Old-Fashioned Dating Rules That Still Apply

DATING is ALWAYS the number one topic between my girl friends and I.

Read an article during my lunch break and I thought I’d share. The author has 19 rules but I only listed my top choices:

“There is no question the dating rulebook has changed. Just in the last 50 years, societal events such as the feminist movement, birth control, increased lifespan, and the Internet have created new rules of engagement. But just as some things change, some things stay the same.

Dating is thought (rightfully so) to be a confusing process but the more we go back to the basics, the more successful we’ll be. Here are 19 good ol’ fashioned rules that still apply today.

1. Always Look Your Best: Attraction is very primal. We’re attracted to “good looks.” That said, You never know when you may meet that special someone at the supermarket, or gas station, or on the street. If you always look your best, you’ll always stand the best chance to secure a date.

2. Confidence is Sexy: Men love a woman with confidence. Be sure to smile, keep your back straight, listen attentively, walk with your shoulders back and speak slowly. This will make you seem confident, even if you are quivering with nervousness inside.

4. We Show Our Respect With Our Time: If he’s 5-10 minutes late, he may be pulling a Diddy and he’s trying to make an entrance. However, 10 minutes plus, with no phone call, is simply rude. Multiple incidents like this show you exactly what how much respect he has for your time.

5. Gentlemen Offer To Pay: This rule will be debated for the next 1000 years and for the next 1000 years, the answer will be the same. If he’s a gentleman, he’ll offer to pay on the first date (regardless of who asks). If he doesn’t, it doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy but it does mean his chivalry skills are lacking.

6. Good Manners Are Telling: We should all know that the good manners of saying “please” and “thank you” never ever goes out of style, especially on a date.

7. Why Buy The Cow When You Can Get The Milk for Free?: Don’t rush sexual intimacy. Early sex is one sure-fire way to ruin a relationship. Make him prove his love for you before you get intimate. This rule is gospel!

9. Ain’t Nothin’ Open After Midnight ‘Cept Legs: Don’t accept requests for late meetings with your new guy. If he has respect for you and your time, he will make plans for a more decent dating hour. Otherwise, beware that he’s only looking for a booty call.

12. Don’t Offer Too Much Too Early: People like people they can’t figure out in one evening. Don’t divulge too much and keep your dates short. Short dates will keep him longing for more.

14. A Man With No Plan Isn’t Ready For You: If you find yourself having the “what do you want to do tonight” conversation on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd dates, chances are he’s just not that into you.

16. You’ll Kiss A Few Frogs Before You Find Your Prince: Do not be discouraged when it seems that that your dates never lead to anything meaningful. That’s what dating is about — going out with new people to get to know more about your likes, deal breakers and to get better at your own social skills. Your prince is out there!

17. Phone Calls Win: Modern technology has provided a million and one ways to contact potential dates – email, text, Facebook message, and tweet to name a few. No matter how far technology advances, the phone call will always best way to connect (aside from in-person). All methods other than phone are simply not as brave, direct, or clear.

18. It’s What He Says, Not What He Does: Actions speak louder than words… PERIOD!”

By Paul Carrick Brunson, via Essence.com

Fav Lyric of the Week

“A moment of clarity appeared in my life / The day you came along and opened up my eyes,
And although I wasn’t looking I came to find / The perfect reflection of what love should look like,
Cause I’m alright when I’m with you / Don’t have to change when I’m with you,
We’re both unusually, both undeniably, we’re just perfectly different”

-Karina Pasian

Unless You’re A Waitress: Never Wait On A Man

Ladies… Specifically younger ladies. Whoever you are, if you are on my blog for some reason and you are in a relationship with a man and you are not happy, read this please. I am speaking from the depths of my heart to you in hopes that you will stop wasting your time waiting on a man. Trust me, I have been there and done that for many years of my life so I can definitely speak to you from pure experience. ‘Experience’ being three things – (1) me investing myself full force into relationships with boys, (2) me being almost-happy and therefore having hope that things will start to look up, and (3) crying and heartbroken in the end because the relationship failed for whatever reason.

