“The Joan”
Originally published in Bob Cut Mag - February 2019If you ask for “The Joan” at The Riddler down in Hayes Valley, on the corner of Laguna and Linden, they’ll fill your wine glass up to the damn top. I mean, to the tip-top. I mean, so tip top that you’ll gasp a little as they finish off the pour. I love watching people order their first Joan. It’s a small pleasure of mine. It’s hilarious. Juvenile. Gets me every time.
Let’s just put it this way: I’ve ordered many Joans. Admittedly, Joans are not a celebratory drink for me.
It’s never, “I just got a raise, pour me a Joan!”
Hardly ever, “That first date went swimmingly—Joan me up, barkeep!”
Oh, I wish. Usually it’s, “This week has hamstrung me to within an inch of my life.” Or, “I’m twenty-four and a failure, pour one out for all my hopes and dreams.”
I’m really good at being dramatic. The Joan is the perfect libation to complement my extremism, my histrionics, while behaving so.
Our generation has a lot more to keep up with in the vein of appearances than any generation before. We’re all marketers. Whether you’re an analyst, software developer, finance consultant, engineer, recruiter, dog walker, designer, you name it—you’re also a marketer. A brand specialist in the brand that is you. We do it on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter. We do it on our dating profiles and job applications. We brand and we market. We sell. It takes up a lot of time, if you let it. Like many of the most dangerous things in life, it’s fun and distracting. To curate the exterior with verve, panache, and pseudo-earnestness exacts a much more tangible result than to do that other thing we’re all avoiding: analyzing, questioning, and healing the interior. And with this focus on the outside—despite the dozens of fables and maxims we were taught as children spouting it’s what’s on the inside that counts—the perceived self has ostensibly become the only self that matters.
It’s a catwalk; on one side is the land of perfectly-curated self promotion. On the other, the abyss of taking oneself much too seriously.
I’m thinking of it this way: there’s this brand. Which is composed of the better parts of us. The aspects of ourselves we shuffle into the best lighting before showing off to society at large. There’s also the demolition zone—the rough draft, if you will. The canyon of our personality into which we shove everything else, parceling it out warily only when we know someone cares for us enough to handle it, or when we’re simply so tired of the upkeep it leaks out on its own. In this catch-all comprised of the rest of us, you’ll find all sorts of gems. Endearing stories of failure rather than skillfully-crafted tales of triumph. Self-deprecating anecdotes. Embarrassing restaurant recommendations. Beliefs diametrically opposed to those of our social circles’. Dreams we shelved years ago, but take out at night to admire or weep with. Odd hobbies. Embarrassing Google searches. Questionable vices.
Suffice it to say, my Joan habit lives in that wasteland, rather than the high ground of my personal marketing scheme. (At least it did until right now.) I would never order one on a first date. Or if I did, that would be performative, wouldn’t it? A way of using the real self as a mask for the fake self which is already a mask of the real self. Do you see the levels? I’m very much becoming aware of the levels. The constant chess game of what we reveal, what we conceal, and the supporting stratagem underlying these choices.
A lot of what we do at Bob Cut falls into the category of prepped and poised storytelling. We work hard to bring you well-researched, thoughtful content. In the spirit of honesty and the celebration of the kaleidoscope of human imperfection, however, we also want to lay our “Joans” out on the table, sincerely and without much framing. We’ll work on that if you will. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.