To justify spending $900 on this shawl, the event better be worth it. I can't imagine dropping that much cash on anything but a car (and a certain wheaten terrier that I'm still paying off). Maybe diamond studs. If you handed me the shall, I'd take it (it's gorgeous after all), but otherwise it's probably forever beyond my reach. (Law school's looking like a better option all the time.) The rest of the outfit, though, is really reasonable. If I remember right, the dress and owl necklace are both from Forever 21, the shoes are under $150, and the purse is from a vintage website and probably sits around $200. I'm obsessed with beaded purses. As far as evening bags go, I think they come in third in importance after black and gold satin or sequin clutches, respectively. What's so great about them? Two things. 1. They're colorful, so they go with everything. 2. They manage to be incredibly elegant and flirty at the same time. Go beads.
Games. That's today's topic. Do we have to play them in relationships in order to survive? After her friends put a moratorium on talking about Big, Carrie decides to see a shrink, who tells her she picks the wrong men. Not taking heed, Carrie picks up a fellow patient (Jon Bon Jovi, aka. Seth), who seems really nice (Hello? Fellow patient? This cannot be good.). She sleeps with him, convinced she's proving her therapist wrong. As they lay in bed together, she learns that Seth goes to therapy for an unfortunate reason: he looses complete interest in women after he gets them in bed. Samantha dates a sports-obsessed male (are there other kinds?) but leaves him when he chooses watching the game over watching her. Miranda, after seeing her neighbor staring out his window towards her, decides to play seductress. She later learns the guy was flirting with a dude who lives below her.
Lame. There's only one respectable word for this episode. I just want Big to come back. Immediately after watching, I flipped through the next few episodes. He doesn't surface again for three more. Even then, it's not in a good way. Damn.
Okay, so, do we really play games in relationships? If we define games as things we do or say that are aimed at getting a particular result and are not always in direct accordance to how we really feel, I'd say the answer is a resounding, "Yes." I think we always play games. I think it's part of life, the way we interact with the world and understand what happens in it. I'm reading "The Black Book" by Orphan Pamuk. It's magical. There's a line one of the philosophers speaks: "One day, when you're older, when you ask yourself if a man can ever be himself, you'll also ask yourself if you've ever understood this secret." In other words, do we play games even with ourselves? Do we change ourselves to become more acceptable to ourselves, much less to the world? Do we delude ourselves into thinking we're something we're not or try not to be something we are? If so, how can we ever not do some acting--and hence game-playing--within relationships of whatever kind?
Bear with me. The point is this: the Authentic Self may be elusive for everyone anyway, and I'm not sure we'd survive very long in the world if we were always our Authentic Selves. When we say something, it may be a product of what we've seen in a movie, or it may be what we are expected to say. Maybe we were taught to say it. It is very hard to tell from where our actions, feelings, and words stem. In this way, I think it's awfully hard to expect ourselves to be completely authentic in love. Love is a relationship with another person struggling to be (or not to be, ala Shakespeare) his or her Authentic Self. There are bound to be some complications.
Besides, all games aren't bad. How about when you tease the other person to make him or her laugh? Charlotte says games are necessary in all relationships. You play certain roles to get certain results--even with your mate, with whom you hopefully feel more comfortable than with anyone else. When a woman wears lingerie to bed, what's the intent? When a man takes out the trash, is that a product of his Authentic Self, or something he think he should do to be nice? Would it be better if he didn't? I don't think the game has to be dishonest. That's not game-playing; that's just dishonesty. When either person is purposefully withholding something to gain the affections of another, saying and doing things that are exactly opposite of what he or she wants to do or thinks is right (ie. ill-intended manipulation, like Samantha learning sports stats just get her boyfriend to sleep with her), that's not fun. That's just stupid. It's all going to come out anyway, and in the meantime, you're wasting everyone's time.
Oof. Maybe this episode wasn't that lame after all? Or maybe I need to not drink caffeine before I talk about philosophy.
I am going to try writing in the mornings--especially on days when I'm feeling lackluster. I figured out this morning at 7:20 when Hank left, that if I think about writing, I get out of bed. If I think about job searching, I have been known to lay there until 9:30. Not a good start to the day. So here's to early morning mental meanderings and (debatably) caffeine.
I hope you'll be back. I will.
Well you know what I think of "games," but I think traditions (like men taking out the trash, opening doors, paying the bill) aren't games. If that were true, weddings would be considered a very expensive game! It's a tradition, not a game, in my opinion. Good topic though, it can bring a lot of discussions!
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