Dating Indiana Jones

I’ve never understood the appeal of bad boys.  I’m just not attracted to them.  You won’t see me as a groupie for some struggling future rock god.   In college I avoided the frat guys and their ‘no girls allowed’ bro culture.  Even as a kid I preferred Luke Skywalker to Han Solo.  So I thought I would be able to go my whole dating life without succumbing to the allure of the bad boy.  I thought I was immune.  I thought wrong.

Two years ago I ventured into the world of online dating and for the first time I encountered a very specific breed of man who while not truly ‘bad’ is at least bad for me.  I call them the “nomadic adventurer”.  I’ve dated several of these guys and discovered that they are my kryptonite. 

My encounters with them start promisingly enough.  We meet online and go on a few dates.  I find out that they live alone.  Cool, I also live alone so no roommate arrangements to work around.  I find out that they like to be outdoors.  Perfect, I love all sorts of hiking, camping and canoeing.  I find out that they like to travel.  Amazing, I’m always coming up with new places I want to visit.  At this point, I’m smitten and ready to start dating in earnest.  But then, BOOM, they decide they aren’t ready for a relationship until they fulfill their dreams of climbing Everest or free diving with Great Whites or something.  Then why are you on Match.com now?!?

I shouldn’t really be surprised that I’m a sucker for this type of guy though.  A few years ago I became obsessed with a show on the SyFy channel called Destination Truth.  I became particularly enamored with the charismatic host Josh Gates.  So much so that I often refer to him as ‘my boyfriend Josh Gates’.  You guys, Josh is awesome.  He scuba dives, rides horses, rappels into volcanoes and fearlessly pursues potentially dangerous creatures every day. He’s like a real life Indiana Jones.  Swoon.  But he is also the epitome of the nomadic adventurer type who I’m trying so hard to avoid.  In his book Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter he talks about how once you start traveling it becomes addictive.  He also says that his lifestyle “requires a terrible downsizing of family and friends”.  Yikes.  This is exactly the attitude that I need to avoid because it is in direct conflict with my own desires for domesticity.  Yes, I bought his book.  What?  I wanted to know if he had a girlfriend. 

The thing about these guys is that they might actually be perfect boyfriends and husbands for equally free-spirited woman.  But that isn’t me.  When I picture myself travelling in the future I see myself with my husband and possibly kids (if they are old enough and sturdy).  I imagine navigating the streets of Paris hand in hand with my man and stopping to duck into a little café or wander through a park.  Or snuggling around a campfire with my husband and kids while we tell ghost stories and make s’mores.  But these guys don’t think like that.  They are the lone wolf types who go camping with just a sleeping bag and a bottle of water.  Who can pack up their entire life on a moment’s notice and move to Japan just because they had a fight with their boss.  One guy even told me that if commercial space travel ever became possible he would gladly leave his family for months to go to the moon even if there was a strong possibility he might never come back.  Yep, that one was a keeper. 

Now, I understand that not all guys who like to travel fall into this category.  Many men make wonderful partners and still have a taste for adventure.  But if you are looking for a relationship and encounter a man who’s username is something like FreeLiving4Life or AdventureMan69 run in the other direction.  Run extra fast if his profile pictures include 12 shots of Tibet and none of his friends or family.  Break the sound barrier if he refers to himself as “just a crazy wanderer on this awesome planet of ours”. Trust me on this one. 

If anyone knows Josh Gates though, feel free to give him my number.  A girl can dream, can’t she?

A Bad Boy who Sings

Romantic comedies have long been blamed for giving women and girls unrealistic expectations for men and romance.  But, while some girls my age grew up dreaming of Westley from The Princess Bride or Harry from When Harry Met Sally, I dreamed of Henry Higgins from the musical My Fair Lady.  As my romantic interests developed I would vacillate between wanting a man like Henry Higgins (an intellectual who presents a grumpy exterior but can be warmed by the right woman) and a man like Eliza Doolittle’s other suitor Freddy Eynsford-Hill (a moderately dim, but totally openhearted man who wants nothing more than to wait outside a woman’s house until she decides to grace him with her presence).  Frankly, I blame all my indecisiveness about men during my teens and twenties on My Fair Lady.  It explains a lot.

