love eloise

there is such a thing as everlasting love

On a recent evening out, I got into a debate with a male friend of mine. I said that I believed in true love but I didn't think that those initial can't-get-enough-of-you feelings lasted a lifetime. I said that the love evolved over time and that the excitement from the beginning eventually fades.

He adamantly said that I was wrong and that those feelings of infatuation from the beginning can last forever. After he called me an emotionally-void robot, we agreed to disagree.

Then I saw this.

...I hate it when I'm wrong.

love, eloise 

an unconventional love letter

Your aroma is like the sweet smell of chicken in a Chipotle Burrito

Your voice is like the beautiful sound of my partner in Call of Duty

Your skin is as smooth as the white Xbox controller

And your personality reminds me of weed, fun to be with, but only mildly addicting.

 

- Kevin, boyfriend of four years to my roommate … or a four year old?

 

Sometimes I wish all men were as bright as Alec Greven, 9 year old author of “How to Talk to Girls.” He even knows you should “Comb your hair and never wear sweats” … can he do a book tour? 

love, eloise

RE: Can Too Many Rules Ruin The Game?

Dear Eloise,

I think we’ve all been here. Caught in the cross between trying to play by the rules, make all the right choices and be “the girl” in the situation. I feel your pain as I too have been recently wondering if everything I’ve ever been taught about playing by the rules is even worth my time.

I’ve started seeing someone again after a checkered past and a year of not speaking. Despite a handful of attempts, we could never get ourselves on the same page at the same time. One or both of us would be dating someone else or one of us just wouldn’t be into the idea of getting involved again. After I kept finding myself thinking about him over the past month, I decided to send one, just one, innocent text to see if he was even willing to get back in touch with me. He was and the past two weeks have thrown me way off of my normal, stable path.

Caught up? Great. Now we can get to the reason I’m writing in response to your current issue.

This boy that I just told you about, well, he doesn’t play games. I’ll give you a minute to sit down and process this. (Let me know if you do cause I sure haven’t yet.) He’s also disturbingly straightforward and says kind, sweet things. He just puts everything right out on the table. Keep breathing, El. There’s more. He doesn’t even let me play my own perfected games. I tend to use a lot of sarcasm in the early stages of boy situations mainly because I am pretty sarcastic and I need to know he can handle it.

I also do it in order to protect myself and make sure he knows I-don’t-care-nope-not-at-all-couldn’t-care-less-about-you. That way, if and when he leaves the situation I won’t look like the pathetic girl left behind. Brilliant, right? He doesn’t think so and his newest approach to getting me to cut this out is by sincerely responding, “I like you so much” every time I accidentally/on purpose say something slightly mean or sarcastic in the name of self protection. If all of this wasn’t enough, he even calls me. Forget about texting entirely because this boy wants to be able to verbally say goodnight.

Because of all of this I’m trying my hardest to let go of all my preconceived and instilled rules about dating. For example, we both have awful schedules that don’t allow us to see each other outside of 10 pm to 10 am. Normally, I would never spend the night at a boy’s house when we hadn’t even been on a date yet but I shrugged off my rules and found out I like waking up with him. I also hold fast to the idea that if you fool around with a guy too soon then “they get what they want” and will no longer find a need to chase you and will therefore end things.

Upon explaining my chasing theory to this boy he retorted that he never chases solely to just chase and only chases things and people that he wants in his life. Furthermore he told me the more involved we become, which of course includes physically, the more he will want to be around me.

This sounded like a foreign language to my bitter, cynical ears. Honestly, I spend more time staring at him with my mouth hanging open trying to process what he’s saying than I do actually speaking.

However, I’m slowly starting to believe him - which is nauseating.

I think all women reach a point where they’re simply too afraid, confused, or angry to allow themselves to trust or be vulnerable. But isn’t there some saying about closing your eyes and just jumping so eventually you learn how to fly? Or maybe it’s don’t call the pot black while leading a horse to water? Something like that.

Eventually, one of these guys will turn into the right guy but none of them will if you’re keeping yourself guarded, unavailable or confined by rules. I say go for it. This guy isn’t in your life yet and if he doesn’t have any interest in becoming part of it then what are you losing? Forget about being coy or dropping hints because El, you know as well as I do, boys can be a little oblivious. And by a little I mean massively, incredibly oblivious and unaware.

Plus, boys are just as unsure sometimes. He might have noticed you and just doesn’t know what to do. Playing a whole bunch of games and sending mixed, girlish, over analytical and way too well thought out messages probably won’t help this but being straightforward could.

So make a move. Introduce yourself, strike up a conversation or just ask him if he wants to go out sometime. There are millions of boys in the world and if this one passes then another one will show up roughly five minutes later. Besides, it’d totally be his loss.

Maybe from now on the only rule worth following is doing what we feel is right and doing what makes us happy. So figure out what that is and make it happen.

Love,

K

Can Too Many Rules Ruin The Game?

Ever since I implemented the Do-Not-Call Rule a few weeks ago, I've been hung up on this whole idea of dating rules. I mean, we've all heard of the seemingly-absurd 90's tome The Rules, where women are instructed to be the most passive creatures on earth (oh sure, we're secretely being manipulative--just don't let them know that!). But there's also some truth to it. When we're aggressive, guys don't have to be. And then we get all confused because we still expect them to be. But are we really supposed to leave it all up to them?

The truth is, I'm wondering about all of this because I've got my eye on a guy who has no idea I exist. Whether it garners me creeper status or not, I know (and like) an awful lot about this guy--surfer, philosophy-major, foreign--and I'm pretty convinced he doesn't even know my name. 

