What We Want from a Man--Will It Have Us Respect Ourselves?

2. What We Want From a Man--Will It Have Us Respect Ourselves?

Crossing Delancey Street is a 1984 romantic comedy by Susan Sandler--a play that was made into a successful film--which can be very useful to us now.

In it is Isabelle Grossman, or Izzy, a young woman in her twenties who works in a bookstore--and she has a passionate love affair--in her mind--with Tyler Moss, who is described in the list of characters as "a well-known writer of fiction, handsome, exceedingly charming and self-involved, in his early forties."

The deep thing that Isabelle represents is a woman--like many, many of us--who wants to use a man to love herself, to feel, as Miss Reiss said, a man is in a tizzy about her while she looks down on the whole world.

But Isabelle is very fortunate--she is criticized by her keen grandmother, her "Bubbie," and by "the pickleman" Sam Posner, a man who wants her to stop being a snob and to see more widely. And though at first Isabelle is very displeased, she comes to see that she wants to be with a man who has her see the whole world better. Love has her begin to see value in what she has looked down on.

In the play, which is very deep, there are monologues of Isabelle to herself, so that we can see what can be in a woman's mind. Early in the play we have this--as Isabelle dreams about Tyler--and it is a woman using a man to glorify herself:

He comes into the shop....--We’ve never had much conversation...but there is this...undercurrent....His eyes--they’re grey blue and smokey and mysterious. When I hand him back his change and he looks down to count it--I give each of his eyelids a secret kiss. Now this is a woman providing a man with qualities, not seeing him.

And the question is why do we do this?

In a consultation, Gillian Ferraro, a young computer analyst who said she very much wanted to understand why she didn't respect herself with men, was asked by her consultants, "Did you give Carlo Hernandez attributes that perhaps he didn't have?" "Yes," she said, and added candidly, "I think I made him maybe better than he was, so I could feel a bigger conquest." And so does Isabelle.

Isabelle’s grandmother, or Bubbie, wants Isabelle to find a husband, and through a shadkhn, or matchmaker, has arranged a meeting with Sam Posner, who is described as "a pickleman...an inhabitant of the lower east side, in his early thirties, gentle, intuitive, appealing and very wise for his years." Sam is kinder, more aware of people’s feelings outside of himself, which is a criticism of Isabelle’s way of seeing people. He also sells pickles, that is, something ordinary, not particularly "romantic," which to many a girl’s mind means a job that will make her feel she can look down on someone else. You can see that here as Isabelle tries to defend her way to Bubbie:

B. Tell me the truth, you ever go out with a boy sometime?

I. Sometimes...sure. I have--plenty. --I have plenty of boyfriends.

B. Plenty? You don’t need plenty. You need only one. Who you got? I don’t see nobody.

I. They’re friends--you know. Nothing serious yet.

B. Listen, my girl...friends is friends...A husband is a husband for life.

I. Maybe I don’t want a husband....And if I did, he wouldn’t be a pickleman.

B. Get off your high horse, Miss Universe....this man is just lookin’....He ain’t askin’ to buy.

So, Isabelle is a snob: she looks down on Sam because of what he does, doesn’t want to see who he is. A woman who sees this way can never respect herself; Mr. Siegel explains in his essay "The Serious Aspect of Snobbery: Snobbery is the unwillingness to like something, unless at the same time it makes one feel more important....This means one doesn't want to like the outside world unless one can approve of oneself first....To like oneself first and what may be true or lovely second, is the source of dull evil. Sam seems something of this "dull evil" as he speaks to Isabelle when they first meet. They talk at Bubbie’s apartment after she’s arranged they "accidentally" meet: He sees Izzy's snobbishness, but instead of being put off, he tries to have a good effect on her. Izzy is displeased--this is not how a man should talk to a woman, telling her stories about men buying hats--but Sam’s purpose is kind: that she see differently:

Sam. You feel funny, huh?
Izzy: This isn’t the way I live. This isn’t the way I do things.
Sam. How do you live?
Izzy. Well for one thing I don’t live down here....I live uptown.
Sam. Is that right?
Izzy. And emotionally, sociologically, I’m a million miles from here.
Sam. This isn’t your style.
Izzy,. This isn’t my style.
Sam. Sometimes you can change your style....Sometimes you put on a new hat, you become a new person.
Izzy. Look, I’m sorry you had to go through all this, but when my Bubbie wants something--
Sam. I have a friend, Harry Shipman. Shipman Imports. Lox, caviar, fancy stuff. For years he wore the same kind of hat. A little brown cap, the brim pulled down, you wondered how he could see. One day, he’s crossing Delancey, a big wind comes--poof--it’s gone. He runs after it, but it’s too late, a truck gets there before he does. He comes into me, crying, he feels so bad. I said, Harry....Here’s a present....Take five dollars, go across to Finkle, buy yourself a new one, something special....But do me a favor, forget the brown cap. He goes, he picks out, he comes back an hour later. He’s a new man. A grey felt Stetson! A beauty! The next day he makes an engagement.
Izzy. To be married?
Sam. That’s right.--Between you and me he must of given him so Nova on the side. That’s no five-dollar hat.
Izzy. A man trades some lox for a Stetson and gets a bride in the bargain. Very romantic.
Sam. Oh, he had his eye on her for a long time. But she couldn’t see him. The cap. That little brown cap. She couldn’t see his eyes. (He bends down close and stares into her eyes. Izzy tries to look away, but feels herself drawn into the warm, bright, steady gaze.)

So he says she has something that is getting in the way of her being the person she wants to be and it is moving. But Izzy isn’t "crossing Delancey"--she wants to be able to look down. Yet even as she says she won't go on a date with him, it is clear she is affected by Sam's kindness, including to her grandmother, and it is the beginning of a love she can respect herself for.

Continued: click here for part 3 "CAN A WOMAN RESPECT HERSELF IN LOVE AND SEX?"

CAN A WOMAN RESPECT HERSELF IN LOVE AND SEX? Devorah Tarrow Aesthetic Realism Seminar

2. What We Want From a Man--Will It Have Us Respect Ourselves?

CAN A WOMAN RESPECT HERSELF IN LOVE AND SEX?
Devorah Tarrow
Aesthetic Realism Seminar