"The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" – Irwin Shaw (1939)
classicshorts.com
classicshorts.com
A young married couple are lying in bed after making love. The young wife turns to her husband and says "Darling, if I died, would you marry again?"
The husband frowns and responds "Well, I've not thought about that, but I expect after a suitable period of mourning I may marry again".
The wife is less than pleased with his answer. "I see. Would you move into this house?"
"Why, probably. Yes"
Further incensed the young wife says "Oh! Would you let her sit in my favourite chair? Would you let her sleep on my side of the bed? WOULD YOU GIVE HER ALL MY THINGS, EVEN MY GOLF CLUBS?"
He replies "Not your golf clubs, she's left handed"
The unsaid tension between them, over commitment, devotion to each other - why not spend Sunday alone together? - and the fate of their marriage. I get the sense of people, or at least Michael, who is not really ready to commit fully, and the negotiated peace that Frances accepts.
Not the point of the story itself (which IMHO is to explore real humanity, not give pat, perfect answers), but I don't understand other people:
If something will make your partner happy, why not do it? Imagine how overjoyed Frances would feel, how special she would feel, if Michael responded - 'hey, if it bothers you, it won't happen again', and maybe, with a wicked smile 'but I'm going to need to look at you a lot more.'
And imagine how not respecting her feelings makes her feel - and it's every effing time you leave the house together, for the rest of your lives. Is it really worth it to cop some brief stares?
Is there anything better in the world than seeing your partner happy? Even omitting the feeling of seeing that joy, purely selfishly, what would make Michael's life better. I guess, in my reading, he's not ready to try it and find out.
(And any general statement must make many assumptions about the relationship. I think every relationship is unique and they cover an inconceivably - I mean, we really can't conceive of them all - wide range. It's all a bespoke arrangement between two people. Some are open, some closed, some long distance, some together every moment for decades, some passionate, some practical, some angry or sad or joyful or whatever. IME we almost shouldn't be using this same word for each one; it's like saying everything with a processor is a 'computer'.)
There's a reason why the most authoritarian regimes in history had you avert your gaze. That said, I'd somewhat agree, then just buy a pair of sunglasses and not crane my neck. (This is basically the state of my marriage. Except, I would refuse any come-on. My wife knows this. It's not a sacrifice, unless it really is a sacrifice.)
You're comparing keeping your eyes to yourself with your partner to authoritarian dictatorships?
I do not ask my wife to avert her gaze, and I would not. It's a pernicious thing to ask of a human being. I would not ask anyone to censor that level of their experience and information gathering. So long as there's no signaling and no touching, truly what is the harm? Everyone should be free to exercise their curiosity. That is, truly, a human right.
The very idea of it puts me in mind of a propaganda piece about the "male gaze" which was on Feminist Frequency. (Not the one that comes up easily in the search, but one which had no dialogue in the soundtrack.) The hate of men that comes off that thing is quite palpable!
Her: “Can you please not ogle every woman that walks by our table?”
You: “How dare you impose this authoritarian regime upon me you man-hating harpy!”
It's not a power struggle; it's not a fight for survival. It's not the sympathetic nervous system, but the parasympathetic: not fight/flight/freeze, but growth and nurturance, compassion and love. I love to see them happy; I'm heartbroken to see them sad, and they feel the same. I want them to have everything. That's a normal, healthy relationship.
Sorry, but that sounds like a one-sided relationship. No one can have everything they want in reality. It's always subject to negotiation, game theory, and economics. If partners always talk to each other in good faith, it all works out. Good partners keep each other in line.
My wife doesn't let me have everything, and sometimes makes demands of me. I make demands of my wife, and she doesn't get everything either. It all comes down to honesty and accountability. Getting everything you want is either bribery or fantasy.
Good relationships follow the HN guidelines (not coincidentally): Be curious, not judgmental and don't leap to conclusions; e.g., what did I mean by that? There are many possibilities. Be charitable in interpretations - did I really mean that my partner should have literally everything?
We end up in a debate that has nothing to do with anything I think or say, I'm just cornered - put in a spotlight to defend a position that has nothing to do with me.
