Okay, it's been a while. I'dlike to say that I was really busy, but that was only part of it. Truth be told, it's always a little intimidating putting stuff up here, even if I know that not that many people read it.
Now, to bait and switch from my own insecurities, I'll talk about someone else's. Over this past weekend, an acquaintance complained about how he just doesn't understand women. When I asked for more detail, he revealed that his girlfriend had been getting onto him for not talking with her on the phone enough, even though she'd spent fifteen minutes in silence during their last conversation, and he made it perfectly clear to her that he doesn't like talking on the phone. Amazingly enough, he was stunned when everyone around told him that it wasn't women he had trouble with, it was her weirdness. Now, they've been away from each other for months (ah, college love), but this is something they really need to work on if they care about more than sniping at each other.
But anyway.
Folks, if you say you have problems with men or women, get a grip and realize you're talking about outties and innies, just like when you were in preschool and weirded out by the kids whose belly buttons didn't match yours. You don't have problems with a gender, you have problems with people. My little sister's had strikingly similar experiences in life, and is the only one in my family who can donate marrow to me should anything happen. She's a missionary, and I write about pretend dragons. That's not a difference caused by her being a woman and me a man, it's a difference because we're not the same people.
And now, for you women out there... you're dead wrong about many men not being romantic. Trust me on this one. We want to find the perfect woman, settle down with her, maybe have kids, maybe not. We want her to be happy, and that doesn't mean sex, that means enjoying the interplay in life in general. I'm 28 years old, most of my friends are married while I haven't been in a relationship in years, and yet I have to dole out advice like remembering that *gasp!* love isn't like in the movies. My friends know what I know - yeah, I get lonely sometimes, and I want to change that, but I also know that I enjoy the romantic closeness more than the sex stuff.
Yes, ladies, that's right - men are like that, too. In fact, if you haven't already heard of them, I know of three movies off-hand that deal with this exact issue. I don't like most romance flicks, but I love these three. Why? Because they actually acknowledge that long-lasting love's got bigger problems than the initial set-up, that the "perfect man" may well end up being that wacky "best friend" guy after all, and that the man's just as neurotic about all of it as the woman.
In reverse order of when I last saw them:
Love, Actually. Yes, Hugh Grant's still annoying me, and the movie often tries too hard to be quirky. Fuck it. Liam Neeson's incredible in it, the romance between the body doubles is hilarious, and Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson play the exact roles I'm talking about here.
The Tao of Steve. This is very literally a male romantic comedy. Donal Logue's a slacker
who advises his friends on how not only to get laid anyway, but how to do so philosophically. The movie not only doesn't gloss over the consequences of his attitude, it also shows how he arrived at such opinions, and why he eventually abandons them.
Finally, we have my favorite: High Fidelity. Like the Tao of Steve, it's a dude's romantic comedy, but this is John Cusack's finest hour, and Jack Black's first big role in a popular movie. Ignore both anyway, and go with the movie itself: this is a guy who's in his mid-thirties and at a dead-end job, has lost his girlfriend for reasons even he acknowledges are both well-founded and should've caused the break-up years earlier, and yet he still can't figure out why she broke up with him. The movie details his attempts to rationalize everything, including all his previous break-ups with women he's nominally cared about. Much of the movie is just Cusack monologuing to the camera, or narrating the events depicted, but it's also pretty ballsy in allowing Cusack's character to be cruel at times.
Oh, and I put the seat down when I'm done, don't fall asleep right after sex, and if I don't want to watch what a woman does, I can find something else instead of fight over the remote.
Life's weird all over.
Now, to bait and switch from my own insecurities, I'll talk about someone else's. Over this past weekend, an acquaintance complained about how he just doesn't understand women. When I asked for more detail, he revealed that his girlfriend had been getting onto him for not talking with her on the phone enough, even though she'd spent fifteen minutes in silence during their last conversation, and he made it perfectly clear to her that he doesn't like talking on the phone. Amazingly enough, he was stunned when everyone around told him that it wasn't women he had trouble with, it was her weirdness. Now, they've been away from each other for months (ah, college love), but this is something they really need to work on if they care about more than sniping at each other.
But anyway.
Folks, if you say you have problems with men or women, get a grip and realize you're talking about outties and innies, just like when you were in preschool and weirded out by the kids whose belly buttons didn't match yours. You don't have problems with a gender, you have problems with people. My little sister's had strikingly similar experiences in life, and is the only one in my family who can donate marrow to me should anything happen. She's a missionary, and I write about pretend dragons. That's not a difference caused by her being a woman and me a man, it's a difference because we're not the same people.
And now, for you women out there... you're dead wrong about many men not being romantic. Trust me on this one. We want to find the perfect woman, settle down with her, maybe have kids, maybe not. We want her to be happy, and that doesn't mean sex, that means enjoying the interplay in life in general. I'm 28 years old, most of my friends are married while I haven't been in a relationship in years, and yet I have to dole out advice like remembering that *gasp!* love isn't like in the movies. My friends know what I know - yeah, I get lonely sometimes, and I want to change that, but I also know that I enjoy the romantic closeness more than the sex stuff.
Yes, ladies, that's right - men are like that, too. In fact, if you haven't already heard of them, I know of three movies off-hand that deal with this exact issue. I don't like most romance flicks, but I love these three. Why? Because they actually acknowledge that long-lasting love's got bigger problems than the initial set-up, that the "perfect man" may well end up being that wacky "best friend" guy after all, and that the man's just as neurotic about all of it as the woman.
In reverse order of when I last saw them:
Love, Actually. Yes, Hugh Grant's still annoying me, and the movie often tries too hard to be quirky. Fuck it. Liam Neeson's incredible in it, the romance between the body doubles is hilarious, and Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson play the exact roles I'm talking about here.
The Tao of Steve. This is very literally a male romantic comedy. Donal Logue's a slacker
who advises his friends on how not only to get laid anyway, but how to do so philosophically. The movie not only doesn't gloss over the consequences of his attitude, it also shows how he arrived at such opinions, and why he eventually abandons them.
Finally, we have my favorite: High Fidelity. Like the Tao of Steve, it's a dude's romantic comedy, but this is John Cusack's finest hour, and Jack Black's first big role in a popular movie. Ignore both anyway, and go with the movie itself: this is a guy who's in his mid-thirties and at a dead-end job, has lost his girlfriend for reasons even he acknowledges are both well-founded and should've caused the break-up years earlier, and yet he still can't figure out why she broke up with him. The movie details his attempts to rationalize everything, including all his previous break-ups with women he's nominally cared about. Much of the movie is just Cusack monologuing to the camera, or narrating the events depicted, but it's also pretty ballsy in allowing Cusack's character to be cruel at times.
Oh, and I put the seat down when I'm done, don't fall asleep right after sex, and if I don't want to watch what a woman does, I can find something else instead of fight over the remote.
Life's weird all over.
dorkgirl:
you need to update
signon:
Might help if I remembered the password. 