Monthly Archives: February 2012

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

29 February 2012

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Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. The principle applies equally to macrohistory, like wars (hello Afghanistan) and personal history. Case in point, I was getting my gchat on with Roo (because that’s how I communicate with my personal panel of “explain this to me”) when I was hit with a major case of déjà vu. And as with any such case, I wracked my brain trying to figure out where it came from. And then it hit me, like a jet powered face palm: we’d had this same conversation perhaps a dozen times back in the early days of our friendship. You know, well over a decade ago when we were both still in braces and thinking about our first kisses (which hadn’t yet happened). Because apparently I’ve regressed to boy-girl-interactions-101.

Let me lay the scene for you. There’s this boy… And merely by stating this fact, my face bursts into a flame that proves that you don’t have to own the complexion of Snow White to blush. Like I said, I’ve apparently regressed quite a bit. But let’s see if I can be slightly mature about things and at least get the story out. So as I said, there’s this guy. We met online via things other than online dating so the purpose of our interactions were not so explicitly laid out. Also, he doesn’t live in NYC. Stay with me here! Neither of us (as far as I can tell) had any intention of making of it anything other than a casual digital friendship. And then I got to know him. And saw a picture of him. We progressed from screen names to real names. And like any girl worth her ovaries, I started to like him. Like…like like him. Yes, I had to say it like that because I’m apparently twelve. And though I didn’t have the Internet when I was actually twelve (we had NetNanny if you guys remember that shit), complaining to Roo the situation is remarkably similar.

Back then, in my braces and glasses (I know, cringe! I was a dorky little kitten), I fell into the same situation over and over with guys. Unlike my female friends and the pretty girls who somehow did get the guys, I had no problem talking to them. In fact, you could often find me in a group that consisted mainly of me, five pubescent boys and whichever girl friend I dragged over to tag along with me. Talking to them wasn’t the issue. Getting them to talk back wasn’t even the issue. The issue was that somehow, by interacting with them and holding actual conversations with them, I was rendered invisible. The girls who stood off in their cliquey circles, giggling about the guys I was casually chatting with were the ones that they wanted to date. Even when the braces came off and the glasses were replaced with contacts, the situation stayed the same. And so Roo—then as now—got to sit around and listen to me moan, “why doesn’t he like me? It’s like I’m invisible!”

I did finally get noticed by guys. I had boyfriends and got that first kiss (and first other things). But it was still never by those guys I easily chatted with. It was always the ones from afar who I often didn’t notice or to whom I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I learned to separate the friends from the boyfriend-material and just accept that as the way things worked, but as I sat there, drowning in déjà vu, it didn’t seem like enough. Sure, in this specific case it probably wouldn’t matter if he did see me as anything other than a friend (I’m developing into quite the NYC snob and I’m okay with that). But it still baffled and frustrated me. I know the history, and I know the lesson that I guess I’m supposed to learn from it (that friends don’t turn into lovers…unless of course you live in a rom-com). But instead of accepting the lesson and putting it to use, I’m still chafing against it, butting my head up against the status-quo and demanding petulantly: Why the fuck not?

xoxo

Cat

Checkpoint Charlie

28 February 2012

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We all have a thing. That one thing that makes us entirely “unlovable” by any normal person. It’s the test a guy has to pass before we start to believe that they actually like us and aren’t just hanging around to get their rocks off. It’s also the test that tells us something is wrong with him. If he can get past this one thing, then he must have secrets or flaws that are just as bad and thus, we can possibly be broken and loved together in a little dysfunctional relationship that we are always afraid will blow up in our faces. Because if someone could love us despite that glaring flaw, they might be worse than we are…though really it’s okay because that’s what we deserve. Sounds harsh right? That’s the thing about putting down your thoughts in black and white with no rationalization or filter, just the words that run through your head every day. In the squishy environment of your brain, they might sound perfectly logical and legitimate, but when you put them out in actual words that you and others can see, they sound like words of a tyrant.

