Guest Post: JK on Foregoing Tradition

My friend JK lightens my load in life in a lot of ways.  Writing guest posts for my blog might just be one of my favorite ways.  Who doesn't love someone else doing all the work every once in a while??  That being said, welcome to JK's second guest post on The Manhattanite...does that make it a tradition, yet?  Speaking of tradition, thanks to the lovely and talented JK for reaching out from the land of traditional American dreams (i.e. Ohio) to share her personal analysis of non-traditional relationships and her spot-on taste in mood-altering music.  Enjoy...
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As my friends and I enter our late 20s and early 30s, some of us who have struggled with traditional relationships begin to consider what is going wrong: is it me, them, or the fundamental structure of traditional relationships? Lately, I’ve thought more about the last possibility, and I’ve heard more people suggesting non-traditional options. I discuss a couple of the more interesting ones below with the following caveat: Although I firmly believe that these options could be a path to happiness for some people, I don’t think that they are the solution for everyone because they involve two very unique people who are willing to be deeply introspective and completely honest about their feelings, needs, and wants. (Note: I’m not considering poly-amorous or asexual relationships here because they tread into even more complicated territory. And, friends-with-benefits has already been addressed in a previous post.)

The Relationship Lease

In a recent episode of “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” (don’t act like this isn’t one of the most satisfying guilty pleasures ever) Gretchen discussed how she is uncomfortable with the idea of marrying again. Gretchen’s first marriage ended in divorce and then, just a few years later, she lost her fiancé to cancer. Her solution was a relationship lease. Similar to a car lease, two people would enter into an agreement to be completely committed to each other for a period of years at the end of which they would reevaluate and decide whether to remain together.

Gretchen commented that, shortly after they were married, her husband “let himself go” because he had what he wanted and didn’t think he had to work to keep it. But, a relationship lease could motivate people to continue to work at themselves and their relationship. I think that this is a valid point. I often wonder whether some people are in such a rush to be in a relationship because it means they can stop working so much on wooing/courting/paying attention to the other person. Once you’ve decided to commit to one person and take yourself off the market, to invest time and emotion, it becomes harder and harder to walk away.

Although I’m very attracted to this option, I am not sure it would work in reality. I had to stop naming my cars because I get weirdly emotional when my car lease ends, and my car can’t even argue with me about whether or not to keep it! Ending an emotional lease could be incredibly messy and painful.

The Open Relationship

This was widely discussed after Monique was nominated for an Oscar and revealed that she is in a happy open marriage. In an open relationship, as I understand it, both people are emotionally committed to each other and devoted to building a life with each other but occasionally have purely physical relationships with other people. I think that if it was used to explore emotional and physical relationships with others, it could quickly become complicated, messy, and painful. For the right couple, an open relationship can provide a loving relationship without giving up the opportunity for new sexual experiences and partners. If both partners are truly comfortable with the idea and willing to be honest with themselves and each other, this can satisfy those who are only being held back from a relationship by their reluctance to give up seducing or being seduced by other people.

An “open relationship” is not a euphemism for casual dating, the traditional path that many people hope will lead to a traditional, committed, monogamous relationship. When casually dating, each individual prioritizes themselves and focuses on what they need and want. There are few compromises or sacrifices. You might have to sit through an awful concert, eat a bland meal, or pretend to love walking for hours in 3” heels, but if the other person calls on a Saturday night and wants company, you’re free to say no, even if your only plans are eating cheese and doing crossword puzzles. You don’t have to meet anyone’s parents, siblings, or friends. You can even maintain your profile on as many dating sites as you can stand. And the relationship can end at any time, for any reason with little or (in the case of many people) no explanation. Casual dating can be fun, painful, exhilarating, and frustrating.

