letters to men (about women)

 

A week ago my good friend sent me the following article by Danielle Laporte and I've been thinking about it ever since. It then got me thinking about something I'd come across about a year ago (and for the life of me I can't trace it back to the original source). Both are letters to men about women. But one is by a woman (Danielle) and one is by a man (Big Poppa E?). And I think there's quite a bit of truth and beauty to both. Which is why I wanted to share them here.

**I'd like to again repeat, neither of these pieces was written by me. And if discussion of sex (with a little bit of language) is not your thing, than I suggest you skip this one.**

Dear Dudes… What Good Women want to say to Good Men

The texts between my girlfriends and I about relationships and dudes (boyfriends, lovers, husband types, fantastical obsessions…) are so juicy I’m thinking about making them into a book. You know I’m serious. Those text trails could make shy men blush and illuminate nations.

Good Women are fiercely protective of each other, so when there’s a problem or massive potential for pleasure, we’d love to get in there and make it all right – divine meddling. We imagine going straight to the Good Man who’s in our friend’s life and letting them in on a few things — things that would help him win her heart, things that would help him get his shit together. Things that would… make shy men blush and illuminate nations.

What follows is a censored version of what my circle of Good Women know to be true. It’s very hetero, but potentially universal. It specifically applies to those men who, without reservation, we’d call Good Men — the ones who are really, clearly, resoundingly worth what Good Women have to give.

Dear Dudes,

1. If you’re still hung up on your ex, get over your ex. Do not proceed to a new chick until you are over your ex. Because that would be lame. And messy.

2. Most women will wonder if they’re going to sleep with you or marry you within 24 hours of meeting you. (More like 24 minutes.) Don’t let it scare you. As Mumford & Sons put, we will “love with urgency, but not with haste.”

3. If you want to know what gifts to get her, just ask her girlfriend.Because not only do we know just what she wants, we know where to get it. Your priority is to please her, not to look clever. It’s really simple: just get her what she wants… she’ll be more impressed that you made it happen.

4. A Good Woman is your biggest fan. Really, really, REALLY. Even when she’s telling you that you let her down, or that she can’t believe that you forgot whatever, she is so rooting for you to be your strongest, sexiest, coolest you. Your rising is what she craves.

So, when she hints or hollers about how you might, say, improve on something, consider that she sees your wholeness and is calling it forward.

5. Know what you want. Indecisiveness can be a total turn off. Brood, pace, toil if you need to. But just make up your fucking mind. She won’t necessarily agree. But she’s going to relax a bit — and you want her to relax. If she has to try to make your mind up for you, she will feel depleted and agitated. A sense of direction = comfort.

6. Mixed signals are like, so high school. Don’t tell her you that you “can see a future together” but that you’re too busy to talk more than once a week.

7. She better be a bigger priority than your mother. Because that’s how it works when you’re a grown up.

8. She wants you to take control more often. You will have to learn what this means, together. It’s like dancing: You lead her by feeling her. If you don’t feel her, you can’t lead.

and 8 1/2….

In order to feel her, you will have to be present. Being present for her will uplift every single area of your life, for the rest of your life.

9. You know that time you got her a Vitamix? Okay, she wanted that, for sure, big points. But you need to get her something sexy in addition to the practical stuff. Ask her girlfriend.

10. A vibrator in a box is just a vibrator in a box. If you’re going to buy her sex toys you don’t get the points until you get them out and actually use them — together. If she’s not into them, it doesn’t mean she’s a prude. It might just means she wants more of you and your intimacy.

11. If she says that she feels that you watching porn without her feels like you’re cheating on her — believe her, and cut that shit out. If she says that she wants porn on the menu — believe her, and get it on the menu.

12. She is very aware that blow jobs are your answer to most relationship questions. If you’re more present with her, you’ll probably get a lot more answers.

13. If at noon you ask her where she’d like to go for dinner that night and she changes her mind at 5 o’clock, she wasn’t lying, she just changed her mind. (This applies to most changes she makes — she’s not lying, she’s… changeable. And this fluidity is a big gift to your life, BTW. Go with it.)

14. If you think she’s testing you — she probably is. It’s a survival instinct.

15. To varying degrees, she cares what her friends think about you. She should.

16. Come up from behind and hold and kiss her. Do it a lot.

17. Looking for an engagement ring is some serious business. You need to do it together, and even then you probably need to bring in reinforcements (Call the girlfriends).

