While waiting outside before drag queen Mother’s Day Brunch (literal), I overheard two girls talking (complaining) about their love lives. I can’t tell you how fun this is (“overhearing”), and especially when it comes to men. I hear things like – “Why can’t he just say I love you already>” “it’s really weird whenever he invites me over he insists I take my shoes off at the door, but only remove one sock” or “is it normal I think 50 Shades of Grey would help our relationship”.

In this particular instance, the overhearing touched on one of my favorite dating conundrums that affect the modern woman. “It was really fun, but I dumped him after two months,” the girl in gladiator sandals said, “there was just no magic.“

Bippity, boppity, boo!

Ladies, we need to talk. Our expectations for men (and often vice versa) are so out of whack, we go straight to fantasyland as a stand-in for our disappointment. Are you expecting to board the Platform 9 and 3/4 Train to Boyfriendland? Where everyone looks like Liam Hemsworth or Javier Bardem and they’re just waiting for you arrival, holding three bags of Louboutins and a puppy?

It’s time to get real. As in, based in non-unicorn reality.

And I’m not confusing this with having standards, or wanting to be respected, or having a connection with someone in a crowded bar while the song “Somebody That I Used to Know’ plays, because I’ve never heard that song before. And you’ve lost all knowledge of time and you know that this person will affect your life deeply. Probably, or at least for a few months.

It’s time to beam back down to planet earth, into the world of reality. Where have our expectations gone? They’ve gone to a place where Edward the Vampire is beloved (and totally deemed real person), or it’s cool and desirable to have a long lost lover named Gail (is that a guy’s name?) who hunts with you in the woods in a dystopic land where you have to kill other children.

There are lots of things to blame for the incorporation of the fictional and fantastical into the realm of dating, but the most amusing is our vernacular.

I hear this all the time - sparks, flames, in reference to dates. Are you dating a magician? Are you dating Crisssssss Angel? If so, tell him to lay off the eyeliner.

I hate to break this to Wiccans and other horitculturalists everywhere, but MAGIC ISN’T REAL. Yes, you can describe something as magical, but not in reference to another person. Prince Charming is a character. A fictional character. Sure, you can facets of your own “prince charming,” when he picks up your dry cleaning for you or tells you you look beautiful or is sweet and supportive about your fledgling writing career.There might be passionate kisses, or similar thoughts, but unless you’re Tan Mom, fireworks are never going to go off. Unless you meet an NJB on the Fourth of July when you’ve burned your tongue over a Turkey burger (ask a guy to grill a Turkey burger, get forever shamed.)

It’s not just the lexicon of ridiculous, but of course, popular culture that has led us to believe that love is a thing of fairy tales.

Unless I didn’t get the memo, none of this exists. None of it has ever been proven to exist. We’ve developed worlds of wonder and excitement like Harry Potter and The Little Mermaid and Two Broke Girls, but Ariel isn’t selling fork-combs on Etsy. TV shows continue the mythical nature of a magical relationship and/or man, but the real culprit is actually Disney, as we all know, for telling girls that three mice will totally help you flat-iron your hair. Not true. Or that your prince, (white), with the same helmet-hair, will come to your rescue and you’re going to feel whatever magic is. Like Magic, the Gathering, which I never played but collected the cards because it was as cool as oily stickers.

Instead of trading dragons, you could trade personality traits – like kindess (lots of points), or beach house (lots and lots of extra points).

Even our romantic comedies still have an element of magic – Just My Luck (what happened to you, redheaded Lindsay?), that Dumb One with Kristen Bell (who totally revived herself with her sloth fandom) where she throws coins into a fountain and weird guys fall in love with her. I think that’s called walking around the LES in new denim-cut-offs. Blame it on the Olsen twins. How did they manage to consistently find PAIRS of hot men, in every city in Europe? Is there a Stars tour where men come in pairs? Is there going to be a flood? Should I line up with my other giraffe half?

What if we based our expectations of men, not upon Princes and Spells and Undead, but instead upon real people? Why are there no examples of that for us to see? (Except for Jason Segel. Hi Jason, I think we have some friends in common.)

I’m not just blaming the ladies here. I had a guy break up with me once, because he, AND I QUOTE, expected to “just know” if I was “the one, sort of like being struck by lightning”. According to my research, the statistical probability of getting struck by lightning is one in 2283842,0.87. Did this person just imagine that one day, you could wake up with enough electrical energy to run a small automobile with your thumb, in regards to feelings about me? He hadn’t ever been struck by lightning, so how could he know what that feels like? Wouldn’t that be unpleasant?

