books are better than boys

I like to play this game in which I compare all of my relationships to ones from Friends¹. It’s fun, I swear. And tonight when I was brushing my teeth I started making a list. I’m sure it would have been a bit longer had I kept brushing the recommended time (slacker). (Italicized name is who I thought² I was in the relationship.) 

• Rachel and Tag
• Rachel and Joey
• Monica and Fun Bobby
• Chandler and Janice (we all have one of these, right?)
• Ross and Elizabeth
• Ross and Rachel
• Ross and Rachel
• (and this one time I almost thought I had a) Phoebe and Mike

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1I love Friends. Unabashedly. Granted I didn’t really watch the last season because - kind of awful - but I guarantee you that I laughed at every single episode that I saw, every time I saw it (just like with AFV, a terribly under-appreciated program, but not really a fan of Tom Bergeron) and that’s not nothing.}

²I wonder if the fellows would agree. It probably wouldn’t matter if I asked, none of them really cared for Friends, no matter how many times I tried to make them watch with me. If I ever meet a man who loves that show I may have to marry him immediately.

I recently subscribed to The Atlantic and since it hasn’t started arriving in my mailbox I picked up a copy on my flight back to Chicago last week specifically to read the cover story, All the Single Ladies by Kate Bolick. I was alternately hopeful and discouraged about love/marriage/coupling, and I underlined exactly one thing in the article:

That we want is enduring; what we want changes as culture does.

This past week I’ve been taking time to think about what I really want and how to get there. (And not just relationship-wise.) What we want does change, and what I thought would make me happy five or ten years ago is certainly not what I’m wanting today. So. Maybe the plan needs some revision.

Also, inspired by the article’s mention of The Begijnhof (all female apartments in Amsterdam), I decided that I should watch The Women (an all female cast, and, fun fact, that includes the animals) in an attempt to better explore all of my options.

So. That’s where I’m at.