If The Shoe Fits...

I’m fairly certain that Carrie Bradshaw summed it best when she made the remarkable observation…

“The fact is, sometimes it’s really hard to walk in a single woman’s shoes. That’s why we need really special ones now and then to make the walk a little more fun.”

Years ago I had the unique opportunity to spend a significant amount of time with an award-winning, world-wide renowned actress. Upon her departure she offered me up a new nickname that I instantly became quite proud of…Imelda Marcos. Not only for my love of shoes, but also for the magnitude in which I had accumulated them.

For anyone who truly knows me, they know how much I adore my shoe collection. I love the way they feel on my feet the very first time I slip them on. I love that they have the ability to not only complete an outfit, but to transform it into a living piece of art. I have come to more fully appreciate that they have the capability of making your legs look elongated, all while toning your calves, hamstrings and buttocks. I especially love that they won't ever reject you or make you feel unwanted, neglected or abandoned. And even if you gain 30 pounds due to your post break-up blues, they always seem to offer the perfect fit! They have a way of making me feel a sense of completion that no other relationship has ever offered me. Ultimately, I view my shoe collection as family. From Christian Louboutins to Manolo Blahniks, they have become a true emotional investment of sorts.

This brings us to my latest dating jaunt…from the get-go Mr. GQ Himself was continually, overly exaggeratedly excited about the shoes I would wear when we’d go out. Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about your sweet, standard compliment that one first gives when they have observed something they find impressive regarding the person they’ve been dating. I’m referring more to someone who becomes infatuated, borderline obsessed, with what type of shoes you’ll be wearing out that evening…so much so, that once D-Day (Date Day) arrives, he begins texting you 4 hours prior to picking you up, simply to ask a two-fold question: 1) What shoes you will be wearing when he arrives. And 2) If you could please send him a picture text of said shoes.

I found it even more peculiar that after one of our epic dating adventures I had taken my shoes off on the car ride home and by the time he dropped me off, it had grown exceedingly late. Due to my being overly exhausted I didn’t remember to grab them before heading inside. After a few days of total and complete "M.I.A. Status" of Sir ShoeThief VonHoudini, despite all of the texting, calling and emailing I had done to ask if I could swing by to pick up my latest prized possessions, I opted to do the ever dreaded U.D.B. (Unannounced Drive By) to see if he was home. As I pulled up, I observed his car in the driveway so I headed up the walkway that led to his front door. I instantly regretted my decision when much to my mortification I could see Mr. Creepy McRuPaul through the glass window, prancing around his living room to the latest Justin Bieber hit, in my brand new Chanel Espadrilles Wedges.

If your date is a cross-dresser…

UNDATABLE!

10 Will Get You 20

In one of my recent therapy sessions, my therapist made a rather brash, forthright statement when she said, and I quote…”Ge, there is one common denominator in all of your failed relationships. And that’s you.” She then proceeded to ask me a significantly poignant question…”What exactly is it that you’re doing to attract the same type of guy over and over and over again?” The more I ruminated over these sudden epiphany’s the more I deduced that maybe Rihanna had summed it up best with her hit song ‘Love the Way You Lie Part II’ when she belts out the line…”So maybe I’m a masochist.” An emotional cutter of sorts. I left her office feeling a new-found sense of hope. Now that I had been made brutally aware of the things that had ultimately been leading to my slow demise, I could make it a point to be substantially more aware of the men that I obviously needed to steer clear of.

I found myself at the mall one Saturday afternoon, about to hit up the semi-annual sale at Nordstrom. I rationalized my ‘Day-‘O-Spending’ by promising myself that I’d dedicate an extra day volunteering and mentoring at the local Big Brother/Big Sister program the following week. I reckoned it was more than a fair trade off. After I had made my purchases I figured I’d done enough damage to my bank account so I began strolling off through the mall, headed towards the exit. As I maneuvered around one of the center kiosks’s I made eye contact with the guy who was manning this particular booth. He smiled at me, so naturally I smiled back. I couldn’t help but notice that he was strikingly good looking. The very epitome of ‘tall, dark and handsome.’ He approached me with an air of confidence that I hadn’t seen exhibited in a long time. There was no beating around the bush, no pretenses, just a sense of poise and self assurance that immediately attracted me to him. “Listen, I know you don’t know me but I have to have your phone number. I’d really like to take you on a date sometime!” Instinctively I thought back to all of the hours of therapy I had sat through, and all of the life lessons that I had hopefully learned in the process and I figured this guy was bound to be “different” than the last DB I dated…the one who put the ‘I’ in narcIssIst. Insecure. And InsensItIve. I consented.

