I'm 26, and I've been looking at my stepsister's dating life with a measure of worry. She's 36, and wants children, but still hasn't found "the one." She's gone from being ultra-picky to swearing she'll just marry the next guy who doesn't pick his nose at the dinner table. Wow. Is that what it comes down to for women -- eventually having to give up and settle for a guy you're less than on fire for? It horrifies me to think of being her at some point.
--A Decade To Go
Women in their 20s are quick to rule a man out for deep character flaws like wearing Dockers, not knowing that you're supposed to hate Nickelback, and buying vegetables grown by multinational conglomerates instead of two aging hippies. Some women in their 30s, especially those who wake up with baby rabies at 35, continue to maintain high standards: demanding that a man be straight, single, and paroled. Ideally, that is. At 39, they'll pretty much consider anything with a paycheck and human sperm.
The need to scale back from Prince Charming to Prince No Recent Felony Convictions starts with The List -- the long list of demands no mortal man could ever meet. But, the problem isn't being uber-picky, but remaining uber-picky. Many women in their early-to-mid 20s only think they're ready for a relationship, so they sabotage every potential one that comes their way. Eventually, they get ready, and then ditch those tiny calipers they've been using to determine whether a guy's nostrils flare at the proper angle. Other women need some hard lessons in what to be picky about. Sometimes, it takes a stint with Paul The Pot Cloud or the cruel Adonis to appreciate the nice guy who calls when he says he will and loves to surprise you, and not by letting you catch him in bed with your two best girlfriends.
Most women seem to get their priorities in order well before they come up against the "enjoy by" date on their eggs. But, as Jessica Grose quipped on Slate, "...Nobody ever went broke (overestimating) the anxiety women feel about getting married." Grose is referring to the bestselling Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, by Lori Gottlieb. Gottlieb, most charmingly, finds being single at 40 akin to being in a drunk-driving accident and left comatose and brain-dead. Personally, I find there's nothing lonelier than feeling completely alone while in a relationship with somebody else.
Of course, that's easier to say if you don't want kids. Gottlieb's advice to women who do? "Settle!" Forget looking for love, passion, or intense connection (aka "zing"); look to set up "infrastructure" for a family, and quick-quick, find a dependable guy with a nice fat salary to be your tool. (Oh, the paycheckstasy!)
Obviously, a 30-year-old woman who wants to have children before her ovaries start laughing at her can't be as picky as she was at 22, and Gottlieb wisely notes that the search for a husband should be "about finding someone who is enough, as opposed to someone who is everything." But, both her book and her 2008 valentine to "settling" in The Atlantic are filled with advice like "Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics." Okay, you can be the one who decorates, but how do you spend your life with a guy when kissing him reminds you of licking a dumpster? (Hmmm, maybe Gottlieb is counting on how marriage is often a cure for sex.)
"Zing" isn't everything, but you'll probably have a pretty grim time staying married without it (especially if you have to stick it out for all those years from delivery room to dorm room). Sure, zing fades -- you're probably not going to light up like you did on the first date the 30,000th time he walks into the living room -- but having a base of love, attraction, affection and connection is what helps you not hate him when he's being so annoying it makes your fillings hurt. (Unfortunately, you can't just look deep into his retirement account and appreciate how obedient he is at household tasks.)
Beyond all the love stuff, you shouldn't get together with any man you don't respect and admire; meaning you need to have the hots for a man not just physically but as a human being. If you want kids, do your best to make that happen, but accept that it might not, and develop yourself, your friendships and your life. If you feel complete without a man, men are more likely to feel incomplete without you. You, in turn, might not have to force yourself into that Gottlieb-style bliss of going from demanding that a guy have hair to demanding that a guy have a head.
June 22, 2010I was considering breast implants until I read your column on the potential side-effects. Recently, I read that casting directors are seeking actresses without plastic surgery. Does this mark a new trend?
--Inherited My Dad's Rack
There were some stories about a Pirates of the Caribbean casting call for extras with breasts that came from Mother Nature instead of Dr. Finkelstein. A handful of casting directors then chimed in that plastic surgery is out. Of course, it's always been out for some (picture Meryl Streep and Judi Dench sitting around pondering, "To DDD or not to DDD...")
While this reported trend in looking natural seems part of the trend toward grass-fed beef, hemp lingerie, and "Hey, you crashed your Prius into my electric golf cart!" it's good to remember that there's a trend in the media to come up with trends. The truth is, the really scary women -- those who look like they couldn't get in to see Dr. Finkelstein so they booked Dr. Frankenstein instead -- are mostly found at Hollywood parties. (You don't see women going into the feed store in Montana with trout pouts.)
