Response to comment

As for the headline: I can't say now why I found it annoying. Perhaps the print headline was different?

I don't know if the dating experience is worse for black women, statistically. I know it's pretty bad, generally, and few of the issues she brings up are not unique to black women. The issue of what a bad dating city it is comes up regularly among my single close friends, and when I think about it, the ones with whom I've had the conversation most often are black, and they, too, believe that statistically it's worse for them. But my white single friends have an equally hard time of dating in this city, which is teeming with single, well-educated, stylish, attractive women of all races.

Maybe that's it: it's the implication that there's dissonance between being single and being worthy of a relationship. There are lots of assholes who are dating and married and lots of great people who are single. It's not an anomaly. It's not some mystery--how could this stylish, successful, woman be single? I mean, if it is a mystery, it's not because it's unusual. I'm put off by the implication that if you're single, it must be because there's something wrong with you--presented here by it's converse: there's nothing wrong with her, so why is she single?

***
I don't really talk about my own dating on this blog. It ebbs and flows, and occasionally it's absurd enough that part of me wants to blog about it, but I find it too personal. Most of the time I don't miss dating; there's a correlation between my thinking about it and how much I have going on at work and otherwise, so this summer, when I had a couple of unusually slow weeks at work and everyone I knew was out of town, I felt lonely and wondered why I wasn't dating. So during those weeks, I cared, until things picked up and I truly stopped caring. It's not that I don't think I might be happier in a healthy relationship--it's more that I'm not sure I'm going to get there by dating, and I don't generally like dating. Did I ever share this analogy I came up with over the summer? Dating is like hummus: if you only come across mediocre supermarket hummus, you don't understand what the fuss is about and you'd just as soon do without. Then, you try some amazing hummus, and you get it. Unfortunately, this summer's hummus had a short shelf life, and how much hummus do I want to keep trying until I find one that's worth it? I'm open to the possibility of amazing hummus appearing in my life, but searching for it just isn't appetizing, especially because I have such a great network of stupendous bean dips, er, friends, in my life.

Getting back to the point, though, and pushing my analogy past the edge of reason: there are more women in this city than there is hummus, and we're picky, and the hummus is picky. Race is another layer in an already complicated dynamic, and I don't critique the writer for considering it. I'm just saying, there are lots of successful, single white women in the city, too.

Ladies, do not call him

Karen Salmansohn has some great advice, including such gems as, "don't shop for kiwis in a shoe store." Take that in two ways: (1) some people just don't have what you need, so quit banging at their door, demanding it, and (2) don't take advice from people who don't have what you need. Don't take career advice from someone who doesn't have a job; roll your eyes when obese people lecture you about nutrition; and don't take relationship advice from single people (says the single person about to give relationship advice).

I love my single friends (as I love all my friends). My single friends are so incredibly awesome that it is more on their behalf than on my own--I guess it's on our collective behalf--that I get indignant about singlism, and that I feel like the dudes who are not dating us are missing out.But even though I love my single friends, I needn't take their dating advice.

Yesterday, a couple of friends and I were complaining about the sad state of the dating pool, which sparked a prolonged advice-fest with regard to my dating life. I said I hadn't had met anyone I was interested in since last fall, when my really-off behavior convinced the guy that I was either (1) functionally insane or (2) merely not interested. Or (1.5): maybe I was interested but I was blowing him off because I was busy, which was rude, so dating me wasn't worth it. Afterward, I shot him an e-mail acknowledging that I was not at my best that night but that things were getting less crazy. A week later, he sent me a very polite e-mail back essentially wishing me a nice life. That, my friends, is unmistakable "he's just not that into you." And I take full responsibility for it. If I were to contact this guy, I would just put him in the awkward position of having to politely let me know that he thinks I'm crazy. Besides, I promptly deleted his contact information (I believe in a clean break) and continued to date other people.

I believe solidly in "he's just not that into you." I believe that if a dude likes you, he will ask you out. If he is not calling you, asking you out, etc., he. is. just. not. that. into. you. He's not intimidated by you; he's just not that into you. If he likes you, you don't need to contact him to remind him that you exist. If you ask him out, he may play along because what does he have to lose, or maybe he is interested, but you've basically communicated that he doesn't have to do anything but show up. You're inviting this kind of behavior, early. Women stray from the wisdom of "he's just not that into you" at their peril.

And this isn't just my own baggage speaking; I've seen my friends set themselves up for some bull$hit by guys who are just not that into them but more than content to string them along, because it's easier than just saying "no." Seriously, ladies: let the guys do some work. I mean, you don't have to put them through hoops, but don't offer yourself up on a platter.

But wait--EMK has an addendum:

This advice doesn’t work for every single woman in every single situation with every single guy. Basically, WHD was written for alpha females who want to date alpha males...

Beta guys are the ones who have more kindness than confidence. They’re not nearly as assertive. They’re so passive as to be, well, almost feminine in nature. They are not going to put themselves on the line for rejection until it’s 100% clear that you like them. They would sooner wait to get a written notice in the mail that you’re really, truly interested in them than to follow up too much and potentially make you uncomfortable.

[Note: I'm not endorsing the concept of alpha- and beta-males, especially not in the MRA sense; I'm merely quoting--and borrowing language--to denote more shy, less confident guys. I do not condone the description of such guys as "feminine," not that there's anything wrong with that. Note also that I'm attracted to one such guy.]

Okay, you can call that guy, but make sure that's what the issue is. But don't let him push you around for long. At some point, even the shy guy is going to have to show some initiative. That guy is still a man; he's not a man-child (i.e., an omega male). Cut him some slack, but don't spoon-feed him.

I would not say hard

I blogged yesterday, not for the first time, about my struggles with dating. I've blogged before about specific terrible dates and about how dating, generally, sucks. To quote Moira Weigel from that article, it “often feels like the worst, most precarious form of contemporary labor: an unpaid internship.” Paradoxically, it may be what sucks most about being single, which makes it tempting to opt out. We date because we hope that there's something worth it on the other side.

So you'd think I'd have wholeheartedly agreed with this piece, and though I hear her, I don't identify with her plight (and some things are objectively incorrect--for example, it's statistically easier to stay fit and eat well when you're single). I don't necessarily agree that being single is harder. There are things about being single that are hard, and there are things about being partnered that are hard. Making a marriage work is hard. Divorce, from what I hear, is really f*ing hard.

As Rebecca Traister and others have expertly pointed out, women are increasingly staying single because it's never been easier. We're good at life. We partner up only for the right reasons, and not because society makes it impossible to stay single. The calculus of being in a less than optimal relationship has shifted dramatically over the decades. For example,

For women, the marriage calculus is pretty simple: you can only reap the full benefits of today’s optimal marriage when your partner is an equal who pitches in and treats you well.

One reason that it's hard for me to date successfully is that I love my life--almost everything about it--and I'm not willing to give those things up (especially for a less than optimal relationship). I'm not willing to move to the suburbs. I'm not willing to commute. I'm not willing to eat meat. Clearly, I value the opposite--living in the city, having an easy commute, eating according to my values--more than having an easier time dating. But even as I fucking hate dating. If anything, I've learned to be pickier in various ways. Because the issue isn't that being single is hard; it's that I have reason to believe that having an optimal relationship is worth the work of finding it. It better be, because the search is a bitch.

