Guess What! Men Won't Like You If You're An Insufferable Bitch

Guess What! Men Won't Like You If You're An Insufferable Bitch
Some girl named Tanya Gold wrote a nasty essay in The Guardian about her experience with speed-dating. In between loving on herself for her clever little bits of man-hating prose, she complains, "Men want us lobotomized."

I disagree.

Okay, some men, even many men, don't want ultra-brainy girls, or women with big jobs. Okay, so if you're an ultra-brainy girl or a woman with a big job...don't date those guys!

I'm reminded of my lone visit to a shrink when I was in my 30's and having little luck finding a guy I wanted to go on more than one date with. The shrink said, best as I can recall, "You have high standards, you understand and accept the consequences of those high standards, this is healthy, I have nothing else I can say to you, don't come back."

What Tanya is missing entirely is what men don't want more than anything: a woman who's a stuck-up, uptight, humorless, workaholic, pretentious, no-fun fight-picker, as Tanya must've come off during her speed-dating sessions.

Here's her account of what went down:

I decided to attend a speed-dating night as a fabulously successful, dazzlingly literate human rights lawyer, and then another as a gibbering idiot who works as a florist. Who would the men fall for?

As a lawyer, I walked into a Soho bar. My first date appeared. I smiled at him, and said: "I am a human rights lawyer (grin)." "I work 60 hours a week (grin)." And watched him shrivel up. "I'm an engineer," he said (no grin). And then he was silent, so I told him I was reading Heidegger. He stared at me as if I had told him that I boil men's heads.

Then came Eric, and I invented a PhD in economics from Cambridge. "It was incredibly rewarding. Are you interested in economics, Eric?" He wasn't; he slunk off, and was replaced by Tony. I told him I have two cats and he looked hopeful. "What are they called?" "Roe and Wade, after the United States supreme court case that resulted in the legalisation of abortion." No smile after that, just a chair where a man had been.

I fought about the Arab-Israeli conflict with No 11, and about shoes with No 13. "My shoes are leather," he said, "but they have holes in them." "Don't buy leather shoes," I replied, refusing to pout, while he looked at me as if I'd shot him. And this, from No 18: "You really scare me." Word had spread about the monster on Table 17 - my final date didn't show.

The florist, who I modelled on Melinda Messenger (image via Amy) spliced with a teasmaid, went to a "lock and key" party. Alan approached. "Hello," he smiled. "I'm confused by the game," I told him. "Please explain it." And he did. Happily. "What do you do," I asked (giggle). "I am a geneticist," he said. "What is that," I asked (giggle). He told me, and I looked impressed and uncomprehending. I raised my voice an octave, until it was a squeak. I stared at the floor, twisted my hands, and gibbered at him. "I cut the thorns off roses," I said. "I tie bows. I sweep floors." He replied: "I'll email you." I bagged one with my florist net! Then came Robert. "I'm a florist," I smiled. The reaction was instantaneous, passionate and almost molecular: "Can I buy you a drink?"

Then came Harry. "Let's not talk about me," I said. Bang - he asked me out. Just like that. On the spot.

I never knew it could be like this. Tom suggested we sit down. "Where do you want to sit," I asked. "In a chair? Is that a chair (giggle)?" By the end of our conversation I was opening my own florist's. And he was in love. I went on and on, loving the strange, new attention, saying the sort of things a fish would say if it could talk: "Why is water wet?"

I could have been engaged by 11.17pm. But instead I went home and sifted through the evidence. Only one in 20 of the men I met on the Soho love coalface wanted to date a woman who had heard of Proust (19 of out 20 cats don't prefer it). Yet eight out of the florist's 12 men wanted to be gibbered at again and again and again.

My secret? I'm smart and I giggle. And I truly like, appreciate, and understand men.

And, again, I've always known and accepted that there aren't a whole lot of guys in the world for me (namely because I'm smart [meaning I read stuff like this book I just ordered], weird, don't want kids, don't believe in marriage, don't believe in living together, don't celebrate holidays, and don't believe in The Great Pumpkin). I certainly don't blame men for not being comfortable with all that -- nor would I even conceive of saying something like this, one of Tanya's statements at the end of her piece:

After 40 years of feminism we shouldn't really burn our bras. We should burn our men.

First of all, women didn't burn their bras, Miss Genius Pants. And, I'm somebody who makes light of a hell of a lot, starting with herself, but I don't understand how a statement like "We should burn our men" trips blithely through your thoughts, number one, and number two (hello, editors?), makes it into the paper? Sick, sick shit.

Tanya, when you read of men in the Middle East burning -- or stoning or knifing -- their women in "honor killings," do you shrug it off as no biggie? If a man printed in The Guardian, "Let's burn our women," or, better yet, "Let's burn Tanya for saying 'Let's burn our men,'" would you laugh it off? Yet, mere disinterest on the part of men (after you scowled at them, acted all superior, and made basically every effort to chase them away) makes you advocate violence against them? And you are advocating it, even if you pretend it's a joke.

And, as for a bit of speculation on my part as to why Tanya's so bitter and manhating in general, and probably the real reason she got pitched by some or most of these guys -- here's a photo of her dwarfing Joan Rivers from May of 2007. And, here's another showing that she's not only overweight, but dresses about as sexy as Miss Hathaway. And then, there's the troweled-on makeup in both of these shots...always a winner with the boys.

Women don't want to believe it -- and I get fired from papers every time I say it -- but men, by and large, except for a few chubby chasers, don't want fat girls. But, guys understand fat girl psychology enough to know that fat girls tend to be "easy." They have to be. And I'm not hating on "easy" -- I've always been "easy," and I'm a skinny girl.

I'm guessing those guys who wanted the giggly girl either thought that the fact that she seemed nice made up for the fact that she was a ditz (I'm taking it on faith that what she said is true)...or, they realized fat girls are fuckable girls, and thought, maybe without thinking it in so many words, that they'd go for it, what the hay, and lose her number when it came time for a second date.

If you're a fat girl, go on a diet, or accept that you probably have diminished your choices. If you're bitch, get over it. If you aren't compatible with every man in the world, accept it.

Tanya, men don't owe you a thing, but you owe them an apology for assuming male psychology and male sexuality should bend around the size of your thighs and the enormity of your ego, and for the notion that men are somehow in the wrong -- and even worthy of incinerating -- for not complying.