I'd say what's out everywhere is visible plastic surgery -- the kind that makes you notice the surgery instead of the girl. But, contrast those tiny little things who look like they had two rogue planets bolted to their ribcage with Kate Hudson, who recently went from pretty-well flat to a politely perky C. You'd really never know, but for the fact she's a movie star, not a salesclerk at JCPenney: "Breaking news...massive oil spill in the Gulf, and Kate Hudson has new boobs."
I've noticed some things vanishing from the North American landscape; namely, phone booths, drinking fountains, and pubic hair on women. Phone booths I understand, drinking fountains I chalk up to cost of upkeep, but why the hair down there?
--Bemused
Trends in hair removal seem to follow trends in fashion. Starting around 2000, ultra low-rise jeans were in, but looking like you had a furry little pet peeking out from them was not. With the growth of Internet porn, and porn culture merging into mainstream culture, women started wearing underwear the size of a postage stamp. (If a woman doesn't at least prune the edges of the hedges she'll look like she's wearing a doily over a bearskin rug.)
Many people favor going mowed or bare because it seems "more hygienic," and because you don't have to make your way through the bramble to get to the good parts. There are men who are creeped out by a woman in her 30s who looks like she has yet to hit puberty. But, according to my research, most women under 30 at least trim, and a good many opt for totally barenaked ladyparts. Many men, especially younger men, trim, and a few go for the full-bare "boyzilian." Eek. Some women and men are even making the hairless downstairs a permanent thing with laser hair removal. They seem to be forgetting that fashions change. Just as all those ugly '70s styles came back, the 'fro down below could eventually be in again...good news, I suppose, for people who sell press-on goatees and dermatologists in the business of installing hair plugs.
One week, my boyfriend of four months was telling me he loves me and planning our vacation, and the next, he was saying he was overwhelmed with life stressors and needed to be alone. Not long afterward, a friend who's online dating showed me a guy's profile, and guess whose it was! I want to scream at him, "Grow up, put on your big boy pants, stop being a coward and treating me like a stupid female."
--Irate
If honesty were actually the best policy, people would use it more often. In a mob hit, instead of making up some ruse involving fresh cannoli, they'd say "Tommy, come over, we're gonna garrote you." To make tough situations easier, we all lie or tell just enough of the truth to get the point across: "It's not you, it's me..." No need to get into the hurtful specifics: "...and how I hate the way you look, smell, talk, and chew, and that weird snorting thing you do in bed." With either one, the takeaway is the same: "It's over. Move on." Much as you feel you deserve the truth, having it isn't always the best thing. It's his half-truth -- "I need to be alone" -- that sets you free (to find somebody else), and the whole truth -- "I need to be alone to write up my JDate profile" -- that keeps you too busy screaming that he's a patronizing coward who shops for pants in the little boys' department.
June 15, 2010How do you know whether a guy is worth staying with, or if you're on a slowly sinking ship? My boyfriend of three and a half years treats me well, but he suffers bouts of depression and his divorce six years ago has hung a shadow over our relationship. He's never told me he loves me, which I need at this point. His divorce also left him financially scarred, and he's taken a roommate, who happens to be female, to stave off foreclosure. It turns out she was raped some time ago. Soon after moving in, she told my boyfriend she was uncomfortable with others in the house having sex. She doesn't have a job now, so even afternoon trysts are out. I think it's terrible what happened to her, but I also find it awfully presumptuous of her to dictate this aspect of our lives. We can't have sex at my place, except when my kids can stay at my mom's. I needed more from my boyfriend even before the roommate came, but too often now, there's only that seven-minute exhausted call at 11:45 at night. I'm disturbed that he'd basically sell out our relationship for some rent money.
--Sexless In The City
Are you on a slowly sinking ship? Well, if this were the Titanic, DiCaprio and Winslet would've had time before the ship went down to have four kids, three affairs, and a bitter divorce.
It's terrible, what happened to his roommate, but moving into somebody's place and then announcing, "Oh, by the way, I'm traumatized by people having sex..." is like saying, "Did I mention that I'm deathly allergic to cats? Not to worry, I hear they don't feel a thing when they get put down." Of course, a guy who wants to have sex with his girlfriend but takes in a roommate who's "uncomfortable" with it passes on the bad news: that he'll be giving said roommate time to pack, not that he'll be sleeping with the girlfriend from 11:45 to 12:02, but only over the phone, and he really does mean "sleeping."
