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August 17

Read (the facts) Slay (the myth) Love (your life)

Filed under: media,pop culture — posted by Rose @ 9:51 am

Perhaps the sight of Julia Roberts biking about Bali isn’t enough to convince you that a high-performance, career-empowered, smart, single, temporarily celibate (gasp!) woman over 30 can too find love, reclaim her libido and live happily ever after. That’s just a celluloid reenactment of one woman’s truth, after all — and, come on, who doesn’t fall in love with Julia Roberts?

Also debuting on Friday was author and professor Caryl Rivers’s fantastic, fact-fortified screed, published by Women’s eNews and entitled “Smart Women Take Heart: Your Love Life Is Fine,” rallying against the false notion of the “marriage penalty” — the myth that the Elizabeth Gilbert types are unhappy, destined for further unhappiness (which of course means never marrying), and themselves entirely to blame for their alleged unhappiness.

“What should smart ambitious women with some measure of career fulfillment do to prove they’re not miserable and sexless?” Rivers asks. “No matter how many times researchers debunk that story with real facts, it refuses to die. Feminism is always the culprit for women’s alleged unhappiness.”

What sets Rivers off is an Camille Paglia-penned op-ed piece blasting those very women for the nationwide “sexual malaise” that’s been spawned by their “priggish” ways; because “ambitious women postpone recreation,” Paglia opines, American office space is now a place where “physicality is suppressed, voices are lowered and gestures curtailed.”

And if you do become lucky enough to snare a mate and pop out a few kids? Then you’re at fault for emasculating America’s menfolk into “cogs in a domestic machine commanded by women.”

Sheesh.

Rivers’s retort to all this is sweeping and gratifying. It’s worth a read in its entirety, but here are the highlights:

  • Data collected by the United States General Social Survey since 1972 finds no statistical difference in the overall happiness of adult women compared to adult men. (Men’s happiness average clicks in a half-point higher than women’s, a statistical blip that many media outlets have overblown.)
  • A certain “The smarter the woman, the less likely she’s married” chestnut is based on data collected in 1921.
  • Men and women with highly rewarding jobs are more likely to report higher levels of sexual satisfaction.
  • Your office is not a singles’ club… OK, that one’s mine, but seriously, Paglia — since when do we all meet our future mates at work? Since never.

“But don’t expect these facts to spoil the media’s love affair with the notion of a high-achieving woman sacrificing her sex appeal,” Rivers writes. Seriously. Gelato, anyone?

August 4

Check out who’s checking in!

Filed under: media,News,Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 9:53 am

Ooh! “Singles for Foursquare builds a dating and messaging service on top of the location-sharing application. The result is a mashup that could match up hip iPhone-using, Foursquare-playing, same-bar-going early adopters.”

ProgrammableWeb also has this keen idea for version 2.0: “The concept could actually be expanded to connect users in a time-shifted manner. Rather than needing to be at the same place at the same time, Singles could recognize two of its users that frequent a particular restaurant and suggest they go at the same time. With dating sites based on even more tangential commonalities, it seems like a reasonable service to give to Foursquare users who tend to love their local businesses.” Plus, no LDRs.

June 3

Outsourcing your dating inbox?

Filed under: News — posted by Breakup Girl @ 2:35 am

You know that charming but not TOO charming, witty but not TOO witty, flirty but not TOO flirty back-and-forth you’ve struck up with that guy at CouldThisBeTheOne.com? You might actually be flirting back not with that guy himself, but with virtual-virtual him: a correspondent hired to take care of the pre-meeting nitty-gritty online half of online dating.

The Washington Post reports that more and more singles (roughly 80% men) are getting some very personal assistants — whether their own secretaries or via a new cottage industry of ghost writers — to manage their online dating correspondence for them: creating their profiles and handling all  correspondence up to but not including the actual, real-life date. Why? Mostly, they tell the Post, because they’re busy. Really busy. And yes, to be fair, the online part of online dating — while efficient — can indeed be time-consuming. Then again, so can explaining why it was not actually YOU that they’d been flirting with the whole time. So.