Recently I saw a production of The Music Man that featured a particularly lecherous portrayal of the main character Harold Hill.  Now this character is supposed to be a bit of a good “bad boy”, but in this production he bordered on creepy and I was afraid he might slip Marian the Librarian a roofie.  Meet you later by the hollow log?  Only if I bring pepper spray.

This got me thinking about other somewhat questionable male/female interactions in the beloved musicals from my childhood.  When I listened to some of the lyrics without the dreamy romantic blinders of my childhood, I noticed how incredibly sexist they can be.  Here are a few choice examples.

NOTE: this is not a serious critique of musicals and is meant to be humorous.  I don’t actually believe musical theatre is bad for young girls.

The King and I

Arguably one of the more sexually charged of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, the King of Siam and school teacher Anna flirt and fight about values and trade ideas.  And take one pretty amazing spin around the dance floor.  You can tell the King respects Anna as much as he is able to respect any woman.  The problem comes from the way the King treats the other women in his life, his slaves and concubines. 

His chief wife sings,

“The Thoughtless things he'll do
Will hurt and worry you
But all at once he'll do
Something wonderful”

“You'll always go along,

Defend him when he's wrong

And tell him, when he's strong

He is wonderful

He'll always need your love

And so he'll get your love.

A man who needs your love

Can be wonderful.”

So basically, stand by your man no matter what and you will occasionally be rewarded with his good behavior.  Got it.

Carousel

This one is tough for me because its my favorite Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.  No matter what the lyrics say or mean, the music is undeniably gorgeous.  And there are lots of good examples here for girls to stay strong and be independent and that they can make it on their own. 

However, lyrics like these make it a little harder to support this one fully.

“Something made him the way that he is,

Whether he's false or true,

And something gave him the things that are his,

One of those things is you, so

When he wants your kisses,

You will give them to the lad,

And anywhere he leads you, you will walk.

And anytime he needs you,

You'll go running there like mad.”

This takes the sentiment from the Kind and I one step further.  In this case you need to support your man and not even expect anything in return.

Phantom of the Opera

In case it seems like I’m ignoring the fact that attitudes about women in the 50’s and 60’s were very different than now, here is an example from the much more progressive 80’s.  As a friend of mine put it, the Phantom and Christine have a “creepy father/sex thing going on”.  Is the Phantom a teacher?  A love interest?  A father figure?  With lyrics like this, the line seems dangerously blurry.

“Close your Eyes –
For your eyes will only tell the truth
And the truth isn’t what you want to see
In the dark it is easy to pretend
That the truth is what it ought to be.

Floating, falling, Sweet Intoxication
Touch me, trust me, savor each Sensation
Let the dream begin, Let your darker side give in
To the Power of the music that I write”

The list of questionable musicals could go on and on.  From “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (kidnapping) to “Oliver!” (domestic abuse) to "South Pacific" (pimping out one’s daughter).  Even good old Jesus himself isn’t immune as he seems to spend a awful lot of time in "Jesus Christ Superstar" yelling at Mary Magdalene.

So what can we make of these musicals and the relations they portray?  This list might seem damning, but these examples aren’t that different than the way women act in many contemporary romantic comedies.  So are musicals sexist and hopelessly outdated?  Maybe.  But am I going to go listen to Carousel on my iPod right now?  Definitely.

An Introvert's New Years Eve

Twas the night before New Years, and I sat on my couch.

The day was quite festive, but I felt like a grouch.

In front of me lay invitations quite smartly

For New Year’s Eve outings and plans and parties.

