Articles

CAN'T GET A DATE? YES, YOU CAN
MAY 22, 2006
AM NEW YORK - "THE DATING LIFE"
BY JULIA ALLISON

Despite my embarrassing devotion to self-improvement and a fondness for makeovers that rivals Tyra Banks, I've always disliked dating-reformation shows.

The hosts tend to be irritating, obsequious and bland, while the so-called "relationship experts" seem more interested in looking good on camera, spewing one-size-fits-all clichés and touting their newest book (in bookstores now!).

In the end, the lost soul who moronically agreed to let television producers follow his or her abysmal dating life gets nothing more than a new haircut and some lame suggestions.

Fantastic.

Um... no.

VH1's new reality series, "Can't Get A Date," keeps the idea of transformation but chucks the annoying characters.

The host, kept anonymous during the show, is heard but not seen. Like the Voice of God, he guides the lovelorn subject exclusively from behind the camera. The ensuing dialogue is less Simon Cowell--pointlessly mean and utterly unhelpful--and more what your friends would say if they thought you could handle "the truth."

That truth--along with an obligatory dose of hope--is what "Can't Get A Date" is all about.

In fact, the host begins the show by explaining that "the truth can be harsh, but dating doesn't have to be."

He then answers his own question, "Can't get a date?" with a firm "Yes, you can." Like good makeover-cum-personal-growth TV, it's all so comforting. The show taps into both our obsession with flaws and our need to be reassured that flaws can be fixed. Sure, you may be a train wreck, ­ but if you let a reality tv show voice tell you how to clean up your act, you can find love, too!

Although the idea of helping "real people, with real trouble, needing real advice" (the self-described purpose of "Can't Get A Date") isn't exactly an original one, the host's blunt critiques make it refreshing.

That host, a former camera technician named Stefan Springman, also created and produced the show, his first. With an uncommonly melodious and authoritative voice, he counsels like a professional, but insists that he's not a dating 'expert' per se.

"I don't believe there's such a thing," he told me. "I just try to tell it like it is."

In one episode, he introduces Jim, a hapless poet who has remained dateless since moving to New York a year ago.

While poets are admittedly not No. 1 on the list of Most-Desired-Professions-for-a-Boyfriend, Springman insists that "im's real problems have nothing to do with poetry." With that, he matter-of-factly details a laundry list of said "real problems":

1. short
2. broke
3. bald
4. fat
5. lacks ambition
6. naked exhibitionist
7. Hello Kitty bedroom sheets
8. nasty toe fungus

"It's enough to keep even a nice guy like Jim alone forever," he concludes.

How's that for unvarnished honesty?

"People make excuses for themselves," Springman explained. "I shine a light on the truth."

Indeed. Over the course of the show, he addresses each problem with a curt evaluation followed by a solution.

He deep-sixes Jim's online self-portrait nudes, saying, "The naked photos are not helping you get a date," and adding sternly for good measure, "Jim, your privacy borders are not well-defined."

He cleans up Jim's disaster of a bedroom, chiding him for the Hello Kitty bedspread and rank odor. "Jim, those are inappropriate sheets for a grown man. And it smells rancid in here."

He takes him to a podiatrist. "Jim, what is wrong with your toes?" (FYI, they really ARE nasty.) He instructs Jim to delete the online list of girls he likes, dubbed his "Crush List": "The crush list makes you look desperate. Detonate the crush list."

He advises Jim to "leave a little mystery. You don't want to just vomit your entire personality upfront." And finally, he tells Jim in no uncertain terms to lose weight.

"What kind of shape are you in?" he asks. Jim, who is as good-natured as he is riddled with superficial flaws, responds with one of the funniest lines I've ever heard on Reality TV.

"Bad shape. The wrong shape. Not even 'shape.' It's like more like... 'shap.'"

In the end, Jim actually follows Springman's no-BS advice. He concludes the half-hour episode (shot over three months) having lost 30 pounds, redone his bedroom, dealt with the foot fungus, removed naked Internet photos and, yes, gotten a date.

Of course, with a little outside perspective, a bit of common sense, and a team of reality show producers, most people's relationship problems are easy to 'solve,' at least superficially.

Still, Jim seemed genuinely, gleefully, transformed. Sometimes all it takes is someone brazen enough to tell you the truth--and make you do something about it.

Perhaps Mr. Springman is a more of a dating expert than he realizes.

