Mr Right is no longer good enough for uptown girls

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 3/25/04 | Miranda Devine

[qam1]

It's little wonder many women are single when they expect Mr Absolutely Perfect, writes Miranda Devine.

If you ever suspected men haven't a chance in the dating game against today's picky uber-femme, here's some evidence, from last week's New York magazine relationships advice column, The Help Desk.

"I go on this great first date and we decide to share a cab home - separate stops. When we get in, he buckles his seatbelt! I know that's a wise thing to do, so I feel like a jerk saying this, but it totally turned me off. It just seemed so kid-like and lame. Is he too much of a weenie for me, or am I out of my mind?" wrote Unrestrained Lady,

Upper West Side.

To the uninitiated, Unrestrained Lady may seem like a neurotic aberration. But ditching men because they fail to measure up in some infinitesimal way has been a staple gag in real-life single girl chats for years. We all know Ascham women who won't go out with men who don't drive brand cars or didn't go to a "brand" school. Or the woman who instantly went off a man she had been crazy for because he turned up at her front door wearing a plaited belt. In the days before e-tags, another felt her stomach turn when her date fumbled with the bridge toll. These are usually not just excuses to jettison an unsatisfactory male, but genuine reasons for spontaneous revulsion.

On this week's episode of Sex and the City, Charlotte complains how "lame" her date that night had been because he gave her carnations, "filler flowers". Carrie, the series heroine, says she doesn't mind carnations but would dump a boyfriend "for wearing Topsiders or Docksiders" shoes. Carrie's horrified (soon-to-be-ex) boyfriend, Berger, listening to the exchange, says: "So basically guys are just f---ed."

Basically, yes.

As Bureau of Statistics figures show, Australians are more likely than ever to remain single, and we see the advent of the single-and-proud "quirky alone", the increasing numbers of young women who are questioning whether they need a man to be happy or if it's all too much trouble.

Recent revelations of alleged sexual assaults by sportsmen, as well as an apparent surge of perceived workplace sexual harassment, indicates something is going seriously wrong between the sexes. Perhaps the rational reaction for women has been to opt out of the dating game. Or maybe they have become so hypercritical the only men who can match their sensibilities are the gay men who remodel bachelors in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Yvonne Allen, who has run her dating agency for 30 years, says relationships have never been more complicated. "We now have so many options ... and increasingly demanding wishlists." She sees high-achieving women making judgements about prospective partners "on the most superficial basis", and sometimes has to tell them to "look in the mirror".

A 2002 survey for Diet Coke found more than half of single women aged between 18 and 39 had not been on a first date in six months. Almost one-third of those polled decided whether they wanted to see a man again within the first 10 minutes of a date, and many believed "all the good men are taken".

But the famous man shortage is a myth. According to Bernard Salt, KPMG demographer and author of The Big Shift, there is actually a glut of never-married single men aged 25 to 34 in Australia: 727,000, compared with just 568,000 women. That's a ratio of 1.3 to 1.

"There is enough product on the shelves," Salt said yesterday. "It's just that many are not meeting quality control standards."

Women are still captive to what Salt calls "hypergamy" - the practice of marrying into an equal, or preferably more prestigious, social group.

In 1971 women used to get married at 21. The average age of today's bride is 29, and yet women still expect to marry a man two years older.

Female hypergamy, or pernicketiness, means the proportion of never-married women aged 25 to 34 doubled to 40 per cent in five years from 1986 to 1991. In Sydney, 41 per cent of women 25 to 34 have never married, exactly the same proportion as exists in New York. But in South Sydney, the heartland of the Manolo Blahnik lifestyle, the figure is a staggering 69 per cent, almost the same as Greenwich Village's 70 per cent.

Sydney's bachelor hotspot, Salt found after crunching census data, is Pyrmont, with 1.8 never-married men for every woman. The equivalent suburb for single females is Rozelle, so Salt has dubbed the Anzac Bridge which connects the suburbs as the "Bridge of Love".

Fussiness isn't all bad, of course. It can make for better choices. Salt says we should feel sorry for the 21-year-old baby-boomer bride of 1971 who married the first man she met after school. He calls them "the duped generation", the youngest brides in Australia's history, sold the line they would be "on the shelf" at 22.

