Cursed Love Life

The typical story of boy-meets-girl just isn't the same if you don't add a particular twist. A twist is necessary to get a good romance story going because without it, love would just seem too impossibly easy, not to mention fake. Like, "The Prince and Me," only worse. I'm not usually one for modern non-William Blake romance stories for that reason, but I will go as far as saying that I appreciate Jane Austen. At least she mentions things like family opinions, monetary values, and the importance of being an attractive personality in romantic relationships. Not just an attractive face. Modern romance seems to focus so much on...well...physical attachments. Since when are the Wiloughbys and Wickhams of the world valued as desirable life partners? They used to be called out as the selfish, egotistical, handsome faces that we love but enjoy observing from afar. Generally they're not the sort of people one is happy living with. Now they're the ones who are considered prince charming material? Its no wonder we're messed up.

My story is still in progress because of my particular twist, you see, I am cursed.

I had no idea I was cursed until a few years ago when I reflected back upon my love life and realized that every male I've ever held the slightest interest in has managed to get married within a year after I've met them...usually to a roommate of mine.

For years I had thought I was simply another statistic of modern times. I was an un-dated woman whose only crime was living in a sea of impossible to meet standards of perfection. Not to mention being steeped in a culture that had put way too many expectations and opinions on the subject. When my friends began to get married, I considered that I was maybe more awkward than I realized and the boys could see me stumble over my drooling tongue a mile away.

Turns out I do have "a face" when I am nervous about approaching someone new, man or woman. It looks a bit like a gargoyle who is somewhere between a snarl, a scream, or extreme constipation. The right half of my face lifts and my nose and eyebrows crinkle just a fraction and my eyes will look like a pair of bicycle tires. About as approachable as a rottweiler with dementia. But the cure to anything begins with identification right? I will simply not approach anyone if my face does anything unnatural from now on...the life of a spinster, yea...I'm doomed.

I would doubt the reality of my curse if it wasn't for the consistency in which it keeps happening, and at increasing rates. Seriously, every time I feel the slightest inclination toward someone they;

a) have a girlfriend/other interest
b) are engaged
c) are married or
d) are single, but soon attached to someone else.

What amazes me most is the speed at which the universe works to divulge this information to me. Not five seconds after meeting a seemingly good man. I'll notice him hand holding, or ring bearing, or he'll be giving me a vocal confession of his relationship status. I stopped counting after the eleventh guy informed me of his marriage. I know, I know, ring check, but what kind of lame desperate person does that? The guy does notice where your eyes go first when you meet them whether its the hand or his biceps. One is certainly more flattering to him than the other.

I tell myself that I just like making friends. However, when I get that hook pull feeling in my heart that signals the beginnings of attraction, I begin to worry about such things as rings and character and suddenly out comes gargoyle rottweiler snarly woman who can't look anyone in the eyes for fear of unknown expectations.

Perhaps being too picky was the real problem behind the curse? It wasn't like I was exclusively searching out the super models. They usually weren't my type anyway. My first crush/secret boyfriend was tall and skinny with dark hair, glasses, and pimple scars. Several of my other crushes were quiet types or types with disabilities. I've admired men of all sizes, shapes, ethnicity, and dress style. Unless you consider the matters of character, conversation, life style, and attitude, I have a hard time believing I'm picky at all. The only logical conclusion is that I must be cursed.

The curse has progressed to the point where I'm not even surprised anymore. After liking eleven married men you just stop counting and deal with it. Where am I now? About fifty failures? Don't even get me started on that Edison quote. A thousand failures before one win is hardly comforting to someone who doesn't even date once in a blue moon. Whatever witch decided to do me a number has got some serious voodoo. It's been at least five years now since my last boyfriend, I haven't the heart to count the time since my last real date.

Even the single men in my life are not exempt from this curse. Currently, there is every "yes" sign in the book pointed at one particular guy, Chris. He's an extremely tall, prominent faced man with standards that, according to his boss, would make him eligible for sainthood if he were Catholic. A perfect recipe for emotional disaster. Despite the glowing second hand resume I was given, I balked at the very idea of flirting. You see, like a cat with a squirt bottle, I've been very well trained. The universe may suddenly decide to mail him off to some other girl before I get the chance to flirt like its done twenty times before. Surely, it only does that to please it's sick sense of humor.

The universe hates logical people.

It must be because logical people are constantly trying to straighten out and measure the chaotic universe so it can be fit into a neat an orderly box. The universe. also not unlike a cat, isn't fond of boxes but is fond of playing with logic by introducing emotion in every equation logical people can come up with. Logically, I shouldn't try for him because if a + b = c and I know that because of my curse attraction + interaction = rejection; then why bother? However; the universe is sneaky. By writing him off immediately the universe has now decided to plague me with him through our mutual connections.

"So what do you think about Chris?"
"Will you see Chris today at Martial Arts?"
"You say you don't, but you totally like him. Why else does his name keep coming up?"

Because the universe hates me.

