Amy Cooper
Why we girls aren't man enough to propose
This Friday, the 29th of February, is the once-every-four-years day on which women traditionally have been allowed to propose marriage to their tardy men.
I have a couple of girlfriends who really should take advantage of the Leap Year thing, and Jess is one of them. She's a woman in control; at work, she manages armies of staff; off duty, she captains her netball team; and in love, she's never been afraid to say exactly what she wants. Except when it comes to popping the question to her partner of six years.
"It's excruciating," she says. "I want to take charge. But all I can do is drop hints."
It's the first time this high-powered A-type has waited for anything, yet she's trying to do so as demurely as a Jane Austen heroine.
"Do it," I urge when the girls gather for weekly wines. "It's Leap Year. You're allowed."
Jess looks scandalised, as do all the other girls. It's bizarre. The toughest proposals - business, creative, indecent, even - never daunt this savvy, professional bunch, but we still prefer to leave the marriage ones to men.
I know women who demand pay rises worth more than my house, but baulk at even nudging their partners towards marriage. We've learned to say what we want in bed, in the office, in the car salesroom. And yet we prefer to passively wait for our men to make honest women of us.
Which would be fine, if we weren't so used to calling the shots elsewhere. But it's tough to let go for women like Jess, whose diary reads like one long military directive. She hates not knowing the exact moment her bloke will close the deal. The control freak in her wants to have a timeframe for setting in motion the heavy machinery of large-scale wedding organization. For now, though, she's stuck in helpless limbo. So why can't she just ask him?
I check out some experts, but find little insight aside from lame hints on proposing for Leap Year bachelorettes. "Make sure the answer is going to be yes," suggests online agony aunt Jenny Colgan. Or: "Wait till his team wins a big game." But here's the best: "Don't get down on one knee, especially if you're in stilettos. Women rarely look good in this position." (My unreconstructed male friends think differently, but I'll spare you their lewd observations.)
Another friend admits she is seriously considering proposing to her boyfriend on Friday. "I might ask his mum for permission," she says. "How feminist would that be?" She admits the ring is a problem. "I can't present him with that," she says. "So maybe a watch. Or a cigarette lighter ..."
I ask her if he'll be pleased. "I think so," she says. "But I guess I could be stealing his thunder. I know he'd deliver a lovely proposal himself. Oh dear. Maybe I should just let him do it..." I leave her looking perturbed.
Eventually, Jess reveals something. "If I ask him," she says, "how will I be completely, totally sure he really wanted to get married? Everyone knows what I'm like. They'll all think I just bullied him into it. Maybe it would be true."
And there it is - the funny, frail little truth at the heart of all this confusion. We want to know we're loved, but there are so few ways left for men to prove it. We don't need their money, their brawn or their protection, and we definitely don't need to marry them. And so the engagement ring, free of all its old economic, pragmatic and social agendas, has become one of the few remaining symbols of pure love. Who can blame us for holding out for that?
Meanwhile, I'm considering popping the question to every man I meet, all day on Friday. Why? Apparently, Leap Year tradition demands that all rejections must be accompanied by the gift of a silk dress. If I start early in the morning I could have one hell of a wardrobe by nightfall.
- by Amy Cooper at 09:39 PM
- Comments (6)
That's what friends are for
This week I attended the launch of Meet My Friend, a social networking website on which people recommend their single friends to other singles. Great idea.
The site is taking off fast and has a refreshing absence of hackneyed dating service language; there's no mention of love or 'finding the one,' or really any pressure at all to do anything except have fun and mingle.
It's reassuring, too, to proceed into the dating unknown armed with a third party endorsement; with a friend's recommendation you can be sure a person isn't knocking 10 years off their age or hiding a fondness for Mariah Carey.
The site reminded me of a less sensible one based in the US that I came across while researching a singles story a couple of years back. It was called Greatboyfriends.com and was a trading place for used boyfriends - a dating service ''where every single man comes with a woman's stamp of approval". There were pages of blokes up for grabs with nicknames such as Marathon Man and Mr Broad Shoulders, all glowingly recommended by females: ex-girlfriends, 'good friends' and sometimes even mothers or ex-wives. "He is the nice guy that your mom will love and at the same time he can Rock Your World (sic) when he gets you back to his bedroom," said one satisfied ex in her cast-off man's blurb.