So "I want them to have everything," isn't an argument for just acceding to a demand to avert your gaze? Wanting your partner to have everything is as emotionally understandable and foolish as wanting your child to have everything.
These are excerpts from a song by Lucinda Williams. I think of it sometimes in life, especially when people seem to demand that life and relationships be a lonely struggle for survival. I read that it was written for a friend of Williams who committed suicide.
The breath from your own lips
The touch of fingertips
A sweet and tender kiss
The sound of a midnight train
Wearing someone's ring
Someone calling your name
Somebody so warm
Cradled in your arm
Didn't you think you were worth anything?
Millions of us in love
Promises made good
Your own flesh and blood
Looking for some truth
Dancing with no shoes
The beat, the rhythm, the blues
But to pick on a specific word (perhaps not meant so specifically), I don't think reciprocation is necessary or optimal, though maybe it's sufficient. It's not a transaction or a deal; you help the other because you love them, not to get anything back. It doesn't have to be equal or balanced or 'fair', but both should see to it that their partner's needs are met - you still have needs. It's 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need'. And abilties and needs will shift over the long term. One may need much more than the other. Sometimes one person will be much more able than the other. It will never balance out.
> If you "just do something to make your partner happy," knowing it makes you less happy, isn't that being dishonest?
If you mean that's all you are doing, then it sure isn't healthy (I suppose it could be honest if you are open about it with yourself and your partner). But do you make sacrifices like that? All the time, of course, with joy and love, and pride to be part of that relationship, and to know they do the same.
Anyway, that's one vision of a relationship, but I think it's a healthy one and I suspect some elements are pretty universal.
I think he knows he won't keep that commitment. He doesn't want to lie to her, even though it would score immediate points. I can respect that on some level.
But constantly gawking at random women for long enough durations to be obvious to the wife is both strange and cruel. Not to mention how it probably feels to the women. 1939 might have predated women's studies and ideas like the male gaze becoming mainstream, but I think we underestimate the extent that people one basic right and wrong in these situations without the benefit of academic analysis. I think most guys notice attractive women around them but have the decency and discipline to not gawk.
Good practical advice, but my take is that the point of the story is to play on the irony that they were both making the same error.
They were both acting out of incompatible irrational instinct, the man and his lust, and the woman and her possessiveness, neither willing to sacrifice it for the sake of the other. Even going as far as to win the other over, the man through rational argument, the woman through emotional appeal.
It's a very elaborate and realistic tension.
Regarding the story, I don't know that I quite see it like you do: Michael confirms to Frances that he will cheat on her someday. Frances suspected that, and connects the oggling to it; it's not especially possessive to object.
I call this an irrational instinct because she continues to want this in spite of Michael's cruel confession. Frances has a right and reason to object, but she never considers the option of leaving, arguably the most rational course of action.
That said, I dont think there is a single objective truth in fictions like this, but it's certainly interesting to hear all the different interpretations!
Yes, indeed, that is the point. I am not asserting that I'm 'right'.
I think we are coming together on the interpretation. I see most of what you said. To me the story depicts the trade-offs made for the relationship. Is it rational to leave? Frances won't find a relationship which isn't messy and require compromise (I'm not excusing Michael at all).
This being 1939, one shouldn’t visualize the women Michael was ogling similar to the Distracted Boyfriend meme, luckily there’s a movie called “The Fifth Avenue Girl” from 1939 that gives an idea what they were wearing at the time, https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1222/fifth-avenue-girl/#over....
I read this story for the first time; another story that he published in 1939, “Main Currents of American Thought” is widely anthologized (I personally found it dreadful).
> I give them way too much attention and they lose respect for me.
I've done this. There's a balance in remaining an individual and committing fully to a relationship. I think there's a lie in the idea of being subsumed by a relationship. You have to maintain your heading and keep the winds of purpose at your back. Don't lose speed just because your heart is full. If she's game, she'll be more than capable of keeping up.
Yes, I see many things in the world that I like/want, and don't act on it. If I see someone at the next table say something outrageous, I don't butt into their conversation.
Maybe think of it as reason for a confidence boost: that this awesome person seems to want to be with you? So try to be a little comfortable and more confident with that, so you're less likely to smother or come across as insecure?
