Wednesday 28 November 2012

21 Days of waiting....


[i]

To me there is no moment more perfect nor more comforting than the moment when you are laying down with your head on your loved ones chest listening to their heart beat.  Their soft skin cradled around your ear, the steady rhythm of their heart pulsing, the sweet scent of their cologne, it is all flawless.  In that moment I am warm, happy and could stay in that moment forever.  Of course forever laying like this is never attainable as one of you gets hungry, has to use the bathroom, gets too hot, or someone’s arm falls asleep; these absolute pure moments are short and fleeting.  This particular moment is a moment I miss, and I would love to say I miss it on an occasion but in reality I miss it every night when I lay down to sleep on a lifeless pillow.  Do not get me wrong, my short, fat, snorty pug is of endless affection and love to me, BUT he is not a man.   Another moment that I find myself reflecting on is the compliment.  Men, however awkwardly, or unintentionally have a way of giving a woman a compliment and women truly believe it.  It can be as simple as the food you have cooked is delicious to your ass looks great in lulu lemons but the moment that compliment is spoken there are those few seconds as the compliment sinks in, some of us blush, some of us smile it warms the soul to know that man that you care so deeply about approved you. 

It is these beautiful moments that I believe lead to the “abandonment trend.”  You all have either done this or have a friend who frequently does this.  One day you have your best friend, she calls you every day, and you drink wine, dance, chat, talk about going to the gym, or what have you.  Then suddenly she meets a man and a month later you have barely spoken to or seen her.  Some women freak out and are dramatic while most women do what women do, they call up their other girlfriends and complain.  They say how unfair it is that their best girl in the world has now become someone else’s best girl.  But, this does not change things, nor will it ever.  What is interesting is that men feel the same phenomena, and men, being male do not submissively take the rejection as the majority of women do.  No, indeed men fight for their man, and what occurs? Well, you as the naive, clingy new girlfriend become the enemy.   What essentially develops is a tug a war over your man’s affection.  It has been labelled by some “buddy vs. Girlfriend’ dynamic” Defined as: “When a character's best friend (possibly a Heterosexual Life Partner) and the Love Interest have a rivalry over "ownership" of the third party.”[ii]

[iii]

For men they have broken some bro code (for women it can also be labeled, crudely as a ho code):

“When your homie starts going steady with a girl, he takes on a new role: the boyfriend. Suddenly, the awesome dude you know is gone, replaced by (what you think is) a sissified woman-pleaser. He obsesses over everything She does; freaks out when She’s upset; talks about Her constantly. Seeing a man in this emasculated state pisses us off – and we blame the girlfriend for the change. We wonder what happened to our guy, who used to be so uncaring and tough with other women. We discuss ‘what this skank is doing to him’ between ourselves.”[iv]

How do women deal with such a phenomena, some of them choose to fight right back with their man’s friends. Recently Ms.J was experiencing this as her new man’s bud called her a C U Next Tuesday and she was livid, she expressed to me the next time she saw him she was going to “Let him have it” which of course she did, in the end her man is no longer friends with Mr. D (Mr. D will be a reoccurring phenomena as he is such a good name for the men in our lives who so many D words describe) Ms. K experienced the same phenomena with her man recently, his newly single friends were hungry for a wing man and thus they began the process of stirring up trouble.  She took the same approach as Ms. J, anger, she said “Mr. D (we will call him Mr. D for this story as I know him personally to be so many non-complimentary terms that start with this letter) is trying to start s%#t with Mr. A and is trying to get him to do stupid....” Women often view what men do together as this, just dumb. In return men retaliate:

 “We hate this because single guys are used to doing stuff together. We use our “man-time” to bond over the smallest of things, i.e. Pizza Thursdays and Paintball Sundays. Girls don’t understand these activities; to them, what we do ranges from “loser crap” to “big waste of time.” So they coax, coerce and sweet-talk their men into spending more time with them and less time with us.  Which is an unforgivable transgression. When a friend is busy getting laid, we get it. But seeing a man go for cocktails with Her friends when we could be watching all 6 Star Wars movies back-to-back is just wrong.” [v] 

Of course in this battle “Hilarity Ensues. Except when the friend is poisonous, the love interest is clingy or psycho-possessive, one or both might decide to Murder the Hypotenuse,[vi] leaving the other a Cassandra Truth[vii]. Less murderously, both start a secret war for the affection and attention of the third party, trying to slander the other while seeming innocent. By the end one or the other usually reveals they were less than ideal as a friend or lover and get cropped out of the picture.”[viii] In simple English the fighting continues until one of the fighters is annihilated out of the relationship. 

