Corey Balsamo

Singer-songwriter from New York. Just trying to figure it all out.

Year of the Woman

I find it pretty common practice for everyone, including myself, to look back at the end of each year and assess the many happenings of the last 12 months. Every December will eventually and inevitably dwindle down to its final weeks and days, giving each of us a window to take a look under the hood, make sure everything is running alright, and pay mind to what might become an issue if left unattended. While I don’t feel you necessarily need a new calendar year in order make any kind of adjustments to better yourself, January 1st seems just as good as any place to leave a mental marker to utilize for future reference.

As I develop further into my 20s and become a more full-functioning, upstanding member of society, I find it helpful to give each passing year sort of a “theme” - if you will. This simply distinguishes certain dates, events, seasons and time periods from blending into one another, as I teeter on the cusp of the ripe, old age of 23. With considerable thought and deliberation (and by that, I mean about 28 seconds), I have further concluded that 2013 could be no better defined, for me, than the “Year of the Woman” - simply a period where I let dating and the dating world run too much of my life for me. If anything at all, this is nothing more than a public recount of red flags to be mindful of and situational flubs I promise myself to try and avoid, and never do again. Like, ever. (*cue T-Swift*) Without carrying on any further, the best and most conducive place to start would be right from the very beginning: January.

Like the first five minutes of any bad romantic comedy of the last 10 years, the beginning of 2013 started off pretty smoothly on all fronts, dating included. On January 1st, I inked a consulting agreement with an awesome, supportive and familial music agency, Supreme Entertainment. It was around this time I became acquainted with Zach Berkman, a Chicago-bred songcrafter, engineer and producer, but loyal New Yorker of the last decade. After a few scheduled writing sessions, we came into talks about making a record together - a record now titled “In The Middle of Everything”, due out early 2014. Around this time I was seeing one girl pretty steadily. Somewhat older, though not considerably. Artistic, though a bit shy and still in her shell. She was living and working in New York City then, so our schedules synced up pretty perfectly as a big chunk of my writing was being done in New York, and a little bit in Virginia - where I had just spent the last several months.

She had a career in the arts, which was cool and a first for me. Since my last serious relationship, I had been set up on one too many dates with career baristas, bartenders and babysitters. While I get that it is totally irrational to expect anyone in their early/mid-20s to have a whole lifetime planned out, this was just a nice change of pace to be spending time with someone who had a clear-cut concept of what they wanted to do with their time here - not to mention working in a field so close in nature to my own. Passion and drive is a big plus in my book, and also pretty damn attractive. For me, it was cool to have someone understandably unfazed by your ability to sing, write, create and play guitar. I wasn’t being pried upon to learn and privately perform her favorite Selena Gomez song while sitting at the foot of her bed. “He’s a musician!” wasn’t the second line that echoed my “Nice to meet you! I’m Corey,” when I met her friends for the first time. We sort of simply coexisted in our own mutually artistic lives.

With a shared proximity to NYC, coupled with a love for artsy things, we had a pretty cultured dating style and nightlife. Dinner dates often consisted of strange, new cuisines I’d probably never dare try alone or even just with a buddy. Museums were frequented when it was rainy and we were in the mood. We tried a literary walking tour of Brooklyn, only to break off and do our own thing after about 25 minutes. And while we spent most of our time in other boroughs, we did catch a few shows (on and off-Broadway) in Manhattan’s Theater District. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I was actually, finally branching into the “adult” dating world - you know, that kind you see in the first five minutes of those really bad, romantic comedies.

A red flag that I should have picked up on, but simply disregarded, was the concept of this “friend” of hers I’d never met. This friend had a very sporadic schedule with a tendency to interrupt, though only a select few times, our plans together that almost always sent her into a weird panic and lead to exiting abruptly and prematurely to “run home and take care of something” for them. Call it naivety, call it too trusting - I had no reason not to believe that this was anything other than just a needy friend (every girl has one), maybe with some issues that just weren’t really my business to know, at least yet.

How I never knew she lived with another guy from the get-go, I believe to be one of the greatest coverups in modern dating history and I think she really owes it to all of us, not just me, to publish a New York Times Best Selling memoir on just how she did it. Nights we didn’t spend out and about, we spent cooking dinner at “her” (THEIR) apartment, watching Netflix movies from THEIR living room loveseat, drinking mixed drinks (probably) from his favorite tumbler. I won’t go into great detail about how I found out, because it truly isn’t pertinent to the story. In short, all it took was a casual, passing comment from her coworker’s boyfriend that lead me to begin putting 2+2 together. “Hasn’t she been dating some dude for, like, two years?” I was skeptic at first, of course. But that little bit of information, coupled with resorting to the ultimate investigative tool of my generation (thank you, Mark Zuckerberg), allowed me to sever all ties completely and never return another call or text from her.

In short, I got shafted. Shafted bad. Despite all of my confusion, I never found any sort of urgency to reach out to her boyfriend and let him know all that had been going on the last few months. After all, this was not two dudes battling to the death for one girl’s heart. It actually was never my territory to begin with. And I didn’t have the energy or drive to want her to like me more, even if she did. I was the “side guy” and the situation panned out the way it did and there’s not a thing I can do about that. Hopefully, if he is a smart enough person, he’s figured out for himself, too, packed up his couch, XBOX and favorite drinking tumblers and moved into some place new. Maybe this time with closer walking distance to the subway.