Some people need to be told the opposite. They find someone and get too cocky, take the person for granted, or even lose interest because the great person was found too easily (and emotion-stupidity is implying to them, if it was too easy, then they could do better).
(Grain of salt: I've managed to lose more than my share of awesome gfs. Much less an expert, than a cautionary tale.)
It could be some kind of subconscious statistical sophistication. There's a mathematical argument somewhere, that you should date 7-10 times or so, then pick the best one that comes after that sample.
Rarely though, it does, but it does require a woman to be... the type to want to stay in that type of relationship, because it can be a turn-off for many women.
There's a certain socially-conservative but possibly valid (when it comes to long-term familial integrity) train of thought that goes like this: Husband adores wife more than kids. Wife adores kids more than husband. Kids take adoration for granted until they experience loss, and no one really adores the husband... and somehow this may be a more stable arrangement than we give it credit for. The general sense is that men are happiest in families where they retain a romantic fascination with their wives (even over the love for their kids), and that this is becoming a rarer and rarer thing leading to more marital-security erosion.
This is one of the reasons I love comedy. It's the only way to tell the truth and find out what other people think. If someone laughs at something, then they believe it.
As for Malcolm in the Middle, I was far too young to understand dialogue like this when I watched it, but even as a child I could tell there was something "more" to it then there seemed. It's such a high quality show.
A big difference between American and British shows is the British ones seem clearly divided between for children and for adults. Stuff like Doctor Who, which is made for children, seem to have nothing to stimulate the adult brain. But perhaps that means stuff for adults, like Black Mirror, can be more efficient by ignoring the child demographic completely. I'm glad both approaches exist.
Without knowing you or your partners at all ... I'd expect people to feel uncomfortable because you are not seeing them - you are acting on your "obsession" (to use your word), and not based on them and the attention need, want, when and how, who they are, etc. They could be anyone; it has little to do with them as a person, and that understanding for and compassion for the individual is the whole point of a (healthy, IMHO) relationship.
"Respect" seems like a bizarre lens to view this through. Are you sure you aren't misinterpreting the situation?
You can't respect what you don't understand. Perhaps seek first to understand your potential partner, in a way that you can only arrive at through deep and personal conversation. Then you'll both know if she's truly deserving of your respect.
It sounds like you're already aware of this, but that's got to be unsustainable (let alone un-reciprocated).
I too looked at the pretty women. But in forty years of marriage I never once took it even half a step further. I think my wife was secure in the knowledge that I really was only looking.
But all that is irrelevant. The question is never about general classes of billions of people, but about two specific individuals: Does person A look, and does person B care, and vice versa?
From what I've seen, it's a statement of fact. Men do it more. Women still also do it.
For peripheral vision, it's important to note that only the fovea - a tiny dot at the very center of our vision covering 1.5 degrees field of view - has the ability to resolve details and strong color. The rest is an out-of-focus, low-resolution, monochrome mess: at 6 degrees you're at a quarter visual acuity, and at 30 degrees (1/16th acuity) things start to fall off even faster.
Note that our vision is not like looking through camera - you think your peripheral vision has color and detail because your visual cortex fills it in with its representation of what it saw or expects to see.
Even if women had more rod cells in their peripheral vision (either from more cells in total or fewer cells in the important fovea), they'd just get slightly higher resolution out-of-focus monochrome. To cure the blurriness, their cornea and lens would need to be vastly different.
For color vision, biological males (usually) only have one X chromosome, and mutations to cone cell related genes is "fatal": if it mutates slightly it just offsets color sensitivity, if it mutates too much it may cause a loss of sensitivity to a primary color altogether.
Biological females (usually) have two X chromosomes that each contain the necessary genes. If one mutates, it only a affects some cone cells. If it mutates slightly, you get tetrachromacy - sensitivity to a fourth primary color and stronger color perception at the cost of some light sensitivity to the original primary color. If it mutates fatally, it just means lost light sensitivity for that color - not lost color perception. This is not too dissimilar to how we became trichromatic - red and green are very close in the spectrum because one is likely just an old mutation of the other.
