I have admired a number of relationships over the years; George W. and Barbara, Fred and Wilma, Jerry and Elaine, and especially Sherlock and Watson. But one particular relationship I’ve revered and respected unlike any other is one that was built on friendship and mutual respect.

This couple laughed and had fun, fully loving each other the way a man and woman should. I’m, of course, talking about Chandler and Monica Bing.

Over the course of the ten years we were able to witness their interactions, Chandler and Monica’s relationship was of cosmic, organic origins that grew from neighbors, to friends, to best friends, to lovers, and then into husband and wife.

Watching these two characters (yes, I realize they’re fake) grow closer to each other was something pleasant and inspiring to behold.

By the time they moved to the suburbs and adopted newborn twins, I knew I would one day want something very similar to what these two had (I have it now and couldn’t be more blessed).

I remember seeing them high five after a joke and wondering if I’d ever be blessed enough to have a girlfriend cool enough to want to slap me five (I’m still working on her). I recall seeing them face struggles together as a team and realizing that this is the way a relationship should work (I realized while writing this that my own mother and father did this my entire life, but you guys don’t know them, so…).

And while looking back over the course of Chandler and Monica’s ten years together, I see that the basis for everything they were was built on friendship.

Before they were ever lovers or spouses, they were friends. I wanted that.

It’s no secret that relationships are not a walk in the park. They’re work and they’re frustrating at times. I’ve been blessed (cursed) to have been through and learned from every type of relationship there is, and I must confess that above everything else, a couple must be friends.

Depending on the level of the relationship, it’s likely that we spend a large majority of our time with our partner.

We sit and talk, we go out, we take trips; so to be in the constant company of another human, it’s best if we’ve developed a friendship on which our romantic relationship can grow. After all, without friendship, a relationship is just two individuals making out from time to time.

But like Chandler and Monica, building our relationship on a foundation of friendship allows us to do and be things we otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

Whether it’s spending hours upon hours together (which is hard to do sometimes; let’s be honest), to communicating to each other what the other is feeling. Without a solid friendship in place, these things can lead to frustration, anger, and loud, rambunctious fights that wake the neighbors and get the Po-Pos called on you.

Now, I’m not foolish enough to believe that a couple who are friends first will never fight. After all, we fight and argue with our friends on a regular basis, and even Chandler and Monica had their tiff every now and then, but I do believe that if we choose to build our relationship upon friendship, the romantic side of things will be sweeter and much easier to deal with.

Maybe we’ll never have a relationship like the Bings (it was manufactured by a room of writers after all), but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from what we saw transpire between those two.

Yes, often times a romance starts before a friendship can blossom, but that just gives us extra incentive to develop and mature that relationship so that the romance is enhanced and even more deeply cherished.

Being friends won’t guarantee us a relationship like we saw on “Friends”, but it will give us a fortified base on which our relationship can flourish.

And somewhere, somehow, Chandler and Monica would approve of that.

 Are you a “friends first” type or a “you can get to know me over dinner” person? What TV relationship makes you say – I WANT THAT!

Follow Cory on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Cory_Copeland Check out Cory’s brand new novel, “These Were the Nights” here: http://corycopeland.net/these-were-the-nights/

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I used to have more adventures when I didn’t have a smartphone.

The irony is that I got a smartphone thinking that it would aid me in my adventures. Help me find my way after wandering, get me places on time, and make me much more organized as an individual. Like many people, I fell into the trap of letting my smartphone become my external brain.

How stupid.

It was easy at first. Check Twitter here. Upload a picture there. Send a few hundred text messages to my close friends. Check my email. Map out the best way to get downtown while avoiding traffic. Navigate my way around a new city. Find the closest gas station. During high stress times, I’ve been known to check my email in my sleep. I’m pretty sure that isn’t healthy.

I found that I was spending more time looking down at my screen than I was at the beautiful world around me.

And I found out that I wasn’t the only one doing it. I had become one of many people who would engage with people virtually but not when they were standing in front of another human being.

You’ve probably seen the phenomenon of a large silent group of people. Silent save the sound of keys clicking and chuckles from inside jokes shared with the person on the other side of the screen.

That’s a problem.

See, I think we were created for community. To experience life together. Not to sit alone. Not to stare at screens and wish for something more.