There is a grain of truth in those harsh words though. We all have something that makes us think we deserve less than what the people who love us and really see us know we are worthy of. For some of us, it’s something as simple as a few extra pounds which means we are a six and could never even dream of deserving a perfect ten. Or it could be a string of failed relationships that beats into our heads the lesson that we are somehow bad at this thing called love. The realization occurred to me while talking to Roo about the guy she’s currently getting giggly over. Unlike most of us, her issue isn’t entirely in her head. But even with the legitimate limitations it offers, it’s not nearly as big as she thinks it is so the principle still applies.

Here’s the truth about that “thing” we all have: it’s good to have roadblocks. It’s good to have certain stopgaps in place so any schmuck with a cock can’t get directly into your heart. Without them, madness lies. But the issue is that most of us are using the wrong things as roadblocks. We use are various signs of damages as the things a man must accept before we will come to believe they truly love us. If they can overlook the scars and baggage left by the last guy, then they can “deal” with us. That scar, that personality flaw, that extra five pounds all stand in between a new man and our heart. But unless your so called flaw happens to be that you’re bat-shit crazy and your post-coital ritual is eating your sexual partners…wait, I forgot what I was going to say, that image horrified me so much. Oh yeah, get over it! One thing I’ve learned from my many guy friends: they’re probably not paying attention to the same things you are. The fact that your hipbones don’t stick out like Keira Knightley’s? Not really an issue. That weird scar from the time you tripped and impaled yourself on a rock in kindergarten? He might just be impressed by the story.

Like I said, it’s good to have roadblocks and checkpoints. I will not make a terrorist joke here no matter how much I want to, but you can draw the parallel. But maybe it’s time to rethink what those roadblocks actually are. I used to think I had to explain why I flinch when someone gets angry around me, and if he didn’t back away slowly at my explanation, he might just be a keeper. If grabbed onto my ample ass instead of avoiding it at all costs, he could roll with me. If he whimpered under the crack of my snappy, sarcastic tongue, he was consigned to the trash bin. But what if the roadblocks were more like checkpoints to level up with a good move? Also, I have no idea if that actually made sense because my childhood experience with video games consisted mainly of EA Sports.

So I started thinking about the things that could allow a guy to move on to the next ring of my heart instead of being kept out by the gate he couldn’t quite pass (and now I’m thinking of Minas Tirith…you really have to be a bit of a geek to roll with me). I thought of the things that guys in the past have done to make me melt: cradling my face as we kissed, rubbing my shoulders after a long day, kissing my tattoos, sending me silly pictures that remind him of me, being patient while he teaches me something I’m totally unfamiliar with, letting me teach him something (like why Doctor Who is the best thing that’s happened to TV since…you know, ever), allowing me to pay for dinner and/or drinks. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t easily throw out the roadblocks that are wrapped around flaws. I still think a guy should be able to stand up to, and participate, in my admittedly over the top sarcasm. He’s a keeper if he treats me like a lady despite my protests that I can open my own damn doors and pay for my own friggin drinks. But the thing about having flaws as roadblocks is that a guy can figure out how to navigate them all and still not be the greatest guy for you. He might not even know the real you that is lined up between and behind the roadblocks, he’s just really good at dodging minefields.

xoxo

Cat

A Study in Sexy

24 February 2012

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I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the universe has a hell of a sense of humor, and usually its jokes are at our expense. And the biggest cosmic joke it’s played on me in the past ten years stares back at me from the mirror every day. If you looked up “tomboy” in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of an eight-year-old Cat tagging along after her big brother while he stirred up havoc with the other boys in the neighborhood. Sledding down the big slope behind our neighbor’s house, riding our bikes down the huge hill that threatened to toss you onto the pavement if you lost control, three-on-three basketball, goalie for hockey and soccer, scraped knees and bloody noses, that’s what little Cat was made of. Despite my mom’s attempts to turn me into a proper little girl with my frilly church dresses and long, colorfully ribboned braids, I was happiest in hand-me-down sweatshirts and jeans and was secretly pleased when the baby-pink carpet in my bedroom faded to a dull brown. My best friend loved to play Barbies and had the whole lineup of dolls and accessories, including the Dream House but the closest I came to the pint-sized fashionista was learning to sew so I could make funky clothes for the American Girl doll whose ears I pierced with sewing pins.

