the pearl boy dating experience

hoo. i'm loving this post. got it from The Man Blog. sharing this, hehe.

(the original article is here.)

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The Pearl Boy Dating Experience

Being a young 20-something in the modern working world makes you realize that it’s about time you start acting “normal”. Part of acting “normal” means abandoning your messianic mission to save emotional retards from their own self-destruction. So when a the first “normal” guy starts showing interest in you, the love-is-blind cliche suddenly holds an important truth. Despite your best friend’s warnings, you chase after him like a lovesick teenager, convinced that he has the emotional maturity and the mental capacity to handle you and understand you completely. Because he’s so normal. Apparently, “love” also makes you stupid because you just let yourself in love with a Pearl Boy!

A “pearl boy” is the most straight-arrow, conventional guy you can ever come across. They are uncomplicated creatures who enjoy manly activities like going to the gym, watching basketball (or other sports), going clubbing, taking pictures of themselves (to post in their Friendster), collecting girls (to put in their Friendster), taking pictures of themselves with lots of girls (to post in their Friendster), flirting with girls, dating girls, talking to girls, etc. You want to date a Pearl Boy because of your desire to conform to society’s image of what a girl your age ought to be like. And every girl wants to snag a Pearl Boy because they make great Trophy Boyfriends. Dating a Pearl Boy—> you are awesome—> you are conventional—> you are normal. Yeah you don’t get the logic either.

Well, looks like you lucked out this time because holy god, you met one with a brain! You actually listen to the same bands and share the same philosophical beliefs! And he can make you laugh! Sort of. It wasn’t very funny when he snickered at you for using a film camera instead of throwing away your money at a D-SLR. Come to think of it, you didn’t laugh when he called you a dork after trying to explain to him why Dungeons and Dragons is teh awesomez0rz, either. He actually made you feel a little ashamed about being a chick pseudo-geek. But that’s okay! You’re in love! And if you can make a few minor adjustments to your personality, he’ll be in love with you in no time too!

When people see you walk arm-in-arm with him in fancy places like Greenbelt and Serendra, they’d probably think that the smile on your face is the result of the serotonin rush. What they don’t know is that you’re smiling because being seen with him in public is a MAJOR ego boost. You are dating a guy who is constantly surrounded by girls that look like they should be snorting cocaine in the restroom when they’re not at fashion magazine photo shoots. To be seen with a guy like him is affirmation that you are pretty by convention. That makes you feel damn good about yourself.

You don’t know exactly what he sees in you because you know for a fact that you’re not his type. You are not a Pearl Girl, the female equivalent of the Pearl Boy. So you ask him, and he says he likes you because you’re different from the girls he usually goes for. You take that as your cue to tone down the impression management and start showing him what you’re really like when you aren’t dancing in the club. (Yes. You actually go clubbing now!) Over coffee, you try to bring up your existential crises, and he cuts you off by saying that you’re being too heavy. When depressed, you call him up thinking that he could give you some reassurance. At times like this, all you really need is someone to tell you that the world is not the sack of shit you think it is. What you get instead is a condescending lecture. He doesn’t understand why you’re so sad when everything in your life is peachy. You attempt to explain that depression is something that happens to you periodically but that it’s nothing to worry about. He tells you it’s abnormal to be sad over nothing. But it doesn’t stop there! He adds that you’re old enough to have control over your emotions, that you’re acting like a high school kid for being so negative, and that you are an insult to people with “real problems”.

Once he sees what you’re like when you’re not Miss Fun Time, he realizes that you’re not what he wants because you’re just too weird, or too emotional, too you. Despite your moments of emotional instability, however, he still insists on getting to know you more. To him, you’re a museum curiosity because he’s at least smart enough to recognize that you’re quite unusual. Unfortunately, fascination and curiosity can only take someone so far. You know that in the end, you’re never going to be enough for him. Beauty and substance is what he thinks he wants, but what he’s really after is a girl in a short skirt, impossibly tall heels, and a lollipop in between her lips. That is so not who you are.

When all is said and done, you ask yourself, what did I see in him in the first place? Why did I try so damn hard to change the very core of who I am just to make him like me? The answer is simple: pride. You’ve already spent so much money on an entire pearl girl wardrobe to wear on your dates with him. You’ve already had too many conversations where you analyzed every date because you don’t understand why he hasn’t fallen for you yet. That “I’m so in love with you” feeling you once had for him no longer exists, but you still don’t want to stop seeing him. You think that with a little more work, you’ll finally get the returns of your emotional investments (e.g. a declaration of love, roses in a vase, maybe even a compliment on how good you look tonight).

This is when your friends come in to tell you that you’re being an idiot. Why spend time with someone who makes you feel like a class A freak? Why chase after someone who is incapable of appreciating you? Why limit yourself to this one guy when there are others who are interested in you? To the last question, you reply with a, “LULZ the other guys who are interested in me must be invisible because I DUN SEE THEM!” The answers to the first two, you figured out just now.

Despite the horrible emotional roller coaster you went through, you don’t regret dating the Pearl Boy one bit. He’s not a bad person, really; both of you just think on entirely different wavelengths. Besides, you’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons from the experience, the most important one being: if you’re trying waaay too hard, don’t bother.

Screw being normal. You’re happy just the way you are. And my God, you’re way too awesome to deserve any less than a guy who will worship you for being your fun, crazy self, with occasional moments of existential angst.

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[and mariel says: hahahaha. yeah. screw being normal. and pearl boys.]