I hate dating, and for that reason, I have never done it. I do not understand dating at all. Yet were you and I to meet, this would probably not be your impression; long-time friends don’t really get it either.
It’s not that I don’t like hanging out with guys. I have always loved hanging out with guys; I love the whole guy talk schtick. It’s not that I don’t think sex is good; I think it is quite good. Moreover, although I don’t really see it this way because it sounds bad and inappropriate to me, I am told that I am a catholic flirt: I flirt with young and old men and women, babies, dogs, birds, everybody (except cats).
My point is that, to the world, I guess I seem like someone who would date, and maybe date a lot. No. No freaking way. The mere idea that I would agree to go to dinner or drinks with someone, with the naked subtext of “Do either of us want to sleep with the other?” running like a prurient news crawl underneath the veneer of conversation is so fantastically upsetting and alien to me that it actually makes me sick to my stomach. How could a person do that?
I know that this makes me nuts, everybody tells me I’m nuts. Yet, there it is. My feeling is: Why are we even watching this movie if we’re not getting married? (I would do very well in the Orthodox community, my Orthodox friends tell me. Then I show them my tattoos. Okay, maybe not so much, Susie.)
A brief look back at my psycho-sexual development explains things to some extent. But more on that later.
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Damn... I had a long ole comment typed out about dating and being born on the cusp of things (like between zodiac signs and the Chinese New Year and the fringe between baby boomer/gen x demographics) and not feeling like a baby boomer, even though, technically, I am, and that I'm right there with you sistah on the dating thing (and the orthodox thing, and the tattoo thing, though I don't think I flirt with anything, but if I did it would definitely be with a cat)... and went to post the comment and the verification thingie came up and I lost the post because the image didn't come up and I couldn't type it in... it probably has something to do with the world running on PCs and my being on a Mac... damned PCs... anyway... so I'm trying again... cheers, Adriane
ReplyDeleteFor some reason this post calls to mind the scene from "Tootsie" where Jessica Lange confides in Dustin Hoffman as his "Dorothy Michaels" alter ego, that she wishes men could just be honest and come straight out and say that they are attracted to her and want to go to bed with her. Later Dustin Hoffman approaches her at a party sans makeup/disguise and repeats word for word what she claimed she wished men would say to her and gets a drink thrown in his face.
ReplyDeleteFrom the movie Three Kings
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120188/quotes
Archie Gates: What's the most important thing in life?
Troy Barlow: Respect.
Archie Gates: Too dependent on other people.
Conrad Vig: What, love?
Archie Gates: A little Disneyland, isn't it?
Chief Elgin: God's will.
Archie Gates: Close.
Troy Barlow: What is it then?
Archie Gates: Necessity.
Troy Barlow: As in?
Archie Gates: As in people do what is most necessary to them at any given moment.
When I saw this movie and was watching the scene from the quotes, a young guy two seats behind me yelled out "SEX" to the main question.
I thought, how rude to bop me out of the hypnagogic state. Then soon after tripping over watching the movie and also thinking about the loud audible disjuncture a tinge of sadness with bad tasting despair. The subtext I heard hearing "SEX" was, "I want to FEEEEL." (and I don't know any other way without coming to terms with my wounds.