I’m at that singles event I’m supposed to be photographing. I’m holding my new camera. It’s not discreet like my old one. The vertical grip is attached and I have a wireless flash with me. I don’t have one of those penis-extension telephoto lenses, but I still look like a paparazzo.
MAN IN SUIT: Are you the official photographer?
WOMAN STANDING NEXT TO HIM: Of course he is. He’s too young and interesting to be one of us.
EVERYONE ELSE: [nervous laughter]
I could have scripted the evening. I spend most of it talking to the organisers—one male, one female.
WOMAN ORGANISER: We had too many come to the last one and people were complaining that they could hardly move, so we upped the price for tonight to control the numbers. All the women booked up ages in advance, but we were worried we wouldn’t get enough men.
POOTERGEEK: [looks around, wondering where all the women are]
WOMAN ORGANISER: And most of the women haven’t turned up. I don’t understand it.
My txtmsg tango essay sent my sitemeter mental. At least five different blogs linked here. But, as usual with a PooterGeek “event” post, some people completely missed the point. It wasn’t heartfelt. Very little on this site is. If you want to peer into my tormented soul, people, you’re looking through the wrong window. It was cynical, ironic, chippy, mocking, self-mocking. Almost everything I write here is. I wasn’t looking for a date; I don’t need one; I’d very much like one (or several). I wasn’t complaining that nobody loves me; plenty of people do—God bless ’em.
I just wanted to give a light-hearted answer to a question I’m asked over and over and to elaborate in a personal way on my usual appeal to the English to change their mating rituals for their own good and the good of their putative children. Choosing the wrong person is a very expensive business, emotionally and financially, and millions of us screw up badly. Despite decades of growing sexual equality, it’s still women who make the first and final decisions, women who choose whether or not to go on a date, put on a ring, go off the pill. Generally, I don’t just whine about things here; I try to suggest possible improvements. If anything, that post was an anti-whine, in a country where you can’t even open a “serious” newspaper without having to read some Bridget-Jonesian grumping.
If you don’t vote then don’t complain about the government. If you bottle out of appointments with fanciable men who’ve asked you out then don’t complain if you one day you find yourself alone with a Jennifer Lopez DVD and a tub of overpriced ice cream or trudging around IKEA with Gavin from Personnel, wondering if this is all there is, and starting the countdown to the day you leave him for that man who spanks you with a clipboard and calls you “Mathilde” like you’d always wanted but been afraid to ask.
When I went on speed-dating events in Cambridge the girls running them would joke, “He’s back to see if he can get even more ticks this time.” My problem isn’t getting dates; it’s getting women to turn up for them. And that’s the crux of the matter: women who say they’re looking for X, Y, and Z in a man and when they stumble upon some combination thereof run a mile. It’s no tragedy. I can look after myself. But having to deal with that and listen to women complain that they aren’t getting what they want or accuse me of being immature or psychologically unbalanced [“toxic bachelor”, “commitment-phobe”] because I haven’t settled down is a little bit much.
Perhaps that’s what scares women most of all: I’m self-sufficient. I pack my own bags, wash my own clothes, choose my own underwear, cook my own meals; I even take in other people’s emotional laundry. I’ve got a mother. She lives in the Midlands and I’m not looking for another one to live in my flat, thanks. Perhaps what many women want isn’t a man who wants them; it’s a man who needs them. I know I’m certainly not to a lot of women’s tastes (and would appreciate it if they told me sooner rather than later), but I’m reasonably smart, funny, solvent, good-looking, and (currently) in very good shape—and beginning to understand why public schools sent boys on cross-country runs to burn up their testosterone. What I’m not is desperate. If men with that kind of attitude fill women with a deep fear of rejection then they are welcome to the club. We men deal with the possibility every time we ask you for your number and it never gets any easier. Perhaps some women could make the world a better place by taking a sober gamble now while most of the other half of it wants to sleep with them, instead of a drunk one later when their options start to shrink.
I apologise unreservedly for my use of the word “heartfelt”, though maybe I was referring to the chords your post struck with me. I stand by my use of the word “long”, however.
I HAVE to disagree. I’m 25 now and have only ever been asked out on 4 dates. I only went on two. But I didn’t ever say “sure, i’d love to” and then cancel via text. if I didn’t fancy the guy I said “No” straight away. No point leading people along, I know how much it annoys me!! Neither of the 2 dates I went on led to anything as the guys were complete w***ers and basically wanted to get laid and I ain’t that kind of lady!
Anyway I’m getting off the subject – I disagree that women make the first and last decisions. My boyfriend and I try to make joint decisions and sometimes I’m left feeling very disgruntled that he’s in charge. Or maybe I’m just an anomoly…
I’d love to get married and have babies (to the right chap of course) but can’t convince anyone to participate.
I didn’t ever say “sure, i’d love to” and then cancel via text. if I didn’t fancy the guy I said “No” straight away.
Same here. I wouldn’t dream of leading on someone I didn’t find attractive. I’m grown-up enough (just!) to be able to let someone know right away if nothing’s going to happen between us. I think a lot of women who can’t do that are scared they might look like a horrible person. What they don’t realise is that by stringing someone along, in the end, they look like a horrible person anyway.
As far as your self-sufficiency is concerned, Damian, don’t think it puts women off (and if it does put a woman off, she’s clearly not the sort of person you should be with anyway). For example, my father is ex-RAF, so he had a good few years of looking after himself, doing his own cooking and cleaning and things before he settled down. For as long as I can remember, he was always the one to do the housework when I was little, not my mum. And so I can’t imagine ever living with a man who couldn’t look after himself if I was away for a few days: it would be more like having a child than a boyfriend. While I enjoy cooking and cleaning, I wouldn’t want to do it all the time. A man who is capable of looking after himself is far more attractive than one who would rely on a girlfriend to do everything for him. (A friend’s ex even needed her to fill out his passport application for him, and book appointments for him with his GP. Pathetic!)
Now that is the truth, but you’d never guess it from the stereotypes accepted in popular culture, or the features sections of most broadsheets. In the history of the World in general men have done more ill than women because, on the whole, they have had more power than women. But, when it comes to sexual relations in the modern West, they don’t.
Stereotypes in popular culture…
You’ve got a good point, but could this be simply down to quantity? There are an infinite number of women’s magazines, and the Features sections of the broadsheets are slightly skewed towards women (well, it’s where the fashion and beauty articles hide out anyhow).
Lad mags are considerably thinner on the ground, but they always feature “real women” who are apparently up for threesomes, foursomes etc, and terribly keen to get their kit off in public. Not a steroetype I’m hugely comfortable with.
That’s a shame. On the strength of this I was just summoning up the courage to ask you out.
Oi! You two! Get a room