I would like to share with you a recent NYC-based dating episode involving a good friend of Penelope’s (not a disguise for Penelope, I swear). This case study is based on the last five months in the dating life of Priscilla Worthington, a good friend of Penelope’s.
I met Priscilla’s new “man” (just wait, you'll see why I question his manhood) a couple of months into their relationship. Let’s call him Mr. Private Equity. He hails from a posh ‘hood in Newport, Rhode Island and collected a degree from HBS along the way (the mention of which, ten years ago, would have impressed me, but now comes across like an admission of HIV+ status).
So, I met Mr. Private Equity randomly when he showed up to collect Priscilla from an impromptu soiree we were enjoying with the Naked Man and another friend at Smith & Wollensky’s, the capitol of steak and testosterone in NYC. Private Equity seemed ill at ease in the environment and hid a bit behind Priscilla’s skirt. I didn’t want to tell her my initial impressions but I suspected Private Equity would have to break up with himself first before he could date anyone seriously, much less Priscilla, a tall Eastern European head turner with a wicked long drive on the golf course.
I held my tongue, recognizing that Penelope is not exactly a role model for healthy or long-term relationships (unless two months counts as “long term,” which sadly it may in NYC, the city of transient emotions and commitments).
I watched and I listened. The courtship progressed. Although he did not golf, he was an avid runner so he was at least health-oriented. Plus, they shared a love of the theater and they had already booked a New Year’s vacation to the Dominican Republic (before any incidence of cholera had been reported).
But then there was the evening we met for a shopping session at Bergdorf’s so she could shop for a “break up dress.” Some of you may be unfamiliar with the term, but a break up dress is the classy yet sexy dress one wears when one suspects one may be on the precipice of a break up. The theory is that he will see what he thinks he is about to discard, begin to drool, lose all sense of reason, be overwhelmed with torrid images of removing the dress and invite her away for a romantic weekend instead of breaking up with her. The ability of a female to cloud a man’s judgment has long been one of the most significant factors in the perpetuation of the human species, trust me.
Then there were more troubling signs: the weekend he disappeared to Alaska for a funeral, followed a few days later by another trip out West for a memorial service during which he remained incommunicado throughout; and his inability to hold his liquor (actually, any liquor). What was emerging was a stark pattern of incompatibility.
Yet it was still a surprise when at the tail end of a girls’ weekend in Palm Beach Mr. Private Equity and Priscilla broke up.
First there was the abrupt email. He sent her a scathingly critical email as we sat at a bar waiting to board our flight back to NYC. I was so stunned when she relayed the contents that I forgot to pay the bill. Fortunately, ten minutes after boarding, JetBlue re-opened the closed gate, delayed our departure and encouraged me to deplane so I could pay the bill (I really hope that $12 in revenue keeps that bar afloat).
One of the many complaints Private Equity leveled was that Priscilla had not given sufficient prior notice of our intended plans to grab a burger at our favorite burger joint upon returning from FL that evening. Not only was he horrified and appalled by the blatant spontaneity of the burger scheme, but he was truly disgusted by her suggestion that she would then meet up with him post-burger and post-wine. “Priscilla,” he responded “that sounds like a booty call.”
Wait, isn’t every American guy’s dream to have some chick call him up for a booty call? Am I missing something?
Despite his behavior, Ms. Worthington remained open-minded and agreed to meet up with Private Equity for dinner the following evening to sort out their misunderstandings. She planned her outfit carefully. Having worn the break up dress one too many times, she deliberately wore pants for this meeting—the denial of calves and flesh, the ultimate insult. I didn’t want to tell her, but she had been wearing the pants all the time, and had been the only one wearing pants.
It’s awful to be dumped, but to be dumped by a guy who is likely gay and constantly has relatives dying in Alaska is particularly harsh.
