Artsculture

Lonely? You're Not Alone

'Sex and the City' makes family, friends, fashion, love look easy. A lie to salve our aching solitudes.

By Dorothy Woodend, 4 Jun 2010, TheTyee.ca

Sex and the City, movie promo shot

They started out as jerks.

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Every time I see a Sex and the City 2 poster, I feel like throwing up. It's not just the aging Barbies' dress-up routine, nor the gross, grasping, naked greed of the thing. More gewgaws, more men, more babies, more stupid shoes, more everything! The fact that the film has been almost universally condemned is actually rather heartening. I did actually try to watch it and gave up midway through in nauseated horror.

In Sex and the City 2, Mr. Big has morphed from a rather caddish predator into something approaching a defanged, declawed lion. It is a sad sight to behold. In his original depiction, he was actually something of an asshole, creepy, self-justifying, more like a real person. But then again, Carrie Bradshaw was also a bit of a jerk, not a treacle-sweet stick figure in a turban.

It's worth reading the original columns that feature Big and Carrie's romance because it's not really all that romantic. Mostly it just sounds awful. To wit: "She hadn't expected to break up that weekend. She was expecting to remain in a holding pattern. Hating him, loathing herself. Going through the routine motions of the relationship."

Here's some more ... and still a bit more.

Lonely planet

I don't like the whole SATC phenomena, not just because they are terrible movies, but because they make me feel alone. Everything seems so easy in this movie -- family, friends, fashion and especially love.

But the original intent of Candace Bushnell's column was to parse out a particular flavour of loneliness in the city: that love often fails, disappointment is to be expected, and it's best to take it with a good dose of irony, and a lot of alcohol. The original material was, whatever its limitations, adult, and not just in the sexy sense of the word.

Bushnell introduced her column with the following paragraph: "Sex in New York is about as much like sex in America as other things in New York are. It can be annoying; it can be unsatisfying; most important, sex in New York is only rarely about sex. Most of the time it's about spectacle, Todd Oldham dresses, Knicks tickets, the Knicks themselves, or the pure terror of Not Being Alone in New York."

You will notice that final sentence is in capitals, like a true title.

Loneliness is almost a taboo subject. Little discussed, hidden, shameful almost. But if you are single in the city, it is a common currency, shared equally by men and women.

Madly off by yourself

Emily White's recent essay in The Guardian was revelatory simply because she admitted what so many people feel.

White's book is about what happens when loneliness takes on a life of its own, becoming almost a form of madness. I can attest to the fact that loneliness can make you do crazy things, but I am not alone in this. I know many women, a few men as well, in almost exactly the same position -- self-contained, independent and managing just fine by themselves. Apparently. But unlike the paper dolls that only exist in the movies, they are dying of loneliness.

All these people in the same state, smart, competent, and alone. Is it a phenomenon? Who is to blame, exactly? It is the fault of the feminists, the misogynists, the Internet, The Tea Party idiots in the U.S. crowing their Ayn Rand-tripe about the triumph of the almighty individual? Or are the movies to blame? Damn romantic comedies with their stupid happy endings and no limit credit cards.

Humans are, and always have been, social creatures, defined by their social interactions. Looking for love is pretty much the same grind that it always was, with a few new kinks thrown in. In the intervening 15 years that I've been out of the game, the Internet seems to have changed everything in terms of looking for a romantic partner. I don't know whether this is good or bad. Mostly it is just depressing.

Loneliness 2.0

Every time I look at online dating sites, I am defeated by sheer numbers alone. It's like trying to pick one blade of grass over the other, a random and meaningless process. The endless parade of faces and glowing descriptions of characteristics, hobbies, inestimable qualities, men posed in front of motorbikes, speedboats or in remote corners of the globe. The amount of terrible spelling is often jaw dropping. The specificity of any one person is drowned by the sea of faces. Why would you love this one and not that one?

Are we all pretty much the same? All simply wanting someone to notice how unique and special we are. In the meantime, everyone busily pretending that life is great, rosy, awesome. The perfect shell of another life, simply waiting for a pair of scuttling ragged claws to inhabit it fully.

My point is, is it better to be known than loved? Ideally both, you might say. But more often people seem to be opting for the first category. This is the easiest part. When you first meet anyone you break out your big guns, you're as charming as can be. Full of sweetness, all your jagged edges tucked away. This isn't necessarily lying, more like editing. All your bad habits, bad grammar, you carefully omit, projecting only the best version of yourself.

Since there is no longer a village, no local stories by which to gauge a person on his or her entire life history, entire family's life history, you can be anyone you choose to be, entirely self-created. That's easy enough in the warm glow of your computer screen, but in real human form, people are often as awkward and clumsy as seals on land.

