Six Apps to Help Strengthen Your Long Distance Relationship

That is great. Thank you quite definitely. I was so excited to be going out with a boy in my class. I felt like I was doing things right and finally, finally fitting in. Two days later, Jessie came by my locker. She cornered me, and in that sixth-grade-girl-kind-of-way, said, “Heidi, are you going out with Brad?” I confidently replied, “Yep.” I smiled, I was, all things considered, ready to ride or die for my new boo. But she threw her head back and laughed. And then she said “Ewwwww.” And that was all it took. The shame spiral was real, and it was deep. I should have known better. How could I have believed that I was worthy of Kelly Kapowski – Zach Morris love? How stupid was I to believe, even for a second, ( for two whole days no less), that that type of love was for me?uberhorny chelle That type of love was for other people. Stunning people.

People who belonged, and who mattered and who knew how to live an excellent, Midwestern life. This was a powerful turning point for me. Because, although it was not my first heartbreak, it was my first experience of doubting myself, my first experience of seeking the validation of others. If Jessie had a different reaction, I might have continued to go out with Brad. Jessie wasn’t a good friend of mine. She wasn’t a girl that I spent a lot of time with, or whose opinion I trusted. But, for some reason, her assessment of what I was doing mattered to sixth-grade me. After the Brad Paulson debacle, I had some crushes and did a little bit of flirting, but I just never experienced comfortable putting myself out there. And I really didn’t want to put myself out there with anyone that anyone at school knew. Sometimes, I flirted with men who didn’t go to my school, men I met through community sports programs, or sons of family friends, but decided that the men at my school were strictly off-limits. Men who have been available to me were dangerous—they could make me look stupid, like I didn’t know what I was doing.

And yet, at the same time, the very thought of dating them also seemed quite pedestrian. Wouldn’t it be more exciting if I liked a person who I didn’t see everyday? Wasn’t that kind of “love” more exotic? My First (Real) Boyfriend But the last part was titled, My First Boyfriend! Yes, but this is the story of my first real boyfriend. I was fourteen and I signed up to spend a week in Americus, Georgia, building homes for Habitat for Humanity. I was afforded this incredible experience by First Presbyterian Church of Davenport (an unlikely and surprisingly comfortable spot for fourteen-year-old me). Our little youth group met up with another little youth group from a different area of the state and boarded a chartered bus headed to Georgia. A quick disclaimer: I can’t even begin to tell you the disdain that the words “church youth group” conjure up for me in spite of the fact that I had a wonderful, supportive, inclusive, experience as a member of a church youth group in Iowa. So please, for this little vignette, I encourage you to set aside any prejudice that those words might bring up for you and to, instead, envision us as this little gang of misfits.

Heading to Georgia. On a bus. From Iowa. To build houses. When you’re kid, there is nothing such as a trip without your parents, right? The excitement and overwhelm of getting on the bus. The rush to get a seat near the back. Taking inventory and checking everyone out: who’s a jock, who’s a nerd, who’s a bitch, who is the cute-cool-laid-back-girl, who is the guy-with-a-soft-sensitive-side?

Which one am I? that will I be? No one here knows me; i will be whoever I want! Or better yet, I can be whoever they will like best!! And I will fit. I will fit in. I spent the entire week flirting with Tom. Tom lived an hour away from me in our real lives. I felt the rush of young love, young lust, and it was exhilarating. We bussed home and parting ways was so dramatic. Would I ever see Tom again? How could my life possibly go on without him? Well, I did see Tom again.

Tom and I talked on the phone. OMG, did we talk on the phone. And our flirtation was filled with a ton of fantasy. “I can’t wait to take you to my favorite bowling alley.” Tom was a very good bowler. “Won’t it be great once we are older, and we can search for a fancy dinner?” It sure would beat a bowling alley. And, honestly, I have no idea what my parents were thinking, nevertheless they drove me to see him. And his parents allow me to stay at his house. And then his parents drove him to see me and my parents let him stay at our house. And even typing this out, twenty years later, sounds totally and completely insane. This young love sooner or later ran its course. But it was exhilarating. When would he call?

When would I be able to call him?

