Losing yourself, losing friends (18 February 2009)

Newsflash: Whores and wanton hussies happier, more productive than ever! Bed-hopping tarts rule the small screen,’ is the headline of Heather Havrilesky's column in Salon this week. She writes, ‘We want to watch as wanton floozies cheat on their husbands, grope their much-younger lovers and have illicit dalliances with lesbian brides. We want to see classy courtesans put on maid uniforms and pee on prominent politicians. We want to gasp at the brazen, oversexed antics of the modern-day harlot, balancing her debauched profession with her everyday life.

‘Of course these shameless tarts' stories are morality tales, just like they always were. But this time around, the moral of the story goes like this: Carpe diem, whores and tramplets! Get out there and grab every man, woman and man-child who strikes your fancy! As long as you lounge around in black lace, thigh-high stockings, smoking and brooding away your ample free time as the camera circles, we're behind you 100 per cent!’

[. . .]

I have three friends right now newly dating. All three giggle incessantly, forget things, change topics mid-sentence (back to dating) and frequently stare into space dreamily. Of course, I and other friends in long-term relationships are jealous (but much happier this way, darling, in case you're reading).

"Oh that time when all you want to do is make-out..." sighed a married friend recently. "In six months, you're back to reality, but they're a good six months."

I guess if six months isn't enough time for the stimulus packages to work -- economic ones, that is -- we can just move to new loves or watch those on the small screen. (Vanessa Richmond, “Down with Reality! Up with the Love Drug!,” The Tyee, 18 Feb 2009)

If people are finding themselves drawn to overpowering, humiliating older women right now (what comes to mind right now is both the Salon essay Vanessa refers us to, and the recent "Cougar" skit on SNL), it may be because many of us are beginning to regress and re-live what it felt like to somewhat powerless and under our mothers' control. But the wanton warrior-bitch will surely soon pass on, for as excited as we are by her child-rape --which (take another look at the above) is what she's up to -- her presence will soon prove too overwhelming, and we'll turn our attentions/affections exclusively to Obamas/Harpers as they become phallic leaders we can depend on to help revenge ourselves upon some dressed-up, no good, hussie or another.

Hopping from one relationship to another might be a good way to keep the dopamine buzz going. Alternatively, we could do the latest, and just quickly switch from one zeitgeist to another. That is, Is it just me, or we going through the phases of this depression thing a little too self-consciously and a little too quickly? If next week we decide that the depression was just so winter 2008-9, it would actually be sorta apropos: for manic mood switches are surely more on display these days than any real sign of depressiveness, n'est pas? Makes you kind of think that there's something else that's going on, we can, for awhile -- while matching-up cultural similarities between the 30's depression and our own, seems so self-evidently relevant an activity to be up to -- give scant attention to. For me, what this might be may have everything to do with what seems to have been on Vanessa's mind as she was finishing her piece, when her thoughts turned to how her friends' mental/emotional state compared with her own. That is, We may be going through a stage where some of us are beginning to realize/suspect that many of those we thought were our friends, we thought were like, were with, us, prove not to be. They're the ones who not just enjoy (or enjoy demarcating) but IDENTIFY with characters with multiple-personalities/alters, 'cause that's what they've got. They're the ones who are NOT going to evolve from six month dopamine-feuled lovers 'to mature, self-possessed adults, as Vanessa managed, but will be the "we" she probably rightly so half-heartedly identifies/merges with when she concludes: "I guess if six months isn't enough time for the stimulus packages to work -- economic ones, that is -- we can just move to new loves or watch those on the small screen."

I think it's becoming a time when for some, you can't help losing yourself within some great cause. And for others, a time where it increasingly dawns on you that you're going to have to quickly find means to do the same, or risk losing friends, and finding out how serious and scary it is these days to be deemed – out of fashion.

Link: The Tyee

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