If you've just had an entire bottle of wine to yourself, and are going around telling people how miraculously/frustratingly drunk you're not, now is NOT THE TIME to put on eyeliner.
Unless you're going someplace dimly lit, which I am. So, peace!
Showing posts with label WORDS TO LIVE BY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WORDS TO LIVE BY. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Susan B's Words To Live By: In The Moment
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Susan B's Words To Live By: No Girl-On-Girl Crime
I have nothing but derision for women who say they don't like women. I hope I don't need to explain why--basically, in addition to being insulting because it means they don't like me, it means they are not interesting people, and spend their time sucking up to the male gender because that's who they want to fuck, and they're fooling themselves about why. To say "I don't like women" is to buy into the notion that male=good, female=bad,* and of course it's to buy into assumptions about what constitutes male and female behavior to begin with.
My general theory on, well, everything, is that EVERYONE is pretty lame**, but we notice certain behaviors and ascribe them to whatever gender is relevant to our sexual orientation. For example, a straight girl is going to have relationships with boys, so if her partner is a jerk, that means boys are jerks. And if the same girl's female friend goes after a boy she likes, that means girls are disloyal. But if the genders were reversed, I imagine a straight boy would feel the same way about girls and boys, respectively.
With me?
I say this because I'm about to talk about loyalty, but I want you all to know that I'm not saying This Is How Girls Act. This is how some, not most, people act, and the ones I'm talking about are girls because that's who I'm in "competition" with. I don't know how boys act amongst each other, but I do know that "women are bitches who only like jerks" is as common a notion as "men are jerks who only like bitches." Equal-opportunity bitterness.
But. I will tell you how to be a better girlfriend (as in, to a girl). Today's twin wise-sayings, ready for your implementation:
-If a guy treats your friend badly, and acts like a career jerk, it is your job to shun him.
-If a possibly cool guy is potentially interested in your friend, it is your job to cheer them both on.
Which can really be boiled down to one, all-encompassing commandment:
Help a sister out.
Seriously. I feel that I have always been the kind of friend who wants my friends to be happy, and if this means them getting together with a guy, I will do my best to help. There are totally loving friends out there, of all genders, who WILL NOT DO THIS. I don't get it. I don't want to get it. I just want to say that it is time for this to stop. As I've said--karma works between lifetimes, not within, so we have to do the work ourselves. Justice must be served!
So get out there and serve some fucking justice already. Jeez.
*I should definitely post on Girlie Feminism soon, because it's an important thing to think about and I wish I'd discovered it sooner. So, uh, remind me.
**Okay, fine, has the capacity to be pretty lame.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Susan B.'s Words To Live By: Ageism
Since reaching adulthood, I have been interested in guys ranging in age from 18-52. Sure, most of them were in the age-appropriate part of the spectrum, but I don't necessarily discriminate. Or rather, I DIDN'T discriminate. I suppose this installment includes not one but three Susan B. adages, and here is the first, not just within the post but in the order I coined it:
After a certain point, there are just mature people and immature people.
Not the catchiest phrase, I know, but it's good for backstory. See, while we all need some time to grow up, there are some people who will always be immature, even well into middle age. Thus, if you put a 43-year-old next to a 23-year-old, there is no guarantee that the elder will be more mature than the younger.
Now on to recent events. Being 26, I have decided that I am no longer interested in guys in their 30's. It is not because they are gross or unattractive, oh no. It is because of Adage #2:
Do not date older guys, because it's even more disappointing when you find out how immature they are.
Seriously. Lately a few 30-somethings I know have behaved as though they were still in high school, pulling shit that someone their age should really have surpassed--not calling a girl after a hook-up and then acting shocked when she doesn't want to hang with you/hook up again, hitting on a girl in FRONT of his date, etc. And when this happens, it is actually infuriating, because THEY SHOULD KNOW BETTER. And then you lose faith for the human race, because aren't we all supposed to ripen with age? Learn from our missteps? Which brings me to Adage #3:
Guys in your 20's: Have you fucked up with girls? Are you fucking up with girls right now? Good! Please do it now, and GET IT OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM. In ten years it will be soooo unattractive.*
So that's today's lesson. I am just really sick of older guys who have no idea how to behave themselves. It lends credence to all those "Manchild" trend pieces, and no one wants that. Also, no one wants to set me off on a Justice kick--once I encounter these types, and feel that they are simply beyond resocialization, I just wind up feeling they should be punished. It was a bitter moment when I remembered that karma happens across lifetimes, rather than within.
