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Heather Gordon
Ride With Me |
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When I was just a young budding freshman, my roommate and I had a little phrase that we wrote on our loft (ah, the days of lofts) that summed up, in a way unsuitable for print, our general sentiment that men are jerks. Before I bring upon me the wrath of all the Y-chromosomed members of the University, please note that it is common for us all, males and females alike, to enter phases characterized by a deep and soul-pervading disenchantment with our respective dating pools.
Perhaps I did not feel that the whole crop of men were evil despots, but rather in a Murphy's Law sort of way, only those in whom I was interested. Thus, I would like to share with you some of my impressions of and experiences with the types of foul others the females of the campus might expect to encounter in search of their better half.
For you girls who think you like nice guys, you should first beware of what I title as the "Nouveau Cute" breed of boys. These are guys who are good people at heart, but are jaded by past experiences with women (namely, by being allotted to the "just a friend" position one time too many). One day in college, a boy gathers together a strikingly fine assortment of clothes off the floor and cleans the six inches of dust on the mirror just enough to have the stunning realization that after that last growth spurt, he has in fact become attractive, thus commencing nouveau cutehood. He then buys himself something other than concert T-shirts and gets a chic hairdo (perhaps something involving gel or an unassuming ponytail), and sets himself on the world of women.
He is pleased to find out that finally the babes are responding, yet he is too bitter to want them for anything other than revenge. Specifically, his interest is solely in maximizing the number of notches on his bedpost in the interest of making up for lost time. However, as sleazy as he wants to be, a nouveau cute boy still has the strong vestiges of his nice-guy former self, so he goes about attempting to seduce by earnest means all the pretty girls he never could have had before. Sort of a conflict of interest. He wants to bed them, but he finds himself asking them to dinner. It is a double dirty dog trick, since the ladies (or at least I) will fall for his nice guy routine before he flees in the interest of another skirt.
Next, the perilous "starving artist," genus Salvatoric Dalius. This brand typically appeals to girls who are working on their own uniqueness or simply just trying to disturb their parents, since a starving-artist boy possesses neither money nor comb nor matching clothes. His appeal lies in his dedicated devotion to his music/sculpture/dance/insert artsy-fartsy thing here, since it would only logically follow that he would be equally as passionate about the girl of his choice. So not only do the ladies get to worry their parents by dating someone with no apparent earning potential (before you get your panties all in a bunch, I am taking merely a typical concerned parent's point of view, here), but they also get to watch their honey create majestic things. Ah, but girls, I tell you that you are mistaken. The rub is that your artist usually reserves every last savory drop of his verve for his art, as he has made the difficult choice to follow such a serendipitous route, with not a drop to spare for you. So girls, ride the train somewhere else.
The third, and most rampant type is the ever-popular "player" - the guy who blatantly just wants to chase as much tail as he possibly can. Yet, there are subtle sub-varieties to this particular flavor of mate. For example, the recidivistic philanderer: the type that just adore women so thoroughly - all women. He cannot help but love each and every woman that passes in his sightline. He means so well, but his short attention span gets in the way.
Then we have the serial monogamists, who seriously date girls, but due to some horrible take-down in the past by some brazen, braces-bound bimbo in the eighth grade (from which they are still healing), can never truly commit. And of course, my favorite pedigree, the egoist - the player that loves himself so dearly that he uses women like disposable tissues; in it for the pleasure with no regard for them.
This is by no means an exhaustive catalogue of all the types of men one might encounter, but rather a sampling limited by my own experiences. Indeed, the table can quite viably be turned on women, but as I do not date them, I profess no knowledge of the evils we do. One cannot say that men are vermin, and even my loft in its heyday bore an asterisk exempting some in particular from our youthful generalization. But some of them certainly do have their tragic flaws. Yes, there are plenty of fish in the sea, you just have to watch out for the carp.
- Heather Gordon can be reached over e-mail at yutz@umich.edu