This is in no way a long update - just a quick 'made the right choice, v happy' update lol. I start my job Monday and am sunbathing in my garden with my dog, Chip. :)
In my last relationship, the guy didn't have a Facebook. By some weird turn of events he, at 22, had never made one. Now, the guy I dated before him didn't either but at 29 that was more acceptable. As a result, I was the one who made his Facebook for him.
Now this guy was in his first relationship out of a failed marriage with me (yes, at 22) and so there was definitely a rebound effect going on. I can't criticize too much because I too had just broken up with someone, and considering they had cheated and gotten engaged to the other one three weeks after our break-up, I wasn't exactly in the best place either.
So, in our rebound states, on the second date, he asked if we could refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend now. This has never happened to me before in NYC. There is a dating etiquette here that says unless its headed for marriage, that kind of terminology is very risky. Out of some sort of sick curiosity as to 'What will happen?' I agreed. It was fun and silly. But by the time we sat and made his Facebook, it was therefore already at 'In a relationship' stage.
Now, if he had already had a Facebook this wouldn't have been an issue because it wouldn't have happened that quick: Facebook relationship statuses just make it too complicated (no pun intended) to be getting into a relationship that quick. If my 9th grade teacher is going to find out I'm dating someone in NYC while she sits at her computer in England, that person better be worth it.
This is something that five years ago, no one had to worry about. When you got in a new relationship, you plus a few close friends probably knew. There are of course, benefits and disadvantages to this. As a fairly jealous person, the staking the claim aspect certainly has its benefits: the guy before the ex couldn't have cheated for two years if he had a relationship status to contend with. That said, a relationship status also causes the awkward 'Where is this going?' question into a whole new level of early.
Usually, announcing to the world that you're with someone happens once in your life (or more if you're the get the ring, get the money type: I'm not judging. Much): when you intend to marry the person. But Facebook has made it so you announce when maybe you're no longer single, maybe 'it's complicated' and when you take that first scary step of using the bf/gf words, you use them to 600 people that you may have only met once.
There is another aspect of the relationship status that can really bite you in the butt too. Putting 'In a relationship' out there is at least vaguely fun, especially if the guy is a looker. But when things go sour only a few months down the line and the rebound guy didn't work. Yeah. Your 9th grade teacher knows that too.
Plus, who does it? The breaker upper or the broken up with? That's some nasty politics and can make you the jackass or the victim to a couple of hundred of people. With rebound guy, he broke up with me via text. Which considering his level of maturity in marrying a girl at 18, shouldn't have been a shock but retrospect is always a kicker. That aside, I obviously was not a happy person.
I took the relationship status to single. And in an uncharacteristically embarrassing emotional display wrote a nasty little status about him. Which turned into a status war with him. Which right now is hilarious but at the time... ouch. In addition, since my friends could see this little outbreak, half of them deleted him, half of them called me yelling about him and one messaged him for me. Threatening him. To this day, the most awesome show of support after a break-up.
This again, is the double edged sword. While there are inarguably benefits to public break-ups such as widespread sympathy and hatred to the guy, along with quick invention of hilarious nicknames for them (to talk about them via Wall-to-Wall) and posting fabulous happy photos only a couple of days later, it also makes the break-up way more drawn out than necessary.
I'm a great believer in half the time you were dating is the recovery time unless there's a rebound in between, which significantly shortens the healing process, yet with rebound guy it took longer. Let's guess why. First he deleted me on Facebook after one too many of my hilarious underhanded jokes on Facebook (April Fools Day - how can I resist you?), then we decided to be friends. And so were friends on Facebook again. And then he kept me up on his Top Friends for ages. Which was confusing and made any residual feelings stick annoyingly around.
Until finally, I asked him to remove me from his Top Friends. When he did, I blocked him. And within a week was over it. As Social Media goes, this has been its biggest effect with me, which makes sense since in the past I never put up my relationships since I was 'married' to my best friend, until we fell out and divorced. Right now though, I'm thinking I should propose to her again. Except for now she's my sister on Facebook too...
Everyone who knows me is aware of my unusual obsession with Postsecret.org. It was my home page for years and is the first site I visit, even before my email on a Sunday morning. And this one (an archive) rang particularly true for me right now.
This is partially the reason why I love PostSecret so much: all these people believe their secrets are so huge and awful that the only place they can send them is an anonymous website; they can't tell anyone in their lives, and yet, everyone shares the same secrets.
This one isn't what I feel always but there are always those times when people just make you look at them and feel... jaded. I think that's a definite NYC epidemic too, since as soon as I was ready to leave, that feeling lifted a bit, and made me feel that maybe things were possible again.
So I just watched the creepiest adaptation film ever. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was also one of the cheesiest movies I've ever seen but still. 'Invasion of the Bodysnatchers' is a bit like 1984, in the idea that it's a human race with no variance: built for the whole as opposed to the individual with ultimate control and acquiescence among everyone. It's had four versions, probably because it's one of those topics that everyone is always a little fascinated but a little crept out by.
