Dating...I'm Just going to sit this one out...

Hey,

So it's the holidays and I'm kinda missing my ex-boyfriend. Not because of the need to have someone there to look at across the table, to have that person around to deal with crazy relatives, but just because he was an awesome kind of guy. 

I look back on the times of my life when I was attached, and while I enjoyed it, for the most part, I felt that I had to work at the relationship. I would get bored so easily, and either get sick of the person OR they'd get sick of me. Either way, my track record with the male gender sucks. I always manage to feel like crap about it, simply for one reason..and that reason is:

I SEE UGLY WOMEN WITH BOYFRIENDS.

(now my mom said that I shouldn't assume they are great boyfriends or that I'd even want these guys, but I say screw that...if the 400lb lady on the bus can find a tenderoni love, why can't I? I'm a size six, with curves, a NY accent, a penchant for books and thrillseeking and a love for lemonade. I also read books really well, can cook my ass off and I don't eat pork. Who wouldn't want to date me?)

There, I said it. Yeah, yeah, I know it's wrong to see people as ugly and whatnot, but damn! I see physically and emotionally ugly women with boyfriends. I usually think to myself, "Well, if her ugly ass can get a dude, I KNOW there is one out there for me." But then I never find him. I hold out for a particular type, a guy who is smart, funny, kind, strong, ambitious, somewhat nerdy and somewhat good-looking. There are other things I'm looking for, but I don't want to get too specific. Bottom line, that guy is not the guy I end up dating. The guys I end up dating, for the best and worst case of the word, are assholes. Some are good assholes and some are bad, but yeah, these guys are good-looking, arrogant assholes. It's something about a confident guy that just does it for me. I don't know why.

So I end up dating a guy who is the opposite of what I want in some ways, and wouldn't you know it...I end up super unhappy and end up breaking up with them maybe a few months into the situation. It's obvious what the problem is...I either don't know what I'm looking for OR I am intentionally punishing myself by pushing away potential guys that fit my criteria. Either way, my love life is pretty shot. So, unlike the people out here who say to just keep looking, or don't look at all...I'm done. Why? Because the idea of dating just disgusts me.

The ritual of dating or courting began centuries ago when rich people wanted to marry other rich people, and met in settings prearranged by other rich people. In these settings, the future couple would never be allowed to be alone, and would fall in love with one another via letter, not email. Sometimes these couples would not even HOLD HANDS until their wedding day. And while many may balk at the idea of not getting some s-e-x (or at the least, a smooch), marriages in those days rarely ended in divorce. Yeah, you could say that they just stuck it out to stick it out, but they knew (unlike now) that marriage as well as divorce was not something taken lightly. 

Modern conventions of dating are much different. People tend to look for opportunities to be alone, letter writing is d-e-a-d on arrival, unless you count texting. LOL, what a riot. Anyway, it's a game of storytelling. You tell a person the story of your life, they tell you theirs and if they don't sound too crazy, self-absorbed or just don't click with you, they move onto the next level. Then, if they keep it up, eventually physical interactions get involved. Then, it gets dicey because love comes into the mix, either too much love or not enough love, and you either break up, fall in love or fall into a pattern of routine. 

Honestly, I want to be wooed. I don't need the settings of centuries ago, but a line better than "Hey, baby, what yo name is?" would work. Until I meet someone who I think I can deliver on what I want, I'm removing myself from the dating scene. I'm just gonna...sit on the sidelines and watch the ugly women with their boyfriends and continue to be confused.

Thoughts?

*Ashley Robin*

Breaking the Gender Roles

Hey All,

So, obviously you guys know I'm a girl. And in many ways, I'm a girlie girl. I like stilettos, dresses, lace undergarments and fruity cocktails. I like having my door opened for me, I like not having to pay for dinner on dates, I like being able to pick at my food and it be socially acceptable. I also like having a guy carry me around if my feet hurt because of my shoes, and I like being able to lean on a guy when I'm walking, especially when I fit right into his nook..(the nook being that space on his body between his shoulder and his hip, but not all the way by his armpit)...but I'm also blessed with guy tendencies.

Converse to all my female tendencies, I love to drink beer, belch, pass gas and hang out with the fellas. I watch football, I love to watch horror films, rooting for the villain and laugh at the character getting slaughtered, and I think nothing of horsing around and making a fool of myself. But, I also spent summers with my dad, who showed me how to work on a car, from fixing its brakes to working on all the fluids, changing oil and oil filters, to changing out coolant hoses, batteries and even how to mend a tire and replace it if need be. My dad was an ace for that...