Maybe we just can’t identify our feelings, and instead of that, we create absurd expectations that can only be fulfilled in books and in the movies. We don’t use the supernatural in our friendships our work lives (ugh, I just wish this copier grew wings and sent me on a Magic Carpet Ride), or “Jenna is totally being a Belle right now.” What would actually getting that “magic” even look like?

And if it does exist, does this mean I could grow extra limbs for gchatting?

1. Zatchels Color Block Leather Satchel, $218 2. 10 Crosby Derek Lam Colorblock Shift Dress, $325 3. ASOS Color Block Sunglasses, $22 4. ASOS Fluro Belt, $14 5. Jeffrey Campbell Suede Combo Heels, $180 6. Claudia Schiffer Tri-Color Silk and Linen Sweater, $525

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Welcome to my SoulCycle class today, my fellow journeypeople. I’m so happy to have you here in my spin class, where we will thoroughly cleanse our souls, one spin of a wheel at a time. Think of it like you’re riding on two chore wheels, but instead of taking out the trash, you’re taking out the negative energy in your mind and spirit. It’s time to put aside the absent craisins from your salad today, or the wait for the 6. My name is Mariska, like the actress, and I’m here to make sure you burn enough calories to last through another overdone wedding at Cipriani.

Please notice the new towels to your left – they were specifically designed by Marc Jacobs for Marc Jacobs by Daisy by Marc Jacobs for Soul Cycle. They smell of lemon patchouli, Jacobs’ ex-lovers, and the microdermabrasion peel that we also offer in the back of our studio. Who’s ready to spin?

A couple housekeeping announcements – one. If anyone is allergic to wild verbena, I need to know right now. Two, as we dim the lights and enter into our tranquil exercise studio, it’s also important to keep in mind that our regular, Jake (Gyllenhaal), is here. Enough with staring at him, we’re all just lost souls, swimming in a fishbowl, as Abraham Lincoln once said. We are all one and the same. Jake – congrats on being an uncle again. Did Maggie end up going through with the water birth? 

Today class, we are taking a trip through the hills of Los Angeles. 

On this path to self discovery, our pores are invisible, we are dark, coming into the light. Cammie – not so dim please. I am your spiritual guide in this zen journey. There are no people in the 59th Street Bloomingdales. All is calm. I want you to imagine your entire body encased in Spanx. Breathe in, breathe out, and tighten. Keep it at a slow pace and gently turn your knob up to add a bit of resistance. They were just replaced by Marc Jacobs for Waterworks for Marc Jacobs.

Breathe in one two, and out one two. And push, I want you all up, pushing as hard as you can. Let’s do this.

Today’s music is a mixture of tribal, Top 40, trance, and lesbian and occasional lesbian deejay sets. Can you feel the energy in the room? I can. Great elbows over there.

I want each of you to think of a goal for class – my personal one is being nicer to my doorman, and remembering to think positive thoughts. Think of what makes you tick. Envision it dangling in front of you. Or think of a personal mantra to repeat to yourself over and over. Mine is “mantra”.

We’re imagining we’re in the Hollywood Hills, heading up Runyon Canyon. On the left – beautiful vistas. On the right, Lauren Conrad in leggings that aren’t doing her justice. And up! Up Up Up! Hold it. Hold it like Jessica Simpson held her baby for 11 months.

Now we’re cascading down the Hollywood hills, past Paula Abdul’s house. Get Out of My Dreams and onto this bike, journeypeople. Just remember who sang that. As we cascade down the hill, you’ve arrived at your final destination, my journeypeople. There’s a reservation for ten under “Mantra” at Katsuya. You’ve earned it.

Please wipe down your machines. If you’re interested in buying the playlist from today’s class it’s on Spotify. If you’d like to join me for next week’s ride, we will be at Coachella. The ferris wheel ever turning, like our bikes to nowhere. 

Another housekeeping announcement: I’d like to remind you that the Hampton Jitney SoulCycle class is new, and debuts for Memorial Day. And revolutionary. Not only will it be combining the soul-intensifying workout but you will be burning calories, on a bus to the Hamptons. Just like in Spice World. 

Jake – I’d like to speak to you for a second. It’s about placenta.

