And on every Thursday or Friday night, a certain semi-local station had this abominable week-end dating call-in; but as there was little else going maybe, I used to listen to it with loathing - well, at least for as long as I could stand it. .
It was hosted by a rabid, bad-looking, overweight, post- first-wave-feminist female man-hater, who was quite a celebrity back then, having written books on the subject with enticing titles such as: "Why Women are so Great (And Men so Horrible)" "Why Men Suck" - you get the drift - and at older age (i.e., forty something) had moved on to radio as a non-visible means of communication and earning money; before that it had been talkshows on TV.
She had a grating voice, a false exuberance bordering on the hysteric, and a caustic, self-centered sense of - well, I suppose she called it "humor"; self-centered meaning: encompassing all women, wether they liked it or not. Remember, this may have been pre-woke, but it was also pre-gay culture. So it was straight couples only; and that is the point.
The evening, over hours, invariably went this way:
Interrupted by jingles and music to cover the bartering, she reminded her audience, by inflection, that this was all about hooking up some superfluous dolts to expensive princesses, not that they had any need for it, no siree; and she couldn't even understand why any one of them called in anyway; probably to relieve themselves of boredom.
Funnily enough, and perhaps prompted by this praise in advance, quite a few of them did; and some men as well.
And you could bet your bottom dollar that, in 90% of the time, it went something like this:
Feminist Host: Hi there, Mary-Anne, (inflection: how nice of you to stoop so far beneath yourself and call in here), please describe yourself.
Mary-Anne: (describes herself in some detail, but somewhat vague) Well, I'm so many years old, am of that many foot three, weigh x pound y grams, blond eyes, and blue hair, or whatever.
Plus some details of her life, such as an occupation or whatnot.
Feminist Host: That's fine! Now, what would the man have to look like for you to consider going out with him? What would his accomplishments have to be, at minimum?
Mary-Anne: Goes into an unbelievably long tirade to describe, in endless detail, and aided by Feminist Host, a crossover between Tom Cruise, Brad Pit, and Prince Charming from Disney's Cinderella; with a dash of roughneck and wall street broker thrown in for good seasoning; starting at the top (his thick and wavy head hair, of precise color). Etc.
You could (and I frequently did) turn the radio off for the next fifteen minutes and go and do the dishes or something else more pressing, and when you returned, and turned it back on, she would still be nattering away, having by now reached the nether regions of his hands, his chest and his abdomen.
Another fifteen minutes of this minute description of her Wet-dream Lover Knight in Shining Armor, during which I always imagined the Feminist Host to be flipping through a woman's mag, going over her grocery list, or perhaps her critiques, and even leaving the room herself on some errant business, she would have reached his feet and toenails, to peter out in exhaustion.
Feminist Host: (returning to the mike) Whew! I see you have a pretty exact vision of what he should be and look like - and so you should, you gorgeous girl. You deserve nothing less. Now, while we were talking, we got this caller on the line, who has been listening in and would like to go out with you. Shall we bring him on?
Mary-Anne: Yes, please.
Feminist Host: His name is Dimwit. Hello Dimwit!
Dimwit: 'ello.
Feminist Host: Well, Dimwit, please describe yourself (and remember what you're up against)
Dimwit: I'm x foot tall, weigh y pounds - usually way off the mark of Mary-Anne's very precise requirements - and I'm sort of losing my hair, I'm sorry to say, and it's not the right color; plus I'm a couch potatoe, a bit overweight, generally uncouth and have no way with ladies.
Feminist Host: Oh dear. Well, in that case, I guess I have to ask you, what would you expect the women you would like to spend the evening with to look and be like?
Dimwit: I don't really mind.
Feminist Host: You must have SOME idea... how tall should she be?
Dimwit: I don't mind. I just wanna go out and spend the evening in company.
Feminist Host: So could she be taller than you?
Dimwit: Sure! I wouldn't mind.
Feminist Host: Blond? Dark haired?
Dimwit: I really don't mind.
Feminist Host: Slender? Voluptuous?
Dimwit: Don't care, really. Either way.
Feminist Host: Intellectual? Emotional?
Dimwit: Both.
.....
I'm skipping the next 15 minutes, in which Feminist Host tries, in vain, to get anything more out of Dimwit except that he just wants female company for the evening, no matter who she is or what she looks like, and we'll see what happens after that; and no way to make him into anything even remotely resembling what Mary-Anne had described, in her diatribe, as her personal rock-bottom minimum.
....
Feminist Host, exasperated, finally: Well, Dimwit, would Mary-Anne fit your (non existent) bill?
Dimwit: Sure! Why not. That would be nice.
Feminist Host: And now I ask you, Mary-Anne, would you take this Dimwit for your evening chaperone?
Mary-Anne (throwing her aspirations to the dumps): I guess so...
Feminist Host: Jeeeez. Ok, that's fine. The guys in the back will help you exchange addresses, and we expect you to call in next week to tell us how it went, OK?
Dimwit & Mary-Anne: OK. Thanks.
Feminist Host: Run along you two, and good luck. Now, on to our next caller....
- which would then be a repeat of the first.
Next Week: Mary-Anne and Dimwit call in.
Feminist Host: Well hi there you two! How did the evening go?!
Dimwit & Mary-Anne: Fine.
Feminist Host: That's nice. Even though, Mary-Anne, Dimwit at first didn't fit your expectations?
Mary-Anne: It was nice
Feminist Host: Dimwit? How did the evening go for you?
Dimwit: Nice.
Feminist Host (after prying on about it they had spent the night together, too): Well, Mary-Anne, so things turned out all right after all. Would you like to see Dimwit again? And, Dimwit, what about you? Do you think this could work out to be a stable relationship?
Mary-Anne (the one, female, with those very high and precise partnership expectations, that were not met in the least by Dimwit, her future partner):
Yes.
Dimwit (the other, male, with no expectations whatsoever, except one: female):
No.
Invariably.
There is something to be learned here.
Men (and one must today add: straight men) and women (ditto) have completely contradicting (or perhaps, complementary) ways of arranging themselves into a partnership (and probably their lives).
Women have precise, minutely detailed preconceptions, which they are willing to throw into the wind at the first chance of an opportunity, perhaps only to be endlessly frustrated; while men take what they can get, and then see if it fits them, or if there might not be something better yet to aspire to; perhaps only to be endlessly frustrated in the process as well.
In the end, both will end up thinking: I could have done better.
But how, then, did we have (or used to have) content couples?
Content straight couples?
Or is it that women just THINK they have a dream lover, while men just THINK they don't?
Who knows...
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