Poolside Therapy

Hello all!

So this weekend I met a boy. Now, now, nobody go crazy. I didn't "meet" a boy. Poor fella actually, I felt and still feel bad for him. This is the story:

Cassie and I decided to stay in Tallahassee this weekend. I was glad for some down time because the driving back and forth between home was starting to wear on me and my Ipod playlist was starting to get old. I am happy Cassie was here too because she insured that I was not a total hermit this weekend, even though the torrential downpour we experienced on Saturday tried its best to keep us inside.

To our delight, we awoke on Sunday (at a time that shall remained unmentioned) to find the sunshine's rays doing a tantalizing dance through the curtains. A sunny day with nothing to do? You know what that means.... POOL DAY! We quickly gathered our beach towels and tanning oil and hit the pavement. By the way, my roommate Chelsey let us in on a slightly hilarious secret. If you hate paying the outlandish price for Hawaiian Tropic instant bronzing spray or, my favorite, Banana Boat, use Afrosheen instead!

When we arrived at the pool there was quite a crowd of college kids drinking and having a good time. It was a perfect day for this, except for one thing. One of the apartments right behind the pool was blaring house music. I believe I have already publicly stated my absolute distaste for house music. It was so loud that I thought that it was coming from the pool area speakers. The same repetitive beat was reverberating off the walls and unpleasantly into my ears. After about 45 minutes I had had enough. I took Cassie's phone and called the front desk. I was too in love with the sunshine to get up and walk inside for a face to face confrontation about the terrible tunes. When someone picked up the line I politely asked if there was any way they could change the radio station to something other than house music. Seriously, I was ready to listen to chamber music over that junk. They confirmed what Cassie said, that it was coming from behind us. I inquired as to if there was anything they could do about it and the man said he would send someone over to the apartment, but that he thinks that resident in question is actually at the pool.

Ten minutes later, Cassie was done with the music too and called back up to the front. The man suggested that we ask around and see if we could get them to turn it off. Being as lazy as we were, we asked the two guys closest to us if they knew who was the culprit DJ. They did not, but of course we continued to talk to them because well, that is what we girls do. He asked if we didn't like it and we said not for that extended of a period of time. He said, "I bet y'all want to listen to some country, dontcha?" Well, frankly yes. I'd personally love to have Luke Bryan serenade me as I soaked up the sunshine.

I noticed one of the boys was particularly good looking. He had dirty blonde hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. They were bluer than the bluest of a friend of mine, and that is saying something. He had a pretty buff chest without looking roided out and a nice little six pack to compliment his man pecks. Needless to say, he was a slice of sunshine himself. He laughed as we said we would rather hear anything but this stuff any longer. That was pretty much the end of our conversation, or at least it was over for a few minutes.

To our distinct pleasure, the music cut off for a few minutes. I quickly redialed the front desk and frantically demanded they turn something else on while they had the chance. The lady who answered chuckled at my dramatic intensity when I said, "They have turned the shitty music off, HURRY!" Hooray! Something else was finally on. I'm not quite sure what it was, it was a little jazzy, but hey, I was pleased.

One of the boys looked back and said, "I bet y'all are happy now." Yes, yes we were.

The sun was absolutely beaming down on us and though the pool was frigid cold, we left our seats to dip our legs in the pool. Shamefully, mine were on the manly hairy side. I thought of everything else before I left the house, except for shaving my legs. Oh well, I thought, we typically don't talk to anyone, especially cute boys when we come to the pool because Cassie, Jess, and Chelsey have boyfriends, and I am, well, I'm me. So, naturally, we would engage in conversation with this fine specimen of a man.

As we dipped our toes in the icy water, he swam up to where we were sitting and said, "Can I ask y'all a question?" In my mind I was thinking, "Sure darlin', you can ask me anything you want." I kept my sassy, flirty inner Cara in check though. Cassie and I both nodded and he went into a spill I think we were both totally unprepared for.

"So, I have this girlfriend who I am out here visiting this weekend..."

Before he could even finish his sentence I blurted out, "Well, where is she?" She was working.

"...She is at work but I drove 2 and a half hours here from Jacksonville to spend time with her, and she just acts like I am not even here. She ignores me and is either on Facebook, texting someone secretively, or has her nose shoved in Pinterest..."

