How-To

50 Things To Do When You’re Single on Valentine’s Day

Kate Sloan

It’s taken me a long time to get here, but I think, at this point in my life, I actually find Valentine’s Day more fun when I’m single than when I’m dating someone.

See, when you’re in a relationship, the dreaded V-Day can feel like an obligation. But when you’re single, it’s an invitation. An invitation to step up your self-love and look for the potential fun in the day. Here are 50 suggestions for how to do that…

Take yourself out for dinner at your favorite restaurant. Make a reservation if you want; you’ll probably need one. Solo dinners out are a scary thing to do on any ol’ day, let alone one of the busiest days of the year for restaurants, but this is exactly the kind of self-love challenge Valentine’s is perfect for. Bring a book to read or your journal to write in, order your favorite dish, and revel in your own company!

Alternatively, order your favorite takeout and eat it someplace cozy. Your best friend’s living room. A blanket fort constructed in your own bed. A secret hideout you happen to know about on your local university’s campus. All of these are excellent places to eat delicious food, alone or with a friend.

Re-read your favorite book from when you were a teenager. The twists and turns of a familiar plot are so comforting in their predictability. And you may get a visceral glimpse at that idealistic kid you used to be, and how you can be more like them now.

Go out with your single friends. A bar, a movie, a party, an impromptu scavenger hunt… It doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you’re with people who make you laugh and feel like you belong.

Do a witchy love ceremony, whatever that happens to mean to you. For me, it’d probably involve meditating in a pink bubble bath while clutching pieces of rose quartz, slithering into a pink negligée, slicking on some red lipstick, and yawping some loving affirmations at my beautiful reflection in the mirror. What kind of romantic magic feels most needed and nourishing to you now?

Soak in warm water, whether that means your bathtub or a local heated pool or a friend’s hot tub. Pondersome soaks relax the body and allow the mind to wander. Bonus points if you pull an Oprah and accessorize your bath with scented candles, a glass of wine, a bath pillow, or whatever other little luxuries bliss you out.

Masturbate elaborately. Use as many toys as you want. Make as much noise as you reasonably and pleasurably can. Do all the things you can to yourself that you wish partners would do to you.

Choose a quality you miss about one of your exes and figure out how to embody that quality yourself. I often wish I was as funny as some of my exes; I could work on that by upping my comedy podcast intake and learning a few good jokes to tell! If you admired well-read exes, check a few new books out of the library. If you miss an ex’s kind, supportive heart, look for ways to support and help a friend today. You get the picture.

Write a love letter to a future partner. I love any mental exercise that helps me focus on what I want without making me feel bad about not having it yet, and this is one such exercise. Tell your future lover all the places you want to take them, the stories you can’t wait to tell them, the things they should know if they plan to love you. Let yourself get excited by the knowledge that there are so many hot, interesting people out there with tons of love to give, and some of them will give it to you.

Try something drastically different with your look. Sometimes a new makeup technique, clothing silhouette, hair color, or tattoo can be just the thing to remind you of what a babe you are.

Take a nap while cuddling something – a pet, a stuffed animal, a friend who consents to cuddles. Hell, I’ve even cuddled my Magic Wand before. A mid-day nap is such a lovely gift to give yourself.

Do an at-home spa routine. Yes, even if you are not normally the type of person who does stuff like this. You can give yourself a manicure (with clear nail polish, if you insist), slather on a face mask, soak and pumice your poor neglected feet, or just moisturize your entire body. Anything that makes you feel nourished and cute.

Journal about your feelings. Valentine’s Day is a perfect day to check in with yourself about your attitudes, beliefs, and hopes around relationships and sex. Sit somewhere cozy with your journal and pen (or a writing-centric web app, if you prefer), and ask yourself: how are you feeling about being single? What would you like your next relationship to be like? What do you need to work on or do differently to make that possible? What have you learned from your past relationships? How important is sex to you? What kind of sex do you wish you were having? Dig deep and follow the feelings that come up. Afterward, you’ll feel better and clearer.

Watch your favorite rom-coms. My recommendations: Hysteria (vibrators! science! a flustered Hugh Dancy!), Just My Luck (so stupid, and yet, Chris Pine is charming in it), High Fidelity (John Cusack’s snobbish mopeyness is counterbalanced by Jack Black’s silliness and it’s wonderful). Bonus points if you yell at the TV every time something sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. happens, or if you devise an (alcohol-optional) drinking game to go along with the movie.

Watch dramatic romantic tragedies. Okay, comedies are great, but sometimes you just need to have a cathartic cry. Try The Notebook, Titanic, The Great Gatsby, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Settle in with a box of tissues and some comforting snacks and get ready to weep.

Invite some friends over and take turns dramatically reading dating-themed articles aloud. Cosmo and Glamour are excellent source material for this activity. Sometimes mocking the silliness of dating can make you feel better about your singlehood.

Do a Tinder experiment. Look, I’m not saying the people browsing Tinder on Valentine’s Day will be the cream of the crop, but that’s not the point. Change your profile or your approach, for science, and see what happens. Some examples: Change your first photo to a picture of you winking and see if it affects the messages you get. Instantly delete any messages that don’t specifically reference your profile, and only respond to the ones that do. Put a line in your bio that asks matches to tell you the funniest joke they’ve recently heard.

Write or read fanfiction about your favorite pairing. Yes, even if you’ve never delved into fanfic before. It’s fun! It’s also a way to get into a romantic headspace without stressing yourself out about your own romantic situation. If you’re not sure where to start, look up some of your favorite movies, books, or TV shows on Archive of Our Own and see what’s out there.