The problem with casual dating is that there is societal pressure to stop doing it at some point. Around this point in life, many people are settling down into devoted relationships and contemplating children. When they were my age, my parents were married with two kids. Should I have figured out who I was going to be with by this point? Am I somehow behind? How will I know when to stop looking or can I ever stop? Do you just pick someone and settle down or is there a sign, a feeling, an indication that the hunt is over? If I can’t decide whether or not to have red and green peppers or just green, how can I decide who to live with forever? What if the person is right but the timing is wrong? Is the timing ever wrong if the person is right? The flurry of questions that are not calmed by casual dating can be troubling and frustrating. And, when you see friends settle down happily, you begin to wonder if you’re doing something wrong.

Choosing an open relationship is not a way to end these questions. It is not a bridge between what you are ready for and what you think you should be ready for. It is not a way to “try out” a real relationship without the fear of missing out on other options. As I stated earlier, the other encounters in an open relationship are purely physical and do not include the type of emotional exploration that dating entails. An open relationship is not a “back up” relationship that fills the void while you look for something better. The only difference between an open relationship and a traditional one is sexual monogamy. You can't be in an emotionally committed relationship if you’re actively exploring emotional connections with other people.

When casually dating, both people are pursuing a relationship but may also explore physical and emotional connections with other people. The relationship and the other person are not a priority as they should be in an open relationship. An open relationship is, first and foremost, a relationship. Both people are willing to prioritize the other person, to make compromises and sacrifices for the other person, and to focus on the relationship.

I think that there are people who can make an open relationship work. And I don’t think that I’m not one of them. I know that I would be uncomfortable with my significant other having a physical relationship with someone else because physical contact, from kissing to sex, is very emotional for me. I know that I would not be able to regularly have a purely physical relationship with anyone else because, with a few exceptions, my physical attraction is tied to my emotional attraction. I know that this is not true of everyone. To have a working open relationship, both people have to be able to honestly reflect on what they need from a relationship and how they connect with other people.

If, after reflection and discussion, you realize that an open relationship could work for you, congratulations and best wishes. If not, you can join me back in the confused and questioning pool. You’ll be in good company.

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Breaking with tradition, I am not offering restaurant/bar suggestions, but I am suggesting music to listen to while pondering if you’re made for an open relationship. Here’s what I listen to while struggling with what I need and want in life:

The Quarter Life Crisis Playlist

1. King of Anything – Sara Bareilles – Someone once said they thought this was my theme song, and I was very flattered.

2. Pumpkin Soup – Kate Nash – Sometimes, it’s the woman who wants to keep things simple and physical.

3. Rolling in the Deep – Adele – Gorgeous voice, gorgeous song. If you aren’t tempted to try and belt it out yourself, you may be a robot.

4. I’m Good, I’m Gone – Lykke Li – For the ambitious, independent people who’ve been rejected for being just that.

5. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service – This constantly gets stuck in my head, and I don’t even mind it.

6. You Wouldn’t Like Me – Tegan and Sara – “I feel like I wouldn’t like me if I met me.”

7. Trouble Sleeping – The Perishers – One of my favorite songs since college.

8. This Boy is Exhausted – Wrens – Just pure honesty about how the fight to do what you want is … exhausting.

9. I’m Scared – Duffy – Beautiful and moving -- I’ve been brought to tears listening to this.

10. Merry Happy – Kate Nash – Try not to move along to the bouncing beat of this song about a girl who’s been rejected and learned she can be alone.

11. Dog Days are Over – Florence + The Machine – This song has been everywhere, and I still don’t think it’s overplayed.

12. Long Distance Call – Phoenix – I normally favor female singer-songwriters who do pop/alternative, but I love everything Phoenix has ever done.

13. Après Moi – Regina Spektor – Haunting, strong song with some strange lyrics (“I am now afraid of the old”).

14. You Got Me All Wrong – Dios Malos – So simple; so tempting to send to exes.

15. Love Like a Sunset, Part I – Phoenix – A wonderful, absorbing, emotional instrumental piece.

16. Love Like a Sunset, Part II – Phoenix – Since I’m not very knowledgeable about music, I have no idea why this in two pieces, but they are both perfect.

