The Game of Love

Typically, Mondays are not my favorite. I hate getting back into the groove at work, and the week seems so long. However, in my adult life, I’ve found a way to remedy the ‘Mundays’-- I’ve spent a great deal of evenings with a glass (or four) of wine, good friends, and the American Broadcasting Company.

Each season, there is a new cast of characters on one of TV’s most popular reality franchises; during my teens and early twenties I got to know them with my sorority sisters in the basement of Alpha Phi, and as I started my career I tore their flaws apart with my best girlfriends in my tiny Rapid City apartment. I’ve laughed at how cheesy some of the lines are and cried at the thought of finding true love in a room full of gorgeous people, yours for the picking. You’ve probably guessed by now—I’m talking about the Bachelor and Bachelorette.

Save your judging for the rose ceremony, please.



I watch/write/live/breathe the news 90% of my waking hours. This show is a straight-up guilty pleasure. Now, I’m not stupid—I don’t believe in finding love via reality show… but isn’t it nice to think it could be possible for someone else? Of course, most relationships born on that show crash and burn as quickly as they’re made.

Tonight, a total d-bag was sabotaged by the woman he called the love of his life. Some entertainment wrestler (Seriously… that’s your profession? Really? How did you ever get dates to begin with?) from Canada (Way to make your already lame country proud) apparently had a girlfriend the entire time. He thought doing the show would make him ‘famous’ (REALLY?!) and had promised her they’d get married after he left the show (Because that’s what ever girl wants… to marry a guy after he’d been publicly dismissed on a reality series).

Obviously, there are a lot of rumors that come with the territory when you’re a reality ‘star’—but these allegations were backed up with proof, in the form of several voicemails.

Idiot.

Technology has changed the way courtships begin and relationships end. I am fresh off of a breakup and in no hurry of jumping into this dating game, but the entire game has changed during the past three years. It’s now possible to contact anyone in the world at home, work, by cell, email, text, Skype, Twitter, and Facebook accounts at once; and, if you are lucky, they can choose to reciprocate immediately. It also makes it that much easier to get rejected… 8x over.

One of my closest friends has no problem meeting guys the traditional way—she is gorgeous and men are drawn to her. She’s also really nice… I always tell her I have ‘F- You’ on my forehead while she has ‘Thank You’ on hers. That could be why she has to screen calls and texts from various men at all hours of the day.

One of the most offensive things to me is voicemail. Seriously, I don’t check them. If you’re leaving them, you can pretty much guarantee I’m clearing out my counter without listening. Unless it’s work-related, send me a text or call me back, because the steps involved in checking voicemail are not worth my time.

My friend has gotten several voice messages from a certain suitor over the past few days. The only thing worse than leaving a voicemail to begin with, is leaving one where you say nothing. If you’re getting sent to voicemail more than once a day, it doesn’t mean you need to leave more messages; it means you need to stop calling and wait for the person on the other end to contact you. Have you ever used a cellular phone? They all pretty much work the same—missed calls show up on a missed call counter… the person you’re trying to reach will see that you tried. Be done with it.

Texts are a little more tricky. You never know for sure if your texts are being delivered or just being sent into a satellite somewhere in space, never to be seen again.

I’m being sarcastic.

When was the last time someone legitimately missed your text? Come on. There is a cell phone tower on every block. She got your text, and if she didn’t respond to your comment about the weather, or what you bought at the mall, or what kind of toothpaste she used that morning to clean the crud off her teeth, it’s because she doesn’t want to talk to you, not because she didn’t receive the message.

The worst yet most entertaining thing that happens when texts are not returned is the awful one-sided conversation the textee begins to have with themselves. Here is an example from the aforementioned friends’ phone:

Annoying: 10:41 pm Hey, what’s up?
Annoying: 10:46 pm I’m just chilling at x bar
Annoying: 10:57 pm Well just checking to see how you’ve been. Hope you’re good and enjoying life!
Annoying: 1:06 am thisbeertasteiasliekhavean
Annoying: 10:32 am Woah, sorry about that… obviously I was a little toasted last night. Sorry to be annoying.
Annoying: 11:18 am I don’t understand…

WHAT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?! SHE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING!!!

