Category Archives for …and their Social Life

A Christmas Miracle

Just when you think that you’ve grown too old to get caught in the grip of Christmas spirit, it sneaks up while you’re not looking and snares you in its web. And just like that you are once again believing if not in Santa Claus, then at least in Christmas miracles. So, there I was last night, falling for one of the oldest if not the most preposterous miracle of all: “How to Meet a Man at 40,” a five-page, step-by-step guide shining out like the Star of Bethlehem from the pages of the London Times Online to lead me to my prince.

And so, reader, I clicked on it.

I am a great fan of the British press, especially the tabloids, and avidly follow the gossip in them. I read of the sorrowful demise of Jade Goody, I follow the blossoming fashion career of Mrs. David “Becks” Beckham, nee Posh Spice, and I keep up-to-date on the latest travails of Waity Katie. So of course the Times Online would be my reliable go-to source for dating advice.

Unfortunately, instead of a sugarplum, “How to Meet a Man at Forty,” turned out to be nothing more than the usual lump of coal a spinster finds in her stocking each year, regardless if she’s been naughty or nice. Oh for the chance to be naughty! Now that really would be a Christmas miracle!

Yeah, yeah…I can see your eyes glazing over: you’re thinking “another rant about life’s unfairness to single women.” And you’d be right. But indulge me, please, just once more. If the following excerpts from “How to Meet a Man at Forty” are not enough to convince you that old maids should be considered a protected class, up there in the pantheon of victimhood along with the rest of the alphabet soup of sexually disenfranchised losers, then you are part of the problem.

“How to Meet a Man at Forty” begins reasonably enough, roasting all the old chestnuts about being too picky, holding oneself too aloof, but then, having lulled the reader into a false sense of familiarity, the article turns mean, and launches its ad feminan full frontal assault:

If there is one thing the single woman cannot afford to be, it’s a burden. You must be sunny and amenable, the best guest, the most reliable friend, the tonic at the party and the one who blends in on the family holiday. Precisely because you are not part of a couple, you need to give out the message, loud and clear, that you are no trouble and guaranteed life-enhancing. Being successfully single means having lots of different options and knowing plenty of people who might think, “Yes, bring her along!” rather than, “Maybe not.”

Gotcha. Remember the old belief that in order for a black person to be accepted in the workplace, she must work twice as hard as her white counterparts? In what way does the above paragraph (written, I might add, by a married woman) differ from the prejudiced thinking that held the black to a different standard? The answer of course is that it is no different at all, except—and this is a big one—that discrimination against people because of their skin color is not only against the law, it’s socially unacceptable, thank God. All you recovering racists out there, take heart! You have a new outlet for your prejudice. But I digress.

“How to Meet a Man at 40” continues, “People notice single women getting drunk more than they would notice any other demographic. They are waiting for you to get swervy and take to the dance floor, on your own, clutching a bottle of champagne, and then collapse sobbing on the shoulder of some man who has long since married your best friend.” Ah yes, poor Aunty Lucy, she loves her schnapps, doesn’t she? It keeps her warm at night.

What I don’t understand is that when I say things like that, my married friends look at me as if I were crazy. “Deluded” in fact is how one of them puts it. But leave it to a British tab to print an article that vindicates my views. What a gift! Maybe there are Christmas miracles after all.

Maybe Crashing Is the Answer

A friend of mine asked me why I hadn’t written about the Salahis, America’s newest fun couple, and I replied that just like Michaele Salahi’s midriff, the topic had been overexposed. And besides, as someone pathologically allergic to parties of any kind, the thought that anyone anywhere anytime would voluntarily seek entry to a gathering to which they weren’t even invited confounds me. It’s bad enough to make a forced appearance as a matter of friendship or familial duty.

Of course, I chalk my anathema up to being single, and to having read one too many of the discrete “no singles need apply” sign most couples have posted near their doorbells. Try walking alone into a holiday open house in any suburban neighborhood. If you are smart you will head straight for the bar; if you were really smart, you would have declined the invitation in the first place. Drink in hand—better make it a double—what will you find should you attempt to mingle? Most men and women will self-segregate, and even in an academic town such as mine the men will likely be talking sports. Moving on. The women will be talking about their husbands or children or both. OKaaay. The few mixed-sex clusters will likely have husbands and wives in fused dyads…best not to intrude and upset their equilibrium. As a last resort, you look to the kids for companionship and if they are well mannered it is here you may strike conversational gold for a moment or two. By this time you’d best head back to the bar for a refill.