 

[ix]

 

            On the other hand, I have been guilty of this myself on many occasion the new girlfriend enemy buys the affection of the male friends.  This action is simple but it is also very manipulative, in my defense it is for a good cause, the mental sanctity of your man.  It may be as simple as baking a batch of fresh cookies conveniently right before heading to his place, or if they are work out buffs you bring the latest edition of Men’s Health for the loo, or if they are beer fans a case of their favorite beer, what a coincidence! These male enemies cannot keep the image of you as the wicked witch of the west as they enjoy reading their favorite magazine that you strategic placed by their favorite chair as they enjoy a fresh cookie straight of the oven, unless they have no soul, in which case run for the hills as all friends are a reflection of ourselves[x] and that means deep somewhere in your man’s psyche he too has no soul. (On a side note this bribery also works on your girlfriends love interests that get the ludicrous idea that you are a bad influence and you want to change their mind) Of course with your bribery you must also kill them with kindness and never make your man choose between the two of you IN the beginning. “In a world that is being reshaped by the relentless advance of technology, what stands out are acts of compassion and connection that remind us what it means to be human.”[xi] Eventually the friends will begin to see you as part of the herd, once you are fully accepted you will be able to spend time alone with your love with nothing but support from the rest of group.  However, by the time you have reached this point in your relationship you have also become quite attached to his friends, but this is a whole new realm of conversation that I will not be writing on today.  If all his friends are female it is very similar “Female friends can become territorial. It’s like dogs who mark fence posts with piss. If a new girl appears on the scene, all of a sudden, they feel threatened. Does this mean they can’t hang out with Bob anymore? What about cuddles? We’ve all been guilty of treating male friends as substitute boyfriends because we enjoy the attention.”[xii] But, the jealousy factor arises as well as some other complications that I am not even begin to try and understand.   

 

In the past 21 days I have been mourning the loss of Ms. J to the new girlfriend trend of abandonment and have been substituting my male friends for sure.  But, more so I find substituting different girlfriends, meaning longer and more frequent calls about random things, more texting and more plans to get together.   So in reflection an increase in social activity which really must be healthier than the alternative spinster approach. I have also began to miss the little things about men.  The waking up with someone and the fun of cooking breakfast together, the cuddling, yes I admit it cuddling is wonderful, the awkward moment before the first kiss,  and of course the physical intimacy.  However, these days have given me further insight into relationships than I have ever gotten actually being in one.    So it has been a learning lesson for sure.  This weekend should hold some excitement as Ms. A may come to visit and Cirque du Soliel is in town. 

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

[xiii]

 


[i] This is actually a photograph taken by Hayley Erickson of my dog on the beach in Powell River, BC.
[ii] “Why Men Hate Their Friend’s Girlfriends” George P.H Hall of the Black Dragon Jun 4/2012
[iv] “Why Men Hate Their Friend’s Girlfriends” George P.H Hall of the Black Dragon Jun 4/2012
[v] “Why Men Hate Their Friend’s Girlfriends” George P.H Hall of the Black Dragon Jun 4/2012
[vi] Hypotenuse = in geometry the longest side of the triangle, meaning one side of a love triangle in this particular example.
[vii] Cassandra Truth = the title comes from the mythical seer Cassandra, whose prophecies were always accurate but never believed due to a curse from the god Apollo.
[viii] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php
[x] “Friends, A Reflection of you!” Kenia Morales Eioba 12/03/2006
[xi] “It’s more important to be kind than clever” Bill Taylor Harvard Business Review August 23rd 2012
[xii] “Dealing with your boyfriends friends” http://www.nzgirl.co.nz/know/4952/
 
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Wednesday 21 November 2012


Two Weeks of Thinking and Not Doing

 

[i]

