Growing Out

Yesterday I learned that no one grows up. 

The party that my werewolf counterpart previous mentioned was probably the most necessary experience I’ve ever needed to have, because I always forget, for whatever reason, that there are 40 year old people out there who aren’t my parents. 

My parents are 55 years old, but when they turned 40, they forever remained 40.  I still think they’re 40.  They look 40.  They feel 40 to me, and they laugh at me when I tell them that.

But I forget that there is an actual generation composed of actual 40 year olds.  I’m so used to interacting with people who are either my age (ish), or people who could be my parents (i.e. professors, doctors, my parents) that I forgot there are people who were 25 when I was 10 and that they have kids now. 

And this is probably the reason why I’ve been so scared of “growing up”, or whatever.  Because I never saw the transition between 25 and 55.  I would look at my parents in awe – “How did you… get here?  You’re so smart. You have things and kids and an RRSP and you don’t hate me and you know what a mortgage is.” (note:  I don’t know what an RRSP is and I had to spellcheck “mortgage”)

But there is so much life in between!  There are so many years and our 20s and our teens are not these fleeting moments that we will forever long for when they’re “gone”.  We do not shed these years.  We do not lose these years.  Because we do not grow up – we grow out.

We expand and we learn and we build on ourselves as we keep living and moving through the world.  This is why three 23-year-old women can dance alongside 40 year olds to Lauryn Hill’s That Thing, all of them singing along to every single word and knowing every inflection.  They are still us, and we will become them, and it isn’t as scary as we think.

Our experiences are always happening.  I am always the girl that heard that song for the first time and didn’t get it, I am always the girl that gave it another listen and did, and I’m always the girl that will be a mother.  But I’m also always the girl that doesn’t know how to spell morgage mortgage. 

is my blinker on?

At the most recent werewolf meeting, we concluded that only when a guy is already interested in a girl or when a girl is already  dating somebody (whatever that term means these days), do girls get unprecedented attention from men. Girls often go through several bouts of nothing that sometimes last months or even years. However, the second somebody shows vague interest, all of a sudden girls become man magnets. 

With the advent of laptops, the internet, faster planes, railroads, cars, and smaller phones, as well as our enforcement of gender and racial equality and democratic values, we are left under the impression that we are better than animals because we make complex things and think in more complex ways. However, I am convinced that we are just as animalistic as before. However we deny this animalism, and this fucks us up. Why is it that the second one guy decides to text a girl continuously, does another guy who showed vague interest months before, all of a sudden just appear in the girl’s life, demanding attention? 

I would like to call this the “guy must pee on girl” problem. Despite the fact that previously, guy 2 did not take any sort of action regarding his desire for the girl, only when proper ownership or "dibs" of the girl in question was threatened did he make a move and figuratively decide to try peeing on the girl. I wonder what it is that girls project or where the blinking light is located that goes off when they are already receiving male attention, and why it is that that attracts more male attention. Or, alternatively, I wonder if single girls emit desperation vibes somehow and that in itself is a turn off? All of this makes ZERO sense in the grand scheme of things. Logically speaking, if someone is already involved with somebody, men should not be more attracted to that person, but instead go for somebody who is single and available? If the western world is to sustain itself and not replicate children of men, guys need to stop only going for girls who aren’t available, and pursue girls who are down. Seriously, the world’s population is at risk. Ignore the blinkers. Just go for it. 

The Howl of the Feminist Werewolf

Oh hi there,

 

It seems like we kind of dove into things a bit quickly, and while we're not all about making the first move, we at feministwerewolf are all about love and respect and manners… and burgers.  Especially burgers.  

So let's get to know each other.  Grab a seat - your burger, with a side of hopeful angst, is on its way.

Here’s the deal: This blog may be called feministwerewolf, and while it's mostly about the trials and tribulations of being a 20-year-old female, its kind of about all of us.  

I was sitting with my two other, uh, werewolves, tonight and what started as a debate over what to order for dinner, suddenly turned into an in-depth share session.  Six hours later, we were still hungry, but learned that in our three different upbringings, we shared not only similar memories, but similar emotions associated with these memories.

Which is a pretty cool thing if you think about it, that we can all have these pseudo-shared experiences that transcend most cultural, gender, and religious boundaries.  Some of us may have been happy (or whatever), some of us not so much.  Some of us are hungry right now, some of us aren’t (haha, just kidding, we’re all always hungry.  Where’s the cheeseplate?)  But even if my experience of love or happiness or hunger differs from yours, we all know what it’s like to feel something. 

