F*ck Me: A Memoir

  It seems an obvious topic to write a blog post about being single… but the longer I boldly brandish this title (as a woman, as a woman over forty, as a single mom), the more deeply I realize it is as taboo a topic as any other I’ve covered. Why is that? From what I can tell being single these last five years, there a few common responses to announcing this status: You obviously aren’t ready for a relationship yet. When are you going to finally settle down again? How are you meeting people? In other words, most people assume that singlehood is both a temporary condition and an unwelcome one. Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but plenty of people are single by choice . No, seriously. It’s not because we’re broken, it’s not because we’ve been searching frantically and haven’t found ‘the one,’ it’s not because we’re cynical and believe love is dead… for many of us it’s simply the best of all possible options. Maybe for now. Maybe temporarily. Or maybe forever. I'm not sur...

Closure. What a stupid idea. Don’t get me wrong, like so many others, I’ve spent months, years of my life seeking “closure” in relationships. I’ve foolishly reached out, ad nauseum.  I’ve imagined happenchance meetings and the conversations that would inevitably (fantastically) ensue:  “Oh Arielle, I’m so glad I ran into you,” they'd begin. “I have to tell you… all these years... it’s just tortured me that…” etc. etc.  (I warned you, fantastical .) I’ve even gone so far as to write a book about my dating blunders, disappointments and failures in hopes of achieving some measure of “closure.”  So, when I say I’m a world-class, hopeful, hopeless fool, having wasted lifetimes waiting for the inimitable, imaginary, ethereal concept of “closure” to land in my lap like a beautiful, rare, mini rainbow unicorn, I assure you, I am a world-class fool. And I can, therefore, further assure you that through my painstaking – and entirely wasted – efforts, I've determined...

  "Do I really want to be 'sex mom?'" I asked my therapist when I'd completed writing my memoir . She laughed. "Sure, why not?" "Because... well, because... do I wanna be 'sex mom?'" "First of all, you don't know that you'll be 'sex mom' because of your book. And even if you are, so what?" she challenged. "One book, one act, one nickname doesn't stick with you forever... When you're done being 'sex mom' you can be someone else. Anyone you want to be." It was a powerful statement - we can be anyone we want to be at any time, regardless of our past.  Powerful. True, even. But not completely helping to quell my fears...  My anxiety wasn't just about a nickname, obviously. It was about my identity and the way I presented myself to the world; it was about what people would think of me.  Which was ironic, of course, as the core message of my book is about how I learned to be true to ...

  Earlier this week, I posted a story about being ghosted. However, after really thinking about it, discussing it by DM with a slew of my followers, and reading more research on the topic, I realized that the story I presented was not, in fact, one of ghosting. Yes, the gentleman in question "disappeared" after our third date, but we weren't in a relationship, we'd determined that we weren't interested in anything serious and, truth be told, after that last date I never reached out to him either (more on that situation in my upcoming sex and dating memoir ). So would I call it ghosting? Probably not.  That said, there are a lot of  interpretations  on this topic.  Personally, I think you can only be ghosted by a person with whom you're really involved. If you've only gone on a couple of dates and the person never returns your calls or you don't pursue seeing them further, that's not ghosting, that's just disinterest.  Another difference betwe...

I love sex. Love, lust, crave, need sex. If you know me in real life, if you’ve looked at my Instagram or Facebook pages, or if you’ve read my book , you know this about me. It’s no secret. And I’m not ashamed to talk about it. BUT… what may come as a surprise to some people is that I hate casual sex. Casual sex sounds great, right? Fun, exciting, no-strings attached, new… yeah, sounds awesome. But here’s the thing – put aside health and safety issues – there’s one major problem with it: It’s just not that good. Don’t get me wrong, it can hit the spot after a dry spell, or at the end of a night with a smoking hot date… but beyond the momentary gratification, there’s really not much to it. It’s a minor scratch to a great, big, itchy itch. And I’ll tell you why - it lacks these three essential components for a truly mind-blowing experience:           Deep desire           Absolute trust          ...

  I recently watched a few programs on television that really got me thinking. The first was the newest season of Love is Blind  and the second was the Netflix limited series, A Perfect Couple . No, I’m serious, they both got me thinking - and thinking about the same thing: Kink Shaming. Let me explain. In the former, a resentful lover lashes out at the recently-dubbed “love of her life” (I’m not even going to go there) after finding out he was sexting with another woman. While I understood her pain, anger and desire to hurt him, I was genuinely shocked when her response was to focus on how “disgusting and perverted”* his desires were, rather than the fact that he had broken her trust and hurt her. It almost seemed as if her discovery of his anal fixations and other unnamed sexual proclivities offended her more than the fact that he had discussed and planned to do them with another woman. Now, I’m not defending the emotional cheating (and from what it sounds like, plans ...

  I keep thinking I have the lowest expectations of dating and potential partners I could possibly have... and yet, I'm constantly shocked at how low the bar can go. When I became single a few years ago, I'd already given up expecting to:           meet someone organically           find someone who checks all my boxes           find someone who checks some of my boxes           find someone who checks any of my boxes           find someone who can find my boxes But now, on top of this list of non-expectations (and in addition to some fundamental dealbreakers such as no bigots, addicts, abusers, or severely mentally-ill people), I've had to create the following list to weed out undesirables I didn't even know existed prior to getting back in the dating game five years ago:         Must be willing to set a date and time to meet...