Never Date You

In retaliation to the #heforshe campaign, some men have started publicly stating that they would never date a feminist. One of the men even ended his statement with "Ladies, make your choices." I am sure you can imagine that the feminists around the world collectively chuckle every time one of these guys says this. As did I, honestly. However, I would like to take the time to turn this into a teachable moment.

First of all, I'm not insulted that people choose not to date feminists. Everyone has the right to make choices about what kind of people they wish to date. I accepted this many years ago, when I realized it was wrong for me to be annoyed when someone would say they didn't want to date a fat girl, but felt perfectly fine about my choice to never date a Republican. Everyone has the right to decide who will be a part of their romantic life.

When someone states flat out that they would never date _______, they are actually doing everyone a favor. There are so many people in the world, even so many people in our communities. We need as many filters for selecting potential mates as possible. People who have strong opinions about who they want make this easier for us. If they won't date anyone who is a feminist or fat or a folk singer, then all those people who fit into those groups can just nod and move on.

After all, this is far less insidious than the people who really don't WANT to date people like you, but instead of just saying that, they spend their time trying to change you. It's like the guy who doesn't want to date anyone above a size 2, but starts dating you when you're a size 16. He makes it quite clear that he isn't happy about the situation and then starts trying to change you. It saves everyone a lot of pain and anguish if he just ignores everyone out of his 'range' and goes of the girls who are in it.

And you might argue that when people just outright remove whole groups of people because they aspire to a philosophy or a religion or happen to look a certain way is limiting their potential happiness. And you know what? It completely is. However, that really isn't my problem. Any time we make a choice, we are walking away from all other options. It's just the nature of the process.

Most importantly, if someone tells you that they won't date you because of some aspect of who you are, don't feel ashamed about that. Don't feel threatened or defensive. And most certainly do not change for them. If they don't like that one aspect of who you are, they probably won't be comfortable with a whole myriad of other aspects as well. More importantly, if they don't like aspects about you, you probably won't like much about them either.

So gentlemen, more power to you. Thank you so much for being honest about your feelings. Let us all walk away, breath a sigh of relief, and be happy that we never have to share an awkward dinner conversation.