Finally get rid of your ex’s stuff. You know, those old T-shirts they left behind, stuffed animals they gave you, framed pictures of the two of you together, and so on. Only keep these things if they actually “spark joy“; otherwise, donate ’em or toss ’em. You’ll feel better without that psychic clutter clouding up your space and your brain.

Get extremely high. If intoxicants are your jam, that is. Choose something that’ll perk you up rather than drag you down (so, if weed is your substance of choice, probably a sativa strain). Then do whatever High-You wants to do: eat delicious snacks, lie in bed watching that show you love and have seen six times already, masturbate furiously, or just ponder the universe.

Visit a sex shop and pick something out, even if it’s just a small thing like a bottle of good lube, an erotic novel, or a pair of nipple clamps. Be pleasant to the salespeople; they are probably overwhelmed by desperate, haggard customers making last-minute purchases, and you being sweet and reasonable could brighten their busy day!

Listen to your favorite music. Really get into it. Maybe wail along to Elliott Smith by candlelight, or have a dance party with your dog to the dulcet tones of Walk the Moon. Listening to music is a visceral, often joyful experience, and is actually good for your brain, so this is a good thing to do any day of the year but especially on a day when you need a lift!

Try on clothes that make you feel babely as hell. You can go to the mall to do this, or shop your own closet, or peruse a friend’s wardrobe (with their permission, obviously!). It’s amazing how much good lingerie/shapely dresses/sharp-lookin’ blazers can tune up your self-image sometimes.

Engage in a platonic sexual activity, if you have a friend you’d like to do this with who would enthusiastically consent to such things. I have been known to spank and be spanked by my friends, cuddle and kiss ’em, and sometimes even masturbate side-by-side. It’s a way to find some intimacy and sensual pleasure even when the societally sanctioned avenues for those things (i.e. romantic relationships) are not immediately available to you.

Go to a local cultural event, like a gallery show, a theatrical production, or a stand-up comedy night. Bring a friend, if you like.

Hire a sex worker, if you can afford to. This could be a really lovely treat to give yourself today.

Contact someone who might be lonely today – your widowed aunt, your recently-dumped friend, or anyone else you know who’s going through a tough time. Chat with them and try to inject a little cheer into their day.

Dress up and take selfies. I am particularly partial to pink-and-red outfits on Valentine’s Day. They make me feel romantic and adorable. Bonus points for plentiful heart-shaped accessories!

Make yourself an elaborate, nutritious, comforting meal. It feels good to put effort into taking care of yourself and then feel that effort reflected back at you in the form of increased energy and overall well-being. Some of my favorite meals to cook for myself include risotto, steamed broccoli, and pasta salad.

Work toward one of your goals you’ve been putting off. Write some of that book proposal you’ve been meaning to get to, set up that Etsy store you’ve been hoping to start, research that city you’ve been wanting to move to… When you put time into what you want to achieve, you feel so good and accomplished, and that feeling is a great gift to give yourself on this day.

Re-read your old journals/blog entries/emails, etc. This can be a charming way to spend some time with your younger self. And when you reflect on how you used to be, it can make you feel grateful for how far you’ve come.

Tidy and reorganize your space – your whole house, or just the room you spend the most time in, depending on how much ambition and freedom you have! – so it contains fewer things that stress you out and more things that make you smile.

Go to the movies. If being alone in public at a certified “date activity” makes you anxious, a movie theatre is one of the better options you could choose, because you’ll be swathed in darkness so few people (if any) will even notice you’re by yourself. Ideally, pick a movie that appeals to your inner quirkiness so deeply that you probably couldn’t even drag a date along if you tried. Revel in the weirdness of your own tastes!

Write love letters to your friends, whether publicly on social media, or privately via email, or even in the form of a literal (snail-mail) letter. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a celebration of love, right? So celebrate the love in your life.

Tell someone you admire that you admire them. Email that indie musician who fills your earbuds with glee on the regs, leave a comment on a blog that lights you up, compliment that bookstore employee who knows everything about everything whenever you ask them for help. Spread some love and happiness around!

Clean your selfie mirror. (Idea via Durga Polashi.) Selfies are an expression of, and sometimes a boon for, our self-love and self-acceptance. You owe it to yourself to have a squeaky-clean mirror that helps you capture yourself in all your glory!

Imagine what your heroes would do if they were single on Valentine’s Day, and then carry a little of their flair and panache into your day as well. I suspect Jane Lane would order a pizza and watch bad TV with her bestie, Alex Franzen would hole up with a mug of tea and write sexy fiction all day, Rosa Diaz would drink whiskey at a biker bar and make out with a scruffy leather-clad stranger, and Sara Quin would obsessively write and re-write a quirky new song until it was both catchy and devastating. What would your heroes do?

Donate money to a cause you believe in, like you’re giving a Valentine’s Day gift but your “valentine” is good nonprofits doing good work. Some recommendations that are especially important in our current political climate: the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. (More options here and here.)

Declutter your digital systems, as a favor to yourself. Go through your hard drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox, and delete some shit you don’t need. Run a virus scan and/or a defrag. Organize files into folders. Ahhh. Doesn’t that feel better?

Give yourself a long, slow genital massage without the expectation of orgasm. Think of it as an experiment in pleasure and mindfulness. (Coconut oil and natural oil-based lubes are great for this!)

