I guess you could say I have some quirks. Those quirks get worse when I feel out of control and unloved. That happens often in romantic relationships. Even in the best situation, without any mental hiccups, love has a way of making all of us do strange things. We just don’t have any reins on love and it drives us mad. Whining to friends on the phone asking what he meant by “that.” Keeping blogs. Posting Rate-A-Dates of each coupling.
Breakups are particularly hard on me. Breakups lead to breakdowns. During these periods, it is not unusual to find myself touching things three times or flashing the light switch. My latest compulsive move is cracking my wrist. I do it incessantly when I am heartbroken or lovelorn. I sit there rolling and cracking, the triple lutz of hand action. Hey, it’s better than becoming a crackhead, or worse, a Republican.
When I have a crush on someone, I sit around playing with my iPod. No, not listening to music; that gives me migraines. Instead, I use it as a fortune-teller in a little game I like to call “Ask the iGod.” I ask it a question, like “Will he fall in love with me?” or “Will he call?” and then hit random shuffle. Inevitably the song name that pops up is a suitable answer. Before I forked over the cash for the MP3-player, I kicked it old skool, telling my own fortune by closing my eyes and letting my finger land on a horse name from an old race book I found on the stairs of the tenement I lived in, which was aptly situated over the OTB.
Just last week on a date with Peter, who has a doctorate in psychology—the irony of this is not lost on me—I tried explaining to him that I have long required dates to stand, sit and walk to the right side of me. Having a Ph.D., he seemed unfazed by this stipulation, moved to my right, remaining conscious of it throughout our evening. Many other dates, though, have found this romantic requirement odd, to say the least. Maybe Peter did, too. He didn’t seem to want to kiss me.
I’m also particularly fixated with the number three. I coined the term “Theory of the Big Three” that basically says, if you are a single woman in New York you cannot possible get and simultaneously keep a great apartment, job and boyfriend. If you’re crafty enough to get two and reach for the third you will immediately lose the others. This is scientific, friends, in the wacky world of OCD. If I want to drink something, I have to take threes sips. If I am kissing someone, two kisses means something awful will happen and we are doomed. I can counterbalance it by kissing them nine times because that is three threes. I should teach a class in Math for Neurotic Romantics.
I know I’m not the only one who does this type of thing. See a flower and most women think, “He loves me, he loves me not” while mutilating the poor thing. I just take it ten steps further.
I remember years ago when BLM left me for Debby. I slept with his dirty socks under my pillow for months, using them to wipe my tears, sure that if I washed them something bad would happen. And when he returned my things? I not only sniffed the inside of the envelope—hoping to magically smell him—but I went so far as to lick the seal where he had, trying to taste some of his saliva. You know, to stay connected to him any way I could.
Just recently, when the HW broke it off, he left his sunglasses here. Before mailing them back, I sniffed them a good 100 times. What’s even sicker is that I told him I did.
How else has this wackiness manifested itself? I’m a snoop. If I like you I will look through your drawers and under your bed. Most girls are Googling potential mates, stalking them on MySpace. I’m rifling through their garbage, including, but not limited to, used tissues, razor blades, tossed food. Seeing remnants of his lunch the day before makes me feel safe and stable.
As for signs, I see them everywhere. I like to believe the universe is talking to me and giving me clues of what will come to pass. I feel safer that way, less alone.
Lately I am at a complete loss over what is happening with my love life. I find myself looking for answers in the most mundane of places.
I was down to one bottle of deodorant. My favorite scent is baby powder. It was about halfway done, so I went to get more.
For 30 minutes I stood in Duane Reade and opened and sniffed every scent. Which would make a man find me most alluring? Which seemed right and had a “3” in the price? I realized the three names of the deodorant scents I chose was the universe’s way to speaking to me. The names: Optimism (Secret), Ambition (Secret) and Sweet Surrender (Ban).
Oddly, I’m off the baby powder scent and feel more stable and happy than I have in a very long time, and I am now sporting some very optimistic and ambitious body parts. (I am a bit scared to use the Sweet Surrender just yet.)
Sometimes you can even see the signs when you have suds in your eyes. Yesterday morning I was in the shower doing my thing. You know, scrubbing, scraping, sudsing, soaping, shaving—the five S’s. On my window sill where I keep my shampoo, my eyes fell upon my Suave for Kids 2-in-1 shampoo in Orange Splash. The bottle label summed up exactly what I was looking for in a relationship and a man: “tear free,” “extra gentle,” “performance-tested,” “easy on the eyes,” “perfectly balanced,” “smells great.” Signs, all of them.
And as the scent of oranges permeated my hair, I looked at the other bottles for further clues. My Frederic Fekkai Baby Shampoo boasted something equally important in a relationship: “won’t irritate,” “good for the sensitive or fragile,” “will gently nourish.” YES, YES, YES! I want a relationship with all that.
Next I looked at the European Mystique Papaya Mango Shampoo—cheapest of all shampoos, only $1.70 with a free conditioner—and with a very good message, too. “Will repair damage,” the bottle promised.
OCD has saved me from feeling so completely out of control and alone in this world. I sat on the edge of the HW’s bed last night and heard him say, “I like you a great deal, but I am just not in love.” He then gave me shit about asking him to walk me downstairs to a cab because it was after 1 a.m. Another woman might say “fuck you.” I hear his refusal to love, or to fetch me a cab, and I think, “I am not good enough; I must try harder to be worthy of him.” And so continues the obsessive compulsive way I have of trying to fit myself into the heart of a man who has no room for rent.
