Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: career women, life, networking, professional women, random, relationships, thoughts, women
This morning’s drink: Peet’s Italian Roast
Growing up, I never considered myself to be a tomboy, though I played sports, took auto shop and graduated from sports bras to real bras in high school. But I always felt like I was different from other girls. I didn’t really care about makeup or expensive underwear, but I sort of felt like I was missing something as a result; that I was lacking an important point of bonding with other girls.
It made my relationships with other girls sort of complicated and mysterious. I felt like I didn’t know how to approach my own gender. I even questioned whether or not I was a lesbian, though I’d never been attracted to women. But I was getting that same apprehensive feeling about talking to women that I was about talking to men that I was attracted to. I’d sort of already assumed they had an upper hand – I guess because they had the girl thing down.
I’m still not really into makeup or expensive underwear, but I’ve realized that it doesn’t make me less of a woman, just a different sort. It’s actually helped me to appreciate all women more, which is part of the reason why I had such a great time at the eWomen Network lunch yesterday. I walked into a group of women who spanned the gamut of demographics and social tiers, and found that I already sort of belonged due to the sheer fact that I am a “career” woman. I didn’t have to justify why I was there, which gave me the freedom to interact and network without feeling like I was hitting on someone. Sort of ironic, in a way – the thing that used to hold me back has suddenly liberated me.
While I’ve been a professional woman of sorts for a few years now, I feel like I’ve just discovered this part of myself, and the opportunities for me therein.
Now just throw a little wine in the mix and we may have something here.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: happiness, life, love, random, relationships, thoughts
This morning’s drink: a blend of coffee grounds past.
I was supposed to get up for a run this morning, but I couldn’t.
Not so much because I was tired, or remembering the second glass of wine from last night. Or because Josh and I cruised up and down the Wild Animal Park yesterday for three hours while the lions lazed in our faces. Not even because the sheets are new, the bed is warm and it’s just now starting to cool off at night. I couldn’t get out of bed because I woke up and Josh was holding my hand in his sleep.
I am such a fatalist, because I keep trying to figure out what’s wrong with Josh and I. Even though I’m somewhat stoic as a single girl, I’m a classic lover of love. I know infatuation almost as if it were a dance routine I’d practiced and performed for years. Like the one throwback song you play really well on the guitar. Even love was starting to feel that way – like I was figuring out the chords and memorizing the changes.
But this love is totally different – it doesn’t feel like I’m in love with love. Rather, it feels like a natural side effect of something totally normal. Like, getting warm when you put sweats on; or feeling satisfied after a nice meal.
Every action has an equal or lesser reaction. So maybe our love is just naturally so.
Nothing wrong with that.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: apartment, bitter, debt, landlords, lease, life, love, men, random, relationships, rent, single, thoughts, women
Tonight’s drink: Tierra Brisa Merlot
I have to preface this by first saying that I am very lucky to have my apartment. It’s cute, cozy, safe, and cheap, and it has a killer view. The one bummer that I’ve dealt with for the past three or so years is that I live directly next door to my landlady. She sees all, she hears all, she knows way too much about my life for someone who takes a third of my paycheck each month.
There are two primary conditions to my lease: 1) that you must always err on the side of quiet; and 2) that no more than one person is allowed to live in the apartment. The quiet rule, I’ve been busted for on occasion. The one-per-apartment rule has never been an issue until Josh.
Josh spends a lot of time in my apartment, but he doesn’t live here, at least not by my definition. He does have a key, but if we broke up tomorrow, he could walk in, gather his things in both arms, and leave without too much trouble. Definitely no furniture, decorations, coffee mugs or movies. Though he has downloaded a lot of music onto my computer, so that might be sort of a pain. For him.
Anyhow, as individuals, Josh and I are quiet people, for the most part. We’re both pretty internal, so if either one of us is in the apartment alone, no one is the wiser. In the evenings, when we’re together, we watch jeopardy and get a little competitive, but there’s no yelling or slamming eachother. When we have sex, we’re quiet, except for the occasional squeak here and there. We do laugh a lot when we’re together. We do have conversations where there is some inflection. But we rarely fight, and if we do, it’s like two text messages long.