Xmas eve roundup

Two perspectives on Allepo.

Why there's nostalgia for the Soviet Union in spite of its victims.

Evan Osnos on tyranny:

Tyranny does not begin with violence; it begins with the first gesture of collaboration. Its most enduring crime is drawing decent men and women into its siege of the truth.

Our horribly unjust justice system.

Just two excerpts from Coates' must-read "My President Was Black."

Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing “mere” about symbols… Burning crosses do not literally raise the black poverty rate, and the Confederate flag does not directly expand the wealth gap.

and

Historians will spend the next century analyzing how a country with such allegedly grand democratic traditions was, so swiftly and so easily, brought to the brink of fascism. But one needn’t stretch too far to conclude that an eight-year campaign of consistent and open racism aimed at the leader of the free world helped clear the way.

Why I still haven't managed to muster compassion for Trump voters:

But the istina of the 2016 campaign is that Trump’s base was heavily dependent on racists and xenophobes, Trump basked in and stoked their anger and hatred, and all those who voted for him cast a ballot for a man they knew to be a racist, sexist xenophobe. That was an act of racism.

That and this (on the Jewish family that did skip town early because they were smeared by Fox and Breitbart).

Would we have Pizzagate had we responded to gamergate?

You--provided that you'd rather live--want a female doctor.

It's hard to undo climate rules, fortunately.

I recently had reason to revisit these two articles, which I blogged about at the time. This reminded me of the second in particular, in that... the Post wants me to feel bad for these people and I kind of do but I don't. I have trouble responding with compassion (and outrage) to the man who pushes wheelchairs at National and sometimes can't afford to get home. But "I'm a stay-at-home mom of four and can't afford xmas gifts for my kid?" Get a job. If I had four kids I couldn't afford shit either; we all make our choices. And the mom who's kid wants a Playstation? Guess what? I asked my parents for a Nintendo when I was a kid; they told me to make the money for it myself, and by the time I did, I changed my mind (and more importantly, learned that things have opportunity costs--not a bad lesson).

I do and don't hear this. I think vast differences in income can be a challenge on either side. I've not been in a serious relationship where I've vastly outearned the man--I've probably been on any number of dates where I did, but no information would have come out to broadcast that fact. I don't agree that men, generally, are turned off by ambition and outspokenness; plenty are, but who needs them? Also, her other article on 'manly men' is awful--there's a clear line between manliness and intrusiveness and disrespect for boundaries.

Everything about this screams red-flag, even as I don't doubt the benefits of nursing.

More things not to do when dating or trying to.

Dr. Nerdlove on how not to text and other dating truths:

When it comes to dating in all of its forms, there’s one universal sin: being boring... There should be substance behind your texting – something meaty that the other person can sink their conversational teeth into. It could be something crazy that’s happening or a question that prompts a conversation. You could even be texting just to flirt, because flirting is inherently fun. But if all you’re doing is just killing time, then you’re killing the attraction as well.

 and

Rolling into the conversation cock first is a signal to others. Under the most charitable reading, you’re someone who’s so blind to social conventions and emotional intelligence that it’s amazing you’re allowed out of the house. At worst, it’s a giant neon sign that you don’t see the person you’re texting as a person. For all intents and purposes, you’re signalling that you see them as an especially elaborate sex toy and you’re hoping to jerk off inside them.

Pair with this from Ask Polly:

What you experienced is a very personal form of terrorism: Some coward (or group of cowards) resented you and your friends because you had the audacity to take up space and behave confidently while also being sexually attractive. You had more power than they could bear. They hated you for that power, and hated that you didn’t give a fuck how they felt about you.

And while we're reading Ask Polly:

I also think it’s important and smart to invite single people to so-called couples gatherings. That’s just normal, honestly, even if a world of lazy couples tends not to see it that way. Single people need to get invited to do “boring” things, too. A lot of single people love boring shit, but because they’re single, they’re forced to go out on the town a lot, sometimes much more than they actually want to. Supporting single people no matter what, embracing and including people without kids when you have kids — this is just part of being a solid friend. And not to sound harsh, but none of us know when we could end up single again. Shit happens. Defying the stupid-ass ways our culture sorts us into categories is important. The more you break those boundaries and shake things up, the better your social life will be.

To give better gifts, don't overthink it and focus on longterm utility rather than immediate reaction.

See my thread on how (for the bzillionth time) "kasha" DOES NOT mean buckwheat.

I leave you with some holiday thoughts with the extraordinary J. K. Rowling (click and read the whole thread):

But if your life is currently full of difficulties; if you aren’t where you want to be, either literally or figuratively, 5/12

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 24, 2016

Friday evening roundup

War f*s people up, in myriad ways.

I don't understand why some Jews think that Jews are stupid.

Insightful but somewhat depressing look into the ways of Washington.

AAAS dissents from its own board on Prop 37.

Empathy and logic cannot be summoned at the same time.

The Onion's contribution to the analysis of Nate Silver bashing (more here and here). Actually, this is one of those occasional (I won't say rare) instances where Alexandra Petri is worth reading.

Ah, traveling while single. I was just looking into tacking on an excursion to a possible work trip when I was put off by the single supplement (which in one case was more than double the tour price!). This has rarely been an issue for me because I've been blessed to so often connect with friends who want to travel to the same places, but sometimes you just want to go somewhere close to where you happen to be, and they don't make it easy.

Before I knew what that article was about, I thought it might be about navigating the holidays in general while single. This is one of those things--like Valentine's Day--that supposedly strikes dread in the hearts of others, but not me. Not because I'm entirely satisfied with my relationship status, but because I care less about external milestones like holidays. In fact, last year, I was dating someone during the holidays and still felt like I was on my own (mom didn't make it any better by constantly trying to set me up with someone else). At least this year, I will spend little, if any, time with my parents over the holidays.

Back to the article: Paris is complicated. I'm not one to hand anything over to couples, much less one of my favorite cities in the world; on the other hand, Paris can be painfully romantic if you're single. But not for long. I've spent a lot of time there, single, and loved it.

My parents used to make fun of me when I talked about Paris. In the Soviet Union, for most people, Paris was but a fantasy. There was some movie--or maybe some celebrity uttered this line in an interview: "the last time I was in Paris..." and it was scandalous, like someone saying "last time I was on the moon" with the tone one more suitable for "last time I cleaned my bathroom." And yet, my parents were only moderately impressed with Paris when they saw it. It's one of those cities that you have to let get under your skin for you to fall in love with it. And I did, and I find myself saying, with no intention of being obnoxious, "last time I was in Paris..." Of course, by now, last time I was in Paris was 2000 (March, I think), and that city will always have a claim to part of my soul. Then again, so will Cardiff, perhaps for the parts of it that evoke Paris.

***
AAdvantageGeek, thanks so much for the advice! I called Bose on Tuesday and my 1,500 bonus miles were posted that day, no questions asked. Wow. I really should have just dealt with Bose immediately, i.e., exclusively, and left the AAdvantage customer service people to stew in their own incompetence.

