Articles

DATING OUTSIDE THE TRIBE
AM NEW YORK - "THE DATING LIFE"
JULY 31, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

The Boyfriend and I have spent much of our dating lives in inter-faith relationships -- him with a predilection for Catholics, me leaning towards Jews -- so it seemed very appropriate to take him to see "Jewtopia" for our anniversary last week.

Written and performed by the hysterical team of Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson, "Jewtopia," is a brilliant off-Broadway comedic play about inter-faith relationships between Jews and Gentiles. Specifically, it centers on two guy friends -- one Jewish, one Christian -- who each want to date and marry outside of their religion, much to the other's confusion. ("I like Jewish girls," says one. "WHY?" sputters the other incredulously.)

The play, which rehashes -- hilariously, I might add -- every stereotype known to Jewish culture (My favorite? The Top Ten List of Traits that will Immediately Identify You as a Gentile, including Tobacco Dipping, Clubs Involving Lions or Elks, Taking Less Than an Hour to Say Goodbye, NASCAR and Being in Perfect Health) -- certainly captures the zeitgeist of today's faith-mixing mating scene.

There's hardly a person in New York who hasn't at one point or another dated, or even married, outside their faith. In fact, according to the National Jewish Population Survey, 47% of Jews wed non-Jews in the years 1996-2001, up from 13% before 1970.

Despite that trend, doing so still isn't celebrated in some households -- a fact that "Jewtopia" highlights through humorous send-ups of the typical Jewish family pressure to marry "within the tribe."

To wit: "I'm a Jewish man ... Do you have any idea the kind of pressure my family puts me under to marry a Jewish girl? I'm getting 10 to 20 phone calls a week, from my mother and my bubbee ... and do you know why they're calling me? Because they all know someone who's got a daughter or a granddaughter that they want to set me up with! They will stop at nothing! Last week my mother set me up on a blind date with her gynecologist! That is wrong!"

I suppose it's not surprising then, that my very first "real" relationship -- with a Jew, of course -- didn't go over well with his Israeli-born parents. Never mind that I was 16 and not even remotely looking to get hitched, let alone breed half-Jews.

And never mind that although I was raised Protestant, I'm 50%, 25% or 0% Jewish, depending upon who you talk with in my family. None of that mattered. I wasn't a true Jew, and they didn't want their son contributing to the demise of a watered-down Jewish civilization.

Of course, eight years later their son is on his fourth blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan girlfriend, and I'm with a guy who was bar-mitzvah'd at the Hotel Bel-Air and loves to get out of household chores by insisting that "I'm a Jew. I write checks." Sigh.

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EXTREME DIVORCE: HOME EDITION
AM NEW YORK - "THE DATING LIFE"
JULY 17, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

There are bad divorces. And then there are really bad divorces.

Blowing up one's marital house pretty much falls into the latter category. In a real-life War of the Roses, (former) Upper East Side resident Dr. Nicholas Bartha decided that "over my dead body" wasn't just an expression – and rather than sell the four-story townhouse that he and his ex-wife had shared to pay her marital settlement, he would just, you know, blow it up.

The New York Times called it "no ordinary divorce," but "a nightmarish New York saga of … vengeance worthy of a Lifetime channel movie."

But really, who has an "ordinary" divorce? What does that mean, anyway? That you didn't fight? That you're still friends? That you avoided committing suicide in your former house?

Or maybe, when they wrote "ordinary," they meant "good." In that case, as high profile divorce attorney Raoul Felder told me, "there's no such thing – it's an oxymoron. There are only divorces that are relatively civilized."

"Someone you once loved is saying that you're not a worthwhile person," says Felder, who has represented Rudy Giuliani, one of Mick Jagger's myriad baby mommas, and P. Diddy's ex-wife. "It's not like you got a lemon of a car! This guy [Bartha] was obviously very troubled, but these emotions are in every divorce. He just carried it one step further."

