Long time coming

I'm going to Burning Man this year. I've never been before and though my college friends went every year, I was honestly just never interested in it. Tonight I was talking to my cousin about this and how, while I'm pretty bummed I waited this long to go, I always knew it wasn't the right time in my life. I told him that "believe it or not, I used to be way more uptight." He laughed cause I still am but honestly I've changed a lot in the last few years and the main improvement has been my ability to go with the flow. I won't say I'm an expert at this, but I'm so much better at accepting things and adapting. I've changed in a lot of other ways; I think I'm way more fun and open minded and I now love listening to DJs where I used to wonder "why does anyone like techno?" I'm definitely open to more drugs and most importantly, I have a new love for my friends and the world around me that I didn't understand before.

Fuck, I know. What a hippie. The thing about Burning Man is that I have a LOT of people in my life who go and almost none of them are hippies. I've never really understood it and I won't really until I go, but what I do understand already, without even leaving yet, is the feeling of community. Being a part of something. I am already out of my mind excited and the anticipation is killing me. It's all I think about and it's all I want to talk about. Lucky for me, I have about a million people I love who are going so I get to talk about it.

The thing I love most about the fact that I am going is that I finally want to go. I like who I have become. And who I am becoming. I know that I can still be hard to deal with. I've got an attitude and I don't always like when things don't go as planned but I am finally to a point in my life where I don't expect the world to be the way I'm expecting. Every day I discover a new kind of music or that someone I'd judged is actually amazing or that there are parts of me that are really amazing or that people are mostly kind and that life is mostly a fun joke and that I have the world in front of me if I can just figure out what I want to do with it.

So that's my plan at Burning Man. A lot of people say that they use the time there to help find clarity, make decisions, figure out the things in their life they can't figure out at home. I want to spend some time thinking about my future and who I really want to become and then what I might do to become it. Things are good here. I love my friends and I have a decent job at a good company. I don't want for much but I know there's something more to it all and I'm so very excited to find it. I want to take the good parts of me —loyalty and compassion and problem solving and listening and laughter and sincerity and good old fashioned silliness — and use those to overcome the worse parts of me  — cynicism and judgment and insensitivity and jealousy and fear of the unknown — so I can choose a path toward love and contentment and satisfaction. A place where I do something meaningful.

I'm heading toward the dirty thirty and it's coming on fast. When I come back on September 3rd and my heart is full and my body is destroyed, I want to make some choices about what happens next. It's my life. I can do with it whatever I want.

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OkKillMe

Internet dating. Sigh...

I haven't written much about it because frankly, it really sucks. The pressure of knowing that everyone is out there to find love and that you may or may not make the cut, the stigma that hovers around internet dating even if everyone is doing it these days, the anxiety over meeting someone and then being judged harshly, the lonely search through hundreds of other lonesome souls. I've been on and off OkCupid for the last two and a half years and I haven't dated a ton of guys, but there have been enough to have some stories and some experiences. Like the guy who took me to shoot guns for the first time and paid for me to shoot a machine gun AND a Barrett 50cal...
 

Or that other guy who took me bow and arrow shooting and I discovered I was kind of amazing at it and put him to shame. Or the narcoleptic guy I dated who taught me what a truly horrible but hilarious disease it is (no, he didn't fall asleep during sex, but he did have to keep his leg locked during orgasm so he wouldn't collapse). Or the one I actually really liked, but who slept in a hammock, filled his watch with moss when it stopped working and refused to believe in having a job. I've had some deeper feelings for these internet guys and I've had no feelings for these guys and I've had strictly sexy feelings for some of these guys, but I've definitely, definitely never fallen in love.

I guess it makes sense. If I strike out on the love front in real life, then why wouldn't I strike out on the internet? I will say that the good thing that's come out of this all is that I've learned a lot about how to date and be a good date and what I want in a guy. Some lessons for a curious soul:

1) Don't message with someone for too long before meeting.
I learned this one with the first internet boy I met. We had an amazing rapport, always making each other laugh and sending flirty texts. It took at least a month before I met him and in that time we talked throughout the day, every day. Everything felt so good with him until we met. He was a great guy, but I just didn't feel romantic feelings for him at all. I tried really hard to like him because I wanted so bad for what we had in words to exist face to face. It didn't. Now if I'm going to meet someone, it's after just a couple of message. Let's just get this part over with and see if there's something there.

2) No food dates on a first date.
What if it's horrible? How do I know if this is going to be a total mess? If it is, I want to be able to escape. Can't do that if I have a meal in front of me. Let's start with a beer on a weeknight and then we can decide if we want more. If we're lucky, we'll stay out way too late having too much fun and regret picking a weeknight when we're hungover at work in the morning.

3) Get out while the getting out is good.
Trust your instincts. If something feels off, it probably is. If I am not really attracted to you, I shouldn't bother with a date. Enough of that high and mighty "I'm going to step outside of my norm and see if the guy I've been waiting for comes in a different package than what I usually go for." Yep, that's definitely a possibility. But that's gotta come naturally, not in a forced situation like this. It's awkward enough going on what is essentially a blind date. At least start with what you think is physical attraction and hope for the best in the other places. There is always going to be the real world for accidentally and unexpectedly falling in love with the guy you never thought you'd be attracted to but who was just... so... perfect.

