Dating plus food plus the New York Times’ gender-role fuckery. A perfect storm of idiocy!
MARTHA FLACH mentioned meat twice in her Match.com profile: “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs … steak for two and the Sunday puzzle.”
She was seeking, she added, “a smart, funny, kind man who owns a suit (but isn’t one) … and loves red wine and a big steak.”
The repetition worked. On her first date with Austin Wilkie, they ate steak frites. A year later, after burgers at the Corner Bistro in Greenwich Village, he proposed. This March, the rehearsal dinner was at Keens Steakhouse on West 36th Street, and the wedding menu included mini-cheeseburgers and more steak.
Meat, the magic marriage bullet! Oh, if only I had thought to order a steak or a hamburger on my first dates, I, too, could be married to a smart, funny, kind man who owns a suit (but isn’t one), and we could have winked at our mutual love of meat by having just the cutest little mini-cheeseburgers at the wedding!
Oh, wait. Except for the part where I *have* eaten steak on a first date, having been taken to a steakhouse.
And I’m single anyhow. Hm. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe Martha will tell me what it is:
Ms. Wilkie was a vegetarian in her teens, and even wore a “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt. But by her 30s, she had started eating cow. By the time she placed the personal ad, she had come to realize that ordering steak on a first date had the potential to sate appetites not only of the stomach but of the heart.
Red meat sent a message that she was “unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic,” she said, “that I’m not obsessed with my weight even though I’m thin, and I don’t have any food issues.” She added, “In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance.”
Silly me! I’m not thin, and Martha is. She can eat cow; I’m just compared to one.
In an earlier era, conventional dating wisdom for women was to eat something at home alone before a date, and then in company order a light dinner to portray oneself as dainty and ladylike. For some women, that is still the practice. “It’s better not to have a jalapeño fajita plate, especially on the first date,” said Andrea Bey, 28, who sells video surveillance equipment in Irving, Tex., and describes herself as “curvy.” “You don’t want to be labeled as ‘princess gassy’ on the first date.”
But others, especially those who are thin, say ordering a salad displays an unappealing mousiness.
Fat AND gassy! Salads for you, missy, and don’t you forget it!
Oh, I do so love this whole idea that you have to eat hearty to impress a man and yet somehow remain untouched by the calories and fat in such hearty fare as steak frites (and, conversely, that if you have any padding on your body at all, you must make a display of self-abnegation). I’m guessing that for women not blessed with a fast metabolism, there’s a lot of vomiting involved in sending a message that you’re thin but not obsessed with your weight and can regularly down a Porterhouse the size of a small child yet still maintain your girlish figure.
And isn’t it just charming that women eat meat?
Restaurateurs and veterans of the dating scene say that for many women, meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy. “I’ve been shocked at the number of women actually ordering steak,” said Michael Stillman, vice president of concept development for the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, which opened the restaurant Quality Meats in April 2006 on West 58th Street.
Dude. You work for steakhouses, and you’re surprised that women order steak?
Aside from the gender-conformity here and the thrilling! transgressive! feeling! women are supposed to get from . . . eating steak, I have to agree with Miriam (guest-posting over at Feministing this week) that this article is so pro-meat that it reads like a press release from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, those tetchy sorts that sued Oprah for libel (and lost) after she said she didn’t eat beef.
There’s the ex-vegetarian Martha, who snagged her husband with a steak; there’s the woman who dismisses ordering what you want (should you happen to feel like a salad) as “wimpy, insipid, childish,”* while ordering steak makes a statement; there’s the vegetarian who longs to order burgers but has to settle for shots of Jagermeister to prove to her frat-boy dates that she’s man enough for them; there’s advice to Know Your Beef so you can not only dazzle your man with your knowledge, but you can also be sure to order the appropriate cut to convey the proper message (i.e, those $60 burgers are for him, not for you. You get the cheap ones, because you’re down to earth).
And then there are those “rare women” (ha! rare! get it?) who eat what they want no matter what, and that happens to be . . . beef.
Saehee Hwang, 30, a production director at Artnet.com, found herself out with friends at DuMont restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when she started feeling attracted to a new guy in the group. She said she had wanted to order a burger, but started having second thoughts. “I didn’t want to appear too much of a carnivore,” she said. “It might be off-putting.”
But then she decided she should not change her order to fit a preconceived idea of what a man might want. She ordered the house specialty, a half-pound of beef on a toasted brioche bun with Gruyère cheese.
And, lo! He suitably approved of her choice, because Meat is Magic!
“We started dating afterward,” Ms. Hwang said. “And he told me he liked the fact that I ordered the burger.”
________
*Who strings three adjectives together like this without using “and”? I see this all the time in quotes, but I’ve never actually heard anyone speak like this.
I totally disagree with the entire concept of ordering steak on the first date.