You see. Those three things are the key to failure:

• If you are INVESTING too much of yourself and giving your all, this is actually NOT the thing to do with a boyfriend
• If you have HOPE that things will start to look up, you have already started on the WRONG foot
• CRYING. No man on earth should ever make you cry unless he is proposing to you or something of the sort

If you remember those three things, I guarantee you gals that you will find yourself happier. And THAT, my dears, is the one and only ultimate goal in love: Loving yourself and being happy. So it doesn’t matter if you end up being single for a while waiting on a good guy. The key to love is loving yourself and respecting yourself first and foremost. Let me explain…

First of all, don’t ever wait on a man unless you’re a freakin’ waitress. Matter of fact, do you know what waitresses do? They are told to wait on their customer, take orders, bring them whatever it is they desire, be on time and look decent, always smile, and at the end of the meal, the customer gives them a tip. You have to ask yourself are you willing to be treated like a waitress. (Even good guys can treat you like a waitress whether they realize it or not so pay attention). Do you want to put in time and work with a boy you like just to be given a tip at the end? And I don’t mean money, I mean literally a TIP — as in the SHORT end of the stick. We have got to stop the madness. If you keep wondering why you are giving your all and he still can’t give you 100%, I have been there too. Read some of my really old posts about heartbreak, lol.

Have a little more faith in yourself. No, a LOT more faith in yourself. If you don’t, he won’t.

There are tons of great guys out there. This is definitely not a blog post that is set out to say that guys don’t treat women right. What I’m saying here is that guys only treat certain girls certain ways. So if you are showing him that you are willing to give him what he wants, he is going to naturally start expecting you to give him what he wants. When he wants it. And how he wants it. Girl stop.

In case your daddy didn’t already let you in on this, women are God’s gift to the world and so you’d better not settle for less. We have to know and UNDERSTAND what it is that we want out of life and the people in it before we can think about expecting to be happy. But anyway, back to the subject on the table.

Here’s what to do:

• Instead of INVESTING everything you have into a guy that you like (i.e. making sure you look beautiful every time he sees you, cooking for him, sex, being there for him whenever he needs something, etc.), leave something to his imagination. And not just physically. What I mean is, if you’re trying super hard to be wifey, he won’t have anything to look forward to. You’ve already shown him every ounce of your potential by throwing yourself at him. Basically, don’t be so available. It’s the little things – stop waiting by the phone, stop trying to be perfect, etc. Make him want for you and make him long to hear from you and make him miss you being around because he misses your laugh and things of that nature *wink*
• Never ever be with a guy that you HOPE will change or that you HOPE will come around. Stop right there. If he’s too immature, he’s too flirtatious, he’s not ready to settle down, he’s too busy, whatever – don’t HOPE for anything with him. A guy that you have to HOPE will change is obviously not the one for you, correct? Because true love is when you can ask yourself: if I could change anything about this person to make them perfect for me, what would I change? -and the answer is that you wouldn’t change a damn thing! You should feel that way about a person before you begin to give him special attention and share personal things with him. And hopefully he would feel the same way about you. He shouldn’t be HOPING either. If he’s hoping that you get your life together and get your priorities straight, or he hopes that you will change your hair, or he hopes that you will make more money, anything – he doesn’t need to be with you if something about you makes him hesitate. Because that means you aren’t the one for him and/or you need to look at yourself and ask yourself if you’re even ready to be in a relationship right now. Now, everyone has room for improvement and everyone has potential. So I’m not saying you young’ns need to find a man that has a good job and drives an expensive car. I dated someone who was a cook at Sonic Drive-In and we had a fantastic relationship for three years! But what I’m saying is just know where you stand and know what you want for right now. Does this person make you smile?
• Which brings me to the third point: Has the person made you CRY??? This is the number one no-no. There is no way that someone that so-called cares about you can do something intentionally that hurts you. Open your eyes and realize that you deserve to be treated better. And if you don’t think you deserve to be treated better, you need to ask yourself what you want to change about yourself and your personal life that will allow you to have more self-love. Don’t waste your time on someone who hurts your feelings, doesn’t listen to you, doesn’t try to compromise with you, cheats on you, lies to you, and all that other nonsense. There are plenty of great guys. Just look around you. Don’t get hung up on just one guy and regret it one or two years later that you wasted so much time, money, patience, and love. You could have been giving all of that to someone who deserved it. And BETTER YET, you could have been giving all of that to…

