Getting It: Love and Oranges

I know a lot of you cynics have already had enough of Valentine’s Day. I get it. Either you’re single or you hate the Hallmark holidays. Fine, OK, whatever.

I suppose because I write about dating/boys/sex, I am often seen as a provider of good dating advice. And for that reason, I feel very conscious during a month devoted to love. (And, as Jacki says, “a holiday all about sex.” Personally, I think that’s Halloween, so it’s no coincidence that these are my two favorite holidays.) I always want to know what’s going on in the world of how we relate to each other.

So here’s what’s going on in my world. I’ve felt a shift, as of late, in my attitude, and perhaps it will inspire you to change yours.

First? I’m putting He’s Just Not That Into You in Time Out.

I’m not doing this because it was an absolutely terrible movie. (Although it was.) I’m doing this because that book needs to STFU for a little while. When I first read it, I was hooked. I made all my girl friends (and boy friends) read it. Everything suddenly made so much sense! OMG! Don’t be that girl! We knew what the book says….if he’s not calling, texting, putting it in you, calling you his girlfriend, etc., etc….HJNTIY! It was liberating.

But then there came a point when the book just started making us all batshit crazy. At first it helped us make a clean break — which is good, if it’s something plain and simple, like you’re banging a married dude — but suddenly it had us flipping our shit if we didn’t get a call back within a few hours. So in an effort to not be “that girl” we still somehow ended up being “that girl.” And not only that, but we were all judging our friends’ relationships like crazy. How many times did you gossip about a girl, “Well he’s obviously just not that into her,” and think about how pathetic she was for still thinking it was going somewhere? Judging friends’ relationships…yuck.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t read the book. If you haven’t, you should absolutely read it and you should take notes! It’s kind of what I’d call course work for “Dating 101″: a lesson that guys are pretty simple creatures a lot of times, and, well, if he says, “I don’t want to be your boyfriend,” you should probably listen. If you’re waking up every morning alone except for your hangover and your phone in your hand — as I did for my entire senior year of college — then yes, listen to the book.

Now that I’ve grown up a bit and dated outside of college and made a few mistakes of my own, I’ve realized that the book has served its purpose. Just like I don’t need to rely on everything I learned in English 101 — cause, oh, hey, sometimes it’s OK to start a sentence with “but” — I’ve had enough real life experience to know that “busy” isn’t always another word for “asshole” and sometimes a guy does need a lesson in how to treat you like the wonderful creature that you are. And sometimes girls are just too self-absorbed and too crazy (sorry….girls are crazy!!) to realize that they’re expecting too much too soon. High standards? Good. “Why don’t you want to be my boyfriend?” on the second date? Bad.

The thing is, I liked HJNTIY, but I’m also a total optimist. This can sometimes lead me to see the best in guys who maybe don’t deserve second — or 20th — chances — but it’s a quality I don’t intend to change. No matter how many times I get my heart broken, I’ll never be cynical. I think cynicism is just being emotionally lazy. The problem has been, for me, to keep up that positive attitude when I feel like everyone around me is listening to The Book and telling me to run for my life.

So that’s why I was beyond thrilled to find this blog called The Dating Optimist. The author, Amy Spencer, is such a breath of fresh air after years of that stuffy HJNTIY logic. And the other night, I went back and read all her old posts and just felt like standing up and cheering. The reason I even found the blog is because she has a new book coming out — well it came out yesterday — and I had been hearing a lot of buzz on it. At first I wasn’t interested, cause there are SO many f-ing dating books out there, but after checking out her blog…umm, I haven’t pre-ordered a book on Amazon since Harry Potter #5. I couldn’t order it fast enough.

The book is called Meeting Your Half-Orange: An Utterly Upbeat Guide to Using Dating Optimism to Find Your Perfect Match. The title is, according to her site, a translation of the Spanish phrase mi media naranja, which means “my half-orange,” used to describe, in love, one’s sweetheart, one’s beautifully perfect other half.

Every time I read that it just makes me happy!

So I’ve been reading up on this as I wait eagerly for UPS to arrive with my book and apparently there’s a good amount of science behind the optimism she’s talking about. Neural shit. But really, I’m excited to read about this…

“Feeling positive is one thing. But working up an emotionally charged orange buzz to “feed your seed”—that’s what’s going to turn you into a knock-‘em-dead relationship magnet. The orange buzz is the magic behind attracting your other half. When you learn how to create your orange buzz, you’ll literally become the relaxed, happy, glowing, confident person now that you want to feel in your dream relationship later.”

I could really go on and on, but just check it out for yourself! For me, it’s like how I feel when I go to the grocery store and see organic food — a feeling of validation that I’m not crazy, that other people want the same lovely things I do. Knowing that there’s another chick out there getting all gushy about the power of positive thinking — without ever making you want to choke her — is a really good feeling!

So, I put a pretty picture of an orange on my Vision Board to remind me to always feel positive about love and to never apologize for it. Yeah, I could easily be that snarky girl — it’s not like I just made up the No Asshole Diet while my boyfriend was making me dinner and picking out a ring — but I choose not to be. And if you feel yourself going in that direction, cause it’s February and you’re single or just dating a total dick, please check out The Dating Optimist and, well, try to be one!

Have a great Wednesday!

Tagged as: boys, dating, February, girls, half-orange, love, positive attitude, positive thinking, sex