Tangent Class

Welcome to Tangent Class. I've decided, in honor of my beloved high school students, to write this blog in the format of my class last semester, where we basically just rode out every conversational tangent we could, until we learned things about theatre. Ta-da!
---------------
Question: Do High Maintenance Women Snag Better Mates?

Before anyone wonders what bad crack I've been smoking, I will clarify that this is not MY question. In fact, this isn't really something I'd ever thought about before. Until EHarmony sent me an email with THAT as the subject.

Golly. I don't know. Define "better" please, oh Dating Gods.

Tangent: I don't actually say "golly" in real life.

Tangent: 9 times out of 10, even when I try to avoid swearing when talking to my students, by using a word like golly or heck, I will then swear in the following sentence. Such as, "Okay guys, I don't know what the heck you think you are doing. The dressing room is not the place to be loud and fuck around." Ooops. Thank goodness I teach high school(ish).

Tangent: I don't teach in a curricular high school. This is a plus for many reasons, not the least of which is the occasional swear.

Okay.

Define "better." Is "better" someone who is also seeking a high maintenance person, because that, for me, would be "worse." I spent a good deal of time in previous relationships trying to be seen as legitimately low-maintenance, when they really wanted the opposite.

Tangent: A lot of the men I see with extremely high maintenance women (I'm being generic and going with the women who you KNOW take 2 hours to get ready to go to the 7-11) do NOT seem like the prize picks. These men seem alternately terrified of and angry at their ladies.

Tangent: This may or may not have to do with the odd coincidence that I never seem to see ugly people yelling at each other outside of bars. I know it happens. I just seem to keep catching the really drunk, really made-up girl shouting at the really drunk, really gelled hair guy.

Tangent: I don't know how readily this can be interpreted as any kind of fact. I think I've been out at bar closing time exactly three times in the last eight years.

Tangent: That's a lie. If I check my bank statements for ATM transactions at the Golden Nugget on Lincoln I'm sure I could manage a more accurate late-night count.

Tangent: The Golden Nugget is a chain of amazing, wonderful diners. Their food is best when you are pre-soaked in booze.

Back to the high maintenance. And, the article. It doesn't (as I was hoping) provide examples that we mid-maintenance ladies can use to up our maintenance level. This is the best I could come up with:

Can I change my own windshield wiper blades?

Definitely.

Tangent: I'm nearly 30. If I couldn't do that by now, I'd be up shit creek.

Tangent: I have recently heard this expression as "Shit's creek." I have no idea which version is accurate. Was it a family property with a creek bearing the family surname? Because, yikes.

Tangent: Now a family called the Shits makes me think about Robin Hood, Men in Tights, when Latrine makes the joke about changing the family's name in the 1500's from Shithouse to Latrine...

Tangent: The other day my Dad used an expression that I hadn't heard in years. When describing a very large and terrifying woman at the airport he said she was, "Built like a brick shithouse." It was not an untrue statement.

ANYWAY.

Can I change my own windshield wiper blades? Absolutely.

Wouldn't it be nice for a man to do it, especially in the god damn freezing cold? YES!

Unfortunately, I don't think this makes me "high maintenance" enough...

EHarmony suggests that I focus on my "Mate Value" (I swear to jeebus I am not making this up) instead of contemplating ways to be more high maintenance. It also mentions that I need to be aware that if I want to attract someone with a High Mate Value, that being high maintenance is a strong strategy.

Pause.

FTW?

Tangent: My sister and I recently discovered that FTW did not mean what we thought it did. It really means "For The Win." We both thought it was "Fuck the Whaaaaat?" So, I mean FTW in that context. Fuck. The. What.

Suddenly this dating website has gone from matching me with the most nonsensical array of men in the history of time, to telling me that if I want to date a 10, I need to ACT like a 10. Sure. That sounds awesome. Let me spend my evenings carefully grooming myself for the perfect man to come and scrutinize my Mate Value!

I'd rather listen to my Spice Girls Pandora station and make a wall decoration out of old keys I found.

Tangent: That is a thing that I did.

Back to overly strategic grooming and dressing. After all that, the article has a caveat...but now that you are a 10...and you've attracted your Highest Value Mate that Tolerates Your Non-Make-up Face, what happens next?

Well. It says that if you have found yourself as the mate with the lower value in the pair, you will have to work very hard to keep your mate from wandering.

Tangent: I teach "status" a lot as an acting teacher. In one game, the students all draw playing cards (face down) and hold them up on their foreheads, face out. The idea being that the students themselves can't see their own number, but must discern their number by the way they are treated by the others who CAN see their number.

Tangent: Once, on a high school work trip, I am fairly certain we played a game called "Indian Poker" that had a similar idea...only I can't remember the rest of it. It also sounds monstrously racially insensitive.

Tangent: Back to status. The ones at the far ends of the spectrum figure it out pretty fast. The face cards are all treated well, and over in a corner someone is using the two of clubs as a footrest.

What was I actually talking about? AH! Yes. Mate-Value-Dynamics. What an utterly terrifying prospect. I can also tell you that being the person with the "higher value" guarantees you absolutely nothing. AND, you get to be a dick for walking around going "Doot de do, I'm the higher valued person!"

Tangent: I'm not just talking about ladies on this one. I see plenty of guys crap all over amazing women because they have simply devalued them. While I might be pissed at the EHarmony phrasing and tactics, the concept of value in a relationship is important.

Tangent: I got really good at spelling maintenance correctly on the first try while working at Blue Man. When you manage a show that hadn't changed in 12 years, that's a lot of maintenance!

Tangent: But they changed the show this year! Yay! Go see it! Or, don't! Whatever!

So, where does this leave us? Me, particularly? I have no idea.

That's not true. I do have an idea. I admit to coloring and flat ironing my hair, to indulging in a fake-bake from time to time. I admit that I like my eyelashes better when they have mascara on them, to painting my toe nails, and to thinking carefully about what I put on...but that isn't because I'm thinking about my Mate Value. It's because I like to do it, and I feel great when I do.

Tangent: My hair is naturally brown and very wavy. Some might call it curly, but only half of it will curl on any given day, and that look is not great. All I wanted when I was growing up was to have straight, blond hair. When I got old enough to buy it, I bought it. So there.

Tangent: Did that raise my maintenance value!? How about my Mate Value.

Tangent: Does anyone else thing Mate Value sounds like some kind of hardware store where they sell erotic toys?

Blah blah, right. I'm glad I read the damn thing, because it did make me stop and think about where I fall on the spectrum, and what kind of guy will ultimately click with whatever nonsense I've got goin' on. Moreover, it made me glad that I canceled my subscription.

Tangent: I literally JUST got another email from them, this one with the subject: "It Will All Be Worth It When You Find True Love." What will be worth it? All this awkward posturing or the monthly subscription fees?

Sugar, if it's "true love," we'll be well past Mate Value and into the Douglas Adams quotes before you can say, "Fuck the Whaaaaaaat?"