I once had a friend who loved video games, movies, and all sorts of media. He was absolutely enthralled with epics. One day, we were talking about our movie tastes. I was going on and on about a movie I had seen, gushing about how I wanted to visit the country the film was shot in, see the landscape, and have an adventure that mimicked the screen.

My friend stared at me. “We’re very different,” he said. “I don’t need to have an adventure when I could live it vicariously through the characters on the screen.”

I laughed, asked him ever so politely if he was kidding, and shook my head. We stared at each other for a moment, each one of us not understanding how the other person could be so weird. Then the subject changed.

I don’t God put us on the world in order to just learn about it in the textbook style or to stare at it on a screen.

He gave us senses to feel and discover the world we were created for. Everyone has the desire to explore somewhere inside of them. They don’t have to be the next Columbus, but somewhere there is a deep yearning in every soul to experience the wonder of the world they were placed in.

Staring at a screen numbs that.

Makes us forget that if we walked out our door and kept on walking, we’d find ourselves far, far away from our humdrum existences.

Makes us believe that if only we had faster internet we’d be happy. Makes us believe that one of our universal human rights is access to the internet and websites that load in under 5 seconds.

It’s all lies of course. 

Put down the smartphone. Engage in life around you. Don’t take a photo on instagram, take a memory with your heart. Get to know the contours of a friend’s face, not through Facebook, but through face to face time. If you want to know something about someone, pick up the phone and ask them out for coffee. Don’t rely on a quick google search.

We’re all complex people. A million miles of emotions, adventures, memories, and plans all wrapped in skin. Each one of our beings rep with stories. Adventures longed for. Dreams realized. Loves lost and gained.

My friend Andrew used to remind me of this when I first got my smartphone. He’d tell me to quit taking pictures with my phone and start taking them with my heart. I would get annoyed when he told me to always be present. Play with my phone when I had the time but to know when it was better to put it away.

I hate it when he’s right.

Experience life. Not through the lens of a smartphone camera but through the lens of your heart. Have experience that become written on your soul, not your Facebook wall.

Golden memories don’t happen when you stick to itineraries. Those are the most boring vacations. There’s no deep sense of discovery that comes from looking at a tiny LED screen. Awe happens when you suddenly see the mountain towering over the pines or find yourself wandering through a tiny canyon toward a waterfall.

Awe isn’t manmade. Adventure can’t be carefully planned. And staring at your screen all day is a pretty terrible way to live.

Be vibrant.

Put down your phone.

Engage in the life around you.

Live. Truly. Madly. Deeply.

photo credit: Chris JL via photo pin cc

 
I never imagined myself to be in a long distance relationship. Ever. Why? Because I like hugs.

Yes, I’m completely serious.

Long distance relationships weren’t an option for me, and were a non-negotiable for my boyfriend, Roberto, too. We’re both physically affectionate people, and I wasn’t sure if I could go for that long in a relationship without getting big bear hugs.

God wasn’t having it, though.

We made our plans and He laughed at us and brought us together anyway. Though being so far apart really sucks sometimes, we’ve found it to be a blessing in our lives. It has also been a great opportunity to learn about relationships both near and far. Some of the hardest and most important things we’ve learned are …

1. Communication is a pain in the …

Everyone says that long distance relationships really teach you how to communicate. Everyone’s right.

Sometimes sarcasm doesn’t translate very well over text message – I learned that one the hard way. Not being face-to-face means having to work extra hard to understand the message that your partner is trying to get across to you. It also means being very clear, spelling things out, and repeating things more than you normally would. Miscommunication happens in every relationship, local and
from a distance, but it’s crucial to remember that you’re both in this together and it’s just as difficult for your partner as it is for you.

Give grace.

We’re both in this together and we’re learning about each other’s means of communicating. We’re also learning to listen more and speak less; or, at least, not speak at the same time.

2. You’re not in the same place.

I know, I get the Captain Obvious Award for making that statement, but I’m talking about a bit more than just the obvious.

I’m 3 hours ahead of Roberto, which means he’s normally coming home from work in LA traffic as I’m getting ready for bed. He could be in a great mood after an energetic workday and he’s excited to talk to me, unwind, and be silly after a long day. Roughly 2500 miles north, I’m exhausted and sitting in bed in my dark room in a relatively quiet house. In a setting like this, we tend to clash.

