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Note the red ring....

I Wonder....

It was not a good day for The Chicago Tribune.  I feel for them.  There are also rumors about the future of The New York Times.  

There are a lot of companies in general in turmoil right now.  (I know, f'ing duh!)

However, for me this raises a series of questions.  Where are people getting their news these days (if not from newspapers)?  Cable news shows?  I know there's a cult following of junkies, such as yours truly, however, I don't know if they are facing an increased audience as some others are facing a decreased audience.  The internet?  Perhaps.  More specifically - are people getting their news from blogs?!  Are they credible news blogs written by researchers/reporters (such as the newspapers' websites), or any random blogs, like THIS ONE?!?!

(I guess maybe that's better than getting your news Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity.  Couldn't resist.)

Or, I guess maybe there's another option.  Are people not 'getting their news' at all?  

Do Nice Guys Finish Last?

So, as all my readers know, my mother periodically saves me articles from the "other" paper.  Here was one I found particularly of interest:

Apparently, in a previous column (this is what I've gathered from what I read), a man, "Greg", wrote in expressing his frustration that....wait for it....Nice Guys Finish Last!  Hrumph!  He apparently is a self-described "5" out of 10 with a great sense of humor, and, of course, is nice, yet he keeps striking out with the women he pursues.  It must mean, of course, that women just don't like nice guys.  (Insert blogger's eye roll here.)  

  

In this column, both women and men wrote in with advice in response.  There was a general consensus amongst women and a general consensus amongst men, but not between the groups.

Women claimed that this, indeed, in not true.  Greg's issue is that he is going after the wrong women.   He is a 5, perhaps he is going after 8s and 9s...maybe he'd have much better luck in the 4-6 range?  Maybe the problem isn't women, but rather, the kind of women he's attracted to.  Maybe if he's nice but average looking and he really wants to be in a relationship he should look for a nice but average looking girl?

The men had quite a different take - yep, women like nice men when they need someone to drive them somewhere, listen to them, or fix their sink.  Nice guys are great when a woman needs to complain about the jerk they are sleeping with.  However, when it comes to someone to date/sleep with, women want the hot bad boy.  A twice-divorced fifty-something man wrote something to the extent that when women say they want a nice guy, they really are saying 'we want a really really good-looking nice guy'.  

Obviously, I find these men's views of women and what we want to be rather ill-contrived and almost humorous.  However, I could see men finding a lot of flaws in the women's views on the subject - we don't date someone just because they are fair match-up on the looks scale nor is someone simply being equally appealing as ourselves a good argument to date that person.  

I raise a question to "Greg" - what exactly is he looking for in a girl?  We will all say that it's important that we are 'attracted' to our mate - how much this involves actual physical attractiveness varies from individual to individual.  If he expects to lean on his 'niceness' to generate attraction - is he attracted to niceness?   What exactly IS he attracted to?  (Or, what are these other guys attracted to if they are being used for favors by these women they pursue?  I wouldn't call that the work of 'nice girls'.)   These men who complain women don't like nice men - do they like nice women?

So, here is my advice to Greg all of the nice yet romantically frustrated people of the world:  if you are a person whose greatest, and rather noble, selling point is that you are nice - perhaps this isn't an opposites attract kind of deal.  Maybe you should look for someone who, first and foremost,  possesses the same quality.  I can't help believing that he's not quite doing this at the moment, and maybe if he does, it will generate considerably less frustration.  

Dating Double Standards

So, there was an article in the, ahem, other paper - it was an excellent piece entitled something like "Why Can't Carrie Think Big?"   In short, it addressed that fact that many people comment on Carrie Bradshaw (SJP) dating a man (Chris Noth) who might be 'out of her league' per societal standards.  

I've heard criticisms of the Carrie/Big relationship from women moreso than men (most likely because more women are familiar with SATC).  Here's my beef though - we VERY often see and seem to accept the beautiful girl paired with the average joe guy - Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen in Knocked Up, Heather Graham and Mike Myers in Austin Powers, Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel in real life, etc.   However, we RARELY see the reverse.  I honestly can't even think of another example other than Carrie and Big.

Why is that?

Whenever there's the latter mismatch, there's always the whole 'oh, he's really funny' (Sidenote:  funny is ALWAYS the first quality society seems to think women want in their man - if this is true, why aren't we all dating clowns or stand-up comedians??!).    Or, if not funny, it's assumed that the man has some other attractive quality, such as intelligence, successfulness, or kindness.  

However, Carrie Bradshaw is witty and independently successful - she should get the same absolution less than perfect looking men get, no?  Why is it assumed that men will pick their romantic partners solely on superficial qualities, yet women are expected to look at the big picture?

On a similar note, I remember, a couple years ago, one of the networks had a dating reality show called "Average Joe", in which a bunch of moderately-attractive-at-best men were vying for the hand of an attractive woman.   I didn't watch this show, but from the few commercials I saw, it didn't appear as though this leading lady was going to win Miss Congeniality any time soon.  So, what was their reason for pursuing her (aside from the fact that it was a reality show and there was probably some financial prize they were pursuing as well)??   

I find the whole situation ironic - it was fine for these men to apply superficial standards when picking a mate, but this woman was urged to look beneath the surface.  On the same note, I do not remember there ever being an 'Average Jane' counterpart to this show.  Why is it that a woman dating a less than perfect man is widely embraced, but a man with a less than perfect woman is generally non-existent - at least in Hollywood?

It seems as though the double-standard is alive in well in the eyes and minds of both men and women.   Do we still see a woman's primary role in a relationship to be 'sitting pretty'?  Why can't we accept the idea of a man being attracted to wit, ambition, or a kind soul over appearance?  Are looks really THAT important to men?

I honestly don't know if I think men are more superficial than women on the whole - a faithful part of me wants to think they are not.   However, why do we struggle with the idea of the hot guy with an average girl, but the pairing of the hot girl and average guy is a duo of heroes?