Everyone's mocking the Washington Post story detailing the dating woes of Washington's formerly moneyed douchebags men. "No job means no buying rounds of $15 martinis for a pretty woman and her girlfriends," we learn. "No hosting parties in the bachelor loft." True enough. But the article is less funny than sad, and it gets to that line that those horrible, man-hating feminists always use: The patriarchy sucks for guys, too.
Alexandria native Niko Papademitriou, 27, became an investment banker with a Cleveland firm soon after he graduated from college. The money was steady enough for him to fly regularly to Manhattan to see his girlfriend and take her to upscale restaurants such as Bond Street and Cafe Gray."A large aspect of my life -- three out of the first five conversations that we had -- I told her, 'You're not going to see much of me in the next 15 years if we start dating, because I'm going to be making a lot of money.' " He thinks that worked in his favor, "not so much for the money, but for the drive. It's one of those things in men that women find attractive."Since being laid off in November, he has moved back to Alexandria to live with his mother. He now takes the Chinatown bus -- for as little as $5 each way -- to visit his girlfriend. Round-trip airfare between Cleveland and New York City averages more than $200."It's definitely putting stress on our relationship," he said recently, sitting in an Old Town cafe. "It comes back to this whole manhood thing. Like, can you be the provider, not just for yourself but for others?"
When your whole romantic identity -- when your gender identity, "the manhood thing" -- is based on your ability to buy expensive dinners for the girlfriend you never see, something has gone terribly wrong. And it's gone terribly wrong for you.
