#NerdsUnite: Confessions of an Unwed Bride (Julie's Guide to Healing From a Heartbreak)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet by buddy Julie! She's my roomie, we met on Craiglist, and she is 1,000 flavors of everything awesome sauce. The reason why she had a room in her apartment however is a mighty long story. See, Julie was dating a duderino for 8 years. Yep, they were engaged to be wed and all that snazzy jazzy stuff. Now the engagement is off and Julie is attempting to heal from her loss; these series of posts are her best attempt. HIT IT JULIE! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @ItsMeJoolie

Sooooo....

Going through a breakup, huh? I'm sorry, because I have most definitely been there. As you can read through previous posts, I went through a pretty traumatic break up and made it through it. You can, too. I promise.

I want to make something CRYSTAL clear first! I would never, never tell anyone what they should NOT do in this type of situation. You will probably do something unhealthy or stupid in this phase. I won't judge you for it. All I can do is tell you what worked for ME. So here it is: Julie's Guide to Healing From a Heartbreak.

Step 1: Indulge the pain.

Eat some ice cream. Wear sweatpants. Hide under your comforter and cuddle with your cat. Take a day or two off of work. And cry, cry, cry. Watch Sex and the City. Call your mom and friends.

Step 2: Pamper (make yourself look hot).

As a consequence of Step 1, you may have put on a pound or two. (I was the opposite, I stopped eating until I dropped 15% of my weight and my hair started to fall out). Either way, if you look like shit, you're going to feel even worse about yourself and the whole situation. Here's where working out comes in handy. You look like shit and you're an emotional roller coaster. Take all of that emotional energy and work it out! Transfer the want to cry into running on a treadmill. Someday soon, you will want to start dating again. Think about all the new hot people you can date. Think about running over your ex's face a million times. Take that asshole! For me, I couldn't have gotten through the healing process without yoga and meditation.

Then go to a salon and get your hair cut/colored. Get your nails done. Get waxed. Get ready.

Step 3: Party like it's 1999.

I went out and partied. My God, did I party. I couldn't bear the thought of being home by myself. Be careful with your alcohol intake here. You owe yourself a couple of sloppy nights, but let's not give yourself something else to feel bad about.

Step 4: Forgive yourself for whatever stupid shit you did between Steps 1 through 3.

Step 5: Get your shit together.

I was always spot on when it came to paying all of my bills. I had this schedule that I would follow- pay a,b, and c the first half of the month and x,y, and z the second half. When my relationship ended, so did that. Shit got paid when it got paid. So take a breath and look around and see what you can clean up. Make sure you're performing as you should be at your job. Here I am a year and a half later and the other day I looked at my filing cabinet and realized that after all of this time, it was still a mess and that I really need to finally go through the stack that developed while I was nursing my wounds.

Step 6: See a therapist.

You don't have to see this person forever if you don't want to. Maybe it's just for two months. It might depend on how long the relationship was, if there was legal stuff to work through (divorce), children involved, how bad the betrayal was, etc. I couldn't shut the hell up during my recovery. All I could talk about was my ex. My poor mother listened to hours and hours of me verbally working through the littlest sentence my ex said or me ripping apart an incident in the past. Give your friends and family a break. The last thing they want to do is hurt you but they are tired of listening to you talk about your break up!! A neutral third party can help you to see what is really happening and help you to work through it.

Step 7: Work On You.

This can mean different things to everyone. For me it meant building out a network of friends. Discovering hobbies. Getting back to what made me, me.

Step 8: Have an Adventure.

I was sad. I wanted to feel happy. Short of doing drugs, this is the best method for getting away mentally for a bit from your problems. It made me feel alive at a time when I felt dead inside. It also really helped boost my self esteem because I felt like I woke up from a coma and I had missed out on life. Doing new stuff made me feel alive and exciting. Some of the adventures I went experienced include:

Zip lining in Asheville, NC
Partied for the first time in Las Vegas
Dancing on stage with Prince
Skydiving for my birthday

San Diego Comic Con (first time in SD and I slept in my car)

Step 9: Give Yourself Some Credit

I recently discovered the TV show Intervention and was so drawn in. I couldn't believe how these people were just willing to throw their lives away. And they had all of these people around them who loved them. One night I watched two episodes in a row and both of them focused on women who turned to drugs/alcohol after they lost their significant other. It shocked me and made me realize that I could have let myself fall apart. I could have just given up. I felt really silly about being proud of myself. But dude! I didn't let this ruin me. In fact, I'm happier than I have ever been. And you can be, too. 

Good luck!
Love, Julie

#nerdsunite

Click here to follow Julie on Twitter

#Question: What would you pay for a professionally written dating profile?

