Pop, Lock, and Stalk It

Facebook stalking.

I've done it, you've done it.

We've all done it.

You can admit it. This is a safe space. 

Day Three of My 30 Day Blog Challenge: One of Your Favorite Shows. 

Facebook. What a shit show!

Facebook is such a disaster, and yet somehow it seems to have become an absolute necessity to get through life. It's weird, right? The fact that we have to log in every day to see what our friends, family, and coworkers are doing? That we have to see everyone's photos and posts, and that we check it at midnight or in the morning now to see what we were Facebooking about at this time one, two, even eight years ago? 

I mean, I'm guilty. Don't get me wrong. I am active on Facebook. I like Facebook. I think it's fun to see what my friends and family are doing today, and I like being able to check in with everyone by one click and some scrolling as opposed to sending 100 how's your day text messages. Or, God forbid, making all those phone calls!

Facebook is, despite all of it's negatives, a pretty decent way to feel connected to your friends and family who may live out of town, or have kids you don't see often, or live on opposite schedules of  you. It is also a really good forum for getting a blog out in to the world...just saying.

But here's where it gets weird. 

When you start stalking people that you don't even know.

It gets even weirder when you start to monitor your own posts based on the strangers you know are checking in on you. WHAT?! Like, for some reason we feel like we shouldn't post something because somebody you know is creeping your profile, would be bothered by it. It makes literally zero sense to be wary of what I say on my Facebook page based on what somebody I'm not even friends with, may have to say about it.

In real life, stalking is pretty taboo. It's not really okay. Stalking people you don't know in real life is actually pretty frowned upon. Would you just sit outside you boyfriend's ex-girlfriend's sister's house for five hours a night hoping to get a glimpse of her? Uhh...no (and if so, please find another blog to stalk).You wouldn't. Because it's weird. And also illegal. 

And yet, because it's on the internet, we somehow think it's okay.

Well, guess what. It's kinda not okay. It's actually quite inappropriate. And we really shouldn't be doing it.

Be honest here - has anything good ever come from your addiction to cyber stalking? If your answer is yes, I don't believe you. Nothing good comes from Facebook stalking. It makes you look like a freak when you keep an eye on your ex-boyfriend's mom's uncle's cousin. Stop that.

I recently had this epiphany, where I realized I had close to 500 "friends" on Facebook. Only about 90 of these people are people I purposely speak to in my real life; meaning 410 of them I am friends with on social media exclusively. I decided one day, after I found myself editing a post to appease someone I barely even know, that it was ridiculous. I went on a deleting frenzy, and I removed anyone from my friends list that I am not actual, real life friends with.

And people got mad!!!

What in the fuck...

You don't get to be mad that you are unable to see my posts, if you don't know me.

Stalker.

You don't get to be mad that you can't stalk my photos and insert your agenda into the things I say.

Stalker times two.

It's weird. It's weird that people get offended or insulted when they are unfriended by someone they don't even know. It's weird that people spend this much time stalking other people on the internet, just because it's available.

Facebook. Both my least and most favorite show of all time. 

What If a Baby Happens?

My whole life, I've felt like I wasn't meant to be a mom. When I was a kid my cousins and I played make-believe house, and we always had pets and animals, but I don't remember lots of pretend people babies. My Barbies were always out on dates with GI Joe; they were never really home with their families. I grew up in a home day care, and I loved playing with the kids my mom watched, but they were definitely more of a fun accessory than something I wanted to take care of. I liked being able to play with them until they cried. I liked pushing them in the stroller at the mall. I liked to dress them in goofy outfits with my friends.

Thinking about it now, by the way, Barbie was really just such a hussy.

I've just always felt I was meant to do other things with my life than raise a child. I've felt I was meant to go new places, to see new things. I've felt I was meant to do something else, to make waves, to live in the moment. Kids have always been something I don't want. And I've really never swayed from that. I've just preferred more...well, more interchangeable accessories. I get bored of my purse in like 90 days, and I hear you can't trade kids in for an upgrade.

But then...what if??

Day Two of my 30 Day Blog Challenge: What is something you always say "what if" to?

What if I get pregnant on accident?

What if I change my mind? What if I get pregnant on purpose?

What if I watch all these other women mom-ing (yes, I made that a verb), and I think I could do it as well as any of them? What if I decide that mom-ing doesn't mean your life of excitement and passion is over?

What if I tell my family I might want a baby someday, and they all actually die of shock? With them all wiped out, who would help me?

What if I miss my period and totally freak out and have myself completely convinced I'm pregnant, and then what if for a brief second, I'm not completely horrified at the thought? What if a part of me reacts with, that might not really be so horrible?

What if a doctor confirms that I am unable to make a baby of my own and I'm sad instead of relieved? I mean, I have't been on any birth control in almost two years, and I'm not knocked up yet.

Then what?

I have always said, being a mom is not in my cards. Always. I've never wanted to mom. I've been too busy wanting to travel, to work and get promoted, to grow, to learn. I've been too consumed with my desire to live just for myself, to spend money selfishly, to spend time on myself. My desire to sit in silence with a stack of books has far outweighed my need to change diapers in the middle of the night.

And yet, this is the subject in which I always wonder, what if.

Despite the fact that I don't actually have a desire to parent a child, I do believe I'd be a really good mom, should I ever become one - accidentally or on purpose. Aside from the fact that my mother is the actual Baby Whisperer, and aside from the fact that I was raised in a home where she cared for a multitude of small children at a time, I think instinctively I would be good at mom-ing. I never thought that before until recently. I always thought I'd be overly paranoid about things, overly aggressive about others, and just overly selfish in all areas where a good parent is selfless instead.

