Two dudes review “Sex and the City 2″ and the anti-SATC apologist stance
I haven't seen Sex and the City 2. But this is a hilarious review of it by two straight dudes, from The Awl. Here's an excerpt:
Neel: I felt really sad to be American, or at least Indian-American, during this movie.
David: AGREE.
Neel: Did it make you uncomfortable?
David: It was weird that in a situation where you control everything that's happening, you would make your characters seem like such obnoxious Americans.
David: The kind that you see abroad, that make you be all like, "Ughhhhhh."
Neel: Basically watching these poor Arab dudes with waxed torsos parade around in service of these spoiled American hags?
OK, the use of "hags" is a bit over the top. But for me, this gets at the real ickiness of the SATC2 plot. I'm tired of reading all the SATC2 apologists saying male movie reviewers just don't get it, they don't like it because it's a female-led movie, and they just can't get through a single review without mentioning menopause. Doy--Samantha is going through menopause in the movie. So male reviewers aren't allowed to mention it? Are we going back to the 1950s where only women can talk about lady problems like that? WTH?
It's not the movie reviewers, people. It's (probably) the movie.
Here's my real beef: if SATC2 is really as bad as the reviews and basic elements of the plot (Exhibit 1: culturally insensitive trip to Abu Dhabi) indicate, then Michael Patrick King should be ashamed of himself for so brazenly squandering the devotion of all the SATC fans in order to cash in on a second round of box office receipts. I mean, we have spent YEARS getting to know these characters. We have watched them on (pay) cable. We have paid to rent or buy the series DVDs. We paid to see the first movie. And now, he delivers the equivalent of Rocky V as the first sequel. In producingt a movie that seems to celebrate so many of the characters' worst qualities, he has done the loyal SATC fans a huge disservice. We deserve better. The highest compliment I've heard anyone give this movie is that seeing it, with a huge group of girlfriends, was fun, but the movie was only fine.
Also, I have to agree with David and Neel: Miranda is an unlikable character. She did have brief moments in the series where her selfishness didn't eclipse all other elements of her personality--specifically, in letting down her guard and letting Steve into her life. I think we all cheered for her at that.
What it truly means to be lonely
The School of Life recently posted a really lovely item on loneliness, by Robert Rowland Smith. Among its insightful nuggets:
Loneliness starts with an unrequited desire to share life with another person, if only for an evening. It’s not about claiming someone else; if anything, it’s about being claimed, about not being left in lost property.
Yet another thoughtful and thought-provoking item from the School of Life.
Soundtrack: "How to Fight Loneliness," by Wilco. Or perhaps "The Lonely 1," also by Wilco. And, just for some diversity, "It Takes One to Know One," by Jimmy Martin.
“I like you like more than friends”
As someone who seems to specialize in unrequited love, I have to say that this is pretty much my dream story:
It took my friend Tracy cornering E in the bathroom at a massive Halloween party for anything to actually begin. "You know Cord basically loves you, right?" Tracy asked. "He's just a total pussy." And I was, because when Tracy told me what she'd done, the most I could muster when I saw E was, "I, uh, like you like more than friends," and that I could only do because I'd had two forties. It felt like my heart grew to twice its size when she responded, "I'm kind of obsessed with you."
Read the whole piece, written by Cord Jefferson, over at The Awl. You'll be glad you did.
Smartphones and other advances in dating technology
iPhone: So intuitive, even someone you're hitting on in a bar can figure it out
One night last week, I met my friend J. for a drink (or three) at a bar (or two). Between bars, we stopped and got sausage sandwiches at Rosamunde's, then took them next door to Toronado, a divey bar that has probably the best beer list in all of San Francisco. Of course, the bar was full. Not packed, but full enough that we knew better than to try to find a table all our own.
"We could sit with those guys," I said, gesturing imprecisely and awkwardly with a beer in one hand and a sausage sandwich in the other. J. went up to two guys at the table right in front of the one I meant.
"Do you mind if we share your table?" she asked. They said that their friends were coming back in.