A Portion of Pathos: My Personal Plea

I try to stick to the purpose of this blog for the most part, whether that means bending ideas to fit the blog or bending the blog to fit the ideas.  But, this entry's message cannot be contorted into one about dating, nor should it be.  This entry is not about dating or romance or sex.  But, it is about love.  Above all things, it is about love.

I love my little brother.  Like my father, he grew up to be tall and handsome.  His sharp intelligence comes off as unassuming.  His smile comes easily.  He has a sweet disposition.  He is bad at telling jokes but a master at slapstick.  He is one of those people who seems to be good at everything.  And, when he is not the best, you always have the feeling that it might be because he wants to let others win once in a while.  He values where he came from, but has never been afraid to strike out in his own direction.  Sometimes, in fact, it seems like he has never been afraid of anything.  He loves his wife intensely and lives, first and foremost, to protect her vulnerabilities.  He believes in the existence something larger than himself that demands of him equal parts humility and service.  He is noble and strong.  And, he is brave.  He is also being deployed by the U.S. Navy.

It is easy as we debate the institution no-fly zones over Libya, haggle over the merits of attacks by air and by sea, gasp as Gaddafi rails against our impertinence with equal vigor, and grind the issue down to who said what to whom and who that makes a liar, to forget that decisions mean orders and orders mean deployments and deployments mean goodbyes -- goodbyes without the guarantee of hellos again.  The sacrifice of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and siblings has been a part of every war since the beginning of time.  It underlies every decision, every order.  It is present in every report from the war zone.  Yet, we so easily forget (or maybe we ignore) what it means, on this very basic human level, to go to war.  The battles we fight are across oceans, against unfamiliar ideologies, in cities we've never seen.  Most of us do not have a loved one in the military or even know someone who does.  So, yes, I can see how it is easy to forget...how it is possible to ignore.

In reality, today only 1% of the United States shoulders the burden of fighting on behalf of our country in times of war.  Yet, we make more noise over the 1% who pay a higher price in taxes than we do over this 1% who pay a heavier price with their lives, their health, or, at the very least, their hearts.  And unlike the top
1% paying all those taxes, this 1% is neither the richest, nor the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the ablest.  They do not have more life to give than any of the rest of us.  And, yet, they give what they have -- willingly, quietly, and without complaint.  People like my brother risk their own lives.  People like my sister-in-law and my family risk the loss of their husbands, sons, and brothers.  And, all the while, the rest of us, angrily angling for or against this or that policy decision, this or that broken election promise, this or that humanitarian objective, really risk only being wrong. 

It is easy to jump on a bandwagon or be swept away by righteous indignation arguing for a "justice" for which we will never have to personally chip in.  In the business world, the people running a company are inherently distrusted if they will not throw some "skin in the game" (buy stock in their own company).  No one wants to invest in an enterprise in which the guys in charge are afraid to risk their own security.  Yet, we feel entitled to pontificate about committing our troops to a war in which we stand to suffer no personal loss.  If we enter the war, maybe it will be over in days, maybe it will reinforce the power and influence of the U.S., maybe it will win Obama another election -- and maybe it won't.  If we happened to preach the wrong side, the only thing that might be injured is our pride.  At times, we can fall so in love with the personal puffery surrounding political rhetoric that we become blind to the fact that, while saving the citizens of an African nation means we get to be the international hero, it means indescribable suffering to the person who will lose a loved one in the fight.  And that person may be the one sitting there enduring our tirades, biting his or her tongue, adrift in a sea of fear and pain that we could not begin to comprehend.