The site was supposed to be about female solidarity and sold itself on the premise you can trust your fellow woman.
Of course you can. Just ask Princess Diana (cable TV holds regular séances), Jerry Hall, anyone who's ever bought a miracle face cream from a cosmetics salesgirl or been assured by a shop assistant that yes, the jeans look great from behind. We all know the unpalatable truth: women look nice, but often aren't. We are competitive, acquisitive, aggressive - just like men. The difference is, blokes don't hide it.
Each purveyor of a pre-loved man talked up the size of his bank balance and how much he loved his mum, but none answered the obvious question: if he was so fabulous, why didn't she want him?
Some unwittingly gave clues, like the woman who listed her ex's attributes (steady job, doesn't play games, dresses well) then followed up by saying she herself was now looking for a 'non-freak' to date, "but I don't think they exist."
I just wasn't convinced by Greatboyfriends.com. I reckoned these women were offloading unwanted goods or worse still, there were more sinister forces at play. I was particularly suspicious of the girls flogging their 'platonic friends', with pictures of them together, a proprietorial tone and intimate details. They seemed to be staking some sort of claim. My favourite was: 'He's crazy about... his family, his pets ... and me." Very tempting: one new boyfriend with soulmate included.
There's something just too cosy, too civilized, too damn creepy, about passing on your past loves. I don't believe for one moment all these relationships ended amicably. I also know, deep down, that women keep the good ones for themselves. It's the first question you ask when a single girlfriend recommends a man: have you dated him? And if so, what's wrong with him?
Anyway, I went back to greatboyfriends.com this week to see how it was faring. The site has now been changed to a similar concept to Meet My Friend, with recommendations from both sexes and mainly friends. I couldn't find anyone on there recommended by an ex. I rest my case.
- by Amy Cooper at 10:50 PM
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Scrap V Day; let's have International Heartbreak Day instead
As I watched the erotic and gripping but ultimately depressing movie Lust, Caution last night, I was reminded again why I believe Valentine's Day should be replaced with International Heartbreak Day.
Without spoiling the movie's plot (although I will warn you that during the latter half its stars tie themselves naked into knots beyond the scope of even the most complicated naval nautical manual), what happens between the lovers is a grander scale version of what lovers do to each other everywhere, every day and always have. Hurt, betrayal, let-down.
And although it's safe to say none of us had experienced the above in quite as extreme a manner as the movie's characters, we all felt the pain. Relished it, even.
"Do you think we should have gone to see 27 Dresses instead?" said my friend as we wiped the tears away and drank therapeutic wine.
No, we agreed. Romantic comedy is irritating but grand, mad, bad love - especially when adorned by the bare bottom of Tony Leung - is a far better way to spend $15.
Love-related misery makes friends of us all. I remember a while ago a heartbroken neighbour used to play Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O' Connor so regularly and loudly I eventually had no choice but to try to drown it out with my favourite Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Music Greats CD. Bad idea. Within minutes everyone was yelling at me, while no-one had complained about our resident prince/princess of pain.
I'd thought they'd much rather listen to Lovely Hula Hands than the soundtrack to someone's private hell. But of course, this wasn't true. The world loves a wounded lover, and - as long as they display a little more variety in their musical choices - so do I. The cries of the heartbroken rarely fail to move even tough nuts, because it's a pain we all know and even if we're lucky enough not to, we understand.
If Princess Diana hadn't been a habitual love casualty, I suspect she wouldn't have held quite the same sacred place in the global consciousness. Her agony was ours. She behaved, in heartbreak, as we all can; the brave face hiding hideous meltdowns only publicly hinted at but recognized by anyone who's loved and lost. Obsessive phone calls, tears, tantrums, compulsive shopping, 'look at what you're missing' dressing. I suspect the palace walls often resounded with the strains of Di's own heartbreak soundtrack, probably provided by Elton John.