18. She’ll wait for you. (But don’t “make” her wait. That kind of testing is corrosive.)

19. She knows that you’ve got what it takes. She believes in your pure incredible truthly kingly awesomeness.

20. She sees things you haven’t even considered yet. Incredible things.

21. Make reservations. Seriously. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just planned.

Dude, I’m rooting for you.

Love, Danielle xo

how murphy's law has me hiding from men

  There’s a running joke amongst my girlfriends that I can’t find an American man to save my life.

Actually, they think the joke is I don’t want to.

And while it’s true that I love a foreign man, the joke for me (or on me) feels like that of all the men I meet, not one of them is from here.

The last two guys I dated were chance encounters at restaurants. The first came up to me, the other I approached. I didn’t pick them out of a lineup and say, Oh that one there, he’s clearly from somewhere else.  

And yet they were. Brazilian and Nicaraguan, respectively.  (I mean, come on).

Sitting at the bar one night with the last man I dated, my tongue loosed by a little too much whiskey (always the whiskey) I revealed a bit about his predecessors and he chuckled, raised his eyebrows, Oh, so you have a thing for Latin man?

Immediately I blushed because yes, yes, of course I do!—point of fact: always have—but I was embarrassed to have him distill it so simply—he with his dark, curly hair (always the dark, curly hair) and deep brown eyes.

When I told my girlfriend Kim, she said, Who doesn’t have a thing for Latin men? Just ask a gay man.

Which was a fair and comforting (and true) point.

I took the subway home about a week ago, a gigantic humidifier between my hands (because the heat in older New York apartments, while extremely fortunate, is unrelenting in it’s pursuit to suck moisture from the air). I was transferring at Broadway-Lafayette and loathing the city with every fiber of my being—which usually translates to me giving death glares to anyone who happens to cross my path--when a tall gentleman moved in front of me. I sort of looked at him impudently before my death stare softened at the realization that he was not-altogether-bad-looking.

In the wake of our held glance he angled into position to get on the same subway car—immediately I knew what game he was playing at, I've played it myself.

Usually the game ends at the shared, silent train ride, but this gentleman upped the ante, sat close by, started chatting.

And out of his mouth came a lovely lilting accent: French.

Of course.

Before I knew it, we were exiting the train at the same stop, he was asking me to a drink, and because I’m a firm believer in saying yes-to-almost-anything-at-least-once, I was consenting. A drink? Why yes, of course.

And such is how I came to find myself in a dingy Brooklyn bar with a humidifier beneath my feet and a Frenchman by my side.

The drink was fine. And the guy seemed kind. Owned a restaurant. Was reading Catcher in the Rye. We talked about music, a little. He walked me home. Kissed me. And it was fine. He kept laughing in a way that I imagine is as close to a giggle as you’ll get from a grown man—it was sweet—he seemed surprised by the whole thing.

And it felt nice to surprise a man.

But the thing about getting over someone is that a casual drink with someone else is…well…not as exciting as one would hope.

So I told him so. When we spoke again, I told him so.

You see, in matters of casual drinks and first-night-kisses and everything-that-follows-after I am of the opinion that up-front-honesty is the best policy. Saves a whole lotta mess and confusion and possible hurt.

However, in this particular case there was 1. the possibility that my English didn’t quite translate 2. the very likely chance that his persistence led to my waffling  and 3. both 1 + 2—so the notion of a second date or proper-first-date or, rather the impossibility-of-either, didn’t quite land.

And for this reason I’ve twice this week hidden from the tall, swarthy Frenchman who lives in my neighborhood.

Physically. Actually, physically hidden.

Because when you live off the same stop as a person and you don’t want to run into them…Murphy’s Law has it that you’re bound to.

So twice this week I’ve been that crazy girl turning circles on her heels, so very “busy” with her phone, that girl hiding behind the very skinny trees that pepper the sparse sidewalks, that girl tracking the movement of a person who may or may not be the man (he was too far ahead to tell) she had a drink at a bar with, while her feet were tucked atop a box containing a humidifier.

I’ve never been a girl who moves quickly from one man to the next. Often I wish I was—I imagine it might be easier (or at least more fun)—I mean French-kissing a Frenchman is something everyone should check of the life-list, if for no other reason than to have a laugh about the pun of it. Instead I’m the girl who heads home and cleans up and cooks a meal and has a single glass of wine and listens to music and falls asleep to old episodes of Frasier.

Because, well the thing is, those simple activities center me—set me right. And when I’m good with myself, the kissing comes easier, and saying yes comes easier, and adventure comes easier.

