It's All About Me

Quiz: Are You a Woman Who Is Afraid to Commit?

Anyone even vaguely familiar with the Internet has seen those teaser article titles that inhabit the home screens of various service web sites--including the Hotmail home page, where my eye fell on the above article title the other day. Many of the articles, like this one, originate from the MSN Dating & Personals section. I'd like to say that I usually ignore these teaser titles, but, like American Idol and Deal or No Deal, they are a guilty pleasure time-suck that I sometimes indulge in. Inevitably, they are stupid and pointless, the Internet equivalent of the Cosmo articles and quizzes my friends and I would read in high school and college. You know the ones--10 Signs He's Into You, New Ways to Surprise Him in Bed, Is It Time to Dump Him? There was, and still is, an endless stream of such articles, often with the same material recycled over and over with different titles. And every single one of them--every one!--should, in reality, have the same title: Common Sense "Advice" You Should Be Able to Figure Out for Yourself if You Have Half a Brain. So, he won't return your calls and your friend saw him making out with another woman at the bar? Probably time to break up. Stuff like that.

The sex tips articles are the worst, and so insidious, because they still suck me in sometimes, when I should know so much better. I'll be standing in line at the grocery store, and there's Cosmo or Mademoiselle sitting on the rack, claiming to have new, exclusive sex info, and I'll find myself reaching for the magazine and checking out the article on the off chance that someone really has come up with something new. You know what? They haven't. Surprising him with lingerie is not "new." Changing positions is not "new." A lot of other things aren't "new" either, although for certain reasons*, I won't get into them here.

The quizzes still suck me in sometimes too, which is equally stupid, especially if you're not 14. At the end of these quizzes, they always list categories of personalities/tendencies/whatever, and you fall into one of these categories based on your answers to the quiz questions. And I can go straight to these categories, read them, and know instantly which one I fall into without ever answering the questions because, you know, I pretty much know myself. But I will sometimes take the quiz anyway, just to see if I'm right. I always am. (Another thing--the quizzes are designed in such a way that it is so obvious which answers are going to put you in which categories. If you wanted, you could totally manipulate your answers to put yourself in a different category from whom you really are. Of course, that would be pointless and a little sad, wouldn't it?)

Anyway. Case in point--I saw the quiz title above, Are You a Woman Who Is Afraid to Commit?, and I immediately thought, Yes! I am such a woman! No need to take this quiz! But of course, I took it anyway. Here are the statements one is required to contemplate to figure out one's committment-phobia level, along with my responses:

*Once the excitement of first romance has passed, you get bored in most of your relationships.
Oh, yes.
*You have a habit of dating unavailable men (married, involved with someone else, geographically or emotionally distant, etc.). ·
Um, yes.
*You have a long and elaborate list of requirements for your ideal mate.
Oh, most definitely.
*You consider your married friends’ relationships boring and feel that many of them have settled for too little.
Not so much. I like most of my friends' significant others, and most of them seem pretty happy--the ones who have made it, that is. But they're not me.
*You cultivate larger networks of friends and acquaintances at the expense of romantic relationships. ·
Again, not so much. I don't think I have more friends now than when I was married--in fact, I have fewer, since his friends pretty much blew me off. I do spend more time with my remaining friends, though, which is not a bad thing!
*You date more than one man at a time to prevent becoming dependent. ·
Well, I definitely date more than one man at a time, but is it to prevent becoming dependent? I don't think so--I don't tend to become "dependent" anyway. I think it's to prevent becoming bored.
*You have a difficult time getting over past boyfriends.
Um, definitely not. If anything, I get over them too quickly.

The really funny part of this quiz is the "advice" they give you if, in fact, you are afraid to commit. I won't regurgitate it all here, as it's a bunch of boring psycho-babble, but what it boils down to is, basically--lower your expectations. That's right! Just don't expect so much, suck it up, and be happy with . . . well, whomever! So simple!

Grrr. How about this advice? If you're afraid to commit, don't commit! At least, not until you're really ready to! Be happy with yourself, cherish your friends and family, be productive, live an active life, and don't worry about focusing all your energy on coupling up! Why, why is this idea so far out of the mainstream? Why does everything about society and women's magazines and T.V. shows and movies push us so consistently toward couplehood? At any cost? I just don't get it. Oh, I suppose there is some subconscious biological imperative at work, but really, isn't it time to move beyond that, people? Evolve already!

O.K., enough ranting. (Sorry, got a little carried away there.) I'm not saying I want to be single forever. My plan is, when I'm around 60 or so, I'll find a nice, interesting widower who has a dog and loves to travel and has enough money to be comfortable, and maybe we'll move to Costa Rica or something. In the meantime, there's no need to rush, to lower my expectations, or to read these stupid articles anymore.

*Main reason: my dad reads this blog.