Play By The Rules

If you're anything like me, you tune into regularly syndicated episodes of "Girlfriends" and secretly compare you and your group of 4 friends to the women on the show. And, if you're not anything like me, then you just completely missed this reference and may be lost for the next few minutes or so but bear with me...you'll understand eventually. On the show, Tracee Ellis Ross' character Joan is well-known for her three month rule: she doesn't sleep with a man until at least three months of dating. I'm not here to condone or condemn this rule. Instead, I'm just here to talk about rules. Dictionary.com, the only reliable dictionary in today's society...obviously, defines a rule as "a principle or regulation governing conduct, action, procedure, arrangement, etc." Rules have been reigning our lives since we were little. "Be in bed by 9pm," "Eat all of your spinach," "Don't run alongside the pool." Sometimes rules have major consequences (running alongside the pool could mean busting your ass) while other rules have minor consequences or no consequences at all (I stopped going to bed at 9pm when I was little once I discovered "The Real World Hawaii" came on at 10pm.) As we get older, we play by our own rules. But, the important thing is that we have them. Ok, time for me to get to the dating/love/reason why you read this blog portion of my point. It's my personal belief that it helps to channel your inner Joan Clayton (character from Girlfriends I just talked about for my ADD friends who are already lost) and set some rules of your own in the world of dating. Even if it's just one rule. For instance, I have a no sleepover rule with hookups. (see post from October 29, 2009 entitled "REM.") I'm a weirdo who firmly believes sleeping with someone, literally just sharing a bed with them and sleeping for a full night, is super intimate. So, I don't care if it's 4am and I'm yawning all over the place...I'll gather my things and walk back to my place. But, that's just me. I'm not suggesting you have a "three month rule" or a "no sleepover rule"...I'm simply suggesting you have a rule. Why? Because in the unpredictable, psychotic, and easily hurtful world of dating and relationships, it helps to have something that you stand by, even if it is as simple as "I won't tell you my middle name until Date 3." You know that cheesy saying, If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything? I think that kind of applies here. If you have absolutely nothing that keeps you grounded in the dating universe, you'll probably fall for anything and anybody. Love freely, tY

The Social Sexwork

I know you thought I was going to come back from Miami with stories of how I had eye sex with an Italian in a club and how I became smitten over beautiful black men from London who were visiting the United States for one week. And, while all of the above are true (more on Miami in another post sometime soon), I also spent a tiny portion of my spring break watching, for the second time, what I will now deem one of my favorite movies...The Social Network.

With thoughts of Jesse Eisenberg's witty and incisive vernacular still floating through my mind, I stumbled across this article on a friend's Facebook status:

"UChicago Hookup Expands: Casual Sex Site Now Welcoming Other Schools"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/28/college-hookups-website-e_n_841474.html

For those of you who are like me and are too lazy to read links unless you're super interested, here's the gist: University of Chicago has a website where people can set up casual hookups with others. They describe it as being similar to the "casual encounters" (pronounced "you're a 50 year old creeper looking to prey on young girls") portion of Craigslist.

Let me just add an aside here for my fellow Terps. We don't have a casual hookup website because we have a casual hookup Cornerstone instead. Am I taking a jab at Chicago, Columbia, and whoever else is joining this website? Yeah, you can bet your five-pounds-heavier-from-all-of-the-alcohol-on-spring-break ass that I am. Because for those of us who are classy enough to at least drunk text someone before trying to get in their pants, this is just putting all of our hard work to shame.

If you read Free Love, you already know my take on the demise of human communication and how pathetic it is. No need to comment further. I'm just wondering if this site will be like Facebook...starts off with all of the prestigious schools (the site expands to Brown on April 4) and then trickles down to us plebians at public institutions. My God, I hope this isn't the case. We have to show those ivy-league recluses that we at least know how to do something right.

There's no life message today. Sorry if you were looking for me to enlighten you. I, too, just came off of a spring break complete with sun, alcohol, and dropping to the floor every night when Juvenile came on. My brain isn't quite back and I am not sorry for that. But, I guess if there is going to be a point it's that this website is pathetic, anyone who uses it is pathetic, and I hope it never makes its way to my home for 6 more weeks, UMD.

But, you DO have to have a .edu email address to use the site. Classy, Chicago. Classy.

Love freely,

tY

Let the debauchery begin.