And I don’t hate New York so much.

And things feel a bit more possible—foreign men and American, too.

regrets + wishes

We spoke of regrets one night, having dinner at the Wythe.

I said how I mostly only regret small things—frozen moments. That time last January when a man squeezed my hand and I didn’t squeeze his back. Or when I was seven and didn’t crawl into my grandmother’s lap—how sad that made her and how there wasn’t time enough to go again because life ends at different times for different people. Or when at twenty I was sad in a way that knew no words and I couldn’t muster just one—yes, when asked.

Sitting at a small table, wine between us, and not enough light, he said he would have regretted not saying hello.

But I regret that he did. Regret everything that followed after. Which is untrue of course. But there is a solace in this particular lie. And so I tell it to myself and for a moment everything is easier.

I was wrong about him. Which is a truth that is hard to sit with.

I was wrong. I say those words again and again. I feel how they sit in my mouth, how they taste, and I learn to get comfortable with them.

He wore sadness like it was a distancing thing. And spoke of attachment as though it was a fool’s errand. He lived in a perpetual state of preparation for the next-worst-thing—holding everything and everyone at arm’s length, thinking he could outsmart sadness, as though it had anything to do with thought.

Lying in bed one night I asked him a question and in the silence preceding his answer I could feel his mind working so very hard—sorting through the muck and mess. And in the space before his words all I could think was, I’m too well. I’m too well for this particular man’s particular muck…and well…fuck.

Because I so liked the way his soft curls clung to his head.

I am a person who believes in change. Personal change. On every level I believe in it—on an intellectual level and an emotional level and a cellular level. I am not the person I was eight years ago. Nor six years. Not five nor three. I’m barely the person I was a month ago, which isn’t quite true, but is true enough. And hell if I haven’t seen some of the very best people I know change—watched as they’ve struggled and stumbled and grown in the shadows of the low-hanging-trees-of-heartache. And in the space of who they once were and who they are now is a story of tremendous resilience and desire—a story of what lies-on-the-other-side—a story of what it is to be human, which isn’t an altogether easy endeavor, but a really worthy one.

I say again and again that I got out of a very dark hole with nothing but desire and the length of my fingernails. I clawed my way to a better life—grit and a wish between my teeth.

Did you know that the term cliff-hanger comes from Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers?* He was writing a serial novel and the first chapter ended with a man hanging off of a cliff by the length of his too-long-for-everything-else-but-not-this-fingernails. I think often of that image—the absurdity of it. But the truth of it too. The truth lying somewhere in the man's desire.

I hung on by my fingernails, simply because I wanted to--wanted to so badly that that want became a need and the need made possible what was anything but.

If my story is remarkable, it is remarkable only in that I wanted to change—wanted a life bigger than sadness, which of course meant that sadness would have to be a part of it.

I believe we are made by what breaks us. We are forged by the dark and rocky terrain of moving-forward. And I think there’s something holy about the trudge of it—the slow movement, the body’s ability to continue on when every bit of it feels cold and still and tired.

It’s the difficulty of the journey that gives it meaning and shape.

But the genesis is in the wish, which isn’t so flimsy a thing as we think.

But you can't give that wish to a person. You can wish something for them, but you cannot wish it upon them. And you cannot get close to--or be intimate--or fall in love with a person who is so mired in their own shit that they'll do anything they can to pretend there's not a stink about it.

You can only wish them well, and walk away, when walking away is all there is to do.

*There is a chance I made this up, but I vividly recall a seventh grade lecture that explained all of this. However, the internet yielded no information that would validate this claim in any way.

words and what needs to be said

  I just keep thinking about that dinner table. The smooth green of the glass. The accumulation of dirty dishes and empty bottles. How startlingly sober I felt as I sat there. How his body was turned in, facing another woman. How in the end there were only four of us and how very much I felt apart. How when this other girl told a joke he laughed in a way that he only ever, upon occasion, laughed for me. And how when that happened I sort of caught my breath and thought, oh, well, there’s that.

I think back now and wonder if I should have gotten up and left. Gathered my jacket and bag and quietly slipped out; hidden in the stairwell. Instead I went to the bathroom, studied my reflection, listened as they whispered--not able to hear what was being said, knowing I wasn’t meant to.

When the night ended, as it always does, we climbed into bed, side by side.

He slept. I did not.

The next morning, riding the train to work, I quietly wept. I could feel the woman across from me watching. I let her.

