The Period of Spinsterhood

[izeveryboyin]

It’s odd what women believe. Admittedly, I’ve found myself indulging in a fantasy or two, but just where do we draw the line between fantasy and fantastic? I mean, honestly, it’s a lovely idea that some handsome guy in a gray Armani suit with a sexy voice, a big bank account an a “settled career” is going to come and sweep you off your feet while grocery shopping for Spaghetti-O’s in aisle 7. But it’s just too far-fetched. You’ll meet some asshole prick who thinks he’s a sexual God, you’ll get him home, he’ll stick it in, and be pumping away, all the while you’re waiting for it to begin. And while he’s sliding on his old blue jeans, grabbing his keys and waiting on you to get dressed so he can drive you back home, you’re still there, lying in bed, wondering if anything had even happened just then. But moreover, you were really just wondering when the hell he was going to stop joking around and actually fuck you. It never happens. So then what do you do? If you’re a quitter, or if you simply bore easily, like me, you give up. You throw back on your clothes; you walk angrily out his door and to the train station without saying goodbye, hop on the CTA redline and go home. Gourmet meal with you and your new best friend the television set.
Then, all of a sudden, you look up and it’s 18 months later, and you’re living with your mother, without a job, without any true friends (except for Magnavox, Sony Pictures, Ben, Jerry and Chef Boyardee) and completely miserable. That’s when the signs of spinsterhood begin to appear. Yesterday, I assumed temporary insanity and had decided to seriously solicit myself on an internet dating service (gasp!) Luckily enough, my mother left my little brother at home for me to baby-sit, and thus I couldn’t actually release my horrific plan out into the general public. (Wipes sweat from brow and upper lip) I believe I’ve made the world a better place because of it. It really makes one wonder just how desperate women get after one too many fuck-free nights without at least the sleazy vindication of midnight drunkenness. It’s times like this when women become their most vulnerable to the dreaded “urban legends of romance”. We’re sitting there, down on our ass, shoveling ice cream and raw cookie dough down our throats sighing dreamily at the guy on TV who runs down the street to claim the “love of his life” after she’s planned to move out to western France to study culinary art.
“Marcia, wait, I couldn’t let you leave without telling you… I love you.”
[Pause and stare to let disgusting romance and wonder of it all sink in, kiss passionately, grab bags from baggage claim, hop in taxi to eternal bliss three point five kids sit in minivan in driveway of quaint suburban home, the end.] Bullshit. Men and women hate each other, but each gender has to put up with the other in order to maintain sexual satisfaction and social vindication. Women are special though; we hate both genders, that is, aside from the prissy blond-haired pink mini skirts with legs and plastic tits who walk hand-in-hand with their “BFF” to the bathroom to go pee together. (Long shutter of discomfort.) But women, we hate each other because we look at each other and see competition. Personally, I hate so many of them because I look at them and see pink, but that’s another story of a disturbing childhood filled with frilly pink dresses and yada, yada, yada. Anyway, we hate men because we “love” them so much. They drive us crazy and we just can’t stand the “wonder of it all”. I’ll let you in on a little secret that I’ve found to be quite true. A secret that I knew way before I’d seen the movie that made the phrase known to a vast majority of the 80’s teen public. “Love is an illusion created by lawyers to facilitate the illusionary need for marriage which creates the reality of divorce and the illusionary need for divorce lawyers.” See what 18 months of Spaghetti-O’s and unplanned celibacy will do to you?