In retrospect the compromises Ms. Worthington made were too great, but when do we know where to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable compromises? How do we navigate the grey area? None of us want to grow old alone so compromise seems like an obvious path forward, no? Maybe the fact he did not play golf was not grounds for immediate romantic dismissal, but short of non-negotiable behavior, like physical violence, how does one decide what is grounds for dismissal?
Penelope
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving
I'm sure you all noticed last week's Wall Street Journal article on the correlation between happiness and gratitude. Grateful people are happier people.
So, when I woke up this morning I immediately set to counting my blessings:
Today I am thankful for :
• The company and friendship of the Naked Man,
• A job in a challenging and fickle economy,
• A family in good health,
• A leopardcat that pees on the floor only in one part of the apartment but not every part,
• The fact that my house guest didn't think anything of the fact that I was too tired (arguably a euphemism for inebriated) to make it to my bed last night so slept fully clothed (with shoes on) on the pull out couch next to her,
• The country-wide insider trading investigation (which, frankly, is like Christmas arriving early for hedge fund lawyers), and
• All of Penelope's supporters and their comical and insightful responses to my "private blog"
Happy Thanksgiving from the Entire Editorial Staff of The Lunch Report
Penelope Frost, Editor in Chief
So, when I woke up this morning I immediately set to counting my blessings:
Today I am thankful for :
• The company and friendship of the Naked Man,
• A job in a challenging and fickle economy,
• A family in good health,
• A leopardcat that pees on the floor only in one part of the apartment but not every part,
• The fact that my house guest didn't think anything of the fact that I was too tired (arguably a euphemism for inebriated) to make it to my bed last night so slept fully clothed (with shoes on) on the pull out couch next to her,
• The country-wide insider trading investigation (which, frankly, is like Christmas arriving early for hedge fund lawyers), and
• All of Penelope's supporters and their comical and insightful responses to my "private blog"
Happy Thanksgiving from the Entire Editorial Staff of The Lunch Report
Penelope Frost, Editor in Chief
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Naked Man Report: The Naked Muse?
I don't want to bore you with my tales of the Naked Man, but . . .
As it turns out, the Naked Man is also a muse, in the most unconventional sense. When we think about a muse, we usually think about a female sylph wandering around the moonlit woods at night, surfacing occasionally in a transparent pink gauze nightie with a pale cherub-like smile on her face.
My muse is not so easily marketable. He (yeah, that’s the first problem--they're always supposed to be “shes”, no?) would really put people off if I dressed him in a gauze nightie, no matter what the color. My muse wears a size large golf shirt, drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney (although he swears this won't carry over to 2011).
How could anyone be inspired by such a booze muse? I'll tell you how. This muse defies every stereotype that has guided my bigoted existence for the last 20+ years.
The Naked Smoking Muse has the affection of a kitten (although he abhors cats, not pussy, just cats). The NSM worships Glenn Beck and his compatriots but will still show enough consideration to tear out an article on our Democratic Senator Gillibrand from the NY Post and pass it my way, even if he SOO disapproves of her.
The NSM will condemn 501(c)(3) organizations in general and their borderline fraudulent tax schemes, and then he'll bring you to a benefit for anal canine cancer in Bridgeport, CT, where the host of the benefit welcomes you to “God’s Country.” (Bridgeport, CT? Really? Makes that stable where Jesus was born look a little bit like the newest induction to the Small Luxury Hotel Collection).
My only regret is the same regret that anyone has about a muse. The muse remains an idea and an inspiration, but the muse is never a living, breathing or present human being who wants to keep you company. A muse materializes and disappears at opportune and inopportune moments, the disappearance always being the most powerful aspect of his or her existence. The muse is, and remains, an idea.
A naked muse? Why the question mark? Clearly there’s something great about the Naked Smoking Muse, but clearly, he doesn’t want to be a boyfriend or fill any similar conventional role. So Penelope has been searching for a place where NSM might feel comfortable and thrive. Let’s see:
1. Good friend? Yawn. My Siamese cat is a good friend. I can’t kiss a good friend (although I confess I have tried to kiss the Siamese when tipsy and she clawed my lips)—just won't work for Penelope and I suspect not for NSM.