I stared at them carefully and tried to decide

Which to attend, but I gave up and sighed.

I pictured a party all loud and too bright

And wished I could just stay in for the night.

Like many I loved spending time with my friends

But I love it much more when the night finally ends.

I wished I could just stay home and read books

But whenever I say this I get lots of strange looks

“But why?” ask my friends, “would you rather stay in?”

“We’ll have so much fun and there’s going to be gin!”

“You can’t sit alone with only sweatpants to wear.

You have to come out.  You’ll thank us, we swear.”

I wish that my friends could begin to understand

That what’s fun for them, leaves me quite drained.

And after awhile, I just want to escape.

It’s nobody’s fault; it’s just how I’m made.

So this New Year’s Eve, I’ll stick to my guns

And spend the night doing what I think is fun.

At home with my books I can say without a doubt,

“Happy New Years to all!  I’ll sit this one out.”

Thank You Martha Stewart

NOTE: This post originally appeared on my other blog http://groweatdecorate.blogspot.com/ but I thought it fit well here too.  The events described in this post took place almost 2 years ago now.

I want to give a big ‘thank you’ to Martha Stewart.  Not the real Martha, not exactly.  The version of Martha who lives in my head.  You know how in the movie 'Julie and Julia’ (based on the book Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously) the Julie Powell character takes inspiration and occasional guidance from an imaginary, idealized version of Julia Child?  And this image that she has in her head of Julia Child helps motivate her to not only cook her way through a gigantic cookbook, but also to change her life in other positive ways and essentially grow up?  Well picture that same thing in my head, only its Martha Stewart and not Julia Child.  But while Julia Child’s influence in Julie Powell’s life was gentle and lovely (and likely full of wine) the interactions I have with Martha in my head are more of the ‘F-you’ variety.

I first began my antagonistic mental relationship with Martha Stewart two Decembers ago.  I was off work the week between Christmas and New Years and had no plans.  Feeling domestic, I decided to try my hand at baking bread.  I used the recipe from Entertaining by Martha Stewart because I happened to have it checked out from the library.  I saw that it said it would make a lot of bread dough, but it didn’t occur to me the sort of havoc it would bring down on me in my tiny, non KitchenAid stand mixer having kitchen.  The shear amount of dough this produced was so large and unwieldy that I felt a bit like Martha was trying to break me.  My life wasn’t going so great at this particular point in time.  My (now ex) boyfriend had just cancelled a much anticipated vacation with me (which turned out to be symptomatic of greater troubles in our relationship) and I was feeling a bit adrift and lonely. Suddenly this dough had become the one thing in my life that I had to conquer and I started getting mad.  All my suppressed disappointment and aggression centered itself on this poor defenseless bread dough.

Then, out of nowhere I started trash talking Martha Stewart.  “Oh yeah Martha?” I thought.  “I bet you think I can’t do this.  I bet you think I can’t bake these effing baguettes.  Well screw you Martha.  Look at me kneading this dough.  Bet you didn’t think I could knead all this stupid dough by hand, did you Martha?”  Weirdly, this seemed to help.  I continued my imaginary conversation beyond kneading the dough, through shaping the loaves and even misting them with water while they were baking to help form a better crust.  “What Martha?  You didn’t think my bread would have a good crust?  I will show you a good crust…”  Before I knew it, I had 6 perfect baguettes cooling on a rack and I was feeling a lot more in control of my life.

The baguettes, by the way, were delicious.

I just want to point out here that I actually have no particular animosity towards the real Martha Stewart.  Yes, some of her recipes and crafts are a little out there and at times she seems absurdly out of touch with the kinds of things that ‘real’ people are willing to do in the name of domesticity.  But overall, I feel like she has done a lot of good and inspired a lot of people to take pride in making a nice home for themselves.  And I do buy her magazine every month.  However, all of this does not stop me from pulling out my imaginary ‘mean’ Martha to help me conquer tough recipes or crafts.  In the past couple years , she’s seen me through pie crusts and candied nuts.  Handmade Halloween décor and dyed Easter eggs.  This summer I’m planning to attempt jam making for the first time and I’m sure Martha will be there for me telling me that I can’t possibly handle boiling all those jars and I’m sure to get salmonella.  I’m looking forward to it.

