It’s A Jungle Out There
Struggling with jealousy issues? Then just stop being jealous. It’s easier than you think!
Flikr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/goodsophism/
Ten years ago, I was a senior in college just about to graduate. To celebrate, I went out with some of my best friends and my friend Jake, who had brought along his friend Mark.
We all spent the night dancing like crazy to hits of the 80ʼs, drinking and having a great time. Mark and I started dancing with each other and, as the night went on, he kissed me on the dance floor.
Finally.
I was finally one half of a couple at middle school dances that makes out like crazy on the dance floor in front of everyone not giving a fuck – except please remember I was a senior in college, like of legal drinking age.
I had never met Mark before, but I knew that he and Jake had been friends for a long time. If he had Jake’s approval, then I knew he was a good guy. Also, he super cute, so, yes please.
Ok, so I did know one thing about Mark; I knew he had recently broken up with someone. That was fine with me, as I was leaving town soon anyway. I was going to use Mark. Not in a mean way. It’s just, come on, this was the perfect opportunity for me to get some real dates under my belt before I headed into the real world.
As the night wound down, Jake drove us home as Mark sat next to me in the back seat holding my hand.
Ever since that moment in “My So Called Life,” when Jordan takes Angela by the hand in the hallway, in front of all of his friends, declaring their relationship; holding someone’s hand is all I’ve ever wanted.
As we got to the bottom of my street, I told Jake that it was OK for him to drop me off there. I kissed Mark on the cheek, got out of the car, and began to walk up the steep hill to my apartment. It was almost 4:00am, the moon was setting, and the sun was just starting to rise. The street and sidewalks were wet from the rain earlier in the night. The streetlights, still on, were making things very romantic.
It was like a fucking movie, yʼall.
In 1942, “Woman of the Year,” starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, was released on the big screen. As I sat watching it last night, instead of being swept away by the romantic comedy, I was puzzled and disappointed with the anticlimactic ending and unresolved answers about what it takes to be a woman of the year, a wife, and a mom.
In the film, Hepburn plays Tess Harding, a well-educated and cultured career woman. She falls in love with another journalist, Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy), and they marry. Most of the film is a series of blunders that she unwittingly makes, being derelict in her duties as a new wife. I’m sure half of them were missed by me because of generational gaps, but I now know that it used to be the wife’s job to make sure her husband always had a nice hat!
The missteps come to a climax on the night that the couple are attending a ceremony in her honor as she is named Woman of the Year. Tess had planned on leaving their young, recently adopted child home alone, and Sam decides to stay home with him instead of accompanying her. Tess belittles Sam and claims his absence from her side would be awkward as “no one would believe he had anything important to do.”
After the row, Sam moves out and Tess realizes that she wants him back. She decides that the only way to do this is to become the perfect wife, and so she leaves her career. She gets her comeuppance as she looks like a clown trying to cook breakfast for him, with waffles exploding, coffee boiling over and toast shooting into the air. Sam tells her that he doesn’t want her to be Mrs. Craig — that is, his stay-at-home wife — but Mrs. Harding Craig, which we take to mean a combination of wife and career woman.
I’ve been pondering the ending of the movie ever since. What did it mean in the ‘40s, and what does it mean since then? Has anything changed that much over 70 years? Aren’t we still wondering how a woman can have a career and raise children and be married, especially if her partner has an all-consuming career?
Sometimes, you’re on a really great date with a guy you just met, and things are going swimmingly, and there’s not a concern in your mind and then, BAM — weird stuff goes down. And you have no idea how to react. You want to be polite, because woman are taught from a very early age that we should always be polite, especially on dates, and we’re practically conditioned that way, so what is there to do?
I’ll tell you, using an example of one date that went weird.
It’s the tale of my friend’s date — we’ll call her Michele. Michele met a dude off of OkCupid, which is its own mixed bag of fun, but she thought she found a somewhat normal guy. They went to a bar, and to quote Michele, he was, “funny” and, “fun” and, “insisted on paying for everything” — not bad, right?
