Angry Feminist

It seems to me that the problem some men have with feminism is that they think it’s about Us v. Them. They hear Feminism and they think War. Instead of “equal opportunities for women” and “a more just and balanced world that values both male and female qualities and perspectives,” they hear, “women who hate men and are trying to take our place in the world.” They assume that we would approach it as they might: as a competition, survival of the fittest, every man for himself. What these men fundamentally don’t understand is that women on the whole don’t operate like that. We want everybody to get along, we want the world to be a better place for everyone living in it. A world that is better for women will also be better for men. Until these guys realize that, feminism will continue to feel like a threat.

Often when I bring up the F word on, say, a first date, a glaze will pass over my date’s face. He is no longer looking at me the individual, but instead seeing me as one face in an amorphous swarm of angry bitches. Every time I meet a man and tell him I’m a feminist, I watch him closely. His reaction tells me a lot about whether it’s going to work out between us on a fundamental level. I have yet to meet the man who says, “Fuck yes, me too!” That guy I will marry.

I'm on a date with a guy I met on Tinder two years ago whom I just randomly came across on the Internet and decided to Facebook message. We had never met up in person, but texted for awhile, and the fact that he appeared in a random Google search made me feel serendipitously like we should meet. We agree on a bar in his neighborhood because he doesn't have a car, so I drive from Silverlake to Culver City on a Friday evening to meet him. I arrive, we hug, and he hands me the happy hour menu. We're both filmmakers and film buffs, so we nerd out about cinematography and directors and within minutes we're arguing about which movies were the best of last year. He mentions Tangerine, a film about two African American trans women prostitutes shot in LA on an iPhone 6.

“I hate gimmicky movies like that,” he says. “It was a piece of garbage that people only thought was good because it was about trans people and was shot on an iPhone.” I bristle.

“I feel like you can’t call telling a story that hasn’t been told before a gimmick,” I say.

“The filmmaker only made that movie to capitalize on all the trans stuff in the media,” he says.

My warning flags start going ballistic. As an avid support of trans rights and the president of Jill Soloway’s fan club, I'm not the person to sympathize with someone calling a story about trans women a “gimmick.” I decide not to write him off just yet, though I'm starting to get the sense I probably won't ever see this guy again, and I'm only on my first drink.

He starts telling me his entire life story, complete with the fact that he was medicated as a child for bipolar disorder, got kicked out of school for beating up other kids, and had a substance abuse problem as a teenager. I just stare at him as he monologues at me, wondering what I've said or done to inspire such an aggressive confessional. He tells me in detail about his father, his uncle, his family history, his family recipes. Finally, he takes a breath and says, “Sorry, I talk a lot, tell me your story.” I start to tell him about where I grew up, but he's reminded of an anecdote about his own life and interrupts me to talk about it. I decide to stop trying to insert things into the conversation. He tells me he usually dates lawyers and doctors and architects, women in different fields, because he's really interested in other people’s lives that are different from his own. He seems very proud of this fact about himself and I wonder if those women were able to get a word in edgewise. Who raised him to believe it was okay for him to talk for so long without stopping? I wonder something I often do on first dates with men, how it is he can be so un-self-aware.

We walk to another bar down the street and this is where he turns to me and says, “You’re hard to read.” I consider informing him that it's easier to read someone when you ask them a question about themselves rather than just constantly talking about yourself.

“You don’t seem to care what I think of you,” he says.

“Why should I?” I ask.

He says he's hoping to get a second date with me.
“Why do you think I’m buying you so many drinks?” He chortles.

He mentions several times throughout the night this girl he was dating in the Midwestern city where he lived before moving to LA.

“She showed me I could actually really like someone,” he says. He’s never been in love, but the amount he talks about this girl makes me think there's still something there.

“Maybe you should give it another shot with this girl,” I say. “You seem to still really like her.”

“Nah. It would never work. She wants too much from me.” Apparently, she wants kids and stability, while he isn't ready for any of that. “I’m not looking for a fuck buddy, but like not a big commitment either.”

He asks what I'm looking for and I say probably more than he is. I'm not interested in having casual sex anymore. Then he insinuates that he doesn't want me to get too attached to him if he can't give me what I want.

“You’re worrying about me getting too attached?” I laugh into my beer.

“I think women have certain expectations.”

“There is something biological that happens to us because we literally let men inside our bodies,” I say.

He tells me he wishes he hadn’t said anything about looking for something casual, because he's open to seeing where this goes. I say again that we're probably looking for different things.

Somehow we start talking about rape culture and the accusations brought against Bill Cosby. 

“It’s scary as hell for a guy to think about being accused of that,” he says.

“It’s scary for a guy!” I practically shout. He laughs, conceding that this came off wrong. The fact that straight white cisgendered men are somehow capable of twisting the narrative so that they become the victim in the rape scenario never ceases to amaze me.

Then he says, “I just don’t understand how someone could get off on rape. Like, how do you even get hard when someone isn’t wet?” Ick.

Because I know I don't want to see this guy again, I decide to try an experiment. 

“Just so you know, I’m a raging feminist," I declare, watching his reaction.

He looks at me sideways and asks warily, “What does that mean?”

