Can You Help Me?

So after coming back from NYC where you can eat every kind of food POSSIBLE, a friend had an issue with picking a meal at a Thai restaurant. She confessed that she didn’t really enjoy her meal and that she really isn’t good at picking her meals whenever she goes to new restaurants. I decided to write about it…

And share my tips with the world.

Look for what you like. First and foremost, read the menu. Give yourself and the restaurant a chance. At the Thai restaurant last week, they didn’t really have what I wanted so I looked for food I was familiar with. If you’re not familiar with the fried peanut sauce and you don’t even favor peanuts like that anyway: stay away. I’m all about trying new things but base it off of what you like. Completely foreign foods are like playing the lottery…hitting the jackpot is seldom. I ended up ordering the Chinese broccoli with chicken. I’ve had Chinese food before and I like chicken. Go figure. Granted the dish had a little more greens (aside from broccoli) than I anticipated but it was delish!

Ask what’s good. After reading the menu thoroughly you realize that they you don’t see anything you are familiar with or would order. That’s when you starting asking questions. Ask the date you’re with, the friends you came with or your waiter what the popular dish of the day is or what the restaurant is known for. The first night I was in the city, I went to this chic Spanish restaurant and asked what good appetizers they had. Turned out they were known for their grilled corn with chili powder. I was a little apprehensive about it (especially the chili powder) but it turned out to be the most delicious corn I’ve ever tasted. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, you might miss out on good corn.

Smell around. Maybe I’m the greediest human being on earth but when I enter a restaurant I use all five of my senses. But I notice that smell usually will dominate all of the senses and conquer me into ordering whatever that sweet aroma maybe. Fresh bread, baked chicken, fried seafood…all of these have a distinctive smell and make my mouth water. Look around and see what’s on people’s plates (especially the folks sitting right next you) and you may find what you’ve been smelling all along.

Meat and potatoes. Rarely does this ever fail. Everyone has had a burger and fries and it’s a combination that usually leaves their customer satisfied. It’s familiar and a lot of restaurants carry it. Believe me I know. I’ve been eating that combo since I was 3 and just step out of its boundaries when I was 21. Hey, they’ve never let me down so why would steer away from that? (To try something new, duh.) If it’s not a burger and fries, most eateries have steak and mashed potatoes or some kind of traditional meat and potato meal that you grew up on.

Copycat it. If don’t see anything you like, you can’t build up the nerve to ask what’s good, nothing smells good to you and they have the audacity to not have the All-American cheeseburger on their menu, find something familiar on anybody’s plate and tell your server, “I’ll have what they’re having.” Sure, not being original is lame but saying it like that makes you sound like you’re talking about something. Hopefully, you’ll end up liking it and coming back to the restaurant because their chicken and broccoli with peanut sauce and jasmine rice is to die for.

Or make the person you copied pay for the crap and use the money you saved to buy a number three at the nearest McDonalds five minutes later.

It’s a win-win situation.

Reasonable Doubt

Man and woman meet. Then they date. Simultaneously, they fall in love. Man proposes. Woman says yes because she thinks it’s the right thing to do.

They live unhappily ever after.

Love. That’s what all us emotion driven creatures, women, want. Naturally, by universal social norm the next step is marriage. But just because you love someone doesn’t mean you should marry them. He proposes and she declines even though she loves him. It doesn’t make sense.

Like the cynical Miranda of SATC said, “Why is that reasonable doubt can get you out of murder but in an engagement can turn you into the bad guy?”

Now, I’m not engaged but I have been proposed to once. I was 19, and I just broken up with my boyfriend at the time because after a year of dating I was tired of him wanting to break up every time he got mad at me. So, his attempt to get me back was proposing and giving me the choice of whatever ring I wanted. Now make no mistake, I loved this guy but this wasn’t the answer. We weren’t making it as boyfriend and girlfriend and chances were becoming husband and wife wouldn’t have made us more compatible. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have even made it down the aisle – it would have been a very short lived engagement. I loved him, but even at 19 I knew that wasn’t enough.

