It's Not Me, It's You!

By Gillian Wolff

Boy-meets-girl used to mean encountering your date without being able to hide behind a screen, without using filters. Gillian started dating before the internet. A time before swiping left or right, unsolicited pictures, ironically cliché pickup lines written on a profile no one will actually take the time to read, and unexpected ghosting.

Eddie hooked up with her best friend. Bill was a psycho with a hero complex. Mitch only wanted what he couldn’t have, and Markus might have been the one who got away. Gillian wondered if she was the problem.

Two decades later, the dating scene has undergone a massive makeover, but the “ol’ hag” underneath stayed the same. This book highlights the annoying, yet comical, personal details of Gillian’s exploits in her quest to find her elusive twin flame, but in the end, Gillian realizes, It’s Not Me, It’s You!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gillian Wolff
• Release date: Apr 26, 2021

Book preview

Vetting Lifemates

Dating is a glorified interview process to vet potential prospects for the job of Lifemate. You wouldn’t go into an interview and reveal your worst traits, right? You’d walk in there, dressed to impress for the job you want, smile through your nerves, and lie like a whore in church, just for a chance that your lies were more impressive than the competition. 

Hi, my name is (your name here), my impressive resume would suggest otherwise, but I have zero clue how to do this job. I will do minimal work, steal office supplies as if they can pay my rent, fart and blame it on the guy next to me, and chances are, I will sleep my way through this office.

Or, I’m only here cause my parents threatened to kick me out if I didn’t find a job. Who does that, outside of the movie, Step Brothers?

Wouldn’t it be kind of cool if we could get the red flags out of the way on the first date? You wouldn’t have to squander away six months of your life, that you will never get back, to learn he pisses all over the toilet seat, eats fur covered leftovers, farts at the dinner table, or recycles his boxers so they last him a week. He would say things like: 

I will be the best boyfriend until I ghost you after sleeping with you. 

I wear a hair piece and halitosis that I cover up with copious amounts of mints and gum. 

I have mommy issues, a small penis, am a closet racist and will make inappropriate jokes about how you belong in the kitchen, and I overcompensate with my lifted truck and douchey attitude.

You like my smile? They are false teeth I take out every night and leave on the nightstand; I really only have three top teeth. Oh, and I drink from the carton, fart during sex, and only watch shows about bigfoot. 

Think of how much yoga or Pilates we could get done with all that extra time.

Instead, we get the ‘fake-news’ of the dating world. Dating hope through movies, rom coms, and cutesy love stories that will make you laugh on the outside and your heart swell with anticipation. I’d love to say I hate Rom Coms, truth is they’re my guilty pleasure. Just like train wrecks, I can’t stop watching them. 

If you really want to watch something that is closer to real life, watch Romeo & Juliet. A sappy naive love story about two teenagers who think they know everything and end up getting dozens of people killed before they each meet their own tragic end.

My love life has been more like Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

I’M JUST A GIRL

Maybe reality is overrated. Saved for people who can afford to live in their blissful reality. I’m poor so on lonely Friday evenings, you can find me hidden in the shadow of my couch, with a massive soda and tub of popcorn, as I watch P.S. I Love You.

Those damn movies really do a number on the female psyche. Decades of women’s lib, marching in solidarity, burning our bras to exert our feminine independent badassery, reduced to primitive rubble in the span of a two-hour flick. 

The winter holidays are the worst. Suddenly Hallmark chimes in with Christmas love miracle flicks. Eleven months of the year, I am a strong, independent, proud, badass woman, ready to strike down anyone who asks me to make them a pie, but once the holidays are over, you can find me rocking in the fetal position, ugly crying in the corner, wondering why I never learned how to bake a pie. 

How did I have the audacity to find joy in my independence, as I ordered food from an app like a pro? How did I survive without a sexy, small town, jack-of-all-trades carpenter, with a J name, like Joe or Jared, to show me all the joys of simple living?

I’m just a girl, after all. I must need Jack-the-lumberjack to take care of me, right? How could I possibly manage on my own?

As if the holidays aren’t hard enough for a single female, who also happens to be a newly over-the-hill divorcé mother, that we have to add doe-eyed love stories to the mix of the misery of grown-up Christmas. Sometimes I wish I could be seven years old, again, when I only cared whether or not I received a puppy or underwear for Chrismukkah. Having a Christian father and a Jewish mother meant I got the best of both worlds; Santa came for Christmas and Hanukkah was eight days of Jewish princess gifts. 

Speaking of princesses, Disney princesses set us up as children, with tales of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast, and Hallmark took over the divorced middle-aged market with stories of the female CEO going back home to her small town only to learn that her high school crush finally pays attention to her and convinces her to give it all up to stay with him. She ends up giving up her hard-earned career, her high heels and lace, and trades them for mud boots, flannel, and cow manure. The best part is, he has managed to convince her that she is actually happier settling for this. We didn’t stand a chance. We didn’t even see it coming. 

I wonder if dating sites have deals with networks like Hallmark and Lifetime. If they don’t, consider this my official claim on the rights to the idea. Pay up, assholes.

It’s a logical move, though, to feed lonely women a false fantasy, and to market the dating site so these women feel like they have a fighting chance, then watch the dough rack in.

Dating is the necessary evil to find the elusive happy ever after, especially since our parents no longer feel the need to arrange our marriages with the cute Jewish guy from the hospital in the big city. With my luck, he’ll be the patient.

It’s probably better this way, since I have no dowry to speak of. Are chickens and cows still the going rate in dowries? I’ve never owned livestock and I certainly am not very good at being a Jewish Princess as I am broke AF. 

Dating used to be simpler, didn’t it? What happened to the days where a man had the courage to ask a girl out on a date in person? What happened to proper dates where you got dressed up and the man presents you with flowers when he picks you up at home? I want none of the "Netflix and Chill bullshit. I am seconds from becoming the newest member of the I have too many cats" club, as a crotchety old bat that bitches about "how things used to be," remembering the days of better costs of living, kids respecting their elders, and chivalry. 

I would love to return to when the guy dressed up in slacks that hugged his tush like a well-worn pair of Wrangles, an ironed, button up shirt, and shoes that required shining, not the frugal, efficient 3-in-1 sneaker. You know what I mean: the shoe that can be worn at the gym, a casual day at the office, or to visit his mama. Not that there’s anything wrong with these shoes, they just imply a certain lack of thought. As though the date were an afterthought rather than the priority of the evening. 

In the movies, a sexy specimen of a man walks up to the front door, with a beautiful bouquet of roses, as he nervously knocks and anticipates your arrival, so he can gawk at your equally impressive attire. 

Where did we go wrong? Somehow, we took a sharp left at social distancing and completely ignored the signs for common sense. I blame Technology. Sometimes I think I’d trade my daily TEAMS meetings for pre-internet life; for meeting someone organically. Having a conversation that didn’t involve the click of the iPhone keyboard. Thanks, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Video Killed the Radio Star

Don’t get me wrong; technology has its perks. Photo filters alone, are enough of a reason for us ladies to appreciate what technology has to offer. Pimples erased with the click of a button are enough of a reason for us girls to appreciate what technology has to offer. Sure, it has its downsides, and most of us gals rely