Maybe it's just me, but I've found that the more you hear stories of real life, the more you start to think that Lifetime movies aren't so unrealistic after all.

In fact, shortly after the Bartha-blow-up, MILF extraordinaire Christie Brinkley filed for her (fourth) divorce, allegedly because her golden boy hubby Peter Cook was having an affair with his 19-year-old assistant, whom he met in a toy shop. (You can't make this stuff up.)

Given their co-ownership of at least five houses, they'd better start stocking up on explosives now.

Actually, that might be better than wading through New York's Byzantine divorce laws and stubborn, baffling refusal to adopt a no-fault system. Under the current procedures, "divorce court is the last place you want to be," says Felder.

"The law is not the place for emotional grievances or reparations," he adds. "If you're looking for reparations, go to the UN."

That's pretty much what The Boyfriend concluded when he went through his divorce. Eschewing protracted negotiations over their joint assets, including an apartment in the city and one painstakingly restored Hamptons house, he had a single 30-minute meeting and gave everything to her. The polar opposite of Bartha, his former house is not only still standing ("too beautiful to blow up"), but it's currently on the cover of Elle Décor - credited to his ex-wife, of course.

"Divorce is already painful," he explained, "why make it more painful? I'd rather she have the money than the lawyers. Possessions can be replaced."

Thank god Ron Perlman doesn't think like that. Half of the city's law firms would be out of work!

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FRIENDS WITHOUT BENEFITS
AM NEW YORK - "THE DATING LIFE"
JULY 24, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

A few weeks ago, a casting director e-mailed me about a new reality show -- "it's like 'Friends'," she said, "but real." (Wait -- "Friends" wasn't real?) Would I come audition with three of my closest girl friends and three of my closest guy friends?

I thought about it. And then I realized -- I don't have any guy friends. In fact, besides The Boyfriend and a handful of male relatives, the only men currently in my cell phone are either very much work-related or very much my exes.

I  knew I was a girl's girl -- the kind who avoided boys at my birthday parties until I was at least 21 -- but I didn't realize my man-friend drought was this bad. In college, I had a diverse group of friends, which ostensibly included those harboring Y-chromosomes. But since graduating two years ago, my conversations with those guys have totaled approximately zero.

Are platonic male-female friendships that difficult to find and maintain? A few years ago, I wrote an article about such relationships, spelling out the "limited circumstances under which they could occur":
A) If both are unattractive
B) If both are unattracted [to each other]
C) If both have a significant other
D) If one or both are gay
E) If one is a eunuch
F) If one is dating the other's best friend.

(Although I later retracted (F), given "overwhelming anecdotal proof" that dating one's best friend does not, in fact, halt carnal lust.)

In other words -- as long as no one's interested in sex, you're fine! The only problem is, uh, people (men) frequently are -- interested in sex, that is.

Still, there are compelling reasons to attempt such a relationship, despite the challenges. At best, they can give you perspective -- the ability to see into a world you cannot inhabit and do not understand. At worst, they can lead to "destruction of the spirit and ego, followed by slow shredding of the heart," as one poetically bitter friend told me years ago. (Or sexual frustration, to be slightly more specific.) Either way, platonic friendships with a member of the opposite sex are elusive, precarious balancing acts.

Balancing acts like the adorable guy I attempted to befriend recently, who said the only way he could be "just friends" with a woman was if she were "ugly" or he had slept with her.

"Well, that sucks," I groused. "I guess we can't be friends?"

"Of course we can!" he said.

"Whew," I replied, relieved.

"So, should I get a condom?"

Sigh.

Posted by JA at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DATE A HOTSHOT
COSMOPOLITAN
JULY 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

Congressmen in Washington are like movie stars in Hollywood.  They’re everywhere, they’re always shorter in person – and yet, everyone is still totally impressed.
As a government major at Georgetown, I was a shameless political groupie.  I tracked the rarest of species in our nation’s capitol – the young, unmarried, good-looking politician.  Actually, I only found one.  The year before, he was one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People.  Like a teenager with a crush on Brad Pitt, I taped the photo to my desk, where it stayed (embarrassingly) for 8 months.