Turns out, this serial texting is more common than I realized. Another good friend of mine has had her inbox filled with one-sided Wikipedia definition conversations from a pest that wouldn’t let up. The relationship was born from a form of dating that interestingly involves the very same technological advances that I believe have made things so difficult for those looking for love.

She has an online profile, and has been contacted by just about every type of man you can imagine.

Putting yourself out there takes a special kind of girl, and I totally commend her for exploring every avenue to find the man of her dreams. But I doubt she planned to find one that had the woman of his dreams so clearly planned out in his head, he’d mapped the mathematical equations to prove it when it happened.

I’m not exaggerating. And to top it, he typed it out for the world to discover with a simple Google search.

In this world of need-to-know, up-to-the-minute 24-hour news ticker and social media crutch, I canNOT believe this girl didn’t type the man’s name into a search engine before going out with him. It’s literally the first thing I do when I meet someone new, and I don’t think that makes me crazy, I think it makes me savvy. You never know who you are dealing with in this big world; you might want to check that he, at the very least, isn’t on the sex offender registry.

It actually took a whole date (which he stiffed half the bill on) and an hour-long conversation (where he knew tons of facts about her hometown AND found her on YouTube) before it dawned on me she hadn’t looked him up at all.

I took it upon myself to search his name, and came upon his blog. It's taking every bit of class I have not to link it here.

Here’s just a taste inside the man’s head—taken DIRECTLY from his online posted requirements for his future wife.



As for my friend… she’s taken her profile down for a few weeks. And I am taking solace (pronounced sall-ahs) in the fact that even those who know how to play the game have a bad season every once in awhile.

It's All About the Benjamins

I grew up in tiny-town USA. We’re talking less than a thousand people total; 37 in my graduating class. If you were stranded with a flat tire, people would stop and help… and I don’t mean pulling over to let you use a cell phone—they would get out and change it for you or take you home, even if it meant they’d be late for dinner. I don’t remember ever locking the doors at home, and the select few in town who did freely gave out their garage code to friends and neighbors. If it was harvest season, you could be late for school, no questions asked (driving a John Deere isn’t exactly speedy).

You get the picture.

Everyone knew everything about everyone. Good luck getting away with much before your parents, grandparents, cousins, and your first-cousin twice-removed-who-lives-an-hour-away finds out. But it wasn’t just what you were up to… people knew everything. Including, in some cases, how much your family made. By age 7, you had a clear idea of who the ‘rich kids’ were in your class- it was obvious who was putting money in the collection plate at church and who was simply passing it along.

That being said, it wasn’t, and still isn’t classy to talk about money. Not the case here.

People lead with their money.

I found this out very early on during my first outing on 5th Avenue. It was a reunion of friends from, believe it or not, South Dakota. LK lives here in Naples and Nic lives up in St. Pete (bless her heart). It didn’t take long for us to realize we were a world away from the Spearfish Wal-Mart parking lot where we met two winters ago. Our tab was graciously paid by the CFO of a major insurance company—one that you’ve heard of (think this jingle: da-da-da is on your side). He started to ask about what we do for a living and how we move up in our careers.



“If not money… what motivates you? What else is there?” he asked. I tried explaining that at age 23, quality of life doesn’t necessarily mean you have a quantity of bills in your wallet… but it was clear after about 15 minutes of arguing the point that we lived in different worlds. “I pay a girl $80,000 a year to write press releases for me… is that comparable to what you do?” No sir, it’s not.

Not even close.

A week later, Kayla moved in. She wasn’t in Florida for 5 hours before she realized how bad the rich-idemic is here. We were bellied up at the bar (not being antisocial… at this point K was still on crutches from breaking her pelvis… which is another blog altogether) when a tall, cute, perfect-for-Kayla guy approached us.