…YOURSELF 🙂

The way to a man’s heart is NOT through his stomach, girl. Listen to me, I’ve been there and done that. The way to a man’s heart is through his heart. Think about it. Waiting on a man is stupid. There are many great guys out here, like I already said. But we can bring the best out of people by making the right investments and making sure we are not being used. It’s okay to invest. It’s okay to be hopeful and it’s okay to cry. But make good decisions. Make decisions that put a smile on your face at the end of the day.

Hope I helped someone today with this post, because it’s been on my mind for a while. But I do understand that most women have to learn the HARD way before completely understanding their own heart and mind and knowing what they deserve. I just wish everyone the best! Because I am finally happy and in love and I can say that I have never felt this happy and complete before. It’s out there for you too. Live and learn. That is all.

🙂

Fav Lyric of the Week

” ‘Cause I love the gap between your teeth / And I love the riddles that you speak / And any snide remarks from my father about your tattoos will be ignored / ‘Cause my heart is yours”

-Taylor Swift, Ours

Divorcing After A 77-Year Marriage

An old Italian couple – Antonio, 99, and Rosa, 96 – have been happily married for 77 years. They have 5 children, a dozen grandchildren, and one great-grand. He first met her while he was serving in the Italian Carabinieri in the 1930s.

However, Antonio is now filing for divorce after coming across some love letters Rosa had exchanged with a man she was having an affair with in the 50s…

Really? -___-

This will make them the world’s oldest pair of divorcees.

I can’t imagine how either one of them feel. Initially, I mostly felt bad for Rosa because the affair was something that she had done when she was in her 30s – that’s nearly 7 decades ago, which most of us alive today can’t even imagine what life was like in the 1940s! But the more I really thought about it, I then felt just as bad for Antonio. If you had been married to someone for 77 years, I would only imagine that there is an undeniable and unquestionable amount of love and trust! So just picture what kind of emotions you would be going through if you found out after ALL THESE years that your soul mate had cheated on you at some point in time. You would feel pain, shame, and heartbreak, except probably intensified to the 10th degree.

I don’t know. I feel bad for them both. I’m not sure how they both will be able to go on in life after this. They are both in their 90s. Simply the stress of the divorce is enough to kill someone at that age – not to mention the heart ache of being cheated on. It’s a blessing to live that long. But I guess Antonio aint playin’ no games with his dignity…

Over It

I’m totally over the break up that I was acting all torn up over a few months ago. If you read those blog posts, you know that I was still stuck on him and trying to hold on to something that just wasn’t there anymore. Or was it ever really there?

Anyway, how did I get over him? How did I move on? You have to want it. I claimed I wanted to get over our break up. But 100% of you has to really want it. And I was still hoping that somehow we would end up getting back together…whether it would take a couple years or so of being apart (bahaha, what a joke). I had to come to grips with reality. No matter how much you want to make it work with somebody, even through the bad times, if it’s not meant to be, there’s just nothing you can do about it. And how much you want it back just can’t play any part at all in it because in the end, you’re just playing yourself.

