Helen Fielding auctioned off an autographed copy of her popular 1996 novel Bridget Jones Diary. This wildly successful novel later became a movie where the romantically challenged Bridget tried to land a man. Ms. Fielding expressed concern for women today because they have it so much rougher than optimistic Bridget. The culprit as she sees it is a combination of social media and online dating.
The average person would think these items would be beneficial to a woman in search of romance, but Ms. Fielding sees it differently. Before a man or woman was limited to whomever they met through work, the neighborhood or associated friends. Now thanks to the Internet and Photo Shop, a man believes he has a bounty of gorgeous, impossibly thin women to choose from. Ever notice how those same women’s photos keep showing up on multiple dating sites. It is because they don’t exist. Often the non-members profiles are as high as 75% on some sites, which explains why you didn’t hear from the man you winked at.
Anyone who has ever watched the television show Catfish knows that people almost never look like their photos. They often aren’t the same person, and sometimes not even the same gender. Intelligent men have been the victim at least once in this game. Maybe baited by a sexy hottie who needs money to reach his side. Fool me twice, and he deserves to lose his money to foreign men running a con.
Most men unbelievably are not looking for the model thin girlfriend. They aren’t adverse to an attractive woman, but more importantly they want someone will think the world of them. The average guy has encountered the high maintenance beauty whose incredible demands make rock star divas look compliant. According to a recent survey, men want intelligence in a mate.
The second reason the social media burns the modern woman is oversharing. Anyone who has scrolled down someone’s Facebook page and see photos of their potential or recent date sloppy drunk or clutching an unknown girl might rethink possibly dating the man. True, but that type of information was bound to come out eventually. Some people choose to live their live in the public eye even announcing how they felt about their date with you on social media.
A woman can torture herself searching through a man’s social media feed to find some sign of herself or how he feels about her. A scene in Bridget Jones’ Diary has her trying to answer the phone only to miss the call. She assumes it was the guy she had her eye on and makes up outrageous excuses why he hasn’t called. With social media, a woman might see the guy who hasn’t called her has been checking in at several night spots with a variety of female friends. Social media might kill the often illusory emotion, hope, but this was only a matter of time deal. The woman would have found out how the man was eventually. Think of this as a fast forward.
Do women have it worse now? I guess that depends. If you want to chase after a man who dates only model-worthy women, then you will find yourself with a man who is unsure of his masculinity. He needs over the top beauties to prop up his self-esteem. Thanks to the social media, you may discover your date is a jerk in two dates or less.
One comment I found interesting from a man was that by scrolling through a woman’s social media, he eliminated the need to date her. A man dates a woman to find out if she might be someone worth getting involved with. The man pointed out that by checking out a woman’s social media was the equivalent of three dates. In that regard, social media does infringe on the amount of dates you go on. Might want to make sure to streamline your profile if you listed your favorite books, music, movies, quotes, hobbies, people you hoped to meet if you could time travel, etc., in the end there are no questions left to ask a date.