In Defense of Privacy Or, Why My Sex Life Is None of Your Business

Oddly, over the past couple of years, I have become a person that will answer pretty much anything. I’m not sure how this happened—maybe it’s just being asked interesting, provocative questions, questions I never thought about. Maybe it was the environment I was in. Maybe it’s just my personality. But everyone has their limits. And I’ve learned that many people don’t respect these limits, especially if they deal with sex.

Thanks to the exploits of tons of reality TV stars, it has now become commonplace to know the details of someone’s sexual and romantic history. There are shows devoted to sex rehab! And so, there are some males who feel the need to question me about this aspect of my life. These questions are confrontational and accusatory, as if I’m hiding my adventures from them, even though they are asking for details—inappropriate, lurid, puerile details—that don’t concern them in the least. And when I balk, because I have a right to my privacy, I am met with a torrent of insults.

Listening to these men, it is my duty to go whore myself out, and then report back. I fit the “profile”, based on what I presume to be youth and attractiveness. These men assume that I am hit on constantly and that I am just flat out rejecting all these advances, for reasons that mystify them. And I am mystified that they hold this belief so firmly, when it is so very, very wrong.

Apparently I am not the only one who has wondered where this attitude among men has come from. Does it stem from rejection?

Leah, who has also noticed these assumptions, thinks so. The men are angry and upset because they can’t get laid, and so blame the girls instead. Emily and Petpluto have also written about a version of this (termed The Nice Guy Syndrome, where men feel they own women’s sexuality). I’ve gotten these questions out of sheer curiosity, sure, but also as a way of trying to illuminate The Female Experience for these male friends of mine, even if my experience doesn’t jibe with their experience regarding girls, or what they think is the definitive version of being Young and Female in America Today.

Jezebel also addressed the ostensibly male assumption that women can get laid whenever they want, noting that men view anything less as being overly picky. Prompted by a book review in The Smart Set, Jezebel points out that there are a good many women who are deemed by the culture at large as “unfuckable”. They can fit into a number of categories: old, poor, have weight, genetic, or disability issues, or maybe are just not pretty or conform to a certain beauty standard. Many women fall into this group at a certain point in their life. But they are largely forgotten, ridiculed, always, in popular culture and in real life. For what worth is a women if she is not desirable?

One of the most interesting comments posted to the piece said that men are jealous of women’s sexual power; they are the ones constantly putting themselves on the line:

"a woman can get laid whenever she wants" is an expression of male frustration at female sexual power.

This is not to say that female sexual power is uniformly distributed. Not to say that the world doesn't suck if you've been dealt a poor hand (genetic, medical, social).

Please think for a moment about the male side of this equation. If you're a guy, you don't get hit on. Such an occurance is a memorable life event, not a daily happening. If you're "wing man" to an attractive/sociable/sexually successful guy, then you never EVER get hit on. And you're trying to attract/hit on/get rejected by gals your buddy isn't even looking at. And you adopt this socially demeaning and rejection-filled roll because it marginally increases your odds of some level of sexual success over "going solo".

And in that context, it sucks to be a guy. If the supposedly 'unfuckable' 'hags' in the audience demeaned, debased, and put themselves at the same degree of emotional risk as every guy at the bar, lowered their standards, donned their beer goggles, and shelled out for a few drinks and meals, I'd be willing to bet their "hit rate" would be dramatically higher than for any guy. any. guy.

So yeah, men are envious of womens' sexual power. and being guys, they sum it up (insensitively and coarsely) as, "a woman can get laid whenever she wants".

He’s right that if the game was reversed, the women would do pretty well, but that’s the just the nature of the sexes. But the image that women hold all the power is grossly ill-informed, and by placing the blame onto women, the men just make it worse for themselves.

The statement that all women can get laid easily is also a complete, unjust lie. Undesirable women do feel shame and embarrassment, and no such counseling like “reshape your attitude!” is really going to help; it’s just going to make things worse. Life isn’t a fairytale where a makeover changes everything.

As Leah noted, it’s impossible to live up to whatever the standard is. And being forced to conform to whatever is deemed acceptable is damaging and hurtful. One’s sexual life is only one aspect of a person, and it is mutable.

But the other issue I have with these questions is the appalling assumption that I’m expected to answer such personal and intimate questions, especially in some cases with people I barely know. Why is this acceptable? I consider myself a somewhat private person, in that I believe in privacy and I believe that not everything in my life is up for public consumption, and that attitude, increasingly, some find offensive. There are some things that are none of your business, and no matter how nosy you are, you have to accept that. It’s not impolite or out of hand to say “no.”

