Friday, February 09, 2007

Men who've wised up

Some good comments from men can be found here.

Amongst them:

Leo Enticknap writes:

My take is that three decades of feminism have encouraged women to regard themselves as financially independent from and morally superior to men: the result is that they feel threatened by men who do not exhibit an immediately apprarent vulnerability or personality flaw.

As a single, middle-income professional man in my mid-30s (a university lecturer), this study suggests that women ought to be queuing up to marry me. My experience, however, is the opposite. I'm also struck by the fact that most of my female friends like to spend time talking about their partners' failings: the rugby-playing slob who leaves the flat in a mess, the husband who can't find a job, the partner who won't do his share of the household tasks, the other half who is overweight and drinks too much and the man who sleeps in until midday and will never collect the kids from school. They never, ever want to talk about their other halves doing anything good or being a positive influence on their relationship or family.

I think, therefore, that educated, financially independent women feel threatened by the prospect of a partner who is also well educated, earns a decent salary, gets up at 5am and works 12-hour days, doesn't smoke and drinks in moderation, is fluent in three languages, doesn't like sport, doesn't have masses of credit card debts and irons his own shirts. They don't like the idea of partners they find it difficult to look down on, treat with condescention and feel superior to, in my opinion.

And then a woman actually agrees with him!:

I think that Leo Enticknap makes an excellent point. As an educated financially independent woman in my mid twenties I find that I am repeatedly attracted to men who have fairly obvious flaws and who look upon me as being more intelligent, more ambitious and more attractive than they are. I think I would be intimidated by a man who I could look up to and would be reluctant to take advice or guidance from a man.

I think there is also the idea that if a man is Mr Perfect he will not be interested in a long term relationship as he has the option of waiting until he has passed his peak to settle down and in the meantime can enjoy the 'company' of as many women as he chooses. (Darren comments: You've just contradicted yourself there, dear. Successful men aren't popular as boyfriends because they can have as many women as they want?!)

I also agree that women never sing the praises of their other half. This is partly due to the fact that no-one wants to hear about how great someone else's partner is as it just comes across as smug and it goes without saying that aside from the flaws the partner in question must in some way enhance the woman's life, otherwise she's putting herself down as much as him in the fact that she chooses to be with him!

Then another man says:

Well said Leo

I am also a 30 something, well educated, financially sound, straight male who happens to have a well paid job, own my own home, speak 2 foreign languages and neither smoke nor take drugs, and I don't think I'm too ugly.

However, a girlfriend? Walking on water would be easier. Modern women do seem to gravitate naturally to the boorish, ill-mannered, ill spoken, non-too polite individuals. I don't know why this is but it always makes me raise my eye brows when they moan about the lack of decent men available!

Funny, because if I were to say there are no decent women anywhere, I would probably be torn limb from limb!

and another comments:

In my experience though, what a woman says and what a woman does can be entirely different. Many's the time I have listened to single female friends complaining that they just want a nice normal guy with good manners and then the next I hear they've hooked up with the stereotypical ill-mannered, cheating and uncaring type. And yes, it does normally end in tears.

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