If I Don't Call...

Q: Does it mean that i dont care?

A: No it doesn’t mean you don’t care, however, it can/may convey to the person who wants to hear from you that you’re not willing to step outside your comfort zone to let them into your thought processes. A lot of space in between phonecalls during a time of newness just sends a message of disinterest.
It also depends on who or what this person is to you, did you mention up front that you’re not really a phone person, are you using that as an excuse to not really be bothered to exert the energy?

The same way you wish to know without a shadow of a doubt that someone’s into you… the same way, the other person would want to know.

I’m a firm believer that one makes time, or does what one doesn’t necessarily like to do, if one decides that the other party merits it or not.

Granted, in every relationship, it seems as though one party ends up with the onus of keeping it going. There’s one person that will call more often, one person that will say, I haven’t heard from … in a while, let me see what’s up. I guess with every relationship, you decide… which one you’re going to be or evolve into.

For a relationship (any type) to grow or go anywhere, it takes some nurturing, some time and some sacrifice… ergo, so if the phone is not it… you betta be an emailing so and so, a texting so and so, an IM-ing so and so or a postcard mailing so and so… do something so the other party knows they’re not in this thing… alone.

Jus my two cents.

Blog Tour: Meet Victorya Michaels Rogers

Happy Valentine’s Day! Online dating can be adventure to say the least as Dee has found out. Here are some tips out of my latest dating book THE AUTOMATIC 2nd DATE to make your adventure a bit more fun and “successful” as you anticipate your next first date, whether you met him online, at church or through a friend.

Victorya Michaels Rogers, author THE AUTOMATIC 2nd DATE

DEE: Your new book offers a unique dating approach. Why focus so much on getting a 2nd date?

VICTORYA: If you can’t get past the first date, you won’t be booking a honeymoon anytime soon. The sad thing is ladies who would really be great catches are just blowing it and scaring their dates away by making silly, careless mistakes on their first dates—like talking too much, obsessing on exes, talking about marriage, calling the guy before or after the first date. If they just tweak a few of their dating behaviors, they can transform their dating life without changing who they are! If these secrets become a habit, you can stop stressing about first dates and focus on your man and deciding if HE is the great catch and worth your time. When you do that, 2nd dates become automatic.

DEE: 98 of 100 first dates asked you out for a 2nd! Were you just a natural at dating or was there a point in your dating life where things dramatically changed to gain that high percentage?

VICTORYA: I was NOT a natural at dating. They don’t teach you how to date in school. Sure I had my share of 1st dates, but I didn’t have my first BOYFRIEND until I was 21! It wasn’t until utter frustration at 23 that I decided to really study the art of dating. I read every dating book on the shelves and observed successful couples and watched the celebrities around me since I was in Hollywood. I learned the walk and the talk and finally men took notice, asked me out and the 2nd dates began to become automatic.

DEE: How can one back on the dating scene after a long absence adopt this hopeful attitude?

VICTORYA: Before you jump back into the world of dating allow yourself time to heal and reflect on where you’ve been. What was missing in your past love life? This is your season to really make it all about you. Love yourself first and deliberately pursue the life you always wanted! If you’re a single mom, obviously you need to seriously consider the needs of your children. But you also have to take care of you and come up with what you really want in a relationship before you start dating again. If you don’t know what you want then you’ll just date whoever takes notice and most likely that is was your problem in the past. You are valuable deserve to have a great relationship. But you have to believe that and know to recognize him when is comes along!

DEE: You say every woman has an internal “Male GPS.” What is it and how do we use it?

VICTORYA: Available men are everywhere -- at the drive-thru, at work, at school, at church, at restaurants, at the mall, the gas station, sporting events, etc. You just have to know what you’re looking for and believe he exists. The Male GPS –male global positioning satellite—is in your mind. Your mind is an extremely power instrument that is always working and wants to be right! We’re just bombarded with so much information we need to focus. When you think about something enough, amazingly it seems to begin appearing everywhere you go. Let’s talk cars as an example. If you want that new blue Honda SUV, of course you believe it exists and it’s on your mind so it suddenly stands out every time one drives by. Just like thinking of your next car, think about what kind of guy you want.