He picked me up on a moped which I thought was a little sophomoric, but I figured I’d remain buoyant and just pretend that I was Audrey Hepburn in the classic movie ‘Roman Holiday’ and that on this night, we would morph Orem Utah into our very own little Italian getaway. Even when we pulled into the Arby's parking lot, I chose to remain sanguine. Dinner (and we use that word loosely) started out with the mainstream questions that one usually asks when out for the first time. I found out he played Rugby for the local college, which would explain his incredibly toned physique. After we got the typical run-of-the-mill stuff out of the way I all of a sudden realized that it was extremely difficult to carry on a conversation with him. It was almost as though instantaneously we had absolutely nothing in common. I decided that he ranked high enough on the “Hotness Scale” that I couldn’t give up on him just yet, so I kept on plugging away. I discovered rather quickly that every time I asked him a question his response usually had a one-worded reply. And then when he did have something to say I couldn’t quite make out what he was trying to convey because it came out as one big gibberish, unclear mess…almost as if he were speaking in Cajun tongue. That is until I heard him mutter something about the number 18. When I asked him to recant what he had just said he looked up at me with a seemingly innocent expression and re-announced that he had just turned the big ‘ol 1-8!

If your date is underage…UNDATABLE!



Men In Pink

 

F.A.S.H.I.O.N.=

Fendi

Armani 

Saks Fifth Avenue

Hermès

Issey Miyake

Oscar de la Renta

Nina Ricci

Ever since I had the opportunity to sit front row, wide-eyed and star-struck, at the Marc Jacobs Fashion Show during the ever elite Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in New York City when I was 18 years old, I’ve been hooked. My therapist prefers to refer to it as a ‘closet addiction.’ (She’s SO funny with her play on words!) Ta-mate-o. Toe-mot-o.

Now that I have that all cleared up, I’d like to go on record as saying that I have zero expectations when it comes to the way my dates dress. That’s not to say that I don’t desire him to take some sort of pride in his appearance, but I’m definitely not shallow or overly picky by any means…which leads us up to my latest dating encounter. Mr. Richy McMillionaire unquestionably lived up to his nickname. This guy was L-O-A-D-E-D! He had made his millions in the stock-market industry, and was educated enough to pull his investments when the economy was taking a turn for the worse…which left him with a rather substantial fortune. (What in the world did we gals do before Google?!) He had a huge home in the foothills of Park City, located in an exceedingly prestigious gated community. He owned 4 very nice, very expensive vehicles/sports cars…two words; Bugatti Veyron. Lots and lots of boyz toyz…a boat, wave runners, 4-wheelers etc. etc. etc. But I believed the very best part was that we were being set up by mutual friends which I figured was a fairly safe bet because apparently we both had good taste in people, which hopefully meant that we were bound to have other things in common. 

He picked me up almost 30 minutes early, but I suppose when you’re driving the world’s fastest car, it’s to be expected. As I opened the door I hurriedly did a head-to-toe scan of Sir Richard 'Virgin' Branson and was in awe over his well planned, understated, subtle, look that he had put together. (And when I say "he" I of course mean "his assistant.") He was wearing a fairly fitted, pink Affliction shirt that did have some slight embellishments on it, but wasn’t overly done or excessively disdainful. It was fitted to the point that you could see he had a pretty ripped, comparatively cut body. I guess that idiosyncrasy that they say is true...real men really can pull off pink. He was sporting some True Religion jeans that he happened to fill out quite nicely, (wink wink) and almost instantly I caught a whiff of what I knew immediately to be Clive Christian cologne. (I only knew this because I had recently traveled to NYC where I attended an exhibit for ‘The World’s Most Expensive…’ and this latest Clive Christian cologne had been show-cased there, retailing at almost $2,500 a bottle! Sheesh.) I was in love. Well, almost.