So last night, I came home to a note from my landlady which said that she’d had complaints from other tenants that two people were living in the apartment, and that it was generating a lot of noise. Frankly, I call bullshit on that explanation. If there are any complaints from others about my having a boyfriend, it’s because it’s stirring up a lot of bitterness.
I live a very simple, independent life – I don’t ask much of anyone, I don’t impose myself on others, and I don’t complain about the psychotic guy two doors down who regularly builds things (I’m talking saws and hammers on wood) at 1, 2, 3 a.m.; or my next door neighbor who plays her terrible music loudly, and sings to it with a microphone, karaoke style. Since they continue to do these things, I’m assuming no one else has complained either. Is that because they are doing these things alone, and looking pretty pathetic in the process? No shit – I watched the man have his 70-year-oldish mom help him carry wood into his apartment.
By the nature of our apartments, everyone living here is either single or on the verge (aka, not engaged or married). Whether grouped in a bar or huddled together in an apartment complex, a bunch of single people together begin to grow bitter - especially at the sight of happy couples. By policing the sex lives of its tenants, it’s sort of perpetuating that environment. I have to think that my landlady isn’t so much bothered by the sound of my boyfriend and I laughing over YouTube as she is by the fact that my warm body is a man, and hers is a cat.
Of course, I’m pissed that I’m basically being threatened with eviction for having a relationship, but I can’t afford to move. So, until I finally pay down this debt, I guess I’ll have to sneak Josh into my room when my landlady isn’t looking.
I didn’t see “reversion to high school privileges” in the list of credit card penalties.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: cheating, disillusionment, infidelity, life, love, marriage, men, random, relationships, sex, thoughts, women, work
Last night’s drink: Louis Jadot Beaujolais
Helen is a coworker that I spend a significant amount of time with – especially since, at least once a month, we drive six hours together to and from Indio. Helen is in her 40’s, from a traditional Mexican heritage, in her second marriage to a Chinese man who cooks American/French fusion cuisine, and the mother of two daughters about my age. Helen is the kind of person that likes to give advice, and I’m the kind of person that likes to hear people’s opinions - sometimes, I’ll ask her insubstantial questions just to hear what she’ll say.
Last week, I was venting to Helen about my disheartening experiences with marriage, as of late. It seems like, for every four married men I meet, three are having affairs.
“That’s about right,” she said. “Most married people these days cheat. It’s rare to find monogamy in marriage.”
Her response took me aback, but the opinions that followed were pretty interesting.
The people who were more likely to cheat, she said, were the ones who were wealthy, or who wanted to appear to be. This includes young upstarts with nice cars and crappy apartments, and established men with fat nest eggs and even fatter heads. Having multiple women is like a luxury to them – a logical continuation of the affluent lifestyle they seek. It really isn’t anything personal against their wives – it’s just another investment in being the part…maybe even the part their wives expect them to play.
In some cases, men and women in these situations both cheat – or they may even have an understanding between the two of them that there will be others outside of their marriage. Let’s face it – nobody’s perfect. Neither is marriage, from what I’ve heard. If your sole purpose for getting married is to have a comfortable living or simply a body to come home to, then it may make perfect sense for you to get married first, and then find your intimate connections after.
Another reason people cheat, Helen said, is to network professionally. Whether you’re trying to make a name or simply move up, no one can deny that sex sells. Mixers, conferences, professional organizations or even boards – these things bring people together from different tenticles of an industry for their own benefit, and the benefit of the product. In general, the more professional “connections” you have, the more successful and reputable you appear to be.