So what gives?

It goes back to our increasing TMI culture, and the murky notions of privacy that are constantly being redefined. Facebook has become the very public face of this privacy problem, especially as it has been playing out on the web:

Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg seem to assume that once something is public, it’s public. They confused sharing with publishing. They conflate the public sphere with the making of a public. That is, when I blog something, I am publishing it to the world for anyone and everyone to see: the more the better, is the assumption. But when I put something on Facebook my assumption had been that I was sharing it just with the public I created and control there. That public is private. Therein lies the confusion. Making that public public is what disturbs people. It robs them of their sense of control—and their actual control—of what they were sharing and with whom (no matter how many preferences we can set). On top of that, collecting our actions elsewhere on the net—our browsing and our likes—and making that public, too, through Facebook, disturbed people even more. Where does it end?

--Jeff Jarvis

Where does it? Technologies increasingly are able to monitor every little thing we do. From security cameras in Times Square to GPS locators on our phones to cookies on web pages, there are very little areas or transactions today that are not monitored somewhere, by somebody. We’re so used to this that we accept that mundane calls to customer service lines are recorded, or, if we turn our settings a certain way, we can be tracked by virtually anyone who wants to find us. We do a lot of this out of convenience and novelty; that’s why we save passwords on our computer, that’s why we enable our tweets to be geographically placed.

We like keeping track of our things digitally. That’s why online banking is a hit, and why we like to see the status of a package on Amazon or FedEx. And as long as only we have access to this information, we’re fine. But this information is protected, by passwords and codes and encryption. The debate has turned to less tangible items—memories and statements, ideas and personalities. It’s this violation of truly personal things that has caused this newest uproar.

A theory floating around is as society has become more permissible, old notions of impropriety will disappear, and future generations will have no need for privacy. This is hogwash. I disagree with Penelope Trunk (and others) who say privacy is basically a way of hiding things that don’t need hiding. Really? So everyone—my mother, my colleagues, my boss, my neighbor, the stranger I spoke to last night at a party—is entitled to know everything about me? And I’m supposed to be fine with knowing everything about everyone I know? Sure, maybe that movie you watched last night isn’t super-secret news, but it doesn’t mean that everyone has to know about it, just like everyone doesn’t need to know every detail of what you did over the weekend. The notion that privacy just equals secrecy is damaging and erroneous. I am all for transparency, especially in companies, but confusing transparency with a lack of privacy, especially for individuals, is dangerous. Everyone should be able to control what information they tell to specific people; there’s a reason we have “work selves” and “friend selves”, why there are some things you shouldn’t say to your mother but will say to your best friend. Penelope Trunk basically acts like things in our private lives won’t get us into trouble in the workforce, but that’s completely untrue. Sure, standards have relaxed, but that doesn’t mean that showcasing your exploits and your baser aspects of yourself won’t cause some problems. Think of it this way: Would you really want to hear about some borderline criminal activity a coworker or neighbor was doing? Would you want to be responsible for knowing every dirty little secret of everyone you know?

Surprises can be good things. It’s an icky feeling to know things about people before you meet them, because you Googled them. Now you’re an expert on their life. But by having everything up already to be viewed by a public, whether Facebook posts or Flickr albums, the element of surprise, of learning about someone through natural, organic discourse is lost. What’s left to tell? What’s left to discover? If everything about you is already up on the web—reduced to mere anecdote, a selection of tidbits that are “you”, no matter how misleading, embarrassing, or untrue—then why should I bother to try to get to know you anyway, when I already know everything there is to know?

People are not just the sum of their experiences, nor are they defined by particular things. Sure, when we describe ourselves, we do so in this language, often because it is the easiest. But people change, interests and experiences and opinions change. People don’t want to be known by something in their past, especially if they’ve moved past it, or if it’s not accurate. Privacy is important because it gives a sense of control, a sense that you are defining who you are and what’s important to you. Others should not be defining who you are or what you can say; you make that determination.

Linkey-Links

Articles that deserve further commentary from me, but due to my lack of focus will just be getting the props.

