The Big Snore

Oh my.  This is unexpected.  Of all the things I was worried might go wrong with me and Ricky, snoring is not one of them.  My snoring, that is.  It's not like Ricky and I never spent the night together before we lived together.  We spent the night together all the time.  But maybe now we're in our own bed (vs. his or mine) and I'm sleeping better or more comfortably or I'm just dog tired these days, but my snoring has been literally keeping Ricky awake nights.

Women aren't supposed to be the snorers.  Ricky does snore, but it's a light snore that I've only heard a few times and it certainly hasn't ever woken me up.  But apparently, I am snoring like a drunken, 300 pound sailor.  This is so not sexy.  I have always snored, but infrequently and only when extremely overtired, resulting in unconscious-like sleep mode.  And normally when I snore I can hear myself snoring, readjust and stop.  The other night, I could hear myself snoring, alright.  It sounded more like a grizzly bear with a sinus problem than an actual human, but it was definitely me.  And it was so bad it was disturbing my sleep. I was eventually able to stop myself, but judging from the pillow over Ricky's head when we woke up the next morning, the stoppage was only temporary.

That same night, he headbutted me twice, and elbowed me in the face (while sleeping!).  It was awful! So much so I had to wonder if our sleep was mirroring some terrible thing that was going on under the surface of our relationship.  But the next day, we talked about it.  I'm now sleeping with my head more elevated, which seems to be helping (or maybe after so many sleepless nights, he's now too tired to be kept awake by anything, even my bear snores).  And he's been so extra sweet and lovely - I think Breathe Right strips may be in my future, but it'll take more than snoring to come between us.

Get (the right) Shorty

Q: How to deal with running into an ex when you are not with your shorty and it’s the ex your shorty hates with a passion so much so that they are irrational about it (so I added a little color to the story). And not just running into them—you were hanging out with your friend, didn’t know the ex was going to be there, and you end up hanging out with them (friend and ex) the whole night.

Do you tell your shorty?

A: My advice is this: tell your shorty! Healthy relationships depend on honesty, and you have to put yourself in your shorty’s shoes. Scenario 1: Shorty accidentally finds out about ex-Shorty sighting. This can easily happen. An innocuous Facebook posting, the friend makes some offhand remark in front of Shorty about last week when you all went to _________. How about next time you run into ex-Shorty and this time you’re with Shorty? What if it is clear to Shorty that you and ex-Shorty have seen each other? Scenario 2: Since Shorty hates ex-Shorty so much, I have to assume there’s some actual reason (versus general dislike of anyone who was with your Shorty before you were). So what if ex-Shorty is trifling and wants to stir up some drama? Ex-Shorty can safely assume Shorty finding out you saw each other would be bad, and maybe that’s ex-Shorty’s idea of a good time…

Now, telling Shorty about ex-Shorty should definitely be prefaced with: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner – I didn’t want to upset you, but I realize that I have nothing to hide and keeping it from you is not cool. Shorty may very well be angry that you didn’t turn around and walk away at the sight of ex-Shorty, and that you didn’t tell him/her right away. So you have to be prepared for that. Maybe the solution is in the future, you do turn around and walk away and tell your Shorty about it right away. Even if you’re over ex-Shorty and don’t have a problem with him/her and think Shorty’s being irrational, oh well. Sometimes in relationships we have to accept each other’s occasional irrationalities. If we’re not willing to (selectively) compromise and do that, then maybe we’re not in the right relationship.

And for what it’s worth, Ricky recently saw The Dreaded Ex on purpose by going to her birthday drinks gathering. He told me about it before hand, and I really appreciated that he did. He also called me after he left (at a very respectable hour) and because he was so straightforward about it, I was fine with it. But if I had found out about it after-the-fact, it would’ve been a different story. So again – tell your Shorty!

BONUS advice: Don't refer to both the ex-Shorty and the current Shorty as Shorty. Personalize!

Hi, I can't come to the phone right now. I'm on the next level...

If you believe in coincidence, this is a big one. If you don’t believe in coincidence and instead feel that everything happens for a reason, this is a big one. Shortly after I made the decision to move to DC, Ricky and I came down from New York to look at apartments for me. While we were here, he got an email about a temporary, 3 – 5 month job at a law firm in DC that was looking solely for patent lawyers with mechanical engineering degrees. It so happens that Ricky is a patent lawyer with a mechanical engineering degree. It also happens that my DC job is scheduled to last 3 months, so I excitedly told him to apply for the job, which he did. We didn't discuss this as any major milestone or development in our relationship.  I just wanted him to keep me company and he just went along with it.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, Ricky got the job. It was officially confirmed yesterday and he starts work this coming Monday. Professionally, it is actually a good move for him. He even got them to pay him more money than they originally offered.  So he is moving down to DC and in with me. Wow. Maybe not a big wow for some people, but a big wow for me. I’ve never lived with a boyfriend before, not even temporarily. I am very excited for him to come and am now sure I will enjoy my time in DC. I can now even envision us staying here, if all goes well professionally and of course, personally.

