Tag: love

When Ranting On Your Blog Doesn’t Turn You Into the Next Mark Zuckerberg

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Breakups, Dating, insights/observations4 Comments

Blogging is dangerous business. Originally, They Told Me to Find a Rich Husband was supposed to be anonymous. For a long time, even after I had given the “About” section a named authoress and a face, googling me wouldn’t get you to my blog. Somewhere along the way, probably thanks to Facebook, that changed. Now, anyone doing background on me will find TTM2FaRH front and center on the first page of search results.

Is this a problem?

Up until today, the answer would have been “no.” There’s nothing I’ve written that I would be ashamed to have a boss or family member read. A few boys doing their pre-date due-diligence have stumbled on this page — what they uncovered had never amounted to a strike against. Quite the contrary.

And that’s largely because I had adhered to a few simple rules: never be mean, never complain.

Boys behave badly, boys break your heart, but never make your blog about them. Keep it about you. Because sometimes, you behave badly. That’s more or less been my motto.

But I broke my rules. In a moment of frustration, I riddled off and published a post I shouldn’t have. For the first time, I made it solely about them. And it was mean-spirited. Thanks to google, it was found. I was rightly put in my place.

“One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling upon something witty” — so wrote Jane Austen in Pride & Prejudice. Stumbling upon something witty is what TTM2FaRH hopes to do. Yet in the same book, her best loved hero, Mr. Darcy confesses: “I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself…My good opinion once lost is lost forever.”

The keyboard is mightier than the sword, and used recklessly, offers the Mr. Darcy’s of the world reasons enough to loose their good opinions.

There are enough blogs out there that ridicule men — Fail Males, for example.They Told Me to Find a Rich Husband will not be one of them.

 

An Essayist Fails to Find a Moral: or The Boy Broke My Heart and Taught me Nothing about Life. What a Jerk.

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Breakups, Dating1 Comment
An essayist breaks a cup. She writes an essay. She learns and shares a life lessonl. No pressure.

A personal essayist carries the weight of the world on her little writer’s shoulders.

She breaks a teacup.

She writes an essay about breaking the tea cup.

She turns introspective.

She employs wits.

She jerks at the heart’s strings.

She considers the social impact of breaking the teacup.

She turns a seemingly insignificant moment into a neatly resolved story with a moral and rounds it out with insightful commentary on the way we live now.

No pressure.

I like to think of myself an essayist, or perhaps an essayist in training. I’ve always believed that there is a story behind everything – and every story is interesting if you tell it right. There should never be a lack of inspiration, as long as you’re in the mood to be creative.

And there is certainly never a lack of inspiration when your favorite subject is the way we love now.

This is how I look when i'm trying to write an essay...

After several years in the trenches of Love’s War, I’ve decided every first date can provide preliminary material for a minimum of 3 essays. For each date thereafter, the number of possible papers increases exponentially.

As you stop counting singular dates and start measuring your relationship in real time frames (i.e., weeks, years), you can generate an endless number of moralizing assemblages of prose.

I’ve never had a problem finding a greater life lesson or an aha! moment of self-reflection in a first date… until Gary.

Gary came pre-approved with the Grimm’s Fairytale Stamp of Prince Charming Approval. He was everything I had ever designed for myself in the Simms World of dream mates. I was ready to fall in love with him. Fate dangled him in front of me just long enough for me to get my hopes up and then, it whoosed him away.

Sitting pen and paper in hand a few days later, I was at a loss. I find myself asking:

What was the fucking point of that one?

If I could have walked away having learned something worth sharing I would feel better about Gary’s intrusive foray into my dating life. Be a jerk, I say, but at least lead me to an “aha!” moment in the process!

Thus, instead of rising above the fray of emotion to bring this to a resolved closing remark, I end insight-less. Essayist major fail.

woof woof

What Superbowl XLVI Revealed About my Relationship History

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Dating2 Comments
I'm armed with my Giants t-shirt. Too bad my date rooted for the Patriots.

Who would have thought a Superbowl Game could reveal so much about my romantic history? Gearing up for this weekend’s New York-New England showdown put me face-to-face with a startling trend in my dating habits.  Apparently, there’s a part of me that’s a masochist, because as I look down the timeline of relationships and dates past, all this Yankee sees is a string of New Englanders in their Red Sox caps and Patriots jerseys.

I was still carrying the bag housing my freshly-purchased Giants t-shirt when I met Robert for drinks. Robert and I seemed a nice fit. Putting aside his boyish good looks, he was an artist and environmentalist, and for both of these I have a particular soft spot. But then the trouble begins. Robert is a Rhode Island born, Vermont educated Patriots fan. I am a Giants fan (newly-minted, albeit, but still a fan), and when our discussion turned to the pending Superbowl, we both started to get prickly.

