thirty-somethings

life in all its glory

15 Reasons to Date a Social Worker

My friend sent this article to me…for a couple reasons I think…because her and I are single AND we’re going to school to be social workers. 

1.Social workers are compassionate and caring. Empathy is a key ingredient to their success.

2.They are diligent and motivated—after all, the typical social worker must complete graduate school, many hours of supervised experience, and a licensing process.

3.Social workers know how to get along with others. They must be relational and cooperative.

4.They know how to negotiate and compromise, often working within large systems and with a variety of personalities.

5.These people are good listeners, giving focused attention to what people tell them.

6.They have a “service orientation”—their lives are devoted to helping others.

7.Social workers are reliable and dependable. The people they work with rely on their support and guidance at strategic times.

8.They demonstrate poise and self-control. Their job often requires them to maintain composure, keep emotions in check, and avoid confrontation.

9.Social workers employ sound judgment and decision making. They are often placed in critical roles for determining the best course of action for people in need.

10.They are innovative, bringing creativity and resourcefulness to complicated problems.

11.Social workers know how to manage stress. They are called upon to deal calmly and effectively in high-stress situations.

12.They are part of a growing profession, with many opportunities for career mobility and advancement.

13.These professionals are organized and detailed-oriented, often dealing with complex policies and regulations.

14.They have stories to share. Dealing with a range of individuals–often in challenging circumstances–means a social worker’s life is rarely boring.

15.Social workers—as the name implies—have strong social skills. It’s doubtful you’ll have any trouble connecting on a date.

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are you single? here are some rules to live by!

One of my friends posted a super cool article on facebook today and I had to repost it. The original article can be found here

7 Must-Do’s While You’re Single…

1. Live alone. As hard as it is to live alone, you get to know yourself in an extreme, intense, and deeply satisfying way. It teaches us to live happily in solitude. It provides quiet to think. It allows us to become self reliant. I lived alone for 6 years before we got married and I believe, if nothing else, that time provided me a great deal of confidence in my ability to survive.

2. Quit your job. It feels so good to take a job and shove it (and not be affecting anyone else’s livelihood). It doesn’t seem as irresponsible to up and quit when it’s just your mouth you’re feeding. So if the job isn’t right for you, get out of there. Don’t waste another minute – this is your life we’re talking about.

3. Fly to a foreign country by yourself. I was nervous on my first solo trip to Mexico, even though now I almost always have to travel alone. You learn so much about who you are in how you handle foreign currency, foreign accents, and foreign chaos. It’s a cultural adventure and doing it alone, without worrying of checking in, when to call, and when to be back, is quite exhilarating.

4. Spend a weekend with a married couple your age. Listen to how they speak to one another. Notice their non-verbals. Ask about the rhythms of their daily life. Make a mental note: marriage is not perfect, nor is it the solution to what ails you. Be happy for your married friends and satisfied in where you’re at today. Know that many of us stay single forever, and that’s great. Life is about community, food, faith , travel, relationships, and love. Not just marriage. 

5. Take a long trip with your best friend. Plan a trip you won’t be able to take once you are married because your spouse will either: a) want to join or b) not be able to survive the time without you. You can backpack through Southeast Asia, staying at random hostels, or couch surf your way through Western Europe. I have a friend Jeddidiah Jenkins who over 18 months (right now) is riding his bike from Oregon to Patagonia with a few of his close friends. Get out there and go.

6. Be completely, utterly, wholly single for at least three months. Stop trying to date someone constantly. Fast from the hunt, from the hope, of another person coming into your life. Sit fully into your singleness and see what you find. Hopping wildly from one relationship to the next can do you a disservice. You’re never more ripe for self-reflection than when you’re on your own — and the more you know yourself, the more likely you are to find someone who’s right for the real you.

7. Be a good wingwoman or wingman (and watch Top Gun).It’s not always about you. Sometimes your best friends need your full-on support in their pursuit of risk and romance. Finding someone to love and putting yourself out there is not easy, but with a good friend at your side who eloquently drops the high points of your resume during a conversation with an exciting suitor, it can become much less complicated.

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the many men in my life

the “many” may be a little bit of an exaggeration…but I said I was going to post an update about what’s going on in my dating life (or lack there of). 