As a follow-up to my teacher post a few weeks ago, this top-emailed article on teaching as a second career for those in midlife (something I might do myself in thirty years) brings me back to wondering how plentiful these teaching jobs are. In theory, programs like this are great. But is there competition between new young teachers and new older teachers? Do the programs stack up? With so many different routes to becoming a teacher, what's the best way? Can these things even be quantified? Malcolm Gladwell argued for a whole new way to evaluate teachers in a well-known piece in the New Yorker, a contradictory argument that seems very difficult to put into practice. I'm still just as lost about teacher trouble as I ever was, but teaching seems a great second or third career, and I am all for good programs that can provide this service.

CareerCast listed its top jobs for 2010, ranking them on salary, stress, work environment, and job outlook. Media jobs uniformly did poorly, though there were a lot of questionable top choices: historian? philosopher? Anthropology did well, though I have a sneaking suspicion that those who hold that degree don’t feel so secure. A lot of jobs seemed to be low-level, ones that may not require a college diploma, like cosmetologist, waiter, and typist. (Who the hell is a typist now? It’s administrative assistant, though that category is filled by “receptionist.”) There wasn’t a lot of amorphous jobs, those tricky titles or stuff like “venture capitalist” or “hedge fund manager”, where you really wonder what the person does, or jobs where you wonder what a MS in environmental engineering will do. I was very amused by PR executives having the seventh most stressful job out of the ones listed (#193 out of 200).

Must-read on how writers are losing their monetary value. Very sad and scary, like a lot of other stories about the profession:

What's sailing away, a decade into the 21st century, is the common conception that writing is a profession -- or at least a skilled craft that should come not only with psychic rewards but with something resembling a living wage.

[...]

The crumbling pay scales have not only hollowed out household budgets but accompanied a pervasive shift in journalism toward shorter stories, frothier subjects and an increasing emphasis on fast, rather than thorough.

The rank of stories unwritten -- like most errors of omission -- is hard to conceive. Even those inside journalism can only guess at what stories they might have paid for, if they had more money.

Media analyst and former newspaper editor Alan Mutter worried last month about the ongoing "journicide" -- the loss of much of a generation of professional journalists who turn to other professions.

Writers say they see stories getting shorter and the reporting that goes into some of them getting thinner.

A former staff writer for a national magazine told me that she has been disturbed not only by low fees (one site offered her $100 for an 800-word essay) but by the way some website editors accept "reporting" that really amounts to reworking previously published material. That's known in the trade as a "clip job" and on the Web as a "write around."

"The definition of reportage has become really loose," said the writer, also a book author, who didn't want to be named for fear of alienating employers. "In this economy, everyone is afraid to turn down any work and it has created this march to the bottom."

I try not to patronize websites that are purveyors of what I call the "rewrite." There's a difference between commentary (Gawker) and straight-up rehash of news, and I want the real stuff. But I wonder about all the many young people who can't get into journalism now, as they are picked up by related professions, the social media world, or the great swath of unemployment. You can't have more and more PR professionals and fewer and fewer journalists; who will report the news?

On media predictions in 2010: Besides that Apple Tablet that’s taking up far too much speculation, there’s the sense that a lot of news outlets will start charging. As a Times print subscriber, I might be safe for that dear site, but this will mean big changes to anyone who consumes news on a regular basis, and don’t think you can circumvent it with Google News. It might even mean the end of such necessities as Hulu, too.

How the other half lives: I would only ever watch these programs out of sheer curiosity. Excellent moneymaker, just not my cup o' tea.

Peggy Noonan’s excellent column from December, on the cultural split she terms “The Adam Lambert Problem”:

America is good at making practical compromises, and one of the compromises we've made in the area of arts and entertainment is captured in the words "We don't care what you do in New York." That was said to me years ago by a social conservative who was explaining that he and his friends don't wish to impose their cultural sensibilities on a city that is uninterested in them, and that the city, in turn, shouldn't impose its cultural sensibilities on them. He was speaking metaphorically; "New York" meant "wherever the cultural left happily lives."

For years now, without anyone declaring it or even noticing it, we've had a compromise on television. Do you want, or will you allow into your home, dramas and comedies that, however good or bad, are graphically violent, highly sexualized, or reflective of cultural messages that you believe may be destructive? Fine, get cable. Pay for it. Buy your premium package, it's your money, spend it as you like.

But increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.

It's things like this, every bit as much as taxes and spending, that leave people feeling jarred and dismayed, and worried about the future of their country.

All these things—plus Wall Street and Washington and the general sense that most of our great institutions have forgotten their essential mission—add up and produce a fear that the biggest deterioration in America isn't economic but something else, something more characterological.

