Human Vultures

As I get older, it becomes increasingly clear that death, or the prospect thereof, turns humans into vultures. Now, not every person faced with the death of a loved one (or relative) turns into a money-grubbing, back-stabbing, hoarder and thief, but it seems to be a more common occurrence.

When my great grandmother was moved from her house to a nursing home, certain children swooped in on the empty house and began removing valuables without their siblings (or mother’s for that matter) consent or permission. Valuable things went missing, no one would admit that they were the ones who actually took it. Finger pointing and blame went all over and it just became ridiculous.

Even more ridiculous was trying to divide the property after my great grandmother’s death. Certain daughters believed they were entitled to more regardless of the constructs of the will.

Having heard and seen other families go through the same (or worse) inheritance struggles has only cemented into my mind the belief that death brings out the worst in people. What I find really amusing is when children start yelling at their parents for wasting away “their” (the kids’ not the parents’) money. How is it the children’s money when it is the parents’? Simply put, inheritance. As parents age, many children begin contemplating inheritance and what they can expect when their parents kick the proverbial bucket. It is disgusting.

But, I suppose the children who are straightforward and openly take stuff and start claiming their parents’ property is at least more honest than the underhand ones who sneak and steal. Recently, a neighbor’s wife was hospitalized with cancer. Her children don’t even visit her, but they go to her house and take her stuff. One child even steals money out of her purse. The father put his foot down and said they can’t take it, but what do they care? They come in and take it anyways. Besides, their dad is 85, he’ll be dead soon, too, so why does he need the stuff.

One son-in-law actually said that to his face. Unbelievable. As if having his wife of 50+ years in the hospital dying of cancer isn’t enough, he is faced with ignorance and greed from his children who should be giving their love and support.

Inheritance. Whatever. It is money for nothing. It doesn’t rightfully belong to anybody but the originators. I can understand getting back that which you have gifted to the deceased, but to go in willy-nilly and claim everything of value in sight is just plain, old-fashioned greed in any book.

My grandparents are doing their best to divide up the assets and to give back gifts before they die in order to help stop silly things like this from happening. But you never really know what will happen after you die and how the people around you will react.

Unfortunately, every family seems to have a vulture of some kind lurking in their midst, making an unhappy event even worse.

Unnecessarily Complicated

“Love and marriage, love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage . . .”

Ah, the good old days of watching the Bundys.  Not that this has anything to do with what I am talking about.  I just find the expectations placed on people amusing. And by expectations, I am referring to love, marriage, and children. Quite honestly, I do not understand the attraction of either marriage or children.

Gasp! Heaven forbid that I as a female would say that I do not believe in marriage and children. That makes me unnatural. Well, not that I truthfully care what others think, but I believe being “unnatural” is better in this day and age.  With an absurdly high divorce  rate, I have no intention of jumping into marriage or even getting married at all.

I have seen marriages fail. Multiple times. I have seen people together who should never have married in the first place and now live together in misery because they don’t want to admit they made a mistake. Divorce is wrong.  No, divorce is not wrong. Rushing into marriage before discussing the important things is wrong. But what would I know?

Well, let’s see. My parents were extremely incompatible and probably should have never married. When my dad remarried, it was like repeating the same mistake over. So, at the ripe old age of 39, my dad has been thrice married, twice divorced, which is better than my cousin’s track record who has been thrice married, twice divorced at a much younger age.

Even though I grew up in the loving two parent home of my grandparents, I have come to realize that I have no desire to get married. I really also have no desire to have children either. I like kids, but I know that I am not mother material and that I honestly do not want to raise any. People believe I will change my mind. It is entirely possible, but not foreseeable for quite some time at least.

My elder sister is happily married and is now expecting her first child. I am happy that she has found love and is fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother. I am not envious of her and her spouse. Marriage and motherhood have always been her dreams, never mine. At one point I thought I had those dreams too, but really that was me accepting what other people thought, not what I actually desired.

I know that I am not alone in feeling this way, but it always irks me that people think that this mentality is not normal. Friends tell me I have to get married and have children, so our kids can be friends and grow up together. Unfortunately, for them, I don’t plan on changing my mind. If I do, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, but I have realized in the past few years, I honestly do not desire the institution of marriage nor do I wish to bear children and as the years pass, that seems to become more firmly  rooted, not less.

Let the chips fall where they may. No one knows what ride life has in store for them.

Men are stupid! - A chronicle of Chani's search for romance

Chani's taking over the blog! Come on NeeNee/Leighton it's your turn to make an entry! :)

Anyway, blogging is fun! I am just realizing this now, although I avoided it like the plaque for a number of years. But it's a really good way to get your thoughts out, and at the same time share them with others. Hopefully that helps diminish my frustrations on this topic: Namely that of finding a nice man for myself. EASIER SAID THAN DONE!!