Teach yourself a new skill with the help of the internet. Few things make me feel more accomplished than learning to do something new! Think of some things you’ve always wished you knew how to do – leather boot care, page layouts in InDesign, spelling in sign language? – and get thee to Google, stat.

Get clear about your “hard yeses and hard nos” for future partners. It’s good to have a list like this to refer to when you’re in the throes of infatuation with someone new, to make sure your beau is actually aligned with what you want and need. My hard-yes list says, “Feminist, makes me laugh, thinks I’m funny, at least as smart as me, libido and kinks roughly equivalent to mine, vocally enthusiastic and optimistic, creative in some way(s), socially competent, loves and supports my blog/writing.” My hard-no list says, “Doesn’t believe in oppression/privilege/racism, etc., noticeably not as smart as me, humorless, low or no libido, negative/jugmental/pessimistic, anger issues, wants only monogamy now/ever, toxically masculine, staunchly religious.” What would yours look like?

Go on a mini creative retreat. This can be as simple as turning off your phone, closing your social media tabs, and choosing to focus on one beloved creative project for an entire afternoon – or it can be as elaborate as booking an Airbnb in another town for a few days to work on your passion in an unfamiliar environment. What a blissful gift to give yourself!

Spend an hour or two in a bookstore or library. Preferably one with ample seating, and which lets you bring in your hot beverage of choice to sip while you peruse and read. I can imagine few things cozier than an afternoon at Indigo or Glad Day, flipping through glorious tomes over coffee.

Cull your social media lists. Unfollow the people whose tweets add no value to your life, and unfriend the people who make you feel stressed out or indifferent. Life is too short and too precious to fill it (even just digitally) with people who add no brightness to your days, or actively sap your emotional reserves.

Put together a file of the best compliments you’ve ever received. I’ve done this for years, in various forms: I have a “flattery” folder in my Gmail account, a list of meticulously copied-down compliments in a notebook, and sometimes I document my best compliments in tweets or Tumblr posts. It’s a fantastic favor to do for yourself, because on days when your mood and self-worth are frighteningly low, you can refer to your compliment file and remind yourself (even just theoretically) of your value. If you need help building up your collection o’ compliments, ask your ten closest friends and family members what they think your three best qualities are (and then tell them theirs!).

Bedazzle or jazz up something you use regularly. Plaster your journal in sparkly stickers, put some cute pictures on your fridge, give your desk a new paint job, etc. You deserve beauty and comfort in your life!

Stay offline. Unhappiness often stems from comparing your insides to other people’s outsides (to paraphrase Anne Lamott), and social media facilitates this bad habit all the damn time. Valentine’s Day is a day when we’re particularly susceptible to envying other people’s situations, so maybe avoid the internet (or just social media) today, to the extent that you can. While I don’t begrudge anyone who finds comfort and joy in their online life (I certainly do!), sometimes taking an internet break can be affirming and recalibrating.

Use your body in ways you normally don’t. Yoga, stretching, sports, swimming, walking, running, hula-hooping, dancing, having an orgasm in a ridiculous athletic position… Challenge your body and see what it can do.

Give yourself permission to do nothing, if you want to. You are inherently valuable and loveable, regardless of what you do or don’t do on Valentine’s Day or any other day. Don’t forget that, babe.

 

How are you spending Valentine’s? Tell me all about it in the comments!

The Bipolar Blogger: Productivity Tips From a Manic Mess

Kate Sloan

“I have cyclothymia,” a friend casually mentioned over dinner, halfway through an anecdote about his therapist. “It’s sort of like a milder form of bipolar disorder. I have mild manic phases and mild depressions but nothing too serious.”

It would be a cliché to say a lightbulb went off for me, or alarm bells sounded in my head, but both of those well-trod metaphors feel entirely true. I had a ping of recognition. A sudden, crystalline revelation: That is what I have. That is why I’m like this.

I didn’t quiz my friend for additional details, but in a therapist’s office a few months later, I dropped the word on the table between us like it was a treat I’d brought him. Cyclothymia. We examined it, talked about it. I explained how my storied life had been punctuated with depressive spells, yes, but also episodes of unpredictable juicy joy. When previous therapists witnessed my gleeful, giggly monologues, they’d often say, “Is it possible you’re having a manic episode right now?” and I’d always laugh it off. This isn’t a mental disorder, I’d think, about those hyper-productive, ecstatic interludes. This is just my personality. I’m a happy, positive person.

In the years since then, though – and in the wake of two recent therapists who can’t agree on whether I have cyclothymia or bipolar affective disorder, type 2 – I’ve come to accept that these ups and downs are part of my personality and are also a mental illness.They’re a part of me, and I try to honor them more than hate them. They make my life harder, my emotions wilder, and my art better.

Blogging and journalism, my main vocations, appeal to me in part because they’re compatible with my mental illnesses. As an independent freelancer, I can set my own schedule, and arrange my obligations according to where my head’s at. Of course, sometimes a deadline unavoidably lines up with a depressive spell, but I do my best to avoid snafus like this. Below are some productivity tricks I’ve picked up from nearly five years of blogging while bipolar… for better or for worse.

Drink up from the rain, as Nellie McKay would say (or “catch water while it’s raining,” like my friend Brent says). When I’m manic*, I often want to work for 10-12 hours at a time, writing blog posts/sending emails/pitching stories/cleaning my room/whatever – and while that’s a long stretch to put my body and mind through, usually manic-me can handle it without complaint. So as long as I’ve still got the energy and desire to continue, I usually do. Might as well.