So you have a lot of like-minded people in one place, oftentimes drinking, and meeting under seemingly serendipitous terms, and it creates all the chemicals needed to produce explosive connections. These types of connections between men and women can feel very emotional and intimate, but it’s more than likely that heterosexual males are having the same connections with eachother. Work or no, it’s exciting to meet people you connect with. The difference is that the prior example will likely lead to sex at some point – marriage or otherwise. If a man can have a professional and a personal conquest in one, why wouldn’t he say yes? It’s twice the food for his ego, with only half the work.
In both the “luxury” and the “success” perspectives, the affair is a way to build yourself up with more instantaneous gratification than, say, honor and hard work will proffer. Plus, guys get to feel like they have a modern day harem, and what guy doesn’t love that image.
The thing to keep in mind, though, is that the root of the word “harem” actually means “protected” in Arabic, and in other early languages. This is because the harem of classical terms (the original harem) was meant to protect the women, not to exploit them.
Isn’t that the reason why you guys are bigger and stronger?
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: debate, life, men, random, relationships, sex, thoughts, women
Last night’s drink: Coffee.
I’ve been writing up a storm, lately, with school and some mild freelancing – both of which I am excited and grateful to be doing. Of course, it also means that my mind is on overdrive, which is why last night, when I received a comment from “Jack” on my Spatulesque post, I ended up writing a response that was long enough to be a post in and of itself.
As such, I’ve decided to dedicate this post to Jack, and Roissy, and “The Elements of Argument,” which is the textbook from my composition class last month. So, without further ado…
Jack said:
“Um, I saw your post on Roissy’s blog. It is unbelievable that you think men shouldn’t ask women about their sexual history. Women, like you, who are opposed to that are usually promiscuous and deceitful. I would have no problem being honest with a girl about myself, and you should have no problem being that way with a man. In this day and age of AIDS and other STD’s, both partners should be able to know the other’s previous activities to protect themselves accordingly. It has nothing to do with insecurity or not liking sex. But a man has a right to know if the girl he is dating is a slut, or if she is a respectable girl. He can better make a decision about their future accordingly. And by the way, there are ways to figure out if a girl is being honest, as well.
So I came to your blog and you appear to be a thoughtful and attractive girl who can write pretty well. I just thinkyour opinion on asking sexual history is ridiculous, and that both women and men should make a habit of doing that. There are already too many STD’s around.”
My response is as follows:
Hi, Jack.
Thanks for the comment, the compliments, and the implicit flash judgement. However, I think you misread what I wrote. Just to recap:
“It seems to me that if a guy is obsessed with the notches of a girl, they are either:
a) a pervert;
b) insecure about themselves and/or their own sexual prowess;
c) considering sex a recreational sport, and trying to figure out if it’s safe to play without protective gear; or
d) don’t or can’t enjoy sex, and want to show they are above it by putting down the other people that do.
There’s nothing worse than a guy who wants to talk about your sexual history. Not only is it pathetic, intrusive, and the ultimate buzzkill, but it’s completely irrelevant.
If you’re just casually fucking a girl, then that’s on you to take the responsibility for that risk. If you want a relationship, and you can’t trust her to take care of her sexual health and abstain from sleeping around with other men, the issues you need to deal with are in the present, not in her past.”
http://roissy.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/it-counts/
–
First of all, I’m not saying that men shouldn’t ask women about their sexual history – I’m giving my opinion that it is a misguided question. Your comment above says that you ask that question to find out if a woman is:
a) promiscuous; b) deceitful; c) a carrier of STDs; d) a respectable girl (as opposed to a slut); e) worthy of a committed relationship (that is what you mean by future here, correct?)