Imagine if we had an annual worldwide celebration of heartbreak rather than Valentine's Day which, let's face it, is an ordeal for many, a chore for some and a mixed experience for anyone with a less than fulsome love life. International Heartbreak Day celebrations could include radio stations devoted to heartbreak requests, back-to-back tearjearkers on TV, special comfort chocolate gifts to buy for yourself or your heartbroken friends and an amnesty on drunken phone calls, recriminations and emails. You could take out newspaper ads to your exes with creative insults instead of fluffy nicknames.
Imagine how cathartic it would be. And how unifying. The whole world could bond over heartbreaks old and new - our pain reminding us all that we're human. A much better shared experience than Valentine's Day, which splits everyone so neatly into losers and winners in happiness.
It wouldn't be anti-love. Just the opposite, in fact. It would honour how crucial love is, how central to our lives. After all, you suffer most for things you believe in, and without remembering the hurts it's hard to appreciate the successes.
I'd be willing to organize the Australian celebrations, with just one proviso: no Sinead O' Connor.
- by Amy Cooper at 07:01 PM
- Comments (2)
Reflections on a haunted toilet
My favourite bar is haunted by a female ghost. At least, we assume she's female because she lives in the ladies' toilets.
Mainly, she gets her kicks out of switching the hand dryer on and off when no-one else is in there, but occasionally she ventures out of the bathroom and down the main staircase to startle staff by blowing on the back of their necks. Even the doorman's a bit nervous of this spook, although he also admits she's not half as scary as some of the creatures he turns away after 1am.
We're pleased though, that she seems to be having some fun in the afterlife because most spectres (or whatever the politically correct name for them is - materially challenged? Ghoulishly abled?) don't. It seems a shame they always stay in places where they had an utterly rotten time in life.
If you subscribe to the theory that ghosts are imprints of emotions seared into places by their intensity, it makes sense. I think sad feelings leave stronger imprints than happy ones. Which would explain why you always hear of bedrooms containing melancholy ghosts, instead of whooping, lusty ones setting the sheets on fire and why places like the Quarantine Station have so many.
The only ghosts I've ever seen are love-related ones. I have a friend who cannot enter a certain bar. It was where a relationship died horribly, and he says the place still brings him out in a cold sweat. He remembers exactly where he sat (opposite the Ladies') and what he was drinking (unoaked Chardonnay) and how the table was wet where the embarrassed waiter splashed the drinks in his haste to escape the bickering, stricken couple. Years later, he talks as if part of him is still there. Perhaps it is.
After heartbreak, I used to do the opposite. I returned to places where happy times occured: our favourite balcony restaurant table, our park bench, the exact spot at the bar where we met. I was younger then and had a taste for melodrama, but these places also provided weird comfort. Your senses are so alive in those early, delirious stages of a romance, you absorb tiny details - a notch on your seat, a bump in the wall, a particular odour. Perhaps those physical things really do hold the memories of feelings, because they would bring the good times rushing back in full, 3D technicolour. Gradually, my friends and I would rewrite the story to suit ourselves ("He was never any good," they'd say. "I never cared about him anyway," I'd claim), but I kept going back for a fix of that feeling until the man was history. Maybe that's why sad ghosts haunt happy places.
If there's one compulsion dominating our mating behaviour, it's repetition. We return to the scene of the crime, replay mistakes and chase the hair of the dog that bit us. We fall for types, and we have familiar arguments with new partners and call it 'baggage'. Then, at the extreme end of refusing to let go, there are those living, breathing poltergeists: stalkers. They're suckers for punishment, hanging round people who don't want them, compelled to re-experience rejection, often in denial and desperately seeking 'closure'. We shouldn't laugh at them. They embody the extreme of a pain we all feel at some time.
I wonder if this is how ghosts are created, both in life and maybe afterwards, too. We're driven by a need to understand our actions, find a happy ending, answer old questions. And in doing so, we tread unhappy ground again and again.
Whatever ghosts are, I doubt they're any different from the rest of us. None of us are trapped; we just choose not to move on.
- by Amy Cooper at 06:29 PM
- Comments (4)
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