F*** you Disney

This evening a friend of mine posted this article with a note saying he was posting it for me.

(Let me say before we get started that I love Disney. I have a many many on DVD. I grew up watching them and still will go to the theatre to see the newest Disney cartoon. Doesn't mean the feminist and political side of me doesn't see everything that's wrong with them)

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The Disney Myth: Why So Many Women Are Misled About True Love
How "happily ever after" sets kids up for heartache as adults.
By Joe Amoia

There are over 100 million single adults over the age of 25 in our country, and for most of them, the thought of being single and dating is analogous to having a red hot poker jammed into their eye. Based on my research, most single women dislike dating and being single. When it comes to finding that special guy to share their life with, many of these women say that there is hope in their heart, but they honestly admit that they are not too optimistic that true love is in their future.

Why do these women feel this way? For many of them it is based on their experience with men and their past relationships. Imagine if you wanted to eat Italian food and every time you went out to eat Italian food you had a bad experience. It wouldn't be long before you started saying to yourself "Italian food sucks." It would be only natural, wouldn't it? And who could blame you? Here you are trying to find a great place to enjoy your favorite food but every time you thought you found "the one," it left you unsatisfied and disappointed.

Well, isn't that how it is for you with men and your relationships? You want a great guy but after each failed relationship it's harder to believe that true love actually exists, isn't it? Well, it's understandable, and I felt that way a long time ago too. In fact, I have a theory. I call it the "Disney Myth" and it says that the reason most women have a hard time with men and relationships is because they have a distorted view of what true love really is.

Let's think about this. As a little girl grows up, she hears story after story about how she needs to be saved by the prince on the white horse or knight in shining armor. These stories unknowingly paint a picture that in order for a woman to live happily ever, after she needs a man to rescue and save her. She learns that her ultimate life happiness depends on a male hero.

This storyline exists in most of the Disney movies, including Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Sleeping Beauty. And in the '60s and early '70s, Disney movies played a role in most childhoods. But, as I got older and started dating, I realized that many single women who had grown up in that era had an unrealistic distortion of love and relationships.

I guess watching my mother love my dad during his four-year battle with cancer made me realize what true love and a relationship was really about. When my dad was going in and out of hospitals, having chemotherapy and wasting away in front of our eyes, I soon learned that true love was so much more than what we had ever been taught or shown. I learned that life was going to throw stuff at you and if both people weren't prepared for it, then the chances of living happily ever becomes a much more difficult aim to achieve.

What Disney left out of all of these movies is that there is something called life after you fall in love. True Love is a commitment between two people to be there for each other and to support each other in the face of life and all of its challenges because the truth is, no matter who you are, life is going to throw stuff at you. And if your prince charming doesn't have the skills and tools to meet your needs, it won't be long before happily ever after turns into miserably divorced.

I find it amazing that in the world we live in our educational systems teach us nothing about relationships. Including my doctorate, I went to school for 21 years and in that 21 years I did not have a single class on relationships and what is necessary to increase one's chances of living happily ever after. Instead, I had to figure it out on my own. I took my lumps, made a lot of bad choices and ultimately figured it out. I learned that the key to a happy, fulfilling and successful relationship is picking the right partner for the right reasons. It is about being clear about who you are and what you have to offer and picking a partner who compliments you, and who is on the same page in regards to your life goals and visions.

A relationship is a true partnership between two people. It doesn't make a difference how cute you look together or how much you think you love each other. What matters most is the two individuals love, respect and honor each other in a way that they work together to create the results that they both desire.

Many little girls grow up and dream of finding their prince. They grow up dreaming about being the princess and wearing the white dress. Years are spent focusing on the fantasy of the wedding day and what it will be like. For many, that day comes and once it is over they realize that true love and having a successful relationship is much more than they realized. Unfortunately Disney left that part out.

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After reading it I commented "I'm going to assume you meant this is for me because you knew I'd agree withthe article and not because you think I'm looking for the Disney Myth of love."

I won't deny that Disney has given the completely wrong message about ... well lots of things. Relationships, men coming to "rescue" the women, women who are helpless and life doesn't really begin until she's saved. However, I have to that I don't think my problems are that I've fallen for the Disney Myth. 

I come from a divorced family. My father left my mother for a woman 10 years his junior, he left not only my mother but also my 6 month old baby sister and my 8 year old self. 

My parent's are not the only ones in my family who are divorced. Of my six aunts and uncles only two are not (or were never) divorced - yet one was married to a philanderer and the other to an alcoholic abuser. Of the divorced/divorcees one aunt is on husband #5! I never had (what I would consider) "healthy relationship models" growing up. 

