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”What about that guy, he’s not too shabby.” I lifted my head slightly from my meal and met my friend with another one of my steely gazes. Truth is he wasn’t. He was a good looking guy, but I also was not attracted to him.
My male friends think I’m “picky,” which is really just a microagression cloaked in concern and projections on the trajectory of my love life. But having been single for a bit now, I fall into this ever so common category of the “single friend” you have to schedule outings with because the truth is a good number of friends are busy being married, parents or just “cupcaking.” This has also turned me into a pet project for matchmaking and rendered my outings with friends into some kind of “boyfriend roulette” — a strange Olympic sport to have me coupled.
Basically, I always get the “what about him” question whenever I’m out.
On one such outings, my friend begins to list the number of men who have approached me that I’ve turned down, stating that I could be in a relationship by now, but I won’t “humble” myself. He’s not entirely wrong, except for the part about being humble. He keeps bringing up this one fellow in particular who would get on bended knee if I sneezed in his direction. He’s a relatively sweet guy. Decent, and will secretly pay for my drinks and meal if we happen to be in the same place, but we have nothing in common and I’m not attracted to him. I engage my friend, this time, and ask why I should give these men a chance when I’m not physically or mentally (after conversation) attracted to them. His rhetoric is that women are not as visual as men and that I should get to know the guy before deciding he’s not the one. “Looks aren’t everything you know, and don’t you want a nice guy at the end of it all?” Fair enough, except…women are just as visual and cerebral as men, if not more.
I’m not entirely sure where the lie started, but it’s just not true. “Men are visual” is a line that is often thrown around to mask the sheer lack of control some men exhibit in the face of physically attractive women. A notion purported by patriarchy to suppress female sexual appetite. Because you know, we’re just here to be chosen, for cuddles, to be receptacles and bring forth life.
Just like it’s open season during sundress weather, I’m on crotch watch whenever I see a man in grey sweatpants and will unabashedly do an exorcist style head turn for a full connecting beard and broad shoulders. Oh, you like books, comics and films too? Let’s have a baby! I don’t know how else to live. Sue me.
I’m human and like nice things. I like a good looking man, same as the next person. You could be as jolly as old Saint Nick but if I’m not attracted to you physically and mentally, in some way, there’s no amount of suppression I can feign to focus on you being a nice guy who’s into me. Sorry.
To that end, I often wonder and asked my friend: Do men get these sorts of questions? Is there a forced persuasion that a man looks past physical attraction and date a woman he really isn’t physically attracted to? Why then is that the expectation of women? To suppress the sheer physicality of noticing someone from across the room in order to be coupled because “he’s nice.” I dare any man to boldly declare that he approached his lady off the strength of her good nature from across a room and state that he was not in some way physically attracted to her as a base starting point.
This is not to say that I will or have shunned men who are not conventionally attractive. I just don’t believe that is something women should forgo in search of a partner. Let’s not downplay sexual attraction with women and dating. We’re just as visual and if you don’t think he’s cute, don’t do the pity thing and try to see if things work. It never works. Been there, worn the t-shirt. As nice as he may be, when the funny stops and the cuddles wane, I still want to be attracted to you. Maybe I’m not as evolved, I just don’t believe in settling or struggle love. As my Nigerians say, I cannot come and kill myself.
Have you ever dated someone even when you weren’t attracted to them? How did that turn out?
