how very lucky to be a girl

I’ve wondered for many years how James Carville and Mary Matalin do it.  I’m a politically liberal-minded woman, and while I strongly support every person’s right to their own set of beliefs, I can’t quite imagine crawling into bed at night to snuggle with a Bush-conservative.  Sure, that Bush-conservative deserves someone to snuggle with too, it’s just I don’t believe that someone should be me.

Sometimes I question whether this restriction on my dating prospects is foolish.  I mean James and Mary are literally the physical embodiment of the political spectrum, wrapped up in the same master bedroom.  Their marriage has worked for years, and they work in politics.

Here I am, not working in politics and having an opinion, which I assume may only be partly informed, and that half-baked opinion makes me twitch and taste bile when a conservative comes-a-courtin’.

So I got this e-mail the other day from TruBlu.  He sent a string of compliments.  I went to look at his profile.  He certainly was handsome!  Judging from some of the photos that were posted, he’s obviously a model (more of the catalog variety than the runway), and reading on I discovered that he is pursuing acting.  Uh-oh.  I love actors, but I find them hard to date.  Because, you see, the typical mantra of an actor trends toward “Me, Me, Me, Me, Me.  But enough about me.  What do you think about me?”  I know that’s a generalization, which is why I decided to look beyond it and respond.

Of course, there was one other thing I needed to look beyond.

He had written at the bottom of his profile, “Obama supporters need not apply”.

Still, I wrote him back:

thank you for the compliments.

you should know, while i’m not “applying” for anything, i am an obama supporter. since you took the time to point out that this is your deal breaker, thought full disclosure was of the essence…

To be honest, I believe I thought this would put a pin in it, but he wrote back.

Hello!
Well I do appreciate your full disclosure and honesty. I felt I needed to put up that disclaimer as I’ve found thru past experience that I just didn’t get along with Obama supporters as we shared different ideology. I’m not a big political fan, but after seeing what’s been going on, it’s very alarming to me and is only going to get worse.
If you like to put politics aside….I’m interested in learning more about you.

Your intellect is very appealing to me.

J.
I’m not an activist at all

I read this and think that J and I are equally as stupid.  We both have allowed our eyes to overrule our ideologies.  He likes my photos. That’s why he wrote.  I liked his.  It’s why I responded.  And here we begin this volley that is sure to become more and more heated as time progresses.  J is aware that he does not get along with liberals, and yet he is engaging.  I read this message, and I am certain his past experience will be our guide.  I don’t agree with what he believes and I know we’ll end up fighting about it.

But really what sealed it for me was the final sentence of his message.  This man is not an activist.  And to him this is a proud selling point.

I write him back and tell him that I think we would be best to honor the lessons of his past experience and that I find being active behind a cause that is meaningful and important to be an attractive trait in a partner.  Surely this would put the nail in the coffin.

It did not.  J responds again.  This time with a thirteen paragraph diatribe on the disagreeable politics and practices of Obama.  On and on he goes, where he will stop, nobody knows…

I’ll tell you where he stopped.  After all of that, he ended this e-mail with:

Aside from that, do you have another picture or two to share?

Oh do I ever!  Here’s one:

Dear J,

This is a photograph of the Pink Hellhole* in which James Carville and Mary Matalin live in their bizarro marriage.  They are much smarter than me, but also suffer from worse taste.  Perhaps this is why their marriage works?

This is what our future could look like.  If we had one.  Which we don’t.

*credit is due to Wonkette (and Paul Begala) for coining this bit of genius.