Charming, but single

A journal in dates and drinks


A Year of Wit and Witticism by Charming

It has been a year since I started writing this blog, which started out as a “Journal in Dates and Drinks” and became “A Dateless Journal of Drinking.” Now, I’m just “Datelessly Drinking.” I’ve had more than 21,000 visitors, which is respectable for a small blog about how I like to get manicures and wear high heels. It’s about 21,000 more than I ever thought I’d get, so that’s got to count for something. This blog has more than 130 posts, which is low compared to some of the more prolific bloggers out there, but fine for me, I think. I’ve had (about) 950 comments in a year. I’ve learned a lot about myself. I overreact. I hold onto the past. I am cynical when I should be hopeful and optimistic and trusting when I should be guarded. But I’m working on balancing it all out. And I’m glad someone’s along for the ride. To mark this momentous occasion, I present a year of snippets from this blog. (How typical of a blogger to quote herself, right? Sigh.) Things I liked, things people responded well to, things that are just kind of funny or posts I just wanted to quote. Enjoy: How it all started: Everyone around me is obsessed with pairing up. To be blunt, there's a lot of pressure out there to jump on the marriage train and get your ticket punched, for better or for worse. (I'm supposed to, at this point in the narrative, assert that I am in no way husband hunting. And I'm not.) I am, however, a bit fixated on relationships and dating and the stigmas attached to both the single and the committed. On labeling a relationship: "Seeing" is one of the many euphemisms us chicks use because we must label things, even when it's probably too early to do so. "Seeing" means you've been on at least one formal date and informally spent time with a guy. "Dating" means you've been on several dates, but aren't yet using a possessive term, such as — gasp! — "boyfriend." This causes much unneeded confusion and stress. On the single population: The problem with the casualness of today's dating rituals is that you never know where "hanging out" ends and "dating" begins, which only compounds the problem of the shrinking pool of men in my demographic (educated, mid 20s to early 30s, has some sort of career goal) who are available to date. Since "dating" is such a casual and broad spectrum of activity, it's easy for people to splash through the pool quickly, leaving a school of confused swimmers in his or her wake. So when you and your girlfriends and the women you work with and your friends' roommates are all splashing in the same waters, you're often left in the shallow end with the guys with whom no one, um, wanted to synchronized swim. On jinxing yourself: Single Girl's Law #1 --