The sex thing

Maybe we need to take a page from the younger generation, and simply not paste morality onto what is really a purely physical thing. You don't cast aspersions on people's need to breath, or pee. But when it comes to sex, things get so complicated so quickly. Is there a way to make that less so?

Whenever a new man, cast out of marriage or a relationship, re-enters the sexual marketplace, there is a scramble. My sister calls this "sport fucking," but the term gives me this yawning sense of despair. Perhaps there ought to be a service. A rental office, a Marcia Brady party, where you bring your cast-off clothes, the things you no longer want anymore, hold them up for the assembled women, and say, "Who wants this one?"

Looking for love sometimes feels rather like a large and elaborate game of musical chairs. When the music stops, there is a mad scramble to find a chair, plop your bum down and stick fast. If you get up in the middle of the game and wander away from your chair, someone else will grab it, even before the heat of your body has lifted.

I can understand why people simply opt out, start gardening, or obsess over their cats. After a while, the idea of flirtation, seduction all the work associated with being charming seems like too much effort.

But when you're tired of running in circles and you just want to sit down and there aren't any chairs left, what you do then? Sit on your cats? Buy more shoes? Drown yourself in stupid movies? Or slip underneath the water till human voices wake us? [Tyee]

Dorothy Woodend writes about film every other Friday for The Tyee.

23 Comments:

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  • John Greg

    1 year ago

    Powerful Article

    That's a powerful article Dorothy. You've moved me. You don't post much, but when you do: Wow.

    I'm one of those dreadful lonely folk. And you know what? We're pariahs. Everybody hates lonely people for one reason or another. It's sort of like that sad and tired old cliche about the teenage guy who only gets the girl when he no longer wants/needs/notices her.

    No one wants to befriend the friendless and alone.

    Dorothy said:

    Quote:
    ... the Internet seems to have changed everything in terms of looking for a romantic partner. I don't know whether this is good or bad. Mostly it is just depressing.

    I think it's bad ... and depressing.

    Dorothy said:

    Quote:
    I can understand why people simply opt out, start gardening, or obsess over their cats. After a while, the idea of flirtation, seduction all the work associated with being charming seems like too much effort.

    Double ditto on that, and not to mention the kinds of demands people make these days for what they expect from their partners or potential partners in terms of behaviour, characteristics, looks, energy levels et al.

    It's all become ludicrous.

  • linda@thevancou...

    1 year ago

    Awesome writing and analysis

    I'm going to start forwarding the link to this article to a bunch of friends, right now. Great piece...Funny, a little depressing, yet strangely uplifting, as honesty always is...

  • alive

    1 year ago

    clear analysis.

    I think you got it Dorothy.

    My son expresses it like this:

    "Life is a bitch, and then you die"!

    Yes you can pretend a lot if that makes it easier to accept, but I believe he has grasped it exactly.

  • rakista

    1 year ago

    Try meetup.com

    Meetup.com is a great place to find a group of folk that dig stuff you dig. I don't want to be mean but if you can't find some people to hang with on that site you either live in the middle of nowhere or you have an antisocial personality.

  • Fii

    1 year ago

    Geezus, analyze much?... haha

    Wow. I loved the movie- simply because it's a piece of entertainment. I laughed my head off. Does anyone just watch a comedy/satire these days for what it is- A COMEDY!!!!!

    Every review I read prior to seeing the movie was pretty negative, and it made me want to see the movie all the more, which is pretty much how I always go. And then I read this one and it's this over-the-top analysis of 'Sex and The City' for crying out loud...! Chill out!
    If this movie made you feel alone, Dorothy- that is YOUR issue. What I really find laughable is that most of the reviews are written by people who were never fans of the tv show or movie... I don't go to see 'Transformers', say, for the very same reason.
    "Universally condemned"?? Are you serious?! Good thng since it's causing so much damage and despair to the millions of (mostly) women (save Dorothy) who see it... bahahaha

  • Fii

    1 year ago

    (particularly Dorothy) I

    (particularly Dorothy) I meant

  • lynn

    1 year ago

    The real thing

    Lovely. Honest. Funny. True.

    All the fences down. A rare thing.

    Sex and the City? Watching it has always made me feel lonely, too. I'd sooner perish than live in that jungle.

    Aloneness. That's another thing. I'm drawn to people with their own sense of aloneness - there's a strength and and a deep spark of life that comes from confronting that truth...

    Which is what you have done here, Dorothy...

