Other pretties

I can't decide how I feel about these guys. Ever since the buzz surrounding Jessica Cutler's Washingtonienne died out our city's pop culture media has been straining to produce evidence of the next *big thing* in DC blogs. The Express, the crib sheet of the Washington Post, recently ran an article practically humping on the legs of the Cleveland Park Men's Club and its sister (or fuck buddy, I'm not sure which) site Kelly Ann Collins. If we are to believe the Express, sleeping with senators is out, having been replaced by good old fashioned social climbing or hanging with men who refer to themselves as the Senator. Social climbing is probably as old as society itself, and anyone who is still hung up on the well groomed, made-up, expensively dressed (notice I didn't say pretty, many of them aren't) who spend inordinate amounts of personal energy kissing ass over fancy cocktails to get to the next level of that activity is hopelessly naive and dull. What interests me more is the role blogs have come to play in shaping public identities. I have never met Ms. Collins, the Senator or any of their ilk. The circles they run in are not the same as mine (I suspect that I spend entirely more time in dive bars and that none of them have ever been accused of being a hippy). But in launching blogs that detail their lives cavorting through high-end D.C. parties, pushing advice on the fine art of gentlemanliness (new word), or just generally living charmed lives of ostentation (yes, I'm a tad jealous) they have managed to create larger than life personas that exist to their readers as nothing but the activities that they convey. As far as I know the boys of CPMC exist for no purposes other than partying and seducing women. Occasionally they watch movies--Alfie was recently reviewed--although I wish they wouldn't because their prose is rather flat and their insights are like, duh.

In reality these guys could be just like the other homely Dockers-wearing, Economist-toting, wishy-washy policy drones that haunt every corner of our city. The Express gave us photographic evidence of the cat-like sex appeal of Ms. Collins so we can believe what we already suspected. But who are these guys? In constructing a blog to hide behind they have created an almost mythic, yet two-dimensional image of themselves. All fabulousness all the time. Yet Even Jay Gatsby was revealed to be something of a chimera and one can't help but wonder to what extent this applies to the CPMC as well.


They remind me of the boys I hung out with in college. Less intellectual and certainly less angsty (think Rules of Attraction--the book not the movie). But reading CPMC takes me back to being 19 and learning how to drink gin and tonics while wearing formal wear in a dorm room whose furniture had been replaced entirely by antiques, where not being funny and charming was reason to be asked to leave and John Cheever was a frequent topic of conversation.

As a girl, I kind of want them to be in real life what they claim to be on-line. This city needs more sophisticated young men already schooled in the romantic arts. I'll even spare everyone the obvious rant that they're probably total cads (because guys so obsessed with seducing women generally tend to be). For now I am suspending disbelief and rolling with their handsome punches.