So thank you Martha Stewart for helping me to challenge myself and prove that I am a creative and capable person.  It’s a good thing.

Some thoughts about happiness

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about happiness.  I recently finished reading “The Happiness Project” and its sequel “Happier at Home” and like any good books they triggered plenty of self reflection.

I put off reading these books for quite awhile and until recently I wasn’t really sure why.  Shamefully, I am a huge fan of the genre of “stunt journalism”.  If someone spends a year eating only pickles or living according to the principles of Dr. Seuss, I want to read about it.  By the way, if anyone wants to write a book about either of these things please feel free to steal these ideas.  I guarantee you will have at least one reader.  So the idea of a writer spending a year trying to increase her personal happiness should have been right up my alley.

I’ve read reviews of the “Happiness Project” where the author, Gretchen Rubin, was criticized for her privileged lifestyle.   The question seemed to be why can’t this woman with money, security, a healthy family and even a bit of fame just be happy with what she has?  And if she isn’t happy with her life, how can anyone of more modest circumstances be happy with theirs?

These are extremely valid questions and probably one of my issues as well, although I couldn’t express it as clearly.  I think the problem I had with the “Happiness Project” books was my fear that I was going to be told that if I wasn’t happy it was my own fault. That there were specific things I needed to do to make myself happier and if I didn’t do them I didn’t deserve to be happy.  I also didn’t want to visualize or chant or anything like that.  Ultimately, I enjoyed both “Happiness Project” books and began looking for ways to find more happiness in my own life.

It also got me thinking though about the ways in which we are happy for other people.  It seems like in certain circumstances we feel like happiness has to be earned.  Much has been said about how our culture loves to root for the underdog (until they get too high and mighty of course) and I’ve noticed this behavior in myself as well.

I was in a 13 year dating relationship with a man throughout my late teens and 20’s.  I have to specify “dating” because it never went any further than that.  We never lived together and were never married or even engaged.  We had the type of relationship that no one would be jealous of, but in my mind I invented a story about how happy everyone would be for us once we finally got married.  This fictional “everyone” would attend the wedding and breathe a collective sigh of relief at the exchange of vows.  It would be like we all ran a marathon together and I expected a great big finisher’s medal in the form of a wedding ring.

And why did I think everyone would be so happy for us?  Because we had “earned” it.  We had persevered through our struggles and come out on the other side.  I realize now that probably no one thought like this and it was only my way of protecting myself from feelings of inadequacy.  I used to scoff at people who had quick engagements.  They hadn’t earned anything.  They hadn’t put in the time.  They had only known each other for like 5 seconds!  Why should they get happiness and not me?

Of course I no longer feel this way.  I realized that it was a self absorbed and petty way to think.  And because the universe loves irony, I am currently engaged to a man who I have been dating less than a year.

More often, I’ve seen this way of thinking manifest itself when women announce they are pregnant.  I might have been a little bit in my own passive aggressive world when it came to how I felt about people getting engaged, but plenty of otherwise kind and good hearted women turn positively catty when they hear about someone getting pregnant who they feel doesn’t “deserve” it.  As a culture we are always happier for those couples who struggle and plan for years to have a baby than for a teenage unwed mother.  But aren’t all babies cause for celebration?  Isn’t all new life meaningful?

I think in many cases we feel this way because it makes for a better story, a happier narrative for someone’s life.  We tell ourselves, “They wanted a baby very much and they tried for years and spent so much time and money.   Then after years of heartache they finally had a baby.  It’s a miracle.”

