Don lives by this credo, but he also recognizes it as a normal human foible. It’s why he’s such a good ad man. Advertising is effective because it grants us permission — actually encourages us — to give in to our temptations.
While most of us don’t yield to every single impulse we have, every single moment of our lives, there are times when we surrender and say consequences be damned! As a salesman, Don has learned to pick up on this. He’s incredibly astute at detecting when people are most vulnerable. He knows when to strike, and how to do it so it wields the most impact. He’s fully aware that there’s a point at which anyone will say yes, because everyone has their breaking point.
The types of women Don favors — independent, outspoken ladies — can be intimidating to a lot of men. Women like that are high maintenance. Not in terms of material things, but in terms of mental, intellectual, and emotional matters. They’re intricate and multi-dimensional, and expect that same complexity from the people with whom they’re involved. From my own experience, and from what I’ve learned about friends, relatives, and associates, a lot of guys are apprehensive about getting involved with women like that. They may be intrigued by them initially, but after a while, they just want simplicity — someone who’ll feed them, sleep with them, and who won’t stand in front of the TV while the game is on… 
As a result, despite having everything else in their favor, complicated women can be lonely and unfulfilled. I think Don understands this. Sometimes a girl just needs to get laid. It’s not so much that he’s utterly irresistible, but that he recognizes an opportunity, and knows WHEN to seize it.
While he definitely has mother issues and that certainly informs his choices, he’s drawn to women like Midge, Rachel, Bobbie, Joy, and Suzanne, despite the fact that they recognize him for who he is. Again, any salesperson can tell you that the absolute best marks around are the ones most impervious to the bullsh!t — the folks who recognize the shill. With Don, the women who clearly see his game are the ones most likely to get drawn into it.
Despicable bastard.
I wonder if this dynamic existed at one time between him and Betty?
30 Responses to “I want what I want when I want it”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
It's amoral.
With Don, the women who clearly see his game are the ones most likely to get drawn into it.
I don't see this at all. I think Don just likes complicated women, not that he sees them as easier marks. He likes a challenge and enjoys intellectual stimulation as much as the purely physical. Since he now sees Betty as "childish" (something I've never understood, although it seems accepted as fact), she's no longer interesting enough. Oh, unless she's in Italy.
Putting on the devil's-advocate horns to ask a question:
Who doesn't want what she wants when she wants it?
(dehorning.)
I'm just saying. Most of us are like this, at least in part — especially if we're Americans, especially if we have money, especially when we are tired or in pain or cold or hungry or peeved about something. The closer we are to the bottom of Maslow's famous pyramid, the more we want.
I would add: the more we believe we can have, the more we want.
Every season, I run into the same question (from women) about Don Draper: Why does he cheat? Aside from my stock question-as-answer (Why do you care?) — never well received — I can't really supply a response. Because I don't know.
So, a random guess: maybe we're all built with a sense of wonder, and over time we lose it. Meeting and getting to know new people can bring some of that wonder back. The some old things, places, experiences can seem new again. I don't know why women seek this more rarely than men, if they do. Maybe travel, work, shopping, and raising children feed women's needs for wonder in ways that don't work the same for men.
These are all complete shots in the dark. And I like the idea that certain kinds of women (smart, unconventional, sensual) get Don Draper going, but for me the effect is ultimately the same. I will continue to face the judgmental Greek chorus of women who need to know (1) why he does it and (2) why I watch it.
So, a hesitant counter-proposal: is it possible that Don's women are something more than marks? That they are active — nay, WILLING — participants in their own delighted breaking points?
(running from the flying tomatoes)
I didn't think I agreed with this post at first. Then I began to think about how the other men in the Mad Men universe would interact with Rachel Menken or Suzanne. Imagine Roger with Rachel, or Pete with Suzanne.
