Tinder me baby

As I sat down to write tonight I was feeling rather melancholy and believe you me, I was ready to have myself a big fat pity party and write something completely miserable.  Then of course I came to my senses and realized that no one really cares how sad I am or how lonely I feel.  Instead, I’m just going to rant about some of my gripes with dating.  If you hadn’t guessed from the title of this post then let me tell you now, we’re gonna talk Tinder.

If you don’t know what Tinder is then do yourself a favor, download the app and figure it out for yourself or look it up on Wikipedia because I don’t have the patience to explain it.

I like Tinder because although it falls into the category of online dating, it doesn’t quite feel like online dating.  In fact, when I downloaded the app I remember one of my first matches saying, “I’m not so good at this online dating thing,”  and I responded with, “what online dating thing?”

Secondly I LOVE Tinder for the obvious reason that it is completely based on looks.  Finally, a dating site that understands I want to find myself a hotty.  Its maddening to me how everyone runs around acting like being attracted to someone doesn’t matter.  Yes, I get it, looks aren’t everything, THIS ISN’T NEW KNOWLEDGE PEOPLE.  But while the truth that looks aren’t everything exists, so does the truth that looks aren’t nothing.  To deny the importance of physical attraction is like denying the importance of emotional attraction, both would be silly.  Maybe I am bold, maybe I am brash, but I will openly admit that I want to enjoy the face I am having a conversation with while simultaneously enjoying the conversation.  Does that admittance make me a bad person? Or an honest one?  You decide.

I digress, back to why I like Tinder for how completely superficial and look based it is.  I like that the only men that can talk to me are ones I have found attractive and likewise found me attractive.  I mean it really takes a lot of the guess work out of it.

I do recall saying somewhere that I wanted to rant and I hope you’re ready because here it comes.  Note, I can only speak for what I have seen with the men because hey, my door doesn’t swing that way ladies, although if I had to guess, men probably have some of these same gripes with the women of Tinder.  But this is from my perspective so I’m gonna stick with male pronouns, deal with it.

More often than not you get one shot, one single picture to showcase yourself and essentially sell yourself to a potential match.  So riddle me this, why would you pick the worst possible picture to do that???  I get that a lot of people treat Tinder like a joke or an instrument to pass the time, but some of us are taking it seriously, so fellas if your special lady is out there and she could be on Tinder, what do you want her to see?  As a lady, let me tell you what I am looking for.

Here are my Tinder do’s and don’t’s…….

Do:  Have your profile picture, the one shot you have to catch a girls interest, be a close up of your face.  Smile!  Show them pearly whites!  I want to see those manly facial features head on, nothing more, nothing less.

Don’t: Don’t wear sunglasses in you profile picture.  I can’t tell you how many times I have swiped left on a guy just because he had sunglasses on in his profile picture.  I want to see your face, not your shades.  Make that like your third or fourth picture if you feel so compelled to share your sunglass preferences with us.

Do: Include a shirtless picture.  Oh yeah, I’m going there.  If you’ve got it, flaunt it.  If you don’t got it… well then don’t flaunt it.  I guess I just want to know what I’m working with.  If you aren’t comfortable taking your shirt off, at the very least post a picture of your body.  I like big muscles, so I want to see um.

Don’t: Don’t post pictures of scenery or artsy photoshopped pictures, save those for Instagram and Facebook.  You get one picture and maybe four others if you’re lucky to show off, don’t waste those pictures with something that isn’t going to convince anyone to swipe right.

Do: Keep your tagline short and sweet.  Most of us ladies are making a decision based on your profile picture, but maybe if I’m feeling charitable and I feel like maybe this guy accidentally put up a horrible profile picture, I might click on the information icon to read your tagline and check out your other (hopefully) redeemable pictures.  Keep it simple.  If there is anything you should include, just tell us all how tall you are or pertinent information like… I have kids or I don’t have a job… those would be good to include.

Don’t: Don’t have an overly long tagline, don’t put your heart and soul into it.  Tinder, if you haven’t already gathered is based on LOOKS.  There isn’t anything you can put in the tagline that is going to dramatically change that initial gut reaction from the profile picture.  I don’t care if you save puppies and kitties.

Do: Say something.  Even in this day and age with all the advancements in dating technology, I still think of myself as a traditional girl.  This means, you are the man, you should say something.  I don’t care if its not creative, just say hi.  I likely won’t say anything and another potential Tinder connection is gone down the drain.

That’s pretty much it.  Like I said, I can’t really speak for he men because I don’t know what my fellow ladies are putting out there.  I followed these rules for myself and hey, I’ve already got one Tinder relationship under my belt, with more to come.

I’m glad for the ease of Tinder, maybe if I get braver I can join other dating sites but for now.. Tinder me baby.

Get to

Over the past few years I have grown to believe that our attitude and perspective are what ultimately shape our realities.  Far gone are the days in which I wallow, allowing myself to become sick with sadness or grief especially when viewing the same scene from a different angle can change everything.

