Feminist & Proud

Posted on by The Sassy Single

Hello again to those of you reading!  It’s been a while since my last post and to be honest, I’ve been struggling with ideas on what to write about next.  I have so many ideas and opinions that I want to share with the world, but sometimes I find myself hesitating to share my opinion.  Although I am truly fearless about a lot of things in life, I’m still held back by this overwhelming need to please people and often avoid sharing certain opinions if I think they will be somewhat controversial.  I know that sometimes sharing my opinion will cause people to label me as a bitch, when in actuality I’m just speaking my mind.

A perfect example of this is my feminist beliefs.  A few weeks ago was International Women’s Day, and from the news articles & social media posts I saw, there were a lot of men questioning the existence of this day.  Being the feminist that I am, I so badly wanted to share my feelings on why I think that day is so important.  Every time I saw a post of a man asking when International Men’s Day is, I got upset at their ignorance.  (For the record, there is actually a designated International Men’s Day in November for all the complainers)  So, without further adieu, here is my ‘bitchy’ take on this topic.

  • There’s a reason society has a designated International Women’s Day-mainly because there is still a TON of inequality that females all around the world experience every day. 

-Remember 100 years ago, when women in the United States still didn’t have the right to vote?  Kind of important don’t you think?  I also think it’s incredibly inspirational to see how far women in the US have come since we’ve gained the right to vote.  I am so thankful for the women who have paved the way for us.

-If you think that’s ‘ancient history’ (it’s not by the way) then how about the fact that women only make 76% of what men are paid for the same job?  As someone who works in a male dominated industry, I take this statistic seriously.  Being female, I am definitely the minority when it comes to my industry and the company I work for-I am literally one of two female employees where I work.  Over the years, I have been underestimated countless times just because I’m a woman.  I’ve had plenty of interactions where men don’t take me seriously at first-it’s like I have to prove that I know what I’m doing just because of my gender.  Recently, I found out that my boss has had to deal with several rumors and accusations that I was sleeping with him in the past years.  This happened mostly during my first few years that I worked for the company when I had received multiple promotions.  When I heard about this, I was so embarrassed and angry.  I realize that the rumors were mostly from jealous colleagues but it still upsets me.  I’ve advanced in my career because I work hard and do what I’m asked, being female should not have anything to do with it.  Hearing things like this often make me wonder how my experience would be different if I were simply a man.  I’m sure that I would be paid more and not always have to feel like I need to prove my value to others.

-Now, let’s take a look outside the United States and see how women are treated across the world.  Women like me are the lucky ones!  Are you a woman in Saudi Arabia?  It’s against the law for you to drive simply because you’re female.  How about many parts of Africa?  You might be able to drive, but genital mutilation is still widely performed on young girls & women in several regions.  Another terrible problem that kills at least 5000 women a year-honor killings.  In several countries across the Middle East and parts of Asia, it is actually legal for a family member to kill a woman for ‘dishonoring’ the family.  Examples of valid grounds for an honor killing?

  • Being a victim of rape.
  • Refusing to enter an arranged marriage.
  • Seeking a divorce.
  • Dressing or acting immodestly.
  • Homosexuality.

This truly makes me sick to my stomach to think about.  Especially when I see how privileged the men are in these societies.  They can literally get away with rape and murder!  This is a tragedy that people need to pay attention to.  So today, I am writing in the hopes that at least one person reads this and shares this information with others.  Male or female, we need to speak out about these injustices.  For years, I was hesitant to call myself a feminist because I didn’t want to be seen as radical.  Now, I am proud to say I am a feminist and it is my hope that my readers are too.

 

 

The Semiformal Experience

Posted on by The Sassy Single

Trust Me dance

Okay, so I mentioned in my last post that I would finally start to tell some stories about dating and my experiences living the single life over the past decade.  I’m going to start with the story of a semiformal dance I attended my freshman year of college.  Definitely wasn’t my classiest moment.  Looking back now, I have to say I find it mostly funny and only a little embarrassing.  Actually, no I’m still completely embarrassed by it which is really silly of me.

