Will Mid-Twenties Mean More Than Early-Twenties?

In one month from today, I will be celebrating another year gone by. I am also hoping that this year's festivities will be much more exciting than last year: stuck in bed, dying of strep throat. (Fine, maybe I wasn't dying, but it certainly felt like it!) The only celebration I had was an 23h30 birthday call from the guy I had been calling my boyfriend and a few friends who sheepishly made their way to my house to "celebrate" an hour before the boyfriend call. Needless to say, that boyfriend definitely failed the test miserably and those friends have been replaced in the natural progression of out growing and changing that so often happens when you get older.

Last year and this year have been marked by a number of milestones and while I think every year how much I've changed from the last, I've found there are some pretty obvious changes that have happened.

1) I've realized that people don't really change all that much. That boyfriend was the same boyfriend who left me in Paris six months previously, who I never heard from until he found his way back to Paris again. He was a jerk when he left and he was a jerk when he came back. Even when I was sick he barely found the time to check on me to make sure I was ok. And those promises (like the ones I had heard before) were of course broken again. Luckily for me, the third time's the charm! I managed to delete him from my life when a surprisingly unapologetic email arrived back in my inbox a month later wondering if I was back in Paris. Well, if he really wanted to be my boyfriend he would have called a lot sooner!

2) I gained the confidence to stick up for myself without being catty. For two years, I had a group of friends who I've had a lot of fun with. Looking back at the pictures of our various adventures, I still laugh and smile. And no matter what, I wish nothing but the best for them in their lives. But having said that, there does come a point when you don't want to stay that certain character of the group. I guess what I want to say is I never intended to always strictly act a certain way around certain people-- that is not who I am. I also never intended to have to continuously worry about and then apologize for the way I draw my conclusions. And I never want to be expected to have to make-up for the short comings in other people's lives (and neither would I expect that of them!). I don't mean to sound that I am a disloyal person but I think the first person we have to be loyal to is ourselves. If there comes a day when I am married with children, then I will happily make them the priority in my life but for now I have to be my first priority.

And that priority does not have to fight unnecessary battles about frivolous differences.

3) I got out and accomplished something to set myself apart. When you suddenly see the friend base that you once had start to crumble it is quite possibly the best thing for you. There was a reason my base crumbled. It opened my eyes up and I learned to really cherish those friends I will have for a long time. I also got myself out there and made new friends, got a job at an international magazine, and traveled.

4) Even at its most I'm-going-to-throw-up moments, I met someone pretty amazing, I learned what disappoint can feel like, and I'm still standing. As a blind optimist, I put a piece my heart away, just in case and as scowling cynic I have not learned to move on yet. Two feelings I never knew were possible to feel simultaneously; hopefully being in my mid-twenties soon will help me work that out!

Finally, 5) I am not longer in my early-twenties. Somewhat relieving because hopefully I will start to take myself a little more seriously. And hopefully, my mid-twenties will answer some questions that are beginning to mull in my head!

The Blog that Went Wrong. Sort of.

So maybe I provoked it. Just a little at least. But he was forewarned. In fact, each time someone mentions I look like a certain TV star who used to act like a certain sex columnist, I usually don't fail to mention that I, in fact, had a similar column that eventually became this blog-- La Fille Mal Gardée. So, you can't be surprised when you find a character of yourself within its lines. That's life and if you don't agree with that, well then that's the way it is. I have no apologies because if I can admit my mistakes than well you can live with a few of your worst (and sometimes greatest!) moments somewhere out there on the internet. And if it is name-calling you are worried about, well I cleverly label you for disguise.

Now that I've stated my case, I should probably add before going further, that I might have gone a little further this time. But it was so tempting that I couldn't resist. And I felt if I got one fair swing, it was the most appropriate place to attempt it. And boy did it work!

A few weeks ago, I landed on the fair Ilse of Ireland. And as I related in an earlier post, a nice Irish lad invited me out. And while it didn't play into a perfect Irish romance, I was happy to brush it off until he literally brushed me off in a grocery store.

So, I took the liberty of posting about the situation (not the guy per-say) on an online community we both belonged to. I knew he would probably find it and if he didn't someone he knew surely would. But to my own defense, I tried to conceal his identity as best I could there. Perhaps, I took a few more liberties on the La Fille but I could never have expected the response I received.

He found the thread and then the blog. And with that spurred a flood of angry texts as to where I had the nerve to talk about him in that nature. Of course, he denied any wrong doing, and for a moment there I almost fell for it; until he mentioned what he was really upset about: Dublin and ASW were both small places, word could get around.

Ha! He was worried that I would tarnish his reputation-- as if it was my fault that he tarnished his reputation. I suppose it was me, if tarnishing a person's reputation is to not have sex with him. Or perhaps it was the fact that I claimed he followed me around the grocery store aisles just to continue ignoring me.

While I have always respected a person's desire to not be in relationship or maintain purely sexual ones, I think I draw the line at someone wanting to preserve their player image. And even less so, when they couldn't even seal the deal.

But what strikes me, and it is not only a strike against the Irish lad, is how detached from one another we are. Both the Irish lad and myself were completely and utterly immature and selfish. I wanted to preserve my ego and sense of being right (whatever right meant in this situation) and he was fearful as being eternally labeled as a jerk. To be fair, he probably is not a jerk-- just a guy in his 30s who continues to live with roommates not because he can't afford to live alone but because he is not really ready for life beyond roommates.

But I wonder, if I had politely declined his invitation to share wine at his apartment, would things have worked out differently? Would he have said hello in the grocery store. A part of me wants to say yes, but most of me knows it probably would have played out exactly the same.