So what did I do to get over him? I threw away every little thing that reminded me of him. I stopped wondering if he was thinking of me too (because I’m sure he was not). And also I stopped blogging about him. Of course blogging and keeping a diary and venting to friends could help us get over somebody. But at the same time, I just kept having a reason to continuously bring him up over and over again. So I just quit with discussing him altogether. Even if I had a really bad dream that he was in, like I blogged about a few times, I just sent that thought to the recycle bin of my mind. I guess the break up was still a minimized window on the desktop of my mind, lol. Had to get rid of that as a whole. Once I LET GO, it was easy to not miss him and it was easier to think about him. I was literally holding on to a whole lot of nothing anyhow.

I still don’t regret anything and I still do care about him. But I took my heart back. Sad songs no longer remind me of him. I have no reason to think about him. I really just had to want it for myself. It’s unhealthy to still not be over somebody after a year since the final break-up. What a shame. I’m such a sap. I’ve got to do better! Building an unbreakable wall around my heart…Too bad for the next person, this “wall” could most definitely cause restrictions and hesitations. But I have to do whatever I have to do in order to prevent myself from ever feeling that way again.

And I know that nothing lasts forever (sadly, but that’s reality). But when I’m finally in love, I love hard core. So I need to protect myself. From myself.

Love.

“Falling in love is beautiful, but staying in love is something special.”

My grandparents.

Charles Sr. & Eula Broadnax

Still Hurting, Part II

I swear this is crazy. My alarm just went off at 8:30AM and interrupted yet another dream I was having of “him.” I dreamed that I had a wine social at my new apartment and I had invited him. He came over, everyone had a good time, but he awkwardly slipped out the door without me noticing, without saying goodbye. We didnt even really get to talk. The next day he called me and he told me about where he’s at in life. Said that he is happy with his career and finally ready to settle down and make some girl “his world.” And I was on my end of the phone wondering if he was hinting at me…or if this was him letting me know he’s moving on. Until he said “would you be jealous?” Ughhh. I fronted and started to say “jealous of what” but Jessica Sparks (a girl I knew in kindergarten [random]) tapped me on my shoulder and interrupted our convo, so I put him on hold to see what the heck she wanted. Then my alarm went off… But his voice sounded so real 😦

So if anyone has tips on how to forget a guy or home remedies for brainwashing, spill it! Please and thank you.

Signed, Hurting Heart

(*smh*)

………………………Anyway, now that I’m up, guess I’ll start getting ready for church.

Letters For My Firstborn

I have recently found a new love. It happens to be writing letters to my unborn child. It might sound crazy to some at first. Because, no, I’m not pregnant nor am I married or planning on getting pregnant any time very soon. But think about how amazing it would be to capture your thoughts and emotions and ideas on paper to save up over time to present to your son or daughter when she is old enough to read and mature enough to appreciate its content. My children will have the opportunity to read these letters and learn about who I am and what kind of world I am living in. I’m writing about myself and my dreams, about our president, about entertainment, about my family and friends. There are priceless things in life which are memories and I am preserving these precious moments in word form for my children. It’s like a time capsule! It’s exciting! I’m planning to also do the same for my husband but just one letter. Have you ever written a message to your future self as well?

It might not be normal, but I often think about my future children. Like, what I would name them and I wonder what they might be like and I have all these things tumbling about in my mind; I just HAD to get them down on paper. And it’s a great feeling. At first, it’s…not weird but…different to be writing a letter to someone who does not yet exist but it will be awesome to look back on when my time comes; and I’m sure my children would love to read these on their twenty-first birthday or something like that.

I have written him or her four letters so far and I am loving it. After I began doing this, I Googled around to see what else I could find of people doing similar things. Check out these three: Lifeographer & CreativeMama & MommyMoi. I’m LOVING this idea.

