Daily Archives: January 22, 2008

it’s like tasting it again for the very first time.

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Round Two begins tomorrow. I’m a finalist for Best Personal Blog and Best Blog Post, which is reprinted below:

LOOK AT MY BOOBS! I AM VERY SMART!

A month or so ago, Catherine and I were driving along in her car when a song came on the radio that gave us both pause. Not because it was extraordinarily awesome, and not because it was extraordinarily bad, but because it was just so… typical.

So typical that it stood out.

See, I’ve long been of the opinion that girls today are being screwed over by popular music just like the girls in my generation were… except MUCH, MUCH MORE SO.

The lyrics aren’t getting any worse per se, and the women aren’t any more tarty than they once were (though you could argue that, at which point I’d offer you the full Samantha Fox discography, plus a reel of Tawny Kitaen rolling across the hood of a car in a Whitesnake video) but now the messages are being couched in self-empowerment.

We’ve been Madonna-ized.

But.

The song in question:

There’s more to me than meets the eye
so come and look inside
Go deep…
‘Cause beauty’s more than skin deep

Okay, try and ignore for a second there that they rhymed “deep” with “deep”, and that there are two full cliches in the space of four lines.

When you read those lines, you think, “Well, that’s good! There is more to me than meets the eye! And beauty is more than skin deep! Yeah! Boys! Check me out — I have substance, even if I don’t own a thesaurus!”

Then you get a little more understanding of the kind of girl we’re talking here:

Don’t need to know the kind of guy
who’s quick to drop the fly
Wham bam!
That ain’t who I am…

Ah! So you’re not planning to date within the NBA? Good for you.

Then it kinda falls apart.

Don’t a-let my booty beauty
be the only reason you wanna ride
Don’t a-let my hottie body
jack the fact that I got a lot more in mind

It sounds good — I mean, you want people to look past your hotness to your internal awesomeness, right?

But was anyone really paying attention after you said “booty beauty”?

This is the dilemma of late teens/early twenties/(oh, who am I kidding) early thirties women today.

We’ve turned into nudists screaming at people not to stare at our bits.

“I am proud of my body! I love my body! Look at my sexual empowerment! Do you see my ass? It rocks! HEY! STOP LOOKING AT MY ASS! BEAUTY IS MORE THAN SKIN DEEP! BUT I DON’T BLAME YOU, THESE JEANS MAKE MY ASS LOOK AWESOME!”

It’s a little confusing.

Then we get to the chorus:

If it’s just the physical
It would be sensational
But if you really got into me
You know you’d be insatiable

I get the whole point: I’m pretty freakin’ hot and you’d be lucky to have me but DID YOU KNOW I ALSO CAN DISCUSS CAMUS AND HAVE A CERTIFICATE IN THAI COOKERY?

Why do we always need to make such a point of our sexual identity in the first place, though? Why do we have to be so bluntly, obviously, blatantly hot as hell and THEN, once we are SUPER SEXY WHOA, be something else, too?

You’d never hear the song in reverse:

If we were intellectual
It would be sensational
But if I took off my grandpa sweater
Then you’d be insatiable!

I suppose it comes down to this:

The culture we’ve developed for young women has made blunt-force sexuality synonymous with empowerment, and THEN asked those same girls with the visible thong and two-foot cleavage to make sure that men notice their hearts, too.

How about we don’t dress them up like Paris Hilton, and then ask them to tuck a copy of the Iliad in their hobo bag?

How about we keep Joe Francis away from institutions of higher education?

How about we tell them to ignore any man who needs reminding that they have a brain?

Don’t get me wrong — I LOVE a good wallop of chemistry to get things going, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying that chemistry for a while before you go anywhere else. Girls can like that physical spark as much (or more) than guys. And perhaps I own one or two shirts that don’t come all the way to, say, my chin (ONLY THE ONE, DAD.)

But I’m tired of watching young girls try and be everything at once, and only succeeding at communicating one aspect of who they are because we’ve taught them nothing about subtlety or true self-respect (or how to put on clothing that covers their drafty parts).

Maybe I’m just getting old.

Or distracted by my own hotness.

It’s hard to say.

LOOK AT MY NAVEL! I KNOW DEAD LANGUAGES!

***

Voting links up tomorrow!

five things that are NOT true of love. and five that ARE.

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Being a single girl — and a girl who has been single for a while now OH MY GOSH NO! — I tend to be a bit of a magnet for other people’s love angst/thoughts/philosophies/dreams/concerns/criticisms.

If I talk about my “status”, they either rush to matchmake or tell me in the same breath that “it will come when I least expect it/stop looking (which is actually about 99% of the time)” or, conversely, that I need to “put myself out there.”

What, like in the middle of an intersection? But I’ll get to that in a moment.

If I DON’T talk about being single, they become convinced that I am a) determined to be solitary; b) depressed; c) a man-hater; or d) socially awkward.

I get the “why not try dating online?” suggestions. (Answer: No. Even if you met your husband there. Sorry. And it’s okay that I don’t want to, I promise.)

I get the “why not join a club?” suggestions. (Answer: What club? The Club For Single People Looking To Meet Other Single People Doing Quirky and Interesting Activities? Please. I will join a club because I like the club. Not to meet a man.)

