Friday, February 29, 2008

~ overtly sexual ~

(Allow me to begin this post by giving props to the artist of the illustration at left, Seonna Hong. Go check out her work, its fabulous!)

Today’s post is a triangulation of sorts to one of yesterday’s links. If you haven’t read Susan Isaacs’ “Rejected by eHarmony” post yet, go read it… now… I’ll wait. (attempts to imitate Angela’s whistling…)

Funny stuff.

So, same day as I read this, I performed my weekly cleaning of spam out of my hotmail inbox. I keep hotmail around for all of those things that require an email address but I don’t particularly want showing up in my daily in my yahoo inbox. I used hotmail when I signed up to try eHarmony about five years ago. I’ve clicked the link requesting to be removed from the distribution list a million (close to literally) times, but my efforts have been futile. Those people seriously want to see me in a relationship!

Generally, I just go through and delete all of the eHarmony messages without blinking. However, today, prompted by Susan’s post, one particular email caught my discerning eye. The subject of the email was “Flirting 101”. Eh-hmm. Curiosity got the best of me and I immediately opened it up to see what was in store. The subtitle was even better: FOR THE LADIES. FTL. That means nothing to most of my readers, but the few who get it are currently folded over in laughter… trust me!

Before I ever started reading, and thanks to the FTL reference, I immediately revisited my 2006 post on “How Not to Get Married.” I heart the Pollacks. That particular post was in a book titled How to Get a Date Worth Keeping: Be Dating in Six Months or Your Money Back, by Dr. Henry Cloud, a cohort of eHarmony’s Neil Clark Warren. These guys market “character” and “values”, with the simultaneous idea that flirting is not about getting a date, and dating is not about marriage. Again, eh-hmm.

Now, I tend to be a flirt by nature (once I’m comfortable with you), but even I can recognize something shady about leading a person on with no intention of follow-through. Practice makes perfect? How long were these guys actually single, anyway? Anyway, the flirting article is almost as funny as Susan’s tumultuous online-dating experience (especially when read out-loud in my Southernest of accents…), except that it wasn’t intentional.

*excuse me while I reveal my prudish ways*

Read it. Practice it if you so choose. But if I have to twirl my hair and touch a guy’s leg to get him to show interest in me, I’d rather not… and if that’s what causes him to ask me out, I’d rather he didn’t. I’m not saying that we should start imagining our walk down the isle with every guy we casually date… that’s creepy in and of itself (although, girls are highly imaginative creatures occasionally prone to such a thing). I do think that we should use some caution with another person’s heart (and libido) while we get to know them and see if there is any potential.

Almost every girl I've ever kissed has married
That's not a lot of weddings
But it's sure a crazy thought
And though they all seem now like someone else's story
I wonder what we paid for what we got
It's a lonely world
And everybody's grabbing what they can get
And love is wonderful you've heard
You don't know if you've seen it yet
You can't miss it when it comes
Don't settle for less than love
~ The Normals

3 comments:

Ramón said...

Hilarious blog from Susan, and of course, the Pollacks will remain some my favorite social commentators for years to come.

And as for the Normals song...well, one does start to wonder after awhile when every girl he dates gets married to the next suitor and every guy he lives with gets engaged while they live together. Studies should be undertaken...

Kimberly said...

Very curious phenomenon indeed...

Susan Isaacs said...

Thanks for putting the word out regarding the rejected by eharmony piece! I've just heard about some book, "90 days to love." this is right up there with "how to write a screenplay in 21 days" and "how to get married in a year." Look, if your standards are low, there are prisons everywhere with guys looking for pen pals who'll pay conjugal visits. Forget the incarcerated. There's lots of people with a pulse you "could" get married to. But it's not like you've got to buy a car at the end of the month. This is your life. By all means get out tehre. At least it puts you in the frame of mind to be open. But don't settle for the beater car with primer gray and ripped vinyl interior!