How to Create an Intimate Moments Using Your 5 Senses

When would I see him next? How would we get to one another? There was clearly so little reality to our flirtation and our interactions. But of course, I couldn’t see that at the time. Today I think about this and I have some compassion for fourteen-year-old me, it’s like, you don’t know what you don’t know, you know? At the time this felt like excitement, not heartbreak. At the time, I didn’t believe that it was the beginning of a painful pattern of becoming involved in unavailable men. At the time, I just thought it was fun. Teenagers are delusional about a lot of things, not the least of that is love. But here I was, at fourteen years old, already climbing in my own little car on the unavailability roller coaster. Already checking to make sure that my shoulder harness was pulled down tight with delighted anticipation for each click, click, click that the roller coaster made on its way up for the big drop. Looking back on it, it’s like I skipped the kid version of this ride (you know the little, elephants that just go around in a circle on the rails) and went straight for the ride which includes two loops and a death-defying drop.

I know this was my first experience reveling in the fantasy of unavailability. The Advent of the Internet Some of you will recall time once the internet failed to exist. Without starting in to a nostalgic soliloquy about the days without instant gratification, i am going to just say this: there was clearly a time when you could not just dial up a man’s attention. When you couldn’t open an app to see how many of your photos he liked; when you didn’t monitor your phone constantly to see how many men had commented on how great your legs looked in that skirt. I was about sixteen when AOL made chatrooms widely available to anyone who had a dial-up modem.topadultreview.com There were some drawbacks. First, connections weren’t always reliable, so on any day you might get kicked off or bounced out mid-chat/flirt. Second, in my house, the computer was in my dad’s home office, which doubled as a Lego room for my brother. So, navigating a Lego minefield was the price I paid to chat, anonymously, with strange men online (#totallyworthit). Third, we only had one phone line in our house, so time spent online had to be negotiated with my parents – which I credit, to this day, for my superb negotiating skills. AOL chat rooms were incredible because, in them, no one knew anything about anyone else. Obviously, this makes them dangerous and a natural place for predatory behavior. And I probably understood that at the time. But I didn’t care. Because when I was [email protected], I could be whoever I wanted to be or maybe more importantly (as I was discovering) whoever you wanted me to be.

The other thing that I enjoyed about them, was that no one really had to know what I looked like. I was a heavy kid with low self-esteem. It was infinitely easier for me to speak with people while I was hiding behind a screen name. I could say what I wanted. I felt like in this anonymous place—where everyone was unavailable and the truth was what you made it—I could be vulnerable, it was safe to try on a new personality, it was as easy to say things I didn’t mean as it was to say things that I did. When I was eighteen, I had just finished my freshman year at the University of Pittsburgh, and I was back home in Iowa for the summer. I was kind of reconnecting with a guy I had dated in highschool when I met a guy online, Darren. Darren lived in Pittsburgh and was maybe a few years older than me. I spent hours chatting with him that summer. Sooner or later, he invited me to go to him. I did. Which wasn’t a big deal. The lie that I told my parents – I mean – I’d put that in the “big deal” category. That summer, while most of my friends were “lifeguarding” at Wacky Waters, I was spending my afternoons and evenings working as a hostess in a Cheddars Restaurant.

I liked it because I was more often than not done by 10 p.m. and I never had to be in much earlier than 10 a.m. I was never in the hot sun. I always got a discount on a meal, and even though the servers had to wear shirts and ties, I only had to wear a button-down shirt and khakis. I was sometimes jealous of the servers (because hello, money). Nevertheless they treated me like they knew I was an excellent kid and that they thought I was going places. These people were protective, these people were kind, these people were tremendously patient, and sometimes they bought me booze. And that sensed good. I didn’t have the money to fly to Pittsburgh to satisfy my internet love. I needed my parents to fly me there. They didn’t know that I was talking to a stranger on the internet.

And although they had been so understanding around my first long-distance relationship with Mr. Habitat for Humanity, I did not think they would find this as, hmmm, shall we say, cute. I told them that I was heading to Pittsburgh to check out my friends from college and that i might be staying with them on campus. Plus they agreed to buy me a ticket. Instead, I flew into Pittsburgh, met this man I had been chatting with online, stayed in a hotel room with him and threw myself into the fantasy of this long-distance “relationship.” I was lucky that, despite my recklessness, I did not get hurt or assaulted by Darren. That he turned out to be a nice, pretty well-adjusted young man in his early twenties.