Someone once told me that it would be much easier if we all walked around with our future spouse's name tattooed to our foreheads! I must say I agree! It would be so much easier to find who I'm looking for.

Anyway, after many years of not being in a relationship, upon my entry into grad school I decided that it was time to seriously start looking for somebody. Well, where do you meet people? My mom told me about a friend of the family (my "cousin" we call him) and that after moving to Seattle he joined Match.com just because it's a way to meet people outside of bars/clubs. I'm definitely not interested in meeting people at bars/clubs (figure they'd mostly be perverts right? Well this becomes rather ironic as you'll notice if you read on). So I shelled out the money and joined Match.com. At first my hopes were high! All those success stories about online dating can't be wrong, right? Unfortunately they must fail to mention all the attempted relationships that go wrong before people find the "right" one that they shamelessly tote on their site (and of course all the money people shell out to be site members for long enough to meet that person, but that's a different story altogether).

So I won't be using any names but the first person that I went out with was a total flop. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot, the biggest pervert I've met yet in my online dating journey was, of course, the first guy I tried to date. First of all (and I guess it should have been a warning sign but I had very little experience to start off with) he asks me all these disgusting, extremely personal questions while we IM to "get to know each other". Things like, what kind of underwear do I wear, where do I like to be touched, what are my "shaving habits" - and he didn't mean legs or armpits that's for sure! I know, I know, I should have stopped communication with him right then and there, especially when I haven't even met the guy and the conversation turns to sex every other word. But (like the naive, inexperienced person that I am) I just figured, 'well, all guys must be like this'. HAH! That's all I have to say is, HAH! But at the time that's what I figured. And I didn't really tell anybody else about these things (I told my mom a little bit, enough for her to think 'well, he seems a little forward but otherwise ok', but I didn't tell her everything - well the things we talked about were so personal I don't want to talk about them with anybody, that's how bad he was! And this for my first online dating experience! Ugh!). I did ask a girl at work if it was normal for a guy to ask stupid questions like "What are you wearing?" (this guy asked that every single freakin' day) and she kind of laughed and said "sometimes". Well, "sometimes" and "every single day" are two very different things, my friends. I just wish now that I hadn't ignored all the warning signs back then.

Well, anyway, to make a long story short, we went out on our "first" date, and he insisted upon groping me while playing pool, asking about my underwear some more, and trying to make out (tongue, ear biting, hand fondling - not "holding", fondling while I held my hand limp like some kind of submissive freak - the whole shebang!)while in the movie theater. Never mind that I think that kind of PDA is not appropriate, simply because it would annoy me if some couple was acting like that in front of ME while I tried to watch a movie in the theater) but on our FIRST date! So I was uncomfortable and put a stop to it. Then he's all like "you didn't seem very interested" blah blah afterwards. I told him on our few post-date IM's that it was moving too fast for me and I'd rather move slower, and he completely failed to understand what I was talking about. Even went so far as to basically say he "can't" move any slower than that. Like he's incapable. And I remember on one of my earliest IM's with him he was telling me that he had dated quite a few girls on Match.com but none of them wanted to see him past a first date. Well I WONDER WHY! I mean seriously how stupid and clueless can you be!? His thoughts were "you should at least give somebody a second chance before making a final judgement" and I agree under normal circumstances, but when he's acting like THAT, I think second chances can be overlooked.

So anyway, I continued on Match.com throughout the ending of my subscription. Then I joined eHarmony (another large sum) before finding a place called "plentyoffish.com that is just as good as these others sites but FREE! Needless to say I'm sticking with that one from now on). But over the course of the number of men I have dated while being a member of these sites (and it's been like 1.5 years of this now) I've met a slew of perverts. It's either perverts, or guys who move SO slow I lose interest. Now, I don't think appearance is a problem, I have found that the crushes I've had in the past have been based more upon personality than looks, and once I like somebody's personality I find that they look very attractive to me. The problem is that most of these guys won't give me a CHANCE to get to know their personalities! Maybe that's the problem with online dating - I don't know. Maybe guys figure since its clear we're looking for a romantic relationship on the site, the "romance" should start on the first date. Well, I don't think that meeting on line should be a ticket to bypass the "getting to know each other part". It's sad, because I find the people I meet online often like me - but I don't like them! But then whenever I like a guy that I meet in real life, he doesn't like me! I seem to be trapped. It's hopeless but I'm still hoping! How pathetic? I don't know. *sigh*

Anyway, my biggest beef with the perverted men online is their insistence to talk about sex right away, when I still barely know them. There have been at least 3 other guys I've talked to that behave in this manner (most of them I haven't gone on any dates with though, thankfully). First, okay, I don't have a lot of experience. In fact, I'm a virgin. So one of the first responses I inevitably get is shock, then questions like I'm some kind of museum specimen. One guy said he found it "fascinating" that I'm still a virgin at 25 and needed to grill me on why for like 20 minutes before I finally blocked him off of yahoo. Now, first of all, until I'm close to you, it is NONE OF YOUR FREAKIN' BEESWAX if I am a virgin or not! Number two, ok, so I'm a virgin at 25. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT!? Inevitably their first question is whether I am "saving myself" for marriage. Well, the answer is no, I am not. If I'm "saving myself" for anything, it's love. And frankly, I haven't been in very many relationships. The longest was 2 months with a guy I wasn't especially interested in back in my second year of undergrad. If I haven't had any serious relationships, why should I have had sex? It's as simple as that. Nothing special, nothing "pure" or "prudish", nothing weird. I've just never been in such a situation. However, even when I tell guys this, they still don't understand. I even had one guy (the guy I blocked, thankfully) refer to me as an "anti-girl" who "hates everything". Now pardon my language but WHAT THE FUDGECICLE DOES THAT MEAN!? All we were talking about (and this was the first time we talked, by the way)was that I don't know when in a relationship I'd be ready for sex, and that I think it's not something we should focus on right away, and that I'd had no real sexual experiences thus far. Now look, just because I'm not "easy" doesn't make me a prude! I mean, I know that men are, to a certain extent, SUPPOSED to be obsessed with sex, for evolutionary reasons and all that, but I know that not all guys are this bad. My mom said to me, after hearing the whole story about "Pervert # 1" discussed above, that she can't imagine decent men behaving that way. And that she could never see my cousin acting in that way towards a girl. And she's right, I couldn't see it either. There ARE nice, good guys out there, so why can't I meet them!? Why do all the guys I get stuck with insist upon judging me so much? I'm sure I could be a very sensual/passionate person once I felt close to a guy, but I haven't felt close to a guy yet. That's all. And I don't think that when just meeting a person sex should even be a topic of discussion. If it happens, it happens, and if the relationship is the right one, then it WILL happen. Why grill me on it? Just let things go as they will. I look at it this way: I'm not a touchy-feely person in general; I don't like to even HUG people unless I feel close to them emotionally. By the same token, I wouldn't want to have SEX with somebody until I felt close to them emotionally. Now, call me crazy, but I think that makes a lot of sense. Problem is, I can't get close to anybody emotionally because all I meet are perverts (or weirdos, but that's a different bunch that I will not be discussing in this blog).

Now you say probably I should stop trying to meet guys online, but the problem is that I don't have success in real life either. In fact, recently, I've seriously considered giving up. CNS Speak is for three undergrad friends, who decided together (half-jokingly, but half not) that we should get a "Spinster's Mansion" once we are all rich and move in together, and have a GIANT library and just be happy being single! I LOVE the idea! At least it's better than my previous back-up plan, living in an apartment with a bunch of cats. lol. But recently I've been thinking it would just be better, and easier, to seriously go through with it (assuming we all become rich enough, of course - once we're famous authors, you know :-P). Leighton Nichols has so many good points when it comes to romance (which she has professed to not be interested in on multiple occasions). Why should you rely on somebody else to make you happy? Why not be just happy with yourself as who you are? What's wrong with being single if you're satisfied with your life? I think about these points, and can't help but see their merit. Plus it saves you a lot of heartache and frustration. And yet, to be honest, I have not given up on meeting somebody that's right for me. Yes, I'm a hopeless romantic. I still believe that "Mr. Right" is out there somewhere. I have times whre I'm dejected and just want to give up the search, but then times where I want to keep looking. Leighton and I have had many discussions on the topic, and at first I was resentful of her opinion, but I have matured a lot, and now I think that each person has to find their own type of happiness. Maybe not everybody needs or wants a romantic relationship. And that's okay! But me... I still want one. But I'm grateful for the discussions that she and I have had, because they make me realize that even if I don't meet somebody I can still be happy just being myself with friends who understand me. And for that I am grateful. But I don't think that I approach a romantic relationship too unrealistically either. I know that just meeting someone isn't "an end in and of itself" as a coworker once put it. I know it won't fix all the problems in my life, and it will even create problems of its own! But I think that, for me, the positives of meeting somebody will outweigh the negatives. Another friend was recently telling me how true that is of her and her husband. Some things are worse now that they're married, but MORE things are better. And she will never regret marrying him. Life will never be perfect. We should just do what we can that makes us happy, and for each person this is different. But the one thing we have in common is that we are all striving to find our own kind of happiness.

That said, I still hope to meet that person someday. And I will keep trying my best. If I go to a new state for my Ph.D. program next year maybe it will give me a fresh outlook and I can meet new people. If not, my plan is to try to join in on more social activities (on campus or off) to meet more people that way. And of course I'll maintain my profile on plentyoffish.com, just in case a nice, normal person decides to show up. Maybe I should make it mandatory that men on the site read this blog before contacting me! Lol! Anyway, wish me luck, but NeeNee... keep my spot in that Spinster's Mansion open, okay? I just might need it! ^_^