Working Relationship

As my match.com experiment is coming to a close, I realize that I have learned quite a bit from dating. It wasn't anything I didn't already know but dating allowed me to put into practice my newfound standards, boundaries and ideals. I'm happy to say that I am no longer a desperate dater and I now have the experience and newfound confidence to prove it.

This freedom from desperate dating comes from knowing myself and enjoying my life. Its a lot harder to compromise myself into oblivion when I already love the life I am living. If a date doesn't call me I don't sit around thinking about all the things I might change about myself so that I would be more acceptable or attractive, I just shrug my shoulders and go look at the pumpkin vine in my backyard and marvel at how fast it is growing. I no longer expect first dates to lead to second dates which then lead to happily-ever-after. In fact, I don't expect some knight in shining armor to walk into my life, be perfectly compatible with me and sweep me off my feet. I'm just not worried about it.

Plus, its hard to sweep me off my feet without a struggle. I don't want to ride off into the sunset. I want to watch my garden grow and harvest the vegetables and carve jack-o-lanterns. I have roots and I have dreams and I'm not particularly keen on being carried off on a horse so that I can clean someone else's stables. 

I'm unwilling to give up the good things about myself in order to please or appease another person.

Lately, I'm having a parallel revelation in regards to my (nonexistent) acting career. I've spent so much time trying to be acceptable and marketable that I have totally forgotten who I am as an actor. I don't even enjoy acting. I don't even remember what good acting feels like. All I do is try and figure out what the agent, casting director, coach, client wants me to be. 

No wonder it isn't working out.

Just like any relationship-gone-wrong, I went into acting for love. I loved the way I felt when I was acting, I loved telling stories and I loved the way movies are made. I loved the collaboration and the project-centered work and I thought I had something to contribute. And I most likely did and I most certainly still do. 

But then came the advice. Relationships and acting are two things that everyone seems to unreservedly give advice on even if they suck at them themselves (look at me and all the relationship advice I give, for example)! Here is some of the advice I would constantly get as an actor: Why don't you change your image? Have nice nails, get a good haircut, look more asian, wear brighter colors, be skinny. Why don't you work on your audition technique? Don't blink too much, be confident, be relaxed, learn to speak with accents, learn to cheerlead, learn to ride a horse, learn martial arts. Why don't you: move there or move here or attend this function or that function or talk to this cousin of mine or that friend of my sister or why don't you hang out at this coffee shop? Why don't you take this class because the teacher is awesome and then you have to take that workshop because it will change your life and then you have to kiss this person's ass because it tastes like marshmallows. 

And in all this din, somewhere, was me. But I was fading by the second. No wonder I didn't feel confident and relaxed when I knew that inherently I had already screwed up by not having the right skills, the right personality, the right clothes, the right look. 

I don't know when it happened exactly, but over time this relationship stopped being about love and became about trying to be someone or something I am not so that I could be more attractive, more desirable, more bookable. And what for? What was I trying to attract? Did I really want to book that commercial with the cheesy script after all? How desperate was I for money/acceptance/success? How much money had I already spent on trying to improve my image or my resume? How much career success in other fields had passed me by while I was desperately trying to get ahead? How many days had I put off working on my car so I wouldn't have grease under my nails? How much of my own life had I sacrificed for this career and what was I getting out of it?

Nothing. 

So I'm breaking up with show business. One day I'd like to be friends with it but on my own terms; with dirt under my nails and wearing Birkenstocks (I don't really own any Birkenstocks but I couldn't find a better way to sum up my lack of desire to look like a proper Hollywood actress). Right now I just have to spend some time with myself and find an acting class which isn't about technique or auditioning and is just about acting for the sake of acting. Because good stories are still worth telling. And somewhere inside me there is still a good actor and I really need to find her. 

Awesomely enough, in the synchronicity of single blogs, Christina at Onely posted a humorous bit today about her romantic entanglements with her writing (aka Mr. Mike Rosoft Word).

Commitment Issues

Single people are often thought to have "commitment issues" especially when, like me, they find themselves to be ALWAYS single.

*I am waiting for my baked potato to bake so this will be brief (kinda).*

This was driven home to me  a couple years ago at the strangest place: my workplace. I had a rather annoying co-worker who was a total performer, an actor to be exact. I know a lot of actors cause, well, I am one too. But most of them annoy me at least a little mainly 'cause they always need to be the center of attention. (If you happen to be a dear actor friend reading this blog, you must know that this does not pertain to you.)