“I consider myself a social activist for empowering women’s voices. I’m really passionate about it and believe that women should have equal rights and opportunities.”

“I mean, yeah, but is that even feminism? It should just be called humanism.” He says this as though it's a totally innovative new idea he's just come up with. Then he proceeds to explain feminism to me. I laugh out loud.

“You are mansplaining feminism to me right now!” I say.

“I hate that word,” he says with a disgusted look on his face. Of course you do, I think, it was invented precisely for guys like you.

“Everyday there’s another article written about this stuff,” he says, by way of arguing that we don't need feminism anymore.

“Yeah, because nothing’s changed yet. Once there’s real change there won’t be the need for so many articles.”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he says. I wonder how long we have to wait, how many more years of male justification of the insidiously sexist way things are will we have to live through before there is quantifiable change. How many levels of entitled white men defending the status quo are there left to battle?

I ask if, as a director, he hires female crews.

“Have you ever hired a female gaffer?” I ask.

“There aren’t really any,” he says.

“What about DPs?”

“They’re never recommended to me. How am I going to hire someone who isn’t recommended to me?” He raises his voice, getting frustrated. “I don’t think about gender when I’m hiring, I think about the best person for the job.”

“That’s really fortunate for you that you don’t have to think about gender, because as a privileged white male you’ve never had to.” Full disclosure, I may have said something about him having a penis between his legs.

“My makeup artists are women and gay men. I don’t care that they’re gay.”

“Wow. Good for you,” I say.

He then tries to convince me that women don’t make less money than men. He says he knows a lot of female directors who are successful. I ask if he’s ever honestly asked them how it is for them as women directors. He hesitates.

“Yeah, I mean, they said it was hard to get where they are but now that they’re there, it’s fine.”

“So you think we should just shut up and stop complaining.” 

“You’re putting words in my mouth.” 

Maybe this is true, maybe I am putting words in his mouth, but the point I'm trying to get at that he doesn't seem to understand is that he is fundamentally resistant to even acknowledging that things aren't equal. The fact that he insists on defending the way things are and refuses to recognize the problem seems to me the most insidious thing about the sexism in this town. The fact that if men continue to refuse to acknowledge the need for change, they will never change themselves. This is why we need feminism, and I tell him as much.

“The old guys are dying anyway,” he says by means of consolation.

“But here you are a 29 year old man and you don’t hire women. Where’s the progress there?”

He ramps up for another session of mansplaining and I decide to get real with him.

“You know what,” I say. “I know a lot about you and you know very little about me. You have been talking at me and interrupting me all night. And I know you talk a lot and that’s okay, I do too, but it might behoove you to listen to someone every now and again.” I may not have been this eloquent. I am a little tipsy and very angry.

He just stares at me. Then he says, “You started telling me about yourself and then just stopped.”
“Because you interrupted me,” I say. I start talking again and he interrupts me again.

“I am trying to tell you about how you interrupt me and you’re interrupting me,” I point out.

“So interrupt me back,” he says.

“I really don’t have any interest in doing that.”
“Well then don’t go to New York because that’s the way it is there,” he says, grinning. I had told him earlier in the night that I was thinking of moving to New York. I decide this is it. I'm tired of listening to this idiot. I stand up.

“Okay, it was nice to--“

“Yeah, you’re welcome for all the drinks,” he interrupts.

I march out of the bar and LOL all the way home, exhilarated to have walked out on a first date, to have spoken my mind rather than quietly stewing over the ubiquitous misogyny that women are constantly swallowing. The days of swallowing it are over for me at least. If that means I’ll be single for life, so be it. I know this guy probably didn’t hear a word I said, but it doesn't matter. I said my piece and he was right, I don't give a fuck about what he thinks of me.

I think about the me of just six months ago. She would have smiled and nodded through the mansplaining, had a couple more drinks, gone home with this guy for some mediocre one-sided sex. The new me simply can't stomach it anymore. I don't want to let another misogynist inside my body. I don't even want to let in another culturally-blind, privileged white male. That's a harder bar to clear, and I think it's understandably difficult for some of these men to see past their own privilege and sense of birthright entitlement. Regardless, I've decided to start having higher rather than lower expectations for the men I have sex with. I will hold men to a higher standard and believe that they can be better than so many before them. This I feel is the true essence of feminism—that men and women don't need to be in opposition, a world that is better for women will also be better for men. Until I find a guy who sees that, I will stop letting these lesser males inside my body. Perhaps that means I won't be having sex for awhile. If that's the case, so be it. Any guy who tells me to stop complaining, that I should be satisfied with the status quo, can literally go fuck himself, cuz he ain’t fucking me.

Grandma's Got a Boyfriend... and I Don't

“How’s your love life?”

“Not as exciting as yours, Grandma.”

My grandmother is 86 years old and she has a long distance boyfriend. She’s just been telling me about how every night at 8 pm her time and 10 pm his time (she lives in New Mexico, he lives in New Jersey), he calls her and asks, “Ready to pour?”

They drink one gin and tonic and talk for an hour before bed. This happens every night. She tells me that he’s started calling in the mornings too, “Just to say Good Morning.” I ask how they constantly find things to talk about.

