Sunday, June 10, 2007
Chapter 2: From Start to... Finished??
As I dove into chapter two with a title marking "Postmodern Sexual Etiquette, From Hook-Up to Checkup", I was some what intrigued to see what Shalit would delve into and how she would express her experiences. I shortly found that she had for the most part published what most people know, just don't say. I read on enthusiastically until I came to the third stage labeled: The Post Dumping Checkup. I found this segment, although not completely false, yet completely one sided and generalized, especially coming from someone with such an "extensive" dating career such as Shalit. Her words "What is this prudish, morbid stake society now has in making everyone stay fake friends".
I as a male, having yes.. Dated my share of women, have for the most part remained good friends with quite a few of them. Not to mention my Ex- fiance of four years, who engaged 3 weeks after moving out to a guy she's known for 10 days. And from personal experience I can say that even when we had coffee for our second "check up" as she calls it, its not as such a waist as she claims. Now yes, there's a lot of politics and unspoken rules taboo to follow, but it's not as useless as she would have it to be. But who am I? I'm just a male, and by her words, "To be concerned with male honor, of course, is wrong... And nobody wants to generalize. You can get in serious trouble for generalizing..." Yet, her "theories" are justified. Hmm...
1 comment:
Group 4 said...
I honestly could not agree with you more. I have a lot of ex-girlfriends that I have not just done a "Post-Dumping Checkup" on, but actually tried to maintain a friendly relationship with because I actually care. Shalit over-generalizes about EVERYTHING in this chapter and then comments on generalizing. I found that to be quite hypocritical and I feel like her main aim in writing a lot of the material out of the chapter is to put a negative connotation on men, a being in which she says out right that she does not have much experience. It's frustrating to me that she claims women are the only ones with obstacles. Right.
Brandon Kinlein
June 11, 2007 11:51 AM
jdean36 said...
While I do believe we all need closure after a relationship has ended I usually do not see it necessary to re-hash old memories if they can be painful. To me it all depends on the type of relationship you had. Personally, my last relationship was horrible and it dragged on for two years. I no longer speak at all with this particular ex and yet I feel I have learned more from him than anybody else in my life. Now I am in a completely different relationship with a person that I was friends with for over 4 years before we ever even thought about dating. When it is over I can't see us being anything but friends. It seems to me that Shalit has only had one type of relationship in her life: the one you would never repeat.
Chelle Dean
June 12, 2007 2:15 PM
Krista said...
In this chapter Shalit is talking about the post-breakup from the eyes of an outsider and has never really experienced this herself. It is hypocritical for her to think that the post-breakup checkup is unnecessary and influenced by society. My first real ex and I never had the checkup because we didn't have a good relationship, and the only thing I would get out of a meeting with him is more pain and heartbreak. My second real breakup was with a guy whom I was considering getting engaged to. We didn't breakup because we had a bad relationship (we never once fought and we were always happy to be around each other), we broke up because I felt I would never accomplish anything if I stayed with him. I thought I would get married, have a bunch of kids, and not go to college. After meeting up with him several years later, I finally had peace over the situation and knew I had done the right thing. Shalit doesn't understand the importance of a post-breakup checkup because she has never been in this situation. I found the post-breakup checkup to be one of the most important things that has happened in my life. It allowed me to grow and develop as a person. Shalit just doesn't understand what she is judging.
June 26, 2007 2:40 PM
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