Where Are All the Decent Men?

Valentine’s Day got me thinking about men, natch. Despite being single for the majority of my life, I’m never bitter or angry on Valentine’s Day. I enjoy the celebration of love, though I would really love to get chocolates from someone besides my mother.

Being single never really bothered me until recently. I was busy doing other things: traveling Europe, getting my master’s degree, working my ass off in New York City. My focus was on other areas of my life.

“It’ll happen. You’ll find the person when the time is right,” my friends told me.

When exactly is this elusive time? Is there a special ‘relationship clock’ I forgot to purchase at Target? I’ve been waiting for an awfully long time—25 years to be exact—and I’m starting to get impatient. Of course I’ve had short flings and complicated enigmas, but never a serious, deeply-in-love, long-term relationship. After analyzing and dissecting this fact for years, my other single friends and I have reached a conclusion: men today suck.

Where are the Ryan Goslings of the world? Obviously this perfect specimen is the ideal man—a fantasy for the average woman. He rescues dogs, stops fights, has impeccable style, and a body that won’t quit. Hey girl, I could gush about him for days. Truthfully, I don’t need baby blue eyes, six-pack abs, and tousled blond hair. I just need respect.

Men nowadays have little respect for women. Chivalry is like a payphone. It’s a former popular mechanism no longer required but you’ll still see it once in a great while. Nowhere is this truer than in New York City. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw a young man offer his seat to a (pregnant, elderly, tired) woman on the subway. Hell, I was usually the one offering my seat. Heaven forbid a woman stepped onto the subway car first.  Men would cut in front of me in store lines, rarely offer to pick up the bill, and stare at me like a piece of meat walking down the street. One time a man refused to move over on the sidewalk and straight up shoulder checked me so hard I bounced off him and into an elderly lady with a walker. I apologized profusely to her. The asshole never stopped walking. I’ll admit New York men are a different breed. They’re an extreme on the spectrum.

But even beyond the NYC bubble men are disrespectful, rude, and ruthless. Women are treated like disposables. If you don’t give it up right away, they’ll move on and get it from the next one. I blame a combination of today’s culture, bad parenting, and female self-awareness. How can we expect men to respect us if we don’t respect ourselves? Men barely have to get off the couch to get a girl because we’re all so desperate not to be alone. Maybe I belong in a different era with my old school values. Does Downton Abbey have room for one more?

“You’re just picky,” a friend said to me. Why? Because I don’t settle? Because I want a man who can form coherent sentences? Because I’m an independent, driven woman who knows what she wants?  If that’s the case then I’m guilty as charged.