The First in an Occasional Series: Stuff I Wrote A Long Time Ago

...and have just now found. Many thanks to Hardware Engineer, who hates me for breaking up with him and doesn't read this anyway, for fixing my desktop computer.
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We are our own Prince Charmings. Our mothers saw Cinderella singing, "Someday, my prince will come" and believed. When we grew up, our divorced mothers told us bitterly that no one's coming, so we set out to make sure we'd never need to be rescued. And now we have the uncertain pleasure of being so far ahead of the guys trying to date us that we need to rescue them. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't want to be in the habit of rescuing my boyfriends; if I wanted to be a mother, I'd get knocked up. And, frankly, I don't want him to rescue me either; frequently depending on someone else makes you ungrateful and bitter.

Last night I was awoken by my dog barking ferociously; apparently, a bee the size of a small plane had flown in an open window and was beating itself against the walls of my apartment. There was no hope for it; I had to wake up, turn the lights on, and stand ready with a Pierce Transit schedule book to smack the living daylights out of it, or both my dog and I would stay sleepless in Tacoma. Eventually the poor bee landed on a wall close enough to my reach that I was able to kill him and bury him in the garbage can. The crisis passed. Dog and girl went back to sleep. Musing sleepless some hours later, I realized that it hadn’t occurred to me to call a nice man. My dog is adept at killing monster-truck-sized spiders, but not so good at catching bees. And I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep comfortably knowing that a 747 of a bee was flitting around my apartment, possibly about to sting me with a stinger the size of a hypodermic syringe. So I, quite calmly under the circumstances, stood ready with a bus schedule. No problem.

This may be partly because at this time I don't have a man to call. Had a nice man already been present, I would have definitely squealed and clutched him, pointing out the bee with a shaking finger and cowering in the corner, leaving him to take care of it—even though I knew I could have handled it quite well myself. Is there a dichotomy between the two actions? No. In this hypothetical situation of a man being present, I probably would have cooked dinner for him earlier in the evening. And possibly cleaned my apartment for his arrival. And these are well-known gender-specific actions. So why shouldn't I depend on him to kill my bugs? He shouldn't get the benefit of my femininity if I can't take advantage of his masculinity.

What does this mean? Being able to revel in typical gender roles has become a luxury. I would have cooked dinner for myself anyway, but it's a luxury, the fulfillment of a fantasy, to cook for someone else. I feel like Sandra Dee. I could have killed the bee myself, but it’s even more of a luxury to let someone else do it.
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Update on the above: when I crashed my car (because I'm a terrible driver), I didn't call TheBoy, my boyfriend at the time. And he wasn't happy about that.

And now that I'm dating CAE, he pays for things, even though I make more money than he does, and that's okay--he likes to do it. It's sexy to him, to be able to treat a girl that he really likes to something she wants, even if it's as small as a cup of coffee, even if she can afford it by herself.

It's a luxury to him.

And now that I live with a guy, although he's Roommate and not CAE, it was an absolute pleasure to bat my eyes at him several months ago when I dropped a pearl earring down the sink. He rolled his eyes and said of course he would fix it, and he did, right there, while I oohed and aahed. Last week when I worked from home two days in a row, I made cookies and cleaned the entire house. I enjoyed the thought of him coming home to a clean house.

On the other hand, he cleans the house a lot more, overall, and recently scrubbed out the tub. And I could have retrieved my own earring.

CAE still cleans up frantically before each time I arrive at his house, likes to drive when we go out, and gets my drinks, and I enjoy wearing lingerie for him.

Gender roles are both a necessity, like good manners, and a luxury, like dressing up and eating pate; they make the world go around, and yet when you perform them with someone you really like, they become heavenly game. Because there's nothing sexier than being so comfortable with your power as a gender-inspecific citizen of the world than being able to dress up in girliness, and being able to play-act with a guy who's so comfortable with himself that he can ENJOY picking up the reins because he knows you could drive the relatioship if you wanted to.

Interesting, wordy, and hawt.