Saturday, July 31, 2010

Can you date someone weaker than yourself?

I was having lunch with a girlfriend the other day and we started talking about dating.  We are both strong, independent, and competitive women.  We enjoy playing sports. We are not the typical girl. We will wear dresses but we'll also roll around in the mud while playing a game.  We enjoy challenges and are not afraid to challenge others.  We are not "girly" in the sense of the word that we're emotional, that we drink girly drinks (you're likely to find us drinking beer or doing a shot of whiskey versus drinking champagne... although I do enjoy champagne).

We were discussing men and if it is possible for a female to date someone she perceives is weaker than herself.  For most girls, this isn't a problem (and I am very jealous of you). For us, it can be.  If I dated someone who didn't like to challenge me, someone who wasn't competitive, someone who rolled over and catered to anything I wanted, I'd be bored, frustrated, and not at all attracted.  Oops, I just ruled out the majority of the hill rats and policy wonks in DC.  C'est la vie. (Disclaimer... these people are some of my best friends, but there is a reason I cannot date them... I think it is a perceived strength thing).

My conclusion is that women need to date someone "stronger" than them, but that men tend to date someone "weaker" than them. I think this is just the natural order.  The only problem with it is, that for strong women, we've just eliminated 80% of the dating pool and yes mom... I'll try to not be as competitive, but it is part of my charm (for the record, when I was a kid, she'd always tell me not to be so bossy... I guess I haven't changed much since I was little... and believe me I've tried).

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I absolutely agree with all of this, probably because I was the aforementioned girlfriend. Anyway, it's why I think I've ended up dating so many guys in the military. With the excpetion of one officer those guys are not the highly emotional, more-likely-than-me to cry, needy guys.

Once when complaining that my then boyfriend was too emotional and I couldn't handle how often he cried I was asked to consider that maybe I wasn't your "typical girl." I took that as a complement and broke up with that guy less than a week later. :)

Amy O'Connor said...

This is from an email I received and I am sharing it.

you're right. we can't date someone weaker, or less challenging than ourselves. at the same time, i met a really boring couple this weekend and they were very happy.