it all started innocently enough.
“This is Helen,” said Grant, beaming.
“Nice to meet you.” I shook her hand and we all smiled at each other. She was short and dark — not normally Grant’s physical type, I thought approvingly. On paper, I liked everything I’d heard about Helen: she was serious, straightforward, very concerned about her job, and didn’t really seem to care at all about Grant. She was very definitely not his type — Grant, my best friend, always had gone after models, Barbie dolls, younger girls — and for this reason alone, I approved of her.
Not surprisingly, Grant had been the personification of ambivalence after their first date. “I just don’t know, Courtney,” he’d said. “She’s, I don’t know, different from what I’m used to. I don’t know how interested I am — “
“Listen!” I snapped. “Grow up. You need to go out with someone like Helen. It’s time. No more little blondies who don’t say a word. I can’t take it anymore.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” he whined, “but I don’t know, I just don’t know.” “Grant! She’s smart, she’s well-educated, she’s a woman, and you said yourself she’s even attractive. Now, what is the problem?”
“You’re right, you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. Call her up again. Make another date. You don’t have to marry her, for God’s sake.”
But marry her he did. And in one of life’s cruel little jokes, Helen and I gradually learned that we hated each other.
Oh, we tried. In the beginning, we even had a little honeymoon period: we went to movies, we talked on the phone, we ganged up on Grant when the three of us went out. But as Helen and Grant moved closer together, she and I began to grate. She’d eye me with some glint of … something. I couldn’t tell. Was it my imagination? Was I jealous, was she? Grant and I had been friends for over 15 years — and yes, a long time ago we’d dallied a bit, but not now, not ever again.
At first, I tried to talk to him about it. “I don’t know,” he’d say uncomfortably. “She never says anything to me about you.”
“Ha!” I said. “That confirms it.”
I tried to talk to her. “I get the sense, Helen,” I said, “that you don’t like me very much.” Naturally, I didn’t say that the feeling was mutual.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said coldly. Case closed.
Even more irritating was the fact that my family loved her. Helen, mean? Nonsense. In fact, Helen was one of the friendliest, warmest women they’d ever met, why, it just exuded from her every pore. No, it was me, I was imagining things. Grant and I still got together once in a while for a movie or coffee, but there was a definite igloo surrounding our friendship which we couldn’t really talk about.
After they got married, we had a détente. I found her frigid, self-righteous and judgmental. I sensed she found me excessively dramatic, insecure and overly emotional. But we lamely made the effort, if only for Grant’s sake. The invitations to get together waned, but once in a while Grant would dutifully call to invite me to an non-intimate gathering in which there were enough people to buffer the uncomfortableness. I’d arrive, greet everyone, say hello to Helen and the air would fairly crackle with icicles. For some reason, I was always overdressed; Helen’s practical, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners persona carried over into the style of their parties, which I consistently seemed to forget. I usually wound up feeling like Little Miss Muffet.
What do I do? Hope for divorce? A natural disaster to befall her? Try to talk to her again, or Grant? No, no, and no. The best — and only — way to proceed when you hate your best friend’s partner is to just put up and shut up. You try your damndest not to badmouth the party in question. You smile, you ask neutral questions about life on the homefront. You try not to wish her an untimely death. And hardest of all, you dig as deep as you can to find that little, teeny-tiny altruistic place in your heart that’s happy your best friend has found a soulmate. I must be an optimist, because I’m still foraging …
in this election year, I suppose it’s appropriate that I can’t keep politics out of the bedroom.
Sprawled across my bed after a bottle of pinot blanc ($11.99, thank you), I was wrapping my legs around my new lover, Terry. We were in that supreme window of time — the archaeological exploration of the other person’s body that takes place before you actually have sex for the first time.
All the ground rules had been established in the days before. We’d already talked about AIDS, condoms, past relationships, tempo of involvement, etc., etc. We’d done enough dry humping to put Erica Jong to shame. Now it was apparent that it was going to happen, tonight. He had already undressed me in a slow, languorous way, and I had peeled off his shirt, and his jeans, leaving us down to underwear.
In my opinion this is the most enormously exciting part of lovemaking, particularly if you’re into talking, which I am. When he reached down and eased off my panties, I purred “what do you think of my — “
Suddenly I stopped. What word to use? “Pussy” was on the tip of my tongue. But perhaps he found that offensive. Cunt? No, that was worse. Snatch? Beaver? Hole? No, no, and no. Plain old vagina? No, he wasn’t my gynecologist.