Hey nerds, 

I've currently reached a point where I am absolutely INUNDATED with requests from dudes asking me to look at and rewrite their dating profiles. Obvi, I am extremely extremely flattered - but I never answer any of the requests back because there are genuinely too many. IFFFF, however, I were getting paid to do this, I could justify allocating time out of my day to answer them. 

(Not that you people aren't wonderful enough for me to do this out of the goodness of my heart - but I have to be real that there are 86,400 seconds in ANY given day and I need to keep this business up and running. Literally my life depends on it as this is my only form of income.) 

Should I ask for a donation? I feel like that's the best route is for people to pay as they go - but I wanted to throw this to the community and see what your suggestions were. 

I'd be willing to offer the following: 

1) Profile re-writes

2) Picture suggestion

3) An explanation on how to structure messages to market them to women. 

Basically, I'd look at everything you are doing online and give you some quick tips and tricks on how to answer in addition to restructuring your profile. 

Any feedback is uberly appreciated. Tweet me: @JenFriel

Thanks nerds!!! 

Oh yeah and ... 

Click the screenshot to comment on Facebook

#nerdsunite

#NerdsUnite: Feeling so inspired!

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Eric. He is a MAASSTTEERRR social dynamics expert that will be talking about his experiences in the field from both an expert, and experience perspective. He's not just saying "this is how to get the girl" he's here to share his actual life stories and lessons learned from them. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT ERIC !!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Redolpho

There is something amazing about teaching social dynamics that makes me so inspired I have to write. It seems like it’s been ages since Jen and I had our last workshop and the progress that all these guys have made is INSANE. One of the guys who took the first class just wrote a super long post in our private Facebook group about a new girl that he is dating. He talked about how much his life has changed with work, his family, and of course his love life. I can’t even describe how much this warms my heart.  Every time that I hear one of these stories it reaffirms how amazing this life changing process is.

Tonight I was finalizing the curriculum for our part two of our workshop. The part that I’m most excited about is calibration and looking at the personality types of both guys and girls. This stuff is INSANELY powerful. This section of the course is based off a study that looks at the personality types of men that women find attractive and then correlates the female personality types that match. So for instance, extroverted women like social leaders. Women who make emotional decisions are attracted to bad boys and so on.

It probably comes as no surprise that most of the guys that take social dynamic workshops fall into the nice guy bucket, I certainly do. But here is the thing, there is a common flaw in nice guys and that’s neediness and/or weakness. I know this all too well. I spent my life being pushed around by people I thought were my friends, and my bosses and also my father. In my last post I dealt with this same thing, I had to stand up for myself in my business life. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and I had to dig deep to find the courage to do so.

If you’re reading this post and you know you fall into this category that's awesome, women find that personality type attractive. But, be a nice guy don’t be a weak guy. You can be both nice and strong and that combination is really powerful, not just in your romantic life but in every facet of your life. I am still a very nice guy and I still deal with my neediness and weakness. More and more I realize that the path of personal growth is never over. It changes over time and new challenges arise.

One of the hardest challenges that nice guys face when it comes to social dynamics is the first one, and that’s admitting that you want to make a change. There is something in the back of our head that tells us we’re less of a man because we’re admitting we want help with women. You’re not, you’re stronger for being vulnerable enough to admit you can improve this area of your life, it takes a lot of balls. Or maybe you think that studying social dynamics will turn you into a douche. Guess what, you’re still going to be you, just a better or different version of you. Lastly people think social dynamics is all about bedding women. It’s not, it’s about learning what motivates people to do what they do and that skill permeates every area of your life.

The contributors here are on TNTML constantly put themselves out there, find that place of vulnerability and let go. Every time they grow and become better because of it. So if you’re sitting on the sidelines, get the fuck up and do something. Invest in yourself, you’re worth it. Studying social dynamics may not be for you but everybody has an area of their life they want to improve. Move forward today, just take one step and be brave. It’s hard, believe me I know but you have an entire community here that will support you. More than half of the posts I’ve written for this site have brought me to tears but the other side always feels so much better. My relationship with my business partner is 10x better than it was before, and had I not dug deep and decided to grow stronger I would have ran again! I’m telling you first hand that when you let go and simply start moving forward everything gets better. Whatever your area of improvement may be, just make one step forward today, JUST ONE. Your life isn’t going to change overnight but you’ll be further ahead than you were yesterday. Do that for a couple months and you’ll be at the top of a mountain basking in how far you’ve come and looking over the ridge at the next leg of your journey. That’s progress, that’s what life is about.

