Hi, My name is Arnettra and I'm an...

I am addicted to the internet. Specifically, I'm addicted to what's called fandom. It's a group of people, mostly women, who are rabidly interested in a movie, book, group, etc., so much so they begin to write short stories, novellas, hell, novels, about their particular interest. But these aren't just any stories, the majority of them are erotic stories, featuring a heterosexual couple (het), a lesbian couple (femmeslash), or, the most prevelant, slash, featuring two men. Now this last one is by far my favorite. Why? I couldn't tell you, maybe I like the exploration of gender roles in slash, or maybe I just really like reading about anal sex. I don't know, and I don't really care why I like it. I just know I do, and that's not the problem. The problem is the amount of time I spend on fandom. I can spend HOURS trolling the internet looking for my next fix, I go on different communities to talk to other fans about my fascination with specific characters, what I think about their characterizations, and how I hot I think Mr. X is with Mr. Y. It's fun but it's completely eaten my life. It has superceded having a social life. I'm better about now than I was when I first found out about fandom (thanks Jennie H.!), but I still find myself on Friday, Saturday nights, in the front of the computer, bag a chips and a pop to my left and thoughts of nothing but the next story in my head. This needs to stop; I feel like I allowed this fascination to eat my twenties and I don't want this dominating my thirties, too. I want to spend time with other people face to face, touching, smelling, feeling other people, not over the wires. Don't get me wrong, I think the computer is a viable way of connecting to other people, but it shouldn't be your main connection. And it's mine, and really, I've never used it to truly get to know someone else, so I'm even failing at internet 'friending.' I just want my life back. I quit cold turkey, but that only lasted ten days before I was right back on my livejournal 'friends' page, looking to see if anything good had been posted. I don't know if slowly weaning myself off will work, I don't want to give it up completely, I just want it to become something fun I do for a handful of hours a week or every other week, not my main source of entertainment. I need help, but where do you go to get help for something like this? I guess I'm just going to have to work this one out on my own. I'll keep you posted; right now I have to check my friend's page.

Sexless in the Suburbs

I really wanted to avoid talking about weight, dating, etc in this blog because they are such stereotypical topics for women to discuss, but...every stereotype is steeped in truth. Those are two things that are prevalent topics on my mind. All my girlfriends, with the exception of one, are married. All of them! And I'm not even dating anyone. There isn't even a person in my life that I want to think about dating! How is this fair? What's wrong with me that no one ever thinks to ask me out on a date. Or the ones that are interested are completely inappropriate? Like that married guy at work who's trying to get a little too close for comfort? (Ew, just a big fat no)! What vibes am I sending out in the world that I'm still alone? I fear that I'm going to be 45, fat, living at home with my parents, no options, no hope. I dread becoming the cat lady. You know who I'm talking about. I would like to become close to somebody, but the longer that doesn't happen, the harder it is for me to let anyone in. I called myself dating someone in 2009, and he was a decent guy, average looking (but had lovely eyes), employed, funny and he shared my love of movies. But I found something wrong with him. He was a lot younger than me (six years), he lived at home too, so we didn't have a place to really be alone and he wasn't take charge enough for me. He was always looking for me to lead but I had absolutely zilch experience in dating so I had no idea where to lead him to and that ended up frustrating him as well as me. We text each other every now and then and I whenever I see his number, I have a brief thought of trying to make it work, but then I think, are you just settling? I don't think he's the one for me, but would being with him be better than being alone? I haven't tried to pursue anything with him because I don't like it when women settle, but is settling better than having some magical list of qualities and attributes that no man could ever hope to live up to? Right now I'm thinking about cutting down the list to: Alive, Single and willing to hang out with me. How do you even go about meeting someone? All I ever do is work and when I'm not working, I'm at home on the couch watching reruns of 'Criminal Minds' (yum, Shemar Moore. And Matthew Gray Gubler). I just want to meet someone to hang out with; why is that so hard for me?