How do you meet new people?

It's a question a lot of people ask and tonight i think i may have stumbled upon your answer. People always say "where do you go to meet people" and "you won't meet someone sitting home on your couch". The answer is accept invitations, all of them, unless you really do have something else you should be doing or the invitation isn't something that's safe or healthy.

For example today after work i was going to a friends to pack up a lot of my stuff to move tomorrow (putting some of my stuff in a storage unit) and it didn't sound like a great Friday night but at least I'd be productive. Well our department was dismissed early from work and some co-workers wanted to go for a drink and i happened to stumble into the conversation. I was asked to go and at first i started to say no and then changed my mind. Yes my stuff needed to get done but i could go for an hour right? Well one hour turned into two and then three and well let's just say it's five hours later. But the best part is i did something i hadn't planned on doing tonight, i made a friend. Another co-worker had stumbled into the same "let's go for drinks" conversation and even tho (like me) it wasn't her crowd she decided what the heck and joined us. Well long after everyone poops out and goes home we sit and talk, then walk around and shop and then go for coffee. She's a truly awesome person, someone i have a lot in common with. And even tho I'm starting to pack at 11:15 on a Friday night (and am going to hate my life in the early AM) it was so worth it.

My point? Go! When you are asked, GO! Even if it sounds boring. If you show up and it is, then you've only wasted what, a half hour of your life? But if you're invited and you truly have no where else you NEED to be then go. Cause who knows, one person may bring their friends who runs into their friend and maybe you'll hit it off. It could be a romance or just a new person you have a lot in common with. But it's totally worth it to meet new people, and at least this way it's not like the bar or internet where you start from nothing, at least this person has some conversation starter (when did you start in this dept, how long have you known so and so, etc). It beats sitting home and hoping mr/mrs right is gonna walk into your living room looking for you. Or sitting at a bar seeing someone attractive only to watch their other half come back from the bathroom and put their arms around your cutie. At least this way you're not there looking for anything more than drinks w/ friends (or whatever the invite may be) and won't be disappointed if that's all it turns out to be (instead of being at a bar looking for someone to go home w/ and having no luck). So go ahead, put yourself out there, if you do you're sure to meet some awesome new people...

(another one from the achieves that stands true today, originally posted to MySpace in 2006)

How to embarass a man

It was my best friend's birthday. Life got away from me and I had forgotten to send a gift or even a card. I get to work that morning and decide I'm going to search online for something to send to him. But what can be delivered the same day? Flowers? No, you don't send a man flowers. Electronics? Not the same day... besides I can't afford anything good. Cookies? Ok, let's try cookies... This is a grown man who's getting the gift at work, I'm not sending a basket of race car cookies. Balloons? Perfect! They can deliver the same day, are in my price range, and just embarrassing enough to tell him how much I love and miss him without overdoing it while he's at work. So I hit purchase, confirm his info and off I go. Around 2 I get a text message and then an IM "did you send me flowers" "no" "really?" "yeah why" "cause I got flowers". Now I said no because I didn't send him flowers, I sent him balloons from 1-800flowers and they were probably just calling to confirm the delivery address.... Nope, they screwed up, they sent him flowers... hot pink ones...




Boy was I in trouble! But at least he laughed. Not as hard as I or Shaw (close friend of ours) laughed but he definitely found the humor in this.

And my mission of embarrassing him? Accomplished!

Then, later that day, his entire office comes in with a cake to sing for him so he not only has a bouquet of hot pink roses on his desk but now everyone's seen them and he has to explain....

I e-mail 1-800flowers and tell them "I ordered balloons and he got hot pink roses". They e-mail me back, apologize for the mix up and say "we contacted the vendor and they read the name wrong". Um... did they see Danielle instead of David? What does the name matter, this is not the difference of blue flowers vs pink flowers... this was supposed to be balloons! "But we can have the balloons delivered tomorrow, please let us know if this is satisfactory". Not really, his birthday is today.... No wait, if the goal is embarrassing him... what's worse than a man receiving hot pink flowers for his birthday... Receiving a big bunch of balloons when it's not his birthday! So i tell them to go ahead.

And one day after his official birthday, he IM's me to tell me he's on his way down to the reception desk to pick up a large display of balloons that's just come in for him...

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

I've learned an important lesson and wanted to share it with all you ladies...

I used to be the kind of girl who never had girlfriends... didn't see the use for them... they were catty and petty and I didn't want them.... I had enough guy friends.... boy was I making a mistake!!!

Guy friends are great, don't get me wrong but you'll always need friends of both gender. If you block out one you are missing an entire support system that you may need later in life.

Here's what I see as the fundamental difference between guy friends and girl friends:

If you want a problem solved, bring it to a man. When you go to a man w/ a problem he views it as a cry for help and does what he can to fix it. Some are better than others. Some offer insight and some offer ice cream... but what ever it is they offer, they view it as a solution to your problem (or at least the answer that makes you stop crying).

If you just want someone to listen, bring it to a woman. She's not going to try to fix your problem (unless you ask her to)... her job is to listen, relate, tell you her story of when she went thru the same thing... make you laugh if you are crying... offer to kick the crap out of the person who upset you... bring up past experiences you've shared when trying to make a big decision... but if you call a woman crying and say you just want to talk, she'll get that and just let you rant, even if it's 3 am.

So many women run into problems when they don't understand this concept. If you bring a problem to a man and all you wanted was someone to listen to you rant for a few minutes then you're just going to be frustrated in the end... he's going to start telling you what he sees is the problem and how to fix it... you may already know the fix... you many not even want to fix it... you were just upset and wanted to rant... well then you should have brought it to a woman.

On the other hand, if you bring a problem to a woman and you want someone to make the decision for you then you'll be equally as frustrated. You'll spend hours on the phone weighing options, going over past experiences, hearing related stories and getting advice... what you won't get is someone who'll tell you what to do or offer to do it for you.

Apparently I'm not the first or only person to come to this conclusion. Apparently it's one of the points in the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Maybe I should have read it when it was recommended to me years ago and it wouldn't have taken me so long to realize this. Thanks Patrick for trying...