Reflections

I was walking back from a client presentation with some colleagues when one, whom I'd never met before, talked about traveling in general--weekend trips, longer trips, etc.--and in particular, a Costa Rica adventure tour she went on. Without giving it a second thought, I asked whether she paid the single supplement (no; she'd traveled with her mom). It only hit me afterward how quickly I'd adapted to the category of "single." One reason that this breakup has taken less of a toll on me--although there's still a toll--is that I have no issues with being single, per se. No stigma, no judgment, etc. I've comforted friends who, upon their breakups, express concerns about being a "loser;" they took their relationship status seriously--it was a part of their identity--so when it shifted, they lost the identity as well as the relationship. As I was just saying to friends last week--before the formal breakup, but as it was brewing--you just can't associate your value as a human with your relationship status. I mean, don't you know a lot of married people who are jackasses, and single people who are awesome? I'm not saying I'm *happier* single or defiant about it; I'm simply stating that it doesn't change how I value myself.

It also has had amazingly little practical impact on my having a life: I instantly found companions for any remaining theater tickets I had, and Nina helped me make new apartment-sharing arrangements for Prague. As for "happier" or not, I've been thinking about that line in "Bonjour tristesse," which I read in college (in Geneva): "She uttered those nonsensical words: I'd rather be unhappy with you than happy without you." Those words made little sense to me at the time, as I'd never been in love. I read a lot of French literature in my late teens and early twenties, and I didn't get it--this concept--then. I read "Manon Lescaut" and thought, "this dude is the biggest idiot ever, to risk losing everything to chase after this woman!" I read "Le rouge et le noir," more than once (but not as many times as "Madame Bovary"), and thought, "what's wrong with her? Why is she sacrificing herself for this guy? It makes no sense." Well--you've probably figured out where this is going--I now get it; I understand how strong feelings interfere with one's better judgment, how you're willing to overlook the things that you thought you wanted in life, to be with someone. I'm not here to slam F. or elaborate on the details of our relationship or the demise thereof, but even as I see that that demise was the best birthday gift ever, I mourn the relationship nonetheless. I was heading for disaster and was hesitant to change course because the feelings were that strong, even for the highly logical person that I am. It took a real downward spiral to pull me out of the path of danger.

You may be wondering how I got involved with someone so wrong for me, and I would be tempted to invoke, if not blame Lori Gottlieb, even though I never read her whole book or fully subscribed to her message. And let's be clear--it had to happen; I had to try her approach for myself and see it fail spectacularly for me personally--to see how wrong it is. When F. and I were happy, the narrative of our relationship was, "how great that we've managed to get past our differences and make this work," but the differences--papered over by intense chemistry and many not insignificant areas of compatibility--were real and mattered in the end. The very things--each and every one of them--that gave me pause in our first month together, eroded us in the end. We have instincts for a reason, and some of our ideas about people are right for a reason. Ms. Gottlieb gave the example, in a radio interview, of getting over herself enough to date a real estate agent, whom she'd immediately dismissed as not artistic enough for her. Fair enough; if you're that dismissive about people for stupid reasons, than she may have something to teach you. But if you have a decent, reasonable sense of what's important to you, honor it. If your ideal summer weekend is some combination of camping, hiking, and kayaking, you may still be able to make work a relationship with someone whose ideal summer weekend may be some combination of sitting by the pool and watching TV. It's doable--I mean, I like sitting by the pool occasionally and watching TV occasionally, and I had/have people to go to the mountains with while my now-proverbial significant other does other stuff. That's why I didn't see that difference as a dealbreaker: I'd accepted that even though my ideal relationship would entail weekend trips and adventure, that ideal was worth sacrificing for the actual relationship I was in.

But the underlying issue was whether someone like me--who seeks out fresh air, beauty, and nature--could be happy with someone who just doesn't care. I thought of Jonathan Franzen's essay on David Foster Wallace, in which he wrote,

David wrote about weather as well as anyone who ever put words on paper, and he loved his dogs more purely than he loved anything or anyone else, but nature itself didn’t interest him, and he was utterly indifferent to birds. Once, when we were driving near Stinson Beach, in California, I’d stopped to give him a telescope view of a long-billed curlew, a species whose magnificence is to my mind self-evident and revelatory. He looked through the scope for two seconds before turning away with patent boredom. “Yeah,” he said with his particular tone of hollow politeness, “it’s pretty.” In the summer before he died, sitting with him on his patio while he smoked cigarettes, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the hummingbirds around his house and was saddened that he could, and while he was taking his heavily medicated afternoon naps I was studying the birds of Ecuador for an upcoming trip, and I understood the difference between his unmanageable misery and my manageable discontents to be that I could escape myself in the joy of birds and he could not.

I can empathize with both sides here--my mom is always yelling at me to pay attention to the birds, and I care, but not as much as she does, and I resent her expectation that I have to enjoy the presence of birds the same exact way she does. When we go for walks, she criticizes me for moving to fast and not stopping to enjoy the surroundings; I can enjoy the surroundings just fine and keep moving at the same time. So I don't pass judgment on other people's relationships with nature; there are people who love it more, are much more adventurous than I, who want to spend a greater proportion of their time than I do in the mountains. There are people in comparison to whom I'm as unadventurous and blase as F. is in relation to me.

What made us incompatible was not that I would have to give up, for example, travel and adventure to spend every moment together, nor that we wouldn't be able to spend every moment together because he wasn't interested in those things; I would have been happy to go camping once in a while, with other people. What did break us up, among other things, were (1) that vast gap, which turned out to be too massive to bridge, between someone who cares and someone who doesn't, (2) his utter unwillingness to expose himself to new experiences, to see whether he might just find joy in the mountains, (3) his inability to directly communicate his lack of interest, coupled with my failure to read his indirect communications as lack of interest rather than lack of initiative--although there was plenty lack of initiative--and my responding thereto with bitchiness, to which he then responded with more withdrawal. Rinse, repeat. We unraveled fast--went from happy to bitter in a matter of weeks--perhaps because once you hit the six-month point, you have to start thinking more critically about whether you should go on together.

It wasn't any one thing that broke us up; it was a combination of too many small incompatibilities that fed on each other and crescendo-ed. Some of those things could have been managed--for example, the practical aspects of having very different interests, and perhaps even the mismatched communication styles; but even as my first post-breakup thoughts were, "could this relationship have been saved if we'd just communicated better?" I immediately knew that the relationship shouldn't have been saved because of the bigger underlying issues. In other words, I could live with the fact that F. didn't like to travel, locally or otherwise, and that I would therefore travel less than I would have considered ideal; and F. and I could have figured out how to talk about what we wanted and didn't to do in a way that brought us together rather than tore us apart. But I fundamentally couldn't, in the long run, love someone who just doesn't care.

Life Lessons from the Internet

I called to check up on my mom. She's feeling better.

