Fancy Thoughts
The Break-up Parade
by Rosa Handelman
For Christmas break I hit the beach.
It was a lovely vacation filled with family, vitamin D and the type of food sickness that only Mexico can bring. Being by the sea, I brought a few easy “beachy” reads. I devoured the first book of The Hunger Games (Katniss is so cool), read a bit more of A Clash of Kings (ignoring the young ages of the sexually active characters) and took in Julie Klausner’s memoir I Don’t Care About Your Band. I enjoy Ms. Klausner’s musings on the Real Housewives (& ghosts) of Beverly Hills and as someone who has had a few “obsessacomas” over undeserving men, I was sure I would enjoy her memoir about always chasing the wrong men in dating’s (battle to the death) arena.
But I did not.
At first I was beguiled by her tales of striving for the wrong guys, some nerdy, some funny, some just mean. By the second half I was worn down. Really? Another story about sleeping with and falling for a terrible suitor who only serves to make her predictably depressed? It was exhausting! I wanted to shake her and tell her to STOP IT (and then go for fro-yo and talk about Sandy Bullock movies).
But after my anger (fist) subsided at having to read far too many stories about guys not worth her (or my) time, I began to wonder: why do ladies often dwell on the guys who reject us while conveniently forgetting all the guys we reject ourselves?
Not to say that I don’t do the same.
I know firsthand in the germ pool of love, getting ditched hurts the worst. The relationships that fall apart slowly, where no one’s truly to blame, are messy and confusing. But the relationships that end due to a guy disappearing or having an abrupt about-face or vocalizing a desire to “play the field” (until he meets his next girlfriend and gets real serious real quick) are considerably more painful (once I took the overnight train from Madrid to Lisbon, anxiously awaiting my reunion with my French amour I had met the summer before, only to find out that the apartment he was living in, the apartment I was staying in, was being shared by HIS SPANISH GIRLFRIEND. Only the French would think that was okay. And yes, that did burn worse than Italian dressing after a pack of warheads).
Obnoxiously, it’s just a fact of life: rejection always blows (it’s the ego right?). So we remember these rejecters like they were Noah Calhoun in The Notebook (yes that house-building, wet-shirt-wearing golden boy Noah), which they clearly were not (more like the cheating, sleazing, leopard-print-wearing Glenn Guglia in The Wedding Singer).
And on top of sculpting our rejecters into Gosling, we obsessively TALK about them, too. Over coffee, over lasagna, at a party, at a christening, in the bathroom, on the toilet – we can go on and on for days. Raging over a missed call never received or a Facebook message never responded or that unimpressive guy we mistakenly bedded (see the definitions of boredom, drunkenness, and attention to understand why) who had the audacity to DISAPPEAR afterwards.
But ladies, while I understand – and believe me, I’ve BEEN THERE (I don’t think I stopped talking – or checking facebook to see how poorly the French man was aging – for nearly a year) – let’s stop for a moment and think about all the nice boys and the not-so-nice boys we’ve dissed ourselves.
Admit it: you’ve probably done one or, most likely, all of the following things: not called a guy back, fled a date upon discovery of bacne, deemed his laugh too annoying, his shoes unacceptable, his hat too obnoxious (winter hats in the summer, bowler hats always and trucker hats past the age of Punk’d). You’ve probably also told a well-meaning gent he could find you on Twitter (even though your handle has nothing to do with your name), accepted an invite just for a fancy dinner and laughed as you told your friends about a guy’s bedside manner (which surely deserves ridicule but definitely NOT another date).
We must never forget that WE are the ultimate rejecters. More often than not we decide the pace of the relationship, if a first kiss or a first date is even possible. For every guy who has been a bit mean to us, there are probably 7 or so guys we might have been a bit mean to as well (and really we’re not being “mean”, it’s just that it’s human nature not to be into most people).
So let’s start this New Year off right. Let’s stop singing our sad songs that make us look like a pair of worn-out mom jeans and remember that we, ourselves have had been the culprits of some fierce dismissals! And if you must continue your breakup story parade, pour a little malt liquor for the fallen men who tried and failed to get into your trap.
photo via moviegoods
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01.08.2012 |
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I completely agree with you! It’s not best to linger in the past of men who could have been or would have been if they gave you the time of day (at least that is the case for me). But I do often think of the guys who I had rejected, sometimes leading me to believe that karma really is a bitch with men who I want. Anyways, it does not matter to dwell on these things, there are many men out there and if we don’t stop this breakup story parade like you say, we end up making men the jackasses that we think they are at first.
