But I have noted an alarming trend as of late amongst my female compadres/compatriots/coconspirators. I am friends with some truly fabulous (young) women (when does one drop that clarification? I feel like it probably is when you have some lasting/meaningful/relevant relationship. With a person. And not a cat. Or when you're truly old I guess...). I have friends who are really smart. BAs, MAs, Law-degrees-in-progress. But those amalgams of letters do not exhaust the font of awesome that are my friends. They are also, for the most part, athletes, or at the very least take care of their bodies and their health. Add to this a general care for appearance - my friends are stylin' bitches! Some are funny, some are fabulous conversationalists, some are established rapstresses, some have phenomenal boobs. They are all, in my humble opinion, fucking awesome people to be around.
And yet.
Yet.
Of an rough estimate of ten close girlfriends (what? How many legitimate close friends do you have? What. Ever) three- read that, THREE - of them have boyfriends. And though I don't know if this is to their credit or to my general annoyance, they are all long-term relationships. I'm going to credit it to my annoyance, simply because what I find so infuriating lately is that my sexy, accomplished, smart friends are not being asked out. As you may recall, my prior experiences dating men since moving to Montreal resulted in creepy carny hands and an offer of vitamin sales. This leads me to ask the inevitable question: quesque fuck?
I find it baffling, yes, but also alarming. When this trend has been discussed amongst ourselves, over beers and wine, as we do, we comfort ourselves with varying bullshit:
men these days just seem to like stupid insecure girls
we are really just very intimidating - when they grow up, they will stop slut-hopping
I don't want to be with anyone who actually thinks I have my shit together. If someone thinks this is the pinnacle, they are deeply distrubed
etcetera, etcetera etcetera.
Is it bullshit? Is it He's Just Not That Into You incarnate (ok, I did get at least one pathetic rom-com in)? We make ourselves feel better about being single by blaming the cowardliness of guys, their lack of standards or, on the inverse, their standards being too high for batcases like us. By doing this, do we displace our own agency in the situation? Do we need to filter through the Usana salesmen and circus freakshows if we expect to stop our bitching and moaning?
The alarming corollary is that many of these women also find themselves pining over men they've already been with. In a world where new men don't appear to exist, girls look back over their past boyfriends and think "wow...maybe that was as good as I will do?" or some much more optimistic "love-of-my-life" reiteration of same. This seems even more depressing than the possibility that I have the endeavour through a bunch of awful dates. This seems to imply begging for forgiveness, if the ex-revival is actually possible, or just escapist, nostalgic fantasizing. Lets just eat a plate of petite madeleines with Proust and put ourselves out of our misery.
I mostly rant about this with no conclusions. I think women in their early twenties shouldn't have to worry about relationships or lack there of. But then again, I don't know much about reproductive biology, and my cultural guide being reruns of Friends leads me to the conclusion that everyone will just end up with someone perfect in the end. Except Joey.
But what if we are Joey? And the stupid girls who put out and did coke in high school are Rachel? What if, rather than establishing cool varied groups of friends with great 9-s hairstyles, the self-fulfilling prophecy of "like attracts like" has been realized, and my friends and I are a bunch of Joeys, never to see a fulfilling relationship that wasn't one-sided and heartbreaking, to be perpetually throwing prosthetic limbs into proverbial fires. Ok. I don't know what that means. But my point stands - maybe we don't all get a fairytale romance. Maybe good vampires and sexy werewolves aren't going to battle for my heart.
To be clear. I really do not feel bad about being single. I know my rants give that illusion, but I'm of the third of my examples' school of thought: when I have my shit together, then I'll worry about why men aren't falling at my feet. Until then, well, there are two days of unwashed dishes in my sink and job opportunities I should be perusing. What is frustrating is that the option would be nice. And not just for me - I'm no diva - but for these fabulous women I know.
And yeah, cuddling is nice.
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