badinia, Author at Virginia Jones ⋆ Page 10 of 63

Meet Your New Vocal Coach, Emma Michaelsen

Dear Errybody.

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Are you singing at your full potential?

Meet Emma. Emma is a badass Swedish black metal singer with formal jazz vocal training. She can teach you to sing any style. She’ll help you figure out where your range is, and how to improve it. I’ve been working with her for a year and have increased my range by a whoooooole octave, and solved a lot of my problems! Not all of them! Just the ones about singing!

Hit up this amazing vocalist and coach today- it’s Emma Michaelsen!

Meet The Never-Ready Men

I recently got two questions about avoidant men, so I’m going to address them together.

Lady 1 says:

Dear Virginia;

I’ve been seeing a man for six months, and recently spent a holiday with his family. We have never had a conversation about where we were headed. In the last few weeks, I noticed that he was frequently not returning my texts. When I asked him about it, he said, well, I’m not ready to be a boyfriend, can’t we just stay casual?

I am furious that I’m the last one to know that I’ve put six months into nothing.

Also, do I have to stop seeing him? I’ve gotten used to him.

Lady 2 says:

Dear Virginia

I’ve been dating a guy for five months, but when I broke my arm and was rushed to the hospital and called him, he wasn’t sure what I was talking about. The first time I needed anything from him at all, he shrugged and wandered off, telling a nurse that he wasn’t family, he was “just a friend” and he “wasn’t sure he could help.”

When was I supposed to find out I was sleeping with someone who regarded me as only slightly closer than a workmate? I am furious.

Dear Ladies;

First of all, I am so sorry. You ladies have been, either directly or indirectly, misled by avoidant men. One thing about hookup culture that guys are missing is that: it is, by its nature, temporary.

To sleep with a nice person once to half a dozen times with no expectation of a future is sort of normal. To drag it out over half a year and introduce her to family members in an attempt to look like an adult is cruel. I’ve been thinking for a while about drafting a list of things you can’t get in a supercasual modern dating relationship:

Exclusive claims to weekends
An ensured date to weddings
Input on important decisions such as: what to name the dog, what tattoo to get, or whether to go to grad school.
You don’t get to take anyone home for Christmas
Actually, most major holidays are out for you: Valentine’s day, Thanksgiving, New Year’s. You can go out with your casual hookup on Halloween, St. Patrick’s, and Cinco de Mayo: the drinking holidays.
But!

Neither of you get to continue dating without some communication. If you want more and they say they’re not ready, you might ask what that means.

Here are some possible things they mean when they say there’s not ready for a serious relationship:

He’s not ready. When you leave, they’re going to go find another girl to annoy for six months or so, and then they’ll look for another one.

Maybe he’s ready, but not with you. He might be ready for the next girl he meets, which sucks and which is why it might be a good idea to drop him on social media.

Perhaps he (and this comes up more than you’d think) Will Never Be Ready. He will always be Single and Ready to Mingle. I have met men in Los Angeles who’ve had longer relationships with a car lease than they have with a lady, and find this to be Super Normal. I call them Never-readies, but unlike batteries, they’ll drain you.

He’s ready, but they won’t know it until you leave him and he has a chance to think about what a special person you are and they’ll cry into their pillowcase and think about how nice your pillowcases smell and they’ll come running back, tripping over their untied shoelaces because they just woke up and came running over to your house.

I know that number 4 sounds very romantic, but it’s probably one of the other three. I’m sorry. I’d like it to be number 4. Keep in mind that whatever the number is, it’s not your fault. It’s not the way you wore your hair or how good you were in bed or how interested you pretended to be in fantasy football or garage rock. You can’t make him ready. You can’t trick him into being ready. If after being with someone as quirky and wonderful as you are for half a year, if he says he’s not ready, 1. He’s an idiot and 2. He probably isn’t going to be ready.

In any case, your only option is to set them free, back into the dating pool and out of your hair and, lady number one- DEFINITELY stop seeing him.

