How I’m nursing my broken heart: Pondering the mysteries of women — and their handbags
Some crucial piece of knowledge must have eluded me. I felt completely heartbroken, and there had to be a reason for this unexpected devastation. My long-distance relationship with a woman in New York had fallen apart, in spite of the fact that we had such intense love for one another.
We both felt compelled to experience life at a fast pace. But with limited time and competing priorities, it was difficult to prioritize the relationship. And now I was back in L.A., walking around downtown Culver City, having a long, meandering conversation with my sister, trying to figure it all out.
Men and women are legitimately different in certain respects. Perhaps I needed to learn more. Perhaps the answer had something to do with something as simple as the mystery of handbags.
I asked my sister to clarify a female issue that had perplexed me: “I notice that women indulge themselves by buying lots of handbags and shoes. I understand buying multiple shoes, because you can easily take your feet out of your shoes and slip them into different shoes. But do you seriously dump all your things out of your handbag in order to put them in a different handbag? That isn’t spoiling yourself; that’s just inconveniencing yourself.”
My sister explained the phenomenon as part of an elaborate cleaning system. Apparently, when a woman has receipts, used tissues, gum wrappers and the like, she tucks these things into her handbag instead of throwing them away. When she later takes her essential belongings out of her handbag in order to put those things into the new handbag, she leaves the remaining garbage at the bottom of the first handbag. It is the ultimate procrastination tool!
I’m not normally attracted to the types of women who are obsessed with handbags. I just needed to get some answers.
On rare occasions, I have dated women with that materialistic, feminine, omigod-I-love-shopping sort of vibe. My ex-girlfriend certainly met that description. And to be completely honest, her blissful and unapologetic adherence to that cliché gender role was arousing and endearing. I didn’t mind that she was a shop-a-holic, because she had lots of other dimensions to her personality. She shared my political passions, for example.
If shopping and handbags defined her entirely, she would have become grating after a while. And instead of dragging my feet and grieving the end of our relationship, I would have been skipping past the Sony lot.
But on that particular day, I was gloomy, and I was fairly convinced that I would never again date the type of woman who obsesses over those symbolic handbags.
After a series of short-term relationships, I had learned quite a bit about myself and about the type for my type.
Yes, the type for my type. At first, I thought I was just imagining it, but this is a real thing.
I’m not talking about comparable levels of attractiveness here. I’m talking about something less easily attributable. I’m also not talking about particular personalities that gravitate toward my personality. That would also make sense. This is more of a mystery, I assure you. (There are many mysteries when it comes to women, like those handbags.) When I’m walking down the street, sometimes a woman will smile at me flirtatiously, and in these circumstances, the woman knows nothing about who I am, or how neurotic I am. Her observation is strictly superficial -- my look, my clothes, my style. But the women who smile at me flirtatiously all look very similar.
And I’m not necessarily attracted to the type for my type either. This is just yet another strange phenomenon that occurs. Take from that what you will. So anyway, after the walk with my sister, I went to a bar to meet up with a friend.
While I was waiting for my friend, sipping on a Corona, a young woman started up a conversation with me. She was very bright. She also happened to have a handbag, dangling off the table from one of those ingenious purse hooks. I don’t know enough about handbags to tell you if it was D&G or anything, but it looked expensive. The conversation went smoothly, so when my friend arrived, I got her number. The next day, over text, I asked her if she wanted to go out with me while I was in town.
She casually told me, “I could probably make some time next week for coffee.”
Needless to say, I canceled.
The woman was able to make time! She could manipulate the laws of physics and contort the fabric of the space-time continuum in order to nonchalantly manufacture additional time that would explicitly permit us to have coffee together. Clearly, she was divine! I didn’t want to take any chances, because if the date went badly, she might smite me. So I simply told her to give my regards to Zeus and then I ran away…
OK, so perhaps it had nothing to do with her phrasing.
Perhaps I never followed through because her handbag indicated that she was accustomed to a certain lifestyle, which I wasn’t able to provide.
Maybe it was because she reminded me a little bit of my ex. Or maybe it was because I wasn’t going to be in town the next week. Either way, the date never happened. But as I sat on the plane heading back to New York for yet another business trip, I felt better about everything. I felt like I understood women just a little bit more.
The author just completed a manuscript of humor essays and is now directing a documentary about healthcare reform.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the current dating scene in and around Los Angeles. We pay $300 a column. If you have comments or a true story to tell, email us at LAAffairs@latimes.com.
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