Death of a Friendship

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We know how devastating and life-changing it is to break up with a love partner. We have many songs, poems, and great novels that describe the ache and dolor of ending a romantic relationship. My experience breaking up with a college friend after many, many years was maybe not equal to the loss of a love, but it was bitter and shattering anyway.

It’s easy to make deep and lasting friendships at a residential college, when many students of the same age are living together, going to classes, games, and parties together, while also going through times of great growth and change. How many thrilling, soul-satisfying nights did we spend talking over the meaning of life and our deepest yearnings, the future so endlessly stretched out ahead of us? That’s when I became friends with Shelley (not her real name). We met freshman year and bonded quickly. When my roommate took a semester off, Shelley moved in with me. We loved playing bridge and taking long walks to talk over our relationships with boys and to shake out the tensions of college life. I so admired her intelligence and discipline in her approach to classwork.  I had never seen a person be so delighted at the prospect of writing a two-page paper on a Baudelaire poem.  And she had a very sharp wit — no one before or since has been better at puns.  She became one of my very best friends. (read more…)

Getting Better at Getting Rejected

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“I’m going to start online dating. What do I need to know?”

My sister has never online dated, and now that she’s happily married, she’s not likely to. But she’s not shy about sharing advice. “Be prepared to get rejected,” she told me.

This is what I call a truthslap.

We know that being rejected—or rather, being resilient—is not an innate quality, but rather a skill. Or at least something that be learned. There’s a reason Jia Jhang put himself through “100 days of rejection therapy” (and a reason why his project was covered by media outlets from Huffington Post to Bloomberg).

I’m choosing to believe that online dating is my own gauntlet of rejection therapy, and that being rejected is a skill. That means I can master it. To master it, I have to practice it. (read more…)

Eat, Pray, Love Under The Tuscan Sun

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AIEA, HI— I live where bravery and foolishness blur.

The coordinates, a Zen treehouse in Hawaii.

In June, I left Chicago and corporate success behind, indefinitely, for an island and a home I knew only through pictures. At 31, I had never taken time to process my recent divorce, and felt a strong need to examine my identity and career path.

Yes, this is Eat, Pray, Love Under The Tuscan Sun. (read more…)

every cute, smart, boyish lesbian in the world – m4w – 26

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Just recently, Smith College, an all-women’s institution (and my alma mater), announced that they will begin admitting transgender women (women who were born male). Also in the news, a transgender man was in the running to be on the cover of Men’s Health magazine. These are just a couple of instances of the growing awareness – and acceptance – of alternative gender identities, gender presentations, and sexual orientations. It seems like our society is in a period of evolution with regards to attitudes about those who aren’t traditional in terms of how they present themselves or who they’re attracted to. Still, expectations for how men and women should look, and who they should be attracted to, remain deeply ingrained. (read more…)