The date went remarkably well so when he asked me if I’d be interested in racing Go-Karts the next evening I was excited for the possibilities. I spent the day mulling over and contemplating what I would wear that night…his sense of fashion seemed so effortless and I didn’t want him to think that I was over thinking it so I played the casual-but-cute card to make sure it didn’t seem like I was over doing it. The doorbell rang and as I raced to answer it, my heart skipped several beats due to my excitement. I opened the door and there he stood…in the exact same outfit as the night before. I’m sure the perplexed look caught him off guard but I was quick to greet him with a hug to cover up my state of confusion. Again, the date was borderline majestic and as he walked me to the door he once again proceeded to ask me out for the following night. I once again acquiesced. He mentioned he held season tickets to the Opera and asked if I’d be interested in attending with him, I readily agreed and figured that this would be a prime time to show him the eccentric classy/lady-like side of me…formal gown and all. I flung the door open in an anticipated moment of sheer elation, when much to my bewilderment, there he stood in the exact same fitted pink Affliction shirt. Those unchanged True Religion jeans. That identical friggin’ cologne. For a moment I literally thought I was in that classic, cheesy, Bill Murray movie ‘Groundhog’s Day.’ How could this be? How was it possible that a guy thought it totally fitting to wear this invariable outfit to a movie, and then to race Go-Karts, and finally to attend a formal Opera?! I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it but thought it best not to utter a single solitary word on the subject and just go with it.

Mr.Wierd-o McNeverChangesHisClothes was out of town for the next couple of weeks on business but made sure to contact me methodically through phone calls, email, texts and Facebook. Late one night I received a notification that he had written on my wall. As I clicked on his profile and started going through some of the pictures of all of his recent incredible world-wide traveling adventures, I became painfully aware of the fact that in every one of his pictures he was wearing the subsequent outfit mentioned previously. Including to his own Grandmother’s funeral.

If your date wears the same clothes every day of the year…

UNDATABLE!

Stressed Spelled Backwards Is Desserts. Coincidence?

Although my nickname in high school was “Becky Home Ec-y” and I did love a good HOMNO (HOme Making Night Out) as much as the next girl, I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was a food connoisseur, by any stretch of the imagination. I did however thoroughly enjoy baking and had learned that for me, spending time in the kitchen was tremendously therapeutic and salutary.

I found myself in the kitchen one particular morning dressed in my bedazzled apron, armed and ready with my KitchenAid, measuring cups, spoons and bowls…all to concoct a scrumptious, enchanting, summer-y dessert to take with me to a family picnic that my current “Flavor-Of-The-Month” had invited me to. His overly protective, incredibly fake, syrupy sweet Mom had asked if I would bring a dessert and because I consider myself an extreme overachiever, I of course was happy to oblige. I spent the next few hours stirring, mixing, taste-tasting, and measuring my way to what I deemed…”Ge’s-Explosion-In-The-Mouth-Achievement!” TWSS It was delicious! I had created a light, dulcet and fluffy trifle that was interspersed with mounds of fresh fruit. I then came up with a perfect combination of a whipped cream & cream cheese mixture that I layered with a homemade moist lemon cake that when amalgamated together was like a fusion of epic proportion.

It was a hit! Naturally. Which instantly gave me a celebrity-esque status at his family gathering…so much so that as we were gathering up our things to leave for the night his Mom pulled me aside and after ranting and raving over the dessert I had brought, kindly asked if I would be willing to make it again for a work party that she was hosting at the end of the following week. Now, all of you girls out there I’m sure are well aware of how thoroughly erratic the majority of the Mother’s of the boys that we date can be…which customarily means that we’ll go to great lengths to try and impress them when given the opportunity. I counted myself lucky that such an occasion had presented itself so early on and I knew immediately my time had come to try and make a superbly deep impact on Mr. Bi-Polar McLunaticMom’s Mother. I enthusiastically agreed and she notified me of the date and time she needed to have it delivered to her home by which I of course acquiesced to.

A few weeks later my assistant came into my office and cautiously inquired if I was currently still dating Mr. Passive VonMamma’sBoy, to which I hesitantly acknowledged in the affirmative. She then proceeded to pull out a newspaper clipping with a heading that read…

“Mother & Son Team Win Dessert Of The Year Award!”

Just below the caption was a picture of Sir Jerky VonThievery standing next to his crazy, deranged Mother…he was holding my much slaved over dessert, while she had her hands full with a 3 foot trophy in one hand and a $5,000 check in the other.

If your date (& his Mom) enter your dessert into an award winning contest and then take credit for it…

UNDATABLE!



Just Say No!

It was unavoidable, I suppose, that I would eventually meet a guy at a gas station…I mean, at this point I’m fairly certain I’d met a guy just about everywhere---grocery stores, a national pharmacy chain, a parking lot, the mall, driving down State Street, IHOP…why not add a gas station to the mix to really up the ante?!

I had just left a conference for work that was being held about 45 minutes away from my home, when much to my vexation I realized that my gas light had come on. To avoid being stranded on the side of the freeway, awaiting my knight-in-shining-armor…(who is obviously nothing more than a figment of my imagination)… to show up, gas can in hand, galloping up on his noble white steed to rescue me in one fell swoop, I thought it best to stop and fill my canteen…of sorts.

