"Ghost of Thanksgiving Past"

There once was a girl who loved an asshole.

She loved this non-committal asshole for seven long and torturous years until she fell in love with a nice boy (who also wouldn't commit to her). And although she had fallen out of love with the asshole, feelings for him mildly resurfaced each holiday when she ran into him at the local bar in her hometown.

Cue Thanksgiving 2009:

This girl (me) is at the local bar. I'm sitting at a table in the corner with some friends and spot the back of a figure I know too well: the seven-year asshole, walking like a massive football player, with a six-pack in his hand (Yes, that's my hometown for you. Bars sell six-packs, case and all).

Within seconds, the 15-year-old inside of me gets up from the table and makes my way toward him. As usual, I've spent hours preparing for this possible holiday run-in, dressing to the nines and straightening every last lock of my golden hair.

"You look ... absolutely beautiful," asshole says as he hugs me repeatedly.

I smile inside at my power trip, then glance over at his fiancee, who has made it a point to keep her enemies closer. Little does she know, I actually think she's a nice human and would never again dream of even kissing this man I now consider a flicker in my past. Still, I soak it all in. Karma really is sweet.

"I miss you," he whispers as he hugs me for the third time.

"I miss you too," I say back.

I haven't seen him in several years, but this is how it always goes: "I miss you, I love you, I'm sorry, blah blah, too late."

And I, a pushover and a believer that when you love someone, you always love that person, naturally echo his sentiments.

That was Wednesday. When Saturday rolls around, I'm back in New York, still reveling in how beautiful he thinks my life is in comparison to his own. I've just returned from an intense kickboxing class and check my phone. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a missed call from seven-year asshole.

I'm shocked. He hasn't called in four years. And I'm especially shocked that he promised on Wednesday to call over the weekend. He never calls when he says he will.

Without thinking, I call him back.

"Yeeeesss?" I say. "I saw that you called."

He sounds nervous. I don't. This makes me smile.

"I was gonna see if you want to go out to dinner tonight with me and my fiancee. Are you still in town?" He asks.

I tell him I'm not in town. And then I think about how he never once took me to dinner in the seven years I loved him. And now he wants me to be the third wheel to his happily ever after. Still, I no longer love him that way and don't really care what wheel I am.

"Then what about Christmas?" He asks. "I'd like to see you and your family. And I'm sure my mom would like to see you."

"That would be nice," I say.

And to be honest, it would. I'm not sure why. Perhaps for my own gain, for my own sense of control. Or maybe just because we once were friends, and we once did love each other.

After all, tis the season of giving. So I suppose I can give a little of my time to a former big love. Even if he used to be a big asshole.

"Say My (Beige) Name, Say My (Beige) Name..."

It recently occurred to me that I have dated so many men in New York City that I'm starting to forget their names.

No, really. I'm not kidding.

For the past 48 hours, I racked my brain trying to remember the name of the teacher I met at a Yankee game. Like most men in this city, we had a good one-month dating run. Maybe a little less. But the funny thing is, I remember the first and last name of the man I went on only one date with during this same time period. I remember that he has an older sister with two kids, I remember where he studied abroad in college, and I even remember where he volunteers with his dad every summer.

But this teacher ... I just could NOT remember the name of this teacher, nor any substantial facts about him, no matter how hard I tried to search the tiny crevices of my cynical brain. And so I called for reinforcements.

"Oh my word, what is the name of the dude I dated from the Yankee game?" I text messaged my friend.

Within minutes, she responded with his name.

"I have dated way too many men in this city," I wrote back. "I can't believe I'm starting to forget their names."

What's worse is he shares a name with another man I had dated a few months before him. How much easier could it be to remember?

So there you have it. My friend could remember a man she met once, but I could not remember this man I had hung out with several times and even kissed. This is because I considered him "beige." Beige is a term another friend coined for people who just don't stand out in a crowd.

"Most people are beige," this friend claims. "Beige people have beige houses, beige relationships, beige jobs. They're not really happy, but they're not really sad, either. They're just beige."

To add insult to injury, I also like to call these beige people "The Forgettables." Having said this, I've concluded that most of the men I've dated in my life have been beige.

But lately I'm starting to wonder, what's so wrong with beige? When I think of all the men I've dated since puberty, the beige men, or The Forgettables, have been the ones I actually remember as the nice ones. Now, true, I don't remember their names. But I do remember they were nicer than the "neon" men.

So should I actually be giving beige men a fighting chance? After all, beige goes with everything.

"Dating the Blind New York Turtles ..."

My friend and I have come up with a new description for the pace at which New York men date:

"Men in New York move at the pace of crippled, blind tortoises with cracked shells and limp dicks."

