Finances and Trannies and Mila, Oh my!

It's 3 am, my prime time. I'm eating Cheerios and milk with my dog and screaming fuck in my head because I'm having serious neck pain this evening. I must have slept wrong last night. Or today, when I took a 2 hour nap. I'm a big fan of sleep lately. This is partly because I am still getting over the flu and partly because sometimes when there's stress in my life, I'd rather just sleep through it. If I'm lucky, I'll wake up and forget what I was worrying about when I fell asleep. So far, no dice. I'm still worried.

My problem is financial. Which makes me annoyed. I grew up a spoiled child. Not embarassingly spoiled, but my father provided a very comfortable lifestyle for his family. He has four of us and none of us can complain that we went without. Ever. I'm 26 now and learning how to live within my means has become an ongoing battle. Especially now that I'm unemployed and would rather gamble with my expenses than look at my bank account and budget. I like living on the edge. I think I sickly find excitement in whipping out the debit card and getting a nervous stomach hoping that it's accepted so I can get my coffee.

Granted, I'm not always broke. It's just that I am living with much less money than I used to have when I worked full time and my brain has yet to accept the fact. AB, you cannot buy anything for pleasure anymore. Necessity only. Not sure when I'll learn. Hopefully by tomorrow, because the bank account is looking more grim than it ever has before (in the history of being financially independent). Yikes.

In other news, I joined an online dating website. Not because I wanted to find someone to date, and certainly not because I think that the internet holds the key to my next great love. A great friend of mine had been bugging me to help him with his profile on this particular site. I could not do so without making a profile of my own. So I did, okay? Stop judging me.

Begin judging now. It's now become part of my daily check in process. First it's facebook, then gmail, and now it's this dating website. Reason? I'm so vain. (I probably think this song is about me). I become excited seeing that I've received new messages. They are sometimes funny, sometimes nerdy, sometimes flirty, sometimes boring, sometimes interesting e-mails from complete strangers who think my profile is intriguing. I find pleasure in reading what they have to say. Sometimes I even respond. None of these people I have met in person, nor do I think I ever will. But God, give me a space to write and I am down. Whether it be blog, e-mail, facebook or onlinedatingareus. com (that's not the site, I'm keeping it private), I will furiously type away. That's just me.

I will say though, I've had a particularly disturbing experience so far. Well two. One is funny. One guy reached out to me who claimed to be straight but really said he's gay but knows he will never find the guy he wants because his standards are too high so he's basically settling for women. Sounded like an awful way to live. I made him give me serious details about his lifestyle choices and then cut him off. Selfish? Yes. But I have never come in contact with a gay man who is settling for women so I needed to analyze and disconnect.

Second story goes a little something like this: I was chatting a bit with a scruffy, muscular blond who was seemingly normal at first. Until he started rapid fire messaging me with a plethora of questions that I found to be puzzling.

"Do you have your own apartment?"

(Okay, good question, he probably wants to know if I live with my parents. Normal guy concern, right?)

"Ever been to college?"

(Who phrases it like that? Huge pet peeve regarding those who write horribly).

"Why don't you drink? Do you have problems?"

(Besides the fact that the answer is yes, I do have problems, many of them in fact, I didn't care for the phrasing of the question).

"Do you have a group of girlfriends that you go out with on a regular basis?"

(Why? So if you don't like me, you can move on to them? Try to hide your piggishness a bit more hun).

"Do you believe in God?"

(I feel like he threw that in there for good measure. Like, I know my questions are showing my true ugly colors but I believe in the big JC so it's all good).

Well, it's not all good. In fact, it's all bad. I did not want to speak to Mr. Psycho anymore so I simply stopped answering. To which he kept firing off more messages:

"Why are you afraid of me?"

"Why are you not letting me call you to win you over?"

"What's your problem? I don't bite!"

"I'm going out tonight, come with me."

"Let me buy you coffee."

"Let me come see you wherever you are."

"I have a few hours to hang out. Let's hang out."

"Please give me your number."

My only answer to any of these was, "I'm not quite sure about you, so please chill."

Mr. Psycho didn't like this so instead chilling, I got this message in return:

"Actually, I just looked at your picture up-close and personal, and you are a transvestite I think. Please lose my number."

As if I even had the nutcase's number in the first place? I immediately blocked him. And laughed.

And then spent the rest of the afternoon looking at myself in the mirror at various angles, wondering if I in fact, do look like a transvestite. I even asked some friends if I did. Obviously no one said yes. I secretly became kind of insecure about my looks. Until I went to Starbucks and the guy behind the counter looked up at me with a very surprised look on his face. I was startled and thought bad thoughts. Oh no. It's true. I look like an f'ing tranny. I hate myself.

But nope! He said, "Wow, has anyone told you that you look exactly like Mila Jovovich?" Yes. Thank you Starbucks man. You just brought me back to life. I've heard this before but had never actually NEEDED to hear it as much as I did this day. I held on to that compliment like there was no tomorrow. Writing this now, I honestly feel sort of pathetic.

And so there it is folks. It's now quite obvious that I still look for approval on my appearance from the outside world. I'm a woman after all, and sometimes I do feel insecure about myself. I'll go out on a limb and say that I am secretly super, super sensitive on the inside with a very tough top coat. Most of the time I don't like to show it nor admit it, but it creeps up on me and bites me in the ass if I'm not careful. I will say though that I will take being called Mila any day of the week. Even if I don't think it's true. Hell, I'll be called anything other than a man dressed as a woman.

And the Mr. Psycho from onlinedatingareus. com made up another profile and tried to contact me again. The nerve! I guess he likes trannies?