    (When I asked the Dalai Lama about the meaning of life he said: "Never sit on a cat." Just thought I'd mention it.....;-))

  • barney

    1 year ago

    Loneliness 2.0

    Isn't it ironic that the very medium that has promised us global togetherness has possibly put us in the most anti-social period of our evolution. The act of using computer/mobile devices to communicate is necessarily an act of physical isolation. When we do connect, what is the real nature of that connection - which is devoid of many of the things that define our species as a social one? Is it really a healthy social connection? Or are we fooling ourselves, or being fooled by all the branding/marketing powerlords on Madison Ave driving much of this social media hype?

    As for the Sex in the City thing, this latest installment is being resoundingly panned by critics who in the past actually liked the idea. It's the same vacuous fashion porn with an added twist anti-Arab racism. I love the way Dorothy has used this mess of a film to extract some very meaningful social commentary. Loneliness 2.0 is not going away anytime soon, so we best figure out how to deal with it. I fear the remedy is not to be found in Facebook, Twitter or even the IPad.

  • G West

    1 year ago

    as always Ms Woodend

    Well worth reading - which is, mutatis mutandis, more than I can say for ths movie.

    I don't generally pay much attention to critics as a class.

    There are a few notable exceptions.

    Ms Woodend is one.

  • Moonbug

    1 year ago

    the internet doesn't have to be bad

    I've seen good matches come from the net.

    I'm sorry to the lonely folks. Good luck.

  • KWD

    1 year ago

    revealing

    Confessionals are often interesting; particularly when they reveal confusion between judgment and reality.

    Watching a movie doesn’t make one feel alone. “Alone” is not a feeling. And to some extent, neither is loneliness. Although it may seem a convenient expression of feeling it really doesn’t explain what’s going on in our alleged minds that causes us to experience the body feedback pain we call loneliness.

    We make ourselves feel. If watching a movie “makes” one want to throw up it must be over the top in cues that trigger pain-laden judgments and criticisms of self or others. The interesting part is to find out what the judgments and criticims are, where they come from and why they have so much import for us.

    You don't have to be alone to feel lonely.

  • Dr Alexander

    1 year ago

    It's a movie folks.

    Sex and the City has nothing to do with feeling lonely unless one cannot distinguish between a movie (or any other Madison Avenue-serving product)and real life.

    If you are hooked on the imagery and iconography of "Sex and the City", then you are living in the same airbrushed world as those who look forward to the arrival of their monthly "Playboy".

  • wacqueline

    1 year ago

    Thanks, Dorothy

    Excellent article. You are brave. I wish there were more pieces like this on the Tyee.

  • KWD

    1 year ago

    Dr A

    Surely even your un-airbrushed world contains images and icons antithetical to the self-serving Madison Ave. mindset. How else could one become hooked on a self-referential illusion of “real life”?

  • radbrad1

    1 year ago

    Comparisons

    Comparisons of ideas and ideals with assessments about current reality seem to me to be the way I create loneliness. Sharing those honestly with another human being who is listening seems to be the key to creating intimacy. It is the honesty that does it, even if what you are being honest about is mostly bullshit. You usually lose or at least loosen your attachment to your asessments and comparisons and judgments about reality, and if you are lucky, find something lovely about reality. That is how and why Radical Honesty creates intimacy.

  • Jerry Munro

    1 year ago

    Watching Paint Dry....

    Hmmm. I've obviously been married wayyy too long. The notion of being "single", even if I was young, is inconceivable to me anymore. :-)

    Once or twice I've tried watching Sex In The City on TV. The stories were just too boring, and the people just to shallow... such that my eyes would almost immediately glaze over. Maybe it's a "guy reaction"?

    (Anyway hese ladies were not even sexy, from a purely eye candy perspective. Too skinny. Almost no tits. Gaunt is the word that comes to mind.)

    I'd rather watch paint dry, was my almost immediate reaction... even for comedy, let alone sexual titillation. :-) These ladies are like no ladies I have ever known, or even expect or care to know, frankly. They are caricatures of, I don't know what. (Are the writers homosexual males? Another first thought. We are talking Hollywood.)

  • lindi6676

    1 year ago

    Lonely?

    Loneliness can even rear its ugly head in a relationship, so this is no guarantee for fulfillment.
    We our a society seeking contentment from external things and we will never find it there. No matter who or what you have going on, how busy you are distracting yourself from self, one will never feel fully satisfied. Most people won't admit it, most pretend life is grand but underneath there is an unsettled feeling, all of us are challenged with. So how does one fill the void????