– See more at: http://www.lovetv.co/what-does-it-mean-when-he-says-hes-not-ready/#sthash.wSwFqCLk.dpuf

Highway to the Friendzone

Welcome To The Friendzone!

It sounds like more fun than it is. It sounds like there will be a waterslide. There is no waterslide, just hurt feelings.

What Does It Mean?

The nicest definition of the Friendzone is: two people meet. One person is interested in the other person romantically. The other person is not interested, but says they want to be friends.

Why Does It Happen?

Sometimes that person doesn’t really want to be friends, but it’s easier to say that than to make up a boyfriend or to say “I have no space for you in my life, and I’m not going to return your texts.”

Sometimes two people will go on a few dates before one person will say “I like you as a friend.”

Women are trained to be polite and deferential to men, and not to say things like “I don’t find you attractive.”

Also, women are worried that if we are crystal clear that we are not interested in sex, men will stop talking to us, because we are only worthy as a sexual partner/conquest/etc.

It Happens To Everyone

One of the hardest things about being a person with feelings is: sometimes those feelings are not reciprocated.

This happens to everyone, even Johnny Depp and Ariana Grande. Everyone. Everyone you know has liked someone who did not like them back. President Obama. Channing Tatum. That lady on TikTok who is famous for her butt. Everyone.

Sometimes men will complain about being Friendzoned. It doesn’t sound so bad, except when you start peeling the first onion layer you find a really misogynist onion.

Fallacies of Friendzoning-First Men, Then Women:

I met someone I am attracted to. There’s a fifty-fifty shot that she’ll choose me.

It’s actually a lot lower than that. If women slept with everyone who wanted to sleep with us, we’d never get anything else done, like laundry or higher education.

The Friendzone is the default zone. Almost everyone goes there. It’s not so bad. We like you, we value your company. We just don’t want to date you.

There’s something I could have done or said that would have kept me out of the Friendzone.

I’ve heard several versions of this- if a man didn’t act dominant or aggressive enough, a woman would stop thinking of him as a romantic partner. This happens with snakes and prey- if you drop a mouse into a cage with a snake who’s just eaten, the snake will get used to the mouse, and just cohabitate with it and will never get around to eating it.

This attitude heaps guilt on the rejected party. Probably there wasn’t anything you could have done. You’re just not the guy she likes. Science says it might be as much smell as anything, so it doesn’t matter what bands you put on a Spotify mix for her or whether you were wearing your nicest Scarface shirt that day.

Every Day Is A New Day

If it makes you feel better to think you could have done something different, maybe try that approach next time, but if the chemistry doesn’t go both ways, you’re gonna be right back in the Friendzone.

Jerks Always Get The Girl, Nice Guys Like Me Get Friendzoned.

Well- if you feel entitled to have sex with everyone you like, or if you’re a good friend to a girl you deserve sex- you’re also a jerk! You’re just a jerk she doesn’t like.

If you don’t want to be her friend, don’t.

If you’re only being her friend in case one night she decides to sleep with you, don’t. Be her friend because you think she’s cool and you like her company. If you liked her so much, but not enough to be her friend: what did you like about her?

Women and Friendzoning:

Whenever a guy I liked didn’t like me, I assumed that either I was too fat or he was threatened that I was smarter than he was. It depended on how I was feeling that day. I never blamed him for not liking me back, and I never said “MAN IF I’D BEEN AGGRESSIVE I WOULDN’T BE IN THIS STUPID FRIENDZONE.”

Pretty in Pink Friendzoning:

In the film Pretty in Pink, Duckie is Friendzoned by Andie. He spends the movie romantically pining and pretending that she doesn’t know that he’s interested in her. When he freaks out on her for being on a date, it’s clear that she’s known all along.

The audience sides with him in the movie and wants him to get the girl, even though she has never acted interested in him. “But he’s been such a good friend to her!” So what? She’s a good friend to him, too. Why is his time worth her sexual interest? And in the end he was just as interested in a random blonde at prom, anyway.

