Nic Narrates

This being my final guest blog here (assuming Nic doesn’t go all Natalie Holloway on us), I’m going to stick to her script and write briefly to more of her suggestions. She wrote to me

Or you could even talk about how awesome March Madness is or the coming debauchery of St. Patrick’s Day if you’d like. Quite a few of my readers are all about the Madness and the drinking.

St. Patrick’s Day…I don’t have much advice to give here. It’s kind of a stupid holiday. No one gets the day off (not officially, at least). Nobody really knows who St. Patrick is or why we celebrate him. So it’s an excuse to drink (which you shouldn’t really need if you’re a grown-up) and to claim Irish heritage if you or one of your distant ancestors knew, slept with, fought or once caught sight of someone from Ireland.

I will say, however, to watch out for green beer. That food dye can have unpredictable effects on the rest of your digestive system. If it does, and certain things become tinged with green that were not green before, let me assure you there’s no need to visit the emergency room, specimen in hand. Especially if you get a rude, smart-ass doctor. Man, that guy was a jerk. 

In fact, the only thing dumber than St. Patrick’s Day is the thing my alma mater, the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, has started doing — “celebrating” it a week early, and calling it “Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day”  (because the official one falls on spring break, when no one is at school). This year’s results: 267 arrests. Makes me so proud…

As for the March Madness, I suppose everyone has their favorite place to see the games. I’ve been to a lot of places to see them, including attending two first rounds (at the United Center), a regional championship (remember that 2005 Illinois vs. Arizona game at the Allstate Arena?), and two Final Fours (in Minneapolis and Atlanta). That said, if you can’t be at the games or in a Vegas sportsroom, the best place to watch has to be the Foundry, in Aurora.

The story on the Foundry, as I heard it, was that it was an old multiplex movie theater that they gutted and turned into a huge sports bar. Then they took the wall that had held most of the movie screens and put up 18 twelve-foot projection TVs. This place is awesome, especially if you happen to be home “sick” from work on one of the first two days of the NCAA basketball tournament. They’ll have all the games going on at once, and the crowd is all very into them. Get there early, though; people literally line up before it opens to get a good seat.

Or you could write a tid bit about dating from a dude’s perspective- we ladies don’t get much of that in the blog world so we tend to eat it up.

Sorry to disappoint your appetites, but I don’t have a lot of insight here. Although I’m in a wonderful relationship now, a year ago, things were less good. I tend to see myself as the Jacob Marley of dating — a guy dragging a bunch of chains, rattling them, and warning people to learn from my mistakes.

I don’t claim to understand the male psyche, my own included, and the female one is a complete enigma to me.

The most important thing for me, when I have been successful, is to be happy with who I am. And if there’s something I don’t like, to work to fix it. It’s a cliche for a reason — you have to love yourself (really and honestly) before you can fairly expect someone else to do it.

Dating for me — and for most people, I think — is a series of peaks and valleys. During the peaks, you can’t go to get the mail without someone showing interest in you, and during the valleys, you can walk naked through Grant Park on Sunday afternoon and no one would notice. It’s been key for me to keep an even keel, to find ways to be productive and constructive even in the lonely times. To that end, every time I’ve had a relationship end since I was 18, I’ve picked up a new hobby. So in effect, an ex girlfriend taught me to fish, another taught me to play guitar, high school dating taught me to have a wicked jump-shot and to read a lot, and so on.

I decided a long time ago that I would always try to have three things that were more important to me than dating — three things that gave me happiness and over which I (and no one else) had control. Three things that if I had them on a desert island, I could be pretty damn content. What those three things are I won’t say, because my three don’t matter to you. Just like yours don’t matter to me. But as long as you have them, they’ll help you keep that even keel.

Another way to keep that even keel is to take care of yourself. Not just physically, either, although a 30 minute jog can do a lot to put your problems in perspective. Take care of yourself mentally; read a good book (no, the Twilight series doesn’t count). And take care of yourself socially — spend time with friends and relatives who care about you. It’s all about the balance.

There’s no right way to do it, after all. Dating, I mean. No matter what you do, no matter what precautions you take or how you educate yourself, or how open or closed, optimistic or jaded, carefree or melancholy you approach it, there are going to be good times and bad. C’est la vie.

So be honest, with yourself and your partners. Know who you are. Know what you can live with and what you can’t. Know what you want — and if you aren’t getting it, get out of it, no excuses. But if what you’re doing ain’t working, don’t be afraid to reevaluate what you know. And never lose faith in yourself.  

Of course, none of that is probably any help. But I did my best. That’s my dating philosophy in a nutshell — maybe it’s the same for all guys, maybe for none. What the hell do I know?

Thanks for having me here as a guest blogger. Please tune back in Tuesday, when Nic returns and revels us with stories from her amazing vacation…and there had better be at least one cabana boy story, or I’m never coming here again…

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