Lauren spoke about the conflict between ones emotions and reason, and I believe wholeheartedly that we, especially as women who are constantly pegged as being "too sensitive" or "overly emotional", need to give our feelings and experiences more credit.  The things that we say and feel and do matter, and discrediting them just seems unfair. 

I mean, our own understanding of the world is all we have, so shouldn’t we pay attention to our emotions and perceptions? It’s one of the saddest things when I encounter people who feel bad about feeling bad.  This is all you have!  Your feelings are yours!  You need them.  They let you know what’s up.  Otherwise they’ll just build up before manifesting themselves as some kind of peptic ulcer.  And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather just let my sadness run its course than cough up blood… but that’s just me.

Sruti said it once and I’ll say it again, we all need to stop for a minute and realize that we are, fundamentally, all the same.  We also need to understand that this is important.  We need to stop being so scared of this insanely huge community of weirdos that we’re all a part of, and we need to help each other out. 

I affect others, and you affect me, things leave marks, and our decisions have value.  Our lives are basically one giant high-risk pick-your-own-ending Goosebumps novel.  Except you know yourself better than R.L. Stine.  And your life has fewer vampires/haunted houses/monsters under your stairs (probably, maybe).

So, this blog was created for two reasons (probably more, but we’ll spare you):

1)             We want people to know that we’re all pretty much in the same boat.  So let’s all be friends!  Also, send us your stuff.  Also, I'm sure there are probably only 4 people reading this so... send us your stuff.

2)             We have a lot of time/ideas on our hands and we like whining on the Internet.

 

That’s not to say that this blog won’t have its fair share of videos of cats fighting fax machines, Sex and the City clips, and yes, the occasional male-oriented rant (c'mon, we're still 22 year old women, okay).  Anyway, we like to try to keep a nice balance here. 

Be open.  Be weird.  Get mad.  Try to find what makes you happy, and then maybe get mad again.  

Welcome to feministwerewolf.  We hope to see you back here real soon.  We love you.  So does this dog.
    
 

Letter to 16-year-old Me

Dear 16 year old Anna,

So you’re in your last year of high school.  Nice job.  Remember when the ceiling fell on your French teacher?  Yeah, she totally deserved that one.  So, you’re probably sitting at your computer, playing minesweeper or something.  I seriously can’t remember what was on the Internet 7 years ago… were we on dial up? Was YouTube a thing?  Napster? Anyway, I won’t keep you, I know you have to go make mix CDs composed of whatever you can find on the Internet for free and like four Rage Against the Machine songs your brother put on there.  Anyway, here’s what I got for you:

You don’t like Rage Against the Machine.  Stop it.

You still don’t have your license.  Sorry.  Driving’s hard and you’re not good at it.

You have braces.  They come off.  Stop whining about it.  Also, your teeth are really smooth, and eating apples is great again.

Your life starts after you graduate high school.  High school is so not real it’s insane.  The people you hated in high school are just like, chess pieces put there by… their parents  (do chess pieces of parents? This metaphor took a turn…) to fill up space until you discover that there are literally billions of other people in the world that don’t suck.  *see Kanye West’s “Everything I Am”. 

Soon you will meet the people you will call your friends for most of the rest of your life.  And these people are the best, and you will love them until the sky cries jellybeans.

You’ll learn that you can write.

You’ll develop a true love and deep appreciation for hiphop, but only after you listen to all the happy-sad indie stuff that you yearned to be able to relate to (you never really do).

Hiphop helps a lot.

Most importantly though, things don’t really change much as you get older.  Sorry to break this to you.  You just get better at dealing with everything.  And isn’t that so much better?  What fun is watching everything change around you while you stay the same?

You change and grow into yourself.  You grow into a person and you grow into a woman. You will do things you thought you wouldn’t, and it’s not awful.  You will also not do things you thought you would, which is disappointing.  But you probably should’ve taken a science class or two. 

You get a job and convince your mother you should move out of her house because you’re an adult, kind of.  You have opinions, but you’re still too nervous to voice them around people you don’t really know.  You’re still the quiet one in class.   But I’m not sorry about that.  The shyness thing will probably stay with you for a while, but the people worth knowing will understand.

You will, however, become more sure of yourself.  You’re strong, even though you might not always be in control.  Because you will still get angsty at 3 am and clean your room to give you the illusion that you know what’s going on.

Your friends are important.  They teach you things, and help you understand how you resonate with the rest of the world.  You teach them things, too, even though you don’t think you do.  Do not brush them off.  They care about you and you care about them and you all need each other because no one has any fucking clue what’s going on.

You will think your attractive on some days, instead of the usual none.  You will notice when a boy looks at you.  You’re not a size 2 anymore.  Not sorry about that.  The development of your curves is a slow, awkward, but ultimately fantastic progression.

