Dear Guy Who Thinks I’m Amy Dunne,
I knew how first dates went, and you obviously did too. We were asking each other all the basic questions people would want to know about each other. I asked about your major, and what inspired you to go in to that field. When I told you I was interested in journalism, you followed that up with asking what I liked to write about. This developed in to a deeper exchange, and suddenly we were immersed beyond surface level conversation. Telling you that I loved movies spiraled in to a discussion about the philosophy behind One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. When you told me about your younger brother, we swapped childhood stories of sibling rivalries and regretful middle school fashion choices.
We should have ended our date right then and there: at the point of the evening where you looked at me like a human being with complex thoughts and emotions. That was because your next question was asking what I liked to do on campus.
I told you I was in a sorority. You asked me how often I went out and got wasted.
Your words sliced through my heart like a knife and left me bleeding out an anger I never knew I harbored. I politely smiled and asked you why you needed to know that, but I already knew the answer. Don’t think you’re the first guy to ask me something like this. And don’t think I’m the first girl who has had to sit through your superficial questions.
It seemed like no matter how deep the conversation, guys like you completely changed your perception about me hearing I was part of Greek life. One moment you were asking me the meaning behind the tattoo I was thinking about getting, and now you wanted to know if my hair was naturally blonde. It didn’t matter if I had just volunteered all weekend at a social justice film festival because you were itching to know what it was like hanging around so many frat guys. Suddenly I was nothing more but a wealth of knowledge on partying, drinking, pop music, and pumpkin spice lattes.
After our date, like all women do, I sat around my dorm room with a group of friends as they tried to gather every excruciating detail of our time together. They were hoping to hear of romance and sparks flying, but all I could tell them was about another guy who changed an interesting discussion on our personalities to his own opinions on superficiality. As my friends began to comfort me with words of encouragement (something along the lines of all men being jerks and Jupiter making them stupider), it dawned on me that it wasn’t either of those suggestions.
I realized you weren’t looking at women as complex beings.
I saw you in the face of every guy who asked me to name all the members of Pink Floyd when they saw Comfortably Numb playing on my Spotify. You were the guy who told my athletic friend she should wear dresses with longer sleeves to cover up her muscles in order to look “hotter.” When I went to a record store downtown, you were the guy who replaced my AC/DC vinyl with a Cher one because you insisted I’d relate to a woman singer more. When my engineering major friend was telling us about her first embarrassing drunken moment, you were the guy who blurted out she didn’t seem like the kind of girl who partied.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to ask you who “That Kind of Girl” was. Obviously she was the epitome of sweet, spice, and everything nice. That Kind of Girl fit perfectly in to her assigned stereotype. That Kind of Girl either watched sports or The Notebook for the hundredth time. She either wore sports jerseys or dresses. She either cursed like a sailor or blushed at every crude remark. She was either black or white, but never grey.
I began to think of Rosamund Pike’s “Cool Girl” speech in Gone Girl; the one where she pokes fun at the compliment men give women confusing the word strong for putting up with their boyfriend’s unrealistic demands while pretending not to care. In Gone Girl, character Amy Dunne describes Cool Girl as a term coined by those who hate strong women, because strong women care more deeply about bettering their own lives than pleasing the guys around them.
As far as I could see, Cool Girl and That Kind of Girl were one in the same. Cool Girl had to make sure her man knew she could eat a dozen hot dogs and still maintain a slender physique. Meanwhile, That Kind of Girl was making sure her tech-loving boy could ramble on about the newest DLC, or her cattle-raising beau and her saw eye–to–eye on mudding over a movie night for every date. If she ever strayed from her allocated typecast, someone would shout out, “I didn’t know you were THAT KIND OF GIRL!” and barrage her with questions to see if she measured up to their preconceived stereotype. If she was supposed to be a bookworm, did she even know the name of the beer she was drinking? Did the party girl with the writing and rhetoric major ever read a classic work of fiction besides The Great Gatsby?
Oh, she has? Well, we didn’t know she was That Kind of Girl.
Next time you take a girl out on a date, Guy Who Thinks I’m Amy Dunne, I want you to try to squeeze yourself in to the small, slender size of stereotype. If you’re an engineering major, can you name everyone in the credits of Star Wars? If you’re a music major, do you only play the guitar? Because chances are there is so much more to you than what meets the eye. I know because I learned a little bit about you on our date. I learned that your younger brother thinks the world of you, and once you stayed up for three days studying for a test that ended up getting canceled. I know that you are smart and talented and loved by a family. I know that you are a complex human being worthy of basic human decency.
Then, as you sit across the table from a new woman, I want you to be eager to learn every aspect of her life. After you order your meals, I want you to ask her who inspires her and what her biggest dream is.
And I hope she leans across the table, takes your hands, and asks you how often you go out and get wasted.
Photo credit:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_XrYngXxYso/VDJOXTF3BJI/AAAAAAAARTM/jUNinRXraT…
http://didyoufallfromheaven.tumblr.com/post/130210999173
http://www.esquirehk.com/food_drinks/liquor/ng-ka-keung-02-gone-girl-leffe