*I’m using the words “manic/mania” interchangeably with “hypomanic/hypomania” in this article for brevity’s sake, even though technically my mental illnesses are mild enough that my hypomania never crosses into full-blown mania. More on this distinction here.

Queue stuff in advance. After a manic episode, I’ll typically have more content than I know what to do with: two or three days of hypomania can easily yield five or six blog posts for me. While mania can imbue you with an urgent need to get your work in front of readers’ eyes ASAP because it’s all so damn exciting, it’s smarter to rein yourself in and queue up some of that content for the days, weeks or months to come.

I publish new posts on this blog twice a week, and that steady schedule is super helpful to my bipolar brain. I use the WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin to map out my future content. I’ll slot in two posts a week, and rearrange them so there’s enough variation in subject matter and format from week to week. A hypomanic episode can inspire enough content to last me for weeks, so that if a depressive spell comes on, I’ll be able to take a break from working without interrupting my regular blog schedule.

Batch-process tasks. This is a term and concept I learned from the Blogcademy. The idea is that you get more done if you group similar types of tasks together. So, instead of writing one blog post at a time, then shooting photos for it, then queuing tweets to promote it, I might write 2-3 blog posts at a time, or shoot photos for several posts in one session, or spend a whole afternoon queuing tweets for upcoming posts.

This principle is compatible with my bipolar brain. When I’m manic, it can be hard to pry my attention away from the task at hand – so if I’m writing rabidly, I might as well brew another cup of tea and write another post, and another, until I run out of steam. Batch-processing is easier when I’m depressed, too: it takes a lot of mental energy to switch from one task to another, so if I can muster enough strength to take out my camera and set up a photo, it won’t be too hard to set up another photo afterward. It’s a simple principle and it works!

Have start-of-day and end-of-day rituals. While my writerly rituals are pretty much always the same, they feel like uplifting self-care practices when I’m depressed and calming, grounding rituals when I’m manic. In the morning, I make a cup of tea and drink it while sitting in front of my SAD lamp and catching up on my emails and tweets. Once I’m feeling awake and ready to start my workday, I make a list of 3-6 things I need to get done that day, and start on the one that feels most pressing and/or most fun. This helps me ease into the day feeling nourished and purposeful.

My end-of-day rituals aren’t as solidified yet; maybe if they were, I’d spend fewer manic days hunched over my laptop for twelve hours. But when I’ve been working for way too long and need to force myself to take a break, I’ll often smoke some weed (the resulting blurry brain makes further work unlikely), take a hot bath, crawl into bed with an engrossing book, or settle in for a luxurious masturbation sesh. Admittedly, sometimes my manic workaholic ass ends up in front of my laptop again before the night’s out, but I mostly try to respect these arbitrary boundaries I set for myself. In a perfect world, I’d have evening plans with friends or beaux most weeknights, as those would make it compulsory for me to step away from my computer and back into the world.

Keep a filing system for unused ideas. When I’m manic, I have ideas galore – so many ideas that I couldn’t possibly make them all into fully-fledged blog posts right away, though I may want to. The important thing is to make a note of all those great ideas, and to do it in a way which maintains the juiciness those ideas held when you first thought of them. If a blog post comes to you in a flash, don’t just jot down the title and expect yourself to remember the rest; include details, examples, sample sentences, so your note will retain the fire extant in that white-hot idea.

My massive backlog of yet-unused post ideas helps me both when I’m up and when I’m down. Manic Kate might feel brilliant in an unfortunately unfocused way, unsure what to do with all that raw energy pulsing through her brain – in which case she can glance at a list of old ideas and instantly have specific new assignments to work on. Depressed Kate, meanwhile, might be on deadline for an article but lack the clarity and chutzpah to even think of a topic – in which case she can pull out her notebook of old concepts and choose whichever one feels doable.

I jot down ideas in notebooks, the Notes app on my phone, or scraps of paper on my desk. When Manic Kate gets excited about hyper-organization, I use that impulse to methodically transfer all my idea-notes to a central repository in Evernote.

Work on what feels doable and/or exciting. I find my hypomania is best harnessed if I write the thing I’m most excited to write, which is often different from what I’m “supposed to” be working on. The blog posts of mine that have gotten the best response from readers – like Blowjob-Friendly Lipsticks For Every Budget and You’re Vanilla, I’m Not, But I Love You – were brought into the world in obsessive flights of mania. The manic energy with which they are imbued is probably what made them so good.

For similar reasons, if I try to write something light and peppy while I’m depressed, either it’ll come out lacklustre or I just won’t be able to do it. So when I’m feeling that way, I try to view it as an opportunity to work on boring, mechanical tasks – answering emails, organizing my editorial calendar, putting affiliate links into post drafts, sending out interview requests, and so on. Or sometimes I’ll wade into my sadness and write something heavy and emotional, if I can muster the energy.

Know how chemical stimulants affect your body and brain. Sometimes when I’m manic, I’m tempted to drink tons of coffee, because it helps me ride the wave of mania and get even more done than I ordinarily would – or so I think. In reality, the combo of coffee + mania often sends me off the rails into unfocused zippiness that makes it hard to actually get anything done. Similarly, if I drink alcohol while depressed, it usually just depresses me further.

