Trick or Treat

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. For as long as I can remember, I have always put some kind of great effort into making sure Halloween was a fun and great success. Finding a fun costume idea to create, finding a fun group of people to go out with and finding an awesome party to attend. There's just something so fun about dressing up in costume and pretending to be someone else for the night, losing all your inhibitions behind some polyester, face makeup and a wig. (Oh, and how could I forget the candy?)

It started with a mismatched Minnie Mouse costume my mom made for me by hand in Kindergarten. The polka dots were pink on blue background for the skirt and bow and my mom made ears and a tail using wire with black stocking fabric stretched over it and I drew on some whiskers and a nose. Not too shabby.


In 3rd grade I was a nerd. I wore a white shirt with suspenders, a beanie, thick glasses with tape on them, high waisted pants, saddle shoes and a kick me sign on the back.

4th grade, I was a jester. I sewed 2 different color shirts and shorts together, wore colored stockings, made pom poms for my shoes and wore a jester hat my mom got in Las Vegas along with a star pointed wand. Then I made the fringe/pointed neck thing out of a giant piece of felt and sewed pom poms on that that too.

5th grade, I was a princess - wearing an old bridesmaid dress that my mom had & a princess hat, again courtesy of the Excalibur hotel and resort, Las Vegas.

7th grade, I was a witch. I made the dress out of an old black dress my aunt had; cut the sleeves off, made a v-neck and fringed bottom. wore fishnets and boots and had a hat and a broom.

9th grade, I was a punk rock girl/dominatrix. I wore a leopard print teddy I stole from my mom's drawer with a sheer black hoodie over it, fishnets, boots, a regular hoodie and spray painted my hair green, orange and purple, a tiara and wore lots of dark makeup and bracelets. Then, my best friend Lisa was my bitch: she wore a pair of my wide leg plaid pants, my wingtips and a collar which I hooked a dog leash on to.

10th grade, Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL. Borrowed my friend's Catholic school uniform, wore a headband and stuck my fingers under my armpits like THIS....... and sniffed them. (I never did give that uniform back and it has been greatly defiled since then.) 

 12th grade, I was supposed to be Tinkerbell. I got this old, light green frilly dress from my Grandma, got fairy wings, put pom poms on sparkly ballet shoes and put my hair up in a bun. However, I got really bad food poisoning the night before so I didn't get to wear it to school. I wore it to my friend's Halloween party that night and was still not feeling well, so I sat in a chair in the corner and was grumpy Tinkerbell. This was also the same day I took (and passed!) my road test.


2001 - French Maid. (Store bought, sadly.)
2002 - "Graver" (Goth Raver) - All black clothes, makeup & fishnets. (and black bunny ears.)

2003 - Care Bear; Got a Pink Care Bear hoodie at Hot Topic, pink PJ pants, pink gloves, made a "Care Bear" heart out of foam and stuck it to my butt. Drew little pink dots on my face. (Oh yeah, and I made that Red Bull costume for my Ex too; Cut a blue & grey shirt up & sewed it together. Cut all the letters out of red foam. He got so many compliments on it - and even free Red Bull from the bartender at the club.)

2004 - Sexy Nurse. Also store bought. Plus hooker heels & lots of curly hair.

 2005 - I was nothing. I just wore a festive halloween shirt and socks.My ex said I looked like a kindergarten teacher, so maybe that could have been my costume. He wore a hula skirt and a lei over his clothes and we went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner.

2006 - I was a Fallen Angel. Store bought last minute because my ex decided 2 days before Halloween he wanted to go to the parade in NYC and I didn't have a costume.

2007 - Sexy Harry Potter/Hermione. Didn't get to wear it out though because my ex trapped me at home once he saw what I was wearing.

2008 - Greek Goddess. Store bought but my date's Gladiator costume was semi-homemade. (My mom stole the tunic which was one of those robes they give you at the Dr's office. It was too perfect.)

2009 - Lady Gaga. Home made. Leotard from American Apparel, Blond wig cropped & made the Hair bow. 2 Hula Hoops together to make that big, hooped contraption she's always photographed in. And purple feathered fake eyelashes.

This year, my Halloween plans got derailed and so, my Sookie Stackhouse (from True Blood - not to be confused with Snooki from Jersey Shore) costume sits in the closet to see another year, or possibly some type of Comic Con event in the future. 

Happy Halloween Everyone! 

