Selfishness

After I did the recent post about my boyfriend situation, one of my readers who's in his mid 20's sent me an email which contained some interesting thoughts. The following paragraph in particular caught my attention:

Perhaps I might bring some perspective as someone at the other end of the spectrum - not just in terms of age, but in terms of freshness of experience in that I haven't really ever had any boyfriends, and that I am currently on the London dating scene (though, purely through choice, less so since the New Year). Dating is ugly. Most people have a lot of requirements, and the behaviour you got from Boyfriend R is typical of the behaviour of my generation. I don't think it's just a question of his age, but his generation. Do you see what I mean? It's a me-me-me culture these days. Not so with Boyfriend S. I expect he's probably a very low maintenance guy (your break-up excluded). There aren't that many of them left these days.

I'm not sure how old this reader thinks I am given that he puts me 'at the other end of the spectrum', because I'm nowhere near as old as that implies! But in any case, the idea that young guys are high maintenance is interesting. In my reply, I said

Whatever decade one was born in, I reckon one becomes more robust with time, or do you think that's less true for younger guys these days?

to which his response was

I do think it's less true for younger guys these days. But I think another factor is culture. I think the Continentals and Latins are very difficult per se. The Chinese/Asian cultures a bit better. Class/chips on the shoulder a factor too. Maybe you could do a survey on whether your readership thought any particular factors made for "high maintenance".

Although I'm not sure it's worth doing a survey, it's certainly easy to find 'high maintenance' guys. For example, the reader who sent me the email about being too greedy in the bedroom can't deny that his requests are in the high maintenance category!

Discussing this with boyfriend P yesterday, he thought that the me-me-me attitude is simply a manifestation of the feelings of invincibility that all young guys experience. That's always been there, however the reader is suggesting that young guys today are more selfish than young guys were a few decades ago.

I actually think that the reader might be right. In countries like Britain today, most young guys have so many more opportunities in all areas of life than their parents probably had. The more choices there are, the more choosy people become, and by extension the more demanding they become too. High maintenance guys are much less likely to find themselves boyfriends, which I think is a pity for the guys concerned. Although I've got a bit of a reputation for casual hook-ups, I am a big fan of deeper relationships. However, I also think that as guys get older their ability to compromise grows. So perhaps even today's most high maintenance young guys will eventually be capable of forming relationships :-).