A.: How are you feeling?
Mom: Oh I'm fine now. The only thing I need now is for you to write a letter to Verizon for me... you're getting in the 3rd and leaving the 6th?
A.: I AM GETTING IN ON THE 6TH AND LEAVING ON THE 9TH.
Mom: Right, you said that, not sure why I got the 3rd and the 6th into my head. [Proceeds to discuss her phone drama for a considerable amount of time]. So, what's new with you?
A.: Nothing, really.
Mom: [Discusses weather]. What's new with you? What new wonders have come up?
A.: None... just sitting on the porch, here with the wonder that is my cat.
Mom: Er... the way you say that is kind of strange... it's just... it's just that...
A.: What?
Mom: You know what they say... never mind, I don't want to say it.
A.: Say it.
Mom: No, there's nothing to say.

I have a strong feeling that the 'what they say' has to do with single women and cats. Now, my mom is not the first person to bring this up, but I think it's particularly intriguing on her part, because my whole family loves cats, has always had cats. Our cat, that died three years ago this month, was very dear to us all, and my mother says she still thinks about her every day. Yet, all of the sudden, I get a cat, and it's 'oh, single woman with cat.'

I have a friend (at least one) who will not get a cat, even though she loves them, because she doesn't want to be 'single woman with cat.'

I've had a friend suggest that it's wonderful that I have a cat, because now I have companionship. I hate to disappoint her, but a furball that keeps you around because you feed her is not my idea of companionship.

You do know that plenty of non-single people have cats?

In any case, not having a cat because you don't want to feed into a stereotype, is letting a stereotype direct the way you live your life. I'm okay with being a 'single woman with cat.'

More on singleton rights here (courtesy of Jay).

Now back to the conversation with my parents.

Mom: Did you read what I'd sent you?
A.: I'm not sure-- what did you send me?
Mom: You don't read what I send you?
A.: I read some of it.
Mom: You should read all of it.
A.: I don't have time to read all of it. [And I've asked you not to SEND so much of it. And until you respect that, I'll arbitrarily pick and choose what to read.]
Mom: Did you read that one about Warren Buffet?
A.: Yeah, that was short, I read it.
Mom: And?
A.: And?
Mom: What did you learn?
A.: ??
Mom: That's the way one should live!
A.: What?
Mom: One should live like that!
A.: What, in Omaha?
Mom: One should live simply.
A.: Okay.
Mom: Follow the path your life lays out for you. Don't listen to other people.
[What matters here is what I'm not saying].
A.: I don't seek life lessons from cheesy forwards about Warren Buffet.
Dad: I think you have to come to this on your own.
Mom: No, you have to understand it now. They key is, live your life, don't get into a constant spin. [There's an untranslatable Russian word she's using, which I'll convey as 'spin' with a connotation of ADD].
Dad: Yeah, I think you can't force that attitude, I think you have to see it for yourself.
Mom: But look at me: I've been spinning my whole life and now I don't know how to stop.
Dad: He started investing when he was 14, or even earlier!
Mom: Who cares? That's not the point!
Dad: That is the point, in the sense that he did what he loved...
Mom: THAT IS NOT THE POINT!
Dad: Well, he figured it out early and followed his heart...
Mom: THAT'S IRRELEVANT!
A.: Is it really necessary to raise your voice over this? If that's the point for dad, it's a valid point.
Mom: It's not valid for this conversation. The point is, stop "spinning."
Dad: Stop listening to other people, live the way you want to live.
A.: I don't want to live in Omaha.
Mom: Live simply. Slow down. Listen to what your life is telling you.
A. Okay.
Mom: Goodnight.
A.: Goodnight.
Mom: We disagree, so we have nothing more to say to one another. Goodnight.

I'm not really sure what we've disagreed about. I mean, I didn't start defending ADD.

Dad: Goodnight.
A. Goodnight.

Tuesday evening roundup: home, sick edition

Let's talk about singlism, stigma, and cats. I blogged a little about this last week, but here's more: I know Citibank and Honda are patting themselves on the back for appealing to independent women, but I take exception to the us vs. them (and have-a-life vs. have-a-relationship) constructs that they're promoting with these ads. Why is taking care of your leap list and being in a relationship mutually exclusive? The Boston Magazine article touches on that construct as well. It also discusses the whole single-woman-with-cat myth (most cat owners are families, but single people are still anxious about it). It's pretty comprehensive in its coverage of a wide array of 'singlist' frustrations (for eg., why is my colleague's kid's soccer game perceived to be more important than my theater ticket?) It's never come down to that at my workplace, but the idea of the idea is annoying. Bottom line: I don't appreciate the bundling of traits into false dichotomies; the misconception that you have to be either single, adventurous, and connected to society or partnered with your head up your own ass is just as detrimental as the misconception that you can be either married, fulfilled, and happy or single, alone, and pathetic.

Confession: I spotted this article on overparenting as I read the one discussed above, but I haven't read it.

I'm certainly not delighted, nor smug, about Paula Deen's predicament, but I don't understand why she she's shocked by the lack of empathy, given her influence and her choice to deceive her audience for years.

Saturday roundup

Russia's intense outreach imperialism by other (i.e., religious) means.

The world needs sustainable farming.

In case you had doubts, it's safe to raise vegan children.

I blogged the other day about cultural appropriation, and I come down about where Robin Givhan does: it exists but not everything is it.

Creative people regularly dive into treacherous cultural waters. And they should be prepared for backlash. They should know what they are doing and be able to explain their choices. They should be sensitive and respectful.

And observers should remember that not every cross-cultural moment is cause for outrage. Jacobs’s models were a mixed group of women: black, brown, white. Should all the models have been black? Why? How would that validate pink dreadlocks? The clothes were a punk, street, cyber, sparkle fest. Hate the clothes or love them. But the outrage just seems like an exhausting exercise in misdirection.

Innovation takes a village:

Evolutionary biologist Joe Henrich of the University of British Columbia, who recently wrote a book on the role of culture in the success of our species, expects that will indeed turn out to be the case. “I think the idea that innovation depends on individual geniuses is misguided. History shows that inventions invariably build on earlier findings that are recombined and improved upon. Most of the things we use every day are inventions that no single human being could ever design within her lifetime,” he observes. “Rather than the product of individual innovators, these inventions can be thought of as the product of our societies. Innovations rely on individuals learning from others—in that way, human society functions like a collective brain.”

Astronauts and Olymic cyclists (and other women) don't need your mansplaining.

This woman actively talked to her sons about consent, but they still don't entirely get it. 

Women have a right to be complicated, too. Even before "Mad Men" came up, I thought of Don Draper (and also the TV version of Bill Masters) while reading this article. I also thought, the reason we're so turned off by Lena Dunham's character in "Girls" is because she's perfectly horrible. Is that necessarily a gender thing? Hannah H. is no Don Draper.

On maintaining your values and being single:

pursuing the things I genuinely care about is more important to me than hiding who I am to remain “datable” for a man who may or may not show up.

Dating in D.C. had been fine, meh, whatever. But despite my feminist sensibilities, I was lonely. No, I didn’t need a partner to be whole, and yes, I’d rather be Forever Alone than with the wrong person. But I’d never planned on being single THIS LONG.

On dating with cats:

Why do single women get judged for having cats? Society has a bad habit of scrutinizing women for how we live and whom we love. Replace “cat” with “dog” in any of the above instances, and I’d be considered hot — a catch even! — rather than crazy. If I were in a relationship, I’d be one half of a cute animal-loving couple.

