Eat, pray, love or live alone
We were barely past the trailhead yesterday when it started.
“OK, please tell me you’re not going to talk the whole time about ‘Eat Pray Love,’ OK?” I announced to Sara and Mia. They’d gone to late show Saturday night, and I knew they were itching to drag me into the post-divorce self-discovery drama.
“But, we still processing,” Mia said. “Women were crying in the theater. It’s very, very cathartic.”
“Process away. Just
keep me out of it.” 
“Honesty, Kat, what’s your problem? She found happiness after an unhappy marriage, just like we did,” Sara said, a hint of snark in her voice. “What in the world is there not to
like about her story?”
“Look, anyone can find some sort of happiness traveling the world for a year
if they don’t have to worry about paying for it and finding enlightenment in India. I mean, that’s
why people go to India in the first place, for goodness sake!” I said. “But, really — what woman eats with such abandon without freaking about getting fat?”
“So, that’s why you don’t like it?”
“No. I just think it’s self-absorbed and gives women a skewed message.”
“Like?”
“Look, we didn’t find ourselves while traipsing around the world. The real test of life post-divorce is being happy living your normal life. You know, the one when you wake up every day, go to work, do the laundry, figure out how to get your kid to the dentist and soccer when you’re in an office across the bridge from him, deal with the ex and make ends meet.”
Mia and Sara looked at me with scrunched up faces as if they were searching for some sort of a rebuttal. But what was there to say?
I’m all for escaping away from our regular life and finding adventure, spirituality, Javier Bardem. If I could, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
But the path to self-discovery for a woman post divorce has little to do with pasta and ashrams, and everything to do with being on her own and figuring out “Who am I now, at my age, without a husband?”
And key to that is learning how to be alone.
Most of us didn’t do that. We went from the pink-carpeted rooms of our childhood to bunking with college roomies to shacking up with a sweetie or two to the marital bed of a picket-fenced home — where so many of us lost ourselves.
I know some 8 million (mostly female) readers found Elizabeth Gilbert’s story an inspiration. She found herself! She found love! She made millions!
If she could do it, we can, too!
And maybe we could. But I wish she found herself, love and happiness from making better choices while living her normal life. Because most of us will never be able to take a year off to do what she did — and what does that mean for us when it comes to self-discovery?
- Have you “discovered” yourself post-divorce, or are you still on that path?
- Is it better to “find yourself” in exotic locales, or living your day-today life?
Girl talk: It isn’t all about feelings
The dinner party was shaping up to be like so many others — eventually, the women gathered on the couch and the overstuffed chairs around the coffee table and the men hung by the counter with the booze and food.
I have no idea what the men were talking about, but I was in very familiar if often boring and exhausting territory — kids, homework, teachers, grades, chores, SATs, men, clothes, diets, work-life balance, juggling, Botox, yoga. Aka, the world of women. 
I looked over at the men. They were animated
and laughing, while the gals mostly had furrowed brows — well, except
the Botoxed among us, whose brows had their perma-poker faces on.
What the hell are they talking about, I wondered.
But, really, what the hell were we talking about?
“Why are women always talking about men and kids?” my friend Dan asked me weeks after the party as we sat at Sam’s, soaking in the sun and a few beers.
“That’s not all we talk about!” I said a bit defensively, holding back from throwing out some snarky line about what guys talk about.
Not to betray the sisterhood, but he wasn’t totally off the mark. Sure, science has debunked the myth that women talk more than guys, even though we do use a few more words than they do: 16,215 a day to their 15,669. But those 546 words — as well as a good part of the rest of them — couldn’t be more Mars-Venus.
Honestly, when was the last time you heard a man say the word “empowering”?
Exactly.
As any guy will tell you, women spend way too much time as a “Sex and the City” episode, talking about relationships, feelings and shopping. And, as any woman will tell you, men talk way too much about sports and techie things like weighing the pros and cons of the iPad versus the iPhone.
Not to say that we’re all like that — we’re not. But, if we are, is that so bad?