Single women everywhere know the strategies for surviving parties: help pass hors d’oeurves, volunteer to sit with senile Aunt Josephine, enlist as a litter patrolman and police for discarded napkins, glasses and plates. In other words, they assume the role intended for them by the hosts: unpaid laborer. “Working the room” has a very literal meaning for single party-goers. So why do we subject ourselves to such abuse? To placate the inner child for whom the words “Christmas party” signify ineffable excitement and possibility even though experience has taught the grown-up otherwise. To dress up in outlandish sweaters and jewelry that by their decorative themes have limited runs on the calendar. To scope out ideas for our own repertoire of Christmas recipes. Whatever our reasons, year after year, many of us continue to be authors of our own agony and show up like the good sports we are.

But what of the Salahis? Do they, like me, have a terrible time of parties to which they are invited? Did they, unlike me, think that in their desperation they’d have a better chance at enjoying themselves at one where they were not wanted? Could be. In that case, may the holiday season bless each of them with more invitations than they can accept. I couldn’t imagine a more fitting punishment for their crime.

‘Twas the Night Before Halloween: Costumes, Candy, and Careers

Savvy trend spotters have reported on the increasing number of adults who temporarily shed their grown-up skin come this time of year and replace it with the alternative identity of a Halloween costume. Not me. As a certified oldster, I do not need an excuse to acquire and consume candy corn, chocolate, or popcorn balls if I want to. Living in the country as I do, few if any kids come to my door on October 31, so it simply becomes a matter of Yankee frugality—waste not, want not—to get rid of all those left over Snickers and Milky Ways.

It is not therefore the one-day all-access pass to Candy Land that intrigues me about post-pubescent dress-up; rather, it is the eagerness with which we reach back to our childhoods and try, if for just a few hours, to become that ballerina or astronaut or ax-wielding serial killer we dreamed we’d grow up to be all those years ago.

Inevitably, this sets me to thinking about any manner of the “what-ifs” that characterize my existence. To be fair, I have a pretty good life—meaningful work with for the most part interesting colleagues, a nice house in an exceptionally pretty part of Massachusetts, and a reasonably lively social and intellectual life. But every now and then I yearn for what was, long-ago, my dream job: to be a trophy wife. Just me, my man, and 1.5 acres of closet for my fabulous designer clothes.

At one time I believed that I possessed all of the requisite skills. Certainly I had the basics down—pretty, smart, easily amused and capable in turn of amusing. I was convinced that the fact that I found older men attractive would enhance my sale-ability in this particular job market. And, given my many years of listening to this academic or that opine on hopelessly arcane bits of fact or theory, I had down pat the requisite expression of rapt attention and adoration—you know, the “Nancy Reagan look”—that all trophy wife wannabes must become mistress of before their trip down the aisle.

But for me that trip never happened. It’s not, you understand, that my desired career disappeared from the want ads like “key-punch operator” or “gal Friday” have, or even that my aspirations have changed. But now I am at that uncertain age where the trophy is tarnished, maybe even a little dented and creased. Nothing I am sure some dermabrasion couldn’t burnish and restore, but these days you would definitely find me on either the reconditioned or maybe even the vintage shelf.

So I have made it my All-Hallow’s Eve resolution to re-tool for a new dream job. Maybe a line of work a little more accessible to a fifty-something spinster who lives alone in the forest in a little cottage. Hmm…perhaps some gingerbread here, strategically placed gumdrops there…a drain spout of licorice. If you know anybody named “Hansel” or “Gretel”—send ‘em my way.

Keep Your Mango Out of My Martini

Last night it was rainy, dark, and windy…the perfect time to get out of your wet clothes and into a dry martini, as Robert Benchley classically observed. Since I was in my mid-twenties, after spending the teething phase of my drinking life dabbling in frozen margaritas, strawberry daiquiris, and fuzzy navels, my libation of choice has been the gin martini…very dry, very cold, with olives. Up or on the rocks, I confess does not matter to me. Nor does it matter that for at least as long as I have been alive the martini has been my parents’ favorite drink as well, although—yeech—theirs are adulterated with vodka. Why do they bother, I’ve often wondered.

