Today while I was waiting for some files to upload, I randomly perused some ancient blog entries of mine. I came across this one post from a November day 4 years ago (almost to the day today):
"the movie was called amy's big O! i just wanted amy to have an orgasm, not fall in love!"
see, even when all you're after is a little soft-core pseudo-porn to ease the tensions of life, you end up being tricked into watching a romantic comedy. on my not-so-good days life seems like a conspireacy at every turn. so i go listen to the latest sarah mclaughlin and cry over a sink full of dishes; it feels like such a quintessentially early-twenty-something thing to do, and as such it is deeply satisfying. in five or seven or ten years, when i am stylishly settled in an urban environment with my metrosexual partner, i will look back on my days of girlish angst and laugh and laugh and laugh. yes, while we sip cognac...we'll laugh at the days when life seemed complicated and love seemed hopeless and sex seemed impossible...
And while I was reading this, what came to mind is all the times I've had with the Russian lover, sitting in a bath or curled up in bed, sipping whiskey -- and sometimes cognac -- and talking about the strange, strange life I used to have and the confused girl I used to be. And we laugh and laugh about it.
Thankfully, I am not laughing and sipping cognac with a metrosexual. What the hell was I thinking, a metrosexual? Metrosexuals are the worst kinds of things. They're not men, and they're not gay. What are they!?!
I guess metrosexuals are what you get when you castrate an entire society of males...when you make masculinity offensive. When you put a pair of trousers on femininity and sell it to boys...don't fight, don't win, don't shout, don't lust. Don't be aggressive, be agreeable. Take up baking and conflict resolution and women will flock to you. If you want to attract women, act like a girl who just happens to have a penis.
And for awhile, women seemed to enjoy the novelty. Oh look! Men who coordinate their scarves and make a perfect creme brulee! Men who paint watercolor pictures about their childhood insecurities to the light of scented candles!! Men who take longer to get ready in the morning than we do!!!
Suddenly, it was like women could actually date their best girlfriends. This was great, right?
Except, now women are remembering why they didn't just go ahead and date their best girlfriends in the first place. Sure, it's great to have someone who is as interested in bed linens and pomades and shoes as you are. But the thing about matchy-matchy interpersonal dynamics is that it kills tension. When you both love antiquing and plucking your eyebrows, there is no abrasion between you. And that constant rubbing between two imperfectly compatible beings is what creates the spark of sexual desire.
The metrosexual is nowhere near women's idea of the ideal man, if the massive market for paperback romance novels is any indication.. A metrosexual would never rip your bodice open because oh my god, that would ruin a good blouse! A metrosexual would never thrust aside the china and glassware on a dining table, sending it smashing onto the floor simply so he could have his way with you right then and there on the hard polished wood surface (the china -it's Tiffany! the table - don't scratch it!). A metrosexual would never strip you down, tie you up, and whip you with his belt because - oh dear - that would violate your 21st century egalitarian dynamic!
While a metrosexual might be a perfectly acceptable partner when it comes to picking out the 500 thread count sheets for the bed, he is perfectly useless once you have him in it. I for one want a man whose only preference for the bed is that there is a naked woman waiting for him in it.