And if I were a man, I’d be a magnet for women. What does America call a man with three cats? He’s just a man. Women are held to a different standard than men, and cats to a different standard than dogs.

Alicia keys on the tyranny of makeup. Her detractors prove her right.

I am willing to have a child if she grows up to be anything like this one.

This so reminds me of RM! He would always question me about what I did at work or what I did at work on a given day, and never got the hint that I had nothing to say on the matter.

There are people in DC who can afford exhorbitant tasting menus.

Sunday ramble

I posted, to the roundup a minute ago, this very good piece about how love is not all it's cracked up to be but I actually thought I was posting this piece by Laurie Penny about the value of being single. They're both spot on. Let's start with the first--

Love is quite far down on the list of things that humans “need”—in fact, it’s not on the list at all. Humans need oxygen, water, and food, in that order. Everything else is optional (though clothes and shelter are nearly essential, depending on the climate). Humans are perfectly capable of living an entire life without love. Squirrels don’t love and they seem to be doing just fine.

and,

But “true love,” minus the “one,” somehow persists. It exists in opposition, apparently, to fleeting love—to flings, crushes, and affairs. But really it’s just another form of social elitism: If we believe we have found true love, we are better at life than those who have not.

Which dovetails into the second:

You see, I don’t believe that my relationship constitutes a happy ending. I don’t want a “happy ending”. I don’t want an ending at all, particularly not while I’m still in my goddamn twenties—I want a long life full of work and adventure. I absolutely don’t see partnership as the end of that adventure. And I still believe that being single is the right choice for a great many young women.

and

Today, whatever else we are, women are still taught that we have failed if we are not loved by men. I’ve lost count of the men who seem to believe that the trump card they hold in any debate is “but you’re unattractive”. “But I wouldn’t date you.” How we feel about them doesn’t matter. Young women are meant to prioritise men’s romantic approval, and young men often struggle to imagine a world in which we might have other priorities.

 and

Men are allowed to think of romantic love as a feeling, an experience, a gift that they expect to be given as a reward for being their awesome selves. That sounds like a great deal to me. I wouldn’t want that challenged. Women, by contrast, learn from an early age that love is work. That in order to be loved, we will need to work hard, and if we want to stay loved we will need to work harder.

and!

The trouble is that there aren’t enough of them for all the brilliant, beautiful, fiercely compassionate women and girls out there who could really do with someone like that in their lives. Those men are like unicorns. If you meet one, that’s great. You might think you’ve met one already—I’ve often thought so—but evidence and experience suggest that a great many unicorns are, in fact, just horses with unconvincing horns. If you don’t manage to catch a real unicorn, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. 

 There was also this piece in the Post about how finding love is a fluke; the writer has no answers.

***
This was not the first Valentine's Day that I wasn't single, but it was the first that the man I was with insisted on celebrating--insisted that we spend the actual day (well, evening) together, though it was hardly different from any other Tuesday night, except that Deep Fried Masters wasn't on (he has cable). He got me some lovely flowers, which lit up my cubicle (did I mention that I started a "new" job--just for a year, and then I go back--and now I have a cubicle?) for a few days and are now lighting up my dining room. I walked straight from his place on Wednesday morning to work, flowers in hand, profoundly aware that this was a fluke--this year, I happened to get flowers. Later that afternoon, I overheard (such is cubicle life) someone talking about a recent breakup, and I felt for her. Breakups suck, and it's not the time to have other people's relationships shoved in your face.

Wednesday evening ramble

Do you guys remember that askers vs. guessers divide we talked about in January? What I'm about to ramble about is only indirectly related to it. One of the points was that if you're going to ask someone about something directly, which is my preference, you're not going to press it; if the person is not interested, you let it go and back off. You do not change the conditions of the question; you don't push as to why the askee is demurring; you just drop it. Well, the same goes for things that are not asked. It comes down to how nobody owes you anything, and so nobody owes you an excuse for not doing something you've asked. A simple "no" suffices. If I were less lazy, I'd search for some Miss Manners links to back me up on this.

I bring this up because one of my coworkers called me out today in a really appropriate way. There was a goodbye-lunch for her last week--she's relocating--and I didn't go for a variety of reasons, including that (1) she's not a close friend; (2) I didn't have time; and (3) there wasn't anything for me to eat at the chosen restaurant, and the chosen restaurant generally stinks of friend seafood. I shouldn't have been put in a position to justify my absence. but, today, I was. First, she mentioned that there had been a lunch (among our issue group). Then, she told me that my teammate was there--implying that she knows I didn't have a meeting at that time. Then, after asking how the work was coming along, she repeated--implying that we couldn't be that busy--that my teammate was taking lunches. It was really awkward, but I still didn't feel that I owed her an explanation. And now I feel even better about not having gone. I don't need to tell you that I could have had other meetings that my teammate wouldn't have been a part of (it's not unusual at my place of work to have multiple commitments or plans), or that just because my teammate decides to take lunch on a busy day, I may make a different decision based on what I have going on at or outside of work. More importantly, I don't need to tell her, because I don't owe her an excuse or even an explanation.

***
You may have figured that, based on my mom experience and, to a lesser extent to my RM experience, I have an over-developed sense of boundaries. In that I am very, very attuned to incursions. I'm also very attuned to attempts at manipulation, but that's not an issue here.

***
A few weeks earlier, this woman--the one whose luncheon I skipped out on--came into my office and told me that her heart went out to me because I was single in DC. She meant well; her angle was, "I think you're awesome, and it's unfortunate that you're in a place where awesome women outnumber suitable men." That is a fair statement. But the way she said it was extremely condescending, as was everything she continued to say in response to my responses to her (see above about knowing when to stop pushing.

My first response--and it was genuine--was, "actually, it does not suck to be single in this city. I mean, it is difficult to meet men, but it's a good city in which to have a life in the absence of a date and significant other. I suppose my odds would be better in North Dakota, but would the dudes be better, even though there are more of them?" But she insisted and persisted, and things got weird. She started talking about a friend of hers who, at her age (our age) was finding the dating pool full of divorced dudes, and those dudes have issues, so it's best to date widowers. At least they don't have issues, she said; they were our best bet. What do you say to that? I let her know that, really, I was okay. She continued to try to convince me that my life sucked and that I deserved her sympathy, but I'll spare you the details.

I don't need to tell you that I need no one's sympathy. I was just thinking--independently of that weeks-ago conversation that I only just recalled in light of this afternoon's conversation about the luncheon--about how awesome it was to live where I do and have the opportunities that I have. To be surrounded by awesome people from various aspects of my life. I hope from party to happy hour to dinner with friends to play to discussion group, etc. I have fascinating conversations with fascinating people almost every day. I feel loved and connected and full of love toward (specific) others almost every day. Which is not to say that it wouldn't be awesome to be in an awesome relationship, but it is to say that I am living an awesome single life, so I don't need anyone's sympathy. Save it for someone who's unhappily married or unhappily single or unhappy for any other reason. May your heart go out to me for reasons other than condescension.

