Girl Logic

by Iliza Shlesinger

  Here are a few options for what to say back:

  • “Help, I’m in a Clark County prison and they’ve taken my shoelaces.”

  • “I’m already in Vegas under someone else right now. You snooze you lose, dork.”

  • “You made it weird, dude. If you’re not into this, no problem.”

  That last one is what I wrote. I wanted to make it clear that he acted in an unattractive way and also give him an out. Sometimes men’s eyes have to be opened to their selfish behavior. A threat that you will walk makes them step up or step out.

  How to Handle an Out-of-Nowhere Reconnection Text

  I went on two dates with this guy once, and he was… OK. I couldn’t tell if I was attracted to him, but he was nice enough. Not that great looking but somehow he should have been. You know, one of those people that has all the right features, but they just aren’t working together properly? Good teeth, nice skin, good hair, good cheekbones… but still feels off? There’s that Uncanny Valley again! But we’ve all felt it, and in those situations you almost get frustrated, asking yourself, “Why am I not attracted to this objectively attractive person?” (The worst is when you decide he isn’t “cute enough for you,” and then he starts dating a cool, pretty girl, and you’re like, “Wow, maybe I missed something there.”)

  Anyway, point is, I wasn’t magnetically attracted to him. Then we both went out of town and didn’t communicate, which was fine, because again, Uncanny Valley. What wasn’t fine was when he texted me a month later asking if I wanted to hang out again. Sometimes a lag can mean the guy’s actually busy with work or a family crisis or a near-death experience, but in this case I got the impression he was sitting on the toilet, scrolling through his messages, noticed our old chain and was like “oh yeah, her.” It made me feel super special. Since I was already erring on the side of “meh,” I never wrote back. I’m convinced I wasn’t the only girl he toilet-texted that day.

  So if you find yourself going on a few dates with someone, only to not hear from him again for a month or two, here are your options:

  1. IGNORE. Listen to me on this. Nothing on this earth, not “I love you,” not an orgasm—nothing feels better than the gratification that only grows over the hours when you resist texting someone back! It’s like you can feel him squirming with anticipation. It gives you power! POWAH!

  2. Actually, there is no option 2. If you had even the slightest relationship with someone and he doesn’t have the respect to let you know it’s over? Don’t waste your time building up his ego. Leave him be, look for other options, and do not cut your own hair.

  When and How to Dump a Man via Text

  Now, onto the much maligned text breakup. It’s controversial, and I try not to do it unless it’s deeply well deserved. Occasionally… it is.

  If you found out your new boyfriend (like, of one month or less) is cheating on you, still entangled with an ex, or is otherwise a raging garbage fire who doesn’t warrant a proper face-to-face or telephone conversation (maybe he keeps posting gym pics and #ing it with “GAINZZZZ”). Or if for whatever reason you’re livid, you’re over it, you are watching him with binoculars anyway, send him a dump text saying something short and sweet—“I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t want to see you anymore. Byeeeeee.” should suffice. Or if you have irrefutable evidence that he is a bad person, and you’re feeling especially strong-willed, you could always text, “I know what you did.” Drop the mic, and never pick it back up.

  Also, a fried shrimp emoji is often enough to confuse a man away from you forever. ;)

  How to Text the Guy You Actually Want to Keep

  When you really like someone, it can be scary. Especially as a modern woman having gone through the crazy emotional wringer most of us have suffered through in the name of “dating.” So when you find a man who’s actually cool, and thoughtful, and smart, and shows up for you, God knows you REALLY want to keep him around. Your GL might tell you to try harder (I BAKED YOUR LUNCH INTO A PIE!) or be nonchalant (“I accidentally called you the wrong name and farted, whatevs.”), but it’s important to wear your heart on your sleeve. You need to let your guard down if you’re ever going to let someone in.

