Camille's Wishful Wednesday: Those Two Guys, Plus One More Makes Three

***Camille is a friend of mine I know from church. She is classified on another blog I read as a "hopeless romantic", and I think that describes her pretty well. I also think she's incredibly well-balanced and able to work on multiple parts of herself at once. She is a law student, a Sunday school teacher, and an all-around good person. She has some pretty concrete ideas about men and the type of man she'd like to end up with. But she's doing the in-my-20s-dating-follies thing as well.***

 Quick Recap [My last post about Camille was two weeks ago. In it, I mentioned that King and Bachelor #1 kept coming up. They were screwing with her singlehood by constantly being around and seeming to show interest without making an official declaration. And of course there were big (possible) warning signs associated with each guy.] Read Wishful Wednesday posts.

Camille and King were e-mailing back and forth and she mentioned to him that she applied to be an summer intern where is currently a year-round (I think) intern. She told him she wanted to see if she could get it on her own, but she didn't get that internship, she got another. King was upset that she didn't tell him while she was applying.


Current employees/interns get to be used as references for applications. And since she didn't tell him, she didn't use him as a reference. Camille is okay with the way things turned out because she is much happier with the internship she did get. She'll be doing more stuff and not sharing an office with college kids who are just padding their resumes. By the way, King is also in law school, he's not an undergraduate student.


But I was mostly excited to hear King was upset with Camille. He fussed at her about all the time they could spend together, romantically, but not won't because she'll be interning somewhere else. That means he doesn't see her in a filial way! He sees her as someone he'd like to have sex with. I still don't know if I'm a fan of them together since he seems very one-track-mind-ish. He was happy to make room for her when she was coming to where he was, but now that she's not, I figure she'll barely hear from him this summer.


I want Camille to be with someone who makes room for her, who sees her as more than great-when-convenient. That may not be King, but it sure as hell appears that way sometimes. That being said, I like this guy for her if that one part would change. But alas, you can't bank on tomorrow based on hope of change. So in the real world, he's still a peripheral guy until he gets it together.


Which leads me to Bachelor #1. He seems like a great guy, and we're quite sure he's not gay. But he also is keeping himself on the sidelines, only around enough to garner girl talk, but not enough to see if something real could happen. I guess we're just gonna put this guy on ice for now. You may remember I mentioned him possibly being around a lot because he and Camille were running for top office of a student organization at their school? Well, Camille won her office (yay!), but Bachelor #1 didn't actually run. They still will be spending time together though because they have the same job. So we shall see what becomes of this guy.


Now, I want to talk about this "one more" guy. Two people from our church got married last Saturday. Camille met a man there. So did Michelle, but that will be posted about on Friday. The man Camille met will be called Bachelor #3 for now. He was the best man at the wedding. Having met my boyfriend Easy while he was a groomsman at a wedding, I was loving this story already.


They hit it off at the wedding and she found out very early on that he was a hand holder. He held her hand as he escorted her around the reception room. He held her hand when she helped him load the wedding gifts into the car. He held her hand a lot that night. They exchanged numbers and he's been in contact with her every day since then.


He's a student and their schools are near each other, so he found time to take her out on a date already. They had an early dinner Monday night. There are a few problems with this guy, but I won't get into that yet. The most pressing issue is that Camille is super busy with school right now. As the year is coming to a close, she has a lot on her plate. Law school is very demanding. I think it's great that Bachelor #3 wants to show her a lot of attention and actually asked her out on a date instead of leaving it up in the air if he's genuinely interested. I just wish he was as busy as she is right now so she can finish the semester on a high note and focus on him in the summer.


As of right now, Camille is completely single, but it's nice to know there are good prospects floating around. One can only hope that these guys make it clear what they want from her, so she can make an educated decision. I'm thinking a blog post designed like the dating game. Of course it could be fun for her to do a summer juggle and to blog about that ... Just a thought.

Michelle's T.G.I.Fridays: Mulling Over A Cycle Broken

***Michelle is a girl that grew up next door to me and we attended the same church. Now she's in her early 20s and living the single life. She goes on these dates that are either lovely or horrific. She's slightly terrified at the thought of committing to someone any time soon. And of course, she has the occasional man who really catches her eye and her heart.***
Read T.G.I.Fridays posts.