If you were boyfriend-shopping right now, imagine answering this ad: "Emotionally and financially devastated divorced man with deeply troubled roommate seeks girlfriend: no pets, no sex, no 'I love you.'" Clearly, what you really need to hear isn't "those three little words" but those eight: "I just can't give you what you want." Chances are, you succumbed to what economists call "the sunk cost fallacy" -- investing more and more time in this relationship because you've already invested so much time. You should instead be looking at what the guy currently has to offer: basically, seven minutes a night for you to work on convincing him "If you really loved me, you'd be living out of your car."
Is it possible he'll change? Sure it is -- if he wins the lottery and meets a good witch who'll wave her magic wand over him, instantly curing his depression, or if you can invent a time machine so he can go back and stay in bed with a hangover on the day he met his now ex-wife. On the bright side, you should find it easier to coax him into saying "I love you"...at gunpoint, or by attaching jumper cables to his nipples.
My boyfriend of three years has always suspected that I had a sexual history with one of my male friends. I lied and said I didn't. (The sex was a one-time mistake, three years before I met my boyfriend.) The problem is, I have lunch with this friend two or three times a year to catch up (always in public places). So far, I've refused to stop seeing my friend, which hurts my boyfriend. Should I cut him off to spare my boyfriend's feelings?
--Just Friendly
Poor Booboo, does he have an ouchie day, two or three times a year, whenever you bring home mints from the Olive Garden? There's a telltale sign -- that you had lunch. Your boyfriend, like too many grown adults, is under the impression that life should always be one long Princess Cruise. Sure, he feels jealous (and apparently, that you're sleazy, trampy, and not to be trusted). Being jealous is human nature, and reflects insecurity on his part, which you shouldn't be catering to by cutting friends out of your life. Continue keeping mum about your sexual history, and help your boyfriend feel more secure by letting him know how hot and wonderful you find him, and by being touchy-feely, like you can't keep your hands off him. Of course, these tactics are most effective if you also avoid returning from lunches three days later, claiming to have escaped your kidnappers, the Mexican drug kingpins.
June 8, 2010Ohh! I FINALLY get what you're saying! For the longest time, I was resenting you for telling women they shouldn't ask men out. I had this impression of you wanting ladies to just sit in a corner waiting for a strong, burly man to come to our rescue. I reread some of your columns, and it seems you're saying it's okay for us to APPROACH guys, strike up a conversation, and show we're interested, but not to do the actual asking out. Or, am I wrong, and are you saying we should literally wait around for them? If so, I'm just going to go buy 23 cats right now and get it over with.
--Don't Wanna Be The Crazy Cat Lady
Too many women tell themselves they're expressing their equality with men by taking a "Raid on Entebbe" approach to getting a date. (You're supposed to be seducing a man, not rushing him into your cargo plane before he gets shot by the Ugandans.)
Women who go all "Me Tarzan, you Tarzan" on men confuse "equal" with "the same" and what a woman can do with what actually works. (Pssst! Somebody has to be Jane.) You might be as "liberated" as all get out, but your genes are ready to party like it's 1.8 million years ago, when women evolved to be the harder-to-get sex and men co-evolved to expect to smooth-talk a woman into the bushes. Anthropologist Heather Trexler Remoff writes in Sexual Choice that an unambiguous advance on a man -- asking him out -- is fine if your goal is getting him to attend one specific function with you. If you'd like more than a single-serving-size encounter, "you'd do well to take (your) time and not push against the built-in rhythms of human courtship."
Guys these days don't make this easy. Masculinity, especially in young guys, appears to have gone the way of the rotary dial phone, the Betamax, and the spotted owl. It's gotten so bad that there are even Barbies for adult males -- the action figures guys stay home moping to about how they can't get dates. (Of course, the first step would be actually asking a girl out, not staying home praying to date her.) If the current downturn in manliness continues, fathers will soon start telling their sons, "Son, someday you'll grow up and be a large boy who needs to shave."
The answer for you and the rest of the ladies isn't taking over the man's job -- doing the asking -- but signaling to him that it would go very, very well for him if he did it. You do that by flirting. You'll have to experiment, but you can probably flirt far beyond what seems reasonable -- especially when a guy seems to have all the sexual aggression of a lost baby duck.
Ultimately, flirting is a form of information-gathering: Is there a man cowering in there somewhere? If so, is he man enough and interested enough to squeak out, "Doing anything Friday night?" If he can't or won't, he's telling you something important: "Go flirt with the next guy." You may do a whole lot of flirting with a whole lot of next guys, but it beats dating somebody who's not that interested in you or sitting in a corner waiting for some burly man to come to your rescue. (One may -- an archeologist in the year 2110, musing, "Hmm, looks like she died waiting for a guy to grow a pair.")