But we are not the arbiters of someone else’s happiness.  Nor should we be.  I think we would all be a lot happier with our own lives if we stopped ascribing  value to the events in others lives.  Happiness is not a sliding scale. 

When I started dating again, I made a list of my top 5 “must haves” in a man.  One of the items on my list was an ability to be happy even if his life wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it to be.  This is a wonderful quality in a man and an even more important lesson for me to learn.  Because once I stopped trying so hard to force my life into a perfect happiness box, I learned to appreciate all the things in my life that did make me happy.

And I didn’t even need to create a vision board to do it.

The myth of friends as family

I recently watched an episode of the show “The Mindy Project” that really got under my skin.  Not because the funny and charming Mindy Kaling is wasting her considerable talents in such an inane and utterly charmless sitcom, but because the plot was resolved by the television cliché of “my friends are my family”.

In this episode, Mindy’s character finds out that the man she thought was her boyfriend is cheating on her when his actual girlfriend crashes her Christmas party.  Understandably upset, Mindy runs off to her bedroom to cry.  In her absence, her friends decide that she is such an awesome person they need to carry on the party for her.  Mindy emerges from her bedroom and finds her friends celebrating.  She is cheered by this and is soon singing karaoke like nothing happened.

I believe the lesson we are supposed to take from this is that while you might be upset about losing your boyfriend, it’s okay because your friends are there to support you.  On the surface this seems like a great message.  It’s very in line with the modern viewpoint that relationships may come and go, but friends are forever.  And it’s not that I disagree with that exactly, I just think it’s a limiting way to look at relationships.

I was in this type of situation myself a couple years ago.  At the time I did actually have a boyfriend, but he lived three hours away and was extremely unreliable.  Because I didn’t want to burden my friends with how unsupported I felt, I tried to do everything myself.  I put on a happy face and attended parties by myself.  I even went house hunting by myself.  Several friends’ husbands offered to help me move, and while I was grateful for the offer it also made me feel crushingly sad.  I wanted my own husband to help me move.  Or I wanted to be the type of woman who didn’t want my own husband.  But instead I felt trapped between the two.  Wanting someone who offered something more than friendship, but feeling disgusted with myself for wanting that.

What bothered me so much about that episode of “The Mindy Project” was how her friends seemed to expect her to just “snap out of it” and be consoled by their efforts.  But, what if she needed more time to grieve the loss of a relationship with a man who told her he could “at least consider the possibility of forever”?  What if she simply refused to come out of her room and be cheered?  What if she made a stand and said “I’m so glad I have you as my friends, but I really wish I had a boyfriend too”?

See, to me, the prevailing idea that your friends are your family is actually a bit anti-feminist.  Yes, it’s wonderful for women to have rich, full lives independent from men, but by imposing this idea that you don’t need a man some women feel like they shouldn’t want one.  Shows like “How I Met Your Mother”, “Sex in the City”, “New Girl” and of course “Friends” present the idea that as long as you have your friends, you have all you need.  For some women though that is simply not true.  And we need to make that okay.   If a woman doesn’t particularly want to by tied down in a committed relationship, she shouldn’t have to be.  But by the same token, if she craves the stability of a husband and a typical family structure that should be respected too.  The point of feminism is not to say “it should be like this”.  The point is to say “it can be however you want it to be.”  

Welcome to my Blog!

What is a Sometimes Feminist?

Like a lot of women my age (early 30's and that's all I'll say) I grew up with the idea of feminism.  It never once occurred to me that I couldn't have my own voice in the world.  But it also seems to me that the way feminism is practiced and portrayed in popular culture can be a bit of an uneasy fit with the way women actually want to live their lives.  A feminist can be a bra burning radical or a stay at home mom.  She can be Gloria Steinem or Martha Stewart.  Or she can be anything in between.

This blog is where I'll explore my thoughts on relationships, pop culture, women's issues, occasionally politics and anything else that catches my attention.