Last month I went home in time for my hometown’s eggstravaganza. Yep. A celebration of eggs. It was really an excuse to go see my favorite three-year-old nephew and niece (I also have a favorite one-year-old nephew). It’s the perfect opportunity to pump him full of ice cream and candy and set him loose on a muddy playground (the niece isn’t quite ready for that kind of sugar rush). Normally, going home is solely tied to family. None of my friends from high school stayed behind.
It’s been ten years since The Game exposed/extolled the world of manipulative men known as pickup artists. A nice, round anniversary around which Strauss carefully timed the release of his most recent book The Truth. He’s been running the regular promotional circuit, podcasts, magazines, etc., for the past few months. The entire thing seems part a return to respectable journalism and part apology tour. Though, to be fair, he’s had plenty of journalistic success in the intervening years. But, that’s neither here nor there as he goes on to make yet another buck off the lessons he’s learned at the expense of countless women.
In the the nearly two decades since becoming a woman or whatever, I’ve come to realize that surviving PMS sometimes means leaning into the odd slew of emotions the hits hard for one or two days each month. Melancholy, despondency, anxiety — you know, all the good ones — blend together to leave me feeling just delightful. When this happens I’ve decided it’s best to wallow in the sad. My favorite way of really languishing is to watch movies designed to make me blue.
After engagement number one, but long before meeting The One™, I began my longest relationship to date. It started off on uncertain footing as many of these things do. In fact, the first time I brought my special someone home I stared into those big green eyes and wept to think that this was all the romance I had in store for me. At a fresh 24 years of age, I imagined all my opportunity for love had been squandered on the wrong men and no one would ever want to spend their life with someone who had nearly gotten married.
A couple years ago I became fascinated with the story of two friends who challenged themselves to date for 40 days. Cynics accused them of angling for a book deal or a way to showcase their elaborate word art and Target-esque video aesthetic. I looked at my then shitty relationship and thought, maybe I’d been overlooking love salvation in one of my own friends for the past 10 years. Timothy, the leading man in this experiment resembled a lot of the men I had dated, broken by a less-than-ideal relationship with his father, aloof, creative. And I found Jessica, the leading lady, to be entirely relatable embracing hopeless romanticism despite a string of failed relationships.
For those of you who are not local, The Loop is (now) a Minnesota chain bar with locations in St. Louis Park, Rochester and Minneapolis. The bar borrows its name from the North Loop neighborhood where its origin story takes place. By day, you’ll find comfy booths, good food, passable drinks, and, if it’s a weekend before or after college football season, awesome breakfast. By night, it turns into a dance club not fit for anyone over the age of 27 and even then, you shall have no fewer than four shots in your system.
I failed you last week. For the first time in since June I wasn’t able to post. I do have a valid excuse. I was doing field research. It wasn’t intended to be as such. It just sorta happened. The Dude and I decided we were going to buy a home. And because we tend to make a major life decision and then get it over with as soon as possible (hence the six-month engagement), we dove in hard and fast.
Throughout my life as a singleton I encountered possibly more than my fair share of crazies. And not just the run-of-the-mill kind of crazy like that one dude who won’t change his underwear throughout the entirety of Football season. Or the one who calls his mom thrice daily. I’m talking the kinds who dig their claws in and won’t let go until a restraining order has been served. So I have some experience getting them the hell out of my life. And, now, I’m happy to share that wisdom with you. You lucky little ducks, you.
This post started as an exploration of the creepiest places to hit on women, but in light of a few recent events, it turned into a brutal expose on the creepiest of all the social networks. And by expose I mean a rant spurred by my personal experiences on the site. As well as this shining example of why there’s no escaping dudes who feel it is their right to comment on the appearance of complete strangers.