Not too long ago I was having a conversation with someone, mostly small talk.  He asked me something, something I think I’m asked every single day, but it was the way he asked that helped me realize something pretty profound.  “Do you get to work today?”

You see that.  In one single word, I suddenly felt privileged to go to work.  Yup. I felt privileged to throw on that dirty old shirt and apron and wait tables.  Its funny because most days its just something I have to do, but getting to leaves such an implication of gratitude.  Have to and get to.  Have to leaves you with a taste of obligation, its a chore.  Having to do anything makes it sound painful, as though it is against your will.  Get to… that is an opportunity.

Its been interesting to see how applicable this simple concept is, especially having gone through some turmoil recently. I have a tendency to blame myself when relationships don’t work out.  I’ve always had this knack for finding something I did wrong somewhere at some point.  This last one has had me rather perplexed. Now I can’t say that I was perfect, because I wasn’t nor will I ever be.  But for the first time in my life, in all my lost relationships, I was having a hard time figuring out where it was I went wrong.  Its been in this idea of ‘get to’ that has helped me see not necessarily where I went wrong, but maybe where he did.

I had always looked at him with the eyes of ‘get to.’  I get to see him today.  I get to text him.  I get to hear from him.  I get to spend time with him.  I get to kiss him.  For just a moment in time, I get to have him.

I like to believe that as least for a short time he looked at me with those same eyes, but as time went on things gradually began to change.  I have to text her.  I have to hang out with her tonight.  I have to talk to her.  I have to pay attention to her.  I have to tell her she’s pretty.

What once was a retreat, had suddenly become a cage, a release turned into a burden.  This one single solitary word, the ‘have’ in ‘have to’.  It shadows any light.  It transforms qualities into flaws.  It shades any ounce of hope and joy into a job, a workload and just one more thing to have to worry about.

I don’t blame him for us not working out.  I mean, maybe I do a little bit, but I think as elusive and frustrating as the sentiment that “time heals all wounds” can be, the same cliché that “timing is everything,” is equally yet annoyingly true.  Perhaps at a different time in his life or a different time in mine, we would have been more prepared for one another, in such a way that our time together would always be a reprieve from the trials of life and never an encumbrance.

I’m going to make it a goal for the next little while to replace all my have’s with get’s.  The fact of the matter is, is I don’t have to do anything… but I do I get to.

I get to go to the gym.  I get to eat healthy.  I get to work.  I get to make money.  I get to pay bills. I get to go out on dates. I get to, I get to, I get to...

I am an older sister

We’re about to get real mushy, just come along for the ride.

I am an older sister.  I have an older brother, but no older sister so I don’t really know what its like.  I’ve never really had a female figure like that to look up to and take cues from.  I do have a little sister, so for her, I am that older sister.  I’ve never really looked at myself like a role model for her though.

I can easily say that of my siblings I am by far the closest with my sister and I know she shares that same sentiment.  While there are a handful of things she and I have in common, I mean, bizarre things that most people shouldn’t have in common, on most levels we are completely different. I always laugh when someone says we look like sisters.  Let’s be honest, nothing about us physically is remotely similar, literally nothing.  Oh wait, I take that back.  We both have long torsos.  Yup, that must be the dead giveaway that we are related, those long Maki torsos.

All that aside the fact remains that we’ve always been pretty independent from one another.  She always had her art thing, I did the sports. She was more a relationship girl while I was more a date anyone and everyone kind of girl.  She the introvert, I the extrovert.  When she was really young we didn’t along at all, but here in these later years we’ve gotten pretty close.  Despite how close we are though we’ve always just kind of done our own thing and walked to the beat of our own drums.

Recently my dearest little sister got engaged.  This is happy news and I am incredibly happy at the man she found to spend her life with.  This news was bittersweet for me however, due in part to the fact that I am not married, nor am I engaged, nor am I even dating anyone.  Even though I’ve never really seen myself as the “big sister” figure, showing my sister the ropes or helping her through life’s different stages, I felt a sudden loss at the fact that she would be getting married before me.  At some point in time, somewhere written in my brain was this thought that it should happen to me first, because I’m older.  I should be able to offer her advice, do’s and don’ts, how to’s… but I can’t.

I have felt rather stunted and incapable, lesser even.  There have been several times during this wedding planning process that I’ve withdrawn because I just don’t know what to do.  I don’t know how to handle being sad that she’s getting married and that I’m not even close.  I remember when she got engaged, I went into a dating frenzy, as if I could hurry up and find a husband before she got married.

At least dating someone gave me some comfort through all of this.  It was just nice not to feel so alone.  When that relationship didn’t pan out I felt myself pulling even further away from everything.  A week or so ago I remember I could hear my mom downstairs with her phone on speaker, hands a mess in some meatloaf.  On the other end was my sister, audibly crying, upset that she hadn’t picked the right wedding dress.  I felt sad for my sister, but I couldn’t help but feel envious.  There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to trade the woes of my rejected and aching heart, for that of being apprehensive over a wedding dress.  I’d wear a paper sack down the aisle if it meant I could be married.

