excuse me miss...

i consider myself a very funny person. in fact, i doubt anyone thinks i am funnier than i do. often though, what i find amusing goes over like a lead balloon.

for a few months now i have been running into this same guy in my neighborhood. we have an innocent game of street-flirting, you know, checking each other out,  holding a gaze just a second too long, smiling in check-out lines… the usual harmless and low-risk stuff.

this week i ran into him at the trader joe’s. parenthetical hint to all single hetero men out there (although double parenthetical, how you would be reading this blog is beyond me but here goes…) if you are looking to date do two things: yoga and shop at the trader joe’s. i digress…so i ran into this man at the market and we engaged in our game with our usual smiles.  

i went about my business of shopping and once finished, i made my way to the check-out lane. my fellow flirter followed suit, stood very close behind me and after swiftly surveying my cart, full of single portion pre-made Indian meals, shortbread, frozen vegetables, cheap rosé and chocolates, i can only assume his confidence was bolstered by my obviously-single-girl items, he leaned over to me, very near to my ear and quietly said,

“so, do i get more than a smile outta you now that we’re so close?”

to which i replied looking him squarely in the eye with a grin

“what? are you planning on pulling your pants down in this line or something?”

he visibly paled.

i thought it was very funny and frankly, very quick for me…but he was definitely not laughing. he was clearly rattled. either he was actually thinking what i said in jest or i just went too far. most likely, a little of both. he stood, wide-eyed and stunned as i was summoned to the next open lane.

Next indeed…

solidaritet är sexigt

at heart, i consider myself a girls-girl. i prize my girlfriends and cherish my female relationships. in high school, my best friend, Stina, and i were inseparable. we lived “pretty little liars” style, blurring the lines between days and nights, her house and mine. no boy came between us. ever. we included others hosting big slumber parties. a treasured ritual i carried on in college. sometimes thirty girls packed into our sprawling State Street apartment. we stayed up all night, nibbling and giggling and sharing. those moments are among my most cherished.

i grew up in a bubble where female relationships were sacred, where strong women were revered and respected. above all, i was taught and believed in solidarity.

when i moved to DC as an adult, i was blindsided by a totally new (to me) female dynamic that was catty, competitive and driven by a quest for men. how totally bizarre i found it! i was beyond bewildered. i was dumbstruck. girls blatantly hit on my boyfriend in front of me, ignored me in their efforts to talk to him or were snippy and snooty to my face. i was totally unprepared for this world where women were not automatically comrades-in-arms. it made me sad and tired. i began to refuse invitations to parties and grew weary when going to the ones i did attend. i had never played this game and i wasn’t prepared for it and i certainly wasn’t going to engage.

it took me a long time to develop close female friends here. then, many of them dissolved as our lives progressed and marriage became the next step, followed by children and all the natural life stages that keep us busy in our advancing age. maintaining those friendships has taken on a different rhythm. one that moves in fits and bursts, punctuating the over-scheduled life of a dual-career-couple-with-kids. as i am still single, i am trying to expand my circle with new women and i am feeling some of the same things i felt when i moved here many years ago.

often, i find, women don’t like me. it baffles me very much and hurts me a little too. i am in no way threatening or unwelcoming. i make direct eye contact and smile warmly when i introduce myself at parties and gatherings…and invariably the women step a little closer to their boyfriends or slink away…off to survey the room for …men? i don’t know what, but they are not interested in me.

i have never had the marriage/man-panic i witnessed in so many of my friends in our thirties. i don’t know why but i have never felt a paucity of available men. nor have i ever gone out looking for them. when i go out to a party or meet friends at a bar, i am there to be with my friends or to have interesting party banter. there is something very sad-making to me about surveying a room for available men. i have always found that there is reliably some guy or other that will pop into your life. my mormor always told me…men are like buses; if you miss this one, there’s another one just ten minutes down the road; any of them will take you pretty much to the same place. i believed her. and just like waiting for the bus, i am calm in the certainty that i know where i am going and the bus will arrive in time to get me there. i just don’t see why i shouldn’t be friendly with everyone else waiting for that bus. 

*photo rebecca and fiona grona lund via f***yeahrebeccafiona

chains that bind

admit it, we’ve all played this game…

it stars out harmlessly with someone unsuitable/inappropriate/or similar expressing admiration/affection/desire/ or similar and we’re naturally flattered.

it feels good and it appears safe to accept. and what is there to fear anyway? there is, of course, no chance of anything real developing with someone so clearly unsuitable/inappropriate/ or similar.

but our acquiescence is a powerful message however passive it may be; we accept and this excites and encourages our suitor. upping the ante is the response and maybe we continue to accept. we laugh at it but still it is titillating, enjoyable, ego-boosting and still safe…so we engage in “harmless” flirting.

but there is a pit in our stomach, a drop in our heart… we are playing…

now we are jerking the chain…and let’s face it, in the games of love and sex, jerking someone’s chain can be fun…

the ante continues to rise and we stay in the game but you can only play for so long until you wake up one morning underneath this totally unsuitable/inappropriate person attached to the chain.

you knew better but what could you do? this poor s.o.b just liked you so much, wanted you so badly and hell, was even very funny…now you feel guilty, so maybe you continue so you don’t hurt their feelings.

you remember why you felt your stomach sinking at the start because now you are chained to the jerk whose chain you were jerking!

the upper hand is all about perspective. sometimes we lose strength by flexing certain muscles.

this is the very real risk of jerking the chain…

*photo still from belle du jour, luis buñuel

miss me blind

even though i am enraged on a daily basis by the inequities of my female existence, i am always thankful to be a woman. i had another ‘whew…am i glad to be a woman’ moment last night.

i was vegging out in front of the tv and an ad for cialis came on. now, normally i don’t really pay attention to ads much less ones clearly not targeted to my own demographic, but i was totally mesmerized by this one.

an attractive middle-aged couple together shopping at the grocery store, gently and smilingly fondling produce…of course, inspiring an intimate moment; suddenly they embrace and now the supermarket is a wooded glen, and that orange display? poof! now it’s a picnic blanket and our couple lies down on it, gazing deeply into each other eyes. this totally happens to me at the safeway. All. The. Time. i was cracking up.

but the part that really caught me was when the voice-over ran down the side effects…ummm…BLINDNESS anyone??? apparently taking cialis may have a ‘sudden and severe’ side effect of freaking blindness! so, there’s your choice droopy…blindness or a boner. wow. am i glad to be a woman. because you know the guys taking cialis (and there are quite a few of them…insurance covered, of course, don’t even get me started on that…god forbid a man lose his potency…what evil would befall us??) i digress…you know the guys taking cialis are seriously willing to risk losing their sight just to get an erection.

that is devotion to a, ahem, member, for sure.

dating games

ten men waiting for me at the door?
send one of them home. i'm tired.

             -mae west