Jess – we’ve been best friends since we were 12. Remember that one time at band camp?! Lord knows, I’ve been listening to your advice for a LONG time (and frequently ignoring it – hence my f*cked up love life). So I sat down with great interest to read your Ode to Players. I figured I would read it, contemplate it, internalize it, own it, and then send a “checking in” text to that guy who just blew me off. Sounds like a plan, right?!
But I read the Ode to Players (READ IT HERE), and I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of the Self-Justifying Player – the SJP. I can think of a bunch of guys in my life right now who fit the description as I understand it:
He SWEARS he’s looking for love as he engages in one meaningless fling after another. And it’s not him (he was straight up!), it’s YOU and YOUR mistake if you interpreted his thoughtful gestures, frequent emails, non-date invites and deep confiding as any kind of serious interest. Haven’t you read He’s Just Not That Into You? If he WERE into you, he would have moved sky and earth and asked you to marry him by now! Duh. Crazy girls.
Makes me furious! But then I had a thought. What ABOUT us girls? And what about YOU? I hate to break it to you, Jess. But…I think…you’re a Self-Justifying Player. And I might be one too. Let me explain…
I believe that the gaggle is a beautiful thing. Engaging with different guys on different levels…exploring connections that move us…investigating feelings we may not have felt clearly before… I’m so grateful to have this idea – and these guys – in my life. I feel liberated from onerous expectations and assumptions (do you have a date for Friday night? oooh, is that +1 “someone special???” you know if you don’t start finding him now, soon it will be too late!)
I don’t have to be defensive about my love life or how I’m living it. The fact is, every guy who comes into my life – as a Boyfriend Prospect, as a friend, as a fling, as a really cute UPS delivery man – can teach me something about myself and what I need in a life partner. Having a gaggle – whether my Husband Of The Future comes directly out of it or not – is better preparing me to recognize and build a life with him than any outmoded Rules of traditional dating.
Or so I think to myself.
But what if the gaggle is one big, giant, Self-Justifying, defense mechanism?
Take YOU for example. I have it on good authority (read: a decade+ of emails, text messages, phone convos and late night jacuzzi dish sessions), that your gaggle has always been mostly Ego Boosters and Career Boosters. What kind of gaggle is THAT?! Sure, you might have really deep connections with these guys, and they may “get you” as no one else (except me!) does, and they might be SO EAGER to help out and rave about you to the boss (or come over and fix your broken cabinet). BUT, is that bond really an exploration (of yourself? of a relationship? of anything?) if there are no stakes, and no risk involved?
At the end of the day, if you’re just not that into the guy, then you get all the benefits of a deep relationship without any of the hard work or trials or tribulations. You go to sleep at night satisfied that you’re on a path to self-realization and love, but you’re not actually putting yourself out there. Just like a Self-Justifying Player.
Do we ALL do this? Is the gaggle a means of surrounding ourselves with the relationships that make us feel most comfortable? So that we don’t ever have to truly engage or commit to…anything? If you’re constantly hedging your bets then – yeah! – the stats look great on paper. But the investment is essentially empty. So much hot air. (has the financial crisis taught us nothing?!)
By way of example – I’ve long been obsessed with the George Cukor film, The Philadelphia Story. It came out in 1940, but it is timelessly modern.
Towering goddess Tracy Lord (played by Katharine Hepburn) has a gaggle of guys, but ultimately learns about herself (and finds love) through pain, humiliation, heartbreak and, frankly, comeuppance. See below.
Yes, she needs to engage with all these guys in order to learn about herself – BUT – the sh*t must hit the fan (and does it!) in order to force her to see herself and her life more clearly. See below.
But of course, Jess, in your infinite wisdom – you’ve already thought of all this (sorry! just got past the first half of the Ode to Players!). You admit that we’re ALL probably limiting ourselves and staying cozily within the confines of our comfort zone. When what we, as modern women, have to do is DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY (our gaggles).
And I must begrudgingly say: you do an admirable job diversifying your own gaggle. I didn’t even know Super Horny Guys EXISTED before you brought them into my sphere! And now I can’t imagine that my Husband Of The Future won’t be a connoisseur of flip cup.
So my question is: HOW? How do girls like – ahem – me diversify our gaggle? Are we beating the SJPs at their own f*cked up game?
OK, now I’ve confused myself. So I return to the origins of this whole project and offer up a tearful, exasperated, hopeful, appreciative, bewildered, self-empowered: WTF?!
Will someone call Jimmy Stewart back from the grave to console me? See below.
| Sep 14, 2010 |
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Like.
