Supply And Demand

Today I found myself lost in the ranting of a few of female friends of mine. They were discussing how, basically, men were crap. Apparently we are all selfish, insensitive, clueless... I won't bore you with the details as this was all standard fare which I'm sure you've heard before.

I always find this kinda stuff amusing - explicit condemnation with the implicit commendation that goes with it, almost paradoxical in nature. The thing some people don't realise is that how a person acts is mainly due to how they are received.

For example take this guy at my workplace (whom I won't name, of course). Almost everyone thinks that he's an annoying plonker, yet the same people humour him, bitching only when he's not around to hear. He's getting the result that he wants, he has friends and is unaware of the true feeling he's generating. After all, he's not a mindreader. So tell me - why should this guy change?

Relate this to a guy and a girl in a relationship. Sure, the girl'll complain about what a loser the guy is (and mainly to others). But will she do anything about it? I'm not talking about asking him to change, although that's a start (although if she eventually did it'd prolly be directed to the wrong person - like a friend, a co-worker, or a random woman she met on the bus that morning). No, I'm talking about whether she would be willing to go look for something better, even if that means to remain single for a while.

In most cases, she isn't. She'd rather settle instead (which is where Spammy's Fourth comes into play) for what she has and tell everyone and their dog about it. Of course the guy knows this, and will subconsciously call her bluff each and every time. Tell me, if he's such a loser why would he change if he knows the girl is happy enough with him as he is? It's basic supply and demand - if women upped their standards a bit and only went for the type of guys they actually wanted, the guys would have to work that much harder to get them (although, yes, for a while you'd have to suffer the hell that is life as a singleton. But hey, sacrifice and all that).

This all reminds me of a comment my aunt (which some of you will know is much like a sister too) made a few weeks ago regarding my brother and father. She noted that they both doted on their wives to such an extent which she had only noticed in a few other relationships. The reasons she offered was that (in these cases) the guys a) didn't know any better since these were the only women they knew intimately, b) in my brother's case had my father as a role model, c) knew how lucky they were to have these women in their lives and thus d) knew they had to continuously work hard to both repay them and keep them hanging around. Or at least not complain about them in their blogs. And the ladies who do should take from that what they will.

This is all symmetrical of course - the effect can be shown to be present in both directions. It's a pretty dire situation actually since we end up with an ever downward spiralling of standards to which to aim for. However it seems that it's only the girls that'll complain about it. Perhaps men are more likely to accept what they have without having to tell everyone about it. Shrug.

Anyway, if you fancy a read drop me a mail and I'll link you to the blog and following discussion.

Humph.