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GETTING HITCHED – AND ANNOUNCING IT OBNOXIOUSLY IN THE NYT
AM NEW YORK – “THE DATING LIFE”
MAY 15, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

There are two types of women in this city: those who adore the New York Times Weddings announcements and hope they’ll be featured, and those who think such announcements are insufferable, archaic and pretentious … and hope they’ll be featured.

I’m the latter.
Either way, come Sunday morning, we all stare bleary-eyed at the back of the Style section, fixated for an embarrassing length of time on what David Brooks once called “The Mergers and Acquisitions page.”

But aimless scanning is for amateurs – pros (such as myself) conduct a truly comprehensive analysis, meticulously filtering the announcements for socioeconomic research and recreational mockery.  After all, until the Times starts printing Divorce notices, there’s nothing more captivating than the compressed 20-line resumes of our city’s newest pseudo-aristocratic couples.

As for those actually getting hitched, well, unless you want to pay – and no one does, that’s tres gauche – clawing your way into that bastion of archaic pretentiousness requires discipline, strategy and dedication to the Art of the Proper Announcement.

Of course, to learn the art, you have to study the art – a true devotee has a range of analysis to make. Since brides love checklists, more than any demographic except perhaps SAT tutors, I’ve lovingly prepared the following guidelines for those who wish to embark upon Meticulous and Exhaustive Official NYT Wedding Announcement Research.

As a public service, I'll share it with the armchair knot-tie-ers (living vicariously through the matrimony of others!), in hopes that your next Weddings read is infinitely more satisfying.

To set proper mood, obtain coffee saturated with Splenda, kick boyfriend out of room, turn cell phone to silent.  Curl up on couch, locate Style section, unfold to last page.  Curse newsprint for turning your new manicure black.  Do not get distracted by large color picture in “Vows” section!  You have serious work to do.  Start at first announcement and …

1)    Scrutinize photo.

a.    Weigh couples’ respective attractiveness.  Note if she’s hot and he’s not.  Wonder how he landed her.  Check profession to confirm suspicions (yep, “generational wealth”).
b.    If only bride photo is provided, assume groom is fugly, bald and/or fake.  Chortle impolitely.
c.    Ignore mentions with no photo.  Boring, Ugly, Next!

2)    Check ages.

a.    Note large numerical differences.  Raise eyebrows.  Cluck like a yenta.
b.    Coo at geezers.  Adorable!  Visualize them consummating marriage.  Less adorable!
c.    Embrace “Preemptive Schadenfreude.”  Remember that most irritatingly thin 24-year-olds marrying i-bankers will be hawking their 3-carat engagement ring to pay for a divorce lawyer in less than seven years – tops.

3)    Inspect educational background.

a.    Did they meet at Yale?  Barf.  Hope their kids get rejected.
b.    Feel mildly satisfied to read that city college guy tied knot with Columbia University girl.
c.    Note proliferation of law degrees.  Become concerned that law degree is prerequisite for New York marriage.  Make mental note to sign up for LSAT.
d.    Observe how many married college sweethearts.  Think about own college sweetheart.  Be very glad you didn’t marry him.

4)    Analyze occupations.

a.    Note mentions that say “bride was at BLANK job until last month.”  Read as “bride gleefully quit crap job after finally landing banker/lawyer/exec with bonus large enough to support her dreams of one day owning Bugaboo Frog stroller.”
b.    Visit Bugaboo Frog website.  Pick out color and model.
c.    Think also that, to be fair, “Coordinated enormous, exorbitant, exhausting wedding while fending off neurotic future mother-in-law” should really go on one’s resume.  In bold.

5)    Think listing parental professions bizarrely anachronistic.

a.    Almost expect to read: “bride and groom are of good stock.”
b.    Look at top of page to check year; reassure yourself it’s not 1955.
c.    Actually read recently: “bridegroom is descendent of Hendrick Hendricksen Kip, who settled in the 17th century in New York in the area now known as Kips Bay.”  Think to self, “seriously?  They REALLY put that in their wedding announcement??”  Wonder if groom went around bragging about that when he was younger.  Hope groom got beat up.

6)    Seek out mentions of divorce.

a.    Shake head judgmentally at announcements explicitly stating demise of bride or groom’s first marriage.  Psychoanalyze.  Did he drink?  Did she cheat?  Is he gay?  Refer to old Days of Our Lives plots for inspiration.
b.    Read that “groom’s four previous marriages ended in divorce.”  Wonder if bride has therapist.  Wonder if bride IS therapist.  Hope guests kept receipts.