The key to finding your next 1st date begins with your mind. You can instantly turn on your internal MALE GPS by figuring out specifically what you’re looking for in a guy, visualizing a man with those traits and believing he exists.

DEE: In Automatic 2nd Date you list many unique places to meet men. Tell us a few.

VICTORYA: Aside from the internet which as you know is quite the popular place to meet these days, there are many places to meet men right where you live. I advise skipping bars and clubs and just plunging yourself into the social world around you—be it at your church, country club, charity, or a special-interest group at your community center, even your work place! As you interact with more and more people, you will automatically find yourself around — and introduced to — available men.

DEE: What would you say to someone who went on a date, thought everything was perfect, yet never received a call back for a second date?

VICTORYA: If you haven’t heard back from your date within a couple of weeks, even if you were convinced it went wonderfully, think back about that evening. Did you really have anything in common? Did you talk too much about yourself? Did you “go too far” physically to the extent that you felt a little guilty the next day? Did you act too needy, too pushy, too bossy, too snotty or too boring? If any of this is the case, your date may have been scared away and wouldn’t tell you even if you asked. Don’t be too hard on yourself, though; just let it go. It was only one date and if he’s gone, that person wasn’t meant for you. At least by reviewing it honestly in your mind, you may be able to learn what to do on your next first date.

DEE: Today is Valentine’s Day. You say it’s bad to spend a lot of money on your man today. How does buying your date gifts hurt your relationship without you knowing it?

VICTORYA: Buying your man expensive gifts puts pressure on him, especially on Valentines Day. You want your man to feel like the pursuer, not the chased! Make any gift you give him more about the thought than the price tag and never out give your man. If he can’t afford to reciprocate he’ll feel he’s not good enough for you and leave. If he can reciprocate but doesn’t want to, he’ll feel pressured and leave. It’s a no win situation. So before marriage, think thoughtful and little in regards to gift giving and offer lots of gushy thanks when he gives YOU gifts.

DEE: Thanks for all your tips Victorya. Do you have a website my readers can check out for more dating secrets?

VICTORYA: Indeed I do. My website has a lot dating secrets for single women! Check it out-- it’s http://www.mantokeep.com/. You can also order my books and learn about my coaching program. I hope I have helped you begin to see that dating does NOT have to be overwhelming, scary and stressful. In fact, believe it or not, you can actually enjoy the process if you take the time to find out what you REALLY want in a man, sharpen your dating skills and take risks. There is so much information I’d love to impart to you to make dating less anxiety filled, so feel free to visit my site anytime and/or check out my book The Automatic 2nd Date.

Victorya Michaels Rogers, Dating Coach, Author The Automatic 2nd Date

First Comes Friendship, Then Comes Marriage

By Aurelie Sheehan
Author of History Lesson for Girls

This month my husband and I are celebrating our eighth anniversary -- safely and well beyond the Seven Year Itch. We have a good marriage, and much to celebrate. What makes it work? I don’t know -- luck, probably. Or maybe it’s because it resembles, more than the relationships I’ve had with some men, the neglected, yet deeply important bond I shared with my childhood best friend.

It’s Jenny -- not Jim, Joe, Jack, John, or Jasper -- who gave me a sense of what is possible in love (minus, as they say, one thing).

1. Conversation before, during, and after school

As teenagers in a suburban Connecticut town in the seventies, Jenny and I were completely baffled, often quite amused, and sometimes horrified by what we saw around us. What could we do about it? Not much -- except we could talk.

Talking is how we made sense of things: seventies-style foibles, marriages gone awry, a school full of aliens from outer space. We laid out plans for the future, we contemplated the Essential Truth of Jim Morrison (and Jim Morrison's leather pants); we talked about poetry, mascara, and everything in between. Words were our currency, and with them, we remade the world.

