Judging with Judgy Judges

Yesterday's post prompted a debate with a friend of mine regarding whether blogging about dating will deter men from asking me out. From his perspective, if my potential date knew that I would be analyzing him the whole time, ready to write my review later that night, he wouldn't want to take me out for fear of being judged like that. I jokingly responded that no one cares about the good dates; it's the bad ones that are fun to hear about and I'll never see those guys again anyway. However, after more reflection, I realized that if I'm writing about my life, I will be writing about the people in it, including the person that I'm seeing.

Which led me to... why should that be a bad thing? That's what we do on dates...we judge. We shake each other's hand or give each other a hug and then sit down and size each other up. Men and women may have different methods of analysis. She's asking herself, "Does he seem like he'd be good with kids? Would he get along with my family? Is he a romantic? A good kisser?" He's asking himself, "Will my friends think she's hot?" and "How long will it take me to get her out of her pants?" But, we're both doing the judging. I'm just being vocal about it.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The type of man that I will ultimately end up with is someone who's kind, intelligent, funny and caring; in other words, the type of man that I'd want to tell the world about. If that's who you are, why wouldn't you want the general public to know about you?

But, just in case you're worried about being painted in a bad light, here's a list of the type of men that I would probably say judgy things about:

1.) Men who spell "cool" with a "k". As in "kool" or, even worse, "kewl". This comes up in text conversations and drives me bananas.

2.) Men who take shirtless pictures of themselves in bathroom mirrors. You know how sometimes men say that it's better if women dress to "leave something for the imagination"? Yeah, we feel that way too.

3.) Men who start their online dating profiles with "I can't believe that I'm online dating...". If you can't believe that you're online dating, then what are you saying about me, who doesn't see anything wrong with it? And why are you even on there in the first place? Man up! This also applies to the headlines "Let's tell people we met in a grocery store" and "My friend/sister/brother/cousin/boss/dog/other put me up to this."

4.) Men who make fun of other men wearing pink shirts. There are straight men who look great in pink shirts. Deal with it. I may begin questioning your sexuality if you make a comment about another man's sexuality based on his choice of button-down color.

5.) Men in sweater vests. I realize that this is my own personal taste and there are women out there, like my sister, Lori [Note to Lori: I told you I'd work you in here somehow] who love men in sweater vests. But, unless you're in Boyz II Men, I'm not a fan.

6.) Men who wear bluetooth in their ear around the home or office or at McDonald's. Yes, I said McDonald's. These men exist. 

7.) Men who walk with their palms facing backward...gorilla style. We don't get a lot of these in New England due to our lack of muscle beaches. But, whenever I see this, I get curious and when I get curious, I get distracted. Does he have to train his muscles to turn that way? Do his wrists get tired? Are his elbows on backwards?

8.) Men who will not at least pretend to be interested in coming to my dance recitals. Look, I realize that sitting through three and a half hours of watching girls aged 3 and up in sequins run and skip across the stage to old Broadway tunes isn't exactly your ideal way of spending a Friday night. But, all I ask is that you half-smile and say "sounds fun". And I promise that I'll do the same while listening to a hole-by-hole recap of your golf game.