Another reason I'm glad to not be on Twitter...

Since you can't open any website in the Western world this week without reading about Anthony Weiner, the Congressman from New York and his body photos (naked chest with no head as a pick-up technique, of course!) and his wronged wife and now-wronged political career ....

.... and this here blog focuses on body photos and silly men and wronged women and how politics could (or so far, has not) save my dating life ....

I don't feel strongly on the subject of this man and his life and his ability to be in Congress, truly. This is not because he's a Democrat and I'm mad because I don't want Democrats to be caught being so patently stupid. It's my conviction, cliched as it is, that there are more important things than the story of a man sending sex messages to a woman not his wife and lying about it, as if it doesn't happen 5 million times a day, in patently more tasteless and debasing ways.

In fact, on Monday when breaking news flashes began popping about the press conference where he admitted to his indiscretions, I just wanted it all to go away. I managed to avoid reading about it at all until yesterday, when every pundit with a command of English had something to say, and curiosity overcame reticence. In doing so I came across Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald -- who I also usually avoid because of his general over-the-topness, despite obvious intelligence -- and was glad I did, because I found his take on it (first paragraph below) summing up well my current opinion:

"There are few things more sickening -- or revealing -- to behold than a D.C. sex scandal. Huge numbers of people prance around flamboyantly condemning behavior in which they themselves routinely engage. Media stars contrive all sorts of high-minded justifications for luxuriating in every last dirty detail, when nothing is more obvious than that their only real interest is vicarious titillation. Reporters who would never dare challenge powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, wage illegal wars or feed at the trough of sleazy legalized bribery suddenly walk upright -- like proud peacocks with their feathers extended -- pretending to be hard-core adversarial journalists as they collectively kick a sexually humiliated figure stripped of all importance. The ritual is as nauseating as it is predictable."

It plays well into my opinion that public figures never do well to kick other public figures; it leaves them baldly open to ridicule when they, too, are found to have sinned. The folks all excited about kicking Weiner out of a job (see: Dems and Repubs and media figures alike who let another Congressional Rep, Michelle Bachmann, run around spouting nonsense daily, unchecked) should have to come clean about their own extracurricular sex lives. If only all our personal foibles were so harshly dissected as this one ... and if politicians were routinely held accountable for actions that actually affect anyone besides the people directly involved.  Weiner has been serving the constitutents of NYC in Congress for 12 years .... New York City, folks ... and this is the only thing he can be accused of doing that warrants resignation?

My friend Jodi posted on Facebook today yet another great take -- from Undecided, a blog written by a friend in Santa Barbara, which also cites a compelling Time magazine article -- expressing amazement at that Weiner's chest and jockey shorts get more attention than broader issues of sexism:

"If this were the sort of country where the women of Yale and Walmart were given as much play as Weiner’s weiner, where corporate pay–and maternity–policy demonstrated that women were valued, well, I wonder if powerful men–and the women they sext–would behave any differently. And I wonder this, too: What’s it going to take, to make substance as sexy as scandal?"

For a more humorous take, check out TV My Wife Watches, where I knew Evan would have to weigh in on something both media and chest-related .... even though he is usually discussing women's chests. He hired a guest blogger to dissect Weiner's indiscretions in his "Wednesday's Wifey" feature, and as a long-time online dater, I couldn't help but agree with her incredulity:

"Many of his online girlfriends have confirmed that their cyber-relationships started off with simple conversation starters like 'you’re hot' or 'wow what a stud.'

"Is that honestly all it takes to seduce a man!? I’ve been trying to figure out men for SO LONG. A little bit of leg but not too much. Let him know you’re smart but also a little vulnerable. When he walks you home, just pop your nipple out for a second. Easy on the fart jokes. And all this time, the only thing I've ever had to do is say 'Wow, you're hot'!?"

And finally: this.

Anyway. Probably enough discussion of a subject I didn't think warranted discussion.

More good kissing

No, not mine.

Salon.com is featuring this link to the multimedia magazine GOOD and its examination of the subject, which itself is a video riff on the recent study The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us by Sheril Kirshenbaum.

(Talk about derivative.)

Nonetheless, it's a compilation of most kisses-on-video you might care to see.

My favorite factoids:

-- Around 90% of the world's cultures kiss and 2/3 of us tilt our heads to the right.

-- A kiss can be 10 times more effective than morphine in reducing pain.

-- In the Middle Ages, illiterates could seal legal deals with an "x" and a kiss ... which is how the kiss got its "x" signature.