  Everything in our society tells us “DON’T LET A MAN KNOW YOU WANT A RELATIONSHIP! They are AFRAID!” But ask yourself, do you want a guy who doesn’t want to be with you? No. And there are plenty of normal men who do want relationships. So stop catering to what you think men want, and just be honest. Like, you want a boyfriend, right? But you want the right one, not just a scarecrow in Air Maxes. So write…

  “I would like to date someone exclusively, but only if it’s the right person. For now, I’m having fun meeting people and seeing what’s out there.” Something like this puts no pressure on him and lets him know you can be just as chill as him. If he acts like a tool because you said the word “exclusively” and he heard it out of context, that’s his problem.

  Of course, if you’re already convinced THIS IS THE GUY FOR YOU and you don’t want to “see what’s out there,” you might start internally freaking out, imagining your future kids, deciding who goes where for holidays. That’s fine, but you cannot tell him you’re thinking about any of this shit. Play it cool until you know for sure you’re on the same page: “I’m having a great time with you and am excited to see where this goes” or some such. Don’t rush anything, and maintain a normal pace. Feel it out, and, most importantly? Don’t be the first to look crazy.

  7

  Sorry, I Can’t Hear You over How Single You Are

  Some women might be single because they’re too demanding. Some are not super attractive, or they’re rude. They might be too busy for a real relationship or have unrealistic expectations. I should know, I’m one of them. I once had a boyfriend say to me, “I’m sorry I’m not the perfect version of a man you invented in your head.” And I retorted, “Not as sorry as I am! NOW HAND ME THAT PIZZA AND GET OUT OF MY TUB!”

  Kidding, I was in the shower. But he was right. Girl Logic makes love difficult because there are so many types of men we can imagine ourselves with. Oh, you just want someone who will listen to you and love you for you? Then you get that, and you just want some dumb gorilla who will fuck you and be your arm candy. Then you want someone funny. Then you want a quiet smart guy. Then back to the gorilla—oops, he slipped on a banana, not so tough anymore.

  Our Girl Logic clings to the past while racing toward the future. I’ve been single and caught myself crying out, “I JUST WANT A BOYFRIEND!” while chomping on Charleston Chews and watching Frasier. Then, when I started dating someone, I’d find myself thinking, “Wow, I really miss traipsing about Silver Lake and making out with that hot emotionally unavailable guy with three roommates; that was fun. I need to go to Vegaaaaas! It’s Monday, let’s do shots!”

  This is great if you just want to date forever and you plan on drinking enough virgin blood to stay youthful. But eventually, you grow up. You get tired.

  There are plenty of other women who are single only because they have standards. By the way, “your standards are too high” is someone’s subtle way of saying that you want someone that brings more to the table than you are bringing yourself. There’s no such thing as “too high” if you’re exceptional! You think anyone ever told Leonardo DiCaprio his standards were too high?

  It gets weirder when you’re a successful, unmarried woman in entertainment. Your love life is considered public business, and fans and reporters don’t even pretend to give a shit how you feel about your new project or your latest castmates. Nope, all they REALLY want to know is why you’re single. You could be hanging off a cliff, one arm orangutaned above your head, holding on by the third finger on your left hand, but, before saving you, the fireman would demand to know why you’re not wearing a ring.

  We write books, hold hours-long conversations, and devote magazine columns to the loaded conundrum of women who are “single—now what?” “Top Activities to Try When You’re Single,” “Ways t
o Bond with Your Pet but Not Seem Weird,” “Single and Ready to Eat Ham? Here’s a Guide.”

  Apparently, singlehood is a terrible disease you should be very, very ashamed of. Everyone feels entitled to prod you about your singleness until they conclusively determine what’s wrong in an effort to reassure themselves that they’ll never catch your death stench of aloneness. Like you’re gonna break down crying and confess, “OK FINE, I’M SINGLE BECAUSE I EAT MY COUCH CUSHIONS AND MAKE HORSE NOISES DURING SEX!”

  Newsflash: men don’t deal with this. There is no Esquire article called, “You’re Single, Bro—Now What?” because the answer would be, simply, “Now I Can Go Back to Jerking off Whenever I Want. #Sandwich.” (In fact, to research my claim, I googled “Esquire” and “single,” and what came up was an article called “Why It’s Great You’re Single.”)