Mom knows why I'm single

This afternoon was a perfect storm, or rather, offered perfect storm conditions: I was tired, mom was tired, we agreed to go shopping (i.e., told dad we would), and mom dilly-dallied until the shops would be crowded (I get cranky in crowded shops). Here's a chronology:

2pmish: Dad drops us off (after picking me up from the airport), goes back to work, says he'll be back around 4:30pm. Mom and I say we'll get groceries. We debate between the nearer Whole Foods and the farther (and much less expensive but equally excellent Russo's). I personally hate going to Russo's with my mother because it gets very crowded, and she insists on taking a cart through the store's narrow aisles. But, whatever; at that point I'm game.

For the next hour or so, mom showers and looks for food around the house. She keeps saying she's tired. I encourage her to take a nap. She keeps saying she doesn't want to, it's too nice out... but she doesn't go outside. I proceed to remind her that if we're going to go shopping, we should go shopping. Finally, she agrees that we should go shopping. I ask her if she has the keys to the house. She does not. She looks for them and tells me to look, too. I tell her I don't know what they look like (they recently had the locks changed because one set stopped working). She said they looked like keys. I looked around and saw six pairs of glasses, then seven, but no keys. Then, she found a key. By then, it was almost 4pm.

As we were about to leave the house, mom stopped to dilly-dally about something else. I don't even remember what it was at this point, but it was not important and we didn't have time for it.

A.: Let's go. We'll deal with it later.
Mom: You know what? You make me sick! I don't want to go shopping with you!
A.: Then don't. I'll just go to WF.

[Pause.]

Mom: Well, I know that's not what you really want to do. So be it, let's go together.

There are a few more distractions on the way to the car. Finally, we get to the store. Mom passes up a perfectly good parking spot and drives across the lot, in the opposite direction from the store, and parks in the middle of two spots. I point out to her that she didn't park well. She tells me to shut up, but she moves the car.

We start shopping. She tells me to get a cart, which I do, and of course it is I who ends up pushing it through those narrow aisles. I ask her what kind of greens she wants. She briefly deigns to answer before she goes to the section with the pre-packaged discount foods. Which is normally fine, but the only thing there is plum tomatoes, and store-bought plum tomatoes are already horrendous even before being shrink-wrapped like these are. I balk.

A.: Why are you buying those?
Mom: They're a dollar.
A.: That's a great reason.

We keep shopping. I remind mom she already has onions; she insists she does not. I tell her I saw a whole basket. She doesn't believe me. [Upon getting home, I point to the basket of onions. She says, "huh, I don't remember getting those. Maybe dad did. Anyway, I don't remember their being there." I told her I'd reminded her.]


The crowds are gathering; I'm getting crankier. We come across some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes.

A.: Could we get those instead?

Oh, side note: mom thought she lost her wallet (she later found it, in the house, but not before she cancelled all the credit cards). I told her I'd charge the groceries. She insisted she'd pay me back; I said it was fine. Point is, it's not like I'm only going for more expensive groceries because mom's paying for them.

A.: They're not much more expensive, but they're going to be much better.
Mom: WHY DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING? WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? THEY'RE NOT BETTER! THOSE TOMATOES ARE JUST FINE.
A.: Alright, whatever you say.
Mom: Now I know.
A.: Now you know what?

I know what she's going to say, but I want her to say it.

Mom: I know why you have problems with people.
A.: Please tell me.
Mom: You're so cold. You're difficult to be around. You emit no warmth!

Mom has a point: when I'm stressed and cranky because I'm in a crowded grocery store that I don't want to be in, I emit no warmth. Guilty as charged.

Mom: No warmth! No warmth!

[Pause]

Mom: I know why you're single!

This went on as we checked out, walked to the car, and drove home. I texted Jay and tweeted as she talked.

Mom: No warmth whatsoever. You're cold. You're difficult to be around. You're a know-it-all!
A.: What all do I know?
Mom: I used to wonder, why things worked out for other people but not for you. Now I know.
A.: Things?
Mom: Relationships. Other people have relationships. You can't.

It's funny, but all three people in this world who have taken the liberty to lecture me about being single are divorced (two, one of whom is my mother, have since remarried). And all three said that they married the first time because they were afraid of being alone, were afraid no one else would come along. If there's one reason I'm single, it's because I'm not afraid of being alone. Note: I'm not suggesting I don't have issues; I'm saying that my issues are no less manageable than those of people who happen to have relationships. In other words, my issues are not why I'm single.

Mom: No warmth! I know this woman, she's really fat. But her husband adores her, because she's not a know-it-all and she emits warmth.

Mom: You're so harsh! And you know what, at this point you couldn't correct course if you wanted to. Maybe you've tried to do it, but you just can't.

I think she's projecting. The truth is, I'm very aware of my more negative tendencies, and I'm very willing to manage them. I don't claim to be perfect (nor do I claim to know everything). I own my behavior even when it's tempting to blame mom for putting me in a mood; it's tempting, but I can't. I know that ultimately it's me.

So here's another guilty as charged: if I'm in a mood, I may snap. Certain things--air travel, crowded grocery stores--bring out the mood in me. There you go: I am not a saint. But does that make me an undateable ice queen?

And I know, and I've told you before, that I was not of a saintly disposition in the weeks that my last relationship went to hell, and it's no "excuse" that I was in a bad place. But the relationship did not go to hell solely because of me or because of my alleged harshness or know-it-allness or lack of warmth. It went to hell because that's where it belonged. Mom may see its demise as a failure on my part, but that relationship could never have been a success. And I can almost assure you that I'm the only one taking responsibility for what I could, should have done better as the relationship failed.


Mom: Warmth is important. But you, you emit a coldness. And you snap over the smallest things!

Okay, now mom is truly projecting.

PS: Dad is now arguing with mom about the plum tomatoes. And mom is throwing a fit in response.