“I don’t know, honey, we just do. We talk about politics and the people we used to know. We tell each other about what we did that day.”

I remember that feeling of wanting to tell a partner everything—purposefully remembering things from your day just so you could tell them about it later, every mundane little detail. I had that with Mr. Intimidated, which is how I knew I actually really liked him. Grandma tells me that her boyfriend admitted to making notes throughout his day so he wouldn't forget to tell her things.

“He makes me feel like a girl,” she tells me earnestly. “I never thought I’d feel that way again.”

My grandmother and her boyfriend, Bob, grew up together in the same tiny New Jersey town where he still lives. They knew all the same people, most of whom are now dead. Bob remembers more than she does about their high school days together—he remembers things about my grandmother that she doesn’t remember herself. Like about that time they were playing tennis in gym class and she got a cramp in her leg and had to sit down and the gym teacher came over and asked Bob, “What did you do to her?” Or when she fainted outside the school and knocked down a professor.

Bob remembers these details because he’s been in love with my grandmother for 60 years. My grandfather died three years ago and this man—a widower himself—waited a respectable two years before swooping in on the long lost love of his life. She wasn’t sure at first and she resisted him for several months—I think she felt some moral obligation about being faithful to the memory of my grandfather. But Bob just kept on coming, undeterred by her reticence.

“I feel silly now about resisting him,” she admits.

When Bob came to visit her in Santa Fe several months ago, my grandmother laid down the ground rules: “Hopper seat down” (she calls the toilet a hopper), “you have to help with the cooking, and... NO SEX.” Her boyfriend joked: “If you wanted to have sex, I’d have to bring someone in.” At first I interpreted this to mean a prostitute and I was momentarily shocked. Then my grandmother laughed, apparently charmed by his little joke. I guess he meant a doctor or something. Someone to administer the Viagra? I don’t know.

One of her favorite things about Bob is the fact that he can keep the names of her three daughters straight. The fact that he remembers that her granddaughter lives in Los Angeles.

“He has a good memory and he obviously cares about you,” I say.

I consider telling her about the guy I had been chatting with on OKCupid for a couple weeks who then, a year later when I got back on the site, opened with the same pick up line he’d used on me the first time around. I remembered the line and I remembered him. We had gone so far as to exchange numbers and had texted on a daily basis—we were pretty close to actually meeting in person before it fizzled out. He’d apparently forgotten all these details and was starting from zero with me. I wondered if he still had my number in his phone. I consider telling her about the chef I was chatting with recently and was really excited to meet. We had made a date, he had to cancel at the last minute, he wanted to reschedule. I said okay and then never heard from him again.

When my grandmother asks about my love life, I’m tempted to mention the fact that I recently deleted all my dating apps after reading a particularly depressing article about Tinder in Vanity Fair. Midway through the article, I grabbed my phone and promptly deleted ALL the apps: Tinder, OKC, Hinge, Happn, even Bumble. I decided I didn’t want to feed into this culture that was turning men into sociopathic pussy-monsters and women into simpering attention whores. I decided I would meet someone the old fashioned way: IRL.

I can’t explain any of this to my grandmother because it simply wouldn’t make sense to her. On a fundamental level, her generation doesn’t understand having a game on your phone where you swipe through millions of human faces trying to find someone to have sex with. Her boyfriend has been in love with her for 60 goddamn years! They talk on the phone every night. She’s living in some nostalgic Nora Ephron romance flick from the 90s. Every time she tells me about Bob, I get off the phone and quickly jot down some notes.

“I have to write this story!” I tell myself. It’s too good to be true. This isn’t real life. It’s some relic from a sweet unattainable past.

I remember my grandmother watching this short film I made in which the three young women gather in the kitchen explicitly talking about sex and masturbation. I had been nervous to show it to her, but her reaction was amazing.

“Do you girls really talk like that?” She asked, intrigued.

“Yeah, we do,” I told her.

“That’s really great,” she said to my surprise, “In my day you simply didn’t talk about that stuff.”

I think about the fact that my grandmother has only had sex with one man her entire life. The fact that she got married right out of high school, didn’t go to college, and had three daughters. I think about how she was the star of all her school plays, a real beauty, but didn’t have enough belief in herself or encouragement from her parents to pursue a career in acting. The fact that she is also a poet and a painter, and considers these talents to be just hobbies. And that she never really liked to cook—my grandfather was the one who loved being in the kitchen. My grandmother grew up in a generation where women were expected to stay home and bare children. And that’s it. And I think if my grandmother had been born of my generation, she wouldn’t have chosen that path. She probably would have been an artist. Maybe an actress. She would have had a choice.

When I ask my grandmother if she has any plans to visit Bob in New Jersey, she says she doesn’t have any desire to, that she really doesn’t want to stay with him. She insinuates it’s because she doesn’t want to have sex.

“If I were your age maybe I’d want to visit him…. You can guess what I mean.” She laughs. I laugh too. Last time I saw my grandmother she declared that she’d never have sex again. I just stared at her, mouth dropped open, like ‘how could you ever say that?’ Especially after having had sex with the same man for my entire life, I feel like I’d be chomping at the bit to see what else was out there.

