I’ve had it with political women.  I won’t date them anymore.  I don’t care how pretty or smart they are.  I don’t care how witty or sexy or otherwise attractive they are.  There’s something wrong with them.  [Note: this surely applies to men, too, but I don’t date men.]

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with them.  They’re painfully, eye-rollingly boring.  They’re predictable.  They never surprise you.  They stroll with their chosen herd of cud-chewers, rather than running with unpredictable, independent-minded… I don’t want to say “wolves”, so let’s just say “individualists”.

Political women are uncomplicated in a very unattractive way.  You know exactly what they’re going to opine on any given issue.  It doesn’t matter what the matter is at hand.  When they open their mouths about almost anything, you can see the party line emerging from the corner of their mouths, the hook buried deep, making its snaking course back to the chosen cable TV tribunes and party national committees. 

If this describes you, your partisan lens is convex, and my breaking up with you is closer than it may appear.

Bettina is a sous-chef.  She’s very good at what she does, which I always admire.  Though she has to keep it in a hair net at work, off duty, she has long, silky hair, which I always admire.  I was initially smitten.  Two weeks later, after listening to too many over-excited, rage-filled anti-Republican rants, I decided she was dating me, but was previously committed to Keith Olbermann.  She quoted him daily.  Good-bye, Bettina. 

Alicia is a cute-as-a-button stockbroker who survived the Wall Street devastation, thanks to the bailout by taxpayers.  She was concerned about the direction of the country.  Fair enough.  How so?  As she saw it, Joe the Plumber was right.  Really?  Yes.  And the way he was attacked was emblematic of the very worst elements of socialism.  My fanatic Spidey sense was tingling.  I checked.  Sure enough, she’d downloaded a phrase from some angry right-wing blog.  Good-bye, Alicia.

The French have a couple of phrases I like.  “Plus royaliste que le roi.”  (More royalist than the king.) and “Plus Catholique que le pape.” (More Catholic than the Pope.) 

The point is that those we suppose to be the most devoted to particular world-views and issues are not always the most annoyingly zealous.

Remarkably enough, it’s not always the professionals who offend most.  One woman I’ll look up again works as a producer for a conservative mouth that never closes.  She’s a transplant from another country, speaks with an accent and is a registered Republican.  What does she think about her boss?  “Oh, don’t tell anyone I said so, but he’s typically full of excrement.”  She didn’t say “excrement.”  Why does she continue to work for him?  “Well, it keeps me in beer and skittles until the next thing, doesn’t it?”

Hypocrisy?  Pragmatism?  Doesn’t matter.  I like the pretty Brit with the decent dye job and the independent mind.

I met a Democratic political staffer who had a college-years abortion, but told me frankly that if she became pregnant now, she’d have the child.  Why?  “Because I could provide for a child now.  And because my views are changing.  I’m not as certain on abortion as I once was.”  I was enchanted.  I’m quite pro-choice.  But I was delighted by her layered, reflective position and lack of dogma.  Also, I reminded myself about the importance of birth control.

I’m amazed and not amused by the sharpening of the political divide – and the fact that it’s now affecting my intimate life.

I am sick and tired of encountering women who have drunk the red or blue Cool-Aid, and who regurgitate the latest talking points of received wisdom at me.  Because I know what’s coming.

Someday soon, you’re going to present me with a litmus test, as if I’m a SCOTUS nominee facing your committee of one.  And in the meantime, you’re going to be boring me to death with some Twitter update from Maddow or Beck.

I like a woman with enthusiasms.  Tell me about your last half-marathon, about the paper you’re writing about Rousseau, about why hitting a fastball is the hardest thing to do in sports.  I’ll revel in your excitement about Superfreakonomics, the promise of micro-credit loans in the developing world, or why you like to wear your high-heeled boots to bed.  I’m a moth to the flame of that light in your eyes.

But spare me the warmed-over key messages you’ve been politically educated and programmed to repeat.  Life is richer, more complicated and more interesting than that.  No, we’re not in an existential civil war.  Yes, everything will be okay.  No, I don’t care what they’re saying on MSNBC or Fox.

Yes, you look particularly lovely in that dress.  Yes, I’d be delighted to help you out of it.  It’s my most fervent interest.

###