The martini is at once stand-offish and seductive. Nothing to my mind better signifies grown-up cool than the iconic stemmed glass, with its crystal-clear liquid and single maiden olive pierced by a well-honed pick. No other beverage beguiles you into gazing across the table as you sip, head cast down as if you were reading the juniper berries, half-lidded eyes turned up, at your drinking partner. Faster than sound across water, a message sent martini-mail reaches its mark before you set down the cocktail glass.

For a good many of the years I’ve been sipping, the gin martini was considered a fusty relic of a bygone time. First the Chablis and chardonnay crowds spurned it; then the single-malt snobs ignored it, and of course the red-wine health nuts regarded it with morally superior contempt. But then it got discovered by hip twenty- and thirty-somethings. Maybe the Rat Pack revival of a few years back sparked it. Maybe the Absolut (vile stuff) marketing campaign had something to do with it. I don’t know, and I don’t care.

What I do care about though is that all of a sudden my elegant, high-toned, high-test cocktail starting arriving in birdbath-sized glasses. I suppose to justify the $15.00+ price tags the bars began charging, but, really, who needs a six-ounce martini? It won’t stay cold, unless you chug it. It won’t retain that slam, bang, tang that made Sinatra and others believers. No, what it will do is get you drunk, fast. That’s not the point. A martini should insinuate itself into your faculties…loosening your judgment and your standards maybe just a little, putting you at the brink of misbehavior but letting you stay in charge. One more thing: a “very dry martini” is not code for “skip the vermouth.” That drop or two (at most) is essential to the chemistry of the elixir. Without it, you’ve got a drink but you don’t have a martini. Downing a Big Gulp of gin is not part of martini culture.

And while I am on the subject, neither is calling any vile concoction you care to dream up a “martini” just because you have poured the stuff into a defenseless cocktail glass. My idea of being outré with a martini is substituting a pickled onion for the olive, and I have the decency and sufficient respect for the mother of all cocktails to call this drink what it is: a Gibson. But instead we find chocolate martinis. Sour apple martinis. Mango martinis. There’s even some ghastly creation called the “breakfast martini” that requires the addition of orange marmalade. If I want breakfast, I’ll have Cheerios; if I want a martini, I’ll wait till 5:00 p.m. and then have gin and a whisper of vermouth…hold the fruit, all of it.

If I were to guess the reason these abominations have proliferated, I would chalk it up to our country’s addiction to all things sweet. If you want an education on that subject, read Karen and John Hess’s The Taste of America; it’s as bracing as the martini itself and a real resource for anyone who thinks that Michael Pollan et.al. are originals.

And then there are the gin snobs. Oh, for the days when Beefeater reigned supreme. Now in addition to the tasty but potent Tangueray, there’s Tangueray Ten (premium priced, of course, but not discernibly different from the regular) and Tangueray Rangpur, flavored with exotic limes (and quite servicable in a Gimlet, but that’s it), Bombay Sapphire (a higher proof and price) competes with its poor sister in the green bottle, and the liquor shelves are choked with all manner of small-batch, premium-priced infusions, each competing for the discerning drinker’s palate. Give me plain old Gordon’s any day. Just try ordering Gordon’s in a swanky bar or restaurant and watch the smirks and assurances that “we don’t serve that” begin. Truth is, I used to be a Tanqueray girl, but as I got older I found I didn’t need the extra proof, so clean, crisp Gordon’s does me just fine.

Given the recent explosion of designer tequilas, I suppose the smart crowd has moved on, and the martini craze is on its way out. I can hardly wait. Then things will be back to normal…me and the ghosts of Nick, Nora, and Mame bellied up to the bar, Dave McKenna at the piano.

Why ‘Call Me “Miss”‘?

I’m writing Call Me “Miss”! (CMM) to take on the stereotypes and myths about single-for-life women, or SOLOs (singles over a lifetime only).  I’ll use CMM to define the experience of single women in America and draw of the personal experiences of dozens of them of varied ages, professions and interests.  CMM will examine the preconceived notions of proselytizers of family values, the misplaced pity of married friends and coworkers, and the self-righteous sanctimony of partnered (married or otherwise) gays.  For inspiration, I look to Class, Paul Fussell’s perennially-in-print poisoned-pen valentine to American social mores.  What Class did for out-of-sights and proles, I hope CMM will do for spinsters and old maids.

