That Makeout Was Supposed to Be RANDOM

I just looked on Wikipedia the population in the DC metro area is 5.3 million people. Let’s be real though, I mainly deal with Arlington, VA boys. The county of Arlington still has 206,800 people. How many of them are guys between the ages of 22-28? I have NO CLUE. Definitely a lot. It’s really an area where young professionals flock to be close to the city without all the hassle.

I’m not usually one to kiss and blog, but in this case I am willing to make an exception. Since January I have had two RANDOM makeouts. This is not really commendable behavior or something you tell your parents about. You tell them about the cute boy who took you for sushi, or your guy friend that finally got the guts to make a move. Actually…I think most parents would find it extremely romantic to learn that their (now grown) child had a kiss on a balcony that overlooked the city of Washington DC at night. Really not everyone will get an opportunity so perfect in their lifetime…

However, if I were to tell my parents said story I would have to leave out the fact that it was *cough* St. Patrick’s Day. And this was *cough* not a date, it was *cough* an afterparty I attended on a *cough* worknight.

I already blogged about how hilarious and wonderful St. Patrick’s Day was…without disclosing the mush. That post was all about being your confident self and how that can attract guys without even a flirtatious effort. OhMyGoodness and I like HI5’s (er..high fives)…but who would have THUNK that HI5-ing in a bar on St. Patrick’s Day…would lead to adventures with boys we are still in contact with 2.5 months later. Get ready, because here come more of myyy details.
OhMyGoodness will soon be blogging as she sees fit. Her story is COOLER.

So yes, the random makeout. As OhMyHeart has said, it happens to the best of us. Just don’t let it happen TOO much because then it’s less of a fun story to share with your girlfriends and more of a constant pattern that screams “I AM A SLUT.” Plus, I feel like if you at least spend a few hours getting to know the guy (rather than a 5 minute cab ride) the kissing is better ;-)

On St. Patrick’s Day, the spontaneous side of me went with the fact that I might as well embrace a holiday that celebrates kissing; wouldn't you know at the end of the night I was safely to first with a cute boy/stranger.
So this boy did not call me post St. Patty’s and I was more than cool with that. Another boy shortly followed, my life went on.

Fast forward to last night, I went to a birthday party with my roommate, and as we are bar hopping (very, very far from the area of town in which I live) I run into St. Patty’s Boy. Can I call him Pat? Let’s call him Pat. I did the “Oh My Gosh… [Pat] how are you?” line followed by a hug. This turned into him asking me to sit down, and a twenty minute conversation. Yep, I ditched my friends, he ditched his. He’s actually a better guy than I originally thought. I was like “Can we be facebook friends? I feel like we should be.” He whipped out his iPhone and said “I can actually make that happen right now.” I think we might be braking some kind of code here?

Anyway he seems to like to joke around, like me. We took a surprisingly cute picture together before I had to leave. He's leaving DC for the summer next weekend and I am going to be out of town most of this week. Who knows if he will ask me to hang out and that's not really the point. HOW IRONIC that I ran into a guy I never planned to see again AND we had a better conversation than the night we um... met.

I also need to point out that this is the SECOND guy in a one month period who I had met previously, I did not have his contact information, and I randomly ran into on a Saturday night out on the town. DO I have a tracking device in my body I am unaware of? DC is the eighth largest city in America (thanks again Wikipedia). I have seriously only been here since October. HOW, HOW, HOW I keep waltzing into the same bars as the relatively small pool of guys I have met here. I DON’T KNOW.

I leave you with this thought:
St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time - a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic. ~Adrienne Cook
Yeah. "Enchanted." That's probably the best adjective out there. Is the last name on that author Cook or Cooc? I’m off to go buy a lottery ticket and eat some Lucky Charms...I feel like the Luck of the Irish is with me...or something.

Summer Lovin' or Summer Lustin'?

Summer is basically here, and so is the potential of summer lovin'. But lets be realistic, 95% of the time summer lovin' = summer fling.

According to our good friends at the Urban Dictionary:



A sexual adventure free of hassles, commitments or drama, timed for the summer only. Something light and fun-filled with nothing to worry about at the end of the season. Usually not exclusive to one person, ends in a mutual agreement of friendship.



Ashamedly (or not...) I just subscribed to a newsletter called "Social Diva" and their mission, if you will:

Social Diva^™ is a go-to resource for all of your social needs.
We keep you in the know and enhance your social life by providing info on fun events, handy time savers, invitation-only sales, and the best places to go. On top of all that, we host our own fabulous events in select cities.

