http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/ A behind-the-scenes glimpse into dating and relationships in the Gate City. en Copyright 2008 Mon, 05 May 2008 08:50:54 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Motorcycles are completely romantic to me. Look at Tom Cruise and that Kawasaki Ninja in Top Gun. How about "The Motorcycle Diaries." Freedom. Rebellion. And yet vulnerability. Plus, all that leather. There's a lot there to get excited about. But the topic of motorcycles is a minefield for my boyfriend and me. He loves them. He's been riding since he was a teenager. I doubt I'll ever be able to drive a motorcycle because it takes at least three beers to even get me thinking about getting on one. I need my judgment good and impaired before I can overlook how it will feel to hit the ground at anything faster than walking speed. And the other reason the topic is dangerous is that I have had so many crushes on so many guys with bikes. A friend from our hometown who looks kind of like an astronaut in his Kevlar riding outfit -- a hot astronaut. A girlfriend's neighbor whose name I did know, but who will forever be remembered as Moto Guzzi. He's the first guy that got me on a motorcycle -- and how I learned about that three beer rule. And I can't leave off, you know, my boyfriend. He's in there too. So when my b.f. and I were driving back from the beach yesterday, we saw so many guys on motorcycles having so much fun, I could see him thinking about his first love (Cheezy, but true. As a teenager, my poster was Tom Cruise, his was the Ninja.). And I was thinking about all the motorcycle crushes I've had. Not exactly something I feel really comfortable sharing with him (but I'm not worried about this blog. He never reads anything I write :). So for me, it's motorcycles. But there must be other topics, something you both get excited about, but can't really do together because of baggage or whatever. With five hours in the car yesterday, I had plenty of time to stew over whether it might be the kind of reservation that, over the course of a relationship, becomes one of those wide, frozen rifts. Maybe I'll just get a bike and see if it goes away. That is, until I get nailed by some 16-year-old girl in a Lincoln Navagator sending a text message about Miley Cyrus. Or worse, a 50-year-old man doing the same thing. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/05/love_and_motorcycles.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/05/love_and_motorcycles.shtml Ruby Mon, 05 May 2008 08:50:54 -0500 Sex on the brain. Sex and the City that is. I'm unabashedly a fan of the show, and with the movie hitting theaters soon, I've found more and more conversations with my friends/fellow fans centering on Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/05/can_a_samantha_exist_in_the_re.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/05/can_a_samantha_exist_in_the_re.shtml Betty Thu, 01 May 2008 11:40:19 -0500 story about a Web site that will let you auction off your valuables that are just too painful to keep so long as you tell the story behind them. (The site was down when I tried to look at it. They must have gotten overloaded after the Times story ran.) What have you done with your mementos of relationships long gone? Burned them? Thrown them off a bridge? Or kept them, knowing that one day they'd remind you of the good times, not just the bad?]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/selling_your_emotional_baggage.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/selling_your_emotional_baggage.shtml Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:04:39 -0500 article in Wired this month says meeting online is kind of like meeting in church -- another place I am never looking for a hook-up, by the way. I'm long over worrying about giving companies my credit card number over the Internet. Does my attitude about finding love online mean I belong on an ice floe somewhere? ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/i_do_everything_online_but_not.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/i_do_everything_online_but_not.shtml Ruby Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:36:14 -0500 Nails perfectly manicured with two coats of clear polish painted on each to obtain that high gloss look. Hair was perfect, thanks to the Paul Mitchell gel giving each curl a defined bounce. Sounds like I was ready for the perfect date, right? Wrong. I'm actually describing my date. I know I recently gushed about a long distance romance and seemed quite optimistic, but that optimism has morphed into boredom, so yeah, I'm dating again. That said, no matter who I date, I have always tried to stay away from high maintenance men. I don't need a man who spends more time than me in the mirror. In my opinion, men aren't supposed to be so caught up in hair and nails and though I like a man who is put together, style shouldn't take so much effort. So why did I end up at dinner with a man whose nails looked better than mine? I'm won't bore you with details as to how we met, but I will say I didn't see the shiny nails when my friends introduced us. Yes, he was very handsome, but looking at him a second time, I found myself staring at his lips, in awe of what appeared to be shiny lip balm. I tried not to hold it against him, but the perfect nails and glossy lips taunted me for the duration of the date. It didn't matter much, he seemed to be perfectly fine holding a full conversation by himself anyway. He gave me life story, and he even managed to discuss his future goals during what seemed to be the longest two hours of my life. Now, the boring long distance thing isn't looking so bad, in fact, I may go home and call him tonight as I sit in front of the television giving myself a much-needed manicure. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/nails_perfectly_manicured_with.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/nails_perfectly_manicured_with.shtml Jizelle Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:30:24 -0500 According to the current forecast, it's supposed to rain this weekend. And while we're in a drought, that doesn't make me hate cloudy, rainy days any less. Sometimes it's just comfortable to be in a drought. Now before I get angry comments about how thankful I should be for rain, you should know I'm no longer talking about the weather. I'm talking about my lack of dating for the past couple of months. I've been ignoring offers to go out in favor of hanging out with my friends or just hanging out with myself in front of the TV. It's comfortable. I'm comfortable. And I don't have to dress up or look pretty. But I know better than to allow myself to get too comfortable in a drought. I know that I'm inventing flaws in potential dates just because being single is sometimes the easiest option. I know that dating my television set or clinging to my friends is a bad idea. But I can't seem to get motivated to put myself out there right now and I don't know what the deal is. Any advice on how to give myself a kick in the pants? In all likelihood, I won't take it. I'll just wait for some guy to come along and wow me out of my sweatpants (and into something more appropriate for a date, I mean). But maybe there's another, more realistic, solution out there. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/its_raining_raindrops_not_men.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/its_raining_raindrops_not_men.shtml Betty Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:36:11 -0500 Writing for this blog has been really good for me. The idea that I'm going to write honestly about whatever interaction I have with men has done a pretty good job of keeping me from doing some dumb things. But since I haven't been writing as much, I seem to have gone right back to doing the same things that I totally know better than to do. Here's a summary. Last weekend, I was at an event where I met a guy who spoke French as a first language. I got a little excited to be able to practice speaking French, something I haven't really done since college. I got carried away and gave him my phone number so we could hang out and chat some more. I know better. He has called me about four times a day for going on a week now. On Thursday, I was heading into Rioja for the first time when some guys asked me something about my car. I have a pretty attention-getting car and I've become accustomed to, well, getting attention for it so I answered their questions, accepted their compliments and headed on inside to wait for my (girl) friend. I ended up with several minutes on my hands before my friend arrived and while I was waiting, those two guys came inside and offered me a taste of their wine. By offer, I mean the manager poured it in front of me before I could tell what was happening. It's a small place and we were just about the only people there so I would have felt super rude saying "No thanks, I don't want to taste your wine because I don't want to give you the wrong idea. But almost the worst part of this was these guys are much much older than I am. If they even thought they had a chance, I think they must have guessed my age at like, at least 10 years older than I really am. Since I'm not 14, that's not flattering!! I've been a little freaked out about it ever since. So if you see me wearing knee socks and pigtails, you know that I'm having some "I'm not 30 yet" fugue brought on by the trauma of being hit on by someone on the other side of retirement savings. My friend arrived in just the nick of time, saving me from saying to these guys "I don't want to talk to you." Which I wouldn't have actually said anyway, I would have just smiled and been friendly to them and been uncomfortable and embarrassed. The moral of the story is I shouldn't have given the Francophone my number and I should have been direct and firm with the wine-offering old dudes. And I think I did the wrong (my usual) thing because I wasn't thinking of writing a blog post about it. So Unbuttoned makes my life better, just like Socrates said it would. Sort of. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/long_time_no_see.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/long_time_no_see.shtml Ruby Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:55:06 -0500 Imagine it's 1991. You turn on the TV to see that guy opening the door with a suitcase. He says "I've been gone a long time and you're still going strong." Or something like that. Is he mad that the woman he told to leave is still there? No! He's happy his Renuzit brand air freshener is still off-gassing flower-scented chemicals! This is the first thing I thought of when a friend e-mailed me telling me that since his girlfriend left after a long visit (at least I think that's the scenario -- this friend is sorta hard to keep up with), his apartment has started to smell like a locker room. As it happens, I also just came back from a long trip, but my b.f. managed to keep things from reverting too far to the state of nature. I think it's because he kept using my shampoo. Of course girls smell better than boys. That's an incontrovertible natural law. But is there something else that a girl's presence brings to a home in the strictly olfactory dimension? My theory is that we are all cleaner and tidier when there is a chance we'll be observed -- boys and girls. What's yours? http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/the_smell_of_singleness.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/the_smell_of_singleness.shtml Ruby Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:50:58 -0500 http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/older_doesnt_necessarily_mean.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/04/older_doesnt_necessarily_mean.shtml Jizelle Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:00:00 -0500 I don't like dating strangers. I've given it plenty of tries and will probably continue to, but, to be quite honest, I don't enjoy it. I've always wanted a relationship that was based in friendship and grew into something more. Sure, there are plenty of reasons why those relationships are bad. (The friendship might get ruined; you might put mutual friends in the middle in the event of a breakup.) But I'm starting to think the benefits might outweigh those risks. No more awkward first dates being No. 1 because you'd get to know each other before romance is a factor. And the fact that he would likely know, and probably love, my friends is a major plus. Tell me about your experiences dating friends. Good, bad, ugly? http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/seeking_friendship_first.