It's a modern day, sports world Romeo and Juliet. If they can make it work, why can't I?

The story of Romeo & Juliet is one of the most over romanticized in the history of English literature, and yet I find myself destined to play the part of the New York Montague consistently attracted to a New England Capulet.

That boy my senior year of high school. My first love in college. The last 4 guys I’ve been on at least one date with. Red Sox fan after Patrios fan after Bruins fan after Harvard alum. It’s my tragic flaw – I always seem to fall hardest for men who root for my teams’ arch-rivals.

I blame New York men, mostly, for this. If New Yorkers canoed more, if they were more transcendental, if they had served time on turkey farms  in their youth, I might find it easier to fall for one of my own men in pinstripes. But there’s something about that rugged New Englander with a well-worn copy of Walden in his back pocket and a knack for layering sweaters that I find totally irresistible.

Given my type, this may very well have to be my wedding cake.

Luckily, Robert hates baseball, so if anything comes of this, I won’t wake up to find my Jeter t-shirt slashed to bits or my traveling Yankee gnome beheaded.

Back in 2008, when my MA thesis advisor recommended I apply to Harvard for my doctorate, I practically spat at her:

“I’m a New Yorker! I can’t live in a city that roots for the Red Sox.”

In the wake of Superbowl 2012 and what it reveals about my dating history, it occurred to me that this may have been a foolish display of stubbornness. In December, I’ll be applying again for PhD programs. I suppose I’d better apply to some Boston schools, because apparently this pinstriped Juliet is in the wrong city to find her Romeo.

In the Playoff Games of Love, I’m totally Billy Cundiff

On By KathleenIn Dating, insights/observations, Love1 Comment
It was a 32 yard field goal for love and I missed.

Sometimes, I feel like an a-hole. Like a few weeks ago on that first date. Enter seasonal sports analogy: Team Kathleen was in the playoff game for love and I was the team’s equivalent of Billy Cundiff. That’s right, I was the kicker who only had 32 yards to a game-winning field goal but MISSED. Yea, this was the date that was going to put me in the SuperLoveBowl and I had just kicked wide and had to go home without getting to play for the “championship” ring.

There’s nothing more disappointing than sitting across from someone you think could be “it” and feeling like you’re just not on your A-game. It turns into an almost outer-body experience where you get to watch yourself plummet faster and faster, but can’t seem to come to your own rescue.  My heart kept bouncing back and forth between my stomach and my throat – had it been only a flutter, I might have been able to get it under control and build myself a life raft. Instead, I found myself head under water, drowning in flatly-told stories and saying “all-the-wrong-things.”

Somewhere between the sandwich and the dessert menu, I sighed with the thought that “this just isn’t going to amount to anything.”

The walk to my next destination might as well have been a walk along the green mile.

The farewell walk might as well have been a walk along the green mile. He had been thoughtful enough to accompany me to my next destination, but I almost wished he had shown less chivalry. Mediocrity is exhausting, and I was plum worn out from three hours being a mediocre date.  I needed to walk briskly, add a few extra blocks to my trek and let the winter air numb an already aching heart.

The good-bye was awkward enough that, if I tried really hard, I could find a glimmer of hope that not all was lost. But I knew better. As I made my way home later that evening, I resigned to what would become the reality – he would evaporate as quickly as he had appeared.

Love really is a game. Luckily, I’ve been an athlete my whole life, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned on the sports field that’s also applicable to the quest for love it’s this: there’s always another season to be played, which means there’s always another chance for victory… that is, as long as you’re not too quick to throw in the towel.

When You’re Having a Bad Dating Week Just Don’t Read “He’s Just Not that into You”

On By KathleenIn Dating, insights/observations, Love, New York City, relationships2 Comments
Jack Berger was my favorite S&TC boyfriend... even if he was insecure and emotionally handicapped

I’ll never forget the first time I saw that episode of Sex & the City where Jack Berger (incidentally, my favorite of Carrie’s emotionally inadequate boyfriends) bursts Miranda’s bubble with the simple phrase “He’s just not that into you.” The scene struck a chord as I had recently tired to tell a good girlfriend exactly the same thing:

“Listen, Jess, he took the evil red-headed stick figure actress to his office party. And the book signing. And dinner. He’s not dating you. He just d0esn’t, ya know, like you.”