“I just don’t want to anymore,” she said at the time, resigned. I guess it makes sense. Biologically speaking it makes no sense at all for a woman to still want sex at age 86. Still, I can’t imagine myself ever saying the words, I’ll never have sex again. Maybe on my deathbed.

Considering the generation my grandmother grew up in, it’s not totally inconceivable that she never actually enjoyed sex in the first place. It’s even possible she’s never had an orgasm. When I sent her a DVD of the first season of Masters of Sex for her birthday, her response was that she found it “silly to even study these things.” I explained to her that before the studies of Masters and Johnson, female sexuality was cloaked in shame and misunderstanding and that, although imperfect, even just the fact of their study was a step in the right direction. Despite finding it silly, she still said, “I’ll probably watch the rest of the seasons.”

Although I don’t idealize my grandmother’s generation and I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to a time when women had no sexual freedom to speak of, I think something has been lost in this age of endless choice. I’m nostalgic for a time when, if you wanted to talk to the person you had a crush on, you had to call them on the phone or drive to their house. You couldn’t just send them a text or stalk them on Facebook. There was more risk involved, and therefore more investment. You couldn’t swipe through a hundred potential dates a night. You had to talk to one person at a time and risk actually liking that person. Is romance dead? No. But it’s definitely old and potentially dying. 

Mr. Intimidated

I haven’t written in weeks because life and work have been keeping me too busy for the moments of reflection I need to blog about it. I guess the main thing to report is that I got rejected by Mr. Intimidated. Which, although I sort of felt it coming, was still a bit of a shocker.

As a refresher, this is the guy with whom I had three consecutive dates. On the first, we had sex and he initially expressed that he felt intimidated by me and that he was going through a bit of a life crisis. On the second, we saw It Follows and when he dropped me off and I went in to kiss him goodnight, he kept his lips pursed tightly shut. On our third date, we ate ramen and talked and laughed and when he dropped me off, I decided to not initiate the pursed-lip kiss and he didn’t either so instead we sat awkwardly for a moment until I shouted “okay, goodnight!” and ran into my house.

If you remember, I liked this guy a lot despite his obvious baggage and the awkwardly sexless nature of our interactions. I felt that he wasn’t quite what I was looking for and that I had a lot more going on than him, but still enjoyed spending time together and wanted to give it a try.

A couple days after our third date, I booked tickets to see Sleater Kinney perform at the Hollywood Palladium and, with no angry feminist female friends excited to go with me, I invited him. He said yes, that he loved Carrie Brownstein and was excited to go.

“It’s gonna be like an episode of Portlandia,” he said.

“Cacao,” I responded.

Then I didn’t hear from him for two weeks. A mutual friend told me he was out of town at a movie premiere. I texted him “congratulations and have fun” and he sent me a pic of his premiere outfit. I felt something was up when I didn’t hear from him again. A week before the concert I texted to check in.

“Hey, are you still going to the concert with me next week?”

I headed into a meeting and forgot about it. During the meeting, I was midsentence when my phone vibrated and I glanced down at it. I caught the following on my lock screen: “Hey. I know I sort of fell off the map these past few weeks. I appreciate you inviting me but I don’t think I want to go...” My words caught in my throat and I lost my train of thought. I thought it best to wait until after the meeting to read the rest, but having no self-control or patience whatsoever, I couldn’t resist. It continued: “I’m sorry. I’m just not feeling it. I know I expressed to you how I feel this is a weird time for me, and my lack of sex drive. I think I just don’t want to be going on dates, and want time alone to just figure shit out. Hope you understand.”

The coldness of the message unnerved me. It had none of the usual rejection niceties: “It’s not you, it’s me. You’re amazing. I like you a lot but (fill in the blank). You’re too good for me…” etc. I was also frankly surprised to be rejected by this guy who I felt was (I know this sounds douchey) lucky to have my attention in the first place. I wanted to write: “You’re rejecting me? Seriously?” But I didn’t. I wrote: “I understand. Thank you for your honesty.” I did appreciate his honesty. And I actually did understand—after our very first date, in light of his personal crisis and recent breakup, I had told a friend of mine, “He probably shouldn’t be dating anyone right now.” But I was still taken aback by how quickly and cleanly he had cut it off.

And I sort of felt like crying. I thought we had fun together, and that was worth something to me. For whatever reason, I actually liked him more than most of the men I meet. But then I was also grateful, and felt profoundly that I had been let off the hook. I would have let it go on for weeks because I liked him. Even though it was awkward, and I knew I wanted something more, and it clearly wasn’t the right thing for either of us at this moment in time.  

I was also slightly annoyed that he hadn’t told me sooner he didn’t want to go to the concert. Would he have told me at all if I hadn’t asked, or would he have let the day roll around and offered some last minute excuse? I scrambled to fill his spot, and decided to invite my friend the DILF, a 40 going on 25 year old Man Child I had sex with over a year ago. He said yes immediately, although he didn’t know the band. Then, apropos of nothing, he texted:

“I am so angry today. I gotta meditate before shooting this gig.” Immediately, I regretted inviting him. Not knowing what to say, I asked why he was angry.

