Your friend Susan B. does not date a lot. It's not that I'm a sad sack sitting around moaning for a boyfriend*, and I've dated nicely this year, but usually I am not in a relationship, and don't have many serious ones under my belt.
And yet.
I have always found this really funny, but my becoupled friends love to ask me for relationship advice. I don't understand why. Sometimes there's a clear reason--like, there's a specific issue and they know I have knowledge or experience in that area--but much of the time there is not. One pair in college simply tried to make me into their couples therapist. And I wonder about the impulse. Is it because I was a psych major? Because I seem generally wise? Or is it partially--and I've long suspected this--that they think my chronic singledom means I know something they don't? A lot of people in relationships romanticize being single to a degree, but I wonder if some of my friends (especially ones who are younger or don't know me THAT well) view me as somehow above the fray. There was a Times article after the Dumbledore outing about how "[t]he master wizard is not a sexual being; he has shelved personal cares and embraced a higher mission." So maybe I'm some kind of paladinic guru! (On the other hand, no one that I recall asked Gandalf for relationship advice.)
But seriously folks. I guess it's that people want an outside perspective, and a single person is more outside than someone in a different relationship that comes with its own problems and biases. But why a PERPETUALLY single person? Eh, I dunno. I don't dislike it --except in situations where I feel like people ONLY want to hang out so they can tell me about their romantic problems--and I love being there for my friends and being trusted to help, or at least sympathize, with their important issues. But I don't really understand it. One of my friends posited, mostly joking, that I was single BECAUSE of all the relationship tsuris I'd ingested over the years. She envisioned me meeting the man of my dreams, getting flooded with the memory of every bad story I'd been told, and running in the opposite direction. Which is a convenient excuse--I'm not a dateless loser, I've just been scared straight!
But, yknow, probably the Loser Hypothesis is a little more accurate :)
*That would be what we call "four years of college."
Friday, November 16, 2007
That Helpful Third Wheel
Monday, October 15, 2007
Male Feminist of the Week! "You'll Probably Hate Me" Edition
I know you've been wondering all weekend: who will be this week's Male Feminist? I know your game. Constantly refreshing your web browser in the hopes I might post early, setting up office pools as to who the lucky fellow would be. Well, your long painful wait is over! The newest Male Feminist of the Week is...
I know, I know, I know: What??? Freud???
Simmer down now.
So, yes, there was the whole "penis envy" thing, the "masculinity complex," the unfortunate "women who like clitoral stimulation are neurotic" theory. But this is what I've always held: Freud did great things for women. Like all people who are ahead of their time, Freud was still a product of his time--back in his day, even concepts of female anatomywere phallocentric and inaccurate, with diagrams of the uterus and ovaries looking like an inverted penis and testicles [trying to find an image; not doing so well]. My main point has always been this: Freud pioneered the radical idea that maybe someone should start talking to women. Asking them questions! Ascribing value to their thoughts and feelings! Figuring out why they had the troubles that they had*! Most of his patients were women, and he respected their pain. Even more progressively, he convinced the Western world that women had natural sexual desires that were as healthy and vital as men's**.
Freud got a lot wrong about women. Freud, frankly, said a lot crazy shit. But he was inventing a new way of looking at life, and was bound to fuck up a little. And he also admitted that in order for the world to truly understand female sexuality, we would have to wait for the female psychoanalysts. He knew he had shortcomings. And his shortcomings were far outweighed by the attention he paid to a long-ignored gender.
It's hip to hate on Freud, especially in our generation. I think most people who hate on him know little about him. There are certainly things in his oeuvre to roll your eyes at, but he took major steps forward in terms of Western culture's understanding of the female gender. He is my homeboy. I hope he will be yours.
*For heaven's sake, women were running around smelling burnt pudding that wasn't there!
**He also was insistent that homosexuality is innate, incurable, totally healthy and in general peachy keen, which was good for men and women alike. ("It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and cruelty too.")
Monday, September 24, 2007
Ode to a Muppet Hat
As promised, it is time for a discourse on my current favoritest show: The Pickup Artist. Most of you probably know the premise--a bizarrely dressed (yet conceivably sexy) guru named Mystery teaches a bunch of losers how to score chicks, eliminating the loseriest losers along the way. The main draws of the show: the oddness of the lingo (IOI, gambit, bounce, kiss-close), the thrilling horror of realizing the techniques work, and Mystery's ridiculous outfits:
And, my personal favorite:
But here's the question: why do I really like this show? The truth is, I was interested in Mystery and the underground "seduction community" before the show aired. I've never actually read The Game (Neil Strauss's book on the seduction community, with Mystery as a prominent figure) or The Mystery Method (what it sounds like), but I confess I've read as many online excerpts as Amazon would let me. Do I wish I were a pickup artist? I suppose, in a way...maybe I just want to be picked up? Or perhaps, less embarrassingly, it's my general interest in psychology, especially the psychology of sex? Especially before the show started, the party line was always, "ew, these guys are gross, the techniques could only work on morons." But I always believed they worked. It made a certain sense to me.
[Of course, the method is targeted at phenomenally hot women--for women like me who have normal insecurities, all those negs might get a guy in trouble. But while I'm not particularly attracted to Mystery, I assume he could pick me up if he wanted to--I am a human, with human psychology, and I'm sure he could successfully manipulate me into wanting to bone him.]
The only comparable Method for women is, of course, The Rules. Those concepts never appealed to me. Maybe it's because they seemed passive (or rather, passive-aggressive), whereas Mystery's method is a balance of active and passive. (The Rules says never to approach first; Mystery teaches how to approach first without seeming like you're approaching.) And while the Rules are colorless and mundane, Mystery makes life and love seem like an adventure, in which you dress like a swashbuckler, have a cool name, and control your destiny. And since Mystery himself started as a hopeless nerd*, he represents that tenacious dream of transformation.
Two of my good friends--a couple--are obsessed along with me. The guy of the duo recently procured a Mystery-esque fuzzy hat and sported it on his birthday; I will try to get him to go full-out for Halloween. But will I just be living vicariously through him?
*And let's be honest, he still is one--but he's co-opted his own nerdiness and channeled it towards getting laid.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Mythbusters: Sexual Edition
[Possibly a recurring series?]
This is not really apropos of anything in my life right this second, but I've dealt with it in the past and some of my friends are dealing with it right now, so I've been annoyed about it lately:
Myth #1: Men like to have sex more than women.
WTF, boys? Could this PLEASE be true? I'm not a big dater, but in all of my relationships, I want to have sex more often than the guy. Why do boys diagnose you with nymphomania* if you want to have sex more than once a week? (Seriously. More than ONCE A WEEK is often a problem.) Here are some possible explanations for this phenomenon:
-Men think that sex needs to take forever. But this, of course, depends on the girl. Some of us (ahem) have orgasms more easily than others, and will beat you to the finish line. Some of us don't even necessarily need the orgasm every time. The word "quickie" seems a little too Cosmo for my taste, but you get the idea.
-Women need to be on top more. All that thrusting and kneeling and the missionary push-ups probably take a toll, but guys--you can let us do the work now and then! Other things to consider: fingers and tongues. I mean come on, you learned this in middle school.
-Boredom? Must find new bear to kill?
-We're fat.
Of course, a myth is a myth--maybe guys don't have a particular reason and some just aren't wired to have sex more than once a week. Also, I know that this does not remotely apply to all men out there. My point: coital laziness leads to frustration and self-doubt. Do what you gotta do, but please don't make us feel like freaks for having healthy sex drives.
*Especially since nymphomania was eliminated as a valid diagnosis in 1994, when the DSM-IV came out. Psych major in the house!
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