Last week, I wrote about Michelle and her decision to break her cycle with men. I keep mentioning how it's slim pickings in Charleston for her, so she hasn't met anyone new to test out her new behavior yet. I'm looking forward to when she meets a new guy who is worthwhile.


Getting approached by a guy who professes interest in you isn't really the hard part when you're an attractive girl, as Michelle is. The hard part is sorting out the frogs from the princes. How does one even begin to figure that out? My go to guide is... don't judge me... He's Just Not That Into You.


I'm not talking about the movie, although the movie is wonderful. I mean the book. I read in undergrad with my girl Noni and I found it unique and compelling as far as self-help books go. It stated something that I say a lot. No one can do anything to you that you don't let them.


A great example of this is what happened with Easy and me back in August. I couldn't control him picking someone else over me, but I could control my reaction and our interactions after that. I knew that being his friend was something I didn't want, so I kept my distance from him. Not having me in his life led him to miss me so much that he came back with a vengeance. Maybe vengeance isn't the right word. I watched too many Die Hard movies as a child, ha ha. But the point is, I got what I wanted from him by not allowing him to pussyfoot around and giving him no other option but to figure out what he truly wanted. We got lucky that it turned out we wanted the same thing.


For Michelle, I'm hoping she can keep a firm grasp on what she wants and when she wants it and who she wants it from. That will make her job easier for spotting a guy who doesn't want that. If she just wants to date and hang out and get to know people, that's what she should stay focused on. That will weed out the guys dying to get married next week along with the guys who only want sex and nothing else.


And by the way, no where in my hope for her breaking her cycle did I suggest she should cut all ties with these guys from the past. Some of them will make really good friends for her once they've established the romantic potential of their involvement has run it's course. There is this guy in Charleston she hangs out with. He likes her, but she doesn't want their relationship to go anywhere. But hanging out with him is perfectly fine as long as time spent with him doesn't deter her from finding the real thing should it come along.

Michelle's T.G.I.Fridays: After The 10 Steps

***Michelle is a girl that grew up next door to me and we attended the same church. Now she's in her early 20s and living the single life. She goes on these dates that are either lovely or horrific. She's slightly terrified at the thought of committing to someone any time soon. And of course, she has the occasional man who really catches her eye and her heart.***

Quick Recap [My last post for Michelle was two weeks ago. In that time, I talked about her 10 cyclical steps of dating men. It covered her trends of how she usually responds to these guys along with how things usually turn out. I felt I had gotten it pretty much right and was looking forward to what she thought of the post.] Read T.G.I.Fridays posts.

This week, I want to talk about her reaction to it. It's been a pretty love-life-less week for Michelle. It happens when your a single girl in a small town getting ready to graduate from college in a month. Her priorities aren't exactly on finding some new guy to flirt with.

Michelle didn't really read the post right when I first wrote it. I read it to her while we were hanging out at our friend Gloria's house because she hadn't had a chance to read it. She said it was pretty darn accurate and was laughing because it fit her with Michael, Terrence, and Darren. Basically everyone that I've mentioned by name on this blog.

Here's what she had to say: "It's pretty accurate and sad at the same time, which brought me to the conclusion that I don't want to handle my relationships like that any longer. I'm ready to start leaving my past where it is so it won't complicate my future or present. Allowing these people to continue to come in and out my life keeps me from getting close to someone new. I'm ready for a fresh start!"

I was happy to read that but a bit worried because I didn't want the post to be negative or an admonition, I wanted it to be funny. But if she changes her behavior and ends up with better results, that's cool. I figured she was doing a good job of keeping her priorities and right now a relationship isn't one of them. But I guess if the right guy came along, she'll be happy to be in a position to break her cycle with him.

By the way, I got a comment on the post that made me think some people don't know these blogs posts are about real people. I changed their names and the names of their guys, but I haven't made up anything about their lives. Trust me, I'm not that creative. My creativity only goes as far as me making the cartoon pics at the top of each blog post.

