OMFG -- Is there REALLY such thing as The One?

In a word, no.

But, let's not be entirely cynical and jaded now. Let's take a twenty-something's experience-provoked look at the matter, shall we?

I think it's safe to say that we have all, hopeless romantic or not, pondered whether the idea of there being one perfect person for each of us out there exists. You know, a soul mate! A Romeo to Juliet, a Jack to Rose, a little old man from Up! to the little old lady from Up! A destined being who loves us as we are, flaws and all, and we them, and rainbows and unicorns and butterflies and whatever.

I, more than anyone, desired this to be true. (Excuse me while I get a bit maudlin for a second..) My parents, a perfect union present my entire life have a marriage going on 38 years strong now. They moved here from Hong Kong in 1975, married, and have worked as a team together to build not only a happy marriage, but a happy life for my siblings and I. Soul mates? I believed ever since I was little that if ever a thing such existed, it existed in my parents.

But alas, being the starry-eyed girl I was, entering the dating scene with such an unrealistic idea of love in my head proved to be quite challenging. With my skewed vision, I thought if it was meant to be, it would be easy. And to be passionately in love was an overwhelming, Earth-shattering feeling that would never end. Um, nope! Not at all. I don't need to tell you guys that relationships are hard. Effort, compromise, tact and all that jazz in general. 

Love is nice but never enough. I hear of fewer and fewer couples who choose to stay together when the odds are against them. It is an opportunistic, cut-throat, defensive jungle out there and once we go a little awry, it is much easier to dispose than salvage. When all of us are meeting a million new people a mile a minute, the odds of finding some one better just seem that much more tantalizing, now don't they?

But perhaps in our quick-to-jump-ship minds, we've abandoned those who could of been The One material. Destiny is a nice notion, but you can't just expect to lay back and let the universe do the work. Like Blair Waldorf once quipped: "Destiny is for losers. It's just a stupid excuse to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen." Not that Blair was the epitome of wise relationship advice, or any advice really, but this gem of a quote certainly rings true. 

Make things happen. Don't expect The One to suddenly appear in your life but rather work at relationships with significant others you deem worth your while. Who knows, you might just cultivate a soul mate along the way. Or at the very best, some rainbows and unicorns and butterflies...or whatever.
x

OMFG - The Chase: Expectation vs. Reality

Ever since Joseph Gordon-Levitt showed us his split-screen expectation versus reality vision in (the amazing, but also depressingly realistic) 500 Days of Summer, we collectively sighed. No, not over his adorably offbeat charm...but rather because we've all been there. The good old dating game! It never quite lives up to how we picture it, now does it?

Delusions of grandeur are exactly that...delusions. We romantics perhaps have it a bit worse than the rest, but I'd say, even in this jaded and opportunistic urban dating world, everyone is guilty of building things up in their pretty little heads. You want him to do this or lavish you with that, or do that thing that hot leading dude in that rom-com did for his leading lady. (Gosling/Tatum, I'm looking at you!) He, on the other hand, wants you to act this way or do that, or behave like that lady-in-the-streets but freak-in-the-bed chick he saw in that one movie. It's confusing and disappointing and pointless. The key? Adjusting your expectations.

Easier said than done, my fellow daters! The honeymoon period is called so precisely for a reason: the excitement, the courting, the chase...it's absolute heaven. There's nothing quite like the chase and a guy will likely pull out all the romantic, showy stops to get you from eye candy to bed candy...or sometimes girlfriend candy as well. I'm not saying men have to be utter showmen for the duration of the union, but guys...don't do anything you don't plan on up-keeping at least in some way while you're with her.

You can court the crap out of your girl at the beginning, but unless you genuinely can maintain that sort of behavior and, more so, think she deserves it (even after you're with her) then just don't. Seriously. Yes, we're talking financially (it's not like you're comping dinners to the company card here) but also affection-wise. It is more than irksome when a man starts off being intense and intimate and just fades from there. Cue the instant downer sound now. Either she'll resent you for thinking that you were at a level you weren't (or had stronger feelings for her than you do) or you'll resent her for having to execute actions you're just not interested in. Yes, we get it, the chase is the chase, but make it somewhat believable.

And to my girls who get swept away as easily as one, two, Louboutin -- throw in a little logic with those rose-tinted glasses! If he's whisking you away to St. Tropez, or wining and dining you to a ridiculous point within the first few weeks, it's not a good sign. Unless you want to be a little trophy or are a shameless gold digger (both totally plausible options in this city - and if that's your thing - by all means) then steer clear my friends, steer clear.

The trick to adjusting your expectations? Be happy with yourself as is. Anything on top of that will be a nice added perk! Anything that falls short, well, won't matter because you'll be fine one way or the other. Self-loathing makes for all-too-easy delusions of grandeur. Enjoy the chase, go along for the ride, but don't forget to self-tint those rose-colored glasses every now and then. x

OMFG - Do Nice Guys Actually Finish Last?

In the past little while I've read a plethora of articles online about how hard nice guys have it. Mostly opinion, some satire. (Think Vice, Elite Daily, that sort of thing.) They've all been interesting, slightly offensive, and mildly accurate, at best. They do, however, all come to one sad conclusion: in the dating game, nice guys finish dead last. My goodness, what is it about us silly, emotional, self-hating women that causes us to love assholes and make nice guys so utterly miserable? Aren't we just the worst?

