Written On My Forehead...

Today in my desperate search through old pictures to find out if I have a googly eye or not I discovered something even more terrifying. I have spent a majority of my life with my forehead covered in bangs. This may have been a subconscious choice since I seem to have mixed reviews about my forehead. It was just this past Thanksgiving where mom blurted out randomly, "Wow, you have a really big forehead" which was matched by Yaakov's "She has a beautiful forehead" which was matched by the brain behind my forehead thinking..."GOD...isn't it enough to have to worry about thighs and tummys and zits and butts...now I have to worry my fat forehead?" And I settled into dinner with the realization that everyone has a different view of beautiful and if you tried to match them all you would look like a Picasso painting full of different shaped parts...so I should just stick to my guns and my own theories on beauty.
I mean, am I ever really going to go out with someone and while giving me the once over he's going to think..."Well, she was really nice...and I would go out with her again if it weren't for that big honking forehead." Because if I need to worry about that then I just quit. Seriously.
I remember my friend in college was always worried about what she referred to as her "Copius Forehead" and tried to cover it in bangs always. I never understood because, ok, unless there is a third eye on it...I'm not usually analyzing people's foreheads you know?

Speaking of analyzing people on dates, isn't it funny the amount of neurotic torture you are willing to put yourself and other people through? Have you ever been on a blind date? That is it's own very special type of hell. People who commit crimes should be sentenced to a life of blind dates. I've been on a few, but the two that stick out in my mind are good examples.
I know within seconds if I'm into the person or not. If I am, I feel like I want to hug them a lot. Not out of any romantic tendencies, but out of gratitude that they are not a psychopath. So I spend the first few moments in bliss and gratitude. Which then spirals into the realization that if I like this person...do they in turn like me? Which leads to me not being able to look them in the eye. It's true. I am unable to look them in the eye because I am afraid that my eyes will tell them what I am thinking..."I like you. I think you are cute. I'm somewhat imagining what our genes would look like combined, but not really because that's scary...not scary cause you're ugly, cause you're not...in fact you are very hot...oh god" so then I become all shifty eyed and strange. And then the torture begins. You begin to think things about yourself that you don't ever really think about yourself...ever. "Why did I wear this? I don't even dress like this. I am so fat...I am a heinous beast." And you begin to panic that maybe things are happening to you that you don't know about..."Is my fly open? Are my feet stinking through my socks and shoes but I can't smell it because my nose is so jammed full of boogers? Am I sitting in something?" Everytime you walk away to use the bathroom or something you pray that you don't fall, and then when you make it you take an actual moment to thank whoever it is above that you don't have a wad of gum stuck to your ass.

You might think you know me really well, you might think that you know all kinds of things about me...but no one knows me as well as I know myself...because only I see and hear the things that go on in that bathroom mirror. I talk to myself as if I haven't just been on the first half of this blind date. "Do you understand how nice this guy is? He is so great. What are you going to do? Please don't mess this up? Please stop talking to him about your cat. Please don't break out into hives. Please stop saying the word 'shit' so much, you don't even say that in normal conversation. Please stop drinking so much...he's going to think you are an alcoholic. Ok, it's ok. Relax. Just, here we go." And then I make this face of "What am I doing?" and then I spit out my tongue which makes me laugh...so I do it one more time...but then I realize how immature that is and why would anyone ever want to date a childish person like me I should just leave this is so stupid. Relax, smile, shoulders back, deep breath...and go.

Then the guy goes to the bar to get more drinks and that's when you quickly text message your best friend in the secret texting code that you have developed to let him know how it's going. "X" = Good!
"O"= Bad...
"ooo" = Bad, but only cause I made an ass out of myself
"xxx" = don't call me, I'll call you...tomorrow
After a good blind date you hug the person farewell, exchange numbers, gracefully get into a cab and then immediately call your friends who are at a bar waiting for you to arrive with every single detail. I remember walking in and saying, "He was nice! And I didn't fall down!"

(I'm not sure how I morphed from talking about foreheads to blind dates, but I'm on a roll here so please just jump on this train with me ok?)

A bad blind date is worse. I remember once being so excited to go on this date and we were going to some shmancy place so I (because I am INSANE) downloaded the menu, decided exactly what I would order (wine and all) learned how to pronounce it correctly and bought all new clothes. As soon as I walked in I knew it was over, he was nice enough...just not right for me. (Does it make me a hypocrite masochist idiot if I say that perhaps he was too-nice? I mean, I don't want to date a jerk-wad...again...but I also don't want to feel like I'm on a date with my kid brother you know what I mean?) So anyway, then you have to sit there through dinner and find things to talk about and feel annoyed that you are missing the party where all of your friends are and feel really bad for this person who is about to buy you dinner who you secretly know you will never see again and even though your friend Claire said, "Hey, a really bad date can still mean really good free food" you just want more than anything to get the hell out. And you look so cute so you are trying to think where you can go to maximize your cuteness tonight since it took you two hours to get ready. Your big mind under your bigger forehead begins to wander and you think, "Dating sucks. This is all so contrived and unnatural. And blind dating! I mean, this guy could shove a fork in my throat at any second. And is he ever going to say ANYTHING...and is he ever going to stop talking? And why did he wear THAT?" And you begin to wonder about the people you dated in the past and how much easier it might have been to have just stayed with them. "So what if he cheated on me all the time? We could have worked through that. So what if I secretly thought he was gay...I love the gays. So what if I caught him making out with some HAG. So what that he was...or had a...or didn't know how to...or said...or had a REALLY small...(you get the idea) SO WHAT? It would have been better to stay in that totally uncomfortable comfort zone we built together than to be here twirling spaghetti with this guy!"

But no...of course it wouldn't. You know that. And you know that you don't wish any of those guys anything but good riddance.

Blind dates make me a little sad either way. Because we just don't know each other. Because (hopefully) the guy has all these friends and all this family and this whole life and world...and so do I...but in the beginning they are so separate. And while it's fun to get to learn about that...doing so can be exhausting and exclusive sometimes to the point of not wanting to deal with it at all. I leave a blind date, good or bad, thinking..."Do you really know me any better? Did that one dinner really help you get a grasp on who I am? Do I really understand anything about your life at all? Where you've been...what you care about?" It just makes you so aware of it's beginning-ness, which makes you more aware of where the last one ended. Everything is just one big circle afterall.

You are all going to email me thinking that I went on a blind date tonight aren't you? Well I didn't, I went and got quesadillas with Erik and Jacob and avoided the thought of dating altogether since it's been making me depressed lately. When you don't look like yourself it's hard to feel like yourself...but it's also hard to imagine losing weight and then still not dating...cause then you know it has nothing to do with fat heads or butts or anything...it has to do with you as a person and that is scary. It's easier to just stay hidden under weight and bangs and things and use size as the crutch. Whoa...that was a little too vulnerable for the blog...sorry. But it's true enough that I'm going to keep it on here in case anyone else needs it.

Moving on...all I'm saying is this...there are certain things a person has no control over, such as width of forehead, so when sizing up a blind date it is totally unfair to strike against someone based on bone structure or uncontrolable attributes. And while trusting instincts is always a good idea...so is benefit of the doubt.

And beginnings can suck as much as endings. It's the comfort of the middle that we are ultimately seeking. But you can't have one without the other, so just remember...say it with me...good stories are better than good times, good people are better than good looks, and sometimes foreheads just need to be bigger to hold in all the amazing neurotic silly stupid wild intelligent unintelligent beautiful wicked hilarious mean thoughtful unbelievable things a person is thinking.

Moving on.