But when I met you, you said you were blonde
There's a bit of a furor going on on some of the blogs I read, because a woman on one of the blogs they read said that she thinks she owes it to her husband to stay slim. If she got fat, that would be unfair: it would be false advertising.
And the whole idea gives me the screaming meemies, so let's step away from the weight issue, and the "owes it to her husband" issue, and move on to the "false advertising" issue. Because on the one hand, people change, and some times, as a partner, you can't live with that change, and the relationship ends. But on the other hand, I have been in relationships which have been "advertised" as one thing, and turned out to be another. And when the truth came out, or my misunderstanding was corrected, then, well, either things wobbled and went on, or it all came crashing down.
There are a lot of things I didn't tell K before we got together, and there are loads of things I probably haven't thought to tell him yet. Assumptions, background plans, that kind of thing. Little bits of information which would, maybe, perhaps, have been off putting on a first date. Not exactly false advertising, but the unvoiced assumptions which don't get corrected. K, for example, is allergic to cats. I don't think I'd have done things differently if I'd known that, but my definition of having being Grown Up had "adopt a cat" on the check list, somewhere between "get own appartment" and "mortgage". And there was a pang as I let that dream go. Of course, I can still love other people's cats, and never have to clean up poo or vomit. Hurrah!
But I think our society encourages us to advertise ourselves in order to attract a partner, and that's unfortunate. The fact that even five-year olds know that adverts lie makes the process almost guaranteed to fail. Advertising has become synonymous with a certain kind of lie, a hyperbolic exaggeration of the good qualities, and a careful omission of the bad. Taking your date to fashionable restaurants you don't like and can't really afford would be one example. Pretending - as the Bridget Jones girls do - to be interested in football, or telling your date that your a size 10, because you will be, when the diet your starting tomorrow kicks in, are the kind of false advertising popularised in the media. It's OK to lie, they say, because eventually you'll find someone who, when he finds out he's been hooked on false pretences, will stick around anyway.
This seems a bit of an arse-backwards way of going about things, but it is, nonetheless, a modern fact that presentation and appearance do a lot more to smooth the bumps than brains do. In fact, we are told by Cosmo and friends that smart girls are getting pretty. "Tits and ass" as the blond girl sang in "A Chorus Line", telling the rest of the hopefuls what she'd got fixed to get jobs and change her rating of "Dance, 10. Looks, 3." to "employed".
It is this that we need to guard against, these small lies and pretences to hook or trap a partner as though the fairy-tale wedding was when the story stopped, as though married couples didn't live together every day, and as though living together just meant having a breakfast date, a dinner date, and great sex every single day.
People change, and there are things you don't get around to saying until its too late, and lots of things can break a relationship - "I'll only love you if you're thin" would be one for me, and "you need to lose weight" would put a serious dent in the deal, if not preceeded by "Your doctor just called, she says". Things which either show the person up in a completely new light such as "I know you're a vegitarian, but I figured it wouldn't matter if I put chicken in the stew" or bring up some issue which you, the date, didn't sign on for, and can't live with, rational or not. Children. AIDS. Living with their parents. A job which requires them to move every two years. A pet snake. Football. Shoe shopping. Getting fat, or getting thin. Star Wars figurines. Channel hopping. Reusing each tea bag 3 times. And if you're going to last, as a couple, you both have to compromise.
And perhaps the woman who started the furor has taken a long hard look at her marriage, her life, and decided it's worth it, and, just as I take up the carpet before K comes to visit - which means, OMG, cleaning my room - she stays thin, because she loves her husband and herself, and her weight is an issue for them, analagous to his leaving the toilet seat up. Whatever. That's fine, of course that's fine: it's none of my business.
I mean, yeah, it helps a lot when ones expectations are met, and reactions aren't always rational - it gives me the heebie-jeebies whenever K shaves off his beard - and some changes you make for peace, and some you don't, and some you can't. But let's not make it about false-advertising, as though a life-partner were a washing machine which suddenly wanted to be a dryer, or an ordinary sofa when you thought you'd ordered a futon.