Part of me wants to say “Hey, we’re all ‘busy.’ Make time, hosers.” But part of me can summon a little more rachmones than that. I mean, they’re trying. They’re not giving up. They’re not getting all Up in the Air and letting “busy” be an excuse for not searching at all. Tacky, maybe, but there’s some hope there, too. And I can always get behind hope.

What do you think? Acceptable compromise, or Cyrano-no?

April 12

Taxing questions

Filed under: issues — posted by Chris @ 9:08 am

In honor of tax week, it seems apropos to blog this piece from Your Tango which asks the question “Is The Cost of Living Higher For Single Women?” Sure, we understand that single people don’t have some of the financial stresses that married folk do — especially those with children — but could there be economic discrimination against singles that balances it out? This article won’t make you propose or get divorced, but it’s an interesting read.

March 25

Spinster stigma alive and well

Filed under: books,issues,pop culture,Psychology — posted by Mia @ 3:49 pm

Single women are still feeling the “stigma” of spinsterhood, a new study of middle class, never married, women over the age of 30 has found. In fact, single women between the ages of 25 and 35 reported feeling both highly visible in certain social situations — like, God help us all, bouquet tosses at weddings — and highly invisible when it came to social status, in almost every situation from consideration by political representatives to expectations in office environments.

Despite the fact that 40% of all adults in The United States were single in 2009, it is women who often feel pressure to explain or justify their single status.

Pandagon goes into more detail about the humiliating catch-22 of the bouquet toss,and also explores the potentially harmful situations the pressure to be married can foster. That is: “men can make higher demands on women in exchange for their validation of women. Sometimes a woman’s devalued position in a relationship merely means she does most of the housework and emotional work, and her sexual satisfaction is a secondary concern. But in the worst case scenarios, culturally created female desperation can be used as leverage by domestic abusers to keep their victims in place.”

A new book by social scientist Bella DePaulo, PhD, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After
addresses all these issues and more. (The  fabulous bullet list she includes in her post about the book had me yelling, “sing it, sister!” at my computer screen.)

And here’s another antidote for all the single ladies, all the single ladies — and anybody who loves a great self-published comic: the amazingly funny and philosophic story, “My Every Single Thought” by Corinne Mucha. This comic chronicles the author’s attempt to get over an old relationship, and come to terms with a — yes — saucy new label: Single.

February 23

The shallow end of the dating pool?

Filed under: Psychology — posted by Breakup Girl @ 6:33 am

From the Charlotte Observer: “A forthcoming study by a Duke University researcher and several colleagues confirms what not-so-thin women and short, broke men have long suspected: They don’t get nearly as much romantic attention as skinny women and tall, financially secure guys.” You need a study for that? Here, I got a study. It’s called pay my rent, food, and Netflix. Fund that, science people.

The study, out of the University of Chicago, is still under peer review before publication. But here’s what we know: analyzing 22,000 online daters, researchers found that “women put a premium on income and height when deciding which men to contact.” They did the math: the study showed that a 5-foot-9-inch man needs to make $30,000 more than a 5-foot-10-inch one to be as successful in the dating pool.

Men in the study demonstrated a strong, and depressing, preference for women with a BMI of 18 or 19, which basically means if you’re 5′ 6″ you’ve gotta weigh 115. So okay, women want men who can afford to take them to dinner, but the men don’t want us to eat. This should work just fine.

Sarcasm aside, I’m still annoyed with this study — or at least, to some degree, this article about it — and the way it only, and unnecessarily, perhaps even misleadingly, perpetuates and underscores that same-old same-old depressing, needlessly divisive message: “The only thing men and women have in common is that they’re shallow.” ‘Cause here’s the thing: the article and the researchers talk about what a fertile field for study these online sites are, because there are just so many people on them. Right: there are just so many people on them. That’s why people go in — or at least online — with those faux-“high” standards. Because they can. There are so many eligible singles there, at least in urban and urbanish areas, that you can afford to impose a minimum height or maximum BMI standard. You know? Then later, at a party, you happen across someone who — for whatever ineffable reason — makes your heart go pitter-pat, maybe someone whose attributes you wouldn’t have click-clicked and checklisted, and boom, you give them a chance. I’m not saying some people aren’t shallow, but still.