Even so, I claim to be selfish with time and money, as I sit here on the phone with Blake, making a birthday ice cream date and ordering his new Spider-Man sheets on Amazon. I'm apparently not that selfish with my time and money; I always have time for the people in my life under five years old. I call them on the phone, I buy them things, I take them places...and I do all of these things on purpose.

Clearly being a mother is not the same as being an aunt. I'm just using this as an example of my ability to keep a child safe, fed, and happy for a duration of time, thus my assumption that I may be able to do it for longer than a weekend.

More recently than I care to admit, I had to ask myself the big question among single women who try to be careful but sometimes fuck up: what if I'm pregnant?

What would I do?

And by what would I do, I do of course mean, what bridge would I choose to free fall from?

And after much freak out, after much frantic time spent on the phone (and sadly, also on WebMD), after much calming the fuck down, it occurred to me that you can plan your life a certain way all you want. But as I learned from that fucking life-ruining psychic in Vegas this spring, the Universe will find a way to work your shit out for you. You can plan all you want, but sometimes, shit just happens and you have to learn to roll with it.

What if you just calm down, let life happen, and be flexible in your choices?

Also, what if you happen to make a baby that just goes perfectly with that new dress you just bought?

#Accessorize!!

Do You Love to Hate, or Do You Hate to Love?

Maybe this is why I'm single.

Maybe this is why I don't have very many long term relationships under my belt.

Maybe this is why I've never been married. 

Maybe this is why I'm not bitter, why I don't have a laundry list of "must-have" qualities in someone.

Maybe this is why I can still see the good in people, why I can take someone at face value.

Or maybe I'm just completely, one hundred percent right, and the rest of the world is wrong.

Whatever the reason, I just really, truly think that relationships should not be this difficult. 

Period. If you're working too hard to be happy, you're not with the right person. Your lobster would never require this much effort. And I think you should be able to be with your lobster.

Day One of my 30 Day Blog Challenge: Thoughts on Your Current Relationship, or of Your Current Single Status.

Nobody should be putting so much work into their relationship that it doesn't bring them any happiness. I know so many people who work harder on their relationship than they do on anything else; they put in so much effort, it's exhausting even to watch from the outside. They are constantly fighting an uphill battle, trying to force things, trying to find middle ground or compromise, just struggling to get it together with the person they're with. 

Why? Why are you doing that?! What is the payoff for putting in such a dramatic effort on a relationship that probably just isn't the right one for you? What kind of sadist are you? What is it about this person that makes you think you have to make it happen. that you have to force it to be successful?

Am I the only one in the world who would rather be single and wait for the right guy, than be in a forced, unhappy relationship just to be sure I always have someone around?

I know relationships take work; don't get my message twisted. I know that all relationships (and friendships, and family relationships for that matter) take compromise. And sincere effort. And selflessness. I get it. That's not what I'm arguing. I do know, accept, and understand that it's not always sunshine and butterflies in a relationship, and that there are moments and times that are hard. And that for the right person, you'll fight hard through those tougher moments and come out better on the other side. That happens in the duration of life with someone. 

I'm talking, though, about the people who are ALWAYS fighting to make it happen. I'm sorry, but if your relationship is more work than fun, more bad times than good, more stress than satisfaction...you are not in the right relationship. Just let it go and move on; you're annoying everyone else on Earth who already sees this going down the shitter.

At what point, when you're looking at your partner thinking of ways to destroy them so you can be happy, do you stop and think that perhaps you could do everyone (the two of you included) by just ending it? When does one arrive to the conclusion that a relationship should bring you at least some slight spark of joy, and that you haven't felt joy in so long you forget what it's like? I mean, people do get to that point, right? So why does it take so long? Why does it take so much fighting and energy? I just don't get it. It's like, before you can end you miserable, destructive anything-but-a-healthy-relationship, why do you have to destroy yourself from the inside first?

Hang on, we'll break up once we've both lost all hope for anything successful in the future.

It appears that it may just be me, but I would rather be single than date someone who hates me. I'm not sure at what point any of us were convinced (or who it was that convinced us) that a relationship need not bring joy or genuine happiness, but that as long as someone is waiting for us when we get home, that'll be good enough.

Good enough is absolutely not good enough!

Good enough should never be good enough. Not with a meal, not with an apartment or a place to live, not with a vacation, and certainly not with a relationship! Why do people think that's okay? Why do you think you have to settle? Why can't you let go of what's good enough in pursuit of something incredible?

You can.

I can.

In fact, I have.

Gone are my days of settling for something good enough, when I know there are men out there who do actually know how to make a woman swoon; how to really make someone tick. That's who I'm after. I feel like that's what we all should be after.

If you're with someone who doesn't make your heart beat faster, or who doesn't make your breath catch when they touch you, then what are you wasting your time for? If your partner can't understand you, appreciate and value you, or give you one hundred percent of themselves, then why are you wasting your energy? I remember one time my mom said to me, a relationship is not 50/50, a good one is 100/100. And that's so true. Do you give yourself a hundred percent to someone who gives you back the same hundred percent? If not, you're wasting your time. If not, you're selling yourself short. You're cheating yourself out of greatness with someone who will.

Relationships are hard.
They take work and energy and time and commitment.
They take communication. They take openness and honesty. They certainly take effort.
But, if a relationship feels like work and doesn't leave you happy at the end of the day, you're not in the right one.

Keep it moving.