-- Passionate kissing burns 6.4 calories per minute. 1 Hershey Kiss = 26 calories. That's a 4-minute kiss.

-- When people kiss they exchange between 10 million and 1 billion bacteria.

Oh, gross.

As if I needed another reason to take a break from online dating:

"Match.com buys OKCupid to spread the love"

Says the CEO of Match's parent company, which paid $50M for OKC:

"We know that many people who start out on advertising-based sites ultimately develop an appetite for the broader feature set and more committed community, which subscription sites like Match.com and Chemistry.com offer, creating a true complimentary relationship between our various business models.

"This acquisition therefore goes a long way toward our objectives of bringing new people into the online dating world, offering the ability to meet in whatever type of online setting, and at whatever commitment level, our members desire, and facilitating a seamless evolution of the online dating experience without ever having to leave our portfolio of sites."

Says the Salon.com article author:

"The acquisition, it seems, hinges on the idea that Match can turn OKCupid’s non-paying members into subscribers — that the service will be so good that they just have to pay for more. Well, umm, good luck!"

Indeed.  Says the first responder in the comments section:

"shit

So, the free site with better functionality than any of the paid sites gets bought by a paid site? Glad I'm not single at the moment. OKCupid, it was fun while it lasted."

To a degree, yes.

Day 1 of 28:  3.75 miles

February Total:  3.75

2011 Total: 53.76

The hell(ishness?) of FWB

(And no, don't mistake that for FWaBs, as clumsy an acronym as possible .... despite their occasional hellish qualities.)

In 3 years of hardcore dating, I've experienced every variety of romantic interest ... but none so prevalent as the man who thinks life would be dandy if I'd be his occasional sex buddy.  Some of these requests I've laughed off.  Some felt like cop-outs and pissed me off.  Some I thought worth trying out -- the guys, maybe, I thought would be worth keeping around for whatever reason -- and did.

And, here I sit 3 years later, without a date on the horizon or a Friend with Benefits in the stable.  I'm not considering this a tragedy. Just my version of proof that sex on its own merits truly doesn't have staying power (and I don't mean the Viagra-induced kind).  Despite all intentions to the contrary.

As if reading my mind, Salon.com's Tracy Clark-Flory parsed the topic on her blog yesterday:  "Does Friends with Benefits Work? -- As non-relationships get the Hollywood treatment, I'm not alone in thinking they suck in the real world."

You can read it for yourself, and some of what's said is slap-head obvious, but I'm thinking her most relevant conclusions could be:

1)  A person who says she doesn't want a commitment is lying either to the other person or herself.  She most likely agreed to FWB with subconscious hope that a commitment would develop. (Guilty as charged.)

2) Sex does change friendships. Sometimes it kiboshes them. (Guilty, again.)

3) All FWB scenarios start out sounding like total fun and nearly all end up with someone's heart breaking.  (Oy, yes.)

As Clark-Flory notes:

"Given the high stakes, why do we do it? As my former 'friend fling' said: 'Because the idea of sex without consequences is the most awesome thing on the planet.' He waxes poetic about the appeal: 'It's that delicious, delicious mixture of freedom and dependability. You have somebody you can rely on, you have a safety net, you have somebody you can call when you're lonely -- but you have none of the consequences. You get to not commit but still kinda be committed.' Non-committal commitment, if you will."

No consequences? 

Bullshit.

Day 24 of 31: 2.25 miles

Day 25 of 31: 3.5 miles

January Total: 37.11

Mid-terms

The first paragraph of today's Times editorial:

"Times are tough, and Americans are understandably worried and angry. This year’s campaign has only made things worse. Billions of dollars have been spent to destroy character rather than debate serious ideas. Still, there is no excuse for staying home on Election Day."

The best paragraph from a stellar article by analyst Stuart Rothenberg in a non-partisan D.C.-based newsletter called, aptly, The Rothenberg Political Report, on today's event:

"Politics and political coverage has deteriorated to such a point that even I am offended by it — and I’m about as cynical as anyone. There is more polling now, and much of it is useless. There is more political coverage on TV, particularly cable, and most of it is embarrassingly stupid .... Prime-time programming decisions by senior executives at Fox News and MSNBC apparently make financial sense, but they have undermined civility and divided the country. The country would be better off if starting at 4 p.m., the two networks ran test patterns for the rest of the night. “Gotcha” journalism has taken over our politics and elections, with feigned and real outrage standard fare, no matter how small or unintentional the misstep.

