Saturday, April 18, 2009

Why Men Don't Call Me Back

I've had the experience of men not calling me back after it seemed like they were interested in me. I've had many friends who have shared this same experience and we ponder over why these males fail to return our phone calls. Thus when I saw a link to an article about why men don't call women back, I'd thought I would read it and see if it had anything insightful to say. The article was written by a "dating coach," Rachel Greenwald and according to the article, the number one reason why men don't call women back is something the author labeled as, "The Boss Lady." She described men as seeing women as, "Terrific -- smart and successful -- but he decides he'd rather hire her than date her. In such a situation, women typically guess that men are intimidated by their success or strong personality. But men said they get enough aggression at work all day, and when they come home they want to be with someone softer, more nurturing. They do want someone intelligent with an interesting career, but they prefer a warm demeanor." What Greenwald is saying is that we need to tone down what we think of as our, "success or strong personality," and get, "a warm demeanor." This sounded a lot like essays I read for my "Victorian Literature" class last term, about how women should always put forth sweetness. I thought maybe I was misinterpreting what she said, until I read on further to see her dating tips. The first one was "Soften your delivery." Women are supposed to, "[tone] down your conversation style from combative or challenging to gracious, and even a little flirtatious, goes a long way." Instead of having intelligent conversation, where a point can be made, women should flirt. Dating tip number two was to "Look like a women." Women are supposed to "think Scarlett O'Hara not Hillary Clinton." Instead of dressing like a successful woman, involved in a field that is largely dominated by men, women should dress like a character from "Gone with the Wind." The last tip is to "Select what you need, not want." Us "Boss Ladies" should go for a "nurturing, giving type of guy can be optimal (maybe he's a teacher or chef instead of Wall Street broker?)" because obviously there can't be two people making money in a relationship, right?

This article made me glad that sometimes I don't get a call back. All this time I've been dealing with self-esteem issues as they relate to the opposite sex, when really I just come off as too successful, I don't dress like Scarlett O'Hara, and I am attracted to people that I think are going to successful rather than simply "nurturing."

6 comments:

Amelia said...

...I was thinking of some more eloquent things to say in response to this piece, but the refrain of my thoughts was, "Really? What the fuck?"

The main problem is the focus on traditional masculinity/femininity, where "manliness" is threatened by anything that is not submissive femininity. And that's just messed up.

K said...

This article made me glad that sometimes I don't get a call back. This article makes me glad that I don't read articles by such so-called "Dating Coaches."

Colin Welch said...

I think it's also important to be looking past the obvious gender/sociological issues illustrated by this article:

she's just wrong. Women don't get called back for the same multitude of reasons that men don't.


Hm...just saw comment modding is active, so fyi I'm a friend of Tasha's from msp.

Amelia said...

Colin,

Just so you know, you don't have to prove your credentials to get your comment through moderation here. :) The practice was only put in place to keep out comments with little educational worth and those meant to cause fights/insult people.

(See our comment policy).

Thanks for reading here!

Anonymous said...

Amelia said, "...I was thinking of some more eloquent things to say in response to this piece,"

Me too. Barf!

This just illustrates the fallacious qualities about the immutability of gender. If "manly" behavior is "natural" for men then why does it need to be propped up so damn often? Why are women the ones who have to nurture this all the time?

lindsay said...

I figure if someone can't handle one date of me being myself, then they can't handle dating me period. I make no apologies for my personality.