On Marriage: An N-Train State of the Union

You know those moments when the generation gap has opened so wide--so  absurdly wide it can contain something as large as, for example, the amount of shit Tyler Perry has produced during his miraculous career--that you KNOW there's no point trying to convince your elder to see it your way?

I had one of those yesterday, while riding the N. We get to 42nd and a very pleasant, very affluent looking yenta of 60ish boards with her friend. Their conversation, which continued in raging stereotyple all they way to 5th Ave (surprise surprise), went like this:

"I know it's not PC or whateva, Barb, but I think it's disgusting. [Barbara nods in sympathetic agreement] Behind closed doors, fine. But outside of that--have some shame! Gay marriage will be the last nail in the coffin for marriage. Getting married doesn't mean anything anymore! It’s supposed to be sacred, but its not. Young people, the sluts, gays, MTV, all of it, they're ruining it, they don't respect it. It'll be like Sodom and Gomorrah soon. "

[Note: No cliched dialogue was added to this transcript. Some stereotypes exist for a reason]      

Okay, she's right: Traditional marriage is in trouble. (Clearly). But I wanted to start screaming paraphrased sections of a recent dialogue between blogger Wades the Tides and myself:

50% of AMERICAN marriages fail NOT because of "the gays," or MTV (who even WATCHES MTV anymore?), but because our current approach to it is all wrong. "Young people" should not be lumped in with what you see on reality TV--and it's mainly the "middle aged" or "old people" doing the divorcing in the first place.

We have to change our expectations about what a realistic marriage--a partnership by definition--IS. (And PS: Marriage is not the wedding day itself. It's what comes after. And "young people" know what.)

In other cultures, various people form a team to fulfill you, some members covering you emotionally, some sexually, some psychologically, some intimately, some creatively...you get the point. 

Now, I'm not saying we should have a team of individuals assigned to each category of neediness. What I am saying is that today, many people (not everyone) expect our mate to be everything: they must be our lover (and the best sex ever), friend (besties!), soul mate (the one God himself crafted from clay for us specifically), muse (who inspires us), the validator who understands the complex souls we are (hey baby, I get you); they must be good with finances, juggling social circles, cleaning, cooking, child rearing and all other household tasks; they must listen to our every gripe and know the right thing to say, challenge us intellectually but never make us feel stupid, never think of doing the nasty with anything but us and never make mistakes beyond forgetting the dry-cleaning. 

Women must come home from a 12 hour day at work and cook risotto from scratch in an apron and four inch stilettos while teaching the children SAT words and maintaining a 24-inch-waist. Men must maintain our chosen lifestyle, surprise wives with gifts and gestures and monologues of love stolen from films like Jerry Maguire and 10 Things I Hate About You (but Heath singing on those stadium stairs? Whoo-boy, come to momma...) and keep all the hair they had when we started dating. They must make our friends laugh, our wingmen jealous, our parents proud...

...and do ALL of this (it's a package deal) happily, as if energy and patience were as abundant as bad Tyler Perry movies (I'm sorry, I just HATE him so much). If they violate these items (and these are just a FEW of the things we require), we divorce.

When you heap all that crap on one individual, they're going to disappoint you--because no one is that perfect. THAT PERFECT PERSON DOES NOT EXSIST. You will fight, disagree, make mistakes, hit rough patches. But fewer people are willing to weather the real BULLSHIT. Illness, job loss, career disappointments, epic mistakes...it's all coming. And it's going to suck.    

 

Until we start balancing realism with desire (and peppering desire with realism) we're screwed. And don't even get me started on “traditional,” ball and chain monogamy...that's a post of a different color.

That was a rant and a half. I apologize. 

But I believe it's time to propose a new business model for marriage. Like iPods, the 1950s standard must be revamped and clunky features discontinued. Or else Yenta and her Barbara will be right...and no one wearing acrylic bangles and that much tarantula mascara should be allowed to be an authority on human unions.

Or anything.

The Second-First Date: Can You Go Home Again?

Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon. Jude Law and Sienna Miller. Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. (And then Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock.)

The list of celeb couples to break up and try for round two is not encouraging.

Fortunately, I'm not a celebrity. 