My husband and I also remake the world through talking. Our world has gotten a little wider, perhaps, but we still analyze and discuss the heck out of it to make sense of the thing. We’ve got certain spots for certain kinds of discussion: the Big Topics often require the chairs in the living room, the Tense Topics are done on the fly (room to room, too hot to sit for long), and the Fun Topics are done during dinner prep. At lunch, we talk about the news of the day. And at night we talk about all manner of subjects (though he’s currently wary of revealing important new plans to me at this juncture, for once or twice my ever-lengthening silences have turned into sleep.)

Soon after we met, I told my future husband that I wished we could take a train together, a long journey, so we could just talk and talk and talk. He smiled at me. He said he likes trains, too. And he didn’t have to tell me he likes to talk. A few months later we rode our first train together, a dream come true, two very chatty people in seats 2A and 2B.

2. A whole bunch of sleepovers

They were about time, of course. Time to talk (definitely), and time just to hang out. And also my sleepovers with Jenny re-energized the most basic routines of life. A slight bore on its own, brushing my teeth became incredibly fun when we were doing it together, when a toothpaste glob had trickled down her chin, and we were nearly dying of toothpaste asphyxiation while laughing and doing a chicken dance in our Lanz of Salzburg nightgowns.

When my husband goes away, I realize how simply having company for all the mundane and everyday chores (going to Home Depot, making dinner, taking plates out of the dishwasher) makes each thing a lot more fun. Not that I always appreciate it -- it’s an embarrassment of riches, now. Do I get worked up with joy over going to Home Depot to pick up a new mop head? Not totally. But were we to do the chicken dance in the parking lot.

3. A second pirate in the Caribbean

A few months before we got engaged, I was applying for an important job. Right before the interview, my husband said: “Okay, so listen. Helen Keller once said: ‘Life is either a grand adventure or nothing at all.’ So go get ‘em, honey. You’re going to do great.”

I got the job, but more significantly I got the concept. I like to think of this marriage as a grand adventure. Yes, we’ve got the Home Depot runs and the domesticity, but the fact is, ever since I met my husband, I’ve had a conviction that our life together is full of possibility.

It’s a feeling I remember from high school, when Jenny would look over at me, we’d lock devilish stares, and then go out and do some incredibly stupid thing. But fun thing, usually. We gave each other chutzpa. We said yes to galloping our horses down the road at top speed, yes to the next party, yes to skipping algebra. Yes, most of all, to life.

4. A secret language

Jenny and I made one up and used it whenever necessary. It was an offshoot of a language she used with her dog, a waddling little Pekinese called Tammy. “Hey, Beeyoqueen, I sib suddo,” one of us would say. It was cool to have our own secret code. We felt it would be useful should we ever get arrested, for instance, which we, well, were. (It wasn’t quite as fun to chat in the back of the cop cruiser as we’d imagined it would be.) But even a simple interaction -- asking for a match or a sip of Seven-Up -- changed if we spoke our own language; it became consecrated, wholly our own thing.

My husband and I have our own language too. Sure, we’ve got your classic marital grunts and shorthand expressions to get us through before the second cup of coffee. But we’ve also developed a fascinating franglish to deploy when trying to baffle our seven-year-old. “Success a la Target purchase? Le puzzlement de la petit Potter?” he might ask, to which I’ll gesture in a quite Parisian fashion. (The kid is catching on, by the way.)

5. A place to stash my (proverbial) cigarettes

I had secrets then and I have secrets now. Back then, they were easy -- externalized, something to hide in a drawer. I don’t smoke anymore, and so I’d say my secrets now are more in the lines of character flaws. Not that I’m completely and utterly flawed, but still. These flaws or weaknesses insist upon themselves, seem tricky enough to keep coming back, and my husband knows them as well as I do. He also knows my strengths, as I do his. But I like to know that I can safely store my pack of bad habits in his house, and he won’t throw me out for it.

6. An undying, forever-feeling, all-or-nothing, Us vs. Them conviction

It may not be at the forefront of my consciousness every single time I pour a jar of Trader Joe’s marinara into a pot for a hasty dinner while he’s lying face down on the couch before a televised golf tournament. But put us at risk and it’s right there. When the doctor told my husband about his predilection for heart disease, for instance. Or when we had to find our way through the crowds in New Delhi during the Republic Day parade. Or even at certain unending dinner parties at which new theories on why there’s no such thing as global warming are being explained.