We’re not in the same place.

Since we’re not in the same space, we may not be in the same place mentally, emotionally, or physically. It can be really hard to grasp this, but it’s so important. Understanding where your partner is will help you communicate better and not get on each other’s nerves unnecessarily.

I repeat, communication is a pain in the …

Give grace.

3. Be intentional with your time together.

Whether it’s in person, on Skype, or over the phone, be intentional with how you spend your time together. Sometimes Roberto and I get caught up in just keeping up with each other’s days that we forget to have meaningful conversation. And, as much as Skype movie dates are fun – what with the pressing play at the same time and dealing with faulty Internet connections – we’re learning to be more
intentional with our time together.

We don’t get to do life together so we have to come up with ways to learn about each other without observing each other in our natural environments.

Come up with new ways to learn about each other.

When Roberto and I first began ‘courting’, we came up with a long list of questions (both silly and serious) to ask each other and to discuss. Each question made for great conversation in which we got to know each other better, and we walked out of the conversation feeling satisfied with the time we spent together.

Over a year later, we still like to make time to ask each other questions because it helps us to get to know one another more intimately and is a great way to start purposeful conversation.

What questions would you ask your future spouse? Write them down. Ask them. Talk about them.

4. Live in the moment.

When I’m in a relationship I’m very guilty of spending all of my time with my boyfriend and, consequently, neglecting other friendships. I had a hard time dealing with that in a face-to-face relationship, and an even harder time in a long distance relationship.

Spending all your time together doesn’t make up for the distance, no matter how hard you try. Believe me, we’ve tried. It doesn’t change the fact that the person isn’t there with you. Don’t prioritize him/her above the life you lead now. Don’t live inside the computer and abandon everyone else for the sake of spending every fleeting moment with your long distance partner.

What ends up happening is that you lose touch with the community and friends and family that you should be doing life with. You distance yourself from those in your immediate community who care about you; you neglect them so as to invest all of your time into your partner.

Don’t put your entire life on hold to spend all of your time with that one person.

Roberto and I lead two very different and very separate lives, and it’s great. When you live your life, it gives you content. It gives you people and passions to invest in that you can later share with your partner. It allows you to stretch and grow and be challenged outside of your relationship and in ways that your partner can’t offer.

When you live your own life it allows you both to be more dynamic and to bring more into the relationship.

Live in the moment.

I’ve learned a lot from the past year of being in a long distance relationship. Above all, I’m learning to trust in God’s will for our lives. I never would have thought that I’d be in a long distance relationship with guy who lives in California - I wouldn’t know how to do it. But, I have been.

Practical lessons aside, I’m learning to walk by faith and trust that God is in control.

Monica Gerges is an introvert with extrovert tendencies, and passions for writing, people, and helping others share their stories. She blogs at www.reflectiverambling.blogspot.com about everything from her past to relationships to how God’s working in her peacefully frantic world. For the condensed version, you can find her on twitter @monicagerges.

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Every woman knows the dread of swimsuit shopping.

I don’t know any woman who looks forward to the occasion. There’s a certain amount of dread that comes when you take a step into swimsuit territory. All of a sudden, flashbacks of ice cream nights and cottage cheese thighs come to mind. You remember all the missed appointments you had with the elliptical machine.

It’s a terrible wake up call.

I had three of them in succession last week. Only like Peter, I didn’t realize what I had done until the third one hit me in the face.

Wake Up Call No. 1: Is This Your Dream?

The first one came when I was sitting across the table from an author I know. He’s written a few books and had them published with varying amounts of success. We were talking about books, writing, and why we write what we do. He writes in a very specific genre, economic thrillers, one that I couldn’t even begin to write for.

He asked me how my novel was coming along. The one that I had told so many people about. The one that I haven’t worked on for two months.

I stalled, not really knowing how to answer.

“I’m in an identity crisis.”

He looked at me, waiting for an answer. I really didn’t feel like going into the details while my mind was so hazy. So I changed the subject and asked him why he wrote his genre.

“Because I love it.”

Oh.

“Do you love writing about singles?” he asked.

Um….no. Not really.

It’s not something I ever dreamed about and to be honest, it’s something I’m slightly embarrassed about at times. Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting this but that’s the fact of the matter. When I think of the stories I want to write, and the ones that I love to read, they are much bigger than boy meets girl.

