The Nine Billion Terms for Cad

There is a little known project within feminist circles to write out all of the terms for ways that men can be cads, thought to number around nine billion. It is believed that when the final term is identified all men will begin disappearing from the earth. Relax guys, because I think that what appears to be the latest term, L'Homme Fatale, only gets them up to about two million:

“People told me he was trouble, but I really thought he was too evolved and sensitive to hurt me the way he did,” Katherine said.

Katherine’s director was an Homme Fatale—a genre of man that New York women have come to know well. Often the creative type, he projects a deceptive vulnerability, while maintaining an appealing confidence. He’s usually not the best-looking guy in the room, but he is the smartest; he turns these traits to his advantage, playing up the contrast with the typical hot guy or womanizer (physical inferiority, emotional evolvement). His courtship begins with a rushed sense of intimacy and, yet, a disarming lack of forward physical advances; a first date might involve a game of Scrabble or perhaps a cup of tea; his target usually leaves wondering if in fact it was a date at all. And yet the story always has the same ending—he grows distant, stops calling and eventually disappears with little explanation, if any.

Sounds to me like a combination of it turns out "he's just not that into you" and an immature guy who doesn't have the guts to say what needs to be said. Both sexes can be guilty of that kind of behavior and while it may be fun to come up with complicated psychological profiles, I think most of the time it's a reluctance to hurt the other person's feelings, even if it's inevitable. That reluctance is a good thing in the sense that it shows a decent heart, but it may also reveal a character flaw if the person is unwilling to also be honest and have the courage to deal with the situation. That's just the way it is.

I didn't get much else out of that article except for a couple of mildly cynical chuckles, though this kind of intrigued me:

“He’s not like the hottest guy, but he’s cute and sweet in like a Jewish–boy–from–New Jersey sort of way and very self-effacing. He’s not what you picture when you think of your typical dicky guy,” recalled Helena. But the relationship only lasted three months.

“I was really an anxious mess with this guy,” she said. “He’d email me and text me all day and then just fall off the face of the planet for three days. I am not an insecure person and I was terribly insecure. I was constantly checking texts and emails. I would be at home drinking whiskey and smoking a cigarette in the corner, waiting for him to call. Finally, I was like, ‘I am 30 years old! What am I doing?’”

Be still my heart.

Helena-Email me.

Comments

[Rob]

Do people get a prize for a positive identification?

And then, this from the same piece:

"James, a 23-year-old editor at a literary magazine, referred to himself as a “reformed Homme Fatale.”"

I don't care how much money he makes or how much he gets laid, James is a dweeb.

[Dave E.]

Yeah, I think James is glad to have a fancy way of saying he has commitment issues. I'm almost impressed at how unimpressed I am by that.