Here they are: 

Mr. Linguist: I have a date with this guy on Monday. Not sure what we’re doing but I know we’re hanging out after class. I was initially into him because his profile listed he speaks 5 languages. I LOVE languages (my goal in life is to learn and master 5, I have 3 so 2 more to go). Anyways, I message him asking him if he really speaks all those languages and he replies with 

“No, I’m Not fluent in all of them. My Spanish is pretty strong. I can speak and write and know some clever terms. Chinese is very elementary. I can read Portuguese and get the overall idea of the conversation , but can’t speak very much. The Italian is poor and only consist of travelers words. Ideally I’d like to be able to converse in Portuguese and Chinese-at least that’s the goal.”

First of all, if you have that much of an explanation for languages you supposedly speak, YOU DO NOT SPEAK THEM. Therefore you should be listing them on your profile. Anyways, aside from that…he’s been a nice guy. Except…he has random bad spelling moments. He’ll use “they’re” correctly but wrote “bot,” yes…bot. Instead of bought. Ugh. He’s into getting to know me which is nice, constantly asking questions and what not. I think he’s cute. But he just disclosed some potential deal breaker information. He’s very religious. It’s usually a deal breaker because I think he may be one of those guys that wants to find somebody to go to church with every Sunday. I asked him if me not being religious is a problem but he hasn’t responded.  We’ll see. I can see our first day going pretty swimmingly. 

Mr. Lazy Ass: I rated him highly on okcupid then he messaged me yesterday saying I was cute. After a couple of messages he said he wanted to chat (outside of okc). So I gave him my number and then he says “text me” and gives me his number. So he wants me to make the initial effort. Fine, whatever. His about me section on his profile has no information about him [all it says is “hello]. I don’t even know why I rated him highly now that I look back at it. It was probably because he had some really cute information about his nieces, I thought it was adorable. Anyways, I’ve noticed he doesn’t like to talk about himself. I get it, somebody don’t talk about themselves. But fucking eh, it’s so frustrating! I asked him to tell me a little bit about himself and he responds with “just ask me whatever you want, i’m an open book!” Uhhh, excuse me sir….I asked you a specific question, how about you answer it?! Also, he called me babe quite a few times. That’s weird. I’m not your babe, my name is Debora. I had to straight up say “don’t you think it’s too soon to be calling me babe?” He said it so many times and it made me feel so freaking uncomfortable each and every time. I had to put an end to it. Today, he asks me for a picture and in return I ask him for his last name because of my mild OCD and every contact in my phone has a first and last name. I’m being serious. Every single person (except my parents and sister) has their first and last name! HE REFUSED! Said it was tmi and that maybe we should get to know each other better first and asked for my picture again. Wtf. After you refuse to give me your last name, you think I’m going to send you a picture? LOL. you’re trippin. I mean, I understand some people are more private than others but this may or may not be a red flag. I don’t know how I feel about it. I’d love to hear what y’all think about this. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for him to tell me about himself. HE STILL HASN’T! He keeps wanting to call me so we can talk but it was late last night and I wanted to go to sleep and now he wants to talk again but I’m at work (obviously working really hard since I’m writing this while at the office). All I know is that he’s some fucking warehouse supervisor that works graveyard. I don’t even know if our schedules are going to be compatible. I work and go to school during the day while he sleeps and while I sleep, he works. So far he’s been more of an annoyance than anything. We’ll see what happens. Maybe he’s just awkward with texting. We’ll see how I feel when I talk to him on the phone. 

And lastly, there’s Mr. Sexual. His first message was “Hey, wanna come over my place?” at nearly 10pm the other night. I didn’t because I’m a classy lady (duh). We’ve been talking ever since. We were asking each other a bunch of questions last night and most of his questions had to do with sexual things. They were mostly harmless though so I didn’t mind playing along. He said he originally joined okcupid because it’s been a while since he’s had sex but that if something else [relationship] happens, he’s okay with that too. I don’t know how much I believe it lol. He’s not into sports which I haven’t decided is a deal breaker for me or not. He said that I’m a “typical so cal person” for being a Lakers fan. I don’t know what he’s basing this off of since he doesn’t follow sports lol and last time I checked there are two teams out here and there are plenty of people who hate the Lakers (clearly this is a touchy subject for me) ANDDDD…if you live in a city where there’s a basketball team in, you’re OBVIOUSLY going to hear a lot of people say they like that team, duh! Another wtf moment. Anyways… aside from him wanting to show me up in a sports conversation which he will not win…he’s nice, funny and smart. He’s nice to talk to. I need somebody to be a distraction. He’ll do. 