And, yes, I know:  joining the Navy was my brother's choice.  Months before my brother left for the Naval Academy, al Qaeda ran hijacked planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.  And, in the horror and grief that ensued, my mother asked him if he was reconsidering his choice to go fly planes for the Navy.  He told her very simply: "Yes.  Now I want to go even more."  In the wake of death and terror, people like my brother chose to join the league of protectors rather than protected.  His was a choice that each of us counted on someone else making.  Each one of us who did not choose that life assumed that someone else would.  We took for granted that he and those like him would choose to train and fight and sacrifice so that we could choose otherwise.   This does not now entitle us to disregard that sacrifice in order to defend our self-centered expostulations on impending war.  The deaths of military troops are just as agonizing as the deaths of civilians.  On the other side of each one is a weeping parent, spouse, or child who did not choose that loss, who bears their grief quietly as the cost of love.  My brother did not become expendable because he chose to protect us.  He became invaluable.

There is no thanks that can be given in equal exchange for the service and sacrifice of military members and their families.  I am not asking that more people join the military, nor am I asking that we never enter another war.  All I am asking is that, in our heated debates over who to help and who to bomb, who to support and who to destroy, we remember the obligation inherent to being a citizen of the United States to protect those that protect us.  Today, as we argue and make decisions about who to defend and who to overthrow, I am pleading with each of you to consider the people who will be footing the bill for our righteous indignation and global heroics with their families and their lives.  Rather than lamenting the loss of young glorious men like my brother in the weeks and months that follow, weigh the cost of their loss today.  Among policy and reputation and transparency and politics, let them matter.  Let them matter today as much, if not more, than what the world will think of us tomorrow.

Stories Without Endings

I miss Sex and the City.  I miss it especially now that I live in New York.  Yes, the show can be cartoonish at times.  But, there is also something comforting about knowing that the follies, disappointments, and neuroses of our daily lives are shared among a sisterhood.  It allows us to laugh at ourselves.  And, within our own little families of girlfriends, we compare ourselves to those singular characters, identifying the bits of them in each of us.  Rather than being adrift in the seas of our own troubles, we are connected to a universal experience.

Plus, there are things to be learned from Sex and the City:  that your most valuable asset is your adopted family of friends, that money is nice but it isn't everything, that adaptability is key to happiness, and on and on.  One SATC lesson that occurred to me lately isn't what I would call an overt theme in the show, but more of a latent truth about life that translates to the SATC story line.  Over the course of the show's six seasons, I noticed that (with the exception of Samantha), the girls tend to date just one person at a time -- all for various periods of time and with varying levels of success, to be sure.  But, really, it is rare that any one of them is jumping from man to man or dating multiple men at once (again, with the exception of Samantha, who even settles into her own monogamous relationship by the final seasons). 

This particular dynamic of the show seems to me to be the most inaccurate with regard to the normal dating patterns of Manhattanites.  Most single women I know in New York have a much more sporadic, overlapping, and frenzied parade of lovers than is depicted on the show.  Let's face it, at times, we go through men like New Yorkers do umbrellas in a rainstorm.  In fact, considering the volume, variety, and vulnerability of dating in New York, the romantic lives of a lot of Manhattan women end up being comedic in their own respect.  So, why downplay this reality when it is so humor-ripe?

At first, they didn't.  Very early episodes (beginning with the pilot) seem to embrace the skittishness of dating in NYC, and even some later ones throw in a random one-off or two.  But, as the seasons wore on and the show moved from the attract-viewership mode to the keep-viewership mode, the dating MO of the characters shifted.  My theory on why:  because aside from the obvious joke presented by the A.D.D. method of dating, there really is no story there.  Viewers need to be drawn into the drama, get to know and connect with the characters, and feel that the plot of the series goes someplace meaningful. 

And, we crave in our own lives the same sense of story we crave in SATC.  Each person you date is special and unique in one way or another, but individual connection loses some of its impact when it is just a drop in a pond during a monsoon.  The fate of the expanding ripples created by that single raindrop is lost to the fury of the storm.  The business of dating is just like learning a skill, starting a career, or taking on a hobby -- most of the satisfaction comes from getting better at it and seeing where it takes you.  In dating, yes, you've got to run the gamut a bit to sort through your options, but that is only a meaningful process if it leads somewhere.  If it doesn't, eventually, it starts to feel a little hollow (leaving a lot of room for malcontentment).