Asking a woman about the number of guys she’s slept with doesn’t really answer any of those questions. Let me go through this specifically:
a) Promiscuity is defined as having sex indiscriminately. If a woman has sex with one guy without any regard for who he is or what he looks like, she is technically being promiscuous. So, unless you are going to sit there and drill her about every detail of that one guy, simply knowing the number isn’t going to give you a hint about her promiscuity. A woman can have sex with a bunch of guys she has meticulously picked out, and not be promiscuous by definition. If you meant to say “slut” here, then I’d be curious to hear 1) your definition of a slut, 2) why you wouldn’t want to date one, and 3) why you didn’t know she was a slut before you started dating her.
b) Deceit has to do with honesty, I’ve never seen a person’s level of honesty measured in past sexual partners. A person’s honesty is evident in every part of their lives, and can more easily and more accurately be determined through your experiences with their behavior rather than the number of people they’ve gone to bed with before you. A woman who’s only slept with one man is, by virtue, no less deceitful than a woman who’s slept with ten. If you want to ask a woman if she’s ever cheated on a man, I think that’s a relevant question, and will probably help you find your answer more accurately and efficiently.
c) STDs: Of all of the arguments for asking about her history, this is the least compelling. It only takes one partner for a person to contract STDs, so the number of people you sleep with has no bearing on whether or not you’ve put yourself at risk for contracting disease. What -does- matter is how a person takes care of their sexual health. Do they always use protection during sex? Do they get regular checkups? Have they recently been tested? Do they talk to their partners about their habits as well? These activities are more important, and more telling, as to a person’s proclivity to STDs than simply asking the numbers of partners they’ve had. I -highly- recommend you use these questions instead.
d) Respectability is a complex and subjective characteristic that typically involves a combination of personal traits, not just one. However, if number of partners is a dealbreaker for you, that’s your call. My question here, though, is a simple one: what is the number of partners that moves a girl from respectable to not? 2? 5? 10? 20? 50? If you have settled on a number, I’d be interested to know how you arrived at it. I’m willing to bet that most guys who ask this question don’t just have a number in their head and pass or fail a girl based on her answer – I’m willing to bet they’re factoring in a lot of other things, too, in which case, this question becomes cursory, not vital.
e) Committed relationships involve so much more than sex. If you hinge your ability to commit to a woman based on her sexual history, then I defer to my original answer for why that might be.
Any other takers?
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: dating, friends, life, love, men, random, relationships, thoughts, women
Last Night’s Drink: 7&7.
Anyone over the age of 24 should remember the “This is your brain on drugs” public service announcement with the frying pan and the egg. The insinuation is that your brain is a soft delicate mass that is irreversibly affected with drug use and, since you assumedly value your brain and wouldn’t harm it, you should value a drug-free lifestyle.
People are also irreversibly affected by the relationships they allow into their lives – arguably, at a level that is more damaging than recreational drug use. Dating and loving people inevitably leads to a string of broken hearts, baggage, and damaged goods, all of which permanently affect your brain at an emotional level.
Before you started dating, it was new and exciting. You just did it here and there, sometimes with your friends. But the more you did it, the more important it seemed to become. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough that you were dating – you wanted something more hardcore: a relationship. Once the relationships started, it was too late to go back to simply dating. Now, if you dated, you laced it with relationship cues, recognition of red flags, and hypercritical observation. It wasn’t just a good time anymore – it was part of your life.
Once you’re in a relationship, your subconscious knows that stopping will kill you, because the withdrawls will be so intense. Suddenly, you’re schizophrenic and paranoid about the slightest things – what did he mean when he asked, “how can you eat that?” – does he think I’m a fat slob? Or Why did that girl at the store smile at him – is he mouthing suggestive comments to ladies at Nordstrom while I’m not looking? You don’t know who or what to believe anymore, and your logic and composure have long since flown out the window. The egg is officially frying.
If the core of your relationship is good, though, your significant other will take you by the hand and lead you away from the superficial high of a new relationship, and into a methodonish sort of come-down of companionship. Here, you can exercise the roots of all your dating and relationship evils, and put the past behind you. You become healthier and happier. You become yourself again.
Your dating friends will say you’ve changed, but if they truly love you, they will stand by you and wish you well on your new-found happiness. Relapse is highly likely, until you find the companionship that truly supports you.
And that, like a new leaf, or a fried egg, flips you over.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: confidence, life, observations, poise, random, relationships, thoughts, women
Last Night’s Drink: Sideshow Contortionist
There is an aspect of beauty and self-image that is missing from the usual mantras of diet, exercise, and confidence: that aspect is poise.
