I have a plaque sitting in my living room that reads, “Friends don’t let friends take home ugly men.”  My aunt gave it to me years back and it still cracks me up.  Because, lets be honest… we’ve all had drunk goggles, or a few too many drinks and thought to ourselves, “He’s not THAT bad.  I mean,” (pause, tilt head) “he’s kind of cute.” You know what I’m talking about, the one that grows on you a little… with each drink.  It’s not a foreign concept… for years people have been making this mistake.  Its enough of a commonplace in the singles scene that they made a movie based on it, and later a chain of bars were called Coyote Ugly.  While guys might associate this concept to be mainly about looks, for girls it can be any number of things.

See for ladies, “Mr. Ugly” can translate into Mr. Loud and Obnoxious, Mr. Bigot, Mr. Casanova, Mr. Mooch, or any other number of characters you run across on your average night out.  It can be a real minefield for single Belles, if you want to know the truth. And for those of us who have suffered the repercussions of making bad decisions, we’ll go to great lengths to save another sister from having to do the same.

Which leads me to a recent night out with two of my closest Chicago Belles.  My friend Gina and I met at a neighborhood bar for a couple drinks.  Shortly after, our friend Iris came out to meet us with this handsome guy she met at the Sundance Music Festival a couple weeks before.  As usual, one drink led to another and before we knew it we were having a better time than everyone else in the bar.  It was, ehh, maybe 9:00pm.

Before long, I wandered off looking for new friends to join in on our fun, and it just so happened that several good looking guys walked in and settled at the table in front of us.  We made introductions and small talk, and minutes later we met their other friend…John Giovanni.  John Giovanni was attractive, well built, nicely dressed, and seemed like a good guy.  Except for, well, his name.  He introduced himself to Iris and said, “Hi, I’m John.  My real name is Giovanni, but I go by John.”                 WHAT?!?!                I could see Iris trying to rationalize what he said or determine if there was, in fact, a way to shorten Giovanni into simply John… but it just didn’t work.  So from then on, we addressed him as John Giovanni, a name I seriously doubt we’ll forget anytime soon.

Now, John Giovanni had a pretty suave way about him.  It was no secret he had a thing for Gina.  Maybe it was the way he stood uncomfortably close to her breathing down her neck and whispering what I can only imagine were awkward “sweet nothings” in her ear, or maybe it was how he’d look at Iris and I with an assuring tone and say, “I got this.”  John Giovanni was confident in his abilities to seduce our friend, as only an American/Italian  (or maybe neither???) could.  Throughout the evening, John Giovanni continued to repeat that confident phrase at every opportunity he had.  If I was going to remember one thing from this intoxicated evening, it would be that John Giovanni, “got this.”  Of course, what John Giovanni didn’t get was that there was no way we were letting our girl go home with “My name is Giovanni but I go by John.”

See, not only do friends NOT let friends take home ugly men, but we also don’t let friends take home douchebags.  And the later it got, the more John Giovanni established himself as a huge douchebag. After last call, at say…3:00am, we started gathering our things to leave.  John Giovanni and his crew wanted to go to another bar but I knew the smart thing would be for us to head home.  Now, usually telling a group of guys you need to go home isn’t a struggle but John Giovanni was determined to keep Gina out for “just one more drink”. He looked once again and assured me, “I got this.”

Ugh… I was in no condition to deal with a clinger so to get him off our back I told him we would meet them at the next bar for one drink.  Simple enough, right?  Wrong.  John Giovanni was smart enough to see past my white lie and as his friends got in their cab, he stayed behind to take a cab with us.  My plan of escape was officially ruined…

As our cab driver headed down Lincoln Ave., my mind was racing trying to think of another way to get the hell away from this creep.  I turned to Gina, who had long lost her decision making skills, and tried to convince her that going to another bar would not be a good idea.  I told her that even if, (through foggy drunk goggle lenses), he seemed like an appealing option, she would thank me in the morning. Gina turned her head to respond, and John Giovanni just continued to lick her face and while moaning, “I got this.”  Ick!

