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Men? Different ball game entirely.
Don’t believe me?
Just imagine for a moment Jane Austen’s oh-so-famous Mr. Darcy. He’s taciturn. Brusque. Judgmental. Rude. Condescending. Interfering. Prejudiced (or prideful, I was never quite sure which).
And he is considered one of the greatest, most romantic heroes ever written.
Now, go with me for a moment, if you will: ascribe all of Darcy’s attributes to a woman. Let’s pretend that Willa Darcy is taciturn, brusque, judgmental, rude, interfering, and prejudiced—or prideful. Do you stick around to see if she has a hidden heart of gold and buys her sister pianos and is secretly just a little shy?
Or do you declare her unlikable? “Ugh, loved the story, but the heroine was a rather unlikable person up until the very end . . .”
Not a Pride and Prejudice fan? Here’s another one:
Severus Snape. The man is downright horrible for literally the entire Harry Potter series, and yet I have not met a Potter fan who doesn’t declare him delightful—possibly even a favorite—even before you discover his hidden depths.
You know what they call a woman who’s horrible for the entire Harry Potter series? Dolores Umbridge.
Even my boy, the Grinch—he freaking steals Christmas, but nobody reads that book or watches that movie and thinks, The protagonist was a total tool. One star! I just can’t help but wonder what the reviews would be like or if the Grinch would be as beloved if he were a she, or if she would be less Grinch, more . . . Glitch.
And after a while, being unlikable makes me feel like I’m unlovable.
How did I get on this? Oh yeah. My lack of male companionship and the reason for it:
I’m not the docile little lady most men seem to want, at least not for the long term.
The one exception?
Him.
Or so I thought.
“Ms. Tate. Welcome home,” the doorman says in the same smooth monotone voice he always greets me with.
“Thanks, Melvin.”
He’s not frosty to me, per se, but he’s never quite friendly either. At least not the way I’ve seen him with the other residents, all of whom seem to know the names of his mother and pets. I want to know those things too! It’s just when I try, it comes out as an interrogation.
Tom notices the stilted dynamic, because he notices everything, and leans down to murmur in my ear, “Let me guess. You tried to offer free legal advice in lieu of a holiday tip again?”
“Okay, I only did that one time,” I defend myself. “And weren’t you the one always lecturing me about how the ‘art of gift giving’ is all about personal touches?”
I add mocking air quotes for emphasis.
“I didn’t mean that to be an excuse for you to be miserly. I was just trying to point out that you regifting that pen to my boss’s wife for her fortieth didn’t exactly do wonders for my career.”
“She’s in publishing. I thought she would like a nice pen.”
“The pen had my initials engraved on it,” he grumbles. “Because it was a gift from my boss, a.k.a. her husband.”
“Oh, is that what happened?” I ask with a dramatic, puzzled frown. “I had no idea, it’s not like you reminded me during every single argument.”
“You had arguments. I had discussions,” he says in that Tom way of his that makes me want to punch his too-handsome face.
“Oh, that’s right.” I push the button for my floor, then decide to push his too. “It’s all coming back to me now. You, reasonable and faultless. Me, responsible for everything wrong with the world.”
“See, I know you’re being sarcastic, but . . .”
“Oh, shut up,” I mutter as we step off the elevator onto my floor.
Tom whistles. “Marble floors? Fancy. How long have you lived here?”
“Four years. Give or take.”
“Huh.” It’s a thoughtful “huh.”
An irritating “huh.”
One that I should just let go, but I was never good at that, especially when it came to Tom, so I stop in my tracks and give him the full blast of my glare. “What. What is that.”
“What’s what?” he asks, all innocence.
“That ‘huh.’ I hate when you do that. And don’t say, ‘Do what?’ I hate that too.”
Tom’s gaze rests briefly on the bandage on my forehead, and I’m pretty sure it’s only out of misplaced deference for my injury that he doesn’t give in to his usual urge to push my buttons like only he can because his next words are surprisingly innocuous.
“I guess I thought you might stay at the place on Lex awhile longer. You loved that apartment.”
A little jolt of pain tightens my stomach at the memory of the old place. A year or two into our doomed marriage, Tom and my respective careers had grown to the point where we were able to upgrade from our nice but small studio on the Upper West Side.