How come many women on online dating sites expressly state in their profile that they don't want "winks" from men, only e-mails? Isn't a wink just an invitation to look at a profile -- which is what an introductory e-mail is, right?
--Online Daterguy
You never get a second chance to make a really crappy first impression. Next time you're in a bar, and you spot a girl who strikes your fancy, don't bother talking to her or buying her a drink. Just tap her on the shoulder and run. That's basically what you're doing by "winking" online. Never mind coming up with some clever little form e-mail that you personalize for each girl you hit on. Just send that little winkieface symbol, telling a girl you're too lazy, dull, wimpy, or cheap to write her a message (cheap because you can "wink" on a lot of dating sites without paying to join). Sending a wink is also a really girly thing to do -- the online version of wearing a really short skirt and crossing and recrossing your legs. That does send a provocative message -- something along the lines of "Hey, ladies -- guess whether I'm wearing any panties!"
June 1, 2010This divorced dad I've been seeing for a month is really sweet, but he's pushing to go way too fast. Lately, he's been very intense. He came over after I specifically told him I wanted a night alone. He said he thought I needed him but was "too independent" to say so. He says he loves me (I can't say it back), and wants to change jobs and move in with me (he lives 30 miles away). I said I wasn't ready. He keeps trying to convince me that I'm just scared and once I "let go" and let him move in, I'll see that everything is as it should be. I'm 30, divorced, with two children; he's 32, recently divorced (four months ago, after his wife cheated). He hasn't met my parents, and I won't let him meet my kids until I'm sure about him. He says what others think shouldn't matter because "We're in love and happy, so it'll all come together."
--Unsettled
Well, here's a romance for the ages. "How'd you two lovebirds get together?" people will ask. "It's so completely sweet," you'll say. "He was standing on my porch waving a bunch of red flags."
This guy takes the "Dear Occupant" approach to love: Instead of "It had to be you," it had to be somebody, and you're standing right there and have yet to call the cops on him. He claims to love you, but you really have to know somebody to love them. Of course, "We're in love!" plays better with the ladies than "I'm lovable, right? After what that last woman did to me?" or "I'm terrified to be alone...got any spare drawers?"
As for his push to live with you one month in, you don't even meet somebody's parents at that point -- not unless you're 14 and need somebody with a license to drive you to the movies. Plus, an emotionally together dad doesn't expect a mother to announce, "Kids, I brought a strange man home from the bar. He's going to live with us now. I forget his name, so you can just call him Daddy II."
Oh, the way he makes you feel...smothered, pressured, and in need of lingerie with a seatbelt attachment. It's completely creepy how he's trying to sensitive-guy his way into your life, sounding protective of you when he's anything but. You e-mailed me that you've seen the guy maybe six times, yet he's named himself the world's foremost expert on your "real" feelings -- which align so perfectly with his needs: You really love him. You really want him to come over. In fact, you wish he'd arrived in a moving van on the first date. (Any guy can bring flowers -- it takes a really special guy to bring you his bedroom set and 36 boxes of his stuff.)
Love (when you actually have it) supposedly makes the world go round, but relationships run on the boring day-to-day stuff, and how you argue, and how annoyingly one of you chews. This isn't data that's readily available on the third date. What's more, a guy who immediately decides he loves you will find it near impossible to see if he actually does -- until it's too late. Tempting as it is to buy into a whirlwind romance, keep in mind that the focus is always on the romance, not the whirlwind -- the part that leaves your living room in little pieces in the next county under a herd of cows.
A friend read that in 70 percent of relationships, men will cheat, but I've seen all sorts of different stats. Do you have reliable numbers on the level of cheating that goes on?
--Tabulating
You can get pretty reliable stats on cheating, providing you restrict your inquiry to two-timers with wings and a beak. Researchers who test baby bird DNA find that up to 60 percent of the chickies weren't fathered by the mommy birdie's partner. (And, P.S. Don't believe the clever public relations campaign of those sluts, the swans.) In humans, data is "self-reported," as in, "Here's a number two pencil: Tell the truth about your sex life." The results are highly accurate -- if you don't count everybody fudging to seem more studly or less hussyish and cases where everything but "and" and "the" is a lie. The bottom line? Men cheat, women cheat, and if you've ever been involved with a man or woman, there's a good chance you've been cheated on. Delve into your partner's character and views on monogamy before you commit, and you might avoid hiring a private detective or DNA lab to do it afterward -- when you can't help but notice that your wife's a vulture who just gave birth to the most beautiful baby duck.