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The Do’s and Don’ts of Staying Friends with an Ex

We’ve all been there. That fateful moment after a breakup where someone attempts to soften the blow by asking, “We can still be friends, right?” As much as we crave that comfort, there are plenty of reasons that attempting to stay friends is a bad idea. This week Ellie contributed her two cents on the issue, alongside other advice from experts,  to Heather Rinder at Her Campus, the online community for college women. Check out the article below:

After a break-up it’s easy to not only feel hurt and upset, but lonely too. You’ve spent a significant amount of time with a person who is suddenly no longer in your life, either in the same way, or at all. It’s natural to want to maintain a relationship with that person – calling them, finding ways to bump into them during the day, or planning “casual” lunch dates. Sometimes, though, this is exactly the opposite of what you need.

Her Campus spoke with relationship and break-up experts Dan Lier, of AskDanandMike.com, Ellie Scarborough, of PinkKisses.com, Dr. Ish. Major, of LittleWhiteWhys.com, and Dr. D. Ivan Young, author of Break up, Don’t Break Down for tips on when it’s OK to contact him, and when you have to just let go.

Here we list the do’s and don’ts of staying friends with an ex.

Don’ts:

Don’t enter into a “friendship” if you still feel romantic love.
Scarborough suggests a no-contact rule for at least 90 days after the break-up. “Instead of putting your energy into trying to be friends with the person you just broke up with, put that energy into other relationships like friends and family who you might have neglected a bit during the relationship,” she says.

Click here to read the full article

Pink Kisses Answers: How do you handle messages from your married ex?

Every so often Ellie answers questions that pop up from the Austin community & beyond through a lovely Website calledCultureMap. Today, she tackled this tough question:

Q: In the last month, two of my exes from the past eight years have contacted me either by phone or sending a message on Facebook (and we’re NOT Facebook friends). Is there something in the water? I’ve moved on (although I’m still single), and they are either in relationships or married.

How do I respond? I’m not interested in being friends or reconnecting, and I’m not even sure it’s healthy that they are contacting me. I don’t want to be rude, but I also understand they are in my past for a reason and I didn’t want them in my future. How do I get rid of them? I mean, I’d be mad if my man was contacting his ex out of the blue!

A: Girl, go with your gut on this one. If it feels yucky about the whole situation, it should.

To read the rest of what she has to say, click here.

And below, in the comments, we want to know if you’ve ever been faced with a similar situation. How’d you handle it?

xx

The PK Team

Ellie proves that heartbreak is the universal language

Wow! Pink Kisses got a ton of love leading up to this Valentine’s Day & we thought we’d share a few highlights with you bombshells today… seems that heartbreak is a universal language & being single on Valentine’s Day is a hot topic. See? You’re truly not alone!

~Ellie’s chosen to be profiled in an Entrepreneur video series on CultureMap~

Ellie Scarborough of Pink Kisses: Building bombshells one woman at a time

by Caitlin Ryan

and here’s a little snippet:

“I had to use my skills as a journalist to be the best spokesperson on the planet for this,” Scarborough says. “In order to maintain and build dominance in this field, I had to be out there talking about this and doing it better than anyone else who had any kind of similar product.”

That kind of tenacity landed PK on the pages of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post and on countless national news segments.

read the full article

~ Ellie visited Fox for a fun interview with anchor Keri Bellacosa~

Valentine’s Day for Singles

check it: Valentine’s Day for Singles: MyFoxAUSTIN.com

~Ellie’s named one of the top relationship bloggers in Austin~

Looking for love in all the wrong places? Meet Austin’s top dating/relationship bloggers

by Shelly Seale

one of Ellie’s quotes from the piece:

“I’m a firm believer in not trying to go anywhere or do anything just to meet a date. Live your life, follow your passions and be open to finding something valuable in every single person who crosses your path. If you’re chasing your dreams with your eyes wide open, you’re bound to meet incredible people.”

check out the full article

Whew. As you can imagine, we’re a bit worn out over here… but loving that the media took time to go a little deeper this Valentine’s Day and tell stories that weren’t the typical lovey-dovey mumbo jumbo. What moved us the most was the incredible response from our awesome community and how you ladies really stepped up and let your bombshell-ness shine. It’s official, we have the best job on the planet!!

xx

the PK team

Pk Press: Ellie dishes with Forbes…

We don’t like to brag, but this is just too juicy not to share… This morning, Ellie was featured on Forbes’ website.

