Straight No Chaser

Xyloid Dreams

wonderful, the unanimous consensus is that i need to get it together. which is true, i do, just, grrrrwonderful.

unrelated to that last entry, i had to do some research on gender dynamics and relationship intimacy for my psychology class last week. here’s something i found, directly copied and pasted to avoid raising questions of my serving my own purposes:

“Because women are socialized to value relationships more than men, and to use these relationships to define themselves, friendship quality may affect the self-esteem of women more than men. Indeed, Walker and Green (1986) found that the quality of peer relationships in general predicted self-esteem in adolescent women, but not men. Similarly, we expect to observe a higher positive correlation between friendship quality with best friends and self-esteem for women than for men. Furthermore, because young women are shifting their energy toward developing and maintaining relationships with men, it may be the case that the correlation between friendship quality and self-esteem for women is especially strong when considering the quality of their cross-gender friendships. Finding this correlation, of course, does not demonstrate that having high quality friendships causes high self-esteem. Indeed, the relationship between self-esteem and friendship quality may be reciprocal, and further research would be needed to disentangle cause and effect.

Given that men report a lower need for intimacy than do women, men may not be meeting women's requirements for close friendships. On the other hand, because women tend to devote more energy to developing and maintaining relationships, women may easily satisfy men's needs within their relationships.”

sounds like a match.

anyway, my purpose in starting this entry was to respond to the latest journaling prompt, which basically amounts to “describe your perfect date.” this is poorly timed, of course; i haven’t been on a real date since junior year in high school. i did go on five desperately uncomfortable ones this past summer, and marcus claimed my birthday outing was a date, but promptly ruined it of his own accord, so neither of those count. so basically, i barely remember (or barely ever knew) what one of these things might realistically entail.

that said, here is my perfect date:

first of all, there are NO cell phones. any emergency that might come up in marcusland will just have to wait till tomorrow morning. we start by walking to the train station for old time’s sake; me in my express sale-bin tank top and a skirt, you in a polo shirt and those dark jeans i really like. we have access to a car but it’s warm out, and nice to have a few extra minutes to talk pleasantly, and by the time we get to the station we’re flushed and breathless and it feels great to plop down onto those plastic orange seats.

we go to the movies first, and see something we’ve both chosen. we go dutch on the tickets and on the ice cream we carry in with us, prop our feet up on the seats in front of us and talk loudly through the whole thing. nobody bothers us because, like that one time last november, we’re the only ones in the theater. you touch my legs and tease me about your ice cream tasting better than mine. we kiss a little bit.

we get dinner at pf chang’s. i have the shanghai street dumplings and the biggest serving of shrimp fried rice; you get your gross duck rolls and make those “yum, this tastes good” noises. then it’s off to the forest.

here’s where it gets fuzzy. this part of the date is loosely based on the emerald forest of my imagination, meaning it takes place in a fictitious locale where everything is green and spangled with precious stones. basically i think we sit in a clearing somewhere and you play your guitar. you go through your whole repertoire but skip the songs that make me sad, and play “kiss from a rose” twice because it’s what you were playing when i realized i loved you.

after you’re done i tell you a story. i’m not sure what it’s about but it’s probably the tale of a gallant prince who looks like you, and uses his valor and wit to solve all the kingdom’s problems. i throw in some cursory detail about a passing princess and you latch on because that part excites you, and eventually i find it necessary to cut my story short. your kisses feel better in the forest than they do anywhere else, and i don’t even complain about getting leaves in my hair.