"Finally, America’s celebrity culture has spilled over into politics. Today it is Sarah Palin. Tomorrow it will be someone else. People are so desperate to get their faces on TV that they will talk about anything.   Tomorrow, it will all begin again."

What I have listed on my Facebook page next to Political Affiliation:

"Rather weary of them all"

A succinct summation of this weariness, as described by historian and author Tom Engelhardt on Salon.com this afternoon:

"....  it's the whole airless shebang we call an election that's gotten to me, the bizarrely hermetic, self-financing, self-praising, self-promoting system we still manage to think of as "democratic." That includes the media echo chamber that's been ginning up this nationally nondescript season as an epochal life-changer via a powerfully mad -- as in mad elephant – populace ready to run amok ...

"Whether the country I once wanted to represent was ever there in the form I imagined is a question I'll leave to the historians. What I can say is that it's sure not there now. What remains, angry or depressed, has made for a toxic brew as well as the most dispiriting election of my life. For what it's worth, consider that my ballot box blues on this dreary Tuesday in November 2010."

The e-mail that Joshua sent me over the weekend:

"Insofar as you are the most politically literate person I know, I think it would be fun to get drunk to midterm returns together on Tuesday night. What say ye?"

Since I am thrilled my friend lives in Boston again and can't believe I'm the most politically anything and that, furthermore, Joshua and I have watched returns in almost every even-numbered year since, together, witnessing the famous Al/Tipper Gore kiss of the 2000 Democratic National Convention, how I replied:

"I say that even though the election cycle has me nauseous .... most likely, sounds cool."

Even though Joshua and I are heading to Beacon Hill to hang out, I don't have enough money or any huge desire to get drunk.  There's no chance that Al and Tipper Gore will be kissing later tonight, or at least that I'll get to watch.   I'll try not to get pissed when people that I didn't want to be elected get elected and think that's a good reason to kiss his or her spouse.

And I will try not to get aggravated at the television coverage and to remember that easily half my Facebook friends announced they had voted and encouraged their friends to do likewise, and that my Facebook friends are good people no matter who they voted for, and as Stu Rothenberg claims, "tomorrow, it will all begin again" and how, despite all the crap of our system and my weariness with it, how I ought to be glad it will.

"Dating in any Large City is Difficult"

Tax Day.  The combination of Armageddon and finish line at any finance firm.  We here don't get to have the same celebration as accountants .... nah, we're only in the middle of producing quarter-end reports and communiques.

But at least the requests for Realized Gain/Loss and fee statements cease.  Clients go on school break vacation.  And the frantic accountants take their yearly 9-month break from frantic phone calls.

(And McCormick & Schmicks offers $10.40 dinner specials and endless happy hour tonight. And there is one of those just down the street from here.  Score.)

That said, it's my lunch hour but there are still 3.5 hours left in Tax Day in this office.  Blogging is not the priority.

So I take this time instead to wimp out and share something from yesterday's Salon.com Broadsheet blog (and the incomparable Mary Elizabeth Williams) that is so awesome, as usual, that I want to put the entire piece in pull quotes and post it here. Since I can't, here's the link, and here are the vitals which, I believe, speak for their inclusion in this space

Title:  "The Tyranny of Dating Choice"

Sub-title: "We have more romantic options than ever -- is it making us miserable?"

Lede:  "The romantically pathetic urbanite, the one with a full dance card but an empty love life, is as familiar as Seinfeld or Carrie Bradshaw."

Summary Quote:  "When faced with choices, humans tend to give the thumbs down to the first third of their options before making a decision." 

(You're supposed to ponder what this means to someone who dates in a large city and has the possibility to meet a couple hundred-thousand potential dates in any given year. Yeah. And then do the math.  I showed this quote yesterday to the Young Scientist who replied, "Have you hit your 30%? :-))

Best Quote : "First, let's get rid of the idea that playing the field is a miserable, self-defeating experience. For some, dating a thousand people before landing on that mythic one sounds nightmarish. For others, it's pretty freaking awesome."

Second Best Quote:  "It's easier to keep up the appearance, even to oneself, of being on a romantic quest for true love than admitting, yeah, actually, I might prefer what I already have. Being in a real relationship with a fellow flawed individual isn't all picnics and reliable sex; it's also challenging and fraught with annoyance. It's not for everybody."

Quote My Parents Will Probably Call Me On:  "Maybe, however, it's time ... we freed ourselves from the notion that dating has to be some conveyer belt of hopeless suck, something that people who get around more are doing wrong."