#thatisall

Interested in taking Eric and Jen's social dynamics workshop where you will learn not how to "bed women" or "pick up chicks" but rather how to understand social cues, and read social situations?  Email Jen for more info: JenFriel at talknerdytomelover d c and check out what one our past students had to say. 

Next beginners workshop: October 26 7:30pm in Hollywood, CA 

YAY PERSONAL GROWTH!!! 

If you’d like to share your stories please feel free to tweet me at @redolpho or email me at eric dot rudolph dot carrillo at gmail dot com

#NerdsUnite: Big lights, big city, and a journey into confidence

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Jordan Friedman

I feel like one of the things I haven’t really done here on this particular blog is explain what I actually do as a director of theatre.  This is what I’ll devote this particular blog to. Bear in mind that there’s probably more than I can convey on here, but I’ll do my best here to explain, in a somewhat streamlined process, what I do as a director.

One of the first things I do is go in-depth into the script I’m working on. This is very important for my craft. At their core, directors are storytellers. They use the tools that they have to tell the story that the playwright wants to be told. You can’t do that unless you actually read the script and understand what the playwright has written. On the basic level, this requires reading the script. A lot. At more specific levels, I analyze specific details, including the overall story chart, the given circumstances that are present in this story, and perhaps the one that I spend the most time on, the details of the characters. Because these are the people that make up the story, I take my time to make sure I understand them right. For my current project, I’m writing down who each character is, what I consider to be their superobjective (Where as a character might have one objective in a moment, they likely have a superobjective, or overarching goal throughout the story), and the actions they take. I am someone who, as much as possible, directs by telling people what to do rather than what to be.  To get concrete actions written down for these characters is crucial for me, it allows me to know how they respond to a certain situation and why.

After the script analysis comes aspects that may or may not be in my control. In the overall production sense, there’s getting your production staff and cast together. In the past, I haven’t always had control over these; for example in showcase work I often tend to have cast members chosen for me. When I do have control over these, I talk to potential designers and stage managers to see if they speak the same language that I do theatre wise and can create their best work under a certain set of circumstances. With actors, I’ll either have them read monologues or certain portions of the script that best define the character they’re interested in. I do this to see their overall acting ability as well as their ability to adjust to changes I may throw at them (On either end of my field, you have to be very adaptable). I then process over everything as much as I can and select the people who I believe will get me the best performance.

Then, the rehearsal process begins. Depending on the script and the circumstances of the show I’ve had some rehearsal processes last under 6 hours, while my most recent one is probably going to push at least 60. No matter how long it lasts however, I have a few key steps with what I do. First is what’s known as table work, or the actors sitting down at the table with scripts in hand, reading out loud and discussing what the text means to the actors and how they initially respond. From there I take those instincts and attempt to build their characters and their reactions to the story in front of them. This gives the actors a foundation of what they do, why they act the way they do and what is in the characters’ heads in the moments of the play. Once that’s done I enter blocking, which is simply having the actors on their feet and adding movement and pace to what was discussed in table work. This is not only important to complete the characters and their actions, but it also truly lets me see how everything works on stage and whether it plays out on the stage the way it was intended to be in table work. This also lets everyone get everything in their head the way they’re supposed to and correlate lines to actions and responses in order to get everybody in a state ready for performance.

Once that’s gone on for some time, and I’ve had meetings with designers on the side to discuss their work comes the joy that is tech week. This is often one of the more tiring process of being a director as you have to work to get the technical aspects of the show together with the performance. The lighting, set, costume, and sound elements will be loaded into the theatre and I’ll often make sure to test them before actors come into the space. Then there’s the work of getting the actors used to the space and balancing the timing of the actors and the tech elements, along with overall story telling with everything together. With last minute refinement and changes that can be made as well, this can be a tiring week in the process, particularly as this is the week to make sure everything is right and ready to go. However once it’s done and the product is complete, I consider my job done and let the piece carry its course. It’s something I consider to be a fulfilling end after a long process.

While there’s more to the process than what’s listed here, there’s a brief look at what it is I do. Perhaps when there’s a way to show specific examples on here I can take what I show and put it into context. But for now I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my world. Until next time.

Nerd responsibly.

-Jordan

#nerdsunite

Follw him on Twitter at @jordanbfriedman!

A Director Blogs:  adirectorblogs.blogspot.com

#Fact: If at first you don't succeed, become a legend

Wow what an AWESOME quote from last night and what an AWESOME evening spent with the one, the only ... 

Ru ... 

Paul ... 

Lemme break it down for you all now on how I got to meet him and how all of this even happened. 

I can only think of ONE song that could EVER go with this post!! 

So, on Sunday I went to a friend's housewarming BBQ. It wasn't just "any" backyard BBQ though, we were in this MAASSSIIVVEEE mansion on top of Laurel Canyon. 

