February 16, 2008

girl on girl

agatha christie is just an amazing profiler of people. even if you don't like murder mysteries, she is the best author i've read as a study of people.

in her novel, the mysterious mr. quin is the following interchange, which i've truncated slightly in the sake of interest & relevance:

setting: a mr. satterwaite is in monte carlo, and meets a young american man. he is enamored with an older countess with stories of intrigue and a pearl necklace from the king of bosnia. a plain-jane sight-seeing-bound american, in his traveling group is enamored with him.

young man, speaking about the countess: "it's an extraordinary thing, but she's never found a woman who would be a real friend to her. women have been against her all her life."

mr. satterwaite: "probably."

young man: "don't you think it's a scandalous thing?"

mr. satterwaite: "no. i don't think that i do. women have got their own standards, you know. it's no good our mixing ourselves up in their affairs. they must run their own show."

young man: "it's one of the worst things in the world today, the unkindness of woman to woman. you know elizabeth margin? now she agrees with me in theory absolutely....but the moment it comes to a practical test, why she's as bad as any of them. got a real down on the countess without knowing a darned thing about her, and won't listen when i try to tell her things. it's all wrong, mr. satterwaite. i believe in democracy -- and -- what's that but brotherhood between men and sisterhood between women?"

..."now the countess, on the other hand, admires elizabeth immensely and thinks her charming in every way. now what does that show?"

mr. satterwaite: "it shows that the countess has lived a considerable longer time than miss martin has."

February 11, 2008

eeny meeny miney moe...

the last post brings me to this one.

the woman picks the man. that's just the way it is. we're not taught that by the rules, but really, it is.

your spark, you lighting up, your persistence, your affection, that gets the guy.

ladies, we choose our men.

i've chosen my guy. and it's wierd that all the others i date seem to have figured out i haven't chosen them. it's ok. i'm ok if they say "you're just not into me." because they're right.

actually, i've chosen more than one guy. i chose my last 2 boyfriends. but they opted out. maybe because ultimately, i was deselecting them too, even though i was with them. couldn't help myself. when i get bored with a guy, it just shows.

this is a new theory for me, but i think it's a good one.

the only trick is to make them think - it's all their idea.
ask and ye shall receive

i never learned to ask for things nicely as a child. probably because if you asked nicely you were ignored. probably because nobody actually heard you, you being either drowned out by the general volume or by the volume in the head of the person you asked.

so now, i'm trying to learn to ask nicely for things. sweetly. as when alan alda's wife praisingly talked him out of installing a new toilet by telling him how smart he was.

i've had some practice with this this weekend.

first, i had to ask a guy (again) if he was in an exclusive relationship with someone else. before i met up with him, i have to know. he just said he was divorced "want to see the papers?" but didn't reply on that. so i had to nicely ask again. he wrote back "i would never do that." then he said to call him. then he wrote a few minutes later saying "did you get my message?"

ok, wierd.

so the question is - i asked. but why is the answer so hard to get? it's either YES or NO. not LET'S DISCUSS MORE.

i also had to ask another guy, very nicely, how i should handle the fact that he wasn't responding to my communications to him, yet seems to want to be in my life. are actions really speaking louder than words here? it's hard to say.

so i ask, how should i handle this? should i call you? again?

these aren't big things, but it's good practice.

i never used to ask anything. or for anything.

this can be very dangerous, much like driving headlong into a tree.

now, many concussions later, i'm learning to ask the hard questions. but first, you have to learn to ask the easy ones...