Public Transit Etiquette

Taking a quick break from relationship advice to give some commuting advice.  After watching a poor, very pregnant woman cling for dear life for almost half an hour today I have five tips for all commuters everywhere.

1) Seats (in particular in the front) are for those in need.  If you are an able body young person you should not be sitting texting your friends as an elderly man with a walker struggles.  Wake up people!!!! Look at each stop and decide if your seat is needed, if it is offer it.

2) STOP TALKING SO LOUD. With all the cellular technology in this world there is no need for you to yell your conversation while sardined on the bus.  No one cares they just want to get home.  Get off your phone and ride the bus for ten minutes, then call your friend and talk about all the amazing things that I have overheard such as how drunk you were last night, who is having a party and whose girlfriend fought with who...omg! Grow up.

3) Walk quickly on the left of the escalator.   This is the deal.  The left side of the escalator is for walking.  The right side is for standing.   The end.

4) TAKE OFF YOUR BACKPACK.  I see that the signs and pictures illustrating this are not enough so I will explain.  Your backpack takes up space AND hits seated people in the face, take off your backpack and store it at your feet.  This is common sense really, I mean your backpack is a large hump on your back.

5)Move over.  To every person who has ever sat in the outside seat of the two seated isle and then put your lap sized bag on the other seat so you take up two seats, thank you for nothing.  Move over.  Make room, in particular in rush hour.  And, if someone asks you to move over and you are rude about it or worse, you say no, you are not a transit worthy person, you sir (and more often ma'am) should buy a scooter, car, whatever where you can put all your many bags and not be a nuisance to others just trying to get home.

The truth is most of these are practical courtesy.   These tips are being conscious of those around you, those in need,those commuting, let's all take a moment and try respect one another.
Thanks for reading! XOXO

Confidence is Key

 “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
 

So I have had a lot of time dating and researching the topic to decide that confidence is the key to both racking up your dance card with singles who want to take you dancing, and for a healthy relationship.  The truth is that while all people come in all shapes and sizes, with a multitude of preferences, at the end of the day confidence will get you remembered, confidence will land you the job, confidence will separate you from the other competitors, confidence is the personality trait you should feed.  The following are three reasons why confidence is such a sexy little aphrodisiac.

 

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

 

1) You are not needy.  A sad down hill struggle forms when we lose our confidence.  We look for it in others.  We become a not-so-hot-mess of co-dependence who requires constant validation.  SNAP OUT OF IT WOMAN! The truth is you do not NEED anyone to be happy, fabulous, fantastic you.  When you are confident you do not need vaildation because you know your own worth.  You know your time is valuable.  You know that when you call someone, and they don't answer you have way better things to do than turn into a needy person and call and text twenty more times.  Why? Because you value yourself, your time, your effort.  AND! The most important thing is that you pity any fool who doesn't recognize how awesome you are.  Don't waste your time searching for your confidence in the validation of others, you will never find it there (trust me I have tried).  Find your confidence in you and rock it!

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life 

2) You are 100 % you.  Confident people do not conform.  Confident people are not affraid to say no thank you or YES PLEASE! Confident people find their passions in life and do not bat an eye when someone tries to rain on thier parade.  Confident people face the storm and enjoy life.  Confident people are a lucky bunch! They have the capability to realize that only insecure people bring others down and therefore they are not affraid to try hilarious new things such as attempting prancercising, or dance walking just for fun, confident people MOST importantly do not suffer with ill gotten company.  Over the years I have realized that there are many kinds of people in this world, some people will tear you down in a heart beat, while others will bring you up instantly.  Surround yourself with gold.  I see so many people trudging through life in relationships with men that treat them like sh*t because they are not confident enough to stand up and say "NOT TODAY.  Today I want more for myself."  Grab life by the horns and ride that bull, we are not getting any younger.

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

3) Confident people face their consequences.  You know what is SO retroactive?  Passing the buck.  UGH!! There is nothing that is more stagnant and that I despise more than when someone tries to pawn off their actions on someone else.   Confident people say "Opps, I f*cked up, I am very sorry, here is how to fix it" THE END.  I have talked this little scenario to death but here goes one last time.  You absolutely cannot have a productive healthy realationship when you play the blame game.  Classic example: You did (insert sh*t thing here) so I did (sh*t thing here) to show you...." NO, no, no-no, NO.  This is tragic.  This is never ending cycle of "getting even" and hurting one another until the cows come home because neither of you is confident enough to say "You know what, I hear you, I made a mistake."  You will never ever succeed in life if you are a buck passer.  Your coworkers will hate you, your lover will see you as a burden and a source of stress, your family will wish you would just grow the f*ck up.  My best advice to you is grow a pair.  Realize in life we make mistakes, we sometimes have less than admirable intentions, we all f*ck up, own it, move on and feel better about yourself already.