Big Bad Thursday: Finding A New Place To Live

***Big Bad Thursday is all about Bad. He's one of my best friends and was a charming, if commitment-phobic bachelor. He finally realized a woman was worth giving up complete and total bachelor-hood. So now Bad and Jordan are in love and working towards building a life together. They live in a wonderful apartment in Chicago and they are quite a fabulous couple.***

Quick Recap [My last post about Bad was two weeks ago. In that post, I talked about how integration as a couple into each other's lives was relatively painless for Bad and Jordan (as far as I know) because all their people are in support of their relationship and them being together. I pointed out that even his extended family and friends, like my mom, were into it. I was very happy that they had this hurdle covered, or rather, it wasn't even a hurdle.] Read Big Bad Thursday posts.

This week, I want to talk about what's going on currently in their lives. First, I want to say the lunch with Jordan, my mom, and me went great! We all had fun and made plans to spend more time together in the future. She and my mom seemed to really click. Jordan doesn't have family here as far as I know, so I'm hoping she can begin to build those family-type relationships so while she's in Chicago (and when they come back to visit in years to come), she'll feel like she's coming to visit family, instead of just her guy's people.


But on to life right now. Their lease is up on their apartment this month. They've been apartment hunting, but as far as I know, they haven't found the perfect place yet. They were considering buying, but their loan officer lady had a bit of a family/personal crisis and it kind of put the brakes on that venture. So now they're looking to rent for a year, and save to possibly purchase next year.


Neither of them is committed to living out their lives in Chicago. They'd prefer to be somewhere warmer, as long as it had the right schools and career opportunities. Bad recently went to a conference for work/school in San Diego. And now San Diego is at the top of their list of places they could theoretically move to. But for now, they're looking in neighborhoods in Chicago that are near the lake, whether north or south. They also want it nearby things like restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. They want to enjoy what's left of their 20s and the convenience of not having to drive everywhere is starting to increase in priority. Right now, they're close to the lake, but that's it. They have to drive even for a run to the grocery store to buy a bottle of wine.


I'm hoping they find something fabulous, but as time runs out, their options get limited. I know they would never want to let their lease expire and have nowhere to live. I'm hoping that's not what happened. I love their current apartment, but Jordan smartly wants something with more space. I do wonder how all their stuff fits into those closets. They just have so little storage space. And the kitchen counter space is literally nonexistent. So there's ways to improve without breaking the budget. If they'll allow me to, I'll post up some pictures of their new apartment once they've chosen one.


Apartment hunting with the one you love has to be interesting unless you have completely identical tastes. Luckily, Bad and Jordan are both laid-back and only have a few non-negotiables each. that has to make life simpler.

Lion's Life Wednesday: Evaluating A Couple

***Lion is my best friend from college. He's a very focused young man working on getting his MD. This focus makes having a love life a very difficult undertaking. But he's making it happen somehow.***

Quick Recap [My last post about Lion was two weeks ago. I talked about how he wasn't really considering the future, at least not where his girlfriend Rudy was concerned.] Read Lion's Life Wednesday posts

This week, I'm thinking about the trip to Florida that Lion and I are taking. We leave Friday morning and get back Monday evening. This is a nice trip to see all our people from college who still live there or will be in town for the same weekend.


Lion's girlfriend Rudy is one of the people that still live there. She's in grad school right now and so Lion gets to spend time with her whenever he goes back to visit.


I've mentioned in recent posts how excited I am to get to observe them as a couple. The weekend is about more than that, but it's definitely on my list of priorities. I talked to Lion about feeling less invested in them as a couple and saying that I wanted to explore that while down in Florida. He told me not to get my hopes up, but I have anyway.


If they're declaring their love to one another and still together after all this time, there's hope for the future. They're not breaking up any time soon, I know that much. It won't be time for Lion to apply for residencies for at least another four months, and so I intend to enjoy their love until it becomes impossible for them not to discuss their future.


This weekend, I'll be looking for a few things, if they seem happier to be around each other, whether they have their own little world outside of everyone else, and if their physical comfort around each other has increased. I expect they'll have these three things that weren't there before. That was two years ago and this is now. I'm really excited and I hope his relationship looks as great from the outside as I've built up in my head.

