Wise Guy

Images: Ryan Gosling

"…men walk past each other, they pass each other without looking. Or then they stalk a woman. A woman is standing there and four men direct their steps more or less toward the spot where the woman is standing. It occurred to me that I can never make a woman in any other way than motionless, and a man always striding; when I model a woman, then motionless; a man, always walking. It’s the totality of this life that I want to reproduce in everything I do."

— Alberto Giacometti in discussing his bronze “Places.”

This morning I was brushing the snow off my car when a random stranger began belting out a serenade to me from his balcony.

This is what a lot of men do.

You're writing your life's work at a coffee shop and some wise guy asks for your number. You get on an elevator at a hospital and some funny romeo offers you a lame one-liner. You're late for work and some clown decides he's going to serenade you.

Yes, it's flattering and funny. But it's also incessantly annoying. I have a life and men who weasel their way into my day are not part of it.

When my morning jester's musical number was met with my mediocre response he chivalrously called down, "What, no response? Nothing?! Aw, c'mon. Where you going anyway, honey?"

Charming.

I couldn't have been more disinterested in the cute-wise-guy romeo who steps out onto his balcony barefoot in the middle of winter to sing to pretty strangers who are obviously on their way to somewhere. But I realised, many women would have been charmed. He was being charming. There was a definite appeal to him - he was spontaneous and cute and funny and not half-bad as a singer.

I'm quirky and bohemian and I like doing stupid/silly things that have nothing to do with seriousness. But when you get right down to the heart of it, I want a gentleman. I am most attracted to a well-dressed, well-mannered man of integrity and talent who is able to carry himself in serious conversation and tell witty jokes in equal measure. If he manages to have some musical ability, all the better.

But I realised this morning that what I want is a man. A real man. And real men have somewhere to be on a Friday morning that doesn't include clowning around on balconies for pretty passing strangers.

I know Ryan Gosling managed to get the girl in The Notebook fellas, but you're not Ryan. And this isn't a movie. And if your ex-girlfriends ever forced you to sit through the movie, you'd know that Ryan was actually very romantic and dead serious.

In other words, gentlemen need only apply. So beat it, wise guy!