Iliza Shlesinger: Elder Millennial

Guys, I'm about to take a giant ship.

Thank you so much!

Thank you.

Thank you so much...

for being here. So...

first up on the agenda is...

I got engaged.

Thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate that enthusiasm.

I appreciate the applause because I live in Los Angeles

and when you tell people in L.A. that you got engaged, they don't applaud.

You tell people in L.A. that you got engaged, they're like, "Good for you.

Good for..."

So you tell people you got engaged, and the next sort of obligatory thing out of their mouth

is, like, "How did you guys meet?

How did you meet?"

And I don't like to tell people how we met.

I don't like to tell people how we met.

It's not bad. It's not embarrassing.

It's just not cool.

Like, we met on a dating app.

Right, like all of you. Yeah.

We met on a dating app, which is a...

less of a product of my lack of creativity and more a result of my generation.

I'm a millennial.

That's how we meet each other, okay?

Yeah.

A dating app, at a bar,

or it's like, "Uh, I got her pregnant. Oh well, Skylar will make a good mom." Like, that's it.

Some of you were so quiet when I said I was a millennial. Fuck you, okay?

I am... 35.

Which means I was born in 1983,

which means I am...

right at the cutoff.

Okay, so I am a millennial,

but I am an elder!

Elder millennial!

Wizened.

Sage.

Yes, gather 'round the Snapchat, children.

I'll tell you the tale...

of the landline.

Hello, goodbye.

When I was a young girl...

I once sent a text message from a Sidekick.

I remember when Skechers were invented.

They were ugly then.

And they're ugly now.

In high school...

we danced to a band called Sugar Ray.

How did you guys meet?

You ask a girl, "How did you guys meet?"

We want to tell you. We want to tell you...

everything.

We want to give you personal information, background story,

ancillary information, anything information.

You don't need... Just say, "How did we meet?"

Okay, are you sitting down? Chapter One. In the seventh grade,

I showed an aptitude for the clarinet." Like, we take it... back!

We want you to know so much.

You ask a guy, "How did you guys meet?"

Men aren't... They don't volunteer personal information as readily.

Seldom will you meet a guy where you're, like, "How did you guys meet?"

And he's, like, "All right, so I'm a Pisces, so I love faces." Like...

A man's objective is often to let you know not so much how they met,

but to let you know that, like,

"I could still fuck if I wanted to.

All right? 'Cause I'm a fuck man.

That's how I do.

I'm not gonna fuck anyone, cause I'm fucking her, but...

I come from a long line of fuck men, all right?

My daddy was a fuck man, my granddaddy was a fuck man.

I fuck.

I pack up this dick, on to the next town.

Yeah.

Fire in the hole.

Fuck Man Terry, that's what they call me.

Down at the... Walgreens, whatever."

How did you guys meet?

And I say this next part as a woman that champions other women,

as a woman who chose to be single for a very long time.

I always feel, when single women ask me,

"So, how did you guys meet?"

It's less about a genuine personal inquiry for me,

and it's more like they're looking for clues, like,

"Where did you find a suitor?

Tell us your ways."

Like, you walk in...

to a Trader Joe's on a Sunday night. 'Cause that's when hot girls go grocery shopping.

Like, I'm buying flowers for me, right?

You walk into a Trader Joe's with a ring on your left hand,

single women can feel the vibrations of the ring.

They're like, "The ring! It mocks us!" And they...

They come out of the frozen yogurt aisle...

Lululemon, highlighted hair, like,

"Tell us your ways, we wish to be betrothed as well.

Secrets.

Tell us. Be a girl's girl."

There's no secret, just so we're clear.

Don't buy the books. Don't buy the hype. Don't listen to your...

There's no secret, okay?

I'm going to be 35 when I get married.

All right? If there was a secret, I would have fucking used it.

There's no... secret.

There's no special magic to it.

I'm never going to be, like, "Gather round, ladies.

Off the 405 lies a toadhole...

You must go to it."

