The Gaggle: How the Guys You Know Will Help You Find the Love You Want - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jessica Massa graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree in psychology. Her work and opinions have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Variety, CNN.com, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, and the UK’s Men’s Health and Glamour.com. She lives in Brooklyn.
Jessica and her best friend-turned-business partner Rebecca Wiegand coined the gaggle concept, which has been optioned for film by New Line Cinema. Jessica and Rebecca are the proprietors of the post-dating website WTF Is Up With My Love Life?! (WTFLoveLife.com). In April 2010, they co-founded J&R Creative Media to develop WTF?!, as well as other multimedia projects. A graduate of Yale, Rebecca also lives in Brooklyn.

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The Gaggle

SO HERE’S MY FIRST QUESTION . . .

How would you define your romantic status right now?

• “Single. Incredibly, unbelievably single.”

• “Ha! Well, it’s sort of up in the air.”

• “Gray . . . ?”

• “In a relationship for—well, two months later we asked each other, ‘So when would you say that we started dating?’ And we were like, ‘Oh, New Year’s Eve, when we got wasted and made out.’”

• “It’s really complicated. How much time do you have?”

• “I’m on Match.com. I was a little tipsy when I decided to do it. I wasn’t going on any dates, really—so I figured, why not.”

• “I am in a very boring relationship with a man who is exactly like my mother.”

• “I’m single. As of—well, I thought it was as of a couple of weeks ago. But apparently we weren’t even in a relationship! So I guess I’ve been single since November.”

• “My romantic status . . . I would define it as, hmm, dating? Ish? Dating-ish?”

• “Dating. Although we don’t actually go on dates, per se.”

• “I don’t have a love life—I date gay men!”

• “Completely single! Completely. But I mean, in the sense that, I guess I have been seeing people, but it’s not necessarily, you know . . .”

• “I wouldn’t say that I’m dating around. I’m just trying to see what I like.”

• “It’s a fucking mess, I’ll tell you that.”

When I hit the road and sat down with young women and men all around the United States during the course of a year, I started each conversation by asking one seemingly simple question: how would you define your romantic status right now? Initially I thought, no big deal. The question was simply meant to be a jumping-off point—a way to ease these strangers into opening up to me, and a clue that would help me categorize them into clear boxes (single, in a relationship, married, etc.) that would further direct our conversation. I was expecting one-word answers. Maybe five words, max.

As you can see, that’s not exactly what happened.

These varied, fraught, and uniquely personal answers made one thing clear to me—the times, they have a-changed. Gone are the days when one stock word or phrase could be used to sum up a person’s entire romantic reality. Ambiguity in our interactions and connections is now the norm, and thus, the traditional labels that we all supposedly know and understand now require caveats, qualifiers, embarrassed laughter, and crazy hand gestures to ring even slightly true. As it turns out, modern romance has gotten a little . . . complicated.

Blame the ubiquity of technology and all the miscommunications and mixed signals that it breeds. Blame the rise of the powerful modern woman and the insecurity of our male counterparts. Blame our Millennial Generation’s penchant for innovation and tradition breaking. Blame the disastrous divorce rates of our parents. Blame our childhoods, which revolved around participation trophies, parent-organized playdates, and consistent efforts to shield us from rejection. Blame reality television. (Why? Who knows—but it’s fun to blame it for stuff, isn’t it?)

Blame whatever and whomever you want. It doesn’t change the fact that the romantic landscape has changed—and we’re all standing in the center of it, trying to calm the storm just long enough to find love. Earth-shattering love, mind you. Because we’re Millennials. We don’t settle!

Luckily, this mystifying new romantic landscape is now ours for the taking. Yours, for the taking. So now I ask you, dear reader, just to start things off: how would you define your romantic status right now? In this very moment?

. . . Right. That’s what I thought. And no, “single” doesn’t count if you have to take ten minutes to explain what that even means to you.

There is a much more exciting romantic status out there waiting for you. An empowering one at that. So whatever your answer, ditch it!

Don’t worry too much about all the ambiguity for now. Once you figure out how to embrace it (instead of letting it drive you crazy), you will remember that finding love can feel like a fun and exciting adventure—not like an annoying chore to check off your to-do list or a frustrating goal to steadfastly work toward. Your love life will feel natural and comfortable and positive and enriching, and not like you are skirting a dangerous minefield where the smallest missteps threaten to blow you up at every turn.

So now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for . . .

Let’s start figuring out your love life.|The Gaggle

DATING 101: A CRASH COURSE

I broke up with my last boyfriend to embark on this single journey, and I had absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into. I was like, “I’m going to find myself and become an independent woman and focus on me,” and it’s just turned into this big clusterfuck.

I thought it was going to be so much better! I thought it was going to be so much fun and I was going to be getting asked out on dates like every night, and eventually I would find a guy who I could date for a while—like on Sex and the City, all Carrie Bradshaw. And it’s just NOT. It’s not what you think it’s going to be, once you get yourself into it.

—Clarissa, 21, PR account executive, New Orleans

There is no shortage of advice out there on how to date.

Want to ace a date? Easy! Just spend as much time as possible up until the big night reading how-to articles, brushing up on self-help bibles, and frantically trying on dozens of cute-but-not-too-revealing outfits in front of your mirror. Dating is now presented to us as a scientifically provable formula. Do X, and he will respond with Y. Say Q, and you will ignite an evolutionary hormone in his brain that will make him think of R and react with S. Get a little adventurous by trying out Z, and he’ll go running and leave you alone and loveless for the rest of your life. DON’T DO Z!!!!

Need a refresher on some of these classic tips? Please, allow me the honor:

• Only say yes if he asks you out a few days in advance.

• When in doubt, wear red—it will make him think of sex (and how much he wants to have it, with you!).

• No getting drunk.

• Don’t talk politics, religion, or past relationships. Mostly just ask questions.

• Eat more than a salad, but avoid red sauce and garlic.

• Pretend to reach for your wallet when the check comes—but if he actually makes you chip in, what a douchebag! End this doozy of a relationship before it even begins.

• You can contact him afterward to say that you had a good time, but DO NOT suggest another date (that’s his job,...