You know that epic date scene in most romantic movies? The guy wants to get with the girl so he does something amazing and/or crazy and/or stupid to get with the lady of his choice. It can happen at the beginning of an epic romance a la Ryan Gosling hanging off a Ferris wheel. It can happen in the middle when Heath Ledger (may his talented soul rest in peace) gets the pep band to play “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” during your soccer practice so he can serenade you while evading school security. It can happen in the end when Jake Ryan waits for you after your stupid sister’s wedding so you can split your 16th birthday cake between just the two of you in the dark (because everyone else forgot).
Fact: Nearly every girl is taught to want that epic date scene to happen. It’s why we all think we’re supposed to like candlelight and impromptu picnics and sweet-quirky-clever dates. It’s conditioned into us with love songs and movies and TV shows and romance novels. We want romance. We want adventure. We want Ewan McGregor climbing up an elephant’s butt in a tuxedo to sing to us about how we were made to love each other.
Granted, not every girl goes for this. However the world can try to tell us what we should be, we often have our own ideas on what we want. Or don’t want.
With regard to the whole “epic date” thing, I find myself between a rock and hard place, as I often find myself. And by that I don’t mean to alarm you—I’m rarely, if ever, in any sort of hot water. Instead, I am constantly finding myself flailing around like an idiot in a sort of lukewarm water. I’m an embarrassing eccentric who wears her heart on her sleeve and cries during Disney movies. This is my lot in life.
See, I find myself once again, annoyed by preconceived notions on what women want. Or what men want. Or what love is.
I’m a romantic. I want someone who will take me out dancing in a deserted garden at night. I want someone who will want to sing with me and write me love notes. But I also want to be that person for someone.
And that’s where it gets tricky. See, if you’re a guy and you want to write a note to a girl in a café telling her how you think that the way she looks while devouring Langston Hughes a few tables away is one of the loveliest things you’ve ever seen, and you leave it by her coffee cup with your phone number on it as she gets up to order yet another over-priced drink, you’re romantic as all-get-out. You should be played in a movie by some young hot ingénue looking to try the “normal guy” look for a while and practice his soulful looks. But if you’re a girl and you want to go out on a limb like that, if you want to write a piece of poetry about and for a boy who makes your overpriced coffee drink every day, and you give it to him one day with your number at the bottom… He’ll probably think you’re crazy.
See, girls who want to do romantic stuff like that, who want to make grand gestures, are put in this “crazy” box. Like we’re going to stalk you and find your address and go through your trash and tape a picture of you onto a pillow and imagine what you smell like. That’s the rep us female (somewhat over-the-top) romantics get. And it’s absolutely awful and embedded in double-standards.
When I was growing up I tried really hard not to think of girls and boys as that different. If I wanted to be treated like a person first, instead of a girl first, I’d have to do the same for everyone else. Later on, I realized that I’m a very outward person in my affection and grew to understand the importance of having that reciprocated. And it wasn’t just in boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. I had a hard time being friends with people who were always emotionally withdrawn—it always felt like I gave everything I had and they couldn’t give back the same way, and it hurt, because not only could they not reciprocate, but it felt like they could not appreciate all that I was giving. It’s like putting up your hand for a high-five and being left hanging, but exponentially worse.
So that leads me back to why I want to not only receive epic dates but create them. I am that girlfriend who will write you love poetry and sing to you. I will whisper a list of things I love about you as you fall asleep next to me in the hopes that somewhere far away you’ll hear me and keep those words locked away deep in your brain and that they’ll be there for you when things are rough. I’ll whisk you away in the middle of the night and take you to a secret location to eat my home-cooked pasta. I’m not a stellar cook, but dammit, do I try. Yes, I’m prone to the grandiose. Yes, I am a little out there—but for me that’s what life is about: walking out in a storm on the precipice of triumph with your arms outstretched, ready to let the rain either wash you down the mountain or kiss you at its summit.
I don’t like this idea that not only are girls expected to want romance—we’re supposed to pine after it. Society kind of tells us that if we want romance, we need to sit around and wait for it. Oh, you’re afraid it’s never going to come around? Well then you’d better doll yourself up and always be a sweet pillar of feminine virtue—that’ll increase your chances of being one of the lovely flowers plucked from the garden. See, in all those movies, the guys pick. The guys wheedle. The guys chase. Even if the girl liked him beforehand, it’s not in her hands to go get him. I don’t like this idea of us as women being expected to wait around for something we want when we are just as capable of going out and getting it. Like the Cheetah Girls said, “I don’t wanna be like Cinderella / Sittin’ in a dark, cold, dusty cellar / Waiting for somebody to come and set me free. / I don’t wanna be just someone waiting / for a handsome prince to come and save me. / No, I will survive / without nobody on my side. / Don’t wanna need no, no, no one else, / I’d rather rescue myself.” (Raven is always relevant.)
The epithets thrown at us are things like “desperate” and “crazy” and “stalker” and “psycho”—for doing the same things that guys do. If we go after men, especially in a non-sexualized way, we are portrayed as creepy girls who want to marry you even though all we’ve ever done is work on a few labs together in chem. Our obligatory wedding board on Pinterest? That’s all for you my sweet, sweet piece of man-meat soulmate!
No. Stop. Get over yourself, guys.
