The Big Kiss-Off

Comedy writer and performer Julie Klausner admits early on – the third sentence actually – what her problem is: "I love men like it is my job." Her first book, I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned From Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated (Gotham), isn't as dismissive as the title leads on. Rather, it reads like the diary of a true addict, with Klausner taking one pie in the face after another in the name of her vice, love.

Her colorful, often cringe-worthy sketches of narcissistic vegans, clueless musicians, and hapless man-children are both funny and sad, illustrating how feminism the morning after is a bit more awkward than this generation of women had hoped. The flipped script where women are now the aggressors and men don't know how to handle it grabs some of Klausner's funnier lines, like her description of a beau's tendency toward "Get Out of My Roomism": "When a guy passes 30 and still wants girls to leave him alone and stay away from his stuff, that behavior becomes disconcerting." She also posits Kermit the Frog as a model of modern masculinity.

"What if there turns out to be a lot of guys who don't know what to do?" she asks. "And what if you meet him and you know he's screwed up – like he'd been messed up to the point where he seems like an abused stray, whether it's the kind that snaps at you or cowers – but you take him home with you anyway?"

Many funny and creative single women will see some of themselves within these pages, and Klausner recognizes that the array of relationship books and reality dating shows are targeted to a certain kind of woman. They don't have her humor or pathos, just dos and don'ts, like that hot-pink vomit stain He's Just Not That Into You or VH1's Tough Love, in which a man "trains" women who habitually date douche bags to not date douche bags. It's called entitlement, and Klausner just wants women to feel it the way men do.

Austin Chronicle: The early years in your book – like calling phone sex lines as a teen – how did they shape the way you looked at intimacy and dating?

Julie Klausner: Of course pornography shapes your view of sex, and shaped mine, in that men control it. The male gaze is the dominant one. I identified with a male view of sexuality, and it's impossible to not adopt a performative approach, to act out in a way you think men want or like. Thank God it was pre-Internet.

AC: You have a chapter about the 1990s and the phenomenon of The Rules. Today, books like that have only flourished as more people call themselves "experts." Do you feel like dating is actually all rules now, especially with as many channels as we have?

JK: I think of dating books like dieting books. We're all fat, right? It's like what Michael Pollan says: The more diets introduced, the fatter we get. Those books just make people more confused. Think of women's magazines and all the lists for getting men to notice you or having hotter sex: "Get Him to Look You in Eyes When He Talks to You!"

AC: What about women in movies these days? Are you a fan of the rom-com?

JK: I am, but lately movies have been terrible, and the women, if they're funny, it's usually because they're clumsy or nebbish. Women now are acting the way Hugh Grant had to in the 1990s. I'd rather just see the girl get the joke. If not, [Judd] Apatow is the singular authority on how men and women relate, and that's a nightmare. I will not live in that world.

AC: Why is that such a nightmare?

JK: I do like Judd Apatow, but I think his is the only voice of the nonslapstick rom-com by and for our generation. Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers make movies for our moms, and they're aspirational fantasy comedies about kitchens we can dream about affording one day, but I worry that Apatow's movies don't read as aspirational, that guys might get the idea it's normal for overweight stoners who hate their jobs to have gorgeous, thin, blond girlfriends because it's enough that they're funny. There is a flipside to that, and it has to do with the girl's point of view. Even funny girls can want a grownup or see the arrogance in that beta-maleness, like James L. Brooks did when he made Broadcast News and had Albert Brooks whinny at his detractors in the first scene when he was bullied or taunt Holly Hunter about how she'll be fat and single one day. That's an angry guy who looks like a nice guy, and I wonder how many people get that today.