He walked her to her car. Michele said something like, “It’s cold”, and that right there, that’s when stuff got weird. Here’s what happened:
When it seems as though nothing ever goes right in your love life, it can be tempting to think, “I’ll never fall in love.” But before you make that kind of claim, remember: you can’t see the future. And things could be looking up.
So I just learned that an ex boyfriend of mine is getting engaged, which is an odd sort of thing to experience. It’s not that I wish I was with him; I have a wonderful boyfriend that I love; it’s just that it marks a time in my life in which I realize that I’m getting older, in a way that I never realized before: I’m now old enough for ex boyfriends to be getting engaged, and that’s scary. If you’re in my situation, you know that it’s a weird feeling. If you’re not, here are some tips I can offer on what not to do when your ex boyfriend gets engaged. Please note: most of these are not things that I’ve done, but rather, things I recommend not doing.
“What do you do?”
“I’m a waitress,” I say to the boy who just bought me a Corona. I’m in Beauty Bar on Cahuenga Blvd, in Hollywood.
“A waitress? Where?”
“California Pizza Kitchen,” I reply without batting an eye.
“Oh. That’s…cool. How do you guys know each other?” He asked gesturing his beer bottle between my best friend and I.
“We went to college together.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
“USC,” I tell him, because it’s true.
“Really? And you’re a waitress?”
No, I wasn’t really a waitress at CPK. I had lied because I was 22 years old and lying to strangers in bars was fun. I had lied because in 2007, my job in SEO was confusing to explain to people.
Depending on how you approach it, dating someone in your group of friends can either be completely fine or totally awkward.
Have you heard of a “back-burner relationship”? Maybe you’ve had one. It’s a relationship in which there is, “a person to whom one is not presently committed, and with whom one maintains some degree of communication, in order to keep or establish the possibility of future romantic and/or sexual involvement.” (Atlantic Monthly). It’s basically using someone for companionship or for sex when you’re not in a relationship, and don’t want to be in one, but just don’t want to be alone. It’s not the nicest thing to do to a person, but I suspect many of us have done it. And I also suspect many of us have been in one, but didn’t realize it. Here are some ways to tell if you’re in a back-burner relationship.
1. They only want you for sex.
Sorry for being blunt here, but this is the best indicator. If they have no interest in going out with you or introducing you to their friends and/or parents, you’re likely looking at a back-burner. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a relationship based on sex — as long as it’s between two consenting adults who both know exactly what’s up. But if your idea of a date is going out and getting to know each other, and his/her idea of a date is “come over and we’ll ‘watch a movie’” (code for sex), then you’re on different pages. And you might just be on the back-burner page.
Have you heard of “cuffing season”? Here’s a handy definition from Urban Dictionary:
During the Fall and Winter months people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous find themselves along with the rest of the world desiring to be “Cuffed” or tied down by a serious relationship. The cold weather and prolonged indoor activity causes singles to become lonely and desperate to be cuffed.
Brittany: Why is everyone trying to holla this week like outta no where?Tiara: You know cuffing season is in full effect right?
Brittany: Oh yeah you right. I know I wont be sleeping alone this weekend.
Like, what? How is this even a thing? How can you possibly force a relationship based on the season?
First dates can be nerve-wracking. First of all, you’re concerned about doing everything right on your end of things—wearing something flattering yet comfortable, keeping an open mind, following the hundreds of dating-etiquette rules that have been established over the course of human history, etc. But you also want to pay attention to the person across the table (that’s part of being on a date, right?), not only to make sure they’re having a good time, but also to gauge their level of interest in you.*
How do you interpret that interest? By the way he talks. He’s definitely attracted to you if there’s a sing-song quality to his voice.
You should also notice the kind of eye contact he makes. Whether he spends more time looking at your face or your body determines how he’s attracted to you.
Also make note of body language. And conversation topics. And how he’s dressed.