Of course, I never expected to actually meet him.

But one evening, out to dinner, I spied him at the table next to mine and courageously introduced myself.  I was 21; he was turning 32 that evening.  A junior in college, I had never dated a guy older than 24, let alone one with such a formidable resume: Ivy League school, law degree, a prestigious political family, and – oh yeah – an office on Capitol Hill with 20 staff members.

I didn’t realize it then, but I had already fallen into the insidious “he’s better than me” trap – by putting him on a pedestal, I was unconsciously telling myself that I wasn’t worthy.  In the coming months I would realize how misguided this mindset was.

Our five-minute intro turned into an entire evening of flirting as he invited me along with as he celebrated his birthday.  We went from the restaurant to a swanky hotel bar, where he asked for a birthday kiss – and I practically fainted from excitement.

When he said goodnight late that evening, it never occurred to me he would call again.  But I was wrong; he called the next week, and the week after. 

In retrospect, I’m not sure why I was so surprised – as the dating columnist for The Georgetown Hoya, I knew a thing or two on how to keep a man’s interest.  Or at least, a college guy’s interest!  But one of the most eligible bachelors in DC?  I really believed I was in over my head.

The concept of him being interested in me was so shocking that my normally healthy self-esteem couldn’t get to my brain!

Unnerved by talking with him on the phone, I would prepare little “cheat sheets” so I wouldn’t blank on conversation topics.  (Who does that??)  I would compare myself constantly to him: He makes six figures, I get an allowance.  He meets with world leaders, I stopped by my professor’s office yesterday.

Again and again, I fell short in my own mind.  Of course, I’m not the only woman to find herself involved with a man who she views – either consciously or unconsciously – as “superior” to herself.  He doesn’t have to be a movie star; I’ve watched beautiful, confident girls reduced to awkward, desperate messes wondering why their boyfriends – the star of the basketball team or a rich doctor or anyone else who generally intimidates them – would ever want them.

I was pretty far along that road when he asked me on a weekend ski vacation.  I lost five pounds, bought a new pink ski suit and compulsively planned out every outfit.  Then we got there – and … he couldn’t ski.  Not sort of couldn’t ski, but god awful, I-hope-he-doesn’t-break-his-leg couldn’t ski.

Out there on the slopes, he wasn’t a hotshot politician, he was just a guy.  A guy with no coordination.  Later, watching C-Span together (although I’d really rather watch Oprah), he got the Kuwaiti ambassador’s name wrong – and I corrected him!  Suddenly, I began to see beyond the image to the real person, who wasn’t so intimidating after all.

And when I took the big man OFF campus, I realized that I … well, I just wasn’t that into him.  Sure, it was an ego boost to date a prominent A-Lister.  But beyond that, we didn’t have much in common.

The irony didn’t escape me.  All this time I had been building him up in my mind and underestimating my own qualities, forgetting that no one can be in a good relationship with an idol – it has to be equal.  And if you don’t have self-respect, how can he respect you?

The whole thing made me laugh.  After all, I had asked myself so many times, “Why does he want to be with me?”  when I should have been asking “Why do I want to be with him?”

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SEX! TIPS! FROM COSMO
AM NEW YORK - "THE DATING LIFE"
JULY 10, 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

No one has ever accused Cosmopolitan of being subtle.

So it's not surprising that the latest book from Cosmo's editor in chief, the irrepressible Kate White, sports one of the most gutsy cover designs I've ever seen.

A pair of impossibly long, tanned supermodel legs attached to four-inch stilettos spread wide across the top of the cover, while the model's hands clasp an apple red fire extinguisher in between her thighs.