Anyways, the first newsletter I got from them, entitled Summer Lovin' featured "The Social Divia Summer Love Dictionary" and I thought it would be good blog fodder for LOMB.

Thoughts on the terms below?

"The calendars of Social Divas are jam-packed with fabulous party invites, brunches, mani-pedis, massages and our personal favorite, dates with gorgeous men. Whether he lasts for five minutes, five weeks or longer, we've developed a Dating Dictionary to describe all types of summer lovin'. Here are some key terms to help you dish to your fellow Divas about your hot summer nights:

Five Minute Man: Our term for a relationship that lasts, oh, about five minutes. Quick and easy, it's the Diva version of a catch and release program.

Summer Sometimes: The term for a man who you see when you feel like it. This is the guy who's fun for a party, maybe dinner (and whatever else), but not really long-term relationship material.

Summer Fling: A romance that lasts while the weather is hot. Warm weather means steamy romance and this is the relationship that's got heat. Whether it makes it past Labor Day or not, these are the men that get a Diva all hot and bothered.

Summer Import: Even though local men are just adorable, sometimes it's nice to meet someone from another town or even another country, especially if they travel in on business every once in a while.

Blind Date: Ever meet someone at a party and then agree to go on a date with them later only to discover they aren't nearly as cute as you remember? Yep, you're on a Blind Date.

Duck and Cover: The maneuver where you're out and about and you spot someone you'd rather not see so you basically bury yourself in a crowd so they can't see you. This is especially useful if you're with your Summer Sometimes and your Summer Fling happens to walk in."

After getting that e-mail, a gf send me this article:

The Gentleman's Guide To The New York Summer Hook-Up

A little snippet from the article:

"The Summer Hook-Up has a long and storied tradition. It seems like everyone can lay claim to at least one. Here’s the rundown: two (assumedly) young people find themselves making out. In any other given circumstance, it would never happen. But because of an internship, a summer beach house, or boredom, it does. And it’s magical. For a brief period of time, YOU can make it happen with a girl with whom – in any other case – it would NEVER happen. However, it can also go horribly wrong."

So, summer hook-ups, flings, etc: Thoughts? Good idea? Bad idea? Fun? Awkward?

Like, Have You Heard THIS?!!

Lady Gaga has quite a thing going for herself right now. Just as "Just Dance" was getting slightly overplayed she released "Poker Face" as her next single . Really the two songs sound quite similar...but the words are different...and seriously who hasn't sung along to the "Oh, oh, oh's" of "Poker Face" while...well...drinking.

Anyway, her newest single is "Love Games." I'm sure this one will do just as well for her as the first two. But, I have to tell you as I was browsing her songs on iTunes I found her HIDDEN GEM. It's BY FAR my favorite. I imagine it will go on to follow "Love Games"...she probably just had to establish credibility as an artist before releasing it. She gets vulnerable in this song, sharing her feelings about what else than...BOYS, (Boys, Boys.)

This song is SOOO Like, OhMyBlog! If you haven't heard it...enjoy! I realized today my love of humor isn't limited to movies, TV, or even real life. Yep... I'm all about those songs that make me LAUGH. Hahaha. Go figure.

Oh, I Heart Backs

....
This weekend is the [official] kickoff of bathing suit season in America.

Memorial Day = Pools Open = Happiness for OhMyLaughter

Granted I went to the beach a few weeks ago and actually wore my bikini in a hot tub in February. But now it’s LEGIT. It’s bikini season.

I’m stoked for Summer. It’s my favorite season HANDS DOWN. I have spent a lot of time in the gym recently and it has only enforced what I have known for a while.

I Heart Nice Backs on Guys.

“Okay,” you say. “I sort of see the relation. She must be checking out the guys weightlifting?” Actually… no.

My gym is pretty big. There are four rows of cardio machines, all facing a wall. The first row is ellipticals. Second row is bikes. And rows three and four are treadmills. The treadmill is my FAVORITE form of torture and I prefer not to have a ton of people walking around me while I’m working out. Because of this, my gut instinct was to go to the third row. It was a little harder to see the TV’s from this location, but I had my iPod, so whatever.

What I didn’t realize until I climbed on up to a third row treadmill was the PERFECT view you have of the back of the exercise biker in front of you. Like if it’s a fit guy, his toned back is smack in front of your face.

