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| Great article from MSN... Do you keep falling for jerks? By Evan Marc Katz and Linda Holmes Repeat this to yourself one thousand times:
Screwed-up people are not more interesting than people with their heads together. Baggage is not fascinating, romantic, or exciting. It is very, very tiring. Men who are polite and emotionally mature are hot. Learn it, love it, live by it.
Linda
I have no idea whom to blame for the romantic mythology surrounding brooding, emotionally limited, narcissistic yahoos. I’m tempted to chalk it up to movies, where most men who start out as selfish jerks are eventually revealed to be wounded birds of some sort. Or it might be the uglier side of the therapy culture, which tempts you with the idea that these jerks might be amenable to solution, like crossword puzzles.
For whatever reason, there are a surprising number of women who are attracted to guys who can’t commit, who can’t relate, who can’t get along with anyone, who can’t tell the truth… these guys get a lot of action.
It’s not that women really want jerks, exactly. I think it’s a matter of mistaking emotional clutter for emotional complexity. Here’s an analogy: Imagine a messy apartment. You walk in, you survey your surroundings, and there’s an incredible quantity of stuff lying around. Books in tall stacks, Chinese food containers in the corners, DVDs in and out of boxes scattered around the TV… the place is in chaos. And while you wouldn’t really want to live there, there might be some part of you that would look around and grudgingly admit, “There’s a lot going on here.” Now, imagine the same apartment, once somebody has managed to get it cleaned up. The books are on the shelves, the trash is thrown away, the DVDs are alphabetized. This is a much nicer place to live. But it’s a little… you know, boring. And that’s in spite of the fact that the same books are being read, the same food is being eaten, and the same DVDs are being watched. You’re just in the presence of a person who knows how to clean up after himself.
I think that for a lot of women, guys in turmoil seem strangely fascinating, as if they are, by definition, more interesting than everyone else. There’s more of that clutter, so there’s more going on, and there’s more to sink your teeth into, and there’s maybe even more emotional depth to such a person.
Let me tell you something about the guys I know who are emotionally mature. The ranks of the healthy and rational include plenty of guys who have been in rehab, or been divorced, or seen their parents’ marriages end horribly, or had their own dreams thwarted in some ugly way—all the things that creeps are fond of waving around as explanations for why they lie or cheat on you or generally continue to be creeps.
The difference is that the healthy and rational people have at least undertaken the process of digesting all of that stuff and placing it in some sort of perspective so that it doesn’t have to become your problem. They know from suffering, just as much as the ones who sit around brooding into their beers and writing free verse and dragging everyone else into their little theater of agony. The sane ones are still working on their crap, too—who isn’t? The difference is that they’re not fetishizing their own misery or asking you to embrace it. And that’s a benefit to you, because the only thing you can guarantee yourself about that kind of hair-pulling drama is that if you cuddle up next to it, it’ll get on you.
You’re going to get plenty of emotional complications from anyone. Even people who have their lives very well pulled together are going to give you lots of opportunities to practice patience and understanding. There’s no point in starting out with someone who isn’t even trying.
Evan
According to Linda, many intelligent women prefer men with emotional complexities, even if it means that he can be verbally abusive, inaccessible, and generally loonier than Courtney Love on a bender. Now, I can’t speak for all men, but while I may have tolerated similar behavior, I can’t say I’ve ever preferred it. Any time I found myself dating a woman who was an emotional roller-coaster, the only reasons I stuck with her were because a) I was lonely and her presence in my life helped to fill a void or b) I was getting the best sex of my life. Lame, but true.
Put another way: Could you ever picture a man saying out loud, “There’s something that’s just so mysterious about her. Sometimes I look in her eyes and I feel like she totally understands me, and other times, I have no idea what she’s thinking. She runs really hot and cold but I can’t get enough of her. I think I’m going to stick around until I can crack her shell. One day she’ll learn to be more emotionally available and loving.” Tolerance for female ambivalence is not a stereotypically male attribute.
This isn’t at all to castigate women, as much as it is to acknowledge that women see more nuance in every scenario, so it’s no surprise that they give undeserving men the benefit of the doubt. But what for? Hasn’t every woman since the beginning of time had a thing for jerks and realized at some point that jerks were always going to be jerks?
I was the nice guy in high school who enjoyed being friends with cute girls who wouldn’t go out with me in a million years. I figured, “If that’s as close as I can get, I’ll take it. Maybe one day they’ll realize what I’m worth.” I would listen to boy problems galore — essentially, nice girls being treated badly by jerks — and not once did any of these girls ever say: “Hmm, Evan’s a great guy with a really kick-ass mullet. I’ll bet he’d be a wonderful boyfriend.”
But it’s not simply the rejection of the nice guy that’s keeping so many women single. It’s the acceptance of the screwed-up guy. Because screwed-up guys draw screwed-up women into a whole Misery Loves Company episode of Love Connection—where both parties are brought together not by the audience but by their insecurities and inadequacies.
