What Women Want?

"It's actually men, you'll find who are far more romantic. Men, you'll hear say, "I've found somebody and she's amazing. If I don't get to be with this person, I'm fucked. I can't carry on. I mean it. She's totally transformed my life; I have a job, I have a flat, it means nothing. I can't stand it, I have to be with her! Because if I don't, I'm gonna end up in some bedsit, I'll be alcoholic, I'll have itchy trousers...I can't walk the streets anymore."
That is how women feel about shoes!"

-Dylan Moran

Some time ago in what I'll manfully admit was some desperation, I found myself as a member of Match.com. I was only an actual paying member for about two weeks before quitting in disgust, but I haunted the site for quite a while. Eventually I just had to walk away from it, as it did something to me I didn't think possible; it made me seriously dislike women.
And as somebody who has nothing but bile in regards to my own gender, I figured this wasn't a feeling to be nurtured

Let me explain. I went through profile after profile on that site, many lovely ladies of all ages, and every last one of them was the same. These women would list their interests, hobbies, aspirations and so forth, give a general idea of their ideal of the perfect man, and then note that they wanted a significant other who not only shared all of the same interests, the same political and social outlook, the same religious background, the same everything, but was also a perfect physical specimen, a snappy dressr, a good listener, strong and masculine, sensitive and giving, assertive and adventurous, creative and spiritual, and had at least one Master's Degree, a foot on the property ladder, owned a good car, was over 5' 11" and brought in £500,000 a year or more. And they all stated that if one didn't meet every last one of these criteria then not to bother even saying hello.

This thread is not, I swear, all about me and my tragi-comic failings with women, but it is born out of my frustrations. I am seriously starting to feel that women are on their way to matching if not surpassing men as the shallow, self-absorbed half of the species.

I've heard women talk about the perfect wedding, perfect homes, etc, like everybody talks idly about that stuff. But what if, I sometimes dare to ask, Mr. Right comes along and isn't keen on marriage or having kids (I am vehemently opposed to both)? Every female I've asked has said that this would be a deal-breaker. In other words, even if she and Atlas were utterly in love and clicked on every other level, if his plans for the future didn't tally with hers, they'd simply have to call it quits.
I know not every woman under the sun wants marriage or babies, but they do tend to be on the popular side, and though I certainly don't begrudge anybody looking for long-term stability or security- we all are, really- if a woman's idea of security is having her man father children he isn't the least bit invested in, or committing himself to a miserable marriage from which he will almost certainly stray (more on this later), well...If that's not shallow and selfish I don't know what is

And I know exactly who, or rather what, is largely to blame for this culture in which a woman cannot live without 50 or more pairs of obscenely over-priced shoes, a man is not a man if he doesn't habitually dress in designer suits, and a wedding ring is but a trinket if it cost less than a quarter of a million and is smaller than a hand grenade; Sex And The Fucking City.
See, what Mr. Moran says is true, men usually are romantic, we are sensitive, and by and large we do put the effort into serious relationships once we're in them. But for today’s' generation it's rather an odious uphill struggle, as all the time we're haunted by this mental picture of the girl of our dreams sat in front a laptop, typing a 4000 word essay on how the veins on our forearms don't stand out as sexily as on her last boyfriend.

Don't even get me started on the new trend for aggressive sexual frankness in women. I abhor it in men, the blokeishness is something that makes my working life, to say nothing of socialising, very uncomfortable for me. So why is it now acceptable for ladies to talk openly about masturbation techniques in restaurants, but if a man so much as twitches an eyebrow he should be crucified? Maybe because that's how The Three Hookers and Their Mom behave*.

And is Sarah Jessica Parker really a "fasion icon"? She's 4' nothing in heels and looks like a horse in a prostitute costume.

An article in the paper caught my eye last year. It was another one of those pieces about the size zero trend. This is something that's always confused me, as I can't ever recall hearing a man say his idea of feminine perfection was a cadaverous waif with no hips, bust or bottom and barely the strength to hold up her own head, but as the article explained, this diabolical trend has nothing to do with trying to look attractive to men and everything to do with impressing other women.
I do not think any woman should define herself by her sexuality or how much she is admired by the opposite sex, but I think it's significant how image-obsessed women are these days. I mean, really. Obsessed.

I don't pretend to know every woman on Earth, and I know that they aren't all like this, but the fact that so many of them are is...depressing.
It's disappointing, in fact. I know some people will probably get the wrong end of the stick with this diatribe and perhaps take offence, and I'm sorry but the honest-to-God truth is, I love women. I was raised by women, I feel safe around them, and I’m endlessly fascinated and inspired by them.
I generally don't like men and I don't trust them. I avoid spending time with them, for the most part. I've known many, many wonderful, warm and clever women in my life, and it gets me very confused and down that so many of those I encounter these days are so unshakably convinced that Real Life is about holidays, parties, drinking, and doing lots of shopping.

Every woman I know thinks she is overweight. Some are, the majority aren't. I worked in Laura Ashley the year before last, the only male on a staff of 18 women. All of them were dieting, all convinced, strangely, that they had enormous backsides. Every lunchtime was a depressing cornucopia of soup, salad and Special K. If I had to live on that shite, I would actually die.


