Your Lawn or Mine?

Welcome! I'm officially a blah, blah, blogger because 1) Apparently, I feel that I have a lot to say, and that I've exhausted all other avenues of communication. And 2) When you're single you tend to have quite a bit of free time. Blogging is cheaper than traveling and less caloric than going out every night.

I have a lot (A LOT) of conversations with friends about the idea of being single: Is it natural? Is it a constant battle against a current of instinct (Mate. Nest. Pro-create). Is this simply an interim, or worse…punishment? Is the proverbial "grass" really that much greener on the other side, or is the lawn just better landscaped?

People who want in can't find the doorknob;
Those that want out can't find the fire escape.

At this point, I've accumulated a pretty big pile of opinions, gripes and ideologies.
I bet if the government wanted to tap into our thoughts they would be shocked (and bored) to find that the topic of relationships has the most "likes," hash-tags, re-posts and shares running rampant in the human psyche.

In one of the more recent venting sessions with a friend, we discussed the idea of women being considered "crazy." Got me thinking... Maybe we are. And maybe that whole ‘grass is greener’ thing has something to do with it.

Question: "Which came first? The grass or the grass seed? Reality vs. Expectations.”

It makes sense that they (men) think we (women) are crazy.
If you think about it...we grow UP crazy.
They MAKE us crazy.
We ARE crazy.

It all started when they taught us how to hold a baby doll as a toddler, and put the one who needs its' diaper changed underneath the Christmas tree. We dressed up like brides for Halloween and bought the stick-on nails that ended up coming off in our hair...but we didn't care because they were beautiful.

Nesting was fun. Pretend vacuuming was a game. Fixing fake, plastic meals in your tiny, plastic kitchen was just pure entertainment.

Little did we know they were planting tiny seeds of craziness. Then they put us in co-ed schools where we show up in pigtails and a dress only to get our hair pulled and our “Wednesday” undies exposed.

And the boys are mean! (And smell...) And they have cooties! (And smell...) Turns out they don't like us at all. So we learn to not like them either.

No boys allowed: Keep out. Hello craziness.

But KEN doesn't have cooties, Barbie would never allow him inside the Ferrari. And Prince Charming was nice to Cinderella. For crying out loud, even that grumpy dwarf was eventually nice to Snow White. (Granted, she did his laundry).

So why the disconnect? Why are the ones in front of us deemed “Pricks” and the ones we dream about, “Princes?”

And so the cycle begins. We plan it, synchronize it, dream it up and attempt to execute- only to find that we know absolutely, positively nothing about men, because, as it turns out, half the time we barely know ourselves.

Playing house in a plastic kitchen is missing one thing= a boy.

Dream wedding with the perfect dress is missing one thing= a man.

Turns out not much has changed.

***
A very wise friend said to me once: "Your 20s are for learning, while your 30s are for earning."
Learning: the act or process of acquiring knowledge or skill
Earning: to gain or get in return for one's labor or service

Or as I like to think of it “Acquiring the brains and skills to handle trials and tribulations in our 20's, will pay off as we sit and eat bon-bons in our 30's.”

Sounds like a pretty good patch of grass to me.