Wake up call no. 1: If you are not excited to tell someone about what you are working on, there’s something wrong. - Click to tweet

Wake Up Call No. 2: We’d Like To Have You Join Us

A day later, I was mulling over a recent opportunity that came up. I had been offered a position in a ministry opportunity that seemed tailor-made for me. Tell the stories of the church, local and international.

It would be simple: all I had to do was meet people, listen to them tell their stories, and then share them with a few thousand people. I would get to tell the good, the bad, and the ugly. The stories of redemption, grace, and of a life ignited.

“We’d like to have you join us.”

The words had been spoken by the ring-leader of the ministry. She had been leaning forward as she spoke, inviting the few people crowded around the table in on a grand adventure.

I wanted in. Wanted in so badly. But then I did the responsible thing and started doing the math.

There was no way that I could join in if I kept up my current writing responsibilities. I was trading in one of my dreams for something I didn’t love.

Crap.

Wakeup call no. 2: There’s something horribly wrong when you are giving up “best” for “sub-par.” - Click to tweet

Wake Up Call No. 3: Why Don’t You Just Do What You Love? 

I wrote an email to the ministry leader, explaining why I couldn’t say yes. I hated myself in that moment but I did it anyway.

A few hours later, I was having coffee with a new friend, an entrepreneur who thrives on adventure. The type of person who doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the word can’t.  He wanted to know if I was doing what I loved. If writing singles columns was really what I wanted to do.

Nope.

He asked me why I continued to do it if it wasn’t my dream, if I didn’t want to be known for it and got annoyed when people asked me if I was anything like Carrie Bradshaw.

I shrugged and have him a few half-hearted answers. I know he saw right through them because he called me out a few seconds later.

“Caitlin. It’s not that hard. Why not stop filling your time with the things you don’t even care about, platform or not, and start working towards your dream?”

The funny thing about truth is that while it’s hardly ever comfortable, it’s freeing.

“What kind of stories do you want to be known for?”

Stories of scandalous grace. Redemption. Adventure. Stories that were larger than “how to spot a keeper” and contained echoes of eternity. If they involve love, awesome. If they don’t, I still want to tell them.

Wake up call no. 3: Dreams don’t magically happen. They require more work than fairy dust. – Click to tweet

Don’t Be Stupid

Back to the swimming suit illustration for a second. Every woman knows that after trying on a swimsuit, she make a choice – love her body for what it is,  be depressed and let it go, or get to work.

Your dream is no different. Now that I’ve been faced with the fact that I’ve gone soft, chosen the lazy route, and skipped the gym so to speak, I have choices to make.

And you know what? I’m going to get to work.

Because it’s stupid to cling to the shadow of the thing when you have the living, breathing dream right in front of you.

photo credit: H is for Home via photo pin cc

Image by Phillie Casablanca

Holiness doesn’t look like I thought it did.

Maybe that sounds like a funny confession for a Tuesday morning. It probably is.

I used to think it meant one thing. I used to think it with all my heart, believing that I had the monopoly on Truth. And maybe at one point, I was right.  But somewhere in my life, I got mixed up as to what holiness was. I started believing polite half-truths because I didn’t know any better. But that was toxic.

I woke up one day in my mid-20s realizing that all I had thought about holiness was wrong. That I had believed so many nice lies that I wasn’t sure what the truth was any more. So I set off on a journey to rediscover what it meant.

Holiness isn’t Boring.

I used to think that holiness was just another word for boring. You probably have thought the same, even if you don’t care to admit it out loud. That’s what we’ve been taught from the beginning, even in Sunday School. It’s a lie from the world that is mimicked in the church.

When I was a kid, the church I went to elevated certain people as holier than others. The funny thing is, I don’t think any one in the Bible would have made the cut. Not if you really looked at them for who they were as people. They were really messed up and they knew it. At church, people are messed up and they pretend otherwise.

At my church, holiness was the slightly awkward kid who wore his pants a little too high. The one who could quote half the Bible. His shirt was always starched, his tie always tied just perfectly, and his hair may have been slicked back. A very white Steve Urkle.