I’ve had a lot of mixed emotions lately and felt a lot of uncertainty about myself.  My mantra has always been to take things one day at a time and that’s how I’ve been handling everything, to the best of my ability each and every day as it comes.  Something happened the other night though that though that brought it all back and reminded what I really am, I am an older sister.

My sister and her fiancé are improvers and do a weekly show.  My mom has always been a big supporter, going out to the shows and sitting by herself at times.  I on the other hand, almost never go. While I love watching my sister and her fiancé on stage and enjoy the show, I find the other patrons in the audience to be just beyond my toleration level.  That and I tend to work a lot, preventing me from attending.  This last Friday they had their debut performance of their new improv troop and since I wasn’t working, nor did I have any dates lined up, I had no reason not to go.

Now my mom was there, which is common, and my dad was there, much less common, even my brother and sister-in-law came, which I don’t know how many times they had attended but if I had to guess it was probably about as often as myself.  All these family members showed up to offer their support… but I saw how my sister’s face lit up when she saw I was there.  She thanked my parents for being there but went on to express a genuine gratitude for my presence, it was unfounded for me.  Even after the show she thanked me for coming and on Facebook she thanked me some more.

It was then I realized that in spite of the fact that she is getting married before me, in spite of how much of a colossal failure I am at relationships, and in spite of how differently we approach life… she really does look up to me.  I am her big sister and that means something, regardless of my missteps and imperfections.

I saw a memes recently that was a picture of a dog and the caption, “be the kind of person your dog thinks you are.”  Well here and now I want to be the kind of person my sister thinks I am.  If she can look at me like that and think I’m something special, that I’m someone worth looking up to, than damn it, I had better be it.

Someone worth hoping for

Hope.  My arch nemesis.  We meet again.  All too often you have gotten the better of me, but now I think I’ve done it.  I have finally figured you out.

For years hope has lifted me up only to crush me in unimaginable ways.  It was this misguided mistress leading me down a path of ruin, while I blindly followed behind faithfully, favoring some sort of happy ending.  I blamed all my sorrows on hope, feigning that hope was wasted on the hopeless.  Well no more.  This week shall go down in history because I have finally learned that hope is not my enemy, hope is my friend.

The philosophy that happiness is not a set of circumstances, but rather a choice, isn’t a new concept.  My circumstance are what they are, I want someone I can’t have.  Its an age old tale in the book of Noelle.  Once again, am I going to make these unrelenting and unchangeable set of circumstances my prison? Or turn them into a palace?

If all these years of heartache have given me anything, it is an exuberant amount of will power and tenacity. I can be happy, I will be happy, and no one will stop me.  I’ve gotten really good at finding ways to stay positive and remain optimistic in the face of rejection.  I’m proud to say that I’ve transformed a lot of my prison cells.  Yet the biggest hurdle has always been hope.  

Its usually right around the time that I think I’ve gained control of the situation.  Its the instant when I finally think I’m strong enough to move on.  That is the precise moment when a glimmer of hope drifts into the darkest corner of my mind and has me believing, “hey, I don’t need to redecorate this prison cell, I can actually get out of this one and get what I want for a change.”  Next thing we know I’m back at square one.  I’m dreaming of him, wondering what I should say to him when I find the courage to text him, and planning our miraculous reconciliation.  Its a dangerous spiral towards a pit of anguish and despair.

I have decided to bring hope back from the dark side, because here in the light hope is going to help me out big time.  You ready for what Noelle learned this week?  Here it is.  I learned that the reason hope has bitten me in the ass so many times before is because I spent a lot of time hoping for the wrong things.  I would run into him at the unlikeliest of places and hail it as a sign from the heavens that we were meant to be together.  A week would be spent hoping that he would come to the same holy realization as me and come running back to me.  I would receive an unexpected text message to see how I was doing and I’m suddenly hurled back into the belief that he cares, he still cares, my lordy he still cares!  I love the quote that when hope is hungry, anything will feed it.  Small gestures are magnified and coincidences are labeled as fate.

But today is a new day, here in this day I will not hope for him to come back.  Hoping for him to come back to me will only result in heartache, disappointment, and alas even more rejection, because it just isn’t going to happen, no matter how much I hope for it to.  It would make about as much sense as hoping to win the lottery and dreaming of all the things you’ll buy with the money, when you don’t even have a lotto ticket.  Instead, I need to hope not for his return, but for his replacement.  Someone new, someone better, and someone who deserves my love is a much more realistic hope that I can hold onto.  It is a hope that can pull me out of this.  No longer will all this hope I have inside me be wasted on the wrong person. Hope is on my side now, hope is my friend, and she’s gonna help me find someone worth hoping for.

If I must

If I must be sad

Let it be short

Let it be gone by morning

If I must weep

Let it be soft

Let it be simple

Let not my body ache

If I must hurt

Let it sting lightly

Let me endure

Let me be brave

If I must miss him

Let it be brief

Let me move on

If I must let him go

Let me do so quickly

Let me find the strength

If must be broken

Let me find every piece

Let me fix me once more

If I must have love

If I must NEED love

Then just once, please once

please

Let me find it

Let me have it

Let me keep it