The Queen Who Expected Suitors to Come to Her Doorstep

One of my friends in Northern California emailed me recently.

'MAT,' he said. 'You're biased against men. Most of your blog entries show men in poor light. We're not as bad as you make us out to be.'

'Moi?' I asked. 'I'm neither anti-male nor anti-female. Or, looking at it another way, I'm equally anti male and female.'

'Yeah, then why aren't there more stories about women who act like shit?'

'Give me some.'

And so he did. Here's a recent experience he had chatting with a woman on OK Cupid.

She was a primary school Principal, who lived in Oakley, a rather distant suburb of San Francisco. She was white, had two teenage sons, divorced after 24 years of marriage to her high-school sweetheart. Went through a period of post-divorce dating binge, and was now looking to normalize her dating life. An avid walker, she said she walked over 80 miles a month, which is pretty good.

My friend lives in Sacramento, about 60 miles away. But he's in the San Francisco Bay Area often, multiple times a week. While Oakley isn't quite on his way to and from there, it's close enough off his commute route that he figured if they hit it off, it would be worth it.

The conversation was good, and soon they took to texting.

'I envy your summer breaks,' my friend wrote. 'Are you going anywhere this summer with your kids?'

'I might go to Mexico with a gf.'

'where in mexico?'

'went to puerto vallarta last year and cancun before that. i don't care where we go. it's cheap, easy and always fun.'

'is it cheap even in summer?'

'yes, it's hot there. think spring break is more popular.'

'let me know if you decide to go. i might tag along as well. ok, ok, i'm only joking. don't get worried.'

'i once dated a guy for a month and he said that he couldn't remember my last name. that's because i never told him. high security.'

'you are careful, aren't you?'

'yes. online is riskier for women. dated a guy once and later discovered that he'd been to prison for 10 years. i'd even been to the hills with him. fortunately, he was nice to me. but it did make me more cautious.'

'you know that statistically i have an advantage over other guys. indians in america don't go to prison as often as some other communities.'

'true. GF said statistically i was bound to date a man who'd been to prison when i was dating mostly black men.'

'oh, you know what they say: once you go black, you never go back.'

'proved the myth wrong.'

'have you ever dated an indian guy?'

'no, but you could be the first.'

'want to make it a reality this friday?'

'i can meet you in the morning.'

'at what time?'

'before 11. need to leave by noon.'

'hmm. traffic from sacramento can be bad at that time. let me think.'

'would the weekend work better?'

'friday is fine for me. doesn't take too long to meet. i usually set aside an hour.'

'don't know yet if friday would work. but i can confirm tomorrow.'

'no worries.'

'great. kids with your ex today?'

'no, they're home. i BBQed hamburgers for them. went out with gf to salmon.'

[Hmm, my friend thought. Isn't that a bit odd that a mother would give her kids unhealthy, cheap food and go out and eat better food with her friend?]

'okay, i think i can make it on friday morning. would 10am work for you?'

'yes. tell me where.'

'would walnut creek work for you?' [My friend figured that he'd have to drive about 50-60 miles to Walnut Creek and she could drive about 25 miles to meet him there.]

'nope. apparently you're not familiar with hwy 4. plus, i don't drive that far to meet men i don't know. told you you were too far for me.

'i assume you're implying that traffic on 4 is bad. if so, we can meet somewhere else. but i do want to clarify if your reluctance to drive there is due to lack of sufficient enthusiasm. if so, please let me know. i'd hate to drive that far if you're not terribly enthused about meeting.'

'not willing to meet in walnut creek on a day i have to be back soon. different if i was meeting you and staying to shop or even go from there to the reservoir in lafayette to walk with my gf. not the other way.  sorry. isn't going to work for me.'

My friend was taken aback by the rather bitchy, inflexible response.

'you clearly have a very rigid approach to dating,' he wrote back. 'good luck!'

'don't like the judgement here. 'rigid' seems unfair.'

'well, i was going to drive a long way to meet you. i even offered to meet you somewhere more convenient to you. but you seemed very definitive in what you were willing to do. to me that's rigid.'

And there ended that conversation.

'You see,' my friend wrote to me. 'She wasn't willing to put in any effort into this meeting. This is the queen mentality. A sense of entitlement. How many times have we men been strung along by women who have either no intention of meeting them, or aren't terribly interested? It's like they'll chat with you as long as they're bored. Once they find a more amusing diversion, they'll make all kinds of flimsy excuses to not meet you, or worse, not respond at all.'

'True,' I wrote back. 'We've all experienced that.'

'I'm glad I found out how interested she really was before I made that long trek. Can you imagine how infuriating it would have been to drive all the way there, only to find out that this woman was just passing her time engaging in idle chit-chat with me?'

True, brother. We've all encountered women like that. I have always believed this: there are just as many lousy women on the dating circuit as there are lousy men. The probability is high that we've all run into them. We have also been them: lousy at some point in the dating process. There's nothing else we can do other than to dust it off and move on.