During the cab ride home, I rolled my wrist until it felt like it would fall off and touched the corners of the cab seat in just the right way.
Breakups are particularly hard on me. Breakups lead to breakdowns. During these periods, it is not unusual to find myself touching things three times or flashing the light switch. My latest compulsive move is cracking my wrist. I do it incessantly when I am heartbroken or lovelorn. I sit there rolling and cracking, the triple lutz of hand action. Hey, it’s better than becoming a crackhead, or worse, a Republican.
When I have a crush on someone, I sit around playing with my iPod. No, not listening to music; that gives me migraines. Instead, I use it as a fortune-teller in a little game I like to call “Ask the iGod.” I ask it a question, like “Will he fall in love with me?” or “Will he call?” and then hit random shuffle. Inevitably the song name that pops up is a suitable answer. Before I forked over the cash for the MP3-player, I kicked it old skool, telling my own fortune by closing my eyes and letting my finger land on a horse name from an old race book I found on the stairs of the tenement I lived in, which was aptly situated over the OTB.
Just last week on a date with Peter, who has a doctorate in psychology—the irony of this is not lost on me—I tried explaining to him that I have long required dates to stand, sit and walk to the right side of me. Having a Ph.D., he seemed unfazed by this stipulation, moved to my right, remaining conscious of it throughout our evening. Many other dates, though, have found this romantic requirement odd, to say the least. Maybe Peter did, too. He didn’t seem to want to kiss me.
I’m also particularly fixated with the number three. I coined the term “Theory of the Big Three” that basically says, if you are a single woman in New York you cannot possible get and simultaneously keep a great apartment, job and boyfriend. If you’re crafty enough to get two and reach for the third you will immediately lose the others. This is scientific, friends, in the wacky world of OCD. If I want to drink something, I have to take threes sips. If I am kissing someone, two kisses means something awful will happen and we are doomed. I can counterbalance it by kissing them nine times because that is three threes. I should teach a class in Math for Neurotic Romantics.
I know I’m not the only one who does this type of thing. See a flower and most women think, “He loves me, he loves me not” while mutilating the poor thing. I just take it ten steps further.
I remember years ago when BLM left me for Debby. I slept with his dirty socks under my pillow for months, using them to wipe my tears, sure that if I washed them something bad would happen. And when he returned my things? I not only sniffed the inside of the envelope—hoping to magically smell him—but I went so far as to lick the seal where he had, trying to taste some of his saliva. You know, to stay connected to him any way I could.
Just recently, when the HW broke it off, he left his sunglasses here. Before mailing them back, I sniffed them a good 100 times. What’s even sicker is that I told him I did.
How else has this wackiness manifested itself? I’m a snoop. If I like you I will look through your drawers and under your bed. Most girls are Googling potential mates, stalking them on MySpace. I’m rifling through their garbage, including, but not limited to, used tissues, razor blades, tossed food. Seeing remnants of his lunch the day before makes me feel safe and stable.
As for signs, I see them everywhere. I like to believe the universe is talking to me and giving me clues of what will come to pass. I feel safer that way, less alone.
Lately I am at a complete loss over what is happening with my love life. I find myself looking for answers in the most mundane of places.
I was down to one bottle of deodorant. My favorite scent is baby powder. It was about halfway done, so I went to get more.
For 30 minutes I stood in Duane Reade and opened and sniffed every scent. Which would make a man find me most alluring? Which seemed right and had a “3” in the price? I realized the three names of the deodorant scents I chose was the universe’s way to speaking to me. The names: Optimism (Secret), Ambition (Secret) and Sweet Surrender (Ban).
Oddly, I’m off the baby powder scent and feel more stable and happy than I have in a very long time, and I am now sporting some very optimistic and ambitious body parts. (I am a bit scared to use the Sweet Surrender just yet.)
Sometimes you can even see the signs when you have suds in your eyes. Yesterday morning I was in the shower doing my thing. You know, scrubbing, scraping, sudsing, soaping, shaving—the five S’s. On my window sill where I keep my shampoo, my eyes fell upon my Suave for Kids 2-in-1 shampoo in Orange Splash. The bottle label summed up exactly what I was looking for in a relationship and a man: “tear free,” “extra gentle,” “performance-tested,” “easy on the eyes,” “perfectly balanced,” “smells great.” Signs, all of them.
And as the scent of oranges permeated my hair, I looked at the other bottles for further clues. My Frederic Fekkai Baby Shampoo boasted something equally important in a relationship: “won’t irritate,” “good for the sensitive or fragile,” “will gently nourish.” YES, YES, YES! I want a relationship with all that.
Next I looked at the European Mystique Papaya Mango Shampoo—cheapest of all shampoos, only $1.70 with a free conditioner—and with a very good message, too. “Will repair damage,” the bottle promised.
OCD has saved me from feeling so completely out of control and alone in this world. I sat on the edge of the HW’s bed last night and heard him say, “I like you a great deal, but I am just not in love.” He then gave me shit about asking him to walk me downstairs to a cab because it was after 1 a.m. Another woman might say “fuck you.” I hear his refusal to love, or to fetch me a cab, and I think, “I am not good enough; I must try harder to be worthy of him.” And so continues the obsessive compulsive way I have of trying to fit myself into the heart of a man who has no room for rent.
During the cab ride home, I rolled my wrist until it felt like it would fall off and touched the corners of the cab seat in just the right way.
