Deal Breakers are National News!!!…or at Least Fark.com News

Remember that time I told you I could tell the future?  I did it again.

Well, I read Fark.com daily–all of it–because “it’s not news, it’s Fark!”  (Now I bet you’re figuring out why I say “farking” all of the time.)

So Fark.com has people submit odd news stories they find throughout the day with snappier, funnier headlines than what actually happened.  There are some doozies.  They also hold open threads sometimes.  The one yesterday that sparked this blog post?

What kind of thing do you consider an immediate deal breaker when you’re on a date with someone?

Trendsetter?  You bet your ass I am.

So here are some Fark Deal Breakers, mixed in with a few more of my own (in Italics) and sans-gender (OMG):

• Reading (and enjoying) Twilight, The Hunger Games, The DaVinci Code (that last one was for you Dzanko)
• Eating like a pig
• Slurping through a straw
• Having sexual organs that are not representative of the body (i.e. a chick with a dick, a dude without one)
• Wedding rings (How did I miss this?  Because wedding rings are sexy…)
• Follows the WNBA
• Rude to the wait staff
• B.O.
• Being so “green” that I can’t do anything without ridicule
• Ordering for me
• Immediate talk about medical ailments they have or that run in their family
• Talks too much about an ex
• Can’t hold a conversation
• Poor hygiene

I’m telling you people, all you have to do is keep reading to stay ahead of the trend.  😉

 

 

Deal Breakers: The Final Round-Up

So, I have a list of deal breakers that don’t really deserve a whole post of their own, so here are the final remaining deal breakers:

• Tighty Whities
• Being a manwhore
• Inability to trust (this could have been turned into a post–albeit a preachy one)
• Thinking that your sister is the best woman to ever walk the planet
• Drinking yourself silly on a regular basis
• Spending money carelessly
• Telling ME how to spend my money (until we’re married–then it’s OUR money)
• Being a pothead

That’s what I’ve got for now.

Tomorrow, I will entertain you far more than I did today.  But seriously guys, what are your deal breakers?

 

Deal Breaker # 5: Momma’s Boys and Their Overbearing Moms

Disclaimer:  I’ve dated some boys whose mothers were/are amazing (Momma O. and Mike’s momma Terry are among them!).  So if I’ve dated your son and you’re reading this blog, I’m not necessarily talking about you…but I could be.  And if I’ve dated YOU and you’re reading this, and you’re upset that I talked about your mom, QUIT BEING SUCH A MOMMA’S BOY!

I’m a firm believer that when you date or marry an individual, you are also dating/marrying the family (unless they are completely estranged from them).

And I don’t know how I do it, but I’ve found a lot (read:  A LOT) of momma’s boys…boys who care more about what their mother thinks than anything else, and mothers who can’t get the picture to get out of their sons’ lives.

Let me give you some examples of overbearing mothers (all different) I’ve encountered:

• Going so far as to yell at me for fighting with her son
• Telling me that the only way her boy would marry me is if I got knocked up
• Stalking me on Facebook because I hurt her boy’s feelings
• Complaining that her boy spent too much money on my birthday gift
• Telling me that I’d never be as important to him as his car
• Bitching at me for not cooking her son a birthday cake–“How was I ever going to take care of him?”
• Yelling at me for not giving her any time to be alone with her son
• Glaring at me in line at the local Wal-mart long after her son and I broke up (this is lots of moms)
• Trying to get me to take lingerie on my vacation with her son and telling me that if he’s as good a lay as his father, I ought to consider myself lucky

Yeah.  PUKE.

And boys caring more about what their momma thinks?  ANNOYING.  I blame the mothers.  Just because they can’t let go doesn’t mean that they ought to be sabotaging their sons’ relationships or still trying to control them.

So if you encounter a momma’s boy, save yourself the trouble and RUN.  It’ll be a HUGE deal breaker.

 

Proposal Planners? Are you farking kidding me?

Well, you get two posts today because I just saw this:  There are proposal planners to to help men pop the question.  This almost makes me as mad as hipster marshmallows.

As if paying out the butt for a wedding planner isn’t bad enough (I’ll attack this some other day), now men are to the point where they can’t even plan their own PROPOSALS?!

I blame a combination of the following:

• Women have beat men into thinking that nothing short of a trip to Paris will do.
• Men have become completely unoriginal.
• And if they need a proposal planner because they can’t think of their own unique proposal, they probably don’t want to marry their lady anyway.
• Women desire to document every thing that happens to them with a camera (which you can do for free)
• And men’s complete “bewilderment” of romance.