We band together then, as Jenny and I did when we were teenagers. Back then, every day felt like running the gauntlet, filled with new threats and drama and confusion. We were trying to step up to the plate; trying to explain, to articulate, who we were. We were able to succeed, sometimes, because we knew we had each other.

7. An apparently untiring audience for the first draft of my poems

And this was a heck of a lot easier for Jenny, because I only wrote one or two poems a week. And they were poems. But now I write novels. And I want him to read not just this draft but that draft and then that draft, also? The man is incredible as a reader and editor. The poems Jenny and I shared were in our handwriting, in our journals, and I’ll always love her careful square letters, whimsical and reluctant both.

8. A person who will tell me if these black shoes look better than those black shoes (she was a little better at this)

Well, never mind about this one. Forget it.

9. Mad Magazine, or something similar

We were very, very funny. We had a repertoire. We had an arsenal. We especially liked to use it during class, or when describing the personal style of various sinisterly athletic classmates or the Spanish teacher who just gave us a C+. My parents thought Jenny was too critical, too sarcastic, and her parents thought I was an oddball, out of touch. It didn’t matter what they thought, as long as we could laugh.

I remember dating a guy who was nice in every way, but our senses of humor didn’t quite match up, and that was it: we were history. Thankfully, my husband is in the other room with a big red ball on his nose right now, about to launch into morning limerick, so I think we’ll be okay.

10. Changes, yes, but some things that stay true

She changed a lot, during those years, and so did I. It was not always easy. And there have been stretches in our adult lives when we’ve fallen out of touch, when it’s not been possible to explain life changes, new mates, rapid decisions. We weather these dry spells -- in part, I believe, because we remember how our friendship was a ballast we could find nowhere else in our young lives.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. My husband and I used Shakespeare famous words at our wedding, as have many other plucky English majors.

The quote is also a decent definition of friendship.

Copyright © 2007 Aurelie Sheehan

Author Aurelie Sheehan is the author of the short story collection Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant and the novel The Anxiety of Everyday Objects. The director of the creative writing program at the University of Arizona, she has received a Pushcart Prize, a Camargo Fellowship, and the Jack Kerouac Literary Award. She lives in Tucson with her husband and daughter.

For more information, please visit www.aureliesheehan.com

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Photo credit: Martha Lochert

Age is Just a Number - The Serial is Back! - Vol II

Hi Folks,

For those of you who purchased, reviewed, proof read or commented on the blog posts for Volume I. Volume II is now about to begin.

Well actually the preamble began during NaNoWriMo 2006, however it fell by the wayside. So I’m now getting back to the vehicle that helped me create the first volume: blogging!

So every Thursday, I’ll begin posting the latest or edits of the previous chapter.

So without further ado, here’s the preamble - (Unedited so please don’t hold that against me):

Thursday, November 1, 2006, 8:00 p.m.

I never thought I’d be one of those twenty-five … again folk because I’m so grateful to be here, plus I’m so used to folk saying, “You have a twenty-one-year-old daughter? Stop playing!” that I got caught out there when it happened:

There I was minding my own business standing outside of the neighborhood Wal*Mart when the words I thought I’d never hear were spoken, “Excuse me ma’am?”

Ensconced in the surety that I wasn’t the one being addressed, I kept on searching, my eyes peeled for the “I heart Jesus” license plate that would signal the approach of my brother-in-law’s van when the words came again, “Ma’am, ahem, excuse me ma’am?”

Annoyed now that whoever was being addressed was being so rude, I whipped my head around to give that person the evil eye, when directly in my line of vision was a teenager looking hopefully at me.

I looked past him, sure that he needed my help to gain the attention of said ma’am, but alas there was no one close enough to us to whom he could have been referring but … me!

Pushing the ramifications of that to the back of my mind I focused on the stocky teenager as I asked, “Were you talking to me?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He answered. “Do you know what time the next whirly bird (our local bus) will be coming?”