Free Love wishes you and yours a fabulous spring break. Please refer to the entry "Spring Break 2011 According to Free Love" for my words of wisdom as you embark upon a week of lost consciousness, poor decisions, and sun. I commend you and respect you for it.

Please return with some entertaining stories to fuel content on this blog.

I'll be on hiatus for a few days but I'll return in a few days...hopefully with some stories of my own.

Love freely,
tY

This is the true story of seven strangers

Alright, so if you haven't heard...I'm moving. All the way to Boston. The only thing I know about Boston is that it has a solid basketball team by the name of the Boston Celtics. Oh yeah...and it has Harvard (well, Cambridge has Harvard but close enough.) Basketball and ivy league men...this might work out for me.

As thoughts of moving and becoming an adult have consumed me for the past 48 hours or so, of course, I've thought about dating.

How do you date in the real world?

Usually, I like to have an answer for such questions. That's the point of this blog. That's why you're reading this because I've made myself out to be some love guru (ha, I'm the exact opposite) and you want me to help you. But, I don't think I can help you on this one. The truth is, I, like many of my peers, am getting ready to exit the world of college where dating is defined as: "We became Facebook friends. I met you once after only texting you and never actually speaking to you. We ran into each other at Cornerstone and sealed our love with a drunken kiss and other activities that took place in your apartment at Commons. The end." College prides itself on teaching us a lot of things but, I'm sorry, dating is simply not one of them.

The pathetic thing is...I'm not sure if I'm ready to enter the "real world" of dating. When I think of the real world of dating, I think of dinner and a movie, someone pulling out my chair for me, picking me up at my place around 8 and getting me home around 11. Chivalrous? Sure. Boring as hell? Yeah, that too. Even though "dating" or whatever we're doing in undergrad (you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals...) is pretty gross and sleazy, at least it's creative. Even people who actually are in monogamous relationships in college find fun and cheap things to do and avoid the stereotypical "dinner and a movie" date. Dinner and a movie is lame and should only be reserved for the name of that show that used to come on TBS for single lonely girls on a Friday night.

What I'm getting at is that I'm not really ready for the fluff of real dating. Everything about real life is fluffy...office politics, dating, happy hour with your co-workers. People in the real world become robots and shells of their former selves, something that I think we should all intend to consciously avoid if the world has any chance of being a decent place (hence why this blog is going to be my escape once I begin work). But, back to dating. I don't know if it's necessary for someone to buy me a 50 dollar meal in order to learn my middle name and what I majored in in college. In fact, sometimes I think I'd just rather sit down and have a sour amoretta while having that conversation. Because in the end, the real world is just far too padded and fluffy at this point and dating should be a place that's raw (not in that sense, kids), real, and rough. That's the only way you can really get to know someone.

Screw the fluff. No cotton necessary for this girl.

Love freely,
tY

Spring Break 2011 According to Free Love

Upon playing Will Smith's "Miami" mere moments ago, it has occurred to me that my last spring break is next week. Exactly one week from now I'll be in the warmth of South Beach, hopefully inebriated and happy.

Spring break is about engaging in as much debauchery as your liver and lower parts will allow in one week. But, because this is Free Love, I'm not here to talk about your liver. Just don't die. No, I'm serious, don't die...I need as many readers as possible. Instead, I am here to talk about the lower parts. So, let's cut to chase:

Tyece's Lowdown on the Spring Break Hook Up (ahh, ahh, see what I did there? Ok, yeah, it was corny...I apologize.)

• Even Lil Wayne who has spent countless hours in jail and has mastered the art of people understanding him despite his inability to speak the English language knows the deal...safe sex is great sex.
• If you're like me, your entire senior class is going to the same place as you for spring break (Miami...so unique...not). Do not, I repeat DO NOT, hook up with people from school/people you know. You can do that during the semester. Doing it in a different location is stupid/a waste of your lower parts.
• Making out in bars/clubs is acceptable. I don't care what anyone says.
• Let me shout out to my relationship peeps for a minute...don't cheat. That's not a good look.
• Alright, it's tempting. But, don't go home with random people. I know he's hot and he seems like a relatively sane human being but Lifetime wasn't lying about Craigslist killers. Again, you can't die because I need people to read this blog. So, here are your options: A) Just bring him back to your place and have your drunk friends deal with the consequences. Your friendship will be better because of it. B) Channel your inner Usher and make as much love as you can in the club without getting kicked out.
• No, really, make sure you wrap it up. Maury doesn't look like a really welcoming place to go to.
• Your goal: be the perfect drunk so you can get loose enough to make out with someone but you're not so drunk that you're that girl who blacked out. I mean you can be that girl if you want but she's not getting any action, trust me.
• What happens in spring break, stays in spring break.