I don't think that the intelligent brunettes of Don's liking fall for the trick because they see it coming. I think they fall for it because they've always thought that they were the people who wouldn't fall for advertising. Admitting to yourself that you're an easy mark for something means that you can recognize it–I don't think it's likely that Rachel, in such an insular society, or Bobbie, with perceived authority over her social circle ever thought that they could have the better taken of them (or in Rachel's case, that anyone would place control above love–that's what I always attributed her final horror to).
Don's obsessed with the pitch because he has never, ever, ever felt as though all of him was enough to give as is. Not that he's ever tried. But Betty already paid for the bill of goods…and she's going to be paying for a long time yet. (Guess who's p-oed at Don, and the first two guesses don't count).
BUT he married Betty!!!
Mari,
I see you as a very intelligent brunette.
Of course we all "want what we want, when we want it." There are many days I'd love to hop a plane to Tahiti and flee the daily grind of husband, children and work. But what would that actually accomplish? I think it's terribly American to think "you can have/take it all", and to paraphrase Connie, "whether the world wants you to or not", but then again, what does that accomplish? It's great fantasy, the reality of it, not so tidy. It often leaves a large field of casualties.
And Anne, it's not so much Don's cheating that bothers me. It's where and with whom Don's cheating with this time that I find so repulsive. Midge and Rachel were separate entities that allowed Don to have his extra curricular fun, but maintain himself and not put his family in jeopardy. Bobbie was a psychological exercise that backfired. Betty was humiliated, but able to save face after Don supposedly had an epiphany in California. Now he's rubbing her face, and that of his children in the shit he just crapped on the carpet.
Regardless of how much abuse he suffered at the hands of his own family, it doesn't make his abuse of his facade of a family (or Peggy, or Sal) okay.
I'm watching Season 2 on DVD, and in 'Meditations on an Emergency" Don spews some claptrap to Pete about the virtues of waiting for something you want, which in that case was the Head of Accounts job. Hypocrite.
Aran,
I agree that Don's past personal abuses shouldn't dictate his current decisions. He even admitted as such in the hospital.
However, I've come to the conclusion that Don's struggling to evolve not as a personal failing this time, but because he's struggling to cope with the pressures of the outside world. His marriage sucks, his workplace is quickly turning into a mine field, and he's slowly losing control of his personal situation. I don't know how much worse it's going to get for him, but he's trying to manage the conflict that's brewing inside him through making bad decisions. I'm not defending him going after Miss Farrell, but it is reasonable to suggest he's looking for a place where he's in control of the situation.
I think Don is about to take a big fall and that his carefully ordered world is at stake. All around him — in his home life, his business life and the familiar world/social order he has mastered — big changes are in the wind. Yet, despite his preternatural awareness of the vulnerabilities of others and his savvy for pressing the advantage, he is coming apart around the edges and I think he will find that his usual "tricks of the trade" will no longer yield success. He is seemingly unaware that the very attractive Betty is battling her own temptations that could disrupt his storybook home life. Carla certainly seems to sense it and it makes her uneasy. Increasingly and incrementally, and despite his sharp survival instincts, Don is falling behind the curve in other aspects as well. In his dangerous encounter with the hitchkhikers, Don drives a huge Caddy with a drink in hand that he throws out the window to the tune of shattering glass (perhaps an Old Fashioned?) after he picks up two seeming innocents on their way to elope, all the while calling him "Mister." In reality, however, they represent the "future" and it is far different from what he knows and more than he can deal with. They wind up offering him drugs and suggesting sexual voyeurism (not seduction and active participation) before "rolling" him in a seedy motel (as juxtaposed with the world Connie offers and the Italian Hilton he will visit with Betty a short while later). It was a bit chilling when they shifted to derisively calling him "Cadillac" and indicated that he was too old to be flirting with the girl. At the same time, on some level