waah

I joke that I tend to like the things that people like and go through the same reactions people do, the more plebeian the entertainment (shoddy unknown romantic comedy? I like it!), particularly if it's for women, the more I'm going to eventually like it. I watched the Gilmore Girls and loved it, I resisted 30 Rock and liking Liz Lemon/Tina Fey because I didn't like the skits on SNL, but of course I'm entranced by the character and she's probably my favorite female comedian working now. I resisted red mango, but now I love it more than the average lame yoghurt consumer, it is one of the favorite ice creams of someone who REALLY likes ice cream, and I have no doubt that I'll like Mad Men and the Wire, depending how not stupid I am on the day I watch it. Because god knows I like some dumb crap.
I had a merciful 4 years of college to not understand the men are dogs, women are cats stereotypes, the formulaic disappointments of the dating scene, and the various silly failures of consensual relationships that evidently speed us on our way to being bitter cat ladies at some point, or at the very least, tired and bitter and then going back into the field. One thing I don't like that other women do, maybe because men are capitalizing on them, are cats and cat videos, by the way. But, just like everything else, both my desire for a love relationship and my consequent bitterness to the fact that "uhhh, men and women are different, and what if Jack Nicholson was a flabbity bloo" blindsided me like a herring in the face.
I am trying to piece together why, all of the sudden, after my blissful and turbulent friendships with friendly, complicated, and fairly sensitive men in college and the idea that "everyone is different, no two people are the same," has me re-reading the stupid, low brow, but funny Bridget Jones book or trying to discuss my issues with the women I have access to on the internet, either the feminists or the positivity and spiritualism set.
I think it comes down to two things. The men I have access to, men I meet, men who express their opinions on the internet, and last of all, my friends, both perpetuate and negate stereotypes, sometimes in a vaguely dismissive way and in the same breath. I read a comment that says "every man wants to fuck women who are 18 and if they don't they're lying. every one." Or the Psychology Today article on "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths... proven by evolution" or something like that. That hammered again the evolutionary basis for men wanting "young blonde, hourglass figured bombshells" and the fact that humans have practiced mild polygyny, which, status-wise, is apparently better for women. Or a dating expert who gingerly describes men as "sexual hypocrites." Even laying down this truth with sensitivity to us, it hurts. (Because of the liking and investment that naturally comes with a woman who has "succumbed" or agreed to sex, in this paradigm. The desire to create a relationship with this other person and not have them leave due to expectations of what's coming to them because dammit they paid for dinner.) Or a man who is judgmental of a woman who has an equal amount of sexual experience than he does. Just as my male friends might reference "crazy women" or confirm various stereotypes while in the same breath saying, when I point at a poster of Brooklyn Decker "You think men want that? That's a beauty ideal. You really think men want that?" Then, I see corrupt hedge fund managers jockeying for their 22 year old "slam piece." Juxtaposed with the married women I see who tell me that they, rotund and obese, have found someone who loves them and thinks they're sexy and "each ware has its own buyer."
I have ingested and researched so many reactions I find unsavory from men, some that lightly belittle feminism or tell those women to "make them a sandwich," some that describe their ideal wife as Kate Beckinsale and a fine cook who likes to screw, nothing, okay, maybe 10 times a day being too much. And then next to them the pacifying comments that everyone is different and that includes men who don't go to strip clubs or call women a requisite amount of times from a bachelor party (otherwise women are psycho and insecure.)
My male friends who claim to be "nice," I started to notice their taste in girls, specifically, provocative duck faced photographs, long blonde hair, "slim with curves" as an acquaintance who is balding describes the kind of girls he is interested in, the "hot girl at the bar" in thigh high boots and hot pants who Louis CK considers "an angel and what could I ever do to make her like me..." I want her to be stupid and slutty and something else rude. But I am morally opposed to any of my own slut shaming and assuming of my fellow woman, particularly if I am intimidated by her being hot. I know for a fact that many of the hot woman I know are sweet, polite, complicated, and some have very odd taste in men. Like, the Rip Torn sort of face-tattooed male walking problem and turn their face from the Brad Pitt or Chris Pine chasing after them, because it doesn't have many discolorations and scars.
And two, I have low self worth in terms of badly wanting to attract a certain kind of man among other things. In college, I was able to keep that the tendency to measure my self worth on who I can attract, or noticing who responds and who doesn't, at bay with crushes and the knowledge that I was in some kind of cocoon of gregarious fat where everyone was nice to me and accepted me, but someday I would graduate. The desire for a grown up relationship in a desert of just shit smacked me in the face. It was sudden and urgent. And apparently, the desire for a relationship will get you nowhere if you are not distracted, happy in yourself, and fully established in this world. Say the positivity experts. So basically I have to wait out this temporary attack of spleen until whatever weird self worth wound that hid all the while I was perfectly independent and in la la land spontaneously cleans itself.