Two weeks ago, Alex-the-boy-I-moved-out-on, threw down the gauntlet. In short, after months apart (accented by bi-monthly meet-ups to exchange our dog, as detailed in our amazingly civil canine custody arrangement), Alex asked me out on a first date...again. Not a date, not an ex-sex hook-up, but an actual first date, with all the rules intact: no sex, no guaranteed phone call the next day, no handsy-grabsy bullshit. 

As I've mentioned, I'm skeptical of split couples trying to sew the torn fabric of their relationship back together once the blanket's gone off to Goodwill. (How's THAT for a convoluted metaphor, huh?)  

I'm also skeptical of those who say their relationship is "different." Everyone thinks they're different (just like everyone thinks their life is blog-worthy). But we, in this one instance, are at least a little different in that our similar lifestyles, levels of attraction, mutual respect and shared interests were intact when I left, as were lingering feelings of love and affection. I haven't forgotten that.

What I HAD forgotten is what dating other people is like. (For an idea of my "success" with that over the last few months, click here.) 

What this endless intro (and Jesus, this is getting longer than The fucking Fountainhead) means is: I SAID YES AND WE WENT ON THE DATE.

The results are as follows:

• 9:00PM: Alex arrives with bouquet of roses and daises (all healthy, price tag removed), and sweaty palms (Yay, you're nervous too. We'll both suffer). He looks good. (He's lost 15lbs since we split? How did I miss that? Are those---yes, those are abs under that thermal! Carmel-colored, 100% Spanish abs leading down to----) I get a grip. Focus! Chest out, flirty eyes. I mention he looks "healthy." He mentions he's taken up running. (Running? Really, Forrest Gump? Followed by, Stop being a cunt, you cunt.) I try not to look at the abs, because I am not shallow.
   
• 9:05PM: Awkward moment where we habitually go to hold hands. (Mayday! WHY DIDN'T YOU WEAR THE DRESS WITH POCKETS!?!?!) Hands sort of clasp, then fumble and let go. Hang from our arms like dead raccoons.
   
• 9:06PM: Awkward moment deflected with "I'm not that kind of girl" joke. We walk on.
   
  
• 9:07-9:10PM: Awkward silence. (Oh god, this was such a bad idea...)
  
  
• 9:11PM: Small, strange Asian lady with goatee (Holy shit, yes, this woman DOES have a goatee!) approaches us and produces...a turtle. After several weird hand gestures, we realize she is asking us to buy said turtle. More hand gestures ensue. We use international sign for "Thanks for the offer, but I'm fresh out of turtle cash." She offers to trade the turtle for my purse. (Back off, TurtleBitch...) We decline. She yells a string of obscenities, totters off.
  
  
• 9:13PM: We stand watching Turtle-Lady totter off in stunned silence. Then, the laughing starts.  First a nervous, "Wow, that was weird, how do I react" chuckle, followed by real, genuine belly laughs, that one-hand-on-the-hip-one-hand-raised-to-Jesus laughter that makes you wheeze like an old-fashioned bellows before dying out with a "whooooooooo."

And here's where I stop checking my watch, because things finally feel comfortable. 

We head out to dinner. We talk a lot. We catch up, fill each other in on friends and family (his mom still hates me, his father doesn't, and his recently-divorced uncle thinks that a Hitch List is the coolest thing he's ever heard of...go figure). He shows me pictures of new art pieces he's working on, which stings as much as it excites, since I'd cited his complacency about his talent and art as a major turn off before I left. I show him my latest published piece, worry about job security; he comforts me. It all fits as well as a worn-in pair of jeans, but I'm looking past the smiles, past the conversation, and seeing hurt behind it. Hurt and fear. It's all swimming in those two almond shaped, espresso eyes of his.

We drink, head to a Broadway show. When he reaches for my hand in the darkened theater I don't pull away.

But I'm not paying attention to the stage. I'm too busy doing self-inventory in my head. Where's the rush? Where's that drug-high, hot-flushed limerence, that dizzy adrenaline feeling, like coke slamming into your brain? Do I still love him? If I love him, where's the drug high? I want my high...

After the show, we have that moment where he needs to go back to Penn Station, me back to my train. We're standing there, awkward, staring. I don't know what he sees on my face, to be honest. But I invite him back to my place for a nightcap anyway. A nightcap and sleep and nothing else.