It’s weird especially when you look at if we went at things from a different angle. When women actively pursue a guy sexually, it is often perceived as cool or hot or liberating (even when it isn’t necessarily so). There are some girls who don’t just seek sexual gratification when pursuing a long string of sexual partners but are after the sort of mystique one accumulates for that pattern of behavior—and arguably it’s because there is one. One of the ways we shape our outward identity is through our patterns of behavior and some girls feel sexually powerful, adventurous, daring, young, etc. from pursuing sex assertively. (And that’s totally okay!) And in general the male attitude is to be totally down for women to be free to pursue their sexual desires. So why is it so awful for women to be just as assertive and active and forthcoming romantically? Why is it “desperate” for a girl to go out on a limb and do something romantic for a guy she wants to get to know? Why is it emasculating for a girlfriend to make all the arrangements for a really romantic Valentine’s Day date instead of the boyfriend, or even pay for dinner now and again? And even when it is acceptable between a couple for this to happen, why is it an exception to a rule about women?
And to the guys of the world, I feel your pain too. Because, yes, I know a few Ted Mosbys who are constantly in search of the romantic connection that will last, maybe not for a lifetime right away, but will go the distance. You pour your heart out into these things to take care of your significant other and make them feel special and these girls often feel like they can’t do the same. And often they’ll get you that one thing you really wanted or a nice, warm sweater but sometimes, you also want to have that one night where you get whisked off to some elaborate epic date that your girl planned for you to make you feel special. It’s like always being the friend who plans and arranges surprise parties, but no one ever throws one for you. (Don’t pretend you don’t know that feeling because everyone has at one point wanted one of their close buddies to throw them a surprise party, even if it was only once when you were a kid and you only just discovered the concept of surprise parties on television.) But you know you can’t have any hand in setting that in motion, or else it’s not the same. So now the Ted Mosbys of the world are the Cinderellas sitting in dark, cold, dusty cellars waiting for somebody to throw them a damn surprise party.
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Why should the men of the world feel the need to hide that desire for the epic date? Why does it make them “soft” or “girly” or any other stupid gendered insult? Why should they be denied it when there are some ladies who are so willing to give that experience to them? Why is romance generally awesome when guys do it, and generally creepy when girls do it, instead of society equally recognizing that the potential for good or bad exists equally in both cases?
And here’s where I talk about the bad. Like genius and madness, romantic and creepy often share a border and are best defined by context. Two people can do similar things, but in one case it’s romantic and in another it’s creepy. Cooking a surprise dinner for you to come home to in your kitchen is romantic when you guys are in a relationship at the level where the cook in question has your key. It is decidedly not romantic when you don’t really know this cook and they apparently broke into your house.
Notice how that situation isn’t gendered, and the good and the bad aren’t about men versus women? Yeah, me too.
The double standard on this sort of thing is doubly awful because not only are female romantics stifled, but there are guys who manipulate girls by doing crazy things for them. A lot of times, girls are encouraged to “give this guy a chance” because he keeps sending her flowers—even if she’s not interested. Even if he’s rude or not her type or any number of valid reasons for her to say no (and she doesn’t have to justify it for it to be valid). Let’s look again at Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, who basically forces Rachel McAdams into going out with him by jumping out of a Ferris wheel (from pre-solid-mechanical-construction times, mind you), clinging for dear life on one of the cross bars, and refusing to get back to safety until she agreed. That’s pretty psycho. Imagine if instead of being an amazing love story it devolved into a tale of Rachel McAdams caught in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship while everyone else told her that she would be crazy to turn down such a romantic guy who’s crazy about her. This is the story of every girl who had to go to Prom with a guy she barely knew instead of her close friends because he asked her out with a flashmob. This is the story of women who are told that their significant others can’t be hitting her because he takes her on nice vacations so he obviously loves her very, very much.
And as stated before, not every girl gives half a damn for the epic date or grand gesture. Not every girl wants it or is moved by it, but still the social pressure weighs on them to react bigger than they would have, place this guy in a better place than she would have, or even say yes when she wanted to say no to going to grab Chinese food with this guy. Since when is anyone obligated to go out on a date with someone? When did it become okay to think that the person who asked someone out should have more control over the outcome than the person that was asked out? Not every guy is apathetic to the idea of “being romanced.” Not every girl wants to be “romanced.” Not every guy who goes after the grand gesture has good intentions and not every woman who does the same has bad intentions. So why are our perceptions and ideas about the grand gesture, the spontaneous hand reached out in search of connection, the epic date, so gender-oriented?
I’m sure there will be people who genuinely have no idea what I’m talking about, either because they’ve had no unfavorable situations arising from this double standard to the point where they don’t understand at all what I’m talking about or because this entire essay/blog post/brain dump was rife with pop culture references. In the case of the former, congratulations? In the case of the latter, I apologize. I am a TV Junkie. I also want to apologize for this being a very heteronormative piece. I wanted to talk about a specific dynamic and double standard. I’m certain that this plays into LGBTQ+ communities as well, but I didn’t want to discuss a dynamic that I didn’t know. In general, gender issues are a lot more nuanced amongst the LGBTQ+ community and I didn’t feel like I could talk about a dichotomy like this fairly in that regard.
In conclusion, down with this double standard! I want people to talk about this. I want girls who are being pressured into going out with a guy because he spent a lot of money on jewelry for her (as if she can be bought?) to explain to everyone why exactly she doesn’t owe anyone a date. I want guys to not feel ashamed of wanting that epic date. I want girls to not feel like they can’t chase after romance. I want guys to understand that an elaborate song and dance number doesn’t buy you a date with a girl. I want guys to not get called “whipped” for doing amazing sweet things for their girlfriends. In the meantime, though, it looks like I’ll sit myself alongside my single girlfriends talking about my cute date ideas as they joke that I would make a good boyfriend.