#79 Dating

All right y’all back when I started the master list I put dating on there and lemme tell you I had no idea where that would lead me! I really thought I would go out casually and have some fun dates and come back with entertaining stories.

But you see I am way too particular for that to actually work. I mean I went on a dates and was really hoping to get some enjoyment, but I just never really clicked with anyone.

I went to dinner with a stand up comedian and I was like heck yes this is gonna be a great, but nope. Guy turned out to be one of the dullest people I have ever met and we just operated on different wave lengths. Plus don’t get me started on the guy who was apparently married and going through a divorce which he stated while we were eating dinner (don’t worry, I called for the check immediately). Hell at one point a guy told me he was planning to go vegan soon and I needed to bail from that (no offense vegans, just not the lifestyle I want).

Honestly, I didn’t get much out of these dates (except that one guy that showed me the existence of fried mac and cheese) and I went on most of these dates a couple months after I had made the list really hoping to just figure out what all this relationship nonsense was about. But after many failed/weird/boring/uncomfortable dates I decided to just focus on my life and just have Future Lauren deal with dating.

Which brings me to September 2020 in the midst of a pandemic.

I was obviously not looking for anything, so when a boy from my past (that sounds dark, he just went to the same high school as me and we had recently reconnected back in August) comes along and asks me out I am shooketh.

But ya know what!?

WE CLICK!

The interaction was easy and not uncomfortable and I wasn’t sure about him, but I knew that we got along and had wonderful conversation. Fast forward another month of seeing him and I realize I like him and he’s what all this relationship stuff is supposed to be. Now here I am dating him. It’s still new, but it makes me feel confident in being able to check this off because dates with him are fun and just make sense.

I could never be a casual dater, because I think I was always just holding out for a relationship.

Don’t get me wrong I have no idea what I’m doing and I know it’s still new, but this introverted dork is dating and y’all I am so proud of me. I’ve come far. I could probably go on about my new found dating life, but that seems a smidge weird, especially if he stumbles upon this. So best just end this and cross this off the list!

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#77 Say Yes

I decided to go for a full day of saying yes for this challenge and though I have completed my day of Yes I do think I have to redo it.

Not saying I didn’t say yes all day or anything, but it honestly just wasn’t the chaos I was expecting. It was just oddly calm and when I initially thought of this challenge I thought it would get me out of my comfort zone, but instead it just created a very chill vibe throughout the whole day.

Doing this challenge I did set limitations to the things I would say yes to, since I didn’t want any one make me do something that would be against my morals, but none of that came up.

The day started and I met up with Ashley and from there the challenge begun. Beginning with us asking if we were hungry and ending up at yes and then driving 40ish minutes away to this tiny Asian fusion brunch place that I’m not entirely sure how we found it.

After spending a slightly confused time at this brunch place we ended up wandering and found our way to a book store. We challenged ourselves to find the oddest book titles and though we came across a few, none of them really sparked the “this is the weirdest title I’ve ever seen” feeling. Ended up in the travel section and tried to decide where we should go in the world. If we had the money my guess is if one of us asked to go somewhere we would have bought tickets that moment and driven to the airport. Sadly we aren’t financially there yet in our lives to buy a spontaneous trip at the moment.

Ended up in a record store after leaving the book store and bought Princess Mononoke DVD because we have been talking about this particular Studio Ghibli movie for months and we have yet to watch it.

We said yes to go hunt down some cool street art and ended up in a slightly sketchy area which was then that we decided that this yes wasn’t the right place to be. So we pivoted to driving around for an hour until we found a coffee shop. Talked for an hour about life and such and plans cause I actually haven’t seen Ashley in a few months so we were catching up.

This is when we reached the evening portion of our day and so far the day had been relatively chill. Nothing crazy, nothing intense, nothing really bad about saying yes. In fact our last yes of the day turned out to be eating apple pie while watching Princess Mononoke (side note: why is this movie so popular? What am I missing? I wasn’t really a fan of it….).

I don’t know this Say Yes challenge didn’t really go where I thought it should go mostly cause I think the opportunities and the choices we had that day did not lead to the most exciting Day of Yes. I wanted more. I thought more chaos would ensue. Maybe my personal life is too much in flux and my subconscious wanted the chill and though it was a great day, it was not the day I was hoping it would turn out to be.