7)    Fantasize about own announcement.

a.    Decide to have glamour shot taken, change alma mater to Ivy League, subtract four years from age and add law degree from Princeton.  Remember Princeton doesn’t have law school.  Oops.
b.    Think to self that self needs to get a life.
c.    Vow to read business section from now on.

AT LEAST JULIA DOESN’T READ THE OBITS!  EMAIL JULIA@JULIAALLISON.COM

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VARIATIONS ON MONOGAMY
AM NEW YORK - "THE DATING LIFE"
MAY 8, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

The dictates of love in this society are clear: you're either monogamous or you're alone.

Faced with options like that, it's no wonder monogamy won as the leading format a long time ago. VHS and Beta at least had a fair fight.

Of course, there are unsanctioned alternatives. Adultery, anyone? Or perhaps serial monogamy – divorce after divorce after divorce (after divorce), Ron Perelman style. You could do polygamy, I suppose, although besides HBO, it's usually a moot point. And then there are open relationships.

"The New Monogamy," New York magazine dubbed it back in November. Being interested in any method that allows you to have your cake and eat it too, I was intrigued. The article detailed a trend (perhaps burgeoning, perhaps imagined) of extracurricular-dalliances-as-homeopathy, easing the strictures inherent in traditional staid, exclusive relationships.

The writers, seasoned relationship advisers Em & Lo, first outlined their own beliefs: Namely, that although monogamy isn't the natural state of affairs, it's what "happily-ever-after requires."

While we may yearn to philander, we attempt fidelity as a way of upholding the relationship golden rule. Then we fool around behind our partners' backs. Or think about fooling around behind our partners' backs – both of which seem easier than negotiating the complex minefield of our conflicting desires: We want to experiment, but we cannot handle the thought of our partners doing the same.

There are people, however, who believe there's another way, who view sex and relationships through an unconventional paradigm – who, when faced with a choice between black and white, rebel and pick pink.

Writer Jenny Block is one of them. She details her experiences in "Portrait of an Open Marriage," published in the April/May issue of Tango magazine.

Block, 36, is petite, with long, highlighted brown hair, huge brown eyes and a lithe dancer's body. The daughter of a rabbi, she lives in the South with her husband of nine years and their young child. She is, she says, just the "average woman next door."

The average woman next door with a unique spousal arrangement, that is. After years of traditional forsake-all-others marriage, she started feeling "itchy." She cherished her husband, but longed for what he couldn't give her – "Mystery. Sexual tension. Craving."

"Human beings are sexual animals," she explained to me over Equal-laden lattes last week, "but we don't actually live that way." Instead, she said, we separate our lives from what we desire – and how do we compensate? Affairs! Porn! Living vicariously through bed-hopping celebrities!

"It seems like we're working against biology," says Block.

She realized that she didn't have to fall in lock step with established cultural commandments – so she asked for permission to engage in outside liaisons. Talking it through with her reluctant husband, they came to a simple – although not simplistic – preliminary agreement: they would try it out and see how it felt.

The ensuing experience, Block writes, was "interesting and hard and wonderful and confusing." Negotiating that line – the one between sex and love and jealousy and possession – has taken creativity, compromise and a lot of communication. There have certainly been complications (like how much to tell and how much to leave out). And although her husband "intellectually" gets it, he admits, "sometimes, emotionally, it's hard."

Not to mention, Block says, "We have absolutely, positively no models for what we are doing."

They really don't. If Block isn't the first woman to write about her lifestyle without using a pseudonym, she's at least the vanguard of a very small group. Indeed, with her choices largely frowned upon by society, Block understandably worried that she was "crazy" for telling her story so openly (with photos, no less). "Would my neighbors still let my daughter play with their kids?" she wondered.

Still, she felt strongly that it was time for someone to start the discussion. An adamant champion of personal freedom, Block doesn't disparage those who stick with traditional exclusivity. "If an open relationship isn't for you, I'm not going to tell you to have one," she says. "But if you can find happiness in something so simple, go for it!"

After all, she says, "There's hunger and war and children being abused – why get upset over this? This is just sex!"

For Block and her husband, it certainly seems like the right answer; their relationship appears secure enough to withstand what might topple a less confidant union. Perhaps ironically, Block has found that being with other people "doesn't take away from the way I feel about my husband. It's exactly the opposite – I desire him more."

So what could destroy their marriage? "Being secretive, lying, or sneaking around … but the sex itself is not a threat."