Actually, a man from Jujitsu, who is also Chris's employer at the small local radio station has requested me to help Chris in areas of communication because I'm so good at it and he's...not. As in he doesn't speak. Ever. OK, he's not Fitzwilliam Darcy bad, but he is bad. And he's supposed to be working in one of the most vocal intensive jobs in the world? I'd been asking people advice on just how to go about it. I'm usually so good with quiet people and getting them to talk. The problem with Chris is that he's just as good at running away. Unfortunately, because he's a single man and I'm a single woman who has been talking about him I've somehow given off the crushing vibe. Did I mention that I live in a culture that puts way too many expectations and opinions on the subject of romance?

It's as impossible to run from this guy as it is to find him. Ever since everyone starting talking to me about him he's been nowhere to be found. Not at church and not at Jujitsu. He's just gone.

The whole experience in irritating.

What can I do? I could tell them I'm cursed, but I'm not sure they'd believe me. Who believes in curses?

We'll see how this story pans out.

If You Give a Kid a Smartphone...

...they may begin to wonder about the future.

If that kid also works in a fruit stand, they may also see the rising price of food as elderly customers tremble over how little change they recieve. They may also see a grandmother or grandfather shake their heads sadly and walk away without anything.

The kid has a Smartphone, a digital device that can pretty much do everything and anything. She grew up with poor parents who knew how to save in such a way that they had never experienced want. These elderly customers the kid serves were once kids. They were children during the 1920's Great Depression.

Durring the depression there was all sorts of propaganda about saving, buying bonds for military equipment, and other things. Knee length dresses came into fashion largely due to the lack and expense of material available. Families rationed sugar just so they'd have enough to make a cake on someone's birthday. Gas was a luxery that was horded and was to be used only when absolutely necessary.

The saying, "Use it up, wear it out, make due or do without," was heard in every home.

Now the kid wonders about all this talk on Syria, the rising food and gas prices, the demonizing of people nobody really knows and then she realizes that the people who live today probably couldn't do what the people did in the 1920's.

The 1800's was full of cultural change and the settling of the West. The kids who grew up in the 1920's were the grandkids of pioneers, immagrants, and labor's who possessed only what they needed or less. They couldn't stop at a store in the next twenty minutes. If they were lucky and didn't get lost there were trading posts every so many weeks with limited supplies that the families would have to purchase with the few possessions they had. There was nothing and no one to help the pioneers but themselves. All they possessed they carried in wagons with teams, handcarts, or if they were really poor, on their backs. Many immigrants who crossed the ocean had even less. Some came with only a few dollars and a single outfit of clothes.

These were the people who raised the parents of the children of 1920. They were taught what bare minimum was needed to survive, how to be self reliant, and how to care for and help their neighbors who struggled next to them with kindness and respect.

The kid with the Smartphone remembers a Grandmother who tried to feed her a piece of old fruit that the child knew her mother would have never let survive in their own kitchen, but the Grandmother knew it still had nutrients. It still had what was necessary to survive.

The majority of the children of 2013 do have parents who are money savy and teach proper respect. These parents grew up in a generation that always had a steady rise in cost. In the 90's gas cost less than a dollar per gallon. Today it costs nearly four dollars. These parent have to budget month by month if not day by day to keep up with price changes in basic goods and they do know how to get by.

Their kids do not. They won't understand until they join the work force and realize just how much life costs.

The 1800's were a long time ago.

Kids think that basic needs include two-ply toliet paper, Gatorade, Neutrogena shampoo, heating and air conditioning, Tide laundry soap, diet or natural supplements, the internet, clothes that are good looking but easily destroyed, and coats that are merely fashionable and hardly warm. Things that go way beyond simple need and into the realm of want.

Wouldn't the people of the 1800's laugh?

This was the goal after all. Education, food on the table, a roof over everyone's head, isn't that the reason behind every sacrifice the people of the 1800's made? They wanted their kids to have something better.

But the Great Depression was forever ago. This is a SLOW decline.

Between then and now, it's only three generations.

Didn't take long did it?

The kid with the Smartphone sadly thinks that even they, the one who cleans out pounds of rotten and moldy food every day in order to sell one good clean box so they could someday maybe afford an apartment of their own, even they don't know what it means to do without. The one whose job only lasts a season and doesn't know where the next job or the next paycheck will come from, even they don't know what it means to not have much.

Because this is the one generation that has learned to stay latched to their mother's breast until a certain future can be found and this is the only generation with parents who can afford to allow them to do just that.

It's what we were told to do since kindergarten. Grow up, get an education, get a job, and you'll have an absolutely certain and stable future with money, a roof, food, and possessions if you follow the right path and keep your nose clean. And if the future is uncertain, we've taught mom and dad to make a nest egg next to their retirement for you.

It all becomes a lie if there's a WWIII. Resources will become scarce. Money means nothing. Nobody can afford anything. Not even a loaf of bread.

So the kid begins to wonder, perhaps, America is just ready to review that lesson again? Maybe America will be destroyed before people can begin to handle the kind of lesson previous generations had to bear. They only survived because of God and good people. This generation that doesn't know what it means to do without will probably need a few years to adjust to the idea before they can calm down and even think about their neighbors, let alone God.

Who knows what will happen in the next year or where the next generation will be?

Only God.