"How about that table behind them?" I said. Those guys did not have any returning friends, so we sat down, starting eating our delicious sandwiches, and started chatting. One of the guys had just quit his job in a now-or-never moment in order to pursue a dream project (he wouldn't tell us what it was, despite the fact that I offered to sign an NDA on the back of a bar coaster). We raved about the pastries at Tartine and envied the other guy, who lived around the corner from that bakery. It was a fun night--the kind of night that made me deeply appreciate those times when people are willing to share their space with strangers. It opens up some fun conversations.
J. and I, still employed, got up to leave around 10. The cuter of the two guys asked if we'd still be there when he got back from the bathroom, and I said yes. As he left, his friend pulled a GENIUS move! He said, "OK, let's exchange contact info," and passed J. his cell phone so she could enter it herself. SO SMART! I handed that guy my iPhone, entered my info in his, and then his friend came back. I handed him my iPhone, and said, "We're doing a do-it-yourself contact info exchange."
Droid: Is that a Home key or a left arrow? And why does Menu look like a flag?
He handed me his Motorola Droid. I was befuddled.
A slight (possible) disclaimer: I am a diehard Apple fan. I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro. I love my 1st-gen iPhone, which I am back to using after my iPhone 3GS was stolen. I'd be lost without my iPod. If I had an extra $500, I would TOTALLY buy an iPad (though, since I don't, I will wait for the second generation one). But still, I did kind of feel that this was a use case the Android UI designer hadn't thought of.
First, I couldn't figure out how to get the keyboard to open. Then, in horizontal mode, I couldn't read any of the buttons. "Hit the Home button," he said. After staring stupidly at it for a few seconds, I realized that he meant the one that looked like an arrow (win for Apple for designing a button that looks the same in both horizontal and vertical orientation). The screen showed one field, for "Name," and one button: "Done." Would "Done" take me to the next field? I clicked that, then ended up in his address book, feeling like I was totally violating his privacy. I scrolled to my name (of course, toward the end of the alphabet), then couldn't figure out how to get into my record.
"Click the Menu button," he said. (By this point, I felt like a total idiot. I am normally very good with technology.) The "Menu" button probably looks menu-like when holding the screen vertically, but in horizontal view, not so much. I finally managed to enter my name, phone number, and email. I also probably managed to convince him that I was a total dunce, and now that he had my info, he wouldn't want to contact me. Tant pis.
This whole episode taught me a few important lessons:
- One of the best ways to meet people is by sitting with them: at the bar, at a communal table, or asking to share their table.
- The whole "DIY give me your number" thing is really brilliant. If everyone at the table is doing it, it takes the pressure off. It's just new friends exchanging info. Also, if you forget the person's name, it's no biggie. They enter in themselves. You look at it when they hand back the phone, and say, "It was nice talking to you, ______." Genius.
- UI designers should really use this as a test to see how intuitive their UI is. For example, if I had seen that there was another field in the contact form, I would have scrolled down. But I didn't know I needed to scroll down. IT WASN'T ME, I SWEAR! IT WAS BAD UI!!!! I'm half-kidding, but I'm mostly serious.
Editor's note: As I was looking for screenshots to illustrate the weird contact screen, I couldn't find a single image of Droid Contacts in landscape mode. I am taking that as further evidence that Google/Motorola are hiding this error in UI design from the public, and that I am not a technological dunce.
Girls are the worst wingpeople
On St. Patrick's Day, I went out with a group of (single) girl friends. We met up at a crowded, but not packed, Irish bar, and immediately launched into a hilarious conversation. There were some really hot guys there--and far more men than women. As I tried to make eye contact with one guy, I had to nearly contort my body to face his direction. Then I saw how we were standing: in a circle, totally closed off, so engrossed in our own conversation that we were shutting everyone else in the bar out. And what were we talking about? How hard it is to meet guys in much in San Francisco.
Um....
I realized then that women can be our own worst enemies. Here we were, a group of good-looking, smart, funny, fun-loving girls who we were projecting the "Don't talk to us" vibe. It happens fairly often. It's not just uninviting; the body language says, "Back off." If a guy even thought of approaching us, he'd feel like he was stepping into the gauntlet. No fun.
