San Francisco gentlemen: U.S. dating culture & having a boyfriend back home

It’s Thursday night, and I’m at a bar. The speakers play loud rock music and a buzz fills the room. From my seat I have a perfect view over the whole bar. I can see the pool table, where some guys are playing a game. I look at my two friends, who are both talking to a guy. It looks like they are having a good time. I think of home and of my boyfriend. Everyone here is chasing someone, is looking for someone. There, at the bar, a guy that looks deep into the eyes of a girl. And there, in the back, a girl that swings her hips to the beat of the music, while being checked out by a group of guys. A couple in the corner is kissing. It’s one-thirty. I take a last sip of my beer, wish my friends a good night and go home.

The American guys that I have met here are one: gentlemen, and two: convinced that they are better than your boyfriend. As to point one: if guys come up to you, their goal is not to kiss you and take you home for a one night stand only to never call you back the next morning. No, it’s different here. Guys ask your phone number, to make an appointment for a lunch or a cup of coffee. Neat.

When Maurice invited me for a cup of coffee, I told him I’d like that, but that he should know that I have a boyfriend. He asked me why I cared about someone that is on the other side of the world and told me I shouldn’t make such a big deal of it. Exit Maurice.
Graham invited me for lunch. Sure, I said, but you do have to know I have a relationship. After he heard that, he tried to convince me that he was better than my boyfriend. ‘I’m a stand-up comedian’, was his main argument. I think he was joking, because he was honestly one of the most humorless people I had met so far. ‘Let the American take you out’ he tried. When I refused his offer, he asked me to give him the phone number of one of my friends.

Once, in a far away past, I heard an American guy admit that he felt that he could easily beat any European guy. It cracked me up back then, but I realize now that some people really look at the world in that way. The task is to convince a girl that you are the most handsome, funny and cool guy around. It’s a competition, not surprising in the competitive U.S. Success lies in your own hands. The prize is a girls’ admiration.
My European boyfriend is a weak opponent: raised in a welfare state where guns are prohibited and the most dangerous animal is a seal.

I find it disturbing that some guys treat me as their trophy. If they can’t get with me in a romantic way, they become instant assholes. Next to that, I am shocked that they see me as a passive being: when I tell them I don’t want to date them because of my boyfriend, they tell me that he doesn’t have to find out, as if I am dying to date them actually. No thanks.
I sent Graham and Maurice: ‘I have a boyfriend and you should respect that. By the way, he would beat your ass’.

Emma Slaats
emma_slaats@hotmail.com
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