Growing out of my brother’s sweatshirts and discovering that boys just weren’t for tagging around with didn’t really change my tomboyishness. Just because I suddenly wanted to date boys and be kissed and thought of as pretty, didn’t mean I was suddenly going to start liking pink. In fact, while other girls began experimenting with makeup and separating themselves from the boys, I went bare-faced and dedicated myself to sports. In high school, I had a boyfriend and designed my own prom dresses, but I also had six varsity letters and considered myself the sports-loving dude in that relationship. His best friend was a baseball player but I was the one that knew the difference between a split-finger fastball and a circle change. He loved me in dresses and skirts and I felt sexiest in a pair of zippered, ripped-up jeans with chains hanging off them. I was petite in every sense of the term and except for my long hair, there wasn’t much about me that screamed “girl”.

Which is why it’s funny now to stand in front of the mirror, dressed in a menswear-style button down shirt, basic jeans, and what I refer to as my Gestapo boots (they’re tall, black, and look like they could crush a skull or two) and see nothing but utter femininity. My hair is short and pulled back into a severe ponytail and except for a trace of mascara, I’m not wearing any makeup. But not even a blind man could mistake me for a guy. Maybe it’s the hint of a lacy bra peeking out through the top button of my shirt, maybe it’s the slow, easy curves that belong more to an ultra-feminine pinup doll than the androgynous look I’m sort of rocking. It could be the full lips, naturally flushed cheeks, or thick lashes that make cosmetics almost unnecessary. But to me, it’s a huge laugh-out-loud joke on me.

I’m the chick who has no qualms about knocking back Jameson shots with the boys, who talks baseball like a second language, and is best known for being brash, bawdy, and bold. I have a running joke with my male friends that despite the way I talk, I am in fact a girl. Of course, they know this…very well. They’ve all been on the receiving end of my girl-brain rants about the man of the moment who’s confusing the crap out of me, and many of them have cradled my curvy, womanly (and often naked body) against their own. But to my own ears, it still needs to be said…because it’s still a marvel and a cosmic joke. The most boyish tomboy of them all looks in the mirror and sees the body of a woman of the Botticelli Renaissance variety: all boobs, butt, and hips curving like a cello around a whittled in waist. It’s a body best suited for ultra-feminine silhouettes not really seen since the Mad Men era though I generally dress it in jeans and tops that were probably meant for my more straight-up-and-down peers (fuck you Kate Moss). It’s a body that I’ve punished at the gym, trying to mold it back into the gentle angles of younger years instead of the bizarre switchbacks and rolling curves I’m confused by.

But I stood in front of the mirror, with my little elf ears sticking out from under my slicked back hair and shoved the jeans and slouchy blouse I planned to wear back into the closet. Instead, I plucked a short, flirty dress from its hanger, briefly wondering if I would freeze my ass off in it before dropping it onto the couch and padding off for a shower. It was time to join in on the joke instead of fighting it. And when I surveyed the results, I couldn’t help smiling (and not just because my legs looked impossibly long for my 5’2” height). In heels and a dress nipped in at the waist by a sexy little belt, I felt surprisingly comfortable. More importantly, I felt like me, just a different part of me.

xoxo

Cat

Fake the Take

23 February 2012

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The heart wants what the heart wants. We’ve all heard the saying before. Most of us have probably even used it ourselves, usually as an excuse for doing something that our brain was screaming at us to back away from (or run like hell). And it’s the phrase that popped into my head last night as I was talking to one of my guy friends…although in his case it was more likely a different organ that wanted what it wanted. He’s the kind of friend who I’m always trying to turn into a better person (read: not a manwhore) and who constantly tries to explain to me what guys are really thinking, even when I don’t want to hear it. But when he rattled off a long list of girls who he’s been attracted to lately, only to find out they were married, engaged, or otherwise taken, I smirked knowingly. Here was a situation where I could knock him flat with my incontrovertible knowledge. Because I knew exactly what was going on here.