And if you didn’t see in one of my previous post, I decided to break it off with Mr. Indifferent. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to keep stringing him along while I attempted to convince myself to date this guy. 

That’s it for now, folks! 

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Mr. Indifferent

I’ve been chit chatting with this guy for just about two weeks. It has mostly been filled with really annoying small talk such as “hey, how’s your day going?” “oh, it’s good. and yours?” “it’s going ok.” Blah blah blahhhhh. 

I never realized how much I hate the word okay until I started talking to him. He’s always just okay. I use words such as wonderful, fantastic, glorious, etc. to describe how I’m doing. Now, I understand not everybody is as eccentric as I am but sometimes I just feel like screaming at him JUST LIVEN THE FUCK UP ALREADY!!! 

I can tell that he’s one of those guys that’s just kinda down on life and not for any particular reason. Just kinda blah. I battle my own depression. I do not have the time nor the energy to pull somebody out of their funk

From his pictures, I can already tell I’m not all that attracted to him. I don’t feel any sort of connection while chatting with him. I can go all day not hearing anything from him and I’m totally fine with it. He isn’t very talkative, he barely has a personality, and he keeps to himself. That doesn’t work for me. 

He’s been wanting to take me out but I’ve been super busy. I know I’m supposed to be giving this whole “yes man” thing a go…but I feel like I’m just trying to convince myself to give this guy a shot. I’m pretty sure that’s not what it’s supposed to be like but I could be wrong.

I know I have nothing to lose by going out with this guy but I already know I’m not going to be into him. I feel kinda bad cause I’ve been talking to him this long. Do I just go anyways? But that’s not fair to either of us, right? 

To go or not to go?!?! 

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speed dating in all its glory

Speed dating was very interesting to say the least. I’m so happy I went because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do so now I can cross it off of my bucket list! Yes, speed dating was on my bucket list. Don’t judge me. I don’t think I met anybody that I’m interesting in dating but I met a couple of interesting people. I hope that makes sense. This event was put on through Match.com and I’m a little confused as to how it’s supposed to work after it’s all done. Apparently we’re supposed to get a list of all the members that attended and we message them on there. We can only read and message members if they’ve subscribed to match. How is somebody supposed to read a message if they aren’t a subscribed member? I should’ve asked but once I got there, everything happened so fast! 

So, to change up how I usually write…I decided to take pictures that’ll walk you through my thought process. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I did taking them. Some of the pictures aren’t attractive and it’s facial expressions like those that probably make me single but hey…it’s who I am and I have a damn good time being me. 

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  1. YAY!!! SPEED DATING!!! 
  2. oh wait, I live in LA. I should’ve left two hours before the start time. It took me 1.5 hours to drive what should have been a 40 minute drive. 
  3. Okay, I’m here! Totally late but I haven’t missed anything just yet. 
  4. WAAAAIIIITTTTTT!! Mr. Awesome. You’re funny, attractive, smart, and all around super awesome. You just walked away from me! Rejection sucks. 
  5. Back from break. Let’s show those pearly whites! 
  6. You said whaaaa?!?!!? An ice breaker question was “what are you most proud of?” The dude answered: NOTHING! How are you proud of nothing? I wouldn’t even say I’ve accomplished all that much in my life but I know I’m a damn good sister, daughter, employee, and student. I’m proud of being alive. 
  7. What time is it?!?!?! It’s just about that time for me to go home. 
  8. We’ve gone full circle folks. The first guy I spoke to is the guy I got along with the most. I stand up….and I realize the dude is literally the shortest guy there. WHAT THE HELL?!?! Not only the shortest guy there but shorter than me 😦 Fuck. He messaged me at 1:49 this morning, eager much?!? Also, picture this: you know how a girl puts hair behind her ear. He did that, constantly! Except…he has short hair. It was very distracting.  

Hope you’ve enjoyed the story! All in all, I don’t think I’ll ever go speed dating again because being rejected to your face multiple times in such a short period of time is pretty disheartening BUT I’m still so glad I went. I’m so incredibly proud of myself for doing something out of my comfort zone and I did it ALL BY MYSELF! yeah! So awesome.  