“I’m just frustrated with everything and blaming myself therefore taking it out on the world today.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied lamely, not wanting to hear any more.

Why are all the men I attract carrying so much baggage, and why do they all feel the need to take it out and show it to me without my asking to see it? Why do I feel more like a mother figure to these lost boys than an equal, a partner, a lover? Where is my equal and why can’t I find him? I went on Facebook seeking distraction and soon found myself stalking the Hot Guy I slept with at my Housewarming Party back in October. I found a photo of him lying on the beach next to a girl kissing his sweet bearded face, #staycation. A wave of sadness passed over me. Not because I necessarily want to be with this guy, although I did have a slightly desperate moment of trying and failing to see him again after that night we slept together. And I haven’t seen him since. But I suddenly viscerally felt the reason people feel sorry for single folks, and this is not a feeling I usually relate to. In a way, I also felt relieved. Because I could let it go—that weird distant hope in the back of my mind that I might someday run into this incredibly hot man I slept with once, and we would go on that follow up date. 

“You’re strong, you’re like a sturdy tree, that’s why these guys are attracted to you,” said a wise friend. I guess that’s true, but I also think these men somehow think I’m stronger than I am. They don’t see my vulnerability and therefore feel intimidated or insecure around me. Maybe this is my fault. I know I do present with a lot of confidence and bravado, and maybe I’m looking for a man who has the strength and confidence in himself to help bring out my vulnerable side.

I was chatting to this guy on Tinder, a kinkster looking to get into some dom-sub play. Naturally, he wanted me to dominate him. He said he was into “feet, ass worship, objectification, voyeurism, domestic servitude, to name a few.” When I shared that I was from NorCal, he shot back: “I was just telling my roommate how San Fran women are so masculine. They need men to inspire their feminine side.” At the time I thought this was an incredibly dumb thing for him to say and showed an extreme lack of good sense. What kind of man thinks it’s a good idea to call the woman he wants to sleep with “masculine”? Masculine to me means I have a mustache and big calves. I value people putting thought into how they communicate, and his word choice was so thoughtless it was virtually irredeemable, and a big reason why I never ended up meeting up with him.

Now I think part of my strong reaction might have been that, poor word choice aside, maybe this guy was actually onto something. Maybe I do need a strong man to bring out my feminine side. The best relationships I’ve had with men have been when they could see past my feminist rants and loud mouth opinions and crude jokes into the sensitive and thoughtful person underneath. They have been with men who feel empowered, rather than belittled, by my strength. Despite my know-it-all personality, my ex-boyfriend always knew how to find the softness in me, and he always understood his value in our relationship. Best Guy Friend will debate me all day long—he knows how to find the weak spots in my seemingly ironclad arguments and enjoys poking holes in them. This is the kind of give-and-take I need in a man. I think I often like to be right and I get frustrated when people argue with me, but conversely it’s hard for me to respect anyone who doesn’t have their own strong opinion.

I realized after my second date with Mr. Intimidated that I didn’t know what he thought of the movie we had seen. I didn’t remember him saying one way or another. I asked him about it on our third date, shoveling ramen into my mouth.
"I just realized I don't know what you thought of the movie."
"What?" He looked surprised that I would bring this back up.
 "I don't think you ever said what you thought of It Follows."
"Oh. I loved it," he responded flatly.
"You did? Really?! You didn't tell me that."
"Well, you just seemed so weirded out by it I guess I just didn't know what to say."
I stared at him. Something in me felt disappointed. I couldn't imagine being in a relationship with someone whose opinion they wouldn't share for fear of disagreeing with me. I would eat that person alive. I pictured a future of me monologuing and him nodding vaguely by my side. This image made me shudder. I should have called it right then and there--at that moment, I knew instinctively that this would never work.

It's a Match!

I went on two dates last week. With the same guy. They were real dates, not just sex dates. And he planned them, which was awesome. On Monday night we met for drinks at a classy whiskey bar and ended up sharing a pizza. The conversation was varied and flowed easily. He listened intently as I talked, seemingly very interested which inspired me to be even more interesting. At some point, we moved from the bar to the lounging couches in the corner of the restaurant. I started touching the veins on his arms (I love the veins on men’s arms). He smiled and lost his train of thought. We kissed a little bit. He smiled more. It was nice.

We shut down the bar and he walked me to my car. I then drove him the two blocks to his car. I parked and left the engine running, music blaring as we made out furiously. I felt his crotch and he pulled my tit out of my shirt. I could feel he was hard in his pants and I started to unbutton his fly. I pulled out his dick and decided to put my mouth on it right there in the car. What can I say, Florence and the Machine’s Only If For a Night was blasting and I felt inspired.

“Can I invite myself over?” He asked.

He followed me home in his car and we huffed and puffed as we struggled to walk up the incredibly steep hill I live on. When I got him in my bed, we proceeded to continue where we had left off. Only problem was, he was no longer hard.

“Ahh, my dick!” He lamented.

I reassured him it was fine. It happens. He was clearly nervous around me. We had talked earlier in the evening about the phenomenon of emasculation.

“Do you feel emasculated by me?” I asked now.