All that “You can’t love anyone until you love yourself” stuff? So true. And if you’re choosing to date guys with major issues, you’re just as guilty as he is. Yes, everybody’s got issues, but not necessarily deal-breaker-type issues. Which is why women often say they’re seeking men who can fit their baggage in a carry-on. Unfortunately, there are lot of men who try to sneak a 75-pound trunk onto the plane and protest that it has wheels so it’s technically a carry-on. Women with issues are the ones who choose these guys.
Women who have their act together simply don’t have the patience. Admittedly, there are a few people who probably enjoy the histrionics and the moods and the make-up sex that come with dating drama kings and queens. But I’d bet that most are just willing to tolerate the drama, because, thus far, that drama comes attached to the “best” person they could find. Essentially, they’re saying, “Yeah, he’s inconsistent, selfish, and distant, but he’s all mine.” Just realize that every second you’re spending with the wrong guy is a second that you’re not out looking for the right one — the guy who gives, the guy who listens, the guy who learns.
Excerpted from WHY YOU’RE STILL SINGLE by Evan Marc Katz and Linda Holmes. Reprinted by arrangement with Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright (c) Evan Marc Katz and Linda Holmes, 2006 | | |
| By Valerie Frankel for Marie Claire July 2005
What happens when you groom a guy for marriage--only to see him do the wedding march with someone else?
Getting dumped? Piece of cake. I can say this, having had so much practice. In the years before I got married, I was let go in every conceivable way. The stealth dump, when I didn't see it coming. The classic "It's not you, it's me," when what he really should have said was, "I'm a dickless jerk, but too stupid to know." The guilty dump ("It hurts me more than it hurts you"). But there's a special place in my battered heart for being the last woman a man dumps before he finds the woman of his dreams--that is, being The One Before The One.
This phenomenon is known by many names: The Gateway Girlfriend, The Last Girlfriend, The Ultimate Girlfriend--call it what you like. It's being the woman who grooms a guy for his walk down the aisle, only to see him do it with someone else. And, yes, I am also a veteran of this.
I fell for Ben the first time I saw him on the pitching mound. He was on a friend's softball team, and I spent two seasons on the sidelines cheering him on before he noticed me. Then something clicked, and he came at me like a line drive. I wanted him badly, got him, and held on with all my (inner) strength for as long as I could. He dumped me after about four months.
Within a year, I found out he was engaged to another woman, also a friend of one of his teammates. Like me, she had made a practice of watching him from the sidelines, cheering. Since hearing of the engagement, I hadn't gone back to see Ben pitch again, so I didn't know what this fiancee looked like. But I could imagine. In my head, she was blonde, slim, from Manhattan. She had to have a better job than me, straighter hair, more money, firmer breasts, longer legs. But when I finally did get a look at her on the sidelines the next season, I realized I'd imagined her all wrong. She was a flat-chested mousy brunette with a big caboose. Then I eavesdropped and learned she was unemployed and, until she moved in with Ben, had lived with her parents in Yonkers.
I was astonished--he had chosen her. To marry. Over me, and all my superfine qualities.
After an inning or two, I took a last, mournful look at Ben and decided there really was no accounting for taste. I was better looking, with a cool job and my own place (modest, too). If he wanted her instead, fine. I wasn't going to moan, "What's wrong with me?" Good riddance to men who couldn't see in me what I saw in myself. Despite this epiphany, guys' lame preferences continued to devastate me for another few years. I had a series of relationships that started strong and ended quickly because, like any acquired taste, I require time and/or a refined palate to be appreciated.
Then I met the man who would become my first husband. He knew after six months that he had to have me, in the legal sense. We were together every day for the rest of his life--which ended too quickly, nine years later.
But I didn't understand teh gift of being dumped until, a decade after Ben the pitcher, I found myself single again. The first guy I dated as a widow took me to dinner and never called again. I shrugged and moved on to the next. And the next. Then, I struck gold an dmet the man who became my second husband. Lying in bed with him, a man of excellent taste, I had a revelation: All the rejection and loss I'd lived through had led up to this moment, to this relationship. Had I not been found lacking, had any of my exes wanted to walk me down the aisle, I wouldn't be married to him.
So here's a rallyng cry to all women: Don't despair when dumped. Thank God for it. One day, in the not-too-distant future, when you're in bed with the man who is everything to you, you'll look back and feel waves of relief for not getting everything you once thought you wanted.
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| Katherine: trying to think up "fun" things to do this weekend
Me: Hmmmm...
Me: Each other
Katherine: thus the "fun"
Me: Hahahahahaha Another one for the books in Jessie and Katherine's world. | | |
| Yet another entertaining conversation between me and Katherine about our "slight" affinity for dating white guys: Katherine: he was under the impression that i only date asians
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA
Katherine: lol to which i sarcastically responded "only to get you off my back." Oh us silly Asian girls... | | |
| Went to see Step Up tonight. Is it bad that I spent the entire movie wondering what it'd be like to nibble on Channing Tatum's bottom lip.
Is he not the most delicious thing you've ever seen?
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