I proceeded to explain to him the unwitting appeal of women who are in happy relationships (it’s key that they be happy, if the relationship is shitty, the appeal is entirely different). It’s a kind of glow and air resulting from an intoxicating mix of regular sex, lovey-dovey hormones, confidence that you will not in fact die alone. When we women are in relationships, we relax just a little bit as the faint whiff of desperation is replaced by that sexy fragrance of knowing our worth. Someone finds us sexy enough to forgo all other women just to spend time in our presence, and thus we feel like queens. To the unwitting guys who see us after this transformation, our appeal immediately jumps to new heights because we are projecting an attitude of contentedness and confidence that says, “I don’t need you, I’m all good with what I have.” Unfortunately, unless there’s a shiny rock on your left hand, the poor bastards don’t know right away that what you have is the attention of some other lucky dude.

Any guy who has been wowed by a woman, only to see her whisked off by her husband/boyfriend/fiancée/lover; any woman who has wondered why she suddenly gets hit on by every guy in the bar after she commits to the relationship label understands what I’m saying here. It’s also what leads to that ever-present complaint: all the good ones are taken. But here’s the thing, knowing why we all succumb to this phenomenon is quite possibly the best tool you can have in your single-and-looking arsenal. And for the love of god, no, I’m not talking about hiring a fake boyfriend so you’ll seem more appealing. I’m not entirely sure that would even have the same effect, but I know for a fact it would somehow backfire in a rom-com-esque way, except much less funny and probably with a sadder ending. But you can fake that taken aura even if your last relationship is so far back in your rearview mirror, you couldn’t find it with a GPS.

There are two key elements to the taken aura: the tangible (physical) and the intangible (attitude). The tangible is that flushed-skin glow that comes from happy hormones and regular sex. There are two ways to fake this. One: hit the gym. Exercise has roughly the same effect on your skin as sex, opening up blood vessels and releasing feel-good endorphins that make you all kinds of pretty…with the added benefit of making your ass look good. The second: go fuck yourself. No really. Grab the little (or not so little) friend hanging out in your nightstand drawer and get your self-love on. Yes, I’m serious, and no I’m not going to get any more explicit than that. I blush surprisingly easy. Moving on! The harder one to fake: the intangible, the attitude. Without a certain genuineness, it’s not going to work and can actually make things worse. But what it boils down to is the same thing it always boils down to: confidence. But there is a way to get confident in a flash, without hiring that fake boyfriend. Pick something in your life that you’re particularly proud of: your job, your photography hobby, the best friend who adores you, your apartment that’s perfectly decorated, whatever. Now, carry a reminder of it with at all times. Yes, everywhere. Treat it like a wedding ring, except don’t flash it at anyone and everyone, it’s just for you. Pull it out every once in awhile like you would the picture on your cell of a current boyfriend and remind yourself that you might not have a guy, but you do have something in your life that makes you amazing and that you should be proud of. So there you have it: puff up your ego with the things that make you awesome and go down to V-town (oh god, did I really just say that?) and you might just be mistaken for one of those confident taken chicks.

xoxo

Cat

You Can Take the Girl Out of the Search…

22 February 2012

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How difficult is it to not do something? It’s not even an action. It’s a non-action so it should require no effort right? Yea…tell that to an alcoholic who’s trying not to drink. Turns out, not doing something is a lot harder than it sounds, mainly because the thing you’re trying not to do is replaced by a million other doings just to keep you distracted. Am I babbling? Yea, I’m definitely babbling. Time to step away from the coffee Cat and have a little chat. Shit…now I’m rhyming. Okay, let’s try this again. What I’m saying is, purposely choosing to be single (and doing everything in my power to stay that way for the near future) is really fucking hard. Not that I have guys throwing myself at my feet begging to fill the role of boyfriend or anything. Honestly, if that happened, I would assume my friends were perpetrating a ridiculously elaborate practical joke. But I never quite realized how much of my energy was geared towards looking until I decided it was time to stop.