Here is a diagram I found online of the muscles he’s “riding to fitness” on an exercise bike:

Yeah…the upper back doesn’t seem to be getting a workout WHATSOEVER. Ohhhhh…but my eyes are. We all know how uncomfortable that little seat gets as you pedal away, so he can’t help but shift around as he’s working out. It’s truly wonderful.

I get as into my iTunes as the next person… and if the TV’s actually had closed captioning I could be reading along. But they don’t. So I tend to shift my gaze from the brickwall, to a TV that I can’t hear, to a guy biker’s back, drool, concentrate on a line or two of the song I'm listening to “You can’t stop me mother-f-er, cause I’m on a Boat” and repeat. For 30+ minutes.

One thing I like about our blog is that we repeatedly come back to the fact that we are interested in more than physical appearances when it comes to guys. Personality, sincerity, and chemistry are all a big deal. A nice back is a plus one (or two) in my book though. ;-)

Love is a building block

I was lying on my new-ish brown shag carpet, thinking about…what else? Love. Relationships. Boys.

Also: My parents. My sister. My future extended family. The future of my current nuclear family.(Photo courtesy of ILoveYouMoreThanBlank.com)

I almost made myself stop. “Emma! Seriously. There are more important things to be thinking about,” I tried to tell myself.

But I sat straight up. Because – honestly – what’s more important than families and love?

Yes, there are greater problems in the world than the fight I had with my sister last night – about who is more likely the culprit who wakes Mom up when we’re getting ready for bed – or whether or not my dating habits have a certain label or not.

There are spiritual and philosophical questions that the greatest minds have been pondering for centuries. There are immediate concerns in military and government affairs that I run into on a daily basis with my job (even as a bottom-of-the-totem pole contractor). There’s famine. There’s war. There’s suffering.

But there’s also love.

Families are the building blocks of every society. Without love, without relationships, without SEX for goodness sake, there would be no world out there. There would be no great minds to struggle to dig up the best solutions to our worst problems.

I bring to you evidence in the form of literary citations:

"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers all wrongs" Provers 10:12

"But boys would be gone without warmth from
A woman's good, good heart" John Mayer, "Daughters."

"...[S]cientific investigation of human behavior has so far failed to develop any systematic understanding of the powerful emotion of compassion...from the Buddhist perspective, the human quest for knowledge and understanding of one's existence stems from a profound aspiration to seek happiness and overcome suffering." Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom.

So someone has to start at the beginning. Someone has to think about dating, relationships, love and sex. Someone has to create these building blocks of society!

By George, if it has to me, I’ll do it! Anyone else want in?

 

Our two favorite things: shoes and boys

(Maybe in that order.)

Apologies for our little timeout here. We're collectively buying too many shoes and dating too many boys. Or something ;)

Anyway! On to the stories.

I just got back from shoe shopping. I was far past-due, with my black flats and black heels both wearing off the heel and becoming slippery and cheap-o and yucky.

So I slipped out of the house in my flippy-floppies over to DSW. I think I found some good shoes (a little more high-quality than the last), at a decent price that are practical, professional, but still fun.

Waiting for the customer in front of me to finish checking out, I notice the cashier rubbing his face and sighing kind of loudly. He also checked his cellphone while the customer was swiping her credit card, which frankly I thought was a bit rude.

But when it was my turn, I was as smiley as usual, hoping to lighten his supposedly stressful shift. He was opening my three boxes, making sure the shoes were ready to go, when he paused over my funky zebra-print pointy-toed flats.

"Are you going to wear these out dancing?" he asked.

"Oh, totally! I love dancing," I said.

"Are you a clubbing kind of a girl?"

"Actually, I haven't been to a forreal club in a while! But I do prefer bars where there is more dancing than bar-standing."

"Oh yeah?" he said, "I bet your boyfriend looooves that."

"Oh umm haha..." (and other awkward sound effects).

"What? You do have a boyfriend, don't you?" he asked.

Ugh. This question! Why? It's so awkward in general, but - typical - I treated it even more awkward than is necessary.

"Umm...define boyfriend?" I asked.

"Oh come on, you know what I mean," he said.

Hold on a second here - we should all know what he means, but I highly doubt it's that black and white for approximately 90% of the dating population. We'll ignore the details on my particular situation, like how 95% of my dancing occurrences lately have been with a boy I'm "dating" (define that term however you like), or how I've "dated" approximately 35 boys and have had 3.75 official "boyfriends" (I'm counting three high school less-than-a-month-but-still-officially-exclusively-defined relations as only .25 each). Oops, those were details, weren't they?