It seems like many people view poise as a stuffy, archaic idea that your grandma used to harp on you about, or a natural byproduct of confidence. However, poise is a complex attribute all its own that combines a person’s physical, intellectual, and emotional states into an intangible, yet noticeable, exuberance. It’s that thing about someone that people are drawn to, but can’t quite describe.
Poise gives an air of confidence, whether or not you actually have it. Just like you can plaster on a fake smile and look effortlessly cool, you can pull on a suit of composure and look as if you’ve got the world by a string. As such, confidence isn’t a requirement for poise; rather, confidence will often follow it. Just like smiling when you’re down will help to bring you up, faking it helps to bring it to fruition.
Poise isn’t about being thin, beautiful, smart, gifted, or anything else that popular media desires - it’s about carrying yourself in a way that shows you are in this world, and that it’s a good thing. However, one of the key factors in poise is class, so that you aren’t being self-righteous about the space you are taking up. Rather, you’re considerate, but substantial. You are not invisible, but your modesty doesn’t apologize for who you are.
The one prerequisite to poise is self-acceptance, because before you present yourself, you have to know what you’re presenting. Everyone has things about themselves that they don’t like, but the key to gaining acceptance of these things is to understand why you don’t like them. Is it because it’s a bad habit that keeps you from feeling your best? Is it because it’s sending a message to others that doesn’t accurately reflect who you are? The most important thing about this first step is to ensure that it’s really you that doesn’t approve of that part of you. If you base your opinion of yourself on popular media and stereotypes, you’ll find that self-acceptance is a moving target. Public opinion is more fickle than a Mac-ophile. However, if this is one of the qualities you enjoy about yourself, then rock on.
Obviously, poise is a balance that you have to strike between good posture, positive attitude, and a self respect. It attracts people’s attention in the same way as overt sexuality and obnoxious behavior, but it maintains your mystery and dignity. No matter what you do and how you bend, someone’s going to criticize you. May as well be ready to justify your actions to yourself, and to keep your back straight as you pass them by.
F*&# ‘em if they can’t take a joke.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: advertising, expectations, gifts, life, men, random, relationships, thoughts, Valentine's Day, women
Tonight’s Drink: Puerto Viejo Malbec.
With the help of popular advertising and a current canoodler, one of my rarely seen qualities is raising its head out of its ugly little hole, and peering toward the horizon of two weeks from yesterday: the little part of me that always wishes for jewlery for Valentine’s Day.
I don’t want anything crazy – it doesn’t have to be Oscar jewelry or Tiffany’s, or Tiffany’s, or Tiffany’s - it doesn’t have to have mind-blowing sentimentality or be an analogy for my current relationship. I just want to have something small and solid that I can reach up and feel every once in a while. I just want something that doesn’t go bad.
The thing about jewelry is that it get a bad rap. A girl that wants jewelry is instantly branded a money hungry bimbo, with superficial and material taste. Even though I love to look at expensive jewelry, the truth is that I would likely never wear it. Jewelry’s endearing quality to me is that it’s the result of wanting to exceed expectations. The guy who is really excited to give jewelry is that guy that knows you’re expecting Russell Stover chocolates from Rite-Aid – the small heart box. When he’s ready to show initiative to go above and beyond, he’ll play the jewelry card. Unless someone really cares about something, they will rarely exceed use of 90% of their faculties to complete it. Just like a guy will give 110% to win a high school football game, he’ll give equally as much to stomp the competition for your affection. Otherwise, Valentine’s Day shopping gets lumped in with a beer run – if you’re lucky.
Sufficed to say, I know I’m not getting jewelry this year – probably not next year, either. I can easily reason this out with my little green monster by justifying that we’ve only been dating for three months. It doesn’t keep me from scowling at the DeBeer’s commercials, though. Love and infatuation are marketing tools for Valentine’s Day, but for whom? It really smacks a woman around mentally, but she’s not the one expected to make the purchase here. Maybe a handful of men see those commercials and connect the dots with their own lives, but for some reason I find that a little hard to believe.
