Q&A: Melissa Kirsch

Melissa Kirsch, author of The Girl's Guide to Absolutely Everything, shared her insights in this Q&A she did with me over email. She covered how to handle those yearnings to splurge, whether or not waxing is really necessary, and to find meaning in life. You can see why I liked her book so much! You can read more about her on her website, www.melissakirsch.com.

Q. What advice from your book do you find hardest to follow yourself?

What are you talking about? I follow every single bit of advice in the book rigorously, because I’m PERFECT. Oh dear. Imagine if that were true. I wish I could take my own advice about how I treat myself. I talk a lot in the book about being okay with questions, about being okay with not knowing what the future holds, and trying to be patient and forgiving of ourselves when we screw up. Easier said than done, like most advice. I stress and worry compulsively and disregard all my (rather brilliant, if I do say so myself) advice on how to relieve stress and relax. I also find it very difficult to exercise as much as I know I should.

I could go on. I sometimes feel like there are two me’s (I suspect we all feel this way): the theoretical person I want to be and the person I realistically am. The theory is easy to absorb, the practice is far more challenging.

Q. What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching the book?

The book took four years and I had a committee of about 60 women and countless experts I consulted constantly, so I was surprised pretty much every day. One moment that stands out: I was shocked to learn how many open-minded, smart, liberated women still harbor the fantasy that a man is going to save them, financially and emotionally.

On the same note, I was surprised (and disappointed) to find how many women of our mothers’ generation believe we are squandering the spoils of the women’s movement. It’s become rather popular in the media to point fingers at young women and say we’ve forgotten what our mothers worked so hard for and are content to look to Carrie Bradshaw as a role model over Gloria Steinem. It’s unfair to tar an entire generation with the same brush, and it doesn’t take into account the rather complicated state of gender relations, expectations and limitations of the 21st century. Women are making about 77 cents for every dollar a man makes; the Title IX law was enacted in 1972, but it was still acceptable for girls to lag behind boys in math and science when I was in school in the 1980s and 1990s. We’re a lot closer to “equality” than we were in the 1960s, but there is still a towering heap of institutionalized gender discrimination. I wish the inter- and intra-generational conversation between women were more productive and less antagonistic. Stop me before I get started on the “Mommy Wars.”

I guess I’m trying to say I was surprised at the dilapidated state of “sisterhood.”

Q. At the beginning of the book, you mention that a lot of the advice out there for women is not so great. What kind of advice bothers you the most? (Any specific examples?)

Eek. So much. There’s a ton of useless relationship advice out there. We can all agree that “The Rules” set women’s liberation back decades, but what about all the anti-Rules, post-post-Rules, and neo-revivalist-Rules books that have followed? We are dying for someone to tell us in absolute terms how to be happy, how to get the corner office, how to get that guy and keep him happy. Any advice that promises happiness, riches, or “sure-fire ways to make him want you” are suspect.

Some of my least favorite bits of advice:

“If he’s into you, he’ll let you know.”

“Women have to be the aggressors in relationships/women can’t be the aggressors”

“Act like a guy and you’ll get promotions, dates, respect, etc.”

“Be a bad girl, be a good girl, be a bitch, be sweet, be more like your sister – change who you are in order to conform to a random theory and you’ll get everything you want.”

Any advice, whether it’s from books or magazines or knowing aunts or cheeky advice columnists, that doesn’t take into account that we’re complex; we have limits and emotions and histories that are unique; that doesn’t encourage us to think for ourselves and make our own decisions -- is at best a Band-Aid. In the book, I try to point out the nuances of taking conventional wisdom applying it wholesale to our lives. We’re complicated, the world is complicated, there’s no “one bit of advice fits all” out there. I say be informed, take in all the advice you can scrounge up, and, ultimately, think for yourself.

Q. You talk about A list friends and B list friends in Chapter Five. If you find yourself overly-scheduled with non-A list friends, what should you do? It's kind of hard just to tell people you don't have time for them.

“Defriending” is a topic that comes up a lot when I talk to women. We don’t want to be cruel, we can’t imagine that we would be “overfriended” and actually want to break it off with friends, but we there a limited number hours in the day, a limited number of opportunities to “grab a drink and catch up.” I’m asked a lot for pointers on how to lessen the intensity of friendships, or how to break them off completely with minimal bloodshed. I say it’s tough, but sometimes – often, even – necessary. We change, friends change, and sometimes we find that we don’t have time for certain relationships or that we need a break. Sadly, some friendships have shelf lives. With other friends, you might just want to go on hiatus for a little while. There are subtle ways to defriend without being passive-aggressive or mean, while also leaving the door open for refriending in the future. The slow fade-out is my favorite method – I talk about this, and also how to deal with a friend breaking up with you (argh) -- in some detail in Chapter 5.