2. FWB? Never, no, no, no, and no analysis needed.
3. Brother figure? Please see the response to 1.
4. Father figure? (A) Fathers don’t generally have children at age 11 and (B) please see response to question number 1.
5. Occasional Trysting. Guys fantasy. Chicks undoing/nightmare. I’ll pass.
6. Girlfriend/Boyfriend. Could work but there are serious perception issues. “Boyfriend” is perceived by the man not as a resting state, but as a transitional state before the chick nails him down, makes her pregnant and wrests all freedom, spontaneity and fun from his life. If that were my perception, trust me, I would run faster than he would (and not just because he has a bad knee). So, unless there’s some sort of marketing campaign launched to undo the distorted image of these roles, this won’t work either.
So, sigh, maybe this is why muses are transient presences in our lives, meant to peak for a few months, leave us crest fallen and then be replaced by a brand new muse (BNM). No BNM has surfaced so I am going to try hard to see what can be harvested from the NSM. I just can’t bear foregoing the Naked Muse altogether, not just yet. No, no, no.
Muses are creatures defined by their transiency. They leave. It’s the memory—and not the muse—that inspires, if not distracts us. There are no live in muses—as soon as they move in, they lose their muse-like inspirational powers as they overwhelm and bore use with their utterly trite permanence.
Penelope
As it turns out, the Naked Man is also a muse, in the most unconventional sense. When we think about a muse, we usually think about a female sylph wandering around the moonlit woods at night, surfacing occasionally in a transparent pink gauze nightie with a pale cherub-like smile on her face.
My muse is not so easily marketable. He (yeah, that’s the first problem--they're always supposed to be “shes”, no?) would really put people off if I dressed him in a gauze nightie, no matter what the color. My muse wears a size large golf shirt, drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney (although he swears this won't carry over to 2011).
How could anyone be inspired by such a booze muse? I'll tell you how. This muse defies every stereotype that has guided my bigoted existence for the last 20+ years.
The Naked Smoking Muse has the affection of a kitten (although he abhors cats, not pussy, just cats). The NSM worships Glenn Beck and his compatriots but will still show enough consideration to tear out an article on our Democratic Senator Gillibrand from the NY Post and pass it my way, even if he SOO disapproves of her.
The NSM will condemn 501(c)(3) organizations in general and their borderline fraudulent tax schemes, and then he'll bring you to a benefit for anal canine cancer in Bridgeport, CT, where the host of the benefit welcomes you to “God’s Country.” (Bridgeport, CT? Really? Makes that stable where Jesus was born look a little bit like the newest induction to the Small Luxury Hotel Collection).
My only regret is the same regret that anyone has about a muse. The muse remains an idea and an inspiration, but the muse is never a living, breathing or present human being who wants to keep you company. A muse materializes and disappears at opportune and inopportune moments, the disappearance always being the most powerful aspect of his or her existence. The muse is, and remains, an idea.
A naked muse? Why the question mark? Clearly there’s something great about the Naked Smoking Muse, but clearly, he doesn’t want to be a boyfriend or fill any similar conventional role. So Penelope has been searching for a place where NSM might feel comfortable and thrive. Let’s see:
1. Good friend? Yawn. My Siamese cat is a good friend. I can’t kiss a good friend (although I confess I have tried to kiss the Siamese when tipsy and she clawed my lips)—just won't work for Penelope and I suspect not for NSM.
2. FWB? Never, no, no, no, and no analysis needed.
3. Brother figure? Please see the response to 1.
4. Father figure? (A) Fathers don’t generally have children at age 11 and (B) please see response to question number 1.
5. Occasional Trysting. Guys fantasy. Chicks undoing/nightmare. I’ll pass.
6. Girlfriend/Boyfriend. Could work but there are serious perception issues. “Boyfriend” is perceived by the man not as a resting state, but as a transitional state before the chick nails him down, makes her pregnant and wrests all freedom, spontaneity and fun from his life. If that were my perception, trust me, I would run faster than he would (and not just because he has a bad knee). So, unless there’s some sort of marketing campaign launched to undo the distorted image of these roles, this won’t work either.
