Tinder

I'm dating again, and I just signed up for Tinder. 

It is the worst slash best dating invention of all time. In my estimation it is essentially the grinder for straight people. A friend calls it her pooping game. And that's exactly what it is - a game. A game I am certain to lose.

Tinder, for my mother's reference is a dating app.  If you see someone you like you swipe right on their profile.  If you don't like them - you swipe left.  If they have swiped right for you, you "match" and can start Tinder-texting.  It is genius and horrible. 

The men who use GGG in their limited profile or who have any other sexual references get an immediate swipe to the left from me. I realize that probably defeats the purpose of the App, but if I'm gonna risk getting syphilis from a one night stand, I sure as hell am not selecting him from a pool of shirtless men making duck faces at themselves in a mirror. Bad enough to know that those men exist and wake up next to one of them - way worse if you have pictorial proof with shady messages back and forth. No, thank you.

Tinder offers such an immediate gratification dating experience that it seems to be impossible to match with anyone you'd a) actually end up meeting in real time or b) finding someone with whom you have anything in common. It’s like a slot machine for questionably eligible bachelors.  You get five photos and a few sentences to sum up the details of "you". Most men just list their height- and all of them lie about it.

I find that I swipe right so rarely that it always surprises me when it happens. I made so many concessions in my last relationship that I have zero desire to start things off in my pretend dating world with someone who is able to offend or disgust or disinterest me in just five pictures and two sentences.

If I don't actually find you attractive in more than half your pictures? Left swipe.

If you don't smile showing teeth? I assume you don't have any teeth at all and swipe to the left.

If you have kids or a cat? Lefty left for you.

If you give off an aura of thinking you're better than everyone? Left.

If you look like you're gonna murder me in a parking lot. Left.

If you have crazy eyes or are short? Left.

If you have a misspelled word in your "bio"? Left.

Who remains then you ask? Sadly, only a few.

However, I have hope that somehow - someway - one of these remaining men will be interesting and together and an actual grown-up (no more baby men for me- those are the worst) and someone who won't kill me in my sleep. That will be really nice. 

In the interim I shall meet up for drinks with strangers and continue to compile my list of hilarious and awkward and uncomfortable stories to last a lifetime.

Music

My college boyfriend lives in Brooklyn now. I say that to help illustrate the kind of person he is. At the time, in school, I would have called him emo- he was artsy, kind of dark and bleak. Today? He's called a hipster. 

He was an English major. He played guitar. He smoked. He had amazing hair and a hardened family life. He was also by far, the most handsome guy I'd ever seen. I was crazy in love with him. We were doomed from the start I think, but that didn't stop us from trying. 

He loved this band called Belle and Sebastian and I hated them. But I loved him, so i did what every 20 year old girl would do and I pretended. I pretended to enjoy that whiney sad for the sake of sad music. Out of all the bands he loved Belle and Sebastian were the most commercial and the least irritating so i glommed onto them with all my might to avoid having to listen to anything else with him. What is the point of music you cannot hum along with? I will never understand. 

This weekend I lost my iPod. Now, it was one of the original Shuffles so it is long past time to get an upgrade- but losing it without and prep-time for replacement sucks. I ordered another, but it won't arrive until tomorrow. So this morning I dug out my ancient mp3 player (that, for the record I saved for this exact "just in case" reason) and went for a run. Listening to music that mattered to me 12 years ago is like running thru a time warp. While I will never be sorry to hear Hootie and the Blowfish - the B+S songs caught me off guard a bit. They shouldn't - its been a lifetime since those songs meant anything to me - but they did none the less. It also doesn't help the mood that I run at 5am - everything is more thought provoking when you're still half asleep. 

I do find it an interesting thought that the music I loved then I still liked this morning. Not all of it- I mean, there's only so many times you can listen to Pink's "get it Started" before you want to leap out a window... But in all the ways that I have grown and matured in the last decade - my taste for what I like in music has stayed the same. Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. I've clearly always been a little adverse to change so It shouldn't e a surprise that that includes my music. 

I read a book a couple years ago called The Happiness Project and the author said something that I hope to never forget. When trying to find your personal happiness she said "you can choose what you do but you cannot choose what you like to do". 

So no more Belle and Sebastian for me thanks. That ship has sailed- I'll stick with poppy fluff music thank you very much.  And show tunes.  Lots of show tunes. 