Today's bride has had at least a decade of comparison shopping to develop a discerning taste in men. But, increasingly, men just don't measure up. Salt says when women "raise the bar" men morph into the new creature required by the market. In the early 1990s they became SNAGs (sensitive new age guys) in response to complaints they weren't considerate enough.

But the SNAG was a turn-off because he was a wimp. So, says Salt, men rebadged as metrosexuals, a narcissistic, arrogant version who says, "Up yours, I'm important", which isn't exactly a recipe for harmony between the sexes.

Allen says the good news is that today's teenagers are more inclined to view the opposite sex as friends rather than alien creatures. But Salt's ruthless demographics suggest women are going to become more picky than ever, as generation Y's baby bust leads to a shortage of eligible women. He says every 100 men born in 1981 will have to compete for just 80 women. "Young women can afford to be a little arrogant about the market."

So buckle up those seatbelts, boys. Or maybe not.

[Erasmus]

Of course, fully half of them are airheads looking for their chance to monicate some important politician, while working in menial jobs for insignificant pay.

If yer gonna give a politician a bj, I guess it's an advantage to be an airhead.

+<]B^)

[NYC GOP Chick]

Love the women, don't love the baggage some bring with them (former drug addiction, sudden divorce, 10+ years of promiscuity...).

And I feel the same way about men! :)

[TheBigB]

Dated another who was an exotic dancer that slept with her pet snake.

Disgusting!

Do you still have her phone number?

[jimbo123]

Actually, I'm married to a great one. Not a Sex and the City type so she's treated like a queen. She hates the show and the message it sends to women.

[Jaded]

This is so depressing. I think I'll go back to my cave. Most men that I've met prefer T-B-S.

Thin
Blonde
Stupid

Most are not interested in having an intelligent conversation about anything beyond the current sports score.

[Erasmus]

"Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" merely scratched the surface..

In my--rueful--experience, it's "Men are from Earth, Women are from Mars."

I have a friend who's writing a book, little by little. Its working title is, "Is That a Real Rolex?"

[HitmanLV]

Ah, come on! Most of the women I know out-and-out resent my bias strongly in favor of youth when it comes to a female companion! You can't blame me for wanting a relatively baggageless young lady in my life, can you? ;-)

[NYC GOP Chick]

Uh huh. OK...

[jimbo123]

Thin = Diet and Exercise
Blonde = Preference By L'Oreal
Stupid = Fake It and Play Dumb (see Jessica Simpson)

I think Dr. Laura has a book on the Care and Feeding of husbands. Check it out.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Ah, come on! Most of the women I know out-and-out resent my bias strongly in favor of youth when it comes to a female companion! You can't blame me for wanting a relatively baggageless young lady in my life, can you? ;-)

As a 38-year-old woman (who is often assumed to be in my late 20s to 30ish) who has read enough of your misogynistic diatribes (on various threads), I can't tell you just relieved I am to be far out of your range.

I like men, I don't blame the whole male population for the flaws of a few and I laugh at (and sometimes commiserate with) most of the rants that guys post here -- but you are one of the few people who just push my buttons the wrong way.

And just what do YOU have to offer these "baggageless young ladies"?

[Dan from Michigan]

Stupid
I CAN'T STAND stupid.

anything beyond the current sports score.

You forgot the draft, recruiting, trades, and the next game. :)

[weegee]

I find some of the women who aren't saddled with a background that I'd rather not know but some of them are PC liberals (even if they aren't in your face about it).

I never talk politics with them but I believe that if I let my own politics loose (even something as simple as saying that I'm voting for George W. Bush), I'd be forever looked down on. I certainly know some men who would ostracize me altogether if they knew I was a Republican.

I never misrepresent my politics, I think I just seem apolitical to them.

2 people can be of different political stripes or religious traditions and still marry but on Sunday you have to still decide which church to go to (or even which church to be married in). Then come the kids and how you bring them up. Add politics into that mix and the liberal elements of the culture war can bring up all sorts of arguments. Some of the culture war is a difference of values. I think that a couple should share some values.

[weegee]

Dated another who was an exotic dancer that slept with her pet snake.

Are you sure that was a snake in the bed? Did you ever get a good look at her in decent lighting???

