Monthly Archives: February 2014

Dear Stranger from out of town, I’m not an unpaid prostitute.

Date: February 24, 2014
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating, Dating - NYC, Dating After 35, Dating Online, New York City, Relationships, Uncategorized
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Online dating is the social experiment that keeps on giving.  I’m always amazed at hidden agendas it reveals.  If I select that I’m looking for casual sex in my profile, I will literally get over 100 emails in a 24 hour period.  Men are looking for no strings attached sex, but few will be completely open about their intentions.  One of the strangest phenomena are men from out-of-town who seek sex with New York City women.  My inbox overflows requests like these, yet nothing on my profile indicates that I’m looking for hook-ups.  A typical email goes like this:

I think you’re hot. I’m going to be in New York City next week and I’d love to hook-up if you’re game for that sort of thing. If you aren’t, then my apologizes.

The straight forward approach is a bit unnerving, but they are easy enough to dismiss.   I always admire anyone who has the courage to ask for what they want.  As I’ve said many times on this blog, I wish more men were open and honest.  For every email like that one, I get about 10 of these:

I really think we have a connection. Even though we haven’t met, I can tell from your profile that you’re a caring and loving woman. Something about your eyes, and smile are so inviting to me.  I also think we have a lot in common, and we’d have a great time together.  I’ll only be in town for a week, and I really need someone to show me around the city. I know I could just sit in my hotel room in between my work, but I’d rather spend it with someone special like you.

Those make me want to vomit. It’s also an obvious cut and paste.  A guy will send the same email to dozens of women hoping one will bite.  My profile is mostly random movie quotes.  A savvier man will comment on the films I’ve quoted, or at least acknowledge that my profile is slightly unconventional.  Talking about my eyes, smile or the many things we have in common is intentionally vague.  Every woman has eyes, and most are smiling in at least one photo – so I guess a few might fall for complete drivel like that.  Others might realize the guy is a total phony but they think he’s attractive enough for a one-night stand.

Then we have the truly slime inducing ones:

Look, I’m going to be in New York City next week.  I’m going to be extremely busy.  Maybe if you’re hot enough in person, I’ll make some time for you.  You won’t regret it but you’d better be hot, or forget it.  I’ve got nine inches of pure manhood and I love to make hot chicks moan.

Luckily men like this are rare.  When I’ve gotten emails like these I’ve responded, “Why aren’t you on tinder” or “Hire a prostitute” or “I don’t need an out-of-town STD.”

Usually the men who proposition me for such liaisons aren’t exactly drop dead gorgeous, but a few have been.  I’ve still never taken the bait.  I’m not comfortable with these situations for a number of reasons.

  • Are these men married? Who knows?
  • Safety issues – Theft, sexual assault or worse
  • Drugs – Will I be slipped something that will knock me out?  Will the man be blazed out of his mind?
  • Privacy – Photographs, video, webcams – technology has gotten so small anything is possible
  • Unusual requests, unexpected kinky sex, inappropriate boundaries
  • BAD SEX

The last one is in all caps for a reason.  Sex with strangers is like rolling the dice, you really have no idea if you are going to have a steamy, hot night of passion or an awkward, uncomfortable evening of disappointment.  Simply put sex with a total stranger, is sometimes not just mediocre but downright scaring.  Most of the time when men have sex, they’ll at least have an orgasm.  Any woman knows we aren’t always as lucky.  A selfish or unskilled lover can make the entire enterprise one long night we wish we could forget forever.

Women also get hit up for free sex all the time.  If I want no strings attached sex I can probably get that from someone I already know and trust a bit.  I also don’t need a girlfriend or wife tracking me down weeks or months later when they’ve discovered an “affair” which was really just a random hook-up.

Overall these requests make me feel like I have no value.  A sex worker might put up with strange sexual requests, a selfish one-sided lover or an uncomfortable experience.  A prostitute at least gets paid, and usually quite well for their services.  Of course some women love the turn on of having sex with a total stranger who they will never see again.  However most women who want hot sex from out-of-town men are on hook-up sites like Adult Friend Finder and Tinder.  It’s a bit of a leap for any man to assume all women want this type of sexual experience.

Basically. if you want to buy shoes, don’t go to a hat store.  Plenty of women are waiting for your emails you just need to look for them on sites specific to your search.  Sex workers are also always available, they might be pricy but there’s nothing wrong with an agreed upon transaction between consenting adults.  Never assume the average gal on OKCupid or Match.com is waiting for your “Nine inches manhood.”  We know it’s probably closer to six inches anyway. 🙂

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An Artist in Defense of New York City

Date: February 13, 2014
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Comedy, Huffington Post, New York City
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Recently several older accomplished artists have made public declarations decrying the death of creativity in New York City.  Young hopeful artists should steer clear of the Big Apple and find more fertile ground in other cities.  They’ve been vague about which cities are supposedly the new cultural capitals although one article cited Los Angeles as an alternative.  It’s safe to say that the entertainment capital of the world isn’t exactly welcoming to huddled art school masses.  Detroit was also offered up as a suggestion but it’s hard to picture artists thriving in a city that has actually debated selling off the contents of its acclaimed art museum.