Most women go the way of the chick flik. I did a 180 and turned away from it all. Now I won’t lie and claim that I hate men, or that they all are bastards, several of them are, but them, in comparison, such is the same for women. So if they’re all evil bastard fucks, then where do you turn? To dogs of course, and to several empty liquor bottles that lay littered on your messy bedroom floor for 65 days while you lie there in those hideous old Scooby Doo pajamas bottoms and the whale sized shirt. Getting fat, getting even more cynical, (if that’s mentally possible) and generally being the epitome of everything sociopathic. Okay, okay, so that’s not all true. The empty liquor bottles were there for 45 days. But anyway, seriously, why is it that we go through shit like this when we’re not in a relationship? Do men ever take it this hard? I mean, we’re at home, reading thank you letters from the Haagen-Dazs Corporation for buying enough products to finance the opening of several franchises in New Guinea and Guam. All the while, the men are at home guzzling down beers happily and watching sports after sending some seedy chick home that he’d met earlier at some seedy bar. These are society’s bachelors and players, and we’re society’s shunned fucking spinsters. What gives? I for one feel callously gypped. Not only are we alone and crabby, we bleed once a month, and become bloated to add on to the ten pounds we’ve gained in the last two months or so. We’re bleeding, they’re drinking beer. Who’s being cheated in this situation?
So now that we’ve become all desolate and “woe is me I’ll die alone someday in a musty house that smells like moth balls and Jack Daniels and nobody’ll find me for three weeks”, we’re hearing all this fairy tale bullshit about happily ever after from friends. “Oh my God, he called me up last night and said he loved me ten times and the next morning he sent me roses at work. He invited me out for a special dinner tonight I think he’s gonna pop the question”. Turns out he gets her there to tell her it’s over. “Let’s not bullshit each other sweetheart, it’s you,” he says. Then she screams down the street “All men are bastards!” And that’s that, another one onboard for the build-a-Ben&Jerry’s-fund. Is love real anymore? I mean, in a world so full of divorce, adultery and casual sex, does anyone truly love another? And if so, is it a durable love? Is it a retirement home in Florida in 30 or 40 years kind of love? Is it a 50th wedding anniversary love? Is it love? I mean sure, I’ve been in love before, it was fun—until it ended. Even though it was me who’d ended it, I was still depressed. You can’t help it. It’s always there… loss, disappointment, and solitude… eventual death of being eaten by wild dogs. When is it ever for real, and how do you know? Anyone who buys into love usually gets cheated. There’s no warranty, you’ve fucking gotta fix everything yourself, there’s no money back guarantee, and the damned certificate of authenticity always gets lost in the mail for about a year so that you get it on some lonely Christmas eve when they’re happily engaged to some girl named Francine. Okay, okay, so that’s not all true. Her name might’ve been Shante.
You know, it took me so damned long to separate love from lust, and when I finally did, I came to the very unfortunate conclusion that I was ten times happier not knowing the fucking difference. My first semester at Truman starts soon, and I’m terrified that I still don’t quite understand all the differences of love and lust. It’s a shit life living off Spaghetti-O’s and cheap daytime television, and it’s a slow, painful death to be without a sex partner for 18 months. Then you have the whole danger of jumping into something too soon, or catching someone on the rebound, or stupidly going to bed with a guy who’s a total nutcase. You’ve got 38 choices and 36 of them are the wrong ones. You can take a bet and believe that some handsome guy is going to chase after you in the rain professing his love. You can believe that maybe he might not do anything as elaborate as something from a Nora Roberts novel, but would still be in love with you. Even without the dramatic scene that’ll never happen in real life unless it was on a bet he made with his beer buddies from college. Or maybe you can decide that he’s in on the scam with those sleazy bastard lawyer types—whatever. But at the end of the day, what matters most is whether or not you’re going home assured of something, and in love, or whether you’re going home to a refrigerator and the latest episode of “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy” on a bitter Tuesday night.

