2012 in review
A Woman’s Story: Falling in Love With My Gay Best Friend
Women’s News: Some Dos and Don’ts for People Without Kids When Dealing With Their Breeder Friends
2012 in review
Thank you everyone for all the love that you have shown LadyRomp.com in 2012!!! I love you all, thank you.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Women’s News: Some Dos and Don’ts for People Without Kids When Dealing With Their Breeder Friends
JD Roberto
Writer and TV Host of The Better Show
Most of my childless friends have adapted amazingly well to the changes that my being a parent has brought to our relationship. I imagine that it must be hard to watch a friend get swallowed whole by a completely foreign set of experiences. Since I’m the one getting swallowed, I can’t know what that’s like — but I can offer a few (entirely unsolicited) dos and don’ts to those who have not, as yet, procreated.
DO volunteer to help out with the kids. Maybe you don’t consider yourself to be “a kid person,” and that’s okay. I don’t consider myself to be “a furniture person,” but I still wouldn’t stand there and watch you move a couch all alone. Kids come with an absurdly long list of both gear and needs that we have to juggle. Learning how to put in and take out a car seat, or getting little Timmy a refill on his milk, might be things well outside your comfort zone, but they can be an enormous relief to a busy parent. Besides, that’s what friends do.
DON’T buy into to the myth that the lives of people with kids are awash with indescribable depth and meaning. Yes, we’re having an amazing and unique set of experiences, some of which are genuinely profound. Most of those experiences, however, are mundane and some are downright tedious. If you live your life right, while we’re busy at home changing diapers, doing homework and folding laundry, you can be having your own set of unique and amazing experiences. Your experiences will be different, but don’t let us try to convince you that ours are better by virtue of including offspring.
DO decline invitations to kids’ parties and do invite us to do great grown-up things that aren’t child-friendly. We ask you to soirées at Chuck E. Cheese not because we think you’ve been dying to try the new pizza buffet, but because not inviting you might communicate that we don’t want you around. Most parents have the good sense to not be offended if you pass on the opportunity to come to GymMania for cake and a trampoline. On the flip side, please invite me to that wine tasting/concert/beer and bowling tournament on Friday at midnight. No, I probably won’t go and, yes, I’ll blame it on the kids. But I need my childless friends to anchor me to the pre-procreation version of myself that understood that there’s more to life than sippy cups and soccer games.
DON’T describe yourself as exhausted/insanely busy/stressed. Of course you’re each and every one of those things, we all are. And that’s the point. Parenting has all the same demands, stresses and deadlines that you do plus we get to add perpetual responsibility for a small, needy, inquisitive, “me” machine to the ‘to do’ list. Have a bad enough week and you can crawl into bed Friday at 6 p.m. with a box of Chardonnay, some Hot Pockets and the remote control and not get up for three days. Your worst-case scenario is probably a nasty personal hygiene problem. If a couple of parents do the same thing, there’s a good chance that someone will die.
DO travel for fun, go to movies, be spontaneous, use profanity when none is called for, spend money thoughtlessly, have sex on the kitchen floor, leave sharp objects and dangerous medications all over the house, watch the unrated directors cut of “Showgirls” on the flat-screen in the living room, listen to whatever you like in the car, have coffee and read the paper in silence, go out for drinks with people from work without checking in with anyone, sleep on a plane, own modern furniture with lots of glass and sharp edges, have a long, uninterrupted phone conversation and sleep late. Seriously, you have no idea how awesome all these things are until you can’t do them anymore.
DON’T be annoyed by all the pictures of our kids we put on Facebook. Yes, it’s overkill and no — you’re right — they’re not nearly as cute as we think they are. But remember the time you posted a picture of that amazing meal you had at Patina? Okay, imagine that plate of pumpkin risotto followed you home and now you spend 24/7 with it. Imagine that, one day, it started talking or riding a scooter or danced out into the living room wearing a pair of Uggs and a fedora that you didn’t even realize you owned. You’d want the world to see that, right? Imagine that most everything you do revolves around the care and well-being of that delicious entrée and you’ll get an idea why you see so much of our children. I “like” your check-in at spin-class not because I even remotely care that you went to spin class but because I like you and I enjoy knowing what you’re up to. Cute kids are what we’re up to.
Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jd-roberto/friends-with-kids_b_2232807.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women
A Woman’s Story: Falling in Love With My Gay Best Friend
Kristen Houghton
Author of ‘No Woman Diets Alone’ and ‘And Then I’ll Be Happy! Stop Sabotaging Your Happiness’
He’s good-looking, hot, smart, sophisticated, fun and sexy. Oh, and one more thing: He’s gay. You love your gay male guy, but would you risk falling in love with him? It’s an issue that more than one woman has had to deal with in a relationship that is a perfect blend of everything except sex.
During the earliest days of my writing career, my best friend Brett and I were in a situation that we liked to call “dateless dating,” meaning that we weren’t a couple but spent the so-called date nights with each other. Both of us were involved in building our journalism careers, and we had no time for significant others, so we did everything together: movies, Broadway shows and weekend candlelit dinners of pizza and wine. We even went on vacations together, and one time swam naked in the Gulf of Mexico at night. Everyone assumed we were in love but, truly, romance had no part in our relationship. We loved each other but we could never be in love and we never went beyond the quick greeting or parting kiss and hug. I respected Brett’s sexual orientation as he respected mine. Our friendship was the most important issue for us.
Still, despite the no sex part or possibly because we weren’t having sex, we had a great relationship. Walking through the park we’d hold hands, stay for sleep-overs at each others places after all-night research sessions and enjoy each other’s company. We were so perfect together that when we spent holidays together two years in a row, relatives began privately asking me, “When’s the big day?”
I knew there wasn’t going to be a big day for Brett and me; we were just great buddies! I loved him and he loved me, but only as friends.
Brett was always there for me and that was especially true one year after my life had some major upheavals. One Friday while we had our usual candlelight pizza and wine dinner, I poured my heart out to him. There were some unpleasant family issues going on, a deadline I had been damn-sure I’d be able to meet was looming with not much progress on my part and my beautiful ancient car was giving me grief. Brett took me in his arms and we snuggled on the couch while I cried. He told me that I was just overtired and overwhelmed and that everything would be okay. He kissed my hair and held me close.
His arms were strong, he smelled so good, he was very male and suddenly, I was acutely aware of something; I was sexually attracted to Brett. Being in his arms was very arousing. I wanted him and I asked myself, why not?
But, even in my over-tired and wine hazed mind, two things made me consider what I was about to do and made me not do it. One was that I didn’t want to embarrass Brett by making a move that would make him have to choose between doing something he didn’t want to do or rejecting me outright. The second issue was our perfect friendship, which I definitely prized and didn’t want to ruin.
Eventually, I fell asleep in his arms and woke up to find both of us had spent the night on the pull-out couch. Looking at him sleeping in all his innocence, I decided that I had made the right decision. I wanted him in my life and would not risk losing what we had.
As time went on I had to acknowledge, even if just to myself, that I had a major crush on Brett. If he knew, he never let on and I continued to enjoy our relationship the way it was even though I sometimes fantasized about us and found more in his hugs than just friendship.
Eventually I met my love, my so-called “soul mate,” and married him. To my great joy, my husband and Brett hit off as friends, both of them die-hard Yankee fans. Brett met his love too and a couple of years ago, I was an attendant at their wedding. Before his big day, I took Brett out for drinks. After his fourth Blue Moon, he told me something that was sweet and touched my heart.
“You know something Kristen? If things had been different, you know if we were different, I’d be marrying you tomorrow. That’s how much you mean to me. You are a person I want to keep in my life. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded. Oh yes, more than you know. Thank you, Brett.
Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-houghton/gay-best-friend_b_2280424.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women
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