Holiness was the girl who played the piano and quilted blankets for orphans in Russia. She was the embodiment of the Proverbs 31 woman who never learned to live it up a bit.  Her idea of fun was picking out new sheet music to play for the church offertory. I can gently poke fun at her because I was her. So were many of my best friends.

Holiness was the couple who never smiled. They did their good deeds, couldn’t take a compliment, and kept their children in line like little busy chicks. They always looked tired because they were at the church every time the door opened. Everything they did was carefully chosen. Weighed. If it was found wanting, it was a reflection on their eternal destination.

None of those people were happy. Not really. They wore smiles on the outside but they were the thin type that was painted on like a veneer. The ache in their soul, the longing for more, was there. Just stifled under a desire to be holy.

You’d think that holiness would produce happiness. Jesus said He came to bring life, abundant life. So why were His followers so dour?

Happiness should come out of your holiness, your relationship with the Creator. I heard a sermon about this the other day. The pastor was famous but he wasn’t the type that took his fame seriously. He was earnest when he said that God wanted better lives for His children. God didn’t go to all the trouble to create and redeem a world if He didn’t delight in its inhabitants.

In religion, holiness is another word for death. In a gospel-shaped faith, holiness brings vibrant life. – Click here to tweet.

Holiness Looks a Lot Like Jesus

As I’ve read the Bible, something started jumping out at me.

The system is broken.

Even if you were to try to keep all the laws in the Old Testament, you wouldn’t be able to. No matter how hard you tried, it wouldn’t change the fact that as humans, we’re broken. Broken by sin, bad choices, and a thousand good intentions that left us shattered beyond any hope of super-glueing our lives back together.

The Bible says that all of our righteousness, all of our best attempts, are repulsive to God.  We’re damned. It sucks but that’s the harsh reality of life. Buckle up kids.

It doesn’t really seem fair. The odds are ever against us. Even on our best days, we’re doomed.

Enter Jesus. The ultimate hero of humanity.

This is where the story changes in a confusing plot twist. He knew we couldn’t do it. He knew that even though we strive, tithe, sacrifice, and push ourselves to our limits, we’d never hit the holiness factor. For some, that’s an excuse to give up trying. For others, it’s a mandate to try even harder. To prove that we don’t need God.

We’re idiots, all of us. Jesus didn’t come to make us nice people. 

The famous pastor went on to say something that raised a few eyebrows in the church. He said that Jesus didn’t come to modify our behavior. He came to change our hearts.

That made a lot of sense to me.

See, when I try to change my behavior or do things on my own, I get frustrated. I’m not disciplined enough to always do the right thing. I’m a very far cry from perfect. When I try my hardest, I usually end up swearing or plastering on a fake smile.

Out of all the people in the Bible, God was the most upset with the fakers. They were the ones who thought they could do it on their own. That their own attempts at holiness were good enough to make them gods in their own right. In control of their destiny.

I’ve been reading a book and the author talks about faking being a form of identity theft. Of claiming God’s name but really, doing it all on your own. He says that’s what God gets upset with. People who claim they are pointing to God but are often pointing right back at themselves. I think a lot of us are faking holiness, even if we don’t realize it. And I think that’s a very sad and dangerous game to be playing.

The truth is that none of us can fake our way to Heaven. We can’t fake our way on earth either. 

I think it’s really only through Jesus that you have any shot at being holy. It’s not because Jesus is a moderately nice guy either. I don’t think Jesus let himself be murdered because He was a nice guy.  Even nice has it’s limits.

See, I think there’s something richer that all of us need to believe – Jesus died because He loved us and knew He was our only shot at being holy.

He took the blame so we wouldn’t have to.

So that when God looked at us, He wouldn’t see all of our best attempts that ended up as crap. He bled out so God would see someone holy, someone whole, someone who had no reason to stand ashamed.

It’s one of those crazy mysteries in life. I can’t always explain it in pretty words but I know it’s true. With Jesus, I’m holy. Without Jesus, I’m damned. There’s no middle ground.

The secret to holiness isn’t what you do. It’s Who you know. And you need to know Jesus. – Tweet this.

I think a lot of people’s lives would change if they could wrap their minds around that.

See, I think one of the reasons Jesus is after our heart is because He knows that when you fall in love, your behavior changes. You aren’t worried about rules because you are too busy thinking about the other person and how to bring a smile to their face.