[hester_prynne]

Hey izzy, is everyboyout?
heh
I loved reading this, it made me cackle.
I cackle alot.
It comes from leaving all that shit about men and women behind and moving ahead. There's alot more out there to think about.
I think personally, that alot of women enable men (in order to keep them, why I don't know) to continue living off of borrowed time and an obsolete reputation. It's sad to see so many guys missing out on their potentials, just because they can.
I know several broads that keep their men at home like pets.
They come over to my manless house, and complain all the time about it, "all he does is drink beer and watch porno", and when I tell them hey, kick him out and do him a favor, let him take care of himself, they start defending their terribly unsatisfying situations. Go figure.
Izzy, you are a talented writer. Depth, humor and honesty. Focus on that!
I imagine a bestseller out of you someday my girl.
good to see you here!
Hest

[Zlatko Waterman]

In reading this powerful and articulate screed from a person I assume to be a young woman, I am reminded of an old student of mine.

Her name was Karyn ( or at least that's what I'm calling her here.) The name is phoney, but the young lady was not). She had a SAG ( Screen Actor's Guild) card and had worked in Hollywood. ( note that "Zlatko Waterman" is located in LA).

She was so attractive physically that she did bikini stand-ins on "Happy Days" and many other sitcoms and other shows.

She was a close friend of Barbra Steisand and had lived with BS's family.

She was a very bright English Composition student, but had, over a long period, learned to hate men. Particularly Latino men.

Now the post above disclaims a hatred of men, and I believe its energetic, nay, ebullient writer. In somewhat ersatz Bukowski-ese, she tries to tell the truth as she sees it.

"Spinsterhood" is what "Karyn" strove for, and achieved it. At 35, announcing she was a lesbian, she stopped living with frat house types, stopped courting med students.

I looked at our ebullient Bukowski and Dylan Thomas fan's web site and it is remarkable for what it does NOT reveal.

I stood outside DT's ( what an unfortunately accurate set of initials!) little cabin in Langharne, Wales and looked in through a seasalt-spatterned window at where the Wizard of Alliteration used to write, hoping his buddies would snag him and take him to the pub in mid-adfternoon . . .

I liked that.

As an old man with a grey beard, I appreciate these peeks into the contemporary "battle of the sexes" ( as it used to be called when Jack Lemmon was the "arty" Hollywood actor).

Thank you. I got to learn something reading your prose.


Zlatko

[Zlatko Waterman]

. . .and I hasten to add, that what should be gathered from my post is a gratitude for the Bukowski-ese version of "how it is" (Beckett) and NOT an "accusation" of, or even allusion to "lesbianism" as a state of either grace or damnation.

What I wish to say is that it has been a privilege to read what I almost never get to read:

A truthful appraisal of male lust and ambition.


--Z

[Zlatko Waterman]

Hester! ( as the Brits say: Halloa!)


What a nice sentence:


"kick him out and do him a favor!"


As a 59-year-old survivor of three marriages ( over a period of 30 years or so)

I couldn't agree more.

A quick smootch on your jazzandbluesinger's brow, my dear.


--Z

[Zlatko Waterman]

"spatterned"

equals "splatter" ( or "spatter)


and


"patterned"


--Z

[mnaz]

that was a powerful read. Thank you. I don't know you, so please don't
take any of this as personal criticism.... just an impression or two as I read. The first one is obvious.... the myth of the perfect man. All of life is perfect in its imperfection. People who measure life by Armani suits
and bank accounts, or surface beauty over subtance in general, enter
a dead-end path to begin with, though it can be a hell of a ride for a long
time; perhaps well worth the trouble. Refusing to hang onto that form,
but to let it die so that the next form may have life, seems to be a key.

Also, the question of building "walls", or "boxes", comes to mind.... locking yourself and others into their boxes and throwing away the key.
Who are you? Are you a worthless, mateless, "spinster", competing for
leftover, bitter scraps? Or are you alive and human? Are all men bastards? Are all attractive women shallow? Are all "fairytales", as seen
from a distance, perfectly blissful and devoid of hard challenges of their
own?

My own feeling on this is that at the end of the day, what matters most is that you go home both critical of yourself and at peace with yourself, and not reliant on the world or any of its biases to either make or break your
own validation. No one is "assured" of anything.

Anyway, just some impressions of mine, for what their worth (not much, perhaps). Thanks for the read. It definitely got me thinking.

[abcrystcats]

I got a good bellylaugh out of your rant -- I wonder if my alter ego has been signing onto the computer while I'm out at the vet's office, and signing in to MY websites under a fictitious name -- because most of what you wrote (not all of it) could have come out of my own head.