I am sorry dude, we always have our sniffers and eyeballs glued to Pinterest. Cassie and I both kind of laugh when he says the part about Pinterest. I'm not sure if it is because he actually knows what Pinterest is or the way he rolled his eyes when he said it, but it was kind of adorable.

"...Also, she has these "guy friends" that she won't let me meet. I get here, she tells me about it, we argue for 20 minutes about some dudes that I don't even know... I mean what do y'all think? What should I do?"

Cassie and I both look at each other and use our Jedi mind powers to communicate through the eyes, trying to figure out what to say to this poor handsome soul in front of us.

Cassie says, "Go out without her! It is Sunday Funday and if she isn't going to pay you any attention you shouldn't sit around and wait on her."

"Did she give you a reason as to why you couldn't meet her "guy friends"?" I ask.

"After we got into a huge argument she finally freaked out and said, "FINE! YOU CAN MEET THEM!!!""

Cassie said, "You need to tell her it is either your guy friends or me." Amen sister, she was always stronger than me with stuff like this. I envy her ability to cold turkey a guy if need be. It's a problem for me, I'm working on it.

I got really serious with him and said, "The reason you can't meet these so called guy friends is because the friends are not her friends, they are the guy who she is cheating on you with's friends. The person she is texting is this guy." I wanted to say, she's on Pinterest planning her imaginary wedding with this guy and she's not paying you any attention because she wants you to leave so she can be with this guy. But I didn't, I felt too bad for him and I thought the first part was enough.

You see, I know all about dating someone who lives two and a half hours away. He had "girl friends" too, who I never really met. Of course he was probably with half of these besties with boobies while I was studying my life away at FSU and behaving myself. I know what it is like to drive home, ready to spend some time with my honey and all he wants to do is play COD or MLB the Show depending on the boyfriend at the time. Yep, I know all the games.

Cassie and I came to the same conclusion and told him, "You need to get rid of her. Ain't nobody got time to be driving from Jacksonville to Tally to be ignored." Seriously, that kind of effort deserves some on arrival TLC. And I don't mean watching Gypsy Sisters together.

So my question is, why do we make ourselves miserable in these relationships? I mean, here this beautiful creature is swimming in an apartment complex pool with his friend, when the person he really wants to be with is off not wanting to pay him a lick of attention, and asking two strangers for relationship advice. How awful is that? This guy could have any girl he wanted; he's good looking, he has a good job with the Air Force, and he is obviously committed. I'd definitely pay attention to that.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Is the fish really worth it if it is going to snap the expensive fishing rod? If we know something is going on behind our backs, why do we let it continue? Surely, there is something better out there.

I think people stay in a "scandalous" relationship because we are afraid of being alone. Humans are naturally social and the thought of being by ourselves is almost unbearable. We tell ourselves, "It worked once, maybe we can get it back," when in reality we already know the ending isn't going to be one written by Nicholas Sparks. We would rather be with someone who treats us like crap than be with nobody at all. Some attention is better than no attention. I am saying the same things over and over, but it is all of equal truth.

Let's not put up with this kind of bull anymore. When you play with the bull you get the horns, and by that I mean one straight through the heart. Quit waving the red flag antagonizing the beast and fly the white one. Surrender the bad relationship in exchange for one that I promise you will be so much better, even if it means waiting a little while. You'll be surprised at how much your standards are revamped after a little time to reevaluate what you really want.

If someone is being super secretive about their phone, not really paying attention to you, hanging out with "friends" who weren't existent a few months ago, and you have that little voice in the back of your head telling you it's time to go, don't walk away, RUN!

To the boy who we met this weekend, I hope you leave her. You are far too fine of a man, in other ways than just physically, to be putting up with that mistreatment. Go and find you a girl who will greet you with a big wet kiss instead one who barely opens the door for you before going straight back to her phone to text her thing on the side. There are plenty of women out there who would better appreciate you.

I'm glad Cassie and I were too lazy to go get some adult beverages. I probably would have invited you over for the AMAZING Italian style pasta salad I made, had I had some liquid courage. He might not have worried about her anymore after he took a bite.