Your first date should be at a coffeehouse, damn it. One hour, dutch treat, and you’re out of there unless both of you simply can’t tear yourselves away. Fuck entrees.
Seriously, though, this is the exact kind of shit I used to read in and Cosmo 25 years ago, back before I figured out that “women’s magazines” were all about Making Him Happy and Screw What You Want. In fact, were it not for the Match.com reference, I’d swear this was copied line for line from one of those old old articles.
This idea has always bothered me. I sometimes see things where a guy is asked whether he’d like to go out on a date with a girl who orders a salad or a steak, and they always say they want a girl who wants a steak and has an appetite. But they don’t say much about wanting fat girlfriends. What they want is a girlfriend who can be thin without having to show any outward signs of effort for it.
“You don’t want to be labeled as ‘princess gassy’ on the first date.”
I managed to wait until the second date. And the term is “gassy lassy,” thank you very much. The poor fool married me anyway.
Seriously, this is just another of those articles designed to provoke anxiety in single women. Everything you do is wrong and is driving men away, but if you just follow our simple tips, you’ll have a husband in no time! Never just a boyfriend, or a fun date, or a guy to hang out with. It’s got to be A Husband.
I swear I’ve seen exactly this advice for at least the past 15 years (ie don’t order salad on a date, order real food). Are women even still doing that?
great post! All of these stupid lifestyle fluff pieces that the NYTimes churns out remind me of the Onion piece “Women Empowered by Everything a Woman Does.” Eating red meat is empowering - because it’s the opposite of what men expect! And then you can prove to men that you’re “a cheap date, low maintenance.” Awesome. In five years, you’ll be cooking their red meat for them and then cleaning up because you’re so low maintenance.
…whoops, guess I accidementally deleted a word from my post. Should read, “…shit I used to read in Madamoiselle and Cosmo.”
They trot this stuff out every once and a while, to remind women that if you’re hawt, and you like the stuff boys like, then you’re like, the best of both worlds! (Note: Being hawt is required.)
There was some stupid article in Salon or whatever a few years ago about how sexy it is when a woman smokes cigars and talks about sports. When she’s hot.
Articles like this just remind me of just how much some proclaimed “heterosexual” men hate women (like Terrence Howard). The only thing worthwhile about a woman is her figure and her hole. Beyond that, anything even remotely female is despised.
“You don’t want to be labeled as ‘princess gassy’ on the first date.”
Hey, I got the runs on a first date, was definitely labeled “princess gassy” by the second, and we’ve been cohabiting happily for the last year. Turns out if you date guys who are attracted to your individual mind and body, not your Appearance of Femininity, you can get away with all manner of gastrointestinal distress and have really good conversations and sex. WHO KNEW??
Also: Oh, I do so love this whole idea that you have to eat hearty to impress a man and yet somehow remain untouched by the calories and fat in such hearty fare as steak frites (and, conversely, that if you have any padding on your body at all, you must make a display of self-abnegation).
I think the deal is, you’re supposed to want it, but not really have it. You’re supposed to order the steak, eat three bites, make orgasmic noises about them, and then push it away. Actually eating what you order would be unseemly, of course, but ordering the salad would be an acknowledgment of the diet pressure on women, and nobody likes to think about heavy shit like that on a date!
One of the stupidest articles I’ve ever come across (the one you referenced, not your post). But I am not surprised: I’ve hardly ever seen a useful “life advice” article in any avenue (magazine/newspaper/etc).
Didn’t Mae West make a similar suggestion, saying that beef would make you sexier as far as the attitude you project?
Just more of the same “there’s an easy set of rules out there, just over the horizonN just trust me and screw individuality” BS, methinks.
Ah, there’s nothing like spouting Essentialism when you really need to sound like an absolute tool. -_-
Yeah, because we all know that Mae West was such a uggo that she needed beef to be sexy?
Ordering a steak? Not impressed. Killing the cow the butchering it and preparing it the way she likes it? Now that’s impressive. Either way, I’m going to go put on my Smiths album, now.
Man, I am so happy I’m long past the dating scene. But though it was only fifteen years or so ago for me it simply never occured to me that my (many) dates were scanning my food choices to determine my fuckability or my marriagability–two different things, in any event. And as for rpincess gassy?” I thought the other steroetype was that men are always farting or beelching. IF the idea is that they really want to date men in women’s hot bodies surely farting and belching through that hot little black dress would be the best way to put them at ease?
aimai
Salads always make me fart.
Not to mention that at our first real (i.e. dinner) date, my now-husband was really worried that I was bored. I had to explain that I was a little out of it because I’d had food poisoning the day before and had been up vomiting half the night. Fortunately for us, he was relieved rather than disgusted — the thought that I might not like him was more upsetting that the thought of me vomiting. Awwww.
ordering what you want (should you happen to feel like a salad) as “wimpy, insipid, childish”
Because eating salad is childish? Liking salad is childish? Which explains all of those hordes of children begging their parents for salads? Or, ordering what you want is childish, because it’s selfish and immature to order food that you actually want to eat?
