I’ve been running with a group of pretty fast girls. The other day, one of them sent me a research abstract from a social psychology paper. The researchers had investigated decision making in regards to potential partners among men and women, specifically the relationship between socioeconomic status, educational level and perceived desirability. They found that, when women appraise men, men of higher educational level and socioeconomic status are judged to be more attractive potential partners. The trend is the opposite when men appraise women as prospective partners. Men find women with lower educational level and socioeconomic status more attractive. Furthermore, it is really the educational level that is critical. Women with a high level of education were deemed “less likable” and “less faithful”.
My friend and I had a little exchange about this. We agree that “less faithful” is closely related to “will leave you if she is unhappy”, and that women with more life options and experience are, in fact, better able to leave unhappy relationships. Yep. You got us there. But, I do have to point out that an advanced degree is a tangible example of years of fidelity and admirable follow-through. We might want to conduct some research of our own to determine if intelligence is correlated with infidelity among women. I sincerely doubt it.
This particular friend has been giving me some girl-tension lately and during this exchange, she hurt my feelings. She likes to tell me that it is a compliment when she remarks (over and over and over again) that all the boys like me and that if I have any strays or spares, I should send them her way. First of all, this is patently untrue. Secondly, I detect a strong passive aggressive undercurrent. She was seeing a man a while ago, and remarked several times that she would not be introducing him to me and our other friends, because no man would withstand our charms. This was so infuriating to me on multiple levels that I called her out on it. First off, to even suggest that I would want a boy who would behave inappropriately with me while dating one of my friends… Well, that is not taken kindly. Second, why are you dating him if he can’t be trusted? And, why are you insulting yourself in such a manner as to suggest that you cannot compete? When she stopped by my work and re-iterated this I told her frankly that I found her logic lacking. She never dropped her joking tone, and quickly switched tactics (I don’t need to remind you that this woman is smart). She actually accused me of insulting her when “all she was doing was stopping by to say hello”. Then she again stated that she was merely complimenting me by (again) pointing out how desirable I am to the male gender.
Frienemy?
This has really been bugging the logical side of my brain. Not the frienemy thing, which I understand on an intuitive level and can deal with. The logical arguments that have been advanced bug the crap out of me.
For example, we were discussing the demise of her recent relationship with a man she was dating. He had treated her poorly at times, and she had let him know it through superior logical reasoning. And she advanced the idea that “women like us” were different from “most women” because “we don’t take that kind of thing in silence.”
Hmmm. Well, here’s the thing. She argued - I would wager that she argued her point of view vociferously, eloquently, and conclusively. But she didn’t dump him. In fact, he dumped her. After giving her enough evidence to conclude, probably with merit, that there was something really off about that guy. Isn’t that even worse than suffering in silence? Or not having the intelligence to recognize the bad behavior? (I would argue that, in fact, IQ-style intelligence has little to do with this ability. But I digress.) Isn’t knowing full well, and being able to articulate and detail exactly what is wrong with how you are being treated - and then asking for some more - in the form of staying - isn’t that worse? Hypocritical? Lacking in self respect?
I live in a glass house here, and so let me just be clear that I am not about to throw a stone at my friend. I have stayed and argued when I ought to have simply left. It’s the logic that bothers me. “Women like us” aren’t defined by our words - we are defined by our actions. Just like everyone else.
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