Just Average

I got my grade back the other day for my post-Masters International Business class that I took this session: B+. That makes it the second B+ I have gotten in this program so far. It really speaks volumes for the path that my life as taken. All my life has really been is one giant series of B+s.

When I was 2 years old, I taught myself to read. I baffled a woman on line at the bank once when my dad had me in the baby sling and we were having a full-fledged conversation. (My dad loves to tell this story.) He says the woman tapped him on the shoulder and asked him who he was talking to. When he showed her me, she just couldn't believe that tiny little me was talking in complete and intelligent sentences. She told my dad that I was a brilliant child and would succeed one day.

I started school early and was always a year younger than my peers. It made me feel special and elite because I was younger and smarter. I was reading on a 5th grade level in 2nd grade. When my parents moved to Westchester and wanted to put me in public school for 3rd grade, the school wanted to put me back in 2nd grade because I was so young. My parents knew I was too smart for that and needed a challenge. So, luckily, I got into one of those super fancy Magnet schools for advanced kids and continued on with 3rd grade. Except, now that I was in a public school with other kids, I started to not feel as smart anymore. There were other kids excelling at the same level as I was that made me feel inferior. I had to take aptitude tests to see where I stood since I had been in private school up until now.

In 4th grade, students who were above average could be admitted to TAG - the talented and gifted program.... And I didn't get in. It really discouraged me. I thought that I was definitely in that group. I was on that level intellectually. So how did I qualify as "talented and gifted"? A few other parents, as well as my mom, caused an uproar over TAG and in 5th grade the program was revamped as "Kaleidescope", and I finally got in. But because of my exclusion the previous year, I still didn't feel like I was competing with all these other students in the group. I just felt average.

When middle school came, we were all divided into 3 "Houses". The Green House was all the super-duper smart kids, the Red House was the athletic and popular kids, and then there was me, lumped in with all the leftovers in the Blue House. I kind of became resigned to my fate. I never stressed out over assignments. I never studied for tests except finals. Everything just came naturally to me. But because of that, I was always just a B+ student. Even in High School - I probably could have tried studying more and working harder, but it just never occurred to me to try. I only applied to 3 colleges, all of them in Boston. My top choice, Boston University, I failed to get into. Why? Because I was just average. I didn't have a long string of extracurriculars. My SATs were a 1230. I came from a middle-class family. I just didn't stand out from all the other B+ students who applied.

College was more of the same. Switched schools a few times. Switched majors a few times. Settled in the familiar and graduated with a 3.0.

But the rest of my life has always been B+ status as well. If I found a guy I liked, he wound up liking my friend. My friends always had boyfriends before me, lost their virginities before me. They were popular and pretty and I was just average. In my relationships, I never came first (literally and figuratively). Guys played with my heart strings because I was easy, vulnerable and average. I wasn't that breathtaking beauty that could twirl them around my finger and keep them coming back for more, to keep them at my command. At work, I don't win awards or get to sit in on important meetings. I just hang out in the background making sure things are still getting done and winning silent praise when necessary.

I am just a pattern on wallpaper, not the centerpiece of the room. I have always been just average.

And.... I've kind of gotten used to it. Sometimes drawing too much attention to yourself just highlights your flaws, makes your small faults greater, puts more pressure on you, magnifies your weaknesses....

Maybe its better to just fly under the radar and gain sporadic recognition than to always be in the spotlight.

Maybe sometimes, it's ok to just be average.

HATE//love

I got a little lazy and dug up an old blog post from another of my blogs, but it's still relevant - so enjoy!


HATE

Rene Descartes viewed hate as an awareness that something is bad, combined with an urge to withdraw from it. Baruch Spinoza defined hate as a type of pain that is due to an external cause.Aristotle viewed hate as a desire for the annihilation of an object that is incurable by time.Finally, David Hume believed that hate is an irreducible feeling that is not definable at all.

In psychology, Sigmund Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness. In a more contemporary definition, the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology defines hate as a "deep, enduring, intense emotion expressing animosity, anger, and hostility towards a person, group, or object." Because hatred is believed to be long-lasting, many psychologists consider it to be more of an attitude or disposition than a (temporary) emotional state.

........

Hate is perhaps the worst 4 letter word in the world. Worse that "shit", "cunt", "fuck", "twat".... Hate carries with it more meaning, more force, more of a curse than any of those other words. To truly hate someone, to feel hatred towards another person, is the strongest, most intense feeling one can have.... almost as intense as love. And unfortunately, sometimes love can lead to hate....

