Everybody Talks....about your relationship.

When it comes to the messy, muddy emotions of love a girl often relies on her best gal pals to guide her through the maze. We consult and analyze every comment, text, smile and slide of the hand. We ask their advice on why he hasn't called or what to wear. This behavior often translates into the relationship we ask our friends their opinion is on a fight we had with our beau. Sometimes we just ask them if we're crazy to try the long distance thing with a boy we only sort of know.

The problem is how much of our friends input is more harmful than helpful? We rely on our girlfriends opinions so much that they feel entitled to always give us their opinion on our relationship even when they shouldn't. At her cousin's wedding back in October my best friend Em met a guy and instantly felt that spark. The one that makes your spine tingle, your heart clench at an accelerated pace and sends elephants running wildly through your stomach. It could be lust or it could be love. The problem? The boy lives in a different state than Em. And while she has seen him several times since and even exchanged a few kisses most of her girlfriends think she's wasting her time.

They're totally against her and lets call him "Dave". They tell her she's wasting her time, that she doesn't know him well enough to really like him. They tell her it won't work because he lives in a different state. But really how do they know any of those things are true? How do they know what Emily defines as love or what she feels? How do they know what it's like when she and Dave are alone? And who are we all so ignorant that we think we can define what love means to someone other than ourselves. After all isn't love different for everyone? All relationships are different and all people are different so certainly different people in different relationships experince love differently. Sometimes I think our friends opinions cause us to ignore our heart and quite possibly ignore something amazing.

And in reverse sometimes we ignore our friends concerns when we should listen. One of my other best friends "S" began dating a guy online. S had never met him nor did he live in the same state as her. When Em and I confronted her about how dangerous her relationship was she got upset and defensive. Fortunately she quickly realized how worried we were and ended the potentially dangerous relationship. However, S isn't the first of my girl friends who has ignored her friends when they voiced some seriously negative concerns about her beau. I've seen too many of my friends fall into bad relationships despite their friends warning signs. I've fought with friends who got angry when I voiced the harsh truths about their boyfriends. I've watched them defend boys who called them stupid and treated them badly. I've seen them isolate themselves from their friends because their boyfriend didn't like how they were driving a wedge between their relationship. I've seen girls choose jealous and possessive boys over their friends and what for? Because they didn't listen to their girlfriends concerns in the beginning and the deeper they fell in love the more blind they became to the rift their boyfriend was purposefully creating.

So how do we know when to listen to our friends and when to listen to our heart? It's so hard to know when you're friends are overstepping from when they're giving you legitimately good advice. We all love differently so at the end of the day how do we know which of the thousands of voices to listen to? And we as friends at what point do we realize that we have to stop talking and let our friend just be happy?

Life lessons from The Office Finale

I've watched The Office series finale at least four times since it aired. And yes I still cried each time. It was the perfect combination of funny and sentimental that provided us with closure for the nine year relationships we've formed with the characters. And on top of all that messed somewhere between Creed's hilarious disguises and Erin's emotional reunion with her birth parents the writers of The Office slipped in some wonderful words of wisdom. So here are the things I learned from The Office finale:

1.Life's to short to be anything less than happy. "It took me so long to do so many important things. It's just hard to accept that I spent so many years being less happy than I could have been. It' be great if people saw this doc and learned from my mistakes...but it would just make my heart soar if someone out there saw this and she said to her self "be strong, trust yourself, love yourself, conquer your fears. Just go after what you want and act fast because life just isn't that long."

When Pam launched into her monologue about learning to love herself I again began crying hysterically. in part because the Pam I was on the screen was no longer the young naive, confused and utterly stuck in an unhappy rut we saw in season one. But, a grown women who was finally comfortable with herself. When she says "Jim was five feet from my desk and it took me four years to get to him."I was reminded at how important it is to take chances and go after what we want. We are os often told not to dream but to be logical and responsible. Don't travel to Europe and blow all your money, don't be an actress or a writer those aren't stable careers. But what good is money if your unhappy? It's important to chase our dreams. It's important for us to be happy.

2.The Good Old Days are right now. "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." Leave it to Nard Dog to put how much we wish our lives away by living in the past or dreaming of life in the future. We spend so much of our lives wishing to be older to be "grown-up's" we dream about being 13, 16, 18 and 21. We dream about have a real job, a car, a loft and a cool group of friends to drink martini's with and we forget to live in the moment. But life is happening right now. The best days of our lives are the days that are happening they aren't the ones in the past or the ones still to come. We have to stop wishing our lives away. Because again life isn't that long.

3."there's a lot of beauty in ordinary things." As people, we tend to focus on the glamour and the big dreams. We want to be rich and important wit cool job, cool wardrobe and huge house. We want to go to lavish parties and sip fancy cocktails. But, sometimes amidst all those dreams of glory we forget about the little moments. Moments like when you're friend brought you soup because you were sick. The first time your mom let you walk to a friends house by yourself. Staying up all night with your friends or the first time you got kissed. It's all the little ordinary daily moments that make life beautiful.

So there you have it the final words of wisdom The Office left me with. I know it's a little late but has anyone actually forgotten the finale?