Back in Brooklyn, I'm pouring two drinks when he lays down his iPhone and lets Pandora start playing to fill the relapsed silence. An old club-banger by Rhymefest and Kanye West comes on, and the drunk in me starts ass-shaking, hand still on the pouring liquor bottle. Alex starts laughing, because I can only dance when I'm drunk, and I tell him to fuck-off (such a lady), and then we're both dancing in the middle of the empty apartment. Not two-stepping, not bobbing, not slow-dancing like at prom, but ass-shaking-rump-rubbing bumpin' and grindin' like a ho' and a hoodrat on a Thursday night. We dance ourselves sweaty for ten minutes before the battery bleeps out and the iPhone goes mum. 

Alex slept in my bed, and that's it. Slept. Clothes on. I laid awake and stared at him for who knows how long, wondering where my pitter-pat drug high was. Then I started to think about that drug high limerence and all the people, not just guys, who'd gotten me drunk off that feeling, and dimly remembered that each limerent love affair has always ended quickly, with a come-down worse than any drug on the market. 

I don't know what any of that means yet. 

In the morning, Alex kissed me on the cheek and left before I got up for work. I stayed in bed after the alarm went off and smelled him on my sheets, and for the first time in months missed the scent of Chanel Homme and cocoa butter and skin on my pillows.

I'm waiting the required two days before I call him, but I texted a genuine thank you for a great night.

You can't go home again, obviously. But maybe you can visit?

Ah, fuck me.

 

Chronic Monogamy, or, "Hi, I'm Super Lame"

I've been getting a lot of questions (some emailed and some not so nice) about WHY I made a Hitch List, why I've put what are several "well, DUH" items on the list, why I left someone I loved to do it.

First off, I’m somewhat dismayed by the standard “if you could even picture kissing another human, you didn’t love him” default many people revert to. Love, as my longtime gay wingman pointed out recently, is not black and white, nor is it concrete, especially in the cases of people who have been together for half a decade or more. (PS: Limerence, the 1-2 year chemical love high kicked into action by the brain, feels concrete. But it’s not. I still see lots of people mistaking the two daily.) My 90-year-old grandmother confirmed this after I confessed I’d been taking abuse from snark-sharks who said that I couldn’t have been in love if I left, and that I had been taking the snark to heart. Grandma, who is very wise and very Catholic, said simply that “realistic love” is transient, and the people who can’t recognize that are the ones who become rigid and unlovable. She then berated me for caring what other people think. (Point taken, Grandma.)

Obviously something as personal as the reasons behind leaving and hitch listing will be different for everyone. I certainly don't expect anyone who's from a more traditional, white-picket-fence-mindset to even remotely understand the selfish, all-about-me nature of listing.

But for clarification’s sake, I can say FOR ME it is a much needed codependency treatment, one that will ideally cure me of a potentially fatal (socially and romantically) illness: Super Lameness, clinically known (in the clinic that is our halfway-house of an apartment) as Chronic Monogamy Syndrome.

Like generations of men, women and sitcom characters before me, I like the single life. It's sexy. It’s fun. You don't have to answer to anyone. You can pick up and go study the art of prayer flag making in Tibet. You can go on Puckish adventures into the outer-boroughs for anything you want--underground dances parties, thin-sliced pizza, bohemian guitar circles, green tea, make-out sessions with random lead singers of bands you accidentally picked up after even more random concerts (I'm looking at you, Red...). Anything's possible when you don’t have someone else to consider. Nights can end at 6am with your partner in crime at your side, both of you smelling like gin and lime and high off the heady violation of every cardinal rule of proper behavior. Or you can just sit alone contentedly blogging without being called antisocial. (Though I recommend debauchery. It all goes in a memoir someday, and if your memoir's too boring too read you’re wasting the precious gifts of life and genitals.)

But like everyone who’s ridden singledom already knows, eventually loneliness sets in...followed by self-doubt, social paranoia, the fear that if you die no one will come looking for you until the dog eats your face, and that gnawing, irrational need to be spooned by a warm body which holds you tightly. That warm body completely validates you: you’re pretty enough, smart enough, interesting enough, worthy enough for companionship, and you’ve got proof!

For Chronic Monogamers, this can become the relentless, insecure driving force behind jumps from long-term relationship to long-term relationship.

This is super lame.