 

 

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Mr. 007

Back in October, I met a guy…we can call him Mr. 007. We really hit it off, or so I thought. We had a couple of dates, we even made out! It would’ve probably gone further had I allowed it. 

In the midst of our “hanging out” phase, I found him on instagram. Yeah, I know…it’s stalkerish, judge me if you want. I noticed he was hanging out with a particular chick quite often. I tried not to think much of it because I have a lot of guy friends so I can’t be too judgmental. One night he called me around 10:30pm saying I should come over. We all know that’s booty call time. I prefaced my answer by saying I really don’t want you to get offended and explained to him that I wasn’t going to come over because I actually kinda liked him and didn’t want to ruin things by bringing sex into the equation too soon. It was a little more wordy than that but you all get the point. He got super butt hurt and sorta became an asshole. I’m pretty sure he had been drinking. We said our good nights and what not. I never heard from him again. 

Until about last week. Yes, last week. THREE months later. He hits me up out of the blue saying it’s been a long time since we’ve spoken blah blah. I respond hours later because “I was busy.” We end up actually talking on the phone later on that night and made it seem that I was the one that didn’t contact him. UM NO. I told him he got all butt hurt when I didn’t come over late at night and never heard from him. His response actually surprised me, he said “I can see why that left a sour taste in your mouth, I apologize.” 

Wow. He apologized. Cool! I told him it was fine because we had only hung out a couple of times. 

Anyways, I end up checking him out on instagram again. Well, because I needed to see what happened during this three month hiatus. Turns out…him and that broad became a couple. I think they’re broken up though because he had a recent picture with #singlelife. WTF? 

Mr.007 disappeared for a couple of days and said he wasn’t ignoring me and he was just busy. We talked a bit the next day (on saturday) but I haven’t heard from him since. It was a few texts back and forth but he completely ignored my last text. And boom, he’s gone…again.  

WHY MUST YOU CONTACT ME IF YOU DON’T PLAN ON GOING THROUGH WITH IT?! Just fuck off Mr.007. If you text me again, I’m probably going to say…listen if you’re into me then take the fucking time to show it, if not…delete my damn number. 

 

Sorry for my rant. I’m irritated, hungry and all alone in the office today. 

 

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disappearing acts and my two-date curse

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I suppose it’s time for me to give an update on Mr. C&C. I’ve been postponing my update because I’m a little irritated by it. Whatever, it’s time to get it out. We ended up going out on a second “date.” We had coffee and we paid for our own drinks. Is that even considered a date? I guess. It went well though. No awkward silences, conversation flowed, and we laughed at each others jokes. However, I still felt he wasn’t into me.

The date ended in a hug. We texted a bit later on that night and he said he wanted to go out a third time. That was when I started getting a little excited. I thought maybe he actually was into me and I’d finally break my two date curse. We talked for another day or so but the ever-so-dreaded disappearing act happened (other online daters know exactly what I’m talking about). I had stopped messaging him as much as I had been and he stopped messaging me all together.

Why did he mention hanging out a third time if he had no intention of following through? Now I keep thinking about what I did wrong. What could I have done differently? We ran into one of my guy friends and I introduced Mr. C&C as my friend. It was an accident, it totally slipped but when I asked my friend if I should address it he said no. If it was an issue, I guess Mr. C&C wouldn’t have asked me out for a third time. Or maybe it was the fact that I stopped putting in the effort, but if he was legitimately interested, he would put in the effort. Right? I’m not a very flirty person….maybe I could have been more flirtatious.

I’m frustrated and feeling discouraged. I’m having one of those “I’m really tired of being single” moments. It doesn’t happen all the time but that feeling creeps up every so often. Go away icky feeling, you are no longer wanted.

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i just want to feel wanted

I’ve been in a little bit of a funk lately. I think it’s about time I try and sort through these thoughts of mine.

Wanting to feel wanted applies to many aspects of my life. Not just dating; although, the point of my post is about the dating aspect, I think.

I’m not a fan of my job; actually…I kind of hate it. But, it is what it is. I’m (hopefully) going to start grad school in the fall, so things will change soon! I don’t feel like I’m needed/wanted there. I don’t feel challenged. I feel that everything would be just fine if I wasn’t there.

