Beta Men: The New Women

Alpha Female/Beta Male

Mary and I broke up in January 2008.  We met six months earlier and I thought she was the one, my wife, the woman I had been looking for all my life.  From the beginning of our relationship, Mary spent every weekend at my home.  The smell of her perfume in the hallway outside my door was a welcome change from the usual locker room odor.  I was happy.

After the break up, I waited a few months for the depression to end. When I re-entered the New York dating scene I posted an ad on JDate to increase the pool of available single women.   In December, I met Sarah, a Marketing Director for Time Warner.  Once again, I thought this was it, the real thing, ‘the one’.  Sarah was going to be my wife.

I grew up with girls like Sarah.  My parents wanted me to marry one of those girls.  We went to Hebrew School, dance classes, high school and college together.  These women went on to become doctors, lawyers, VP’s and CFO’s.  I had dreamed about marrying a woman like this since I was 12 or 13.  However, in my daydreams, I was an orthopedic surgeon and she was an attorney at law.  The Bohemian writer fantasy was two years away. 

Sarah and I had a great time. We were together three times a week and she came to the bar to wait for me on Saturday nights.  Sarah had to be ‘the one’.  I started to tell everyone she was going to be my wife and had fantasies of a fast Las Vegas wedding in front of a Rabbi Elvis Impersonator or something else I considered widely romantic.

Sarah felt differently.  She broke up with me at the corner of Lexington and 51^st Street after we saw Defiance.  We were getting too close too fast.  “I’ll call you later in the week,” she told me.

Steve, my bartending partner on Monday night, tried his best to commiserate.  “Having to start over with a new chick sucks dude.  Did she give you a reason, other than getting too close too fast?”  I told him no and frowned. “Maybe she was just afraid she was falling in love with you,” he suggested.

I appreciated Steve’s attempt to buoy my spirits. His remark, however, sounded like something straight out of the girls night out.  I used the ‘too fast too soon excuse’ three times as a ‘nice’ way to end a fling. Sarah did not want to see me anymore and I was working my way towards accepting that fact.  On Friday, she sent the e-mail.  The relationship wasn’t going anywhere so why should we waste our time?  I was depressed, again. I pushed forward in my dating life, again.   As my grandfather is fond of reminding me I am 40 years old and I should meet someone quickly.  I want to get married.  I want to have children.  How am I going to teach my kid to throw a baseball if I’m over 60?

I can see a pattern emerging.  Except for Mary, my last five girlfriends haven’t gone past the four-week mark.  In each case, I wanted to continue dating but they didn’t.  Two used the ‘too close too fast’ excuse and two ‘needed to take a break.’  Nancy was a little more up front.  “I love to hear your stories but I keep asking myself, what happens when he has no more stories to tell,”  She asked in her break-up text.  Good question, I thought.  Although I admit I hate the idea I may have told enough stories to lose the girl.

I’m trying to figure out where I’ve gone wrong with these women.  Is it that I talk too much about myself?  Am I under the delusion that I am such a great guy all we have to do is get to know each other and will fall madly in love?  I found some answers in an online article entitled Dating 101: The Six Biggest Mistakes Women Make.   

I have gone to my friends for support, looked online for dating advice, have body clock issues and watched all the episodes of Sex and the City.  The next thing I should do is subscribe to Cosmo.  It doesn’t matter who you are, if you are in my demographic let’s get married.  All you have to do is listen to me talk about myself anyway.

What Susan Crain Bakos told me the other day is true; Beta Men are the new women.