The Secret to Holiness is…

Your holiness is not your responsibility. Because you can’t earn or fake holiness.

Your holiness is a byproduct of your relationship with Jesus.

What do you think?

Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. – Proverbs 4:23 

For me, it started in middle school.

Crushes, blushing, giggly sleepovers full of gossip as to who likes who, drama… you know what I mean. Those hormones kick in and we start to notice that maybe boys don’t have cooties after all, and we start picking out our outfits according to what “they” would think is cool.

It all seems innocent until we let our imagination run away with our heart.

On my 13th birthday, my dad gave me a ring. Daddy told me the ring was to remind me of a few things, one of which was to guard my heart. And so began my journey of figuring out what exactly this meant and how to do it.

Our heart is our most vulnerable, sensitive, and fragile part of our soul. What we fill our hearts with determines what comes out of them (Matthew 6:21). And what comes out of them shapes our identity. Every choice we make sets a trajectory of how our hearts will respond in future situations. 

The condition of our hearts is evident in our everyday lives. Yet we don’t always realize how much of it we are revealing. Some parts are meant to shine through, yet some parts are meant to stay hidden only to be uncovered by one person.

We have to find a balance between being real and vulnerable yet wise and discerning.

But there’s also a thin line between fortifying the boundaries of our heart and locking it up in isolation to shrivel and harden. We have to keep our hearts soft and moldable, yet strong and discerning. 

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart,…For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. – Luke 6:45 

Ultimately, learning to guard and focus our hearts is an individual process led by the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to shrink it down to a formula or step by step plan. But in the meantime, here are a few things that have helped me: 

-Find your treasure in Jesus

-Know your identity is in Christ and who He says you are (not in someone else or their opinion/approval)

-Combat wandering thoughts with prayer and the truth of scripture. Every time, a temptation or unhealthy train of thought enters your head, immediately counter it with a memory verse or prayer target.

-Know your weaknesses and don’t put yourself in compromising situations

-Journal it out. If that’s how you roll, getting it on paper helps organize thoughts and sift motives

-Be vulnerable with a mentor. There’s something about being honest and  accountable. 

-Trust His timing. In other words, maybe stop looking.

When our hearts are in the right place, we are free to be who God made us to be.

We become secure in our identity and live out our story without the fear or pressure of “making it all work.” Our confidence rests not in ourselves but the One who holds and forms our hearts.

And when our heart is focused and fulfilled in Him, everything else falls into place.

How do you guard your heart?

Rebekah Diaddigo is a modern day princess who loves Jesus, her family, and ballet. She has a BA in Communications from Thomas Edison State College and currently dances and teaches for the Atlanta Ballet. Her passion is to bring hope and dignity through dance with her latest endeavor, Bluebird: uncaged. Oh, and she loves chocolate. Visit her blog and follow her on Twitter.

Image Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint

Seth Godin calls it the lizard mentality. Stephen Pressfield calls it the resistance. It seems like everyone has a name for it. Some make you feel justified. Like it’s okay that you aren’t writing.

But what if it’s just plain ol’ laziness?

When I don’t write, it’s not that I don’t have the time. It’s that I don’t have the drive. I’m not willing to put the hustle behind the desire.

After a long day at work, there are thousands of things I’d rather do:

• Catch up on my favorite TV episodes.
• Reorganize my room. Again. Go to IKEA. Rinse and repeat.
• Read. Read more.
• Write letters to long lost friends.
• Call my sisters.
• Hit the outlet malls.
• Go for a walk around the lake.
• Do anything that falls into the “relational” category. This includes going to restaurants with friends, going on adventures with friends, Facebooking, Tweeting with friends, chatting with friends, etc.

I used to be far more disciplined as a writer. I used to spend hours every week at the coffee shop, French pressed coffee or dry cappuccino in hand, wifi off, and my mind focused on the story before me. Words were my playthings, puzzle pieces that needed to be fit into just the right spot.

It’s been a long time since I felt that lean fire.

I became a lazy writer. Soft.

I took my gift for granted. Words had always been there for me. Being a writer had been part of my identity for so long that I couldn’t remember a time when it was just a dream. I couldn’t remember the days of graded papers, red inked pens, and pulling out advertisements from Vogue and writing 5 page essays on them.