5 Methods to Not Get Stuck in a Single Rut

I look back on this experience with tremendous gratitude that I emerged from it unscathed. During these years I did not find sustainable, meaningful, or emotionally fulfilling relationships. Shocker, I know. I did, however, discover the lengths I was willing to go to in the pursuit of fantasy, unavailable men, and male attention. I had put myself in danger. And I hadn’t even thought twice about it, I didn’t even blink. If you had asked me then, would I do it again, the answer would have been “Absolutely!” The attention of men was a powerful drug for me. It took me places I never thought i might go, I found myself doing things I never thought I’d do.

The price tag on admission was my integrity and my true self. Things had to have worse before they got better for me. I rode the roller-coaster throughout most of my adult life, but it ratcheted up a notch when I hit my early twenties, and that’s the part of my story I would like to share with you next. This is an excerpt from my book, Relationship Ready: How I Stopped Fucking Randos and Started Cupcaking My Soul Mate available now on Amazon. Signup for Our Newsletter Get Us in Your Inbox! Online Dating, Sex, and Relationship Advice Tips in Your Inbox… Follow @theurbandater Like this:Like Loading… Share This Article Facebook39Tweet0Pin0 Posted in: Relationships Tagged in: Available, Coming of Age, Patterns, relationship patterns, Relationship Ready, Relationships, Teenager, Teenager Dating, Unavailable “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Actually, I’m not sure that quote really fits here, but it’s the first one that jumped to mind that my gut approved. As many of you know, that read this little blog, is that I’m in a relationship and I have been for some time. Several things have changed in that time. I’ve become a little less flirty and in my relationship, we’ve learned never to sweat the small stuff so much. So, what does all this mean?The death of the single me. That’s what this all means.

It’s been a slow process to me. As my girlfriend and I grow together, I’ve noticed how things have changed. The online dating profiles are no longer. Not hidden, but deleted. I’ve noticed that while my eyes will still follow the leggy blonds and brunettes as they pass, the rest of me doesn’t follow them also. I have to catch myself from flirting an excessive amount of these days. Another set of eyes are upon me, more importantly, another heart to care for. The death of the single me has taken shape in other ways, too.

My social calendar was very an easy task to fill. I might accept any and all invitations, sometimes double or triple booking. Now, I talk to my girlfriend. We’ll sit and compare calendars on a regular basis. “Nope, we’re having a thing at my mom’s place,” she’ll correct me as I attempt to proclaim my night out with the guys. This whole process is kind of like a spider snaring a fly in its web, it seems. You’re flying along, carelessly, buzzing about and before you know it POOF! You’re caught! The spider spun it’s web long before I took flight. Wow. That really is a bad analogy for a relationship. Spiders, webs and blood sucking… You guys know what I mean, though, right?

As things have evolved I’ve been having conversations that i might n’t have expected and, frankly, was unprepared for. Marriage is one of those topics. No, I’m not getting into the complete “will I or won’t I” piece of this whole thing, but it’s interesting to note how much can come from a simple question like: “So what do you think about moving in together?” Moving in together turns into a whole other ball of wax. I tell you, I’m damn near afraid to even ask my girlfriend how the weather is, because I’m afraid she’ll respond with something like, “Are you okay with seventeen children?” *shudders at the thought* All I really know for sure is that I’m in a much different spot now than I was several months ago… That’s a good thing. PS – A quick shout out to Ms. Ribeiro, TaylorCast and my girl for being many awesome cheerleaders a butt head like me could ever hope for. Signup for Our Newsletter Get Us in Your Inbox! Online Dating, Sex, and Relationship Advice Tips in Your Inbox… Follow @theurbandater Like this:Like Loading… Share This Article Facebook0Tweet0Pin0 Posted in: Relationships, Self Knights in shining armor are great, right? What happens when you don’t need to be saved anymore? What happens when you’re no more a damsel in distress and there is nothing left to fix? What happens to the joyfully ever after? This is a story about a damsel, myself, who met someone at her most vulnerable place in life. My knight was a tall, not age appropriate at all, but seemingly adoring guy.