There is one person in the world that I can say that I truly hate. The feeling is so intense that it becomes consuming... Every time I think of him, what he's done, what he continues to do, it makes me physically ill. I wish I could just punch him, kick him, hit him in the face with a baseball bat, run him over with my car & then put it in reverse and run over him again (but oh wait, my car is too low to even make it through the car wash, so how could I run him over?) 

He ruined my life and yet continues to exist unscathed. Because of him, I had to be re-medicated for my anxiety disorder; I lost a job, I lost friends, I lost the respect of my parents, I ruined my credit, I basically flushed thousands of dollars down the toilet, I had to file for bankruptcy, and I was on the verge of admitting myself to an institution and ending my life on several occasions because he made me hit rock bottom....I thought that was the only way out from the life of hell I was living.... the scars exist on my arms and remind me constantly of the pain that he put me through and continues to put me through today.... I will NEVER forgive and I will NEVER forget. I HATE YOU. 

.........

LOVE

I am trying to pull myself together though - trying to move on and start over. It's a slow but steady process... I managed to find someone else who is going through the same thing, who is basically the same person as me - my missing twin, and me and her are getting through this together... 

I want to be able to feel again one day, to not live in fear of being hurt, to not put up a wall that you will never be able to scale. I want so badly to love again, to love the purest kind of love... and for someone to love me the way I deserve to be loved. Love is another horrible four letter word, for once it leaves your lips, it can never be taken back. It carries with it such force, it can change your life forever. The next time I say the word "love", it's going to be for real, it's going to be life changing, it's going to be wonderful, and it's going to be forever. 

.............

I just want you to know that I have all this baggage, and I hope it doesn't scare you away. I want to kiss your sweet lips over and over, and feel your body against mine, your heart beating rapidly in my ears... I wanna fit right in that space underneath your chin with your arms around me because you're tall, and wrap my arms around you too. I wanna come up and hug you from behind and lay my head on your back and listen to you breathing. I want to look at you while you're looking at me and smile and not speak because we both know just from a look. I just wanna see you smile and know that smile is there because of me. 

Sometimes there are so many things we want to say to someone, we find it hard to put them into words. Feelings are sometimes so impossible to vocalize - and sometimes, you're not quite sure how. This is how I get out my feelings: I write. That's who I am. I'm a writer. I could put into prose every little heart flutter and nervous sweat that you build up inside me, yet never be able to bring myself to tell you how I feel aloud. So I'll just sit there and bite my lip and wonder....

Miss Misery

In case you weren't already aware (and sorry to put it so bluntly) I fucking hate it here in Philly. It makes me miserable. There is just something about living in this area: the traffic, the erratic and reckless driving, the awful accents (South Philly and the borderline southern redneck ones), the sport fans, the lack of culture and diversity, the lack of decent pizza, the bizarre and atrocious liquor laws, the people... I could go on about it all day.

Ok, yes, I know, being a total New York snob, I'm probably not giving this place much of a chance. But there is just something in the air here that makes me feel like I'm sticking out like a sore thumb. I drove home this weekend and as I drove deeper and deeper through Jersey towards the George Washington Bridge, I could feel the calm wash over me. And as I hit my stretch of I-95 from the Bronx all the way up through Connecticut, something clicked: I was home.

I spent all day Saturday soaking in the essence of New York City: Riding the 6 train and people watching, looking longingly over Japanese fashions in the FIT museum, walking those long city streets, eating in a cute little restaurant in Greenwich Village, sipping delicious drinks with friends in an underground speakeasy, watching the Yankees play on TV in an Irish pub, mingling with the masses in Times Square. From the Bronx, into Manhattan, rounding the night out in Queens - where I hope to live in when I move back to NY next year, pointing out bars and restaurants I've already tagged on a Google map to acquaint myself with my future neighborhood - and back to the Bronx, I felt wide awake in the City that Never Sleeps.

And then I had to drive back to PA today. Despite the weather being beautiful compared to the torrential rain I drove up to CT in, a pit just sank deeper in my stomach as I got closer and closer to this place that I am currently calling "home". New York just makes me feel so alive. My life constantly feels like one of those video games where a little line is in the upper right corner, monitoring your character's health. Every day that I am here, those green lines slowly start fading into yellow and then dangerously close to red. But going home re-energizes me, and those green lines are all filled up again.

...........

