Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes This Guy

[Content Note: Misogyny; dehumanization; sexual entitlement; disablist language.]

Saturday, Washington Post columnist Carolyn Hax answered a letter from a guy who wrote in with this dating conundrum:

Dear Carolyn: I'm an average-looking guy...let's say a 6, and after years of dating, I've come to the conclusion that I have four options when it comes to women, none of which seems to add up to long-term happiness.

Option 1: Be with a woman who is more attractive than me, but less intelligent or mentally stable, thus trading intellectual connection for beauty.

Option 2: Be with a woman of equal intelligence and attractiveness, but spend my life in boredom once the novelty wears off, and end up like every other married zombie.

Option 3: Be with a woman who is more successful and intelligent, but less attractive than I, and spend my life fighting the temptations of lust (think Bill Clinton).

Option 4: Become the lonely creepy uncle everybody invites to Thanksgiving out of pity.

Is my outlook completely distorted and pessimistic? Or am I just being an entitled moron with an inflated ego? Is there a fifth option (other than becoming rich and famous)? I'd really appreciate your feedback.

Carolyn's answer is pretty good, in that she very politely suggests to her correspondent that maybe he isn't actually viewing women as fully human, and, hey, howsabout that as fifth option, bub?

Shaker Alison Rose (who gets the hat tip) suggested on Twitter (which I am sharing with her permission): "Option 5: Leave all women alone, forever."

I think that's a very good suggestion, too!

I might also suggest to this poor, unfulfilled chap that he consider how his rhetoric of frustrated entitlement sounds disturbingly like that of men who have killed women, and wonder why it could be that he sounds so much like violent misogynists, and, if that disturbs him, as well it should, then he should consider that he does not own women and, if he wants someone with a particular set of qualities to date him, then he endeavor to make himself a person that sort of woman would want to date.

Just a thought!

But mostly: What Alison said.

[Related Reading: On the Geek Guys' Elliot Rodger Think Pieces: Part One and Part Two.]