So my gut says I need to make a move. And sure, I can do it in the traditionally girly way-- I can flirt or be suggestive or get his attention some other Rules way. But part of me just wants to make some kind of real move, some kind of obvious display of interest. It would cut through all the games and questions, put the issue right on the table. Then, of course, the power is in his court, but at least that opens up the topic for convesation, right? 

Well, I'm not so sure. Both arguments seem convincing to me, and I don't know whether they are feminisit, anti-feminist, or just practical. Beyond that, I just want to know what's effective. So I leave it you, readers, to help me out on this one. Do I follow The Rules, play secret games, and hoard the power in a relationship he doesn't know exists? Or should I be bold, even if it means risking being the vulnerable one? 

And, of course, one final question. If I am going to make some sweeping gesture of feminist dating, what on earth should it be?

Get back to me on this one--

love,

el

The Chuck Bass Theory

We hate to love him. We love to hate him.

He’s Chuck Bass.

And if you’re not tuning into Gossip Girl every week, you probably find him incredibly unattractive and are asking yourself, “What is the obsession about?”

When the Gossip Girl series first aired, I wasn’t interested. I was even less so when I kept hearing friends and co-workers gush about Chuck Bass. I knew which character was his but let’s be honest, he’s not Chace Crawford.

But then in a fit of boredom, I caught a few old episodes and I jumped on the Chuck Bass bandwagon. Objectively speaking, he’s not attractive, but what’s attractive is that he thinks he is and he has a reputation for being a seducer. Women love him. Men aspire to be him. He knows it. Everyone knows it. And for some reason that makes him desirable. 

After my mini-marathon of Gossip Girl reruns, I found myself under the Chuck Bass spell. He suddenly seemed so hottt.

“It’s all about perception, babe,” my friend Chris recently remarked. “It’s not so much about what a guy looks like – although don’t get me wrong, it helps – but it’s all about how guys perceive themselves and ultimately how other women perceive them. “

The Chuck Bass Theory claims that not-so-cute men can get oh-so-cute women. It’s all in their approach and the perceptions others hold of them. 

No one better exemplifies this than Chuck Bass. Sure, he is a player and a womanizer. But not all players and womanizers have the qualities of Chuck Bass. Few do, and it isn’t easy. It’s difficult to even pinpoint what distinguishes Chuck from the sleazy man whores. Bass has a certain element of – dare I say it – class? He doesn’t kiss and tell the way the other amateurs do. Plus, who else can pull off bow-ties and ascots and make them look cool?

Mostly because Bass thinks he’s irresistible, women think he truly is irresistible. The more women there are that think this, well, then more women think it.

After watching the show, you realize that there is something about him that makes even you want to be seduced by him.  Don’t kid yourself. Even the few of you who are reading this thinking that Chuck Bass would never enter into your fictional radar, I would bet all my money that when push came to shove, if you were in the back of a limo with him, you’d also succumb to the same temptations as Blair Waldorf.

Here’s the reality: You probably already have. It may not have been a limo and it may not have been the Chuck Bass of the CW, but I’m pretty sure we’ve all been seduced (knowingly and willingly, but we would never admit it) by a Chuck Bass of our own.

As if he would take “no” for an answer anyway.

xoxo, e.  

Put the phone down

Liz Tuccillo* said it best in her book, How to Be Single: 

Do not call, do not call, even when you have a reason, do not call.

“In my book there are many reasons why you shouldn’t call, but the main one is that it’s the only way to find out what his intentions really are. You need to know how long he can go without talking to you, unencumbered by your meddlesome phone calls, emails, or texts. If you call, you are contaminating the evidence,” (How to Be Single, p. 223).

I used to be of the mindset that it was a load of crock to wait for the guy to call. I took on a feminist approach and if I wanted something, I felt entitled to it. I didn’t think it mattered who called first. Even when I tried to “test” him to see if he would call me eventually, I would always cave after a few days and I would find a “reason” to send him a friendly text, email, or Facebook wall post first.

The wake-up call was when I complained to a guy I had been seeing for a few weeks that he never called me first.

“I don’t have to. I know you’ll always call,” he said.

Oh.

I ended that trend immediately and it took a week and a half but he eventually called. I learned my lesson. Guess what? He’s not that into you if he’s not calling you.

I brought this up to a male friend of mine. He gave me his “rule” for calling girls:

Don’t call for five days after hooking up.

He said that he lives by this rule because he usually doesn’t have to call. By the time the 5^th day rolls around, the girl has already called, texted, emailed, or messaged him.

Every time, he said. Every single time.

He wasn’t being cocky. He explained that girls like to feel like they’re in control and that they like to feel as though they have men eating out of the palms of their hands. When the guys don’t call, women take matters into their own hands and give him a friendly nudge.

With the five-day rule knowledge, I decided to test it out. I initiated absolutely zero contact. Day six of post-hook-up and sure enough I received a slew of texts that continued throughout the weekend, most notably.: “Hey,  I haven’t heard from you all week…What’s up?”

Don’t call. Trust me. It will save you a lot of time, guessing, and mind games. If he calls first, you know what he’s thinking. If he doesn’t, well, you’re better off.

love, eloise

*Liz Tuccillo wrote the hilarious fiction novel How to Be Single and if you haven’t read it, go out right now and get a copy. I promise you will love it. Tuccillo is also the co-author of He’s Just Not That Into You.