And finally, the XX Factor’s take on this New York Observer article on American women dating Canadian and European guys:

But contrary to the "Own me! Own me!" view of commitment, all of the New York women I know lingering in lasting long-term but nonconjugal unions are doing so because they're not ready to get married, not because they're anxiously biding time until their boyfriends decide to pop the question.

It'd be nice to see an article that depicts women as the well-rounded, rational beings that they are. You know, people who have multidimensional thoughts about marriage and don't morph into rom-com cliches the minute the word is dangled before their faces. I'm not the only one who finds the prospect of marrying someone you've known for three months, let alone someone you met at a bus depot, totally terrifying. So why am I always reading about it like it's some sort of female fantasy come true? Besides, most of the ladies interviewed for this article are only 25, 26, 27 years old. How much terrible dating could they have endured?

The key difference seems to be rooted in economics:

When we talk about dating or the possibility of having family, with a man or on our own or with—gasp!—a coven of like-minded women (why not?), the conversation is framed entirely by the fact that we can count on our native countries to look after us should we—for whatever reason—not be able to make ends meet stateside. Now, we should be able to secure decent futures for ourselves, with or without male partners…

[…]

The calculus of long-term committment [sic] is just different when your country guarantees the basic necessities of an advanced civilization. When your government provides you, as they do in Canada and in Europe, with health care that is unlinked to a job or "productivity," subsidized prescription drugs, child care, free education through graduate school, and, finally, old-age pensions with visiting nurses if you need them to retain your health and a modicum of dignity. Marriage, ultimately, is about family, however you shape it. I sometimes don't blame men here for being lame or commitment-phobic. They're probably terrified of failing as providers or co-providers.

My biggest peeve with the first criticism is that the New York Observer piece is ostensibly about New York men. Like Sex and the City, they are dealing with a very specific demographic, one that might get overblown. New York men are known to be a different breed than men from the rest of the country, and they get married later than their peers from outside the area, just like the women. Sure, plenty of women complain about commitment-phobic men, but you can make the same case that there are plenty of women who feel the same. After all, I’ve known a few couples where it was the men who wanted to settle down first, but it was the women who felt that marrying young would hold them back. Now that we have longer lives and a life that is fundamentally, on all levels, less secure, why should we make major decisions that can lock us in for what seems like eternity?

Single-Minded

Double X recently posted an article about a study that compared psychological well-being among singletons and those already married, and found that contrary to stereotype, most singles are just as happy and resilient as their married peers. The study, which profiled heterosexuals 40-74, left out those who were divorced or widowed, normally skewering the results of “single”. The article has some problems, however:

“When single people feel control over their lives and can rely on themselves, they can have especially high levels of happiness,” explains Jamila Bookwala, lead author and associate professor of psychology at Lafayette. She adds that the married people in her study who reported being highly self-sufficient weren’t happy about it, whereas single people on average felt relatively good about carrying their own weight.

Interesting how self-sufficiency is viewed in these two categories. I suspect that it is a point of pride for many singletons to be as self-sufficient as possible, but also in that they have to, or want to, rely on themselves for many things; that’s how the cookie crumbles, it’s just easier to do. But, when married, there is someone there to rely on, and you often just naturally fall into that pattern of needing that person to do things, expecting that person to provide something, and when that person falls short, disappointment arises. Those who are married are self-sufficient because they’ve found that they can’t rely on their spouse, and that causes unhappiness.

But of course, single is never an easy word to define:

It’s also not clear from the November study which single respondents had satisfying love lives but simply didn’t believe in marriage and which people preferred flying solo.

Neither of these designations is clear. What if you are single, have a satisfying love life, but do believe in marriage, and are just not ready for it? That seems like a hell of a lot of people to me. And while “prefer flying solo” is just a phrase, it’s too simplistic. Are these people who don’t want a relationship? Is this incompatible with having a satisfying love life?

The DoubleX piece links to a cover story from 2006 from Psychology Today on the growing shift and reduced stigma towards singles, and one psychologist actually links the current marriage craze (matrimania) to the rise of the singles. With a greater percentage of households not being filled by married couples, and with people marrying later, she posits that there are those who are insecure about the state of the union (and she doesn’t even mention the increased prominence of homosexual marriage).

