Feeling Pretty & Learning New Rules

Dress Me Up
So far today I've been told I look beautiful, stunning, and like I just walked out of Chanel. Who knew that taking some damn time and caring about how you look would make such a difference. The Bat actually gets some kudos for this because he told me few weeks ago that I needed to get new clothes and to dress my age. "You're 33, not 63." And he was right so I can't fault him. I do dress like an old woman for work and really boring at home (almost all of my play clothes shirts are solid colors and black). So yesterday I pulled myself together, got dressed up and put on some makeup and headed to an inexpensive store where I purchased four work dresses and one badass fancy red dress for when I go on a fancy date one day. This morning I woke up 20 minutes early and put on makeup (well, also to get out of the house earlier to try and beat traffic) and spent more than 5 minutes on my appearance. When I got to work, one of my friends said "how are you at taking compliments?" I said "uhm, OK I guess." and he responded with "you look beautiful today."

Talk about an ego boost! I used to dress well and wear makeup but I guess I stopped for some reason years ago. But now, while I'm not going to go broke buying myself new clothes, I am going to make an effort if only when I'm going to be seen by other people. READ: Once I'm living in my new apartment we can go back to sweatpants or no pants if I don't plan on going anywhere.

So kudos to the Bat for lighting a fire under my ass. But fuck him for telling me I was chubby just to screw with me awhile ago. That shit still ain't cute (though it did lead to the clothing discussion). And after work I'll run to Target and grab a few cute tanktops for my off hours since it is still eleven billion degrees in Texas.I figure I'll spend more money on work clothes than play clothes for right now and just be really thoughtful with what I buy - and actually try it on.

Four A's of Dating
OK, new nickname time. I have a friend at work that I take smoke breaks with and he cracks me up (he's the one who said I looked like I'd just walked out of Chanel) and we, for some reason, bag on Gywenth Paltrow a lot (no disrespect meant by the spelling of her name; I just don't know how to spell it and I am too lazy to look). We also keep trying to find celebrities to follow because we're like that. I'll call him Liberace until he IMs me back with a preferred nickname.

So we went out for a smoke and we were talking about dating and he laid out the Four A's of Dating, something I'd never heard about. Maybe you haven't either so here you go.

1. Available. Not only should you both be totally single, neither one of you should be hung up on a past partner (see my last post about people who really need to move on). So physically and emotionally available.
2. Affluent. This doesn't mean wealthy but you should have similar socioeconomic backgrounds and career focus. I think that's what he said. It sort of made sense at the time.
3. Appropriate. You should only date people you wouldn't be ashamed of meeting your friends or family. His analogy was dating some 22 year old because people would look at him like "mid life crisis much?" Makes sense.
4. Attraction. Both parties should be physically and emotionally attracted to one another or it just won't work. 

 Makes a lot of sense when you think about it. The Bat and I were attracted to one another physically but that's about all we ever had going for us. Well, we come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds but our jobs are very different and I think we have very different career goals/ambition. And it is totally OK that we really only had the physical attraction thing going for us because we had a lot of fun together for awhile there. Plus, it's always good to learn new things about people and about how men might view me so yay for learning.

Now, when I start dating again, I have some things to keep in mind. But I won't be jumping back into the game as fast as Bruce would like (that was the name my friend picked after he said "Super Happy, With it Gay Friend") because I still need to get out of the house and get myself settled and just focus on me. 

Besides, I still have some shopping to do.