Compare that to a recent night out with my (married) friend A. We went to get beers and sausages, saw that there weren't any open tables, so we joined a table with two other guys. And we all had a lovely conversation. No love connection for me, but still--I met two guys that night.
Wingwoman rule #1: Be open, not closed off.
Wingwoman rule #2: Talking about how hard it is to meet guys when trying to meet guys makes it harder to meet guys.
When I first floated the St. Patrick's Day idea to people, the idea was that we'd go to a non-Irish bar that always goes way over the top for St. Patty's (read: a place where you can actually have the experience you're looking for on March 17--a really fun night in a roomful of people who are also having a really fun night--unlike the Irish bars packed-to-the-gills with people who have been drinking since noon). Also, there was a 90% probability that a guy I was interested in was going to be there.
After the first bar, I said, "Let's go to [super fun non-Irish bar]!" The girls dilly-dallied. They wanted to eat. They didn't know what they wanted to eat. Or where. They finally decided to go to the neighborhood of the bar and find a restaurant there. They didn't know how many cabs to take. We decided on two cabs. It took a while to hail the cabs. When we got to the neighborhood, we walked around for a while until we finally agreed on a place to eat. There was a wait, of course. When we finished our dinner, everyone was tired and wanted to go home. So we did.
This is a crucial difference between chicks and bros. As my bro Ray Huff said, "Guys will totally help their guy friends get laid." They'll go to the bar. They'll buy the first round, leaving their bro more time to talk to the chick. They'll talk to the gay male friend of the girl--sometimes for hours. I've seen it happen. Guys support.
Girls do not. There have been many times when I've had to PLEAD with a friend to get her to come with me to a bar so I can hang out with a guy that I like. I know what you're thinking: "But then she went, right? What are you complaining about? It all works out in the end." No no no no no. Girls don't go. In the girl moral chain, friends come first, family comes second, work comes third, guys come fourth. So how do so many girls justify complaining so much about not having a guy?
Don't get me wrong: girls who always put guys first are not girls you want to hang out with for very long. But surely there's got to be some healthy middle ground, where girls take one for the team, chat up the less attractive or boorish friend, or--God forbid--stand by themselves in a bar for 10 minutes (thereby making themselves more likely to be approached).
Rule #3: If your girlfriend wants to chat up a guy, go with her.
Seriously, ladies, we need to help each other out. We're not getting any younger, and this sure isn't getting any easier.
In searching for advice on "How to Be a Good Wingwoman" for this post, I found only one article that was about helping your girl friends, not your guy friends. Thanks, Tyra.
The difference between marketing, public relations, advertising and branding.
From Eric (a.k.a. Hervé)
Email 22: Time often flies too fast
OKCupid has a feature called "QuickMatch," where you scroll through people's pictures and summaries of their profiles, then you rate each person however many stars out of 5. If someone rates you 4 or 5 stars, OKCupid sends you an email showing 9 photos and says, "One of these guys just rated you 4 or 5 stars." You login to QuickMatch, and that person will appear in your queue. If you rate that person 4 or 5 stars, OKCupid sends you both an email.
I've gotten pretty good at telling who rated me: the oldest guy of the 9. But for one email I got in late January, there was a photo of a super cute guy. I thought, "Ooh. I wonder..." The hot guy had picked me! After we found out we were mutual matches, he sent me an email.
Date: Jan. 25, 2010
Subject: between becausesCute pics and mutual 4-star stuff aside, somewhere between Stevie Wonder, The Big Lebowski, the mandolin and wicked smahht, there is a good reason to at least say a real hello. Yes? Good times/places for you? I work for myself, so I'm flexible. You?
Hi
I love first emails like this. Friendly, casual, inviting, and--the thing I like most--he avoids the extensive emailing b.s. and cuts straight to the "let's meet up." His profile was the same way. He mentioned that he had a teenager, which sort of shocked me, but he seemed like a good, grounded, interesting person. I wrote him back the next day.
