Dating Daze

Why is it that every time men and women come up in conversation, (which is pretty much constantly in the circles I frequent), there’s always an underlying ‘us/them’ mentality?

Is it ignorance? Like the less you know about a certain group, the easier it is to make up how they’re ‘oh so different’ from you in your head and kind of dehumanize them? Are we subconsciously using the classic justification countries give their people for starting wars? “Just look at them, over there acting like animals. We need to save ourselves. Kill or be killed. Get ‘em.”

I really don’t care for this prevalent idea that an element of battle exists in every male/female relationship and that there’s a constant power struggle happening beneath the surface. Now, I see nothing wrong with a healthy give and take, but I just don’t think an all-out tug of war is really necessary. Or helpful.

It’s even driving some women to make some outlandish Herlandish comments. All this talk I hear about how women should live together in Victorian houses and raise their kids without men in a coop-type environment, well, there’s just no need for that. Of course it’s always said jokingly, but there’s an element of truth in every joke, no? They are us, we are them. It doesn’t have to be like that.

Men have gender expectations to live up to that society places on them just like we do. They’re supposed to make money and be successful while we’re supposed to have babies and successfully fight the aging process.

And don’t look at me like that either. I know we’ve come a long way as a whole, but people still see us differently. How many times have I traveled, and how many times has there been a female pilot? Um, that would be once.

It was wonderful too. Zero turbulence. Which made me wonder if male pilots subconsciously create turbulence because it makes them feel adventurous and like they can then ‘fix the turbulence’. (See, that’s probably exactly how the separatist ideas get started. A few snide comments are all it takes.)

I truly believe that men are looking for the same things women are though, love, closeness and a human connection with another person who complements them perfectly. A yin to their yang.

This guy recently accosted me while I was rollerblading, and by the end of the ride had us living happily ever after, our days filled with beach volleyball and Scrabble. (Which is so not me, since anybody who knows me knows chess is my game. Even though I haven’t had any real competition lately. ;0) )

I let him have his fantasy though while we skated because I felt sorta bad bursting his bubble right away. He just was looking for love, that’s all. Looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces…, but still, just looking. And aren’t we all?

Men try to impress women too, just like women try to impress men. They use money while we use boobs, but still, same idea. Just different sides of the coin. We’re both out there trying to make ourselves look more attractive. Just look at the success of Victoria Secret and the Wonder Bra.

And while we’re on the subject of the breastssssss, I say ‘No fair!’ to padded bras and breast implants. Who gave women the green light to embellish on an area in which I naturally excel? That’s my department. (I have a lot ‘going on upstairs’, in case we’ve never met.) But now that there’s so much rampant implanting and padding and pushing up going on in L.A., I’m merely average.

If only it were that easy to supplement your butt. I tried once with the ‘butt pad panties’ and they made the biggest difference when I ‘accessorized’ them with a skirt, but they’re just not as comfortable as a padded bra. Or as accepted. It would be weird to wear them all the time. Society would probably frown upon it.

That one-day badonkadonk sure was something else though. One guy was like, “No disrepect, but you have a great butt.” And I said thanks very demurely, like that was something I hear all the time. It was fun.

Men do the same thing and try to ‘augment’ what they see as their imperfections too. I saw a pill on the bathroom floor of my ex-boyfriend’s house once, so of course I picked it up to look further into the matter.

You would have done the same exact thing by the way. It was just so organic how it came about; it wasn’t like I was looking around in his bathroom cabinets or anything. (Now that had taken place months before. Do I look like a novice to you?) j/k. Really.

But there it was on that pill, just out there for the world to see. One word that was actually very telling.   Said quite a bit.  ‘Propecia’.

You would have been proud of me though; he never suspected I knew. I swallowed too many to count hair growth pill jokes in the interest of not being mean. And I was so supportive too! “Oh yeah, you should definitely shave your head “because it’s summertime”. Go for it.”

And here’s yet another similarity between men and women: we each have flagrant cheaters in our ranks. Men get more bad press on their discretions than women, but we do it too.

Case in point: One day my friend Jared saw an ‘I love you J’ note under a pile of clothes in his girlfriend’s bedroom, and she said it was for him. He thought nothing of it, only to later to find out the note was actually for ‘Jackson’ when ‘J’ #2 gave him a surprise phone call to discuss their Michael Jackson/ Paul McCartney ‘The Girl is Mine’ situation. Yeah, we’re no saints either.

