GIRLS: THE PREQUEL

WHAT A SEVENTIES VERSION OF GIRLS WOULD LOOK LIKE




Congrats to Lena Dunham and the HBO hit Girls. It's very today about
single girls out of school living their lives. Very real...almost  embarrassingly
real. I was just wondering what a series in the seventies would have been like.
I'm sure equally ghastly in terms of too much information. I was living in a
garage apartment with my friends. All of us launching our careers...not that there
was a big choice. Essentially you could be a teacher, a nurse or a special ed teacher.
I wanted to be a journalist and my first job was in public relations.

We wore Famolare shoes and ate tuna casserole.No one exercised and I don't
 remembers anyone mentioning the word carbohydrate. We were thin because we
were young, and poor. We depended on guys taking us out to eat.  Those were
the days when guys payed for dates. If you wanted to woo a girl you had to show
her a good time, and believe me that involved food.

Everyone had body hair, no metrosexuals and most guys had facial hair of some
kind. We weren't obsessed with having nails done and eyebrows plucked. We did
that ourselves. I don't think anyone had a facial. the first one I ever had in my life
was doing a story for television. We weren't really pampered. No one seemed to
have parents who would give them an allowance that would cover the kind of
grooming we expect today.

We weren't over medicated  Sure we may have smoked a little weed or popped
someones Mom's diet pills before an exam, but we weren't on anti-depressants
and sleeping pills. We weren't medically cossetted like rare birds. Our moms told
us to take an aspirin for cramps and we did. It was tough out there.

We didn't feel entitled
Seriously, many  of us were the first women in our families to get a college
education. We were either on student loans or like today's kids, our
parents had to suck it up and pay for our education. I felt very grateful and
empowered to be a college graduate. Today it just doesn't have that  cachet.
I didn't expect to be treated like a princess ...ever. I worked my ass off to
prove myself. There weren't any fabulous and expected semesters  abroad or
cool internships in movie studios .

Relationships were Painful
Wow. That's where the Girls have it right. Relationships were just as hard in
the seventies as they are now. We were single women  right at the beginning
of the sexual revolution and it was confusing. I do think we had a little
more pride. These young women seem to accept less from men, and have
to give a lot more than we would have.

We Didn't Live in the Public Limelight
With I-phones and twitter, Facebook and face time, everything these women
do now could appear anywhere. Back in the day you could be 100% sure no
one was taking you judging you and there was no chance of your Grandma
seeing you drunk on Facebook.

Work it Girls. It's rough and you have , as they say, the best of times, and the worst
of times. Wouldn't wanna be you. But then again you would never have wanted
to be me with that Farah Faucett hair, lips the color of a latte and a boyfriend that looked
like a Ken doll..