There I was, spring of freshman year and my sorority had their semiformal coming up.  Being the social butterfly I was, I of course planned to go even though I didn’t have a date.  I had been crazy busy with school and finding a guy to take as a semiformal date was the last thing on my mind.  So I threw on my party dress and heels and met up with some of my girlfriends.  Since most of us were underage, we had made plans to pregame at a sophomore girl’s house beforehand.  At 19 years old my logic was that I had to have a good buzz going before the semiformal started because once we got there, I really wasn’t supposed to be drinking underage.  (Not that many college students ever took that ’21 To Drink’ law seriously)

Anyways, I’m sitting on the couch drinking my vodka and cranberry when I realize that everyone else I’m with has a date to the semiformal but me.  It was only my second social event since joining so I guess I hadn’t realized yet that it was a little odd to just go and not have a date.  And ALL of the girls were asking me why I’m not taking a date and if I would take a date if they found somebody last minute?  They assure me that not only will they find me a date who’s 21 and can buy me drinks, but also one from a ‘good fraternity’ who isn’t a jerk.  I would have been way too nervous to ask any random guy myself, so I agree to let one of the older girls set me up.  An hour later, I’m sitting on a school bus riding to our semiformal with a guy I’d just met.   I had definitely been nervous and taken a couple of shots before meeting him…the whole liquid courage thing I suppose.  AWESOME idea….Needless to say, I’m drunk by the time we arrive at the bar/club for the dance.  My date actually was very nice and we had a good time…maybe too good of a time.  Now a lot of the night is a blur for me, but I do know that not only did we have fun at the semiformal, but we also went to a big party after getting back to campus and were out til 3am.  I was still wearing my dress and had also acquired my date’s tie around my neck and a random Hawaiian lei from the frat party.  I’m sure I looked phenomenal….

The next morning…..this classy girl woke up in a bunk bed at the fraternity house with her semiformal date next to her.  As I looked around, I immediately noticed my semiformal dress thrown in a corner of the room.  Oops….I was relieved to see that I was wearing an oversized T shirt so at least I was partially clothed next to my shirtless date.  As we woke up and started talking, I remembered two very important things that hadn’t seemed to bother me last night.

  1. Today was Parent’s Day for my sorority and also the fraternity house I was at.
  2. My parents were driving across the state to come to said Parent’s Day and might be headed to my dorm room at this very moment.  

As this sunk in, I am frantically checking my phone for missed calls and throwing on my dress and heels from the night before.  While my date and I are laughing about the situation, part of me is panicked because I would die if my parents found out that I had drunkenly made out with this frat guy and slept over last night after knowing him only a handful of hours.

And now, it was time for what everyone refers to as the walk of shame.  Not always a big deal depending on where you’re headed.  Today, though I was in for a real treat.  As we got ready to enter the front room of his fraternity house, I noticed my sorority president and a handful of parents.  They were setting up for Parents day on the front lawn and people were EVERYWHERE!  All of the responsible older fraternity and sorority members were bright eyed and ready to start the day.  There was no way in hell I was going to walk out of the house in broad daylight wearing last night’s dress and heels for everyone to see.  I retreated back down the hallway where my date decided he would just go outside and pull his car around to one of the side doors.

I remember feeling embarrassed but also thinking how ridiculous my situation was while my date drove me back to my dorm.  I talked to my parents and luckily had a solid 30-40 minutes to pull myself together before they arrived to campus.  On the phone of course I just acted like everything was totally normal.  No need for them to know that their perfect daughter still felt a little buzzed from the night before.

Once my parents arrived, where did we go?  Back to the same place I had woken up at less than a couple hours earlier of course!  This particular fraternity was right next door to my sorority house so they had decided to do a joint celebration for Parents Day that included grilling out at the house and then a baseball game downtown.  My date was there of course and made sure to introduce himself to my parents when we arrived and take them on a tour of their multimillion dollar house/mansion.

For me, it was starting to feel like a never ending version of a one night stand.  I mean, my date was nice and he was cute enough.  I was just used to being able to spend the day after a drunken hookup on my own or filling my girlfriends in on the previous night.  We would gossip about our adventures and stalk the guys on Facebook.  Now however, I was forced to entertain both my parents and this guy at the same time.  WHILE SOBER.  I definitely hadn’t thought this through the night before!