Well no. I love how all these articles single-handedly blame women for the demise of the Nice Guy. We're just begging to be treated like shit, apparently, so men oblige as if they're doing us a favor. Here's the thing: women who are happily dating nice guys don't go on writing rampages about it. They also don't rant to all their friends about it. So in truth, the Nice Guy who is happily in a relationship gets a lot less press than the scorned one. And of course he gets a whole lot less press than the Asshole who walks away from his dealings with girls like men in skinny ties and sunglasses walk away from explosions in movies. When it comes to love, we talk about our problems, not our happiness. (No one would of gone to see The Notebook if they just went and got married after happily dating, now would they.)

In my twenty six years of dating, and in my twenty six years of girl friends sharing their stories of the perils of dating, I can truly say there is nothing wrong with nice guys. I welcome them. The problem with dating nice guys is how nice they are in comparison to you...it's the scale of relativity for niceness. Not kidding! For example, I was too nice for one ex (practically an angel in his eyes) and ultimately the devil in the eyes of my next ex. One just happened to be more apt to bad behavior and wavering morals while the other was black and white in his principles. Each saw me accordingly. (Model, promoter, party-loving, flighty, and ice cold when provoked...yet intensely close to my family, university educated, and overly caring and loyal. Confusing, I get it.) It's not that girls don't like nice guys...it's that girls don't like guys that are nicer than they are.

The whole damsel in distress ploy is a thing of the past. Unless a girl is seriously damaged, there's no need for any saving to be done. We're looking for an equally distressed dude to come along for the ride. I've always said, it's not about finding a partner in life, but a partner in crime. This doesn't mean a rag-tag looking, authority-defying, cad of a man, but simply some one who treats me well because he thinks I'm freaking awesome...and not because he's trying to be the Nice Guy.

Apparently I've been blind to a nice guy or two trying to garner my attention, as my girl friends have pointed out. The argument of nice being boring comes to mind, but really, it's just that sparks didn't fly! Nice or not nice, you need the zsa zsa zou to get any relationship going. So men, quit trying to be the Nice Guy and just be the Awesome Dude...i.e. yourself. We smart girls are bound to see what's real and what's fake sooner than you'd think.

So no, we don't want to be stood up, ignored, lied to or treated like shit in general. We like real men who can handle themselves and us as well without relying on stupid little archetypes. The Asshole might not finish last, and neither does the Nice Guy...but you know who does? The Whiny Nice Guy. x

Online Dating - Yay or Nay?

While gorging on lobster spoons and too many desserts during lunch the other day (and really, all good conversation should occur in between bites of lobster spoons) my friends introduced me to an online way of meeting people I had never heard of. And by meeting, I mean potentially banging. After whipping out his iPhone and opening the app, my friend swiftly swiped his hand over the screen, each time revealing the Facebook profile picture of  a girl which he either yayed or nayed. What was this ridiculousness? An app called Tinder. Should some girl you yayed also yay you -- and voila, you now have the feigned online confidence to send her all the creepy winky emojis you'd like.

I was baffled that there was even the demand for an app like Tinder to exist. Is this what we've come to nowadays? Starting interactions based on (likely Photoshopped) Facebook selfies that turn into a series of well-calculated, overly-wrought interactions that lead to, what I can only imagine, are painfully awkward real life meetings? It appears so. Perhaps I'm one of the rare hopeless romantics left out there, but any, seriously any, real life meeting is more romantic and natural than some contrived shoving together of online personas. Seriously, ANY. Drunken club meets look like Ariel and Prince Eric in the canoe compared to this crap.

 Those browsing on something like Tinder probably aren't looking for lasting relationships...but what about those of us who are? Is there a way to meet a legit candidate online that doesn't make you want to lie about how you've met to people when they ask? Sure, the stigma of online dating is less than it was, say ten years ago, with young professionals leading insanely busy, no-nonsense lives -- but still, we can all admit it's not an ideal beginning. "And mommy met daddy by desperately searching through countless trolls and deciding he was the least hideous of the list. Ahh, romance."

I've signed up for eHarmony before. Once, while my then-boyfriend looked on as we laughed about what matches would pop up, and again just recently for the sake of this post. (Yes, I've already deleted the profile and no, I didn't respond to any interactions. Observation only, kids.) Their maudlin, everlasting-love themed commercials always do a number on my sappy self and if I was going to sign up for any dating site, I decided it would be this one. So, dear bloggees, what did my experience reveal? Basically what I thought going into it. It's creepy. It's weird. And it feels awfully unnatural. (Upon revealing that I had signed up for an account to my sister over brunch, she promptly looked horrified, told me to delete it, and said that I was 'prey' just waiting for online lurkers to hunt me down. This did not help.)

After filling out an extensive personality questionnaire which included sections on morals, looks, lifestyle, and more, I was shown my potential 'matches' who were specifically picked out for me. And I must say, the pickings were slim. Despite being 5"10, anti-sports and urban-minded, I kept receiving icebreakers from outdoorsy, sport-loving 5"6 men from small towns outside Toronto. Fail, eHarmony. Fa to the ail. Regardless of the not-so-plenty of fish in the online dating sea, I just couldn't get over the concept of it all. There's no mystery, No whimsy. And not a shred of wonder to any of it. Even if Channing Tatum had appeared in my matches, I could never bring myself to send an icebreaker over the freaking computer to a guy I was potentially interested in.

The whole experience merely reaffirmed what I already know: I'm a hopeless romantic living in a non-romantic world. Woe is me. But I'll take my chances in the real world of meeting people over the constructed world of meeting profiles any day. All the info I had listed on my profile is meant to be revealed over candid conversation, flirty arm touches, too many whiskey sours and, most importantly, over many, many lobster spoons -- not over clicks of a keyboard. Until next time darling bloggees, I'll see you in the flesh and blood. x