THE PLIGHT OF THE SMART WOMAN
Why successful, independent women often struggle with dating
Jenna Birch’s new book sat on my desk for months before I could bear to open it. The Love Gap: A Radical Plan to Win in Life and Love is about why smart, successful independent women — the type of women that men profess to want — have trouble finding steady relationships.
For years, my single girlfriends and I have been told by the men we date: You’re everything I’m looking for, but I just don’t feel it. Or: You’re great, but I’m just not ready for a relationship. I didn’t want to open the book because it felt too close to home.
But I’m glad I did. Because in it I found empathy for the women who hear these things and the men who say them. And an explanation for why seemingly good matches fall apart or never come to fruition.
Perplexed by her own dating struggles, Birch dug into research and spoke to about 100 men and women about why it’s so hard to find the relationship they desire. Birch finds an explanation in the enduring pressure men feel to be providers, even in an era when, in about a third of married or cohabiting couples, women bring in half or more of the household’s earnings. Birch and I spoke about her book; the following interview has been edited for clarity and length. How did you decide that this was the question you wanted to interrogate? There’s a lot of survey data that said men were really into these smart career women. But I looked around at who was struggling with dating, and they tended to be that type. If this type of woman is the dream girl, then why are they having problems? And then Lora Park had research that came out in 2015 that showed psychological distance matters a lot. What does “psychological distance” mean? “Psychological distance” has to do with when you’re thinking about something as an abstract concept. For example, there are a lot of pros to smart, independent career women. They have that second paycheque; they’re intellectually in the same plane and they are similarly educated. All things that we know produce good relationship partners. But when it came time to close that distance and men had to interact with these women face-to-face, they started to lose interest. How does that play out in real life? I would get on dates where a guy would be so excited about the date, we’d have intellectual sparring and then we’d get there and it started to be a competition. I’ve had guys get into one-upping matches with me on dates. It can be a little bit difficult. Why do men have trouble committing to women who seem to be the whole package, or as you call them: the End Goal? Women who are “End Goals” are those who really have their lives together; it might be the partnership that these men ultimately want, but they’re just not there yet, so they can’t commit. I wanted to reassure women that if they were having these problems, not to get a complex about it. Just wait until they find an investment they really want to make or someone who is special. How have you seen this disconnect in your own dating life? I had an ex-boyfriend tell me that I was so sure of myself that I was going to scare guys. I’ve also had situations where, on first dates, men will say things like: “I can’t have a girlfriend right now.” They might be thinking about moving, going to grad school or taking a job out of state. Men are kind of stuck in that norm, where they have to provide. They put that pressure on themselves. I’ve seen that, definitely. Why does that sense of men wanting to be a provider still exist when so many couples expect that both partners will be working? It’s definitely the norm. There was recent Pew research that looked at what men and women thought the societal pressures were for men and women. The vast majority put being a provider and career success at the top for men. Women are showing that we can be that equal provider. But there are still these ingrained gender roles. If men aren’t fully aware of what’s holding them back, how do men and women date smarter? If you listen closely, men will tell you where they’re at. A lot of them will drop hints about: “I want to settle down” or “it’d be nice to have a longterm partner.” Whereas somebody who’s in flux will tell you they’re works in progress (which we all are).
Individually, you can kind of decide what’s worth your investment and how to structure your time wisely. There were a lot of women in my book who ended up dating men who all their friends and family said: “Don’t do it. He’s not going to put a label on it. He’s taking forever. He’s so skittish.”
But a lot of the women learned that they had to be patient and work through it on an individual level with these guys who were putting so much pressure on themselves to provide. How do women know when to invest in a man who’s not quite ready yet? A lot of that comes down to looking for things that you like in someone and being patient if they are not fully there yet, but you see potential.
When you’re investing in a partnership, you have to look at the trajectory as a positive one, if they seem to be on their way versus just kind of stagnant and feeling things out. Having that vision of where they want to be — even if they’re a bit behind — is much more attractive.