Case in point: “Hey Cat, we love your blog/Tweeting/general awesomeness. Want to test out this new dating service we’re working on and tell us what you think?” How can I say no to that? Especially when said service is coffee-themed? Coffee? Are you serious? Of course I would love to have a little cartoon coffee cup telling me about guys who are the perfectly matched cinnamon-raisin bagel to my dark-roast, milk-no-sugar brew! Oh wait, I’m supposed to be doing this whole “focus on me” thing. Couldn’t hurt just to look right? Ding ding, points off, Cat is looking for love once again instead of loving herself. Damn it!

Here’s another one: if I’m going to focus on myself right now, better not to be distracted by silly and often obnoxious messages from my default online dating account. I should go in and disable that for a little while, just until I’m ready to get out there again. Cat logs in, looks for “disable account” link, and instead finds a blue-eyed cutie and spends fifteen minutes drooling over his shirtless-in-Costa-Rica picture. Once again, you lose Cat.

Okay let’s try going to the gym. I love the gym, I get all sweaty and gross while feeling accomplished and the only guys there are married or old enough to be my father. There’s no way I’ll look there! Yeah, uh huh. Anyone want to guess how long before I was checking out wedding-ring fingers? I’ll give you a hint: it probably took you longer to read that last sentence. Facepalm. If I was in AA, I wouldn’t even be on the first step yet. So what’s a boy-crazy, trying-to-be-alone, chick supposed to do? Apparently lock herself in her apartment and catch up on every show she’s missed over the last month while organizing every nook and cranny. As a result, my apartment has never looked better, and I’m searching the interwebs for a text tone that sounds like a woman moaning. I give it a week before I develop full-blown, crazy-eyed cabin fever.

xoxo

Cat

If it Ain’t Broke…

21 February 2012

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And we’re back! Did you miss me? Oh come on, I know you did. I missed me too. You know, the sarcastic-when-it’s-funny, self-deprecating-not-self-pitying, non-whiny me. Not that annoying bitch that’s been hanging around here lately boo-hooing and why-meing. She’s a pain in the ass and I had to take a couple days off from here to wrestle her into the sad little corner where she belongs. Don’t worry though. I gave her some tinker toys to play with and a chocolate cake to gorge on. It’s not like I’m a monster or anything. In fact, while I was putting Little Miss Sadface in her place, I realized that there are a lot of things I’m not. Graceful is a word that comes to mind. As a matter of fact, on my way into work this morning, I proved that heel height has nothing to do with my inability to coordinate one footstep in front of the other despite all those years of gymnastics. Balance I can do, grace is apparently another story. But I digress. The thing which I am not that particularly struck me was the thing I have believed myself to be for many, many years: broken.

Stay with me here. I’m sure you have an urgent desire to page back over this blog and point out to me all the ways in which I’m broken, screwed-up, insane, or lacking a few screws, nuts, and bolts [insert dirty joke here!]. Or maybe I’m just projecting. Either way, hear me out. The first rays of this realization began to dawn on me Friday afternoon in the office. I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and saw, not the hot mess I half-expected to find, but a professional, polished, put-together young woman who looked as if she knew what she was doing. It was weird…and a bit confusing to realize that woman was me. I dismissed the thought, stuck out my tongue at the mirror and reclaimed my self-image as a little weirdo flailing through life. Then I went back to work and pushed the thought to the back of my mind as I crunched through weekly reports and rushed home to get my apartment ready for a visit from my exacting mother. But it wouldn’t quite go away.

I spent the weekend entertaining my mother, and at times my brother, while blocking out their backhanded compliments and suggestions that I do things differently. I heard their voices, and I read the disappointment in their words that I wasn’t where I should be, I wasn’t living up to my potential, I didn’t know what I was doing. But I rolled my eyes and plowed forward, ignoring their implications. My brother eventually went back to his own life and stopped meddling in mine, while my mother settled into letting me take the lead on the weekend’s activities and the visit ended with smiles all around. But when I dropped her off at the train station and saw her disappear behind the sliding doors, I let out a sigh of relief, not simply because the pressure to be perfect was lifted, but because I got to go back to hanging out with the person I really wanted to see: me.