All I knew was that I was a writer, and a darn good one at that.

It didn’t happen right away, but soon my muse quit showing up. I quit caring about stories for their essence but for their elements instead. That’s dangerous ground, my friends.

I started believing the press about me. The nice warm fuzzy things that people said. The gift that I had been given was taken for granted. And ironically, what had once been a delight became a chore that I dreaded more than anything in the world.

I sat frozen at my keyboard, urging something to come out perfect. Afraid of imperfection, I never typed. Instead, my fingers hovered. Aimlessly. Trapped in time by indecision. Being not only a lazy writer but a scared one as well.

Will people like what I have to say? What if someone gets offended? What if it’s never as good as the last good thing I wrote? Who even cares? 

Every writer goes through this. Facing their demons, resistance, or laziness. I know that from working and talking with authors from all stages of the game.

But that didn’t stop me from taking the easy way out.

It was far easier to turn to the soft comfort of social media than the hard taskmaster of my craft. And the writing muscle had atrophied due to my laziness. Somewhere, I had lost my desire to become better, faster, and stronger. It had been replaced by the desire to be one of the cool kids. To fit in. To be a lazy writer who just coasted through life.

I had not only lost my voice but I lost my vocabulary as well.

What do you do when you are stuck? How do you regain your muchness?

Image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/xraijs/4650139651/

Those are song lyrics to Colbie Caillat’s song “Falling for You”, and for several months that was my theme song.

I wasn’t attracted to this boy the first time I talked to him – he was just a good friend for a long time. We met through mutual college friends, and started talking on Skype. Turns out we liked a lot of the same things, were both night owls, and laughed over the same videos on YouTube.

We talked quite often. Not face to face – he lived several states away – so Skype chat was our main mode of communication.

Image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/larskflem/95757299/

We sent photos to each other; of ourselves, our families, the area surrounding our homes. Soon that led to video chatting, or to talking in some form or another for most of each day. Hours and hours and hours we would talk, and that went on for well over a year. It was a bit insane, now that I look back.

For the longest time I thought of him as nothing more than a friend – and he was a good friend at that!

Then he started saying things about how much he loved talking to me, and how he’d always wanted to marry someone with my hair color. It was around that same time that I discovered that song by Colbie Caillat, and as much as I hate to admit it, I found myself in love.

What’s the catch? We hadn’t met in person, ever, when I fell in love with him.

I clearly remember the first time I saw him in real life. Those mutual college friends of ours coordinated a weekend event for several people to get together and hang out; I went, and so did he. It was a turbulent weekend. We didn’t mesh nearly as well in person as we did online, and I was hurt and confused.

In my hotel room after the first day of meeting him, I totally broke down and cried.

Here was the love of my life, or so I thought, nothing like the man I had talked to for the past year. Not that it was important, but he wasn’t near as cute as his photos made him out to be, and his character… scared me, to be honest. You know how you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat others, and how they respond to authority? Yeah. I could tell a lot about this guy by that…. and it wasn’t in a good way.

I can honestly say he creeped me out quite a bit, and I wanted to go home right then and not spend another minute together.

I then started thinking back over the past year, realizing how mistaken I was for falling in love with this boy. He had seemed so real, so genuine, and I could easily see us spending the rest of our lives together. That weekend of our relationship being in “real life” found me so wrong. I remember my Mom cautioning me about the internet – how it was so easy for anyone to be anything they wanted.

I wish I would have listened to her, but the cool thing about life is that you live and learn.

I learned to be more cautious with my heart, not falling in love with someone before meeting them in person. I learned that there are creepy people out there, as much as I want to believe that everyone is just as awesome as they say they are. I also learned that I should examine my own “online persona” if you will.

Was I being the same person over Skype as I was over coffee? Or was I putting on a mask behind my profile picture? I can tell you it really made me think.

This love story doesn’t have a happy ending, except for all the lessons that I learned.

I’m optimistic that there’s a love story written for me that will end on a much happier note, and I’ll make sure he’s not a creeper before I fall in love with him.

Have you ever fallen in love online only to find out that the person wasn’t who you thought they were? How did you react? (And why does this sound like a question from the Maury Povich show?)

