The Bespectacled Bachelor and his Elusive Amazon
It feels great to be back to blogging after a lengthy absence, but I assure you, it was not all for naught. Over the past month, I've received acceptance letters from my three journalism grad schools! Now that the apps are done with, I hope I'll have more time to devote to this fledgling little blog.Now that we've exchanged pleasantries (or at least I've offered mine), here's what I've been wanting to talk about for quite awhile. And I say "talk" because I truly hope that some of you will get back to me with your thoughts on this or anything else I write. I think of the blog - and journalism as a whole, really - as more of a dialouge than a lecture. Here we go...
A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I walked the chilly block to our local Starbucks. I needed to study for a final the next day and he was reading. It was crowded in the coffeeshop that night, so we sat in close proximity to two guys about our age.
The guy doing most of the talking was thin and wearing glasses. Shifting his cardboard coffee cup between his hands, he described to his companion the latest in his romantic travails. He boasted about his many dates (apparently he was a Starbucks regular and met many a caffienated lady during his evenings there) and joked about a particularly buxom co-worker.
But this is what caught my attention. I'll try to transcribe the quote as accurately as possible, but several weeks and several more Starbucks visits tend to dull the memory. He said, "I think it must be that she feels uncomfortable because she's taller than me."
My ears perked, my eyes wandered. Could this bespectacled bachelor be analyzing his relationship with the elusive amazon that got away?
I thought only women analyzed their relationships.
Perhaps I'm being unfairly stereotypical, but despite the articles I've read about the feminization of the modern male and the neurotic men of sitcoms, I'd yet to meet a single man who thought this hard about his relationship with a woman.
Sure, men in love are sometimes worse than their female counterparts when it comes to obsessing about a relationship, but for a guy who is casually dating to speculate the cause of his relationship's demise seemed new and different.
Could this be the beginning of the end for gender roles? Are we embarking on a new chapter in the history of the human race? As women become more concerned with equality in the workplace, will men take over the traditional female role of relationship caretaker?
Yackety yack - please talk back!
posted by Tina @ 8:06 PM
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