 “Accept who you are; and revel in it.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

 

CONFIDENCE is most liberating and freeing feeling you can adapt.  It comes from with in but is fostered through success, love, friends, and so much more.  Find as many outlets that make you feel fantastic and stay true to those.  Cut the fat of your clogged depressed arteries and find the things and people in your life that help your heart skip a beat.  The longer you stay wallowing with confidence issues the longer you are actually manifesting negative outcomes on your life that in all accounts should be incredible.  Thanks for reading! XOXO

Love is not Posession

As The American looks for work, my lunachick wheels began to turn and I started to have unrealistic ideals of the possibilities.  But, as time passes I become more and more aware that he may go back to Americaland and I will sail into the seas of singlehood.   Right when these thoughts set in and I want to dig my spurs into the ground and try with all my might to keep The American I must remember the following three points:

1) Somethings are just not meant to be...ever.   My dearest girlfriends Ms.K and Ms.J always the optimists, tell me that things have a way of working out.  They surely do.   Except not in the Rom-com sort of way we all wish they would.  In reality people break up, for reasons out of thier control, and never get back together.  It is a sort of sad truth, but a truth, none the less. It seems at the end of every relationship, my girlfriends always say "One day he will come crawling back..." I need to tell you this doesn't happen.  They don't come back, thankfully!! And also you shouldn't go back either.  When it is over, it is over.  This doesn't mean this person was not your  soul mate for a moment in time, nor does it mean that your relationship was not amazing.  All it means is that some times the universe has other plans for you.  You cannot cling to someone in the hopes they are your forever and ever mate, their life path is not yours to control.

2) Learn your lesson.  Each union teaches us something amazing.   The American has taught me how to appreciate someone, how to feel again and how to take a deep breath and sort sh*t out when communication is breaking down.  These are invaluable lessons for life.  Each person we date teaches us something about ourselves and others which we did not know before.   Sometimes these people teach us what love is while others teach us what love should never be.  Everyday we learn and grow and the time we share interacting with others is crucial to our self reflection and development.  Learn as much as you can from your relationships, come out of them enlightened, not bitter.  I have written about this before, how society makes us view our breakups as failures, however, I say clinging desperately to a dead

relationship is the failure.  Breakups force us to grow, to feel, to flourish, and best of all to go out and find love again.

3) Know when to let go.   The American probably has 99 problems weighing on his mind.  I should not be one of those.  The truth is when you truly love someone you do set them free.  Not in the rip-thier-heart-out-never-forget-you kind of way.  But, the realization that things just logically don't work.   I mean long distance with no end goal, I mean he wants kids you don't kind of issues, I mean you want to get married and he says "nooooo way" kind of differences that are the end of your united goal.   If you see that your union is no longer headed for the same future goal, that is okay, that is life.   A relationship really only flows if both components have the same amicable goal, in particular, at this age. Not all of us want the same things.  Some of us have to move, some of us have to stay, there are so many people doing what they have to do, we cannot stop one another from doing what we feel is right.  We cannot force our will on others.  We have to appreciate that their fate needs to take them where they need to go and it doesn't need you stalling the flow by clutching onto your love forcing them to stay.

We often guilt trip, fight, bribe, cry,etc., our way out of situations we don't like in order to make others do what we want.  While this kind of behavior is fine for speeding tickets, it does not work for relationships.  Love is not possession, it is appreciation.  Love is learning, and sadly, love is letting go.

I added sexy men to brighten this post this week. Courtesy of Google.

Men Are NOT Idiots

Sorry for all those people reading this who love the movie Frozen.  Truth is I also enjoy it! The songs are catchy, I have a sister and I love the idea of the female heroin.  All great concepts that are often overlooked in movies.  However, once the cute nostalgic vibe wears off and you actually look at the movie, it has a clear message, women should carry men.   This message is further integrated into pop culture through shows such as Married with Children, The Simpsons, King of Queens, and Family Guy.  The following are three representations in pop culture that harm gender equality in our relations.