Biological males and females have differences, but they are rarely "males are better than females at X" or vice versa.
At the upper long tail, biological males are better at basketball and tennis, for just two examples.
Being a male does not make you tall, it makes you somewhat more likely to be tall. But being a male doesn't change that I'd get sore neck talking up to female basketball players like Margo Dydek (218cm) and be absolutely destroyed in a match, or the fact the worlds tallest woman at 247cm would have made the average male look like a child.
Being male does not make you strong, but it gives you a slight advantage in growing strong (possibly including higher chance of experiencing a childhood that was more conductive to early muscle and bone growth). But being a male doesn't change that athletic and muscular sportswomen would consider my otherwise decent rather pathetic, and that no amount of dedicating my life to the cause would ever get me near the levels of a peak sportswoman.
Greater chance to have been born an outlier, not a benefit to the majority that weren't. Averages are misleading.
Yup, for sure, you're not in a divorced from reality bubble.
I'm pretty sure it depends on which muscles we're talking about. Lower body is more equal than upper body, and I expect it's much more specific than that.
The old biogical gender stereotypes of lustful males and "innocent" women are a bit long in the tooth. The biological genders are not that different, with lustful women and "innocent" men just as likely but all forced to fit a single mold.
But to your point, women certainly aren't fundamentally innocent.
But yes, there are certainly biological differences.
(Apologies for copying your style of argument, I couldn't help myself.)
I think you need to look in the mirror for flat-earth-esque attributes there. (Or maybe young earth is a better analogy?) Are you saying all biology citing male-female differences in animals is also false? Or are you saying that human are somehow exempt because of our intelligence?
Smells like ideological wishing!
(Apologies for copying your style of argument, I couldn't help myself.)
You're missing a key point of the analogy here. Left as a self-awareness exercise to the student.
Animal behaviors are all over the place. E.g., lionesses being the hunters, female apes reversing their rear ends into the faces of every male in the group until one bites, birds where the male is usually responsible for the chicks, female insects being much larger and eating the male, female fish absorbing the entire male to become a permanent part of their body, and animals that can change their sex at will. Unless you feel a need to groom your friends fur for bugs to eat, I wouldn't use other species as models for human behavior.
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There are biological differences between the sexes, but when both sexes exhibit same behavior and preferences (even if numbers differ) despite positive enforcement of stereotypical behavior and preferences, then that is pretty conclusive evidence contrary to those being biological in nature.
The differences will at most, introduce a bias in the distribution. Similar to the other arguments about sports.
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Now, as a fun exercise, try reading just these last two paragraphs between the lines, and see how the snarkiness at the beginning of my comment added nothing substantial but just detracted from the argument, making you upset and unreceptive from the start. This was the same I was trying to (but failed) to exemplify when I copied the format of your previous comment. Right or wrong, it doesn't help get a message across.
Either way, that's all from here. Have a nice day.
Arrgh. No, human behaviors don't have to be the same across species. Who in their right mind holds THAT opinion!?
Okay lose big points for good faith and intellectual honesty.
The differences will at most, introduce a bias in the distribution.
Sure!
Now, as a fun exercise, try reading just these last two paragraphs between the lines, and see how the snarkiness at the beginning of my comment added nothing substantial but just detracted from the argument, making you upset and unreceptive from the start.
You seriously need a mirror. Project much?
This was the same I was trying to (but failed) to exemplify when I copied the format of your previous comment. Right or wrong, it doesn't help get a message across.
Arrgh. Would you please go back and re-read!? Please try and find your projection! What you phrase of mine as an "argument," isn't, and shows exactly where you're making it!
Basically, you projected me saying something was your position, then mistakenly proceeded whatever this stuff above was.
On an abstract level (I read it quickly so apologies if I missed cues), it feels like they have at least a somewhat functional relationship outside of the usual concerns of insecure attachment, freedom and jealousy. Perhaps if they had a better framework available for dealing with those concerns, they would have had a relationship that worked better for them.
And then they end by going back to their coping mechanism of a busy social calendar that distracts them from having to fully be present in their own relationship.
Some things never change - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distracted_boyfriend
lmao
Classic HN ;-)