Rose Guy presents thorny situation
Few contemporary figures strike fear into the hearts of men more than The Rose Guy. You know him well. You’re sitting in a nice restaurant with your beloved sharing an evening of sautéed scallops, Australian red and pleasant conversation, when a sudden chill signals his dishevelled, phantom-like spectre entering the room with a bouquet of sickly red roses.
Your mind envisions the scene about to take place as it has a thousand times before: He’ll saunter up to your table, smile at your date, then turn to you with a rose extended and eyes wide. And there you are. On the spot. All eyes — those of your date, all of her temporary sisters in the restaurant and every other poor bastard trying to figure out the deal — are on you.
Your choices are tough. Dish out the dough for a wilting, third-rate flower from the high-pressure, table-to-table salesman or face humiliation, scurrilous looks of hostility and a long drive home with nothing in store at the end.
With the orgy-like romantic marketing machine of the Valentine’s Day season upon us, you’ll need to be prepared for what is about to unfold in eateries across the city.
I resent The Rose Guy with every fibre of my being.
I believe he is a scandalously anti-feminist relic and a scourge on modern dating.
I believe The Rose Guy’s profession should be criminalized. I believe restaurant operators should face municipal bylaw charges for allowing The Rose Guy inside their doors.
I believe The Rose Guy to be an exploitative purveyor of snake oil sales techniques that should never be rewarded. The same guys who hand over 10-spots to The Rose Guy for a single flower support a business model they would never tolerate some stranger knocking on their door at home during dinner to ask about their gas bills.
By financing his underhandedness, we, the victimized male consumers, tacitly contribute to his ongoing manipulation — a vicious economic cycle that must be expunged for all time.
Those men who contribute to the corrupt sales practices of substandard flora hawkers get what they deserve.
“If you send the Rose Guy away, you risk sending the very public message that you’re just not that into her.”
ELIZABETH, 31, TORONTO
But the implications reach beyond their short-sighted selfishness.
Each misdirected attempt to purchase the on-the-spot favour of their female companions is actually a hostile act against all men.
Romantically dubious tableside flower purchases ensure The Rose Guy will keep showing up to impose the same indignity on all of us.
In expressing this widely held male view to some female friends, I’m now advised that The Rose Guy apparently sits in the crux of a vast gender divide.
“Just buy the friggin’ rose,” says Elizabeth, a 31-year-old Torontonian who vigorously defends the legal rights and moral value of the Rose Guy. “If you don’t, you’re losing an opportunity.” This is because what The Rose Guy is offering, she argues, is not roses at all. It’s memories. “You’re buying a moment, and that is priceless. Believe me, to some women, it is worth far more than the meal, the wine and the parking combined. It’s the rose that she’ll remember at the end of the night.” Could sophisticated, professional, liberated women be so blinded to the opportunistic extortion and dulled, clichéd romance of The Rose Guy? Switch perspectives for a mo- ment, lads.
In the crucial moment when The Rose Guy arrives at your table, she’s actually undergoing similar inner turmoil.
She’s terrified you’re going to wave him off, prompting all of those eyeballs around the restaurant to move from you to her in a moment of exposed mortification.
“If you send The Rose Guy away, you risk sending the very public message that you’re just not that into her,” says Elizabeth.
Your choice also communicates a kind of personal character subtext to which every man I know, including me, is oblivious.
“It’s a chance to show you’re empathetic and compassionate. If you smile back at him, give him the money and thank him for stopping by, you’re showing me that you care not just about me, but about those who aren’t as fortunate to be sitting here having this lovely meal in a nice restaurant.”
Here’s the singular point on which the sexes can share unanimity: Whatever you do in the moment, be definitive and intellectually resolved. Don’t hesitate or, for the love of Romeo, try to negotiate the price down.
“Nothing will make a woman say, ‘Cheque, please,’ faster than this type of behaviour.”
If flowers are your chosen method for communicating affection, buy them on your own terms and present them to her long before The Rose Guy shows up at your table. Problem solved with far greater chivalry, forethought and romantic gallantry.
The best part: You can direct the Rose Guy’s attention to the far lovelier bouquet already in her possession, and send him on his way with a slightly contemptuous smile while fiercely defending her honour against the probing judgment of others.
It’s win-win-lose. Sorry Rose Guy. rcribb@thestar.ca