The views were BREATHTAKING!!! 

I love love love this group of friends, btw. I met one of the girls, Chelsie, almost 7 years ago when we were on a shuttle to the Playboy Mansion. (She is the one that let me crash at her place when I had the cockroach infestation in 2007 and lost everything I owned.) 

Either way, Rosanne and I were talking at one point to these two dudes and she of course then starts blowing up my spot with what I do. 

One of the dudes seemed super interested, so as I went to go refill my drink and sit down by myself just staring out at the scenery, he of course followed. 

We got to chatting and come to find out they had just met the host at another party I think the night before. 

Rad, I said. You're with good peoples. 

His other friend then came over tapping him on the shoulder telling him he had to go, so he asked for my number and then peaced. 

I left a short time later as the .7 mile walk down the windy road wasn't going to be pretty. (Even in my Nike + kicks!!) 

Then, yesterday, I woke up to a text from him ... 

He then told me to meet him there at 7:30.

You have NO idea btw how excited I was ALL DAY at the possibility of getting to meet RuPaul. He's SUUCCHHHH a legend and while I don't have a lot of familiarity with the cross dressing world, I KNEW that this was going to be a celebration of awesomeness and openness and THAT I was game for. 

7:30 came around before I knew it and right as I was walking up, I greeted my new friend. 

Hello, I said giving him a big hug. 

We were both then blinded by flash photography and the red carpet which was RIGHT at the entrance to the Abbey. 

IDs please said the door guy. 

I struggled to find mine being barely able to see. 

I finally hand him my ID and we both enter the party. 

This guy, btw, is a total suit (and was literally in a suit). I can't say who he is or what exactly he does in the entertainment industry without blowing up his spot, but he's super fancy pants so of COURSE within seconds of entering the party I am then introduced to no less than 20 other super fancy panted people. 

Producer after producer, agents, and lawyers peppered in with celebrities and drag queens. I could NOT imagine a better place for a nerd with ADD to be kicking it!! 

It was FASCINATING watching the dynamics play out. 

You do know if I get close to Rupaul I am going to have to ask to take a picture. I hope that is okay with you, I say to my new friend. 

Of course, he says laughing. Let's go up and say hi to him if you want. 

My eyes light up. 

YES!!!! 

We then walk over. 

What do I call him/her?

Call him Ru, he says. 

Perfect. 

We then approach Ru who is being interviewed by some publications. 

The second Ru sees my friend his eyes light up. 

Well, at least this guy is legit, I thought. 

Ru then walks over. 

They exchange pleasantries. 

Ru, this is Jen. 

Hi, I say SUPER excited.

Hello, he says back, composed and SO elegant. 

Could I trouble you for a picture, I ask just getting right in there.

Of course, he replies. 

My friend then snaps this ... 

Ru has to be HANDS down one of the nicest people I have ever met in LA. What a very present person!! He was SO FREAKING SWEET!! I couldn't stand it!! 

If he wasn't so much taller than me I would have picked him up and put him in my pocket to take home!!! 

Wait, just kidding, that's called kidnapping. 

Either way ... we got to then watch the premier of Drag Race All Stars and I have to say it was REALLY entertaining. I've never watched anything on Logo before, but being there WITH all the drag queens AT THE ABBEY was quite the life experience. 

I laughed to my friend saying, this show is like America's next top model meets Project Runway. 

He smiles saying, that's exactly how it was pitched. 

It was very very very entertaining, and very very very funny - to my delight as well, not only did the show have sponsorship from Absolut but they also provided all the alcohol for the party.

YAY CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS!!!! 

We then left after the episode aired and grabbed burgers across the street at Hamburger Haven. 

He then opened up to me about his life, and love. 

It was really cool talking to someone who could not BE more "scene" and to have him actually be pretty chill and incredibly real. 

We then bounced a short time later, but when I got back to my apartment I couldn't help but spend a solid half hour dancing around to Supermodel. 

I remember being a kid and holding a tape recorder up to the music video of that to get the song on tape (I was too cheap to actually buy it with my allowance), and listening to it over and over and over. 

Rupaul is a cultural icon. He is someone that has paved his own way and never looked back. Whether or not you agree with his sexuality, or way of life - you can't deny the cultural impact this man has had, and the SHEER drive and WILL exhibited that all of us entrepreneurs can be inspired from.

As Ru puts it, "we are all born naked and the rest is drag." 

Well played, sir and thank you so so so much for the AMAZING evening!! 

Own your awesome nerderinos, and keep on keeping on!! 

oh yeah and ... 

Click the screenshot to comment on Facebook

#namaste