The Lost Ark of Honouring Women in the Land of Dating

I love watching old movies. The tentative ways a man would initiate a courtship with a lady: a shy glance in her direction, a bow and a delicate kiss on her hand.

For a date, the request would be for the pleasure of her company for a stroll in the park or afternoon tea. It seems like men thought it an honor to be granted the opportunity to bask in a woman’s energy and that were boundaries of respect in how a woman was wooed.

A man recently did invite me for tea.

But it was not the polite invitation of yesteryear.

Firstly, he didn’t ring me by telephone at a decent hour to arrange a meeting for the next afternoon.

Instead, he sent me a text message at 10pm, asking me to come over to his house that night for ‘tea’, even though we had only met once before.

“Tea,” I thought, is not what it used to be.

This was blatantly an invitation for casual sex.

I was disappointed.

When this man (let’s call him Sam) had approached me a few days earlier, and asked if he could get to know me, I was impressed by his sober courage and gave him my contact details when he asked. (I had long been lamenting the lack of courage in men has since my arrival in Australia. For I found that that they needed to be heavily under the influence of alcohol for them to whip up the confidence to approach me.)

I had assumed that what was to follow Sam’s gallantry would be an invitation for dinner and conversation… Not a “hook-up” request.

I was not surprised though. This had been a common aspect of the behavior of the men whom I had interacted with in the last 3 years of my being in Sydney. Whereby once I was approached, I hopefully held the assumption that the man would respectfully extend invitations for us to get to know each other. But in fact what would ensue, would be a mission to get me into bed as quickly as possible. To satisfy the aching of his loins, more than exploring the enjoyment of me as a person of interest.

I wondered if I could educate 38 year-old Sam on how to date me. So I called him to decline his nocturnal invitation and to suggest that he first invite me for lunch or dinner in a public place.

He was taken aback. But then some spark of memory seemed to light up in the depth of his subconscious and reminded him that ‘yes, this is how we used to do it’. So he agreed, but not joyously.

Yes, ladies… I had to tell a man to invite me to dinner!

So, what’s changed in the land of dating?

Perhaps it is the principle of supply and demand.

In earlier times, sexual encounters had to be worked for. It was a right that was earned. Some argue that the radical change emerged with the sexual revolution, the feminist movement and the introduction of the birth control pill in the 1960’s. Studies have shown that after 1965 there was a marked increase in women having sexual intercourse before marriage. So the supply of sex for single men, once scarce, suddenly became markedly abundant and easier to get.

Fifty years later, it seems like things have sordidly shifted out of balance.

The liberation of women’s sexuality is now a means for men to get the sex and discard the woman. If they are strategic, men use some of the same tactics of the eras prior, invitations to dinner, the movies etc. But once the sexual exchange happens, it’s like a predator that gets its prey, has a feed and then slinks off for the next hunt. If you are a single Sydney woman, I’m sure you have drunk the bitter waters of having the man you thought you were dating, suddenly disappear by not responding to phone calls or text messages, once you’ve slept with him.

It feels like men have lost that sense of honor and respect for woman in dating, seeing little value in them beyond the physical.

The argument on the flip side is that, it is consensual. Some say women must know what they are getting into. Speaking from my own experience, the answer is “no, not really”, especially if like me, you are a newbie to Sydney’s hook-up culture.

Christian Carter’s famous book, “Catch Him and Keep Him”, claims that today if a woman wants to keep a man, she must refrain from sex for first three months of the relationship. His book, website and online courses are filled with maneuvers for women to employ to train a man into respectfully courting them.

So this is what it has come down to.

In the land of dating, just like in any jungle, both sides are using tactics to get what they want. Perhaps it is time to accept and grieve that the ark of honor for women in dating has been lost. Now we must embrace the reality that women must become warriors in the land: Educate themselves on the methods of the other side and honor themselves enough to fight for the preservation of their treasure.

Now that I’ve got the battle scars of a warrior, I can sniff out predators, like Sam, easily. The next morning, I texted him to cancel our date, simply saying that, “my intuition tells me that it’s best to not take things further.”

I’m going to hold out for a delicate kiss on my hand and an invitation for a stroll around the park. I’m going to lay in wait for a man who remembers the bygone era of honouring me and valuing the simple pleasure of my company.

#dating #beingsingle #Australianmen #men