New York City’s critics and I agree though, our cultural soul is in trouble.  I moved here in 2001 when the cracks in the artistic landscape were already several feet deep.  Once concentrated in a few neighborhoods, artists are now scattered throughout the outer boroughs. Some of our most beloved artistic spaces have died, while others have morphed into upscale venues.  Rents have soared, and despite this new injection of wealth, arts organizations across the city find it harder to fight for donations and funding.  Broadway has gotten increasingly corporate and risky work has gotten much harder to produce.  Things are worse for New York City artists then they have been in decades.

Most of New York’s biggest detractors are famous millionaires.  It’s easy for them to look back and see so many other options.  Did they grow up in a smaller city in a solidly conservative state?  Have they ever lived in the South or Midwest?  Did it ever occur to them that an artist’s soul would be crushed anyway living in the middle of nowhere.

Pursuing a career in the arts is like climbing Mount Everest blindfolded while a sherpa throws frozen carp at your head.  Trying to balance paying rent while pursuing artistic pursuits is an incredibly difficult challenge regardless of where a person lives.  It’s not like the high paying jobs in the arts are just waiting for applicants in places like Topeka or Birmingham.

I don’t have a benefactor or well off spouse.  My family is not rich or well-connected, and I struggle to make ends meet every single month.  I share a one-bedroom in a dodgy, crime-riddled neighborhood in Brooklyn.  My life is not exactly easy.  Regardless of the challenges I still call NYC my home for a number or reasons:

  • Audience – The rents might be lower in a smaller city but the audience to sustain artists is microscopic. I regularly performed on a stage in a heavy metal bar that was nothing more but a piece of plywood on top of paint cans.  It might have been a humble performance space but the room was always packed.
  • Resources – NYC has everything.  It’s not cheap but you can find galleries, theaters, dance stages, rehearsal spaces, recording studios, comedy clubs, art studios, and sound stages.
  • Community – My friends are film makers, dancers, photographers, writers, actors, comedians, visual artists, designers, musicians and playwrights.  There are arts festivals in every borough year-round with contributors clamoring for a slot.  Collaboration across mediums is effortless.  A musician can find a dancer, who can find a costumer, who can find a print maker and they probably all live off the same subway line.  Few of us make a lot of income doing our art, but we can always find a way to express ourselves.
  • Competition – New York City is not for the timid or lazy.  A few trust fund brats might live in a studio in Chelsea, but for the majority of us, it’s survival of the fittest.  Being around so many other gifted artists makes us all work harder.
  • Education and Training –  New York city has  Internationally acclaimed Ivy League institutions to funky art schools and some of the finest public colleges in the nation.
  • Politics – In NYC if a performance artist wants to cover their body in lube and roll around on newspaper while projecting a pornographic film on their crotch – no one will stage a protest.  Try doing that in Idaho or Alabama.
  • There is still that one in a million chance of success – I know a few who have succeeded despite the odds.  Try getting a television show produced or a slot on SNL while living in Saint Louis.

New York is hard, in many ways harder than it’s ever been. Generic corporate sprawl of artless residential towers and national chain stores infect nearly every crevice of Manhattan.  We are at risk of losing our creative soul, but we haven’t lost it yet.  We are still creating art all over this city.  The semi-retired wealthy artists might not notice us, or pay any attention to our low-budget ventures but we’re still here.

If young artists heed the warnings and no new blood comes in, the doomsayers will kill the very thing they claim to cherish.   If we want to maintain this cities artistic credibility then we have to stay and fight.  The warnings to stay away from Gotham are nothing new.  Nearly twenty years ago, more than one professor warned – NYC is dead, don’t bother. Yet I’ve survived for thirteen years and I make my living creating art.

We can romanticize the past but there were many artists who crashed and burned in the 70’s and 80’s. NYC has never been an incubator with warm and fuzzy walls that nurtured anyone.  It’s a city that says from the moment you land here – show me something.  Show me why I should give a damn about what you do.