Now I’m not denying there are differences between men and women, I just don’t think they’re polar opposite differences. I do see how the misconceptions and Mars/Venus theories get out there though.

We definitely act differently in relationships. Men tend to look at the big picture, whereas women see every little nuance that ever has been or ever will be. We just have to be better at those pictures they have in kid’s menus at restaurants where you try and figure the 10 ways the two pictures are slightly different. Have to be.

Anthropologists, (or is it sociologists? Maybe if I’d spent more time in college making the responsible choice of going to class instead of directly from Zona Rosa to Sproul, I might remember which, but whatever), anyway, one of them says that our differences stem from our cavemen days. The men would go out and hunt while the women were left in the caves with the little cavebabies and all the time in the world to let their imaginations run wild.

Where is he?!? And when’s he coming back? What if he fell off a cliff? Oh jeez. And where’s the meat? Ole girl from the cave down the street better not think she’s getting any of his ‘winnings’ either. I see how she looks at him.

I love having this knowledge because it makes me feel so much better if I’m ever acting crazy. “Hey, not my fault”, as I shrug my shoulders. “Totally biological.”

Since men didn’t have the luxury of time to analyze things as they were too busy ‘bringing home the bacon’, they evolved to be much more literal than women. Which might explain why they don’t seem to take hints very well. Or at all.

I was sharing my ’strategy’ to get to know my neighbor with my guy friend, (a strategy consisting of me sitting on my balcony all the time) and he goes, “That’s your strategy?” I was like, “Yeah. Why? It’s too obvious, isn’t it.  I mean, really, why else would I be out on my balcony all the time?”

After insisting that we start our ‘man classes’ immediately (him as teacher, me as student), he goes, “Look, men don’t take hints. Period. Exclamation. Spell it out for us. Twice for a better return rate. And with words, not balcony sessions. ”

It took me a while to understand that since women do the exact opposite. We’ll make up some sh*t in a second!

When over a half an hour passed as my girl friend and I tried to ‘decipher’ whether a text from a guy I’d gone out on a couple dates with was a booty call, I finally asked, “I mean, what’s he trying to say with this text at 12 pm, ‘Are you still up?’? What does he really mean!????’” And she said, “Well maybe he means, “Are you still awake? Have you gone to sleep yet?” ;0)

It was a huge epiphany for me though. It was my “Miranda’s ‘he’s just not that into you’” moment. That’s exactly what the text meant. Nothing more, nothing less. Trying to read between the lines was a complete waste of time. We communicate differently, and in two different dialects no less. Theirs’ just doesn’t have double entendres like ours’ either; I need to stop thinking it does.

It seems like men’s and women’s timing is off too. We keep trying to synchronize it but haven’t quite been able to get it together yet. Relationships never move at the pace women want, (i.e. faster). Although I guess it’s a fair trade, since sexually things usually don’t move at the pace men want.

And speaking of sex, men sure do seem to have a lot more solo escapades than women do. They’re a lot more sexual. One of my guy friends in New York is always late to work because he does it every morning. He weighs his options each morning, “Catch the train… or jack off… If only I don’t do it today, I’ll be on time!” But still comes in late every day. Priorities.

We should celebrate these differences though rather than seeing them as cause to be up in arms. Let’s wave the white flag and join forces. There’s no reason to be man or lady-centric when we all in this together. It’s not about who comes out on top; we’re a team.

One of my friends recently started the ‘Rodney E. King Church of Interdenominational Brotherly Love’ LA Chapter, and I’m thinking of joining. Because don’t you think we’d be much happier if we all just got along?

We’re really not night and day you guys. Everybody’s just out there trying to make it in the world and do his or her thing. Even if we are ‘apples and oranges’, are the two really that different? They’re both fruits aren’t they?

Both can be sweet or sour, both are primary colors, and both start with a vowel. There’s good ones and bad ones in every batch, and we shouldn’t let a few bad ones spoil the whole bunch. It’s high time we acknowledged that we’re more like ‘two of a kind’ rather than ‘irreconciliables’.   After all, takes one to know one, right?

This entry was posted Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Dating advice, Relationship Advice. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.