So I consider myself pretty knowledgeable...even though most of the stuff I've never HAD to do, but I do at least know how to do things. So it really, really, really irks me when someone, especially a man, tries to be like, "Oh you changed your oil...well, I hope you changed your filter too." *No offense to the person who said that to me* But, I get a 100 comments like that a day. Obviously my car hasn't blown the f*ck up, so I must know a little something...right? And it's always a dude who says that...girls will ask "Can you teach me how to do that, too?"...but fellas, what is with that sh*t?! Why can't you just be like, "Hey, good job" not "Do you really know what the hell you're doing, you idiot.." like just because I'm without a penis that I can't do a typical "man" thing. So my question is, do testicles make you more auto-friendly? Maybe not just auto-friendly, but able to do things that typical females don't...

Also, my mom is a great cook. She loves to cook. I don't...well, not really. I can cook, don't get it twisted, but it's not my inclination to jump up and be like, "Hey, lemme go fix breakfast." Like, with my ex, who'll I'll call Mr. Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda...(He woulda graduated college a year before he did, he coulda been my Mr. Right but he shoulda treated me better) was steadily on that sh*t. In the morning, he'd always ask me to cook something. Gents, just so you know, if you're gonna have your girl overnight, and you're gonna ask her to cook don't have an empty fridge! LOL. That used to drive me bananas. But, I digress. 

The point is, don't go assuming stuff just based off my gender or my race or my anything actually. Just be proud I'm not some lame-ass damsel in distress. Be proud of my independence, hell...embrace it! Be glad I'm not some whiny person begging you for help on something that you may or may not know how to do yourself...love that I'm interested in learning how to better myself with the knowledge to live in the world, and be happy for me. If I add my coolant fluid to my whip when it needs it, play GTA4 on my 360 and belch when I need to..maybe I'll be more inclined to cook, clean or wash dishes. 

*Ashley Robin*

A Series of Funny Events

feel like I've been laughing for the past few days, despite feeling like total crap. The week's been good, despite my catching a virus of some sort, has me all messed up. I can see the humor in everything. Here's a list of things that had me rolling, maybe they'll give you the giggles too..

..1- Flavor of Love. Talk about hood ass women. Just when I thought the scary big girl was about to do a New York and spit on someone, she tops that and does the most foul thing in the world and takes a shit on Flav's floor. I mean, DAMN!. She tells him that she askef for permission to go to the bathroom (something I haven't done since I was in grade school), and gets told no, meanwhile her stomach was going "Uh-uh, Bitch", so she dipped out of camera frame and took a shit on this man's marble floor. Now, this was after the clocks were given to the girls moving forward, and yes, she was one of them, but if I would have been Flav, I would have kicked her out the crib, shitty drawers and all. I mean, my dogs were even trained not to do that mess in the house...so her doing it is just nasty, nasty, NASTY.....and poor Rick had to clean it up. I'd have told them skip that....no job pays that much, to clean up human poop. Sorry.

..2- TMZ.com is basically a celeb-sighting site. They post pics of celebs out and about, people comment, etc. Kinda like PerezHilton.com....but anyway...TMZ fans really dislike Paris Hilton. I mean, they really hate on her. One guy said she was nothing but a 'oversized human condom' another said that he didn't understand why she was alive, that she should just kill herself...that her singing sounds like garbaage, etc...you get the point. That's sad, not funny. What's funny is that one of the reporters for the site actually found Paris and her press agent, on the way to some meeting, and read this stuff aloud to her, asking her "what do you think about it?" I mean, come on. If some dude came up to you, reading you negative bull about yourself, he'd have been picking himself up off the ground. She actually tries to be poised about it, does a good job being nice about it, but you can tell it hurts her feelings. I mean, it's common sense....who would want to hear that kind of thing? And, who cares if she says her feelings are hurt...certainly not the folks who wrote it....the stupidity of the world...

..3- My not taking myself seriously. I was playing with a baby today at the salon, and she was just sooo cute. I was dancing with her, while I had rollers in my hair, and she seemed to enjoy it. When it was time to return her to her mom (and I was sad, since I love the kids), I asked her for a kiss. She grabs my face like she's gonna lay one smack on my mouth, looks into my eyes with her little amber eyes and doesn't kiss me, but instead spits up the apple sauce I'd fed her while her mom was getting her hair blown out. Right on my nose and mouth. And proceeds to laugh, like it was the funniest thing ever! Because she was so cute, I had to laugh (after I washed my face about three times).

Life is always interesting,
Ashley Robin