What happens if I order a steak AND a salad?
Meowser is right–a fast, cheap meet at a coffeehouse. Otherwise, the person who proposed the first date gets to pay; I’m already spending my time and attention.
I always order what I want to eat. At a steakhouse, that means lobster.
We really, really need to develop realistic androids already, so people too emotionally stunted to figure out the factors that actually figure into compatibility can just program their settings in, and no organics will be harmed.
Jen delurking here for two seconds. Yes to whomever pointed out upstream that according to the Times, most het males are just doing us gals a favor by wanting to boink us, and that otherwise we need to be just like them to be perfect or something along those lines.
I double-dawg DARE the NYT to do a piece on how het guys find packing by gals attractive. And I don’t mean guns.
Seriously, I want to see an article complete with shopping links and photos and a main headline that says “Pack Em In: Gals Who have a Dick Bigger than His and the High Earners who Love Them.”
That way, I can scratch my balls while eating my 72-oz porterhouse. I’ll be married in less than a year!
On my first date with my DH, I was on Cambridge Diet and was too terrified to eat. Having crash-dieted down to 105 lbs. (from 118 — a weight I’d love to be now) I was terrified that if I ate he’d realize what a fatty I really was. Imagine how wonderful it must have been for him, to be with a girl who would push the food around her plate and cry all the time because she was just plain hungry and terrified to eat.
Well, it’s 20 years later, and now I’m really the fatty that I only thought I was then, and he’s still around.
Well, there are always Real Dolls.
I think the probability that the article was in fact written and distributed by the beef industry is actually quite high.
What happens if I order a steak AND a salad?
Awww, man! Now I want a steak salad. With a nice vinaigrette and a handful of gorgonzola on top. And it’s still another hour till dinnertime.
As a “curvy” girl, if I want steak, and I order steak, I am judged for not having self-control. If I don’t want steak, but order steak to impress–same deal. If I want salad and order salad, then its the just-who-do-you-think-you-are-fooling-anyhow syndrome, and if I want steak but order salad… well… you get the point.
So, my answer is… order whatever the heck you want. And if you are at the point where you are so worried about finding “The One” that you are analyzing your menu choices… time to take a big deep breath and rethink things.
My first date with my ex-husband was for dinner. I didn’t want to go, was going to cancel. But my roommate and I were completely broke, and she grabbed me by both shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said, “You are going on this date. You are going to order a big meal. And you are going to bring home a doggy bag for me. Because we spent all the grocery money on beer.” And so with my marching orders, I went on the date, and dutifully ordered big and brought home the leftovers.
My ex-husband thought it was awesome that I ate so much (he didn’t realize that he was feeding two of course).
We ended up married, so maybe there is some truth to this theory…
Of course, we also ended up divorced….
How come there are never articles about how men try to impress women with their menu choices? It’s always the other way around?
Seinfeld once had a hilarious episode about Jerry, who disliked meat, having to pretend his way through a pile of mutton (eeeech!) to impress a girl because she thought that salad eaters were not “macho.” He ended up stuffing the mutton into the pockets of his jacket—which Elaine borrowed, causing her to be attacked by a dog….etc…etc
Anyhow, I digress. What is even more irritating than the total omission from the article of the fact that meat IS cruelty to animals, is the presumption by the NYT that any unmarried woman is desperate to attract a mate and strains to make “the right impression” in every meaningless facet of contact. And even if that bilge were TRUE, it would all be for naught anyhow. In my experience, most guys don’t even remember your eye color after one date, let alone what you ordered. Guys are not big on details.
And all those “Happily ever after” stories about how former female veggies snagged their hunks with hamburgers, truly made me sick. The “statement” you are making by ordering a burger is that you don’t give a damn about animal suffering and probably don’t much care about humans, either. These couples deserve each other.
“How come there are never articles about how men try to impress women with their menu choices? It’s always the other way around?”
You KNOW why. You just also know that naming and acknowledging it is going to make you apoplectic and we don’t have a real solution yet, so you’d just rather not discuss it.
“How come there are never articles about how men try to impress women with their menu choices? It’s always the other way around?”
Do women even care what men order in restaurants (barring e.g., vegan women)? Nothing I’ve ordered has ever caused a woman to gasp with pleasure or delight. I think this field of endeavor is a non-starter.
But, there is one way men try to impress women in the food field of endeavor: by cooking for them. But you want to stop short of looking all gay and shit. Steak (or eggplant) on the grill, a green salad, and a baked potato. Ice cream for dessert. The man secure in his masculinity could make creme brulee for dessert, because he could whip out his blowtorch to caramelize it.