Being alone in this city doesn't help, either. Emmett is gone, away having the most amazing experience of his life and I can't even compete with that. That just makes me more miserable. Between crying over him and crying over being stuck here, I should seriously invest in Kleenex stock. I just wish I could be with him, watching him be happy and being happy together, smiling this smile I swear he only smiles for me that makes me melt. I'm happy for him but I suppose jealous in a way, too. I had hoped Philly would be the same enlightening, life changing, eye opening experience; a way to turn my life around and start over from the awful stand-still spot it was stuck in, just like he's doing now. (I also hoped that moving here would mean we'd be closer and together.) And again, I know people will say I'm not giving this place enough of a shot, but I shouldn't have to force it. I shouldn't have to force myself to enjoy it here or to feel an emotion about this place that doesn't exist and probably never will.

I hate being the silly, crying girl who worries all the time. I hate feeling clingy and awful and miserable and don't want to bring everyone else down so I don't talk about it. I hold everything inside, which I guess makes me even more miserable. I am trying to distance myself from the obsessive and longing feelings that I have for Emmett. I put away pictures of us and keep trying to stop thinking about him and how great he is and the little things that he does that make me smile, the memories of us that make me smile. I am trying to push past this wave of emotion and outrun it - to move beyond this intangible relationship that will never happen, to move beyond feeling like I'm not good enough when it has nothing to do with me, to move beyond thinking that he never thinks about me and doesn't care because I am always thinking about him and I always care - all I do is think and care. I need to just lock all that part of my life up in a little box and throw away the key. Otherwise, it will continue to consume me and eat away at me and completely devoid my life of the happiness that I am not allowing myself. (In that aspect of my life, anyway.)

And so, everything I built up in my head, these fictitious scenarios about the future stemming from our real life interactions and conversations; I have to break them down slowly brick by brick and start to lay the mortar around my heart and move those cinder blocks back to rebuild the wall that had been up for so long before I met him.

.........

you make me come
you make me complete
you make me completely miserable


...........

Its so hard to let go, but sometimes love isn't enough of a reason to keep on hanging on.

It Gets Better

I can't say enough about how much I love the Gay community. I self-identify as being Bisexual, but secretly, I'm convinced I'm just a fabulous gay man trapped in a woman's body. I pretty much embrace every aspect of Gay-ness; Adoration of pop idols, house music, fashion, movies, musicals. Some of the most fun, amazing and wonderful people I know are Gay. I am an avid supporter of Gay rights, Gay Marriage and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Almost every young boy I surrounded myself with growing up turned out to come out after high school. This is probably why my Gaydar is so good: I've been a Fag Hag since the playground days. And it's pretty much my life-long goal to have Drag Queens dress up as me and a gaggle of fabulous and fierce Gay Boys following me around.

I guess maybe I'm just lucky that I grew up in such a Liberal area with a somewhat wonderfully open-minded family. (Except of course for my super Irish-Catholic grandparents) My Aunt lived in the heart of Chelsea, NYC's Gay Mecca. I remember one day going to breakfast with her and she said to me, "Now, if you see two men holding hands, don't be alarmed." I told her that we had a Gay couple in my High school and that it didn't matter to me. Love is Love, no matter who's doing it.

But sometimes, other people are not so lucky to live in such a Liberal, Urban paradise as New York. Sometimes, people are not as accepting or supporting of alternative lifestyles. Gay youths face the fear of having to come out to their families and be shunned in return for simply being who they are. They face bullying at school, on the streets, in their workplaces. And often times, this extreme bullying turns tragic. Gay youths, fearing that they have no way out, that things are at the lowest point, that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, wind up taking their own lives.

In the past 3 weeks, 9 Gay youths have committed suicide because of bullying; In the most extreme case, a 18 year old Rutgers University student was secretly video taped having sex with a man by his classmates, and the video was posted on the internet - both outing and humiliating him. He jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

This needs to end.

Through the time that George W Bush was in office, a witch hunt was in effect across our country. The hatred for Gays and Lesbians grew stronger and more violent over the last 10 years; Not since Stonewall have we seen this level of ignorance and atrocious acts committed toward the Gay community. From our own President attempting to pass a Federal Law prohibiting Gays and Lesbians from getting married to the fact that an archaic law such as Don't Ask, Don't Tell still remains on the books; This is 2010 - we should be more open-minded and more accepting of our fellow human beings by now. But yet, the seeds of ignorance have been planted into the minds of our youths by bigoted Adults who do not want to change their prejudices.

There needs to be a change in the way that we all think and not simply a mob mentality. Gay teens today need to know that one day, they won't have to live in fear anymore. That things will get better. That it does get better. That there are people in this world who will love them and accept them and be there for them, regardless of how grim things may seem right now. But that they have to be alive to experience the better.

