Types

If you ask me any day of the week what type of male I think I like, I'm likely to say "sensitive, deep, intelligent, quiet" etc. And yet, I'll be the first of to admit, that description hardly fits any of the people I've dated in practice, even briefly or slightly (which, unfortunately, is all I have to go on). So the logical conclusion is that I'm a hypocrite, that I SAY I like sensitive men, but in fact I won't give them the time of day.

Here's an alternate theory I just thought of: sensitive men don't give the time of day TO ME. So by default, I'm left with the impression that I prefer - that I CHOOSE - assholes: dumb, immature, without conscience, the "bad boy" type if you will, until even I'm convinced of it. Admittedly I do prefer the simple hoodlum to the self-aggrandizing blow-hard prick; but these two personalities are of comparable depth, in my opinion, and the reality is that they're all I ever have to choose from. Naturally I'll err on the side of the one who isn't pretentious in addition to dumb.

Today I was browsing facebook (I've had to do that more these days, after thesuperficial got lazy and dlisted got casually racist about Asians), and I ran across a friend of a friend who was friends with a Dreamy Guy from one of my classes, whom I never got to know. If I'm as cute and as irresistible as I think I might be, why wasn't I able to get him to notice me? I think there were a lot of shadowy figures like that in my life: Sensitive Men I admired from a distance and with a little timidness, toward which I'd direct all my best efforts of smart and original conversation, only to be met with a blase...invisibleness. So I would give up at an early stage, and individually each of these Sensitive Men are pretty forgettable, but collectivey they do seem to suggest an unmistakable failure.

So I return to the earlier question: why? Why didn't Dreamy Guy (and others) notice me? Why do assholes notice me? Then I look at myself and deduce that there isn't much - I mean at the core of my being - to hold a Sensitive Man's attention. I'm flamboyant. I laugh at dumb puns and offensive jokes. I hate geeks and tools. I adore feminism. Not that I'm trying to turn this into one of my usual "smart women are never appreciated" tirades. I'm just trying to sketch out soberly the fact that there's something legitimately unattractive about haters, judgers, and dividers - and equally, I don't think I'll be giving those up anytime soon. A Sensitive Man, I imagine, will be drawn to something quite different. I'm not sure yet what that would be, but I'm starting to form the foggiest idea, ie "not-me."

Well, as beautiful Montgomery Clift says in From Here to Eternity, "A man loves a thing. That don't mean it's gotta love him back."