I don’t think so … unless, of course, we’re trying to talk about those things with members of the opposite sex. Honestly, I don’t think guys really want to hear us obsess about our kids and school. I’m absolutely positive they don’t want to hear us obsess about our weight and our feelings — especially if it comes off as insecurities. And, as much as I can get excited about New Zealand’s tie with Italy in the World Cup and Freddy Sanchez’s first homer of the season, it’s not that big a deal to me; I’m not going to remember it much past this week. But I can accept that Sean, The Kid and a lot of other men in my life will.
Women tend to be people people and men tend to be things people, and you know, I’m totally cool with that.
I’m just not cool when we get judged for that, or when someone thinks that’s all we’re about. Because it’s not.
Even when it seems like it is.
Like this weekend, when Sara, Mia and I had worked up a good sweat on the trail, not only because it had some kick-ass elevation, but we’d gotten into a pretty intense discussion about the BP debacle — which somehow morphed into analyzing Mia and Rex’s recently fight. A logical thought progression …
And that’s just when a guy sprinted by.
I know exactly what he heard — and thought. It was totally incriminating girl talk. We must have sounded like a bunch of middle-aged women freaking out about a small thing that a decent guy no doubt wanted to fix while some insecure woman wanted to turn into an “issue.”
“Humpf!” I heard him mumble under his breath as he passed by, shaking his head.
No, no, no! I thought. You should have passed by a few minutes ago!
I always feel a bit embarrassed when we gals are busted for being so emo.
“Why are you looking so pained?” Sara asked me.
“That guy. He passed by just as we were obsessing about Mia and Rex.”
“So what? His wife’s probably somewhere right now talking about him.”
Probably.
But if she’s smart, when he gets home, she’ll shut up.
- Does girl talk bother you?
- Are man and women fundamentally interested in very different things?
- Can men and women communicate well?
Photo © A_nik – Fotolia.com
Now who’s being shallow?
I was minding my own business, reading my book and sipping on my latte when I became aware of the middle-aged guys at the table next to me.
They were grumbling about women.
It was about the usually suspects — how women only care about how much a guy makes, and their cars, and their stuff, and their hair
(like, if they have some). 
“Women are shallow, my friends, what can I say?” one said.
I looked up from my book to see who had said that — it was the saggy-bellied, balding one, ‘natch — just as the three of their heads
jerked to stare at a yummy mummy blonde who’d just walked in with two adorable toe-heads hanging all over her.
Yes, well, as Dennis Miller says, “There’s nothing wrong with being shallow as long
as you’re insightful about it.” Not much evidence of that at my local coffee shop.
“R women shallower than men?” I texted Sara.
“No.”
“Y do u say that?”
“It’s harder for fat gals to have sex than fat guys.”
“Doh, & ur point is …”
“We’ll f–k a fattie but a fattie won’t f–k us. U tell me whoz shallow!”
OK, she has a point. But I actually think both sexes are pretty shallow — for different reasons. Women are still drawn the idea of a prince who’ll carry us to his castle where we’ll live happily ever after, and men are still drawn to Playboy bunnies. But depending on what studies you want to believe, women are shallower than men.
Over things like money and material things. Maybe height.
But, not about weight, evidently (even though most princes in fairy tales and Disney movies look pretty damn buff to me!)
Which makes it seem like we gals are pretty much looking at the whole package, not just all the little — or, in this case, big — details. You can be fat and we’ll still screw you! Well, not me; others.
How lucky is that?
But if you’re a fat woman, forget it. Most men want a hottie — hottie meaning beauty plus brains for some, and just beauty for others. Rarely are “hottie” and “fattie” happily together in the same sentence.
Is one shallowness better or worse than the other?
Maybe if we’re rejecting someone over something he or she can’t control. Can’t control height and baldness, but we sure can control a lot of other stuff. Income? Sure. Beauty? Harder, but there are products … and things like self-esteem and confidence. Weight? Well, doh.
Still, I don’t think it’s shallow if we reject people who aren’t attractive to us, no matter what the reason — with the understanding that narrow definitions of attractiveness limits your pool. And if you’re going to get all tweaked about being rejected for things you can change, change or get over it!
- Who’s shallower, men or women?
- Is it worse to reject someone over something he/she can’t control?
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