Here's what I'll add (or subtract)

First of all, who NEEDS these phony pseudo-men in the Armani suits, anyways? What's up with the yuppified middle-aged men who spend 4.3 hours per week at the gym, sport the trim little beards and/or de rigeur tiny ponytail to show that they are true "rebels" in spite of the Porsche 925, the fancy suit, establishment sell-out, money market mutual funds and 65 plus hours at the office? Do you NEED or WANT (God Forbid) one of these modern day Prince Charmings to come and sweep you off your feet and take you for a ten day cruise in Tahiti following a $15,000 wedding? They make me puke, and I'll bet if you were to stop and think about it, these types make YOU puke too.

As for the losers you are taking home out of impulse, well, all I can say is that I pity you. I pity you for a couple of reasons.

Reason One: I think life is terribly unfair to women. If a man gets horny all he has to do is get on-line or make a few phone calls. Men can BUY sex. They don't often do that, but they CAN. Maybe it's because they know they can buy it that they make a point of NOT buying it, but at least the option is available. Women? Forget it. WE can buy a vibrator. OR, we can go to bars and other horrible places and take home whatever is available there -- and believe me, I know what you mean, it ain't much. The price of our lapse is that after having sex with this unattractive emotionless (and often sexless) specimen is numerous pleading phone calls from same, begging us to go out and do "it" with him again. We'd rather be the glass test tube extracting semen for the artificial insemination of the North Atlantic Manatee, than ever see or hear from HIM again!

Reason Two: Go ahead and laugh, but sublimation can be FUN! I've learned that it works a lot better to be celibate than expose yourself to constant hope and the corresponding misery. There are times when I think I'll expose myself to the Internet "carousel", that I'm getting desperate enough to do that, finally, but something always makes me pull back. I haven't. It's been a long bloody time, but I don't care. I've gotten used to being alone. It isn't so bad. It's better than the alternative. Spinsterhood is GOOD. It's actually freeing. I focus my energy on things that are meaningful for me, and for the world as I see it. I haven't had to become an embittered dyke (or pseudo-dyke) to do this. It actually turns out to be a celebration of my femininity.

My advice is: quit trying. Quit letting your sexuality pull you around by the nose (or the whatever). Drop the whole thing, painful as it may be, and focus on some other good stuff about you.

I totally understand what you mean about women having to hate both men and women --only hating women MORE and men only a little bit less. I have often felt like that. Women are so terribly manipulative, so cowardly, so lacking in courage and ... now you've got me started. As for men ... I can't do without them. The real ones, anyways. I've learned heaps from my brothers, my father, my uncle, and the other few REAL men that I've known. They can be incredible. But they can be brutal, too. And some of the more brutal ones I've also learned from. I even learned from one handsome Italian young man who ditched me when I was in my early 20s. I learned that's OK to dismiss people. If they look like "losers"(his word), talk like "losers" and act like "losers", then they must be "losers", so don't waste your time. Our mothers didn't teach us this.They taught us to be nice, forgiving, understanding, nonjudgemental. Men are often thexact opposite of all that, so we hate them for their brutality, but ...try it on for yourself sometime. Brutality, moving on, is incredibly liberating.

I don't know what I'm saying here, any more than you did when you wrote your rant, I guess. There are SOME good people out there: men and women both. Some of them actually write on this message board frequently. Stick around. I like even knowing a few of these folks are out there, at distances of hundreds or thousands of miles. It's good to know you aren't alone. Sometimes (MOST times!) I feel like I've landed in the middle of the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" -- all the normal caring, thinking people have disappeared and been replaced with thse zombie-like imitations-- But on studio-eight or some of the similar websites, a little of my faith in humanity gets restored. A little.

anyhow, I wanted you to know that I enjoyed your spewing. I laughed pretty hard. And I "got it" too. I am so glad that I am not the only one who feels this way, most of the time. You're great. Stay with us.

[Doreen Peri]

hiya ize!
welcome! as usual, you crack me up... funny stuff here!

at the same time, though, i gotta say that i haven't heard so much male bashing in a long time.... I, for one, love the creatures. Can't help it.

It was a good spew, though! Feel better? heh

Hope to see you around here more often posting some of your vibrant poetry and more of this kinda prose. Nice!

