Thursday, August 22, 2013

A Man's Perspective

 Hi my dear readers :) Following is a guest appearance from a man...Yes, a man. Dating sucks on both sides (apparently) and I feel it is only fair to be open minded to the male perspective (even though its probably wrong.... I jest...mostly). Enjoy! :)


Hello, for a moment I’m going to be gender shifting the Glass Emporium of Failed Dates for a brief service announcement (rant) from an apparently dwindling and often forgotten subset of men.

As we’re all aware, and this blog serves as proof, there are a lot of assholes, douchebags and creeps out there in the dating world and the proportion seems to be growing by the day. This is an issue of supply, due to a combination of popular culture, absent parenting and generalized idiocy us men are pumping out enough D-bags per day to found a small country, drive that country into poverty through the importation of nothing but Jaeger and Redbull, and then raze it to the ground amid the glorious grunts of the Neanderthals’ fist bumping. That side of the equation is certainly problematic.

However there are two sides to any equation. Let’s say I start a company that makes Ass hats. If nobody was in the market for hats for their asses I probably wouldn’t be in business for very long, would I? Classic supply and demand right? This corollary holds true in this instance as well. Ladies, you are the ones creating a demand for an absurd abundance of rampant douchebaggery. Ladies, you know those saptastic romance movies the majority of you love? Have you ever said the words (or an approximation thereof), “I want to be appreciated”, “I want someone who is honest and loyal”, “I want to be treated special” etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam. Well guess what? The majority of the time you shun these opportunities. Say you meet a nice guy, and said nice guy asks to take you on a date. You agree, you go out on a date, it goes well. He picks you up, you do something nice, something fun, he opens doors, compliments you appropriately, offers to pay for dinner and at the end of the night says how wonderful it was and that he can’t wait to do it again. Sounds awesome right? Like something you would go for? Logically that would make sense but 9 times out of 10 this is an absolute fallacy. As women you tend to have multiple paths you can walk down at any given time with regards on who to date. Let’s say you also have a member of the lesser morally constrained population knocking on your door. The majority of you will be answering that knock and keeping the nice guy as a friend. Why? Because you can, hell the nice guy will probably swallow their pride and remain friendly and reliable and in no time you could be crying on their shoulder because the asshole, started acting like an asshole. I can say that this is true because I’ve been on both sides of this spectrum.

I was an asshole in more than a few relationships and I am an alcoholic to boot (although no longer actively practicing). I’ve lied, I’ve cheated, I’ve been an all-around idiot within the constructs of my relationships with women. But you know what? I am proud of exactly 0% of this behavior but I will gladly own it. I didn’t start that way, I was brought there after a string of failed relationships in my early 20s that made it clear that being a gentleman wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I said screw it. Even the kindest of animals can turn if you neglect them enough. Hell, I’d wager if there was a way to turn a dyslexic sloth into a stone cold killer it would only be through the myriad of mindf**ks you ladies put us through. But you know what? I never had a problem beginning or maintaining a relationship, meaningful or not when acting that way. Now I’ve come full circle, I’m back to my roots when it comes my behavior towards women and, get this, I know others who are the same way. We exist.

About a year ago I entered back into the dating world after a self-imposed hiatus and in that time frame I can no longer count on my two hands how many times this exact situation has played out:

1. Meet Girl
2. Ask girl out
3. Take girl out have great time
4. Attempt to go out again
5. Consistent disconnection
6. Oh I got back with my asshole ex/started seeing some asshole

It has gotten to the point where I just watch it unfold and chuckle…what else can I do? Anytime I or my compatriots bring it up with a female friend or acquaintance we receive the same responses; some variation of, “Well that’s her loss.” Well yippe-kay-yay, let’s all bake a cake and celebrate. Now I’d imagine I have to have some culpability and its not like I’m without flaws. I have many, and I’ll list them out for someone if they ask me to, they’re part of what makes me, well me I guess. I wear those, and I work on them, I look to try and better myself, when I’m wrong I’ll admit it. These are the things that the vast majority of women say that they want before going back to sitting at home waiting for some douche canoe to come home 3 hours late after getting housed with his bros on a Tuesday night.

 So with that out of the way, lets tackle some more specific issues that keep both you and us from finding an understanding.

1. We do nice things for you because we value you, we’re attracted to you and we like to show our appreciation. This may be through compliments, gestures, small thoughtful gifts, a genuine interest in who you are and what you’re doing, This doesn’t mean that we’re trying to go from zero to sixty into marriage it is how we believe you should be treated. Hell it’s how you say you want to be treated.

2. It’s not a competition, if we go out of our way to do something special for you we don’t require nor expect you to try to best it. What we value is our time with you, be appreciative but more importantly just keep showing up and being yourself…that’s the end goal. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t do those things for you.

3. If you’ve made it past 1 and 2 and your excuse is that you don’t feel you deserve to be treated as such (all too common) take a step back and smack yourself in the face. Everyone deserves to be treated that way and cared for unconditionally.

4. If you find yourself in a sort of pseudo relationship (without commitment) because you don’t think you can be the girlfriend your gentleman deserves (I’ve heard this one in many varieties from multiple people on both sides of the equation). Either get over yourself and realize that it doesn’t matter if you can’t wrap your head around it or walk away and stop abusing their kindness. You can only play that game for so long before you wear even the most patient person down to a resentful shell of themselves.

So yes, us gentlemen do exist… and in much greater numbers than you think. We hide in plain sight, our attention is obvious but for some reason the majority of women seem to opt for pissing into the wind while trying to convince themselves its raining.

In the end, Ladies, if you come across a nice guy give it a shot. Don’t get caught up in things like, whether it’s the kind of chase you want or any of that nonsense, just remember what you want out of your love life and make your decision from there and let us know. We won’t hold it against you if you decide to have someone urinate all over your romantic fantasies in a way that would make R. Kelly blush but it’d be nice to at least have a heads up if that’s the direction you decide to go.

Fin.

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