Take It Like A Man

Thesedays, my precious darlings, dating runs in two rivers.

The first river is the old-fashioned kind, a river like, say, the Colorado. It starts in the Rocky Mountains as snow-melt and spring bubbler, gradually turning into Lake Mead by way of the Grand Canyon. Eventually it keeps LA alive...a dubious prospect but nonetheless the fact of 1,400 miles of downhill adventure.

The second river is newer, much shorter and without any of the history or variety. It would be like a glacial river in Iceland: short, sharp and to the point. A thoroughly modern river. A great ride.

You can see where I'm meandering to with this metaphor. Long-form relationships and their precursors - by which I mean formal dating and marriage - are like the Colorado. Although the flow might start with a rush, time and terrain change the river's direction and temperament. Dams create reservoirs and calm, but also tail water and froth. Flat land slows the river down, and steep terrain does the opposite. Rocks make rapids. And eventually it turns out that we have to give it all to Hollywood...but it was one helluva ride.

Our Icelandic river is more of a day-trip flow. Anyone can hop on for the short ride, all we need do is hold hands and jump in together. It'll be fun and breathless for a while, then the ride ends. You can start back at the top again (because it's only a short hike) with or without the same partner. It's an amusement park outing.

Trouble arises (because you knew there had to be a downside) when one or other of the participants in the River Party forget which ride they signed up for. I see this when women think they are in the Icelandic way of things, but as soon as they get wet decide they need the guy to be more of a riverboat captain. The guy who thought he was in for nothing more than a quickie, or multiple quickies in a row, suddenly finds himself being expected to pitch riverbank tents and create fires and text "good morning" every day.

Huh? I thought that by her active participation as an equal that Icelandic Rules applied here, not Red River Rules. There are no tents in Iceland; we go to the bar, drink, and decide in the morning if we want to go swimming again.

That's it. Unless you want to try the Colorado. That changes everything.




Bottoms Up, My Beautiful High Country Trout.

Women are from Two-Stroke

 Ferrari F430

I read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus when it was published a few light years ago. It was enlightening in an obvious way, by which I mean that the metaphor overwhelmed the information. Does anyone not understand that men and women are different? Did we need an entire book to make that point? Were the stereotypes thusly created valuable?

Still, it created positive controversy. The chattering class had something vaguely titillating with which to pretend-shock friends, and Dr Oprah's millionaire factory created another alumnus. Chalk it up to nothing succeeding like success.

But something about the premise bugged me, and still does. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the idea that men and women are from different planets - abstract as the whole deal is - strikes me as more divisive than creative. We're the same species divided into two sexes, not two civilizations.

Anyhoo, as they say in the classics, I found a metaphor that I like that helps explain one Martian/Venusian characteristic, and it's this:

Men's sexual motor is always on, idling when not in gear, revving hard when in motion.

Women's sexual motor is off much of the time, needing to be started before moving  from the curb.

Neat eh?

Because I always take stuff too far, I'd say that:

Men are diesels. Diesels happily run all the time, but also thrive on hard revving.

Women are two-stroke engines NPI. Two strokes are lively and have high power-to-weight, but are best suited to be on when needed, and off when not.

Men, this was a teachable moment for me (another modern linguistic triumph.) Remember, before attempting anything, first start her up, and, better still, warm her up.




Bottoms Up, Internal Combustors.

But Then Again, Too Few to Mention

Maria Grazia Cucinotta pic. 

Choosing the right partner.

I don't know, if there is some secret to making this happen, it's surely not in my possession. The answer is tantalizingly close, like she's so almost there...but she's not.

Or is she?

I am unmarried because I have yet to meet the right person. Well, maybe I've met her, but all the folderol surrounding dating is a barrier. Some people are ready, some people are not, and so the world turns.

Maturity matters. Some people I know married early in life, but they had it together enough to make it work. On the other hand, there are perpetually lagging souls who only present as decent prospects after a few years in oak barrels. Everyone's mileage varies.

If there is magic to be learned, maybe it is just that - that we're all different, and you knowing when you're ready for decanting is paramount.



Bottoms Up, Vignerons.

BTW, here's how to choose a wedding day limousine.

Don't Stop the Dance

Zoe Saldana photo credit. 

Nineteen eighty-five just might represent the apogee of the music video. Weak, qualified statements don't make for good arguments, however, so I'll take a deep breath and say it: The Eighties were the Golden Age of Music Video.

There. Solidity. Definition.

I've taken to asking people what one tune they can point to that categorically changed their lives. Music's a universal, so I figure that it's a useful common denominator that written or spoken language isn't. Others, strangers, musicians, express what we feel better than ourselves.

And although this isn't my all-time-change-tune, it's from 1985. The Golden Age. Let's not change the dance, eh?




Bottoms Up, Looking Back In Wisdomers.

Lessons From My Cat Part 2

Male metaphors tend towards the active: hunting, chasing, holding, making her mine. Let's be kind and say that there's a certain carnivore and prey smell to our way of thinking. The implication is that women in the wild are innocent unwilling participants.

Which is dumb. Male metaphors can be crap.

As I noted previously, the humble house cat gives us fundamental clues about female human behaviour. Think of her as woman stripped of overthinking and emotion - she's the essence of feminine...in a soft, seasonal fur coat. Not that I am suggesting women are large upright cats without tails. It's that I see more than coincidence in the commonality of feline and feminine. Plus I love both cats and women.