So this actor/co-worker (at one of my gazillion dayjobs) wanted me to take a very specific acting class which was so totally awesome mainly cause it was taught by his friend and mainly cause he was in it and that mere fact totally raised the caliber of talent in the class and I could learn so much from such a deep serious acting experience with such talented peers.

So, I asked him some questions about the class and I considered it. But then I decided that between all the other things I was doing, I was in no shape to commit to taking a class which I didn't have the time to attend and which I didn't have the money to pay for and which might annoy the boogers out of me.

So I told him: "Thank you very much but now is not the right time."

And he wouldn't let up. And I keep saying "no". Finally, he asks me the question I had been asking myself every night for the past 5 years: "Do you have commitment issues?"

This comment was meant to humiliate me into committing to taking the class. 

Unfortunately for Mr. Annoying Actorpants, I was so pissed off that I replied with full force hostility: "Yes. I totally do!" and I walked off into the sunset. I am sure he heard my "subtext" loud and clear, which in that moment was: "Eff-off, you annoying arrogant actorish acting ass!"

But I was pissed off for the rest of the night.

Because for an actor, it is imperative NOT to have commitment issues. Actors essentially live the lives and the moments of other people. In order to this effectively, one must commit 100% to the circumstances and to the character. So, if I'm in a scene where I just found out that my husband is cheating on me, I have to commit 100% to the fact that I am a woman who has been married for this many years and I feel this oh-so-specific-way about my husband, etc, etc, etc. I can't be half in the scene and half myself, thinking about my delicious baked potato or my preposterous speeding ticket. 

But at that moment in my life, I was thinking: "Oh my gosh. This douche nozzle is right. I do have commitment issues and now they are so bad that not only can I not stay in a relationship for more than three months, but I also am doomed to be a crappy actor for the rest of my life. A lonely, crappy actor! Poor me. Poor me. Wahhhhhhhhahhhhhahhhhh."

*I have heard that baked potatos are just as bad for you as eating ice cream.*

Anyways. Back to commitment. Right.

For months this conversation with Annoying Actor haunted me. I decided to, poor me, accept that I did, in fact, have commitment issues and that I needed to work on them. But I didn't know where to begin. I was too busy committing to a lunch date or to a friendship or to a visit or to planning an event or leading a group or adopting a dog or buying a house. 

And then it struck me. I am so freaking good at committing! I am a badass committer. If anything, I overcommit. I commit to people, to projects, to dogs, to trees, to cellphone plans.

Yeah. 

And the truth is that the most important thing to do as a single person or a coupled person or any kind of person is to commit to living the life you are already living. If you're single, commit to living the single life that you are in and commit to doing it 100%. If you are married, commit to the life you are living and do it 100%.

In other words, make the life that you have badass.

Single people do a lot of waiting around, thinking that they can't go out and have fun or they can't buy a house or they can't have rockin' sexy undergarments cause they're not in a relationship. Ladies, how many of you out there don't splurge on hecka cute bra and panty sets cause you think its a waste cause "nobody" will appreciate 'em. Do NOT call yourself a nobody!

Once I committed to being single and let it all in with all my fears and reservations, etc, I started LIVING. And living is in no way preventing me from being in a relationship at some future juncture. It is, however, preventing me from being in a relationship with the wrong person just so that someone (besides myself) can appreciate the skimpies I spent a small fortune on. (If you really need someone else to appreciate your skimpies, just go post pictures of 'em on craigslist. Trust me, someone out there will appreciate it a whole lot. Not that I know, first hand, mind you. I am just wise in the ways of craigslist.)

*OK. I have eaten my potato and this post and my waistline have both gotten much larger than previously predicted*

So all skimpies aside. If you're single, stop waiting. Just start going about doing the things that you want to do. Invest your time in committing to things that matter to you. I've committed my time to this blog, to my career(s), to my many wonderful and rewarding friendships. And I am no worse off by it. 

And if you're dead set thinking that the only thing for you in life is to get married and produce offspring, well, that is totally OK. Just commit to doing something you like also. Maybe it's related to marriage (hey! you could be like J.Lo and become a Wedding Planner). 

Regardless, if you commit to yourself, you're well on your way to a happy ending.