Ah, see, you have articulated EXACTLY the conundrum myself and my girlfriends are in. The drought is so bad we give it a new nickname each week - this week it was the Rage. Last week it was the Tiger.
The problem with me and the Rage is that the isolation of study amplifies the Rage until I start giving out TOTALLY inappropriate signals and suddenly, as happened last night when out dancing, young men of the drunken persuasion grab me from behind and kiss my neck in a way that WOULD have been sexy if he had been tall, dark and sober (not young, blond and very bendy due to drink) and I had not had a totally sweaty neck! :)
Now, this attempt at being a deliberate strumpet, did this end for you in the harrowing knowledge that you had lost the ability to 'close the deal' as it were? That moment where you can drop the coy, slow-mo, black and white 'run' away from them and just let them catch you. But as they reach out you think 'eeeewwwwww' and just walk away because you suddenly remembered that you like sleeping starfish style in your own bed?
I have COMPLETELY lost the killer instinct to close the deal. Lost, lost forever. From now until eternity I shall be a spinster of the parish. I hate cats though, so I will have penguins.
Unless, of course, I find that elusive, take charge man who simply tells me that he thinks I am brilliant and he rather fancies taking a crack at me and would dinner with compulsory snogging be fine tomorrow?
And he is not, like the current take charge man in my life, in possession of a female long-term partner that is out of the country.
*gloom*
For myself and my fellow singles, going out has become something of a blood sport ... and it is not ours that we spill.
We don't drink, we always have a smile on our face, we are not fashion victims and we enjoy a good conversation.
So your average Australian male, beer in hand approaches us and we see the slow strangling of our social life coming into view.
We see our unimpressed grimaces, we hear our whiplash replies, we see our total boredom with inane conversation and we watch them retreat in relief from what becomes for them an uphill struggle against wordplay, nimble minds and robust senses of humour.
No matter how frustrated we get, how much we yearn to be thought about, how much we wish to have a companion that we love, we cannot stomach suppressing our true selves in a bizarre attempt to compete in a limited marketplace.
What I find disappointing is the men who assume that they are looking for women who reflect best on them by being weak. How does that make them more masculine? Surely an intelligent, lively and charming woman who decides to spend time with you is a better reflection on your masculinity than a silly woman?
I must be alone in thinking this!
And I think this is why I am in the same boat as you with that strange paradox of looking for someone stronger than us, yet not envisaging how that will happen with us being as strong as we are.
I find that my greatest frustration is that I am willing, in fact almost desperate, to give selflessly of my intelligence, my passion, my care, my company, and I cannot find anyone to take it for FREE because it is just not valuable to anyone!
It is my looks, my *cough* bed and my value as a Perth-girlfriend (this is quite a specific value in our small town - who my connections are and how much I am fancied by the male friends of the male in possession of me) that are more important.
It was brought home last night as my two girlfriends and I went out to our usual place o'dancing. We were on fire last night - all of us frustrated as hell and quite willing to jump the first fanciable guy that came within arms distance.
Giving out those kind of signals we actually prompted an embarrassing run of clumsy pickups that sunk dreadfully the moment we opened our mouths. Literally. The moment we did anything other than just letting them paw us.
Despite the tiny pool of available talent, we managed between us to attract, then repel almost all the game ones.
Come three thirty we were standing, a little stunned, sober and upright in the middle of the dancefloor, a ring of bewildered boys and men around us wondering if we had softened since they last tried it on with us. Some real male friends came to talk to us and one of their friends openly walked up to them in front of us and congratulated them on being able to 'handle these lovely ladies'.
Women as pretty objects that are there to adorn your arm, you party and your sexual prowess *shudder* awful situation.
But last night I also witnessed the flip side of the coin - which ties in with your point about the loss of manliness.
A man came up to us to compliment us and because he did a lightning attack - in and out without imposing any expectations of drinks etc - we were happy to accept it gracefully. But he felt he had to preface the compliment with the assurance he just wanted to compliment, not to pick up. We assured him that we took it in the spirit in which it was intended, but it was a sad reflection on the manner in which compliments are taken in such contexts.
Men cannot really give compliments without being suspected of ulterior motives and it poisons the entire exchange. Women learn to be suspicious of cads and armour themselves with language and we end up being too challenging for strangers without self-esteem or a quick wit. It is a dreadful spiral.
As for Other Women, the curse of Perth is that the men here really are spoilt, and the women here are brought up to pander and flirt and stroke egos. It is a horrible thing to observe up close as you see picture perfect girls walking in awe of the godlike beings called boys, and you see the disgust those arrogant boys get on their faces when you refuse to just keep your pretty mouth shut.
Alcohol *gah* Australians drink to get pissed and it is an ugly sight when you are sober. My favourite moment in a club is the 1.30-2am window when the boys stop having fun and start thinking about who they are going to take home to shag. I call it the witching hour and you see previously picky guys literally tripping into a female lap and just taking what is on offer. Thankfully the urge to just trip them ourselves passes once we contemplate a sober coupling with an incompetent drunk.
As for personal mojo, in the last three years I have started realising that I care not to go out with someone that I do not know well, very well indeed. Preferably for years as a friend or acquaintance.
And this is necessarily narrowing the range men deemed acceptable at an alarming rate. And considering I value my male friends so highly, the thought of ruining a perfect friendship by possible relationship stupidity makes me shudder. I have three male friends with which I have highly developed romantic possibilities and they haven't eventuated for a really good reason, we are great friends.
Yet a stranger does not inspire trust and respect and so does not get the stamp of lust until they tip over into the old friends category and they are effectively out of bounds.
Pathetic really.
I applaud your plans for intellectual stimulation, it is tricky, but rewarding. I am studying full-time this year and the intellectual connections are the most pleasurable and the most problematic, although I suspect you would know this from all the performance you do.
This year I am surrounded by academics who work closely with us as students, PhD students who are trawling the Honours class for partners and classmates with which you spend too much time and with which you share strong intellectual experiences. Such compatibility of thoughts, the power relations inherent in hierarchy and the visceral pleasure of mental stimulation has created a tangled web of lust that ignores almost all social mores once there is alcohol involved.
I am a big one for intellectual crushes, but surrounding yourself with people who share your passions and who speak the same heartfelt language becomes addictive! :)
I bask in elegant and erudite conversations, in flexing intellectual muscles and on Fridays perching in laps of clever holders of doctorates and flirting like mad. But one should not date in the Faculty if you want to avoid rumours of sleeping around for marks so you just have to suppress the feelings and that makes everything that much harder.
*harrowed sigh*
I am holding out for travelling again myself. I am not nearly as affected by my loneliness when I travel, and I am more open to strangers when ALL are strangers and I am assembling my new group of friends.
Only about eight more months and I will be working my way around the world again and I will be able to relax a little bit and allow some lucky man the chance to prove his worth :)
