RIP Chivalry

Last week while I was at home resting after a long week of travel for work, I was flipping through channels and came across an old Disney movie from 1960, Swiss Family Robinson. It's based on the classic book wherein a family gets shipwrecked and makes their home on a deserted island. It's Disney-style campy, but I loved it when I was younger because I loved daydreaming about having a house in a tree.

At one point in the movie, the two oldest sons, Fritz and Ernst, start a voyage around the coast to see if the island is actually an island. They rescue a boy held captive by pirates, and they all run away in escape. Later on, Fritz and Ernst discover that the boy is, in fact, a girl. Suddenly, the pattern of rough boy treatment flipped dramatically into the boys falling over themselves to hold her hand and help her carefully walk over the rocks.

In contrast to that, the next day I was back at the airport for another work trip. While standing by the gate waiting to board, one man blew past me as his boarding group was called, dragging his suitcase behind him. His suitcase whacked me in the leg. The man didn't even glance back, let alone apologize.

It's official: chivalry is 100% dead, 6-feet under, pushing daisies (and arguably, even basic manners). I've been somewhat mourning it recently. I'm not saying we should revert back to that time completely, and erase all the progress we've made in women earning equal respect and fair treatment. But I miss the days when women were ladies and men were gentlemen. Nowadays, boys call girls sluts, employ extremely lazy behavior when dating (they don't even date--they "hang out" and look for hookups), and act like uncivilized animals with no manners at all. Girls aren't helping the situation, either, by willingly exploiting their sexuality and obsessing over selfies with duck faces. What happened to parenting? What happened to teaching young boys how to treat ladies, and teaching young girls how to respect themselves?

I was telling a friend my recent story of The Model (who informed me on our second date of his interest in butts--don't think I mentioned that in the blog), and my friend told me I needed to date a gentleman. I replied that the only real gentleman I went out with in recent memory was The Great Dane, whom I had met on a flight back from London, and who lived in Denmark, so it was likely just a one-time date, unfortunately. He said, "you had to go to Europe to meet a gentleman? That's really sad."

Yes, it is sad.

Trying to stay positive,
Skeptic

Goodbye Journalist *sigh*

Oh man, I'm still processing this one. This one did not feel good at all.

I was turning out to like the Journalist. He had made it quite obvious that he had a thing for me. I've not been more sure about much else in my life. And after our first lunch, I was really starting to like him. 

Today we had lunch #2. We took advantage of some gorgeous weather and got cart food and sat on benches outside, which was lovely. We had been chatting about this and that while we got our food. When we sat down, I asked him what he did over the weekend. He had friends visit, blah blah, oh, and he had a really long 4-5 hour date with this girl he's been seeing.

Um...... wha?

He talked about how he drank too much black tea, because the girl was a big conversationalist and the date kept going, but then he couldn't sleep. Then he was saying he'd rather not drink beer because it's too filling.... then on to the guy who had a disorder that by just drinking water and eating bread, he got drunk because his belly made beer.

I was grateful for the change in subject, because even though I smoothly hid my shock and kept up the conversation, that bit about a girlfriend hit me with a ton of bricks. What on Earth? I couldn't possibly have read that wrong.... could I? Did he really just want an office buddy? No way...... Did I somehow miss my chance because in the week it took to schedule our first lunch he had met someone else? Maybe--in this city that's entirely possible. But damn. 

It may be stupid, but I'm kind of upset about this. Mad to have missed my chance with a guy I really liked, mad that somehow I might have been waaaaay off on the ole' radar. Mad that ONCE AGAIN I hit a dud. People judge me a lot in many ways--because I'm single I must be focusing on my career, that I'm too bitter and crazy and must be too picky about men. Hearing those things is really hurtful, because if anyone else was dealing with both feeling lonely and dealing with shit like this ALL THE TIME, they'd be crazy, too! I wish the universe would just cut me some slack and give me a break. Just once. I feel like I'm perpetually in purgatory.

:(

Trying to stay positive,
Skeptic