We’re in trouble, but if we tell the next generation to not bother, we expedite our demise.  Any artist who looks the rates of success wouldn’t bother anyway.  When have the arts been a practical career choice for anyone?  We don’t do it for outward gains, we create because we have to create, we must create and there is no better place than a city overflowing with artists.  I would say to young artists – New York might not be for you, but if you really want to push yourself and live among a bunch of like-minded freaks then take the leap. You probably won’t live in Manhattan, and you’ll most likely be poor, but you won’t have watch your dreams die in a small town in Kansas.  If you are going to burn out you might as well dream big.

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You CAN help who you fall in love with.

Date: February 6, 2014
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Relationships, Uncategorized
Comments: 3 Replies

Recently a friend found out her boyfriend of less than three months, has a serious drug problem.  He doesn’t think he’s an addict and has refused to get treatment. Despite her misgivings about his substance abuse problem she quipped.

“You can’t help who you fall in love with”

So does love trump all common sense?  Does a strong romantic bond throw all logic out the window?  Do people fall in love after only three months?

Similarly a certain film director who had what most would consider a highly inappropriate affair defended his actions by saying, The heart wants what it wants. There’s no logic to those things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.  I’m sure he might feel differently if his now wife fell in love with his best friend, but I digress.

Does love trump all?  Is it ethical to use love as an excuse for causing such havoc in the lives of others?  When does common sense, logic and self-control come into the picture?  Is a person allowed to do anything they want in the name of love and not be accountable for their actions?

Love doesn’t always come when we want it, and there are many situations that get morally ambiguous.  Two people may fall in love while both are married to other partners.  Some couples might repeatedly reconcile despite epic fights and constant battles.  And we all know relationships that make absolutely no logical sense, yet endure despite glaring incompatibilities.  Love is this mystical force that can make people do all sorts of irrational things.  Our myths and fairy tales center around characters who literally slay dragons and wake the dead in the name of true love.

But will love conquer all?   Let’s go back to my friend’s example.  She is in her thirties, has never been married but has had long-term relationships.  She doesn’t live with her new boyfriend. They don’t have children together and they have only been dating for three months. His drug of choice is a highly dangerous one that could easily kill him in an overdose.  As a divorced person, I can’t help but scream “Dear God Woman run with all the force that you have in you, don’t look back, get out, RUN!” at the top of my lungs with full force.  Instead of “love” I see the most tragic a love triangles a co-dependent, a drug addict and drugs. Although she won’t admit it openly, she probably thinks she can “save” or at least change him. I would give her much more leeway if she was a younger woman with less life experience, but she really should know better. Three months is hardly a lifetime and she should get out before she gets into too deep.

Then there is the case of the film director.  He was 56 years old when he started an affair with the daughter of his then partner.  Could he not have done the more responsible thing and resisted temptation?  Were there not adoring 19-year-old sycophants eager to jump his bones, who were not related to his children?   People use love to excuse all sorts of selfish behavior – a man cheats on his wife while she is sick with cancer, a teacher seduces her student, a woman sleeps with the husband of a pregnant friend, and on and on. When does free will step in?  Are we powerless to emotions of the heart?  Also when we are on the wrong side of these affairs it’s next to impossible to empathize with our partner’s betrayal.

Then there are the serial disaster daters.  People who will literally destroy their lives for one lover after another.  They don’t just have one abusive, addicted, or cruel ex, they have several who all seem to have the same horrible personality.  Is it love every time or co-dependency?  Is it narcissism. masochism or insanity?

All of us have been in situations were we are strongly attracted to people who were not available.  Do we throw caution to the wind every time to the whim of love? I’ve found myself strongly desiring men I knew were a bad idea and I had enough self-control to not avoid temptation.  I’ve also made mistakes and become enraptured with someone despite the warning signs and suffered major consequences.  And who hasn’t been hung up on a former lover we know is bad for us.   Love has caused me to do things against my own self-interest, well-being or mental health.  I’m obviously not the most rational person – I married a clown.

Is love is a type of magic fairy dust that falls from the heavens, covers us in sparkles and makes us lose sound judgment and our basic sense of self-preservation?  Should we really use the most powerful human emotion as an excuse to absolve ourselves of any pain we cause others? Romantic love is a powerful and wonderful force, but we are not slaves to it.

My divorce has made me a realist.  I’ve seen the empty void on the other side of a romantic relationship gone wrong.   Of course we would all love to have a love so strong that our partners would risk everything for us but sustained love rarely works that way.  A good foundation is built on trust, communication and real life experience.  Love doesn’t always happen in nice and tidy ways, we can avoid major heartache and pain if we let the rational side of our brains take over. My friend could give herself space from her drug addicted boyfriend, the movie director could have at least broken up with his partner before sleeping with her daughter, or he could have slept with someone else. We can’t always save ourselves when we are deep in the throes of love, but we can at least try to avoid a moving train when we see it coming. 

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