Does that go back to the idea that being single is seen as a threat to those in relationships? The idea seems laughable, but somehow it always come roaring back. There are also still so many (namely lumped into the category of “relatives”) that find it strange when you don’t bring a love interest to the Christmas party every year. But I do wonder where this marriage glamour comes from. It’s become a topic of conversation among my friends, as we see so many acquaintances pair off and announce their engagement. For many, it is a confused surprise—why settle down so early? What’s the rush? I don’t know if that’s where the mocking originates, the idea to bum rush a David’s Bridal and try on a bunch of dresses for giggles. Why not? It’s an excuse to play dress up and not have to pony up the cash, to worry about the real things marriage signifies. But is it? I play along, because apparently once you hit your mid-20s, marriage is supposed to float into your head, and now we’re being forced to think about it. Dating for a number of years? Be prepared for the questions, the assumptions, the expectations.

Of course, when thinking about “singles”, that iconic show of single women, Sex and the City, comes up. The show itself did a lot to change perceptions, but it also married off three of the four women. I’m reminded of a season six episode, “A Woman’s Right to Shoes”, which explores how society does or does not celebrate or accept a person’s personal choices:

Carrie: You know what? I am Santa. I did a little mental addition and over the years I have bought Kyra an engagement gift, a wedding gift, then there was the trip to Maine for the wedding- three baby gifts...in total I have spent over $2300.00 celebrating her life choices and she is shaming me for spending a lousy $485.00 bucks on myself? Yes, I did the math.

Charlotte: Yes, but those were gifts. And if you got married or had a baby, she would spend the same on you.

Carrie: And if I don't ever get married or have a baby, what? I get bubkiss? Think about it. If you are single, after graduation, there isn't one occasion where people celebrate you.

Charlotte: Oh! We have birthdays!

Carrie: Oh, no no no no- we all have birthdays, that's a wash. I am thinking about the single gal. Hallmark doesn't make a "congratulations you didn't marry the wrong guy" card. And where's the flatware for going on vacation alone?

Exactly. Plenty of people experience major milestones that don’t fall under these traditional rubrics, but they can’t throw multiple parties every step of the way and expect gifts. Announcing a marriage can have engagement, shower, and wedding gifts, and that’s not including all the ancillary expenses! Many people also agree that we have an obligation to make ourselves happy, and that includes a lot of “selfish” decisions, ones that can be judged harshly by outsiders:

Even as singlehood is becoming the de facto norm, people who choose to go through life solo are deliberately kept in a state of confusion about their own motives by a culture that clings to the marriage standard. Typically, says DePaulo, singles are told that they are selfish for pursuing their own life goals. If you're single and you have a great job to which you devote energy, you're typically told your job won't love you back. Of course, singles are always suspect as tragic losers in the game of love. But most of all they are told through commercials, images and endless articles that they will never be truly happy and deeply fulfilled unless they are married.

"The battlefield is now psychological," says DePaulo. Single women today have work opportunities, economic independence and reproductive freedom. "The things that can be legislated are all done," she notes. "The last great way to keep women in their place is to remind them that they are incomplete. Even if you think you're happy, the messages go, you don't know real happiness." There's a hunger out there for a new view of singles.

Notice, of course, that the article goes from all singles to just female singles, again focusing on the women. Because it’s women who want to be married, right? There the ones we have to worry about. As friends of mine commented a few months ago, it’s assumed that men will marry, but for women, you never know…the men might be a little off, but the women will be downright strange!

But for many people, being single is both a choice and not a choice. It’s a choice in that a person can decide whether or not to pursue something, to set up an online profile, to ask out every person seen at a bar. But it’s also not a choice in that you don’t always get what you want, the person you want may be unavailable for a variety of factors, and sometimes, there just isn’t a suitable person available.

The Psychology Today article has some noteworthy stuff, although I don’t agree with it completely. But neither do I with another singles “movement”: Quirkyalone. The premise is basically that it’s better to be without a relationship than to settle, a feeling that many people agree with in theory. It’s meant to battle the relationship stigma, all those people who hop from one person to another. But many of these people, just like many of the people in relationships, do really believe that they don’t “need” someone. Quirkyalone is a mindset, as Sasha Cagen repeatedly declares. I understand where she’s coming from. I just do not like the label. Singlehood as a movement seems a bit silly to me, though I understand the points of privilege single bloggers point out, like tax code rates, hotel rates and whatnot.