Train Privacy

Living in Chicago, I learned the hard lesson that if you don't want someone to sit next to you on a train you have to do one of three things:

1. Be crazy. Openly unabashedly bonkers.

2. Smell. Like feces and vomit and BO all mixed together. Or you can just reek of dehydrated urine. That works too.

3. Cry.

In Chicago no one will intentionally sit near a weeping woman. They give you space. They leave you alone. Once or twice I was offered napkins but mostly they leave you be. In New York, that is not the case. 

I was on the 6 line heading to a show one Friday night, feeling exceptionally down and was actively trying to hide my tears.

I am all about the fashion choice of giant sun glasses. Not only are they really flattering to my long face and big nose, but I love them.

When I moved to the big apple, one of my mothers friends advise me to "always wear sun glasses in the subway. It will save you from making eye contacts with the pimps". While that is also true it is a story for another day.

On this night, I was wearing them for privacy - not fashion.  So here I was crying behind my giant shades on a crowded rush hour subway car and some dear old man gets up in my face to ask if I'm okay. 

Of course my initial reaction is to say yes, I'm fine. But I'm not fine. I'm ugly crying on a 6 train. But lovely old man, what are you gonna do about it?  Just let me cry in peace. 

I miss Chicago.

New York, New York

In the last couple days I’ve seen a dozen articles on Facebook about how New York is such a lonely place to live, and while my initial instinct would be to disagree considering how many people cram themselves in, I realize that I can’t argue this point. 

This city will chew you up and spit you out and then it will piss on your face. The city of New York just does not give a shit.  

To live here you have to be incredibly strong and focused, glutton for punishment or Crazy with a capital C.  

Or a little of each.   

To be successful in New York City, you have to be independently rich (or supported by the bank of Mom and/or Dad), completely disinterested in having a personal life (as you’ll be working too hard and too long to support your city-choice and you won’t have time or energy to fit in socializing) or a superhero whose superpower is living without sleep or food. 

I’ve lived in New York for just over four years, and if I take a step back I can and should honestly say that I’m doing awesome here. 

I have a day-job that pays me more than I need (NOT – mind you, more than I’d like or more than I spend), but a job that’s (mostly) supportive of my acting career with a boss whom I respect.  I have an acting career - an actual acting career.  I get called back more often than not, I perform weekly in the city and tour outside it at least once a month and I’ve shot three commercials this year.  Doesn’t sound like much to people outside the industry, but from within, I’m doing awesome.  I have a tiny incredibly strange little dog that I love more than is reasonable.  I have a great and big apartment that I share with someone who isn’t home very often, pays their rent on time and who doesn’t steal.   I have made several good and true friends living here.   People who are kind and like-minded and who are supportive in every way I need them to be.  People who make my life better.   I can afford a gym membership and a monthly metro card.  I eat at least three times a day.   

Big picture? Life is good. 

However, the reminder to take a step back and appreciate things comes from a very tiny voice in my brain that rarely has the guts to speak up.   She's usually crying in the corner somewhere feeling lousy. 

Living in NYC means you are constantly comparing yourself to other people and are, 100% of the time coming up short.  There is always someone within a hundred feet of you who is smarter, prettier, thinner, and funnier than you.  Whatever hat you’re trying to wear in that moment, there will always be someone right behind you wearing it better.  Someone stronger with better connections.  Someone nicer with a savvier sense.  Someone who wants it more than you and who is willing to pay less.   New York is filled with people who have something to prove.  And being a success in this city means sacrificing a little piece of your soul in order to get what you want.    Not necessarily a piece you’re sad to lose but a piece none the less.

I just got back from a visit to LA and for the first time in my adult life, I can actually picture living there.  My dog would certainly prefer the constant sunshine to the bits and pieces of sunlight she finds here.  While NYC is still the city I need to be I finally can see the door thru which I will exit living here.   I don’t want to grow old here.   The ways in which you have to harden to survive as an elderly person in Manhattan is terrifying.  When I’m old and gray I don’t want to have to schlep up two flights of stairs to get somewhere.  I don’t want to be the crazy woman who mumble yells at everyone for being too close to her.  I don’t want to have a stroke in the middle of a subway car and have people around me too engrossed in whatever is happening on their phones to notice.  I don’t want to die on a park bench and have people assume I’m napping.  

New York, while I wouldn’t call what we have a love affair – it is certainly a relationship, one that I put way more effort into than you.  A relationship that will always be lopsided.  

But I’m not ready to break up just yet New York, so screw you for thinking it.  You’re not rid of me just yet.