In the end, having an open relationship has only reinforced her commitment to her husband. "I know for sure the grass isn't greener," she says with a smile.

And really, isn't that what we all want our partners to think?

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POWER IS AN APHRODISIAC* (BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE A Y CHROMOSOME)
AM NEW YORK – “THE DATING LIFE”
MAY 1, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

Power – and its uncanny ability to inflate (or deflate) one’s sexual desirability – has been on my mind lately.

It started two weeks ago, when Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, told me that Martha Stewart was “hot.”  Like, “really hot.”
Since Levy’s book focuses on the burgeoning tendency of young women to equate “hotness” with donning tiny Abercrombie & Fitch skirts and flashing their breasts on Girls Gone Wild, her appraisal of Martha’s sex appeal caught me off guard.

For Levy, the domestic doyenne’s influence made her attractive.  For me, it was just confusing.  Keira Knightly is hot.  Natalie Portman is hot.  Paris Hilton is hot, although I wish she weren’t.  But Martha?  Of all the adjectives I could use to describe her – and there are many – “hot” wouldn’t make my top 10.

Later that week, as I was packing to leave for the city favored by homely denizens in positions of authority (that would be Washington, DC), my copy of Details magazine arrived in the mail, the cover headline blaring: “If power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, why don’t you wanna bang Hillary Clinton?”

Oh my god, I thought.  They read my mind.  Why is it I would sleep with Bill – but not Hil?  (Other than the fact I’m heterosexual, which is really a moot point, because most women – gay, straight, confined to a hospital bed – would get naked with Angelina Jolie.)

Inside, the magazine offered a visual aid – a full page with nine unflattering headshots including Oprah, Martha, Condi, as well as foxes Janet Reno, Margaret Thatcher and Madeline Albright – viscerally reminding men why they haven’t been fantasizing about powerful ladies lately.  After all, they’re not really women who make for a one-handed read.

The article, written by Peter Wells, makes a good point: “If you’re the kind of guy who sends shock waves through the stock market every time you clear your throat, Slavic models fresh out of high school will chain themselves to your mattress.”  Of course!  It happens all the time in New York. (Ever been to Cipriani?)

“And while politics may be show business for ugly people,” Wells continues, “that doesn’t mean that the misshapen lumps of flesh prowling Capitol Hill have trouble getting a date.”  Having worked on the Hill and dated some of these lumps, I can vouch that this is, sadly, the case.

“Ugly men who run the world have no trouble getting laid,” concludes Wells.  “So how come it doesn’t work for the ladies?”

Exactly.

Maureen Dowd – a woman who’s intimately familiar with clout (both having it and dating it) – believes that “the perfume of female power is a turnoff for men.”  In her 2005 book, “Are Men Necessary?” she quotes a New York Times friend of hers who, after receiving a Pulitzer, wails that she’ll “never get a date now!”  Rough life.

Ironically, it’s Dowd herself – with both a Pulitzer and a well-documented history of getting dates – who proves this theory incorrect.  Indeed, in a New York magazine profile (intriguingly enough, by Ariel Levy), she is described as a “utter and unreconstructed fox … men can’t resist her.”

Ah-ha!  So it is possible to be an influential female with whom men want to copulate.  Powerful and sexy need not remain mutually exclusive terms for women.

Of course I see the truth in Henry Kissinger’s once-clever (now-clichéd) line about power being an aphrodisiac.  And I see the point of the Details article – most men don’t aspire to sleep with “powerful women.”  I even understand why Maureen Dowd believes that a woman with clout can intimidate men.

But all of this misses the point.  If Condi Rice looked like Halle Barry, no amount of Secret Service protection could save her from being the most popular fantasy since a threesome with Jessica Alba and Adriana Lima.

In other words, women are turned on by power even absent good looks.  Men, on the other hand, require looks above all else.

So it seems that Kissinger’s quote could have used a qualifier.  Let’s try my version: Power, in men, is an aphrodisiac.  In women, power may be an aphrodisiac – if they’re young and/or sexually attractive, and if the man involved isn’t intimidated.

Men would still find Gisele hot if she had Rupert Murdoch’s money or Jack Welch’s intelligence or Barak Obama’s job.  They might not ask her out, but they’d definitely want to sleep with her.

Which I guess wouldn’t make it all that different from how they feel today.

JULIA HAS MET KISSINGER, AND POWER WASN’T QUITE ENOUGH OF AN APHRODISIAC.  EMAIL JULIA@JULIAALLISON.COM

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