But sometimes, boozin’ while manic can slow me down just enough to enable good writing (I wrote Nude, Lewd, Screwed, & Tattooed while quaffing white wine at my kitchen table), while caffeine can sometimes counteract the physical heaviness of my depression so I can get work done. I also find weed helpful in both states – it can cheer me up when I’m sad and calm me down when I’m manic – but I don’t have much follow-through once I’m high, so it’s not a productivity booster for me (with the exception of CBD-heavy strains).

Take care of your physical health. When I’m manic, I’m at risk for eye strain and back pain, because I end up spending all day in front of my computer, pounding out blog posts. There are apps and tools which can remind you to take a break every so often, and I’d do well to use ’em! I’d also like to implement a system wherein I’ll keep a post-it note somewhere on my workspace that says “How are you feeling right now?” to remind me to notice my body. If I’m manic and get hungry, thirsty, achy, or burned out, I might not always notice until I take a moment to specifically assess how my body is feeling. And then I can make self-care decisions accordingly.

I also try to keep ingredients in the house that are easy for me to throw together into meals, because both depression and mania can sap me of my desire to cook and eat. And when I do take meal breaks, I try to make them actual breaks: I’m not allowed to work while I eat, and I’ll typically put on a funny video or podcast to give my brain a brief vacation.

Fellow folks who deal with bipolar disorder, depression, and/or (hypo)mania: what are your productivity tips ‘n’ tricks?

Why (and How) to Keep a Sex Spreadsheet

Kate Sloan

screenshot of my sex spreadsheet

When I talked about my sex spreadsheet on The Dildorks and later posted a screenshot of it on Twitter, I got asked a few times: “Why do you keep a sex spreadsheet?!”

While at first I was taken aback by this question – who wouldn’t want all kinds of nerdy data about their sex life?! – I pondered it more and realized it’s a totally fair thing to ask. Not everyone is as geeky about sex as me and my friends, and not everyone delights in neatly organized spreadsheets like we do.

So why keep a spreadsheet of your sexcapades? Here’s a few possible reasons…

To track your sexual patterns. My sex spreadsheet was instrumental in my decision to avoid one-night stands in 2017, because, in looking at the data, I saw that none of my one-night stands this past year resulted in orgasm for me. Granted, orgasm is far from the only measure of good sex, but it’s a starting point – and that piece of data got me thinking about how one-off sex with near-strangers disappoints me in bigger ways, too.

It was also helpful for me to think back on the sexual encounters I remembered most fondly, and look at the data to try to figure out why those particular experiences were so great. Do certain toys work especially well for me in partnered sex? (Yes.) Do I have better and more consistent orgasms with partners I’ve already banged a bunch of times? (Yes.) Do certain sexual acts rev my motor more than others? (Yes and yes.) You get the picture.

For health reasons. When pregnancy and STI scares happen, it’s useful to be able to go back through your sex record to see when conception or transmission may have happened, and with whom. If you’re armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to get better and more accurate medical care if needed, and you’ll have fewer mysteries to worry about.

I also found it interesting this year to track my partnered-sex orgasms while I was (briefly) on sensitivity-stunting antidepressants. I was on sertraline (generic Zoloft) for most of the month of May, and I didn’t start having orgasms with partners again until July. Yikes.

As a self-esteem booster. When I’m in the throes of a depressive episode, I believe myself to be useless human garbage who no one could possibly find attractive or interesting. In combating this, it can be helpful for me to read compliments friends have given me in the past, mentally replay my greatest achievements, and – yes! – look at my sex spreadsheet.

Of course, the amount of sex you have is not at all a measure of your worth as a human. But when I’m feeling down, and half-believe no one will ever want to fuck me again, I can glance at my spreadsheet and see all the people who have wanted to fuck me, and all the many times we have indeed fucked. It reminds me that I’ve been a foxy hottie before and will feel like one again, someday.

For the nerdy fun of it! Having data at your fingertips is exciting for any nerd. You can do so much fun shit with it!

For example, in analyzing my 2016 sexsheet, I learned that:
• My highest-earning months were also my most sexually active months.
• I gave somewhere in the neighborhood of 47 blowjobs in 2016.
• A high orgasm ratio does not necessarily guarantee a good partner. (My fave sex partners of the year gave me orgasms about 60-70% of the times we fucked.)
• Of all the sexual acts that can potentially get me off, fingerbanging is the one most highly correlated with orgasm for me.

screenshot of my sex spreadsheet

Finally, some tips on how to make a sex spreadsheet of your own…

Make columns for anything you’re interested in tracking. I think “Date,” “Partner(s),” and “Location” are must-have columns, but beyond that, it’s up to you what you want to keep a record of. My spreadsheet measures the following: whether I had an orgasm (and how many), whether my partner(s) did, how many times I had had sex with that particular partner at that time, what toys we used, and which of my favorite sexual acts we partook in (fingerfucking, BJs, spanking, PIV, and cunnilingus). I also have a “Notes” column which is for any miscellaneous information I might want to remember about that encounter – e.g. that I was sick that day, that we were both stoned, or that we had just had a big argument about feminism…!

Add new entries ASAP, or else you’re apt to forget the details. I have a few cells in my spreadsheet that simply say “??” because I cannot remember, for example, whether I gave a BJ that particular night, or which vibe I used. I guess that speaks to the forgettability of those encounters, but it also frustrates me in retrospect, because I want my data to be complete, dammit!

Color-code, if you’re into that. I know, I know, the color-coding in my spreadsheet is hideous. I have a different color for each partner, so that I can see at a glance who I was frequently fucking at any given time. I also use green and red to denote yeses and no’s in the “Did I come?” and “Did they come?” columns – again, so that I can see patterns at a glance. I would imagine there are all sorts of creative color-coding schemes you could employ in your own spreadsheet; if you have ideas or suggestions, please share ’em in the comments!

