Dating Daze

Even the word “dating” still makes me uncomfortable. When I got old enough to date, I was so shy I could barely talk to a boy, let alone imagine having a date with one. Eventually, I did have dates. But I didn’t know the rules. So I wasn’t good at it and I probably gave some boys some very mixed signals. Who knew I was signaling at all? As for dating advice, my parents were hopeless; they had dated during the Stone Age. Plus, the books and magazines I read about dating might as well have been written by Queen Victoria. I watched my classmates’ dating behavior, trying to figure out what was going on between the sexes. I learned a lot about how young men and women felt about each other and how they behaved towards each other. But that still didn’t explain the game of dating. So I read romance novels, and discovered that inviting a man in for coffee at the end of a date was a strong signal that sex would be included. News to me. Still, romance novels are fiction. They don’t explain dating rules. So back in my real life, when guys wanted to date me, I was reluctant to agree because I simply did not know what to do. Advice columnists and relationship experts explained the inner workings of some intimate situations, but nothing explained the dating game itself. (Did I think to ask other girls? Apparently not.) Dating felt horribly awkward, so I tried to get to know people in less formal and more group-oriented situations. It worked. Fast forward a bunch of years and now I am happily married and retired from dating. What a relief! But I am still very curious about how the sexes interact. Turns out, so is everybody else. Advice columns still are a popular part of newspapers and magazines. Advice shows abound on radio and TV. Of course there is Internet advice; we have Dr. Charmaine on our own site. And a whole huge list of books has been published that try to explain modern relationships, try to organize and codify them, and try to improve them. Starting with books such as Codependent No More and The Cinderella Complex, Women Who Love Too Much, The Peter Pan Syndrome, Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, and others, the self-improvement genre grew and has focused needed attention on relationships. And as a natural follow-up to relationships, dating manuals were born. I don’t have an exclusive on confusion. Despite all the new relationship freedoms in our culture, dating still perplexes lots of people. They have no clue about the expectations of the opposite sex in a dating situation. (That would explain nose hair and lack of deodorant. Also, wearing a tiara.) And they need a way to decode behavior. (“Is he trying to tell me something by not replying to my e-mails?” “Should I call again, even though she never called back?”) We have many new ways to communicate, too, and we need to know how to use these new technologies with couth. In a fast-changing culture, all the old rules and the new rules get jumbled together and we need help sorting them out. So, what is life like on the dating frontlines? Not too good, it seems. Over a decade ago, The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right (by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider), made a big splash with its list of harsh, all-or-nothing rules women must abide by in the dating game. This book threw out modern behavior and practically called for women to start flirting behind fans again. Instead of allowing women to approach men they’re interested in dating, or call them, the authors insisted that women should never make the first move. The authors wanted women to make themselves seem elusive to the men they want to date. This, they said, engages ancient biological male hunting instincts, and the game is on. Does it work? If you ever read the customer comments on Amazon, you’ll get a good sense of how readers reacted to this book then and still react to it now. Other books have a handful or a few dozen reader reviews. Even a decade later, The Rules has over 500. As dogmatic, artificial, and game playing as this dating manual is, people still find it relevant to their lives. (There is just one item that almost everybody objected to, and that was the rule not to even reply to a man’s phone calls. This was cited over and over again as rude and signaling of lack of interest that most of the men said they would interpret as—lack of interest!) Yet in addition to the tough-talking rules in this book, the authors urge women to fill their lives with interesting hobbies, fun things to do, and other people. And to forget self-defeating behaviors like dropping everything to yearn over a man. The purpose is to become “A Creature Unlike Any Other,” and thus uniquely attractive as yourself. This is a positive message in a book that otherwise seems to take a very antiquated, even negative position regarding men’s and women’s behavior patterns. But did everybody listen to it? Probably not, since dating manuals today cover exactly the same territory and keep urging women to stop living in fantasy land and start living their lives well. Cinderella was a Liar, by Brenda Della Casa, just published, has the subtitle The Real Reason You Can’t Find (or Keep) a Prince. She paints a fairly embarrassing, not to say bleak picture of young women so desperate for a bridezilla wedding that they will keep dating obvious creeps, or stalk men who are long over them, or turn themselves into chambermaids for their unappreciative boyfriends. Not to mention messing up their chances by acting full of themselves and just plain obnoxious. In other words, nothing has changed. Della Casa urges young women to get a grip on reality, back away from the cell phone and computer while drunk, and start living a happy, fulfilled life for themselves. Sound familiar? There are lots more dating manuals available. Some are merely meant to be humorous. Some are laced with psychological insights from experienced, trained therapists. Quite a few have frank comments from men about dating, which can be very helpful when you’re trying to figure out somebody’s puzzling behavior (it could even be your own). But as I mentioned above, I managed to marry happily without doing a lot of dating. I hardly knew the rules, and never became comfortable with the game, and I preferred to just be myself. Lucky for both of us, I met a man who felt the same way. So if dating isn’t working out for you, maybe after studying up on the topic you should consider taking a break from it. To help you do that, Brenda Della Casa has a list of good things about life until Mr. Right shows up, if he’s going to. My favorite: “You want a cat. You get a cat.” It doesn’t have to come to that, of course. But you do not have to play games if you don’t want to.

