Museum Etiquette
Leave that man at home
The death of the department store and shopping malls has made humanity suffer less than obvious ways. Without malls, there are less third spaces for teens to hang out and get their first jobs. There’s a lack of indoor places to roam aimlessly and get an Auntie Anne’s pretzel. During the holiday season, more so than other seasons, this means you bring your boyfriend/husband/male partner places he shouldn’t be.
An art museum.
You need to leave that man at home. You don’t date him because he’s cultured. You date him because in America, once women got the right to have a bank account and their own money, the cost of living went up—forcing women to stay partnered. Elizabeth Warren has spoken to this economic burden and I see it everywhere I go. He can pay your rent on his salary alone and that’s fine but let’s both be honest with ourselves.
Art museums are romantic because they’re intellectually stimulating and you don’t have to tip anyone or interact with the underpaid people doing invisible labor, unlike a resort in a dominantly brown country. But while you try to break up the monotony of winter with a culturally engaging activity, your man doesn’t know what he’s looking at. You told him to look at the Joan Miro on the wall that you’re transfixed by and he’s stupefied like Frankenstein in a plaid shirt. And he’s blocking the whole thing with his Division 2 lacrosse shoulders.
Museums don’t have room like at Macy’s or food courts for men to sit and huff and puff in boredom. The minimal benches are for kids who are at their limit and need a nap or old people who need to sit and reflect on what they just saw. The miscellaneous men scattered around like red cups after a frat party are a fire hazard.
One the right of you stands your man. On the left of you stands your philistine mother. The mother you dragged out of her cozy house so she would stop watching Facebook reels and reading articles with only a headline. That woman raised you and you turned out fine so you moved to the closest city so you can eat food on a weekly basis that she would call “spicy.”
Best case scenario, your mother is liberal. But she doesn’t understand why Kamala Harris lost this past election and still has too much faith in our political institutions. She wants to spend time with but the preferred location for that is probably some combination of a craft store and botanical gardens. You cannot expect a woman who doesn’t question institutions or the world as is to immerse herself in abstract or surreal paintings. That requires an endless imagination and capacity to understand limitless interpretations of a finished product.
Maybe the problem is there’s nothing to see at the movies. There’s usually one Oscar bait movie, one children’s movie that offends your intelligence, and one CGI orgy. None of those pass the mom-man litmus test women are looking for at this time of year. But why do the rest of us have to suffer?
You may be asking yourself, “What about dads?” The dads that accompany their adult children in the museum read every. single. possible. wall. text with their hands clasped behind their back. It’s like they’re watching The History Channel. The dads can stay. But your liberal in concept, conservative in execution mother? Your philistine yet dependable man? Leave them at home.
lol, thank you