After a quick glance at my watch, I pointed to the left and said, “The next bus will be by in fifteen minutes, but you’re standing in the wrong spot, the bus stop was recently moved you need to go down there, where all the other people are standing.” And in full parental mode I added, “Do you have exact change for the bus? It’s fifty cents to ride one way and two dollars if you need to transfer.”

“Thanks, ma’am, I’m good.” He said then jogged on down to where the other bus riders were lined up.

Now that he was gone, I could safely pull out that word and examine it. In less than five minutes, I’d been addressed as Ma’am four times … count it … four times. Yes, I know there are weightier issues, the upcoming elections, the plight of the poor, Jesus’ return – I get that but you see Ma’am just isn’t me.

I’m the cool parent, the one my daughter’s friends wanted to hang with. The one who had so much stamina she could dance all the teens under the table, show them how to do round offs, cartwheels or flips without batting an eye. Attend dance classes with teens and hit that split with nary a problem.

Ma’am is some overweight, forty-something woman, who’s not down with the slang of the day, has no clue as to the latest clothing or hairdo trends, wears shoes for comfort instead of to enhance the shape of her legs and doesn’t care if she’s wearing make-up or not.

I looked down at myself, cool boots—check, bootleg cut jeans—check, passed my hand through my locs—check, looked at my coat—okay X, licked my unvarnished lips—okay X … again, slang meter—check, weight—okay X, age—okay X again.

So by my own meter, created when I was ooooh about his age, I’d unknowingly metamorphosed into “Ma’am!”

What can I do to reverse that? When did it happen? Was it when I moved from New York to Pennsylvania? In my attempt to fit in had I compromised on my citified edginess?

I mean, just three years ago, I was the famous “Divine” of Age is Just a Number: Adventures in Online Dating fame. Younguns were coming out of my ears… well not sixteen year-olds … (don’t wanna get reported for child abuse … LOL) but twenty was not at all a stretch. Of course I verbally spanked them and sent them back to their mamas, but still … there was no “ma’am” on the horizon.

Is this what turning forty is about? If so … who do I have to annoy, bribe or pay to get off this rollercoaster to the land of decline?

Seriously though, I am thankful for every year that I’m here, for at fourteen with the onset of bipolar disorder I was ready to end it all, but for God’s intervention. However, how do I deal with the in-between stage in which I now find myself?

To hear me tell it, I’m still a hip, happening fool, however, when I use slang in her presence, my daughter quickly says, “Umm, mom … please don’t do that again.” Or when I attempt to go exercise in exercise clothes (brilliant blue spandex with a sweat shirt no less) she bars the door and asks, “You’re not going outside like that, are you?” When did spandex (exercise clothing) become déclassé?

Well, if this is what turning forty-one has in store for me … I would rather reminisce a bit more. After all my past had much to recommend it: not only was I thirty-seven and thinner–everyone (the men and young men, i.e.) thought I was only twenty-five and were not shy in approaching me. What? I’m not kidding. Grabbing the journal:

My journal remembers…

Monday, April 21, 2003, 10:15 p.m.
PART XV: IS THAT A TYPO?

MEANWHILE, back at BV, I finally got around to reading the other note I’d received. After the disappointing outcome of my first attempt at dating, I was happy to see the words angel and music included in his alias, although the lost part made me wonder if I’d have to dig a lot to find him—or maybe he was looking for himself?

My fanciful imaginings aside, I clicked on the link and read the email. Well, let me tell you, it more than made up for the trespasses of Pete! It was complimentary without being effusive and poetic without making me gag.

He wanted to know how he could get to know me and if I would give him a moment of my time. I quickly looked up his profile and found that he was into music as well! A Christian to boot, but no pic—durn!

I continued reading. He had a management company and worked with Christian artists only. He had a link to his site which I, of course, clicked on. Upon viewing the site, I was impressed by his professionalism and straightforward, no holds barred attitude. That’s what I’m talking about, I said to myself, as I broke out in goose pimples.