He was my shoulder to cry on and the rock to support me at my lowest. He basically pushed himself into my life until I realized I needed to be with him. So let me backtrack a little to explain this “damsel” period of my life. I was in the process of divorcing my husband of five years. He was a husband who emotionally, and at times, had physically abused me for the entirety of the marriage. Then he cheated on me while I was out of the country and finally released me from the hell he had created for me. Subsequently, I acted out like a teenager who had never left the house, desperately trying to find my lost self-esteem in almost any self-destructive way possible. I found myself with someone way more damaged than myself who decided to make use of my self-destructive behavior, and wound up being assaulted in my own bedroom. Naturally, I fell apart. I was sent to a thirty-day treatment center for “trauma”, and yes I use quotation marks because I don’t feel like I deserved to be there on the list of unimaginable real upheaval that the other residents had survived. My knight-to-be had agreed to stay at my apartment and watch my dog (the real love of my life) while I was away. I arrived at home; emotionally raw from the most intensive therapy I had ever experienced, and was greeted by my knight who had developed a loving relationship with the love of my life (my dog). I thought maybe this guy could actually be some of those mythical “good guys”. It turned out he was for a long time. At the height of our relationship, I felt such as a whole person for the first time in my life.

We lived together for over a year and I decided to transfer to a new school and to his hometown, 800 miles away from everything I knew. I made the decision to check out him and rationalized that if a community could produce someone like my knight, it would be an excellent, warm community for me. In the months leading up to the move, I started to change. Once more I was relying on someone else for my pleasure because I knew, when I moved, he would be all I had. And so I fell deeper into my knight and farther away from my sense of self, shrinking into not as much as a person and deteriorating in to a small piece of something “whole”. When I mentioned the age inappropriateness this is what I implied. I was thirty-one. He was twenty-one. This was a easy disparity to ignore before the move. He fit easily into my thirty-one year old life. It was the two of “us” in our little bubble with my dog. Then I moved and the bubble burst. It hit me such as a brick to the face.

I was no more in our bubble. I was now in a spot where people were twenty-one, or younger, and still binge drinking (at bars!), and I needed to change myself, once more, to be with someone. So I did. I pretended to be twenty-one and drink such as a twenty-one year old and tried to keep up with the three, four, or even five-day benders they would go on. It was exhausting and eventually it took its toll on me. I might drink and blackout and become angry. Angry that I had to change again and that my knight was no more the person I fell in love with. He had regressed into the twenty-one year old, and even teenage behavior that I thought he had surpassed.

I was left in this place, with no one except him, and then the world exploded. We didn’t believe in passwords on phones or computers. We were “open and honest”. One night, I used his computer. What I found turned my world, which included only him at this point since I knew no one there, upside down. My rapidly regressing knight had slept along with his ex-girlfriend (from highschool of course) a week before I moved here. He had moved our belongings, and my dog, first while I visited my family for Christmas. He not only had sex with her, but also, the next day, watched videos of her (sexual videos) and requested more.

He advertised to have been blacked out for two days. I also met her a week after this happened when i moved here. The smirk she had on her face at that time made all the sense in the world now. Now I don’t want to seem like I’m the only person ever to truly have a significant other cheat to them. Not even in the slightest. This is more of a cautionary tale to never lose who you are in someone else. That was my downfall. I forgot that I was a person. I became attached to another, where he was everything, and I was just a small fragment of a person. I always boasted to my family that the best part of our relationship was that individuals were both whole people individually and the relationship was the bonus.

Well when that changed when I made my life decisions according to his, and I guess that was the beginning of the end. Once more I had lost myself. One hospitalization later, after an act of desperation to have me out of this awful microcosm of toxicity, and I am now picking up the pieces of me. And thank God for that. Now is the time to find me again. I no longer have to pretend to be someone I’m not, I no longer have to pretend to still be in love with a person who turned into a stranger. Each day gets a little better. Given, yoga, more yoga, some Pilates, and yes wine (at times), helps also. I guess the moral of this story is that knights in shining armor are great.

They do serve a purpose. But once that purpose was served you have to let them go. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but for me, I will be my very own knight (and princess if I feel like it) and I will save myself. That is what I need.