Although I’m a staunch feminist, I took my husband’s last name. We regularly get mail to “Mr. and Mrs. John Doe.” Because of my long-standing hatred of this method of address (eliminating the woman’s first name), we deliberately return-addressed our wedding invitations and subsequent holiday cards with “Mr. John and Mrs. Jane Doe,” hoping people would understand our preference. Yet, even friends and family who knew me prior to marriage are writing “Mr. and Mrs. John Doe.” Surely my own loved ones would consider me someone who still has a first name! My husband understands my plight, but postulates that if I’m so bothered, I ought to inform the offenders. I do feel strongly about this (and all matters pertaining to a woman’s right to her own identity), but I’m an extreme introvert who’d rather die than hurt people’s feelings. Should I care less about what others think and tell them they’re hurting me by perpetuating something I find reprehensible?
--Blinding Rage
Dear Mrs. John Doe,
Enough about your blinding rage, let’s talk about mine. Last weekend, my boyfriend and I were staying at a hotel. I called down to the front desk with a request. The front desk guy said, “Certainly, Mrs. Sutter!” Well, I’m not “Mrs. Sutter,” and I have no intention of ever getting married. So…what was the proper response, lecturing him in the myriad ways people have committed relationships these days -- or simply thanking him for giving us late checkout?
Of course, I understood that the guy was taking his best guess in an attempt to be polite -- not suggesting that a woman sharing a hotel room with a man is either his wife or a hooker. Likewise, it’s doubtful your friends and relatives are trying to communicate that you’ve lost all personhood in their eyes. Tradition says, and etiquette experts advise, that the correct way to address correspondence to a married woman who took her husband’s name is the way that peeves you most. Just a little something to consider before you come on like the Kim Jong Il of Christmas card feminism.
Yes, you did mail out your personal Magna Carta on how you were to be addressed -- communicated as a hint, probably in tiny script, on the upper left corner of envelopes. Sorry, but what kind of person has the time to pore over every piece of mail they get just in case there’s a hidden message in the return address? Probably one whose choice of daily activities is largely limited to chiseling through reinforced concrete with a sharpened toothbrush or sitting on their cot waiting for parole.
The real problem starts with you, the “staunch feminist” who took her husband’s last name. A wee bit of disconnect, huh? Luckily, there’s no need to admit you didn’t quite think this name-taking business through when you can blame friends and family for your “plight.” Couldn’t you just be happy you got Christmas cards? You could also follow the lead of an increasing number of women who feel powerful enough that they can be traditional, or even girly, without feeling like some subjugated patriarchal tool. Then again, if you can’t help but see this as the Western version of female circumcision, quit gnashing and send out a polite announcement that you’ll be using your maiden name. Yes, a woman has a right to her own identity, but when she willingly takes a man’s name then wigs out when people actually use it -- well, it’s kind of like going to a Klan rally and getting all poopy when nobody will join hands and sing “We Shall Overcome.”
February 21, 2007My best friend of five years was the maid of honor at my wedding, and wants me to be hers, too. The problem is, whenever she isn’t with her fiancé, she’s with another man. They go on dates, have sex, and send each other sappy text messages. He paid to name a star (in the sky!) after her for Christmas, and got her a $300 spa package. She says she cannot imagine her life without her fiancé, then says the same thing about Guy B. When I tell her I can’t help her plan her wedding to Guy A while she’s telling me about being with this other man, she says I’m judging her, and abandoning her, and I’m just a “fair-weather friend.”
--Tormented
Like the bride-to-be, I’ve recently made the disappointing discovery that a number of people in my life seem to be “fair-weather friends.” Just last week, I was planning to rob the liquor store, and my so-called friend Jackie, after all I’ve done for her, refused to drive the getaway car. And the other night, I just didn’t have what it takes to drag the garbage bags of body parts into the backyard, then do all the digging. Wouldn’t you know it, I called Nancy, Hillary, and Cathy, and surprise, surprise, everybody’s shovel was “in the shop.”
Oh, sorry, was I confusing “friend” with “accomplice”? Ideally, a friend is somebody you love, respect, and admire, whose fundamental values resonate with yours. Sound familiar? I didn’t think so.
“Friend” is one of the more misused words -- a warm, fuzzy word carelessly dropped into conversation to describe arrangements that aren’t the least bit warm or fuzzy. Much of the time, it should be accompanied by a qualifier; for example, “Proximity Friend,” a “friend” whose main merit is being conveniently located. Sure, you eat with this person every day -- not because you find them particularly compelling, but because you find they’re usually ready to hit the cafeteria when your blood sugar is. Next, there’s the “Nothing Good On TV Friend”: You’re bored, you hate bar-hopping alone, what the hell? And don’t forget the “Historical Friend.” You have so much in common. Okay, well, just those Hanson concerts way back when, and that time in eighth grade when you two got caught shoplifting Hello Kitty.
So, for your “friend,” it’s raining men. This doesn’t mean you have any obligation to stand around holding the umbrella. If she really cared about you, she wouldn’t be demanding you become the accessory to a major sliming of a guy you’ve probably gotten to know and like. Sure, you’re judging her and abandoning her, and what took you so long? As my friend Cathy Seipp says when people accuse her of making a “value judgment,” “I’ve got the values, so I’m making the judgment.”
You might put your own values to work by encouraging this girl to do the right thing and at least tell the fiancé she’s “confused.” Of course, you should formally resign as her maid of honor. Inaction on your part actually speaks louder than whistle-blowing. If you tattle, she’ll most likely deny it. But, when the maid of honor bows out of the wedding, the groom’s gonna wonder. In the meantime, re-evaluate all your friendships and see whether they fit the bill. After all, if this girl’s your “best friend,” who’s your second-best friend? I’m guessing the lady who hits your parked car and leaves a big dent and the note, “I’m just leaving this note because people are watching.”