*Please pardon my heteronormativity--I genuinely have no idea if these trends apply within genders.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Susan B.'s Words To Live By: An Ode to Fucking
A bit of a preamble on this one.
Trite though it may seem, Susan B. has a fuck buddy. Or perhaps a booty caller--once or twice a year we get together and have awesome sex*, and then we don't see each other for at least six months. The interesting thing about this guy (I mean, there's more than one, he's an interesting guy, you know what I mean never mind) is that he was my aforementioned first. He did not know this fact until afterwards, and was surprised by it, and the next time he saw me seemed a tad guilty, like he thought he should've called, and I was all "whatever dude" and we did it again.
Though I feel weird posting too much detail (I actually had written more on the subject but changed my mind), suffice it to say that this guy was not any kind of boyfriend, and I sort of took the initiative, though really he made the first move. (Something for which I am eternally grateful.) I left feeling extremely empowered, like I'd thrown off the tyranny of "Someone Special." As though, with his assistance, I'd taken my own virginity.
During our last rendez-vous, about a month ago, he brought up for the first time the whole I-deflowered-you thing. After making it clear that he thought that was awesome, he said something like, "You've probably fucked tons of guys by now." I froze up a little, and he quickly said, "Or not..." And I realized that he'd meant it as a compliment. He thought I'd frozen up because maybe it was untrue and I felt lame or something. I remembered that before I'd even (seriously) entertained the idea of hooking up with him, I'd heard that he, well, got around. To him, a well-notched headboard was a thing of beauty.
And that's when I developed these words of wisdom:
"Some people were born to fuck."
If you'll pardon my language.
This is a slight plagiarism from Love In the Time of Cholera--I think the quote is something like, "Some people fuck and some people don't," but that implies a certain superiority that I do not mean. Plenty of people fuck. I did not invent fucking. But some of us have a different attitude. It probably doesn't even require a high number--you can be Born To Fuck and still like serious relationships. In High Fidelity (the movie, anyway), Lisa Bonet describes fucking as an inherent right. For some people, sex can be a genuinely beautiful thing even if you don't have strong feelings for the other person. Fucking can be beautiful. Fucking can be fulfilling**.
"Fulfilling" is an important word, because I've heard it used by two not-so-into-casual-sex people I know. As in, "How can that be fulfilling?" At the time(s), the question didn't actually make sense to me. Fulfilling of what? And why did it have to be fulfilling? Does everything you do on a Saturday night have to satisfy a spiritual need? But having really thought about it, it really does. Satisfy a spiritual need, I mean. When I moved to London for a year, I called it "running away from home," but my mom called it my Walkabout. And I decided that I had, in fact, found my spirit animal***. Sex was my spirit animal.
What the hell does that mean? Well, probably you either get it right away or you don't. Maybe you get it even if you don't feel that way, I genuinely don't know. There was a recent study suggesting that promiscuous people are either extremely emotionally cold or emotionally warm towards their partners. I guess I fall into the latter category. Unless something went actively wrong, I tend to think of my past partners with great affection, even when I didn't know that much about them****. It is especially wonderful, I realize looking back, when two BTF people cross paths. Maybe that's what made my first time feel so special. It was a meeting of the minds. And other things, obviously, but the important part: maybe we were, in some way, kindred spirits.
I don't know if this idea has any "ramifications." I'm sure, for example, that there are happy pairings across types. One thing I learned from growing up in Greenwich Village: not everyone is the same. Nor should they be. So, however many digits your number is, and however thick your black book, good luck and God bless. May you always be fulfilled.
*The kind that often requires a few days' recovery and a lot of cranberry juice.
**And not just literally.
***Culturally mixed metaphor, but bear with me.
****For example: their last names.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Susan B.'s Words To Live By
Because every now and then I learn something, and I want to share it with you fine people. Today's pearl of wisdom:
Never fuck someone you're not gonna wanna fuck again in the morning. Cuz that's just rude.*
And you can quote me on that.
*There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but they are obvious and usually involve bathroom stalls.
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