he knew he was vulnerable and that the encounter would end badly, as evidenced by the guy in the rocking chair — I missed it — was that his dad?) trying to tell him something wicked was coming his way. Ultimately the teens left him a derisive note mentioning his Cadillac, and a dollar — pretty symbolic. Later he okays Betty throwing a fundraiser for the Rockefeller campaign that we (and perhaps Betty, based on a news piece) know is doomed (we have the benefit of knowing about the Kennedy legacy). For all his advertising and business savvy and his instinctive knowledge of people, their vulnerabilities and how best to exploit them for his own purposes — Don seems to be behind the curve and is suddenly getting it all wrong, with the increasingly eccentric (and maybe not so paternal) Connie and in other aspects as well. He seems to see the schoolteacher through glasses that are a bit rosy, as well. He refers to her as "pure" and shows admiration for her stance on the four little girls killed in the church bombing (meanwhile Betty hosts for Rockefeller in his living room), although it is clear that their (tawdry?) extramarital affair is inevitable and even as he seems oblivious to (and disconnected from) the Civil Rights Movement and what it will mean to him. I just wonder whether Suzanne is really far more different than he envisions — will she be the one that tuns the tables by using and then dumping him? Is she the one woman who will make him risk his carefully constructed life and manufactured persona — after all, it doesn't put him off that she was his daughter's teacher, that she literally lives a little too close to home, and that she knows his wife. He is not her first Daddy affair and I don't think he will be her last, perhaps because he is not so different than others she has known. Also, although Don surprised me when he seemed enlightened when dealing discreetly and in a non-judgmental manner with Sal's marital indiscretion in the hotel (after all, Don was with a stewardess himself), as it turns out he is just as ignorant as any other homophobe when refusing to believe that Sam could have been sexually harrassed by the firm's bullying client ("you people . . ."). Meanwhile, Roger Sterling is now seriously gunning for him, stung by Don's labeling of him as a fool for leaving his wife and marrying the much younger Jane. Query what Sterling would say about Suzanne should it come to light. After all, he's already tattled to Betty once before, when calling her about the contract.
I normally root for Don, despite his many flaws and often against my will. He has now lost my allegiance, bit by bit, because of the way he spoke to Peggy and takes her loyalty for granted, his shoddy and dismissive treatment of Sal and his launch of a new affair with his daughter's teacher after winning Betty back and hard on the heels of their romantic trip to Italy.
I LOVE this show and the complexities of its characters! What a cast of characters and what compelling storylines! I guess I will just wait to see what happens with Joan. BTW, I enjoyed the double meanings in the "light" conversation with Pete and their tacit agreement that she won't tell anyone that she knows the replacement Bonwit Teller dress is not for his wife if he won't say he knows she's working there.
Can't wait to see what happens next.
just wanted to share some observations – I enjoy reading what others have posted. I have not posted til now, because I have been so bothered by so many things in this episode. Especially the unjust treatment of Sal.
Betty says the phase IWWIWWIWI when talking to the woken up baby Gene. Then she says to Don like someone else we know? I thought she was inferring that Connie was acting like a baby.
The Lucky Strike guy WWHWWHWI from Sal, after a few drinks. At one point in the filming he referred to Sal as Sally.
Connie, disrespectfully wearing his hat in a room, (any person from Texas knows that it is a social no, no) in the SC presentation was acting out when he threw a fit about "no mention of the moon", because he did not get WHWWHWI. I thought this could be a ploy not to pay SC for the full amount for the work, in addition to the fact that he enjoys pulling Don's chain. He planned to find something wrong with the meeting no matter what, that is why he left his hat on.
Betty acted out when she did ne get WSWWSWI by throwing the money box at Henry. I thought that was great. I noticed she did not wear any make-up or fancy dress over to his office. The same way she had on no make-up when she confronted Don once.
I liked what #10 Sandy said especially….
I LOVE this show and the complexities of its characters! What a cast of characters and what compelling storylines!
