Male mid-life crisis blah blah blah.
Besides the many, many ways in which this article is offensive to men, women, and anyone with a brain, this sentence stood out to me:
Outside the office, these women use their type A careerist energy to become multitasking machines—they run the board of their favorite charities, challenge their men on the ski slopes, have a healthy post-Cosmo attitude toward threesomes, decorate to Martha Stewart’s standards, make steak chili on game day, and, while dishing it out, present a solid case for why the Steelers should go for it at fourth and one.
Ladies, in order to be the perfect female, not only do you have to be professionally and physically successful, but you also have to be knowledgeable about football and have a healthy attitude towards threesomes. That one phrase caused INTENSE anger in me. Because you know, if you’re not interested in having another person in your bedroom, obviously you are UNhealthy and something is seriously wrong with you. Forget freedom of choice and making your own decisions about your own body, you big prude. Of course, that third party will be a female, preferably one your guy is attracted to, preferably one of your good friends.
All this from a women’s magazine. Barf. -M
I don’t even know what to say. The article veers so quickly from, “Men are selfish spoiled children who need to grow up,” to “Women are micromanaging nags who scare all the menz away,” I’m pretty sure I have whiplash of the brain. Who are you trying to blame exactly? The description “offensive to everyone” is pretty fitting.
The only conclusion I drew at the end of this is that it sounded like a lot of couples in unsatisfying relationships who were trying to force their mediocre lives together into being something more than it was and/or clinging to each other out of fear. It might sound crazy, but people who actually really like each other and aren’t freaked out by the prospect of spending their lives together don’t have these sorts of problems. While it’s sad that some people in their 30s apparently haven’t figured out yet that you shouldn’t stay with someone you don’t really like that much, however nice they may be and how much you might admire and respect them, I think that’s a problem with the handful of people addressed in the article…not with the rest of society being filled with bullying type A hun-ettes and infantile man-children.
What the fuck is going on? Are people really like this?
Here are some keys to an awesome relationship:
-Stop taking things so seriously
-Live by your own timetable, not someone else’s
-Sacrifice. And before you say, “I do sacrifice,” think about whether or not it hurts enough.
-Have common interests and common friends
-Have separate interests and separate friends
-Stop looking for escape routes
-Don’t hunt for snakes
-Drink
-Have unprotected sex. If you get pregnant, don’t have an abortion.
-Finally, don’t strive for constant happiness. There is nothing wrong with content. And content doesn’t leave you with that creepy smile plastered on your face. Also, get comfortable with rage, depression, melancholy, anger, nausea, joy, fear, sadness, and ennui. The expectation to be happy all the time is fucking ridiculous. And before you say, “I never said I wanted to be happy all the time,” think for a second.
