Thursday, September 30

language barriers and guys' night out

It's Thursday. Thursday is my boyfriend's favorite night of the week, because it's guys night out --whatever that means. To him, it basically means a night-without-my-girlfriend-and-I-don't-have-to-justify-it. To me, it says: my boyfriend needs to set in the ground rules of our relationship (if there is such a thing) that there should be a night where he gets to get drunk with the guys (a part I'm willing to admit is necessary for the sanity of the male species) and a night where he doesn't have to worry about his girlfriend (the part that confuses me). Correct me if I'm wrong, but girlfriends aren't supposed to be the thing you worry about and need to schedule a night away from... Although in man-language, Thursday nights are about spending quality time with friends, in my language, it also means trouble. For the sake of defining "guys night out" for the greater good of 21st relationships, let's try and talk about this.
I for one, love girls' night out --but I don't feel the need to mark it down in the calendar for months and years to come. I enjoy spending time with my friends without my man because it's nice to have your own life and space. Which is why I completely understand the concept of guy's night out.
Here's where I get lost: my boyfriend will have guys night out no matter what, even if he's dead tired, and even if his friends don't want to be out. He will stubbornly get drunk, go home at no less than 2.30 in the morning, and never ask me to join him. Because it's Thursday, and in order for him to keep feeling good about his youth and his manhood, he needs to this (my words, not his).
Other guys, I've noticed, do guys night out almost every night --just after they finished the first part of the evening with their girlfriends. We may naively think that they do this just to go out and flirt (maybe cheat) but the truth is, more than 90% of the time, they don't do that. They just get really really drunk, between guys, and sometimes end-up with really fantastically-plausible stories the next morning. I know this because I have a bunch of Rat friends with all kinds of stories that will make you wonder why men dare to ever get drunk at all.
A friend of mine used to feel like when she didn't come out with her boyfriend, she could detect a sound of happiness coming from him --a sort of "I love you but I'm so happy I get to spend the night being an idiot with my friends rather than with you." And her man did love her. He just loved feeling like he was one was the guys more. And eventually, she decided it would better if she let him be one of the guys 24/7. She left.
I'm not trying to minimize the importance that men and women both need their space and time with their own friends --because really, in a long term relationship, you can't expect to always do everything together. That would be almost unhealthy. But guys, at least agree not to make your girlfriend feel like spending the night without them is like winning a first class trip to Vegas.

Monday, September 27

Good point, Wiseman

After my first two posts last week, I received a lot of comments --from guys. Of course, the fact that this blog is meant for girls only makes them more curious about reading it. But what's more, is that they want to give their opinion...
So here we were, sitting around beers, vodka and Mojitos, debating my Beirut Rhapsodies.
"Just the title, Boys gone BAD, Girls gone Mad, makes you just another girl ranting about how men are always the bad guy. Why do we always have to be the bad guy in the story?"
Well, my friend the Wiseman, made a very good point. Although he was completely wrong about my intentions, he made me realize what the problem was: us girls, we say things, think things, interpret things, analyze things, and a lot of the times, the mens' team sees it in a completely different way. When I said boys gone bad I really didn't mean to put the focus on how guys are always bad. After all, I did also say girls gone mad, and I really wouldn't like to imply that girls are always mad (although I'm pretty sure guys think we are).
So maybe what we need here is a conversation... Not just the girls night-out rantings and interpretations of how we can salvage relationships for Humankind. But actually consider the guys' point of view in this --then maybe we'll actually get somewhere. And I'm sure my guy friends, known from here on out as the Rats, will have plenty to say.

Tuesday, September 21

boys gone bad, girls gone mad

Now it's a whole new ball game. Things are complicated even before there is any talk of marriage! Because we are human, most of us fall in love. And that tends to happen somewhere in our mid-twenties, where relationships that last more than a couple of dates usually turn into "something serious." And that "something serious" needs a definition of its own. Take me for example: I'm 25, been a relationship for 2 years, with a guy who's 26. Now here's the thing: we love each other, we know we're the right fit, we can imagine spending the rest of our lives together... but here's the other thing: we're too young. Mid-twenties is now too young. My great-grandmother got married at 16 and had five kids by the time she was my age. Can I ever consider a remotely close scenario?
Twenty-five and thinking of marriage gives me knots in my stomach. My boyfriend says he wishes we met at 29, so he could be spending this time "enjoying" his youth and all the hot women that come his way. Doesn't sound like something you should tell your girlfriend? True, but what's also true, is that... it's true. That's how men think: "I love you, but I'm a man and we have animal instincts, you couldn't possibly understand." The result usually goes something like that: boys gone bad, girls gone mad, breakups inevitable. Or you can do what I do, which is try to figure out the concept of the 21st century relationship.
When my grandparents [yes, back to them] started dating, they were married six months later --while still in the lovey-dovey phase. Then its the honeymoon period; followed by the joy of pregnancy, the excitement of the first born, the efforts focused on changing diapers and getting him to burp; right until it's time for a second bun in the oven. There was no time for boring. No time for routine.
Now relationships sometimes lasts six or seven years before anything alters the routine. And there you find yourself stuck somewhere in limbo. You are with someone, but does that mean that you can talk about "us" like it's a done deal? Should you be considering career choices and geographical ambitions according to his? Or is that going to freak him out? The problem is, there is no guidebook.
And that's not even considering how much effort you have to do to keep your relationship not only working, but fun, passionate, spicy, years and years after the initial lovey-dovey phase. It's just hard to do when you don't get the help of engagements, weddings, honeymoons, pregnancies, babies, and the etc. You're so comfortable in that little "something serious" couple of yours that eyes can wonder, minds can wonder, and let's face it, it's not like it was the first few months.

Remembering how to write, love and be happy

When I was younger I could write pages and pages without ever blinking. Without second-guessing myself, without turning on the auto-critic. I just did the writing. And the point here is to go back to those roots, or at least try to. I'm trying to write a novel. It's been in the works, cooking up its way through in that little head of mine. And this blog is supposed to help me get back in touch with my inner creativity, that little genius writer that once lived inside me and which I haven't heard from in ages.
This is supposed to start me off, let me write down my inspirations, and let them find their way back to me. Beirut Rhapsodies is a novel. It's the story about women in their twenties, struggling to find their balance between the love they want and the love they have. I am a twenties girl in Beirut, and I am struggling. All my four and a half girlfriends are struggling, and so are all of their friends. And I know it's the same on other continents, because I've been there, and I have friends there too.
Relationships in the 21st century are no longer what they used to be, and we need someone to redefine the term. Our parents' generation is the divorce generation. They're those who were twenty in the 70s, who created the whole concept of rebelling against the system, the peace and love era, the feminists, the hippies. Peace and love led to divorce in the masses, because what they didn't realize when they were fighting for all those [wonderful] things, is that they were forever changing the concepts that defined modern society: marriage and family. Because wives no longer have to keep up with their husband's crap just because standing by your man is the right thing to do --which means no one sticks around anymore. And both men and women expect more from each other than they used to. My grandmother didn't expect my grandfather to love her passionately for sixty years. She expected a father figure for her children, financial support, and company. And she hoped for friendship and respect. My grandfather didn't expect my grandma to look like a bombshell all the way through her fifties, but now, when women like Demi Moore looks the way she does in a bikini, the pressure is on. It was easier to keep the marriage contract --let's just call it what it is-- and it was easier to uphold both ends of the deal.