Now, despite being of Polynesian decent, I’m not the kind of girl who likes to stand idly by. So as my car was filling up I began cleaning my windshield, throwing out trash that had accumulated in the backseat and wiping down the leather interior, when I felt an unanticipated tap on my shoulder. As I gradually turned around there in front of me stood a guy who slightly resembled a mixture of Jesse James, a.k.a. “The ex Mr. Sandra Bullock” and a slightly chubbier version of Travis Barker from the now disbanded punk rock group “Blink 182”.

Mr. Tattoo McArmSleeve seemed nice enough, despite having a tattoo of an entire marijuana branch leafing all the way up his arm. He and I chatted for a little bit before he expressed interest in getting my phone number at which point I opted to change the subject by letting him know that I was in dire need of a Diet Coke to quench this irrefutable thirst I was currently experiencing. He offered to purchase my drink for me which I found to be charming and polite…but as I went to follow him into the gas station I was stunned to see a tattoo that I definitely wasn’t prepared for. There in front of me, inked across his neck was a symbol that took me totally off guard…the ‘Narcotics Anonymous’ logo informing the whole world exactly what personal demons Home Boy McDrugLord was battling on a daily basis.  

If your date has a Narcotics Anonymous sign tattooed on himself…

UNDATABLE!

L.I.V.E. (Lying Is Very Evil) STRONG!

After celebrating our ‘3 Months of Dating Bliss’ anniversary, I had reached the conclusion that this particular dating ship had sailed its course. Despite the fact that both of us had been fully invested I realized that this fastidious liaison definitely wasn’t going to be heading down the road leading to marital bliss...you know the road I'm talking about...the one with the princess colored pink and silver fireworks exploding overhead, spelling out the falsehood that we read about as little girls and essentially begin to believe that states we’re all gonna live…”HAPPILY EVER AFTER!” I figured it was time to have the ever brutal, but ambiguously necessary, it’s-not-you-it’s-me, break up colloquy.

I began my schpill by tooting his horn, rambling on about how great our relationship had been, stroking his ego, yada, yada, yada. Just as I was about to utter the inevitable, I noticed that his lower lip had started to quiver. He stopped me mid-sentence and without so much as skipping a beat, he blurted out the 4 most dreaded words I’d ever heard materialized…”Ge, I have cancer.”

Instantly I jumped into what my therapist refers to as “FIX IT MODE!” The approach that most women take, the one that says: “I-have-the-ability-to-fix-any-situation-I’m-placed-in-and-despite-not-really-having-any-control-I-feel-this-overwhelming-sick-innate-need-to-fix-the-guy-I’m-with” mode!

6.75 hours later I finally dragged myself to my car and started to head home. To say that I was legitimately and officially emotionally spent would be the understatement of the century. I had just sat through 360.45 minutes of explanation regarding the Stage Three Testicular Cancer that Mr. CancerRidden McSobsALot had randomly discovered a week earlier. He told me he was slated to start chemotherapy the following day and asked if I’d be available to take him to his appointment. The Mrs. Fix-It in me wholeheartedly agreed and as I called my boss with the heartbreaking news, she promptly told me that I needn’t fret about a thing, of course I could take all the time off that I needed too, to help him through this devastating time. The next morning I arrived at his apartment with his favorite breakfast sandwich from Einstein’s Bagel complete with juice and a side of fruit. Naturally I wanted him to have enough strength to survive these next torturous, rigorous, physically draining 6 weeks that lay ahead of him.

When we arrived at the hospital I stopped at the front entrance to let him out, I mean, I wanted him to conserve as much energy as humanly possible. I ran around my SUV to open his car door for him and as I helped him out he looked at me and asked in a very soft, almost pitiful voice, “Is it alright if you just drop me off here and I’ll call you when I’m finished? I think I’d be too embarrassed to have you sit there watching me.” I was quick to reassure him that I’d be here just as soon as he was finished and that he didn’t need to worry about a thing.  This precise scenario took place every single time I took him for any of his chemo and/or doctor's appointments. Which ultimately just made me feel all the more guilty that he wasn’t "comfortable enough to have me there."

About 3 weeks later I arrived to once again take him to the hospital and when he answered the door I noticed that he had shaved his head. Tears started streaming down my face as I wrapped my arms around him I could hear him say through his own muffled tears, “I don’t want you to cry! I decided to get a jump start on my hair because I don’t want the cancer to think it’s won!” I couldn’t help but think what a brave, optimistic approach he was taking which I found to be courageous and heroic.

