if you're thinking about someone a lot

is it because you like them?
or is it merely because they are away and you don't have that many distractions and thus are occupying your mind by thinking of them?
spy guy is away for another four days. maybe five. who's counting? plus he'll probably go straight into a briefing on tuesday and then be off again somewhere or busy sorting a whole bunch of paperwork. why do i even care?

and then there's the most overrated night of the year.
i have absolutely no clue what i am doing for new year's eve.

i was tempted to jump on a plane back to the city, or take up michaela's invitation to join her in hong kong, just for the weekend. but again, that thing called money got in the way. the problem with most of my friends are they now have young families so new year's has become less of a party and instead, another family holiday (usually segued from christmas and thus spent with the in-laws).

the days of random nights, champagne and columbia's finest are indeed well behind us - so i'm glad i enjoyed every moment of it when we were there.

so hannukah and christmas has come and gone and i've re-arranged my wardrobe, hung new pictures, not cleaned my apartment, and drank way too much champagne. and the thing about the holidays this year is tomorrow we're all due back at work.

i've been feeling lost - part of it is the fact that for a meglomaniac workaholic like me, a mere few days of not working takes some getting used to. but perhaps the other part is wondering when i'm going to start my life. or make my life into what i've always dreamt of.

some people say that this is my life and it just makes me mad that this is all i have amounted to. i have so much more potential. there should be so much more in my life, in my career. i want to be successful - in what i do, and yes, i want a man who absolutely adores me and think that i'm the one he chooses to be with. a man with his own successful life and accomplishments who think i complete him.

thanks to my impoverished bank account, i decided not to go back to the city for christmas or new year's this year. so i find myself alone in my apartment this christmas eve, listening to chet baker and musing about what it is i really want and how i'm going to achieve it in the coming year. london is even more quiet than new york city during the holidays.

all this is making me think a bit more than i want to be thinking. like how spy guy is away until the new year, and right this moment spending christmas with his family, probably including the wife and kids. not that i want to know, but in that morbid way, i do want to know. four years is a long time to be separated - don't people normally get a divorce by then? unless they are actually thinking of working it out. which if you have kids and if you still love each other sounds like the right thing to do. so maybe that's what he's thinking of doing, which is why he's not calling the way guys do when they are interested. i seriously doubt he's holding back because i'm seeing someone else.

i've come to the realization that i want true love. someone who is confidently, enthusiastically and wholeheartedly in love with me. someone who feels inspired by me, who likewise inspires me to be anything i want to be. i've never experienced that mutually with someone. it sucks when you like them more, and it sucks even more when you know someone loves you and you just don't feel the same way - even though you think he is a fabulous person.

toxic texting

before cell phones were democratized, you got drunk, made out with some stranger, then went home (with stranger or alone). the world was a lot safer then.

if you weren't blindingly drunk when you got home, you may accidentally find yourself dialing that familiar number. which doesn't bode well when some girl picks up the phone or you leave a very embarrassing message on the answerphone. but the chances of reducing your own ego to pulp was a lot slimmer back then.

i was at a work do when i found myself texting spy guy. who, it turned out, was at some gym party. that in itself is a warning this guy is strange/nerdy/has weird taste in friends/seeing someone at the gym. who on earth goes to a party for a gym? hell my gut instinct with him, albeit jokingly, was right - he is married with kids. after all that champagne, i invited him over. which he promptly declined on account of being in bed nearly asleep. the man lives in the same neighbourhood less than ten blocks away. i don't care if he has matters of national security to look after, a rejection is still a rejection.

my drunken text became toxic to my ego.

the funny thing was mr-turned-out-to-be-wrong had sent me a mistyped message earlier that day. to another girl. which is quite ironic given he had somehow accidentally messaged his ex - lucky for him it didn't contain anything juicy. i just don't get how he could have typed it to me as my name is completely a different alphabet to this girl's. although she could have been the last person to message him before me and thus was the next window to my message.

so i guess it's not that bad if you're not the only one drunken texting.

hollywood has a lot to answer for

i've never pictured my wedding.
ok, ok, i lie. i've pictured this kick ass party, outdoors, great jazz, fabulous food, great wines and champagnes and a fabulous bunch of friends. but i never pictured my dress or the groom. ok, ok maybe once i did picture someone i could be married to (the one who got away, whose wedding was pretty much perfect - and perfect that i really didn't want to be walking down that aisle, as much as i love him dearly as a friend now). but even then i didn't picture my dress. and i do obsess about my outfits.

the thing is, i thought that by 25 i would have met the guy i wanted to be with, who wanted to marry me. and that i would be successful in my career by 25, and engaged, and married by 27 and had my first kid by 30.

instead, i may be reproductively challenge, attracted to a guy with kids of his own and wondering if my boyfriend, who is lovely to me in the best way he knows how to, is really the right one for me.

they tell me relationships are all about compromise, but to what degree should one compromise?

i never believed in the happily ever after, and i was always cynical with this notion that something bad happened after they rode off into the sunset. but maybe that hopeful part of me, which will be crushed i know, is due to some ridiculous romcom consumption as a teenager.

they should ban fairy tales with any references to that love stuff.

subtlety in seduction

do men find sexually aggressive women attractive?
or are we still meant to hold back and play these games and be hard to get, thus upping the basis of our appeal?

i made out with someone recently. compared with my voracious appetite, his style was more subtle. which made it all the more seductive. generally i find men respond well to my enthusiasm for sex, though i have noticed that british and european men take it down a few notches compared with american men.

subtlety in seduction is a fine artform. one which, compared with, say, the british and the french women, i know i lack. if i want something, i want it now. patience as a virtue is loss on me (not to mention lacking).

the thing is i never mastered this way of behaving. i've tried. it's human nature to want what you can't get, but in general if i'm attracted to someone, i want them then and there. which is great if they feel the same, but most vexing if they don't.

then again i do get bored easily, so maybe learning to hold back a little can't hurt...

click and date. works a treat.

i have nothing against internet dating.
except the ridiculous forms you have to fill in for e-harmony
or the low success rate my girlfriends and i have experienced.

the thing is, i know it works. i've know of five very successful couples, resulting in four marriages and three point four babies. but it's the male half of these couples that i know. and their female counterparts are all attractive, smart women. so what are my friends and i doing wrong?

it's not a cliche. he's just not that into you

i get it. i do. the whole he's just not that into you thing.

why do women torture themselves with this ridiculousness? why can't we just be a man and move on, over to the next conquest, dusting our hands as we go along?

if he doesn't answer your e-mail, he's not interested.

if he still doesn't call after you ask your friends to interfere by giving him your number, he is definitely not interested.

it's not because he's been deployed on some top secret mission and has been secretly flown out of the country the day after meeting you. or lost his phone. or that he never checks his e-mail (i mean, who on earth does not check their work email daily in this day and age, right?).

i mean the man isn't even english so the standard englishman bullshit doesn't apply to him. though the stereotypical behaviors of men in his culture are a touch worse...

so why did he seem interested that night?
does he just like anything pretty when he's drunk five martinis?
was his girlfriend out of town that night? leaking roof? broken heating?

the problem with over thinking is now i'm wondering why he's not into me.
or why he momentarily was.

the most likely explanation is that he just wanted to scratch an itch that night. a thanks and make sure the door locks behind you and have a nice life type thing. it's ironic when it's the girl who also wants that.

so how do you play ball again if you're not even in the same park?