We live in a post-dating world (heard that one before?). So in a one-night protest against the death of dating, Becky and I planned a date night. With each other. To see Date Night. You would’ve been hard pressed to find two cooler chicks in NYC on Sunday evening – just a couple of glamorous girls, livin’ it up in the big city…
(Yes, I also saw Valentine’s Day on Valentine’s Day. I am a movie marketer’s wet dream.)
By popular demand– and on the verge of a sure-to-be-ambiguous-interaction-filled weekend – it’s time to talk about the Play-Non-Date!
Remember the Non-Dates? I’m sure you’ve been on a few since we last talked about them, so here’s a quick refresher:
Introducing…The Non-Date
The Networking Non-Date
The Group-Non-Date
The E-Non-Date
The Surprise-Non-Date
The Friend-Non-Date
DISCLAIMER: Despite the prevalence of Play-Non-Dates, I’d like to officially shoot down (and then never speak of again) the popular claim that we are The Hookup Generation. Thanks to a cultural overdose of women stripping for the “Girls Gone Wild” cameras and publicly discussing their love of porn, most modern women – and based on my research, a surprising number of men – have figured out that The Age of the Hookup was not the promised land of personal liberation and multiple orgasms that we had hoped for.
Having experienced the booty call text messages and underdressed walks of shame, us ladies can now feel comfortable proclaiming that we still want many of the same things that women have wanted from the storied days of Shakespeare to the summer nights of Grease. We want FUN, we want ROMANCE, we want LOVE. Of course, we still want hot sex and mind-blowing chemistry, but that’s not ALL we want. And anyone saying otherwise is still living in 2005.
Anyway! Glad we got that covered. Moving on to…
The Play-Non-Date
Well, maybe not MY married life quite yet, but…
We tend to focus primarily on (non-)dating and courtship on this site because, let’s face it, neither Becky nor I are making plans to walk down the aisle anytime soon (although Becky’s pretty impulsive, so please don’t put any money on that statement!). But every once in a while, amidst the Group-Non-Dates and bar bumps and lustful Mad Men marathons, we can’t help but wonder where all this build-up will lead us. As I’ve said before, I’m stubbornly hopeful and optimistic that we are an unstoppable generation of women who are wading through all the ambiguity and lawlessness and will emerge at the other end with strong, fulfilling, successful relationships. But what will they look like? And what does that even mean?
I was REALLY hoping to stay away from all this Sandra Bullock drama. The Oscar Love Curse, the cheating husband, the dirty sexts, the creepy Nazi photos…the tabloids seem to be doing a thorough enough job of covering every gory detail of the story. But now that The New York Times’s David Brooks is weighing in? I’m powerless to resist!
Attempting to place Sandra’s romantic tragedy in a broader context, Brooks talks about “The Sandra Bullock Trade” and asks readers, “Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow?” And although Brooks isn’t blaming Sandra for what happened to her, here it is again – that traditional assumption that success and love are at odds with each other, that we might eventually have to choose or trade one for the other, that we can’t realistically hope to have it all. At least not as women.
I’ve always loved reading men’s magazines – GQ, Maxim, Details, Esquire – to see what advice men are getting about dating. I’ll never forget the time when, for three weeks, the guy who I had been seeing (seeing = hooking up and IMing with) went completely MIA. About an hour after writing him off entirely, I received a lovely email explaining that he’d been busy with work, and he knew that “other guys say this all the time, and it must sound SO cliche,” but that he really meant it and felt terrible and wanted to see me. I was charmed, of course, and immediately headed over to his place, only to later find the latest copy of a men’s magazine on his coffee table with an article about “10 Ways To Convince Her That You’re Sorry For Your Bad Behavior (Even If You’re Not).” His email, almost word-for-word, was front and center on the list. Needless to say, our relationship fizzled pretty quickly after that.
But forget the media – what do REAL men say to each other about love? Not journalists, or editors, or Dr. Phil knockoffs. But your father, your professor, your co-worker, your neighbor…real, normal guys, like the ones that you and I will probably end up with. A new site, “The Man’s Guide To Love,” offers a series of glimpses into these guys’ thoughts. Or more specifically, into this question:
“If you had one piece of advice that you’d give another man about love, what would it be?”
How do you send a clear message to your potential paramour in the post-dating world? Shoot him a text? Start a BBM convo? Have your friend tweet his friend?
Now there’s a new option! And it’s a lot more direct than you might expect.Here’s a way to get yourdecidedly modern point across in a classic, old-school way – send a greeting card! (thanks to Alison for finding these <3)
Drawn in by the lure of cover star Robert Pattinson’s eyes (despite being more of a Team Jacob kind of girl – yeah, I said it!), I opened the 10th Anniversary March issue of Details today and came upon a cultural trend piece about “The Remasculated Man.” Lauding Conan O’Brien’s recent middle-finger-in-the-air attitude towards NBC as the new symbol of masculinity, the article claims:
“After years of dutiful, dues-paying obsequiousness, men seem to be coming to the realization that surviving (and even enjoying) the wide-open Wild West gestalt of 2010 demands a different response than testicular retraction. In other words, we’re witnessing the remasculation of the American man.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ErdIFoMGRo
People – we’ve already discussed how the Rules of Attraction (you’ve got to pucker up ze lips like dis…) were spelled out for us in our early childhoods by Sebastian the Crab. But before we declare ourselves the Disney Generation Par Excellence, let’s take a moment to ask an important question: What If The Disney Princesses Grew Up?!
The media really loves to hate on love, doesn’t it?
On this last day of winter, the forecast for love in the media is looking pretty bleak. Sandra Bullock’s husband cheated on her! Lady Gaga is being sued by her ex-boyfriend! One of Tiger Woods’s porn stars is releasing his dirty sexts online! Kate Winslet is getting divorced! There’s an Oscar Love Curse!
It’s like my grandparents always say when they watch the nightly local news – why don’t they show any of the good stuff?!
Thinking of posting a photo of yourself on HotOrNot.com? How passé and self-centered of you! Check out the latest interactive site for rating and judging others’ attractiveness – CanDoBetter.com.
WARNING: It’s totally addictive, in a slightly evil way.
Who doesn’t love picture books?
Thanks to a heads up from the fabulous L is for Foxy, I came across an amazing archaeological find – scanned pages from a dating guide that was published in 1938. Written for single women (I hope that doesn’t surprise you! Men don’t need advice on this sort of thing, remember?), the guide features illustrated pearls of wisdom such as:
My dear friend Demetri and I just had an interesting gchat convo about modern (post-modern?) love & relationships. So if Demetri and I are right – and love boils down to a daily decision and we’re all living relationships, or non-relationships, of convenience, or of inconvenience – where DOES that leave romance, passion and, most importantly, commitment?
In the timeless words of the Beach Boys: God Only Knows What I’d Be Without You. And the 2010 reply: I’d be a movie star! A Nobel prize winning scientist! Happy! Are we headed full-speed toward a world where love is the ultimate ball-and-chain?
dahGRAMS
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