Analyze the data regularly, like at the end of every month or every three months or every year (depending on how much sex you’re having, I guess). Look for patterns, problems, places where you could make improvements – and then set yourself some goals or challenges accordingly. Data is useless if you don’t learn anything from it!

Try not to stress yourself (or your partners) out. You absolutely do not have to keep a spreadsheet if the very idea gives you nervous sweats! This approach can feel like an overly quantitative, borderline-dehumanizing way to process your sexual experiences, and I get that. For me, it’s good nerdy fun, but for others, it could be a source of anxiety. You do you, babe!

Have you ever kept a sex spreadsheet or any other kind of sex record? What were/are your reasons? What kinds of things do you keep track of?

What to Wear to Your Break-Up

Kate Sloan
What I wore to my last major break-up, in 2014
What I wore to my last major break-up

Break-ups are hard. That’s true for anyone, and it’s true for me. I have an anxiety disorder. That means my brain’s fear-o-meter is out of whack. And that means I often worry about things that no neurotypical person would ever worry about as deeply as anxious folks do. For example: what to wear to break up with someone.

There is such a delicate balance to be struck in this sartorial decision. You want to wear something that makes you feel strong and brave, shoring up your resolve so you don’t chicken out. You want to look good, but not so attractive that your babeliness is a slap in the face to the person you’re dumping. You want to be prepared incase your soon-to-be-ex bursts into tears (or you do) and needs to wipe their snotty face on something. You want to dress appropriately for the temperature and tone of your break-up’s setting, whether that’s your beau’s apartment, a classy bistro patio, or a bustling street corner. You want your choice of footwear to enable a quick getaway, whether that’s needed because of emotional awkwardness or (god forbid) actual threats or violence from your scorned would-be ex. And you don’t want to wear anything that could be interpreted as a sign of lingering feelings for your dumpee, like a T-shirt you inherited from them or a necklace they bought you.

The last time I broke up with a serious partner, it was the sticky height of summer in 2014. I tucked a white tank top into a pink skirt, and put my hair in a ponytail with a pink scrunchie. Hot pink is one of my “power colors,” a shade that makes me feel strong and put-together, which I knew I’d need – because emotionally, I was a mess.

I slipped on some plain black leather flats and departed toward where I’d agreed to meet my boyfriend. About ten minutes into my walk to the subway station, I realized that in my frazzled trance, I’d forgotten my wallet at home. It was too late for me to run back and get it if I was going to meet my partner on time, so instead I just power-walked all the way to my destination. I arrived dripping sweat and out of breath.

When I actually delivered my little break-up speech, I broke down crying. I’d been with this man for three and a half years, and he was my best friend; saying goodbye to him was no easy task, though I knew it was necessary. He asked me if it would be weird if he hugged me, and I said no. He squeezed me tight, one last time, until my breathing slowed. And then we said our teary-but-amicable goodbyes and went our separate ways.

I wished I’d brought a scarf, so I could’ve wiped my wet face on that instead of on my beau’s shirt. I wished I’d brought sunglasses, so I could’ve hid my eyes as I wept all the way home. I wished I’d remembered my damn wallet. But hey, at least my clothes looked cute.

Here are some outfits and the fictional babes who wore them to their break-ups… (Idea reverently pilfered from Gala Darling, who’s written similar posts about first dates, New Year’s Eve, and dream girls!)

Nora wasn’t going to take any of his shit anymore. She showed up at James’ house with a box of his stuff slung under her arm, and kicked his door a few times with her steel-reinforced boot toe instead of knocking. She’d probably scuffed the paint. Fuck him, he deserved it.

When he opened the door wearing his plaid flannel PJ pants and nothing else, she rolled her eyes and thrust the box into his torso, knocking the wind out of his dumb face. “We’re done,” she barked, and turned on her heel.

“Why?” James sputtered. A Ninja Turtles action figure had fallen out of the box and he bent down to pick it up. “What did I do?”

“You know perfectly well what you did,” Nora snapped without turning around.

When she got back to her car, she caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror, all smudged eyeliner and mussed-up hair. She looked pissed, but she looked foxy. She dug her favorite lipstick out of her bag and reapplied it, slowly, carefully, with the precision of a woman who wants to look hot for the next chapter of her life. Once her lips were perfect, she revved up the car and embarked on a new adventure, joyfully Jamesless and unencumbered.

“I’ve always hated you in those glasses,” Jackson said when Audrey sat down at the desk next to his. “Don’t you have contacts or something?”

Audrey could feel their classmates watching her. Granted, lecture hadn’t started yet, so there was nothing else to watch, but the mini-drama of Jackson and Audrey’s Tumultuous Romance had been a key source of entertainment these past six weeks in Existentialism 101.

“I like them,” she said simply, beginning to unpack her notebooks and pens.

Jackson made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a snort, and that was the final straw.

“I don’t think I want to see you anymore,” Audrey muttered. And then, a little louder: “We’re just not a good match in so many ways. We disagree on the feminist significance of Simone de Beauvoir, for example.” She cleared her throat. “And I’m tired of writing your essays for you. You should do your own work; the rest of us do.” By this time, the other students were full-on staring. The professor had arrived, and seemed interested in this choice piece of information too. “Oh, and you’re an asshole,” she added with finality.