Date: Jan. 26, 2010
Subject: between becausesI'm in. Thursday at 7 (or after) or Saturday afternoon work for me. I've been wanting to try the Rosamunde's on Mission. Though coffee or a drink would be fun, too.
The Stevie Wonder thing stuck out to me, too. He's so ridiculously good.
To be fair, I actually left off the last period. And that last line reads really awkward to me now. Eh.
He wrote back two days later, Friday, to say he was heading out of town that weekend and suggested we could get together the following week. I generally only suggest an actual date once, then if that doesn't work for the guy, I let him step up. If he's not interested, he won't suggest a date. I could have written back something short, like, "Have a great weekend. Next week sounds fine," just to show that I was still interested. But I didn't.
J. wrote me back a little over a week later:
Date: Feb. 5, 2010
Subject: between becausesGeez, this life goes fast.
Okay, for reals.
You around tomorrow (Sat) daytime at all? Nice little walk and hello?
If not then, what's next week for you? Pretty much any day works for me up until 6ish. Open eves as of now are Tues and Thurs.
Let's just see.
I still liked the friendly, casual tone. The scheduling thing seemed a bit of a challenge, though. I find it a bit perplexing that people who work from home don't realize that we office workers can't just skip out early to meet someone for a date. Also, my phone had been stolen, and it had been a few weeks since I synced my phone calendar with my computer. I knew there were two appointments I was missing, but I wasn't sure how many others there would be.
Date: Feb. 7, 2010
Subject: between becausesHey, J.--
Seriously. This week and weekend flew by.
I love the idea of a walk. I think I'm free Thursday after work. (I don't mean to be flaky, but my phone--which has my calendar--was stolen a few weeks ago, and I just realized I have a couple of appointments that I never synced to my computer...)
Lunch might be a safer bet, though. Would you be up for meeting at the Ferry Building? I could do any day but Thursday.
I never heard back. He might have read my lack of response after he said he was going away as a lack of interest. Maybe next time that happens I'll write a quick, short, and sweet response.
Body language: lost in translation
Bob Sutton, a really great management author, posted this item on how people can read others' body language but not their own. I found it utterly fascinating--especially since I my lack of self-awareness about how I'm coming across really hurts me with this whole dating thing--and wanted to write more about it, but it's lingering in my drafts folder for too long. I'll let you all add to the discussion.
Time for a check-in
When I started this blog, I figured I'd give the whole process a year. That seemed like a reasonable amount of time to go through the whole 100 emails, 20 dates conceit. I had no idea I'd still be doing this two years and a couple of months later. And quite frankly, now that I've realized it, it's hard not to be a little depressed.
But I also didn't consider how much learning I had to do. I mean, I'll be honest, I am terrible at this. Like really bad. And far worse than I thought I was. It took a good solid year or so to figure out how bad I was at this and to encourage myself to start at the beginning. Here are some of the key lessons I've learned:
- Guys will take risks if they know the risk is worth taking. It's a woman's job to let guys they like know that they should take the risk. That's why women need to make eye contact with a guy an average of 13 times before they're likely to come over. If a woman doesn't flirt, how is the guy supposed to know he's not in the friend zone? Ladies, if you want a guy to ask for your number, you need to signal to him that you want to see him again, possibly by saying something cryptic like, "This was fun. We should hang out sometime."
- If you're not in a relationship with the guy, he can't reject you. One of the great lessons of online dating is that you have to deal with "rejection" a lot. Guys flake on you. You flake on guys. They lose interest mysteriously. You lose interest mysteriously. It happens--a lot. If the guy never got to know you, he's not rejecting you because he never had the chance to get to know you. This is a really good thing to keep in mind as you try to cultivate the "NEXT!" mindset in your entire dating life.
- I really hate online dating. I'm kind of an odd bird, so I make terrible first impressions. But if I meet a guy, and there's a spark, I can help fan that into a flame in person. Then, my follow-up emails are hilarious and awesome. But I'm terrible at starting with email. It's like a doubly bad first impression for me. And then, it's so much work just to meet someone. And my age gives me an unfair disadvantage because guys date younger. It's demoralizing. But I'm giving it one last shot.