There, that pretty much sums it up. All of my New York girlfriends have officially given up on match.com, while my friends in other U.S. regions float placidly along an online dating sea. It's ironic, being that studies show New York ranks at top for online dating and singles. But studies do NOT show that New York ranks dead last for the pace at which these daters move.

Let's take a friend in the Midwest, for example: After one month together, she and her match.com guy are not only a couple, but also hanging out with the 'rents. In New York, this meeting-the-family process can take a year. Even multiple years. Some New Yorkers may even wait until the wedding day for families to meet.

Because in New York, after one month of online dating, I have gotten only one date out of each of these men ... as have all my girlfriends. Even Freelance Guy, who turned out to be the most promising candidate, has already started acting like a typical New York man.

"Let's hang out again next week," he Gmail chats me last week. (Notice how there's no phone call. New York men are too lazy for phone calls after the initial dial.)

"OK," I agree, even though I don't really like him. But hey, I figure I'll try dating a "nice guy" this time.

One week passes. No word from the nice guy.

And now it's the weekend. Have I heard from him? Of course not. Because even "nice" New York men move at a glacial pace. Or maybe nice New York men don't exist.

It's not that I want to race down the aisle. I have my own shit to do in this city, like build a writing career, get ripped at my boot camp-style kickboxing class, and adopt foster kittens with my girlfriends. But would I like men on the East Coast to move faster than crippled, blind tortoises with cracked shells and limp dicks? I mean, at least take care of the limp dick part.

"It's All a Wasted Waiting Game"

I've noted a theme lately in my friends' love lives. It's a fluffy, fairy-tale idea I used to really believe in ... but now believe is the biggest load of crap and waste of time ever: the idea of waiting for someone.

This waiting can include waiting for a phone call or text, waiting for that engagement ring after two decades together, waiting for someone to leave his/her significant other and be with you, waiting for someone to stop cheating on you, waiting for someone to stop drinking and doing drugs, waiting for someone to admit you're more than friends. The list goes on. But the idea is all the same: Waiting is a waste.

I wouldn't be so bitter about this, had I not waited on two monumental loves of my life to admit they loved me too, totaling about 10 years of wasted time that could have been spent loving men who had the balls to reciprocate the love I felt.

But through these long, tortuous years of waiting, I realized several things: One, the waiting was my fault. I had the power to walk away at any time, but I rather enjoyed feeling sorry for myself and playing out my love life like a bad PG-13 romantic comedy. And two, to quote "He's Just Not That Into You," the rules are laid out and there are few exceptions. If someone wants to be with you, he or she will be with you. It's just really that simple. There is no waiting, there is no "maybe we'll see what the future holds." People who love you and really want to be with you will act upon that love at any cost to not risk losing you. And the exceptions? The exceptions usually come long after you've moved on.

Let's take the first monumental love of my life, for example. The basics: He treated me like shit for seven years, never fully committed to me but committed openly to every other woman like a typical serial dater who picks women off a factory conveyor belt. And then, two years after I had finally gotten over him, he confessed his love. And it was two years too late.

So my point is, stop waiting. Stop waiting for people to change, stop waiting for people to be with you, stop waiting for people to admit feelings. Because it's all very rare that these are the people you are meant to be with anyway.

And on the random occasion that you are meant to be together, I can guarantee that waiting around alone doesn't speed up the process any faster. Or make you look more attractive to people who actually want to love you.

"Facebook Love Ghosts"

A ghost of penis past fluttered back into my life last night via Facebook. Isn't that how it always happens these days? Through some social networking site. As if it's not traumatic enough to see your ex in person, now you're bombarded with Tweets, Facebooks, e-mails, texts, MySpaces, and even LinkedIns.

I wasn't approached by him, specifically, but rather his fiancee. To truly understand my shock, you must know several key facts:

1. I loved this man for 7 years.

2. I fell in love with him before I was even old enough to drive.

3. He was a mega ass hole for 6.9 of those 7 years.

4. The second-to-last time I saw him, (3 years ago) he grabbed my crotch in front of this fiancee and then tried to hold my hand.

5. The last time I saw him, (2.5 years ago) he told me he had always been in love with me ... in earshot of this fiancee. Then I instinctively whispered the three words back in his ear, then immediately felt scared that I would always mean it, then quickly drowned my sorrows in a drunken one-night stand with some dude who used to be hot in high school.

Having said this, I was quite shocked to receive a Facebook message from her asking how life in New York was going. It's not that I have anything against this woman. She's always been very kind to me, not to mention very understanding of the fact that her future husband tries to grope my vagina and whisper sweet nothings in my ear every time I'm home for the holidays.

Even so, my love for my first love is much like a rusty old safe that can be cracked open with the slightest force. Now don't get me wrong. I would NEVER date this man again. I would never have sex with this man again. But it's only because I would never allow myself to do so. If the world were different and a successful New York woman could marry a small-town man with dreams the size of marijuana seeds, then we could be together. But the world doesn't work that way. So in a self-induced Romeo & Juliet tragedy, me and Mr. X share a love that can never be. We always did, we always will, and we have both accepted that in our own ways.