"Thighs," of course, is the operative word, as the title below screams in neon pink and orange caps: "HOW TO SET HIS THIGHS ON FIRE." Um--use gasoline?

OK, OK. Maybe not.

Although some of the book's tricks are almost as unconventional (two words: glazed donut), nowhere in the subtitled "86 Red-Hot Lessons on Love, Life, Men, and (Especially) Sex" must you resort to flammable liquids. Whew!

Of course, I wouldn't put it past the winsome White, a 50-something size 4 blonde who picked up a tip or two (or 86) since taking the helm of the legendary magazine eight years ago.

In fact, "How to Set His Thighs on Fire" was an accidental book. Although White is a veteran author with six titles (including the bestselling Bailey Weggins mystery series) under her fashionable belt, she never even wrote a proposal for "Thighs."

"One day I was talking to my publisher," White explains, "and she said, 'Do you like your job, Kate?'" (This seems to me a silly question, as anyone who has ever talked with White knows that she's deliriously in love with her job.)

So of course White answered, "More than you can imagine--it has been the most delicious, fabulous experience of my life." She then 'jokingly' added, "Someday I want to write a book on How to Set His Thighs on Fire about everything I learned!"

Apparently that's all her publisher needed to hear--the next day she sent a contract over to White's literary agent. "My agent called me and said 'I have a contract for a book I've never even heard of!' And I said, 'maybe it's a mistake!' and she read the title and I said 'oh my God.'"

The resulting book is a grab bag of observations and wisdom written in the style of notoriously provocative Cosmo cover-lines, filled with laundry lists, amusing anecdotes, and (of course) a healthy dose of alliteration.

White herself epitomizes the famous Cosmo-girl mantra--Fun! Fearless! Female!--but she also integrates that persona into her writing. She's not afraid to discuss topics like (#62) 'The Most Neglected Moan Zone on a Man's Body' (hint: it's not his feet) or brazenly proclaim (#83) 'Sex is one of the Best Things in Life.'

In the first chapter, White acknowledges that it's not exactly difficult to seduce a guy: "'Why don't you drop your pants?' will usually suffice," she writes. But for "three alarm seduction" (that would be the legs a blazin' kind) women should "tease, tantalize, and torture" their victims. Er, men.

The next 85 tips appear in a stream of consciousness fashion, segueing from sex to men to love back to sex, almost like a How-To Tip of the Day calendar, but in book form. Of course, this makes sense, given that White wrote the "How to Do Anything Better" guide over at Glamour for years.

"You could say I'm the 'How to' queen!" she laughs.

Her job perks include a constant diet of new findings about human behavior, and sharing that info just seemed natural. "I soak up everything," she says, "I'm always thinking, 'is there any lesson to be learned?'" Ultimately, White just wants women to feel more comfortable about their bodies, their relationships and their sex lives.

Like your saucy, more-experienced best friend dishing her advice to you at a sleepover, White's lessons are sometimes common sense:

• #9: Guys Will Do Whatever It Takes to Get You in Bed (shocking!)
• #42: Guys Like Women Naked, Period (yep)#71: Guys Secretly Love a Little Kinkiness (uh, secretly?)
• #16: Nine Topics that Make Guys Gag (This includes shoes, catty gossip about your friends, below-the-belt functions, your 'fatness,' and old boyfriends.)
• #48: How Long to Wait Before Sex ("Long, slow, torturous progress is still the hottest, healthiest scenario.")
• #66: The Lie Your Girlfriends Tell You About Guys (Basically, if a guy isn't chasing you, he's just not interested. Yes, despite the clever excuses your girls come up with.)

And some are just invaluable:

• #38: Why You Shouldn't Be Soul Mates with Him (Expecting one person to fulfill all of your needs is unrealistic and ultimately, disappointing.)
• #61: Guys Don't Give Clear Warning Before They Leave ("One of the activities that guys dread most is the 'Relationship Talk,' so he¹ll avoid it at all costs--until one day he's just had enough and drops the bomb.")
• #64: How Not to End Up in an Endless String of Bad Relationships ("You're the common denominator." Ohhh, snap!)

