Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light... GO!

As I was driving through my 3 stoplight hometown I remembered reading about Stoplight parties in college. I will admit, I had never attended one of these events, but as I was driving I couldn't help but think, "Why can't real dating be like that?"

Now, if you are not familiar with stoplight parties, the basic premise is that you wear a bracelet around your wrist basically telling people at the party what you were looking for. Now I believe it was up to the discretion of the party thrower on what those designations were but the general gist was red=not looking, yellow=maybe after a few drinks you could convince me, and green=yes I'm ready to be laid tonight. I believe some intelligent junior highers developed a more sophisticated code with these parties and wore other coded type bracelets that indicated what sort of sexual acts they were willing to. Bravo public schools, bravo!

So yes, stoplight parties are all fun and wonderful, but what if dating was similar? I mean what if you could wear a certain color bracelet at the grocery store, bar, library, train, wherever you meet people and it indicated what you were looking for, whether it was a long term relationship, a fuck buddy, a one night stand, a sugar daddy, or nothing at all. My life would be so much simpler I swear.

I am a firm believer that men are usually pretty clear on what their intentions are with a woman, but us women being the overcomplicators that we are, inherently add complexity to their intentions to the point where it all becomes giant relationship mush in our heads and the next thing we know we have ourselves full convinced that the guy we slept with the night before after too many trips to the bar is definitely the man we should be marrying. Yeah, we're THAT f'd up.

So, if we all wore little bracelets that denoted what we wanted then there would be less confusion. I'm sure some of you naysayers in the background (yeah I see you), are saying "Whatever, everyone would just lie about what they want just to get what they want". Well, smart ass, I have my Master's more than one thing, sooooo... my brilliant plan is to make these bracelets like mood rings. GENIUS! Thank me later. This way, your mood will dictate what you're looking for that evening. So, next time you roll to the bar post-breakup and your bracelet lights up like a Christmas tree and says "Looking to hook up!" then just blame your hormones, not your bad choices. Problemo solved.

Anyways, I know this is an absolutely ludicrous idea, but it still begs the point that communicating is one of the biggest barriers at the beginning of getting to know someone. So often we feel that we need to tip toe around the big stuff such as the "Where is this going?" talk, or "what do you want from me?" which is ridiculous. I cannot even count the amount of times I've gotten to the point of being around someone thinking "I really like this person, and want to date them" and all of a sudden I bring up that conversation (of course after I'm emotionally attached) and I get totally burned when that person is like "Oh, I was just looking for friends." Thanks asshole. Could have shared that 4 weeks ago. So, don't be afraid to ask those questions that many people think will kill a good thing. It will save you more than your fair share of heartache. Being open, honest and upfront will only bring you back open, honest and upfront feelings in return. I mean why waste your time on another guy just looking for a hookup when you deserve much more?

Bob Villa's Got Nothin' on a Handywoman

With the recent indefinite vacation that God decided I needed to take on my life path, I had the opportunity to wander down to Kentucky to relive my college days. Granted there probably wasn't as much Bourbon or booty dancing as I did in college, but instead I replaced it with too much vodka/redbull and making fun of drunk college girls dancing on stages with too short dresses. Oh how I've matured.

While I'm in the good ol' Bluegrass, I usually end up staying with my friend Kate, who I adore and love. She's two years younger than me, and she's definitely the lady I attribute to my wilder days/side of my life. Regardless of the shenanigans we find ourselves in, we always have a great laugh about it and will have plenty of hysterical stories to share our future daughters... when they're of age of course.

So, it's been awhile since I've had some serious girl time. About 99% of my friends up on the East coast happen to be men, and most of my girlfriends live in the city, so seeing them is few and far happy hours in between. Therefore, I had the chance to catch up with many of my ladies, and the topic of "fixing" men came up.

Women, why do we do this? Invariably all of us have at least at some point in our dating and relationship lives attempted to fix a man. Notice I said "attempted". Guaranteed most of you haven't succeeded. And if you did succeed, ladies the man was probably not worth a damn if he let a woman "fix" him.

Men and women do have certain similarities in that deep down we're all "fixers". The difference though is that men have enough common sense to know that they can fix inanimate objects that are moldable and pliable. Whereas women, we apparently enjoy the challenge of fixing something live and fluid in nature. Maybe it's our competitive spirit. Either way, women receive some sort of devilish pleasure of saying "Yes, he was a bad boy until he met me. He's a changed man." No. He's a dumb man. Or a smart one if he fooled you enough to think you had anything to do with changing him.

Now ladies, I'm sure you are raising your hand like a kid in kindergarten who finally knows the answer to the teacher's question saying "But... but... I truly did change him!" or better yet, "I KNOW a friend who changed her man." Both are mythological creatures much like unicorns, mermaids and chupacabras. You think you saw them, they did a documentary about them, websites are dedicated to them and you even have a Disney movie in the works about it. All do not make them many more realer. (Yeah I'm pretty sure "realer" isn't a word, but the double emphasis was required).