All said combinations of this are stupid.

Paris is silly.  Men are afraid to be original. And ladies, you do NOT need to pay a photographer or have a proposal planner there to document your proposal!  If your man can’t ask one of his friends or your friends to hang slyly by and snap pictures while he pops the question, then he’s an idiot.

And I don’t care if men are bewildered by romance and don’t understand it.  Women don’t need you to act like the men in romance novels–all that matters is that you put a little thought into it.  If Mike proposed to me over a McDonald’s coffee (which is how we first started hanging out) or on a swing set (where we go to feel like kids again) or one of the places where we met in the middle when I was in NC and he was in PA, well hell.  I’d be happy with that.

Ladies, if you said yes to a planned proposal (which cost between $500 and $1200), let me know so I can come there and give you a mohawk before your wedding.  Think about this–that money could have gone toward your engagement ring, your honeymoon, or starting your new life together.

Despicable.

 

Deal Breaker # 4: Being Unable to Do What It Takes

Don’t worry–this isn’t a sexy blog (although you’d probably like it more if it was).

It is a pretty vague concept though.  Being unable to do what it takes.  In what, you ask?  Anything that matters.

I want someone who I know that I can rely on in any aspect.  If money was short, I’d expect my man (along with myself) to go out and find a better means of income, or at least supplementary income.  If the water heater breaks, I want him to either fix it or call someone who can.  And if my family needs him, I want him to step up.

And if all hell is breaking loose on the emotional front and the man checks out–deal breaker.  I mean, I got upset when I saw that I have a pen mark on my new Michael Kors purse, and when my internet was down the other day.  Lord–it could be anything.  But Mike does everything in his power to make me feel better, and I think that’s a real man.

I guess it seems to me that if you’re really dedicated and committed to someone, you step up and do whatever it takes to make that person’s life run easier.  And in a good relationship, you’re both doing that for each other.  It’s like Brad Paisley said, “You look at her and you finally start to live for some one else / And then you find yourself / That’s when you find yourself.”

 

Deal Breaker # 3: Loving Cars More Than You Love Me

Check out Deal Breaker # 1 and Deal Breaker # 2.

Pretty specific, huh?

I guess it could be summed up to loving any material thing more than you love me, and in turn putting it ahead of me and treating it better than me.

Spiteful?  Not so much anymore.  This is mild.

Story time!  So in one of my relationships, I competed with cars, trucks, dune buggies–pretty much anything with a motor.  One time, we were going to the sprint car races early to reserve seats later that night.  We parked the buggy and I undid my seatbelt.  There were a lot of people around from out of town that I didn’t know–rough looking characters–and I didn’t want to stay out there by myself.  As I pulled myself out of the buggy, he gave me a look.

“What?” I asked.

“Aren’t you going to stay here to guard the buggy?” he asked like it was common sense.

“Oh.”  And because I was dumb and in love, I said, “Sure.”

Unfortunately, it wasn't an equilateral triangle...

I played second fiddle to anything with a motor for about two years.  But I think 2 years was enough–the deal broke.  I won’t come second fiddle anymore (in serious relationships).  I love when guys have an interest.  I mean, I went to countless races, car shows, and spent more time in a garage watching him work on cars than I can remember, and the truth was that it was okay because I knew it made him happy.

It was only when he started using his desire to buy more things with engines as a buffer to keep me at bay from a future that it was time to go.

 

Deal Breaker # 2: Not Wanting Kids

Read Deal Breaker # 1!

I respect men who don’t want to have kids…but I certainly don’t want to date them.

If you ask me, the whole point of living is to leave a legacy, and what better way to do that than to have children.  Whether they’re biological, adopted, whatever–if you can be a part of a child’s life as they grow up, you can leave a legacy.

Most of you know that I have a condition called Glowing Ovaries.  Luckily, I don’t have to wear thick shirts or extra jackets to hide the two glowing orbs in my midsection, but oh do I feel the glow.  Mostly every time I hold a baby, get near a baby, hear about a baby, see a PICTURE of a baby.  Ugh.  It’s sick, isn’t it?

I want kids so bad.  I look forward to pregnancy.  I just think that the most rewarding thing in the world would be to have children, to make memories for them, to give them something to tell their kids about.

For instance, when it was my birthday, my mom would wake my little brother and my dad and they would sneak into my room while I was still sleeping and decorate it with streamers and balloons and put all my presents on the floor around me bed.  When I woke up, I was surrounded by color and fun and the sheer glee that is having a kid birthday.  We did the same for my brother, probably both of us, every year until we were ten.  I LOVE that.

