Monthly Archives: February 2010

In medical school, I was part of a threesome consisting of another girl and a guy. No, no…not like that. We were study buddies. Actually, we had fun and often spent as much time sharing laughs as exchanging bad mnemonics to help us remember esoteric facts such as the bones of the wrist. For those four years, the three of us were inseparable; I really thought these two friends would always be a part of my life.

But then the inevitable happened. The guy found another girl. Fell in love, it seems. He then proceeded to get married, which basically meant – as many single women who have close, platonic guy friends can attest to – our friendship was effectively over.

Naturally friendships change as we get older and life gets more complicated. But I can’t help but be a little sad every time one of my guy friends gets hitched. Not because I’m jealous, but rather because it is a loss to me. My life is different from that point on as well, and I am forced to accept it and grieve it to some degree.

For example, say I came home from work and just felt like grabbing a drink and called my guy friend.

Pre-marriage response: “Sure, meet you in 20 minutes.” And, in 20 minutes we would meet.

Post-marriage response: “Sure, let’s meet for a drink! Let me check with (insert name of wife).”  Then, 20 minutes later, “So we can definitely come out, just have to quickly return something at Crate and Barrel then can meet you.” Then, an hour after that, when I’m sitting alone in the bar waiting for the couple and nursing my second beer (less pathetic than nursing a pink cocktail), the inevitable text message comes: “So sorry!! We forgot we also had to drop by (wife’s) sister’s apartment and there is all this traffic. We were thinking – can you meet us up here instead? In like 30 minutes?”

I have noticed this post-marriage pattern in my relationships with my male friends. Female friends don’t tend to disappear after marriage. That usually happens after they have babies. (Again, totally understandable. It still kind of sucks, though.)

Anyway, my two study buddies recently saw each other at a wedding. As it turns out, the guy actually lives in Manhattan and the fact that, despite our proximity, he and I had not seen each other in years came up…apparently, he thinks it’s my fear of babies that keeps me away from him.

While that is kind of true, he’s never actually called me to come over or grab dinner. But then again, neither have I, really. So after some consideration, I decided to reach out again. I left him a message to say hello, wish him a belated happy birthday, see how he is doing.

Three days and counting. No reply.

Maybe I should have used facebook…

Some children have, for poorly understood reasons, an illness that consists of recurrent episodes of vomiting. I was seeing a patient like this a few weeks back, a little six year old girl with curly hair, big brown doe eyes, and freckles who suffers from a week or two of nausea and vomiting every few months. Most of these patients tend to outgrow it, fortunately, and lead normal healthy lives.

Unless, of course, they turn into single, thirty-something women.

This week I’ll be ending another one of my “cycles” – it seems that every 18 months I have a mini panic attack about meeting a guy. Though luckily I don’t puke my brains out, I do get a flood of “Holy shit I’m going to die alone” thoughts that sometimes send my head spinning. These are typically accompanied by nausea and a strong urge for a make-over or a (generally regretful) new hairstyle.

I realized recently that when I go through one of my cycles, I also tend to sign-up for internet dating. So far, I’ve been through three rounds. In the beginning it’s exciting. All of a sudden guys are emailing you, dates get set up. You feel like you can say to yourself, “See, I’m trying. If I do still end up dying alone at least it won’t be from lack of effort.”

After a few dates, though, I remember – internet dating sucks!

I know many people seem to have this work out for them, but I’m willing to bet most of them just settled for close-enough. Anyway, by the end of the second month I’m bored, cancel my subscription, and vow to go out more and meet new people. And I have to admit in the last few years I have managed to meet some great people, some of whom I found to be amazing, smart, attractive and so much fun to be around. Of course, they were all women, but still these new friends only came into the picture during the times I wasn’t sitting in my apartment staring at my computer, but rather out and about being social.

So another 18 month stretch ends, I wonder if like my little patient, I, too, will outgrow these cycles. I think so. At least, I hope I will. For now, I’ve pulled the plug on online dating. Again. And got a haircut.

This one looks pretty good, actually…

The other night I called home and found my mother to be very distracted by some smell being emitted by the stove. “Like burning popcorn, but different somehow,” she said, as she pried open the cover of the stove to get a look inside, making it hard to hear her though all the clanking noises from metal on metal.