1) Men are poor but women can support
them.  Yikes! And, we wonder why our daughters date Billy Welfare who smokes pot all day and plays video games.  TV has invoked a sense of men working odd jobs and being terrible with money, and I mean horrific, as in if they have the family savings they gamble it all or buy bowling shoes.  Frozen for example, the woman is a princess and the man is an....ice salesman??? Really??? Total equality there.  But, as usual it doesn't matter in Lalaland as they have love....ya right??? Wake up people.  Women and men need to be financial equals.

2) Men are apparently stupid.   Why do all shows display men dependant on the smarts of women?? This sets the bar incredibly low for boys and men.  If I were a man I would be pissed.  I would wonder why my gender is constantly portrayed as morons and that women are always so clever.  Reality Check: men and women are both intellectual, in fact some women are incredibly stupid, as are some men.  Trust me date someone who is your intellectual equal.  Without shared intellect you will always be lacking some thing, not to mention your friends and parents will shudder at the thought of conversing with your mate.

3) RESPECT.  Hmm, why is it in pop culture men never listen to their wives?? They always tell them they are nagging and do what they want.  BAD IDEA ALERT! If you ignore your woman and do the opposite of what she asks you will soon not have a woman (if she respects herself) or! You will treat your woman like garbage because you can (and she doesn't respect herself).  Real men are equals to their wives, they listen, they make decisions together and they certainly don't think it is cool to be disrespectful.
Oh mass media you fail both genders when you negatively portray men.  Men are awesome.  They are equals.  They are not ignorant pigs who can only hold the poverty line with zero respect for women.  They are much, much, MUCH more.  As a woman it irritates me to see such crap roles for men and the acceptance of woman of these crap roles.  By accepting these roles we see more and more young women being treated poorly and more young men thinking this behavior is so cool.  You know what is cool? Equality.  Thanks for reading!

Date Your Mom

"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."

Please take this title figuratively, not literally, unless your nights are filled with banjo strumming over moonshine in the bayou than you should know this already.  This blog is not about the benefits for a man dating a woman like his mother, no, no, this blog is the about the benefits for women to date a man with a mother who has similar personalily traits.  The following are 3 reasons:

 "As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her."

1) R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  What I have come to realize in my 32 years of life is everyone has different standards of respectful behavior, ways in which we speak and treat one another may be completely fine for one mother and atrocious to the next.  Date a man whose mother instilled your sense of respect.  Trust me it will cut way down on arguments.  The truth is I dated a man whose mother laughed at her children's rude attitude towards her, in exchange he laughed off important conversations and spoke rudely to me.  Mother's are the women who frame how men will respect women.  Save yourself a lot of grief and find a mother-in-law who raised a respectful son, well at least on your standards.

"The mother-in-law is the centre of a family."

Les Dawson

 

2) Quirky.   All my life I have been told I am strange.  Let me please tell you: date a man who grew up with an eccentric mother.   The American did not seem so taken back by me wanting to take photos of my dog and putting outfits on him.  Then we Skyped with his mom and her cat, Sooki.  A man who has grown up with a wonderful and weird mother will appreciate you, regardless of your oddities.  I am NOT saying he won't think you are an odd duck.  Not at all.  However! If he has grown up with quirky women than he will not be accustom to pointing out your strange behaviors.  You will be a lot happier with a man whose grown up with a mother unique like you!

"The only thing more intimidating than a huge international film star is your mother-in-law."

Benjamin Walker

3) Flaws.  I would never write about the flaws of the mother of the man I love because I love her and I respect her.  However, I hypothesize if you date a man whose mother has similar flaws to you than he will be more willing to love you flaws and all.  No one is perfect, if you find yourself relating to a flaw your man voices about his mother appreciate this.  It means he has loved a woman longer through a flaw you identify in yourself.

Truth be told any man should take it as a compliment if I were to tell them they were like my father.   He is a wonderful man who treats people right.  Life in a relationship has enough new terrain, finding a woman or a man who shares personality traits with your parents will solve you a lot of grief.

Separate Beds: What does it mean?

"I love sleep.  My life has a tendency of falling apart when I am awake."

-Ernest Hemmingway

I first need to apologize for my own bias.  When I was first asked to blog about this topic by a dear girlfriend of mine (who will remain anonymous) I thought the worst.   To me personally I want to wake up everyday to the man I love and fall asleep the same way.  But, this does not mean my opinion is for everyone.  The following are three scenarios where separate beds may save your union.

