From a Salon writer’s interview with Benjamin Kunkel:
I have a sense that particularly in New York — though I’m sure it exists this way in Boston and in San Francisco — there is a super-abundance of attractive, intelligent young women whom a man is very unlikely to be worthy of, who nevertheless set a higher value on him than he sets on them. This makes any sort of decision very difficult. Because to constantly be exposed to people whom you are unworthy of to begin with, yet who want you more than you want them, is confusing.
That assumption, that generally young men are unworthy of their female counterparts, is certainly in your book. I would get hanged for saying it, but there’s an uncomfortable truth there.
Yes. As far as I can tell.
So you’re a guy. Tell me what makes these men unworthy?
Men are unworthy in the sense of being more unfinished as people [and] in the sense of being, as romantic partners, bumbling and dishonest in a way that women are maybe not as often. The ideal of a couple that we subscribe to is one that I think is likelier to satisfy women on the whole more than it is men … So rather than men claiming that for a deal to be made they are going to insist upon certain rights or options that would sound sleazy — mainly some mild sort of institutionalized promiscuity — rather than insisting on such terms as a fundamental aspect of whatever contract is being worked out, the man basically [winds up] feel[ing] as if his desires aren’t quite the right ones….
For all our generalizations, I’m speaking very specifically, about my peers who live in New York City and at 30 are almost all single. It’s possible that I just have really unmarriageable friends.
But probably not.
No, probably not, in that they are hot and successful: desirable by commonly held human standards
I find this exchange to be tremendously amusing. Rather than apply Occam’s Razor and reach the correct conclusion, that those “commonly held human standards” are actually commonly held female standards and that the writer’s friends are, in fact, unusually unmarriageable, it’s necessary to – surprise, surprise – diagnose yet another male psychological disorder.
Now, it is surely possible that men are threatened by these shining examples of glorious female humanity, and in realizing themselves unworthy of such superior demigoddesses, dare not approach them. On the other hand, it is arguably more likely that what these women believe should be attractive to men is not, in fact, attractive to them. When a man dumps a junior executive VP in favor of an aerobics instructor, it’s usually for the very simple reason that he likes the aerobics instructor better. These women think they’re intelligent, and they can’t figure that out?
Not that I particularly care about the problem of the New York single woman, but that’s easily explained as well. Last year, I warned a friend in New York who was pursuing a new romance with a man who had recently moved there that people go to the Big City to have adventures and experiences, not to settle down. New York, London and Tokyo are probably the three worst places to find a man who wants to get married as a woman’s odds of finding a handsome and intelligent man interested in marrying her are probably better in a farm town with a population of 500.
Needless to say, my warning was futile and she was shocked when she was informed six months later that he thought it would be a good idea if they started dating other people.
If you find yourself continually confused about something, chances are that one or more of your base assumptions are incorrect. The value of any theory is its ability to explain and to predict; if yours can’t do either, you should probably look for a better one.