Discuss!

My Soulmate!

I am officially in love with the all-blogger website salon.com.

I wish I could marry it.

In all seriousness. I cannot say I've read a posting there I disagree with. The writers there-on must just be universally on my wavelength at this particular moment of my emotional life.

Take, for example, Kate Harding, who regularly tackles feminism issues on "Broadsheet." Today she wrote about Neenah Pickett, a 40-something woman who "launched a year-long husband-landing project at the blog 52 Weeks 2 Find Him." Who at the end of 52 weeks is still single. But who isn't heartbroken about it. She insists that the project allowed her to learn tons about herself, tons about the human condition in general.

In her discussion of 52 Weeks 2 Find Him, Ms. Harding pretty much says all I have ever thought about how a woman my age is often perceived for admitting she wants to find a companion .... and for aggressively going about doing so. Instead of paraphrasing or restating, I'll just link you to the piece, and pull out these paragraphs that well-articulate frustrations I often feel about the challenges of the male-female dynamic.

"Everyone knows a lot of things that grossly oversimplify the human desire for love and the nature of attraction, much of that "knowledge" revolving around the theme that women are peculiarly needy and, if they wish to date men, must focus all their energy on pretending they're not. The only way you'll get a man to commit to you is if you act like it's the furthest thing from your mind -- which means your best bet is to focus on being as pretty, charming and non-threatening as possible and, once a potential love is on the horizon, never doing anything that might spook him, like admitting what you want out of a relationship.

"That Neenah Pickett remains husband-free after knocking herself out to change that status can -- and no doubt will -- be presented as further evidence that desperation is the ultimate turn-off and playing hard to get is the only viable option for women who wish to be got. But focusing on her marital status means ignoring what she did achieve in the last 52 weeks. She went on over 30 dates -- some of which she describes as "awesome" -- gaining new insight into her preferences and her own behavior."

Blondes have more....

My buddy John lives in a small studio but simultaneously has a great desire to throw large gatherings on certain occasions. More specifically, annually, on New Year's Day evening.

So he appropriates the Back Bay Hotel downstairs bar and tells everyone he knows to come visit after 4 pm.

As you might have inferred, he knows me, has known me for years. So I come visit. And when NYD evening falls on a Friday, it means drinking ridiculous $13 cocktails instead of beer, just because ... why not.

It was after first the espresso-cream martini, second the Grey Goose Cosmopolitan, and halfway through the first of 2 Smithwicks that I started conversing with John about frustration and desires and love. (Gay men are the best men to have this conversation with, BTW, if you're a straight woman. No one trying to impress anyone. Just old-fashioned lay-it-out-there.)

This is not an unusual conversation for John and I to have. On this night, it mostly centered around his new ever-so-possible flame, who had been in attendance earlier. Although it was followed by a delve through my annoyance, obviously exacerbated by drink, that I could still possibly be single after a year of hardcore dating effort.

Sigh.

But then the conversation took a turn. Out of nowhere. I don't even recall what led into it, except that suddenly I was listening to John say:

"You know, you're one of the only people I know whose natural hair color doesn't work for your face. Have you ever thought about changing it?"

Ouch. I've known John since 2001. Not only have I had the same hair color since then, I pride myself on having had the same hair color since then. It's a combination of conviction that dishwater-brown is what God gave and meant for me and the snobbery of not succumbing to that degree of vanity.

But once I got past the sting of a friend saying he's never liked my hair ..... I found myself glad for the input. Thinking it was the perfect New Year's foil. Debating the merits of a possible auburn rinse -- a shade found on my paternal side of the family -- against going completely and shockingly blonde, the color of my youth. To wit:

The Fam, c. 1982

So? Ya think?

Update 7:32 pm: Look what I just stumbled onto at salon.com.

Thanks for the Quote of the Month, Mary Elizabeth:

"Coloring one's hair, whether you're a teenager sticking it to your parents or a dowager looking for new lease on life, is like having Ty Pennington standing outside your house with a megaphone and a demolition squad. I'm not saying a pair of Spanx and a good blowout can't change you in the blink of an eye, too, but nothing, nothing can do it more dramatically -- and enduringly -- than dye. Makeup and control garments are mere loaners from the fairy godmother. By the end of the night, their time is up. Hair color, on the other hand, will give you at least a good month, which is more than I can say for several of my relationships. And yet, if things go wrong and you don't like it, it's easy to wash away and forget it ever happened. Try that with the guy who gave you that urinary tract infection."