I was also VERY happy to see a commercial with a similar idea! Have you seen it? I forget what the actual advertisement is for. But it shows a mother and father, Asian I think, and they’re emailing letters, photos, and videos to one certain email address (DearJudy@ or DearBonnie@ or whatever the daughter’s name was) and saving all these things unread in her inbox so that one day when she’s old enough she can read all those emails. Isn’t that such a beautiful idea? I don’t know if I want to keep my letters in my own personal handwriting or not though, because I feel like it’s way more personal that way. Or I could stay in touch with the ever-changing world of technology and actually have them as Word Documents, a blog for him or her, print them in a book, or have an email like DearJristan@email.com. Not sure yet. Still thinking about it. Having the letters in my handwriting is special. It’s a keepsake. It’s my heart and soul on paper. Then again, I could email him or her videos and photos as well. Maybe I’ll do both. We’ll see. That’d be nice. A scrapbook for letters and stuff and then the email for files. I don’t know about sharing my letters in a blog because I want them to be exclusive to only my future husband and our children. But I do think it is highly inspiring of the women who do publicly share their heartfelt stories online! I love those women. They’re great mothers and they are special people with beautiful writing skills. Kudos and God bless to you. Keep sharing! I may end up sharing one letter. Just one. Saving the rest for my Jristan. *wink*

Signed sincerely,

Someone’s loving future wife & mom

Heart STILL Hurting

A year ago, I was here blogging about being so totally heart-broken after my two year relationship had ended…

Well how pathetic is this: I am currently laying in bed crying about it. I am still hurting. I’m over what happened with the actual break-up and the drama I had to deal with. But I am not over the loss. He meant so much to me. He was my best friend, my go-to guy. Whenever I needed strength or advice or a shoulder to cry on or some comic relief in life, it was him. I miss him so much and no matter what I do, I can’t shake him. This is ridiculous. Even since then, I had started dating someone new toward the very end of last summer. I mean really, everything has truly been honky dory. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have off and on seemed to be JUST FINE without him. I really thought I was over it. How in the hell can you force your heart and your mind to let go of someone??? My heart is still in pain and also my mind won’t let him go (I.e. I have dreamed about him three times just in this week). Two nights ago, it was so elaborate that I woke up from the dream thinking it was real! And just now literally I just woke up from one and here I am crying. I can’t deal with this nonsense.

I want to tell him how much he still means to me, just to get it off my chest..maybe that’ll help. BUT I kind of refuse to put myself out there like that. There’s just NO point in doing that. We are never getting back together and my focus should be on moving on. We still keep in touch every blue moon but for me not a single day goes by when he doesn’t cross my mind.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a sad sap walking around all day. It’s all good. For the most part. But when I see something that reminds me of him, see someone who looks like him, hear one of our songs on the radio,…it’s not so good anymore.

I hate this. And no matter how dirty he used to do me, I always ended up forgiving him because I felt like I needed him in my life. And actually, here’s something I failed to mention in last Year’s blog post: we both did each other wrong throughout our relationship. Yep. He wasn’t the only bad guy. I do think what he did was worse though, especially that bull crap he pulled that ended it all!!! But two wrongs never ever make a right and karma is kicking my butt. I just wonder sometimes if karma is also serving him his end of the deal for all the pain I suffered/am suffering (smh!)…like does he secretly miss me too? Does he think of me even half as much as I think of him? We will never know. I just know that when I have something good, I’m going to be smart and appreciate it while I’ve got it. I was younger, immature, and naive so I definitely wished I had met him after I met him, if that makes any sense….????

Being with him for that whole time period helped me grow in many ways. He had tough love for me. I’d never had that. And it has made me realize so much about myself, like who I thought I was wasn’t who I was. He opened my eyes. I broke out of a shell. He doesn’t realize what type of influence he had on me and how much admiration I had for him. Still do. He’s a different type of dude. So far from average. He might look average but I get him. He’s special and I see his potential in every way. From the outside looking in, people see something totally different. I miss my friend. That’s all. He meant a great deal to me and I’m wishing May 24, 2010 never happened. I just want to be in his arms again, look into his eyes, lay around being lazy flirting all day, like the old times. That day, my whole world came crashing down.