I’m almost 23 now, but I’m still 16.  I’m still weird, but I own my weirdness like a pro, but most importantly, I’m still you.  Also, when I’m 30, maybe I’ll write a letter to 23 year old me, but I’ll still be you.  You have Professor Rozahegy to thank for that.  He’s adorable and wise and he will change your life and pay attention to him, okay.  He’s, like, 45% responsible for this letter being written.  Also, as much as I’d like to think I’m a completely different person, a large part of me will always be 16. 

So here’s to you past-present-future me.  Way to keep dealing with stuff, and making things more complex than they are, but still understanding that it’s probably better than giving zero value to anything at all. 

Also, this is only 7 years into the future, and the world is still nothing like the Jetson’s.  We’re still on Montreal, and constructions still really slow.  Sorry.

My 48 Hours on OKCupid

Disclaimer: this blog post is in no way related to the film "127 Hours", but is at least half as worthy of an Oscar.

Alright here we go: I’m 22 and I’m single.  Yeah, I know, world’s smallest violin, but just let me have this, okay?

Now that we got that out of the way, I came home from my family’s Passover meal on Friday night a little bit mad and a little bit drunk.  So naturally, I came home, took my pants off, grabbed a beer (why am I single again?) and made an account on OKCupid.

Also probably playing a role in this, both of my (divorced) parents have recently ended the relationships they were most recently in.  Which obviously made me kind of upset, because my parents are the best.  They’re pretty much my barometer for judging/meeting new people.  This girl is wearing leggings as pants? No.  A guy doesn’t open a door for me? C’mon … I probably have issues… Anyway, I can only assume this is why my parents divorced.  Two people that awesome being married?  I’m sure the world would just blow up (read: one of them would of set the other on fire.)

This was my first ever experience with online dating. I’ve gone on a few “dates” (or whatever… do people go on dates anymore?) with a few guys, some of them didn’t really go anywhere, but I was hoping some of them would.  And I was kind of sure one of them would.  But it didn’t.

I had never completely ruled out online dating, I was just all “I want to meet someone the old-fashioned way”.  I had always felt that if I had joined an online dating site it somehow meant that I had finally given up, which I pretty much have.  I don’t know.  Something about it just made me a little uncomfortable.  But as is the case when one starts drinking, being “uncomfortable” is quickly replaced by  “lol IDGAF”. 

First, I was pretty surprised with how easy it is to make an account on this thing.  The hardest part is definitely thinking up a username, though.  My friends were very helpful in this area, offering me such options as “sexci_jailbait” and “bjs_4_breakfst69”.  I chose neither of these, but will keep them in mind.

After settling on a non-offensive username, free of the suggestive use of numbers, I was ready to go.  It was a little bit worrying how not worried I felt.  Oh wait never mind, the beer.

I would describe OKCupid as actually being a less creepy version of Facebook.  I know , but just hear me out.  On Facebook, you’re pretty much anonymously lurking whoever’s profile you have access to, and you may or may not admit to who you would sleep with.

But on OKCupid, you all pretty much know why you’re there, regardless of whether or not you indicated it on your profile. C’mon.  You’re on OKCupid.  You’re either lonely, horny, or both.

Secondly, you are actually able to see anyone who checks out your profile, and vice versa.  Honestly this type of virtual attention isn’t all that bad.  Because living in Montreal, I get the feeling that everyone is too caught up in themselves that they can’t let anyone think that they’re interested in anyone or anything. 

So, I answered a few quick questions about myself, filled out the “Message me if…” section with “you’re funny and don’t have any dead nurses buried under your house.”  Let’s just say some found this funny, and some… didn’t.

The site itself is pretty non-threatening though.  There was literally no pressure to do anything.  If you wanted to check out someone's profile you could.  If someone messaged you, you didn’t have to message back.  It's like you’re at a singles party your friend dragged you to, but you can just sit on the couch in your pajamas eating nachos while not talking to anyone.  Which is basically what I do when I’m invited to singles parties, which is… never.

Within about half an hour, I got a message from a pretty average guy, who we will call Jeezy, which is, I know, awesome: “Hey, how’s it going?”

ATTENTION DUDES:  THIS IS LITERALLY ALL IT TAKES.

So while Jeezy couldn’t really spell, he seemed like a pretty ok guy. But the site definitely has its fair share of weirdos.  I mean I’m not saying that some 55 year old married man from New Hampshire didn’t check out my profile and message me, asking me what my favourite candy was… Oh wait, nevermind - that’s exactly what I’m saying.  That happened.