------
cats - you've got some anti-male sentiments yourself, eh? your post reminded me of that old bumper sticker..."a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle"... geesh

*sigh*... I love men. I've been an addict since I was 15. The bastards.

[hester_prynne]

I just read all the responses to this thread....lots of them, and all very interesting and well taken, however I want to clarify with Doreen and all of you, that I love men too, and women for that matter. ( I have wonderful men friends and the energy we exhange is something sex has often ruined when it came into the picture).
I love people. Male and female and whatever else.
This is not to say I am bisexual or gay or anything. I'll come out right here and say I prefer having sex with men. I've tried other options but, no go. Shrug. (darn!)
What I don't condone is when constant dissatisfaction between two people is tolerated out of some sort of unprocessed ego need and/or desperation, or duty, to a degree of misery.
I"ve learned my lessons around this painfully.
We are all meant to be happier than what the myths and old methods around relationships and sex offer.
Heck I'd just as soon buy some sex for myself anymore. Really! I'd love to see some nice brothels for women open up. Fun places, loaded with men, just for women to have sex with. You see, I adore getting laid, but I don't like all the baggage that always seems to come with that. Ownership for one. And yep, I mean my own baggage as well as the other's. I know I've got it. I travel lighter than I used to, but hey, I got baggage, no doubt.
But think about it.
I mean let's face it. Men are tailor made to be hookers! Veritable johnny appleseeds they are! Women aren't. At least hookers I've known have been miserable, and I was miserable when I did it too. But give this woman an opportunity for a night once a week of paid for up front guilt free happy sex with all the trimmings, and I'll go for it! I'll come back for more as a regular! It would become an important necessity item on my budget!
And think of the jobs! No man would ever be out of work! And no woman would have to use obsolete words like spinster or middle aged virgin to describe herself anymore! Gee, I'm getting excited just thinking about it!

H

[abcrystcats]

Doreen, I'm just generically misanthropic. By that I mean that my hate extends both ways, and probably includes myself too. Sorry. I love animals and nature and I think there are far too many of us and far too FEW of them.

As for man-hating, specifically, well ... there are DAMN few good ones out there. If you GOT a good one (and I assume you do -- it sure looks that way) then it's going to color your perceptions of all the rest. Blessings on you both!

I can count the few truly good ones I've known on my fingers and not use all of them -- and MOST of those are relatives. Whenever I meet a man who I think (spontaneously) gee, what a wonderful human being, if I check that ring-hand afterwards, it's occupied. Maybe marriage improves men, or maybe the myths are true and "all the good ones are taken". Either way, for single women out there, the constant disappointment gets pretty wearisome. Cut her a break. And me too.

I live in hope that one of these days, I will find one -- a GOOD one -- one that I do not have to MAKE good by some alchemic process. The only reason I know they're out there somewhere is that I've met some, even if most are too close for legal matrimony. If my family produced some, there've got to be others. That's my reasoning.

I personally value(my)men fairly highly. I get WAY more out of my relationships with men, as a general rule. Perhaps that's just because Mother Nature designed it that way, I don't know. I wasn't being sarcastic either when I said I've learned lessons from men that I could not have learned from women. Men don't BS around. When something is not working out, they don't drag themselves down trying to make it work. Usually, they have learned to cut their losses and be stoic about it. I admire that. Self-esteem is a given with men. It ought to be a given for women.

Someone (Hester) mentioned having girlfriends who stuck with loser-guys who hung out in front of the TV drinking beer all day. These friends of hers kept the guys because HAVING A GUY (any guy!) was somehow better to them than being alone. I've had friends like, myself, so I know what she means. Personally, I'm going to stick it out and wait for the right man. Being alone is better than being with a crummy one just because I can't abide being alone. I got into a TERRIBLE relationship after my divorce because I didn't know how to handle being alone at that time. The emotional scars are still there, they're ugly and they hurt. Lesson learned. That is why I advise being alone, if needed. It's better than many of the hurtful alternatives. Besides, it's strengthening. You learn to love yourself, by forcible exposure TO yourself. It's a good, great thing.