Not that it was a bad day, but it’s almost so uninteresting that it just sounds like any other day off. Yes we tried to different places we don’t normally go to and explore different areas, but when you put in perspective the other things we’ve done this challenge falls short at the moment, as I don’t think I fully pushed myself out of my comfort zone.

As for now it is technically completed, but I am not opposed to redoing this one in the future. Perhaps somewhere else where the choices of yes are more upped and where I will be completely out of my comfort zone.

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#80 Join a Club

Guess who stupidly didn’t realize she accomplished this goal a long time ago and while looking over her list had the revelation that she was already in a type of club!?

If you guessed me you are 100% correct. If you did not guess me, I have no idea what state your mind is in, but based off that one question I can assume you need coffee.

Honestly, I had actually fulfilled this goal while the original list was in the making and it didn’t occur to me until today. Ya see I am on a pool league. Meaning I meet this group of people weekly and I pursue this hobby of mine. Sounds like a club to me.

I have been a part of my pool league for a year now and it’s one of those things that I am slowly getting better and is a place to hang out with people. When I joined it was cause my brother signed me up and got me a spot on the team he was joining. At the time I thought I would just do it for a session and then find out it wasn’t my thing and quit. Which is around the same time I started this blog, so it never really hit me that I was in a club already because I didn’t think I was going to initially stick with it.

The thing is after that first session I realized I really liked playing at pool halls. I mean I am not the best pool player, but the people on my team are pretty good and I learn so much just by watching them. I liked pool before joining, but I have learned so much more than I would have on my own just by talking to them and watching them. Which I mean that’s what happens in a club you learn more about your hobby and just enjoy it.

I’m really happy to know that this just sort of happened to me naturally and I didn’t have to force my goals to be a reality. It just kind of aligned to what I already value and just worked which is exactly what I want out of these goals. I didn’t want to be just doing things for the sake of doing them, I wanted these goals to be meaningful to me and fit who I am.

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Social

I am pretty introverted as a person, so I wanted to have a set list of challenges that kind of forced me out and expand myself socially. But also allow myself to have fun doing them and not make socializing feel like a chore. I want to get out there, but I don’t want to do too much and lock myself up. This list is set up to put me out there, but allows me to stay true to my personality.

Social Goals:

Go Dancing at least twice a month for a year
- I actually love going swing dancing or line dancing or literally any dancing people invite me too and I go a lot and then I just stop. Not sure why, I clearly enjoy it, but I just start avoiding it. It’s something that I wanna enjoy and it’s an activity that is fun and gets me socialized.
Monthly Board Game Night
- I would like to keep this up for the rest of my life so I’mma need a consistent group! But for challenge purposes I will say this will be accomplished after a year of consistency.
Go out every night for one week
- This has to be when I’m home, when I’m traveling or on vacation this is easy, but when I’m home going out every night is a struggle. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully gone out every day of the week before, so gotta get on that.
Throwback outings
- I didn’t really know how to phrase this, but once a month I should get someone to go out and do something that we would have done when we were kids. Like as a kid I went bowling and did laser tag a lot, but in recent years haven’t gone since I turned eighteen, so that would be a throwback outing.
Live music
- I’ve gone to quite a few concerts, so I don’t really know what I mean by this, but it’s social and it’s something that I should do more of for more life experiences. So maybe see ten live shows in a given amount of time to make it more of a challenge. I have figured out what I’m doing for this challenge! For this to be accomplished I have to go see bands at 10 different concert venues. I realized I have been to quite a few concerts but only at 1 or 2 venues and so I have moved the focus of this goal to going to more concert venues.
Make New friends
- I know this is super generalized and I love all my current friends and I do have friends so thankfully I’m not a total loner, but I do realize that I have my own little circle. That’s fine, but I’d like to meet more people and the more friends the more social experiences I will get.
Say Yes
- Take the Yes Man mentality for a day or a week
Go to Vegas with a Group
- This used to be a conversation social challenge, but then I spent a weekend in Vegas with friends and with the level of socialization I did it felt like that had to be swapped out for Vegas. Plus I really want to cross off some more goals so this one is going to be a give me.
Dating
- I don’t go out on dates often and it’s definitely because of some insecurities and me being picky, but I do know it is something I should start doing a bit more often. Dating doesn’t have to be just to find a special someone (though that’s kind of the purpose), they provide some great social times and even if it is initially a date, but becomes a friend thing that’s even better cause I am always down for some friends! Plus it will leave me some (potentially great) stories.
Join a Club
- Maybe I’ll find a new hobby or expand on my current ones!