[hosepipe]

[ In my--rueful--experience, it's "Men are from Earth, Women are from Mars." ]

My book,
"Men are from Groin'ia, Women are from Coin'ia".
Would publish it too, but have no coin to do it.

[weegee]

Its working title is, "Is That a Real Rolex?"

The correct response to that question is "Does it matter?"

The Harold Ramis advice is to say "Why yes it is!". If someone has to ask then they probably don't know enough to be able to tell the difference.

[Jaded]

Ha.

Atkins is my friend.
I've NEVER desired to be blonde. Ever.
Playing stupid would kill me. Literally.

I know this guy who is 48. Never married, works hard, kind, funny, Christian, pro-gun, conservative. He has this unrealistic set of qualifications for Ms. Miss Right. Must be 10 years younger than him, never married, no kids, blah, blah, blah. His friends set him up with stupid women. They bore him. Anything else sends him scurrying back to his self-imposed exile so he can whine about how women only want his money. He is afraid, very afraid. Shallow/greedy women he has had have made him bitter and ruined him for those of us who can read, vote correctly and check our own oil.

Just damn.

[HitmanLV]

Relax, GOP Chick - I don't rant about women and I am not a woman hater. I don't know what diatribes you are talking about. I have strong positions on the matter, most of which tend to be rooted in my strong bias for youth ful women in their mid 20s.

Older single or divorced women, on balance tend to have baggage and issues that I'd simply rather not deal with. Sticking with younger, fresh faced, and most importantly fresh outlooked women is a wiser course of action.

I recommend the same to women - avoid bitter men, avoid men with baggage - it's not worth dealing with.

I know a lot of men are negative and I do my best to discourage that. A man will never find a good woman if they are negative. But I'm not negative, I am quite positive, in fact.

That being said, a lot of women who I know who turned the corner on 30 and who are alone and getting bitter. They are not fresh faced and they don't have fresh outlooks.

As for me, I am 36, I don't smoke, don't drink, I am handsome, masculine, conservative, a practicing Roman Catholic, loyal, honest, sincere, thoughtful, trustworthy, humble, and more. I have my own sucessful business and money isn't a problem. I am inteligent, with a graduate law degree, and I have pretty good street smarts too. I quickly became a leader in my chosen industry.

My 30ish plus single lady friends tend to have a problem with my mid-20s lady companions. My lady companions don't have a problem with them. What's up with that?

My 30ish plus single lady friends never had a romantic interest in me in the first place. So why the disdain, huiffing and puffing, and badmouthing that has gotten back to me? What, I am not 'supposed' to date attractive young women? What's up with that?

My 30ish plus single lady friends have no men in their lives and worse, few prospects. What's up with that?

So this isn't misoginy as you like to think. I come nowhere close to blaming all women and I agree that is a terrible mindset for any man to have. That being said, I like to avoid the negativity that I see in quite a few women. Playing the oldies lowers the chances of dealing with that protracted baggage and residual negativity.

So my bias in favor of youth is not rooted in misoginy (if I was misoginistic, I would be down on all women, and clearly I am not).

[Mr. Jeeves]

This is so depressing. I think I'll go back to my cave. Most men that I've met prefer T-B-S.

Thin
Blonde
Stupid

Actually, the instant attraction is to:

Thin
Blonde
Sweet

But, thanks to feminism, women have come to equate being sweet to men with being stupid, as if doing so is going to result in those women being taken advantage of (when 99 times out of 100, the exact opposite is true...)

[NYC GOP Chick]

Actually, since the mid-90s, I've made it a requirement that I don't get involved with anyone who isn't at least somewhat conservative. If a guy voted for Bill Clinton and doesn't regret it and/or voted for Hillary and/or Algore, then I have nothing in common with him, in terms of values, etc. I find that after getting that out of the way, the rest tends to fall into place. :)

[jimbo123]

1. You can always change your hair color back after you find Mr. Right.

2. Playing dumb isn't such a bad thing as you make it out to be. You just have to do it in a manner to flatter the guy's ego. It's a fine line, but most men do not want to be with a woman that overtly tries to show that she's equal or smarter than him. Men hate these power games. So you have to role play a bit. You stroke a man's ego the right way and he'll be eating out of your hand. If it means checking your ego at the door, do it. The smartest women have been doing it for years.