And the whole idea gives me the screaming meemies, so let's step away from the weight issue, and the "owes it to her husband" issue, and move on to the "false advertising" issue. Because on the one hand, people change, and some times, as a partner, you can't live with that change, and the relationship ends. But on the other hand, I have been in relationships which have been "advertised" as one thing, and turned out to be another. And when the truth came out, or my misunderstanding was corrected, then, well, either things wobbled and went on, or it all came crashing down.
There are a lot of things I didn't tell K before we got together, and there are loads of things I probably haven't thought to tell him yet. Assumptions, background plans, that kind of thing. Little bits of information which would, maybe, perhaps, have been off putting on a first date. Not exactly false advertising, but the unvoiced assumptions which don't get corrected. K, for example, is allergic to cats. I don't think I'd have done things differently if I'd known that, but my definition of having being Grown Up had "adopt a cat" on the check list, somewhere between "get own appartment" and "mortgage". And there was a pang as I let that dream go. Of course, I can still love other people's cats, and never have to clean up poo or vomit. Hurrah!
But I think our society encourages us to advertise ourselves in order to attract a partner, and that's unfortunate. The fact that even five-year olds know that adverts lie makes the process almost guaranteed to fail. Advertising has become synonymous with a certain kind of lie, a hyperbolic exaggeration of the good qualities, and a careful omission of the bad. Taking your date to fashionable restaurants you don't like and can't really afford would be one example. Pretending - as the Bridget Jones girls do - to be interested in football, or telling your date that your a size 10, because you will be, when the diet your starting tomorrow kicks in, are the kind of false advertising popularised in the media. It's OK to lie, they say, because eventually you'll find someone who, when he finds out he's been hooked on false pretences, will stick around anyway.
This seems a bit of an arse-backwards way of going about things, but it is, nonetheless, a modern fact that presentation and appearance do a lot more to smooth the bumps than brains do. In fact, we are told by Cosmo and friends that smart girls are getting pretty. "Tits and ass" as the blond girl sang in "A Chorus Line", telling the rest of the hopefuls what she'd got fixed to get jobs and change her rating of "Dance, 10. Looks, 3." to "employed".
It is this that we need to guard against, these small lies and pretences to hook or trap a partner as though the fairy-tale wedding was when the story stopped, as though married couples didn't live together every day, and as though living together just meant having a breakfast date, a dinner date, and great sex every single day.
People change, and there are things you don't get around to saying until its too late, and lots of things can break a relationship - "I'll only love you if you're thin" would be one for me, and "you need to lose weight" would put a serious dent in the deal, if not preceeded by "Your doctor just called, she says". Things which either show the person up in a completely new light such as "I know you're a vegitarian, but I figured it wouldn't matter if I put chicken in the stew" or bring up some issue which you, the date, didn't sign on for, and can't live with, rational or not. Children. AIDS. Living with their parents. A job which requires them to move every two years. A pet snake. Football. Shoe shopping. Getting fat, or getting thin. Star Wars figurines. Channel hopping. Reusing each tea bag 3 times. And if you're going to last, as a couple, you both have to compromise.
And perhaps the woman who started the furor has taken a long hard look at her marriage, her life, and decided it's worth it, and, just as I take up the carpet before K comes to visit - which means, OMG, cleaning my room - she stays thin, because she loves her husband and herself, and her weight is an issue for them, analagous to his leaving the toilet seat up. Whatever. That's fine, of course that's fine: it's none of my business.
I mean, yeah, it helps a lot when ones expectations are met, and reactions aren't always rational - it gives me the heebie-jeebies whenever K shaves off his beard - and some changes you make for peace, and some you don't, and some you can't. But let's not make it about false-advertising, as though a life-partner were a washing machine which suddenly wanted to be a dryer, or an ordinary sofa when you thought you'd ordered a futon.