First let me say this, I’m all for Bones & Booth getting together, I’m fully behind that pair, but….
Two points of what he said really stuck with me. One, that people believe men should have to chase around women and two, that women project a "knight in shinning armor" stereotype on men.
First off, it is true that as humans we believe the opposite sex should put in some effort into the whole romancing schtic. However, if you talk to a man, they often believe women think the man should do it. If you talk to a woman you get the reverse. It's not so much that people truly believe one side or the other to really be at fault but that dealing with someone from the opposite sex is hard, understanding people, no matter the gender, even harder, and all people like things to be easier for them. Of course it's hard to see that the other side might also be feeling the same things, because you aren't playing for that team. We all have our issues with feeling like we are doing all the work. That's why real relationships are partnerships. Doesn't matter who your partner is, the point is that both of you have to work together to make it work. This isn't just once you've agreed to live together or hold hands or tell your friends you are a "thing". This starts from the very beginning, if you aren't willing to compromise a bit here and there (obviously not on big moral issues or deal breaker sort of situations because then you are changing your core beliefs and in the end that only leads to arguments or loss of self) then you are always going to be "finding" that one feels as if they are doing all work, since you end up striving even harder to make the other person see your point of view and become the person you wish them to be instead of the person they are. Sounds cheesy but meeting in the middle holds true in this situation. It's not hard to tell if someone is going to be someone willing to do some of the leg work for you, sure their face might be beautiful but that doesn't mean you always have to catch the bill, doesn't mean you only see them when they have free time even if you have to rearrange things, doesn't mean you should let them slide on forgetting important days like your birthday or your anniversary. People are so overtaken by beauty that they often let others use them just to keep in their good graces but that's really another rant all together which I'm sure I'll touch on again later. If they treat you like that then they probably will whether you are just dating or married. People only change if they want to themselves, no one can truly change you unless you let them.
Onto that second point. He mentioned Knights. I always find that topic a bit ridiculous, for centuries Knights have been regarded as the crowning achievement of male honor and chivalry and yet Knights were mostly just bullies, hired thugs. It's such a false ideal it's almost saddening, people still believe that these men were somehow above the attitudes of "normal" men towards women, when the reality is that they only were to women of certain classes. To many women and men under the knight's particular class they were often barbaric in their terms of treatment. How chivalrous, to be able to choose whom you deem worthy of ones basic human kindness. There wasn't some "treat all women as gems" clause for them to follow, they had rules, to be sure, but these were only for the lucky few, and I say lucky lightly as women were treated more or less like objects to be bartered and sold. What I find most ridiculous about this is that we have kept the idea alive, both male and female, and both find it troublesome when a man falls short of this ideal. Women for most of our history as humans have been considered on the lower end of the spectrum, this still happens today in many parts of the world. I hear someone crying "But they were treated better then other races" and they would be right to some extent, when two societies collide the one that loses out the war ends up dominated by the other, this is just how it has always been, a woman from the winning society would be deemed more worthy than a man from the losing society but less then a man from her same society and a woman from the other society practically inhuman. When you are deemed inferior in your own society, there is something seriously wrong. What I'm getting at, is because they were considered inferior to men they were often not taught what men were, reading and writing among many other things. Meaning it has been mostly men throughout the centuries that have kept the tales of those gallant knights alive. They have been writing the fluff that turns into the garbage people then base their ideals upon. No one likes looking at the ugly side of things because then one has to question and wonder why such things were let to happen, which is why people only try to remember the better side, not just of knights, and what really happened becomes a faded memory. That's not to say it's just a faulty decision on our male counterparts, women are just as equally to blame, though I am far less biased in that direction. Wanting to be treated like a lady, having those special rules apply to oneself, it's no wonder women for centuries have dreamed of such. A man to come in, swoop them up, and make their life easier by elevating their status to one where they are treated, at least partially, with dignity and respect. I can see the appeal of that, most people can. Everyone wants that to some degree, some are just better at realizing thats probably not going to happen so they help themselves. Being a woman, we are taught, even inadvertently that we are weaker beings, that we need someone to protect and help us. Part of that I sort of agree with, not the forefront thought but the subtle message that we connect to people and share our troubles with them and it makes us grow and bond and feel secure. Everyone wants to feel they have someone they can rely on but I sure as hell am not weaker just because I don't have a dangle between my legs. However, that doesn't mean that men should be judged based on a faulty and highly unattainable ideal.
I think we fail at seeing both sides because we are so worried about just our own. It's why so many people fail at relationships in general, there is always the "what about me" syndrome that occurs. We often overlook the other person trying or don't even bother to try ourselves because we feel they should have to do it because we are always the one doing it and feel jilted. When did we become so lazy with relationships? Maybe we have never really been able to work through relationships, maybe we have only really been trying for the last couple of decades, when people stopped marrying for money or status and started marrying for what they believed was love. Maybe thats why we all struggle with relationships so much, we haven't really been trying to marry for a feeling till recently and we haven't truly grasped what that means, so we are really just fledglings in this regard.
