October 29, 2003
Last weekend I asked myself that question that every woman must occasionally ask: Why the hell are people always implying that I'm a dominatrix?
"It's because of your body, hon," said my friend Lucy as she sipped her chardonnay and thumbed through the S&M section of a free weekly. "The bossy personality is just an added bonus."
At least that helps me understand it more. The weird thing is that although I agree that I have a… let's say, compelling… personality, I also consider myself a slacker. The two traits just don't go together. If I were an alpha male chimp, my group would most likely starve to death from disorganization. I don't like to give orders, I don't like to take orders -- that's why I became a writer. All these "where's your whip, Amy?" type comments seem really unwarranted.
Too bad I can't find a submissive editor. I would command him: "Hire me or I'll spank you!" Oh, but then he would like that. I would have to threaten that he will NOT get a spanking from me, which is obviously my relationship with most editors in the world and yet I am still not working. Do you see how confusing this is?
The contradiction rears its ugly head in my personal life, too. I consider myself bold and adventurous, yet I absolutely, positively refuse to make any sort of decision on a date. If I'm with a passive man, the conversation "I don't care which restaurant we go to, where would you like to go? I don't care, where would you like to go?" continues until all of the restaurants are long closed, the idling car we're sitting in is running out of gas and daylight is peeking over the horizon.
No. I need someone who is more dominant than me. But not too dominant, because as I said, I don't like to be told what to do.
Besides implying that I'm a dominatrix, people also imply that I may be single for a very long time.
October 24, 2003
A Spanish philosopher once said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Lately I've been condemned to remembering my past all too clearly.
It started out harmlessly enough. When that guy I was attracted to recently not only didn't call but gave away my number to someone I had less chemistry with, it got me thinking.
The two most attractive -- on many levels, mind you -- men I've met in the past few months have taken my number and not called. I'm not at all concerned with men who are attractive and don't talk to me, men who are attractive and talk to me but don't like me or men who are attractive and talk to me and like me but don't take my number. I am very well aware that I am not for everyone. Very well aware.
No, the ones that raise my left eyebrow are those who seem very interested during the flirting-and-asking-for-my-number phase only to teeter and then fall over when it comes time to pick up the phone. These men cause my brain to short circuit and make sweeping generalizations about men in my present as well as glorify those from my past.
Part of my problem is that I cannot Google responsibly. My innocent keyword queries descend into sick, debauched search orgies that leave me feeling dirty and ashamed.
It depresses me to read articles about former boyfriends made good, but do I need to see pictures of them looking better than ever too? One of my gifts/curses is I am to a man's unrealized potential what a French pig is to truffles. Some of my slacker musician exes have actually gone on to do significant things, now that they are out of their twenties and I am out of their lives.
One of my formers is now one of the most well-respected young professors in the country (plus he's gorgeous), another is an up-and-coming Hollywood filmmaker who is all the rave (plus he's gorgeous). When I knew them they both needed haircuts they couldn't afford.
In moments of clarity I wonder if my longing for men who don't call and men from my past is really the oh-so-seductive torch song of the unobtainable. Even more chilling than the thought that my most interesting dating years are over is the fear that I'm always going to want what I don't have.
October 20, 2003
This morning I was looking for the Good Morning America web site so I could email them and tell them to have me on their show. I've decided that being on Good Morning America is the only way to get my writing career to take off. As I was looking around I got distracted by an online IQ test that would show me my chances of getting into MENSA, the genius club.
I took the grueling, stressful test which asked things like 'Onomatopoeia can be switched around to make a different word, what is it?' And 'If two people walk six feet away from each other and then turn left, how long will it take each of them to chuck the whole endeavor and just decide to go and get a drink?' There were also lots of 'Which of these things doesn't belong?' questions which just open up a Pandora's box of discrimination and intolerance in my opinion.
I took the test, didn't even answer some of the questions -- some of the word-game type questions, which is weird since I'm a writer -- and scored a whopping 90 percent. The auto-response assured me that my score indicated that I have a good chance of getting into MENSA. I was thrilled until I looked at the explanations for the answers. Almost every one of my correct answers was correct for the totally wrong reason.
