Foreign women/single mothers/desperate psychos

In this post about what not to do when online dating, for men, I mentioned don't be bitter or have a "chip on your shoulder" as my mom would put it.
Case in point. Here is what one bitter guy wrote on his profile after canceling his subscription.

(Good to know I fit in with the "Foreign women and desperate psychos"........ see the list of types of women who join dating sites below.)

My membership is up in a couple of days and I've decided not to renew. It was a good experiment but for me the whole online dating thing is a scam. I think it's a great idea for women but not so good for men. The reason why it works so well for females is that men typically outnumber the women in online dating sites. With an oversupply of men, they can have their pick of the litter. Indeed, any female posting a profile to an online dating site usually gets deluged with e-mails from interested men. With so many e-mails and only a finite amount of time to answer them, naturally they will screen in only the best-looking and richest men. I recently found a blog that read: "One man posting a profile said he found that for every four hundred e-mails he sends to women, he will get maybe one or two positive responses back. Not dates, just responses. One response for every four hundred e-mails? Yikes! With results like that, it’s not hard to see that his chances of actually getting a date are pretty slim.

A number of years ago, German researchers found that people have to date a minimum of thirteen people before they find a suitable long-term partner. Let’s assume the prospective suitor I mentioned earlier does get one date for every four hundred e-mails he sends. That’s four hundred times thirteen, or 5,200 e-mails to find a partner! I can’t imagine any man having the kind of time or energy on his hands to carry out such a Herculean task."

In my experience there are a few different types of women who join a dating sites:

A) Stuck-up, snooty women who think they are God’s gift to men. With the tons of e-mail they get from hopeful suitors, they acquire both swelled heads and a wildly unrealistic opinion of their market value in the dating world. Women like this are clearly suffering from what I call ‘Princess Syndrome’. A characteristic symptom of the malady is having a stringent laundry list of ‘requirements’ and ‘standards’ few men could ever hope to meet.

B) Attention junkies/professional daters - sucked in by the endless choice online dating appears to offer, keep looking for the Bigger, Better Deal. Ad nauseam. Scratch a professional dater, and you’ll likely find someone with a serious fear of commitment lurking underneath.

C) Gold Diggers - No explanation required

D) Teases who get off on rejecting men for sport

E) Foreign women/single mothers/desperate psychos.

Bottom line is that it's a bad deal for men but a good deal for women. It was so confusing as to why beautiful women (and yes match.com has some very beautiful women) would feel the need to join a dating site...but not so confusing after examining a, b, & c from above. If any guys are reading this...I would recommend spending your time and cheddar elsewhere.

losing strength in my resolve

I unsubscribed to my Match.com account a while ago, but I still get emails informing me when someone sends me a flirt.

I know. I know. I know. I've sworn off online dating for at least three months. ( I even have a friend to call and talk me down off the ledge, when I'm feeling weak, bored, curious, or desperate because I haven't had a date for 4 weeks) But I can't help but be curious who just sent me a flirt. So I check.... and look at their profile...

Rant starting in 3... 2....1....

It is so hard to resist or stay strong with my resolve to only date "good" lds guys. (goes to church, doesn't drink, obeys the law of chastity, etc) It seems like most of the "good" lds guys that ever show interest in me are for lack of better word, goobers.... (basically i'm not attracted to them or they are super awkward or shy, there's something that is "off" as my mom say. hahahah!)
But I get winks/emails (online) or guys asking me out that are not "good" lds guys but are actually cute and seem normal. It's frustrating! Hedge315... is 34 and cute and foxy and likes to cook, and loves camping, and seems really great and did I mention cute!? he has a scruffy beard is the perfect height....

When lds goobers are interested I can blame it on me. (I'm a goober. I'm not good enough for anything better. I'm too picky. etc) But when there are other guys who are actually cute, and seem normal and not like goobers that would actually want to get to know me and take me out and date me.... I can't help but feel frustrated and think "see I'm not that bad after all and maybe I could be with someone normal..."

There are two explanations that come to mind:

1) The normal and attractive lds guys are all married or have gone inactive, started drinking etc which puts them in the category that I'm talking about that is cute and normal and would actually want to date me. (I really need to come up with a name for this guy besides cute, normal guy who drinks... hahaha)

2) And the few normal attractive lds guys who actually do go to church and live the gospel have 200 girls to choose from and have thus become picky. It's no fault of their own. It is just a byproduct of the lds single culture. But I don't make the cut.

I swear I've ranted about this before.... But it takes all I have to not throw in the towel and just date someone I want to date, that's actually cute and normal. And if I hit 45 and am not married yet that's exactly what I'm going to do. 

A mother of one battles with 7 years of infertility
Injury and surgery after surgery
A husband and father works overtime to pay medical bills and for his son's mission
A wife's battle with breast cancer
A Father and husband loses his job
Wife coping with her husband's progressing mental illness
A friend facing loneliness
Divorce and infidelity
A wife hurting because her husband tells her he doesn't love her anymore

My heart aches today. It aches for everyone around me. How can there be so much pain? And I think of my own trials and how trivial and insignificant they are, but how they seem so hard. Yet all the things I normally worry about are so silly, like dating, and reorganizing Sydney's room, and what to paint for my next watercolor project, and if I should give into the temptation to buy new black church shoes or save the money. None of that even matters. I can't believe I worried about such stupid things. Lately I've been excited about my own future. But today... I feel scared.

