Challenging Chivalry

Photo curtesy of MCT Campus.

The boy walks up to the front door, roses in hand. After adjusting his freshly-pressed vest in the window one last time, and he knocks on the door. A young lady, all dolled up, opens the door. She introduces her date to her parents in which he responds with two firm handshakes. The boy assures them she’ll be home no later than 10:30 p.m. They say goodbye and when they reach his car, he runs around to open her door.

This is how a common date was described in the ‘60s.

Flash forward and it’s 2017. Today girls can expect a “here” text. Now, the action of getting out of the driver’s seat seems more like an inconvenience than a duty.

This type of behavior is becoming more frequent in the high school community. Chivalry is dying. It started dying a long time ago –  somewhere in-between the invention of the iPhone and “dates” (booty calls) Tinder makes so easy. Yet, it’s to a fault of neither boys nor girls.

Instead of going up to girls and asking them on dates, boys are sliding into a girl’s direct messages with lines as classless as ‘Hey you’re hot af btw. Gotta Snapchat?’

Girls are not guiltless in this tacky way of asking for a date.

So start demanding some respect. Someone asks for your Snap over direct message? Demand they come up and ask you in person. Someone asks you to come over and hangout? Demand you guys have a proper dinner date first. How can boys be expected to be polite when girls give them the easy way out?

We have devolved into a world where romance is just about the physical outcome. Dating is supposed to be about two people forming an emotional bond who are attracted to each other. When the goal becomes the sexual bond, chivalry is destined to die.

Boys and girls are able to make a simple fix to this sad but frequent situation by trading in a simple text for something in person of the classier sort – “Hey would you like to go on a date sometime,” and by date, I don’t mean a date on your couch in the basement at 10 p.m. watching you play video games.

Why purchase flowers for $6.50 when girls will give you the same reaction to texting them a winky face? As boys are sending mass Snapchats of their abs, daisies are wilting in store windows.

But still, teenagers will feel wanted enough to drop their friends because of something so little as a DM. High schoolers should hold themselves to a high enough standard to say, “Hey that’s cute and all, but don’t call me five minutes before you want to see me no matter valiant your efforts were to shove me into your busy schedule.”

Simply being chivalrous, like helping your date put their coat on or walking in between them and the curb, shows that your date is respected and not a simple afterthought. At the very least, pay for their uber home.

Both parties should be working to to reshape today’s high school dating world. Those wilting roses in store windows could be put to good use and girl’s instagram DM’s could use a break.

One thing I’m sure of is I’d rather be an old cat lady than someone’s “nice piece of ass.”