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AJC.com > Living > Blog > Archives > 2008 > March > 14
Friday, March 14, 2008
Do you remember MIA?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Happy Blogiversary! After over 800 blog entries, over 100,000 comments, the Misadventures in Atlanta blog is officially 4 years old!! On March 10, 2004, one brave AJC staffer decided to share her dating experiences. Her name was Mia and she was young, fabulous, and just as frustrated with dating as many of us were! Do you remember Mia?
I thought it would be fun to check back in with the one who started it all. I sent Mia a list of burning questions I thought her old readers would want to know. So after the jump, check out what she said. Maybe she will even drop in and say hello.
For our new readers and lurkers, feel free to join in today! Introduce yourself to our MIA blog community.
Everyone, consider this a reunion day, a day to share your weekend plans, vent about the dating scene, or talk about what’s on your mind. What has the MIA blog meant to you? What have you learned about dating or relationships?
Catching up with Mia What fabulous gig do I have now? Y’all may or may not remember I left Atlanta to take a job at the New York Times. And I hated it but God always has a plan in place for my life. I landed at Sports Illustrated (where I met my current beau…that’s another story for a later question) and after a year and a half at Sports Illustrated I got a promotion to another magazine website within the company. I’m now a manager at InStyle.com. How Mia went from sports to fashion I can’t logically explain but it’s a perfect fit. My side hustle is coordinating speed dating events in Manhattan. Those who can’t, help others.
Are you engaged? dating? Those that remember me, remember I always somehow end up in some unconventional scenario. So here’s the story…and I always have a story or I wouldn’t be Mia. When I started at Sports Illustrated, one of the very first meetings I went to there was this guy. Throughout the entire meeting I kept staring at him because I couldn’t tell if he was close in age to me although he seemed younger than everyone else in the room. And I couldn’t tell what race he was. After the meeting, I’m always on Facebook, so I decided to see who else from the company network was on. And there he was. So I checked out his profile (still couldn’t tell his race) and his AIM name was on there so I IMed him. We started talking, getting to know each other and in the course of our first conversation I said, “Don’t take this the wrong way but what are you?” He started to laugh. “What am I in what way?” “Are you black, white, arab?” He laughed again. “What do you think I am?” “I think you are other.” He laughs again. Turns out he’s black and white. Mom is black, Dad is white.
So it all started with a random project meeting and a few IM’s. 18 months later we are still DATING…note the word dating. As with all twenty something, well educated, good career having men in NYC he is a commitment phobe. To his credit, part of it is that I am crazy, always admitted that I am crazy…but not crazy in a bad way. I’m crazy in the scars from my past relationships can make me a combination of paranoid and insecure. And Lord knows I have done some things that would have driven the average man away. But he’s EXTREMELY patient. Puts up with my crap, calls me on it and for some odd reason he’s still here. And what is here? Well we don’t have a title but anyone that is important in our lives (friends, family, coworkers, etc.) knows we are together. I’m learning to accept that the title is not so important if you have someone that accepts you for who you are and loves you inspite of yourself. As his best friend put it, “Honestly, I didn’t think you would last this long but one thing I know is that you are down for my boy. It’s okay, we all know you are his girlfriend.”
How did I overcome that “one of the guys” dating dilemma? I actually didn’t. For purposes of this blog we’ll call my guy Audacity. Because one of my friends likens him to Obama (the audacity of hope.) So Audacity and I started off as buddies or really office spouses. We would go to lunch together, talk on IM all day, watch Monday Night Football together…I was one of the guys. I think part of Audacity’s attraction to me was that I was one of the guys and I could hang with the guys and that we both obviously loved sports working at Sports Illustrated.
Do you ever hear from Hurricane? Are you still friends with his family? Hurricane and I are still friends. We talk all the time and it’s cool between us. We have both moved on personally and professionally. After Katrina, Hurricane’s sister lived with me for a semester. While living with me she met the man she is now engaged too. I’m going to be one of the bridesmaids in her wedding. Weird to some to be a bridesmaid in my ex-boyfriends sister’s wedding but I’m still friends with the family. And if she hadn’t lived with me when folks thought that was crazy to let my ex’s sister live with me…she wouldn’t have met her future husband.
Do you ever hear from/about Mr. Potential? Military Man? Shortly after I moved to NYC Mr. Potential sent me an email, “You just crossed my mind and I know that things weren’t the best between us when you left. You really where a good person who I would consider a friend and we had lots of fun when we did hang out. I hope all is well and you are enjoying NY.” Every now and then Mr. Potential will send me an email but he’s in a relationship now. I think it’s serious, close to engagement, he denies that. I haven’t actually seen him since I left Atlanta. Military Man I never heard from again after he moved out.
Are the single men in NY more challenging/less challenging than Atlanta? In NY I would say they aren’t more or less challenging but it’s a different challenge. The difference is the social options NY offers versus Atlanta makes guys less inclined to want to settle or get in to a serious relationship. It’s very hard to find a guy here who wants to do more than just date but to actually have a relationship. The men have a lot more choices/options of women.
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