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“You’re just such a sexy woman,” he declared, grabbing my ass.

Obviously, this was the right thing to say. I was flattered. But I also wondered why this keeps happening to me—the fact that my being a sexy/strong/ambitious woman actually makes guys lose their erections. This has happened before. With men that were apparently really into me, and then when push came to shove, they had trouble performing and claimed to be “intimidated.” 

I pulled out some tried and true sex-ninja moves and managed to successfully get him hard. We had sex and we both came, and I felt more satisfied than 90% of the time when I first sleep with someone new. But he obviously felt embarrassed and frustrated and in his head about the penis thing, and I couldn’t get him out of it. We fell asleep and in the morning we talked in bed for awhile. He shared that he had recently stopped watching porn because it was fucking with his self-esteem (you know, the big dick factor).
"Porn is ruining men for real sex!" I declared, vindicated.
It was nice to lounge in bed with someone—it had been awhile for me. I made us eggs and coffee and we had more good conversation over breakfast. All in all, it was a lovely 14 hour date.

On Thursday, he asked me out again. He picked me up, which impressed the hell out of me (it doesn’t take much) and we went for a couple drinks and then to see a late night showing of It Follows. After the movie, he drove me home. And then it suddenly felt awkward, as if the ghost of last night’s sex loomed over us. As if there were some weird expectation on us now—we’d already had sex, so we should probably do that again. But he was still in his head about how from his perspective it had not gone very well. I leaned over to kiss him goodnight. He kept his lips pursed tightly shut.

The next day, via text, I brought up the awkwardness I had felt at the end of our date and he was very forthcoming about the fact that he’s been "going through some stuff" and that he just came out of this relationship that left him feeling less than confident about his manhood. He expressed his hope that this wasn't "TMI." I reassured him that, in my book, there is no such thing as TMI. I appreciated his vulnerability in telling me the truth. It was a welcome reprieve from the posturing I usually encounter from insecure men who, instead of admitting their insecurities, overcompensate with this big macho act that is really off-putting and I can completely see through anyway.

I talked to my Best Guy Friend about this. About the fact that I actually really like this guy. I like spending time with him, I love our conversations, I like myself when I'm around him, and I appreciate his candor and transparency. But if I'm being honest, this is not the person I see myself dating. I have had this fantasy of dating someone as ambitious and driven as me, possibly more successful/farther along in their life and career. Best Guy Friend has had a similar vision for himself. We’re both looking for the opposite-gender equivalent of ourselves. But I don’t know if that’s possible—I don’t know if that would truly be a match. Maybe every relationship needs that yin and yang, perhaps both partners can’t be equally ambitious because that would never work, maybe we both need to accept the fact that we are destined to be the more powerful partner in the relationship, that we will perpetually be in the driver’s seat calling all the shots.

If I’m honest with myself, I say I want a partner who makes decisions so I don’t have to, but the truth is I actually enjoy calling the shots. In every aspect of my life, I am in control, and I like it that way. This comes naturally to me. I’ve been looking for a dominant, but maybe I am the dominant. I don’t know if I could actually let someone else be dominant over me.

I’ve always had this fantasy that with the perfect match, we’d have like this mutual admiration society. But maybe admiration flows more naturally one way or another. I have to say, I love to be admired and appreciated. My favorite interactions with men are the ones where they want to hear a lot about what I’m doing and think it’s really cool and interesting. My least favorite interactions are the ones where they show off and talk about themselves the whole time and learn nothing about me. Maybe it’s not meant to be equal. Does my preference for being admired point to the fact that I’m naturally dominant?

I think of my mom. My mom is very ambitious and strong and opinionated, she is a leader and a control-freak. Like me. And she married my dad, who is much softer—he acquiesces, he takes her side, he is her support system. And although when she’s frustrated with him, she likes to complain that she wishes she were with someone more ambitious, driven, “successful,” I don’t think she would actually be a match with that person. And I don’t think that guy would put up with her shit. I mean that endearingly—I don’t know if that ideal mate I envision for myself would put up with my shit either. My parents probably have the best example of a marriage I have witnessed, and they’ve been together over thirty years.

Best Guy Friend and I came to the conclusion that maybe the reason we’re looking for that support system in a partner is because we don’t feel 100% confident in our own ability to support ourselves. And once we truly find a sense of security within ourselves, we’ll let go of needing it from another person.

In my new favorite (and now cancelled) show, Looking, there is this great storyline in which the main character Patrick, an upper-middle class, college educated white boy, starts to fall in love with a lower class, Hispanic hair dresser, Ricky. And he feels really conflicted about it—he did not imagine himself with this person. And he can’t deal with it. He ends up cutting it off before it can go too far. And then throughout the rest of the season, the what-if of what that could’ve been hangs over his head. Every time he sees Ricky with his new boyfriend, there’s this sense of that could’ve been me.