So, yeah, OKCupid wasn't the worst.  But I found myself constantly checking up on it.  My email inbox was flooded with messages from the site, telling about new matches for me.  When bored, I would click through people’s profiles with no intention of messaging any of them.    

I deleted my account after 48 hours because this isn’t what I wanted.  I want to meet you and talk to you and be nervous with you and judge you by your coffee order.  I want to learn things about you and slowly piece together your personality.  I want to talk to you while still imagining what it would be like to rip your clothes off.

This is pretty much why I hated reading other people's self-written bios.  It gives people a chance to double-check and edit themselves, and that’s just no fun.  It makes you seem partially well-adjusted, and you’re not.  And that’s the best fucking part!  We’re all weird as hell!  No one knows what’s going on!  So let’s get drunk and grope each other and maybe worry about it later.

Why Beyoncé Empowers Me.

From a critical perspective, I should be judgmental of the way she presents femininity to society. One could argue, her sexual image overshadows her intelligence, or that she's just another pop star that branched off from yet another pop female group. And at a time, no less, when mass consumerism was on a subliminal "for sale" sign, on virtually, every pop cultural product being produced. This was the 90s, after all. This is my attempt at considering that maybe, you could misread Beyoncé, as a capitalist product, rather than as a cultural icon. In this mass media day and age - it's certainly an easy line to blur. It's why, we, the pretentious, have difficulty taking most mainstream things, very seriously.

But.

Consider the way, most - (please understand the gravitude of this generalized statistic) - most, out of the entire population of women, of our particular historical context - spend the majority of their lives, feeling less than capable, less than worthy, less than fulfilled. And considering the historical fences we have jumped over the years, we are now at a point where most of these women are confident, straight-forward, goal-oriented, complex, intellectually eager, proud, insecure, human beings. So the quality of women is at a peak, I would say. But the global experience of feeling like this, is at a line of frightening danger.

And I don't want to exclude Beyoncé as the end all, be all, figure that could counter this. There are many cool women (including the ones, you probably just had coffee with), who's complexity can be summed up as "amazing." This is not exclusive to Beyoncé.

But that's the point of Beyoncé.

So let's talk about her thighs. And her curves. And the way those qualities, in and of themselves, encompass femininity. Because of evolutionary signals - really. She as a woman, can birth. Cool, now we know the root of her entire attraction - of a female attraction, in its most simple form.

So let's talk about how her thighs glisten. And how her body bends. And every other pop cultural icon that has been praised for expressing devastatingly complex, emotional experiences, through the movement of their bodies, and the expression of their vocals, and every other aspect that makes them a performer (Prince, Tina Turner, M.J,). Clearly, these are aspects we as a society are attracted to in an overall human being, if not a woman herself.

I don't want to identify Beyoncé as the ultimate woman, but rather acknowledge her as a way we not only should, but rather, do all aspire to be. Because dancing to Beyoncé doesn't make me feel bad about who I am, but makes me acknowledge a socially repressed, and confident side of me. Of being a girl. So I want to encourage inner-Beyoncé's. When you are looking at her thighs, and her legs, and the way she bends, and snaps, and pouts, and shakes - you aren't in awe of sex, or the power of sex, or subliminally giving yourself more reasons to be upset with your body. You are a watching a proud individual - and here we specify, a proud woman.





And it is so hard to feel pride in that! In this world of dating, when both men and other women attempt to make each other feel less than. It is hard to feel pride in something you take for granted - the curve of your breasts, and the curve of your behind. Even if we spend everyday consciously considering the aesthetics of both, in front of that bedroom mirror - we walk through our lived experiences, not consciously aware of how we could and or do present ourselves to each other. I don't want to deny this experience to flat, uncurvy women either. It's not that you have to be one or the other. Intellectual, or sexy. These are not polar opposites. These characteristics come from the same brain.

You could and should be in a bustier reading that great russian novel. You are both of her.



I just want to encourage cockiness as much as I can, in a world where everyone is made to feel less than they ought to (including the way, they, we, impose that feeling onto ourselves). So be unabashedly proud, because we are currently having difficulty even trying to be modest.

Except for Beyoncé.

Aside from the beauty of music, and the magic that happens when jazz, and funk, borders on pop and hip hop - it is the animalistic growls, and purrs, and coy looks, that summarizes an unabashed confidence, we all aspire to, in this pop cultural icon. The point is, that we do this secretly. Why should it be a secret? No one ever talks about feeling empowered. That's lame. But we're sad all the time, and we're sad because we don't feel empowered. And then no one talks about it, and just continues to feel sad.

Except for Beyoncé.