Men Of The World: Unite!

Have you seen them? Or, even worse, are you one of them?

You know the couples I'm talking about; those ones who are just so completely in love with one another that they couldn't fathom the thought of sharing an entire meal while seated on opposite sides of the booth. Yeah, sure, sharing a seat next to your significant other was pretty sweet in, say, the high school cafeteria. But the general public without the company of your three or four ugly chess club friends is quite another thing. Stop proclaiming your love of being in love in the public square ... please.

I say this knowing full well that women, for the most part, get the free pass here. Very rarely does it ever appear that it's the female who takes her seat and genuinely asks her boyfriend to take the open space beside her. Sure, it can happen; and if you're a dude who follows through with her shameless call for attention, well, you're a giant tool. Congratulations.

Not that any of that excuse makes you any better than the douchebags I all too frequently see performing what I'll refer to as the "insecurity trap." It becomes nauseating.

Nine times out of 10, some hostess at any given restaurant shows a young couple to their booth, the lady sits first, and then the male—as though he were a predator on some wildlife documentary—dives in to sit right beside her ... leaving the other side of the table empty.

This is an empty gesture in many ways, but a telling one about the male in the relationship.

Watch him put his arm around his girl. Watch the girl occasionally squirm and look around in a fascinating state of panic. Watch as the female is then trapped in a date situation in which she can:

A) no longer escape

or

B) welcomes the gesture as a sure sign of commitment

Option B is popular among uglier couples. That's who love to flaunt it the most, after all. "Hey ... We're fucking ... And you're not."

They need to tell themselves that. It's always a saving grace that no other employeee in the restaurant is envious at this point.

Option A is particularly saddening, however, because I tend to shake my head and try to think of the best subtle way to remind the poor fellow how uncomfortable he may have made his date feel. Suddenly, there's a spotlight cast upon her that the rest of the patronage sees, but only he does not.

Treating your date, your girlfriend, your "we-should-get-back-together" as a caged animal is a heartless, shallow manuever that I'm sure guarantees you more failure in the long run than you think it ensures in the here and now. But, you're oviously smarter than me, Mr. Pimple Face seated with Mrs. Double-Chin. Best of luck to the both of you.

For the rest of us that are smart enough to realize there are times when allowing some physical space isn't just necessary, but also productive, please pity these poor souls.

And then please tell that couple to get a fucking room if they really think we're into watching them be more in love with pretending to be in love than they are with actually being in love with one another. You can put it off for another couple of weeks, and we'll forget about it in about twenty minutes. Everybody wins ... Kind of.

One more viewing of behavior like this for me is enough to make me vomit, and hence, leave one unfortunate female who didn't realize how cornered she was, trapped in an entire room where she might not be able to stomach the smell of what I puke up.

Relationships succeed by knowing your boundaries; exploiting them to remind others that you're in a relationship ensures nothing but failure. It's too bad freckly-face will have to learn that the hard way.

We all know the rest of the world is having sex, but feeling the need to remind us that unattractive or overly sheltered goonies get to have it to doesn't impress anybody. To be honest, it's downright frightening.