Example: I have a background in wanting to be partnered so badly that I fall in love too easily, forgiving glaring personality flaws (long histories of womanizing, lack of direction in life, non-reciprocating oral sexers) en route to the next level of companionship. That eventually resulted in a failed engagement to a douche who was clearly a douche, and the purchase of 25 stone wedding centerpieces which are still sitting, like a bizarre graveyard, in my parent’s basement.

Far worse is that I blow off friends as soon as the signing bonus on new relationship goes through. I’m nesting. I’m sexing. I’m entwined with my lover, happily absorbing their nuances like a sponge, purring and lolling about in togetherness like an overweight cat in a featherbed. I become defined by the relationship, which leads to monophobia outside of the relationship.

This is all incredibly humiliating to have to admit, because it reveals just how insecure and cringe-inducingly awkward I am at my lowest. But I do know through countless conversations and shameless evesdropping that I’m not an isolated case. I’ve seen it: normally rational, fun, strong people fading into their chains of band-aid relationships, losing touch with themselves as they go. We’ve all watched enough disturbingly codependent relationships sink into the tar pits because at least one person can't admit to this, and it’s ugly enough to make me want to suck it up and deal with it now.

So, I left. Not because my lover was a douche (this one was and is a decided catch, loved and approved of by everyone from Grandma to our social circle’s bitchy-I-hate-everyone-Godfather-of-the-Gays) but because I might be...or might become one down the road if I didn’t take some time to sort out all the glaring flaws I’d never addressed because I haven’t been alone since I was 19.

By making a list, forcing myself to go independent, learning to have fun without a partner or date in tow and reconnecting with all the friends I abandoned when nesting (or failed to meet by not going out), I just might become the kind of person I want to marry.

I may end up something besides super lame.

And I think that's just swell.

I DO(n't know)

Six months ago, I was the cover of the "liberal-arts-educated-chick-from-the-burbs" textbook: 25 (not 26), gainfully employed and living a blissful routine of guaranteed sex and companionship with my attractive, supportive and employed boyfriend of five years. (And our dog. White with black spots.) I cooked, he cleaned. Sunday nights we watched reality TV in our underwear. On special occasions, he could have it anally.

Then, as the 6 year mark approached, I began doing what generations of women have made a fine art: dropping hints about marriage.

But I am not an artist. "Hints" devolved into billboards with the words “ARE YOU EVER GOING TO FUCKING MARRY ME, DUDE?” scrawled in 50-foot Helvetica font on the sides of buildings. (That's an exaggeration. But I did get wasted off Stoli and bitch in a cab from the Upper East Side aaaallllllll the way to Astoria--in front of my boyfriend, our friends and a Pakistani cabbie--about how he hadn't proposed. NOTE: This is one of the three instances in which a man is actually allowed to murder a woman in the back of a cab. We'll talk about the other two another time.)

It became an obsession. Would he? When? Where? How would he do it? What if he picked out an ugly-as-sin ring? I’d say yes, but was it appropriate to melt it down...? GOD, what if it was pear-cut?

Then, the bomb dropped: Alex, as we’ll call him, WAS going to propose. According to the mole who leaked the news, soon.

I freaked the fuck out.

Not in a jumping up and down with your sorority sisters kind of way. More a I-packed-my-shit-up-emptied-my-bank-account-and-subletted-a-room-from-a-gay-man-in-Brooklyn kind of freak out.

Well, not “kind of.” That’s actually what I did. Literally.

"This girl’s a fucking nutjob.” “Bipolar." "That dude’s better off.” Yes, I can hear your interior monologue from Brooklyn (the acoustics off the bridge are ah-mazing). I get it. Respectable, sympathetic girls don't do things like that to hot, supportive, amazing guys who love their crazy asses.

But staring down the barrel of marriage, it clicked: I’ve never been on my own. I always came home to parents or the live-in boyfriend, never walked into a party or social event without the bullet-proof vest of my partner layered over my party-gear and never learned to be the confident, self-reliant, worldly woman with cool stories to tell.

Worse, I’d become the sort of grating, obnoxious, smothering girlfriend who guys and girls alike wish to kill with their bare hands...one that turns into the sort of grating, obnoxious, smothering wife some guys DO kill with their bare hands. Lump in the fact I suddenly questioned whether this guy was THE ONE, since I’d never really taken the time to talk to anyone else, and the whole humiliating hot-mess puzzle should assemble itself pretty easily. (Alex had his own issues to deal with as well.)