Jon Hamm Friendzoning Me:

Because I am a Hollywood type person with a modern a go-go lifestyle, last Wednesday I was in a room with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm.

He is incredibly handsome. We had a brief exchange, I was friendly, I was charming, I was wearing a dress and everything, but he treated me as a friend, or as a stranger at a comedy show. That’s right: I was friendzoned by Jon Hamm, which is HORSEFEATHERS because I KNOW HE DOESN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND RIGHT NOW. I WOULD BE SO NICE TO YOU JON HAMM.

Crossed signals happen to everyone. Stop talking about the friendzone. Be as honest, kind, and open as you can, and also dress up when you go out, because people like that.

– See more at: http://www.lovetv.co/finding-yourself-in-the-friendzone/2/#sthash.9NjdbEMF.dpuf

Romance, Cat Photos, And Emojis: How Texting has ruined every poetic moment you’ve ever known!

I go out walking after midnight
Out in the moonlight
Just like we used to do
I’m always walkin’ after midnight, searchin’ for you”
– As sung by Patsy Cline, written by Alan Block and Donn Hecht

In Walkin’ after Midnight, Patsy Cline sings about walking around her neighborhood, thinking about her ex lover and wishing to be with him. She seems to be hoping that the energy of her desire will draw him out of his house and bring them together. This song is so sad and full of longing, and it couldn’t happen today.

She’d just send him a text: ‘sup? And if he was up, he’d write “u up?” and they’d start sexting and eventually hook up at her place, or behind a P.F. Chang’s.

Going back even further, you may not know that the legendary lantern signal one if by land, two if by sea was actually the way that colonist Paul Revere let his mistress know if his wife had gone to bed and she could come over.

Now he’d just Instagram a picture of two lanterns and caption it “Hey ladies”.

Classic romance films An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle both had a scene where a man waits atop the Empire State Building for a woman to meet him, his heart filled with hope and anxiety and longing, but not today. He’d wait five minutes and send her an emoji of a clock and an angry face, and she’d text him back with an eggplant and a thumbs up, or something. The main twist to all romantic films from here forward will always have to include a broken phone, or losing battery and not being able to find an outlet to charge.

Technology has completely changed the way we communicate, and late night communication in particular. If Lord Byron wanted to send a secret missive, he had to wake a servant up to hand deliver a handwritten note, and that servant had to wake up her servant, and what if your servants are sleepy, or, worse, you don’t have any? You’re limited to throwing rocks at a window or moaning out on your balcony, “Romeo! Wherefore art thou?”

Now, it’s almost too easy. Once you’ve had a couple drinks and watched Magic Mike XXL, you might reach out to a friend or ex or acquaintance in a more direct way than you would at lunchtime on a Tuesday. That’s ok, or at least, it’s normal- but if you do find that you’re embarrassed by your late night phone behavior, use my friend’s policy: he doesn’t write anyone between midnight and 7am, less it be construed as a sext. “Anything I want to say can wait until it’s daylight,” he says.

We communicate via text much more than in any other method. It’s easier than ever to use messaging to reduce physical distance between people- but be careful once you start dating, because it can make you feel more distant.

In a study published this year, Pew Research found that 25 percent of cellphone users in a relationship believed that their partner was distracted by that person’s cellphone when they were together, and 45% of internet users ages 18-29 in serious relationships say the internet and phones have had an impact on their relationship.

What do we take from all this? It’s great to get in touch on your phone, it’s great to stay in touch, but try to prioritize the people you’re actually with and have a better connection with them. Try the following:

Treat your date or outing like a job interview, and keep your phone in your purse or pocket until you’re leaving. Try leaving it in your car’s glove compartment. That’s right. Turn it off and put it in a box. It’s not your friend.

Try logging out of Facebook, so when you do decide to check it, you have to log back in to see how many people liked your cat picture. It’ll make you more aware of how often you just check in, and are able to consider how often is really necessary.

