As some of you know, I’ve been doing the online dating thing this fall. (It’s going okay – thanks for asking. I don’t want to jinx anything, but anyone who wants to cross their fingers, don lucky socks, or send good vibes this way in preparation for a Tuesday night dinner date – your help would be appreciated.)
One of the developments of my adventures has been a new friend of the male persuasion, who I’ll call by the amazingly clever pseudonym “M.” We met as a possible match, and despite a little waffling on that on either side, we’ve pretty much ended up as pals, spending hours commiserating on our various misadventures, and offering behavioral translations, unsolicited advice, and color commentary.
M. and I have noted an interesting phenomenon – the queue of potentials never actually gets all that much shorter, though the membership changes fairly regularly. There’s always a group of a few people, each at a different stage (preliminary email, email correspondence/talking on the phone, first meet, first date, second date), and though not everyone goes through the full progression – and sometimes it seems like the whole queue quits at once – there’s actually a fairly standard number of members in that queue.
We’ve also noted an inequity in the English language – namely, the lack of agood word for the “potentials” in M’s queue. I can blithely refer to my suitors, beaux, admirers – there are no equivalents for the women who he’s talking with at any time. Now, clearly this is about the different things courtship has been about for men and women, historically – it has been the case that the women have been pursued, and so that terms for the pursuers have been developed. Thirty years after the start of the modern women’s movement, however, there’s still no language to talk about the women who might, en masse, be pursuing a man. (Harem is a post-consummation term – and refers to the group, not to the individuals.)
M. and I were talking about this this afternoon. “I know,” I said, “I’ll post it on the Dope. They’re smart people. They’ll come up with something.” He was skeptical.
Prove him wrong, fellow Dopers – resurrect or coin a term for the women who are presenting themselves as potential SO’s to a male. Equality demands it!