I relate so profoundly to Patrick’s conflicted emotions about Ricky. Because this might have been a true love-match for him, and indeed it sure felt that way. But Patrick’s idea about the kind of guy he should be with came along and sabotaged any potential future he might have had with this person he could’ve loved. I feel this level of conflicted about most of the men I have chemistry with—they’re actors and bartenders and waiters, and they’re hot and they like me and there’s an obvious attraction. And whereas when I was younger I would have pursued it at least just for the sex, now I find myself looking into the future. Do I really want to be in a relationship with another struggling actor? Not really, no. But why do I keep attracting them? Why do I never seem to attract that incredibly successful, powerful “man of my dreams”? Am I destined to be that person in my relationship? Should I just relax into that role and embrace it rather than constantly holding out for this imaginary powerhouse I have yet to meet? This person that supposedly “matches me.”

I guess this is my fundamental issue with online dating. Because online dating is all about being good on paper. And it doesn’t account for chemistry. When I think about my ex-boyfriend, whom I was with for four years, if I had seen him on an online dating site, I probably would have dismissed him. Because on paper, we are not a match. But in life, we were. It ran its course, we’re not life partners, but my relationship with him was wonderful and I don’t regret a moment of it. As much as I like to think I want to be with the male equivalent of myself, I probably would find that person completely impossible to be around. My first boyfriend was very similar to me—intellectual, ambitious, Type A—and we fought all the fucking time. I ended up hating him in the end. So I guess in conclusion I’m going to try to keep an open mind—to not be so quick to write people off because I don’t think we’re a “match”. Because you never know. My true love match might turn out to be the opposite of what I expect.

Single For Life

I know I’m supposed to be writing about sex this week. And BDSM. I was supposed to have gotten myself into some epic kinky fantasy adventure so I could come back and report on it. That didn’t happen. Unfortunately, I find myself presently more celibate than I have been in quite some time. I’m not sure why. Probably because my focus of late is on other things besides cock, which I know is shocking and appalling to all of you. I even recently tried to get back into Tinder and the one guy I started chatting with turns out is good friends with the roommate of High School Lover, so I kind of had to put the kibosh on that one.

I’ve also been in a bit of a strange state because my dear friend Heidi is moving away to North Carolina with her husband and the baby boy I watched come out of her body nine months ago. On Sunday we had a little impromptu going away party for them at their house in the valley, and looking around the backyard, a melancholy rendition of Baby It’s Cold Outside playing out of my ex-boyfriend’s iPhone, I realized I was the only single person at this party. I found myself surrounded by five couples, one of which was my ex and his girlfriend. And I didn’t feel bad for myself or that I particularly wished to be part of a couple, but I did suddenly feel like an outsider. Like I didn’t belong. This was no longer my tribe. And that was an odd feeling.

Earlier in the day, we had all gone out to Barney’s Beanery for some goodbye nachos and beer. As we headed for the car, I was planning on riding with Heidi, her husband, and the baby. As I got to the car, I realized our friend Adrienne and her boyfriend had the same idea. Without missing a beat, I headed for Heidi’s brother’s car instead, asking if I could ride with him and his wife. I thought no one had noticed this small moment of single person awkwardness, but Heidi, being an ultra-sensitive observer, spoke up when we got to the restaurant.

“You just had one of those single moments. When we were back at the car. One of those moments of, I have nowhere to go,” she laughed compassionately, clearly feeling for me.

“It’s okay. I’m the leftovers,” I joked back.

Something strange is happening now that I’m in my late 20s. People are pairing off in a more serious way and it suddenly feels like the party is ending and everyone is trying to find someone to go home with so they don’t end up alone or paired off with the only other person that remains: everyone’s last choice. I found out today even Gaffer Guy is engaged. Fucking Gaffer Guy?! Truly the last man standing. Even Mr. Sociopathic alcoholic womanizing misogynist doesn’t want to go home alone.

Heidi and her husband moving away to build a cob house from scratch and start their real life as two adults with a child, that feels like a new chapter for all of us—a chapter that for me feels a million miles away. And I wonder what that means for these friendships. All of these people are going to start getting married and having children probably years before me—it’s already starting to happen. Where does that leave me in this group? Am I forever to be that single friend that is perpetually called out when a group of hot firemen walk by? Am I really going to be that cliché?

Sometimes I feel like the gals in Sex and the City when they go to their friend’s baby shower and they remember her as this wild single lady and find she’s now a stay-at-home mom living in a no-shoes-allowed house in the Hamptons with her husband and two kids. When Carrie arrives at the shower, the woman asks her to take off her Manolo Blahniks and Carrie’s like, “but this is an outfit.”  Sometimes being the kind of woman with screaming babies and toys lying around the house feels so foreign and far away, I wonder if that’ll ever be me.

Last year, one of my girlfriends had a birthday party for which her boyfriend organized a scavenger hunt and assigned each of her friends an hour to take her on a surprise adventure. I didn’t know about this. I was invited to the “after party” later that evening. I arrived at the apartment where a group of their friends sat around reminiscing about the fun they had had that day taking my friend through her various birthday activities. As I tried to laugh along with the general merriment of the group, I found myself instead feeling like a tourist and asking myself, why as one of her best friends, was I left out of the scavenger hunt component of the day? And then I realized that every single other guest at the party was part of a couple. I probably hadn't been left out on purpose as a punishment for being single, but it didn't matter--at that moment, I felt like the last girl in middle school to be picked for kickball teams. I sat there watching the couples ooh and aah as my friend unwrapped the giant set of luxury pots and pans her boyfriend had bought her for her birthday, and thought: this isn’t my world.