Please do whatever you can to help make a stand and help make things right. Leave your ignorant beliefs and prejudices behind. Help make the world a better place. Help prevent these senseless deaths.

Visit the Trevor Project's website: They are doing something amazing and you can too:
http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Twice Broken, Once Shy

They say that nice guys finish last and yeah, this is probably true. We always throw the nice guy aside for the asshole and regret it later on down the line. But by that time, it's too late to take things back: we've already broken their heart.

Unless you're me and you manage to do this to the same guy twice.

Seal (just go with it) and I met when I was dating my first boyfriend one night in April 2001 when a group of us went out to Applebees. I thought he was really cute... and tall. We kind of flirted a bit. He stole a cup from the restaurant and then whacked his head on my car door. But it turned out he was like, 15 and I was 17. (Plus, you  know, I had a boyfriend.)

A few months later, I was at my friend Kaylee's house getting ready to go to a house party at our friend's house; I had a cute guy from our summer job with me as my date. (And yes, I was still going out with my boyfriend - but it was the summer before college, and I was determined to leave him behind when I left for school and have some fun. He was also a recluse who played online RPGs and didn't drive so he never left the house and hence, I couldn't get caught!) Well, in walked my friend's boyfriend with Seal - we were all going to the party together. Now I was in a dilemma: One girl, two cute and very young boys. What's a girl to do? Simple. Spend the first half of the night with boy #1 until he has to leave at midnight, at which point your friend's boyfriend plays the ultimate wingman and pushes you into a pantry closet with boy #2. Problem solved.

I basically started "dating" Seal all summer before I left for college, despite having an actual boyfriend. We did all kinds of couple-y things like go to dinner and the mall and the amusement park. (We took adorable kissy faced photobooth pics and he won me a stuffed mouse.) I even took him to our summer job's end of season dinner. But then summer ended and I went away to college. And then I found out he got drunk one night and hooked up with some ugly fat girl. I called him and yelled at him and you know what he said to me? "But you have a boyfriend!!!!" The nerve. I ended things with him. I couldn't believe he was hooking up with other girls! I thought we had a thing! I went to my friend's boyfriend's house for New Year's Eve and he was there and, while he was drunk and crying and telling me he loved me, I told him he didn't know what love was and I hated him.

I never talked to him again....Until four years later.

My friends and I were going out clubbing one night when Kaylee decided to sideline me; She didn't tell me that her ex-bf had invited Seal with us. So when they picked me up and he was in the car, I gave my biggest "OH HELL NAW!" face the whole ride. Seal said hello and I was definitely less than cordial. I gave him the death stare all night. When we were waiting for the subway home, everyone was kind of tired and out of it and I was starting to sober up. Seal started talking to me and somehow, he broke my anger spell when he mentioned he was reading Descartes in Comp & Lit class. I had just read it too so we broke out into this whole conversation about it. We talked the whole ride home and, when everyone else was too tired to go to the diner afterwards, me and him decided to go alone.

We had a good time talking and eating and he was going to give me a ride home. When we got into his car, it was kind of cold and he had to wait a bit for his car's heat to kick in. So, he said to me - and this is probably the best line I've ever heard in my life: "I hear the fastest way to warm is through your lips." And he kissed me. Suddenly, all those butterflies and feelings from the first time were coming back. We started hanging out again, doing coupley things. Going to dinners and movies. But there was another problem this time: I didn't have a boyfriend, but I was still pining over who-was-soon-to-be-my-epically-horrible-ex. (Who I had dated briefly that winter and stopped talking to, but was hoping to try to reconnect with.)

While Seal and I were having great times together, I couldn't stop thinking about that Shithead and I don't even know why. Seal was sweet and kind and funny and goofy. (He was also a bit of a flighty pothead.) He was thoughtful and wonderful and would have done everything and anything to me, catered to my every desire. He tried so hard to impress me. The most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me was when Seal took me to the toy store and bought me a Winnie the Pooh kite. Then he took me to the park where we flew the kite and he spread out a blanket on the grass and we laid down together with the kite in the air, snuggling and kissing. He asked me to be his girlfriend and I said, no, I don't really wanna be in a relationship. He asked me if it had to do with the other guy. I kinda lied and said no, but it was.