Q. My "friend" is having an issue where her parents seem to judge a lot of her decisions without respecting the fact that she is old enough to make them on her own (related to career choices and also when-to-have-children choices). What should she do?

Okay, this is so important. No matter how old we get, we’re still our parents’ children. We’re still the little girls who spilled the grape juice on the Oriental rug and got sent to our rooms, we’re still the “smart one,” “the pretty one,” the “one who’s going to be a lawyer when she grows up” even when we’re 90. Our parents raise us, they change our poopy diapers and instill us with values and do the best they can, and then we grow up and have minds of our own. We don’t always “pan out” the way one hopes a good investment will. Getting your parents to recognize you as an adult, one who makes good decisions, decisions that might run counter to all you’ve been taught, is a challenge. Your “friend” – and all our “friends” – have to feel confident in the choices we make, and try whenever it feels important to explain these choices to our parents. You may feel like a little girl, but you’re not.

At the same time, we’ve grown up putting our parents on pedestals, seeing them as super-human (they did, after all, change all those poopy diapers). We have expectations of them that they can’t possibly live up to. Parents are human, they make mistakes, they are limited in the same way everyone is. We have to renegotiate our relationships with them and try to meet as adults all, on equal ground. This may involve some finagling, but long-term relationships typically do.

Q. Are regular Brazilian waxes necessary? (Other books suggest they are.)

Can I please tell you that I just found my book cited on Wikipedia as an authority on Brazilian waxes? So you can feel confident that this response is coming from a well-informed expert.

The short answer is no. They’re not necessary unless you want one. I don’t think it’s a feminist statement to forgo taming of the pubic hair, nor is it “giving in” to go for the full monty. The issue is a personal one, and the only time it becomes a problem is when someone else (e.g. a boyfriend, a beauty expert) tells you that you must/mustn’t wax your bikini line in some fashion or another. You decide what looks good, what feels good, what you’re comfortable with, what makes you feel sexy, and take it from there. There’s a difference, it should be noted, between a Brazilian and a regular bikini wax. Some people (I don’t know who, maybe at the country club) find it uncouth to see any hair growing on a bikini line. You can do some careful pruning without clearcutting the entire forest.

Q. You make some shocking calculations on the cost of coffee -- daily lattes almost add up to $1000/year. How do you navigate between indulging yourself (what if it just feels really good to buy coffee?) but keeping some limits? How do you handle your own coffee/shopping/other splurges?

In the book, I talk about the “What If It Were Ten Minutes Ago?” Game. I play this (albeit not very fun but pretty effective) game when there’s something I want that I can’t afford. I’ll walk into a store and suddenly a skirt or a bag or a $100 bottle of Jo Malone fig perfume (my latest flame) is beckoning to me. In my responsible moments, I say “What if it were ten minutes ago?” Ten minutes ago I didn’t know the skirt/bag/Jo Malone perfume that would definitely change my life, it smells so amazing—existed, and I was leading a happy and full life. I can walk out of this store as if it were ten minutes ago and continue to lead a happy and full life without buying that extremely amazing perfume.

I’m all for rewarding myself, however. No one should have to endure a homemade mug from the Mr. Coffee when she’s had a bad day. And if you’ve had a spell of being relatively frugal, or you just got a bonus, or what you want has been stalking you in your dreams for months, then I endorse the splurge.

My main weapon against huge splurges, aside from the What If It Were Ten Minutes Ago Game, is American Express. I don’t use any other credit card. So I can charge it, but I know I have to pay of the balance of that card in full at the end of the month. It’s as good as using cash, it keeps me honest. I’m not saying no one should have a Visa card, but I know very few people who can sustain paying off a balance in full every single month.

Q. I love your chapter on spirituality (Chapter 8). You suggest living your life for something that will outlast you. Could you explain how to even think about starting to do that?

This idea was presented to me by one of the dozens of women I asked to define their personal code of ethics. What we live for is obviously an enormous question. For some, the answer to this is children. For me, it’s larger. I say think about what you love, what you are grateful for, and try to keep feeding those things, to devote your energy to whatever or whomever you love. I think a lot about the lines from Ezra Pound’s Canto LXXXI:

What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee

What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage