Tag Archives: life

Dating

The Front Porch Test

If you’ve watched How I Met Your Mother, you probably know Lily’s Front Porch Test. If you don’t, go watch it right now, because you’re missing a huge part of pop culture and also a great deal of life advice. Honestly, even after rewatching every episode at least 4 times, I can’t argue that pretty much everything in the show is somewhat applicable to my life. Well, except maybe the goat and getting injured by my friends.

Anyway, there’s this one episode that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, it’s The Front Porch Test. If you haven’t seen the show (watch it!): The Front Porch Test is basically an estimation of how well your date will integrate themselves into your group of friends and how well they will interact with them. The ideal is that the entire group grows old together and spends fun afternoons together playing a fictive card game on someone’s front porch.

Also, two of my closest friends are getting married this year, and so thinking of who would be fun and suitable enough to bring to the wedding has become my very own Front Porch Test. No one wants to look at photos and say, “Oh, there’s the […] people I love most in the world. And Bob.” So now I try to imagine who would be a great wedding date (even if I won’t bring a date – I’m writing this for the bride to be and who’s probably been like “Wtf, you’re not getting a + one!” this past minute. I love you. :*)

So as you guessed, similar to the show, my friends and I are super tight. And for some outsiders, we may come across as this weird community with funny rules that don’t match conventional ways. Sometimes, we joke about creating a cult which promotes an alternative lifestyle, similar to some in the 70s. In short, we’re a weird but very loving and loyal little bunch and especially during this last year, I’ve realized that my friends truly are my second family, as cliché as that sounds.

However, I also know that our group dynamic might not be for everyone and that some people would probably feel a little overwhelmed. And so with that in mind, whenever I was on a date, I started trying to imagine what would happen if I threw my date into this group.

Most of the time, things have ended way before the question of meeting the other person’s friends has even come up. But for the other times, it’s been interesting to watch. Though, I’d say that except for one, most of them managed rather meeehhh – which wasn’t a good sign, of course.

Sometimes, I imagine having people meet my friends who probably won’t be that comfortable with their openness and absence of polite filters. And just for the sake of my own entertainment, I actually invite them to everything. But then I think of how well they would actually fit in the group, and let’s say that I’d rather be surprised if it was a good match.

Now that could be a very conclusive assessment about my personality and my romantic choices. But this text isn’t about me, at least not primarily, so fuck that – I’m perfect.

Yet, I haven’t really met anyone who was comfortable enough with my friends. And since they’re the greatest part of my life, I would never want to date anyone who doesn’t fit in our cute little special group.

Because in the end, if there’s no one to count on, you can always count on your friends.

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Just blogging

What would you do if you died tomorrow?

I know, that’s such a corny question. So corny that it’s close to having a tattoo that says Carpe Diem. So corny that Nicholas Sparks would answer with a poop emoji if you texted him that question. And yet, that question popped into my head yesterday. (Well I guess I have a predisposition for corny stuff, I do love romcoms after all.)

Before I’m getting into details, it’s maybe a good idea to give you some background information first. So for a few weeks know, I’m noticing once again that I probably can’t eat all types of food. I’m sparing you the details, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that my intestins are not reacting well to wheat and/or gluten. And maybe some other stuff, too, since it’s been almost impossible for me to eat anything without some sort of complications. Of course, I’ve already seen a doctor and am currently doing all the exams to know what exactly is causing problems, but so far, there hasn’t been anything conclusive. But I was asked if we there were cases of cancer in my family. My doctor has such great humor.

Now I don’t think that I have cancer or anything severe, but I still asked myself: If that were the case and if I died tomorrow, would I be satisfied with my life so far? Would there be anything I regret? And even though I don’t have any regrets, my answer to the first question would be “It was ok.” Just that, nothing more, nothing less.

Have you heard of the marshmallow experiment? Where kids receive one marshmallow and if they manage to wait for a certain amount of time without eating that marshmallow, they receive another one? The marshmallow experiment supposedly shows who’s going to be successful in life (people who can make sacrifices for now to have a better result later) and who isn’t. I alsways thought I would be part of the latter. Though I would have done pretty well on the marshmallow experiment as I find marshmallows disgusting. But as for everything else, I find it incredibly hard and unnecessary to make sacrifices. My mom would say that’s because of my astrological sign, but I just think, if I can have something right now, why wait? However, I’ve tried to make some responsible choices, and since there’s no one else but me who’s paying for my fancies, holding back on certain things has become rather easy.

I’ve postponed travels because I thought it would be smarter to wait and really plan everything instead of just going somewhere, I’ve partly sacrificed my social life because I want to be successful in my work (and ultimatively earn a shitload of money of course). However, when thinking of the very abstract idea of dying tomorrow, these decisions, as smart as they may be in the moment, don’t seem smart at all. On the contrary.

If I was on my deathbed tomorrow, I would definitely be sad about not having spent enough time with my friends and not having travelled to all the places I wanted to. Also, it would also suck to acknowledge that I haven’t found a person to travel with, yet. I mean it’s awesome to be independent and stuff, but if it means doing stuff alone most of the time, it’s not always that great.

So what’s my verdict from this thought experiment? I sure don’t want to reverse my entire lifestyle. My work and professional success will always be very important to me as will be my independence. So to find a balance between me being somewhat of a workaholic, I will also focus on keeping my friendships strong and building new relationships as well. And I’m also planning my next vacation.

PS: Leave a comment if you recognize the featured image 🙂

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Just blogging

Birthday anxiety

My birthday is coming up and I’m not sure how to feel about it.

Before you think: “Oh right, another chick who can’t handle getting older.”, I don’t care about my age. I’m actually somewhat looking forward to having white hair, wearing makeup that makes me look like a crazy clown and hopefully getting a much deeper voice which doesn’t sound like it belongs to a 13-year-old. (I always wanted my voice too sound more like Scarlett Johansson’s.)

Though there have been mulitple moments where I felt that I’m failing at existing – according to societal conventions – I don’t really care anymore. The last time the thought of having to be an adult stressed me out was right before my 18th birthday. But since then, I found out that pretty much everyone sucks at adulting. Besides, my family seems to have stopped wondering if I’m a Lesbian or not ever since and I’m also starting to find people amusing who ask me about kids and marriage. I’m actually looking forward to never having kids and just spend all my (fictional) money on designer and travels, especially because I can justify all that by quoting Schopenhauer – not that I have to. And I’m almost proud of being an eternal student. You don’t find many of us anymore. These teens nowadays…. they have become so serious, urgh.

However, I do put quite some pressure on myself. Just for the story, it would be so sad if my life was mediocre. So it can either be tragic (which it is already tbh) or fucking amazing. Like spending-all-day-yachting-with-my-friends-and-drinking-champagne-amazing.
I don’t wanna be that tragic figure. (Besides, every tragic figure becomes really annoying over time, that’s why they always end up killing themselves. And I’m over that.)

So there really is no other choice than becoming great. No pressure at all.

But what I really don’t like about birthdays is being the center of attention. Well, I don’t mind being the center of attention, I just want it to be for something I deserve.

But being born is not an achievement. Neither is staying alive, even though that would make much more sense to me. (Besides, I actually like listening to the BeeGees.) But we’re not living in the 1800s anymore, where sudden infant death was a real thing. And thanks to the stigma, being mentally stable doesn’t count as an achievement either.

So I don’t really see the point of celebrating my birthday. And if it’s just for the milestones, I prefer having a party for each single one of those. Seriously, why would I wait a year if I can can get drunk immediately?

One of the first things my roommates asked me after I moved in was the date of my birthday. So apparently, they’re going to plan something.
I just hate that thought. I want to spend a normal day doing what I always do and not having to have stiff conversations around a diabetes-causing cake that’ll make me nauseous. I also don’t want to open shitty presents and smile politely while thinking about throwing this new [insert anything unnecessary/ ugly /unwanted / all of the above] in the trash or reusing it as a gift for someone I hate (or date; I just noticed how similar those two words sound).

I also think that birthdays fall under the same category as NYE. People put so much pressure on them, it has to be the best day of the year. But – surprise! – it rarely is. So you most probably end up diappointed.
The birthdays I remember were days of weird family get-togethers and food poisoning (the real one, not induced by alcohol). And of course birthdays where I felt that something special should happen, but that just wasn’t the case. Instead, they were just like any other day, or even worse.

All that is the reason why I just don’t wanna celebrate my birthday. In my opinion, birthdays are just a compilation of awkward moments. So if you want to make me a birthday present, just spare me.

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