Society puts us – women- between a rock and hard place: a ring and a vulnerable man on bended knee. How does one say no to that? It’s honestly the biggest set up ever. (Seldomly does the woman ever propose to the man and if she does…well that’s another article at another time.) That being said, men don’t feel this type of pressure. Sure it’s tough to propose to someone but so is having a menstrual cycle and bearing children. Recognize that love is not enough and that money isn’t everything. If you realize that you care about this person but just not enough to enter marriage with them, go ahead and break it off. Regardless of how much you love them, the chances of reconciliation of a successful and healthy relationship after turning down a marriage proposal are slim to none – no matter what a best friend, talk show host or a fortune cookie told you.

My advice to men: Get your timing right and most importantly, get the right woman. Make sure your lady wants to be asked in the first place. If not, you may feel rejection like you never felt before.

And to my fellow ladies: Really know what you want and OWN it. Just because you want to get married doesn’t mean you can handle a proposal. I think that’s why most women cry when they’re being asked.

It’s because they’re confused.

Look, some people are meant to date and some are meant to marry. Separate the two. (And if you are going to be with someone for 15 years, go ahead and marry them. It’s the respectable thing to do.) 50% of American marriages end up in divorce. Would the number of divorces have been lower had some of those women said ‘no’?

Take it from a woman who really wants to get married but will turn you down just to not become a statistic – even if she loves you. It’s not worth it, because I am. The question is: are you?

Woman gets divorce and moves on. She meets another man. Man and woman date. They fall in love. Man proposes and woman accepts because not only does man love her but is willing to work to keep them together.

And that’s how you live happily ever after.

Happiness...is it all it's cracked up to be?

Is there ever a good enough reason to compromise your happiness?

Being that it is a few days after my 24th birthday, earlier I stopped and reflected all that I’ve been through. Living in 5 different countries, attending various elementary schools, minor injuries and major mosquito bites, a bee sting, butting heads with two conservative parents, sharing secrets with a free spirited sister, five learning experiences called relationships, remaining television free on weekdays until the age of 18, a stint at Penn State then taking three years off, sporadically living in New York then moving down to the A where it seems like I have started all over again. And after all that reminiscing I’ve realized that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

Regardless of how much money I don’t have, how many people don’t approve and where I’m supposed to be in life, I no longer let any of that affect my contentment. I know there are books on how to obtain it and society has made us believe that it is such a hard notion to acquire but in all actuality, it’s not that hard.

Okay, maybe I’m biased because I’m the happy person. But I realized in my past experiences that my happiness really depends on me, but because I believed it was on someone or something else it was compromised. At the end of the day, there’s never a good enough to compromise your happiness. If you love to dance, someway somehow you should be dancing everyday. If you love to sing, the shower should be your stage and people should be telling you to stop singing so much on a daily basis. I love to write so I will make sure I write a little something everyday (well at least 5 days out of the week) whether it’s a blog post, a song or a journal entry. In this day and age where you can make a billion dollars off of a little idea called Facebook because you liked networking with your friends via PC because computers make you happy – you can’t afford you not do what you love. Well, you can but you may miss out on a big payout.

Of course, like I said before I’m happy so maybe you shouldn’t take it from me. But have a little conversation with yourself, develop a life plan and point out distinctively what makes you happy. What do you enjoy doing? It’s so funny because after working for the man for so long and catering to your family, friends or spouse/significant other’s needs you become lost and ignorant to what really made you happy in the first place. Take some time to figure it all out and trust me it’ll be worth it. If not, just stop worrying about what other people say, don’t psych yourself out if you’re tired, lazy or scared of it and accept happiness for what it is. The things you once thought would thrill you may not be all you ever dreamed of and maybe that one thing you never thought you’d give a chance can give you that peace you’ve needed all along.

In hindsight, maybe happiness isn’t so easy to obtain because as they say you’ve got to go through the rain to get a rainbow. But I’m telling you, once you get through that storm, smooth sailing has never felt so good.

So to answer my own question, there is absolutely no reason good enough to compromise my happiness. Because I wouldn’t trade it for the world.