Dating advice that makes my head want to explode

I have been having this conversation with my friends--some of whom perpetuate the offending concept--and I've now been provoked into sharing it with you: I'm both enlightened and infuriated by the feminism-ruined-dating strain of dating advice. I'm discovering a fine line between aspects of that strain that resonate and those that are just plain offensive. I should say that even some ardent proponents of the idea don't tie it with fixed gender identities: they're not saying that women need to be more feminine; they're saying that we can't have it both ways. If we're going to take on more 'masculine' characteristics, we should be prepared to have that kind of relationship. Let me see if I can convey how this applies to me, based on my last relationship, while maintaining anonymity and privacy. I also want to reiterate that the post-mortem lessons are not of the "we could have made it work, if only" variety; they are of the "we would have weeded each other out as incompatible, early" variety. I absolutely don't regret that that didn't happen. I think we both needed/wanted the relationship to work (and had reasons to believe that it would). That said, having gone through it and the aftermath, I'm not interested in a repeat. So here's what I can buy: women needn't pursue a guy unless they want to keep pursuing throughout the relationship. As it were, I did not pursue F.; he pursued me. But once I was effectively wooed, I took over the planning. It wasn't a control thing; I just had a lot going on in my life (existing theater subscriptions, etc.), so it was easy to ask if he wanted to come along. And before I knew it, I was the only one doing the asking--an arrangement that annoyed me instantly. Now--here's where the gender "neutrality" comes in: this arrangement may work if the woman is content being the initiator, but I'd had it. I started to question whether he even wanted to see me, in spite of other positive indicators. I felt like I was expected to keep time over the weekend available for him--and so, when other plans came along, I always asked if he wanted to join in--and the pattern reinforced itself. Again, this wasn't objectively bad; it just wasn't the relationship I wanted. It got really bad when I was trying to plan a wine-tasting outing--something he said he'd wanted to do--and I found myself thinking, "do I want to be in a relationship where I'm the one even planning, much less pulling teeth to plan, a wine-tasting outing?" And so I did what I do: I communicated directly about what wasn't working for me. This didn't go over well. But I digress. Yes, I want to have it both ways: I want to be with someone who takes initiative most of the time, but there are still going to be things that I want to do and that I want to feel free to suggest, without a guy thinking he's off the hook for planning. I can understand, without being offended, that women like me have ruined a generation of guys because there are things we want to do in this world, and we're not going to wait for a guy to do them. I can hear, without being offended, the following: "There are a lot of men on the planet who are spoiled and lost their hunting skills. They’re used to women doing everything for them." Again, those relationships can work, if that's what you want. I'd say my parents' relationship is like that. That is not what I want. So I buy it: women could benefit from sitting on their hands a bit more, especially early on. What bothers me is taking this all one step further and pushing women into an entirely passive role. We're supposed to keep our schedules open, in case a date comes up? That sounds like really bad, counterproductive advice. There's another aspect of gender-laden advice that I can buy, but it goes both ways. Some people love to point out that women don't understand that men and women are interested in different things, and so women "promote" their masculine traits and put themselves in competition with the men they'd want to date. The guy equivalent of this would be that many men don't understand that women aren't as visually driven; crotch shots and even shirtless shots do nothing for us. That is not what we're looking for in a partner. But since that works for guys, some guys think it's what would work on women. Conversely, women (apparently) don't understand how little men care about their professional and physical accomplishments. They don't care that we may be a partner in a law firm, or run marathons or climb Mt. Everest. Most men look for women who don't just offer exactly what their guy friends offer, i.e. competition, intellectual discourse, etc. They're looking for someone to be nurturing and feminine. Fine. But I'm seeing this tension between two strains of advice coming from the same sources: (1) Be yourself, know yourself, be happy--no one else can make you happy; only happier; and (2) Tone it down. Be flexible, don't compete, let go of yourself a bit. You can do both of those at the same time, kind of. It's when the second half is promoted to the extreme that I get offended. A man can't respect your intellect and be attracted to you at the same time? If he respects you, you're friends or business partners? Really? I get that attraction isn't based on things like intellect and accomplishments, but can't they coexist? And--keep in mind, I've always been happy single, and I maintain that you can't be happy in a relationship unless you're already happy single. I'm a proponent of the idea that someone else can only make you happier. That said, that "er" is nothing to sneeze at; when that relationship was going well, I was exuberantly happy. Given the choice between happy and happier, I'll take happier. Ergo, I'm happy single, but I've come to understand/see for myself that I'm even happier in a (healthy) relationship. But you can't be happy in a relationship if you give up too much of yourself, and there's a point last night--when I was listening to this relationship webinar--that I said, "f* it." It was the same "f* it" I felt when my friends said, "men don't want to date a vegan." I mean, well then, I'm sorry but that's who I am. And I feel the same way about some of this stuff. I understand that for men, a romantic connection/attraction isn't intellectually based, but for me, being able to connect to someone intellectually is essential. Not central, but essential. If I have to "tone it down" and "play dumb"--and I understand that there's a difference between not being overly in-your-face and competitive, which is fine, and playing dumb, which is not. But when the dating advice gets to the point of advising women to be overly passive, etc., that's when I say "f* it." If you're indeed right that that's how it has to be, than I'm better off single.

Monday morning roundup and rambles

The Times did very well with a headline and story rightfully meant to enrage: a six-year old girl gets bartered for her family's medical expenses.

The Times also fell into the trap, in its obituary of Yvonne Brill, of writing the profile of an accomplished woman with undue emphasis on her personal life.

The Canadian case against Keystone.

I've seen a number of the plays Peter Marks talks about and I don't think they're that great, particularly "Mr. Burns." If it is "brilliant," I must be an idiot.

***
I very much enjoyed Mike Daisey's "American Utopias," but it did not need to be as long as it was. Not only was it too long for a play without an intermission, but it was too long, period: it would have benefited from some editing. Same goes for Amy Herzog's "4,000 Miles," which is not a very good play. It's a mediocre play that has its moments, including its very funny and very poignant moments. But it doesn't come together; it doesn't succeed. I think of "4,000 Miles" together with "Bachelorette" and "Motherf*er with the Hat," the latter of which is the best and funniest of the three, in that not one is an excellent play. They are all entertaining, they all have messages that they spray more than they say (and I prefer my theater unaerosoled), and they all have provocative--bordering on shocking--sex-themed discourse. Which makes me wonder whether sex-themed discourse (particularly of the shocking variety) is a crutch, a cheap but amusing substitute for structural and substantive strength.

***
The "Mindy's Birthday" episode of The Mindy Project and Laurie Sandell's poignant "Modern Love" essay to which I linked the other day both address the minor indignities of the single life. On the show, Mindy gets a "microwave meals for one" cookbook of some kind, among other 'message' gifts. Sandell writes,

I felt depressed every time I had to check “single” on a form and when I sat down for a fancy meal I’d prepared for one.

I won't say I get depressed, but it does get old. What are these forms implying?? I did get sick of replying to my mortgage broker, every time I refinanced, that, yes, it was still "just me." I reflected shortly after my last breakup (almost a year ago now) how instantly the change in relationship status hit, but it didn't actually bother me. I don't judge myself for my relationship status; nobody I actually care about judges me for my relationship status--except for my mom, but she judges me for so many other things that it's a wash. So why the status-based angst? I'm not talking about the 'legitimate' reasons for wanting to be in a healthy relationship; just that sting of checking 'single.' Why does it sting more than checking an income other than 'over $250,000," which should also bring us back to our realities?

The (other) city

ETC, tell your friend that if he wants to meet single women, all he has to do is move to DC. The numbers are in his favor, and that actually has a self-multiplying effect: men in DC know that the numbers are in their favor, so most of them are especially full of themselves, which makes the few who aren't more attractive to women. I could go on and on about dating (and also, not dating) in DC. I can ask many a friend to contribute. I probably have this conversation once a week, with different/alternating groups of friend. I don't even remember who it was that said it was because the men are all power-hungry and take themselves too seriously. That was weeks ago. That could be part of it, but I like start with the most basic possible explanation: they are full of themselves because they can be. The most widely cited figure is seven single (straight) women for every one single (straight) man. You have the married, the gay and the leaving-the-country. With those kind of odds, it's not hard to feel good about yourself. The upshot is, no need to take dating classes; just move to the nation's capitol.

Saturday afternoon roundup

What's with the pandering to families?