My theory is that a habit of fixing comes from sheer laziness. Because let's be honest, it doesn't take any skill whatsoever to find a loser of a man. In fact, I guarantee that you could walk out to a bar, announce you are female and single and loser dudes will just line up for the taking. It's like a Chinese buffet. There's always plenty to eat, and you're always hungry for more about 30 minutes later.

It takes EFFORT to find a good man. True and genuine effort. Now I'm not saying effort as in you need to scour all the bars, libraries, grocery stores and internet sites forcing yourself to find the right man. (God I need to follow my own advice...dammit, I hate when that happens). The real effort comes in knowing that finding a good man requires you to put in the effort to be patient and wait for him to come to you. Because ladies...men are the same.

With men, their laziness far surpasses yours. It did not take a rocket scientist to inform those loser dudes to line up at your doorstep, nor did it take them any effort to do so. You came out and said "I'm ready, I'm willing and I'll try anything." Loser men can smell desperation like sharks smell blood in the water. They got ya, hook, line and sinker. Bad set up, I know.

To know someone is truly interested in you, let them do the work. Men are simple hunters in the truest sense in that they enjoy the pursuit (and I don't want ANY men saying otherwise, because if it was easy to catch you would never ever want it). I know this is a line that your mother and grandmother have told for years. Normally it comes in the wrapped up box of "Don't give it up too soon", but what mama is trying to tell you is, "Make him work for it!".

So, if you want a non-lazy, hard working, ambitious, and smart man you need to get rid of your lazy habits as well. Throw out your dating tool belt filled with loser-attracting arsenal. Instead, invest in something worth your time, every time. You.

The Friendly Inquisition

Have you ever stopped to count how many times people speak in cliches in any given conversation? Recently I've been going through some transitions, namely I was laid off from my regular full time gig (so expect to see lots more from me!) and I moved to a new apartment shortly before previously mentioned incident. Love the timing of my life right? I apparently am a clusterfunk of ill timing and missed opportunities. However, I think I'd prefer to believe that all of these awkward missteps are leading up to one giantly awesome leap into a world much cooler than the one I think revolves around me.

I learned through this transition though that being laid off has many parallels and often similar advice given from others as dating does. There are three key questions that people ask both those of us who are laid off and those of us who have been put on an indefinite relationship sabbatical. I guess if you really think about it, dating could be considered my part time job, so I should halfway expect the advice and concern to be similar.

Question #1: What happened?

Usually when you drop a bomb on someone about your personal life whether its work or relationship oriented their feigned curiosity kicks in. Half the time I believe this need for satiation comes from a deep desire of 1) voyeurism and 2) people pray that shit like this never happens to them, so they desperately search for a solid reason other than "I don't know" to reassure them that it could never possibly happen to them. Regardless, when you'd like your comeback answer to be something really cool like and slightly understandable "Oh yeah, Joe Schmo who I was dating ditched me for Angelina Jolie. Bummer. But he did what he had to do." Instead though you're usually caught between a rock and a hard place on this question. Why? Because one, you either have absolutely no clue what in the world happened and you've been asking this same nonsensical question over and over again to yourself with no avail so how in the world could you answer it for someone else? Or two, the real answer is probably something that will lead to even more probing and nosy questions from even your most compassionate of friends. (I learned this one the hard way after telling people "Oh yeah, well I was cheated on for 4 years." That's like lobbing up a high ball to a .500 batter.)

Question #2: What are you going to do?

WTF? Yeah that's normally my response. People, especially men always want to know what your immediate plan of action is after any catastrophic event. Us women on the other hand, well we need some to process before we push through. Because if you ask me immediately afterwards I may give you an awkward, unexpected response like "Oh, I dunno maybe cry all night over a bowl of ice cream and then down a whole bottle of red wine and pray there's no puke on my sheets come morning." Let's avoid that one hmm shall we?

Question #3: What can I do?

Ok, so this one is a bit trickier. This is the point in the conversation where people are attempting to "be there" for you. Cut them some slack, I know, I know. But really the honest answer is "Nothing" or something insane like "Find me an NFL husband." Bottomline is, don't ask what you can do, just try and do cool things like bring them junk food, or get them drunk. Those are usually fail safes.

Either way, questions in crisis more or less border on redundancy after you talk to the first person. If you are like me, the smart-assery of the responses exponentially increase with each additional person asking the question. Therefore, if you're bottom on the friend chain and are one of the last to find out, then prepare for the wrath... I suppose this only further ensures that you'll never move up the friend ladder. Maybe I should rotate that more... nah.