Maybe, you need an IT Prospect? to add that lovely Facebook Like button to your posts.
I have little to add from my previous comments in Jess’s post but, wanted to show that I enjoyed this one too.
I was getting ready to do some school work. Then I saw this post. Screw it, I’m setting aside two hours for Philadelphia Story and sighing over Jimmy Stewart
OK fine, but then I call Cary Grant.
Actually a few guy friends have mentioned something along these lines, that the whole gaggle concept really just justifies us being players and using men.
On fiims, Becky, can you believe I have been your friend for nearly two decades and have never seen A Philadelphia Story? And speaking of women and their gaggles… how about Scarlett in GWTW!
Scarlett absolutely had a gaggle! Good call.
I’ve obviously heard the argument that having a gaggle justifies us being players and using men as well, and as I’ll say over and over again, it’s a thin line. But one of the major distinctions in my mind? To put it bluntly – most women aren’t hooking up with the majority of their gaggle. Recognizing that you have a Career Booster – some guy who listens to you gripe about your boss, in part because you’re an attractive woman – or giving some credit to your continuing dynamic with your Ex-Boyfriend Who’s Still Around, is IN PRACTICE very different from dating or sleeping with or purposefully leading on guys just for the sake of attention or the fulfillment of your physical needs.
Ultimately, guys and girls are going to look at the gaggle from different starting points (guys from more of a mentality where it’s accepted or expected for them to be full-out players, and girls from a place of everyone pressuring them to find a boyfriend/husband). This is why I think we need to meet in the middle! Many guys need to be willing to invest MORE, and many women need to be willing to invest a tiny bit LESS – at least in the beginning.
But more on this in my response to Becky
Great read, there has to be a level between “Sit at home and wait for boyfriend/girlfriend” and “SJP”.
Agreed! I absolutely think that level is the gaggle. But I don’t think anyone can argue that just because the gaggle exists, that means SJP’s DON’T exist.
The gaggle isn’t meant to be a justification for all the players out there to keep doing their thing! When the gaggle is done right (again, more on that in my response to Becky), there’s a difference – and fewer people are at risk of getting unnecessarily hurt in the process.
INTERESTING. I know many SJPs (sorry guys – you are out there in a big way! I have the hurt feelings and battle scars to prove it!). I know Players. And I know girls with gaggles. Even if the gaggle could be (mis-)used as a giant, self-justifying defense mechanism, I think there’s no universe in which it turns girls into players. We’re actually looking for true connection, love, and commitment with the right person. We need to make sure we’re diversifying so we can find that right person (again – my main question is – HOW?!)
But even if we mis-use our gaggle, surrounding ourselves with guys who are comfortable and make us feel good about ourselves, I don’t know any gal taking it to the level of the male SJP where: The sex is happening. The intimacy is happening. The friendship is happening. The connection is happening. But then – “NO! – There’s nothing to this! I told you from the beginning we were just friends. (Even though you’re awesome.)”
The fact is – if and when the non-relationship gets to that point, 99% of the time, the girl is ready to commit – and the guy blows her off or pulls a slow fade. SJP alert!
See my intro to the Love Poem for the Emotional Male: http://www.wtfisupwithmylovelife.com/2010/08/love-poem-for-the-emotional-male/
Somehow our societal gender dynamics are set up so women always feel like we’re left holding the bag. How to break the cycle? How to feel empowered? Obviously the answer is not to turn women into players OR SJPs – but that would never happen anyway. SJPs are the first to point out that it’s often hard for women to separate sex and emotion (hence the male SJP’s manipulative power). The day women all turn into players is the day that pigs fly, hell freezes over and Jess and I stop co-lusting after Tim Riggins. Who is a GREAT example of a player but not an SJP.
my 2 cents!
Just gonna throw the unpopular thought out there… Most single men have sex to have sex. Most single women have sex to start relationship. Thus, one wakes up satisfied; the other wakes up questioning. And the unfortunate rest is history.
Not sure if pigs will get their wings before women manage to adopt a less loaded response to intimacy, but I’m willing to bet on the pork.
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Aw, JoJo, it ain’t like that, see. It just ain’t. Sometimes you gotta give a fellah the benefit of the doubt. I mean to tell ya that, sure, an intimate touch from a golden girl is always welcome. Who in their right mind’ll say no to it? But you give us the right touch from the right girl, the right amount of compassion for our human frailties… Why, JoJo, we’d be ever so yar.
(ahem. sorry. love that movie.)
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