Anyway. My shoes were packaged, paid for, and ready to rock, so I bid him adieu: "Well, I'll see you out on the dance floor! ha...ha..!"

"Actually, I don't feel much like dancing. My girlfriend just broke up with me," he said.

"Oh, well, that's the perfect reason to start dancing!"

"Nah, it's real rough you know. We were together for like two years."

"Oh, wow. I'm really sorry. I know that's tough. I still think you should get out there on the dance floor!"

"Yeah. Maybe. See ya around!"

Yeesh. See ya around indeed. Awkwardness x4 (once for buying shoe deoderizer, twice for the boyfriend question, three times for his break-up, and four times for sorta hitting on me with a half-hearted tone by hoping to see me around)!

But it's okay. Because I have my three new pairs of shoes. And maaaybe a boy. Add it all up and you get a happy LOMB girl.

Why You Should Befriend an Asshole

Ladies, Yes I’m talking to YOU.

So…there’s this guy I met when I first moved to DC. He used to be a co-worker, but that really means nothing at this point as I am…jobless. In his first impression I would say that this guy came off as slick, witty, and a fairly nice guy. BUT, the more I (and my co-workers) got to know him, we realized that he is in fact an ASSHOLE. In terms of the way he treats girls, talks about girls, and basically approaches the world. He is looking out for Numero Uno in any and all circumstances. He doesn’t really care [much] about anyone else.

Here’s the thing though. He’s straight forward about the fact that he’s a dick. He’s fully aware of the way that he treats others and somehow…I became friends with him. I wouldn’t say close friends, I see him about once every two months. FYI--There absolutely is not, nor will there ever be, anything between us. Despite his flirtatious personality, this is one of the most soundly plutonic friendships I have with a single guy at this point. I guess this is due to disinterest on both of our parts? And my belief that there are enough fish in the sea; I can afford to be romantically disgusted by this type of guy.

Today I went to lunch with my friend…and SERIOUSLY LADIES, YOU NEED TO BEFRIEND ATLEAST ONE ASSHOLE. If anything because it’s eye opening.

Since we are friends, its not like he has anything to hide from me about his hookups, thoughts on girls, and on how guys should approach dating. **Cough. Cough. Don’t do it. Cough.** I think the most amusing part about his life is that he still lives at home and this does not prevent him from getting around ONE BIT. I would love to meet his parents. Just see what they are like.

Today he told me about a two hour conversation he had with a guy friend seeking relationship advice. [Brace yourself hopeless romantics]. His perspective is: Don’t date. Don’t waste money on dinners. Don’t deal with relationship drama. And don’t let the girls you hook up with start thinking that you are dating. EVER. He claims to be a clear communicator on his perspective. I would say I probably believe this…picture Dane Cook..a la..My Best Friend’s Girl. Although, I’m almost willing to bet he rarely stays in extended contact with any girls he gets romantic with. All I know is that he claims there are a lot of them. And his Facebook wall alone seems to confirm this.

He’s the type of guy many girls fall for thinking he seems “nice.”
He’s the type of guy many guys marvel at. How can one person have so much game?

It’s actually really entertaining seeing him hit on girls at a bar. The last time we were out he said to me and my friend “I can’t remember this girl’s name that I’m talking to, and I don’t really care.” Nice… TYPICAL… real nice. I guess I enjoy the inside perspective? If I didn’t have a friend like this I don’t think I would be so informed. (I come from a family of nice men and boys.) He says when he hits about 40 he may change his ways. We’ll see.

I think my point is most guys at least tryyy to hide their asshole side. I know for a fact all guys aren’t this bad. If they were no one would ever be dating, in a relationship, or married. And falling in love just wouldn’t happen.

I’m a “nice” person. I like “nice guys.” But no one is “nice” 100% of them time. Chick flicks, fairy tales, and Disney have led us to believe we are all going to live happily ever after. And I do hope to one day get married to my “other half.” But, I haven’t found him yet. And when I do my life won’t be perfect...and for sure the path getting there is a broken road.

All that I’m saying is it’s worthwhile to befriend someone who counteracts the fairytale perspective…in my case a guy who is straight up about the fact that he is an asshole. Most other guys seem better in comparison and if you happen to meet/mingle/date/whatever with a douchebag you at least are that much clearer on how these guys operate. They are just like “so-and-so.” Not to mention…my friend is dishing out advice to other [nicer] guys. Consider yourself warned ;-)