Diatribing

So last night my friend Seth was over. Maybe friend is too strong a word. He's my home teacher and the other "ward menu supervisor." I had called him over to talk about the ward menu, actually, which he really doesn't care about.
Seth is usually a nice guy, but consistently negative, especially when it comes to the fairer sex. Last night I made the gross error of asking him if he was currently interested in anyone. This innocent, albeit stupid, question set him off on a diatribe of his own with poor little old me dodging darts and arrows and the opinions of someone who truly hates girls/women.
Guys can usually get away with telling me how ridiculous females are. I agree. Girls/females/women/chicks/babes, whatever you want to call them are annoying and obnoxious and demanding and stupid and collectively irritating. Not that guys/males/men/dudes/boys don't receive and deserve similar treatment. But at the same time, both guys and girls can be pretty wonderful. It's an interesting dichotomy. The opinions thrown at me last night, however, were of a completely new variety.
Seth has, like everyone else, been hurt by girls in the past. Unlike everyone else, Seth forces these experiences onto every girl he subsequently meets, making the entire gender one nasty mess of a beast. He is holding out for the perfect woman, who in his mind, does exist and will conform to what he wants.
This isn't following logically, and I don't care, but the few points that stuck from Seth's argument were that 1) girls are selfish. Seth complained that in past relationships, the girls expected him to work around their schedules. "Didn't you expect them to work around your schedule?" Of course, but that is the way it's supposed to work; the girl is supposed to adjust her schedule and her life to meet the guy's needs while he continues on as normal.
The conversation continued with me more than a little bugged with him and somehow reached the point of Seth saying he required a girl to show a lot of interest in him before he would lift a finger in her direction. I argued that there is only so much a girl can do before she is seen as forward, chasing, and desparate, and basically discussed negatively in the ward. He claimed that there were certain things a girl can do to let a guy know she's interested. "Fine. Tell me what to do. I'll test your theories." Seth, of course, laughed at me and then asked, "Are you willing to fall in love? And then get hurt?"
He then proceeded to tell me who I would be calling on, if you will. It's a guy I know pretty well, who I respect a lot, but who I have no desire to date. And I now I realize that this is the major flaw in Seth's theories: he doesn't realize that there has to be some form of attraction and that the two people have to want to make the other person happy. I know that this guy Seth decided I should date wouldn't make me happy, and I wouldn't make him happy. Seth only wants someone to make him happy--he's not out to reciprocate. I've gone on dates with him and he is a great date, but he's a great date because that's what a guy is supposed to do, not because he respects the girl he is with and wants to make her happy.
At this point in my own personal diatribe, the doorbell rang and two of the greatest guys in the world were on the other side of the door, which, thankfully, ended the discussion.
Fin.