A lot of the advice Psychology Today points to is rather obvious, at least to those of us who know the world. It might not always be feasible or easy to follow, but it makes sense. It’s what people do, it’s the natural evolution. It always seemed sad to me that when people coupled up, their social circle often narrowed, instead of expanded. This isn’t always the case, but especially with marriage, circles get smaller, because the available time one has now must be appropriately divided, and a smaller portion goes to friends. It’s part of the soulmate culture, another dangerous idea: one person can change your life, but it can’t fulfill you always and forever:

The soulmate culture insists that one person can satisfy all your emotional needs, says DePaulo. "But that's like putting all of your money in one stock and hoping it's not Enron." Marriage today forces many people to put their friendships on the back burner. Singles, on the other hand, are free to develop deeper relationships with their friends without fear that they are betraying closeness. The flip side is that singles have to be more proactive about building their social lives; it takes an effort.

"Single people are more likely to have a good relationship investment strategy. They tend to have a diversified portfolio of relationships—friends, siblings, colleagues—and to value a number of them," says DePaulo. "They have not invested their entire emotional capital in one person." Having a broad social network is physiologically as well as emotionally protective, although society perceives singles as psychologically vulnerable precisely because they lack the built-in support system of a spouse.

As I said, lots of these things just naturally happen, and they should, whether a person is single (whatever that means) or not. As more people stay unmarried, and the psychology of happiness continues to grow, there will be more studies…probably proving that what single people hate most is forcing them to answer questions about coupling up.

On Feminism

I just have to spotlight this wonderfully funny, very well-written piece on how Spanx illustrates the physical illusions women go through to look attractive.

But the truth is that I love glamour. I love coquettish lingerie. I also love Häagen-Dazs, and making out, and that red polka-dot swing dress I can't quite fit into right now, and comfort, and male attention, and sometimes I think the real trick of womanhood (of adulthood, probably) is toggling back and forth between those desires without losing yourself in any one. Of course I would love to be the woman who slips on that dress and looks fabulous without ancillary assistance, but let me tell you I did give that a whirl, and I looked possibly pregnant. And while the gentleman caller may or may not have cared, I know that I cared, desperately, that I would spend the whole evening at an otherwise enjoyable get-together tugging and twisting and turning at improbable angles. And so the Spanx gave me a jolt of confidence, a license to swing my hips lustily and allow strangers' eyes to linger over my body without fidgeting and land surprise make-outs with gentleman callers, and that is a pretty smashing bargain for $10 at Target. (emphasis mine)

And that's how I've come to view feminism. The more I read--through all the critiques and criticisms, the hand-wringing and the angst--it seems to come down to balancing as best as possible your own beliefs, the necessary compromises. Because feminism alone, as a theory, isn't practical, isn't sustainable in the day-t0-day, and there always is a tension between say, wanting men's attention and not wanting to want men's attention. Or in popular parlance, the Madonna-whore dichotomy. Women are largely both, just in different spheres, at different times.

The "Neg"

I’ve been reading a bunch of Conor Friedersdorf, who blogs over at True/Slant and is one of the staffers filling in for Andrew Sullivan on vacation. His post today, called out on The Daily Dish, is about the pick-up artist scene, and the very controversial “neg”, a negative statement used to pick on the girl in question as a way to lower her defenses. Conor spotlights a blog a week, and he is fascinated by one Sebastian Flyte, a 23 year-old Libra who blogged regularly about his escapades picking up women.

I am familiar enough with the popularity of this scene, partly because my brother is somewhat of a disciple. I have flipped through Neil Strauss’ The Game (known as “The Bible” to some, and it could pass for it, bound in black leather), read (and loved) I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, and have had a few conversations on the topic. I’ve also been on the receiving end of quite a few negative statements.

Most people hearing about the technique for the first time are appalled. Of course it’s horrible! Any sort of dating trick—and the use of deception, which we all use, whether we characterize it that way or not—can be seen as terrible, immoral even. If dating is a game and everyone wants to play, of course you are out to win! Conor understands this:

I suspect that often our judgments about kosher behavior depends as much on who is involved as the specific scenario in question. A friend comes to us for advice about how to handle an awkward situation wherein she's inadvertently scheduled two dates for the same day -- and knowing she is generally an upstanding person, we laugh, sympathize, and help her formulate a solution, whereas if we were on a date with a women who deceived us about having another date immediately following ours -- or even worse, a guy our sister was dating pulled the same stunt -- the whole moral situation would seem to us entirely different.

People tend not to flip circumstances and examine their behavior if things were different. That’s because a lot of times it forces black-and-white situations into a gray zone, or merely reduces the justifications for your own behavior, because you wouldn’t want to deal with this crap if it was fostered on you. But people react out of anger, spite, and selfishness, so that’s why many so rarely seek to look at other angles.

