The 'Girl' Thing

Lately, I've been dressing up for work. By dress up, I mean just that, wearing skirts and dresses. I find when I wear skirts and dresses I'm more feminine and more accepting of help from men. Things like holding the door for me when I don't ask, carrying something semi-heavy, driving. It's like something in my mind clicks on and I'm totally accepting of the fact that I'm a woman,gentle and feminine, and I should be treated as such. That's not to say that I don't feel that way when i wear slacks or jeans, but I do notice a difference with guys. If I'm wearing a cute top, heels and a pair of jeans, I've got to carry my own damn box. But the skirts and dresses seem to bring out the man in the opposite sex. I also notice that it doesn't bother me as much when a guy does something for me that I can do myself. My excuse is that I'm wearing a skirt, I'm not walking that far, lifting that heavy thing, or sitting on the floor. I don't feel like voicing my concern about it diminishes my capabilities in any way. Just a thought I had when I was wearing my cute skirt and cute heels, while I had guy after guy opening doors for me today. ;)

The Talk That Never Was

I didn't have the "Talk" with the NB (I'm going to have to call him something else as he's not all that new or a boy). I realized I'm not ready for it. Also, I let myself (for a brief second) become like other girls. Asking questions like, where is this going? What do we mean to each other? This is not me, but for a second, it seemed awkward that I didn't over-analyze my relationship with this guy. Luckily before I talked to him, I had a little talk with myself. Something I usually do, but decided to go against nature this time.

Men I take on a case by case basis. I do not lump them all together and classify them as all the same. It's so easy to do. Oh so easy. However, most guys I will give the benefit of the doubt. There are no doubts about the NB, its the benefit of having known him for several months before we started seeing each other. So when I sat down and asked myself where I wanted our relationship to go, I realized I didn't know. I wasn't sure. What I was sure of was that I liked spending time with him. I liked getting to know him. Other than that...I didn't know. I didn't know because of where we are in our lives. I don't know where I want to be next year. Also, I have some serious family issues I'm dealing with that requires me to be more cautious when fully letting someone into my life. Some of my friends think I use it as a cop-out, but I say, "unless you've walked a mile in my shoes...". And that's not to say he couldn't handle it, but why ask him to when I'm unsure?

End result is that I'm going to let it be. I won't force it and enjoy our relationship for what it is right now. I'll let things happen organically. I'm not in a rush and something tells me neither is he.

The other man(men) in my life

I've talked too much about the Guy. Now it's time to talk about the other men in my life, the guys I work with. After the debacle at my previous job, my current job is like a breath of fresh air. Instead of there being a bunch of women, now I'm around a bunch of dudes. In college all of my friends were guys, with the exception of my three girls, but they didn't go to my college so it doesn't count. Then the guys in my life scattered to all corners of the earth, literally, and then came the herd of heifers (i say this lovingly). There is something to be said about being in a guy concentrated environment.

The thing about hanging out with guys that I like is that I get to be a loose. Looser than I usually am. ;) With guys there is no pretense. Women have a tendency to sugar coat and present issues with ulterior motives. Guys just tell it like it is. I also respect the lack of endless analyzing that us women are prone to do. I usually go to my guy friends when I want to hear the brutal truth and to my girl friends when I want to hear the truth, but sugar coated.

The Dept scheduled a fishing trip, most of the guys are pretty active and like to do the typical guy stuff. Now for all who know me, fishing is NOT a thing Nik does. However, I'm usually game for documenting shenanigans and trying (almost) anything once. So I got up at 4 am to drive down to the beach so we can set sail by 6. Well, we had to wait for most of our group to get there and didn't set sail until about 6:30am. And they say women are always late. The guys start drinking immediately. I'm thinking, not a good thing to do on a rocky boat, but oh the pictures I will take! There is a galley on the boat and we all start ordering food, and sit down by the cook (it was a small galley) to play poker. After awhile, I started getting sick. The galley didn't have any ventilation, so it got stuffy quick, plus the smell of frying meat. Not a good feeling. I go out on deck and half of the guys are draped over the side of the boat throwing up. Let me tell you that for weeks before the trip, the guys were teasing me about being such a girlie girl and I wouldn't catch any fish and I'd get sick. Yeah, well I was the only one who didn't throw up. After about 4 hours one guys was so bad we needed to turn around and go back to shore. When we got to shore, 8 other guys decided they'd had enough and needed to go home to bed. The rest of us went back out for several more hours and I had a great time. I caught about 4 fish, but could only keep two. The other guys didn't catch a thing. HA HA HA!!! Silly boys.

One of the best things about hanging out with guys is beating them at their own game. I teased them for a solid week after that. Never under estimate the power of a woman! HOLLA!

Nik