CMM will examine the touchstones society uses to interpret the life of a SOLO, the archetypal Dizzy Dames, Culture Vultures, Ice Princesses and Swingin’ Singles who populate literature, television, movies and the biases of most marrieds.  CMM will also focus on the real lives of real Solos: the SOLO Sisters (SOLOS), a demographically diverse group of women, will share their experiences and insights throughout the text on topics as diverse as themselves—from good-luck-trying-to-buy-a-car to thank-you-but-I’ll-take-the-table-by-the-window-not-the-kitchen-door to I-get-all-the-hot-sex-I-need-on-Saint-Martin.  And I’ll spill my guts as well. Full disclosure: occasionally I’ll be snarky, and at times, to be completely truthful, I’ll indulge myself in a bracing, gut-busting, soul-satisfying rant.   Readers can just sit back and let it wash over them…waves of feminine pheromones telegraphing the message:  “I’m independent.  I’m well off. I’m not lonely.  I like my life. Deal with it!”

Just as Fussell used Class as his platform to delve into the totems of social status, I’ll use my quirky world view to shed light on the unique accoutrements that SOLOs are believed to possess:  the cloak of invisibility, the calendar of perpetually free time, for example, and share with you the pecking order that couples and partners use to establish the hierarchy of SOLOs:

  • So-Be-Its (Women over 65 who have never married, so-be-its are regarded as honorary wives or widows. Universally addressed by nurses, tellers, and clerks as “Mrs.”, so-be-its long ago gave up correcting the hired help.)
  • So-Lows (Any woman 40-65 who has never married is really at the bottom of the barrel—too young to be considered an elder stateswoman, too old to “have a chance,” the so-low is society’s vessel into which all un-PC prejudices and biases can be dumped without fear of retribution.)
  • So-Disappointings (Any woman under 40 but over 32 who’s yet to wed; there’s still a chance, albeit a remote one, that a so-diss will marry, but her partnered friends and associates are bracing themselves for the worst.)
  • So-Hopefuls (Any woman under 32 who’s yet to marry: young, hip, a so-ho’s got time on her side, so she’s welcomed as an almost-one-of-us by the married and the partnered.  For now.)

CMM will venture into the work place, the market place, vacation destinations, and home.  We’ll do reconnaissance in the most impenetrable suburbs, where real estate signs still proudly advertise, “no singles need apply,” and the denizens would no more have a dinner party or a card game with an “extra woman,” than they would mix up martinis in which guests could actually taste the vermouth.    It is in these venues that the life of a SOLO stands in stark contrast to those that surround her.  You might be surprised—and maybe even a little abashed—to visit these places and see them through SOLO eyes.  You’ll definitely never look at them the same way again!

In the nearly fifty years since Helen Gurly Brown coined her memorable phrase, the sex life of a SOLO has changed—for the better, no question.  But with the good comes the bad and the outrageous, as you’ll read in my reports from the world of post-adolescent dating.  Together we’ll de-brief them.  And believe me, there is nothing that gets a SOLO really fired up as a good de-briefing!

CMM will also review the honor role on contemporary and historical SOLOs of note.  The list—from Elizabeth I to Condoleezza Rice and Janet Neapolitano—is empowering and inspiring. We’ll look for clues to discover whether, like many SOLOs, these women simply forgot to get married in the course of their impressive lives, or if there is some one fundamental element of singlehood that characterizes such women of accomplishment.

Perhaps the darkest topic I’ll take on in CMM is the negative fallout from school shootings, fast-food firefights, and lone-gunman hostage situations. We sit by our TVs or radios, and once again are forced to listen to a “grief counselor” sagely opine that “he was a loner” or “he kept to himself” or “he like to read instead of play with the other kids” as the explanation for criminal, for insane, for deadly behaviors.  We take cold comfort in the fact that the perp is inevitably a he and not a she. Indeed, the loner-as-crazed-killer paradigm has so infiltrated popular culture that all singles—crazed or otherwise—can’t help but wonder if it’s true.  Or if that Uzi under the bed really is there just for protection.  Of the many stereotypes applied to singles, this is the most vicious and insidious.  We’ll take apart and lay it to rest.

I  am eager to begin this journey.  I hope you’ll come alone.  I mean “along.”