But, I can sort of see why the neg works. Sometimes. People, when faced with a criticism, will often try to change it (if it can be changed), in order to prevent the issue from occurring, even if they do not like the person making the comment. The negative statement will reverberate back, insidiously creeping into our consciousness at random times. It doesn’t necessarily matter how true the comment is, or even if we disregard the statement—sometimes it comes back. If we are told we look angry, we will immediately try to soften our look, to prove the other person wrong.

Wishing, Wanting, Hoping

It always seemed bizarre to me that the book, and now the movie, are marketed as empowering. Since when does inaction make you feel in control? It's ultimately the same philosophy behind The Rules, just covered in a lacquer of sass.

He's Just Not That Into You may be common sense, but it's also based on a woman's (supposed) total powerlessness in starting relationships.

If he's into you, he'll call. Doing anything proactive would be a waste of time, not to mention, pathetic. (As the trailer for next week's film version of He's Just Not That Into You makes abundantly clear, that one extra, unsolicited phone call could be really, really embarrassing.) God forbid, you should pursue some one you truly liked; you might get rejected to your face, which would be so much harder to bear than getting passively rejected by an unanswered voice mail. If the prospect of a real-time dismissal seems worth the risk in certain, obviously rare!, cases, He's Just Not That Into You can't help. Fiona could. Maybe she should write her own book (if she can find time between all the fire fights). It could be called He's Just Not That Into You: Who Cares?

From Slate’s XX Blog

They’re commenting on Burn Notice’s Fiona, how she tries and tries and tries to get her ex-boyfriend, Michael back, yet she’s still totally badass.

I’ve never watched Burn Notice (though I’d like to at some point), so I can’t comment on her. But I will on He’s Just Not That Into You:

I never understood the premise behind The Rules, because I do not believe that love is passive. If I wait and wait and wait for a boy to like me, I will wait forever. You have to be active, you have to let them know—or else they won’t. Hormones will compel you anyway, but there’s no point in hiding behind a mishmash of games. Games will happen even if you’re honest. You have to take the chance.

Maybe what He’s Just Not That Into You is saying is you have the choice of dropping the guy, of saying no, of declaring “I’m not going to put up with this.” Learning they have this option—no matter how obvious it may seem—can be empowering (if not depressing when they see what options they do have).

My mother suggested to me that I’d get a boyfriend if I just wanted one hard enough. Not only did I stifle a brewing argument, I shot down a “So if I just pray really really hard every night, he’ll just come to me—poof!” What kind of agency is that? I already have issues with that whole wanting concept, and I’m clearly not the only one.

Wishing idly does no good. But neither does “just waiting for the right time”, because that time might not come, and waiting and praying for it is a futile, depressing existence.

I'm Not Into It

Some reasons why I don't what to read He's Just Not that Into You:

"I think where a lot of women go wrong is through indulging in denial - denial that he isn’t that into us, but also denial that we are deserving of anything better. But when we decide to refuse to accept anything less than genuine into-ness, I think that we are much happier both in and out of relationships - because whether or not you are coupled up, it is crucial to keep in mind that you are great. Lately, in any case, I have come to realise that if a man behaves in a way towards you with regards to communication or kindness that you would consider to be sub-par in a non-romantic friend, then he is not worth pursuing. Not even if White Noise is his very favourite book."

Jean Hannah Edelstein (via gauntlet)

Jean makes some good points here, but He’s Just Not That Into You still gives me the shits. And like Jennifer Aniston, I still think it’s ultimately disempowering for women.

Here’s why.

1. Like most conventional wisdom, it’s overly simplistic; an “easy” response to something that is usually far more complicated. When most real relationships break down, it’s not as simple as the guy just not liking the girl all that much, but about some problem (or problems) in the dynamic between the two people that both are contributing to.

Often, ironically, the woman’s contribution to this dynamic stems from the insecurities and disempowerment fostered by mainstream women’s/dating culture (of which He’s Just Not That Into You is a part).

2. Call me a control freak, but I like to feel as if I have a say in the route my life takes - and certainly, no one would argue this shouldn’t be the case when it comes to work, friends, or what I decide to do with my Saturday night. This sense of influence over the world around us is also known as “empowerment” - think “we can make things happen” in The Craft - and is proven to be a key source of self-esteem and happiness in both men and women.

