Ryan ChartrandThe way men show women feelings has always changed. Different ages and different decades bring about different ways of dating and showing affection. But lately it seems as though my generation, especially that of guys, has lost the ability to commit to an actual relationship.
The opposite sex starts out having cooties, and if a girl ever played with a boy or vice versa, it was simply a friendship, or possibly a fight and they were trying to show each other up on the playground.
These cooties turned into hair-pulling and chasing girls around the asphalt in order for boys to show their feelings. They would tease us and make us feel horrible, but we would take it, because it made us want them. Classic bad-boy syndrome, I suppose.
As everyone started getting older, going through junior high and getting into high school, these immature forms of attention started to fade, being replaced by more subtle hints of affection.
But many couldn’t bear to show their feelings, and it was incredibly common for two people to have crushes on one another and never find out until years down the line.
However, when two people did start dating there were rules. Not the same kind of strict rules that our parents had to endure, but guys were expected to treat us a certain way. Opening at least one door, paying, and at the end of the night it was a first kiss that was expected, if anything, but nothing more. Holding hands was still a gesture to first show you really like someone.
I graduated high school in 2003, and I’ll be graduating from college at the end of 2007, and it’s this generation of dating, ranging about three years older as well, that seems to have lost something, or to have completely vanished.
It’s almost as if guys don’t even bother trying to court us anymore. They meet, pretend to want to get to know you and become great friends, and since this generation of girls is also more promiscuous, we give into to them before we should, and soon after they vanish.
This doesn’t apply to all guys, of course; I couldn’t make a general statement like that. Who knows? Perhaps it’s my bad judgment and luck that causes me to get into these situations and no one else experiences any of it.
I highly doubt that’s true, though.
This does, however, apply to basically all the guys I’ve met since being away at college, and to all the guys out there I haven’t met who know they’re this way.
I’ve gone through my periods of not wanting a boyfriend, refusing to commit to someone because I was having way too much fun being free. I’ve probably ruined chances with a couple of different people because of this attitude, and so I understand when guys are completely against getting into a relationship.
But there’s something the average man has to understand about girls: we take the sweet things you say and the little gestures and the promises to mean something. When you act like you like us, we’re going to believe you and we’re going to think that it may lead to something more.
The biggest problem with this generation is how loud it is without saying anything. People spend so much time coming up with lies to tell each other that there’s no room for saying what someone actually feels. My two biggest crushes over the last two years have been told how I felt about them, and I’m still on good terms with both.
But hardly anyone can just say if they like someone or not. Those who don’t actually like someone seem to show more feelings than those who do. Did that not make sense? Welcome to my point.
Here’s a word of advice to guys out there: Don’t act like you like someone, don’t make false promises, and don’t put ideas of romance in a girl’s head. If you do, then they’ll expect something. We don’t need those false promises; all we need is a good time. If you don’t want to be with us monogamously and forever, then don’t, but don’t pretend otherwise.
Where did all the sweet guys go? Those adorable male heroes in the movies that fall in love with the girl and will do anything to get her? Now every time a guy gets the girl he just screws it up because the quest was conquered. Who cares after that, right?
I’m not sure what’s responsible for this change. Maybe it’s because girls have been changing too. Some girls have slacked on their standards of what they want out of their men, and maybe that’s made guys think they can get away with more.
I think things like MySpace have something to do with this new change. When I first joined MySpace about a year-and-a-half ago, it was a place to party. You could go on there looking for old friends from high school, people from your current college classes, or new people in the area to have fun with.
The Web site was more of a social gathering and a place for friends, but now it seems like a place to simply find hook-ups. While the sweet male figure and the idea of relationships seem to be fading out, this new idea of “friends with benefits” and casual hook-ups has been booming.
This isn’t even a horrible thing, the idea of casual sex, but when it destroys the idea of ever finding a decent guy to settle down with and commit to, it becomes a problem.
So is it true that the men of my generation won’t commit? It’s hard to tell without actually polling every guy my age, but those that I’ve run into just keep reminding me of how things have changed. I feel like I can never get that courtship back again.
Today’s generation skips steps, the dates seem to come after the first night together, just to make the point of affection, and then soon it all stops. The guy you meet at first isn’t actually the guy you think he is.
To quote “He Wasn’t” by Avril Lavigne, “He wasn’t what I wanted, what I thought, no. He wouldn’t even open up the door. He never made me feel like I was special. He isn’t really what I’m looking for.”