This is what say is the foundation of my inability to find a healthy and stable relationship for longer than 2 years. I've always built walls around myself to help stop others from getting in and hurting me. But then on the flip side, I also always hope/believe that "this time" and/or "this relationship" will be different and I won't fall into the patterns of the generation before me. 

So yes, Disney has filled my head (and others) with knights in shining armor, frogs that turn into princes, and being saved from less-than-ideal lives by being swept off my feet.... but I have thoughts of how to leave a relationship the first time a fist is swung or violent words thrown, how to stand up for yourself and keep your safety/sanity/self first. Disney may be f***ed up but in the end it's only the tip of my disfunctionality iceberg.

Not Married

Jessica Ravitz

So I have to say sometimes the thing you need to make you smile after a break up (<- blog posting on that once the tears subside) isn't your many wonderful friends and family telling you they love you, telling you they know it's hard to believe but the pain will go away, not them telling you they're sorry. Sometimes what you need is an older (and slightly more vocal) person telling you (via internet CNN article) that it's okay to not be married and that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

Thank you Jessica Ravitz for "Why I'm not married (and it's not because I'm an angry slut)" (I do want to acknowledge that as of right now, no, I haven't read the article she's referring too. I didn't think it proper timing to find out "why [I'm] not married" a few hours after my heart was broken by the man I thought I was going to spend my life with)

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Why I'm not married (and it's not because I'm an angry slut)

(CNN) -- Jessica Ravitz

Tracy McMillan has gotten under my single-status skin.

Tracy McMillan

I'm not sure how it took nearly a week for her Huffington Post column, "Why You're Not Married," to land in front of me, but it finally did. And now I'm fired up -- not in an angry way but in the sort of way that made me skip to my desk, excited to type.

To hear it from the thrice-divorced McMillan, I'm 41 and not married because of one (or more?) of six reasons: I'm a bitch, a slut, a liar, shallow, selfish or not good enough.

Wow. Is that all? Maybe I smell, too.

I'll be the first to admit I've got issues (c'mon, who doesn't?), but I'm not owning these. Perhaps she was talking about why her own marriages failed or was simply setting out to get a rise, which she did brilliantly. And while I've been guilty of occasional transgressions that might fit in some of those unflattering boxes, McMillan doesn't touch why I'm not married.

Based on the buzz surrounding her conversation-starting piece, I'm laying down and lining up behind reason number seven: Life happens.

Before reading on, know that I am not and refuse to be woe-is-me. Like Jennifer Aniston, minus the killer body and bank account, I'm happy. Really, I am. I skipped to my desk, dammit.

Of course I'd love to meet and marry that one and only, but in the meantime I'm living my life, and I'm taking everything that's been given me on the journey.

Maybe, like me, that's where you are, too.

Maybe you spent your adolescence clashing with a stepfather who didn't get you emotionally. And maybe the father who did get you had been relegated by the courts, when you were 2 and your parents divorced, to every-other-weekend access. Maybe your first love cheated on you, just around the time a second divorce rolled through your family. So maybe your faith in men and marriage was a little shaken before you teased your hair for the prom.

But that's nothing some therapy and better hair sense can't fix, right?

Maybe you're a searcher with a healthy dose of wanderlust, someone who needed time to commit to furniture, let alone a man, because there was so much you needed to see, do and become.

Maybe you were and still are a hopeful (I refuse to say hopeless) romantic who for years held a candle for the one you thought was The One. He'd changed your life, after all, when he lured you to Israel (though it could have been Thailand, for all you cared) -- allowing you to claim that Jewish side of yourself you'd never embraced before.

And maybe he slipped and called you his soul mate at one point, a statement you caught and remembered. So even after you read the diary he'd left out, oops, learned about the Brazilian woman with amazing eyes, broke up and dated others, you still held out hope for him. You stupidly took the crumbs he tossed you from time to time and thought they had meaning. Finally, you got through your thick noggin that the guy just wasn't that into you. Hell, he wasn't even all that nice to you. You learned he wasn't the one who got away. He was the one who got in the way.

Then, maybe you met the one who was that into you. He loved and respected you like no man had before. And the dog -- how could you not fall for the man and his dog? One day, while taking a break from kayaking, when you least expected it, maybe he pulled out a ring and asked you to marry him.

Maybe you said yes but then freaked out. You couldn't eat dinner, and you love dinner. Maybe you snuck out of the B&B in the middle of the night. You found a pay phone and called your father, with whom you'd grown profoundly close, sobbing. Maybe you were seized by fear. But everyone around you, including your therapist, said they expected nothing less, given your family history. They even said it would be weird if you didn't freak out. So you were engaged to be married.