He’s Just Not That Into You is the opposite of this. It tells women that things are as they are, that there’s nothing you can do to change it, and that your best bet is to sit around waiting for that Prince who really is into you to come along on his white horse and choose you. The only thing that makes it any different to the more widely maligned (but equally widely cited) The Rules is that it dresses this old fashioned rhetoric up with “you go girl” and “you’re such a fox!”

3. Men, on the other hand, get to do all the choosing. They get to decide whether they like you or not, whether they want to launch a relationship and where they want that relationship to go. Sure, you can decide not to go along with them, but for all your “foxiness”, the book’s lasting message is that not many of the men in your life have really been “that into” you, so when you find one, you sure better hold on to him!

Hate it, hate it, hate it. But I do agree with Jean that no one - male or female (‘cos I know plenty of guys who let the girls they love treat them like crap) - should accept anything less than “genuine into-ness”* (and that often we accept subpar treatment from people because we hope we can change them).

* Which, by the by, means love, kindness and appreciation - not picking up the dinner cheque ever time, dropping everything at your whim, or buying you five designer dresses for Christmas.

Emphasis mine. Beside, I generally know when people are into me and when they're not. (Cue the loud guffaws. But I mean it.)

Jennifer Aniston made a similar point in Vogue. I wonder why she chose to do this movie, especially considering her dislike of "the kind of thing where women only feel empowered once they find the Man".

This Is How It Goes

http://xkcd.com/513/

Single Spin

I don’t quite understand this freemales concept.

So...these women are single. How is this new? The celebrities they cite have dated a few guys since a longterm relationship broke up. They aren’t interested in getting married in the foreseeable future. Sounds like they’re just living their lives. Why is it imperative that Jennifer Aniston suddenly find herself a steady guy just to get hitched?

The term freemales, according to the definition in the Sydney Morning Herald (which, along with their sister publication, is a little too into dating and relationships for a newspaper), isn’t even applicable to the women they name, because they’re dating. Why does it matter whether or not they’re dating, except for the tabloids that need to something to print? Honestly, Rihanna's and Jennifer Aniston’s public image has all been for the better that they aren’t attached–their careers, for one, have skyrocketed! Justin Timberlake would have been bogged down in a marriage to Cameron Diaz (just look how much fodder his breakup with Britney did for him).

Of course, the same tabloids (and sometimes helped by their more-respected peers) continue to lament their single status. They must be lonely and empty, waiting for a man to come home to. As for Tyra, you’re single because you’re a complete loon, not because you’re successful. And Jessica Simpson wants us to believe she really isn’t that stupid.

I’m sick of all these women (Paris Hilton, ugh) exclaiming things like “I don’t need a man, I’m a strong women” yadda yadda yadda. Show, not tell. Nowadays, everyone is a “strong woman”, everyone says they don’t need a man. Yeah, right. Going from man to man and whipping them to do your bidding isn’t a sign of strength, it’s a sign of insecurity and dependence. It’s always the women who proclaim to be independent that really aren’t. (Except for Beyonce. As much as I love her, I credit her and her group for causing a large chunk of this mess. I always hated “Independent Woman”.)

The article tries to make the point that this single thing is a new fad. Come on:

Yet nowadays there's a whole new set of positive buzzwords that are putting solo-femme status on the hot Hollywood map. Quirkyalones, un-marrieds and proud singletons are making a sassy comeback with cocktails in their hands and expensive stilettos on their feet.

This isn’t news. If you’re talking about Sex and the City, that show premiered ten years ago. Quirkyalone came out in 2003. The single-women conversation seems to never end and nothing’s ever really new. You’re unattached or you’re not. There are gray zones, the “it’s complicated”, when relationships are beginning or ending. Of course, none of these markers say things like “I’m in love with my best friend who’s in love with someone else”, “I still have feelings for my ex”, “I’m too immature to be in a relationship”, “I can’t handle clingy people” and the myriad of other hidden reasons behind their singleness.

And that Atlantic Monthly article that Emily blogged about recently is not only going to be made into a movie (oh dear God) but it got her a book contract as well. See what we’re learning here?

All thanks to friends...

I've been thinking of starting a blog for years. Finally, like many other things in my life, I just decided to go "Fuck it!" and do it. That was probably close to two months ago. I still have a huge list of entries I want to post on--every day the list seems to grow as I read another great article in the Times or some observation that I feel needs to be remarked upon.

Thought of the week, as it was never addressed on Sex and the City: If you hook up with someone that you are not Facebook friends with, is there a responsibility for one to do the friending?

Facebook etiquette never fails.