It is always the case when you are on an extended man hiatus that you will begin to notice the amount of attractive men on your regular transit route.  There is one particular gentlemen, let us call him, Mr. Bus, who I have been noticing as of late.  Mr. Bus has two positive qualities going for him already, besides his dashing looks of course; one he lives in my neighborhood so the commute if we were to ever have a date would be short and sweet. Two, Mr. Bus has a job, or at least that is what his morning commute would suggest at 6 am Monday to Friday.  Mr. Bus gets off on the same stop and fuels up at the same coffee shop as well, leaving a fairly large window of opportunity for conversation.  While contemplating said options on my commute yesterday Mr. Bus made an epic move that changed my entire opinion of him.  Two elderly women boarded the bus with Mr. Bus, I stood up to give one of the women my seat and low and behold Mr. Bus took a seat and only one of the elderly women could sit.  This small action really bothered me, is chivalry really dead? But not to be hasty in writing off a man’s demeanor in one small action I decided to observe if this behaviour persisted.  Of course today on the bus it did, what kind of man enjoys a comfortable seat on a long commute as a petite elderly woman hangs on for dear life? Not the type of man that I would be interested in.  The realization that if it were not for my hiatus I would have asked Mr. Bus for coffee last week, but thankfully due to my absence I dodge his inconsiderate bullet.  The longer I abstain from men, the sharper my ideals of what makes a real man become.  While discussing these ideals with Ms. A she laughed and said “Well you have to have standards” Standards, something women and men have a lot of due to supply and demand.[ii]

 



Therefore these two weeks I have really had time to contemplate my standards for men and have decided to share them with you.

1)     Employment: Lord I wish this has always been a standard of mine, but love is blind.  There was a period of life where I dated men who had graduated with their grade 9 diplomas and were working the fast paced job of the bingo hall, but that was last week...kidding, that was high school, and while there have been some moments in time where I have thought “So he is between jobs, that doesn’t mean he will never get one” There is no sense in wishful thinking that a man will change.  Now some of you may be thinking ‘gold digger’ while a man who is financially secure does, of course, have the allure of a gold card the more alluring quality about this man is that well he is exactly that; a MAN.  He has learned to wake up in the morning, put his big boy pants on and go to work like the rest of us.  There is nothing more attractive than a driven man who has a successful career.   Also, given that I am one of the successful working class it is essential to find a partner in life who is one same level as you.   Modern Darwinism follows that women will time and time again choose a man with a successful career over the opposite despite looks.[iii]  Over time money has become our evolutionary system, a system in which we absolutely depend on currency to survive, thus women look for partners that will enable their survival.

2)     Shelter: Directly before my man hiatus I had a tryst with a man who physically could have passed for thirty easily, but, was alarming younger 21, he had a very nice place and had a few of us over after a night out, but in the morning to discover he still lived with his parents was a joke.  At the age of 21 I was half way through my first university degree and had been living on my own for 3 years.  This trend of staying in the nest never to spread one’s juvenile wings may be attributed to the ever increasing Peter Pan demographic. “What is happening here is that a very new social phenomenon – and a troubling social phenomenon at that – is being written off as a simple byproduct of economic downturn. In reality, the reason many young adults stay at home, having their shirts ironed and their dinners cooked, is because they live in a culture that doesn't encourage, far less celebrate, independence and personal responsibility.”[iv]  At the ripe old age of 30 as a woman who lives on my own finding a partner who has as the article directly states enough ‘personal resposibility’ to live on one’s own is a must.

3)     Communication: There is nothing more frustrating than texting “Do you want to meet up tonight?” and receiving this text back “K” Hello minimal effort and no enthusiasm.  There is a simple answer if you are not interested.  There is nothing more aggravating than attempting to communicate with a man the majority of time.  There are some theories as to why women and men have struggled in this realm, women when aggravated speak faster and interrupt their partners which is over whelming to men who are not as agile in the communication realm according to one theory[v], or “Most men have a hard time communicating anything that remotely resembles an emotion. Why? Because emotions are scary to men, who think much more than they feel, and much of the time, many men don't even know what or how they are feeling.” [vi]  But I think my favorite theory yet over the communication barrier is the following: “There are some other interesting facts that can enlighten us as to why it seems that "men don't talk," for example women have twice as many words as men. Women speak at 250 words per minute and men speak at 125, and according to Gary Smalley, author of "Making Love Last Forever" in the course of a day women speak 25,000 words compared to a man who only uses 12,000. It seems that by the end of the day men are talked out and women still have a day's worth of conversation in them. So one of the reasons men don't feel comfortable talking is because most women can out talk them.”[vii]  Regardless of the never ending reasons for men, I have met some incredible communicative men in my life and therefore keep this as standard.

