Selfies, i.e. love in the internet age

Sneak peak for an upcoming show in winter 2013 at Muriel Guepin Gallery, recently of the Lower East Side (formerly Cobble Hill).

Seeing old friends can feel a bit like dating

Yesterday, I sat at my desk all day too excited to focus on designing. I was looking forward to a mini-reunion with my very best girl friends from summer sleep-away camp. The last time I had seen one of my friends was literally 20 years ago, so this meeting seemed freighted with meaning. 

Aside from the fact that one friend is 40 weeks pregnant, both friends were instantly recognizable. We all agreed that our basic personalities had not changed much, either, leading us to wonder if we really are essentially formed by the time we reach our pre-teens.

So why was I so nervous about this dinner? The same sorts of thoughts that run through my mind when I am about to go on a date accosted me yesterday afternoon: What if there's nothing to talk about? What if we no longer have anything in common? What if we just don't get along?

Having done a lot of internet dating, I became used to the experience of excitement tinged with relief and disappointment. I essentially went on numerous blind dates that I myself set up. 

Yesterday evening was absolutely wonderful. I was reunited with friends I love and share wonderful memories with. This was absolutely nothing like a blind/internet date. This was a reunion of the best sort.

I tend to think that eventually I will have this feeling with a man. It may not happen the day we meet or for several months, but eventually I think he will feel like someone I've always known and will always want in my life.

L'chaim!

P.S. The piece above is in the collection of Karey Mackin.

If Only

He would make a great husband, if only he would stop drinking! She would be a great girlfriend, if only she could kick her depression! I want to spend the rest of my life with him...if only he would stop messing around behind my back!

What do you do when you've fallen for an "if only"? Do you stick around and hope for transformation, or do you tell yourself someone "better" is on the way?

image at top:

Everything He Ever Wanted. Embroidery on fabric. 2008.

"I am everything he ever wanted, as well as some things he could not have imagined. We're about to have our third kid, and he still hasn't removed his internet dating profile!"

 

Contact Muriel Guepin at Shop Art Gallery for more information: contact@shopartstudio.com. 

See also the Affordable Art Fair in NYC, May 7-10. 

Boyfriend/Lover/Beloved

As many single people will contest, the once-clear category of boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other seems passé. Or maybe these roles were never so clearly defined as I believed growing up. While "marriage" seems to be a pretty concrete concept with some widely agreed upon tenets, what does one call the friend one occasionally sleeps with, the ex-boyfriend or girlfriend with whom one occasionally gets together, or a collection of one-night stands?

I am curious as to why the term "lover" is so seldom used in this country. It sounds affected and strange whenever I hear it. Maybe "lover" needs to make a comeback. If we referred to that guy or girl we picked up at the bar or met online as a lover, would we would inject our behavior with a little more thought and lovingness, in the absence of a more maturely developed love?

Image above: So Besotted -- embroidered adjectives for "beloved." Completed 2008, with some linguistic help from a friend (see scrawled journal entry at right).

Exhibitionism-voyeurism-privacy

There is an inherent contradiction/conflict in my decision to create Were I So Besotted, both the embroidered pieces and this blog. I have always been a private person, and have always kept journals. My journals were never shared, except for the one I kept when I traveled with my best friend from high school when we were in our early-twenties. (She found it amusing that I re-read and edited my own entries.)

I never imagined a culture where people would essentially broadcast their own journals, their most intimate thoughts and experiences, via the world wide web. From YouTube to internet dating web sites to Facebook to every imaginable kind of blog, we now have access to the thoughts and motivations of millions of strangers. Who reads these blogs and makes posts to these sites? Probably everyone we know. How does this phenomenon influence our social interactions when we meet people face to face rather than via an on-line vehicle? How do we transition from an on-line interaction to a face-to-face meeting?

All of these questions compelled me to begin and to continue crafting the embroidered version of Were I So Besotted. Internet dating in particular was the crucible of my conflicted feelings. Were I So Besotted became a safe haven in which to vent and process many of my frustrations and uncomfortable experiences in both on-line and face-to-face interactions.

I first began internet dating in 2003. I was terrified and horrified by the thought of posting a profile and photo. Initially, I filled out an on-line questionnaire without including a photo, and very tentatively responded to emails. After some time, I began posting photos, and subsequently became more critical of how I looked in them and what I was projecting. Eventually, my photos became artier, funnier, a little hipper and edgier. I took on the persona of the particular site I used. In short, I assimilated within this on-line community.

Ultimately, I never completely shed my fears of self-exposure and vulnerability. Tried as I might to portray myself in a way that would produce the best matches, I still got many emails from men I considered inappropriate (20+years older than me; living more than 15 miles away from New York City; incapable of crafting a coherent sentence). I felt obligated to use this method to meet men, yet resented my lack of sense of control over the outcome.

The majority of my dates were disappointing. Some gave me material for nights out with friends who found me funny and wacky. Others were simply awkward in a banal, almost scripted way. Of course, some dates were wonderfully fun, yet the loving, communicative, more long-term relationship I hoped for never materialized.

Were I So Besotted contains hope amidst the disappointment. I began to believe that I could craft my own man through embroidery, even if I couldn't find him on-line. (I do really believed that if I think carefully about the type of relationship I want to find, it will eventually materialize. And, no I don't literally think I can stitch a boyfriend who will then appear in my daily life.)

The Men Who Want to Meet Me is a portrait of fictional boyfriends. The left-most man's t-shirt reads, "I will get you. I will totally get you. And if I don't, I will ask questions until I do, or you seem bored."

I don't expect anyone to "get" me without some effort from both of us. I do think we all want to find someone who gets us. And I fear that internet dating sites create the promise and illusion that an instant connection with someone, who like, really gets us, awaits.

Top left: "The Men Who Want to Meet Me." Embroidery on fabric. 2008.
Below left: preliminary drawing from my journal, done in February 2008.