I spent the rest of the weekend repairing the cocoon of me that drapes over my apartment. It was more than putting things back in order and reclaiming my spot on the couch. I let my mind spread out as well. I picked up the rock of sadness that had been bugging me last week to see if I could figure out what to do with it now that I’d had some time away. Except that when I picked it up, I found that it wasn’t in fact a rock: it crumbled in my hand and drifted away. I reached for the tattered edges of my broken soul to see if I could mend them now that the sadness wasn’t tearing them apart. And I couldn’t find them. I couldn’t find a single rip or tear. Wrinkles, sure. A couple funky spots where the patch was being absorbed but didn’t quite match yet. But what I didn’t find was what I expected, what I thought was there: a pile of rubble to sort through and rebuild. I wasn’t actually broken.

I wouldn’t say that I’m quite strong and unbreakable. I still have some soft spots that throb if I push too hard on them, but everything is all fundamentally intact. And once I realized that, I realized that I had a whole new task in front of me. I had thought I needed some time away from boys, relationships, sex, etc to heal my broken heart, to put back the pieces and build a brand new model of Cat to launch onto the world. But there’s nothing broken to be fixed and it seems stupid to break something just to have something to fix. Still, I felt soft and tender, not quite ready to emerge into a world that might bounce me around before a thicker skin could grow to protect me. I still need a break. I still need a space to hide call my own and interact with only me. But it’s coming from a whole different perspective now and it’s one that I’ve never experienced before. So…what do I do with a soul that’s somehow healed itself while I wasn’t looking?

xoxo

Cat

I Make Single Look Good

16 February 2012

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I was rushing through my morning routine, having only woken up fifteen minutes before (once again skipping the gym) and only half paying attention to the radio in the background. But then Taylor Swift’s name caught my ear and I paused in the middle of looping an earring through my left lobe. Apparently, in a recent interview, she said that she likes being in relationships, but she also does single really well. And of course, that got me thinking: how well am I doing single? My first thought, based mainly on the words I spit at you every day, was that I’m doing single pretty badly. I didn’t think I was really owning it. But who’s really the judge of how well a person does a certain thing? They don’t ask a diver to give himself a score for that last pike dive. They don’t base a figure skater’s score on how well she thinks she did. An outside panel decides how well they did what they do. And in the absence of a panel of personal judges, I asked myself: what does it look like. How well does it look like I’m doing single? And I had to admit that the answer was: pretty damn well actually.

Think about it, what’s my motto? Say it with me now: Fake it ‘til you make it. Eventually, the line between fake and real will blur and you’ll feel what you’ve only been pretending to feel. So I took a step back as I rode the subway into the office and thought about what I was faking and whether it was really fake after all. This is what I found: I have an incredibly full and interesting life, especially right now. I started a new job a couple weeks ago, which has opened my eyes to not only what I might want to do over the next few years, but also how good I am at what I do. But work isn’t my life, neither is school or homework. I spend at least one night a week out with friends and usually more. I hit the gym as often as possible (sure, it’s no longer daily, but work is busy and hopefully my schedule will settle down a bit in the next few weeks). I’m planning an international trip to visit a friend I’ve known since elementary school.

By the time, I stepped off the N train and half-strutted, half-stumbled out into the murky light of a cloudy NYC morning, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. I didn’t have a stitch of makeup on and didn’t even have time to put in my contacts leaving me with a emo-glasses kind of day, but I still managed to don a cute sweater dress and badass boots. I looked cute and I knew underneath the clothes was a body that has had more than one man staring in awe in the last few months. I smiled when I thought about the guys who had ended up on the receiving end of my “Look” which ended with, “well, that was fun…later!” I also thought about the nights when I couldn’t be bothered to make plans or canceled ones I had because I wanted to enjoy my own company.

