Do Vancouver Singles Have An Inflated Sense Of Romantic Entitlement?

Not a one-night stand passes lately without hearing oft-repeated choruses of how standoffish / picky / vapid / materialistic / unappreciative Vancouver women are.

Posts like ‘Are Vancouverites Unfriendly?‘ and ‘Vancouver Women Pickiest In Canada‘ and ‘Dear God Why Won’t Vancouver Women Sleep With Me‘ litter the blogosphere like shopping carts on the downtown east side. I’m here today to present an alternative theory: Do Vancouver Singles Have An Inflated Sense Of Romantic Entitlement? It seems like a lot of these are knee-jerk reactions to what actually ends up being unrealistic expectations. So let’s set the record straight, shall we?

First, a couple of things to keep in mind while you wander the cold, desolate wasteland that is the Vancouver dating scene: number one, and most important, is this: NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING. Read that over. Say it out loud if you have to. So, you’re a ‘nice guy’? Tough luck. So is (presumably) everyone else, so you’d better have something else to endear yourself to the object of your affection. So you messaged her/went on a few dates/lived together for a blissful decade before things went south and you found yourself scorned and alone with a heart full of hatred and a complete and absolute lack of understanding for how this could have happened? Who is SHE to reject YOU?

Which brings us to our second dating truth: relationships will inevitably end. Comedian Louis CK put it best: “I know that if you smile at somebody and they smile back, you’ve just decided that something [crappy] is going to happen. You might have a nice couple of dates, but then she’ll stop calling you back and that’ll feel [crappy]. Or you’ll date for a long time and then she’ll have sex with one of your friends, or you will with one of hers, and that’ll be [crappy]. Or you’ll get married, and it won’t work out and you’ll get divorced and split your friends and money and that’s horrible, or you’ll meet the perfect person who you love infinitely, and you even argue well and you grow together and you have children, and then you get old together and then she’s gonna die. That’s the best-case scenario, is that you’re gonna lose your best friend and then just walk home from D’Agostino’s with heavy bags every day and wait for your turn to be nothing also.” Relationships end. Sometimes, before they even start. And more often than not, that’s nobody’s fault; finding two people who share enough in common to want to spend any extended period of time together is complicated enough; throwing physical attraction, sexual chemistry and a variety of social and economic factors into the mix makes it even more so. But I don’t see people admonishing the million or so people who aren’t friends with them for being ‘too picky,’ so why are you doing it to your fellow singles?

The nice thing about being an adult is that we get to determine exactly what we want and what we’re willing to settle for. If I want a woman with a six figure job and D-cups who also volunteers at a puppy orphanage on weekends, that’s my prerogative, and you can sit there and say any number of horrible things about me but it’s not going to change what I want, nor will it make you seem like anything other than bitter. We all have standards; sometimes, people won’t meet yours, and sometimes you won’t meet their’s. Hold your head up high, suck it up, and move on.

I’ve had the good fortune to live in this city for eight years and in my time here I’ve consistently dated above my station just because of the incredibly skewed ratio of straight women to straight men, culminating in my meeting an exceptionally beautiful, talented, smart and funny woman who I’ll be having my first child with this year. In my experience, women are just looking for a moderately attractive, non-douchey man who can treat them with respect and make them laugh. If you make idiotic blanket statements like ‘women are picky’ or ‘women won’t date me because I’m a nice guy’, you’re already failing at two of those and succeeding at the third in a way you don’t want.

As a friend of mine who has traveled the world so eloquently put it: “Vancouver women are the most beautiful in the world. I don’t think ‘picky’ is the right word. I think Vancouver women have a better sense of what they want than women in many other cities; they’re more motivated, more discerning and less tolerant of getting mucked around.” And that dude gets laid more than anyone else I know. So why not try to emulate him? Look dudes, I get it. Rejection sucks. I’ve been rejected more times throughout my life than I ever care to remember. But instead of blaming people for not wanting to date you, learn what you can from the experience, look at what you can do to better yourself, and move on. Be the kind of person people WANT to date, and the dates will follow.

Image: Rich Lam/Getty Images