My favorites?

• #6: Guys Like a Firmer Touch During Sex Than You May Expect
• #65: Almost Everything Can Benefit from Some Added Sex Appeal
• #27: Think With Your Panties

Who knows, #27 could change your life!

Posted by JA at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FIRST LADIES WHO LUNCH
CAPITOL FILE
SUMMER 2006
BY JULIA ALLISON

Behind every politician, there’s an exhausted congressional spouse.  And who else can relate but other exhausted congressional spouses? Almost a century ago, those spouses – all wives back then – formed The Congressional Club, a non-partisan group promoting friendship amongst the wives of House and Senate members, as well as Supreme Court Justices and Members of the President’s Cabinet.

Every year, the Club hosts a variety of activities, but none so elaborate as the annual First Ladies Luncheon.  What began as a small breakfast in 1912 to honor the wife of the President has evolved over the years into “the most spectacular event we hold,” according to Congressional Club President Vicki Tiahrt.

The wife of Kansas Republican Representative Todd Tiahrt, Vicki is “passionate” about “getting the spouses out of typical ‘Democrat or Republican’ ruts.”  After honoring the First Lady, camaraderie is the purpose of the lunch, she says. “We want to bring everyone together in a congenial, bi-partisan setting.”  It appears to be working – the event has been at capacity for the past 10 years.

Of the 675 current Club members, a significant percentage attends yearly, many bringing up to three permitted guests, often wives of staff members or visitors from their home districts.  What it lacks in intimacy – approximately 2,000 guests fill the tables at the Hilton Washington International Ballroom – it makes up for in fantastic goody bags and boldface names.  Or wives of boldface names.

Past years’ themes have included Americana, Celebrating the Heartland, and Gifts of the Garden.  This year’s Chairwoman, Jan English (wife of Philadelphia Republican Representative Phil English), choose to honor her Native American heritage by selecting a theme called “The First Americans.”  (In accordance with the theme, the Club will donate $25,000 to the United National Indian Tribal Youth.)

From the sea of pastel suits to the grandly decorated tables, the Club steadfastly maintains their luncheon’s century-old traditions.  Indeed, the event begins with a promenade of distinguished Club members (“Wives of”) and Junior Hostesses (“Daughters of”).  Escorted by members of the United States Marie Corps, the women stroll down what looks suspiciously like a runway while their names, along with that of their husband (or parents), are announced.

Among the power wives this year were Jean Hastert, Jane Roberts, Maureen Scalia, Mary Kennedy, Virginia Thomas, Martha-Ann Alito, Joyce Rumsfeld, Meryl Chertoff, Rebecca Gonzales, Karyn Frist and Landra Reid.  The daughters channeled Pocahontas-meets-the-1980s in matching themed peasant dresses and jean jackets.

“Perhaps the promenade is outdated,” Tiahrt admits, “but we love our history and tradition, so we continue it.  Besides, people come from all around the country and want to get a good look at Laura Bush!”

When the white-suited First Lady begins her walk, a woman whispers, “She looks good!”  There are nods of agreement all around as camera flashes go off like a rock concert.  “This is her sixth luncheon.  She’s a very popular first lady,” says President Tiahrt.

And quite a good public speaker.  After lauding the sought-after table favors – this year straw baskets, a turquoise necklace and Ralph Lauren perfume – Mrs. Bush spoke about America’s youth and encouraged the Congressional spouses to band together.

“You whisper in the ears of pretty important people in Washington,” she said, nodding at the audience, “or should I say holler?”

It’s true, says Tiahrt, and one of the reasons the luncheon is so successful, “Despite the way our husbands’ vote, we have a lot in common.”  Besides, she adds, “where else in Washington DC would you see these spouses together?”

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