I’ve known for a long time that I’m good at relationships. Too good almost…sometimes losing myself in them and forgetting about things outside of it. Being single though…I pretty much figured it was something to suffer through since I was never that good at it. I was always more worried about trying to make it end. But as I walked into the office (soon to be harshly greeted by chocolate-doughnut flavored coffee…seriously, who does that?) I was feeling pretty damn good about my singleness. It felt more like on my own than all by myself and that makes a hell of a difference.

xoxo

Cat

Stick Figure Valentine

14 February 2012

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Valentine’s Day will never live up to the expectations you have for it. It will never be that absolutely perfect night of romance. And for the most part, it will not be the unmitigated disaster you fear. So it’s best to just acknowledge it, do whatever you can to take the stress out of the day, and give a deep sigh of relief tomorrow. And so, I leave you with a little Valentine’s hilarity from one of my favorite sites: xkcd:

xoxo

Cat

PS. I couldn’t resist throwing in the Valentine’s Day Google Doodle. It melts even my cold, battered heart:

For the Love of Roo

13 February 2012

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I lay on the couch, eyes puffy and bloodshot from the previous night’s waterworks. It was ten in the morning and I had hours upon hours stretching out before me with no idea how to fill them. My chest still felt like a gaping wound and without something to occupy my girl-brain, there was a pretty good chance the tears would make another appearance. And then, as if she could sense me falling off the edge, Roo threw out a hand and grabbed me by the wrist. The phone rang and I shied away from it, worried that it might be him, calling to see if I really was okay, or to explain himself more. But I grinned when I saw her name on the call ID, picking it up gratefully. Her first words were to find out how I was holding up and I almost burst into tears right there, simply grateful for the life raft she was throwing me. And then she proceeded to distract me in the best way possible.

Here’s one good thing about me: no matter how dismally bitter and cynical I am about my own romantic prospects, I’m rather optimistic when it comes to the prospects of my friends. So when I finished assuring her that I wasn’t okay yet, but I would be, Roo got quiet…and then proceeded to freak out about her date that night. I grinned and gave an inward sigh of relief. I may not be able to make any sense of my love life, but I know how to talk a friend down from a cliff. We talked wardrobe and hair and I convinced her to wear the little black dress that I knew would show of her tiny waist. I asked for the rundown of where and when they were meeting and set up the extraction plan if she needed to get out of there: a text a half hour in to see if she needed me to fake an emergency. Then I reassured her that she wasn’t going to need said plan.

Her voice got soft and I could nearly feel her blushing through the phone. I grinned to myself and sent up a rare prayer to the universe that this guy would be decent and kind and a gentleman because she liked him. Like really liked him. I could tell by how hesitant she was, how she wasn’t making jokes about it, how she shied away and called me fourteen times throughout the day to voice a new concern. And I begged the universe with my whole heart to let him be exactly as sweet and genuine as he seemed. Even though we’re less than a month apart in age, Roo has always been like the little sister I wanted but never had. She’s petite and sweet and has a heart still touched by an innocence that only a monster would dare dispel. And when my jaded ass declares matter-of-factly that happily ever after is not in my cards, she nods knowingly and ignores my words because she believes body and soul that I’m wrong. So I silenced the screaming in my head, fueled by a heart much more familiar with breaking than hers. I resisted the urge to advise her to run, to stay away from this man before he broke her precious heart.

I smiled and hoped that there was something left in the world to believe in. I texted her at the agreed time and for once was happy to have a text utterly ignored. Like a big sister, I waited up for her call to hear how everything turned out. And my bombed-out heart sighed in relief to hear that he’d been a perfect gentleman. I still didn’t believe that I’d have my own happily ever after, but I went to sleep calmer than I had the night before. At the very least, there was Roo and even though this jerk guy was stealing my Valentine, she’d still be my baby sister and I’d still be her champion. And I’d take that over “girlfriend” any day of the week.

xoxo

Cat