At the very least, pop into Airplane Mode to silence the delicious little buzzes and bells that let you know someone somewhere has done something. Try to live in the moment, and pay attention to the person you like doing that with.

– See more at: http://www.lovetv.co/romance-cat-photos-and-emojis/#sthash.JaUsaBWm.dpuf

Gothic Aesthetic: Through The Seasons

I was asked to make a short video of my goth aesthetic for an audition (suggestion: “Like Carrie in Sex and the City!”) and it’s just stupid enough to put here. It’s kind of like hanging out with me, with a Robyn Hitchcock soundtrack that I do not own. I did not book it, because why would I, but here’s the video!

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do Well

breaking up photo

Breaking Up: Or, Who’s My Emergency Contact Now?

So, you’ve broken up.

You’ve taken their number out of your phone so you don’t text in moments of weakness.

When you drop your cat off at the groomer’s and they ask for an emergency contact you say, “I guess if I don’t come back, you have to set the cat free.”

Best case scenario: you came together, you challenged each other to be your best, inspired each other, then evolved so much you grew apart and mutually decided to uncouple.

Worst case scenario: everything else.

Here are some tips to help you deal:

Mourn Your Plans

Mourn the plans you made together. It could be that annual trip to Batfest in Austin, TX, it could be your aunt’s wedding in Boston, it could just be the new Iron Man movie. Notice and release your disappointment in each thing you won’t be doing together. You’re creating a new reality map in your brain without that person in it.

Unhook

Disconnect electronically. This might be the hardest part, because we all want to be supercool adult people. That doesn’t mean you need to see when this dude is out to dinner with a girl whose haircut is very similar to your own. He doesn’t need to know when you’re out at karaoke singing the Stevie Nicks songs that he used to hear in the shower. You don’t have to delete them, but certainly turn their feed off for a couple of months while you get your head together. Even though it sometimes feels good to dwell on the object of your affection, scratching that itch will just delay your healing.

Cut off communication. One of the hardest parts of a breakup, especially of a long relationship, is that you find that the person you used to get comfort from is the last person you should speak to. Talk to friends. Chat to family. Reach out to your pastor. Don’t talk to each other. Part of your job right now is to get this person’s smell out of your nostrils, literally and figuratively. Once you stop hanging out with them, you’ll stop saying things like “but we’re so good together!”

Clean House

Ditch the Knick-knacks: If you have stuff of theirs that reminds you of them, and it bothers you, put it away. You can even throw it away, if you want. If something is in your house that makes you sad, get rid of it, unless he gave you a couch or something, in that case throw a blanket over it until it doesn’t make you feel sad anymore, because that’s a nice couch.

Celebrate

Celebrate your freedom. You are now living an autonomous lifestyle! If you want to listen to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” thirty times in a row, nobody’s there to tell you that you can’t. You can watch all the movies they didn’t want to watch, eat at restaurants they didn’t care for, and operate as the ruler of your own domain.

Do take care of yourself- even if all you want to do is wallow in your misery and drink Scotch, it’ll be better for your body and brain if you get up and get moving sometimes. Make some endorphins to flush out the sadness!

Be Selfish- Take time for yourself. Make plans with girlfriends but you want to stay home and watch So You Think You Can Dance? Do it. A recent breakup is one of a few Get Out Of Plans Free cards. Use as needed.

Heal

Remember that you will heal. That’s what we do, as humans. Your emotions are just chemicals your brain makes. As badly as you hurt, next week it will be less, and the next week, even less!

The cells in your body are constantly dying and and being replaced by new ones, and those cells didn’t even know that guy! Someday soon you’ll see him buying wine at Von’s and hardly want to spit on him at all. Until then, don’t spit on anyone!

How About Making Yourself Online Dateable?

Online dating is part of the modern single person’s landscape. Everyone’s doing it, and most of us are doing it wrong!

There are certainly good things about dating on OKCupid, Match.com and Tinder- if you’re new to an area, if you want to meet people out of your regular social circle, or if, in the case of eharmony.com, you want to meet divorced Christian dads in the suburbs- but these formats have their own particular do’s and dont’s.