YES! you finished your paper!

This is me every wednesday night. 

The mean girls club

Something has been weighing heavily on my mind lately that I feel I need to write about.

Yesterday sydney came home saying she wants to move to another school....
The source of this desire is not new, but it has escalated so bad that she wants to move. And I want to jump in and move her, to fix it, to make things better. But I know in moving we would just be leaving one bad situation to another.

When most people think of bullying they think of the big, mean boy in fifth grade picking on the little third graders and pushing them over on the bus..... But the type of bullying that so often goes under the radar, the type that President Obama's anti-bullying campaign does not address, the type that is overlooked so often by school teachers principals and counselors,  is the kind of bullying that Sydney has become so entangled in.  I'm not discounting Pres Obama's efforts to help minorities and underprivileged students, or the countless people who are fighting to stop bullying. But there is so much being done about bullying but no one recognizes the "relational aggression" and "social cruelty" that most girls in school experience. Relational aggression is different from bullying, where children often "use social power to have influence over their peers." ("How to bully proof young girls") And I am one of those guilty of discounting it... Until now.

When Sydney first came to me complaining about the girls in her class being mean I told her ignore them. I later found out that they were her friends, so I told her to just play with other kids, make new friends. I started suspecting that she was being bullied and couldn't understand why she would want to be their friend. But it goes deeper than that...

This is a case of Queen Bees and Wannabes, the mean girls club as seen on the movie, Mean Girls (yeah that hilarious movie back in 2004 about the mean girls club). But sydney is in third grade.... and those are about girls in high school. And the kind of social cruelty that Sydney is involved in is way worse than that shown in the movie.... The movie shows the cruelty that goes on but doesn't bring to light the kind of emotional damage relational aggression does. You can't just solve this problem by gathering all the girls together and having them say you're sorry and sharing little pieces of the homecoming crown, although it did make you feel all warm and fuzzy when watching the movie.  It is more complicated than that, more complicated and requires more than even the weekly sessions these girls are attending with the school counselor.

Now that I am learning more about relational aggression I realized this started much earlier than third grade. I clearly remember a conversation I had with Sydney's kindergarten teacher when I addressed some concerns. Her response, all girls go through this where they are just learning the new dynamics of being school with other kids, and finding where they fit in... Yeah! They're learning to navigate the earliest years of the mean girls club and what it takes to fit in!

I wish I could say that Sydney is the innocent one in all of this... But I am only getting her side of the story (hence, why I thought it was a case of  basic "bullying"). But after talking to her teacher, I've learned no one is innocent. She is playing her own role as everyday there is a different girl getting her feelings hurt. There is so much "bullying" and social cruelty going on in this group of "friends". And as a parent I feel helpless. I am not there to be like "you girls be nice now!" And like that would ever work! ha!

Well I started reading a book, "Little Girls can be Mean," by Michelle Anthony M.A PhD and Reyna Lindert PhD.  I'm hoping to learn what I can do, but I feel hopeless when there is so much going on at school. I know I have to let Sydney learn how to handle each situation as it comes and how to be a good friend and how to influence others for good.

Here is another interesting article on "How Girls Bully" and mentions some of the ways Sydney's group of friends interact from day to day.

I had a baby

I love when I have dreams and actually remember them. I rarely remember my dreams so when I do I get really excited.

In my dream last night I had a baby. I had a baby.... Its a weird thought but it felt very natural in my dream. I was struggling to get her out of a car seat because it had like a thousand latches, literally it had like 8 or something but then I turned on the light and it was easy all of a sudden. I held her for a minute, kissed her head and told her she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I remember wondering where I was going to fit a bassinet for her to sleep in. I asked my mom "how do I know if she is too hot or too cold?" And then I wished I would have read that book "What to expect when you are expecting" and thought, maybe my sister, Carly still has hers that I can borrow...

And that was it.

Pretty normal... right?  My dreams aren't ever too crazy, just pieces of my life with a little twist. According to a few websites babies signify:
innocence, warmth and new life
something in your own inner nature that is pure, vulnerable, and uncorrupted
the need for self-nurturing and taking care of my own inner child
new beginning or phase in your life.


I like to think this is true... Maybe I am approaching a new idea of nurturing myself and my inner child. I have never in my life put a conscious effort in taking care of myself spiritually and emotionally like I have been recently. And considering the main story line of my dream maybe I am still just feeling my way around and learning how to take care of myself. It is so typical of me to think I should read a book to figure out how to do that... hehe. I am new at this self love and self nurturing thing, but I feel hopeful about the peace and inner harmony that I want to have.

Photo by Alisa Groves Photography

Jobs I secretly want:

esthetician - so I can pick people's zits. I know you're cringing right now. "ewe!" whatevs. Everyone likes picking their zits.... I'm just willing to admit it. And I'm kinda bitter that my esthetician can pick at my face but she chastises me for picking at my own face.

homemaker - so I can sit at home on my butt, watch soap operas, talk on the phone with my sister and go to lunch with the girls. hahah! no... but really there are times, I admit, that I think it would be so nice to be able to spend more time at home and then I think maybe I could focus on other things that fall to the bottom of my to do list like clean my bathroom... But I know that's not how it really is... hahaha! we all know it's impossible to keep things clean with kids around.