Over the last two years, she’s been studying how women work around heartbreak– our emotions, our strengths, our vulnerabilities and our need for community through it all. Ellie’s take is that women are stronger than we give ourselves credit for & more resilient that we believe… and this is where her saying, “forget your ex & find your inner bombshell” came from.

So, if you’d like a peek inside Ellie’s brain about her perspective on building a community, click on. After all, you’re the very reason she’s devoted her life to building bombshells.

xx

the PK team

lessons from splitsville: celebrity edition

Quick!  Pretend you’re a publicist for a celebrity – let’s call her Barbie – who just went through a split, and it’s your job to draft up a statement for the press.  Go.

…done?  Great.  I’ll bet you wrote something like “Barbie asks that you respect her privacy during this difficult time” and “The couple remain friends.”  Am I right?  Because if you think back to every high-profile split in recent history that doesn’t involve mudslinging, that canned “friends” line always seems to make it into the news reports, whether it’s true or not.  It just sounds good, right?  Very storybook.  “Oh, we’re friends.  Really.  He’s great!  It wasn’t in the stars – we can still hang out – it’s just not like that anymore.”

OK, now think back to the last time you went through a breakup and tried to stay friends (in real life, with your non-famous ex. We’ve hopped out of Hollywood for a moment and snapped back to real life here). While you were in your “we’re still friends” phase and his name popped up on your phone, did you really react the same way you do when any other friend texts or calls, or did your heart still skip a beat?  How about when your phone buzzed and you thought it was him, but it turned out to be someone else?  Would your heart sink a little?  Would you start glancing over at it every few minutes, getting more and more aggravated as the minutes ticked by without him sending word?

What about when a new girl popped up on his Facebook page with flirtatious little wall posts?  Did you have the same reaction you would when a cute stranger pops up on one of your actual friends’ walls?  Did you feel a supportive little rush of excitement for him, or did you suffer a mild to moderate anxiety attack and send yourself into a tailspin?

Let’s be honest: when you’re friends with your ex, you’re not really friends with your ex.  You’re pretending to be friends with your ex, and in doing so, you’re giving him all sorts of power over you.  Sure, we earnestly want to keep our exes in our lives – partly because of the comfort level we established when we were together and the fact that we just miss them when they’re gone, and partly because it seems like the adult thing to do.  But when all it ultimately does is hurt us, the truly mature thing to do is call a spade a spade.

There’s never any reason for name-calling and tire-slashing, but really, let’s not kid ourselves when it comes to “staying on good terms.”  The absolute best way to stay on good terms with an ex is to wish him well and ensconce yourself in the protective coating of the no-contact rule.  It’s the only way to move on with grace and reclaim your happiness without him having any say in the matter.  The whole “the couple remain friends” thing serves but two purposes: in real life, it gives us an excuse to torture ourselves and incessantly press the bruise in the name of being a grown-up (when really, the emotional rollercoaster we’ve placed ourselves on is actually pretty childish) and in Hollywood, it gives celebrity publicists an excuse to end a statement gracefully and hang up on the gossip reporter hounding them about their clients’ personal lives.

Here’s a breath of fresh — and honest — air: Eva Longoria said in a recent interview that she and ex-husband Tony Parker are “on good terms,” but when asked if they still talk, her response was a simple “no.”  And who can blame her?  She’s moved on.  She seems happy.  And there’s nothing wrong with saying “I wish him well, but we’re not in contact anymore.”

So now, let’s pretend for a second you’re wildly famous, with a closet full of Louboutins, a glam squad and a team of advisers, managers and agents.  Pretend I’m your publicist. Let’s draft up a little statement about your recent breakup:

“(Your name) asks that her privacy be respected during this difficult time.  She and (dude’s name) are no longer in contact, but she wishes him the best.”

See, isn’t that a smarter truth to live with?  And won’t it help you restore the normal, healthy relationship you used to have with your phone… and your sanity… and your confidence?  We think so too.  Now let’s dig into that pile of scripts over there and find a new challenge to conquer.

sugar & spice & everything nice

I was falling down my daily rabbit hole of interesting blogs, articles, status updates and re-pins last week when something shiny caught my eye.  This video hinted at something I knew I needed to see, because… well, just look at it.

The film it references, Miss Representation, tackles the subject of how women are portrayed in the media, the messages we’re sending to young girls and the fact that we’re ignoring way too many opportunities to cultivate intelligence and individuality in our next generation of women.