Here’s a list of common mistakes the online bachelor can avoid (to not kill chances of a possible date):

A Woman in Your Profile Pic- When I see a dude on a dating site with his arm around a pretty lady, I don’t think “Hey, she’s really pretty, I’d better step up my game”, I think “well, what did he do to piss her off?”
A Blurred or Cropped Out Woman in Profile Pic – Hey, I feel for you guys. Unlike women, who celebrate every dinner, haircut, and outfit with a photo session, guys only get pictures taken when they’re on a date with someone or when they are on a bass boat. Please try and get a decent selfie, or ask a friend “Hey bro, can you do me a favor? I need a picture of myself.”
Abs Pictures- Sure, he stopped eating bread and he does five thousand crunches a day, but when’s the last time he read something longer than the list of ingredients on a protein shake? A tendency to post pictures of one’s torso sometimes speaks to a desire to show it to many people.
Generic First Message. There are real studies saying it doesn’t matter what your first message is, and the best method is to scattershot HEY HOW ARE YOU to a hundred women a week, but I have personally never responded to a HEY HOW ARE YOU message, and can’t imagine I would do so unless it was sent by Johnny Depp.
LONG Opening Message, mentioning EVERY interest and hobby I have and their thoughts about it. This starts to feel stalkery. Wait, how did you know I’m eating a bagel? Are you watching me right now?
Talking Solely About My Appearance: it doesn’t seem like there’s a desire to find out about my personality, right?
Pen Pals- Once we’ve established contact, and written a couple messages back and forth, ask me out. I’m here for men pals, not pen pals! Also, if you live five hundred miles away, don’t message me- this is not a sexy chat service and I’m not coming to visit you in Pig’s Snout, Arkansas. Ever. Unless you are Edward Scissorhands or Captain Jack Sparrow. Then, anything is possible.

In the interest of fairness, here is a list of men’s online dating complaints that women can learn from:

The LIST: Women have a long list of what they DON’T want in a guy. “No fakes, no players!” What, you want someone who’s not a drug addict AND who has a job? Picky, picky!
NO Profile: Women that do not have profile info. I know you might be a private person, but no information at all makes it hard to start a conversation. “So…I see you have eyes! I do, too!”
Over-Accentuating the Curves –-If a woman’s photo accentuates her body, one assumption is that she is not interested in a serious relationship, and another is that she might be a paid escort.
And lastly, Misrepresentation- when women in person are fatter/older/less attractive than their photo.

Again, I understand this complaint. Who among us has not overrated our own looks? When we are picking out our best pictures of ourselves, sometimes we don’t recognize that because the picture is ten years old, we are posting pics of someone else who we used to be. I once had a long correspondence with a man who had deep brown eyes and long, wild hair whom I called “sexy werewolf”, and when I met him, he was just a regular, non-sexy werewolf with one great photo.

Clearly, nobody has mastered the online dating experience.

The truth is that I sometimes meet guys online that I find interesting, but when they make one of these errors, I delete them. I think of these as “dealbreakers” and an indication of deeper problems, and maybe they are, but sometimes I’m just dealing with men who hadn’t spent any time dating online. These are actually the people you want to meet: men who seek out and enjoy serious relationships, and stay off the market while they’re in them. The guys who stay online for years and years, perfecting their online presence and their patter, only pausing to occasionally list what bands they’d most like to see at Coachella, are confirmed bachelors who would sooner kiss a beartrap than give a girl more than a month of their attention.

What I learned is that: the only thing that online dating really makes you good at is online dating- especially in the case of free sites, whose goal is not to pair compatible couples up, it’s to keep everyone in the mix, looking at their ads and clicking, and generating revenue, so, the only real method to online dating is to relax, honestly be yourself, and accept some mistakes in the process of meeting real people!

– See more at: http://www.lovetv.co/how-about-making-yourself-online-datable/2/#sthash.ArBrhccH.dpuf