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Author: Happy Ghost
I attended my pal's kid's birthday party today. One of my pal's friends was there, and he has a new girl. They mentioned to this chick that I'm a ghost... didn't use the word, but described the idea. She immediately started questioning me... why?
I mentioned that marriage is a bad risk. She trotted out the "not all girls are like that" line, which I nicely handled with the hand grenade analogy (here's a box of hand grenades, choose one you think is a dud, then hold it and pull the pin and see if you were right or not). There's no way to know WHAT kind of girl you have until you're committed and it's too late to avoid being destroyed. Therefore, there can be women who are "not like that", but unfortunately it's irrelevant. Not all hand grenades are "like that" (meaning they explode), and there ARE duds... but because the duds can look just like the live ones, you'd have to be crazy to pick one and commit to finding out.
She rolled her eyes and basically said that if you don't know the girl by THEN (marriage time), then you're clueless. I replied that women can be master actresses, and you can only get to know the "real them" if they allow you to see it before the wedding, which many do not. And girls acting good look identical, in all respects, to girls who are REALLY good. So, there's just no way to know until it's too late.
I then explained that Marriage 2.0 is far different from Marriage 1.0 (and yes, I did use the numbers, maybe their usage will spread), and that in Marriage 2.0, the woman holds almost all the cards, and the guy holds almost none.
She immediately trotted out the "bitter" shaming tactic, but she did it subtly. "Were you married before?" I said no. "Were you in a relationship that went bad?" I again said no. "Then how do you know all this?" I smiled and said, "By observing all my male friends suffering and being destroyed because of this, and by reading all the changes in marriage and divorce laws over the last 40 years, straight out of the law books, and by watching precedent be set in courtrooms. I learned by observing, instead of by personal experience, thank god."
Silence. "They're not all like that" was blown out of the water. So was "you're just bitter". She had nothing much left in her arsenal.
Then she inquired how long I've been like this, and indicated that surely it's not a sustainable choice. Then my friends told her how long it's been since I dated or had a relationship... which is many, many years now. I grinned right at her, smoking a big cigar, drinking a microbrew, and looking happy as hell with myself and my life. Not sustainable, my ass, dearie.
This seemed to really freak her out. She mentioned how she had a female friend who couldn't find a good man, and complained about it all the time... a single mother! I stayed quiet on that one (didn't want to get too confrontational, after all).
What really seemed to spook her is that her boyfriend was sitting right next to her when I said all this, absorbing this unique perspective of mine (he already knew about me, but she probably didn't know he knew). I'm sure she wasn't too happy with me speaking such ideas with him sitting there, because I'll bet she's going to try to get his head in the marriage noose soon.
That was fun. She asked if I'd ever consider dating and getting married, and I told her that if the social and legal systems reverted to how they used to be in the 1950's and before, when a man had a fair chance at a good marriage and the laws were much more equal, only then would I consider it. Returning to the hand grenade analogy, I said that back then, unwittingly choosing a live one that looked like a dud might've gotten you a badly bruised hand, but today, it destroys you. I then said that I was quite sure that fairness would never be restored in my lifetime, therefore I will simply not participate, and many other men won't, either.
She didn't have a lot to say after that. It was pretty beautiful.
If more of them hear this, while their girlfriends (and perhaps they themselves) are whining about not being able to find a man, perhaps they'll put two and two together.
