Issues

The short story "Liking Men," from Margaret Atwood's Simple Murders, begins:  "It's time to start liking men again.  Where shall we begin"?  Atwood finally concludes that the feet of the sleeping man presently in her bed are kinda cute and, all in all, acceptable.  She'll begin, then, by liking his feet.

There is nothing like online dating to make me read Atwood, all Atwood, and nothing but Atwood. The most rabidly feminist man-hating screed in the world is mother's milk to me after just one date with a guy I meet online.  Nothing will sink men in my estimation quicker.  Since I published my Online Dating Dictionary in my blog last year ( http://www.ls.net/node/448 ),some of my girlfriends have suspected that I have online dating horror stories which I've yet to spill.  They want to read about them.  They think they will be amusing.

So.  Here goes.

I highly recommend online dating for extreme masochists who are dissatisfied with lesser forms of torture, like the rack, the keel-haul and the iron maiden.  The greatest mystery surrounding online dating is why, in the face of the huge popularity of these sites, homosexuality is holding steady at 2-5% of the population.  Online dating can make you loathe and mistrust the opposite sex to the point where arthropods begin to look attractive.  Perhaps the sites match up enough gays and lesbians with brain-dead losers, pervs and wackos that they also give up on the same sex, causing statistical parity? 

I'm not saying online dating never works for anyone.  The founder of eharmony.com, for instance, is filthy stinking rich.  I'm saying my experiences with men-met-online qualified me for federal disaster relief.

There Was Ben.

I found Ben on match.com.  A handsome chiropractor, Ben chatted me up for a while, proclaiming me "the nicest woman he'd ever talked to."  He talked about driving to meet me but never, technically, pointed his vehicle in my general direction.  He said he wanted to take his time and date around, as he was very recently divorced.  I agreed with him that going on the rebound was unhealthy, and accepted this as the reason why he never seemed to show up in person.  A month later he sent me his wedding photos via email.

And Also Marty.

Marty was a policeman.  He commanded his own S.W.A.T. team, which could be a big plus if my ex ever resumed his old stalking habit.  I was really psyched about Marty, because he was both sweet and smart--both very rare qualities on. . .which dating site was this?. . .Yahoo! Singles, I think.  We spent untold hours chatting via Yahoo! Messenger while I looked at the imposing photo of him in the upper left hand chat box corner.  Sunglasses, huge forearms folded in front of him, curly black hair--a very compact, smokin' hot presence.  Like something out of the movies.  We planned our first date, at Shoney's.  When I arrived, Marty was bigger than the buffet.  He explained that the photo I had been drooling over every night for a month was taken in 1985.  Since that time he had put on about 200 pounds.  He explained that he did not post a photo taken within the past couple of decades because, quote, "I didn't want to put myself down."

I made the fatal mistake of having my children in the same restaurant at a different table because babysitting fell through.  My 13-year-old son kept looking over at Marty and choking on his food with laughter.  I think at one point he had cole slaw up his sinuses, but when I went over to him, he sipped his water, slapped his thigh repeatedly, and said, chortling through tears, "I'm okay!  I'm okay!  Go talk to the poor guy!"

And Frank.  Step Aside, Clark Gable.

Women who suppose that romance and chivalry are dead have never been out with Frank.  The man oozed charm from every pore.  I met him on a Christian dating site.  Can't remember the name of it.  Frank had two homes, one in the city and one in the mountains.  We lingered over a ridiculously expensive lunch for an hour and a half, during which Frank proved himself a superb conversationalist. Then we walked up and down main street and he stopped at Barr's Fiddle Shop, tuned up a guitar, and sang country love songs like "Remember When."  I thought, this dude needs a recording contract.  As we strolled through the rest of the downtown, he suddenly turned to me and took my hand.  He explained, in the sweetest male tone of voice I've ever heard, that he had narrowed the "candidate pool" for his second wife down to two women, me and a blonde whom he'd been to dinner with the night before, and "I'm sorry, you're great and all, but I think she's a little bit better." 

I Thought Ghengis Khan was Dead

. . .until I went out with Rick.  He also—take special note of this fact—advertised on a Christian dating site, plentyoffish.com.  Unlike with Benny, and Marty, and Frank, Rick and I actually made it to date number two.  I noticed, as I watched his hands on the restaurant table, that Rick had a strange habit of twitching his fingers.  He squirmed convulsively, picked up his coffee cup, put it down, and looked me right in the eye.  He confessed that he had had sex with 300 different women.

In the past year alone.

I looked at him and thought, this guy has venereal diseases that scientists don't even know about yet.  "Waitress!  Check please!"  Can you say plentyofsharks.com?

Not all of my dates generated from online sites have been this interesting.  I've described only the really freaky ones.  Most have been so boring that it was all I could do to remain conscious.  I cherish the memories of dates during which neither me nor the guy could think of a single thing to say.  Not a syllable.  We just stared at each other, helplessly, like mummies in a museum whose tongues have been dust for three millennia. 