As the article, to be fair, does state: “Since the study focuses on first impressions and initial contacts rather than marriage, it doesn’t rule out the chance of true love winning despite appearance or income. ‘If you had to sit down and write what you wanted in your dream guy, most girls would write ‘tall, hot and well-off,'” said Kari Castle, a 27-year-old online dater in Charlotte. ‘But in reality, is that the only thing they’d settle for? Probably not.'” Right.

So, I guess, since the study doesn’t really tell us much, the reporter is forced to fill in with dumb cranky unhelpful — and dare I say self-fulfilling — quotes like, “It’s got nothing to do with anything but green,” [said one bachelor]. “If you’ve got enough money, you’ll have women swarming all over you.” Attitude, people! Actually, it might be a guy in the comments who said it best: “If you think women will only like you if you have a sizable bank account, you are the one who makes that happen.”

January 21

The singleton diet?

Filed under: Psychology — posted by Rose @ 12:31 pm

Loads of props to Psychology Today’s Living Single blog, an excellent source of pro-single advocacy courtesy of perennial BG fave Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. One of their trusty commenters picked up on the singles-bashing embedded in this recent New York Times article about research out of Australia suggesting that  married women may gain more weight than single women. The study in question, conducted over a ten-year period, found that whether or not they bear children, married women tend to pack on more pounds than their never-married counterparts.

It’s not the findings themselves that slant anti-single; it’s the totally facile, clueless quote that another (female) egghead, asked to comment on the study, got away with. I’ll let DePaulo sum up what sucks about it:

“Before I tell you her answer — which was just a guess — imagine what answer would have been proffered if it were the single women who got fatter. Probably that they are home alone sitting on their couches eating ice cream, in a desperate attempt to sugar-coat that bitter man-less taste in their mouths.”

Buh-zing, DePaulo. Here’s the real quote:

“‘It’s interesting and brings out some important points,’ said Maureen A. Murtaugh, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Utah, who has published widely on weight gain in women. Perhaps, she suggested, a more active social life may help explain why women with partners gain more weight.”

Marrieds have more active social lives? Don’t people usually assume the other way around? Oh wait, I get it… because singles, mortified of revealing their grotesque, table-for-one faces in public, eat tear-soggy dinners under the covers of their twin-sized Murphy beds.

“‘Think of going to a restaurant,’ Dr. Murtaugh said. ‘They serve a 6-foot man the same amount as they serve me, even though I’m 5 feet 5 inches and 60 pounds lighter.’”

Okay, I’m thinking of that… that has nothing to do with being married. And btw, way to sneak in an elbow jab toward us glamazonly-tall girls. And also btw, I’m married, not incapable of asking for a doggie bag when I judge that titanic slab of man-meat I’ve just been served too much for my delicate belly.

As the blog entry notes about studies of marriage in general: “Even when marrying has a bad* effect, it will be attributed to something good.” Lots more juicy stuff here.

*Ever non-fat-phobic, we’d stop short of saying that gaining weight always = “bad.” But point still taken.

December 8

Shacking 101

Filed under: News — posted by Amy @ 12:02 pm

NY POST: Columbia sophomores and platonic pals Barry Weinberg and Nailah Robinson, both 19, plan to share a dorm room this fall under a policy likely to be implemented for all next fall.

The New York Post reports that Columbia University will, likely this fall, implement a new “gender-neutral” housing policy, meaning that sophomores, juniors, and seniors may select roommates from either gender. Not hallmates or floormates, roommates. Reactions — decidedly mixed — range from “Yay, singles won’t have to put up with their roommates’ sex lives” to “Wait, boys and girls are sharing BATHROOMS?” (Where have these people been?)

