Quirkyalone noun/adj. A person who has the capacity to enjoy single life (but is not opposed to being in a relationship) and generally prefers to be alone rather than dating for the sake of being in a couple.
This shocking news just in: My love life may be over. Or at the least, my fantasy love life. According to a new study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, people who frequently watch romantic comedies often have unrealistic expectations of romantic relationships and are put at a disadvantage in their relationships.
They found fans of films such as Runaway Bride and Notting Hill often fail to communicate with their partner.
Many held the view if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them.
Psychologists at the family and personal relationships laboratory at the university studied 40 top box office hits between 1995 and 2005, and identified common themes which they believed were unrealistic. The movies included You’ve Got Mail, Maid in Manhattan, The Wedding Planner, and While You Were Sleeping.
Granted most of those movies are lame. They are not MY kind of rom com, more complicated, indie-ish movies like Something’s Gotta Give or When Harry Met Sally, that really do depict the truly circuitous paths that couples take to get together. But still, I must grudgingly and tragically agree there may be something to their findings.Two questions: How many of your ideas about relationships have been formed by watching television and movie couples? How many times have you compared a first date or a messy relationship to what you have seen in movies?If we have to limit our intake of romantic comedies, what are we supposed to watch for escapist fluff now? I’m certainly not a fan of action movies or horror flicks. What does this leave? Indie movies about fucked-up families? Biopics?
Is it me or is Christian Carter of “Catch Him and Keep Him” the devil?
Have you ever gotten sucked into something that you were also ashamed to read? It happened to me yesterday. I was listlessly checking my email when I noticed a text ad that I must have seen more than 10,000 times. “How to catch and keep a man.” Those ads are as oddly ubiquitous as the text link ads for Acai Berry Wonder Diets, but I always assumed that ads with links like “Why Men Withdraw and What to Do About It” were for women who are more pathetic and malleable than me. Yesterday I joined the masses. And let me tell you. I became sickly fascinated. And angry.
I was vulnerable to that horrible ad because I recently heard something along the lines of “I’m just looking for something casual.” Somehow I find that impossible not to take personally. I clicked on the link–”The Ten Most Dangerous Mistakes Women Make”–and found myself swimming through simple, one-sentence direct-mail style paragraphs, like:
“Have you ever slept with a guy very quickly after meeting him, but as it started to happen you got that sinking feeling in your stomach? You knew it was a mistake, but you did it anyway. And then the thing you KNEW would happen actually happened: He unexplainably disappeared from your life. Honestly, have you ever had this happen?”
Of course, the worst part wasn’t that it happened, but that you KNEW you shouldn’t have done it in the first place… but you did it anyway.
In these bleak economic times, with ever-more disturbing manifestations of consumerism and greed in the news, will this finally be the year that we confront our holiday consumption addiction? I’d hate to tell people to not spend money, spiraling the economy into a deeper dive, but something has got to give.
Every year my parents, my sister and I have bemoaned the harried overconsumption that engulfs us in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. We try to cut back on our shopping, but somehow, “more presents” has come to mean “more love.” Maybe it’s overcompensation for not buying enough gifts for each other throughout the year when we gorge at Christmas time. Every year, my mother says, this year we are going to cut back! We all know there’s something inappropriate about it now that the children are grown. We all know there is something a little weird about sending out our Christmas lists of wishes and wants in mid-December, but we—certainly I—just couldn’t stop doing it.
Beyonce may be married to Jay-Z, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be perceived that way by fans. To keep her connection to single women fans alive, she’s created a new alter ego “Sasha Fierce.” Is “Sasha Fierce” a sign that being single is desirable, or just that Beyonce understands the power of marketing to a growing demographic? Either way, I’m fascinated. And flattered she chose my name! She must have been reading Quirkyalone!
During a recent overseas interview, Beyonce explained her new persona. “I wouldn’t like Sasha if I met her off stage. She’s too aggressive, too strong, too sassy, too sexy! I’m not like her in real life at all. I’m not flirtatious and super-confident and fearless like her.
“What I feel onstage I don’t feel anywhere else. It’s an out-of-body experience. I created my stage persona … so that when I go home, I don’t have to think about what it is I do. Sasha isn’t me. The people around me know who I really am.”
What is the appropriate age for baristas, video store clerks, and waitresses to start calling a woman “ma’am”? Please tell me, because I would like to know. I have become semi-obsessed with this question over the last couple of months. It’s possible that people have been calling me “ma’am” for years and I never really noticed, but all of a sudden, this summer when I was on the East Coast I started to feel middle-aged when every service professional addressed me in this (now) most dreaded way. I decided that this was perhaps an East Coast suburbia thing, that in Rhode Island, at age 34, I am presumed to be a mother when I’m out shopping at the grocery store or running errands, and therefore “matronly.” If there’s anything I don’t want to be, it’s “matronly.”
Perhaps I was too jubilant over Obama’s victory to notice. . . not only did Californians vote to take away the rights of same-sex partners to marry, voters in Arkansas voted to ban single people from acting as foster parents. Meanwhile, the state never has anywhere near enough homes for children in the state’s care. I am really shocked. Are we living in 2008, or 1962?
From the Detroit Free Press: “In Arkansas, voters decided that gay and lesbian parents should not be allowed to adopt or act as foster parents by restricting those activities to married couples.”
Sceaarrrrrry.
Must-See Quirkyalone Movie of 2008: Happy Go Lucky by Mike Leigh
Leave it to the British to create the most quirkyalone movie of 2008. If you haven’t seen Happy Go Lucky, starring the (could there be a quirkier actress) Sally Hawkins, you must run, not walk, to your local independent theater. The movie is more character-driven than plot-driven, as we float through life with a 30-year-old primary school teacher with a sturdily sunny demeanor.
What would Poppy do? That’s now what I will ask when I’m confronted with irritating situations or difficult people. Poppy is unlike anyone that I’ve ever met, but there’s something about her approach to life which I aspire to.
Quirkyalone money quote from the film: Poppy’s younger sister, who is pregnant, married, and living in the suburbs, lays into Poppy, telling her she needs to grow up and start by investing in a mortgage. “I just want you to be happy,” she says. Poppy responds, “I am happy. I love my life. I have a great job, amazing friends, yeah, it can be tough at times, but that’s part of it.” “I am one lucky lady,” she says, “and I know that.” Why it such a breath of fresh air–even revelatory-to hear a single woman count her blessings on film? Is it because we never hear that in popular culture, or because we don’t actually believe that single women can love their lives? I believe Poppy’s character.
Happy Go Lucky was everything that the Sex and the Movie claimed to be and was not. Both movies are about female friendship, but in the Sex and the City movie, all that Carrie and co. ever talk about is men. In Happy Go Lucky, the characters talk about all the things that run through women’s minds, I should quit smoking, or one of my students is violent, and what should I do, and are we grown up yet? Men and fashion are not the only reference points for life or fun. They go out dancing and make fools of themselves, collapsing into pools of girliness. The row boats in the park and talk about life.
I am still pondering the movie 24 hours later. Have you seen Happy Go Lucky? What did you think? I’m curious to hear from other QAs.