We were pulling up to the bar and I had to think fast.  The cab came to a stop and I went to give the driver some cash.  The cabbie looked at me sympathetically, realizing the tragedy he was witnessing, and then I had a stroke of genius.  I looked back with a slightly stunned look on my face and said, “Aren’t you going to open our door for us?” John Giovanni was startled by my request but quickly pulled it together to prove himself a gentleman and exited his side of the cab. Simultaneously, I looked back at our driver and with gusto yelled, “MOVE IT!”  Before John Giovanni could get to the other side of the cab, he was left in our taillights… staring as we sped away.

I tipped our cabbie generously and Gina and I stumbled our way into my condo building and in the elevator to my floor.  As expected, when we woke up the next morning, Gina had no recollection of how our evening ended, which made me feel better about leaving John Giovanni in our taillights with that puppy dog look on his face.

But you know, that’s what friends are for.  We’re there to make the smart decisions for you when you won’t remember making the bad ones for yourself.  We’re thoughtful enough to remember to get the guy’s card so if by chance you really ARE in love with him when you wake up the next day, you can call him!   And if you’re REAL lucky, you have the kind of friends who will laugh even harder the morning after, rehashing another crazy night out over bloody mary’s and mimosas.  Now that, is what best friends are for…

Note:  If by chance you are smooth enough to sneak away from your friends and go home with aforementioned douchebag, please refer to my previous post: A Beautiful Stranger.  After all, shit happens.

Oh, I know… I shouldn’t be such a killjoy about Valentine’s Day just because I’m not in love.  This year Chicago just seemed to be going so overboard with celebrating the Hallmark holiday.  If I got one email about a romantic dinner for two, I got 20.  Last year I spent Valentine’s Day in San Diego working, which was a welcome distraction.  This year, however, I wasn’t able to blame my single status on my career, so I made sure to have something better planned than “dinner for two”.   My girlfriends and I had a date with the Nina Fresa Martini Tree at Sushi Samba.

Okay maybe two martini trees, but you get the point.  My friend Gail and I have started the tradition of celebrating our birthdays with this stiff strawberry sensation and it’s never let us down.  It was a fabulous evening with three of my favorite Belles ever.  And after the day I had lived through… well, it was just what I needed.

 So let me start from the beginning…

I woke up around 5:30 or 6:00 as usual, only when I opened my eyes on Valentine’s Day, it looked like my pillow was covered in rose pedals.  Could that be possible?  Did the man of my dreams find me in my sleep and decide to make all of my dreams come true?

Of course not, what I was actually seeing was the beginning of a horrendous nosebleed all over my 1050 thread count sheets.  I panicked and ran into my office to grab a box of kleenex, leaving a trail of artificial rose petals all the way through my place as Henry followed in confusion (and  horror.)  It was AWFUL.  And it wouldn’t stop!  After going through an entire box of kleenex while laying down on my hardwood floor so I wouldn’t ruin anything else in my place, I started having images of newspaper headings and Facebook status posts…Independent Belle dies alone in Chicago residence, found 2 weeks later.   I felt lightheaded so I went to grab my cell phone and quickly laid back down to keep my head back and avoid bleeding out on my floor and leaving Henry traumatized for his remaining years.  I was losing a lot of blood but I wasn’t real sure what to do… this wasn’t a usual occurrence for me.  I thought it would be pathetic to call 911 and report an emergency nosebleed, but then I started to think to myself, “by the time I DO lose enough blood for it to become an emergency, I’d pass out and it would be too late!”

Henry was sitting next to me shaking the way he does when he goes outside in the cold weather.  He was definitely going to need therapy after this if I didn’t do something… quick.  So without further thought, I grabbed Henry, another box of kleenex and headed out my door leaving the crime scene behind us.  I went down to my lobby and asked my doorman if I could hide behind the desk with him for a bit so I didn’t have to think about dying alone on Valentine’s Day anymore.