Gaping at her and leaning way back in his chair, Jackson lost his balance for a moment and spilled onto the floor with a clatter. Audrey wordlessly gathered up her notebooks and pens and moved to a desk at the front of the room. The lecture today was going to be about Dostoevsky and she wanted to absorb every word.

“I just don’t think I’m ready for this,” Jenny said with a sniffle. They shouldn’t have met in a park; the hillside was covered in grass and Jenny was allergic to grass. That was the only reasonable explanation for her watery eyes and nose. Right?

“It’s okay, princess,” Evelyn murmured, clutching her little one against her chest. “We probably rushed into this. I should have taken things more slowly. I’m sorry.”

Jenny shook her head and pressed her face against the older woman’s clavicle. She felt safe there, but it was a conflicted sort of safe. “No, it’s not your fault,” she stammered. “I’m just… not as ready as I thought I was. I’m still not over Mel. I should have been more real with you about that.”

Evelyn kissed the top of her princess’s head and held her tighter. “I understand,” she said. “I’ve been there before.”

They sat in silence for several long moments, Jenny’s wet breaths the only sound in the air. Then she said: “Can I keep my collar?” Her hand traveled to it reflexively, fingers hooking on the heart-shaped steel clasp.

Evelyn laughed softly. “Of course, baby. It’s yours. You can keep it even if you don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

Jenny exhaled deeply against Evelyn’s neck, her breathing starting to return to normal. “I might need it again someday,” she whispered. “You know, when I get over Mel and I’m ready to give this another shot.”

Evelyn smiled. The sun had started to set.

Alex had never hyperventilated in an airport before. Lots of other places, sure, but never an airport.

Sleepy passengers piled out of the arrivals door, fresh off a flight from Lisbon. Fuck, this is gonna be bad, Alex thought, but then, she always thought that. That was just how her brain worked.

She spotted Matt, weary-eyed with suitcase in hand, and a bolt of panic shot through her belly. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She had to do it. She had to. It was scary but she had to do it.

“Matt!” she called weakly, in a voice that was barely hers. He met her eyes, nodded, waved, and meandered through a crowd of chatty Portuguese tourists toward his girlfriend. She didn’t hug him immediately when he got close enough, and then it felt too weird to do it after that. Alex stuffed her hands in her pockets and mumbled, “Um, did you have a good trip?”

Matt started to answer her, but her jittery mouth cut him off. “Listen,” she rasped. “I gotta own up to something. When you were out of the country, I slept with someone else. And I’m really sorry. And that was really shitty of me. And you deserve better than that. It’s just, you were away for so long, and I got lonely, and I also started to think that maybe we’re just not – ”

“Just not meant to stay together,” mb finished. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.” She looked up at him with those wide, blue eyes of hers. “And I slept with someone else, too,” he admitted sheepishly.

There was a silence before Alex let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Well! We really fucked this up, huh?” she declared with a grin. And then, taking his suitcase from him: “My car’s outside; let’s get you home and we can figure this out on the road.”

They were halfway to the parking lot when mb threw his arm around her and ruffled her hair. “Missed you, pal,” he said, and it felt like a preview of what they could be to each other, someday, once the dust had settled.

The Quick-Start Guide to Getting Over Someone

Kate Sloan

image

Unrequited love is the woooooorst.

Oh, I certainly get the appeal. I see why it’s played up in movies, music, theatre, and TV. Unrequited love is dramatic, romantic, captivating, titillating. It keeps you on your toes, on the hook, on the edge of your seat.

But what those fictional portrayals don’t quite capture is just how bad it feels to love someone who doesn’t want you. It’s not all giggly-eyed banter in school hallways and pretty-crying in the bathroom mirror. The real pain of the situation is so much worse than that. And I say that as someone who’s spent many a night sobbing in bed until my eyes were so bleary I couldn’t see and my voice was too hoarse to form the words “Why doesn’t he love me?!” anymore.

When you get your heart bruised or broken, lots of people offer you advice. “Laughter is the best medicine,” they’ll say, thrusting a Mel Brooks DVD into your hands. “Time heals all wounds,” they’ll mumble with a shrug as they pass you a bowl of Häagen Dazs. “Everything happens for a reason,” they’ll chide, tossing you a pillow to punch to a pulp. And you’ll beat up that damn pillow, less because it helps your heartbreak and more because all this unsolicited advice is inciting your wrath.

With that in mind, I’m offering you six strategies which, used in tandem and in order, have helped me enormously when oblivious cutiefaces have stomped all over my heart. You don’t have to take this advice. You don’t even have to read this advice. But if you’re tired of living in a whirlpool of tears over someone who doesn’t break a sweat over you – if you’re tired of feeling swathed in lovelorn lethargy and you want to actually get some shit done – then give these tips a try. They’re not revolutionary or new, but they are effective.

Dump out all your feelings. Emotions are like trash. (Okay, not always, but go with me for the sake of this metaphor.) You can try to throw them in the kitchen garbage pail, slide them down the garbage disposal, toss ’em out a window – but unless you firmly, physically remove them from your space, you’ll never be completely sure they’re actually gone from the premises.

So take out the trash. Grab a journal and pen, and write out every single thought or feeling or idea or dream or fantasy you’ve ever had about the object of your affections. Write until your muscles ache – and then switch to typing if you have to. Look for sore spots – any particular concepts or memories that make you feel especially miserable and dejected – and unpack them until they can’t be unpacked any further. Resolve all your thought-loops of anxiety, worry, insecurity, sadness, and anger, so you can finally set them to rest.