So, with that, go off and live it up. Come back with some stories (and make sure stories are the only things that start with an "S" that you come back with.)

Love freely,

tY

Redefining PDA

If you are reading this post because you want to know about my views on couples acting like morons being all kissy and huggy and gross in public, then stop reading. Not writing about that today, biatch.

Nope, I'm talking about PDA: Public Displays of Argumentation.

You've seen it. You've probably done it. Yup, I'm talking about fighting with your significant other in public.

Fighting with your sig o in public is kinda like throwing up in public: you don't want to do it, you don't even want to do it in private, but sometimes you can't control it and everyone else sees it but will try to be polite and not be grossed out by you (unless of course you are me and have a deep-rooted phobia of vomit in which case you will abruptly leave the room like a maniac...the sad thing is I'm not even lying.) Also, that vom/fighting analogy was one of the top 10 best analogies I've used on Free Love ever. I'm just saying.

Anyway, this post is all sparked by a run in I had with someone yesterday as they were nearing the end of a "conversation" (pronounced argument) with their boyfriend. There I was, holding my grande mocha and waiting to start working on our group project while averting my eyes from the uncomfortable scene. I could sympathize...a little over a year ago, I had my own public falling out with an ex in the middle of a crowded NYC restaurant where I had to flee to the bathroom and cry. Then, one of the nice bathroom attendants (the type of job only found in cities where people are too elitist to turn the sink on themselves) handed me a tissue and I realized, wow, Tyece, you're kind of pathetic right now.

Public fallouts are just a part of the relationship game. And, in some ways, they are like PDA (now, I'm talking about Public Displays of Affection.) Sometimes, you really can't keep your hands off of each other and sometimes you really can't stop yourself from wanting to grab your boyfriend by his throat and damage him. Fighting in public is just one of those things that makes relationships real. (Sh)it happens and you'll be better because of it. Keep it to a minimum but don't avoid it completely. If anything, it's entertainment for us single people.

But, don't spill your cookies in public. Not entertaining...gross. And, I will run away. And, maybe cry.

Love freely,
tY

The 8 Month Funk

You would think that after skipping my Spanish class this morning and getting an extra hour of sleep, I'd wake up refreshed and ready to start the day. But, I wasn't. I realized I was kind of in a mood. Now, this mood could be blamed on many things. It could be blamed on my disdain for school because it's my last semester and I don't think writing a paper analyzing how color is used in a visual is quite useful at this point. It could be blamed on the lack of sleep I got last night. Could be blamed on my messed up finances at the moment.

But...I don't think any of these things are the culprit.

Last night (well, this morning around 5am) while showering, I realized I've been single for about 8 months now. I have hit the 8 month funk.

For people who are in relationships, they usually say the first 6 months or so are the honeymoon period. Everything's great, you fall in love, and your life is cherries and sugar and all of that good stuff. I'd like to think it's the same for people who are single. Once you get over that "I hate him and want to key his car" hump, being single is fun. It's new. Exciting. But, just like those people in a relationship who hit a bump after 6 months or so, as a single person you, too, hit a bump and kind of sort of miss being in a relationship. At least if you're anything like me, you miss just bumming it with someone on a Friday night, texting them in the middle of the day saying hello, or waking up next to them (although I must admit I hate sharing my bed and I don't sleep well with others...wow, reason number 506 why I'm never going to get married.)

So, there's really only one of two options. For the people who hit the 8 month bump in relationships, they have to decide if they're going to stay together or split. Pretty simple. If you're single, you really don't have the option of going and just getting into a relationship (unless, of course, you're that desperate in which case you shouldn't be reading this blog because I don't write for desperate people.) So, you can either dwell on being single and whine about it or you can ride it out and continue to enjoy your life.

There's a line in one of my favorite movies, Hitch, when Eva Mendes turns to her friend and says, "You're not sick; you're single." Too often, we think of being single as some plague when it's the opposite. It's a chance to get to discover new things and people, enjoy only having to make choices for yourself, and meet some sexy characters and make some bad decisions with them along the way. So, do what you have to do to remind yourself that riding solo a la Jason Derulo isn't so bad after all. Maybe you're like me and realize at this point in your life, you should focus on the one person who's always going to be there for you: you.