Snow is in the air and contests abound!

Over the weekend we had our first snow storm of the season in the DC metro area. So what better time to curl up with your laptop and enjoy a little romance. You can also put that laptop and your writing skills to use for the chance to win cash or prizes. Recently Tina Wainscott wrote to tell us about her sixth annual Best First Line contest at www.tinawainscott.com. From Tina: "Shocking, naughty, suspenseful…make us want more! Cash prizes! The contest runs throughout the month of January. For aspiring authors, it's a chance to get your name out there and add a "win" to your bio. But this contest is open to everyone, pro or not. Even if you're not inclined to write a line, do check out the entries—they're good, hilarious, and some are hilariously bad. In other words, they're all a lot of fun! Last year's winner: Of all the ways to be found by your bridegroom, twenty minutes before your wedding, on your knees with another man's hardware in your hands is not the one I would suggest. -- Amanda G. Puckett" Speaking of contests, we are offering our own in honor of Valentine's Day. To enter you just need to submit a story featuring your most romantic moment! Visit our site at www.myromancestory.com for all the details. I hope you'll check out both contests. Even if you don't enter you can read the enteries for a laugh or a romantic story or two.

Nefertiti, an Enduring Beauty

When it comes to romantic glamour, Nefertiti, beautiful queen of ancient Egypt, has it all. Her story contains mystery, drama, and a lost flowering of art and religion. Most people know of her. Yet nobody would pay much attention to Nefertiti if her likeness hadn’t survived in a gorgeous piece of statuary that to our modern eyes shows her as intensely beautiful. In fact, this artistic representation from around 1340 BC has taken on a life of its own. It is reproduced in countless anthologies of ancient Egyptian art. It is imitated whenever anybody attempts an Egyptian costume. And wherever there is an exhibition of ancient Egyptian art, Nefertiti’s bust is likely to be represented. Where would Nefertiti be without this flattering piece of statuary? Pretty much where the rest of us are headed, the ash-heap of history. Here are the facts about Nefertiti as we know them today: Nefertiti was the favored queen of the renegade Egyptian pharaoh, Akhenaten. Akhenaten is viewed by the modern world as a very enlightened king because he dreamed up monotheism all on his own, thousands of years before it existed anywhere. This put him in direct conflict with the priestly establishment of his day (sound familiar?), so he abandoned the usual capital, Thebes, and built his own farther down the Nile, now called Amarna. During Akhenaten’s reign, the formal art style changed. Akhenaten himself looks pretty weird, with a pointy chin and big lips. And all the royal family have very elongated heads—unlike any Egyptian royalty depicted before or since. Nefertiti is in these depictions, and her head also is elongated. To complement that look, she wears a crown or headdress unlike any worn by any Egyptian lady. Nefertiti also assumes unusual importance in the stone carvings and paintings that tell us about ancient Egypt. Whereas conventionally, a man’s wife and children are represented in miniature size alongside him, Nefertiti was depicted in the same scale as Akhenaten on the wall paintings of the day. Proof she was very important. But it is her bust that has made her famous. Nefertiti has fine features. And to my eyes she has a snooty and self-possessed look—just the kind of look that went over big in 1912, when her bust was found. Most ancient Egyptians look calm and happy. But Nefertiti looks like she’ll make mincemeat of you if you cross her. She’s a high-ranking lady made of steel. It takes a strong will to wear a headdress that huge and keep your chin up, but Nefertiti does it. Nefertiti’s calm but deadly gaze, now known to western civilization for almost 100 years, has inspired many works of fiction, including straight romances, reincarnation tales, time-travel adventures, and more. In real life, Nefertiti gave birth to six daughters and was married to a fairly odd-looking nutcase pharaoh. Then she vanished. In fiction, she gets visited by modern time travelers, or is reincarnated into the bodies of modern young women. Or she is the star of far-fetched alternate history tales. Her ghost talks in seances. Her ectoplasm visits high-strung gentlewomen who live in spooky houses. And so on. As silly or as sentimental as these fictional takes on Nefertiti sound, at their core they are proof of just how inspirational one dynamic piece of artwork can be. How the very idea of Nefertiti, the beauteous queen as represented by her bust, has forged an imaginative chain of hope and longing between modern people and a person who has been dead—regardless of the mysterious circumstances—for at least 3,300 years. A link between today and an ancient, vanished culture that is repeatedly expressed in romantic outpourings. When people scoff at any visual medium, about art, they should think a little bit about Nefertiti. And ask themselves why they even know who she was. And then just look at her.