India Aderhold is a twenty-something who lives in the midwestern United States. She is passionate about reading, writing, teaching dance, and trying to live each day as if it was her last. She blogs about life and other things at http://www.indiacallie.blogspot.com

I could explain that if you think I’m 17 and you’re 42, that you are not only a pedophile, you are also a creep, but you should know that.

I could explain that if the only conversation we’ve had involves you telling me how you beat some guys up last week, you won’t be getting my number, but I already turned you down.

I could tell you that standing within 2 inches of me and staring at me creepily will not get me to warm up to you, but I’ve already spilt some of my drink on you.

I could go over yet again why shaking me is not appropriate behavior after I’ve talked to a male other than you, but thankfully my male coworkers have.

I could just say that hearing yet another story about the new Star Wars video game you still haven’t bought drives me to tears of boredom, but thankfully my blank stare drove you away.

I could explain that spraying me with a hose when I wear a white shirt is beyond inappropriate, but I’ll probably just never wear white again.

I could explain that asking me to marry you over Facebook while you are 1. drunk, and 2. in a different country, is 1. hilarious and 2. really sad, especially when we’ve never spent time together without a counter between us, but you just don’t seem to get it.

I could say that God speaks to me too, and that I think He’d let me in on the fact that you’re my “future husband,” but I prefer slowly walking away.

I could pull you aside and say that blatantly hitting on me in front of your ex doesn’t show me you’re over her; it makes me wonder how you’ll treat me if we got together and then broke up.

I could let you know that I’m friends with the girl you were flirting with online while you were flirting with me and that it’s kinda sleazy what you did, but I prefer acting like it doesn’t bother me.

I could let you know that while remembering conversations we’ve had is cute, remembering conversations I’ve had with others is not.

I could call you out for randomly contacting me right after I upload a new photo that you said made me “a babe”, especially since we haven’t talked for 3 years, but I’ll probably go back to what we’ve been doing so far.

I could just tell you that when you ask me out to coffee instead of asking me out makes me automatically put you in the friendzone, because you didn’t just man up and say what you wanted, but I’m too busy being polite and thinking of 1 shot, decaf iced breves with a half shot of hazelnut.

I could smack you for saying the only reason I get good tips is because I must be doing “favors” for the guy customers, but, well, actually that is exactly what I’ll do.

I could let you know that when you come to work on your off days and mop and take out trash for me, I only think of how easy it is to manipulate you, but I really hate mopping.

I could let you know that when you call me “The Perfect Woman” that I don’t find it flattering; It actually creeps me out and makes me so wary of the pedestal you’ve placed me on, because I know myself, and apparently you do not, but I’ll just do a combination of avoidance and acting horrible in front of you so you’ll get it.

I could do all this and so many other things, but I won’t, because I know that you’re a nice guy who just doesn’t get it. And also, I’m not 100% certain that you are being creepy, or if you’re just being you.

And so I sit by, and let you continue to creep me out. I try dropping silent hints so that you’ll get it and move on. But you’re paying too much attention to what I am saying to hear what I’m not. And that’s on me.

Maybe you’re not actually a creep. Maybe I’ve just got an over inflated ego that makes me think all these guys are after me. But the thing is, pretty much every girl I know feels the same. So take a clue.

If I’m not responding with enthusiasm, not giving you even pity levels of interest, you’re coming across like a creep.

So to help those of you out who think you’re being the nice guy, when in reality you’re being perceived as a creep, let me actually say the things that I haven’t had the guts to say:

Stop being a doormat. Women are not looking for someone they can easily manipulate or whose only discernible skill is making them feel good about themselves; and if they are, you need to avoid those women like the plague.

Know your worth. Don’t be cocky or a jerk about it, but when you’re good at something, own it! And at the same time, if you can’t do something, there is no shame in that either. A man who knows who he is and is comfortable with himself is about a BILLION TIMES more attractive than a sad sack or a poser.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say. If you want to go out with a girl, ask her out. Do NOT try to trick her into it or “sneak date” her. No one wins.

It’s good to get that off my chest.

And yes, every single one of these things has happened to me. And yes, I wish I was making it up. Except for the mopping. That one was great.

Lauren Jean is a missionary temporarily stuck at a desk in Minnesota. While waiting for her next opportunity to escape, she blogs, knits, tweets, and helps high school students. As soon as she can, she’s heading back to Mexico, because she’s fallen for the people and the tacos.