"Do women just want to be rescued?" bellowed a headline in a recent issue of GQ magazine. "A man who can take care of his woman is damn sexy!" the subhead surmised.
Sure, a man who takes care of a woman is damn appealing. And, yes, it would be nice to believe that everyone on this romantic little planet will have the ideal fairy-tale ending complete with a Prince Charming to take out the trash, buy her roses and rescue her from her mundane single-girl existence. But do all women really want to be rescued? Are we really struggling that much that we feel nothing will save us but a stronger, smarter, financially independent bloke? Really?
If Hollywood movie endings, Sex and the City episodes and speed dating parties are anything to go by, the answer is a definitive yes. If the number of hours women spend talking about the men who are in (and not yet in) their lives were all added up for just one day, it would be fairly obvious that something would be fairly amiss. If that sad facial expressions that single women plaster on their faces at weddings as they gaze longingly at the groom wishing they were standing in the aisle, then the answer would seem to be yes. And if you happened to come across the classic tome The Cinderella Complex, you may have a clearer understanding of why playing the victim in the face of men is not only mightily appealing for women biologically, but actually works.
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Yep, sadly it seems there's one small facet of female modern behaviour that pre-dates feminism and throws all those go-girl chants right out the window: many really still have an insatiable need to be rescued by a man. Even though we have (almost) equal pay, equal positions in the work place, more rights than ever before and the ability to do things like a man for the most part, somehow even the strongest women sometimes seem to have nothing better to talk about than their latest date, man drama, conquest or the one who they feel got away.
Surely in this day and age there is more to life for the fairer sex than waiting for a man to rescue us from our own mundane lives?
I wasn't entirely sure.
A poll around the office finds the results are mixed. Some women want a man for certain needs - sex, money, putting together furniture from Ikea, carrying the groceries and listening to their problems - and others simply want a life partner who is complementary, works with them as a team and will cuddle them at night.
Either way, there it is ... the "need" for a bloke. To be "rescued" as the GQ article so bluntly puts it? I certainly hope not all women aspire to that.
Men, on the other hand, seem to me to be largely less needy.
I've never heard a man blatantly admit he "needs" a girlfriend; that he is desperate to get married or that he really wants a girl to rescue him. (Unless he's a cash-strapped young thing looked for a sugar momma, but that's a whole different column.)
After interviewing a group of single 30-something men about their after-work habits and weekend rituals (and having to endure dates with some of them in the name of research), I found that there was a surprising similarity between them all: they all had their own lives with little time left over for a girlfriend.
There’s the dude who works at a bank, does swimming training at night, cycles on the weekends and plays golf on both Saturdays and Sundays. There’s the guy who works 16-hour days and then hits the gym, sleeps on the weekends and does the exact same thing week after week. There's the guy who surfs before work, hits the gym after work and sees his best mates in his spare time with little time left over for a girlfriend, let alone a second date. And there's the gent who travels so much for work, you'd think he lived on a plane. Are you getting the picture?
It amazes me how so many men have taken out the time to form a full, fulfilling schedule while so many women spend their spare time searching for the dudes who have become way too busy to see them anyway.
But back to being rescued.
The good news is that men actually want to be needed. Which is why so many women act helpless in the face of a man to whom they're attracted.
"It's a tactic I love to employ," says one of my man-eating girlfriends, who in her mid-30s has realised the key to a man's heart isn't through his stomach, but through boosting his ego by making him feel needed.
"Men might get intimidated by me, so I act like a little girl, twirl my hair and always ask them for help with everything from the computer to changing my light bulbs."
I witness one of these "damsel" acts in action. I watch the man melt. I watch him race over to help her. I watch him beg her for a date. And I see how it might in fact have some merit.
Which draws a weird line in the dating sand. Because here's the problem: sure, men need to be needed. But at the same time I often hear from the men I interview that they want someone who is independent, strong, assertive, makes decisions for herself, and isn't ever too needy. So please explain?
"Here’s the thing," one 29-year-old man tells me. "I want to be needed in the way that when she has an issue she comes to me, but I don't want a girl so dependent that I become just a wallet and a sperm bank. If she is too needy it makes me think she just wants any man and isn't really with me for me."
Needing a man is a funny concept. I continually think that if I had a man to knock holes in my wall and hang up my new paintings, buy the beer when people come over and help change the light bulbs, pay for the groceries and take me for dinner, life might be a tad easier. But then again, a trip to a Bunnings Warehouse the other evening proved to be the perfect venue for some late-night eye candy. And without booze, cheesy pick-up lines or other women competing for their attention ... they were only to eager to lend a helping hand ...
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