I get the “I could set you up!” suggestions. (Answer: Ehh… maybe. But I’d have to talk to them first. People are notorious for setting their friends up with people their friends would NEVER DATE.)

I also get the “don’t let anyone tell you that you need a man to be happy!” lecture… as if I ever said anything like that, anyway.

Could there BE more mixed messages?

I know it’s all well-meaning, but I’m pretty much done with it, folks.

Talking about love doesn’t mean I’m pining for it. And even if I WAS pining for it, it doesn’t mean I have to launch myself from a cannon into a room full of speed daters. Even if I go on and on and on about it for hours… well, I’m allowed.

That’s life. We think, we work through things, we change, we grow. We do it out loud, sometimes.

You can listen or not. But I don’t need you to FIX IT.

And not talking about love doesn’t mean I’m ignoring my own desires to be with someone and to share my life. It just means I don’t feel like talking about it right now.

I don’t need my priorities criticized. I don’t need my standards criticized. I don’t even need my fantasies criticized.

I just want to be me, and see how things go. So why is that so hard?

Because people have weird ideas about love.

Weird ideas like…

1. If you love yourself, other people will love you. The basic premise of this is pretty solid — that you have to make taking care of yourself and accepting yourself a priority. And I totally agree. It DOES make you more attractive. I like being around people who have confidence and a strong sense of self. No doubt.

Is it the key to being in a relationship, though? NO. It’s not. What if you love yourself but also happen to be TOTALLY ANNOYING?

Just kidding.

I know plenty of people who have confidence and take great care of themselves who are single, and not always by choice. So preach the value of self-love. But not as the key to finding love.

2. If you put yourself out there, you’ll find it. Yeah. Singles bars are full of this evidence. What you’re actually finding, though…

Seriously, now. Yes, you increase the odds of getting hit by a boat when you swim around in a harbour. But you also increase your chances of drowning. And other bad metaphors.

My point is, meeting someone is not the same thing as meeting someone that connects with you. If you are forcing yourself to be places or in situations that don’t make you happy, then you are in the wrong places and situations.

And if they DO make you happy, who cares what happens or not? Be where you want. Because you want to be there. And have fun.

3. It comes when you least expect it/aren’t looking for it. What? Like a meteorite from space? Come on. This is by far the most annoying cliche people throw at singles. I know lots of people who found love while seeking it rather ardently, and also know people who were surprised by it in the extreme.

Lesson? It happens when it happens.

4. Your standards are too high. Oh, really? Do you know what my standards are? And which ones would you like me to ditch? Obviously, I don’t expect my mate to be things I’m not (other than good at putting together IKEA furniture.)

That would just be obnoxious. Granted, I’d love him to be smarter than me… but that ain’t so hard.

5. You just haven’t found The One yet. Ugh. The One. Like I’m going to date Neo from the Matrix. If I thought there was ONE MAN ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH I could be happy with, I don’t even think I’d want to meet him. That’s way too much pressure!

I think there are any number of people I could enjoy life with, and it’s not a matter of puzzle pieces, or pots and lids, or locks and keys or pegs and holes OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT SOUNDS PRETTY BLATANTLY PHALLIC.

There.

Now, here’s what I think (grain of salt included):

1. You should love yourself just for the sake of loving yourself. Not to make yourself more appealing to anyone else.

2. You shouldn’t expect other people to be what you aren’t. I had a friend tell me once that she was glad her husband was so patient, because otherwise, her being a bitch would sink their marriage. What? I get how our qualities can balance one another out, but if you’re a bitch to your husband, you should likely STOP THAT. Kindness is more important than a lot of things. If you can find a way to stay kind, you are 100% ahead of the curve.

3. You shouldn’t expect a relationship to make you whole. You make you whole. When you break, others can help you mend. But they can’t act like sealing putty for your life. And we’re usually all a little bit (or a lot) broken anyway, and in the process of mending. That’s where acceptance comes in. It’s just as important as kindness.

4. Love is not a single decision or moment or lightning bolt. It’s a series of choices you make or don’t make.

5. How you look/how thin you are/how much money you have/how many plans you make/how long you date/how long you live together/how long you don’t live together/what kind of wedding you have/how much you have in common/how much you don’t have in common/whether or not you have a TV in your bedroom/whether or not you have the same hobbies/whether or not you met on a plane or train or online or through friends or by arranged marriage… not one of these things guarantees success or failure in love.

Really.

Some factors in your life can improve your odds of things working out with certain people, but statistics in this area are CRAP. Yes, crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. I am a big proponent of statistics, too. Just not WHERE THEY ARE CRAP. I stand by this.

I’ve seen “perfect” circumstances fail miserably, and “imperfect” circumstances succeed. And who is to even judge perfect and imperfect, anyway?

But that’s just what I think. About love.

Oh, and one more thing: I love love. I fully believe I will fall in love one day. No doubt in my mind.

And no amount of cynicism or confusion or ranting or wondering along the way changes my ability to love the man I choose to love, when I choose to do it. I’ll put my heart into it, and that’s saying something.

So what do you think about all of this?