Basically, women are expected to pressure their men into buying them things, but women aren’t subjected to the same strategy for their men. Is that because women are essentially expected to give it up, and that’s their gift? Or is it that women already have a fabulous intuition for gift-giving for males, so advertisers don’t want to waste the dollars? I think I’ll go with the first option.
In any case, I’m ratcheting down my expectations day by day, so that by the time the day actually arrives, I’ll be ok with going to the “Anti-Valentine’s Day Party” at the coffee shop on 5th & Laurel. Actually, no… I won’t go that far. But, they do have half-off flights… and a nice wine buzz would take the edge off of another giftless Valentine.
But before then, Groundhog’s Day.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: conversation, life, love, men, random, relationships, strategy, thoughts, women
Last night’s drink: Gilley’s merlot.
When I was little, my favorite thing about my grandparents’ house was that they had an entire cupboard dedicated to board games. Monopoly, Life, chinese checkers, cards, dice, Trivial Pursuit, Operation, Candyland, Uno – you name it, they had it. I used to love to picture them sitting together with a bunch of old people friends, drinking coffee, and laughing over moves and answers that I didn’t understand. The truth is, my sister and I were the only ones that played them, really. Except Bupkis - that’s a family treasure.
Risk was one of the games in the cupboard that I hated – not because I thought it was boring or especially chauvinistic, but because I couldn’t get past the rules to even pass judgement. I can only take so much strategy in a game before I become faced with a case of diminishing returns. The energy it takes to plan your moves and play the game supercedes the enjoyment you get from it. I prefer little bursts of strategy – like in Ocean’s 11 and the Thomas Crown Affair. You plan first, carry out your calculations, and escape with the rewards.
I don’t know if this is impatience or laziness on my part, but I’m seeing this mimicked in the way I handle my relationships. I can’t be bothered with the stamina of a drawn-out, ongoing strategy that’s carefully played, one turn at a time. Instead, I hold out, and simmer, and think about all the what-if’s and the questions I want to ask, and I keep them all inside to keep the tenor of our relationship relatively steady. Meanwhile, my insides are quaking with the pressure of its contents, until I wait for the “right” moment to let these things spring out of my gut – sort of like that scene in Alien, only slightly more uncomfortale and less gross. Suddenly, there I am, thinking, Was this really the right moment for this? or Should I take that as a yes or a no?
Obviously, the problem here is twofold: 1) my strategic planning sucks; and 2) my delivery is even worse. I spend too much time incorrectly anticipating a number of things, like his reaction, or my ability to articulate what it is exactly that I’m trying to say. If someone invented a vaccuum that could suck up all the words that just left your mouth and effectively clean up the mess they made, I’d be first in line. I really should just stick to writing – computers give you at least three ways to stop you from making a fool out of yourself (Delete, Backspace, Ctrl+Z… etc.). It’s as if a bunch of shy, inarticulate hermits came up with these things in order to communicate with the rest of the world. Wait a minute…
Joking aside – I totally sprang one of these gut busters on Josh last night, and immediately regreted it. Not only because I had just come back from the bar, and was ineffectively putting sentences together, but because I wasn’t planning on saying it until the end of next month, right before he left. His response was much less than I had hoped for. Basically, he’s leaving at the end of next month, for pretty much the rest of the year, and I just wanted to know if he thought our relationship was good enough to wait for.
Poor Josh – how do you answer a question like that after dating someone for three months? Is that long enough for anyone to know? The truth is, I don’t even know – but I do know that I care about him a lot, and I don’t want to screw up the rest of the time we have left. So, my strategy in that regard is to just pretend the conversation never happened, and see what the next few weeks bring. If that doesn’t work, I’ll think up a new plan.