I’ve been unusually quiet, haven’t I? Did you miss me? I’ve missed me, or rather, I’ve missed you. But it’s only fair, to the readers who have stayed with me through this journey I like to call What the Fuck Are Your 20s. While it initially began as a foray into learning how to date, coming out of the college “hook up phase,” I feel like the site has evolved, as I’m sure have you. I have been dating The NJB for a year now. I met him at an entrepreneurship panel, and I never wrote about our first date, but I will say that it changed my life. 

I feel like I’ve gotten away from that kernel. The essence of navigating the world of dating – online, in person, whether you want to date your friend or you have no idea what you want. And it’s not to say that it has to stop once you start dating someone – then there are a whole new set of avenues that you have to discover and are equally as trying and complex.

But the essence of it remains the same - that we all have no clue what we’re doing. I’m just being honest about it.

And I don’t mean in dating – I have lots to say on that subject, but in our careers, with our families (if you’re working out issues, or figuring out how to be an adult apart from them). 

That’s what this site is and has always been about – finding myself finding myself and your working on it with me. I really wish there were GPS for it. I think we all do. Sure, your twenties are a fun time to celebrate and figure out if you really ought to upgrade to nice bedding from the stuff you had in college that has the slightest stain from pepperoni. But it’s also a time to figure out who you are, who you want to be, in career, friendships, and dating.

I felt like if I wasn’t posting five times a week, or extremely funny, that somehow it wasn’t true to FFJD. But I’m human, and not a robot. Or Amber Rose posing as a robot in a Svedka ad that makes me uncomfortable but also wonder how her ladyparts can breathe in that full-on Spandex suit.

Here’s the thing – I can’t write FFJD by myself anymore. 

I can’t wax poetic about Constance (because she is way, way too busy clipping my toe-nails), and also because – we have to figure this all out together. I will be writing about dating topics when I can (not necessarily every day), and other dating-related content. I was lured by the pop culture allusions, the flash-in-the-pan entertainment. I also would like to touch on issues in friendships, and career, because those are equally as important pieces. And just as hard to navigate, no. As our Patron Saint Bethenny said, “you can have it all, but not all at once”. I think that was before she flashed her ass on Anderson Cooper and it had something to do with dieting. But I also think it’s true.

Yes, I am utterly hilarious and dream up sequences where I am a best-selling author, popping champagne (well, vodka-sodas) on a yacht in France with like three Malteses (I actually am not the biggest fan of small dogs). That much we know, but that’s not me all the time. If it were, I’d be Beyonce. If Beyonce were a Jewish girl in Washington locking herself out of her apartment and hugging a locksmith (last week).

Whether you’re dating someone seriously, or just beginning or date, or have no idea if your Saturday hookup is a regular thing, come here.

You can ask advice questions on Formspring.  I’ll be essaying, when I feel like I have something to say. I’m thinking of some new topics, but also, listening.

In the meantime, I might need you guys to do some talking for me.

You can submit stories to Constance@theffjd.com, or post ideas, or thoughts. She is available Tuesdays between 10:27 and 10:30 for erranding. Consider her a TaskRabbit (download that).

Meredith

I’ve heard of people writing down their JDates and Match.com dates in excel sheets before. What’s amusing is this isn’t a new concept. And I have to give it to this guy for his detail-oriented nature. I would probably hire him to make me some really nice looking spreadsheets because I feel about Excel the way I feel about taking out the trash: I will only do it if utterly necessary and smelly.

But, if you are going to chronicle your dates in any written form (I will say, that I have used Blackberry notes, when I had to keep all of the Jareds straight), DO NOT SHARE IT. I’d post the spreadsheet on this site but it includes personal emails and phone numbers, and I’m pretty sure I know one of the girls currently being dated. To the guy: all of your prospects can be wiped out with one click of a button, literally and figuratively.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or are myself and living under a pile of allergy pills/pollen/Kleenex/endless squinting and sneezing, which hopefully is considered a form of cardio, you’ve heard about wunderkind writer/actor/director/20something girl Lena Dunham’s new HBO series, Girls. If you didn’t watch the premiere last night, I won’t be giving you any spoiler alerts. But I think it raised a lot of interesting questions, and I think it hit the nail on the head (well, not that I’ve ever done any hammering of nails) about the current 20something, urban-dwelling female experience.

Enough with the SATC comparisons.