I once did some blogging for a site called NerdGirls.com – an online community that encourages young girls to get excited about math, science and engineering.  A bunch of uber-smart engineering students – all females – and one of their professors at Tufts University launched the site when they looked around and realized how vastly outnumbered they were in their industry. They were spurred on by the fact that in America, although boys and girls are neck-and-neck in math and science aptitude scores in elementary school, girls’ scores begin dropping dramatically in middle school while boys continue to excel in those subjects. That gap has gone unchecked, and it shows in an engineering workforce dramatically dominated by men.  When I first came into contact with NerdGirls, I thought to myself, “I was absolutely fascinated by science until… yep, about 7th grade.  And then for some reason I lost interest, and nobody fostered my love of it anymore.”

Likewise, the promo reel for Miss Representation declares: “Little boys and little girls, when they’re seven years old – in equal number – want to be President of the United States when they grow up. But then you ask the same question when they’re 15 and you see this massive gap emerging…” meaning that somewhere in middle school, a lot of girls are giving up on their dreams.

You know what?  That pisses me off.

I’ve been lucky.  I’ve had an amazing father, close friendships with boys, and relationships with guys who may not have ultimately been right for me but were at least generally respectful of me as a person.  Thanks to awesome parents and some pretty amazing teachers, I grew up believing I could be anything I wanted to be.  I consider myself a “child of the Madonna generation” – basically, I feel like most of us who were in school in the 80’s grew up with the understanding that we didn’t have to sacrifice our femininity for success; that we didn’t have to be meek and mild, or sweet and silent, or anything anyone limited us to, really.  We could be whatever we wanted when we grew up, because the sky was the limit.

I wonder, though, how many other girls grew up with that same perspective, and how many young girls feel that way today.  Make no mistake about it: as a society, we sexualize girls at a really young age in the entertainment industry, and sometimes I wonder how much more self-conscious school-age girls are these days compared to, say, 1989, when I was bopping around Hendricks Day School in my neon scrunchie, listening to my New Kids on the Block cassette tapes.  We send a lot of mixed messages to girls, and it must be tough for them to cut through all the hyper-self-promotional YouTube clutter and decipher that it’s okay to be smart, strong and unapologetic about it.  I often joke that if I ever have a daughter, I kind of want to home-school her, control her web access with an iron fist and keep her in a bubble until she’s 30, even though I don’t really consider that to be anything close to good parenting.  But… truth?  I’m only half-kidding.

Last month, JC Penney got into a bit of hot water over a t-shirt they were selling.  It was available in their juniors department, and it said, “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.”  Insert eye roll here.  Long story short, the public freaked out, the shirts were pulled from shelves, and the company admitted the message was inappropriate.  But riddle me this: how did that shirt ever make it onto the shelves in the first place?

Around here, we’re not anti-men.  We’re not anti-relationships.  We’re all about treating ourselves and one another with respect and enjoying the differences across genders without placing one above another.  But it has to be said: we worry sometimes about the patterns of low self-esteem we see in so many of the emails we receive from girls out there who are facing a tough time in their lives and feel worthless.  The thing is, each and every one of us has something to contribute.  It’s never too late to pick up an old passion and cultivate it into something awesome.  It’s never too late to rebuild your self-confidence.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was five years old, yet I stopped writing for almost the entirety of a 6-year relationship in my 20’s because he didn’t get it… didn’t foster it… didn’t encourage me.  In retrospect, that’s no excuse.  Later, I dated someone who pointed out what a big vocabulary I have, and although he said he thought it was cool, I could tell it freaked him out a little and wound up subconsciously using simpler word choices whenever we were together so I wouldn’t emasculate him.  For the record, that one was my bad, too.  My takeaway from those two relationships is this: I’ll never let it happen again.  Never again in my life will I let the people around me push down something I was meant to do, intentionally or otherwise.  If I’m lacking inspiration or support, I’ll make a point of finding some.

If there’s a part of you that you’re suppressing in the hopes of catching someone’s eye – if there’s a talent you’re hiding because you don’t want to freak someone out – if you are even for one nanosecond downplaying your intelligence, your individuality, or your general awesomeness because you don’t know how someone else is going to take it, stop.  Stop right now.  Chase your dreams without apology, and while you’re at it, find a little girl and give her some encouragement.  For all you know, it may be the only “attagirl” she’s gotten in a really long time, and you can be the one to give it to her.  Set an example for everyone around you by living the life you’re supposed to be living… the kind in which you get to be whoever you want and shine as brightly as you please.

