Submitted By Elizabeth Warner - Florida State University

I realized it was over when he said, “I just want to hold you all night” and the thought didn’t even sound vaguely appealing to me.

The poor man, I thought.  Another victim of the de-masculinization movement of the 1990s coupled with taking cues from Robert Pattinson’s ambiguously gay and overly sensitive character, Edward Cullen, in the movie, “Twilight”.  We’ve taught our men too well; we’ve told them they’re supposed to cry, get in touch with their feelings, do laundry, write sappy poetry, and usher spiders out the door rather than squashing them with their bare hands.

And, apparently, we’ve taught them that cuddling is cooler than sex.

But what about those of us who still have a sex drive? To whom can we turn when our trusted boyfriends utter anticlimactic words like, “I just want to hold you all night?”

I mean, what’s an appropriate response to that? “Thanks, but I’d prefer a quick and sweaty romp, closely followed by you leaving so I can sleep without your snoring face in my pillow”?

Oh, come on.  This wasn’t love.  Not for me.  I find it impossible to fall in love with a man who watches the Lifetime channel.  I just don’t need that kind of competition for the Girlfriend of the Year award.

Role delineation is important to me.  I guess I never knew that until I met him.  I wanted to be the girl! When I was scared to go to the dentist, I wanted my big, strong man to hold my hand.  I didn’t want to have to hold his.  When something went “bump” in the night, the last thing I needed was a shivering lump under the covers encouraging me to ignore it and hope it would go away.

I needed a man.  The way they made them in the old days.  Maybe a cowboy.  I bet no cowboys ever worried about whether or not their socks matched their ties, or asked the barber to use the conditioner that added “shine and luster” to their hair.

As the female in the relationship, it was my duty to be the narcissistic, sensitive, weepy, maternal, fashion-conscious, coupon-clipping person with too many shoes.  And somehow, my role had been usurped.  Well, this relationship wasn’t big enough for the both of us.  One of us had to leave.

I’m not sure how it slipped my mind for so long.  How had I overlooked all of those afternoons when he called to ask me what happened on Jenny Jones that day?  Gosh, how he loved those reuniting family member shows.  And so did I.  But that was supposed to be my territory!  He was supposed to watch The Sopranos and ESPN and Cops.  And he was supposed to burp out loud occasionally, and leave damp towels on the bed.

I couldn’t believe it.  There I was, missing damp towels and belching.  Was I warped?  Maybe.  But it was true…I favored even the gross “guy behavior” over this feminized version of male-hood any day.

“Don’t you ever get gas?” I asked him, and even as I said it, I understood the confused expression on his face.  I was confusing me, too.  Maybe this was an identity crisis.  Maybe tomorrow, I was going to wake up wishing he’d forget to flush the toilet.

“Um, sure,” he said, with that upward lilt in his voice that signifies a question rather than a statement.

“Do you just hold it in when I’m around?”

“I don’t know,” he said.  “I guess I go to the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“Why?”  He repeated, now staring at me as if I had just asked him to eat an actual shit sandwich.

“Never mind,” I mumbled.  Trying to convince a guy to expel gas in front of you is probably a weird proposition.  After all, if he actually did it, I’d complain, anyhow.

But, wait.  Maybe that was just it.  Maybe I needed something to complain about.  Maybe I missed all of the past ogres in my life who needed my gentle prodding to remind them to eat with utensils and use fabric softener.

This guy had given me more home remedy tips than my own mother.  “Take out stains with seltzer” I already knew, but did you know that mayonnaise makes an excellent monthly cream rinse?  I didn’t. And why did he know?

Sisters.  That was the inevitable answer.  Still, it made me a little uncomfortable.  He was a better woman than I was.  He knew when JC Penney was having a sale on bathing suits, he ironed better than I did, he got mistier than I did at that anti-drug commercial where the announcer says, “This is for all the kids who take the long way home from school.”

And if he asked me if I wanted to talk about my feelings one more time…!

All I wanted was a man who would stick to being a man and let me be the woman.  I wanted someone who would carry heavy stuff into the house for me, and change the oil on my car and lightbulbs in my bedroom.

It wasn’t his fault, really.  He was just following instructions, like so many of the modern men who we women claim to adore.  He was listening to the women in his life that had been beating this “be a sensitive man” garbage into his brain since toddler-hood.  It was as much my fault as anyone’s.  Sure, I’d yelled at past boyfriends, telling them they needed to be more understanding and kind and neat and conscious of their color scheme choices.  But I didn’t really mean it.  I just wanted to have a job in the relationship.

Now that this guy had showed up on the scene, I saw the error of my ways fully.  This was the future.  If I kept on complaining effectively, all the men in my path were going to turn into these ambiguously-gendered people with hormone swings and a total inability to mow lawns.

So, where did that leave me?  How was I going to convince this guy to be a caveman again, only so I could nag him about his caveman ways?  It was impossible.  Out of mercy for his sanity, I had to set him free.

It’s probably more difficult to break up with a sensitive man than any other kind of person.  You just feel evil doing it.  He’s done absolutely nothing offensive or objectively wrong.  There have been no beatings, no cheatings, no fights, no uncaring behaviors.  And no matter what you say, he’s going to see it as a fault of the “Nice Guy Syndrome.”

And that’s not entirely accurate.  I like nice guys.  Really, I do.  I just want a nice guy who belches.  And the next time, I vowed, I was only going to lightly nag about the gross guy behaviors.  Enough to complete my required complaining quota, but not enough to actually induce any change.

So, I told him.  At the end of our “I just want to hold you” date, I told him that the sparks just weren’t there for me, and I didn’t see a future to this relationship.  I added the obligatory “But I still want to be friends” line, and I meant it, too.  He was a good shopping buddy.  Who else was going to tell me if those pumps would clash with my pocketbook?

He cried.

Of course he cried.  Couldn’t you see that coming?  He cried for what seemed like weeks.  He came over to my house with the express purpose of crying.  “Closure,” he said, and I cursed Oprah.

At some point, I had to point out to him that his mourning period was lasting longer than our relationship had.  I couldn’t stand the guilt anymore.  I had broken a sensitive man’s heart, and no matter how many good deeds I committed from now on, that was always going to be a black mark on my permanent record.

I imagined him, back in his Martha Stewart-inspired apartment with the immaculate bathroom and tasteful upholstery.  I pictured him crying into his down pillow, wondering what he had done wrong.  “If only I had belched once or twice,” he’d wail.

And, somehow, that was exactly the image I used to rationalize away my guilt: he had stolen my coping mechanisms.  It wasn’t bad enough that he was better at cooking and grooming and finding low-fat snacks.  Nooooo.  He had to go and be better at wallowing in heartbreak, too.  He had pushed the line too far.  It was no longer my job to help him.

And as for me, I coped the only logical way I could: with pornos, sports bars,and meaningless sex with strangers.