I ended up surviving the day and having a decent time.  My date actually ended up wanting to hang out with me again.  But being the busy and non-committal girl I was, I ended up blowing him off within a few weeks.  We would stay friendly and say hi over the next couple of years if we saw each other, but I realized pretty quickly that I was definitely not as interested in this guy as he was in me.

So-now that I have finally written an actual memoir from my maneater days….I hope that everyone enjoyed this.  Be sure to check back in for more stories soon!  🙂

Birth of a Maneater

Posted on by The Sassy Single

Stork Maneater

Now that I’ve written a few posts, this would probably be a good time to shed a little light on why my site is called Memoirs of a Maneater.  You might be wondering why I chose this particular name when I’ve just been rambling on about how I like to do yoga…not exactly relevant.  I’ve actually had this phrase floating around my mind since college, when my friends and I joked that if I ever wrote an autobiography, it should be titled “Memoirs of a Maneater.”  (Shoutout to my college roommate who I’m sure is one of the 3 people that actually read this)

So how does one become a maneater?  Well for me it isn’t so much that I have oodles of men clamoring to date me and I just chew them up and spit them out.  (In all honesty, that’s only happened a few times)
It’s more about the fact that before I even turned 17, I made the decision that dating would not be a priority in my life.  I didn’t have a mission to find Mr. Right and I valued the friendships I had (and still have) with my girlfriends far more than any potential boyfriend.  I realized early on that the gossip and drama dating brought to my life was just not worth it.
I’m honest enough to say that I can be VERY cynical towards love and relationships.  I encountered some very poor excuses for young men in high school and those bad experiences stuck with me.  Since then, there have been plenty of men over the years that just didn’t stand a chance if they actually did want to date me.
Casual makeouts and sleepovers in college?  Sure, I was down with that.  But if a guy asked me out on an actual date or wanted to hang out more regularly I would shut them down without a second thought.  Like men typically act, I had the tendency to avoid anything that resembled commitment or could be labeled as official.  My relationship status on Facebook would forever be listed as single and no college boy was going to change that.  Thus, a maneater was born.
So now that I’ve given you a little background, expect to see some new posts soon about my antics and experiences dealing with men over the past decade.  Some good, some bad, and some just plain weird!

New Years Resolutions Are Overrated

Posted on by The Sassy Single

Well, it’s officially 2016!  If you are a living breathing human being, then you know this means lots of talk about making New Years Resolutions.

Well, I have zero resolutions this year and I’m actually okay with that.

Why??  Because I think that people make WAAAY too big of a deal about them! To be honest, I think that retailers now use them to take advantage of people as consumers.  Now, the New Year is an opportunity to promote a new fad diet, sell exercise equipment and workout clothing, or convince you to try a juice cleanse.  I do fully support anyone who wants to start working out or eating better.  Those are good goals to have!  However, after suffering from an eating disorder for 12 years of my life, I realize that these resolutions can quickly turn extreme or unhealthy.  I know that this is not the case for everyone.  For me and so many others though, it can be hard to ignore those constant advertisements about dramatic weight loss, having a six pack, or  getting your body bikini ready.  There is so much pressure on us from society to look a certain way and it concerns me.  I remember all of those diets I tried over the years and the overexercising I did.  I see young people doing the same thing now and it makes me sad.

I wasted so many years of my life being obsessed with losing weight and now that I’m in recovery, I don’t want to see others make the mistakes I did.  Now, I exercise because I enjoy it, not because I need to burn a certain amount of calories.  I do still set goals sometimes (I ran my first half marathon last fall) but I have a completely different outlook on physical activity.  When training for a race, I quickly realized that I needed to eat more and fuel my body for long runs.  Before going to hot yoga class, I know that I have to drink as much water as I can so that I won’t be dehydrated.