You will never get lucky on nights when you shave your legs. Seriously, I've road-tested this one. It is law about 98 percent of the time. Now, when you have stubble for a few days or haven't done bikini line maintenance, every guy you ever thought was cute will try to take you home. Guys who snubbed you for weeks and months will come out of the woodwork, buy you drinks and try to come home with you. This, of course, happens because shaving your legs is an admission to yourself that you think you MIGHT get lucky, and we all know that a watched pot never boils.
On the downside of assigning songs to men: Heartbreak comes in bits and pieces in different moments all throughout your life. But sometimes, for about three minutes, it comes all at once. On Cosmo: Also, in this day of independent single women, why are we obsessed with these silly lists of how to move your hips while positioning your hands, while arching your back to the correct angle with the right kind of hair and artfully applied eyeliner? Seriously, not that you shouldn't work at these things, but my experience has been that men are less picky than Cosmo's lists would have you believe. Showing up is much more than half the battle to most men, who are just excited to get to see a naked lady. I'm sure guys like Cosmo's cute little tricks, but I'm also sure that you can not read Cosmo and still have a satisfied man around the house. On “Repeat Offenders” and one night stands: There was also this idea a hooking up with a guy because you'd hooked up before. Being with him again wouldn't add to your Magic Number, so you didn't mind. An old roomie of mine coined the term, "Repeat Offender" for these men. It's a convenience and saving face kind of thing. Convenient because you know he's willing, saving face because you won't add to the number and also won't end up with a one-night stand on your record. (Some women have a HUGE issue with one-night stands. I look at it like this — if you hook up with someone and regret having casual sex with them because you're worried about your reputation, does sleeping with them again just to make it not a one-night stand make your reputation any better? I think not.) That time I flashed my office: I plopped down in the passenger side of my car, completely dejected, wondering how it is that I managed to even survive until age 25 when I seem to lack some basic skills of a responsible person. I wonder if things like mooning my office building are as cute in real life as they are in cheesy romantic comedy. Pretentious sentence structure doesn’t cover your flaws: Also, who says, "The language was such that"? I'm a wannabe writer and I don't talk like that. I have friends who are lawyers who don't talk like that. Stodgy British writers from centuries ago called, they want their sentence construction back. On Cockblocking: If you are on the receiving end of a sanctioned CB, you probably have screwed over someone — the girl in question, a friend of ours, us, half of the female business majors — and must be stopped. After all, YOU don't have to sit and listen to MY friend cry and yell and complain about how badly you treated her. You just get to hook-up with her. I have to pick up the pieces later, after she realizes that you don't want to get back with her, are hooking up with half of the world and/or are bragging about bedding her to everyone south of the Canadian border. (I probably also have to drive to your crappy apartment to retrieve said friend at 5:00 in the morning because you're passed out drunk and she realizes that she needs to make a quick exit. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing at 5:00 in the morning, most notably sleeping off the amazing hangover I probably am about to have.) On my first high school Homecoming date: I didn't care that he was barely my height. I didn't care that we had nothing in common and very little to talk about. I didn't even try to play it cool. I just said yes immediately and after the song I told pretty much everyone in the whole damn world that I had a date to Homecoming. I wasn't going to have to change schools after all, which was a plus. On fixing my own car: Look, I don't feel like a bad person or a wimpy woman because I don't know how to put a new battery in my car. There comes a time when you have to say that some things are not things that you can do, and changing a battery in a car is one of the things I cannot do. (I also can't waterski, but you don't hear anyone trying to teach me how to do THAT over the phone.) An exchange with my Best Friend Ever:
S: I'm great! You'd tell me if you were getting married, right? BFE: You're drunk, aren't you?
The Night I Cried in the Bar: And one tear rolled down my cheek and he touched my face with this really pained look on his face that I imagine is what a person looks like at the exact second that they realize that they really have actually broken someone's heart into a million pieces and they have to live with that knowledge for the rest of their lives. On how my bra ended up in the kitchen: “I'm not one to keep my undergarments with the fruits and veggies, so I tried to piece the night before's events together in my pounding head while I chugged four glasses of water. I gave up trying to solve the mystery of the bra buffet and went back to bed.” On Hurricane Katrina: “I have all of these things to say, but whenever I sit down to write them, I'm just numb. I was sitting out on my balcony last night, digesting an awesome meal I'd cooked for myself and enjoying a glass of wine and I was struck by how lucky I am. So many people I know have no idea where their future is. People are having to make tough choices that will affect the rest of their lives — should they move temporarily or just get out of the Southeast for good? Can they physically and emotionally handle a tragedy on the same scale as Katrina again? An unfortunately timed e-mail: But an e-mail that essentially says, "Hope you didn't die in the storm, I'm getting married!" is a bit of a shock to the system. I'm annoyed and pissed off and the fact that I'm annoyed and pissed off just makes me MORE annoyed and pissed off. Charming deals with her neighbors with passive-aggressive blogging: And I would have overlooked the double parking on Wednesday night, but it caused me to have to park on the other side of the building, in the "shadowy" section of the parking lot, which is the perfect hiding spot for would-be attackers and rapists. They pretty much LIVE for shadows. Charming on Charming (One of the crowd’s favorite posts): I am an adult. I'm 25 and I drink and I wear shirts that show off my cleavage sometimes and I hobble around on three-inch heels. I sometimes smoke and I look forward to a glass of wine after a long week at work. I get manicures and so I don't save as much money as I should and instead of drinking house wine, I'll have a $10 martini. I stay out (and up) late. I enjoy trashy TV shows and watch silly reality TV when I should be vacuuming or mopping or Windexing something. I eat tater tots and grilled cheese or pizza and potato chips when I should be having a salad and apple slices. I play my music too loud and I dance around my apartment in my bra in the middle of the day without shutting my blinds. Just a night out with the guys: So the dude being humped asks one of my male friends for a cigarette. And then someone says something to someone and before I know it The Humped Dude is yelling at my friends and I have no idea why. Socrates didn’t have to date in modern times: However, each time I waste 10 minutes dedicating an earnest ear to decoding an everyday voicemail, half an hour composing the perfectly punchy flirty e-mail to a man or an afternoon forwarding a text message around so my committee of girlfriends can dissect it, I wonder if Socrates wasn't, as Bridget Jones's mother put it, "a bit of a sh-t.” Charming on her 26th Birthday: Adult birthdays are kind of like losing your virginity. You look in the mirror after the first time and wonder if you look different or if anyone can tell. And you study yourself and realize that while you are a little changed on the inside, you're still the same person you were the day before. Thanks for reading, commenting, linking, e-mailing and joining me on this year of datelessly drinking. And here's to the next year being better. (And, yeah, I'm going out with the Relief Worker again Friday night. Maybe it'll be a fivepeat of him not kissing me. Sigh.)


Charming, but single is 25 26 27(!), lives in the Southern part of the U.S.A. and likes both her drinks and her boys tall. E-mail (listed below) her and she may respond. You can also IM her in AIM/AOL. (If she ever remembers to sign on.)
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Former taglines of this blog: "A Journal in Dates and Drinks" and "A Dateless Journal of Drinking."




Those Particulars
Some Backstory
Memories of the Way We Were
Updates and Towel Snapping
One Year Wrap-Up
Just As She Is
An Open Letter to Myself
After 26 years, she HAS learned something
An Open Letter to the Men Who Message Me Through Match
Sharing a smoke



Associated Content Interview with Charming
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