Love freely,
tY

I...Like...You?

Fifteen definitions of the word "crush" on dictionary.com. Here's the one I'm looking for:

Noun: (informal)--an intense but usually shortlived infatuation
the object of such an infatuation--"Who is your latest crush?"

In elementary school, if you liked someone, you hit them or said mean things to them. The funny thing is, I never really graduated from that level and still give the guys whom I like a hard time compared to the guys whom I don't. But, really, how do you let someone know you're interested?

At least for women, or at least for myself, there's this fine line between too aggressive and too passive. I've found that going up to someone and telling them straight up, "You're attractive" is too bold and, ugh, I hate saying this, but too masculine. It's basically the equivalent of, "You have balls and here are mine, too, while we're on the subject." But, not saying anything won't work in your favor because no one is going to know something if you're quiet.

I'm not sure if it's any easier for men. If they come on too strong, we label them as creepy. If they're too passive, we won't care. And if they do anything in between, we'll get all goo goo ga ga and overanalyze everything they say and do.

So what do we do? We'll send someone a Facebook friend request. We'll say something on Twitter and hope that they notice a subtweet. We'll tell our friend to tell their friend to tell them. We find roundabout ways to say things that we are afraid to say. Because striking up a conversation out of thin air is sometimes more frightening than Michael Jackson in Thriller.

I'd like to think that in my short 21 years, I've mastered a few things. The art of making a perfect microwave hotdog. Knowing how to hail a cab in NYC. Enduring an entire night in high heels (this happened last night!) But, when it comes to letting someone know I have a crush on them, I don't know what to do. I don't even know where to start. I'm not talking about "We've been seeing each other for a minute and I actually like you." No, I know how to say that. I'm talking about, "We have literally never spoken before but you're cute and I may want to talk to you and do more than that if at all possible, please and thank you."

So, what do I do instead? I blog about it at 1:30 in the morning instead of writing my paper due tomorrow. Cool.

Love freely,
tY

Quotes From Last Night: Marriage

I really have no business writing about marriage. What do I know, right? I'm 21, unmarried, single, and the only marriage I've had an up close and personal experience with has been that of my parents, which, well, um, yeah. Enough said.

But, I probably don't have any business writing about a lot of stuff on this blog so marriage, here we go.

Last night, while talking to a friend, I spent a good 20 minutes defending why I don't want to have children and possibly don't want to get married. Snippets of the conversation went a little something like this:

Him: But if you don't get married or have kids you'll...just...get...old....by yourself.

Me: Why can't I just spend my life with someone and not be married?

Him: So you think a man is going to be with you his whole life, not sleep with anyone else, but not marry you?

Me: Yeah...

later in the convo...

Me: You're only saying these things cause you're a traditionalist. I think you'll be one of those people who cheats on your wife anyway.

Him: Yeah, I probably will. And, she'll probably cheat on me. As long as I don't know about it, it's fine.

Do you have a puzzled/disgusted look on your face after reading that last sentence? Oh, ok, cause that's what I looked like when I heard it.

Let me be completely honest: America has fucked up marriage. I don't drop the f-bomb often on Free Love, but it is true. In some ways, I don't blame my friend for his final comment because all around us, we're seeing that people get married and what do they do? They cheat. They lie. They steal. They get divorced. People get married because oops, they had a kid and there's no choice or oh, they love each other at age 20 and that's enough, or he needs a green card or she needs a source of income because she's too lazy to work. All very wrong reasons to get married, if you ask me. America doesn't think about the marriage; it thinks about "getting married." It thinks about the white dress, the tux, the ceremony, the reception. It thinks about the day, not the lifetime and sorry to tell you, but marriage is a lifetime. So, there's no wonder that I have little faith in marriage.

Similar to my post about having children a few days ago, marriage is a choice, not an obligation. And, yes, deep down, I'm pretty sure I'll get married. But I will do it for the right reasons. Not for money. Not JUST for love (because not everyone whom you love are you meant to marry and if you haven't learned that yet, come back to me after your next breakup.) Not because I'm 30 and society told me I'm too old to be single and not because I'm dating someone and it just seems like the "next logical step." So, maybe I don't know all the reasons why I would marry someone, but those are some of the reasons why I certainly wouldn't. And, at 21, I think that's all I need to know.

Love freely,

tY