The Right Hand Bling Thing

June 19, 2007

I was thinking it might be time to marry myself instead of waiting to marry someone else. Who needs a man when you can buy a big bling for yourself? I can probably afford a better ring for myself than any of the men that I have met lately.

Some women who buy these big shiny rings are calling them cocktail rings. But what they are really rings for women without fiancées. Everywhere you look, it is the single young women who seem to be sporting the largest, shiniest crystal (fake or real) on the fourth finger of their right hand. These glittering channel bands, or diamond solitaires set in stars, hearts and flower shapes are especially popular with celebrities. Everyone from Paris Hilton to Courtney Love to Pamela Anderson is wearing these.

The diamond companies call these the Right Hand Ring and they are marketing them to young women like me like crazy. They are trying to charge us between 1,500 and $7,000 to wear something quite bridal looking. According to an ad I saw in Vanity Fair, the DeBeers Diamond Trading calls this ring “a symbol “of the strength, success and independence of the woman of the twenty-first century.” I am not sure if I want to fall for that.

It is more of a symbol of materialism rather than anything. Does this mean that the larger the diamond is that you buy for yourself the more committed you are to yourself? Can’t a woman just be committed to herself without spending half of a down payment on a condo on the concept?

The DeBeers had says, “Woman of the world, raise your right hand!” The ad copy says that raising your right hand is a declaration of independence. What does extending the third finger of your right hand mean? Is the insult weaker if you have a big DeBeers bling on it? I guess I’m not feeling that great about diamonds after watching Blood Diamond.

These Right Hand rings are usually pretty expensive – much more than any diamond chip found in the local People’s jeweler in the mall. These diamond rings are nice but I will settle for a great big fake or a semi-precious stone like an aquamarine or a topaz. The nicest ones are the big emerald cut semi-precious stones that are practically the size of a domino.

I guess this idea is good for spinsters who know there is no chance of marriage but still want a ring. It is also good for women who did get married but don’t like the cheap ass ring their husband got them. Maybe that’s why Posh Spice and Madonna own Right Hand Blings as well as the usual left hand ring. Maybe they are just trying to one up the spinsters by getting rocks that are even bigger.

You don’t have to wear a right hand ring to express independence. Many friends of mine wear a diamond ring, either given in engagement or passed down from a loving grandmother, just because they have liked the stone or the way it feels on their hand. And that is the best reason to wear it.

 

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I’ve Been Thinking About Men and Women …

June 3, 2007

I’ve been doing some thinking about the double standards and ironies that have to do with the way males and females see each other and put them into statements.

Here is the first statement – When a woman says no she is a cocktease.

There is a lot of truth to that one as most women know. Heck you can’t even put on makeup without being accused of that. However a tranny can put on tons of makeup and not have any problem at all.

When a man says no he has a fear of commitment.

Actually in my experience this is what hysterical women who can’t take rejection say. I think it is a bunch of b.s. to say a man has a fear of commitment. Maybe he has fear of being committed to an insane asylum after being driven crazy by some obsessed woman.

Men never make passes at women who wear glasses.

Writer Dorothy Parker made up this phrase a thousand years ago. Maybe if she looks like ugly Betty but I don’t think women have this problem anymore. I think women are more likely to pass on men who wear glasses nowadays.

The more you call the more he or she will be convinced that you care and that you are the one.

I guess I know a lot of obsessed people and to tell you the truth I don’t really know why people think that calling someone all of the time is going to make them like you more. All they are really going to think is that you are a big pest.

Men are sexually attracted to women who make a nice dinner.

Hmmm. Although this doesn’t hurt it is more likely that men are sexually attracted to women who give great oral sex. The dinner thing is just icing on the cake. Which leads me to the next big misconception –

Women just love oral sex. Ummm…not really. Watching too much porn leads a lot of men to believe this but really it is just yucky and bad for us in every way.

Here is another big myth – A straight woman can convince a gay male that he is not gay. I don’t know how many of my girl friends have fallen for this one. Let’s just say it is a project that always ends up in disaster.

If you are sexually attracted to someone then everyone else must be attracted too!

This misconception which is often adopted by the members of both sexes is crazy and causes more jealousy and competitive behavior than anything. The truth is that just because you like someone does not mean everybody else does too. To think this is a complete delusion! This also causes people to act in haste and ask people out before they are ready, phone complete strangers to check up on what they are doing at all hours of the night and accuse personally innocent friends of trying to steal your man!