There are still times that I struggle, but when I look back to how I was four or five years ago, I’m shocked at how far I’ve come.  All of my progress didn’t come quickly or easily.  It most definitely was NOT part of a New Years Resolution.  What it really was: 5 years of extremely hard work to overcome a serious eating disorder.   (I should mention with the help of a residential treatment center and regular outpatient therapy-so necessary!)

So to anyone reading this, I urge you to rethink your idea of New Years Resolutions, especially if it has to do with diet and exercise.  Are you doing it for the right reasons?  Are you being realistic in your goals?  Often people get discouraged or give up because they’ve set goals that are unattainable.  Those are important things to consider.

Also, you don’t need a new year to start something; you can make resolutions daily.  Every day is a new opportunity.  If you’re committing to a big change, realize that the results won’t come overnight or even in a few months.  Good things take time…a lot of it!  It’s been five years since I left residential treatment and I still consider myself to be recovering in some ways.  Don’t lose hope, and remember that change isn’t easy.  In my case though, change was necessary and so worth it.

 

 

 

 

Single for the Holidays

Posted on by The Sassy Single

For all my single sisters out there-Let’s talk about being single for the holidays and why it’s sometimes difficult.

I know this feeling all too well and I’m sure others can relate.  You’re at a family gathering and an extended family member inevitably asks you if you’re dating anyone, when you’re going to get married, et cetera.  Here’s the thing:  it’s fine that they ask you this, but the reality is that IT’S OKAY TO BE SINGLE.  Really, it is!  It doesn’t matter if you’re 25 or 35, your worth should have nothing to do with whether or not you’re in a relationship.

In fact, here are some perks to being single for the holidays:

  • You don’t have to agonize over finding the perfect gift for your significant other.  Let’s be honest, women tend to put a lot more thought into gifts than men.  So this avoids a headache and is actually a major win for the single woman.
  • Less family gatherings to attend.  It can be seriously stressful trying to coordinate the holiday schedules of two different families and more often than not, you wind up hungover Christmas morning trying to psych yourself up for another family gathering that’s 200 miles away.  (From personal experience, it’s truly terrible)
  • You know that embarrassing relative that everyone has?  You don’t have to worry about them saying something inappropriate to your boyfriend if you don’t have one. 🙂
  • That midnight kiss on New Year’s Eve?  You actually have the opportunity to choose a man worthy of that honor.  And if you don’t find a man that’s up to par, who cares?  Just take a shot or share a quick peck with one of your girlfriends.  Or both! You’re single and can do what you want.  😉

Now I realize that there are also perks to being in a relationship during the holidays.  Sometimes it is nice to have a boyfriend to share these things with.  Well, maybe next year you will have someone special…Or maybe you won’t.  Either way, just remember that you are enough on your own.

Don’t settle for less than what you deserve just because all of your friends are engaged or married and you feel singled out.  It’s not worth sacrificing your self worth just to feel you like you’re following the rules of society.  Make your own path and inspire other single women not to settle either!

With that being said, I truly hope that anyone who reads this (even those of you who aren’t single) is having a wonderful holiday season.  Merry Christmas to all!

 

 

Let’s Pretend This is a Catchy Title

Posted on by The Sassy Single

Well, here it is!  My first blog post.  This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while and if anyone is actually reading this-I hope you have very low expectations 😉

But seriously, I won’t always have something super important to say or endless words of wisdom.  I’m just a sarcastic Midwestern girl in her late 20’s and I often feel like my life is one step away from a complete mess.  Luckily for everyone else, having a messy life means that sometimes you get REALLY good stories to share from your chaos.
So join me and and hopefully get a few smiles (maybe even a laugh) at my experiences.
Here are some things you can expect to hear about if you read my blog:
-My always interesting love life, or sometimes lack thereof.  Dozens of dating horror stories, my experiences as a professional third wheel, relationships that leave you asking WTF?
-Other fairly basic white girl topics:  my love of yoga, my dog, coffee, running, etc.
-Insight on eating disorders and the recovery process…it is difficult but so worth it!
-What it’s like to be a woman working in a male dominated industry.
I have absolutely no idea what I’ll be writing about first, but trust me, I have a LOT of stories to share.  So check back in and enjoy!