Yes, Lena’s character, Hannah, wants to be a writer. And yes, she has a bunch of friends that get together and pick apart other people’s outfits. But they don’t do it in $4000 Balenciaga jackets. Hannah is relatable, struggling, and a lot more complex than Carrie ever was. Girls even makes a sarcastic nod to its constant SATC comparisons, and any girl our age knows that SATC was a sparkly, sparkly display of what NYC would be like if we had all the money in the world. Which unless Carrie was being paid $25,000 to write a column ONCE A WEEK, is just not possible.

That was always what bothered me most about SATC – not that she chose the womanizing egomaniac instead of Aiden, who would have loved her endlessly and not treated her poorly, but that there is just not that kind of money in column writing. And if there is, can I work for that publication? (Although as we saw in this piece, shoe prices have gone through the roof.)

Lena Dunham is a pioneer in television and body image.

Lena is not a perfect size two. She knows this, has spoken about it, and often flaunts that fact, both in Tiny Furniture and in this new show. But one thing I loved was that all of the girls in the show have “normal” figures. So many shows feature stick-thin size zero Hollywood actresses. In real life, people don’t look like that. In this show, everyone looked like someone I know. Maybe because half of them were Jews. (Especially that guy from Tiny Furniture, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone out with him.)

Even Smart Girls Let Guys Treat Them Like Crap.

This was both a frustrating and realistic portrayal of a “relationship,” ie texting/hookup/what have you, that Hannah engages in with probably the most annoying male ever created. But we’ve either all been there, or had a friend who is there. And it’s often some of the smartest girls we know – that let a guy get away with murder. (Just a lack of commitment and emotional support, not murder). Being that FFJD comes at things from a standpoint of learning how to date in your 20s (and get out of this hook-up, text-message-heavy form of “dating” into more adult romantic relationships), I hope Hannah is able to stand up for herself. We’re all rooting for her, or at least I am.

What did you think of Girls?

Via Buzzfeed.

Constance and I had a glorious trip to Mykonos, where she burned to a crisp because she’s British. She spent most of the time carrying around that satchel that everyone has in neon colors and is really cool and edgy in theory until you walk into a job interview with a bag the color of a Teletubby. We had a relaxing vacation, and we’re back here to dole out some advice before you board your plane, train, or “lost at sea” vessel with your therapist, a la Bethenny Frankel. (Did you see that Bethenny tweeted at me? It mostly regarded my mooning my neighbors in honor of her recent Anderson Cooper appearance. It made my day, week, year.) 

I’m here to offer some advice to those of you traveling home for Passover or Easter, and bringing your significant other or your pretend significant other, Samuel, who you break out at bar mitzvahs and weddings and tell your parents/cousins how he went to Harvard Law and he was just too tied up running a hedge fund (and/or these days, his tech start-up) to come with you. But you’ll send pictures. He’s too cool for Facebook. 

If there’s one thing I know about Passover, it’s that it’s a ripe time to bring home a new boyfriend or girlfriend. I’m not sure about Easter, really, except that I think it’s an equally as important holiday that involves chocolate and not mourning/guilt like 75% of Jewish holidays. There was one year my family was away for Easter and my parents had the “Easter Bunny” from the hotel bring us baskets of chatchkes. I was in 7th grade, and still had a blackhead pore strip on my face when he arrived at 7 am. I’d show you the picture, but the look on my face is a mixture of “I can’t believe this is happening” and “now I’m really never getting a date”.

Here are some tips.

Bring something, anything, but make sure it’s K4P (or flowers)?

It’s always good, if you’re meeting a new guy/girl’s parents or second cousin twice removed that found the teeth of her twin in her neck, to bring a housewarming gift. Passover can be tricky – some people keep it very carefully, and some people just eat lasagna and use a kid’s Haggadah. To each their own. But bring a little something, even some flowers. It’ll take the edge off, and it’s always better to be able to hand someone’s mother something. It means you care. 

Have a debrief with your significant other beforehand.

It’s always good (and I always do this) to ask your boyfriend or girlfriend what you should or shouldn’t say, and if any topics are off limits. Pouring Uncle Larry a glass of wine when he’s a recovering alcoholic is one, but more than that, we keep a lot of stuff from our parents. Mine don’t need to know about my sixteen credit cards (not sure how that would come up, unless your Passover seder/Easter brunch ended in Credit Card Roulette) or that time in Barcelona with the Midget. Still. Not. Funny.

Offer to help/clean up.

Washing dishes can be cathartic. Also, you can eat more chocolate bunnies without anyone judging you. You’re just on clean-up duty, cutlery and otherwise.