Hunters

You meet a cute guy at a bar, you start chatting. He has a low raspy voice, he smells amazing, and his breath has just a tiny hint of your favorite scotch. You strike up a conversation and find out he's a producer, he's got a dog, and its taking everything in you not to start planning the processional to your fake -never-happening wedding to this guy. You tell your friends you may have met "the one" and you start planning your weekend getaway trips to San Diego. You fantasize about your  adorable 2 kids and how you and your better half will create dynamic power plays in your field. 

After a couple weeks he smells like gross cheap booze, his dog has shit everywhere, he has roommates that annoy you and  you realize that producer means unemployed with the occasional PA job.   Suddenly you're planning the breakup. How are you going to get out of this with the least amount of scarring?

You start planning what you're going to say about what went wrong. You'll blame it on the dog, you'll blame it on the roommates. You'll blame it on your schedule, but there is one dirty prejudice you don't always want to admit to. When it boils down to it you're embarrassed about his job.

How much does some one's occupation influence their overall appeal? I had a girlfriend who dated a waiter once. I'm sorry, he was a part time waiter, part time party boy, part time dreamer who didn't have a then discernible talent. Our friends were sure that they would never work out. She left the country a few times with little more than informing him of her travels. 

Another good friend, a smart woman as well, also found herself a boy toy. Never taking the unemployed writer/actor seriously, she cheated on him constantly. 

I won't bore you with the details, but I will tell you that both of these women are now happily married to those men. 

They are the exception. 

In general, I find that women, whether we admit it or not, are very judgmental about our chosen mate's  chosen profession. It doesn't help that our mothers first questions tend to be, "What's his name? What does he do? What does he look like?"It instantly invites judgement. We start second guessing our crushes upon the judgment of others and what starts as inquisitive fodder from our loved ones turns into a introspective inquisition about what we want out of our lives and if this person can provide it.

Because there in lies the detail. Women plan ten steps ahead. We see a man and instantly evaluate him not only on physical characteristics of height, weight and the size of his..shoulders, but also on his ability to "hunt" and provide. We want him to show him  off and have everyone be jealous of our chosen specimen who can take care of everything and is gorgeous. 

But is that a mistake? I asked several ladies and the overwhelming response was "YES, but I would never admit it in public."

I don't know what the answer is to the question of should your spouses career matter, but I guess the answer is "maybe". I venture to guess that I would probably not like dating a cop or that it wouldn't work out between me and a republican congressman, but should you nix potential matches because your mate's chosen profession is a "dream" profession or because they work at Starbucks? 

Newness in the Everglades

Hello my amazing friends and blog readers! It’s been a very long time since I’ve written, but it’s only because I’ve had such a hard time keeping up with my Lady of Leisure lifestyle lately juggling multiple producing, casting and writing projects while still keeping up with DLOL, Doglady of Leisure, Sabrina.

I won’t bore you with all of the details of the past few months and instead drop you right into the present. Right now, as I write this, I’m in a swamp on my Ipad. God bless technology. All around me are reeds, water, alligators, snakes, and mosquitos. My hair looks like the lion king and I’m pretty sure that to the outside world I would appear to have smallpox because of the lesions left on me by giant Jurassic era looking mosquitos.

Yet somehow, I’ve found myself rampantly hit on since I left LA and landed in Everglade City. Isn’t that always what happens though? Newness is a powerful aphrodisiac. You always like the new kid in school even if he’s not as attractive as the guys you usually like, you always get extra attention when you change your hair, you always feel a little more confident with that new car. The offer of a new job entices you to consider changing your entire life, even if it’s not what you necessarily want to do, because newness is exciting.

It’s kind of like starting a new relationship right? You want to shout it from the rooftops, you want to show it off, and you want to take it for a drive. You want to post every picture from every second and can’t wait to document the next moment because you’re sure that this time it’ll be different. You feel like the newness won’t ever wear off.

But eventually, it isn’t new anymore. You’re not the new kid in school, your hair grows back, your car isn’t as shiny and might even smell a little bit. The new job feels like you’ve been doing it forever and allure begins to wear off. Everything starts to be normal and you start craving something new, again and again, thus starting the cycle over and over.

That is what happens to normal people. I have a bit of the opposite problem. I don’t crave new. I hate changing my hair, which I unfortunately just did to traumatic results. I didn’t move for the job offer. Part of this I know is a byproduct of having been divorced, which I know I bring up in every post (I can audibly hear you saying GOD GET OVER IT!), but it’s true! In my 20s I starved for new. I couldn’t wait for more new. I wanted a new car, new clothes, I moved apartments every year, I changed jobs as often as possible and devoured new. I only listened to new music, I only watched new movies, and I only accepted new friends. I renounced old and anything that connected me it.

How things change. Today, I drive an old car. My favorite films are old Audrey Hepburn movies. I live in my friend’s old apartment and my best friends are people I’ve known for years. The nature of my job is to move from project to project but even in that arena, I’ve found a way to keep some semblance of stability. It’s not that I don’t welcome new experiences and opportunities, it’s that I’m still a little bruised and afraid of all that comes with “New”. I’ve been very hurt by “New” and I’m still trying and willing myself to learn that all new things don’t have to bite.

So I’ve been trying to get reacquainted with “New” in all aspects of my life. I fed alligators today. I went in with a safety guy and held a stick to protect myself of course, but where I would have ordinarily stood back and watched or like a true Gemini, jumped into the alligator pool, I cautiously took a calculated risk. I feel really good about that.

I also pet and played with a wolf; not a dog, a wolf. Again, all calculated, relatively protected environment that still could have gone terribly wrong, but didn’t.

I try to remind myself that it’s the same with relationships. "Newness" doesn’t necessarily have to bite, though it has bitten me in the ass over and over again (and not in a good way). I’m trying to let myself be excited about “New” because let’s face it,  I want to jump in the alligator pool. I want to do things all the way because I’m a hopeless romantic and I hope against all odds that someone wants to jump with me, someone who knows how to swim and isn’t afraid of alligators, but also carries a weapon to ward them off just incase. What usually happens, to me at least, is that I say all of these things to people too quickly and show my cards too fast which tends to scare people off. And as you know, every bad habit I’ve learned about dating, I learned from movies so I have a lots to make up for!

My friend Jake insists that when we meet the right people, they’ll want to hear those things. He insists that they want to hear the “I miss you’s” and they want to get the texts and phone calls. He thinks it’s important to show people how you feel.  I want to believe him, I really do, but I’m just not sure. My friend Matt insists the opposite. He says that you can’t make yourself too available not just physically, but emotionally too at the beginning because “newness” is often mistaken for like or worse, for love.

I leave you with no words of wisdom, because I honestly don’t have a clue. I do know that there are things I’ll never be really good at while there are things I excel at better than other people. I’m good at business matters, because I can separate. It’s not personal, it’s business, but when it comes to matters of the heart, how do people keep things to themselves? Keeping my feelings to myself is not my forte. When I’m in the “new” (see what I did there?) I try to maintain a level head and I’m getting better, but I’ll never be the girl whose bible is Why Men Marry Bitches. I’m just not and I have to hope that my charming, old soul personality has a counterpart in the world that not only accepts it, but thinks it’s pretty great.