When Single Men Turn Feral

I have been a happily and only occasionally distressed Single Lady for over five years now. In that time, I’ve come to the somewhat bewildering conclusion that single men do not want women to engage with them unless they intend to pull their tits out. Unless you want to take a ride on the disco stick, you better back the hell up, sister.

I’ll admit that conversation between the genders can be a minefield of misunderstandings, but I’d like to hope that both sides can accept that a) we’re both human beings with proper human being feelings, and b) we are no longer toddlers and it’s not appropriate to hurl your Lego at the cat because someone won’t let you eat a cookie. Single men completely shatter my idealism.

Before I commence my rant, a couple of caveats:

1. I do not condone women flirting with men with the sole intent of garnering free drinks, a ride home or other favours. This behaviour is repulsive to me. By all means talk to men; flirt with them if you feel so inclined – but for god’s sake don’t treat them like walking ATMs. Have some self-respect, you fucking idiot.
2. I understand there is a faction of women who “lead on” men in which they have no interest, merely because they enjoy the attention. This is a self-esteem issue and to those ladies: you owe it to yourself to get your shit together.

Onto my anecdotes. I have a swag of stories about men cracking the shits when they realise a woman merely enjoys their personality and has no interest in their bodily fluids, but here are two of my favourites.

My friend Jane has been blessed with a magnificent bosom. Whenever we go out together they’re usually on proud display, because a) they’re aesthetically lovely and b) they’re damned hard to hide. The other night she caught the eye of a friendly, funny young electrician, and the three of us had a lively chat over our drinks. Then Jane carefully dropped the subject of her absent boyfriend into the conversation.

Well, you’d think someone had snatched away his teething ring. His face flickered through several emotions, before settling on ‘indignant sneer’.

“If you have a boyfriend, why do you dress like that?” said previously friendly, funny young electrician.

“Excuse me?”

“Why would you dress like that? You’re a whore.” And just like that he gathered up his offended morality and stalked off into the crowd.

Jane, who’s fiery at the best of times, strode after him with a blaze of invective and clocked him in the head with the kind of right hook that only a girl with older brothers can deliver. Twice. Hopefully he won’t be calling any girl a whore any time soon.

In a similar vein, one night I met a hearing impaired gentleman. He was at the pub with some other deaf friends, and their sign language across the bar attracted my attention. Having had a ‘couple’ of vodkas at that point, I was probably staring more than is polite. One of them noticed my indiscretion, waved hello and offered to buy me a drink. I declined, but we had an amusing little conversation about his friends and the dodgy people around us. I confess I haven’t had much exposure to the hearing impaired community, and I was amazed at how skilled he was at communicating with facial expressions, gestures and body language.

Eventually I excused myself and continued on my merry way, until an hour or so later while giving my dancing feet a rest, he plopped himself down on the couch next to me and put his hand on my leg. I gently removed it and asked how his night was going. The conversation deteriorated somewhat when I tried to be funny and convince him I’d undergone a sex change operation, at which point he asked me to prove it. I laughed it off and said no. He made the international gesture for cunnilingus. I raised an eyebrow. He mouthed “what do you want from me?” and I replied that I liked chatting to him. He asked several more times, until finally I told him I wasn’t going to sleep with him. His face underwent a very similar transition to Previously Friendly Electrician, then he clearly mouthed “you’re full of bullshit” and stomped off while giving me the finger.

In both of these scenarios, Jane and I had probably miscommunicated our level of interest on initial contact. On the other hand, is she supposed to scream immediately in the face of any man who approaches her “I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!!!!” and run away? Do I have a set amount of time to gauge my interest in a bloke before I’m labelled one of those egregious creatures who ‘leads guys on’? How am I supposed to figure out whether I like a man without talking to him first? Why can’t I have a humorous conversation with a fellow traveller on the mortal coil? If I’m enjoying the conversation but don’t want his penis inside me, how does that make me a bad person?

I realise that in a nightlife environment, there’s a fine line between having a chat and moist-eyed flirting. Throw in a few beverages and the inherently abysmal intuition of most men, and there’s obviously a lot of room for misinterpretation. However, there’s no excuse to throw an epic hissy fit when a girl tells you she has a partner or is plain uninterested in sleeping with you. If a lady is talking to you (and she’s not one of those idiots I mentioned above), she probably likes talking to you. This means she appreciates you, regardless of the fact that she has no interest in you sexually. She thinks you’re a nice person – right until the point you call her a whore, or give her the cold shoulder to feel up the semi-conscious redhead in the corner. Show some decorum, you disrespectful twat. Be grateful your entire gender has not been reduced to sexual objects, being consistently insulted and dismissed for nothing more than a disinclination to spread your legs on any given night.

So you think you’ve just wasted 20 minutes talking to a girl, when you could’ve spent that time tracking down another target? You’re missing something, Tantrum Boy. Most women have female friends, of which several may be single. Some of them may even want to have sex with you, provided your friend tells them what a nice person you are. But for Pete’s sake, don’t take that as an excuse to start blithely handing your number to all her friends as if you’re networking at an industry conference.

I should also add that if a woman is finding you attractive on a personal level, she’s only one train stop away from finding you attractive on a physical level. Just look at this ugly fucker:

Would you honestly make googly-eyes at this bloke if he was a regular at your local?

And yet girls went nuts for him after Bridesmaids. Because he was kind and delightful and didn’t go around calling busty women whores and throwing tantrums because he couldn’t get his cock wet.

Of course, if you want to be really rebellious – you could enjoy the opportunity to spend time with women as fellow human beings, rather than walking, talking fleshlights.

---