I sighed. Terry, interpreting that as a sign of something else, gently guided my hand to the interior of his boxers. I struggled to slam shut the thesaurus of politically-correct sexual terms. As I grasped him I whispered in his ear, “I love the feel of your — “
Now what? Dick? Prick? Rod? Cock? “Your, your …” I stuttered. Giant pole of manhood? Column of strength? Horse-like appendage? How would Terry react if I used the wrong word? Personally, I love the word “pussy” and think it’s a rather accurate noun, but what a wetness-inducer is to me could be a witherer to him. Finally, I just shut up.
Freud said that whenever two people come together, there are actually six people present: the couple and the couples’ parents. Now I could add my linguistics professor, Larry Flynt, my feminist friends and Michel Foucault into the bedroom bleachers. Great.
At Brown, I majored in semiotics with a seething politically correct passion. I was the first to insist that words are freighted with more import than their literal meaning. Now I’m irritated that I’ve let external forces control my vocabulary. After all, what’s so wrong about saying “cunt,” or “pussy,” or “wet split beaver,” for that matter? It only feels wrong because the porn industry’s appropriation of those words has made them smack of misogyny.
Well, enough. Just as gays have reappropriated “faggot,” we heteros should launch a raid to steal back “cunt.” I propose a Take Back The Pussy night. Let me say “cock,” let me ask my lover to fuck me, without feeling like I’ve let down the side. Maybe then the talk can come back to the bedroom — and I can kick out the crowds.
guess what? asked Sarah. Im being sent to the South Pole in November. I
have to go for three weeks to check out a rescue station and write a report! She
laughed.
How… interesting, I lied. You sound like youre taking it quite well.
Itll be terrible, she said cheerfully. I cant remember if its going to
be light 24 hours a day, or dark 24 hours a day. I dont even own a parka.
Sounds great, I said. Then I remembered. Oh, Sarah, you dont still have
that airport theory, do you?
Of course, she said. How many times do I have to tell you? Its the
greatest place to meet people. Last time I went to Chicago, I met this guy in
the lounge in St. Louis. Then, when I was waiting for my mom to pick me up, I
started talking to this other guy outside of baggage claim. He was with his
girlfriend, but they were both witty. We ended up having dinner that night and
I tell you, they were a hoot.
Dont you think its a little strange how you, um, collect people at
airports and on planes?
I dont know what it is. I just seem to attract the funniest, most
interesting people when Im in transit. Remember the guy I met at the SFO
bar?
You mean the guy who thought you were a hooker?
No, that was at La Guardia.
I cant say that I do.
Come on. The one who worked for the newspaper. He was writing an article on
airport bars. He thought Personalities sounded like a good bar to start with
Huh.
And he ended up giving Harriet some freelance work.
I listened for a while as Sarah continued to give me details of her upcoming
trip one of the highlights was that shed have to change planes twice.
Ive always held on to the old-fashioned theory that the only way to meet
people either date-worthy or platonic is through your circle of friends.
Maybe its just my suspicious nature, but I just cant imagine striking up a
conversation with someone in an airport lounge, particularly one called
Personalities. It goes back to a few snobbish assumptions. One is, what kind
of person hangs out in a bar and talks to people? (Well, Sarah, for one.) Two,
of course, is the safety factor: is this a nice person, or is he Ted Bundy?
Three concerns the fact that I dont have enough time for the friends that I
have already, so why would I want more? Four is … well, it just seems hokey.
My friend Matt has met two women on planes that hes dated, and still another
acquaintance of mine actually met and married the man who sat next to her on a
flight to Paris. My mother is another story, being one of those people who
gets asked directions, fashion advice, weather predictions and preferences on
laundry detergent every time she so much as steps outside her house. Ive seen
her disembark from a plane with a fistful of business cards that have been
thrust upon her over the course of a two-hour flight.
Being in a plane is, for me, an event a little bit sacred it seems
personal, like the so-called quality time when youre in the bathroom. You
dont stand and talk to strangers through a bathroom stall door, so why
encroach on their time in a plane? I am one of those who goes armed with
headphones, novels, bills to pay, letters to write, columns to consider. I
have been known to actually get up and change seats, quite openly, if my
neighbor is particularly loquacious. When I told Sarah this, she just shook
her head. Youre missing out. Im telling you.
Still, I made a resolution this year to be more open-minded, so on a recent
plane trip to New York, I sat down, organized all my newspapers and books and
bottled water in the seat pocket in front of me, and eagerly looked around.
The bespectacled young guy sitting by himself on the other side of the aisle
was reading what looked like an arty little hardcover novel. Hmmm. If I just
craned my neck to one side I could barely make out the authors picture. Okay,
if its a classic, Ill talk to him… if its post-modern, its a toss-up …
and if its Roth, Mailer, Miller or Burroughs, forget it.