I remember seeing a married couple on Oprah years ago, who had been married for decades. In all of those years, the husband had never seen his wife without makeup on, and didn’t want to. She likewise never wanted him to see her naked face, and so she slept with makeup on and got up before him every morning so she could wash her face and reapply before he woke up. Clearly, they are crazy people. But in a way, we all have our less overtly insane way of keeping parts of ourselves hidden.

I hope that I am ready for the exposure that co-habitation requires. There are things that I normally don’t do in front of Ricky, like poop, fart, eat copious amounts of ice cream and talk to myself. I don’t know how long I will be able to keep those activities under wraps. And what does he do when I’m not around? How much longer will I be able to keep my blog address secret? Are we going to share a hamper? Does that mean we’ll be washing each other’s underwear? Should I buy a cookbook?

It’s wonderful and horrifying all at the same time. The anticipation has become nearly all-consuming. I am trying to envision him in everything I do at home. What will he be doing while I’m putting away groceries? Watching TV? Brushing my teeth? Talking on the phone? Is this the precursor for a life (or a long time, at least) together, or will this be the end of us? Of course it’s too soon to tell. I've been telling everyone "It's only 3 months!" to which my mother said "Famous last words." Yikes! I have to keep reminding myself what I told Ricky: if we wind up hating each other, at least we’ll know. No risk, no reward. Isn’t that what the next level is all about?

Am I a Cougar?

Setting aside any feminist misgivings I might have about the contemporary usage of the term Cougar, it can be useful. But it is perhaps applied too broadly. I was catching up with a girlfriend of mine the other night and filling her on the status of my relationship with Ricky, whom she’s never met. She asked how old he is and when I told her, I suddenly felt really self-conscious and asked her if I was a Cougar. “Yes!” she said emphatically. But I’m too young to be a Cougar! Aren’t I?

Ricky, my beau, my cub, my whatever – is 30. He just turned 30 recently. He was 29 when we started dating, and I had just turned 35. It’s interesting to note that of the last 3 guys I dated, plus one who I never actually dated due to outside complications but wanted to – all of them were 29 when we started dating. Granted, I was 33 when I dated the first 29 year old, but the fact remains that there’s a definite pattern.

I think that 35 might be the last age when I can get away with dating a man in his 20s without it being icky. And 29 is practically 30, so it's not a big deal, right? But I have to admit, I was so happy for Ricky to turn 30! I am deliberately not making a distinction between early 30s versus mid 30s versus (GULP) late 30s. He’s in his 30s, so am I, end of story! I think.

Ricky and I were out the other night with a friend of his who is even younger than he is (it’s possible, apparently!) who asked me my opinion as to why he was recently attracting women in their 30s. I speculated it was due to us 30-something women knowing that if we meet a single man our age, there’s a reason he’s single, and we probably don’t want to step into that hotbed of issues. But a man in his 20s- well, he’s single because he’s young. He might be a fixer-upper, but the price of prime real estate can be too high for us to pay. Any single woman in her 30s knows this to be true.

This young guy has been dating these older women, and so I asked him why he was likewise attracted to them. He started out by saying that he likes that older women have something interesting to say, they are more confident, more sexually capable, and less apt to play games. OK, I get it. That sounds good. And then he added that they were, frankly, more desperate, and that helped too.

Oh my. The dreaded “D” word. I suppose that’s why I am loathe to be labeled as a Cougar. That’s why I am pretending that 30 and 35 are same age. No one wants to be labeled as the “D” word. And don’t desperate and Cougar go hand-in-hand? Even Manthers and much younger women smack of desperation, and we’re used to seeing those pairings. But the truth is, I felt more desperate when I was 25. I was desperate to be loved, desperately afraid that I wouldn’t be, and desperate to try to make myself into someone who could be. And now, I don’t have any of those fears.

We are so quick to label women as desperate- desperate if you're single, desperate if you date younger men, desperate if you date older men, and you can even end up a desperate housewife. Maybe Cougar isn't the label I should fight against, it's the idea that women are forever insecure, worried and willing to do anything to try to fill the void. But while we continue to fight that battle, I maintain - 5 years older does not a Cougar make!