After I hung up, I had the same unsettled feeling I often get after a call to my parents. You see, for some reason I think I’m going to have some major connection with them now that I’m an adult. Sharing our lives as if we were friends. As this doesn’t actually happen, generally I feel dissatisfied. But why? After all, what do my parents and I ever really talk about?

Let’s see…Dad generally asks if I need money, and after I decline, we talk about the weather for a minute or two before my mom takes the phone. Mom often just tells me a lot of information about people I don’t know too well. I end up hearing more about some auntie I never met’s gallbladder surgery than I ever want to know. If the conversation doesn’t end with mom suggesting I then call this sickly auntie to wish her a speedy recovery, I consider myself lucky.

The point being, we can “talk” for thirty minutes without actually having a conversation. For some reason, lately that’s been bothering me.

Is it strange that my parents seem to know so little about my day to day? But even if they did know, I can’t imagine them ever relating to it. It reminds of when I was in 6th grade and a boy named Jason asked me out to a movie – my first date! It meant a lot to me, as it would to any budding teenage girl. I was really happy, and so nervous. When I told my mom, her reaction was less, let’s say, enthusiastic than Maggie Seaver, for example, may have contrived. After all, the word “date” was not in my mom’s vocabulary.

I know this is not an uncommon occurrence for immigrant families (Jhumpa Lahiri tells us so) that the experiences of the first-generation children verge so dramatically from those of their parents. It still is sad, though, that I can’t really ever convey to my parents feelings of concern, joy, inspiration, or even heartache in my life and have them truly understand why. And maybe they feel the same way about me.

Truth is, my parents are sweethearts and we all really care about each other and get along well. And when I don’t talk to or see them for a while, I do feel a strong urge to call or visit. Even though we don’t have relatability, we have a lot of affection. But I can’t help but long for that connection which never will be…

Oh, the smell was from ghee my mom used in cooking- it seems some of it had dripped right into the burners of the gas stove. Mystery solved.

Last summer I went out on a few dates with a guy who was pretty great. Smart, handsome, kind. On our second outing, I suggested we go to Shake Shack, one of my favorite date spots and generally thought of as one of the best burgers in the city. So I was really surprised when we were getting ready to go and I noticed he hadn’t finished his burger.  Did he not like it? Who doesn’t love Shake Shack – I mean, it’s so good people are willing to stand in line for well over an hour for it! I was shocked! When I asked my date if he didn’t like the burger, he answered sheepishly that I was so fascinating to talk to that he forgot to eat.

It was one of the best compliments I have ever gotten. So of course, I found some arbitrary reason to stop seeing him.

It’s rather a long story, with another guy complicating the picture, but let’s just say that a choice had to be made and I did what I thought was right. But now when I think about how I arrived at my decision,  I can’t help but laugh (and kinda cringe) at some of the reasons I used as factors against this, well, really good guy. And he was not alone. Here are my wall of shame reasons to stop seeing a guy over my years of dating:

-picking vanilla over chocolate ice cream (So bland, no passion.)

-not using a revolving door in the middle of a heat wave (Who needs an ozone layer anyway?)

-choosing to live outside of Manhattan or Brooklyn (Especially if the train goes above ground; you can’t get more outer borough than that.)

-taking me to a comedy club (I don’t even know why, really.)

-taking me to a starbucks (I think this one speaks for itself.)

-not drinking alcohol

-not drinking coffee

-being into salsa dancing

-telling me he doesn’t like to read (note to guys, you should at least pretend on this one, at least for the first couple dates!)

-using cutesy terms of endearment (ie poo-bear, bleh!)

– using “lol” too frequently (disclaimer, I’m allowed to use “omg” as much as I want, though.)

I know, I’m horrible. I also know I’m not alone in my tendency towards quick judgement (right?). I imagine that if I knew what guys were thinking, it would be even worse!

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if these little things we pick out as red flags are really excuses for simply not being attracted the person (maybe none of these guys was the one for me), or if we’re perpetually doomed to find flaws in everyone. Are we just not being open enough, or is it okay to hold out until someone comes along whose flaws are endearing, not annoying?

For what it’s worth, I’ve often been on the receiving end of this as well. Once, a guy dumped me for being a vegetarian. Then a few years later, after I turned into an omnivore, I was dumped for being a meat-eater. Can’t win either way…

Oh well,  at least for a little while longer I can live off the glow that for one guy out there, I was better than Shake Shack. I mean, how many women can say that?