But maybe after you moved to a new state and settled into engaged life, you still worried. That fear, that inkling that something was missing or wrong, grew stronger. Maybe you became a genius at dodging wedding questions. Maybe you lost countless hours of sleep, watching him and the dog as they slept peacefully, struggling with what you felt. You didn't want to quit the race, but at some point you knew with painful clarity there was a hurdle you two couldn't clear. So maybe, out of your love for him and yourself, you handed back the ring and left. Maybe you wished you could share custody of the dog.

Maybe, even as you licked those wounds in your pathetic little apartment, you began to appreciate your courage. You learned to trust yourself more. You realized your past didn't define your future; you did. And then, maybe when you were finally prepared to date again, you woke up a single Jew living in Utah.

But being a single Jew in Utah wouldn't matter, because then life tossed you a doozy that put the pain of a called-off engagement to shame.

Maybe you suddenly lost your father. Being emotionally available for someone else wasn't something you could even entertain. Now you had an excuse not to date.

But maybe you knew that your dad -- not to mention your amazing mom and stepmom, and your now-gentler ex-stepdad -- wanted nothing more than for you to love and be loved. So when you were ready, with a fresh start in a new city, you were excited to put yourself out there again.

Maybe you were approaching 40 when you arrived in the South. Maybe you were slapped across the face with the reminder that most people your age are married with children. Maybe you went to a singles event and became convinced you were the oldest one there, so you ducked out early.

But maybe you held onto hope and optimism. You sucked up your pride and whipped up an online dating profile. You found out that men in Belgium, as well as men with odd fetishes and offensively bad grammar and spelling, have a thing for you. You received horrifying -- yet hysterical -- notes from suitors that made for great Facebook status updates.

Maybe you agreed to go on dates you dreaded because you were determined to have an open mind. Maybe you learned you had good reasons to dread those dates. You wolfed down a nice piece of salmon as one man told you, within the first hour of meeting, that he cheated on his wife, still loves his ex-girlfriend and didn't go to his own father's funeral. Maybe you thought you should charge him for therapy.

But maybe you still believe there's someone great out there for you. You're ready, you know you have so much to give, and you look forward to meeting him -- wherever and whenever that might be.

And in the meantime, you know you have a lot to be grateful for. Maybe you have a career you love, and through the stories of suffering you hear, you know that if still being single is your biggest problem, you are damn lucky.

Sure, you might be a bitch, a slut, a liar, shallow, selfish or not good enough. Maybe, though, you happen to be 41 and single because life, real life with all its complications, has just worked out that way. So far.

But, hey, what do I know? Maybe that's just me.

Is 27 the new Spinster?

By the time my mother was my age she had been married 10years and was (more-or-less) pregnant with me. Sure times and whatever have changed since the 70s but if studies are correct the median age, for when people get married, has only increased slightly. In the 1970s, my parents got married in '72, women were getting married at 21 and men around 23 (on avg of course) - but now in the 2000s the median ages are F:25 and M:27

I'm two years older than these studies are showing but it's just averages right? 

So why do I feel like I'm suddenly sad Aunt Imogene?

Even my family has made jokes about me not settling down and becoming some crazy cat lady!

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Now let me interject for a moment to say yes, on many levels I already am a crazy cat lady but I believe they were referring to the type you find dead in her trailer 3weeks after her 50 cats have started to consume her soft tissues. I am NOT (nor will I be) that type of cat lady.

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So I'm just wondering:

Since when was 27 the new Spinster?

I have to admit a good number of my friends are either already married or on their way.

And when I say "married" I mean married, domestic partner, civil union, etc...

For shits-and-giggles I tallied the numbers, on my social networking list of friends, to see how many are married/engaged - I also thought to look at the number of divorced since studies are always talking about how that number is increasing. Of the 185 people I'm "connected" with: 

51 are married.

13 are engaged.

15 are divorced.

Now while that leaves 106 "single" folks - however, most aren't un-attached.

I've been with my bf for over a year and I think he is just the best man I've ever been dated. He has the same smart-ass/sarcastic sense of humor I do. He certainly keeps me on my toes - half the time I can't tell when he's joking (partly due to my gullibility I suppose). At the same time though, he's affectionate and loving. He may not be the sending flowers type of romantic but he knows when I'm in a funk and how to yank me out of it. He isn't just some bf; he's my partner. 

I know many people who feel the same way about their partners w/o there being shiny pieces of metal on their ring fingers...and with no twinge of jealousy for those that do. We're happy for our married counterparts but we're equally as happy in our relationships. 

So I just want to know why, despite statistical evidence that I am not a freak-of-nature being unmarried at 27, does society feel the need to plaster TV advertisements with Eharmony and Match.com jingles? To fill the newest Vogue magazine with engagement rings and the latest edition of Home and Garden with "How to have a successful backyard wedding"? 

Am I an anomaly to not be in any rush to get married? 

Is it an oddity that I am content in my relationship status as is? 

Or am I the new "Old Maid"?