I equate my particular brand of anger, in this case at men, with "blue balls" not because of sex, but because my anger, in all its ugly, self-hating, politically incorrect flame keeps building and folding in on itself until by the time it is expressed, I will probably be piledriving the smallest dog. Or something. When all along I want to punch and destroy the boss. The numerous quiet defeats in my life, from show downs that didn't happen with domineering colleagues, to wanting to destroy some guy that heckles me on the street and makes me feel small, ugly, and fat... with his undiscriminating attention. And I hate myself for wanting to take that guy down because I assume that he yelled some shit at the Elaine Stritch lookalike in front of me. Because hey, maybe he isn't even staring me down. Who am I to think his attention is directed to me? But if it is, get the fuck away.
Hey, at this point, my tastes seem to be not so far from sad, bathing, fireman calendar and ice cream lady. Maybe, along with the Gilmore Girls, I would enjoy Homeland, Fox News, or the fireman calendar? Lots of America's idiots enjoy these things. And, the vast wall of fusty Penguin classics I put up to differentiate myself from America's tv watching population is something I admitted to myself I didn't enjoy as much as a good meal or party or something.
In college, I used to long to play the field, in the sense that I assumed that a relationship was dull. I wanted to have the attention of lots of men. I also wanted to go to parties. The glimmering, crazy, slightly legal Midnight Cowboy and grimy New York 80s 90s parties that fueled art. New York has "blue balled" me from that since the anodyne mid 2000s and the dawn of the taste hipster and his antifolk, his lack of energy and alienation even in the party setting. The party would begin and people would already be looking in separate directions while The Shins or Ratatat or MGMT or whatever insipid, sometimes lightly dancy big headphone and no dance style generation spawned. The generation that remixed Hall and Oates or insipid 70s smooth rock in a bar so awkwardly positioned that the island space for dancing is no good to sit and talk, let alone dance. It's funny now that a couple of days ago I abandoned a populated improv theater's bar to meet for a date because that was more viable. At least I am learning something. And some time ago, I went to a party that almost shut up my endless whining about the New York scene being dead. Apparently the scene has gone underground, positivity experts, that will cut my negative commentary by 50%. I was with someone and, even with my roving eye, hanging with this awkward, chain wallet wearing Goth byproduct with a moribund job, realized that if I were alone here, I would be sad faced and have a lousy time. And nobody would be interested in me from the golden youth in somewhat hipster inspired, but almost club kid like costumes. Partly because of my extremely bewildered look, partly because any time I see someone I like I automatically slouch and seize up for fear of their reaction or that they don't feel the same.
Some say it is not your business why or whether people will reject you, or that "they didn't deserve you" or "their loss," but I know why I reject people and sometimes the reasons are obvious as the wall in front of you, direct to the point of nasty, or compelling. Like a woman denying that she needs to lose pounds and grow her hair and when she does everyone will treat her differently.
When you serve yourself up to someone in a relationship, you are serving yourself as a snapshot of how you now are. I think people are unfinished products. I certainly am. So I am complaining about this paradigm shift that I have to show the best I have right now to someone, to be the kind of person they want to be with. And all the horrific ways they could string my emotions along if they don't want it or aren't telling the truth as it goes along. The fact is, until now, it has always been my fallible journey and I never thought I had to make my profession, passions, hobbies, ambition, drive, creativity, and all those things they are asking for, look nice and clean for anybody. I have always messily avoided and sometimes pursued my goals. The little I am getting done now, there is an urgent need to have it presentation ready for someone or risk not being their type, or worse, being the type of person who is seeking to be completed by someone else. Which I don't think I completely am, I am not happy alone at this point, but I am often not happy with other people. It is profoundly shocking that I have to do all these things or be all these new ways. In the age of the start up kings and "the dream of the 1890s is alive in Portland," everyone is pursuing their ambition, drive, creativity, and side project with their little altruistic or creative business of curing meats for the social networking of college students in underserved public schools. The men work on their start up and hundred side projects, have their interesting hobbies like house building and installation projects, follow their TED talks and read their obscure scientific non fiction, and eat life whole. And the women are expected to be this way, too, but one up them. I am not in the least entrepreneurial, and have been blindsided by the intellectual being devalued and the ambition, drive, and passion overvalued. If you are not ready to take your Etsy business to a new boutique level and ride your unicycle off into the sunset in your gun toting, suicide girl bikini, you're fucked.

Another thing is, I just saw a post where a man specifically asked the woman to "not be lazy." As a criterion to be his girlfriend for the holidays. And also, for the creative activity he offered for them to do, they could get dressed up in period garb and take cheeky Christmas photos to send to their relatives. Or maybe join his band? Men must be meeting a lot of lazy women if they ask for the qualities of ambition, drive, passionate about something, "challenge me," "have a fire in you" by name. And all the same admit that they are not looking for a relationship or commitment. The fact that they bow out in that while demanding that their woman be an entrepreneur and have it all figured out is what angers me. They demand the moon and stars for a woman they won't claim to be their girlfriend. At an age and time when it is hard to find a job and harder to find one in line with the true calling....