The positive aspects of such an existence I guess would be world peace: not active happy peace like the 1960s Flower Child ideal, but no active wars either. That said, creativity is original and therefore individual, literature is original, innovation is original. While I'm against the wrong kind of innovation such as mass destruction style innovations, there are some innovations that are inarguably good.
Without individual exploration and creation, we wouldn't have chocolate. We also wouldn't know that chocolate triggers serotonin release into the brain, thus creating a happy feeling, because the scientist who discovered that would not have been original and individual enough to choose his path into science. We would not have passion since individual choice of partners and therefore chemistry couldn't occur. We wouldn't have arguments. I hate to say it, but sometimes they're necessary. I'm a lot closer to some of the friends I've had the biggest fights with because it strengthens the friendship and helps you know and appreciate that person that much more.
When I first read 1984, I was around 14 and so as much as I felt ever so grown up and clever reading it, only so much of the concept actually made sense to me, and it didn't seem that much of a groundbreaking book as a result. Seeing that film (the 1993 version if anyone cares) reminded me of '1984' and brought the concept back, except for now I've had the chance to really grow into my own individuality and my own personal choices, it is suddenly clear how awful a concept 1984 raises, and sadly, how many features of the parental government emulates it.
I'm not saying we're throwing out books or using Newspeak yet. But I'm not exactly saying we're not either. We don't exactly make a point of making our old history books available: they're too embarrassing to the developing world. And newspeak... political correctness anyone? Maybe I'm just being politically correctedly challenged but there seems to be some pretty similar concepts coming up as of late. I'll admit to being libertarian politically anyway, and literature and movies like this just reinstate that.
I have just watched the most horrific film I have ever seen. Jack Ketchum's 'The Girl Next Door', which is based on a true story of a girl, Sylvia Likens, who at age 16, was tortured and killed slowly by Gertrude Baniszewski, the 'responsible adult' and her long-term babysitter at the time, along with her son, two daughters and various other neighborhood kids.
These evil excuses for human beings burnt 'I am a prostitute and proud of it' in the girl's stomach with a searing hot sewing pin, forced stripteases in which Baniszewski would encourage the children to force coke bottles into her, and pushed her into scalding hot water baths. The girl died after the needle incident. It was described as "the most terrible crime in Indiana's history".
Gertrude Baniszewski received a life sentence, but was released before she died. She died of lung cancer and from the perspective of someone who has watched a family member die of lung cancer, I never thought I would wish it on anyone but Baniszewski deserved worse. Her daughter Paula, an active (and old enough to know better) participant in the torture received only a few years in prison.
John Baniszewski, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, all around Sylvia's age, and therefore well aware of the brevity of their actions, received 18 months each in a juvenile detention facility. Stephanie Baniszewski, Anna Siscoe, Judy Duke, Randy Lepper and Mike Monroe were let off scot free. My mum teaches 10 years olds. All of them are aware murder and torture is wrong. There are all of these people walking around who took a human life and didn't get any punishment for it at all.
John Baniszewki, now known as John Blake claims he found God and now serves as a lay pastor. Stephanie Baniszewski became a school teacher (actually dealing with kids...), Richard Hobbs died at 21 of cancer. And the real kicker? Coy Hubbard was actually persecuted later for two more murders. Two men died because the law didn't do its job and put guilty, evil people behind bars.
These people are walking free. I'm in shock watching/reading about this. They took a girl's life, with the sister around ensuring she would be tortured mentally, and tore apart a family. And they get a free life, teaching kids, preaching about how to be good people. Yeah. Right.
There's a weird nostalgia for me connected to Britain that I can't describe very well to anyone who doesn't understand growing up in England and living in the US. Though the language is the same in the countries, the culture is undeniably different.
It's not big things and not the things you'd assume: though I miss certain food items it's not nostalgic and though I get homesick for family, there are still phones. I guess it's the simplicity. The feeling of peace while we used to drive to my Nana's house every Sunday morning. Lazy Sundays driving around with my mum and dad. Salad sandwiches at Kirkstall Abby with Becks. Just lying with my dog on the swing outside, watching the day go by.
I can have these amazing experiences in NYC like clubbing until it's light outside, or margaritas on a Sunday, or brunch in a 3 starred Michelin restaurant. But in New York, things are always complicated. There always a dark cloud. Maybe it is the family thing, cos in Britain, there's always a silver lining, and no matter how bad things are going I can go and sit at home with my family and have a cup of sweet tea, and everything just feels better.
So this is a video from my window. On June 26th. In the summer.
Those flashes? That would be lightning.
And isn't it just a gorgeous dreary... gray color. Ugh.
It makes the house across the street look haunted. That's kind of fun.
So I had the start to this huge post about my dreams last night and how moving countries is even stalking my dreams with nightmares. Then I accidentally clicked the back button. And I'm definitely not in the mood to write it all out again.
That said, this is going to be a short post. There is a promise here for a proper post, possibly later today or maybe tomorrow but yeah. The post was three pages long. Ouch. Just ouch.
On the up point I have Brooklyn Style Dominos Cheese with white sauce pizza and cinna stix. Which, as Dominos tends to do, makes me feel a whole lot better about the situation. I wonder if I wrote to Dominos they would sponsor me to say that?
Two of that calibre in one day...
Rest in peace.