After the initial Facebook message, curiosity naturally ate away at me. And so I friended his fiancee, the woman who is destined to spend the rest of her life with the man I once thought I'd die without. But the irony is, we kind of are friends. Because she was a milestone in my life. She was the first girlfriend I wasn't jealous of. Not even a drop. Because I knew he was right where he needed to be, with exactly who he needed to be with. And it wasn't me.

Looking at pictures of them together, snuggling at baseball games, fishing at the lake, playing with their dog in their house, I felt both happy and angry. Angry that he kept me such a secret for all those years. Angry that he never fully committed to me. And angry that he never gave me any of these small pleasures he shares with her. But I was happy, oh so happy, that I escaped a life I was never destined to live.

And elated that I still weigh 100 pounds while he has gained at least 200.

"Nice Guys Finish Last (In Looks)"

I'm starting to think there's a strong correlation between kindness and physical appearance.

We've all been there. We meet someone with an amazing personality: someone who can make us laugh and see the bright side even when we've just received a pink slip and an eviction notice; someone who nurses us back to health with orange juice and soup when we contract the swine flu; someone who defends our intelligence even when we are drunkenly dancing topless at a bar. These people should be our soul mates. And these people should be the ones we choose to date. But the world is a shallow, shallow place: These usually aren't the cutest pups in the litter.

Sure, it's completely bitchy and cruel, but who can deny the commonality between great guys and looks? The nicest ones seem to be the least attractive. And try as I may to push outer appearance aside, I just cannot force myself to sexually gravitate toward them.

And so I ask myself, is this because they are actually unattractive, or simply because I am attracted to ass holes? It's a tough call, perhaps because most ass holes are universally good looking. And this is because universally attractive people can get away with being ass holes.

After two more dates with generous, funny, stand-up guys from match.com, I've concluded that I'm simply not attracted to any of them except Dog Lover -- ironically, the only one who disappeared into a sinkhole after our first rendez vous. Now, true, he was outwardly just gorgeous while the other two were OK, but the others were far from hideous beasts. So would I have been more attracted to the other two, had they blown me off the way he did?

This realization disturbs me.

And it disturbs me more because all my friends agree. Women love to love ass holes. And until we stop loving ass holes, I guess nice guys will just keep getting shit on.

"How Many Times Must I Be 'Umbrellad?'"

"Umbrellad" is a new verb that all women should add to their man-hating vocabularies.

For those of you who just started reading this blog, a little recap:

I briefly dated a man who seemed very interested. We went out about five times, ended up having sex, and all things pointed in the boyfriend direction. On the morning after the fifth sleepover (a dark and rainy morning) as he was walking to work in a suit and I was walking home, he handed me his umbrella like a true gentleman. I, unaware of the gloomy future, walked home with his umbrella that morning smiling, wondering where I found such a chivalrous man in this cruel city. He never called again. That is what you call "being umbrellad."

So here I am, months later, testing out this online dating crap. You'd think that the majority of people who online date are seeking long-term companionship. But apparently, au contraire. Because once again, it appears that I have been umbrellad. As I said when I lost my umbrella virginity, these men don't owe me anything after one date, two dates, or even five dates. But they do need to refrain from candy coating things. Thus, umbrella-ing me.

Dog Lover, aka my first match.com date, seemed to really be interested. We had a fabulous brunch followed by a hug and an "I'll talk to you soon." Then followed 10 minutes later by a text asking what my plans were for the rest of the day. Then followed by texting till approximately 3 a.m. That was Saturday. Today is Thursday with no communication since. And so today, sensing I had already been umbrellad, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

"If you're not too busy going out with 45-year-old match.com dates, wanna hang out this weekend?" I asked.

About 10 minutes later, Dog Lover wrote back: "Unfortunately, I'm in Philly this weekend :("

I could be girly and analyze this text in a "He's Just Not That Into You" fashion. Feelings of self-assurance could arise from his word usage of "unfortunately" and the sad face at the end, but I'm frankly sick of being umbrellad. If this man was really interested, he would have a) text messaged, e-mailed, or called me during the week and b) ended his text with, "but we should hang out when I get back."

Because at age 25.8, I really don't have time for this type of man anymore who dances in a gray area and acts interested but never follows through. In the midst of this rejection text from Dog Lover, I received a follow-up e-mail from Lawyer (the day after our first date) and an initial phone call from Freelance guy, both asking if I wanted to have dinner next week.

And suddenly I realized, these are the real men, ladies. These are the men who will hold the umbrella for you in the rain instead of handing it off to you and running away like pussy boys, afraid of a little lightning.