No secret. Plus, chances are, if you are single

and you are not enjoying that time in your life,

you're probably doing everything in your power to not be single.

I don't know a single girl out there that's, like, "I hate being single.

I don't get it. I wash with ham and cat hair. Where is he?

Where is he?"

Women have no problem letting people know that they are looking for a relationship.

We shout it from the mountaintops.

We take a seminar.

We take a class, we ask around. Do you have a... Do you know anyone? Are you single? Do you have a brother?

Does your brother have a brother? I guess that would be your brother. Do you have a sister? I will take anything.

We let people know... We get license plates made

like "LOOKIN4U." Like, we let you know.

I feel like men are a little bit more laissez-faire when it comes to relationships.

Like, "Uh, I guess I fell into her, now we got four kids." Like, it's just kind of...

It's less deliberate. Women are, like, "This way."

"I guess I'll just go that way."

It just becomes...

Their stories are less deliberate.

I've asked a lot of guys, "How did you meet your girl?"

I've noticed that about 80% of the stories sound very similar.

80% of the time it's, like, "How did we meet? All right, well...

I was out with my buddies.

And you know me, I wasn't looking for anybody.

And then I saw her."

And that lie becomes...

A big part of our narrative as women,

this hope that we will go out and a man is going to see us,

save us, rescue us.

It's this hope that we're going to be seen and that's going to happen for us.

And we all have this sort of shared fantasy where you walk into a...

a club or a bar with five of your girlfriends who look exactly like you.

And you walk in and a man picks you out of the crowd,

sees you for the beautiful soul that you are, like, decides...

like, there's some DJ up there and he looks out and he's, like...

"Her."

And you're, like, "Me?"

And then your life begins, right?

This is not our fault for expecting this or thinking this will happen.

We have been taught this message since we were little girls.

Princesses get saved.

Snow White got saved by the prince.

It was really the seven dwarves and she was, like, lost in a forest.

But, like...

seven men.

Who is she? Right.

Sleeping Beauty was saved when the prince kissed her while she was sleeping.

Terrible moral.

What do we take away from that? Generations of men, like,

"No, if you just kiss 'em when they're sleeping, they're forever grateful...

Officer."

So naturally we go out hoping to be discovered.

And there's this weird thing where a lot of girls, when we're single,

we don't want to admit that we're going out hoping a man notices us.

Like, of course you are, but we don't want to seem desperate.

No, I'm just going out with my girlfriends, just in full makeup, with padded everything.

This is just for fun. I'm just going out.

It's normal to want to be noticed by someone that you find attractive.

That's the caveat, okay?

It's normal...

to want that attention. Even when you're in a relationship, you still have a beating heart.

You still want people to let you know you're attractive.

Even if you're with your guy, you're holding his hand and you're walking,

and you just see some hot guy, and you're just like, "You like that?" He's like, "I like that." Okay.

No harm, no foul.

We all try this bullshit, like,

"I'm not even trying." Really? Then put a feed bag over your head. Carry an onion.

You're trying, okay?

You don't have to try that hard, but you're going out. It's nice to be noticed.

So we all do it. We all put on the makeup.

We force our chub into some pants.

You shove your coyote paws into some heels and we go out.

And you don't even hunt.

What do you do, girls? You just stand in a pack of six other women.

Six other coyotes.

Getting annoyed that no guy's hitting on you?

Yeah, there's six of you.

He's terrified.

We get annoyed so quickly when a guy doesn't notice, like, all the effort.

So then what do you say? You're like, "This sucks, let's take a lap."

So you just move...

in a perfume cloud around the perimeter of the bar.

Maybe they're more progressive ten feet from here.

So this begs the question, as women,

as feminists...

Maybe some... one or two lazy guys might pause at the question.

"How come the guy's got to hit on the girl?

You're an independent woman.

Why can't a girl hit on a guy?

Why can't the girl hit on the guy?"

God's honest answer? 'Cause we did all this.

You fucking do something, Scott. That's the answer.