The sadly obligatory "modern dating scene" post

“What happened to all the nice guys?” His answer: “You did. You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy.” Women, he says, are actually not attracted to men who hold doors for them, give them hinted-for Christmas gifts, or listen to their sorrows. Such a man, our Recovering Nice Guy continues, probably “came to realize that, if he wanted a woman like you, he’d have to act more like the boyfriend that you had. He probably cleaned up his look, started making some money, and generally acted like more of an asshole than he ever wanted to be.”

And KT has a good read on the continued emasculation of the gruffer sex, here.

A couple years back, we were at a birthday dinner party at a nice restaurant in Point Loma with Mongo and six or seven women when the subject of “man dates” came up. Us: “Mandates…? Bad news. The government needs to get out of the business of establishing qualitative quotas that run counter to the efficiency of the market and which further may inhibit competition…” Blank stares all around.

“No, moron – ‘man dates’”

“Huh?” An apparent cultural phenomena has swept past us unnoticed.

“Yeah, the latest thing is for guys to take a break from their hectic schedule to get together at a nice restaurant and catch up with each other.”

“Catch up on what?”

“You’re hopeless.”

“Listen, if we’re going to plunk down coin at a nice restaurant in order to ‘catch up’, it’s damn sure going to be with someone better looking than Mongo.”

But to assuage any doubters out there that your humble bloggers aren’t hip to late-breaking social trends, we dug out a picture laying out the scene of what may have qualified as our latest ‘man date’ at P.B. Bar and Grill on a college football Saturday earlier this month.



And more to the point, though, of the linked article that goes on about muddled gender identities and thus muddled gender dating roles and expectations, we wish to assure everyone, we aren’t confused, we’re just inept.