A Challenge for the New Year

I am a huge fan of British television comedy in no small part because of their willingness to tackle issues and topics that American television still refuses to touch (even comedically) with a ten-foot pole. Among my favorite BritComs was a series called “Waiting for God.” Aired between 1990 and 1994, it was the story of two elderly people who meet at the “Bayview Retirement Home” (sometimes referred to by its residents as the “Bayview Home for the Almost Dead.”) “Diana Trent” (played by Stephanie Cole) was a cynical, acid-tongued, ex-photographer. “Tom Ballard” (Graham Crowden) was a kind, loveable, and thoroughly loony old soul with a feckless son, and a drug and sex addicted daughter-in-law who could not wait for the old man to die so she could get her hands on his meager inheritance. Tom and Diana were as different as night and day. Tom believed in God and, at bedrock, in the basic decency of people. Diana didn't believe in anything or anyone. Yet over time their initially rocky relationship blossomed into love and caring. And sex. Shortly after their first tryst, Diana observed, “It’s nice to know that I’m still quite capable of going off like a rocket.” One of the factors that made “Waiting for God” work so well was that the residents of the (presumably fictitious) “Bayview Home” were actually older actors – not young actors dressed up to look old. So here’s my challenge to the romance writers of America: How about a romance novel set in or around a nursing home? Or a retirement home? That’s right. A romance novel where the two lovers are wrinkled and old – where the bodies are sagging and the hair (if there is any) is gray. Of course, the first step in making such a story work is actually talking to some old people. If you’re 25 (or 35 or even 45) you are – quite naturally – clueless about how it feels to be 80 or 85 or older. So that’s your cue to go out and visit some old people. Talk to them. Get to know them. Even a fictionalized romance will have no credence without the necessary research. I can almost hear the shudders. “Ewwwwww! Who wants to read about old people having sex?” Well, as someone once said, the only way to avoid getting old is to die young. You may be 25 now, but barring all accidents or acts of Nature, one day you’ll be old. Ask yourself if you will be ready to surrender your ability to love – indeed, your very sexuality – just because some kid young enough to be your grandchild can’t stand the thought? Years ago Ann Landers received a letter from an outraged woman who, upon a surprise visit to the nursing home, found her mother in bed - and not alone. The daughter was far more embarrassed than the mother, which is interesting, under the circumstances. Even when the mother explained that she and the old gentleman with whom she was otherwise engaged, actually were engaged and planned to be married soon, the daughter still could not be mollified. (Ann Landers not only wished the old couple her best, but also volunteered to help out with the wedding!) As a society, we treat old people as though they should put their sexuality on a shelf with all the old photographs and scrapbooks. Why do we do this? Because in our private fantasies (to say nothing of books, movies, and television programs), people who make love are invariably young, healthy, and wrinkle-free, with full heads of hair, non-creaking joints, and non-sagging body parts. But, alas, no body looks that way forever – or sometimes ever. As the late columnist Erma Bombeck once noted, “Gravity always wins.” So what would be so wrong with injecting a smidgeon of reality into this hopeless fantasy world we’ve created? As somebody else once said, “Just because there’s snow on the roof, doesn’t mean there’s no fire in the furnace.”