The Zeitgeist

       

George Peppard kissing Audrey Hepburn in BatTiff; Edwards Maya's new CD cover, Avril Lavigne and the cover for "A Country of Vast Designs."

Dating In The Big Town, Part II

Back for more of my ruminations about dating post-40 in The Big Apple: Best way to describe the situation? How about “Six Degrees of Desperation?” There is an enormity of disappointment, heartache and loneliness out there among New York singles of a certain age. A calcification of the heart so constricting and blocking of daylight that it’s amazing these people manage to function altogether. This is reflected in the near total eclipse of the hearts of so many men and women I meet these days. Masses of them don’t believe in love. Many don’t think they’ll ever achieve what they dream of while at the same time doing everything in their power to sabotage attainment of those dreams.

I’ve had an acquaintance actually “de-friend” me from Facebook for my temerity in disagreeing with her rantingly cynical wall posts disparaging the reality of love and happy marriage. Seriously. Because so many people have been alone for so long and have been so often disappointed or heartbroken they’ve erected sarcastic and bitter defenses on letting anyone in. Because they don’t want to be hurt and disappointed again, they choose not to take risks for love again. It’s an amazing accomplishment, particularly in Manhattan to get beyond a third date with anyone – because after that third date they’ve run out of the carefully constructed scripts they’ve crafted for themselves that they put on autopilot especially during the first two dates. Going to four or more means they might actually have to come up with new stuff or let their guards down and drop their poses, which opens them up to risk of heartache.

This cynicism is manifested by extreme pickiness. They have lists, big lists. Within the lists they have sub micro-lists, mini-lists and nano-lists. If you can break through half the list there is an automatic program that churns out more objections to refill the lists. There is also a bleakness of spirit which really is a numbness to feeling and emotion. It’s as though for many, their lives are really all about going to work, buying things, eating and going places. Consumer Lemmings who’ve become Vulcans – self-contained, devoid of emotion and feeling. As some people have experienced more than 20 years of hurts, any possible slight or failure by a prospective suitor to live up to an unattainable idealized Hollywood romantic ideal is immediately shot down with digital precision. The result of which is putting themselves right back on the hyper-dating merry-go-round instead of making a commitment to anyone or anything lasting.

To quote Gwyneth Paltrow in her new film “Country Strong,” "Don't be afraid to fall in love again, its the most important thing in life." Doesn't mean you can't be happy unmarried but being alone and fahrbisseneh for the next 40+ years is equally sad and also empowers whoever burned these people so badly to keep burning them over and over again. There is little to no self-awareness that by their hyper-pickiness and unrealizable fantasies that they are imprisoning themselves in their gilded birdcages (condos) and sentencing themselves to a life of eternal dating misery with no real emotional intimacy. There are a lot of people in New York who will never, ever, have children. And this is a tragedy. There is a prescription for unbinding one’s heart, and it was written by the late Truman Capote and articulated magnificently by George Peppard in his closing speech to Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” (See embedded video below, worth a few minutes). The joke of it all is that I’ve just come off an awesome heartbreak (divorce) and I’m not down on love, life, relationships, romance and marriage. It’s just that I’m Captain Kirk surrounded in a starship crewed mostly by Vulcans. Scotty, beam me out of here!

New in Culture

Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina, composers and crooners of the monster hit “Stereo Love” (more than 90 million hits on YouTube) have a new one out (only 275,000 hits so far) called “Desert Rain.” A worthy follow-up to their giant hit of the past two years. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY49R8nz01Q. This is what you would call “World Music” in that it’s not identifiable as coming from any one particular place and is not culturally specific to one either, but great beat and lyrics. Also new in music, the ubiquitous Avril Lavigne (pronounced like “Levine” – no, she’s not Jewish…!) who has gone Platinum many, many times has a great new song out called “What The Hell.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFIqdm75pw. This live video comes from this year’s Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve show, introduced by Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. This is from just this past week. Very fresh. Great girl-rock. Not dance music. “All my life I’ve been good but all I want is to mess around…What the hell.” Speaking of messing around, the late Ray Charles did this really well back in the day with “The Mess Around.” Catch this live video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgxQg3Z818.

