While procrastinating on JDate the other night, it struck me how the same adjectives kept coming up in profiles: laid back, sarcastic, driven, sarcastic, ambitious, sarcastic, sarcastic, sarcastic...
It's not the first time I've thought about JDate (and dating sites in general) as a reflection of some kind of societal something. For example, I almost wrote a paper drawing an analogy between the tradition of the Jewish yenta (matchmaker) and JDate and to what extent it fulfills the role. What's striking about dating sites, though, is that it is almost a perfect example of that delicate balance between maintaining your identity and meeting societal expectations (or at least what you perceive them to be).
So, last night, while chatting with someone (boring) on JDate, I started the experiment. So far, the constraints are such:
20005 (1 mile radius) male 25 the About Me section total found: 121 profiles total analyzed: 53
Eventually, I will have to figure out if I want to focus on just self-describing adjectives. I hope to do a few of these and compare age groups, countries, coasts, genders...ah, the procrastination opportunities.
I went to see Eva Yerbabuena perform her santo y seña (signs and wonders) show at Lisner. Her performance brought me to tears. Such physical expression of emotion came as a shock, even though I spend a lot of time on youtube watching great dancers dance.* She reminds me that I forget that it is possible to express emotions in this way, and I wonder, if by not having an outlet for them, I have lost the ability to feel them at all...
On a personal level, this frustration is strongest when I, myself, am dancing. I experience an incredible challenge in allowing what I feel to show...because I'm terrified...just terrified that I'll somehow be inappropriate...even in the one place where its ok, even on the one occasion where it is the only thing that is appropriate.
Why?
An article I read for a class recently ("Do Crying Citizen's Make Good Citizens?", Pantti and Zoonen, 2006) reminded me of an assumption that I have (and maybe we all have), which is that somehow emotions and their expression are our own, that they are personal and creative. In fact, the article suggests that we are all subjected to "feeling rules", i.e. that "many of the feelings people feel and the reasons they give for their feelings are social, structural, cultural, and relational in origin. The fact that emotions are attached to historically and culturally variable values and moral norms means that some feelings, and ways of expressing and managing them, are always socially approved, while others are stigmatized." The article continues to quote Alison Jagger ("Feminist Politics and Human Nature, 1985): "these rules of feeling are part of a hegemonic discourse that keeps the political, cultural and social elite in dominance - where they are almost invariably aligned with reason and restraint - while subordinate groups are associated with uncontrolled emotions."
Is that how dance became the "acceptable" forum for the expression of strong emotions for women and gypsies (both marginalized groups), especially in Spain where women were supposed to be stoic and proud? Is that why I am so drawn to the (albeit romanticized) gypsy culture, because through their ostracism, they were allowed freedoms that the elites could not have? Is it true, as Debra Tannen would suggest, that despite the big strides towards "equality", the expectation in everyday life is still that, women should be seen and nor heard? What am I to make of Muslim women who wail and tear their hair out while their wasp couterparts purse their lips and dab their eyes? Where do I fit in?
In a recent class, Estela had us walk. Simply walk. I've never felt more inadequate in my life. It reminded me of a scene in The Tango Lesson where Sally Potter comes to Pablo Veron for tango lessons and he tries to walk with her...and she realizes, that in dance, even walking is dance. The way Estela explained it (to an all female class) was such: "Imagine in the audience "that" person. By the time you make it to the front of the stage, he has to be ready to go...just based on your walking." I couldn't do it. It wasn't hard to imagine "that" person, and it wasn't hard to feel that intensity, but I could not express it physically. And the emotion I was feeling was fear. But, fear of what? Fear of being recognized? As a woman?
So, I'm left wondering how do I allow myself a truly creative response/expression of emotion? Can it only happen through deliberate rejection of social norms and culture? Does it have to be relegated to the arts? Or, is there room in my everyday life for a little more duende?
* Another really good question, is why hasn't a video, regardless of how powerful, ever brought me to tears? Might it have something to do with Benjamin's idea of the "aura" and its disappearance with mechanical reproduction?