I returned to his BV profile to get some more personal details. Six feet one inch, 185 lbs, Puerto Rican/Jamaican ancestry (waaa hooo) age 25, location, GA … Hol’ up! Twenty-five? Was that a typo? The three is right next to the two … maybe he hit two by accident—and when did twenty-five-year-olds start sounding so mature? Must be a typo.

I thought about it for a bit, did the math three times, but the outcome equaled a twelve-year difference every time. Must be a typo.

Well, only one way to find out. I penned an appreciative response, then segued to my main area of concern… the age thingy. Amid much kudos about the site and his witnessing I slipped in the question—“was that a typo?”—in such a way that it was quite clear that twenty-five was cute and sweet, but not in the running.

Strangely enough, I received no reply.

I checked back the next day and the day after that … nothing. In the meantime I re-read the email and his BV page, and you know what? After the third or fourth re-read, twenty-five was starting to not sound so harsh. Heck, I don’t even look thirty! (Or so folk keep telling me). He sounded so mature, and most importantly, he was a Christian and proud of it.

I re-read my response, and it did sound kind of condescending. So I sent another note, apologizing if I’d offended—I’d been caught off guard by the age thing. I guess that was the ticket, because a response came in mere seconds after I hit “send.”

He accepted my apology, and in essence told me not to get caught up in numbers, since age, after all, is just a number. He also included a few other numbers: his phone number at work…

Dang, I hate it when men do that… put the ball in my court by divulging their number first. I think it’s a new fangled strategy where they appear to be putting us in the driver’s seat, so that we feel safe or empowered. Personally, I just think it’s laziness on their part.

That occurred at 10:00 a.m. I spent an hour dithering over a promotional mailing to the subscribers on my mailing list, telling myself that I really wasn’t going to call. What would be the point? His age had been confirmed as a non-typo.

By 11:20 a.m. I was dialing the phone number. I got a voice mail for someone named Christine and dropped the phone like a sixteen year old. Dang, I’d already begun regressing. I’d swept right past twenty-five to arrive at sixteen.

Pressing the phone receiver against my hot cheeks while berating myself (you are soooo sad), I composed myself and redialed the number. This time I left a message stating that the message was for Bachelor Music Angel, and left my phone number.

I spent the next twenty minutes working frenetically. I jumped at every car horn outside my office window. Finally, the phone rang. Just to be sure, I answered it in my business voice: “Div’s Book Nook.”

It was him! He sounded so cute—voice all soft, sweet and melodious. We talked for about thirty minutes and then I had to take a business call. I promised to call him back.

Business taken care of, I returned his call. Twenty minutes into that conversation, he had to go. He then called me back. I asked him if all this phone time wouldn’t be a problem, and he said he was cool. He was just on a subcontract assignment while someone was out. (Okay … that explained the Christine on the voice mail.)

Next I addressed the fact that he had no picture on his profile. He told me that he used to have one up, but got too many crazy emails so he took it down.

Alrighty then! “So how does a sistah go about seeing one of those make-a-woman-lose-her-mind pics?” I asked.

He chuckled, “Just ask and it shall be given unto you.” Ooooh … Biblical flirting! I can get with this! I thought to myself. We continued chatting, while I waited for the pics to hit my inbox.

To Be Continued…

11 Things Women Don't Know About Men

Plus one thing they probably do know, but won’t admit

By Evan Marc Katz Special to Yahoo! Personals
Updated: Jul 18, 2007

1. Getting angry at us for not reading your mind is like getting angry at yourself for not being able to fly. It’s not just futile, it’s physically impossible.
2. Yes, we do think Jessica Alba is hot. Sometimes we’re even dumb enough to admit it.
3. Don’t ask us to understand your shoe fetish. Asking us to respect it is even sort of pushing it.
4. You do look good without makeup, just not as good as you look with it.
5. Ever notice how we don’t fight with our male friends? That’s why we get so frustrated when we fight with you.
6. You care what you’re wearing infinitely more than we do. In fact, if you’re naked when you open the front door, you won’t hear an argument from us.

To read the entire article, click here.