"Save Me Some Sand, Jamaica" is today's ensemble. As the weather gets colder and the job hunt fiercer, my thoughts turn to 80-degree days where my only responsibility is to keep my tan even. I'll take another mojito, please.
I think the SATC writers came up with the title of the episode, "The Turtle and the Hare," before actually figuring it out. This is the only rational explanation for this installment, which casually throws together two completely different issues--vibrators and settling for mates we don't love. After ten minutes of being mildly confused about how these two things are even loosely related (and I had already seen it--imagine Hank), I was laughing so hard at the dialogue that I no longer cared.
The Rabbit--a high-tech pleasure device to which "the Hare" in the title refers--takes center stage. Miranda is hooked and encourages the women to buy this marvel of sexual exploration. Charlotte, fearful of the toy until she sees that it's pink, gets hooked until her friends stage an intervention that forces her back into the dating world. As usual, Carrie doesn't have much interest and remains a skeptical bystander, aloofly gathering info for her column. Samantha has no need for a toy when she has the real thing--and lots of it.
I don't have much to say about vibrators. Boring, I know. I've never used one, but I can see why women do. If I were single, I'd definitely buy one. Maybe I still will one day. They could be quite fun even within a relationship. But I'm not at the point of needing one yet. Nuff said. Be jealous if you must.
Now, the issue of settling. We've probably all been in unions where it seems our mate loves us more than we love him. Often it's the other way around. In the dating quest to find equality in love, there's a lot of teeter-tottering that goes on. Somebody always has the higher ground. Even within long-term, vibrant relationships, equal love between partners at all times seems like a tall order. Besides, how can there ever be an exact equality of something that can't be measured?
That said, when things are really uneven, you feel it. I was once in a relationship with a man who seemed to adore me. We'll call him Travis. Travis addressed me as "La mia princepessa" (he was learning Italian and very proud of it) and travelled to China with me on my independent study just so I wouldn't be alone. For whatever reason, I was always lukewarm and couldn't figure myself out. We had a lot of similar interests and studied the same thing at school. He was funny, smart, and kind of cute. But I just wasn't in love with him. In fact, when he put his hand on my leg, I always had to suppress my impulse to cringe.
When I expressed my doubts to my mother, she suggested I marry him and quit analyzing everything so much. I thought maybe she was right, so I kept dating him. After two and a half years, he wanted to ask me to marry him. I kept telling him to wait. I wasn't ready. That Christmas with my family, he pulled out a jewelry box in the middle of unwrapping presents. Everyone got quiet. Dad had just opened an oxygen machine, and, in a desperate grab for humor, I asked if I could borrow it. I knew I couldn't say yes. What the hell was I going to do? In the end, it was just a pair of earrings, and my heart resumed its normal pace.
That summer I went to visit my sister in Peru and cheated on Travis with a local artist. I decided to move to South America to be with him. It was terrible for Travis. While I felt angry at myself for hurting him, I knew that my biggest mistake was that I didn't break up with him sooner. I should have trusted myself and my doubts. The artist and I didn't work out (in a fair dose of karma, he broke up with me in an equally painful manner), but I'm thankful now for what happened. I needed to learn a lesson about myself and don't know that I could have learned it any other way. The lesson was simple: I needed to feel butterflies for someone for it to last.
I realize I'm not everyone. In some relationships, imbalance seems to work. Some people don't mind being the one who "loves more," and it's awful hard for the adored one to give up being adored. One woman in the episode says to Carrie, "Always marry a man who loves you more than you love him." Later, a startled Carry watches as Samantha turns to an investment banker with bad breath (nickname: "The Turtle"...ah, at last the title becomes clear) to satisfy her need to feel loved. Carrie herself contemplates an open marriage to Stanford, her best gay friend, not out of love but so they can share his inheritance. Things are all messed up, and it's all because of a vibrator. No wait, it's because of marrying for money.... No, unrequited love. No, well, anyway, they're messed up.
Carrie finally decides that she wants kids, so marrying the gay guy won't work. Besides, she loves Big. But is it reciprocated? That's her big worry. I guess the best we all can do is be responsible for ourselves. We can find someone we love and hope they love us back--just as much, a little less sometimes, a little more at others. Whatever as long as there's love.
I hope you'll be back. I will.
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