Back to man-hating. If you're interested, there's a recently published book entitled simply "Y" (meaning the chromosome). It's written BY a man, and the central thesis of the book is that men, as a sex, are falling drastically behind in evolution, and may even be on their way OUT. We may not need men (or so many men) in the future. That is what I got out of his book. He describes the limited genetic potential of the Y chromosome itself and how that contributes to birth defects, violent crime, lack of adaptibility and a bunch of other things. It's pessimistic, but it's scientifically based. It isn't intended to just damn all men, but to point out where,why and how things look as bleak as they do in the 21st century, with the patriarchy still wagging its tail (and other healthy appendages).

I hope you can take this on balance. Men in general have many valuable and important qualities. Women can learn from those qualities, and one of the things I dislike is that so many women DON'T learn from them. I've met too many women who spent whole lifetimes being human doormats, who never learned to say no, who wouldn't know the word "NO" if it came and sat in their laps!

Good for men because they believe in themselves and can take a little emotional pain occasionally without whining about it, if they need to. The ACTIVE, "I can" part of the male psyche is admirable to me, too. In fact, so much of the directness and assertiveness of the male personality just takes my breath away. As it ought to, I'm sure. BUT -- I say again, there are some dire flaws in the male genetic make-up too, and it's damn hard for a single woman to be shrewd enough and hardheaded enough to weed out ALL the undesirables and get to the few good ones available. You've GOT to take on some of those admirable masculine qualities in order to do it! I'm not kidding ...!

Anyhow, 'nuff said. But what you call "man-hating" I call REALISM. There it is.

[Doreen Peri]

hey hest and cats... i love you ladies....

i think this is a revolution, myself.
or it's evolution.
one or the two or maybe they are both the same.

it's not a game, though, it's not a taunt
or sleight of hand, it's not a reprimand to either sex,
it's not rejection of a brothel, then a recreation
of an alley
for doing a tin can fight,
jaws open for the bite,
claws out.

i hated men for years.
that's not what this is
about.

i was one of those classic spit on cases according to me... I loved 'em but I hated 'em.... never got lucky except the times i got lucky but you know, not for a long term thing...

it was usually a dream that never materialized,
a winged moth or butterfly thing, magic in the release,
cautious in the tease, then let go
because it didn't need
to be imprisoned
on a page with a pin
stuck in its gut

and now i breathe in possibilities
after many years of inhaling snuff and smog stuff,
rough lungs exhumed, partial breaths
buried in tombs.

but now i breathe
possibilities

[hester_prynne]

I hear what you say and heartily agree.
I also utterly admire the way you wrote it. Beautifully.
Beeeuuuteefully
H

[YABYUM]

True love? Are you serious? Hmmmmmm, first I try to examine in my own mental dictionary, the definition of "true". I find that what I can touch and see and taste is real. This most truly applies to that horrid word L.O.V.E. A one night stand can easily be love if you're both loving it. As for that idea of an eternal all encompassing, hand in hand through the pits of hell kinda relationship.........well, I believe it exists. All the one night stands and broken hearts and girls who I swear could have been my soul mate along my past travelled roads were all worth it. In order to know what love truly is, perhaps it is ones duty as a human to explore and taste every fruit and road that turns out only to be a carbon copy of love. if you you don't realize how to spot a fake, how the hell are you gonna know when you're holding an original?
I know all to well the feeling of sitting around wallowing in my own celibacy.
I know what it's like to rent my friends at the local video store. I know about chain smoking and midnight solo drunken conversations. And I loved it all.
ahhhhhhhhh............Amore. What else is there besides poetry? For better or worse, I am doomed to chase them both.

[Lightning Rod]

ize and cat and hest and doreen and even yab and z-ko--

you have all given me new insight into women. I feel honored to be able to read the thoughts of such wise and passionate and articulate women.

Women are usually hooked on the romantic myth. And many men are too.

That's why there is so much disappointment between the sexes today.

Expectations are way out of hand.

Men want fashion models and women want movie stars. And not only that, both want undying surrender and devotion. It's pure fantasy.

I'm happy just to get along with my mate day to day.

In the long run, companionship is a better talent than romance.