Running into an old friend this week I gave her a really cursory run down on what’s been happening of late and the most recent guy and in the middle of a quite a bit of nonsense, I looked up at her and said, I just don’t want to be that girl—that high maintenance girl who asks too much.

And this very dear friend who’s known me for quite a lot of time looked at me and said, Meg, high maintenance is throwing a fit when the guy is a few minutes late. Asking for what you need, saying how you feel, those things do not high maintenance make.

She said it in this way that was so no-nonsense, so very matter-of-fact, that all I could think was, how did I not know this before?

It was an Oprah ah-ha moment in the most embarrassing sort of way.

But asking for what one needs, giving voice to that, well, that’s a vulnerable thing. And hell if vulnerability doesn’t feel like standing naked on the edge of a cliff as a great gust of wind barrels towards you like a freight train.

The violence of articulation. I had a teacher in school who used that phrase and I’ll never forget it. The violence. Of. Articulation. How nearly impossible it is to say some things out loud. How catapulting them out of the mouth is part pyrotechnics, part gymnastics, and one hell of a leap of faith. And how some words, no matter how they are said, leave cuts and stains and scratch the mouth.

But I’ve been choking on I-don’t-knows for nearly a month now, so you pick your battles.

Why is it easier to say the cruel things? Why do those words slip out, slick as oil, so tremendously seductive and so incredibly damaging? It’s so hard to speak from a place of generosity. To say, I am sad and I am hurt, and this can’t go on, but I am nonetheless in awe of you. To say you deserve my respect—my kindness, even as I am so completely and maddeningly frustrated with you—hurt by you.

Because the thing is, it’s not just about the words and the difficulty of getting them out—it’s about figuring out where truth and generosity meet. It’s about speaking from the largest part of yourself—that part that continuously reaches for a bigger life, that says I want more and if you can’t give it to me, I forgive you that—not your fault, but time to go. That part willing to risk a little bit of lonely. That part that makes a practice of faith and thinks well hell if I’m not lucky that I get to feel this, hard as it is. That part that goes to the edge of the cliff again and again and again.

I’m so angry with him. In a completely and totally and ridiculously unfair way I am so absolutely angry with him. For not being the person I wanted him to be (I know). For not falling in love with me (Yes, I know). For not being courageous enough to fight for the thing. For not knowing he’s worth fighting for the thing. For that one time on the subway platform that he didn’t ask me to dance when the busker sang Isn’t She Lovely. For occasionally being so ridiculously great. And occasionally being so ridiculously not. For those moments when the light would slant just so and I would look at him and see that he’d be a fucking giant-of-a-man if he would just rise to the occasion. For lacking the courage and foresight and necessary grit. Or choosing not to recognize that he is already all the things he needs to be. And more.

He wasn’t the right guy. For me. He wasn’t the right guy, for me. And he certainly never looked at me like I was the right girl for him. And I am a girl who wants to be looked at like that.

I didn’t trust him. Which was my failing, not his. I didn’t trust that he cared for me. And god it must have been hard for him to constantly come up against that—to have to wade through my small and cutting comments that I paraded about as humor, when they were anything but. And that’s on me.

Because the thing about that dinner table is yes the glass was green and yes there were stacked plates and empty bottles, butI don’t know if he was flirting with the girl next to him or if he was just having a very good time with this very lovely person who was so very much attached to someone else. I don’t know because he’d had too much wine and I’d had not enough and perception is a funny, fickle son-of-a-bitch.

He was a tremendous lesson. Which wasn’t what I was looking for, but a blessing, nonetheless.

And we go again to the cliff. Different people than before. But I think that’s the point: You go again. You face the wind and you ask, what’s next?

what i'm listening to | the avett brothers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojH86ugAKn4  

You guys... the internet! For all the complaints that I can level against the thing (and technology as a whole), that it means I can be at home in my tiny Brooklyn studio listening to an Avett Brothers concert that happened months ago (in Germany!) in full...I mean come on. Come on!

I got an email a little while ago that asked how I get over heartache. And I've thought about that for so many months now. And the best and truest answer I can give is this...I listen to really good music. Not music I shared with the guy--but the sort of music that he would have been surprised by my listening to. Frankly, I listen to the sort of music that proves I had better taste than him.

I listen to the music of people far smarter than I. And I take comfort in the fact that they've been heartbroken too.

And I light a candle. And drink wine at home (which is a rare occurrence). And I take baths. And I keep headache formula tylenol on hand...because the crying thing totally dehydrates me.

And yes, I cry. Quite a lot, actually.