Now…if I haven’t ever mentioned how wonderfully caring and nonjudgemental my doormen are, let me do so now.  They are right up there on my list of favorite things next to long weekends and shoe shopping.

After a few minutes I had calmed down and my reenactment of the Valentine’s Day Massacre had come to an end.  Relief doesn’t even begin to explain what I felt.  I stood up, only to realize that in addition to looking like the victim of a violent crime, Henry had blood streaked highlights in his hair and my flannel valentine heart pajamas were ruined by remnants of my morning scare.

Henry and I returned to my place and I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the disaster from earlier.  Henry sat in the kitchen sink and soaked in puppy shampoo and conditioner as he watched me put my place back together.  Once his hair had returned to normal color, I dried him off and we took a nap before I left for my fun filled evening with the girls.

On the positive side, my stress filled morning and resulting blood loss made me a cheap drunk so I had plenty of money leftover to buy a new pair of sheets!  When I returned home at the end of Valentine’s Day, I checked my mail and found that my parents had sent Henry a Valentine gift, which REALLY helped make up for everything he went through that morning.  Needless to say, we both slept soundly that night and were thankful to wake up perfectly healthy the rest of the week.

Now it’s time to start looking forward to a much more exciting holiday celebration for a single belle in the city… St. Patrick’s Day!

I remember putting a lot of thought into what my friends and family thought about the person I dated.  I’m a little ashamed to say that there have even been times (specifically in my teens) when I didn’t date someone, because I didn’t want to hear everyone else’s negative banter about it.  It’s one thing to seek approval from those whose opinions you value, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Think back to sometime in high school when you started dating someone new and you shared the news with your friends to see what they thought about the person.  We were superficial then, we were quick to judge, we were insecure about ourselves enough to know that making someone else feel insecure was a temporary boost to how we felt.  As we grew up, our responses became more genuine. When we told our friends we were seeing someone new, they wanted to know what attracted us to them, how the first date went, how serious we saw it getting, etc.  The idea that a friend would respond by saying, “ewwwe, he’s a dork” just didn’t hold the same importance to our maturing egos.

Then we became adults and life got so much more complicated. Deciding what WE were looking for in someone else was hard enough, never mind caring who any of your friends chose to spend their time with.  We all just assumed that the person must be great to attract our friend’s attention.  More importantly, we trusted that our friend was intelligent enough to choose someone who improved their quality of life and made them happy.  No longer were the days of giving our opinion of someone we did not know personally, it didn’t make sense.

And yet, there are still those individuals in our lives who we feel will always be judging our choices. Those people exist in everyone’s life. Maybe without realizing it, we’ve encouraged their input, or even asked for it.  And maybe, as with some family members inevitably, we’re going to have to hear their opinion whether its requested or not.  Unless you were born into a culture that believes in arranged marriages, choosing who you fall in love with is one of the only major decisions in which we take on all the risk ourselves…

For instance, if you want to have the career you love, you need the employer to hire you.  If you want to buy the house you love, you need the bank to finance you.  But if you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, your decision isn’t dependent on an institution or professional advisor.  If things don’t work out, no one else has skin in the game.  You are the one who will live with your choice, so shouldn’t you be the one to make it?

I think for the most part, the vocal critics in my life have already come to grips with the fact that who I end up with will probably look nothing like who they would choose for me.  Maybe he’ll have tattoos (it’ll be okay dad), or their primary language will be Spanish…maybe they’ll be a completely different race, or maybe they’ll have strong religious beliefs that are different from my own.  I might fall in love with someone who already has kids, or someone who doesn’t want kids.  As a matter of fact, the person I end up with probably doesn’t look anything like who I imagine myself with!  What I do know is that when I choose to be with someone, it will be a choice that only I can make.  And I would want that person to be just as confident in their choice to be with me.  I would expect those who love us will accept and support our choice, knowing that we are intelligent and capable human beings.  Maybe I’m wrong.  But I suspect not, and because of that, I believe this to be true…

Those who matter, don’t mind. Those who mind, don’t matter.

Ours – Taylor Swift