  And, yes, this happens to me, too. Not the couch-cushion and horse-noise thing. I’m talking about the questioning. I’ve been in meetings where men think it’s OK to ask, “So are you single? When was your last relationship?” I’m stunned every time. Especially when the interrogator is a married man. I’m like, “I bet your wife would find this line of questioning SUPER relevant.”

  And the older you get, the worse it is: “Nobel Prize, huh? But who will you share it with? Have you tried ScienceMeet.com?” No one asks a twenty-two-year-old why she’s single—for lots of us, your twenties are expendable, for figuring yourself out enough to start tackling the hard work of your thirties. In your twenties you can say stupid shit and date with abandon, be bad at your job, switch careers, move cities five times, get bangs, grow them out, get them again three years later; you can even try a clip-in nose ring. Point is, that’s your time to mess around and not be judged. And if someone does judge you? Your go-to is, “I’m twenty-five! I just googled ‘Electoral College’!”

  Keep in mind, there is a difference between “How are you still single?” and “Why are you still single?” The former is a compliment, as in, “Wow, you’re so amazing; how has someone not begged you to marry them?”

  But “Why are you single?” feels like an accusation: “What the hell is wrong with you that you couldn’t just pick someone who wasn’t right for you and make it work? That’s what adults DO.” Um, sorry? I guess? Someone once posited that very idea to me on a popular podcast. “You dated all these guys, and you couldn’t make it work with any of them?” As if there is a finite and predetermined amount of men a woman will ever have to work with; like the universe says, “We’re gonna send you a jealous alcoholic, a pretty boy with no marketable skills, and a handful of other mediocre ways to settle. These will be your only options, so figure it out.”

  When you’re single, you take great comfort in other single women, for one simple reason: they feel your pain. Sure, it’s easy to commiserate about the assholes who don’t text you back, but admit it—sometimes, deep down, you find yourself thinking, “I have no idea why I’m still alone. But HER, on the other hand, she has some issues.”

  I try not to heed my own Girl Logic, though, when it attempts to make me think petty thoughts about my friends. I’ve always been the kind of person who is happy for others’ happiness. Weddings, relationships, whatever; I never felt other people’s relationship status affected my own… until I was thirty-three, and I went through a period where I was dating and dating, to no avail, as every guy around me seemed to find new and unique ways to be terrible. With age, the more we grow and figure out what we will and won’t stand for. So it stings even more when you find yourself being continually rejected. You’ve put in soooo much goddamn time and effort to become this amazing version of you. When a man seems to fault you for this, it can feel like an affront to the entire life you’ve created for yourself.

  Also worth noting is that some women—like some men—are single because, well, they’re kinda annoying. Does this mean they don’t deserve love? No, it just means they shouldn’t procreate. But you’re not a bad person if you look at certain women who complain about their singledom and think, “Yeahhhhh, but you talk exclusively in a baby-voice and you think wearing a shirt that says ‘DIVA’ is cute.”

  Truthfully, the fact that her love life is ever even considered a factor when assessing a woman’s character is antiquated, insulting, and irrelevant. So you’re not a mom—does that mean you hate children? So you’re divorced—does that mean you have no idea how to be in a relationship? So you don’t have a boyfriend right this second—does that mean you’re a used-up piece of fuck gristle! No. And yet, wherever we are in our love lives, whatever instantaneous snapshot people take of us, that’s how we’re judged. And what’s worse, we internalize those judgments.

  One of the main cultural messages we constantly get is that single women somehow aren’t to be trusted. We’re either sad-sack man-haters who eat our feelings, or we’re threats who act like rogue spies and hang out at frequent-flyer lounges to steal yo’ man.