But back to the chase metaphor. Yes, on one level men hunt for women, but it's like describing the Champs-Élysées as a Parisian street. A street takes you somewhere. A French avenue is for strolling. One takes one's time, checking out the boutiques, being surprised by what one finds along the way. Waiting for just the right moment to steal a kiss. Waiting for her to tell you by her actions when she wants a kiss.


Which is the way my cat works. Most of the time she's engrossed in her own world. There's stuff to look at, food to eat, naps to take. Washing. Grooming. Exploring. But once a day, she makes it perfectly clear that we need to be affectionate. She'll jump on my desk and sit on the keyboard. Or she'll climb onto my lap. That's the point at which I have to - I must - stop everything and focus completely on her. A petting session or a few minutes of brushing is enough...physical contact to reconnect with each other before we get on with everything else.

Observing and reacting. Not hunting.



Bottoms Up, Tail-less Ones.

Love and Lust

Love is a many splendoured thing, lust is not.






Bottoms Up, Lusters!


Wombatgram #2 here.

Brodeo

I pretty much gave up on my regular Friday bar on Friday. A long day labouring for money gives a bloke a thirst, and when booze alone can't release the animal spirits, the potential for finding women will tip the balance. Still dripping with Working Stiff cologne, I made Happy Hour with a minute to spare.

It's a hamster-wheel life, single maledom. It's one in which we are handily practiced at dismembering women with a head-to-toe glance. (That's a metaphoric dismemberment, but no less vicious for it.) She's either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, after which comes the calculation of whether she'd have an interest in a chap with twelve-hour-shift hair. Looks like another hundred scampers around the wheel when she sashays to the guy with the Bentley key fob.

Mr Nights, my drinking companion, looked kinda peeved. He'd been sipping tequila for an hour, and peevishness is a common-enough side-effect. But in this case it was the lack of women in the bar that had gotten to him.

It's a brodeo here, he said, despondent.

And he was right. Over his left and right shoulders was a herd of men, rather like beasts at a waterhole. In nature, a regular mix of sexes would naturally gather at the cool corner of the bar - which I think was the reason Mr Nights was off-balance. Absence of females felt all artificial and dysfunctional. The livestock references aren't accurate either. All showered and shaved and Alpha-ed up, the guys looked as useless as show-dogs. Bulls never looked so pouffed.

The good news is that even if one is stuck hamster-wheeling through life, it's possible to have more than one hamster wheel.



Bottoms Up, rodents!

Siege

A marriage or LTR might be done, over, cooked and stinking up the joint, but no-one is allowed to say so until one or other of the participants says it first.

This public defense of the widely held private opinion is the same mentality that those under siege take. Stalingrad in World War II springs to mind, or Boston in 1775/6.

Gradually the food runs short, so less and less to eat becomes acceptable. (Marriage equivalent: progressively less communication.)

Gradually the fuel runs short, so colder days and nights are taken for granted. (Marriage equivalent: sex becomes less frequent, more perfunctory.)

Gradually the participants daydream about better times, willing the reality to be different. (Marriage equivalent: resorting to drink or drugs or anonymous sex outside the relationship.)

To outside observers this is as obvious as Mick Jagger's lips. We know what's happening in the lives of those close to us nearly as soon as they do, and acknowledge it (out of their hearing) much sooner.

No-one outside a relationship can ever know all the ins-and-outs, but dispassionate onlookers have the advantage of perspective. Nature apparently sets us up to defend indefensible positions - or nearly indefensible, because although the Americans won the siege of Boston, the Germans failed to take Stalingrad. But do you really want to go through that kind of epic horror?[link]





Revolutionary War spy pic from here [link]

Disparate desires

What to do with a mind full of disparate desires? Every day we need to decide for one thing and against another. Some days we'll make lots of choices; on others, very few. A lot of the time we don't even know we're making a decision.

When the big forks in the road arrive, I find myself more aware of the one door opening/one door closing metaphor. Confusion is not the right word, because I understand that this is a universe built to favour Boolean logic - if this happens, then that cannot happen (at least not right then.) It's more like I am eternally quizzical at the fractional dimensions of our minds. And yet despite that logical detachment I never get any closer to an answer.

Inclusion, exclusion; success, failure; 1 or zero. I get it. But that doesn't make the process easier.


I want:

To travel, and stay at home.

To be attached, but independent.

To be true to myself, and still not offend everybody.

To climb mountains and swim at the beach.

To say what I think, but not create foes.

To be alone, and to be with.

To keep it real dude, and make it big.

To avoid ego, and still be the man.



You see the dilemma.

Romancing

This romance thing is a remarkably slippery beastie. There are dictionary definitions and internet-style descriptions, but none really captures the essence of what might turn out to be a rather abstract abstract concept.

Food metaphors are always good when contemplating matters of the heart don't you think? Food is physical and mental, and heavenly and hellish, just like love. So the immediate connection I made was that romance is like truffles. Truffles are rare, rich, expensive, laboursome and worth every cent. They're stinky (yet delicious) addictive (yet satisfying in small amounts) and exotic (although nonchalantly humble.)

The verb romance can be described thusly:

...to court or woo romantically; treat with ardor or chivalrousness...

which sounds awfully Wuthering Heights to me. And throughout the descriptions, there runs this thread:

...a baseless, made-up story, usually full of exaggeration or fanciful invention...

which reminds me of women living in an imagined mental wonderland of hunky suitors and forever love.

Frankly, I like romance = truffles. One can reminisce about meals one has had, and dream about meals to come with truffles. One can have truffles rarely and be satisfied. And if truffles come into your life, they go with everything except dessert.

Romance Part 1, Romance Part 3, Romance Part 4.