Poor guy. I wish him well.

I’ve never been too into broadcasting my dating life (until now, I guess), even in my closest circle of friends. So when they actually did catch wind of this miraculous tale of deceit and hilarity, I was immediately rained on with suggestions ‘til I was knee-deep in proposals of “Oh, you HAVE to meet my friend! She’s studying to be a veterinarian! You have a dog. It’s perfect!” and “Dude, her Dad, like, OWNS *soft drink beverage company* and “Have you ever even considered dating a black girl?”. To this day, I’m not even certain what this was in direct response to. Was I giving off that scent of desperation? I didn’t feel desperate. Were these pity dates? I’ve never in my life sought out someone to rebound off of and I certainly wasn’t now. But in my pursuit of “dating” in 2013 (and by “dating” I mean giving every new situation a fair shot), I seldom found myself at the summit of any mountain, shouting “LOVE IS GREAT!” at the top of my lungs, but instead at the bottom very many dark, weird, unfamiliar, “Should I consider changing my phone number?” type holes.

There were girls who I got along with fine, but shared zero chemistry with. There were girls who preferred to make no effort in remembering my name (she still believes it’s either “Connor” or “Kyle”). There was a girl who I couldn’t continue to date because she swore her Russian boss had a thing for her and feared imminent termination from employment, as did I for my life. There was one girl who went and requested to be friends with each one of my family members on Facebook after just one date (you can guess if there was a second). There were girls who were too soon out of their last relationships and girls who had actually never been out with a guy before. I was in an unwarranted game of matchmaker at the sole discretion of my friends. And while I truly did appreciate their efforts in playing Cupid, I was having a lot more thrown at me than I could handle. This toxic innerdialogue began to fester itself in my head, like an insatiable zombie-like mindset on the prowl for brains. “MUST. HAVE. GIRLFRIEND.”

Given our varied backgrounds - cultural, historical, geographical, financial or other - I truly attest to one philosophy that is supremely universal to everyone’s sense of self-worth which is that no sole, specific relationship defines us or makes complete. And before I start to sound like maybe too much of a cynic, keep in mind that I am a songwriter. Therefore, I have to enjoy dating - or at least endure it. I am a romantic at heart. And I have to believe in love (or stellar songwriting formula) if I want to continue a career in writing songs. I mean, c’mon, some of the greatest songs of all time are love songs. But my ultimate point is that you shouldn’t ever feel less than who you are because some relationship didn’t work out the way you thought it would, or you currently can’t get one to work out. Because at that point you’re not dating someone, you’re married to the idea of dating. And that’s a real fuckin’ commitment.

The problem with making the distinction between “Are we in love” vs. “Are we in love with the idea of being in love” simply boils down to defining where you are putting the focus on. And for me, this year, my sights were not well-calibrated. I let outside influences, as well as my own inner voice, direct me into thinking that I wasn’t whole without a better half. The idea of being single wasn’t often embraced and became a self-imposed problem that was never really there until I began wrongly defining what made me happy. I was dating selfishly, and I was dating for me - which is wrong. You can really hurt people that way (I did), and you can get really hurt (I was).

My buddy Jesse Ruben, another awesome songwriter, called me about two weeks ago to pick my brain about something totally light and unrelated. Fast forward 93 minutes later and he’s yelling at me on the other end like a high school football coach. “Eveything’s gonna be fine! That just means you weren’t meant to be with that person. Congratulations, you dodged a bullet.” Aside from his usual, hysterical Jew sarcasm, he also had some really nice things to say, too, like "You deserve someone who would walk on water for you,” and “Everything is great, nothing is a big deal. And guess what! You’re doing fine and you’re going to be fine.” Having him there to verbally pick me up by the collar and dust me off meant the world, but the most common element to everything Jesse was saying didn’t hit me ‘til later and that was these were all things I already knew. I knew I had a lot of be grateful for. I knew I dodged a bullet and I knew that I deserve someone good and right for me, and so do you. Sometimes you just need to hear the words from someone else for it all to click.

So, after everything I put myself through, everything I didn’t know and everything I now do, the only response I am really sure of is that I am OK. And I’m content with being OK. OK is a good place to be. Even a great one. It doesn’t make any sense trying to write your entire future when I’m not even sure who I’ll be smooching at midnight tomorrow. But I do know that I have a nice, new suit I plan to be wearing when it happens. So I think my New Year’s resolution will be to keep making mistakes. And be thankful when things don’t work out. I mean, that’s the only way I’m really ever gonna learn, isn’t it?

Happy New Year, everyone. Here’s to your plans not working out!

  1. followy0urdreamsss-blog reblogged this from coreybalsamo
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  3. parzm reblogged this from coreybalsamo and added:
    Corey I feel you. You know the bullshit I’ve been through and hope I soon follow in your footsteps.
  4. coreybalsamo posted this

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