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/seeking_friendship_first.shtml Betty Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:50:32 -0500 I think everyone can remember the first time a girl or boy made your knees weak, your heart flutter and your intelligence, er, disappear. When I was a teenager, the first time I held a boy's hand or met by my locker to sneak a peck was a big deal. That's the time when puppy love was cute. Ten years later, it seems puppy love has been phased out and replaced with puppy lust. I'm experiencing that headache now with a teenage relative whose fixation with boys is leading her on a path to self destruction. She skips school, sneaks out of the house and her grades have gone from stellar to failure. I'm no fool, I know many of my peers were doing more than hugging and kissing when I was in middle school and high school, and while the guys were probably getting high fives for losing their virginity, the girls were being called promiscuous (among other things). Now, intimate excapades seem to be as cool as hanging out with your buds. Teenagers talk about sex like it's small talk and they're having it just as casually. I was watching a daytime talk show recently where teens were talking about how they play sex games where they wear different colored bracelets and if someone from the opposite sex snaps the bracelet, you have to perform whatever intimate act the color represents. I was shocked. But who's to blame for the evolution of relating? I've heard people blame the entertainment industry, which makes intimacy appear glamorous. But some argue that there are just as many television programs, web sites and celebrity influences that talk about the dangers of promiscuity and unprotected sex. For some reason, though, it's not enough. But what else can be done to put an end to teenagers' reckless behaviors? I don't have any kids, so I can't really advise on the subject, but I'd love to get some tips from someone who has experience - whether you're a parent who's been there or know someone who has. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/teens_and_relationships_a_pare.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/teens_and_relationships_a_pare.shtml Jizelle Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:55:00 -0500 Social lives have long revolved around food and drink. So it's no wonder to me that food and drink, and one's preferences, can play an important role in forming meaningful relationships. A recent NY Times article probed relationships between vegetarians and meat-eaters. How does that work? Well, I've seen it work and usually the non-vegetarian cuts back on his/her meat intake -- not always such a bad idea. But what about the social drinker who is paired with the teetotaler? As for those all-important first impressions, should a girl order salad at dinner to appear dainty? What if she's really just not that hungry? Is it really a turn on to date a girl with a hearty appetite? What if that hearty appetite comes with a hearty pant size? If any of those questions actually matter, then eating, like everything else in those first few meetings, is all about appearances. Order the lobster to flaunt your money or request the steak extra rare to demonstrate your manliness. Don't mention your strange food allergies or restrictive diet plan. And the perennial problem for many: When a guy or gal is drinking on a date, when does the impression go from "he/she likes to have a good time" to "he/she's a lush?" http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/eat_drink_and_be_selfconscious.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/eat_drink_and_be_selfconscious.shtml Betty Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:36:05 -0500 I've been away from this blogging thing for a while, but I come back with some good news - I met someone that has some real relationship potential. The only problem is, he lives about seven hours away! It is so me to meet a man in the nearby Queen City only to later find out he lives in the Chocolate City (a common nickname for Wahsington, D.C.). In the past, a long distance relationship always seemed to be the perfect scenario for a budding love affair. I could see my mate occasionally, talk on the phone until the wee hours of the night and still have my space. But, what happens when you don't want space anymore? I'm getting older now and I'm starting to yearn for the little things that make a relationship tick. I don't want to give up on the possibilty of having all that with this guy just yet, so how do you keep the love from going stale before it's fully developed? Is it even possible to maintain a long distance relationship for more than a few months? http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/distance_makes_the_heart_growl.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/distance_makes_the_heart_growl.shtml Jizelle Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:28:00 -0500 I know we women, at least the ones I know (and me), like to project an image of being easy-going, down-to-earth and low-maintenance. We can drink beer and eat pizza. We can be ready to go do something spontaneous at a moment's notice. We don't bring make-up on a camping trip. The problem? Being that cool isn't always possible. At least, it's not always possible to be that cool and still be the attractive girl you guys are looking for. Beer and pizza have carbs. Hair needs to be conditioned and blow-dried before that spontaneous adventure. And, well, don't expect me to wake up in the forest looking the way I looked when you met me. My question is this: Guys, if you can't have both (the girl who is low maintenance AND the girl who looks good and smells like lilacs all the time) which are you gonna choose? It's my opinion that guys want certain things to come naturally that simply don't. When faced with two choices, they'll choose the girl with the highlights and the perfect make-up, but would never admit to wanting the girl who needs the highlights and the perfect make-up. What's a girl to do? http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/highmaintenance_or_just_girlma.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/highmaintenance_or_just_girlma.shtml Betty Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:00:00 -0500 Getting a haircut. My hair is now twice as long as it ever was in college, and relentlessly getting longer. I have pictures all over my desk of my flippy little bob and I get all nostalgic about hair that dried itself just right if I drove to work with my car windows down. But unlike most of college, now I have a man. A man who, like all men, likes long hair. It doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice, does it? Longer hair saves me money -- now I only get a haircut every couple of months instead of at least every six weeks. It's easy enough to throw in a ponytail and seem fairly well groomed most of the time. But it does take a long time to wash. It takes a long time to dry. It takes a long time to style. It gets tangled. It gets on my ice cream cone on a windy day. And it's not really what I prefer. I concede that my sacrifice is pretty small, but it's Monday; let's ease into this whole thing. Have you changed things about yourself for a relationship? My resentment over this whole hair length thing is at, like, a 2 out of 10. But how much do you come to resent the changes you make to please a partner? Or does your partner drive you to make positive changes? http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/what_im_not_doing_for_love.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/unbuttoned/2008/03/what_im_not_doing_for_love.shtml Ruby Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:28:32 -0500