I Love You, Let’s Meet

from another HuffPo reader:

This didn’t actually happen to me, but right after this horrifying incident my girlfriend rushed over to my house still visibly shaken and panic stricken. They met via the Internet and agreed to meet for breakfast one Sunday morning at a nearby diner. Her date proceeded to brag how fast he could eat a fried egg in one bite AND actually proceeded to do so. As the yoke oozed out of the sides of his mouth and dribbled down his chin, my girlfriend excused herself to go to the ladies room. Where she made an immediate turn into the kitchen instead and raced out the back door of the restaurant in tears not believing what had just occurred. Of course after also having sworn “this” was the one and that they had really clicked via the Internet and phone. Till this day when we meet for breakfast I ask her if she wants to see how fast I can eat an egg?

You know what’s really depressing? That I DON’T find the above a dealbreaker and yet I’m still single. Guys like to show off their little tricks sometimes. The story actually inspires more competition than horror in me; if I was gonna eat an egg in one bite, I could do it without dripping yolk. That guy better never challenge ME to a Cool Hand Luke eat-off; I’d kick his ass.

a well-told, we’ve-all-been-there story (I’ve actually fled in that situation) with the kicker being what she’s reading.

And there are all kinds of treats on Judy’s site, including this great no matter how embellished story. A camera stuck inside your vagina is a great metaphor for sex columnisthood.

I seem to be reading a lot of stories like these lately, and keep wondering, why doesn’t everyone just listen to me on this one so we can all get along?
As I’ve said/written a lot, but dammit, the world has not put aside its Vogues and GQs to heed me, our bafflement and disappointment with each other would shrink dramatically if we simply dropped the outdated gender roles. We all have jobs. We all like sex. We all want someone we like talking to. We don’t need husbands and wives to be supporters and unpaid domestics. A guy is right to mind paying for a woman who makes as much as he does. A woman is right to mind she’s supposed to pretend she doesn’t want to sleep with a guy or be elusive or look perfect or any of that other “feminine” crap.

Feminism’s been brilliantly tarred as unsexy, unhip, man-hating, but it seems so obvious that more equality would make everyone happier. Less striving for femininity and masculinity, more for humanity. I’m continually perplexed by how few people are on board with me here, like suddenly they won’t want to have sex or be able to fall in love if they shed stupid old courting rituals that haven’t made sense in decades — and seem to be leaving everybody pissed at each other. I can still like wearing a pretty dress; I can still like big muscular sweaty man bodies and getting fucked hard; I can still like non-sex vive la differences like they can fix the broken cabinet but they don’t even know that they’re upset about something until you draw it out of them. And so can you! You can still enjoy heterosex a lot without acting some self-limiting way outside of bed — or expecting the other person to.

I’m adding in a fantastic quote from Laura Miller of salon.com and New York Times, from Ann Powers’ book Weird Like Us. This says it so well: “Romance is all about imagining yourself in a certain role without admitting it. You want to think, ‘I am the kind of person who gets flowers, I am the kind of person who drives men wild with desire.’ If that’s what you’re getting out of your relationships, it doesn’t seem like intimacy. It’s a fantasy about yourself that you’re using the other person to achieve.’”

I was floored by the eloquence and obviousness of this point — and yet it’s radically unpopular.

the Huffington Post invited me to cross-blog with them, starting with more about Courtney Love striking out on eHarmony.

Update: My friend Phoebe interviewed Ms. Love in 2005 and wrote me, “It’s so funny, but if you told me when I was 16 that someday I would talk to Courtney Love and, more than that, I would want to get off the phone with her at some point, I would not have believed you.” Here’s the most coherent(!) part of the transcript.

and maybe spaded/neutered while you’re at it. If I were these jerks [Not Safe For Work], I’d d be very nervous about pissing off all these men raring to beat, thrash, ream, whip, choke….

Hi, JohnG here. Again. Even the Smothers Brothers and Flip Wilson had to step down from their summer replacement soapboxes at some point, and my time is nigh. Virginia returns anon, so allow me to bid you good morrow, and offer my thanks to you dear readers, rock-roofed and all, for your forbearance. Perhaps the following will soften the blow of my departure:

A substitute boy wrote the blog.
The readers? Completely agog.
While demanding attention, there’s something to mention:
His word count is that of a hog!

And news of Virginia’s triumphant return from writers’ camp precedes her:

Her publisher’s named Little, Brown;
Their imprint’s a thing of renown.
And to our Virginia, quoth they, “It was in ya:
Your book’s just the Talk of the Town!”

To my chagrin, I didn’t manage to get the audiovisual spectacular patched in to the blog this week (sorry V.) but please do stop, look and listen for it in weeks to come. For the time being, I’m headed back under my rock. It’s cool and damp there, perfect for writing limericks. 

Hi, JohnG here again, filling in for Virginia while she’s away polishing prose and the counselors’ apples at writers’ camp.

In addition to being an online dater, I’m a single father of two boys, 9 and 12. I try to keep the machinations of my social life to myself, but the last time I mentioned going on a date to them, the older boy tossed a very cool “You meet her online?” over his shoulder at me. Just the occasion for one of our father-son limerick writing sprees in a boldly paternal effort to avoid the subject, I thought. And so eminently bloggable, too!

By way of ridiculous rationalization, please consider the following: Slightly down the list from 1066, 1776, and 666 (the Year of Wealth and Taste, as our rock-roofed readers certainly know), one of the greatest dates in history was that of “The Owl and the Pussycat” chaperoned by Edward Lear, whose life seems to have been an incorrigible limerick-writing spree. Nonsense, you say? Ladies, I ask you, how many of your suitors arrive in a pea-green boat, intent upon carrying you off on a sea-faring adventure, all the while serenading you? How many were born with a runcible spoon in their mouths? And Owl was hot, I tell you–who wouldn’t be, wearing a down jacket in this weather? Perhaps the heat explains the febrile attempts at humor below.

First, a couple of trifles pandering, once again, to the women of OLD:

A boy saw a girl surfing Nerve,
Her body, he found, it did curve.
Had he looked at her face, he’d have known she’s an ace
At sussing out boys labeled “Perv.”

There once was a girl on a date
With a sad little boy she did hate.
For sex do I pine, but I’m out of my mind
Oh! He is a death worse than fate.

And here’s one for Virginia:

“Virginia,” he said, “let us meet;
Would you like a massage of your feet?”
“Your hands they are fine, the idea’s divine,
I love you, I love you, let’s meet!”

Before “dating” takes on a whole new meaning for me when my ex-wife has me locked away (for a year and a day) for corrupting the morals of her sons, we’ll churn out a few more for you, so stay tuned. Or maybe you’re ready to join her in an amicus brief at this point. Comments will not be construed as legal advice, and are welcome.

jg