From my own four years on that very campus, I can tell you for sure: this is a tempest in an electric tea-kettle. For one thing, there’s no “walk of shame” associated with sleeping in your boyfriend’s dorm room. I mean, I shacked up with Andy C. on the first floor of Ruggles Hall for most of my senior year. I just moved my crap into his place and voila, cozy dorm coupling. My room was used for storage.

In retrospect, that was a hideous idea. I had a great room, Andy was totes codependent, and I ended up pledging a co-ed frat just to get some non-couple time. But whose college experience is a study in good decision-making?

The other truth that’s being ignored here? After freshman year at Columbia, nobody — but nobody — has a roommate to begin with. So the story here isn’t “Yikes! Free love on campus!” It’s pretty much “Gay students don’t have to live with weirded-out homophobes.” (Though maybe also “What happens if you break up by Thanksgiving?”) In any case, it’s nice to see my alma mater tossing passé Puritanism out the ivory tower window.

December 1

Tantra? I hardly know ya!

Filed under: News — posted by Paula @ 2:56 pm

Speed dating! If you think it’s a relic of the go-go late ‘90s — guys in fleecewear chatting up these ladies — or a mating practice of the hopelessly superficial and fidgety, you may want to try “deep dating,” like UK Guardian journalist Christine Ottery.

Ottery tested out two events that reflect a new trend in singles gatherings: blending the no-nonsense approach of the “hurry date” with Tantric sexual practices.

Whoa, slow down there, vivid imagination! The practices themselves amount to some G-rated physical affection and soulful eye contact, but it sounds like the attitude behind them is pretty solid: instead of mindlessly chattering away, potential partners get to connect on a slightly more “real” (and even spiritual) level than on a typical coffee date.

As Ottery writes:

Most of the sessions involve long periods of eye contact. Terrifying and liberating all at once, this is like skinny-dipping in someone’s irises, flinging off societal mores as you go.

Of course, eye contact is a big part of courtship whether you’re deep dating or not. Scientists have found that men gaze into the eyes of women they find attractive for twice as long as those they don’t. The researchers also said that women don’t use come-on eyes as much at first – and interpret this as a mixture of mistrust and the fear of ending up a single parent. I take it as a good sign, then, when I can stare somebody square in the peepers after just having met them.

Apart from the extended eyeballing and some pretty innocent body contact, not having to chat someone up is a sweet relief and makes for a surprisingly relaxed atmosphere. And once each individual mini-ritual is over, partners talk to each other, trading a mash-up of insights and giggles. Hawken tells me this can reveal, in a short space of time, the things you need to know about your suitor: “Can they listen? Are they sensitive to who you are? Are they able to talk about their feelings?”

Although Tantric dating hasn’t made a big splash in the States yet, I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time. In the meantime, we’ve still got that relic of the no-go ’00s—the cuddle party.

September 22

Advice update: What happened in Vegas!

Filed under: Advice,News,Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 8:49 am

Perhaps you recall this no-longer-lovelorn letter from Cheryl, who’d been head over hizzeells with her boss, though he “never gave [her] any reason to think he was the least bit interested.” Well! After moving to a better job, she told us, she — per BG’s advice, ahem — gave it one shot with him, and…cue wedding chapel bells! Here is the happy couple, Cheryl just wrote to tell us, on their happy day, lucky 9-09-09. Congratulations!

Disclaimer: Remember, the goal of life/love/this website is not GET MARRIEDMARRIEDMARRIEDMARRIED. (Or even DON’TBESINGLESINGLESINGLE.) You’ve got enough people telling you that. We just want you to be happy — whatever that looks like for you. Cheers!

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Breakup Girl
is the superhero whose domain is LOVE or the lack thereof! Her blog combines new comics, observations and dating news with classic advice letters--now blogified for reader feedback!
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