I think about what people mean when they say “It was love at first sight.” Clearly it means when they first saw their significant other, boyfriend/girlfriend, lover, etc., that he/she was in love INSTANTLY. It’s a laughable concept, but valid to those who’ve experienced it. In the days before I met Ryan, in middle school, and certainly in the time when I had no desire to get married, I saw a boy who I thought was super cute. I stared at him as I walked from third to fourth period. I had never heard him talk, I didn’t know if he was AP classes or in remedial classes, and I didn’t know if he beat his dog. All of which were fairly important to me. After a few days, I decided to make a move in the best way a middle schooler could – I made a slam book. If you don’t know what this is, it’s an interview book of sorts and it was a big deal when I was growing up. Basically it’s a binder with loose leaf paper in it and each page has a question on it: name, favorite color, favorite movie, favorite actress/actor, and “If you were stuck at the top of a Ferris Wheel, who would you want to be with?” My slam book included a page entitled “Phone Number,” because I’m slick. I had all my friends fill it out just for show, then one of them gave it to my crush for him to do the same. All that just to get him to write his phone number. And he did. To make a long story short, I, the stalker, became the stalkee, and it was the most grueling 58 days of my life. Because this was during the summer, I was saved from the future embarrassment of seeing him around school and people knowing that we “went out.” This validated the belief that love at first sight is bull crap.
So why do we look at someone and think, “I love him”? Our instincts are not very cerebral. In fact, they’re just the opposite. I believe that our love at first sight is very instinctual and has not evolved a past simple evolutionary survival mechanism: to find someone to have our children.
This is why women look at a man and instantly notice his muscular body. Why? Because he can protect you and your children from predators. It seems that we’ve come in full circle with our priorities and needs. In the caveman days, or at least what we see in museums and TV shows/movies, we see the hairy cave man, his bigger, bulkier body next to a clearly smaller, cave woman (presumably his wife). He is raising up his club to the sabertooth tiger while his woman cowers behind him. Is this how it really was millions of years ago? Who knows. But probably yes. To be honest, this is probably one of the widely-recognized moments where we’re exposed to what a man is supposed to do in life: protect his woman. We carry this with us and believe that men should be protective, chivalrous, and willing to die for her.
This song popped up in my playlist after I transferred a bunch of songs from my old phone. I’m sure a lot of people who remember Nirvana and Kurt Cobain will remember him as a musical genius. I don’t know about all that. I think Nirvana was about being at the right place at the right time. But that’s neither here nor there. Today I’m going to dissect the song lyrics to “In Bloom,” not line by line, but rather by each concept. Back in the 90s I wasn’t into them enough to sit down and think about the lyrics. But as I listened closer, I realized this is a song about an adolescent boy’s adventure in masturbation. (Lyrics in bold)
This is the list you will never see in Cosmopolitan. These suggestions are not for women who are squirmish or still feel sex has a lot of dirty aspects. I actually wouldn’t suggest these techniques to any woman who isn’t married and totally in love with her man. However, our readers can decide for themselves if they want to give their lovers moments that they will never forget. These are the moves that will make him say, “She was the wildest woman I have ever had in bed.” Whether he stays with you forever, or he moves on, he will never forget you.
I listen to Pandora at work. A lot. It helps me get through the day not to mention keeping me awake. I recently added an 80s hits station because sometimes I need to do the Carlton in my office to an era-specific type of music. Today, I heard the distinct synthpop intro of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” trickle through tiny mesh metal speakers on my standalone work PC. I quickly hit the thumbs up icon on the track. I love this song.
Today Angelina Jolie discussed the removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes in an op-ed article in the New York Times. I never liked Angelina Jolie as an actress, but I never disliked her. I never followed her in the news, I never went out of my way to watch one of her movies, and I didn’t have the need to know much about her. I knew a few things about her, like she was Jon Voight’s daughter and Billy Bob Thornton was cheating on his fiancee (who supposedly didn’t find out until Billy Bob and Angelina were married) with her. She was just kind of…there. Eventually I saw more of her in the media not because of her movies, but because of her humanitarian efforts, her growing family, and health issues.