PK2U,

Amy

let’s do the time warp again

A year ago today, I broke up with someone with whom I’d just started getting kind of serious, and it ripped me apart a lot more than I thought it would.  I’ve written about it a smidge here and there over the past 12 months, but today, when I look back on that particular night when it ended, I have to shake my head at how absolutely broken I was over the whole thing.  In retrospect, it’s almost sort of silly, even though my feelings at the time were real.

There’s a day in the Betty Plan, toward the end, where we instruct you to write a letter to yourself.  The point is to think back to your lowest moment after your breakup and write words of encouragement to that past version of you, who could most definitely use a little reassurance that she’s going to be okay.  Today, exactly one year after my last breakup, I’ve got some news to share with the 2010 edition of myself.  Here goes:

Oh hi there.  This is you from the future. No, this isn’t a joke.  I’m writing you because… well, being from the future and all, I know what’s about to happen in your life.  I want to give you fair warning about the crap that’s about to go down… but to ease the burn, I also want to blow your mind a little.

Some kid is going to break your heart tonight.   You just had an amazing time in New York with him, but now, kaboom — it’s about to be over.  It sucks.  You’re going to spend the next few weeks kicking yourself, frustrated, wondering what the hell was wrong with you for thinking he might be there for the long haul.  But soon enough you’ll figure out what the problem was: he really was genuinely just a kid.  A nice kid, but a KID.  Seriously, Aim.  He’s got a lot of growing up to do, and you’ve known it from the start.

You’re always talking about how short life is, and that’s precisely why you’re going to call it off tonight, even though it’s the last thing you want to do.  But listen: you’re doing the right thing.  Sure, you’re going to regret it for a little while, and it’s going to hurt like hell — but eventually the regret will be replaced with perspective, which is a much nicer thing to have in the end.

In the meantime, let me give you a little preview of what’s about to happen (after tonight and the next few weeks, that is, because there’s no use in reliving that all over again.  Trust me.)

You’re going to do some cool stuff this year. You’re going to accomplish things in the next twelve months that you never thought you could.  Your emotional and intellectual limits are going to be tested, and you’re going to rise to the occasion.

If we’re being honest, you’re going to screw some things up, too, so brace yourself. I’d really love it if you wouldn’t have too much wine at Pedram’s party next week and drunk-text the ex like a total amateur even though you are the creative director for a site whose sole purpose it is to help girls get over breakups AND ENCOURAGE THEM NOT TO DO DUMB THINGS LIKE DRUNK TEXT THE EX.  But hey.  You’re only going to do it once, and then you’re going to smack yourself for it, and then you’re going to move on like you’ve got some sense. So, just… yeah.  Let’s keep right on going, because he doesn’t get to take up any more of your time than he already has.

Here’s a big one: you’re going to spend Christmas this year completely on your own. Before you freak out, though, let me assure you: it’s going to be a defining moment in your life, and the coolest part is, you’ll realize it as it’s happening.  You’ll start your new year off right and sail into a period of redefinition that you’ll someday look back on with fondness.  You’re strong.  You’re resilient.  And you’re about to prove it to yourself, yet again.

Five months from now, you’re finally going to learn to ride a bike.  It’s going to look ridiculous, and yes, there will be pictures (sorry).

Also five months from now, you’re going to get bangs… like, full-on bangs, all the way across your forehead.  You’re going to be excited about it for approximately a day and a half, and then… well, let’s never do that again.  Not as a blonde, anyway.

Nine months from now, in one of your more spaztastic moments, just when you think you couldn’t possibly look like more of an ass, someone’s going to tell you you’re adorable.  And let me tell you something: that someone is cuuuute.

Almost a year from today, you’re going to read an article from Mindy Kaling that is going to make you damn near pee yourself from laughing so hard… it’s about what it’s like to go from dating boys to dating actual, honest-to-god men.  Real ones, with mortgages and character and plans for the future, and the ability to tell you straight up when they think you’re wrong without being a jerk about it, not to mention the ability to tell you how amazing they think you are and mean it, without turning tail and running away afterward.  You deserve one of those. And I don’t want to ruin it for you since I know you love surprises, but let me just say this: I’m pretty sure you’re going to get one.

The most important thing you’re going to do this year, though, is write your face off.  It’s what you were put on this earth to do, and you know it.  So snap open that MacBook (I’ll be through with it in just a second and then it’s all yours again) and get crackin’.  We’ve got some cool-ass stuff to do, you and I.  So let’s do it.

-amy

stay hungry. stay foolish.