With my friends, I just want to feel that they think about me when they hang out and want me to join them so they call me and invite me. Even if it is last minute. I just want to know that I crossed somebody’s mind.

Even in my dating life…I want to feel wanted. I was recently at one of my friends house and her boyfriend was there. Throughout the night, he referred to her as beautiful, pretty, sexy, and maybe a couple other words describing how good looking she is. I love that she’s with somebody like that. She deserves it. I’ve never had that though. I’ve never had a man I’m seeing say that to me. Is that weird? I think it is. It’s no wonder why I don’t ever feel sexy, nobody has ever made me feel attractive. I know I’m not super mega attractive but I know I’m not ugly.

Every now and again, I’ll get an occasional “you have such a gorgeous smile!” Yeah, I know. Thanks. 

I want a guy to look at me and for me to feel he wants to rip off my clothes. Obviously not all of the time, but every now and again…at least. Is that for real? Or is that something that’s just in books I read or movies I watch?

Maybe I need to learn how to feel sexy before I expect somebody else to find me sexy. I don’t know how exactly I can do that. I’ll do some research.

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Mr. Calm and Collected

There have been new developments with Mr. Calm and Collected. We still haven’t met. I attempted to bring up us meeting in person and I failed miserably. I’m generally a very open person and very comfortable speaking my mind; however, when it comes to guys (I like)…I get very awkward. I don’t know why that is but it’s been like this for as long as I can remember. Anyways, here’s how our conversation went down: 

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I may or may not have handled that the way that I should have. I got awkward, I didn’t know what to say. So I figured I wouldn’t bring it up anymore. Fast forward to a couple days later, this conversation went down: 

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We had a wonderful phone conversation later that night but no date was set for us to meet. 

We’ve continued to exchange numerous messages to each other and he just keeps getting better and better. It’s getting out of control. Turns out he played soccer for 15 years (I’m brasilian, this is a major deal for me!), he understands/appreciates my obsession with penguins (my obsession may be a little unhealthy but he gets it), he is a pretty big fan of amusement parks (EVEN DISNEYLAND!!!!), and the fucking icing on the cake: HE HAS A MOTORCYCLE. If it was possible for me to cream myself, I would’ve when I found this out. 

Now, I don’t know if this is necessarily weird or bad or I don’t know…but he hasn’t complimented me. Is that weird? I’m not fishing for compliments or anything but when I tell him how awesome he is or that I think he’s super cute, he doesn’t return the compliment. Like I said, I’m not fishing for compliments but that’s generally how you gauge whether or not somebody is interested in you romantically, right? I could be wrong because he does a considerable amount of time messaging me throughout the day. That means he’s interested, right? Ugh. 

Is there a certain amount of time I should wait until I bring up us meeting? Should I even bring it up? 

 

 

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dreaded questions

Obviously when you’re getting to know somebody…you ask many questions. Sometimes you don’t really know what to ask or say and you end up asking something ridiculous. Here’s a list of questions I absolutely despise:

1. What do you look for in a guy? Okay, so I understand the meaning behind this question but I really don’t know how to answer it. Sometimes I just want to say: “I don’t know, somebody decent enough to be in a relationship.” I don’t want to sit there and list all of the things I’m looking for in a guy. I also have a short little paragraph written in my profile about some things I’m looking for.

2. When was the last time you were in a relationship? Honestly, why does that even matter? I’m sure it’s because you want to see if I’m not over an ex or something. But it’s super awkward answering that question. Why? Because I’ve never really had a long term relationship. I’ve had very short relationships (and not many at that). Does that make me weird? I don’t know. I had a guy ask me that and then later referred back to me never being in a relationship as if I was some kind of freak.

3. What do you do for fun? I know I wrote about this in my last post. This one is awkward for me because I do all sorts of random things. I do whatever comes up.

4. Why are you single? Now, this is by far my LEAST favorite question. I hate it. This question is usually following some sort of compliment: “Wow, you’re so awesome. Why are you single?” Listen dude, if I knew WHY I was single, I wouldn’t be single! Are you expecting me to say some crazy ass reason? Like…”Oh I’m actually a psychopath and I enjoy killing small animals.” (This isn’t true just FYI). Why does there have to be a reason, anyways? I’m single and that’s that. Get off my case.

I’d love to hear what other questions you all don’t like being ask! I’m sure I’m missing quite a few.

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