Albeit, my phrasing was perhaps a big meaner. But frankly, we had consumed so many bottles of sake that she didn’t pay much attention to my solo shake-up in a chorus of “He’s totally waiting for the right moment to tell you he loves you.”

Gag me with a spoon.

Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy claims: “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.” I’ve never been one of those girls. But that doesn’t mean that once in a rare, rare while, I haven’t found myself face-to-face with a man who ignites daydreams of the possible. Once in a rare, rare while, this pragmatic romantic loses the pragmatic and becomes a full-fledged romantic.

I think the post-it notes say it all...

And it was one of these rare, rare moments that sent me running to the book that came out of that Sex & the City episode, that book “He’s Just Not That Into You.” I had bought it to give to my aforementioned friend. I kept it instead. She clearly had no intentions to read it anyway.

The writers confirmed my intuitions — his lack of follow-up to our enjoyable early dates were sign that he wasn’t interested enough. The reasons were irrelevant, all that mattered was he didn’t like me as much as I had liked him. Ouch.

The book may have been right on some points, but it was wrong to tell me not to chase a little. Years later, when he was on to someone else, he confessed:

“I didn’t think you were that interested. If you had called, I absolutely would have seen you again.”

Some women are barracudas -- flashy fighters worthy of a trophy mount

New York is a man’s world when it comes to dating — this was a conclusion a male friend and I came to not so long ago over coffee. In NYC, an accomplished man with taste and half-way decent looks is the fisherman that doesn’t have to drop a line into the water to catch a fish. The fish just jump into the boat.

In a sea full of well-educated, well-dressed, good-looking fish, a man has options. Some of those women are barracuda — flashy fighters worthy of a wall mount. Which means sometimes, if you don’t want to lose out on a happily ever after, you have to get in the game and hop into that boat.

Women Can Have a Graduate Degree or Love, but Not Both?

On By KathleenIn Career, Dating, Love3 Comments

Back at the end of December, the New York Times ran an article on women and post-graduate education. The piece, written by Catherine Rampell and entitled “Instead of Work, Younger Women Head to School,” offered me no new news — effectively, all of my female friends have gone on to receive/pursue Masters, Doctorates, or their equivalents within the 5 years since we graduated college, while only two of my male friends has decided to return to school for an advanced degree outside of the medical variety.

My MA degree represents more than more schooling -- it represents cultivated interests.

The article presented some interesting statistics but some pretty traditional explanations for the reasons why, in this particular economic climate, women might be more inclined to return to school than men.

Moments after skimming the piece, I got an email from Columbia’s Art History Department announcing a post-doc program at Duke. The following line was bolded in red:

Particular focus is on fields in which women and minorities are under-represented.

In all the studies Ms. Rampell cited, she forgot to look at the number of scholarships/grants set aside specifically to serve women who choose to pursue education beyond the college level.

I’m not going to find the numbers for you. You’re a grown up. You can google. I have bigger fish to fry…

The day after the article ran, I got an email from a friend pointing me to a Gwaker response:

“Women be schooling! [Pause for laughter.]…Which, ironically, only isolates them further from the majority of men in the dating pool, leaving them to fight over the relatively scarce (and concomitantly self-entitled) educated men of their age.”

I wish Mr. Gwaker was wrong, but here’s thing:

A graduate degree represents more than a few more years of schooling. It represents cultivated interests and a self-awareness of what things, beyond shelter, food and an income, are really important to you.

Once upon a time, I may have been happy with a Hendrix-loving sporty type, but now, I need someone who enjoys spending afternoons here too.

Mr. Gwaker, like the woman who told me “you’ll never find a husband, half the men aren’t good enough for you, the other half will think you’re too good for them,” you’re tragically onto something.

When I graduated from college, I would have been content saying “I do” to a sporty Wall Street type with a dog and a predilection for striped shirts and Jimi Hendrix. An MA, PhD application, and several curating attempts later, I realize he also needs to enjoy museum-going and have the “intellectual bandwidth” to discuss the merits of Braque vs. Picasso over coffee shortly there after.

The dating pool is a lot smaller for me than it was a few years ago.

So yes, splashing around in the dating pool is harder for me now than it was 4  years ago. It’s a tall order to ask for a literary, sporty, artsy, humorous, dog-loving outdoorsman with good taste in music, a joy for cooking, a sophisticated sense of style and a stable career… who likes you back.

But I’m reasonably optimistic… mostly, because I know that if all else fails, I’ve at least got my glorious gaggle of fellow over-educated females who’ll join me at MoMA for the Diego Rivera murals.

Take that, Mr. Gawker.