Camille's Wishful Wednesday: Two Guys Tangentially Screwing With Her Singlehood

***Camille is a friend of mine I know from church. She is classified on another blog I read as a "hopeless romantic", and I think that describes her pretty well. I also think she's incredibly well-balanced and able to work on multiple parts of herself at once. She is a law student, a Sunday school teacher, and an all-around good person. She has some pretty concrete ideas about men and the type of man she'd like to end up with. But she's doing the in-my-20s-dating-follies thing as well.***

Quick Recap [Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about Camille and how men seem to come out of the woodwork when you make a declaration of singlehood. But Camille has held on to her focus and therefore held on to being single instead of falling back into the pattern of exploring options that may not even be options.] Read Wishful Wednesday posts.

So I told about how Camille met this guy who is one of my boyfriend Easy's friend. It was a quick meeting. And they both acknowledged they found the other attractive, but I guess there was no spark. Easy seems to think more of Camille than his friend does. And Gloria and I seem to think more of the friend than Camille did. That was okay, not a love connection. Easy has a ton more friends that could be potential suitors, ha ha.


But talking to Camille about her love potential, two names keep popping up. Bachelor #1 and King.


I haven't mentioned King almost since I first began writing about Camille. It's worth going back and reading about him, "the like of her life". He has resurfaced, not because he realized his undying love for her, but as a source of comfort for difficulties she's encountering right now with law school. He's a great sounding board for her and his friendship is important to her. But I wish there was more of a romantic strain to their interactions.


I feel this because she says things like, "I wish we could just get married. Skip all that dating stuff." Plus me, no one understands more than me the desire to be done searching for Mr. Right. But doing away with the foundation of a relationship is just silly. Camille knows that, but she still would like to skip ahead to the part where they're just sharing a life. That is a nice fantasy, but right now their interaction seems more filial than romantic, which sucks.


And then there's Bachelor #1. He and Camille keep over-lapping. They're taking this trip together with their classmates and they're working together on this student organization. He just shows up everywhere! Side note, Camille didn't take him the bread pudding dessert. She kept forgetting to give it to him. I think that just because the dessert wasn't delivered, it still counts as a girl giving the guy she likes cookies. But back to now. This guy seems to be trying to get closer to Camille, but he's never made any sort of official intent known.


In the grand scheme of things, it's good because there's no real threat to her single-hood. But it's also frustrating because these guys floating around haven't made their intentions clear. Oh, and there's this other thing about Bachelor #1 aka Kind-of-cool guy, he has questionable sexuality. One of Camille's friends told her that he didn't think Bachelor #1 was gay at all, but wouldn't be surprised if it turned out he was.


Camille is not interested in dating a sexually ambiguous guy, in fact she never questioned his sexuality and was surprised to hear other people question it. Bachelor #1 is from New York, so he has a very different sense of style than the average Chicagoan. I'm sorry, green pants doesn't make you gay when you come from New York, neither does a hoop earring in your ear. But it's slightly troublesome, especially when things he says to Camille could be interpreted as really interested and trying to get into her pants, or very gay and therefore not considering the sexual implications. You want an example? Okay, sharing a bed on the travel trip they're taking soon.


I'm pretty convinced that King doesn't look at Camille as if he were her brother and Bachelor #1 aka Kind-of-cool guy isn't even a little bit gay. But it sucks that their interactions could be interpreted that way. I'd much prefer a clear-cut "I like you and want to get into your pants and I have designs on your dinner plans for the forseeable future". Something like that would be nice, no?

Tip Top Tuesday: Eat. Pray. Love.

***My girl Top is unique and one-of-a-kind. This makes the story of her love life especially interesting. Just when you think you've got her figured, she makes an unexpected move. She's my career-minded friend who's always focused on self-improvement. She's also super-independent yet a closet nurturer. Read and learn how to be fabulous.***

Quick Recap [The last post I wrote about Top was two weeks ago, I wrote a post in which I tried to look at influences in Top's life that might lead her to hold even more strongly to her anti-relationship feelings. She is single and damn happy to be. It was interesting for me to write, though I have no idea how accurate it was in terms of influence on Top.] Read Tip Top Tuesday posts.