Now guys, take note-- bars are loud. If you want to engage in conversation, you’re going to need to talk a bit louder than normal.

This guy was whispering. I was several drinks in, and more than a little annoyed.

After asking him to repeat himself about 11 times, we finally heard his voice go to what could be considered a normal volume. What he said, I wish I hadn’t heard…

“You girls don’t understand. I’m like, really rich.”

I’m not kidding. Verbatim. Next.

I could let this stuff go if these were isolated incidents, but it’s a near-nightly occurrence. Just this past Saturday, we were celebrating a birthday with a group of co-workers and some of their friends from outside the office. As I know, nothing good happens after 2 a.m., so when we were invited to an after-bar with some of our new drinking buddies, we declined.

About an hour later, I got a text message: You girls are missing out. We are in a million-dollar condo… missed ur chance!

I’m good with my rental, thank you. That number is now listed as DO NOT ANSWER in my cellular.

Thank You For Being A Friend

In my 23 years, I’ve made a lot of friends. I’ve known Kayla for 20 years- others, I’ve known for less than a month. Friends I can count on to grab apps and taps after work… friends I can count on to tell me which dress looks better in Banana Republic. I have friends I talk to every day and friends I could go months without speaking to without missing a beat.

815 on Facebook, if we’re counting.

But there’s one friend I’ve developed a unique bond with. She’s seen me cry hysterically, and laugh just as hard. She’s suffered the brunt of my anger and the high of my joy. She’s traveled between time zones hundreds of times on I-90, been through the desert and back and has spent weeks at a time buried under several feet of Black Hills snow. And just over a month ago, she took her last long roadtrip with me, loyally getting me to my new home in Florida before starting to really piss me off.


I’m talking about the Chevy 4-Door-Blo-Dro.

I got my Cavalier following a rough time in my driving record. If we’re being honest, ‘rough’ is probably not the right word… more like ridiculous.

At 16 I thought I was invincible. I drove too fast on a regular basis—getting pulled over by the same cop on the same highway doing the same speed (71 in a 55… whoops) within a two-week period. He, of course, pulled my license, and shortly after I got it back my first GM vehicle (a Grand Am that I just HAD to have) totaled itself out via a condition I refer to as a ‘hole in a hose’ on the way home from Sioux City one night.

Then came the Malibu, and a car payment. Considering the car was on loan from the bank, you would hope I’d be more conscious of how I drove it. Nope. I took it prom dress shopping on a day that school was canceled due to snow (stop judging) and I was T-boned in an intersection after making an illegal left turn (seriously, you need to stop judging). Because I was on probation from losing my license for speeding… it was pulled immediately, and so were my keys.

By then I was a month away from turning 17, and 6 months away from college. My family and I decided the best thing to do was to put off getting a car (that is me being nice. I was PISSED I had to go to college without a car). So, I waited patiently through a full year in college before begging to go car shopping.

That’s when the Lady in Red came into my life.



At around $2500, she was a steal. I ran her into the ground, but she got me back a few times. That bitch broke down during my first two weeks as an intern in Phoenix on I-10 during morning rush. She stopped in the middle of cruising a square in Vermillion and my friends had to get out and push her out of an intersection. Most recently, she started shaking at intersections and when I’d push on the gas it would sound like I was competing in a drag race. And this Monday, as I was driving to a car dealership to look for ideas, she overheated.

It was time to send the Cavi to the island of misfit cars.

Let me tell you, I never knew how talented I was at bargaining before shopping for a car on my own. Without giving away too many details, I worked that dealer down from a price sticker of 18k to a loan for 11.



That’s with a trade-in, of course. Believe it or not, I got $1,000 out of that rust-bucket… and an offer to go run it into buildings around town with the dealers after hours. I politely declined.

So here’s to you, Chevy-4-Door… I’ll never be able to replace the memories I have driving you… but I can’t say I’ll miss you.