DC (at least as of last year) is officially the worst in terms of single woman:single man ratio. It's also not a great dating scene for conservatives.

Run far, far away from someone who makes you feel bad about your appearance. If there are red-flags out there that can be expressed in a single sentence,"When I walk into a room I want everyone to think I'm with a beautiful woman," is among them.

Awww! I love a vegan love story.

Oreos may be vegan, but these are also gross.

Ernessa, just caught up on F&N. Love the family eating guidelines. I can't imagine a story, much less two, in France, about parents who opened food in the supermarket to give to their kids before paying for it because the kid just couldn't wait.

When storms come, they don't f* around.

Metaresponse

I do think her angle is geographical, at least partially, and in any case, I'm not dismissing her problem. I'm stating a fact: successful black women do not have a monopoly on dating troubles. Your point is a good one--the dating woes of black women may be more systemic, more grounded in the sociological backdrop you bring up. I'm not arguing with that--I'm arguing with a couple of premises of the article--or what I perceived those premises to be.

Now, I'm not saying the issue doesn't merit discussion or study or fiction. If you'll recall, I said in my original post that I'd be interested in reading the book. However, I do want to make sure we're on the proper level of analysis. Returning to my statement that "successful black women do not have a monopoly on dating troubles," one could also accurately say that black people have no monopoly on having been hit hard by the recession. That is a true statement. It's also true that, as a demographic, black people have been hit harder for reasons that are systemic rather than not random. The latter is a valid point very worthy of discussion, policy consideration, etc. Nonetheless, running a headline about how black people have been hit hard by the recession is going to piss off unemployed white people with no health insurance. Running an article about how and why black people have been hit harder, as a group, would be less controversial (for more people, anyway).

What else don't black women have a monopoly on: being told that they don't deserve the kind of mate that they desire and that they're too picky. (Nor perceptions of aggressiveness, but that's another argument). I've often been told by family and friends that I was being too picky and should lower my standards. Now, the specifics didn't match--nobody specifically brought up not having a degree--but details aside, it does happen all the time. I rarely tell my parents that I'm dating, but at one point when I was in a longer-term relationship it was inevitable. Even after I discovered that the person I was dating was an inveterate asshole, I took much too long to broke up with him (partly because I listened to most of my friends, who encouraged me to work it out). When I finally did, my mother (who knew none of the details, but that's never stopped her) yelled at me for being picky and told me to get back together with him.

That's the danger of talking about "epidemics" based on one person's story. It's one thing to go anecdotal when it's her book, but it's another when it becomes a one-person trend article. If you're going to talk epidemics, you need numbers and maybe longitudinal studies. Otherwise, all I can do is talk back in anecdotes--my own as a single, reasonably successful and not hideous white woman, and those of my friends. Among my black, female friends in DC, the only one raised by a single mother is the only one who is married (or otherwise in a relationship). I'm not claiming I have a representative sample--not a lot of my friends, of any race, were raised by a single parents. But that's just it: we're either dealing in personal stories or we're dealing in trends, and to turn one into the other requires backing it with some empirical rigor.

Not having read the article about Holocaust survivors' children, I can't produce an informed response to whether or not the argument is analogous, but I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, "black people have all sorts of residual PTSD b/c of our history in this country." In fact, I think it would be worthwhile to consider the two together. It's not a competition; it's not an issue of "black people have it bad, too." Suggesting that black people, too, have PTSD issues to be considered doesn't imply that Holocaust survivors' issues don't deserve to be considered "in their own right." But "in their own right" doesn't conflict with being considered alongside of similar situations. In my humble opinion, looking at both together would only shed more light on the issues that Holocaust survivors children may have.

Follow-up ramble

I'd wanted to see Machu Picchu since I first learned about it decades ago. It was twenty some years ago, according to our guide, that the tourism really picked up. I asked the guide whether the uptick had been, on balance, good or bad for the local community. He said it was, emphatically, good. That said, people in Cusco--including those that benefitted from the influx in tourism--said that the rising prices were hard to keep up with for the locals.

Saturday morning roundup

Somalia's come a long way but still has a ways to go (i.e., institution-building to do).

Containment is an obsolete concept.


Wow, some people really hate women.


Tom Philpott calls out The Guardian for vegan-baiting and oversimplifying the quinoa issue.

There are a lot of things in this world that can add to your costs, or that could potentially depress you about being single. There's no reason to be depressed about the combination of the two. I say that even after last night over drinks, I told a friend about my roof drama, to which she responded that if she were single, that kind of expense would break her. To which I shrugged--that's why we have emergency funds. That's why we make wise decisions about the house we can afford. If anything, being single forces you to be more careful with your finances. That doesn't mean spending less; it just means being more careful.

The other side of this credit card dispute issue is that some merchants could be more transparent about recurring charges.

People are turned off by having to read words?? Wow. Idiocracy is here.

Tuesday evening roundup and ramble

I've been thinking about Camille Paglia's unfortunate column since I linked to it last week. So many things with which to take issue, but I'll take just one:

Furthermore, thanks to a bourgeois white culture that values efficient bodies over voluptuous ones, American actresses have desexualized themselves, confusing sterile athleticism with female power. Their current Pilates-honed look is taut and tense — a boy’s thin limbs and narrow hips combined with amplified breasts. Contrast that with Latino and African-American taste, which runs toward the healthy silhouette of the bootylicious Beyoncé.

Sterile athleticism? WTF? What bothers me most about this--and it should be the implication that femininity is inherently weak--is the idea that we can prescribe the body type women should aspire to--that even CP can consider herself the arbiter of what is and isn't sexy--instead of letting women be themselves. Women come in all body types, and it does us no good for the gender studies police to declare that we should look one way over another. Have you seen the really annoying comments about Crystal Renn's slim look? So what if she's naturally shed some pounds or was photographed in a slimming outfit? She's not the poster child for big-is-beautiful. Okay--maybe she is--but she doesn't have to be--she doesn't owe anybody that. You can't mandate that she stay voluptuous any more than you mandate that someone stay or get thin. Shut the f* up. And meanwhile, let beautiful curvy women stay curvy.

This Hax-moderated discussion--on whether single people "have issues"--is a goldmine. There's so much to say, and most of the comments have actually said a lot of it, and well. Let's take one thought: who doesn't have issues? Single people hardly have a monopoly on issues.
And one person's "issue" is another's quirk. I'm sure RM thought (thinks) I have issues because I believe in boundaries.

Clearly--just look at the inane commentary surrounding the last two nominees to the Supreme Court--there's still suspicion about single women especially. See also Maureen Dowd's brilliant columns on said commentary.

I was also thinking about the "marry him/settle for mr. good enough" issue this weekend. I take particular offense to one of the underlying implications: that the supposed aspects of women's appeal (physical attractiveness) diminish over time, while men's (money) appreciate. Really? In this day and age when so many women are primary breadwinners and generally out-earn men? And, seriously--when I run into men I haven't seen in a while, I often think, "wow, he's not aged well." It doesn't matter, but it matters within the realm of this absurd paradigm. Lori G. might be right: most people who criticize her book haven't read it. But she's made her own bed by opting for a controversial title and subtitle and seeking out controversy.