No, elks do not 'not fit in with cats and bunnies and dogs' because elks were not in the croquet scene of Alice in Wonderland, they don't fit in because they are not house pets.
'The number 10 is the next number in the series,' but not because 10 just looks like it needs a home next to that 25 and that 5, it's because each syllable equals five and there are two syllables in July.
My appalling lack of mathematical knowledge and my inability to understand the numbers-related questions cancelled each other out to create a perfect math score.
There are no upcoming MENSA meetings in Seattle and I just wanted to join so I could meet men anyway. I think it will make a great anecdote when I go on David Letterman, which is my new plan for getting my writing to take off, since I never could find the Good Morning America site.
October 19, 2003
Sean Connery and Dr. Seuss ruined my night.
I was at a big party at a new club. For some reason I was hit by a breath of blah air as soon as I walked in. My friends actually had me on the guest list as Dating Amy, so I knew I should have been "up" and "on" but I was down and off instead.
My personality is low key at best, but I felt even more antisocial than usual. People actually came up to me to tell me that I am aloof (I already knew that) and to ask, "So, do you just expect everyone to come over and talk to you without any effort on your part?" (yes, yes I do). I soon realized that I was actually drawing much more attention to myself by doing nothing (or mesmerizing all the men by doing nothing but smoldering as I prefer to think of it), so I pried myself from the bar and at least started walking around.
At the last party I went to I mentioned that the crowd was abnormally great looking. Since nature abhors a vacuum, especially if it means I won't have to sort through lots of men I'm not interested in, all the cute guys seemed to have been sucked to a different party. The mistake the club made was to continuously show a James Bond film on one of the walls. Nothing like a young Sean Connery to put you off your realistic options for the night.
But looks aren't everything and I did meet one or two interesting characters. One guy was telling me about how his parents gave away most of his childhood Dr. Seuss collection. He was telling a funny story about what he felt the subtext of "I will not eat them on a boat/I will not eat them with a goat" was, but then I couldn't get my mind off of all the childhood books I no longer have which led to how really insensitive my own parents were which led to the question of whether anyone has ever really loved me which led to me just going home.
October 17, 2003
So I was going to be like a beautiful, yet somewhat icy, Snow Queen and regally glide away from the guy who gave my phone number to his friend.
But let's face it, I'm not that queen.
I emailed one line and said 'Are you planning on giving my phone number to all your friends or just the one?' He emailed right back and said that lots of his friends would be interested in me and that he could put my number on Friendster if I'd like. I secretly thought it was funny but my official stance is that I'm pissed.
He went on to explain that since I knew his friend and was hitting it off with him that he didn't see anything terribly wrong with giving him my number when he asked for it.
How very logical. And how like a man.
I just shot back 'No need to [something not Snow Queen-like] me out on Friendster, thanks.'
Of course my righteous indignation over the suggestion that my private affairs be tarnished by the internet is slightly undermined by the fact that I do that myself, but it's the principle, dammit.
October 16, 2003
I was going to write up a cute entry about the "George Does the Opposite" episode of Seinfeld, but something happened last night that's more appropriate for the "Bizarro World" one.
In that episode, Elaine befriends three men who are like Jerry, George and Kramer if they lived in an alternate universe -- if they were kind, generous and had good ideas, respectively.
In my life's current episode, I've been getting lots of numbers I don't recognize on my caller ID. Last night I picked up and it was that guy from the party last week… but not the one I gave my number to. It was his friend. He said that Guy Number One had given him my number and he asked me out for this weekend. I was so stunned I said yes.
All day today I've been feeling totally dissed. It's bad enough when a guy decides not to call, but to pass on my number to a friend? I feel recycled. I can just imagine the conversation about my phone number: "Here, I'm not using this. Do you want it?"
I haven't had something like this happen to me since my friend Kris and I met some boys from the south side of town at the tennis courts in my neighborhood. One of the guys took her number and called her to tell her he liked me. We were 13.