The web has been abuzz this past week about Steve Jobs resigning from his post as CEO of Apple.  I’m by no means a zealot, but I’m certainly a girl who loves her banged-up little MacBook and her lime-green iPod that’s ridden shotgun with her on all sorts of adventures and kept her going through many a tiresome treadmill run.  So I only paid marginal attention to all the posts about his transition and the future of technology… until this particular video stopped me dead in my tracks.

There are speeches, and then there are speeches.  I’m not a big fan of talking heads, but something told me to take 15 minutes and just listen.  I’m glad I did, because at the end of that video of his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Jobs said four words that shot right through my chest and landed somewhere between my lungs.

“Stay hungry.  Stay foolish.”

He’d been talking about dropping out of college because he felt guilty for spending his parents’ life savings on his tuition without having a clue what he wanted to do in life.  He’d confessed that being fired from Apple at age 30 was, at the time, one of the biggest failures in his life, but in retrospect, also the best thing that ever happened to him (a concept we’re pretty familiar with around here).  He’d spoken openly about being diagnosed with cancer and coming face to face with his own mortality:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Now, you could easily take those words to mean, quite literally, that it’s a great idea to show up naked on an ex-boyfriend’s doorstep and recite all the reasons the two of you should grow old together… but come on.  You and I both know better than that.  I sat there as I let the words rattle around in my head, and I thought, “Yep.  I’m glad I packed up the dog [and the MacBook] and started a new life in Texas.  I’m glad I got lost once in the middle of Asia.  I’m glad I’m sometimes confident enough in good karma to just let myself float like a leaf on the wind, always knowing who I am but not being afraid to chase some dreams and do what makes me happy.  I’m glad I’ve had the courage — whether I realized it at the time or not — to walk away from more than a few things in life that just weren’t right.”  Because it’s trite, but it’s true: life is short.  There’s no room for bullshit.

Remember what made you happy when you were a little kid?  Drawing… singing… playing in the sand on the beach?  Find a way to do it.  Find a way to do it NOW.  Before the hurricane hits this weekend, before your deadlines loom at work next week, before the kids wake up and start their Sunday… sneak in a few minutes for yourself and just ENJOY something.  Make a plan to do something a little crazy in the near future, and then DO it.  There’s more magic in this life than we realize.  Let’s all go chase some fireflies for a minute, before the boss gets back.  Tomorrow isn’t certain… so push aside some clutter today and replace it with something sublime.

Stay hungry.  Stay foolish.

And while you’re at it: Stay humble.  Stay crazy.  Stay kind.  Stay clever.  Stay curious.  Stay strong.

Stay you.

pk2u,

amy

perfectly imperfect

What’s your biggest flaw?

I’ve got more than a few.  Plenty, actually.  As tempting as it might be to list them out right here for the entire world to see (oh wait, actually, that’s not tempting at all), I’ll stick to just one. I am, quite often, a complete and utter ditz.  I’m sure I get it from my dad, whom I remember in my childhood – and, actually, still today — walking around the house, frustrated, muttering in his Southern drawl, “I can’t find my cheaters,” which is his term for his glasses… and which are often on top of his head the whole time he’s walking around in circles, looking for them desperately.

Don’t get me wrong – my dad is an intelligent person, as am I (or at least, I like to think I am).  He’s just occupied in other parts of his brain sometimes, and little details can be sort of bothersome.  I totally get it.  Which is probably why I’ve carried on the legacy, running around in an absolute tizzy every other time I need to leave my apartment but can’t, for the life of me, find my glasses, keys, wallet, purse, laptop charger, or whatever else I need for the day.  And misplacing things is really just a simple example of my daily idiocy – on a grander scale, I have moments of intellectual ineptitude that make Jessica Simpson’s “is this chicken or fish” era look scholarly in comparison. And let’s not even talk about my driving.

I’ve been in relationships in which my being a space cadet wasn’t just a little hitch in my personality; it was a full-blown problem, at least in the eyes of the guy I was with.  I’ve almost always dated people who are inherently more organized and orderly than I am, and that only draws out my quirks in even more stark contrast.  Not long ago, I realized I’ve gotten used to being apologetic for things that are hardwired into who I am as a person… things that will probably never fully change, and yet aren’t really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.  But still, because of past relationships with generally nice people who were only slightly intolerant of my imperfections, I let it get the best of me.  Isn’t that kind of idiotic in and of itself?

I’ve written a few posts this past year about breaking patterns, trying new things and refusing to fall prey to old routines that just aren’t working.  I’ve talked about some of my more current dating experiences, but I’ve been a little vague about the particulars. It’s mostly because I don’t like taking a situation still in progress and committing it to black and white before it’s reached a conclusion and given me the opportunity to learn something from it.