He coughed and shifted the book. The spine winked at me. The Bridges of
Madison County, by Robert James Waller.
Wheres that Walkman?
i’m noticing a disturbing trend in the mating and dating life. It’s this new service available from your local telephone company called Call Return, or as it’s more commonly known, Star 69.
It’s simple. If you miss a call, and your machine isn’t on or you don’t have a machine, you just press *69, and the phone rings right back to the person who last called you. Whether they have left a message or not.
This service has disturbing implications. Say you just called Belle, a person with whom you are mildly, very mildly entranced. Say you got her machine, and you just weren’t yet committed to taking the plunge by leaving a message. Or your roommate walked into the room, just as her “Hi, This is Belle and I’m not here –” began. You hang up. Suddenly the phone rings before you’ve even let go of the handset. “Hi, who’s this?” Belle asks. “You just called me. Why did you call me?”
This little invention was clearly intended for one purpose only: to wreak emotional havoc on the furtive, to out the chickens. Unless you are a cave person, of course you have a machine or voice mail. So it’s rather disingenuous of the phone company to pretend this is a service for the technologically impaired.
Not surprisingly, Star 69 has now entered the lexicon of relationships, attaining the much-sought-after status of a verb. “I was Star Sixty-Nined once,” said Isobel. “I’d gotten the wrong number, and just hung up. Then there’s this woman saying in my ear, ‘why are you calling and hanging up on my machine?’ “
Some of my friends have confessed to a Star 69 addiction. They come home, see the steady light of their answering machine, and dial Star 69 to see which chump didn’t leave a message. There’s always the possibility that they in turn will get a machine, in which case they must mull over the next step: do they leave a message asking why a message wasn’t left, or do they hang up and open up the possibility of getting Star 69′ed themselves? Conceivably, this could be a very time-consuming addiction.
For some, however, Star 69 may serve as a valuable screening mechanism. Consider Dave’s story. Cousin Cheryl from out of town is sleeping on the sofa. The phone rings one early Sunday morning. She answers from a deep sleep, and the caller hangs up. Dave Star 69′s the offender, and gets a woman whom he’d dated a few times. “Did you just call me?” Dave asks politely. “I’m just trying out this new service from the phone company.” The woman nervously says no, then retracts her lie. They have an embarrassed conversation, in which she apologizes for hanging up and for lying.
“Thank God for Star 69,” says Dave. “Now I don’t have to waste my time and money with the kind of woman who would lie and hang up on my cousin. The best 75 cents I’ve ever spent.”
I was curious how the phone company came up with such a, well, appropriate number for their service. “It was just the next number in the series,” said Barbara, a Pacific Bell service representative. “You know, we have Star 70, Star 68… all of them are dialing codes for our customers. The Call Return just happened to fall on 69. It wasn’t intentional.”
I’m not sure I buy that. Any company capable of thinking up something as diabolical as Star 69 is certainly capable of giving it a name that sounds like a bad porno movie.
Isobel went to Max’s house early one evening. They’d met each other a month ago, a fix-up conspired by Isobel’s hair colorist and Max’s roommate. After each date, I’d get a thorough report from her, and I could see from the outset that her heart just wasn’t in it. It was clear to me that Max was what we call in the dating world, filler.
Isobel, a sous chef, was between relationships, just like the way people can be between jobs. You take that job selling hot dogs at a corner cart because you can’t land a catering gig. It’s still in your field — hot dogs, making hors d’oeuvres, it’s all food, right? You’re bored, you’re anxious, and you need to pay the rent. Max was Isobel’s hot dog.
Distinguishing a filler relationship from a real one is key. Most likely, you must depend upon your friends to do this for you, since by definition you will be unable to. One of the crucial characteristics of a filler is the suspension of disbelief, so when your filler starts playing air guitar in front of your friends, you pretend that it’s just not happening. You turn away and wait for the song to be over.
When Isobel arrived at Max’s apartment, the TV was on low in the background. Nick at Nite. His guitar case was open and notebooks were spread on the floor. A purple candle burned brightly from its position on top of the giant speaker.
“I’ve been working on a new song,” Max said, as if that weren’t clear. “It’s called ‘Mannequin.’” Isobel smiled, frozen. Sure enough, he pulled her down to the floor while he sat cross-legged, guitar on his lap, and began strumming and singing in his Brooklyn accent:
“Mannequin, Mannequin, what a perfect face/ Mannequin, Mannequin, please tell me what’s my place/ You stare and stare and seem to see/
Mannequin, mannequin, please see me…
“That’s as far as I’ve gotten,” Max said, strumming his guitar with a flourish. Yeah, in more ways than one, thought Isobel. She smiled tightly. Another filler bites the dust.