A few weeks later, after speaking to several friends of mine who ranged anywhere from RN’s, to PA’s to MD’s I had slowly started to gather a plethora amount of information regarding this horrible, appalling disease. The more time that went on and the more questions I asked, the more I started to realize that Sir VonLanceArmstrong McBraveFace’s story wasn’t adding up. For several reasons:

1) He told me that due to a new homeopathic remedy he had concocted at home, his doctor's said that he didn’t need to have the inexorable surgery that automatically goes along with having stage 3 testicular cancer. 

2) Despite having an abnormally close relationship with his Mom, he had opted not to tell her about his latest cancer scare.

And last but certainly not least---

3) Anytime we discussed his on-going battle with this disease, it was overly apparent that I knew a lot more about it from the few hours of research I had spent doing, than he did…regardless of the countless hours that he had spent with some of the country’s “greatest medical minds alive” all of whom were reinforcing to him, as well as everyone else, that he was some type of “medical marvel!”

I once again opted to take the high road by choosing neither to doubt, nor second guess the things I was being told. Mostly because if word got out that I was questioning the cancer-ridden guy whom I had just devoted the last 110 days to, I would officially become the #1 unofficial member of my own undatable blog! That is, until late one evening whilst I was in the midst of hosting a ‘Testicular Cancer Awareness Support Group’ at my home, my cell phone began ringing. Concerned that it was a medical emergency vis-à-vis of my significant other, I rushed to answer it. On the other line was the Mother of Lord McLiarLiar informing me that her son didn’t in actuality have cancer at all. In fact, the only thing he was currently suffering from was the: “I-Didn’t-Want-Her-To-Break-Up-With-Me-So-I-Invented-This-Out-Of-Control-Narcissistic-Lie” postpartum blues.

If your date pretends to have cancer so that you won’t break up with him…

UNDATABLE!

Burn Baby, Burn!

I would be lying if I said that this upcoming group date was something I was excited about. Or even looking forward to…but the truth of the matter was…I SO was not! In fact, I was in absolute trepidation about having to face another pointless dinner. Another futile conversation that would ultimately lead to me having to ‘entertain the masses’ while my date sat there, trying to wrap his head around the Ge-isim’s that were bound to be in great abundance because, well, that’s just what I do. But, as per-usual, I decided to suck it up, take one for the team, and appease the crowds by consenting to grace them with my presence.

He chose a local restaurant that was known for serving a massive assortment of diverse kinds of meat. As he arrived to pick me up he asked if that’s something I was okay with, to which I felt the need to kindly remind him that my eating meat was not only part of my culture, but that if we wanted to, for our second date we could go to the local ‘Genealogy Library’ and trace back to the days-of-yore, where I’m sure at some point my ancestors’ had eaten his.

Upon arrival we met up with 2 other couples who seemed nice enough, by Utah County standards anyway. Definitely a tad bit Zoobie-ish, with the girls in dresses that reminded me a little of the latest episode of ‘Sister Wives’ and the guys clothed in outfits that looked as though they had been transported unequivocally from Brigham Young’s era. My date was quick to introduce me and as the night lingered on, the humdrum conversation was run-of-the-mill, but I was determined to apply the wealth of knowledge that had come from all of the self-help books I had recently begun reading, and try to continue to stay in jovial high spirit’s.

As the evening wore on, one of the waiters stopped by our table so that we could take a look at the meat he was offering…(not like I hadn’t already had that same offer several times that week, but whatev! T.W.S.S.) And after all of the oohh-ing, ahh-ing and salivating over it, I unexpectedly felt my self gasp for breath as I felt something exceedingly scorching begin running down my leg. To my total bewilderment I realized that our waiter had dropped some of the meat juice and there it was…an instantly formed, second degree burn blister, marking my battle wounds. I knew immediately that I was in a state of shock because for the first time in my life I was incapable of forming words. There I sat, not quite sure what to do next, while Mr. Apathetic McCould-Care-Less sat with a look of ultra unmitigated and complete indifference. As I opened my mouth to verbalize the amount of sheer agony I was feeling, my date quickly turned to me and while putting his index finger to his over sized lips said, “Ssshhhhhhhh! Don’t make this into a big deal.” And after pausing a brief moment resumed his undatable comment with, “Well, unless of course you think you can get your meal comp’ed…in which case, do what you have to do.”

If your date is more concerned about saving money, then he is about your personal safety and welfare…

UNDATABLE!