Every girl has The Guy. The Guy is the sweet freshman who lived down the hall in college. He's cute! He's not overengineered - has floppy hair and a boyish look in his eyes and looks up a little too quickly when you walk in the room. If he's Asian, he wears those Korean wire-rimmed glasses and carries a silly little canvas tote bag. Bonus points if it's not from the NYT. The Guy is so sweet. He journals in coffee shops, careful not to spill his matcha latte, references his therapist, and helps you with your Python homework. He brings you flowers for your birthday, but he's careful that they aren't roses.
You had a moment, once, when you came back together from the bar and plopped down on the floor of his dorm room and his roommate scrambled to leave, muttering something about the library. You leaned against his chest, head spinning from cheap tequila shots, and you could feel his heart beating fast. But he was so nice, and you didn't want to disturb the friendship.
The Guy probably hates you a little, if we're being honest. He loves you, but he's been holding out hope for years.
Since 2015, women have claimed to want The Guy. He is the manifestation of female romance: he will buy flowers and hold your hand and hold your bag and cuddle for hours on end. He will never complain, but he will listen to you as though he was one of the girls. He will be, even as he dates other girls, obsessed with you. And you will hate him.
Girls hate The Guy. Girls do not realize that they hate The Guy, and in fact, explicitly state that they not only love the idea of The Guy, but that they also wish more guys were like The Guy. The Guy has heard this before, and will turn this idea over and over in his head when he can't sleep.
The Guy, in and of himself, is not inherently flawed. The Guy has been told, by a litany of contemporary films and feminist essays, that women will want The Guy. He is the product of over a decade of the pullback of masculinity — the sentiment that all men are bad, that anything resembling masculinity is wrong, and the celebration of femininity in its stead. The Guy grew up in the wake of the #MeToo era and has trained himself to feel somewhat guilty for the crimes of his gender. He is apologetic about his masculinity. He hopes that his apology will eventually get him laid. He is apologetic about that, too.
The modern woman need not marry for financial stability. She is a Girl Boss. She takes care of herself, and needs no man! She eschews the traditional man, the one who might one day commit the dreaded action: he may tell her what to do, or at the very least, make a minor suggestion. And, because women are told that men are evil by design, perhaps there are no good men. The best man is one who might be your inferior, one you can always grab by the collar, just in case. The ideal man is neutered. He is The Guy.
The culture hasn't caught up, nor has our evolution. Case in point: the ick.
The ick is, for those of you not chronically online, a flash sensation. Everything is going well, and he tells you that he's allergic to tomatoes. Or he sways his hips when he walks. He has a beanie baby collection. His lips are a bit too wet in the kiss.
Men fear the ick, men resent the ick. The ick, they say, is evidence of a woman's finicky nature. The ick is a vestigial organ. It is the instinct that tells you, this man will not provide for me. This man is weak. This man would lose a fight to another man. Our children will die. Tsk, tsk tsk. The ick tells a woman to walk away.
The Guy, poor soul, does not know about the ick. He believes what women have told him. And he does not understand why, if he is a man written by a woman, women do not want him.
I am generally bearish on The Guy because although he is very sweet, he lacks will. The Guy is the most acceptable attitude for a man to adopt, but it requires denying the goodness of one's own being (and idolize someone else's). To be The Guy is to de-ball yourself. It speaks to the years that The Guy spends being The Guy, because after all this time, he's still declined to tell you that he wants you. He's still a little scared.
To The Guy: not all is lost. The Guy is beautiful in his empathy, his sensitivity. Sometimes, in fact, the girl in question will date The Guy. She will take a look around, and she will come to the rational conclusion that if he is, in fact, what she says she wants, then perhaps she should give it a try. The outcome of this relationship is not doomed. But it hinges on a critical question: can The Guy stand up to her?
A friend of mine goes on a first date, drinks in Gramercy. They met at Ampersand, and she ordered a cosmopolitan. He was cute — springy brown hair, cheeks that dimpled when he smiled — but not quite her type (she'd been experimenting on Hinge). He held his glass to his lips for a second too long when the conversation stalled, and his sentences ended in an upwards tilt. He asked to see her signet ring, gold Mejuri decorating the fourth finger, and she rested her hand in his for just a moment before pulling away. When the check comes, he walks her home. She lives by Union Square, on 15th and 6th, a fifteen minute walk. It's raining. She wore strappy sandals, and by the time they get to her place, her toes are cold, her jacket is damp, and she's replaying how quickly he downed his vodka soda. She fumbles for her keys at the stoop, gloomy yellow glow from the lobby lighting her purse. She pity-tosses that she'll text him. Maybe next weekend. He knows she doesn't mean it. But he was resting his fingers on hers just an hour earlier, and her eyelashes were damp with rain, so he asks if he can kiss her anyway, and she lifts her chin up. She didn't even realize that she was waiting for him to ask.
Over and over, you'll be afraid of what you want, and you'll shame yourself for what you want, and others will shame you too. You have to want it anyway. To avoid being The Guy, there's only one thing you have to do: you have to be brave.