Then Seal started getting clingy and trying really hard to win me over, changing to be like some nerdy TV character I said I liked and that sort of reminded me of him, and it was a total turn off and I just started blowing him off and stopped answering his calls. He called and left me a drunken voicemail telling me how much he loved me and how I was breaking his heart (again). I felt like kind of a bitch, but I just was so focused on being with someone else that it didn't really affect me....

Until I started dating that asshole and every minute where I felt like I just wanted to die from the way he was treating me, I would stop and think to myself, "Why the fuck didn't I just date Seal???" I would have been so happy and treated like a Princess instead of being told to walk in front of a bus and being called a stupid bitch. I would have someone who would have done everything for me without being asked, instead of having someone who wouldn't even pay his own bills or pick up his clothes without a fight.

A few years later, Kaylee sidelined me again and Seal came out to a group dinner with us, but this time, he had his new girlfriend with him. I was alone, of course, since my ex was the world's biggest asshole and couldn't be taken in public without creating a scene and embarrassing everyone in his presence - also, all my friends hated him. So, I tried to pretend like I was soooo happy. But it was killing me to see him with someone else. Making someone else happy the way he should have been making me happy. I looked him up on Facebook today - He's still with her now, and they look unbelievably, blissfully in love.

I had a dream about Seal last night. He told me he still loved me but he couldn't let me break his heart again. This time, I wouldn't. But people don't get third chances.

........

I'm sorry, Mark. 

Co-Habitation

I dabbled into a bit of co-habitation during my early 20s. It was clearly the worst idea that I ever had in my entire life and I will probably not ever live with a (straight) member of the male sex ever again unless I have a ring on my finger and my name is legally bound on a marriage certificate. Oh sure, there's a lot to be said for living with someone if you are planning on eventually getting married. But if you're dating, then honey, you're just roommates.

And if you thought living with roommates sucked, living with your significant other can be 100x worse.

First off, when you're living with roommates, everything is pretty much defined in terms of who is taking what responsibilities in the apartment, what spaces are off limits, whose food you shouldn't eat, who pays what bills, etc. When you are living with an SO, most of this goes out the window. What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine, right?

Your food is combined. Your finances (at least some of them) are combined. Your laundry is combined. You sleep in the same bed.

Of course, the honeymoon stage is fun at first. You're LIVING TOGETHER! That means, no roommates barging in, no commuting from one place to the other. You're together, in the same place at the same time, 24/7. Isn't it so great?

Wrong. This lovey dovey phase passes and then, the things that you used to love coming home to start pissing you off.

He left dirty dishes in the sink.
She left a tampon in the toilet. 
He left the seat up.
Her hair is clogging the drain. 
His beard shavings are all over the sink.
She forget to pick up milk again.
He forgot to take the garbage out again.

And more of that. Yeah....

Or, especially in the case of my former relationship - it was me getting upset at my ex for all of those things. For never giving me money for groceries, yet sure as hell eating everything in the fridge. Then, when I would complain about it, he would tell me "Well, I didn't tell you to buy all that stuff!" Then Asshole, You don't need to fucking eat it!

I tried to get him to do the dishes once and he cried and told me to never make him do it again.

He made me do his laundry, and then when the dryer "shrank" his clothes (aka he put on 60 lbs over the course of our relationship and was in denial), he blamed it on me.

He never cleaned.... except my car, which was apparently his main responsibility in the house. And so, that apparently admonished him from all household chores since he was "taking care of my car." (And by 'taking car of' he meant lowering it 2 inches from the ground so that it scraped while going over pebbles and installing a fart can muffler that had the decibel level of an F-15 fighter jet.)

Everything in that house I paid for. (Except the 42 inch plasma screen TV - which he stole from his old job.) And so, when I left, I took everything the fuck with me.

...........

I am terrified of a repeat of that horrible past living experience. Obviously, I know that no one can ever come close to being as awful a roommate as my ex was. But that still doesn't make me feel any better about co-habitation. I just don't think people should move in together unless they are really serious and planning on being in a relationship for a long time - otherwise, yes, basically you are just roommates.

You have to get to know each other's highs and lows, respect each other's boundaries, learn how to respect your shared living space, work out detailed chores and schedule bill paying.Will you set up some kind of combined finances for all your household expenses? Who will pay what bills? What about furniture and grocery shopping? Will your tastes combine or clash - or will you create your own "couple style"?

Sure, living together seems great in theory, but it is a big leap to take and something that should really be thought out before you rush into signing a lease. Otherwise, you could get stuck living with someone you really can't stand. (and a bunch of IKEA furniture that you'll just end up selling on Craigslist.)