Well said! I like that despite the feelings Klausner’s book brought up in you, you still show respect for her when you say that she was undeserving of the men who treated her rudely. And You make an excellent point — we may all go through frustration and pain from rejection, but we are also culpable ourselves. Really worth pointing out and I appreciate that you did!
Glad you enjoyed it!
great article! also, i hate to be nitpicky but do you mean glen guglia from the wedding singer, the one with drew barrymore and adam sandler, not the wedding planner with jlo?
I DO mean that, I can’t believe I let that slip through the cracks as an avid fan of Wedding Singer and not a big fan of the wedding planner. Thanks for point that out!
pointing** eesh!
I wanted to shake her and tell her to smarten up too, and that’s part of what made the book wonderful to me. I thought the horrifying stories were funny and relevant. Julie Klausner also wrote that if you want to star in you own show, you should make your own show. To me this book is way more than bad dating stories. She offered solid advice that made me feel like I’ve already got what I need and I’m okay.
Thanks for your thoughts Molly! One of the aspects of the book I did enjoy was her message of self-acceptance and being your own star. I am also thankful for the open forum on hello giggles that allows for diversity of opinion.
I agree with Molly. I enjoyed Julie’s book as humor writing on a subject to which most women in their 20s and 30s can relate. It was fun to read about her misadventures and completely understand what she was going through. I also found it uplifting that she eventually got her shit together and stopped picking the wrong guys. I think part of “empowering women” is sharing one’s mistakes with others in a way that educates and, if you’re lucky, entertains.
I enjoyed Julie Klausner’s book! I thought it was hilarious and I can relate to dating many of those types of men. And I’m going to have to agree with Amber in that sharing mistakes is not only empowering for admitting that you’ve made a mistake but also having the ability to laugh and find humor in yourself.
I’m a bit disappointed that Julie couldn’t take the review and I hope that you continue to post reviews and such of books, movies and music. Lots of people do it for a living and they don’t get ‘in trouble’ by the author. you go girl!
I really enjoyed this article! One aspect that shines through is that you’re responding to situations that you’ve been in. I haven’t read the book, but it sounds like Julie Klausner gets pretty raw in telling her story, and that’s something I can appreciate. I think it’s kind of sad that she’s throwing a fit on Twitter; I don’t think think this post was really a review (or all that negative), but rather used Julie Klausner’s book as a jumping off point to broach a larger topic.
I agree with Katherine that this doesn’t seem like a review (especially not a mean-spirited or overly negative one) of the book at all. But that the book is used more in an anecdotal way to indeed touch on a broader topic.
I get that Hello Giggles strives for a friendly approachable site for everyone. However I feel like you guys didn’t have to apologize for this. It seems to me that the only thing that could possibly be hurt by this article is the ego miss Klausner heavily displays on her twitter page. I mean self-confidence is a good thing but there’s a Dutch saying that says: anything with too (much/little etc) infront of it is bad for you. The fact that you guys did apologize shows how classy you are.
Also I don’t see how writing about all of your past relationships and why they failed makes you a good feminist, but maybe that’s because I don’t know enough about Ms Klausner.
All this being said, I enjoyed your article.
The problem with this article isn’t that she criticized a book she didn’t like. It is that she completely missed the point. In her book, Klausner tells her dating woes in order to come to a better place in the end and realize the mistakes she made. It wasn’t a whiny “poor me” tragedy, it was a fun, feminist work meant to boost up women who have doubtlessly went through the same problems. The last thing women need is another person telling us that once again, it is really our fault, as Rosa Handelman seems to do here. This site has come under criticism for being overly “cutesy” and contrary to what most feminists would want for the world and this article only serves to corroborate that criticism. Klausner wrote something smart and insightful and it deserves a smart and insightful review, not a girlish “Let’s stop talking about this and get fro-yo” response.
I agree that Klausner’s book ends in a better place than where it starts, but I don’t think this post was saying that anything is “our fault.” It was pointing out that we, too, are culpable in hurting men’s feelings (and there could be a whole other conversation about how while the book and this article are both, in their own way, feminist, they are also heteronormative). I find that empowering in that it established a more balanced relationship between men and women — it’s not that men are jerks who hurt women, it’s that we’re all people and capable of hurting each other if we disrespect one another. While Klausner’s language and preference of activities may not be getting “fro-yo” and seeing “Sandy Bullock movie,” the point of that statement was an attempt at female bonding. Let’s get treats and watch a chick-flick = I feel for you and want to make you feel better because you don’t deserve the bullsh*t you went through. Ultimately, this post was not a review. It used the book as a jumping off point, and isn’t that the biggest compliment to any author – that their words inspired a thought process?
once again hello giggles misses the point/sucks.
Yes, thank you!!
I started to read this article, but by the second half I was worn down. Really.