    In my journey of self discovery towards contentment, it led me down the spiritual path and it has been my saving grace. Yes sadness & loneliness resurfaces but these feeling are brief, I accept them, send them on their way and refocus on what I am grateful for in my life. In addition I practice living in the moment, releasing neg thought patterns and as a result I have more joy in my life.
    This journey does not come easy, it takes lots of commitment, faith and work to get to this place, and requires ongoing practice. Once you step into this realm there is no turning back, and why would one want too!!!
    This doesn't mean you don't have struggles but it makes it much easier to get over come them plus it provides a more deeper purpose to life.
    Life is a magical place, and its so sad to see so many people just keeping themselves busy or numb or( as I call them the walking dead) to get through life, when there is a deeper more enriching opportunity out there that connects you to life.
    No its not about religion or being a fanatic, or what is right or wrong, its about following your own truth, not needing to convince others but allowing your own spirit to guide you to what feels right with oneself. Its an individual journey, yes you may encounter people with similar beliefs but ultimately its a quiet personal journey one learns to follow.:)

  • spinboydotcom

    1 year ago

    @rakista Try meetup.com - for this column's commenters

    For the most part, it seems that this column strikes a tender chord with every commenter.

    Sounds like Rakista has the right advice - try meetup.com, except hold a meetup for all those who commented here. At the very least it'll be therapeutic. At best, maybe a little magic.

  • lynn

    1 year ago

    With a tip of the cowboy hat to Mr. Gable.......

    Quote:

    "But when you're tired of running in circles and you just want to sit down and there aren't any chairs left, what you do then? Sit on your cats? Buy more shoes? Drown yourself in stupid movies? Or slip underneath the water till human voices wake us?"

    My suggestion, as an answer to Dorothy's heart-felt question above, is borrowed from a really great old movie, "The Misfits". Arthur Miller wrote it. John Huston directed. Clark Gable plays Gay, an aging cowboy, and Marilyn Monroe, well....she plays Roslyn.

    Guido: Have you ever been outside Reno, Ms. Taber?

    Roslyn: Once I walked to the edge of town; doesn't look like there's much out there.

    Gay: Everything's there!

    Roslyn: Like what?

    Gay: The country!

    Roslyn: Well, what do you do with yourself?

    Gay: Just live.

    Roslyn: How does anyone "just live"?

    Gay: Well, you start by going to sleep. You get up when you feel like it. You scratch yourself. You fry yourself some eggs. You see what kind of a day it is; throw stones at a can, whistle.

  • bythebeach

    1 year ago

    Well said: BARF!

    I was 25 when Sex And the City first came on TV. I remember that my strongest reaction to the show was one of fear--we're talking absolute terror here--at the porospect of turning 30.

    Would I too become so desperate in the 3rd decade of my life that I'd have nothing better to do on Saturday nights (or Mondays or Wednesdays, for that matter) than drink martinis and obsess about lovers who were obviously so wrong for me?

    Now I'm nearing 35, and though my reaction to the 40 something ladies on SATC2 posters is much the safe as Dorothy's (BARF!) they don't spook. 30-something hasn't turned out to be anthing like SATC, and I expect that 40 won't find me riding a camel, soulless but dressed to the nines. How depressing would that be!

    It would be nice to share my life with someone, but some of my relationships have made me feel more lonely than being alone. But I know now that getting your hands on that holy grail, The Relationship, is no panacea. So, que sera sera...I'm not scared anymore.

  • max von smartt

    1 year ago

    Meetup groups

    For casual fun in a relaxed group setting Meetup is a great way to meet new people and enjoy activities. For something profound you need to look within. Volunteer work is also a good way to get involved and connected if you have the time and energy.

  • max von smartt

    1 year ago

    long term relationships

    I forgot to mention that for unconditional love, the kind that lasts, get a parrot or two, maybe a dog if you like them.

  • Sean Ruthen

    1 year ago

    love happens...

    There seems to have been a split sometime back - perhaps around the time of the sexual revolution as Dorothy suggests - where finding a life partner became something wholly different then finding someone to shag on a Friday night. Let's be clear - internet dating and other behavior espoused by the movie in question definitely belong to the shallow, hedonistic category. Finding someone to grow old with is quite a different enterprise altogether, and whether at a singles bar, on the internet, or perhaps even by some of the old fashioned ways that seem to have gone out of vogue, love simply happens...period.
    Loneliness is not the effect of new social networking and their accompanying technologies - it has been around since time immemorial. What internet dating illuminates is the fact that love is not something that can be mail-ordered or achieved with the click of a mouse.
    Despite all the modern gadgetry, cosmetic enhancements, and as much charm as one can muster, in the end it still comes down to plain old luck... just like in the movies.
    And Dorothy is dead-on that spelling online is atrocious.

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