While attempting to take a break from the opposite sex has actually made me consider them more deeply than ever before.  I have been spending more time reading and obviously writing than before as well, I have also began running and joined a gym.  Basically two weeks in and by the end of this hiatus I should be a physically fit individual with a very specific set of standards. 



 


[i]  Stomp.com.sg
[ii] “Relationship Rules” Hara Estoff Merano,  Psychology Today Oct 1st 2004
[iii] “How Women choose the Men They Date” Matthew Fitzgerald Ask Men (http://ca.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_100/105_dating_advice.html)
[iv] “These Sad Peter Pans live with their parents because they want to, not because they can not afford to move out” Brendan O’Neill The Telegraph May 31st 2012
[v] “6 Ways Men and Women Communicate Differently” Richard Drobnick World of Psychology April 1st 2012
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] “Men and Women’s Communication is Different Sometimes” Communication Currents Vol 6, Issue 1, February 2011
Second Photo from: https://www.google.ca/search?q=Construction+workers&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=wjmtULWAConMigLc1IGIDQ&ved=0CDgQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=868
Thrid photo from: http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thingsoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/women-running-beach-sunrise11.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thingsoftheday.com/?attachment_id%3D4412&h=336&w=509&sz=21&tbnid=oU_9Ox4HcaQy1M:&tbnh=86&tbnw=130&zoom=1&usg=__F3PSYcFqubatZj-rAt4lcApFVtM=&docid=fkvk3PXFUas_-M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-jmtUOK4J6jfigK17oHADA&ved=0CDYQ9QEwAw&dur=275
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Wednesday 14 November 2012

Seven Days and Holding Strong:


[i]

                Seven days in and feeling pretty good, unlike the popular episode of Seinfeld in which Elaine abstains from sex and become increasingly mentally inept I feel the same I as I did on day one.  In fact I do have slightly more energy lately, am feeling happy and have found my vocabulary has increased exponentially.  Perhaps like George in the same episode of Seinfeld I am becoming more mentally acute sans the opposite sex. A Freudian view on sexual sublimation and perhaps this challenge will lead me into a whole new world of promise.  However, that is not to say that this week did not come without its challenges.  There were two obstacles that I overcame this week that shook my confidence in my ability to make it 180 days.  The first and I would have to say will be the biggest challenge to my 180 day hiatus, the night club scene or more directly the alcohol effect.  Statistically 80% of random sexual interactions happen in places that serve alcohol and of these numbers 44% of these actions end in relationships.[ii]  It is no wonder why going out in the city has the potential to shake my 180 day stance.  But, it is more strongly believed that alcohol makes women make choices they would not normally make, “In many women, alcohol increases sexual arousal and desire, although it does lower the physiological signs of arousal...Studies have shown that acute alcohol consumption tends to cause increased levels of testosterone and estradiol. Since testosterone controls in part the strength of libido on women, this tends to cause an increase in interest in sex.”[iii]  Exactly.  So with the increase in arousal and the decrease in inhibition[iv] also known as standards or beer goggles.  “"Beer goggles" is a slang term for the phenomenon in which consumption of alcohol lowers sexual inhibitions to the point that very little or no discretion is used when approaching or choosing sexual partners. The term is often humorously applied when an individual is observed making, or later regretting, advances towards a partner who would be deemed unattractive or inappropriate when sober. The "beer goggles" are considered to have distorted the "wearer's" vision, making unattractive people appear beautiful, or at least passably attractive.”[v]  Or  as someone I use to know use to say “You’re going home with a 10 at 2, but waking up with a 2 at 10” it is nothing short of a miracle that anyone in the city makes it through a drunken weekend unscathed by sexual interaction.