The Bizarro part is that at this exact time last year I met two friends at a bar. They both took my number and I dated them both. This situation is just like that, yet it's not. Do you see the eerie parallel?
Well, do you?
October 15, 2003
Some Things You Should Know About This Web Site:
(more for regular readers, but everyone is welcome)
* My own mom doesn't read it. She's seen it a few times but she doesn't have a computer. She told me recently that she thinks I write very beautifully, but clarified: "Your real writing, honey, not that stuff about your dates on the Internet."
* It's not inspired by David Sedaris. He is devastatingly funny, but I didn't even know who he was until one of my dates gave me his first book. Sure I knew some gay guy had a story about being an elf at Macy's, but I thought Me Talk Pretty One Day was the memoir of a "special" person.
* It's not inspired by the movie 20 Dates. Some guy in L.A. did exactly what I'm doing, except he picked 20 instead of 50 and he's a filmmaker not a writer. It's a very cute movie, but I got the idea of writing about my dates on the Internet because I like hearing about other peoples' dates. I'm karmically giving back to nosey people worldwide.
* My friends who know about the site use it in lieu of a having conversations with me. After a 20-minute phone call detailing their own love lives, work drama and the last four movies they've seen, my so-called friends conveniently have to go. "I already know how you are, since I read the site." No need to actually talk to me anymore I guess.
* I don't tell most people I know about the site. It saves me from having conversations that start with "Do the men you date..?"
* I write it while sitting at a hideous orange-yellow table with matching, therefore equally hideous, chairs. I originally painted my perfectly innocuous white table after finishing an episode of Trading Spaces and half a bottle of chardonnay. Now I am left with the shameful result, which has appeared with me on several television programs and will be the first thing to go after I am not poor anymore.
* It's big in Croatia. No idea why.
* It makes me paranoid. I can't tell if people at the grocery store are doing a double take since they've seen me on the TV or the Internet or if they're doing a double take because I am doing a double take looking at them and wondering if they recognize me.
* Some of my ex-boyfriends read it and are always happy to chime in with a well-placed "You are not like that!" when I say something complimentary about myself.
October 12, 2003
My latest question mark is: How does a woman get the man she wants to approach her? In talking with girlfriends I realized that we women already know how to attract the men we don't want -- players, dirty older men and guys who still live with their parents and have Kiss posters on their walls: Exist and they will come.
My panel of experts recommended timeless, high-schoolesque ploys like sidling over to an attractive guy and hoping he'll notice you or coaxing a girlfriend to talk to someone you like so you can meet him.
I got my best advice from a guy, though.
I was at a big party at an even bigger club. There were pool tables, karaoke with a real band, a disco with all '80s music (and nothing a minute more current) and small glasses of beer at $5 a pop. It was the perfect laboratory in which to conduct my experiment… except for one thing. The guys were all great looking. I couldn't find one who met my petri-dish requirements of being older, balding and mid-management level. Instead the room was a choice sampling of milk chocolate caramels with nary an oozy dark-chocolate orange cream in the box.
I ran into YouHaveNiceBreath guy -- have mentioned him several times before and he needs no introduction -- and I asked him about how a woman attracts a man she's interested in, rather than taking the passive approach that has kept me single lo these many years. He told me I could brush past a man and touch his arm and say, "Oh, excuse me" and then comment on his shirt or something.
Damned if I didn't see that exact thing happen at least six times in the course of my evening. Sure, it may seem like common sense to normal people, but to me and the readers of this site it's the equivalent of angels coming down from heaven with a banner telling you how to score with the opposite sex. DatingAmy.com: Where all the advice rides around with training wheels.
And me? I didn't have to excuse myself to anyone. I was in line to get a beer and a really very attractive man started up a conversation that basically continued for the rest of the night. At one point a curvy blonde bumped his friend and giggled a profuse apology. My cute guy interrupted our conversation to tell his friend: Go in there! as the blonde walked away.
As usual, everyone knows this stuff but me.
Extra:
People accuse me of many things, not the least of which is being gynocentric. Here is some more proof they're dead on: Women Are Mosaic<<< home>>>