Girl Talk

As little girls we loved getting all dressed up and having beautiful Barbie marry beautiful Ken. When we were young, Ken was the perfect man. He had great hair, a winning smile, gorgeous eyes and a body to die for, but most of all, he adored Barbie.

I’ve outgrown the days of playing with dolls, but sometimes I still sit around and daydream about my perfect guy. Right now it’s a vague mix of characteristics in my head—someone taller than me (as if there are a lot of guys out there under 5 feet tall), someone charming and funny.

All those things vary by degree—like creating a Sims character where you have 20 personality points and you have to decide whether you should put more into the charisma pile or the neatness pile. You have to be willing to take some trade-offs. My ideal levels change by the day, but there’s one that hasn’t changed since the days of Barbie: my ideal is definitely a good ‘ole southern boy.

It must be something in the water down here because as far as I can tell southern moms are the only ones who, as a group, teach their sons to open doors and all-out respect their women.

Before anyone gets all up in arms, I admit that there are exceptions. There are ALWAYS exceptions. I spent the week after spring break with a 6’4” tennis player from Chicago who (aside from making me laugh) opened all of my doors, was always polite and offered me his arm whenever we were walking anywhere. Some guys might say that’s cheesy, but we girls find it completely charming (I guess we’ll give Tennis Boy a 3.5/4 since he’s not really from the south—no, Chicago is NOT part of the south, just in case you weren’t sure).

But the real inspiration for this week’s column is actually another Chicago boy and his former girlfriend. Before spring break, this ex-boyfriend (who wasn’t an ex until this horrific visit) came to Dallas. In the spirit of southern hospitality, we decided that one of my friends and I would hang out with the two of them on Saturday night. After an hour of driving around vetoing possible entertainment, we decided on a quick trip to Taco C (Taco Cabana for those of you who aren’t “with it”).

My friend really had to go to the bathroom so we asked the guys to drop us off at the door before they parked. When we came out, not only had her boyfriend already ordered his food and paid for it, but he was already eating it! Talk about rude. And not even ONE of the six times that we got in and out of the car that night did he so much as attempt to open the door for her. I was appalled, to say the least.

But out of this incident came something good. My newly single friend has a new dating…philosophy, if you will. She now says that she will never again open her own doors on a date. She claims that, if a guy doesn’t automatically open them, she will sit in the car or stand outside the restaurant until the idiot she’s with gets a clue.

And she’s right! Why should we girls settle for being treated like anything less than princesses—or at the very least, southern belles. Have we really lowered our expectations so much that a guy rushing to open the car door surprises us? Sadly, the answer for most of us is probably yes. I know it still shocks ME when I go out with a guy and he has the good manners to pull out my chair.

I guess southern gentleman behavior could be compared to chivalry with a slight southern twang. It’s really just about being polite and considerate (although the soft southern drawl is a bonus), and that means picking her up, opening doors, pulling out chairs, giving up your jacket when it’s cold and picking up the check. No, saying that I think a guy should pick up the check does not make me a gold-digging snob; I was just raised with the idea that that’s what guys are SUPPOSED to do.

The fact that southern boys also tend to be rather masculine and routinely feel the need to defend their women are also very attractive qualities. Sigh.

Now, I’m a big fan of guys in general—northern, east coast, west coast, foreign, whatever—but the southern boys have always been my personal favorite. I honestly believe that guys from the south are a breed all their own.

When you get right down to it, the attraction of southern guys is that they don’t treat us as if we’re disposable — just another girl in a series of girls whose name they won’t remember next week. They treat us like we’re special, and that’s all any girl really wants. So, to sum up, let me say something to all the southern boys out there.

Thank you! Thank you for treating us like we should be treated. It’s guys like you that keep us from becoming bitter, cynical women at the ripe old age of 20. You give us hope that somewhere out there, there really might be a guy as perfect for each of us as Ken was for Barbie.