  EXHIBIT A: a few years ago my mother got the opportunity to teach an art class on a cruise ship. It was a great gig because she would teach one watercolor class a day, and, for that, she and a guest (me!) got to do a two-week luxury cruise for free. There was a couple there around her age: late fifties / early sixties. The husband was a bubbly, lovely man who loved to joke around with my mom, who’s, as I’ve stated, awesome. I will never forget how, whenever she would talk to the man, if she touched his back in a friendly gesture, she would always touch the wife, too. She told me, “I always include her because I don’t want her to think I’m flirting with him.” (My mom isn’t even single, but my stepdad wasn’t with us.) She knew people might talk, that the wife might get jealous; we’re just so used to the idea that women out in the world alone must be on the prowl or up to no good.

  Relationships were easy in my twenties, because I deliberately jumped from one to another. It wasn’t a fear of being alone as much as enjoying a steady stream of dudes who liked me. Then one day my love life stopped being so effortless. And no, it wasn’t the moment I turned thirty, it’s just that as you age, your options start to… taper off. (You also become more selective about who you spend your time with.)

  People get married, including that one guy you kind of had on reserve; he meets some girl named “Allison,” and they fall in love and move in together and get married at her parents’ estate in Connecticut. Allison has a Pilates body and some adorably meaningful job you can’t compete with, like curating a children’s museum. She has no idea you ever existed, which is funny since you know that if you rang his doorbell tomorrow (do not ring his doorbell) and said, “Remember when we did mushrooms at that cabin in Big Bear in 2009 and you said you loved me? I know you still mean it,” he would totally leave her. You know it in your heart, or at least you think you do. But don’t go to their house. Stay here with me.

  The Three Kinds of Single

  But single women are not pathetic sad sacks or prowling man-eaters, as we all know. There are three kinds of single in my book:

  Looking. Your Girl Logic tells you to constantly keep one eye open for the right guy—at the post office, at the bar, riding the subway, walking the dog. Hey, everyone’s read the books and seen the meet cute movies. Your Girl Logic reminds you about all the random schmoes you know who met over a game of Jenga at a coffee shop or a shitty house party they almost decided to skip. Girl Logic yells, “Just go with no expectations and talk to everyone!” (But, um, having no expectations is hard because, fuck—you got dressed up, slapped on some fake tanner, and watched a Saudi Arabian girl’s Instagram makeup tutorial on the perfect cat eye—no expectations? I EXPECT A GUY TO NOTICE!)

  Your Girl Logic makes you think, “But if I don’t put on a little makeup and look my best to run this inane errand, there’s a slim but very real chance that I might miss out on meeting my one and only true-forever soul mate! He’s gonna be in line at Trader Joe’s, and we’re both gonna be holding the same jar of Speculoos Cookie Butter, and he’ll just know! And if I miss him, I’ll never ha
ve a family, never achieve happiness, and never feel complete, and I will die alone surrounded by happy couples laughing at me. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REST WHEN LOVE IS ALWAYS JUST AROUND THE CORNER!?”

  Anyone who’s single is usually in looking mode. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if people say “they aren’t looking for a relationship right now,” it just means they’re not looking for a relationship with you. For the most part, people don’t knowingly pass up the perfect person. Going on dates, asking friends if they know anyone, attending events or parties you wouldn’t normally care about—“who knows who might be there?!”—keeps you going.

  Loving It. This is the kind of single euphoria you experience after you’ve emerged from something suffocating, lame, or just bad. You feel liberated; you want to fart freely, eat deli ham out of a bag, be a veggie on your couch, and not have to worry about that asshole you were having boring sex with. You wanna go out, make out, sleep with whatever you want. You’re in personal satisfaction mode and it’s a wonderful place to be. You make up a fraction of that 1 percent who truly, honestly aren’t looking for a relationship.

  The Lady Doth Protest Too Much. You never want to be this girl, but we’ve all been her at times. This is the one who can’t stop telling everyone how much she looooooves being single; she will even tell it to men she’s on a date with because she doesn’t want to “scare him off.” As if some men expect women to be like, “Sure! Let’s just fuck and chill forever and, like, see what happens! Time isn’t a thing! Babies can happen when I’m sixty! Aging skin is valued in our culture!”