the secret language of food and a simpering need for approval

[rm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/fashion/09STEAK.html
Is the life of a woman really such constant mandatory neurosis even if that neurosis is about not seeming neurotic?

“Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson,” Ms. Crosley, 28, said.

Actually, no, everyone isn't. And then there's this:

Of course, there are always those rare women who order what they want and to heck with what a man might think.

Saehee Hwang, 30, a production director at Artnet.com, found herself out with friends at DuMont restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when she started feeling attracted to a new guy in the group. She said she had wanted to order a burger, but started having second thoughts. “I didn’t want to appear too much of a carnivore,” she said. “It might be off-putting.”

But then she decided she should not change her order to fit a preconceived idea of what a man might want. She ordered the house specialty, a half-pound of beef on a toasted brioche bun with Gruyère cheese. “We started dating afterward,” Ms. Hwang said. “And he told me he liked the fact that I ordered the burger.”

I mean, really, did you know you were buying your freedom with every second of every day you actually choose to do something for yourself? How shocking!

Comments

[fragiletender.livejournal.com]

Of course, there are always those rare women who order what they want and to heck with what a man might think.

You mean we're supposed to care what men think? Dammit, why does no one ever send me the memos?

I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever worried about what a man would think of what I was ordering. Sure, when I was young and stupid and in the grips of an eating disorder I worried excessively about calories, but not what a man thought.

“I didn’t want to appear too much of a carnivore,” she said. “It might be off-putting.”

Only if he's an evangelical vegetarian, in which case it's probably best to get that sorted out right at the start.