This week, I'm not talking about romance, at least not directly. Top is thinking about career and self. With the economy, her job, like everyone else, has been making cuts. She survived the cut and is excelling at work. She's damn good at her job, but Top has never been complacent.


She's looking ahead to what is next. The job she holds now is not one she will hold forever, she's far too ambitious for that. But what will she do next? The title to this post gives a hint. She's not necessarily following the book or movie, but being able to travel and really embrace other cultures, worrying only about herself is exactly what she'd like to do.


I doubt she'll spend three months just praying or whatever happened in the story (can you tell I didn't read the book nor watch the movie?), but she'll be taking tons of pictures and really focusing on enjoying life. Tasting everything a different country might have to offer.


I don't even know about the love part either. I doubt she'll be looking to fall in love in the third place, she's just open to possibilities, and a man coming along would probably interrupt that if anything.


Top doesn't have a specific time in mind for when she will be doing this, but it will be upcoming. I can't wait to hear all about it. I bet it will be just as exciting as what I get when I hear about what she does at work. And I know that while she's doing this, she won't be losing sight of her ultimate career goals. A break for a season will be her fulfilling a life dream, and being fearless sounds like the perfect thing for her to do. And frankly, being single just makes this dream that much easier to fulfill.

Gloria's Romantic Monday: Making Concrete Plans When Possible

***Gloria is a friend of mine I know from church. She is a single mother. She has a boyfriend, Gregory, who we all love and her son's father, Rufus, who we all hate. She is fun-loving and hilarious. Gloria is the type of friend who'd be there for you at a party, when things get tough, or even if you need help applying for school.***

Read Romantic Monday posts.

Last week, I wrote a post about Gloria and Gregory and how the plans they had for their immediate future were dependent on their current situation, particularly financially. I linked to some interesting websites that offered more to say about the subject.


This week, I want to talk about their relationship as it currently stands, and more concrete plans for the future that don't depend so much on their current financial situation.


I mentioned in my main blog that we had an impromptu girls' night at Gloria's house last Thursday, while we were there, Michelle asked Gloria if the honeymoon phase was over. It was like TV with all the drama and the question leading to a tearful answer about the disappearance of sex and romance and everything that made you fall in love in the first place.


Gloria was pretty realistic about the urgency that had dissipated to a certain extent. But the physical aspect of their relationship was just as great as ever, it's just that now they found an ability to actually leave the bed and do other stuff sooner rather than later. She felt just as close to Gregory as ever. And she feels like their commitment to each other is as strong as ever.


Gregory and she feel the same way about their relationship. They both love each other and intend to be together forever. They feel like they've found the one and don't want to let go. Ever.


They have made a decision about their close future based on the unavailability of other options. They have decided they don't like living apart anymore and they are moving in together. They've set the time for September. I expect to be helping Gloria move come this September and that makes me so happy. She's definitely one who feels my pain on living with the people who raised you and how that can stifle your ability to feel like a real adult. Her people are not at all over bearing, and they're a big help with her son, but it's just nice to be able to take care of yourself.


Gloria is really looking forward to making this plan happen. Signing a year lease will push back them gathering their things and leaving to Texas as quickly as she might have hoped, but at least they will be together. And because they're not leaving the state yet, they are able to avoid the fight that is sure to come with Gloria's son's father, Rufus. They will not have to work so hard to find time for each other because going hom will mean coming home to each other. I'm excited for them and this new possibility. And I really hope nothing happens to upset this plan as September approaches.

I'm Back And Ready To Overshare My Friends' Love Lives

I intended to just be gone for four days, but it's been a week. I'm so sorry my beloved blogosphere. But I'm back. You can read about all the things I've been up to in my week here. There's another post too, but it hadn't been published at the time of this post, so just check out the main blog to read it.

I'm glad to get back on track with writing. Some interesting things have been happening and I'm dying to share them with you over the next week!

By the way, everyone I write about in this blog are real people with real lives. Don't let the fake names and cartoon photos at the top of each post fool you. I'm not that creative.