Role-Playing

I have been holed up in my apartment sick for the past few days. I thought I was getting better and last night I cooked up a vegan fantasia for the girls and the goys and we had a Gypsy music party afterwards. I sang, I danced, I played, and perhaps I should have been a little tamer because I feel horrid today. This cold just won't let up and I've tried to just sweat it out with yoga and running, but to no avail. May this be the last day so help me! I have had so much chlorophyll, E3, wheatgrass, and crazy green immune concoctions this week, I just can't take anymore. This was the incentive I needed however to buy a new Neti Pot since I left mine in the shower in Costa Rica. I hope one of the monkeys took it home..

I was given this book to read by one of my life mentors out here, and it's a book that I probably never would have read, oh, even 6 months ago. It is this relationship book and I probably would have dismissed it along with all those other books which I have never read but only read about, i.e, the rules, he's just not into you, etc...But my whole approach to life these days is that I have something to learn from absolutely everyone. So what's it gonna be? I did have to hide it before I had people over the other day, cuz, it would totally kill my street cred to be seen reading this..

The book is focused on the determination of what "type" you want to be in your relationship. There is a "male" and this is the giver, the person to be respected. There is a "female" which is the receiver, the person to be cherished. For example, if you want to be the "male" in the relationship and you initiate actions, then you would need to find a partner who is a "female" who is open to you initiating. If you found a man who is the "male" role, then you would have conflict over this time and again. That you would be emasculating him. The author stresses that you must choose which one you are, and then always work within those lines and never cross over.

Now, most definitely we are composed of both a masculine and feminine essence with perhaps one side being a little or a lot more dominant. I don't agree that one needs to pick one role and always stay there, because to be a feminist and hopefully to be with a feminist man, it would require movement between the roles you play, flexibility, and an awareness and acknowledgement about it. But this did get me thinking in more specific terms of my past relationships, the roles I have played, the roles my partners have played, and it opened my eyes up a bit to what exactly I want in my future.

One day I was out walking my dog, Bella, and I didn't have her on a leash. She tends to just walk alongside me and she follows my command so this is pretty routine. Disclaimer: She is a very joyous dog at heart. Out of nowhere this huge dog runs down the street and up to her. She gets scared immediately, but instead of running to me, she gets all up in the other dogs grill. Yes, that's right. Grill! She is arched, and hissing, (what a pussy puppy!) and suddenly looks like she is going to bite the other dog. At this point I have gotten to her so I can grab her neck and do a little alpha-role playing. First she directed her anger to me, and made a little bite face till I showed her what I meant with some eye contact. What I saw in my dog, was this. There was a situation that filled her with fear, so she manifested that with misplaced anger (and misplaced indeed - left on their own this other dog would have eaten her) but while she was doing this she looked terrified. She was honestly freaked out, not by the other dog, but of what she was doing. Her eyes were scared shitless. Because it is not in her nature to act this way. She is by nature, not a dominant, alpha dog. She likes to be submissive...hehehe. Anyways, I was remembering this event after I finished the book, because I was suddenly thinking about roles I have played, that I don't believe were always true to my nature. My nature, btw, is Simcha - Joy.

I grew up in a household where the mainstream gender roles were totally flipped around. My mother was the "male" and my father was the "female." My mother runs her own company, controls the finances and investments, and is the main provider for the family. My father always worked, but in order to support her career first. They moved to Las Vegas for my mother because of the new real estate market which she was entering, instead of trying to duke out a space for her in the old boys club in the East Coast. My mother started her own company straight out of grad school and in a time when tiny, petite, beautiful women weren't exactly taken seriously as presidents and leaders. Ha, seems like that much hasn't really changed since then. My father was the main child watcher, the cook, the cleaner, the sewer and the ironer; all the traditionally or conventional "female" household roles. My mother taught me that I could be anything I wanted, and throughout her life she has broken glass ceiling after glass ceiling. This is incredible - She is incredible. I am very similar to my mother in vast ways, and then, in other ways, not so much. How much of the roles we play with our lovers are imitations of those we grew up observing?

I have largely played the "male" role in my past relationships, either with "male" men, but I think more so with "female" men. I guess I have always felt safer with "female" men where I feel more in control (as probably many women who have experienced sexual violence do). But then I have expected to be treated as the "female" as well, and when I don't - I can emasculate. I can resent them for being weak or just whatever, and then I break up with them. Or create a hostile enough environment that they would break up with me. And its not just with my boyfriends. I was just recently awakened to a male friendship I had where I was, at times, incredibly criticizing, doling out my advice, or out to prove that I was always right and he was wrong. Now what did that get me, a new boyfriend? No. It's crazy because I always wanted to be this guys girlfriend, and I suddenly started acting out like a jealous girlfriend, without actually holding the title. Like my Bella's scared puppy aggression.

I want to be the female in many ways, more so than I have been. I want to be the female in the bedroom, I want to be the female emotionally, and I really need to learn that I don't have to win every fucking argument or have to prove my point, that what, that I am smarter than my man? Where has that gotten me? I am not saying that I need to deny who I am, or suppress anything, but what I am getting at is my objective for everything. If I want a man to be a man, then I cannot deny him his manhood at any or every opportunity. Because I do want a man.
Because I do want a full person.

This summer a guy who was trying to hook up with me asked me to go out for a drink. (Ok - this is probably lashon hora, fuck. Well, you don't know him and this was in another country so I think we are going to be ok.) At the end of the evening he expected me to pay - "Well, you're a feminist. That means you should pay right?" (He was not joking.) As if one has to do with the other. First off, being a feminist this does not equate, and had I asked him out, then I would have been prepared to pay. Secondly, I always offer to split or to pay my share. What it comes down to though, is character trait - Largely we are attracted to generous people. I want to date someone who is a giver, who is generous. Fuck, I like my girlfriends to be as well, and I try to do the same for them. So he could not seem to grasp that I did not want to date him after that, because as you see, it was not just an issue of paying a measly 20 bucks. I have chosen for myself that a generous man is a non-negotiable issue, and hence, this guy is not the man for me. I will say though, that he is a very great guy, and deserves a wonderful woman who can make him happy.

Anyways, just some things I have been thinking about while sick. Probably not the type of role-playing you thought I would be writing about from the title. You perverts! Although, I am way into that shit. Cmon, I am an actress.