Fillers can never shout that they are fillers. In order for them to succeed on any level, they have to suck you in just enough that you can close your eyes. It’s the same blindness that lets you cry freely at “E.T.”
Nigel was my classic filler. An Australian film producer, he’d just landed a major picture deal from Warner’s, his first feature. He was suave and charming, but just a little too suave, a little too charming, to the point of being slick. I knew that he was living with his girlfriend in Melbourne; I had also been told through friends that she’d just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Nigel rewarded his brush with success by following around World Cup soccer, and on a hot July day, we drove down to Stanford to watch Colombia play Mexico. I’d met him three days ago; we’d already slept together, and while I knew he wasn’t Mr. Long Term, he played the game well enough. Until…
“Pull over here,” he directed me. We were driving alongside an industrial park. “You are so hot. So sexy. Let me just…”
Reluctantly, I parked under a tree. We kissed, beads of sweat rolling down our faces in the 98-degree heat. He slid his hand under my T-shirt, and I responded by grasping his shorts. He moved one of his hands behind my neck, he began to gently, gently push my head down.
“Uh,” I said. “I don’t think this is such a good place…”
“Come on, baby.”
“No, really. We’re in the middle of an open air parking lot.”
“You are so hot, baby.”
“Yeah, I am,” I said, trying to move my head out from under his hand. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to.”
I looked up. He was frowning. And I knew, in that split second, just looking at those furrows between his bushy eyebrows, the slight coldness that had crept into his blue stare, that the bubble had been popped. I sighed loudly.
“You know what?” I said, sitting up, straightening my t-shirt. “I could really go for a sandwich. Something really, really big. Roast beef, with lots of lettuce, and tomato, maybe even a club sandwich.” I pulled out of the parking lot and merged into the traffic. “Tell me about the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. It must be really hard on you. When’s your flight, again?”
he was a great guy. Smart, funny, witty. Tall. Well-educated. He was also cynical, which should have been a tip-off, but Sarah was starry-eyed.
They’d met at a bookstore on the Upper West Side, attending a reading of one of those Clinton exposé books. “I can’t remember which one it was,” said Sarah, who works for the Sierra Club. “It wasn’t ‘Bloodsport.’ I think it was a Hillary-bashing book.” She was annoyed when she saw a man’s arm shoot up just seconds after the author had finished reading, but his question was admittedly pointed, and, well, interesting.
On their first date — a walk around the reservoir at Central Park — the conversation moved easily. Harry was apartment hunting; like all New Yorkers whose housing is imminently threatened, he was obsessed with the topic. Sarah could relate; she’d just moved into a closet for $900 a month. They exchanged old war stories like only New Yorkers can.
On the second date — lunch at a noodle bar in SoHo — they talked about their family. Harry had grown up in Connecticut, in a town near where Sarah had grown up. They talked about siblings, parents and Connecticut. Still, no hint.
On the third date — cocktails at the sculpture garden at MOMA — Sarah had two glasses of wine. Feeling warm, she languidly began to talk about the Hillary-bashing book. “Thank God the truth’s coming out about that manipulative bitch,” he exclaimed. “Isn’t it obscene that those two are still in office? Don’t worry though, they may get in office again in November, but Starr’ll impeach that lying sack of shit.”
Sarah’s dreams suddenly vanished. No, it couldn’t be… but, yes, it was true.
“Harry is a… ” Sarah choked over the phone, gasping. “I can barely say it… a Republican.”
That was it for Harry. Harry was history.
“Maybe you could just not talk about politics?” I asked doubtfully. This being the 20th century, the religion question was obviously moot.
“Sure,” she retorted nastily. “Just the way you gave that Perot supporter a chance. He didn’t even get to tell you his name.” I winced. She was right: I’d cut off Mr. Perot Voter the second I learned of his political affiliations. He’d failed my Personal Litmus Test, which I believe in aplying as deftly — and as quickly — as possible: Who did you vote for in 1992?
“Sarah,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “I’ve heard that some Republicans are okay. I personally would never go out with one, but have you noticed how tolerant they are of us Demos?”
“Patronizing is the operative word, here.” Sarah was firm. “Besides, the last time Harriet went out with a Republican, he couldn’t get it up. Remember?”
“Actually, I think he was a Libertarian.”
“That’s even worse.”
Okay, I admit it. Some people are agists, some people are sexists. I am a politicist. I cannot, and will not, ever sleep with a man who supports Pat Buchanan, Bob Dole or George Bush. I will never date anyone who voted for Perot. I will barely talk to anyone who invokes Richard Lamm.
Good for you, James Carville and Mary Matalin, if you can make it work. But I’d like to know, what do you talk about over dinner?