4) Don't do all the listening.
From what I hear, typical girls do most of the talking on early dates. I'm the opposite. I'm so terrified of awkward silence that I usually just keep firing questions. The good dates find a way to equal out the conversation so that we aren't just talking about him, but the bad ones are just as nervous and let me do all the asking. By the end of the date I realize that he hasn't learned a thing about me because I didn't let him and I can't be sure he even has an opinion of whether or not he likes me because we really just talked about him. The really narcissistic guys usually do like me after these dates because what they are really looking for is a girl who will worship them, which I'm sure I appear to be doing. I learned this lesson with some of the first guys I went out with and have made a very strong point of not doing this anymore. Let there be silence sometimes and see how he fills it. If he can't, he's a dud.

5) Just because you match on paper does not mean you will match in life.
Internet dating sites are designed to match you up with someone who already shares your interests. You think the same kinds of jokes are funny and share similar political and social values and you both hate bad grammar and think people should brush their teeth twice a day and prefer a trimmed pubic region and think that magicians are weird and that dinosaurs are awesome and blah blah blah. This is all well and good but it sure as hell doesn't mean you are going to be attracted to each other. It doesn't say anything about whether or not you can make each other laugh or if he's going to touch your leg in a way that drives you insane. Or maybe he will. But then you find out that he's actually a total stoner that has no ambition or who is really rude to strangers or that he doesn't want to have kids or maybe that he does. The algorithms of these dating sites are pretty good at telling you what you want to hear. But they're probably wrong. You're gonna go through a lot of shitty guys before you get one that's actually good.

I guess this is what all dating is like when you get to know someone. But the surprise element that comes with blind dates, or being set up by a friend, or even going on a date with a person you met briefly at a bar — that surprise is what makes dating both interesting and horrifying.

I dream of falling in love with a friend of a friend who's been going to the same parties as me. Or maybe someone I've known a long time. Or perhaps I meet him organically at a laundromat or a dance party and we hit it off immediately and end up talking for hours. These things don't happen to me (they must happen to somebody right?) so I'm settling for the internet because if I didn't, I might never go on a date at all. I wish I had the courage to go out in public and talk to strangers but as it turns out, adult life is just a big clique. I go out with my friends because I like my friends and then I stay with my friends because I like being with my friends.

I've dated a couple handfuls of guys from the internet and I haven't found a single one to be worthy of a future. I go back and forth wondering "would I rather date more loser guys and have them not work out or date no one at all?" This I have not answered. But I'm leaning toward the latter, which means I might be saying goodbye to the men of OkStupid as the Boyfriends like to call it.

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Dance Yourself Clean

Disclaimer: I wrote this at 5am, drunk, after a night out dancing. It's not at all good. But I wanted to post it because these drunken words are sober thoughts and I'm not feeling like writing anything else.

So, the thing about dancing...

I have been known to say "if I had to choose between sex and dancing, I'd pick dancing every time." Someone's going to argue that I've never really had the kind of sex that blows your mind (of course I have). But I think the real problem is that they've never had the kind of dancing that sets you free. I wish for all of my friends — for all people — that they could let go of all their self consciousness and just  dance.

I don't know when it happened for me. I might have always been this way. I don't remember a time in my life where I was afraid to dance, but I imagine in my teenage years I was. This I have learned: Dancing is the only thing I know that truly frees me. As I am getting older, I'm witnessing my friends, even my brother, cross their own dance-thresholds. It's happening for many of them, each in their own time, but I'm watching with joy as it does. This moment in their life when they suddenly don't care what they look like on the dance floor and they instead prefer to be a part of the joy — a part of the party. Somewhere along the way they've realized that whatever held them back before is no longer worth missing out.

You know that saying "dance as if no one is watching"? One of my dearest friends told me recently, as both a metaphor for me as a person and as a literal reference to the way I danced, that I did just this. It's the cheesiest saying, but it is, without a doubt, the truth for me. I'm not trying to toot my own horn because I'm not exactly a good dancer. I'm just a carefree dancer. And in my opinion, that is the best kind. Sometimes others call people like me "good dancers" because we have no inhibitions and we can bring nearly anyone into the party and because nobody has more fun. In a world full of cynical, terrified people, of people who don't know who they are, if my contribution is to stand in front of them, dance my heart out and give them inspiration or dancing-desire or even just the joy of watching someone else's true happiness, then I feel I have accomplished something real.

Dancing is the only way I know to completely let go of fear and be free of shame and loneliness and insecurity. I have spent my lifetime looking for ways to love myself and I've realized in my adult life that the way I love me best is on the dance floor. Dancing makes me sweat (an embarrassing amount, but it never stops me) and it makes me smile and it makes me love. Dancing makes me instantly forget what I left behind or what's hiding around the corner. I don't care what I look like or if a boy thinks I'm cute. I don't care if I smell bad or if I'm awkward or unladylike. All I care about is that I'm moving and grooving and feeling alive. This feeling I want for everyone.

I still know a lot of people who "don't like to dance." The way I see it, they just don't know yet that they do because they are too scared to truly do it. I wish more than anything that I could give a simple gift to everyone I know and love. The gift is that for one night — even just for one song — they can forget about the rest of the world. That they can close their eyes and feel the music and feel the beat. And then they will know what they are missing and they will never look back.

There is nothing that I love more than dancing. Not sex nor food nor laughing nor love. Dancing is the only way I know to be who I am. Now I want to find a way to spread this crazy love affair. How do I convince everyone who's still left standing to shut themselves down for five minutes and find out what it means to love yourself, your moves and the DJ?

I will dance until I die. And when I die, everyone I love has orders to dance on my grave. One. More. Time.

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