Two
Weeks of Thinking and Not Doing
It is always the case when you are on an
extended man hiatus that you will begin to notice the amount of attractive men
on your regular transit route. There is
one particular gentlemen, let us call him, Mr. Bus, who I have been noticing as
of late. Mr. Bus has two positive
qualities going for him already, besides his dashing looks of course; one he
lives in my neighborhood so the commute if we were to ever have a date would be
short and sweet. Two, Mr. Bus has a job, or at least that is what his morning
commute would suggest at 6 am Monday to Friday.
Mr. Bus gets off on the same stop and fuels up at the same coffee shop
as well, leaving a fairly large window of opportunity for conversation. While contemplating said options on my
commute yesterday Mr. Bus made an epic move that changed my entire opinion of
him. Two elderly women boarded the bus
with Mr. Bus, I stood up to give one of the women my seat and low and behold
Mr. Bus took a seat and only one of the elderly women could sit. This small action really bothered me, is
chivalry really dead? But not to be hasty in writing off a man’s demeanor in
one small action I decided to observe if this behaviour persisted. Of course today on the bus it did, what kind
of man enjoys a comfortable seat on a long commute as a petite elderly woman
hangs on for dear life? Not the type of man that I would be interested in. The realization that if it were not for my
hiatus I would have asked Mr. Bus for coffee last week, but thankfully due to
my absence I dodge his inconsiderate bullet.
The longer I abstain from men, the sharper my ideals of what makes a
real man become. While discussing these
ideals with Ms. A she laughed and said “Well you have to have standards”
Standards, something women and men have a lot of due to supply and demand.[ii]
Therefore these two weeks I have really had
time to contemplate my standards for men and have decided to share them with
you.
1) Employment:
Lord I wish this has always been a standard of mine, but love is blind. There was a period of life where I dated men
who had graduated with their grade 9 diplomas and were working the fast paced
job of the bingo hall, but that was last week...kidding, that was high school,
and while there have been some moments in time where I have thought “So he is
between jobs, that doesn’t mean he will never get one” There is no sense in
wishful thinking that a man will change.
Now some of you may be thinking ‘gold digger’ while a man who is
financially secure does, of course, have the allure of a gold card the more
alluring quality about this man is that well he is exactly that; a MAN. He has learned to wake up in the morning, put
his big boy pants on and go to work like the rest of us. There is nothing more attractive than a
driven man who has a successful career.
Also, given that I am one of the successful working class it is
essential to find a partner in life who is one same level as you. Modern Darwinism follows that women will time
and time again choose a man with a successful career over the opposite despite
looks.[iii] Over time money has become our evolutionary
system, a system in which we absolutely depend on currency to survive, thus women
look for partners that will enable their survival.
2) Shelter:
Directly before my man hiatus I had a tryst with a man who physically could
have passed for thirty easily, but, was alarming younger 21, he had a very nice
place and had a few of us over after a night out, but in the morning to
discover he still lived with his parents was a joke. At the age of 21 I was half way through my
first university degree and had been living on my own for 3 years. This trend of staying in the nest never to
spread one’s juvenile wings may be attributed to the ever increasing Peter Pan
demographic. “What is happening here is that a very new
social phenomenon – and a troubling social phenomenon at that – is being
written off as a simple byproduct of economic downturn. In reality, the reason
many young adults stay at home, having their shirts ironed and their dinners
cooked, is because they live in a culture that doesn't encourage, far less
celebrate, independence and personal responsibility.”[iv] At the ripe old age of 30 as a woman who
lives on my own finding a partner who has as the article directly states enough
‘personal resposibility’ to live on one’s own is a must.
3) Communication: There is nothing more frustrating than texting “Do you
want to meet up tonight?” and receiving this text back “K” Hello minimal effort
and no enthusiasm. There is a simple
answer if you are not interested. There
is nothing more aggravating than attempting to communicate with a man the
majority of time. There are some
theories as to why women and men have struggled in this realm, women when
aggravated speak faster and interrupt their partners which is over whelming to
men who are not as agile in the communication realm according to one theory[v],
or “Most men have a hard time communicating anything that
remotely resembles an emotion. Why? Because emotions are scary to men, who
think much more than they feel, and much of the time, many men don't even know
what or how they are feeling.” [vi] But I think my favorite theory yet over the
communication barrier is the following: “There are some other interesting facts
that can enlighten us as to why it seems that "men don't talk," for
example women have twice as many words as men. Women speak at 250 words per
minute and men speak at 125, and according to Gary Smalley, author of
"Making Love Last Forever" in the course of a day women speak 25,000
words compared to a man who only uses 12,000. It seems that by the end of the
day men are talked out and women still have a day's worth of conversation in
them. So one of the reasons men don't feel comfortable talking is because most
women can out talk them.”[vii] Regardless of the never ending reasons for
men, I have met some incredible communicative men in my life and therefore keep
this as standard.
While attempting to take a break from the
opposite sex has actually made me consider them more deeply than ever
before. I have been spending more time
reading and obviously writing than before as well, I have also began running
and joined a gym. Basically two weeks in
and by the end of this hiatus I should be a physically fit individual with a
very specific set of standards.
[i] Stomp.com.sg
[ii] “Relationship
Rules” Hara Estoff Merano, Psychology Today Oct 1st 2004
[iii]
“How Women choose the Men They Date” Matthew Fitzgerald Ask Men (http://ca.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_100/105_dating_advice.html)
[iv] “These
Sad Peter Pans live with their parents because they want to, not because they
can not afford to move out” Brendan O’Neill The
Telegraph May 31st 2012
[v] “6 Ways Men and Women Communicate
Differently” Richard Drobnick World of
Psychology April 1st 2012
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] “Men
and Women’s Communication is Different Sometimes” Communication Currents Vol 6, Issue 1, February 2011
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