Praxisanleitung

Last night, while thinking of new personal dating topics for the Loveawake dating site blog, my girlfriend handed me a list.  She handed me a personal list of things I could do to better myself.

Here is what was on the list:

- You must read two books a week.

- You must be willing to try new food and give  up poutine until you complete Insanity.

- You must give up smoking if you are exercising.

I looked at this list and asked my girlfriend if she was out of her mind.  She told me that I would thank her later and if I didn’t, then I would receive no sex for the next little while and walked away. 

So while I’m nic-fitting, reading Life of Pi and thinking about how I ended up with a “picky dater,” I thankfully had the brilliant J Wood from write another amazing guest blog that actually ties in with picky daters and deal-breakers. 

-Jimmy

Aside from Entourage, Californication, and House of Lies all being brilliantly written and consistently relateable shows, the common thread they share is that the male leads ping-pong with the women in their lives. I originally was going to structure my guest post around the gut-punch delivered to Ari Gold, but then I saw the same situation happen to Marty Kaan (House of Lies) and Hank Moody (Californication). So it gave me a different spin for this.

Entourage, long heralded as a blueprint for the Hollywood-bound alpha-male and his comrades, spent much of season 8 dealing with the once-unshakeable, narcissistic Ari Gold. The series stayed away from delving too deep into his personal/family life in its early seasons, so there wasn’t much fore-shadowing for the “damn bro” moments evoked from his separation.

Ouch! When the show picks up, it’s been 10 weeks since he’s move out of the house his successful career paid for. Like most men who later realize the value of a do-gooder woman, Ari does his best white Keith Sweat impression, which is met with “I need space” from his wife. There’s nothing worse than hearing the person you thought you’d grow old with utter those words one day out of the blue. Out of hurt, a bruised ego, and definite retaliation, Ari winds up in bed across town with long-time confidant Dana Gordon. There was a comfort level and mutual understanding between them that made it sensible for Ari to hook up with her instead of random chick. Of course, that tryst didn’t last long. In the end, Ari ended up where he was supposed to be. (I still think the writers took the easy way out, setting up for the ‘alleged’ movie, but whatever)

In both Californication and House of Lies, you have these highly successful men who have an insatiable appetite for their old joints. In Californication, jaded writer Hank Moody consistently finds himself having relations with his teenage daughter’s mom; even though she moved on and married another guy. In House of Lies, the show opens the pilot with Marty Kaan smashing the ex-wife he loathes. They then hook up again later in the season while he has a girlfriend.

As a follower of these shows, I can’t help but notice how much this revolving door really does mirror real life. When things in a relationship get a little sketchy or a bag is packed to move out in haste, men tend to run to the woman we’re most comfortable with. We seek temporary physical and emotional refuge from a woman we’ve already made up in our minds is not the one.

One of the toughest positions any unattached adult places himself or herself in is being the rebound person. Most of the time, we know going in that we’re the rebound. Yet it’s hard to say no. Why is it so easy to ignore our own emotional sanity for the sake of having a cuddle buddy until the person’s breakup blows over? The answer is pretty simple; because hope is an incredible drug. Women, especially, will remain accessible and available to a man they know they’ll never have because their hope is eventually something will come of the convenient horizontal talking. I mean, Dana Gordon held on for TWO decades!

Even though we know that as the rebound the oncoming hurt will hit us like a wrecking ball, we still are unable to turn off that internal switch. Sometimes it’s chemistry. Sometimes it’s good company. Or sometimes it’s really as simple as great sex. You could probably go so far as compare it to a woman that’s trying to upgrade from side-chick to the girlfriend. However, either way you slice it, there’s many people walking around hurt, because they didn’t know when to say “enough is enough”.

Have you ever knowingly been a rebound? Is there a time limit one should wait before hooking up with the next one? Is there ever an expiration date on being somebody’s rebound, when you and the person have a history?