If everybody wants you, why isn't anybody callin'?

Last night, we celebrated 3 x 50 years of Will Straw, Marty Allor and Sandra Buckley. Predictably, we were trawling the eighties music and Geoff played "Gloria" by Laura Branigan. Then Will said that she just died in her sleep of a brain aneurism. I listened to the lyrics more intently than ever before and I thought she was singing about a woman dealing with schizophrenia! I just had a look at the lyrics and, um, I'm happy to report that I don't think she is. "Gloria" contains the line above which is some pretty choice wordsmith-ing. Rest easy Laura.

My post on men in Montreal has been in draft for nearly a month now, mostly because I want to be proven otherwise. Claire told me to post it a while a go to make certain the Universe knows it needs to prove me wrong, so here goes.

I am having difficulty parsing my thoughts here and please, Universe, prove me wrong, wrong, wrong. I DO KNOW though that I hear my sentiments echoed in the women I talk to. The men in Montreal I'm talking about are probably more indicative of the petrie dish I live in and the swab thereof that I take. But I have been hearing women muttering over and over about the state men of this city are in. These are women I work with, women I study with and women I live with. Men just don't know what they want or if they do they don't act on it, they keep telling me. They are flakey and basically just chicken. *

This disturbs me because:
a) I'm in the same dating pool.
b) These things have a flow-on effect - the more people get on with Business, the more Business there is. (Mathematical equation forthcoming...)
c) This isn't the Montreal I used to live in, is it?

Were men always this cautious and I neither knew nor cared because I was in a relationship or semi-relationship for most of the time I've lived here? What is going on with the collective unconscious of the guys in Montreal? I'm toying with the idea that it is just me and the problem will go away once I move to Toronto. All the nubile men in Montreal will catch a whiff of change in the air, cautiously peek their heads out of their little neurotic shells, grow a backbone and venture out on to land once the threat of running foul of me is neutralised. How do you spell martyr again?

Twenty year old Walter was seeing a girl recently that made everyone, including himself, ask how he managed to snag such a stunning female specimen. I think I know how. Walter is the Perfect Gentleman. Not in in an overbearing sexist way but in a gentle way that says, "I am happy to be here with you. I recognise and respect your womanhood." Now, there is nothing romantic going on between us - I'm his noona ("big sister" in Korean) and our relationship mostly consists of me offering unasked-for advice. Extrapolating his attitude though spells good things for the propagation of the species. Montreal men could learn a lot from my man, Walter. The Art of Flirting is a Lost Art. And those that are flirting seem to be the ones that have already their action waiting at home. To quote Claire here for a second, if they were cabs, their dome lights should be OFF!

Is there some kind of sexual politic that prevents men from stepping up because they don't want to appear sleazy and be confused with that seething morass of men that smart women refuse eye contact? There is a middle path that needs to be tread, I understand. I would like to put the blame on the slacker/hipster ethic but I'm sure there is nothing in that dog eared handbook about how cool it is to go befriend beautiful women and how much inhibition really turns them on. Is it because I'm getting older and people around me are also getting older and thus self-conscious? We're supposed to feel more comfortable in our skins, not less. I'm always shocked at how dry the terrain is in Montreal. My friends are hot, yo!

Update: Upon further investigation, I don't think I'm going to follow up on the Friendster guy. The other one, Fancy Frenchman, I will likely call mid-week. This gives me at least 3 days to figure out what to wear.

* Not just me, I swear to fucking god.