As an avid connoisseur of all things relationships related, (or so I like to believe), it strikes me as odd that two of my close friends are currently ensconced in unions that I'm completely baffled by. While I would describe them both as "casual dalliances", (after all they've only just met the guys and both never seems to call when they say they will), my girlfriends prefer to term their flings as "intense relationships with a guy they're hoping will propose sometime soon".
So what's going on? Have I got this all horribly wrong? Am I seeing things differently to the way they really are? Have these relationships progressed intensely right before my eyes without me noticing the soul-mate connections? Or is it them that have it all mixed up?
He's the Player; a man who has only one goal in mind - to win the game without giving a toss how many hearts he may break in the process.
While trolling through female profiles on dating website (for work purposes of course), I wasn't surprised to discover that the number one type of man women don't ever want to date is - surprise, surprise - the Player.
That's because, (as a quick straw poll around the office quickly discovers), most women have been burnt badly by the Player. (I still can't shake off the damage the first Player I dated caused me back in 2003 when he dumped me for someone taller, prettier and smarter. I happened to bump into him 2007, and yes, he is still a Player.)
Despite our best efforts to avoid these types of cads, it seems Players are currently in abundance. Perhaps his rise to the dating fore is a vicious response to feminism; a sadistic backlash at the rise of the alpha female who demands weak, gelatinous gents to step all over as they climb the corporate ladder. Oh yes, Players pose them the ultimate challenge and always seem to win, at the alpha femme's emotional detriment, of course.
Unfortunately we all know too well that all attempts at exhorting friends from dating Players quickly fall by the wayside. That's because for the woman who has fallen in love with one, coming to the realization that they're not really soul mates but are merely dating a Player, is an arduous, almost impossible task.
I'm convinced that the reason is quite simple: Players are masterminds at convincing their targets that they're the Perfect Man.
Dating sucks!
"He wears the right clothes, he has the right job, and drives the right car. He's funny and charismatic and knows how to lure a woman into the game by simply raising a seductive eye brow."
The trouble is that while the Player makes us feel like we're the most important woman in the world, (and makes us addicted to feeling this way), he's giving the same confidence booster to every other one of his conquest (or "opponents" as they like to see us). And if you've noticed that your man often decides to cancel you at the last moment, don't fret.
"He'll tell you that he's working late or that he's not feeling well, but what's really happened is that he met a new opponent with longer legs and wanted to upgrade."
And when we feel our man is slipping away faster than our interest in speed dater with bad breath, we do what any normal "red-blooded" girl would do: we sleep with them. Unfortunately while we "see fireworks, he only hears the final buzzer. The game is over and he came out the winner. And now that he's won the game, he moves on to his next game of the series in his perpetual quest to play in the Super Bowl of love."
Ouch.
Yet sometimes the gents themselves don't even know they're playing.
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