So, sigh, maybe this is why muses are transient presences in our lives, meant to peak for a few months, leave us crest fallen and then be replaced by a brand new muse (BNM). No BNM has surfaced so I am going to try hard to see what can be harvested from the NSM. I just can’t bear foregoing the Naked Muse altogether, not just yet. No, no, no.
Muses are creatures defined by their transiency. They leave. It’s the memory—and not the muse—that inspires, if not distracts us. There are no live in muses—as soon as they move in, they lose their muse-like inspirational powers as they overwhelm and bore use with their utterly trite permanence.
Penelope
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Naked Man Report: Romancing The Philistine
Some of you will recall Penelope’s encounter with the Naked Man over a month ago.* By way of an update, Penelope and the Naked Man continue to share grilled cheese and pinot grigio from time to time.
Despite exemplary character traits such as opening doors, pulling out chairs and placing ice cubes in his white wine,* the Naked Man is a self-proclaimed philistine, a Naked Philistine.
How does a brash Ivy League brat who gets a high from deconstructionism and other literary theories date a philistine?
Dating a philistine means Penelope needs to find someone else with whom to see Swan Lake at City Center (which, as you well know, runs through November 7th). Why? Because all male dancers are gay and no heterosexual man wants to watch gay men flaunt their packages in sheer tights midtown on the West side, or so the Naked Philistine posits.
Dating a philistine means Proustian analogies are to be avoided and no mention of a madeleine should be made, even a trite reference used to describe some maudlin flash of nostalgia. Literary references should be limited to the NY Post and The Drudge Report. If it ain’t in one of those publications, then it’s not worth talking about (and who cares if you end a sentence with a preposition anyway).
What intrigues me though is why the Naked Philistine so adamantly and proudly claims the philistine title. Was this so I would be surprised and seduced by his sense of literary modesty when he quoted Shakespeare to me while downing sirloin at Smith & Wollensky? And by the way, does a true philistine even know the word philistine?!
Was this so I would be stripped (figuratively, please) of any respect associated with having achieved, at least on paper, an education and be made to understand that a girl who works at Hooters is on a level playing field with me from the perspective of the Naked Philistine? Actually, she's probably on a higher plane than I am, because at least she knows how to market herself, which may be critical from the Naked Philistine's perspective—the ability to translate talent into cash or some other equally laudable commodity.
What's the great shame with liking books and art, if not preferring them most of the time to the drudge of corporate achievement? Is it that it can’t be quantified (except, of course, by certain hedge fund managers who frequent Christies and Sothebys)?* Perhaps naively, I thought the best in life could not be quantified: a warm smile on a gray day, a well-timed hug, a joke that jolts you from a depressive torpor.
The Naked Philistine devours newspapers, as many as possible, every morning, often as early as 4:50am. Maybe he chooses this uncivilized hour in an effort to hide his thirst for knowledge and his fascination with politics from the light of day.
Who knows why he holds the arts in such disdain. Maybe he scorns the false superiority of those who aspire to “intellect.” But that’s conflating two important notions. Enjoying the arts is radically different from pretending to some form of artistic expertise and judging others for a supposed lack of it, both of which Penelope abhors.
As disappointed as Penelope is that the Naked Philistine doesn't want to see Swan Lake (“ballet no way,” he said—at least he rhymed), she remains open to what she can learn from the Naked Philistine on topics and techniques of which she is completely ignorant. Maybe it’s all part of the opposites attract or complement each other theory.
In any event, at least for the present, and based on an application of a broad selection of psycho-social-emotional theories, Penelope has decided that philistinism is not in fact a tragic flaw (with apologies to the reference to Greek dramaturgy). He may well have fatal flaws—maybe she will discover one tonight—but this is not the one.