Which brings us to THE LIST:

Ammendment: The Hitch List fully recognizes that marriage does not equate death. If you're with the right person, most of your life adventures should continue, only with double the cost of airfare. But if you've a history of codependency (check) and/or limited experience with personal independence (double check), Hitch Listing might be one way to reboot....and make sure you're not a clingy nightmare when you find your soul mate.

Things To Do Before You Marry, or The Hitch List:

(last updated on September 18, 2009)

1. Learn to comfortably fly solo.

2. Conquer lingering, irrational childhood fears (dark, fucking scary spiders, etc.).

3. Go on week long "Help Me" Detox--no asking for help from anyone, for anything. (This pertains to help carrying laundry from the laundromat, reaching items at the grocery store, holding subway doors, killing fucking scary spiders, etc., as well as to the obvious areas of financial, emotional and social assistance.)

4. Get lost in a major city alone. Find your way home.

5. Do something that scares the shit out of you.

6. Do something that scares the shit out of someone else.

7. Sleep in the WHOLE bed.

8. Go on an epic road trip. Must visit minimum of three places you've never heard of before Google mapping.

9. Start selfish, indulgent lifelong habit.

10. Get involved in doing ongoing good deeds for others.

11. Have wild night at the strip club.

12. Break one personal beauty law (i.e. no short hair, no red lipstick, no Lindsay Lohan leggings, etc).

13. Break up with the television, phone, Facebook and g-chat and live like an urban Emerson...temporarily, at least.

14. Do post-mortem on past relationships for evidence of YOUR insanity at work (no blaming the ex).

15. Go on a date with someone who is not your "type."

16. Tattoo.

17. Restock your entire underwear drawer with new inventory.

18. Revisit an old fling.

19. Wingman your BFF a piece of ass.  

20. Have your BFF wingman you a piece of ass.  

21. Go on a 100% lesbian date.

22. Skydive.

23. Get in a fight.

24. Learn a new language. Must be able to order food, ask for directions, give a compliment and give instructions on how to make you orgasm in chosen language within 6 weeks of starting.

25. Learn from the "other woman."

26. Relocate somewhere you've never lived and don't know anyone.

27. Create "Ethnic Sexcapades" Bingo Card (Italian, Irish, Puerto Rican, African American, Japanese, etc.). Compete with friends for first "Bingo." (Winner gets bragging rights and a free trip to the STD clinic.)

28. Take a midnight train going anywhere.

29. Be with someone older.

30. Be with someone younger.

31. Break a Guinness World Record.

32. Party with someone famous.

33. Smash out with someone famous (see 32 for assistance).

34. Play a player.

35. Threesum?

36. Visit the birthplace of your personal hero.

37. Read/view/listen to at least three of the books/films/albums an ex recommended but you never touched (who knows, they may have been right aboutsomething).

38. Spend a day in someone elses' shoes...literally, swap locations, jobs, friends and lifestyles for a day. See what you learn.

39. Build something from scratch utilizing three tools you have no idea how to use.

40. Try something you would "never" do in bed.

41. Be the star of your own nude photo shoot and learn to love your naked self. (Pictures for your eyes only.)

42. Start mixed martial arts and/or self defense classes.

43. Go on a vision quest with an experienced guide.

44. Travel somewhere exclusively for a famous local food item (must cross state lines). Philly cheese steaks, media noches in Cuba, Pad Thai in Thailand, etc.

45. Get arrested.

46. Experience a complete relationship in one weekend (meet, flirt, fall in lust, spend too much time together and breakup all over the course of a single weekend. Hard to do in small towns, but it happens all the time in NYC).

47. Read at least two books on the world history of marriage (better the devil that you know).

48. Experience parenthood temporarily with the assistance of friends/siblings/relatives who have small children.

49. Have a raucous ladies'/guys' night in a famous non-native party city.

50. Write your own eulogy.

51. Curb cursing habit.

52. Answer Haddaway's age-old question: "What is love?"

53. Advocate and march for equal marriage rights. (Just because I'm not ready to marry doesn't mean EVERYONE else on the planet shouldn't be allowed to.)