* * * *

From Futurama

Love dummy: "My two favourite things are commitment, and changing myself."
Leela (wearily): "Does that dummy have a brother?"


The marriage thing I still can't get my head around. What exactly is the point?

Say you're two people very much in love, you live together, share interests, go out, have fun, have nice sex and are just totally sympatico. Well done.
What, pray tell, will getting married change? Will it magically make you even more in love, even happier? I have yet to hear a convincing answer. I've always felt that marriage is one of those ancient institutions that is growing ever more irrelevant. I suppose there are some legal advantages to being married rather than just living as a couple, but that's only because the law always takes ages to catch up. God knows there are down sides.

No matter how in love you are or how much you want to spend the rest of your lives together, human nature being what is, once the whole love thing is officialised and rendered as a binding contract and reduced to crass domesticity, most people today will sort of go "Oh. That's it, then? That's my life mapped out for me, forever?" I know it works for some couples, but even the best of us still like to think we can walk away from something even if we'll never actually want to. And marriage is such a huge hassle, when you hear a couple are separating, it can be sad but it's not the end of the world. When you hear a couple are getting a divorce, hoo boy! Legal disputes, endless money squabbles, friends taking sides. Once the ring is on, it's very hard taking it off.

My grandfather has been gone 13 years. My Nan likes to rhapsodise about the ideal marriage they shared, but the fact is he was deeply unhappy with it towards the end of his life. Had he be born into a later generation he may even have considered divorce.
How often do you see these awful old couples, so set in their ways and so trapped together, hopelessly co-dependent despite the mutual loathing that makes the air around them vibrate. Not my idea of happily ever after.
People have a few thousand years of sentimentality about marriage still in their heads, but it doesn’t suit most modern men or women, despite what the latter may think they want. They've just swallowed the pop culture myth, like the high school prom; everyone wants one because American TV makes it look so magical.

Like a lot of sensitive males, I’m cursed with the stigma of Mr. Nice Guy rather than Mr. Right.
I’m always the good mate who listens and is always there etc etc etc, but someone who will never make anybodies' heart beat faster. Even though my female friends are forever telling me what a great catch I’d make for some lucky girl, or should I say woman, as the only females who actually seem to appreciate sensitivity, kindness, loyalty and support are usually hurtling towards 50. Young women want excitement, they want a bastard for a boyfriend and I can’t provide that.
Some of you may have caught that episode of The IT Crowd, where the guys try and make themselves out to be as horrible as possible in their online lonely hearts ads, as they believe that’s the only way to get a woman interested enough to secure a date. It captured perfectly the confusion and agony of being forever relegated to straight gay best friend status:

Roy: ""Shut up"..."Do what I tell you"..."I'm not interested"...These are just some of the things you'll be hearing if you answer this ad. I'm an idiot and I don't care about anyone but myself. PS, no dogs!"

Moss: "I'm going to murder you. You bloody woman."

QFT.

I suppose I could try acting that way, but honestly just getting into a relationship is such a huge deal, I’d be too terrified of jeopardising it.

In the ‘Studs vs. Sluts’ debate thread, on the SFX forum, user Clown Asylum beautifully sums up the particular type of “Bad Boy” that 90% or more of the girls I’ve ever been interested in have invariably fallen for:

“These were the blokes who would sleep with anything that moved, including your female friends, including your girlfriend if they could swing it; men who viewed women as pieces of meat, to be used, dumped and then laughed at. I remember being informed by one of them once that a close female friend of mine just “lay there like a sack of spuds” during sex. What a charmer, eh?

These are men who seem to see one half of the human race as handy receptacles for their bodily fluids. They are terrifyingly shallow and lacking in empathy. They are not to be envied and certainly not to be congratulated.”

I often find myself working with such characters, walking masses of smugness and testosterone, openly leering at female customers and making no secret of how little these conquests actually mean to them. And y’know what? The girls in work love them.
You look at some of these young women, giggling as someone grabs a handful of their arse, and you just know that every boyfriend they’ve ever had has made them cry.

Not all girls are like this, of course. The brainier girls tend to go for stoners in beanie hats or posers whose personalities begin and end with their floppy hair. These tend to crash and burn just the same.

Even the exceptions still baffle me. One girl I used to work with was charming, delicate, pretty, built for laughter and just a joy to be around. Her boyfriend was a boring old fart, a 50-year old in a 19-year olds’ body. His only interests from what I could gather were beer, football, his car (he drives a yellow mini), and talking about beer, football and his car. She may as well have been dating her dad.

I’m the sucker, of course, being so deeply drawn to girls like this, I just can’t win. Although I’ve recently worked out, with a sinking feeling, that My Type is in fact the ice queen, the aloof, fragile types who look at me like I’ve no right to exist, on the rare occasion they don’t look through me altogether. My ex being a good case in point.

Damn, I guess this thread was about me. Sorry.


* I'm reduced to quoting Family Guy. I'm ashamed.