And if I have anymore questions, I’ll just pass him a note.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: advice, conservative, Dr. Laura, liberal, life, love, men, politics, random, relationships, talk radio, thoughts, women
Tonight’s drink: water. For now.
It’s raining in San Diego this weekend, and it’s a peaceful sort of rain. As if San Diego is so inexperienced with weather, it doesn’t know how to have a proper storm. A little jingle from a wind chime here, a little puddle on a street corner there, and -look out- it’s getting wild and woolly. It’s sort of endearing.
A combination of Josh, school, and the elections have made me start to question my sociopolitical stance, once again. When I entered junior college, I didn’t know the difference between liberal and conservative. My family never spoke in those terms – not because they are neutral, though. My family is pretty much conservative, through and through. But the more liberal topics I got to taste, the more my palate began to prefer them. By the time I walked out of my last final exam at UCSD, I was confident in my decision to register as a democrat – at least, more than I would have been as a republican.
My confidence began to shake when I started listening to Dr. Laura Schlessinger on KOGO, AM 600. It was an accident, at first – I was listening to local talk show conservative Roger Hedgecock for my boss to give his opinion on homelessness and City government. I was driving to the store or something, and when I got back in the car, Dr. Laura was in the middle of giving her opinion to a caller, and the rest of the world. I’m sure I didn’t hear much of the conversation, but it was enough to shock me into listening to the rest of the show when I got home.
She was brutal, bitchy, opinionated, and bone-cracking-ly conservative – but logical. Extremely logical, actually. Women would call her, crying, and try to argue their point with her, but she would shoot them down with simple reason every time.
Caller: “My husband’s lazy. He won’t get a job.” – DL: “Did he have a job when you married him?” – Caller: “No.” – DL: “Then you married the wrong man.”
Caller: “I think my husband is cheating on me.” – DL: “What do you do to make him want to cheat on you?”
Caller: “I can’t talk to my husband like I talk to my girlfriends.” – DL: “Your husband isn’t your girlfriend.”
Of course, these are simplifications of the typical conversation you’d hear, but representative nonetheless. The freshly gilded feminist I was turning into was disgusted, at first, at what she was hearing. It’s the woman’s fault if her man cheats? The woman should always make an effort to look nice? The way the man takes care of his family depends on the way the woman takes care of him? What the hell? I thought the man should be thanking god that he scored an awesome chick like me, who takes care of herself, can carry on a conversation, pick out a good restaurant, and pay for the half the groceries.
It started to make sense, though. I feel better when I look good or when he compliments me, so I can at least do my hair on the weekends. The way to man’s heart truly is his stomach – no one has ever disproved that statement. Men like lovin’ – no one ever will disprove that statement. While she sort of puts the responsibility on the woman, it’s almost a compliment. Her philosophy, basically, is that men are simple creatures, and women can use that to keep their relationships simple (as simple as relationships get). I even bought her book, “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands,” and found I was comforted by the animalistic banality of its contents. How to make your man happy: feed him, boost his confidence, and give him sweet lovin’. The end.
The more I fought it, the more I realized that I could still be smart, independent, and fun while taking care of my man. Taking care of a man doesn’t make you a slave or less of a woman – it makes you a good partner. In turn, if you take care of your man, he’s supposed to take care of you. So I get to keep everything about myself that I like, and I get a man that takes care of me back, as long as I pick a good one.
With my slow breakdown of feminism, the rest of my left seemed to follow. I’ve switched from dating artists to military men, and I like it. I can’t listen to Air America without rolling my eyes. I see America’s negative qualities still, but I’m not embarrassed to be American. I see the value of religion, rather than the hegemonic hypocrisy.
Maybe I’m just getting older, and I’m mistaking it for a sort of creeping case of conservative values. But I still read my horoscope every month, I am and will always be pro-choice, I will always love wine, I hold on to the little earth mother inside me, I love artsy things & people, I will forever eat sushi, I find vegetarian “meat” innovative & tasty, and I hate greed.
So, which of the candidates matches those qualities…
