In my 20s my girlfriends and I were going to do a skit called Dialogue on Dating at a restaurant lounge. It was to be performed at a going away party for one of our international student friends. Somehow it never happened. We were young and always getting into little cat fights with one another, so failed in any group endeavour. As the decades went by, I always cherished that idea. I even thought of doing a video montage of the crazy and entertaining things women have said to me about their dates. That also never happened. Now, I am getting around to an old idea as an older, older woman.
This old lady version of Dialogue on Dating references a summer dating experience with a man that I had met many years prior to him showing up again. The first sight of him so many years ago, reminded me of the Ken doll I had as a child. His classic good looks were not initially attractive to me, as I like a more eccentric rebel masculinity. Such good-looking men tend to always draw out the memory of my Ken doll. Ken was modelled on the iconic handsome man. That Ken doll was the first playing around I experienced with the opposite sex as hours and hours were spent with him, Barbie, and Tressie.
Barbie and Tressie made the triangulated relationship pattern with Ken very dynamic. Tressie was a real vamp of a doll. Her hair could be made long by pressing a button where her navel was. The hair pulled out from her head right down to her waist. Tressie wore a lot more makeup than Barbie. She had dark purple shadow and dark hair. Tressie was a classic brunette in the old Hollywood sense; a mischievous woman that is impossible to get along with. Barbie was blonde and as sweet looking as can be. A perfect counterpoint to Tressie. Not sure which Barbie she was, but not Malibu—more girl next door.
One day while the threesome played one of the dolls got mad and in a vicious fight with Ken broke his neck. Fortunately, my dad fixed the broken neck by whittling a stick that was clumsily inserted into the body and head, so ever after Ken’s head sat a little above his body on his wooden stick neck. I loved Ken’s new look because it made him even taller and unique. After that mishap both dolls were gentler in their temperamental outbursts with Ken.
The real-life Ken doll man reappeared one summer after many years of absence from my life. I seemed transfixed in his presence, observing his movements, features, and the tonal quality of his voice. It was as if I was in the presence of someone’s exotic pet, fascinated but also not sure if it were something you would like to care for. Under the double influence of a man triggering childhood memories and exotic pets, I had to face that my dating style was essentially the same as it was years ago playing with Barbie, Tressie, and Ken. I invited a gal pal into the mix to fill the Barbie role. So, there it was, the triangulating, objectifying, projecting, fantasizing, and the toss you to the side and snap your neck type of childishness that is perfect if you are playing dolls. An adult world of bona fide relationships based on security, trust, and a sense of foreverness never seemed to capture my imagination as a child, or any time since.
As a child of the 60’s the iconography of womanhood presented itself to me in the form of Cat Woman, Jeannie from the infamous I Dream of Jeannie show, Samantha from Bewitched, and my eccentric aunties. My aunties were either widows or had men living with them who were shadowy figures I never knew. There were no married women role models other than my mother. I rejected my mother as she seemed uptight, devoid of the fun of my aunties offered, and possessed none of the magic or power of the television gals I looked up to.
With a lifetime of a fantasy-type approach to dating I was ill-equipped for this summer experience. Too many years of casual knowing one another made it impossible to proceed with the frivolous fun of my usual childish ways. Thus, my new approach emerged as one of analysis that was laid over the awareness of how childish and inexperienced I was in an adult approach to dating. I kept an arm’s-length psychologically and emotionally toward the Ken doll man as I observed his behaviour and my own. A firm wall remained intact between what I thought and felt and what I said. After some time, I began to reflect on my opinions and feelings about the experience.
What kind of Freudian kabuki was I living out in my dating life? Was my dating life based on a pattern of triangulation with my parents—-then role played with dolls——only to move on to actual people? Seemed to be. So, I removed the thorny collar that I had comfortably worn for dating my entire life. A potent mixture of relief, sadness and dismay washed over me.