February 14, 2007The other night, I really hit it off with a woman I met in a bar. Even though her friend had taken me aside and told me I could get this woman to go home with me, at the end of the evening, I only asked her for her number. When she hesitated in giving it to me, I gave her my e-mail address. I still haven’t heard from her. My guy friend chided me that I missed an opportunity to “get some.” The thing is, I am not looking to just “get some.” What I want most is a lasting, stable, sexual relationship with a woman with whom I can share this fleetingly beautiful existence. Did I do the right thing, or should I give up on my foolish notions of finding that special someone and just go for the “hookup”?
--A Gentleman
It’s not the sort of thing you dream of telling your grandkids: “Your grandma and I met at a bar. We were drinking heavily, and she looked awfully good at closing time.”
Still, even if you aren’t looking to “get some,” if you do happen to be offered some, the wisest course of action isn’t covering your privates and diving behind a barstool. This doesn’t mean you have to end the evening in the position to cancer-check a woman’s hidden moles. But, once you get something going with somebody, why not see that you keep it going? At least offer her a ride home, take her out for pancakes, grope her on her porch.
Whatever you do, do something -- except if that something is giving her your e-mail address. You’re better off giving up on ever seeing her again. (Beats being chained to your computer, waiting to be wanted.) “But, she wouldn’t give me her phone number!” Well, be a man, ask harder, and cut your losses if she still doesn’t respond. For all you know, this woman “hesitated” because she didn’t know how to tell you she wanted to go home with you -- not go home alone and forward you something about how your deodorant could be giving you a brain tumor.
Where you go wrong is in thinking the choices are mutually exclusive -- either share fleetingly beautiful drunken sex or “this fleetingly beautiful existence.” Sure, the hookup has its downsides: pregnancy…disease…missing the thrill of the chase because there’s no need to run after anybody, just roll over in bed. And then there’s the chance that “that sweetie” from the bar will turn into your psycho-stalker. Despite being given no assurances a one-night stand would lead to any future nights, there she is, storming around outside your workplace, shouting through a traffic cone, “Is that all I was to YOOOUUU?”
It turns out one of the downsides for other men could be an upside for you. Yes, some women can “compartmentalize” the way men do -- decide they’re having a fling, and that’s that. Even so, people don’t always know what they want. Sometimes they just think they know what they want. And with women, sometimes a hormone called oxytocin does their thinking for them. It kicks in when a woman has an orgasm, making her feel bonded to her partner, even if, intellectually, she’d rather be the kind of girl who uses him and puts him out like the cat. In other words, having casual sex doesn’t necessarily preclude you from having, well, formal sex -- all that naked and nasty stability you’ve been pining for. It may even lead you there -- providing you see to it that it’s not over until everybody has a big finish.
February 7, 2007Several years ago, I lost every penny I had, along with my health. I eventually recovered my health and career, and, in the process, grew up. I’m now in my mid-30s. Previously, I had two three-year relationships, but I only started dating again recently. The last woman I dated had eight drinks (yes, eight) on our first date -- and sounded like no stranger to the bottle. She confessed to a recent affair with a married man (I’m still trying to figure out why an affair was cool, but she was “nervous” about dating again after her divorce). She also told me things about her friends and family that would make Caligula blush. Even so, the fact that I’d never married made her leery of me -- and other women I’ve met have also found it a bone of contention. I’m a good guy, have good relationships with my friends and family, and I’m moving up at work. How come my matrimony-free life seems to be a stain on my character?
--Single And Degenerate
Nothing makes a guy persona non grata with the ladies like neglecting to marry and divorce two or three of them and scatter kids all over the place like birdseed. Or, as I like to call them, “Future carjackers of America.”
What, exactly, were you doing that you couldn’t find your way to an acrimonious divorce by 30? Oh yeah, crawling back from death’s door, rebuilding your career from scratch, and getting your self together instead of inflicting it, unformed, on some unsuspecting woman. And this is a stain on your character? Consider the source: a woman who drinks the bar dry on date one, whose affair points to a view of marriage vows as mere suggestions, and who doesn’t just hang with a bad seed or two, but more of a bad crop.
You’re a victim of the dating version of racial profiling. Like the Navajo handing down the oral tradition, generations of women have passed down the notion that any man who hasn’t wifed up by 40 must be an irredeemable bachelor -- interminably selfish, set in his ways, terrified of commitment, a major player, or just too busy with his boyfriend. In 1950, when pretty much everybody married, and usually in their early 20s, this assumption wasn’t such a stretch. Back then, U.S. Census data put the “median age for first marriage” at 20 for women and 22 for men. By 2003, it had risen to 25 for women and 27 for men, with more and more people marrying for the first time in their 30s, 40s, or 50s -- if at all.
So, are you a man who won’t commit, or a man who won’t commit to just anything? A woman who tells you what you are instead of asking you about yourself and getting to know you is telling you a lot about herself. This isn’t to say one snap judgment necessarily deserves another, but there are certain women prone to such leaps: those holding a stopwatch to their ovaries; the type who’d say to a guy, “I’m nothing without you,” and really mean it; and women who take an abstinence-only approach to critical thinking.
Women who do think understand that it isn’t a huge accomplishment to get married; just get drunk and impulsive in Vegas. That’s your chance to learn what’s worse than waking up clueless as to the name of the aging stripper snoring into your chest hair. Not to worry, “Darling” is just as good a save when the mystery lady also happens to be your wife.