I recently met up with my friend B, who began talking about his girlfriend, who he had been dating for about a month.  What??  A month and you're already calling her your girlfriend?  In a world where two people can casually date for years on end, I had to know -- what was it about this girl that made him switch into girlfriend mode so quickly?  His answer: nothing.  Nothing that he couldn't eventually find in someone else, anyway. 

"I'll meet tons of girls," he explained to me, "who will all turn out to be some variation on awesome.  And, I could go from one kind of awesome to another forever like that.  So, I realized that, if I wanted something of substance, I would just have to choose."  So, choose he did.  And, now, despite all of the other flavors of awesome he encounters, B focuses on appreciating the awesome that is his girlfriend.  And, by his own admission, he is happy.  One day, if all goes well, I have a suspicion that he will be so sold on her brand of awesome, that all of the other awesomes will start to seem a little less awesome.

It's just as true in real life as it is on Sex and the City:  Dating a parade of suitors can be an adventure.  It's what attracts people to singlehood in New York.  But, it is a cycle that becomes familiar after a while, and then wearisome, and then numbing.  At that point, instead of losing viewers, however, we begin to lose ourselves. 

So, maybe traveling down just one road becomes the new adventure.  Investing in one person becomes the new uncharted territory.  We have the forward momentum, we just have to choose the direction.  Choose a path, choose a partner, choose to put ourselves out there in a way that is unfamiliar (or even frightening). 

Great.  Now that we've figured that out, the question becomes: how exactly does one decide to choose?  That one is going to take a little more figuring out for me.  It's been so long since I actually made that choice (or since anyone made it in regard to me) that I sometimes forget what it feels like.  But, I can objectively see that it happens.  So, it can't be impossible.

Even then, there is no guarantee that the path (or person) you choose will get you anywhere that you want to go.  But, avoiding failure is also avoiding success.  As a writer, I know that I'll start a hundred stories or blog posts or poems that I am bound to never finish.  But, I sit down to write them anyway, knowing that, in terms of endings, all I really need is just one.

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In the meantime, here are some places that the girls didn't go in Sex and the City that they probably should have:

The Pink Pony

Ludlow St. between Stanton and E. Houston Sts.
It's a coffee shop.  No, it's a diner.  No, it's a bar.  Ok, so it has sort of an identity crisis.  Actually, according to the staff, it's "transitioning it's image."  Whatever.  It's cute in a French-countryside-meets-hipster-cool kind of way.  The vibe is relaxed, the pace is slow, and the place is generally inviting.  The food is just ok (my goat cheese and beet salad had way too many beets and not enough cheese to match) and the coffee was middle of the road but flowed freely. 

The Roebling Tearoom
Roebling St. at Metropolitan St. (Brooklyn)
Picture a warehouse made over just enough to be functional as a gathering place, and there you go.  Another place that has simply decided to change with the times...of day.  Coffee and tea in the morning to a substantial food menu during the day to a bar with the basics and some decent beers on tap in the evening.  It's in Williamsburgh, so the atmosphere leans towards hip rather than trendy, which is a distinction rarely made, but worth noting.

Cowgirl (Hall of Fame)
Hudson St. between W. 10th and Charles Sts.
Formerly known by its full name: the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, Cowgirl is Tex-Mex with a feminine twist.  It's true they have a fair amount of memorabilia, cow print, and things made out of animal horns, but it's more of a restaurant/bar than a legit museum (just in case you had gotten your hopes up).  I came here for the food months ago -- and it was good, especially if you like things made with corn.  But, I came here for the margaritas only recently, and found myself wishing that I had sampled them the first time around.  I might have come back sooner.