- If you're single, you need to figure out what makes you hot, then work it. Everyone has something about them they should flaunt. If you don't, work on your arms. Those are fairly easy to turn into a hot little gun show. Calves, too. When I figured it out, it helped me dress more flatteringly (ex.: straight skirts, not full skirts). Knowing that at least one part of me was sexy helped me feel sexy all over. Also, Pilates helps.
- Trust your gut. I think I'm terribly at reading signals, but I'm really not. I just believe that I'm not. When I look back on mistakes that I've made, I know that I knew what was going on. I just didn't want to admit it. I don't fool myself nearly as often anymore.
- More girls (meaning me) should take a more "guy" approach to dating. No, male readers, I don't mean that girls should sleep with you on the first date. I mean that for many guys, happiness is the absence of unhappiness. For many women, unhappiness can sometimes be the absence of happiness. There's an emotional zone halfway or so between happiness and unhappiness where guys are still happy but women are kind of meh. I need to stop thinking of meh as a negative, and if I feel meh about a guy, I should focus on the positive and give him another chance.
- Courage. It's not just Dan Rather's temporary and poorly chosen sign-off, it's also a good dating mantra: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Often, in dating, you just need to take a (calculated) risk or else you won't get anywhere.
- There are a lot of really cool, interesting, and nice guys in San Francisco. I always knew how awesome my bros and other guy friends are, but reading back through my posts, it really struck me how many nice guys I've met over the past two plus years. I'm pretty fortunate.
I'm sure there are more, but this is a start, at least. Onward and upward.
Email 21: Email fail
Image by Chris Griffith. CC 2.0.
In my attempt to use data to improve my dating luck, I redid my OKCupid profile. I changed my username to something that's more of a characteristic than an interest, my profile picture is now more of a flirty-face shot (though it is low-res. I need to take a new one of me making a flirty face and doing something interesting), and I redid my profile. I couldn't find good data on what makes a good profile, so I posted something and edited and edited and edited. I'm still not happy with what I have, but I'm working on it.
The site is matching me to different people this time around, and the first guy was a 34-year-old New Zealander with a laugh-out-loud profile. In his photos, he included a hand-drawn map of Australia and New Zealand, pointing out the difference. I loved his sense of humor. He seemed like someone who would be a lot of fun. He had a particularly funny thread through his profile about his love-hate relationship with "Desperate Housewives," even though he doesn't own a TV. His profile said that he responds selectively to email, so I figured, what do I have to lose.
Date: Mar. 11, 2010
Subject: Bad TVHello!
I had to laugh out loud--well, at several things in your profile, really--but especially at the Desperate Housewives reference. I had a boyfriend who got me into that show, which always seemed a bit wrong. I had to wait until the season hiatus after we broke up to break free of it. It helped that the writing went to hell around the same time. Not owning a TV helps keep me from falling off the wagon.
The map was a nice touch. Ah, geography. I regularly have to consult an atlas (and a thesaurus) for my job. Atlases can be humbling.
As soon as I sent it, I realized I had failed at several of the rules in the "good first email" analysis. Yes, I was literate and didn't comment on his physical appearance (FYI, he's cute), but I failed at pretty much everything else.
- As a salutation, "Hello" actually decreases your chances of getting a response. "How's it going," "What's up," or "Howdy" significantly increases the chance of a response.
- I not only didn't really bring up one of his specific interests, but I brought up one of his specified disinterests. He doesn't watch TV. FAIL! Sure, I mention that I don't either, but it comes at the end of a paragraph about TV that includes a reference to an ex. (Yes, his DH story included an ex, but still...) Also, I kind of insult the show! What the hell was I thinking?
- I didn't use any cues that I had read his profile, things like "You mention," "good taste," and "noticed that." I do call out two things about his profile, but they're not really the right things.
- It's a really boring email. OK, to be fair, "writing interesting emails" isn't one of the "rules," but only because boringness is like porn--you know it when you see it. Or perhaps, fall asleep to it.
All in all, not my best work, but a valuable lesson in email writing. Next!
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