Book ‘em, Danno

Robert W. Merry spent a dozen years as editor of the Congressional Quarterly. He’s also written a bunch of solid histories. Last year he came out with “A Country of Vast Designs, James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent.” Polk was president from 1844-48 and oversaw the Union’s acquisition of the states of Texas, New Mexico and California, all wrested from Mexico in a war that saw U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman all fighting together on the same side and Oregon and Washington pried away from the British without firing a shot. Perhaps bigger in scope than Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. This is a brilliantly written biography of one of America’s most underrated presidents. He was a Democrat at a time when the Democrats were anti-tax and anti-big government if you can imagine such a thing. A one-term president by choice, he died at 53 shortly after leaving office as a result of the stress and abuse of the job and the terrible political polarization in Congress and Washington that took it’s toll. Merry quotes extensively from Polk’s own diaries and from the newspapers and Congressional Record of the day. If you think Washington is a swamp today, just check out the mid 19^th Century. It was probably worse. Great book.

The Zeitgeist

Dating In The Big Town, Part I

 

I’ve written in this space about JDate and other online dating sites before. I took the liberty of copying this woman’s profile from JDate because it is so hysterically funny and cynical at the same time:

About Me

Yes... References Required. Or at least, they might be. Is that a problem? lol. It shouldn't be, should it? Wouldn't that be interesting...Anyhow , thanks for stopping by....Welcome to Jdate where everyone loves long walks, their job, the beach, going to the gym, is honest, and smart etc ...a magical land where the men are all handsome, and taller than they were before, and the women sport a lil black dress that looks equally as excellent and sexy as, those favorite pair of jeans... A place where museum admission has reached an all time high, and you are the minority if you don't sky dive regularly or have a fully stamped passport. :)

Physical Info

• ·                                 I am: 5' 2" (157 cm)

• ·                                 I weigh: 

• ·                                 My hair is: Dirty Blonde

• ·                                 My eyes are: Green

• ·                                 My body style is closest to: Athletic/Fit

Why do women on web dating sites feel the need to post photos of themselves with their friends? Don’t they know they run the risk of guys thinking that their friends may be cuter than they are? Do we really need or want to see their friends right now? Another big question is why do so many women feel compelled to post photos of themselves in Halloween costumes (or those from costume parties in general)? Do we guys really expect that once we start dating them that they will come over in Bat Girl or Naughty Nurse attire? Are we to assume that these kinds of sartorial choices are every day occurrences along with business suits and jeans?

I have a whole lot that I’d like to say about the state of dating in New York in one’s middle age but I’m going to hold my fire until next week as I want to devote most of my Zeitgeist space to that subject. Suffice it to say, it is a process fraught with cynicism, disappointment, nanosecond expendability and maddening frustrations. There is no comparison to dating at this stage of life and to dating twenty or twenty five years ago. No familiar road maps to reference or routines to follow.

A Kiss is But A Kiss

Having reluctantly reentered the dating world in earnest about seven or eight months ago after spending more than 14 years with the same person has exposed me to some truisms and new realities. One is about kissing and kisses. Living without them (and hugs) for extended periods can be deleterious to one’s health. Seriously. You don’t realize how much one needs them until you find yourself in a drought. When, in the course of dating, you do get to kiss, one is reminded that no two kisses are the same – everyone is different – like their fingerprints and DNA. Also, in Middle Age (and that’s where I seem to be at 52 even if I look younger) kissing is fraught with new meaning and challenges. Because I meet so many women on the north side of 38-40, they attach (as often do I) much more significance to kissing then when we were in our teens and 20s. A lifetime of relationships, jadedness, cynicism and even bitterness permeates the psyches of many women I encounter, especially those who haven’t been kissed a whole lot recently. This leads to a certain wariness about exchanging bodily fluids with new people as they often are battling the ghosts of relationships past in their brains. Some who have been lacking this basic human tenderness for extended periods “need to be kissed. And often, and by someone who knows how” to paraphrase Rhett Butler to Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind.” (Actual quote: “No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”) See the scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACj50uq6_s)  But I digress. Probably the most challenging thing in dating at this stage of life is surmounting the kissing hurdle – not just getting to kissing but to finding a kiss that resonates, a kiss that you can get lost in, a kiss that you love, a kiss you can believe in. “If you want to know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss, that’s where it is…” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4KN6TFhy2I) Or the Cher version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZL_NCdhxVQ&feature=related.