Some dates never came off at all, not because the guys married other women like Benny, but because my idea of a first date and that of my "match" were somewhat incompatible.  Like the guy from North Carolina who wanted our first date to be at a weekend nudist retreat.  So now you gals (and guys) know what inspired me to write my Online Dating Dictionary.

Being "wired" to your friends, neighbors, and even scant acquaintances has its advantages.

For antisocial misanthropes like me, networking on the Internet (my tool of choice is Facebook) keeps me aware that there are, in fact, other people in the world.  Who knew?  In my own neighborhood, even.  People who are related to me, went to high school or college with me, and who, inexplicably, even care about me.

And the more caring we express about each other, the more caring we feel.  Social networking builds friendships.  Keeping up with one another via the tools on the internet overcomes the embarrassment we shy folk might have over, for instance, walking up to a former high school classmate and saying, "Happy Birthday."

Not that we even had a clue when our high school classmates' birthdays were, until Facebook's Birthday Calendar app came along.

It's kind of cool—in fact, it's very cool—to know that a person you liked 20 years ago and still like very much now, is going to Disneyworld, and when she gets back, and whether she had fun.  You can go to her Facebook page and say, "Drive safe!"  "Say 'Hi' to Mickey for me!"  "Glad you're back—how was sunny Florida?"  It makes you feel more a part of your community.  You are reminded that, before you had children and vanished into a giant laundry pile or a workday cubicle, you were a kid, with pals.  You and these pals had fun together. I barely remember these halcyon days, but lately, on Facebook, it's all coming back to me.  I am not just a mom.  I am a person.  I was a girl.  I had a life!

Until Facebook, my homeboys and homegirls and I were all a bunch of zombie chauffeurs, driving our kids to endless sports and saying "Hey, wassup" in the Subway line and at church and in Food City, like ships, or frantic speedboats, passing in the night.

Now we have Facebook, and we're connected.  I know when my best friend when I was 5 years old has the flu.  I know when my best friend when I was 15 years old goes on a trip.  I know when the guy who played guitar in the rock band that I followed around when I was 20 is playing in a bar in Chicago. I know what's up with all of them—the big news, anyhow.  Promotions, divorces, diseases, divorces that are indistinguishable from diseases.  And they know my big news.  Using Facebook's photo albums app, we know what one another's children look like.  Mine are much better looking than any of theirs.

Now some of my chums have gone a step further with the internet networking thing, and have signed up for Twitter.  Twitter enables you to tell all of your friends precisely what you are up to, all the time.  They get updates on you, either via email, or on their mobile phones.

I am not sure I am ready for this.  I am not sure my friends are ready for this.

My "tweets" coming from Twitter might sound more like painful squawks.  Gripes.  Or ugly, private revelations.  The real, straight "dope" on what the Old Woman in the Shoe is up to, hour by hour, is not something anybody really wants to know, do they?

Shoedame is flossing her teeth for the first time in months.
Shoedame is overcome with self-loathing.
Shoedame shoved all the clean laundry under her bed so she wouldn't have to fold it.
Shoedame is facing another bout of chronic constipation.
Shoedame is suspecting that the entire legal system only exists so that rich men can get their Mercedes payments in on time.
Shoedame is buying chocolate which she intends to hide from her children.
Shoedame is evading all of her real-life responsibilities in order to waste an hour on Facebook and delude all of her cyber-friends into thinking she is doing something productive.

My tweeting friends are not posting anything like this.  Their tweets are very intimidating, in fact.  So far, all of my friends who are on Twitter seem to have amazingly productive and pure lives.  Their tweets sound like broadcasts from heaven:

Johnnie is building a house with Habitat for Humanity.
Johnnie is feeling chipper after a great, uplifting concert by Kids Need Food.
Johnnie is planting a tree, because the world needs more trees.
Johnnie is psyched about another workweek.  YEAH!

Not:

Johnnie wishes more than anything his wife would shut up and leave him alone.

Of course, if Johnnie put that in his Twitter update line, he would then need to go to Facebook and change his status from "In a Relationship" to "Single," once the real truth appeared on his wife's mobile phone.

So it turns out that, even in our Twitterpated world, hourly updates on Johnnie may be telling me just as much as the occasional "Hey, what's up?" "Nothin' much" in Subway, while he's just rushing back from taking his son to baseball and I'm in a rush to get my daughter to volleyball.  The truth is, we're both frail human wrecks who are victims of

1) our drive to reproduce;

2) our need to make sure that our kids do all the same things other kids do, all day, every day; and

3) our complete inability to pay for it. 

Plus the simple fact that any people, anytime, anywhere, who try to maintain a long-term relationship or marriage suffer and struggle mightily in the attempt, and miserably fail as often as they succeed.

But we can't post any of that on Twitter every hour, or on Facebook every day.  We can't be that honest, in public, at all.  So we underplay our bad stuff and broadcast our good stuff.  Which is competely healthy and normal. And if all I know is the "big news" on 75 of my favorite people, it's a lot more than what I knew about them two years ago.

