I uneasily venture into a realm that seems utterly foreign to me…….
An essay in Toronto Life by a 31-year-old named “Tony” who earns $130,000 a year, lives at home with his parents and proudly forgoes material possessions in order to spend his money on “wild, rare, unforgettable experiences”. His boasts about drinking fine wines and patronising “the rooftop restaurant featured in The Hangover Part II” are insufferable, but what makes it worse is the trite assumption that, by valuing experiences over “stuff”, he’s living a more meaningful existence. This has become “our era’s reigning banality”. It’s true, of course, that eating a meal with a loved one is “more spiritually uplifting than ordering shoes online”. But overweening pride in non-ownership grates when it comes from people who are cadging off others.
There’s “something subtly sexist” about modern celebrations of pared-back living, too. For men, it always seems to be about fulfilling dreams and not being “tied down”, whereas for women it always seems to be about achieving Zen-like calm by decluttering the home. Or as the writer Ruth Whippman recently put it, while men are conditioned to “see their happiness in terms of adventure and travel, sex and ideas and long nights of hilarity, women are now encouraged to find deep fulfilment in staying home to origami our pants”. (Phoebe Maltz Bovy, New Republic, published in The Week)
The men seem selfish to me, but maybe I am just out of date. I do perceive a somewhat general preoccupation with the self. Life seems to be all about “Me, Me, Me”. All too often one can get through an evening asking questions of the person next to you, and realising on the way home that he or she had asked not a single question about you and left not knowing a single thing about you, except possibly your first name. This modern style of social interraction was once explained thus: “I thought that if you had something to say about yourself you would interrupt me and tell me what it is”. Epicurus would be appalled. Certainly it is charmless. I personally would simply use an old Saxon word – rude. My father once told me, ” If you want to charm somebody, ask questions about them, their lives, their likes, their dislikes and their views on just about anything”. Good advice.
In my experience, part of the problem is that men feel the need to impress women. So they talk about themselves: anything from their academic achievements, successful career, wealth, physical prowess and sporting ability, whatever it may be. They don’t realise that most women don’t care too much about that sort of thing- it isn’t particularly important or interesting. For the most part, they want someone who is caring, understanding, loving and committed. The male misperception of female desires makes some of the most eligible bachelors far worse at relationships that their status would otherwise have you believe. In some cases, men are genuinely boring. But more often, they make themselves seem more boring than they really are, because they don’t know what women actually find interesting.
At least amongst young people, women are actually let down by their relatively high educational attainment, at least in the UK and the USA. In both countries, women are more likely to go to university than men- Oxford and Cambridge being the notable exceptions. In the UK, women started to outnumber men at university in the 1980s, and the gap has been growing ever since. Because it’s increasingly rare for people to date outside their social class, high-achieving women will find it more difficult to find a boyfriend in the future, unless the government does something drastic to reduce the gender disparity in education.
In my experience, part of the problem is that men feel the need to impress women. So they talk about themselves: anything from their academic achievements, successful career, wealth, physical prowess and sporting ability, whatever it may be. They don’t realise that most women don’t care too much about that sort of thing- it isn’t particularly important or interesting. For the most part, they want someone who is caring, understanding, loving and committed. The male misperception of female desires makes some of the most eligible bachelors far worse at relationships that their status would otherwise have you believe. In some cases, men are genuinely boring. But more often, they make themselves seem more boring than they really are, because they don’t know what women actually find interesting.
At least amongst young people, women are actually let down by their relatively high educational attainment, at least in the UK and the USA. In both countries, women are more likely to go to university than men- Oxford and Cambridge being the notable exceptions. In the UK, women started to outnumber men at university in the 1980s, and the gap has been growing ever since. Because it’s increasingly rare for people to date outside their social class, high-achieving women will find it more difficult to find a boyfriend in the future, unless the government does something drastic to reduce the gender disparity in education.
Answer from R hanrott. ( The Disqus system went wrong)
A very percipient post!, Thank you – I think you are absolutely right – women are not that interested in prowess etc. They are much more impressed if you show a genuine interest in the views, feelings etc. When I met my wife it seems I talked the hind leg off a donkey. At length she tackled me about it and reminded me that half an hour before I had been wittering on about gender equality! Thereafter I trained myself to have conversations, not monologues ( however good the stories were) . I am told I am better now. They can be good at training us, the opposite sex, if we let them!