 

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Online Dating – Some Are Luckier Than Others

May 10, 2007

I have this friend Shari. Like my friend Darlene she is also twenty-six and she has also fell in love online. Sure there is a six year age difference (he is twenty) but at least it is working this time. (He is a very mature twenty years old and is not sitting around watching Star Trek or dropping E all day.)

As I mentioned in the last blog Darlene seemed to find her true love online right away. Shari is a much different story. The more she tries the trickier the men she meets get. In the past Shari has had some pretty bad luck when it comes to men (until this last one but we will see!)

Before Shari met Christopher, she did have a couple of bad experiences that would have soured me on the whole Internet thing. Not catastrophic or truly horrible, but kind of so-so. Depressing enough to send you down to the local meet market bar.

For instance, she was thrilled when one guy she wrote to finally sent her his picture. They agreed to meet in person at a local restaurant. Imagine her surprise when her date rolled up to the table in a wheelchair. I considered seeing him, but

Then I realized …this is not fair. He omitted this information in his email and I couldn’t tell this from the photo he sent me. So I had to tell him, gently, nicely, that this kind of dishonesty was not for me.

Shari also had a one-night stand with an out of work actor that she met on the net as well.

“First I met in him in a cafe. He was also quite a bit younger than me. The whole thing was quite fast and furious…he came over that night and made love. The next day when he tried to come over again, I had to tell him that it was just for sex. He wanted a relationship and I didn’t, so he had to go. It just didn’t click. He was heartbroken.”

Even though it is possible to find sex and even a husband on the Internet, cyber-dating is still a risky business — especially for women. According WHOA (Women Halting Online Harassment) “while men are certainly harassed online, 87% of our reported cases our female. Also 54% of the victims were in the 18 to 30 range. 53% of the victims who came to us had no previous contact with the correspondents. Email is the most common forum where harassment beings –39.5% were stalked or harassed by email and 15.5% began getting harassed after

meeting someone in a chat room.

So from what I am gathering so far, online romance is the most dangerous option for dating if you are single, white, female and under thirty but it might also be your best shot at meeting someone for real. The irony is that whether you end up having a stalker or a genuine soul mate showing up at your door you are probably still going to get that declaration of love you were longing to hear.

 

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Never Call Him First

May 5, 2007

If there is one thing that I have learned so far in my brief few years as a serial dater it is “Never ever call him first.” This is a law of dating that should apply to single women everywhere. You call him first, you are dead in the water.

I know it sounds really old fashioned and not too feminist but unfortunately it is true. From what I can tell, relationships that start off with the woman calling the man always lead to some kind of disaster or humiliation.

This is the typical scenario. A woman meets a cute guy an in a bar. They talk for two hours straight. The woman starts thinking, “Oh, he really likes me.” Before she knows it the hours have flown by, it is Last Call and it is time to go home. He is putting on his coat, and she has either one of two options –

1. To never see him again in her life.

2. To get his number.

This is exactly how these catastrophic affairs start. You should never ask the man for his number. This is because if unless he volunteers it, you will probably always get an answering machine or even a female voice that says “Just a minute. I’ll get him.”

It is also pretty humiliating when you leave that one message and the guy never calls you back, even after weeks have passed when at the bar he was more than willing to tell you almost too much about himself.

Most of the time you get an answering machine. The worst thing you can do is leave one of those “burned” sounding messages after he hasn’t returned your message after about three weeks. The point here is that if he wanted to call, he would and that if he wanted to call he would have asked for your number in the first place.

This begs the question – why do men go on and on about themselves to complete strangers in the first place? It is because most men don’t see women as anything but soft places to lay their heads in the first place. You are a nurturer, just like his mom, and of course there is nothing you would be more grateful for then to listen to his life story.

Still most women don’t seem to realize that most men like to just ramble on about themselves with no interest in you. Like some types of alpha dogs they like the sound of their voice.

There is also the slight danger that the guy that you were talking to is one of the old-fashioned control freak types who were raised by a Michael Douglas type Dad. This type believes that the minute you ask for the number, never mind phone, that you are automatically a stalker.

If you simply make it one of your Golden Rules that you will never ask for his number then you will never be put through this kind of pain. There is a lot of peace in knowing that the guy who is calling you really does want to call and and you know this is so because he asked for YOUR number. Not the other way around.

 

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