the very popular hit: “Dancing With the Stars”? As season 24 is set to begin on Monday, I thought it might be fun to take a look at the possibilities for matchmaking that exist in this season’s new cast. This “chemistry between dance partners” thing has happened on multiple occasions throughout the show’s run, so either there is something in the air on that dance floor, or host Tom Bergeron is secretly matching people together behind the scenes with his witty charm.

In past seasons, there was the pairing of pro dancers Emma Slater and Sasha Farber, who announced their engagement on the show live in 2016. Mario Lopez and pro dancer Karina Smirnoff had an immediate attraction during their 2006 pairing on the show. When their romance fizzled just months later, it was rumored that Lopez had been cheating. Very soon after, Smirnoff then ended up dating fellow pro-dancer Maksim Chmerkovsky, and the two got engaged. Then, the two split, just a few months later, calling off their engagement.

Are you confused yet? I am. Actress Shannon Elizabeth fell hard for pro-dance partner Derek Hough, and the two were an item in 2009 for more than a year. And then they weren’t. One of the most obvious attractions I can recall on the show happened between Maksim and Meryl Davis, during season 18. The two never admitted to a romance, but the sparks were hot and heavy from the start, and the judges commented on their sexual tension almost every week. (To be fair, Judge Bruno Tonioli could find sexual tension in a chunk of plywood). And in another twist, that Maksim sure gets around! He was also rumored to be dating dance partner (and winner) Erin Andrews, who later became co-host of the show. NOW are you confused? Because I still am.

Basically, everybody dates everybody, because the Rumba is kind of hot, and when you are rehearsing sexy moves together for ten hours a day over a few month period, things tend to get a little bit touchy-feely. Unless you are Judge Len Goodman. Then you just drink some prune juice and take a nap. Sometimes in the middle of the show.

In any case, will romance be in the cards for any of these pairings? Here is a look forward at the upcoming cast, and some entertaining romances that would be fun, or just plain weird, to see, starting this Monday …..

BONNER BOLTON is the world’s former Number One Bull-Rider, and will be paired up with pro-dancer Sharna Burgess. But how hilarious would it be to see him in a budding romance with off the charts, crazy, always seemingly horny Judge Carrie Ann Anaba? The season hasn’t even begun yet, but I guarantee it will be filled with endless innuendos from Anaba about Bolton “riding it” or “getting on top of that bull”. She really enjoys saying things such as that, and having her own little fantasies about the male contestants while she sits behind that judges table.

CHARO is on the show this season (with pro-dancer Keo Motsepe), and really, this needs no further explanation other to be hilarious, because it’s Charo. She has one name. She is actually listed that way on the cast list. No last name. You may remember her dancing from “The Love Boat”, or from other TV shows she appeared in over the decades. She is a pop culture icon who dances, sings, and is just generally entertaining, and she has GOT to be in her 70’s or older by now. Perhaps her and Judge Len Goodman should pair up, since he is also older, and her charm and sparkly personality could fix up his crankiness and moodiness. Seeing them as a couple would be hilarious.

MR. T is on the show this season, as is former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Chris Kattan. Although they are not paired together as dancers, since neither of them are pros, I would pay a lot of money to see them as the new, power, gay couple of the season. Mr. T could yell at Kattan: “I pity the fool who says no to me!”, and Kattan could do one of his many wacky characters in response.

Olympic ice-skater Nancy Kerrigan is dancing this season, which begs the question, where the hell is Tanya Harding? If Harding was on the show and didn’t win the Mirror Ball Trophy, I would hate to see what kind of action she would take in protest. Not pretty.

Nick Viall just finished his run as “The Bachelor” this week, and he got engaged to Vanessa Grimaldi. Starting Monday, he will be paired up with pro-dancer Peta Mergatroyd, and history has shown from past seasons, that this is NOT the best way to begin your engagement – by spending 10 to 15 hours a day dancing all sweaty-like with another beautiful woman. Let’s see if Nick and Vanessa can survive the jealousy of the Tango or the Salsa, or will Nick succumb to the gorgeous Peta, and leave Vanessa in the dust?

Perhaps Bergeron and Andrews can up their co-host game and start flirting with one another. Or maybe the two male judges can take turns dating Carrie Ann, the female judge. Or perhaps Mr. T and Charo will have a little fling, and then Maksim Chmerkovsky will break them up so he can have Charo all to himself, because apparently he dates every single dancer on the show. The possibilities are endless, and quite humorous. I can’t wait to see what surprising couples emerge out of this upcoming season, and the many ways that love (or lust) spring to life. To see what happens, tune in this Monday, March 20th, on ABC.

The holidays can be triggering for many reasons. It’s tempting to fall back into work mode, and hide there. But don’t give up!

My name is Rachel, and I’m a workaholic.

Searching: “Signs You Might Be A Workaholic.”

A Workaholic’s Guide to a Happy Holiday

Every French man knows that like all good wines, women mature with age, in both beauty and brains.

Would you tell your friend if you saw their significant other on a dinner date with another?

Q: Is cheating ever OK?

Q: Would you tell your friend if you saw their significant other on a dinner date with another?

Q: How do you feel about infidelity in celebrity relationships, like the rumors about Brad, Marion Cotillard, and Angelina?

In a society enamored by the brash and the brazen…

Happy Holidays, Fellow Single Folks!

Get Outside:

Start New Traditions:

Help Out:

Be a Kid, Play with Kids:

So Happy Holidays, Fellow Single Folks! Here’s a toast to you, in all your awesomeness!

It’s so much more rewarding to say hello and share a laugh with someone than to beat your last level of Candy Crush.

Meeting for the First Time:

The Living Environment:

The Dates:

The Proposal:

How My Self Esteem and Motivation are Growing With My Lunges

Are you struggling to find LOVE?

Watch as Sierra Mercier:

Inspired by “I left the grocery store a few days before Valentine’s Day, in tears.”

Here are my Top 10 Ways to Annoy Those in Love on Valentine’s Day: (this is just for fun, and no people in love were harmed in the making of this Top 10 list. Thank you.

Candy-Policing:

Call Out the Cheapskates:

Party of One:

Depressing Hearts:

Romantic-Tragedy:

Hallmark Moment:

Chocolate-Covered Poop:

I Love You, Mommy:

Wedding Crasher:

Widow Card:

Anyone wanna get a nice widow girl some flowers?

This plan couldn’t be beat…until it was.

Precious Days

Unforgettable Date with Mom

Epic Climax Date Plans

Dehydration…a Kicker

Should I Stay or Should I Go

The Mountain at Midnight

Best Laid Plans Became a Care Package

Another Day for a “Special” Date

I have had an awful superstition about Valentine’s day. You?

We got serious very quickly and were married a year later.

I wish you were more romantic. I wanted to feel special today, and you forgot.

I love you, sweet husband. Thank you for changing the way I see everything.

In the world of television and reality-TV, it is expected that one would find many examples of contestants finding romance or chemistry whilst in the midst of filming.