But a couple of months ago, I was hanging out with someone I’ve been seeing for a while, sitting in his living room before dinner and recounting my day at work, when I remembered I wanted to show him something I’d brought.  I jumped up, ran over to the dining room table where I’d left my purse, and dug into it, looking for whatever it was I wanted to show him.  Although I found it immediately, I realized my keys didn’t appear to be anywhere inside my purse and flew into a full-blown freakout, thinking I’d left them God knows where… at home?  Locked in my car (is that even possible)?  At Starbucks?!?!  Could someone have stolen them????? My heart started racing for about the 19th time that week, as it was probably the 19th time this little scene had played itself out, each time overwhelming me a little bit more and making me kick myself just a little bit harder for not having my life together as much as I’d like.

I plopped down into a heap on the floor and proceeded to turn the bag inside out, cursing out loud at myself for being such an idiot yet again.  The display kept on for quite some time before I realized he was standing over me, looking down in amusement.

“You’re adorable,” he said, and he wasn’t being patronizing in the least.  For whatever reason, I could tell he was completely taken by my frustration with myself and thought it was just about the cutest thing he’d ever seen.  Because he knows how smart I am.  He knows what I’m capable of.  And my irritation with myself over stupid things that simply are what they are… well, evidently he thinks it’s charming.

As he was saying the words, I felt the sharp tip of my car key and couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

You know what?  I think I might keep this one around for a while.

always a bridesmaid, never a bride: the hidden perks of hot pink taffeta

Couples in the U.S. throw something like 2.5 million weddings each year, fueling a $40 billion industry. 40 billion! That’s a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins doing the hokey pokey… and heck of a lot of taffeta. If the average wedding has four bridesmaids, that’s 10 million of us a year doing the “left, together… right, together” down the aisle as one of our friends ties the knot with her one & only.

There’s this irritating old saying: “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”  But is it really such a bad thing? Here, three reasons to hold your bouquet in the ay-errr and wave it like you just don’t cay-errr:

1.  It’s great to wait. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with putting on a big white dress and marrying the love of your life, there’s nothing wrong with waiting for the right guy, either, if he doesn’t just magically pop into your life the moment you turn 25. All the flowers and ice sculptures in the world don’t mean a thing when a marriage itself is less than awesome… and just because everyone around you seems to be getting hitched, that doesn’t mean you need to follow suit with the next boy who goes on more than two dates with you. So cool your heels, people. Life is a marathon… not a sprint. It’s certainly not unheard of for “slow & steady” to win the race.

2.  Hot bridesmaid = hot commodity. It’s one thing to be an unmarried bridesmaid whose boyfriend is dutifully sitting alone among the guests, pretending to enjoy his chicken or fish while you’re off taking goofy pictures with the rest of the wedding party. It’s quite another, though, to be that cute, free-spirited girl rocking out with the grandparents on the dance floor. “Who’s that?” an old college buddy of the groom just might lean over and ask the person sitting next to him. The answer: that is one heck of an awesome chick who doesn’t just settle for anything.  So, old college buddy had better straighten his tie and figure out a killer opening line. That girl can’t be swept off her feet by just anybody; that girl’s got standards.

3.  It’s free research. Being part of a major life event, standing up for people you really care about during a defining moment in their lives, is the perfect time for a little self-reflection. And by that, I don’t mean knocking back one too many vodka tonics and texting your last ex to tell him how much you miss him… nor do I mean letting yourself feel like you’re missing out on something simply because you’re standing to the side on someone else’s big day. What better position to enjoy your bird’s-eye view of all the couples around you and make a mental note of what you do and don’t want for your own personal life? (Someone who gets into heated political debates over dinner without respecting anyone else’s point of view? No thanks. Someone who doesn’t mind dancing to “YMCA” with the bride’s niece on his shoulders and who doesn’t even flinch when she spills punch all over his shirt?  Yes, please.)  Take stock of all the human behavior taking place in the very fancy fishbowl all around you. It’s fascinating, isn’t it?

In sum: work that tea-length taffeta monstrosity with the bow across its behind.  Rock that frock with pride.  If you someday decide to spend the rest of forever with someone who thinks you’re the bee’s knees, great.  If not, your happily ever after can be whatever else you want. Either way, raise your glass and relish the fact that your life is your own and you can do with it whatever you choose.  Do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around.  That’s what it’s all about.

pk2u,

amy

photo: bridesmaid.blogspot.com