You can do this verbally, too, by talking out loud to a friend. But I find journals are more patient and less judgmental.

Forgive them. If you still harbor any bitterness toward your love for not loving you back, you need to nix that shit. The forgiveness process might take time and reflection (boring, but effective), or you might be able to do it quicker with some empathy and the ability to put yourself in their shoes.

For example: when I get frustrated that a crush doesn’t like me back, I always mentally revisit times that someone has liked me and I haven’t wanted to date them. Maybe it was a lack of physical attraction, maybe some doubts about our compatibility, maybe a sexual attraction that just didn’t lean romantic enough, or maybe it was just the headspace I was in at the time. Whatever the case, there was nothing I could have done to conjure feelings for my unrequited admirer; it just wasn’t going to happen. That’s the type of reality check that makes it painful-yet-possible for me to forgive a crush in the present for not loving me back: I know they can’t help it. Because I couldn’t help it either.

View them through the lens of someone who doesn’t love them. You might have trouble viewing your amour with any objectivity, but guess what? Your friends can view that person accurately. You should take advantage of that power.

Ask your friends to tell you about the flaws, faults, and failings of the person you love. They might only have petty things to report – “One of her boobs is bigger than the other!” “He gets crumbs everywhere when he eats!” – but they might also have some bigger complaints to lodge, that they’ve been holding back for fear of offending you in your smittenness. For example, I’ll always be grateful to the friends who pointed out that a longtime crush of mine actually treated me badly, dismissed my ideas, and took my affection for granted. I hadn’t noticed these things at all because I was so wrapped up in my squeaky-clean image of him. Thank god for third-party neutral observers.

If you don’t want to reach out to friends to ask about your love’s flaws, or if none of your friends know the person you’re trying to get over, you can also try to unearth this information yourself. Journal for a nice long time about all the ways your love has slighted you, mistreated you, acted out, fucked up, and fallen short. Normally I don’t advocate focusing on people’s failures, but right now you need to be shaken out of your “I love them, they’re perfect!” mentality.

Publicly decide you’re getting over them. When I say “publicly,” I don’t mean you have to announce it on your blog or blast your Facebook friends with the news – that’s a bit much, even for me. But you should tell at least a couple of close friends that you have decided to get over your crush. To some extent, they can keep you from sending sad drunk texts, creeping your love’s tweets at 2AM, or taking a “casual stroll” through your crush’s neighborhood. You’ll feel more committed to your recovery mission if you’ve told your plan to people you respect.

But this attitudinal shift isn’t just important for your friends to know; it’s important for you to know, too. Once you’ve decided to get over your crush, you’ll (slowly, incrementally) stop mentally highlighting everything they say or do as worthy of your notice. You’ll scroll past their tweets like they were anyone else in your timeline, write about them in your journal only when they’re actually relevant to your day, and wait until you have a moment free to answer their texts instead of hammering out an instant reply. Treat them like a non-crush, and they’ll gradually become one. Mental categorization is more important than we realize, and that includes the mental category of “person I love.”

Destroy all mementos. Fuck, this is really hard to do! I am an appallingly sentimental person, and I cling to physical tokens obsessively if they remind me of a person, place, or time in my life that was important to me. But let’s be real: if you claim to be getting over someone, but you still own objects that remind you of that person every time you see them, you’re half-assing the task at hand.

“But Kate!” you might be screeching as you read this, “Why do I have to get rid of the endtable my crush made for me/T-shirt she gave me/stuffed animal he won me at the carnival?! Those things came from the person I love, but they don’t remind me of them!” Only you can know if that’s really true. If an item is useful to you, or genuinely makes you happy, and its tragic origins don’t come to mind when you glance at it, then it might not be so bad for you to keep it. But you have to get really real with yourself about this, and get rid of anything that makes you even borderline-sad.

If you truly can’t bear to let go of some of these objects – maybe because they’re expensive, one-of-a-kind, or you think you might want them years down the road – then put them in a bag (Gala says you should write “DON’T!” on the outside) and give that bag to someone you trust for safekeeping. It’s okay if your mementos stay in your mom’s garage or your best friend’s bathroom closet; having them out of your space will be good for you.

Go out and live your life!! They say the best revenge is living well. I say the best “revenge” is not feeling like you need revenge. Living well because you want to and deserve to live well – not because it makes you appear a certain way to a certain someone.

Throw yourself into your creative projects. Go to parties and events. Make new friends and new professional connections. Go on dates with other cute people, if you wanna. Learn new skills. Spend time with people who love you. Watch movies that make you howl with laughter. Go for walks in the sunshine. Make lists of goals and then get started. Dance your ass off surrounded by sweaty happy people. Start saving for a vacation. Get your hair done or buy some new clothes. Write a book. Make collage art. Roll down a hill. Write a gratitude list every morning. Listen to music that makes your heart pound with glee. Figure out what would make you happy and then go do that.

We make ourselves miserable when we wait by the phone, endlessly hoping our crush will get off their ass and finally notice us. Relying on other people to make you happy is emotional masochism. Make yourself happy, even if you’ve never really done that before and aren’t sure where to start. Just try a whole bunch of different things and see what sticks. Get out into the world, make things, do things, have experiences. Wash the bitter love from your system with as much hustle and joy as you can muster.

Keep going. Nothing worth doing is instant or easy, but it’s still worth doing.

 

What are your best strategies for when you love someone who doesn’t love you back?