 “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

1) He (or perhaps she) snores or has sleepapnia. Here is the truth sleepapnia is frightening!!! I saw it for the first time three years ago and it is loud and disconcerning. If you or your partner has a sleep disorder that causes your mate to not sleep a wink than separate beds is the caring move to make! I never thought snoring would be a reason but! My family snores and recently I realized how disruptive earth shattering loud snores can be.  Sleep deprivation is not fun, if your relationship suffers from one of you not sleeping, separate beds might be for you.

 “Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

2) You work ridiculous hours.  The truth is if you work 12 hour night shifts and your partner works different hours separate beds may be best! No one wants to get up at 4am, let's be honest.  In particular if your mate has woken you up several times in the night.  Sleep is crucial to work accountability and productivity.  Without sleep you may as well not go to work.  Sleep deprivation has often been compared to being intoxicated. If this sounds like you than separate beds may be just right for your relationship.

 “Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

3) You have settled but you are not in love.  Sorry folks but my answers are not all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, I am a realist.  People settle.  They settle every second of everyday because they are tired of searching for the right one, they have been together for years, there are a million reasons, so at the end of the day you are happier sleeping alone and waking up not face to face with a partner who you are not crazy about. If you have settled and are not happy separate beds are for you.

 “Even a soul submerged in sleep
is hard at work and helps
make something of the world.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

The truth is whether you share a bed or not does not define your relationship. I prefer to grow old sleeping in the same bed, like my parents did, and still do as my mom has a small bed pushed up against my dad's hospital bed.  That to me is love.  But,we all have our own constructs of love and you must do what makes you happy.  Sleep is essential to mental and physical health so as long as you find a way to balance sleep and your relationship you are on the right path.  Thanks for reading. XO

Can men multi-task?

“Fucking two things up at the same time isn`t multitasking” 
― Dick Masterson, Men Are Better Than Women

The simple answer to the title of this blog is NO.  Recently as The American was washing dishes I asked him to do a small house chore, to which he gave me a little attitude.  Which of course led to a conversation about how he did not want to be doing more than one task at once.  It hit me.  I heard him loud and clear, he does not like multitasking.   Later I breached the topic of men and multitasking to several women and there was a unanimous vote, men don't enjoy multitasking. The following are three points on this topic.

“Juggling is an illusion. ... In reality, the balls are being independently caught and thrown in rapid succession. ... It is actually task switching.” 
― Gary Keller, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

1.  The box theory.  I recently read an article on how the man's brain is a compilation of small boxes.  Each box contains one action.  I mentioned multitasking later to The American and he went on to explain that men do multitask by doing one task and accomplishing it and then starting a new task....ummm....this explanation sort of sounds like the opposite of multitasking....BUT! Regardless of the path of this week's topic the box theory is interesting and does make sense.  There seemed to be a general observation of all women I spoke to that all men had the same frustrated reaction when posed with a the stress of multitasking.

“A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.” 
― Oscar Wilde

2.  The compartmentalization theory led me to believe that men thrive on accomplishing tasks.  While I myself flourish with a multitude of semi finished tasks to keep me busy, men appear to enjoy successfully finishing one task and taking a break.  This use to drive me crazy.  Why only do one task??? AND take a break??? To me this comes across as such a slow way to finish multiple tasks.  But, then it hit me again, MEN ARE SINGLE TASKING, one cannot evaluate the success of single tasking on the merits of multitasking.  Men merit themselves on the singular success of each task.  Every finished task is an accomplishment.

“Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.” 
― Albert Einstein

3. Men don't like to multitask.  This point also came from The American.  His view and the articles I read view women's multitasking as complete sh#t storm chaos.  They view our skewed multitasking brains as pure, bouncing, misdirected, confused poppycock.  Thus while us multitaskers view single taskers as painfully slow, single taskers view us multitaskers as an enigma.  Men do not enjoy multitasking and they therefore should enjoy the path in life that each single task takes them on.

Men and women are so different aren't they??? I know! And, for the first time in a long time I respect our differences.  Instead of thinking I am always right and wanting to change someone, I have found learning about what makes a man tick is far more interesting than changing him.  Thanks for reading!!

Please read these interesting short articles on the multitasking differences of the sexes:
1) http://www.tickld.com/x/why-men-and-women-think-differently
2) http://jane-frankland.com/the-real-truth-about-women-and-multi-tasking/
3) http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/men-and-women-really-do-think-differently/1913014.html
4) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-mens-brains-are-wired-differently-than-women/