Less than a year ago, the six core members of our particular group were having a dinner party in the very dining room now filled with packing boxes. My ex and I were still in a rather undefined post-relationship stage in our friendship. His girlfriend was still a pretty new presence in his life, and he was resistant to even calling her that. Now they live together and I swear I can see marriage and kids on the not-so-distant horizon. Seeing how much has changed just this past year, I can’t imagine what this group will look like a year from now.

It’s interesting how defined we are by singlehood or coupledom. Lately I feel my identity is so entrenched in being single that I literally can’t picture myself in a relationship. And when I’m with other single people, I feel more connected, less alone. I can’t help it, surrounded by couples, I usually feel like the odd one out, no matter how close we all are. One of my girlfriends recently told me that if she’s invited to something, she just assumes her boyfriend is invited too. This drives me insane. The couple of times it's happened that I’ve had plans with a girlfriend and she’s showed up with her boyfriend, I become so irrationally angry. To me the time between friends, particularly girlfriends, is sacred and to assume you can invite your boyfriend is like admitting that you’re so codependent he’s essentially just another appendage and therefore barely counts as a separate person. It’s like when people become part of a couple, they have amnesia about what it was like when they were single. I guess I do too. I can remember back to a time when most of my decisions were made as part of a unit, but that time feels ever so long ago. I can’t imagine that for myself now.

There are so many seemingly inescapable qualities of coupled people that make me want to never be part of one again. Certain subtle freedoms that simply don’t exist, and as a single person I completely take for granted. Like the fact that if I want to leave a social gathering, I don’t have to quietly negotiate with my partner and decide in hushed tones when we want to leave and if we want to have another drink and who’s driving. I can just say goodbye and walk myself out of the house and drive my ass home. There are none of those awkward public disputes where you have to go off to the side to quietly fix whatever the issue is, or passive-aggressively pretend that everything’s fine when everyone in the room can tell by the shift in energy that something is up between you two. The fact that if there’s a hot single guy at the party, I can flirt with him openly and unabashedly without keeping an eye on where my partner is or feel his eyes watching me across the room, monitoring my behavior. The list goes on.

Things like this I remember about being in a relationship, and I see with my coupled friends, make me want to stay single forever. But the truth is that, obviously, I don’t want to be single forever. Who does? But I know myself, and my track record. I don’t date people casually. I fuck people casually, and then I meet someone I actually really like and I end up seriously dating them for four years. Although I would like to meet someone I like, I’m not in a big hurry to give up my hard-earned identity as an independent single woman. Being on my own has become so a part of who I am, and I’m proud of it. I think it’s made me a stronger, better person. I like that I can show up at a party by myself and find someone to talk to and I don’t need a familiar crutch to lean on. I like who I am when I’m single. I like not having to compromise or check in with anybody. I like that I can do what I want 100% of the time.

That said, I do get tired of making all of my decisions alone, and generating all of my own energy, and never having anyone to lean on. It does get tiresome, and lonely. I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I watch Heidi and her husband take this next step in their life and relationship.

When Heidi met Alex a couple years ago, she was already entrenched in a relationship with her first boyfriend and they lived together and seemed to be in it for the long haul. Then she met Alex and her world got turned upside down. Within a short time, she broke up with her longtime boyfriend, he moved out, and Alex moved in. Not long after that, they got pregnant and decided to have the baby. And then within a year they were making plans to leave LA and start a new sustainable lifestyle in North Carolina where they found they could fully commit to the living off the land model they had been trying to create in the backyard of their home in the valley. I think about if Heidi hadn’t met Alex, how her life would be different now. Meeting him changed her world and her priorities, allowed her to fully commit right now to a dream that felt very far in the future.

I feel like it is often the woman in a relationship who will adjust what she wants to compromise with what her partner wants in their life together. I guess one thing I love about Heidi’s relationship is that the opposite happened. She had this dream of building a cob house out of the ground and living a sustainable lifestyle, and Alex totally got on board with that dream, and it became their shared purpose. Now Alex is going to be the one doing the internship and learning how to build their house from scratch, as Heidi takes care of their baby.

“I had this idea, and I thought I would be the one doing it, and now he’s doing it instead,” she marveled. I could tell she had mixed feelings about this, part of her wanting to be the one to execute their dream. But I suppose that is constantly the balance and dilemma of motherhood: wanting to be with your baby all the time while they’re in those first precious couple years you’ll never get back, but also wanting to live your full life and continue feeding the passions you had before the baby came along. Mostly, Heidi seems in awe that she has found a man who shares her vision and wants to put his whole self into living it with her. She knows how rare that is.

I realize, watching them head off on this journey, that this is the kind of relationship I want. The kind of relationship that will inspire me into the next chapter of my life. Someone I can truly co-create with. Someone who supports my dreams and whose dreams I want to support. Or better yet, someone who has the same dream as me. I know now that at this moment in my life, I won’t settle for anything less. Until I find that, I’d rather be alone.