You can have the love you want.

You can have the love you want.

June 5, 2014 Uncategorized 0

“Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.” –Lady Gaga

Oh my, so much brainless, fear-mongering nonsense here. Where to start unpacking the false assumptions? How about we begin with the tone of this so-called wisdom? Um, bitter much, Lady Gaga? Listen, I’m a huge fan of her music, it’s gotten me through many workouts, but when it comes to Lady Gaga, Relationship Coach, yeah, not so much. Stick with your day job and the meat dresses, Kid: stick with what you know. Just because Gaga chose fear—fear of rejection, fear of men, fear of the demands of intimacy, fear of all of the above—the rest of us are not doomed to lives of loneliness. Just because Gaga is finding it hard to date, we lesser mortals are not necessarily doomed to choosing between someone to stare at across the brunch table and the corner office. Life’s a wee bit more complicated than that.

The moronic fear-mongering inherent in this quote reminds me of all those (abusive) people you meet who tell you cruel things because they care. As in, “Baby, you know I love you despite how fat those jeans make your ass look…right? I mean, if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t tell you not to be such a disgusting pig.” Romance! When someone uses fear to make you behave or think in a certain way, all that demonstrates in the limits of their intelligence, and the depth of their own fear. So, for example, a man telling you that you’re fat, or ugly, or whatever, is (usually) terrified you’re going to leave him to the depths of his loneliness.

This particular quote from Gaga makes me think she’s playing on women’s fears to make herself feel better regarding the emptiness in her own life…and that’s a damn shame. She deserves better. As do all the women who will read this quote and think, fearfully, “Well, if Lady Gaga can’t find love, um, who am I to think I can ever get that boy down the hall to notice me?” And they’ll give up on themselves. Or, they’ll remain trapped in dead, empty relationships, since they’ll reckon that at least they’re not (totally) alone. And yet the problem is, that even in an ideal relationship, there will be periods when you’ll be bored, depressed, lonely, horny for other people. Even in an ideal career, you can be exhausted, frustrated, broke, depressed, horny for other people. Life isn’t easy and fear only makes it worse. Fear’s greedy, fear’s also very hungry: fear wants all of you.

If you allow yourself to believe that Gaga is right, then you’re doomed. What’s the point of even trying? Oh, except that it’s YOUR LIFE that you’re giving up on. Insert sad trombone music here. So before you take advice from a pop singer—just typing those words make me cackle—maybe be honest with yourself, and ask: Am I allowing myself to meet men who would support me and my professional choices? Good men are indeed out there but it’s difficult to have time for the good ones, if you’re busy having mediocre sex with all the losers. Are you giving the good men a reason to recognize you, and to call you, or are you letting the douches monopolize your time? Are you spewing venom and bathos nonstop on Facebook, is your newsfeed a 24/7 pity party, with the “I-can’t-get-my-sh*t-together-giggle” single set on repeat? Interesting enough, good men are somewhat hesitant to bring that type of train wreck home to mom. Before you blame all good men for being assholes, and rejecting you, just think for a moment as to how you’re presenting.  If you tell enough people, enough times that you’re a loser or a slut, people will start believing you, and the types you’ll end up attracting might not be exactly the names you want on your wedding guest list.

As far as Gaga’s contention that a career can love you back: um. How’s that work exactly? Listen, I adore being self-employed…but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have days where all I want to do is stay under the covers, with a drink in each fist. (Just because you love what you do, just because your soul is sustained by the emotional importance of your work, does not, alas, mean you spend your days riding unicorns and farting glitter.)  In my twenties, I worked in TV news in Russia, NYC and Washington. I did really rather well. Did my TV career love me? Hmm, let us count the ways: I was verbally humiliated by various bosses, anchors and cameramen; reporters threw phones at me and had public tantrums; I worked 18 hours a day, 6-7 days a week; I was spit upon by people who had lost loved ones on 9/11, after I had asked them a stupid question involving the even stupider word, “closure.” Even when I was in the belly of the network beast, if you had asked me if I thought that my career loved me, I would have replied, “I hope not, because this is abuse. Not love. Can you not recognize the difference?” I never thought my career, or anything in TV loved me; I just thought it was fun and interesting.

Whatever Lady Gaga’s (unfortunate) choice, it doesn’t have to be yours. You don’t have to choose between love and a career, you have to choose between fear and courage. You have to choose to commit to yourself, and to reject the fears society uses to control us. Whatever you do will be hard. A great career takes time, as does a great relationship. Nothing, alas, comes easy. No way around it. But fighting for an empty life, because you’re afraid of love, is the hardest choice of all.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” –Anais Nin

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