Something to keep an eye on: Both Don and Betty suffered from insomnia this last episode (although Don seems to have found a cure in Miss Ferrell). Betty wasn't sleeping when Don informed her that Connie wanted him to come over. She would have heard the phone ring. The point is, she doesn't care anymore where Don is going. She has already taken the first step out of the marriage with her fantasies and letter writing to Henry. It doesn't matter that she didn't consumate the affair. She's already checked out of the marriage. I had to laugh when she opened Henry's letter and Baby Gene was crying; Betty couldn't have been bothered. Thank goodness that Carla is there for the Draper kids.
"They fall for it because they’ve always thought that they were the people who wouldn’t fall for advertising."
@ #4, Mari:
Yes, that's it. That's exactly what I meant. What did Peggy say to the truck driver back in season 1? "If advertising is good, you don't know that it's working." But guess what? It always works. And we're all susceptible to it — even if we think we're not. The reason advertising works is that we all want what we want when we want it. The "pitch" only clarifies, reinforces or justifies it for us.
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
Great post, great comments. And I just realized through reading all of it–Don's pitch failed with Hilton, and so he has to go and pitch to Suzanne. And he has to not fail. Deborah was right in her I hate this thread–Don was a little scary with her. What if her No had continued?
We've never seen Don hear a "no" that's meant, so we don't know what he'd do if Suzanne had really meant it. Don had to prove to himself that even if he couldn't bring Connie the moon, but he can still get it for himself.
I have to think that Don would walk away from an unwilling woman – Whatever he is, he's not cruel when he's bored, like Pete.
Great post!
"I want what I want when I want it" was also a credo in the earlier part of the 00s, before the tech bubble, the housing bubble and the economic bubble all burst. Perhaps Matt is holding up a mirror to the country to say, "this is what happens." As if we need any reminders.
Did this exist between Don and Betty? Doubtful. That was a fantasy on both their parts.
I concur with #14 & #19, Don was very pushy, like he was not going to take no as an answer. Not unlike Pete. We cannot judge Don by his past moves, he seems so much out of control now. One thing I know about people with drinking problems. The out -of-control-ness can be progressive and it takes less to put you in a stupor. The person drinking thinks they can handle the amount they used to and they can't.
I don't think he was drinking at the time he knocked on her door but he was drinking earlier in the evening, in fact the moment he walked in the door from work he started, which seems to be his normal ritual.
When he walked into Suzanne's place and he started walking up to her she had a drink in her hand and she finished it and put the empty glass on the table as he walked up to her. (drinking in the wee hours?) She was drinking the night she called the house when baby Gene was born.
So at least they have something in common
So true Frank. When a woman takes any step away from the marriage it is a big deal, done with lots of thought and planning. All of those hours thinking on her fainting couch. She is over Don.
And I for one am over Don'n'Betty. I went from wishing it would all work out for them after Rome, to relishing the big break-up scene I wish would come.
That Matt Weiner, he knows how to jack around a girl's emotions, ya know? I'll probably be back on the Draper Marriage Reconciliation Bus next week.
Good point Frank and Barb. Betty has lost her spark for Don. I don't think she was asleep. She knows the phone did not ring. I think Don knows that too, and he doesn't care if he gets caught. He is like a serial criminal that wants the police to find him so he starts getting careless and leaving clues. It is all so uncomfortable to watch. Unless one night Betts gets in that black Lincoln and follows that blue Cadilac – the concenus is to quote Bert "who cares?"
we are all losing interest in their marrigae too, mabye like Gypsy I'll be back on board at some part but for now. enough already.
@ Anne B.,
I’m actually a super-turbo-blonde. But I like to think I’m intelligent, so thank you or the compliment just the same.
But I realized I didn’t actually consider whether Betty was a mark. I don’t think she was, and that faith is pretty much exclusively rooted in the way he talked about her to Anna Draper. That look on his face was love, and I am never going to believe otherwise.
I lost interest in Betty and Don's marriage a long time ago. I never had any hopes that they would become a happily married couple. I've always thought they were better off without each other. Especially Betty. I was disappointed that she had decided to reconcile with Don at the end of S2. I didn't think any good would come of it.