Notes
*See “Beware the Naked Man,” http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2010/10/beware-naked-man.html
*I respect people who thumb their noses at extraneous etiquette. There are so many good reasons to put ice in your white wine, not the least of which is that I can drink as slowly as I like and it will remain chilled.
*Although some dispute whether hedge fund managers drive the prices at auctions houses, hedge fund managers Kenneth Griffin and Steven Cohen have been among the top 10 art buyers in the last year. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a91lHt5PmIQ8&refer=muse
Despite exemplary character traits such as opening doors, pulling out chairs and placing ice cubes in his white wine,* the Naked Man is a self-proclaimed philistine, a Naked Philistine.
How does a brash Ivy League brat who gets a high from deconstructionism and other literary theories date a philistine?
Dating a philistine means Penelope needs to find someone else with whom to see Swan Lake at City Center (which, as you well know, runs through November 7th). Why? Because all male dancers are gay and no heterosexual man wants to watch gay men flaunt their packages in sheer tights midtown on the West side, or so the Naked Philistine posits.
Dating a philistine means Proustian analogies are to be avoided and no mention of a madeleine should be made, even a trite reference used to describe some maudlin flash of nostalgia. Literary references should be limited to the NY Post and The Drudge Report. If it ain’t in one of those publications, then it’s not worth talking about (and who cares if you end a sentence with a preposition anyway).
What intrigues me though is why the Naked Philistine so adamantly and proudly claims the philistine title. Was this so I would be surprised and seduced by his sense of literary modesty when he quoted Shakespeare to me while downing sirloin at Smith & Wollensky? And by the way, does a true philistine even know the word philistine?!
Was this so I would be stripped (figuratively, please) of any respect associated with having achieved, at least on paper, an education and be made to understand that a girl who works at Hooters is on a level playing field with me from the perspective of the Naked Philistine? Actually, she's probably on a higher plane than I am, because at least she knows how to market herself, which may be critical from the Naked Philistine's perspective—the ability to translate talent into cash or some other equally laudable commodity.
What's the great shame with liking books and art, if not preferring them most of the time to the drudge of corporate achievement? Is it that it can’t be quantified (except, of course, by certain hedge fund managers who frequent Christies and Sothebys)?* Perhaps naively, I thought the best in life could not be quantified: a warm smile on a gray day, a well-timed hug, a joke that jolts you from a depressive torpor.
The Naked Philistine devours newspapers, as many as possible, every morning, often as early as 4:50am. Maybe he chooses this uncivilized hour in an effort to hide his thirst for knowledge and his fascination with politics from the light of day.
Who knows why he holds the arts in such disdain. Maybe he scorns the false superiority of those who aspire to “intellect.” But that’s conflating two important notions. Enjoying the arts is radically different from pretending to some form of artistic expertise and judging others for a supposed lack of it, both of which Penelope abhors.
As disappointed as Penelope is that the Naked Philistine doesn't want to see Swan Lake (“ballet no way,” he said—at least he rhymed), she remains open to what she can learn from the Naked Philistine on topics and techniques of which she is completely ignorant. Maybe it’s all part of the opposites attract or complement each other theory.
In any event, at least for the present, and based on an application of a broad selection of psycho-social-emotional theories, Penelope has decided that philistinism is not in fact a tragic flaw (with apologies to the reference to Greek dramaturgy). He may well have fatal flaws—maybe she will discover one tonight—but this is not the one.
Notes
*See “Beware the Naked Man,” http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2010/10/beware-naked-man.html
*I respect people who thumb their noses at extraneous etiquette. There are so many good reasons to put ice in your white wine, not the least of which is that I can drink as slowly as I like and it will remain chilled.
*Although some dispute whether hedge fund managers drive the prices at auctions houses, hedge fund managers Kenneth Griffin and Steven Cohen have been among the top 10 art buyers in the last year. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a91lHt5PmIQ8&refer=muse
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