 First moment of weakness in my challenge went like this:

In the beginning of the evening I was fine drinking beer with friends and chatting about the aspects of sexuality but of course this conversation plants the seed.  Then drinking a little gin at the club begins to water the seed. Followed by dancing with men of the opposite sex which only nourishes that seed.  There comes a point in the night when your dancing partner and you are pressed up against one another and you take that deep breath in of his scent “Androstenol is the scent produced by fresh male sweat, and is attractive to females.” [vi]And what began as a seed is now a full blossomed idea.  Your eyes dilate and cheeks flush[vii] and your idea is now more than just a blossomed plant it is full on desire. And, that is about when I realized that if I were to give in to the man effect at a mere four days into my hiatus that would pretty much be like I had never tried.  So to the bewilderment of your dance partner, who you have only known for about an hour and you know, will find a wonderful new partner in a matter of minutes you excuse yourself and head home.  Some victories are the small ones that you make in the beginning, although it has become apparent that such avoidance will become increasingly hard over time.

[viii]

The second challenge came this week from the X factor, the ex boyfriend, we shall name him Mr. X.  According to the majority of literature in this world, from the beginning of time, on post breakups there is only one remedy for a broken heart and that unfortunately is time.  While Jim Carey was on to something in Eternal Sunshine, wouldn’t it be great if we could undergo a procedure and forget how much we once loved someone or we could meet a new person that would just replace that person and make you stop missing them completely? Unfortunately, this will never happen, sooner or later the wounds heal and as we all know it hurts.  So while Mr. X gave my last box of things to a mutual friend this week, getting my last box of things from a most horrendous breakup rubs salt in those almost healed wounds.  This box signifies the true end all to end all of the past 3 years of what you thought was your happy life. It fractures the ego and of course when one’s ego is bruised there is a strong desire to have it rebuilt. Of course you could stay in and stew in your own self wallow, lick the salt out of your wounds and call your ladies for support but deep down you crave an instant distraction, and what better distraction than the opposite sex to build you up. It is the ultimate temptation to enter the bull ring all over again to feel the rush of the build up, but the matador must not forget what it is like to be gorged by the those horns. So instead of looking for solace in the comfort of the opposite sex I kept my wits about me this week and nursed my wounds on my own. In the infamous words of Bridgette Jones: “It is at times like these that we are faced with a choice: to give up or not. And this time, I choose not. I will not be defeated. Instead, I choose vodka.”[ix] Also, I choose prolonged phone conversations with Ms.A, Ms.J, Ms.K and Ms. M.   I have now come to realize this hiatus could not have come a better time as research suggests the rehabilitation time for the soul is 25% the length of your relationship.[x]  Given this information it will be approximately 5 more months on my quest to have completely rebounded back to a healthy ordinary life, if there ever existed such a creature.

There we have it.  Seven days and still holding strong, avoided the lovely temptation of the club scene and kept stable and alone in the face of the Mr. X factor.  All around a successful week but hope there will be more to report on this journey next week! 173 more days and counting.

[xi]

 


[i] Picture 1 from: http://www.businesstravellogue.com/travel-tips/chief-beer-officer-summer-internship.html
[ii] “Alcohol Plus Sex Equals” New Jersey Collegiate Consortium for Health in Education, Rutgers University, 1992, 1-4
[iii] "Women and Alcohol," McKinley Health Center, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, 1985
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Beer Goggles - Wikipedia
[vi] “Smell of Male Sweat May Arouse Women” Miranda Hitti, WebMD News, February 9th, 2007
[vii] :The four phases of the response” Magnus Hishfeld Archive for Sexology
[viii] Picture 2 from: http://izismile.com/2010/08/20/sexy_shirtless_men_56_pics.html
[ix] Bridgette Jones
[x] “Recover from a Bad Breakup” Mark Amundsen, Happen Magazine, Nov 2012.
[xi] Picture 3 from: http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=pictures+of+a+broken+heart&hl=en&sa=X&rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-Address&rlz=1I7BBKB_enCA507&biw=1280&bih=868&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=Gi85L77y9oNqcM:&imgrefurl=http://chantelleova.wordpress.com/tag/heart-broken/&docid=zhOr2dtqXVji-M&imgurl=http://chantelleova.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/broken_heart.jpeg&w=300&h=323&ei=FcujUPPqMavLigLk8YDgDw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=620&sig=105660013920483651936&page=1&tbnh=143&tbnw=137&start=0&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0,i:84&tx=86&ty=55
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