Mari,
Agree. Betty was not a mark — Don loved her. Loves her, or at least needs her, still; I want to believe this.
I am also a blonde (dialed considerably down from the super-turbo, though). Always good to meet a smart fellow light-lock.
Roberta #14 “Don was a little scary with her. What if her No had continued?”
At some point, maybe not this year, we will see Archie Whitman’s son – The man who made a point with Bobbie in the hallway. Out of control.
Would it have happened if Suzanne had said no? I think Don is close to the breaking point …
from Anne B:
So, a hesitant counter-proposal: is it possible that Don’s women are something more than marks? That they are active — nay, WILLING — participants in their own delighted breaking points?
well, I have to say that I would, ahem, bend over backwards (has to be some useful function for those yoga sessions) to find my breaking point if I were alone with Don Draper at the right time and place.
in a fictional world, of course.
and I would insist on one of those "Rear Window" cantilevered undergarments, just because "cantilevered" and bra is funny on its own terms as a phrase (you have to watch Rear Window, I guess, for that one and please don't think that movie name is any sort of double entendre. I'm a good post-christian girl. But I like silly.
however, honestly, you make a valid point – Don is not a predator in his relationships. The teacher is the one who contacted him first – when she knew Betty was major preggers. Her drunk dialing was what set the last episode's hook up going.
And the drunk dialing, combined with her reactions to him at the eclipse thing – her hostility – was what made me peg her as a bunny boiler. The difference between me and Don, other than anatomy and preference (being strictly dickly myself) is that after that weird moment at the school, I would not have initiated anything with the teacher.
…Which makes me think that his behavior is beyond reckless and as much a reaction to what's going on at work as it is about the teacher. Maybe he just wanted a good night's sleep away from Connie's constant calls.
btw, not too much mention seems to have been made of this, or I missed it if so, but doesn't Connie give off major creepy vibes too with his manifest destiny talk and his pretending to morality when, from all accounts, he wasn't exactly Gandhi himself in regard to women.
we don't know how his thing started with Midge, but Rachel and Bobbie were both willing participants. Rachel didn't know things she should have, but Bobbie did. Of all the women he's been with, I think Bobbie is the only one who has been really honest about their relationship – which is also why Don ended up hating her.
"we don’t know how his thing started with Midge, but Rachel and Bobbie were both willing participants. Rachel didn’t know things she should have, but Bobbie did. Of all the women he’s been with, I think Bobbie is the only one who has been really honest about their relationship – which is also why Don ended up hating her."
That doesn't reflect upon Don very well. Does it?
no one knows those things about Don so to apply his consistent pattern of hiding his past just to females is a bit disingenuous.
it doesn't reflect well upon Don in the workplace, either, does it?
I'm not apologizing for his behavior. I'm noting it. As I've said before, I don't watch this show with an expectation that any character is going to be a "good" person. If that's the expectation someone brings to this story, they will be disappointed because that sort of manichean world view does not exist in this show.
The hullabaloo question–
"I wonder if this dynamic existed at one time between him and Betty?"
I think how could it not?
Betty is educated, worldly, attractive. The Roman holiday hinted at how much fun it was before they bought and assumed their roles in the American Dream.
I'm reminded of my first bonzai tree. I was told it would grow to the size of the pot it was planted in, no larger.
Betty bought the idea she would be happy planted in a colorful Martinson's coffee can in Ossining. Don bought the same concept but his can is a little bigger and gets to ride in a Caddy back and forth to the city.
They are both realizing there is less of them now because of these purchases.
Sorry! It's a cold, rainy day over here. Time for my meds. HA!
ah well, I suppose I'm the only female on this site who has naughty thoughts about Don Draper, yoga and cantilevered bras.
I thought _everyone_ did.
@esme: I suppose I’m the only female….
"I don't think that's true."