Think this...but much less organized and much more color.

So I guess that won’t be nearly as fun without a man who wants to do that…much less a man who doesn’t want to give me kids.

Oh, and this post wouldn’t be about kids without at least one adorable baby picture:

Ha ha!

 

Deal Breakers – The Intro and #1

When you’re dating or looking for that one you’re going to love forever, there are certain deal breakers.  With friends, not so much.  I think it’s fun to have a wide variety of friends.  But lovers…well.  Having been in 4 long-term relationships (all between 16 and 34 months), I’ve encountered my share of deal breakers.  So I thought I’d share those over the next few days.

#1  Not Believing in God

I’ve been with one man who didn’t believe in God.  It was awful.  I’m Catholic, and I’m not one of those uber-devout ones.  I go through periods of being an every-weeker to a CEC–a Christmas-Easter Catholic, but that doesn’t stop the believing.

I used to worry about finding another Catholic, but it turns out that it’s not that easy.  It turns out that I really don’t care about the denomination of the man that I love, but rather I just care that he believes in God.  So at 19 when I was dating a man who I had actually gone to Sacred Heart (a Catholic elementary school) with and he decided that he didn’t believe in God, I was lost.

After every evening I spent with him, I cried myself to sleep hoping that someday he’d find something to believe in.

We ended up breaking up–not based on this deal breaker alone.  Years later, I heard that as he stood by his grandfather’s deathbed, listened to him talk to God, and watched him slip away that he walked away a believer.

I’m happy for him.

 

And Now I Have a Pig Heart…

So last night, I went to bed feeling quite unsettled.  I had the dream to prove it:

I was standing outside when two doctors pulled me inside and all of the sudden I was in my bedroom, but a very sterile version of it.  I wore a hospital gown and there were chest x-rays all over the room.  I was told I needed a new heart, and that they had one, but that I’d have to have the operation at that very second.

Without questioning anything, I agreed.  I stayed semi-awake for the operation.  I remember seeing my ribs and my skin splayed open and thinking, “I hope this works.”

They weren’t replacing it with a human heart, though.  They were using a pig’s heart.  I watched them pull my own heart from my chest, put it into a plastic bag and into a tank of formaldehyde, but the veins and arteries were still attached to it.  It was still beating.  With the pig heart in my chest, new veins and arteries were attached, and momentarily, I had two hearts.  They closed me up leaving just a tiny hole for the lines of my first heart.

When I was fully conscious, they told me to breathe deeply, and all at once, they cut the lines to my heart and the pig heart fluttered wildly, pounding against my rib cage to get back into the natural rhythm of things.  And then it did.

I felt relieved.  The doctor pushed on a couple of places and asked if it hurt.  I said no and lifted my hand to feel the stitches that went in a vertical line down my chest, and then looked up at a wall of photos from my past and although scarred, I knew that I was going to live.

CARMEN HELP!

 

UPDATED: Something’s Gotta Give

Update:  I think something gave…but it wasn’t what I expected.

 

It’s not like I’m not thankful for everything that I have, but I am so damn tired of having a long-distance relationship.

Let’s figure out how long Mike and I actually were together over the past 3 years…

• January 2009:  started hanging out as friends
• March 19, 2009:  started dating
• April 12, 2009 (Easter):  Mike moved back to Pennsylvania to start his new job
• May 5, 2009:  I lived in Ohio with my parents for the summer (3 hours from Mike) and saw him most weekends
• August 15, 2009:  Moved back to NC
• September 2009:  Saw Mike one weekend
• October 2009:  Saw Mike one weekend
• November 2009:  Saw Mike one weekend
• December 2009:  Saw Mike occasionally over break
• January 2010:  Saw Mike one weekend
• February 2010:  Saw Mike Valentine’s weekend
• March 2010:  Saw Mike one weekend
• April 2010:  Didn’t see Mike
• May 2010:  Graduated, spent a final week in Carolina with Mike and my family, and moved in with him in Pennsylvania
• May 2010-September 24, 2010:  Had 4 months of bliss living with Mike
• September 29, 2010:  Started my new job in Ohio
• January 5, 2012:  And here we are.

So 1 month at the beginning + 4 months in the middle + one weekend a month for a year + weekends for 1.5 years = about a year.  We’ve seen each other about 1 year out of our 3 year relationship.  Probably less.

Sigh.  I’m sorry I’m complaining.  I just really miss him today.

Photos courtesy of joannamontgomery.com and longdistancelover.com respectively.