And I do hope my homegirl and her crew get to Disneyworld and back okay, and that they have a good time, whatever a "good time" is.  The super thing about being on the same wire is, all the birdies are perched on it together, squawking whatever it is we squawk, good/bad true/false.  But we're all wired together, sending messages of support—life is hard; hang in there, oh those on my fabulous Friend List.  Be strong.  Remember, first and foremost, who you are.  Who you were, before all the crushing responsibilities of life piled on your shoulders.

Remember when we were alive, and childless, how we laughed?  Let's laugh today, if only over a stupid clip from Youtube.  For just five minutes, let's channel our inner children and remember why we became friends.  And if you ever want to give me the real story of what's ever going on with you on the inside while you build that Habitat house, let's get together, face to face, and spill our guts.

Math and I got along just swimmingly in kindergarten.  My kindergarten teacher had a box of counting bears in bright, primary colors.  I could paint a pretty picture, read an interesting book, or—entirely at my option—go and mess with the counting bears and, if so inclined, count them.  The teacher gave me high praise for looking at a fully labeled calendar and figuring out what day it was.

Within a few short years, I was thrust into a world of heartless commands like "find" and "compute" and "calculate."  Even when I could "estimate," there were strictly proscribed limits such as "to the nearest tenth."  My artistic, creative, right-brain-dominant self kicked against the pricks, but I muddled along. Then I met my nemesis.  From the day he entered my life, the academic world was divided into into two parts:  the "can-do" and the "huh?"

His name was X.  He stood for stuff. 

Like most American girls, I got my feminine ideal from pop culture.  I was 14 when I went to see Purple Rain at the cineplex, and Apollonia Kotero, love interest of the artist intermittently known as Prince, became my ideal.  She was olive-skinned, mysterious, temperamental, about 5'2", and, despite being about a size zero, had breasts like prize canteloupes.  Prince would look at her and go sort of green and gooey around the gills.

I gathered that Apollonia was a Real Woman, and that no man, much less Prince, would ever turn to mush at the sight of me unless I looked like her.  As the summer sun set over Johnson City, Tennesee (I was visiting, and my cousin got me into the "R" movie), I prayed fervently for a bouncing set of Apollonias that would make the men go ape.

Over the next few years, I overshot Prince's height by a good foot.  And then I got my growth spurt.  I matured into a pasty-white, unmysterious girl, size 8-running-to-10, about as tempestuous as oatmeal, and one of the Breastless Wonders of the Modern World.  I'm middle-aged and still praying for those Apollonias.  I don't think the Almighty is going to oblige.

My Shoeful of children have expressed a lot of opinions about the upcoming election.  They are not pleased to hear that mom is "Moderate, Independent, Undecided."  They've heard from a lot of people who aren't waffling like dear old Mom.  One day household opinion is running "red"; the next day it's slanted "blue."  Just call this house the Purple Shoe.  Only my high schooler has made up his mind.  Were he empowered to cast a ballot, he would vote for:  no one.  Neither candidate "impresses" him, he says, with youthful confidence that someone "impressive"—an obviously Great Leader—will appear on the political scene when he is 20, or 24, or 28.

Explaining subtlety is an admission of failure. My blog on Jimmy Carter contained nine references, eight of which were examples of newspeak. One, AlJazeera, was an appeal to understanding and a rejection of categorical imperatives. The fault lies not in Jimmy Carter, but in the way we talk about and understand the "War on Terror".

I am going to make it easy this time, Osama bin Laden is the quintessential example of a "terrorist". The call to kill civilians in the fatwas of 1996 and 1999 fit the definition of terrorism. And so what does that imply?

In the current mindset, the solution is simple - kill him. And if you can't do that,  kill everyone who espouses him, kill everyone who shelters him, and if all else fails kill everything he says.

Perhaps distinction should be made of fact and truth. That task is left as an exercise of understanding and not an exercise in bloating commentary. Rather than illuminating all variances, consider that truth has emotional context. Misinformation abuses fact or truth.

My partner says "I am hot", and I say at the same time and in the same place "I am cold"; these announcements are merely truths and the fact that the temperature is 290 Kelvin is not relevant. Even constantly at 290 Kelvin, my partner will complain of being too cold during waking hours and too hot for falling asleep. That both of us are cold when the temperature is 290 Kelvin is misinformation — abusing truth.

Sabbath Work

I have a soft spot in my head and heart for George Ryan. He recently arrived (November 7th) at Oxford Prison, convicted of corruption (the evidence is considerable even though the principal prosecution witness said he had his head in a vise). Oxford was built during my residence in Adams County Wisconsin in the 70s.

In abandoning a read of Philip Hensher's "The Mulberry Empire" (the larger premise is intriguing but much or the detail is not worth repeating), I poked a bit into the history of Afghanistan.

In an attempt to install a government friendly to their interests, the British sent 50,000 people into Afghanistan. Although a few were rescued later, only one escaped a massacre during the withdrawal - William Brydon. The Brits repeated this excellent adventure twice more and the US twice again.

The second to last US adventure in Afghanistan was to install the Taliban to displace the Soviet client Najibullah and the last was to install Hamid Karzai to replace the Taliban.